Black Scorpion (6 page)

“Is this really safe?” Devereaux asked, feeling weak over the need to pose such a question.

“Entirely, sir. And if you ever have a problem…”

Melissa waved a hand before an invisible sensor and, suddenly, one of the side walls brightened to life, much of it filled out by a wide screen television that was more like something from a movie theater.

“Hello, Melissa,”
a softly pleasant, female voice greeted.

“Hello, Angel. I'd like you to meet our guest Mr. Devereaux.”

“Hello, Mr. Devereaux. How may I help make your stay an enjoyable one?”

Devereaux came up alongside Melissa, fascinated by the rainbow-like prism swirling around the Seven Sins's famed logo, the computer-generated voice seeming to emanate from within it.

“Angel serves as the resort's virtual concierge,” Melissa explained.

“Thank you, Melissa. Mr. Devereaux, may I call you Edward?”

Devereaux found himself nodding at the wall. “Yes, Angel.”

“Would you like a reservation in one of our restaurants or a show perhaps, Edward?”

Melissa looked toward Devereaux, beckoning for him to answer.

“No thank you, Angel.”

“How about a seat at one of the gaming tables? You can even play from your room.”

With that, the screen filled out with a shot of the casino floor, each table having been assigned a superimposed number. The screen rotated from the no-limit blackjack area to craps, roulette, baccarat, and the seemingly endless array of slot machines including those designed by Tyrant Gaming Technologies.

“Edward, just say the number of the table you wish to play at and I can either reserve you a seat or you can play right here from your room. The amount you wish to draw will be charged to your account and I can place all bets for you. Your room also comes with a Tyrant Class Samsung tablet, should you prefer to play that way, located on the desk. You'll find the casino level visible as your home screen as soon as you switch it on. Meanwhile, here are some chips to get you started.”

The right-hand side of the screen flashed several fresh stacks of chips.

“Merely an example,” Melissa explained. “Move your hand in front of them.”

Devereaux did, curious and amazed at the same time, and watched one of the stacks topple.

“Here at the Seven Sins, a guest need not even leave his room, can actually be anywhere at all to enjoy the best gaming experience money can buy. Is there anything else I can assist you with?” Melissa asked him, but for a moment Devereaux thought it was still the virtual concierge talking.

“No, not right now.”

“Well, if you need anything, you can either ask Angel or call me,” she said, handing him a card. “That's my private number. Or just say my name and Angel will connect you to me directly. I'm available to assist you twenty-four hours a day.”

“Thank you,” Devereaux said, leading Melissa back to the door, eager for her to be gone.

Once he closed the door behind her, Devereaux found himself alone in the eerie translucence shed by the Daring Sea's underwater lanterns. He could actually imagine a guest entering such a suite and becoming so entrenched with the crystal clear view of marine life that he might barely leave it through his stay. But in Devereaux's mind, at least his imagination, it was the fish who were watching
him
, more curious about his presence than he was about theirs.

Maybe they sensed he hadn't come to Las Vegas to gamble, or see the shows, or enjoy the restaurants. He was not here for the glamour or the glitzy spectacle that had taken over the city, especially the Strip. He was not here for a giant killer shark or a ridiculously over-the-top resort casino. And the only dreaming and daring he'd done lately had been regarding his career, betting everything he had on a quest that had brought him here to Las Vegas on the trail of a monster.

His associates thought him mad for chasing a specter, a phantom, a ghost. A figure of myth and legend, known everywhere and nowhere at the same time. All-powerful and yet nonexistent, the stretch of his invisible web reaching across the world with no corner spared.

Devereaux unpacked his carry-on first, removing a laptop from a padded insert and then a larger black-handled case, the contents of which were more expensive than any car he'd ever owned. He switched on his laptop, entered his password, and opened the file he'd only recently titled “Tyrant.”

Then he settled back and eased from his pocket a pendant that was identical to the one Melissa wore, the pendant all Tyrant Girls and other featured employees of the Seven Sins were given.

