The War Cloud (24 page)

Sergei and Yorgi began to cough and choke. Sergei said, “What have you done?”

Midas coughed twice. It would have been easier to just throw them into the chamber, crank the dial and blow their guts out. But it also would have been a mess to clean.

“As a child in the gold mines of Siberia, I was forced to extract gold from finely crushed ore,” he told them calmly, like a firefighter lighting up a cigarette in the middle of an inferno. “Unfortunately, the only chemical up to the job is cyanide. It’s stable when solid. But as a gas it’s toxic. I can see you are already experiencing rapid breathing, restlessness and nausea.”

Sergei began to vomit while Yorgi crumpled to the floor in convulsions.

“As for myself, my body developed a tolerance to the immediate effects of cyanide. But, rest assured, I am experiencing all that you are, to a lesser degree, and my doctors inform me that my long-term prognosis is the same as yours. We can’t all live forever, can we?”

Midas knew he didn’t have to bother with theatrics in order to kill his enemies, but somehow it was deeply important to him to show them that he had not only beat them through his cleverness, but that he was also in his physical and mental evolution inherently superior to them.

“As your blood pressure lowers and heart rate slows, you will soon experience loss of consciousness, respiratory failure and finally death. But, rest assured, you died a hero to the people. Too bad they are the wrong people.”

The two were already dead by the time Midas had finished what passed for a eulogy. A minute later Midas emerged from the chamber. The cyanide dispersed into the air and two crewmen coughed. He left them to dispose of the bodies and took an elevator topside to the deck.

As he stepped into the sunlight and blinked, he reached for the sunglasses in his shirt pocket and glanced at his hand, which trembled slightly. It was the only visible neurological damage caused by his long-term exposure to cyanide poisoning as a child. So far.

He enjoyed watching death—it made him feel so alive. Like the salt that he now smelled in the sea air. Or the sight of Mercedes sunning topless in her chaise lounge that he now drank in on the foredeck. He made himself a vodka martini and stretched out next to her golden body, looking forward to tonight’s party on Corfu and letting all thoughts of Nazi submarines and American archaeologists fade away like a bad late-night movie.

Conrad Yeats stared at the skull of SS General Ludwig von Berg inside his suite at the Andros Palace Hotel in Corfu Town overlooking Garitsa Bay. The balcony doors were open wide and a gentle early evening breeze blew in, carrying with it music from the town green below.

He took another swig from his bottle of seven-star Metaxas brandy. His leg smarted from the harpoon dart. And his mind still reeled from the events of the morning: the
Flammenschwert
, the loss of Stavros and the crew, and the image of Serena Serghetti filling what he thought were his dying moments.

There was a knock at the door. Conrad put his Metaxas down, picked up a 9 mm Glock from under the sofa pillow next to him and stood up. He moved to the door and looked through the peephole.

It was Andros.

Conrad opened the door and Andros walked in. Two big security types with earpieces and shoulder holsters were posted outside.

“We have a problem,” said Andros, closing the door behind him.

Chris Andros III, barely 30, was always worried. A billionaire shipping heir, Andros had squandered several years after Harvard Business School dating American starlets and hotel heiresses from Paris Hilton to Ivanka Trump. Now a consummate international businessman, he was bent on making up for lost time, and owned the Andros Palace Hotel along with a string of high-end boutique hotels around the Mediterranean and Middle East. It was Andros who had helped Conrad find the
Nausicaa.
Andros claimed the sub was named after his grandmother who as a young nurse in Nazi-occupied Greece was forced to help the Baron of the Black Order recover from his gunshot wound to the head.

“Let me guess,” Conrad said. “That superyacht I saw belongs to Sir Roman Midas, and your friends at the airstrip have no idea what was on that private jet of his

that took off today or where it was going?”

Andros nodded and saw the laptop computer Conrad had used for his research sitting at the bar, its screen filled with news and images of Midas. He was about to say something else when he saw the skull of SS General Ludwig von Berg on the table. “That’s him?”

“Silver plate and all.”

