The Judas Strain Read Free Page B

his daughter…he pictured the bloated body of his colleague. Would the same befall his family?
    Oh, Maria, what have I done ?
    There was only one who could take this burden from him. The one who had sent the envelope, a warning sealed with a Greek letter. At the end of her note, a place had been named, along with a time.
    He was already late.
    Somehow the Egyptian had discovered his theft, must have sensed Stefano was going to betray him. So he had come for it at dawn. Stefano had barely escaped his offices. He had fled on foot.
    But not fast enough.
    He checked over his shoulder. The Egyptian had vanished into the milling crowd of tourists.
    Turning back around, Stefano stumbled through the shadow of the square’s bell tower, the Campanile di San Marco. Once the brick tower had served as the city’s watchtower, overlooking the nearby docks and guarding the port. Would that it could protect him now.
    His goal lay across a small piazzetta. Ahead rose the Palazzo Ducal, the fourteenth-century palace of Venice’s former dukes. Its two levels of Gothic arches beckoned, offering salvation in Istrian stone and rosy Veronese marble.
    Clutching his prize, he stumbled across the street.
    Was she still there? Would she take the burden ?
    He rushed toward the sheltering shadows, escaping the blaze of the sun and the glare off the neighboring sea. He needed to be lost in the maze of the palace. Besides housing the duke’s personal residence, the Palazzo Ducal also served as a governmental office building, a courthouse, a council chamber, even an old prison. A newer prison rose across the canal behind the palace, connected by an arched bridge, the infamous Bridge of Sighs, over which Casanova had once made his escape, the only prisoner ever to break out of the palace’s cells.
    As Stefano ducked under the overhanging stretch of loggia, he prayed to the ghost of Casanova to protect his own flight. He even allowed himself a small breath of relief as he sank into the shadows. He knew the palace well. It was easy to get lost in its maze of corridors, a ready place for a clandestine rendezvous.
    Or so he placed his faith.
    He entered the palace through the western archway, flowing in with a few tourists. Ahead opened the palace’s courtyard with its two ancient wells and the magnificent marble staircase, the Scala dei Giganti, the Giant’s Stairs. Stefano skirted the courtyard, avoiding the sun now that he had escaped it. He pushed through a small, private door and followed a series of administrative rooms. They ended at the old inquisitor’s office, where many poor souls had suffered interrogations of the most pained and brutal sort. Not stopping, Stefano continued into the neighboring stone torture chamber.
    A door slammed somewhere behind him, causing him to jump.
    He clutched his prize even tighter.
    The instructions had been specific.
    Taking a narrow back stairway, he wended down into the palace’s deepest dungeons, the Pozzi, or Wells. It was here the most notorious prisoners had been held.
    It was also where he was to make his rendezvous.
    Stefano pictured the Greek sigil.
     
     
    What did it mean?
    He entered the dank hall, broken by black stone cells, too low for a prisoner to stand erect. Here the imprisoned froze during winter or died of thirst during the long Venetian summers, many forgotten by all except the rats.
    Stefano clicked on a small penlight.
    This lowest level of the Pozzi appeared deserted. As he continued deeper, Stefano’s steps echoed off the stone walls, sounding like someone following him. His chest squeezed with the fear. He slowed. Was he too late? He found himself holding his breath, suddenly wishing for the sunlight he had fled.
    He stopped, a tremble quaking through him.
    As if sensing his hesitation, a light flared, coming from the last cell.
    “Who?” he asked. “Chi è là?”
    A scrape of heel on stone, followed by a soft voice, in Italian, accented subtly.
    “I sent you the note, Signore