By Michael Tiranno himself, complete with his personal motto:
Somnia, Aude, Vince …

Dream, Dare, Win.

If Devereaux's suspicions were correct, though, Michael Tiranno would not be doing any of those before too much longer.

 

TEN

R
ETEZAT
M
OUNTAINS,
T
RANSYLVANIA

Scarlett Swan was used to living in the dark, had come to embrace it for the mysteries it tried to hide in its grasp until she dug them out.

“I'm an archaeologist,” she was fond of explaining. “What do you expect?”

Scarlett loved working alone, had always been pretty much a loner, just as her mother, a leftover hippie from the 1960s who'd had her at the age of forty-two, was. Hence, the name Scarlett, chosen because of her mother's obsession with the film
Gone with the Wind
. But none of that mattered while on a dig where Scarlett was concerned only with the mysteries she was unearthing. This dig in the Retezat Mountains of Romania's Transylvania region showed some promise, the region no stranger to discoveries dating back to the Roman Empire, like the one she'd come in search of.

Late that afternoon she'd busied herself with an initial inspection of the ground layered beneath the freshly excavated remains of an ancient Roman temple that was the site's principal find. Swiping a whisk broom across the flat ground revealed a slight depression, and further clearing revealed a limestone plate laid over what Scarlett assumed was a secret underground passageway, leading to and from the temple. Students rolled the mini-crane apparatus over to hoist the plate from its two-thousand-year-old perch, beneath which lay what she recognized as not a passageway at all, but a secret chamber. She could also tell that the chamber was positioned purposefully beneath the temple, making her think it had never been meant to be found.

Archaeologists digging here had been systematically uncovering an ancient Roman center that, during its heyday in the second century AD, commanded the countryside as the capital of the conquered Dacian provinces. After the Dacians were defeated in 106 AD by the forces of Trajan's legions, a city had been built upon the very location where a major battle between the Roman legions and the Dacian troops had taken place. And within that city, this temple and its surrounding monuments had risen, constructed of high quality limestone and marble, no expanse spared as testament to the ever-expanding Roman Empire.

Archaeological teams had been mining this site for finds for nearly a century now, starting in 1924 and continuing through today. Scarlett arrived on the scene with the full backing of her primary benefactor to find the site barely twenty percent exposed even after such a long period. Yet that in itself wasn't nearly as surprising as the secret chamber she'd uncovered beneath the ruins of the temple floor.

“We need to call in some experts,” the project manager, Henri Bernard, said as they stood side by side looking down into the exposed chamber.

“I
am
an expert, Henri.”

“I mean with real experience in such matters. Until then, I want nothing disturbed. The find is not to be touched at all. Is that clear?”

“You mean,
my
find?”

“No, I mean the
team
's, the team I'm in charge of,” Bernard reminded her.

Scarlett had never worked with Bernard before, had never even met him until he was assigned to oversee this dig at the last minute as a condition set by Romania's Ministry of Culture. Having yet to publish a thesis to enable her to join the Register of Professional Archaeologists left Scarlett playing second fiddle to men like Bernard with considerably less experience in the field than she. Bureaucrats who often had their own ulterior motives, interested in claiming the credit more than anything else. Bernard, a professor of Archaeology at the Sorbonne in Paris, was well known to her by reputation, but he'd been dropped here out of nowhere. Enough alone to make her suspicious, even without considering his lack of field experience.

“You haven't answered my question yet,” Bernard was saying.

“Which question is that?”

“Are my instructions clear enough?”

“Plenty. It's what's best for the dig, right? You'd never do anything that wasn't in the dig's best interests, would you, Henri?”

He checked his watch, suddenly reluctant to meet her gaze. “I've got some calls to make. Where's Francis? I want him to take charge in my absence.”

“It's
Franklin
,” Scarlett said, pointing over Bernard's shoulder, “and he's standing right behind you.”