Andros walked over and studied the skull and its metallic dome. He made the sign of the cross. “I cannot tell you how many nightmares this Baron gave me gring up. My parents told me stories about what happened to those who crossed the Baron—or children who didn’t listen to their parents. Being a naughty boy myself, I had nightmares of his skull floating in the air and hounding me to Hades.”

Conrad said, “I didn’t find a metal briefcase with any papers.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Andros said. “Von Berg always liked to say…”

“It’s all in my head,” Conrad said, completing the sentence. “I know. But what exactly?”

Andros shrugged. “At least you confirmed he’s dead.”

“Along with Stavros and the rest of the crew of your boat,” Conrad said. “All at the hands of Sir Roman Midas. So now we plot revenge. Isn’t that what you Greeks do?”

A cloud formed over Andros’ face. “I’m but a humble billionaire, my friend, and barely that. Roman Midas is that many times over, and far more powerful. Especially if he has this weapon you say he took from the
Nausicaa
. Look outside.”

Andros walked out to the open balcony.

“I saw it,” said Conrad, limping over and looking out at Garitsa Bay.

To their right the sun was setting behind the old town, its colonnaded houses dating back to the island’s days under British rule. To their left the stars were rising

above the old Venetian fortifications.

“Look closely,” said Andros.

Conrad set the bottle of Metaxas on the balustrade and picked up a pair of Zeiss binoculars. Beyond the stone fortifications of the Old Fort, the superyacht
Midas
was anchored in the bay, with small boats ferrying well-dressed men and barely dressed women to and from shore.

“Looks like he’s celebrating his catch of the day,” Conrad said. “Any way I can get a closer look?”

“Not a chance. Greek coast guard boats are maintaining a perimeter. And the island is crawling with security.”

“Why’s that?” Conrad swept the deck with his Zeiss glasses and noticed the chopper had returned.

Andros said, “The Bilderberg Group is holding their annual conference at the Achillion.”

Conrad looked at the ornate palace atop a hill opposite the bay.

“Ironically, it was Baron von Berg’s headquarters during the war,” Andros told him as he zoomed in with his binoculars. “Built by the Empress of Austria and later bought by Kaiser Wilhem II of Bavaria as a winter retreat. It’s a fanciful place, with whimsical gardens and statues of the Greek gods all over the place. I deflowered many a girl there myself over the years.”

“What’s the structure next to the palace?”

“House of Knights,” Andros said. “The Kaiser built it to house his battalions. There are nice stables, too, for the Kaiser’s horses. For all its romance, the Achillion has a long history of military staging. It was strafed by Allied planes in 1943 during the Baron’s stay and then turned into a hospital after the war. Later it became a casino featured in a James Bond movie.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s a museum, used on occasion as a spectacular backdrop for meetings of the G7 Nations, European Union and apparently the Bilderberg Group.”

The Bilderbergers.
Conrad knew a few of them, including his late father USAF General Griffin Yeats, who had attended a couple of the conferences back in the 1990s when he was acting head of the Pentagon’s DARPA research and development agency. Officially, the Bilderberg Group brought together European and American royalty in the form of heads of state, central banks and multinational corporations to freely discuss the events of the day away from the glare of the press. Unofficially, conspiracy buffs suspected the Bilderbergers set the world’s agenda, orchestrating wars and global financial panics at will to advance some totalitarian one-world government that would arise from the ashes.

“I’m thinking Midas is a member of the Alignment,” he told Andros.

Andros looked at Conrad like he was talking about Atlantis, which in a way he was, as the Alignment considered themselves to be the custodians of the lost civilization’s mysteries.

“I’ll have the doctor check the oxygen in your blood again.”

“The Bilderberg Group is the closest real-world equivalent to the Alignment that I know of,” Conrad said. “If there are any Alignment left on the planet, it stands to reason that at least a few of them would be members of the Bilderbergers and use the group as a proxy to advance the Alignment’s agenda.”

“Just as the Alignment used the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Knights Templar, Freemasons, USA and Third Reich?” Andros said, holding up the half-empty bottle of Metaxas with a knowing smile.

Conrad put the Zeiss glasses down and looked Andros in the eye. “I think I know a way into the party tonight.”

Andros frowned. “Who is she?”

“According to Google, she’s his latest girlfriend, Mercedes Le Roche.”