*   *   *

Late that night, with the camp utterly quiet and still, she slid out from her tent and took the darkest path to the chamber. There, Scarlett eased the tarpaulin covering the opening aside and climbed down the ladder already lowered into place under the light spilled from the dome lamp built into her dig helmet.

Once inside the chamber, she did her best to restrain her excitement to make sure she didn't make an amateurish mistake by rushing. Instead, she worked collapsed sections of the wall deliberately and painstakingly, using a simple trowel and an object not unlike an everyday dustpan and brush to clear the debris without missing a potential find. That process unearthed stones inlaid over the mortar forged from baked mud in a process the Romans were known to have mastered. Scarlett chipped away lightly with a hammer and chisel until she was able to pry the mortar away with her gloved hands to reveal what could only be a secret storage compartment measuring approximately two feet wide and a foot tall.

It had been beveled into the flat rock wall, perfectly symmetrical although she couldn't tell yet how deep into the stone it penetrated—what would have passed for a wall safe circa one hundred AD. The work was painstaking, methodical, and she loved it. There remained such a fine distinction between uncovering a find that could define her career and potentially damaging a fragile artifact buried here for nearly two thousand years. The work was that exacting and challenging.

Scarlett continued chipping away gingerly at the limestone façade inlaid with what looked gold dust for both appearance and structural integrity. Whoever had built this hold of sorts, judging by its layering, had intended its contents be concealed down here forever. That was what had her so excited. The vast bulk of finds recovered from archaeological digs were not hidden or squirreled away at all, but recovered from the ordinary nature of everyday life. Rarely did an archaeologist find something no one was ever meant to, and Scarlett had the very strong sense that was exactly what lay before her now.

It was pleasantly cool down here ten feet below ground level. Scarlett continued chipping, careful to use both her brush and small air gun to clear the dust and debris aside. Her helmet's dome lamp pushed out a focused beam on anything at which she aimed it.

Her toils finally revealed the rectangular chamber in its entirety, stretching inward between eighteen inches and two feet to fill out the approximate dimensions of a modern-day safety deposit box. Then her dome light illuminated an object her efforts had just revealed. Scarlett eased a hand, cloaked in a plastic glove to keep skin oils from damaging potential finds, inside and closed it around what felt like a stitched leather pouch or sack of some kind. She drew it toward her gently, careful not to let it snare on any debris that might've been left by her toils. Her dome light illuminated the pouch gradually as it emerged, looking to be the kind that scribes of the time used to store or transport their writings, either on papyrus or parchment.

The entire pouch came free, enough weight to indicate a decent number of pages inside. Likely folded over in the codex form that was the forerunner of the book, as opposed to a scroll more common prior to the close of the first century AD and far less likely to avoid degradation through the centuries.

In the night and belowground chill, the pouch suddenly felt warm in her grasp, the heat pulsing through her clear plastic gloves. At first Scarlett thought it was an illusion, a trick of the mind under conditions known for causing such things. But the next moment found the air around her heating up, too, swallowing the cold the narrow confines had maintained. She felt it through her clothes, penetrating her skin, reminding her of a sunburn coming on. Her helmet's dome light flickered, plunging her into intermittent splotches of utter blackness.

Then, as quickly as it had gone, the night's chill returned, and her dome light held its beam straight and steady. Scarlett eased the proper brush from her tool kit and ran it over the pouch in gentle strokes to see if that might reveal anything of note. She found the remnants of a wax seal, much of it having decayed through the years but enough present for her to recognize it as one with the distinctive signature of ancient Rome. And that served only to increase her anticipation and excitement over whatever the pouch contained, to be examined only with the proper equipment and protocols in place.

Scarlett tucked the pouch carefully into her shoulder bag and eased her camera out in its place. She aimed the lens to record the entire find, and touched the button on the right-hand side.

A
pooooffffff
sounded as the flash mechanism exploded.