“Le Roche Media Generale?”

Conrad nodded. “Her father,” he said. “She used to be my producer on
Ancient Riddles.”

“You’re crazy,” Andros said. “Put this insane idea out of your head. Get off the island before Midas knows you survived. Get out while you still can.”

“I have to find out what Midas intends to do with that weapon,” Conrad said.

“Maybe sell it?”

“He doesn’t need the money. He’s Midas.”

“True,” said Andros. “You say this
Flammenschwert
weapon is Greek Fire?”

“No, you said it’s Greek Fire. I said it’s a weapon that turns water to fire.”

“Greek Fire,” Andros repeated. “But we Greeks have always called it liquid or artificial fire. We used it to repel the Muslim Arabs at the first and second Sieges of Constantinople in the 6
^th
and 7
^th
centuries. That’s how Europe survived Islam for more than a thousand years.”

“But how did Greek Fire work?”

“To this day nobody really knows,” Andros said. “The ingredients and manufacturing process were closely guarded military secrets. The Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus even warned his son in a book to never give away three things to a foreigner: a crown, the hand of a Greek princess and the secret of liquid fire. All we know is that Greek Fire could burn on water and was extremely difficult to extinguish. The first sight of it alone was enough to demoralize the enemy. My father always suspected that it was petroleum-based and spiked with an early form of napalm.”

“Maybe,” Conrad said. “But I think that the petroleum jelly your forefathers used was just a crude copy of something far more devastating. Something that used a uranium-like ore that could actually consume water like oxygen, not just burn on its surface. Where did you say Greek Fire came from?”

“I didn’t,” Andros said. “But tradition says it was cooked up by chemists in Constantinople, who had inherited the discoveries of the ancient Alexandrian chemical school.”

Conrad nodded. “Who had inherited the discoveries of the Atlantean school. Only the Alexandrians didn’t have access to
Oreichalkos.
“

“Oreichalkos?”
Andros looked mystified.

“The mysterious ore or ‘shining metal’ mined by the people of Atlantis, according to your ancient philosopher Plato,” Conrad said. “Plato called it ‘mountain-copper.’ He described it as a pure, almost supernatural alloy that sparkled like fire. I’ve seen it before.”

“In Antarctica,” Andros said with condescension. “Pish. Atlantis was the Greek island of Santorini. I have a hotel there.”

“Let’s not get into that debate now,” Conrad said. “The point is that this technology is older than mere Greek Fire. I witnessed what just a speck of it can do.

I think Midas could fry oceans with it. But which one?”

“My grandfather said Hitler wanted to use it in the Mediterranean,” Andros said. “The Nazis wanted to protect Fortress Europe with a moat of fire and burn the warships of the Allied invasion fleet before they could land. Von Berg, however, wanted to use it to dry up the Mediterranean and proclaim its one million square miles as the new Atlantis.”

“Too big, I think, and this is a new century.” Conrad shook his head.

“Where else in today’s world?”

“Where it can do the most damage,” said Andros confidently. “The Persian Gulf.”

Conrad paused. Here Andros, whose family’s tankers brought oil to and from the Persian Gulf, knew what he was talking about. “Go on.”

“Midas is in deep with the Russians and they’re running out of production. Best way to boost prices is to cut supply—preferably somebody else’s. Especially when the Americans depend on it. better way to disrupt oil shipments through the Persian Gulf than to set it on fire? Who knows how long it would burn with this weapon?”

“Pretty good.”

“I think so,” said Andros. “So now you tell your friends at the Pentagon and call it a day.”

“Or you get me into the Bilderberg bash.”

Andros looked at the imposing Achillion on the hilltop beyond the bay. “My money reaches the Greek police. But the Bilderbergers bring their own security. Even I can’t get into that club.”

“They publish their guest lists. Maybe I can go as somebody else before they show up. Say hello to Mercedes, get something out of her before Midas knows what’s going on.”

“And kills you?”

“In front of all the other Bilderbergers? No. I know guys like Midas. Appearances and respectability are paramount. He won’t lay a finger on me in front of Europe’s rich and powerful.”

“No, he’ll simply kill you as soon as you step foot out of the palace.”