Black Scorpion Read online

  She came to a section where the scribe finally identified himself, having to reread that portion three times to be convinced she had it right. And if she did …

  Scarlett heard a shuffling behind her, a cool breeze entering the tent through a parted flap.

  “I thought so,” said Henri Bernard.

  FIFTEEN

  LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

  “The Tyrant Global bonds we issued are trading at their lowest level yet,” Naomi said, checking the numbers on her Tyrant Class Samsung Galaxy Note as they drove back to the airport outside of Carson City. “And the reporting that will come tomorrow on the hearing is almost certain to depress their value even further.

  “I think that’s what the hearing was all about,” Michael said.

  “We need to consider that the value of those bonds makes Tyrant Global a target for a takeover. On top of that, if one party came in and bought up enough of the debt…”

  “Aldridge Sterling maybe?”

  Sterling Capital Partners managed the largest hedge fund in North America and one of the largest in the world, boasting an AUM, or assets under management, of more than five hundred billion dollars. After long professing to have no interest in the gaming industry, Sterling had reportedly changed his mind and was rumored to be seriously pursuing a significant position in Las Vegas and beyond.

  “Maybe he does have his sights fixed on MGM Holdings,” Michael theorized, with that in mind. “Diluting the value of Tyrant Global would make an acquisition of that size impossible for us, clearing the field for him.”

  “Then we’ve got to consider what would ordinarily seem ridiculous.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the possibility that Sterling has the head of the Gaming Control Board in his pocket,” Naomi followed.

  Michael looked up again from scanning the volume of e-mails that had built up over the course of the hearing. “He’s one of the richest men in America. He can put lots of people in his pocket, but he can’t put me there and maybe that’s the point.”

  “Aldridge Sterling is gobbling up more of our bonds on the cheap, hoping we default.” Naomi studied him. “Sterling and Wall Street both think you’re vulnerable, Michael, and that makes you weak. They’re hurting our capital position and our ability to borrow.”

  “Then they’re in for a big surprise when I fight to the death to protect what I’ve built. If Aldridge Sterling is trying to destroy me, I’ll find a way to destroy him first.”

  * * *

  “Any other news on your end?” Michael asked her.

  “On what?” Naomi asked him.

  “You know what.”

  She smiled tightly. “Because you always ask me the same question that way, you mean? And the answer’s the same, too: No, nothing new on the search for Raven Khan, in spite of the fact that we’ve hired the best investigators money can buy. She’s a ghost.”

  “For what we’re paying these investigators, they should be able to find a ghost, Naomi.”

  “Unless she’s dead, a possibility you refuse to consider when it comes to Raven.”

  “Because I know she isn’t.”

  “How?”

  “Because I’m not. And she’s my sister.”

  “But she doesn’t know that. And maybe she’s not as indestructible as you are.”

  “It runs in the family,” Michael said, smiling.

  “Apparently, so does disappearing from one’s past,” Naomi said, more pointedly. “Becoming another person entirely.”

  “Raven was already that person. We can’t find her because she doesn’t want us to, anymore than she wants to use the private number we’ve left with all the contacts we’ve been able to identify. We’ll only find her if she lets us, which means we’ve got to keep trying. Hire new investigators.”

  “I told you, these firms are the best.”

  “Then find better.”

  * * *

  Michael busied himself on the brief flight back to Las Vegas with the range of motion exercises the physical therapist had shown him on the mini-gym installed in the Gulfstream. He was lucky, went the prevailing medical opinion, not to have suffered any structural damage to the joint. A few more days and it would be virtually as good as new, although the swelling and purplish bruising made the injury seem much more serious than it actually was.

  The hearing, and all the unanswered questions it raised, continued to plague him through the remainder of the flight that ended, as always, by flying as low and close to the Strip as FAA regulations allowed for their flight plan. The Seven Sins never looked so grand as when its palatial scope and shape was contrasted against the rest of the Vegas skyline. Gazing at it from the plane somehow made him feel closer to the resort as a symbol of his life and all his accomplishments, as well as all that remained to be achieved. Because the Seven Sins, and Las Vegas, didn’t represent ends so much as beginnings. Once his dreams had involved only owning a casino. Now those dreams, realized more and more with each passing day, had expanded into other arenas, his appetite for expansion insatiable. From software, to telecom, to oil and gas, and to real estate and the entertainment industry as well as gaming, Michael Tiranno continued to expand his interests and his footprint as relentlessly as he had built the Seven Sins from no more than a vision.

  Michael felt the medallion, the relic that had come to symbolize his success and perhaps much more, against his skin. Traced its outline through his shirt as he was jolted slightly forward with a thud, the Gulfstream having just touched down at McCarran Airport.

  “We’re home, Michael,” said Naomi.

  SIXTEEN

  NEW YORK CITY

  “How are you feeling tonight, Dad?” Aldridge Sterling said to the figure in the wheelchair at the other end of the dining room table. “I’m waiting for an important call, so I hope you don’t mind if I have to interrupt our usual dinner conversation.”

  Sterling sat at the dining room table in his fifty-million-dollar penthouse inside the towering 15 Central Park West building, the entire floor offering a panoramic view of the city skyline from every room. But right now all Sterling was looking at were the cell phones on either side of him, waiting for either to ring while also waiting for his staff to finish preparing his dinner.

  “Urrrrrrrrrrrrr,” came a gurgling rasp from the other end of the table, where his father sat motionless and unblinking in his wheelchair.

  “What was that, Dad?”

  “Urrrrrrrrrrrr,” his father uttered, although not necessarily in response to his son, since the great Harold Sterling had stopped responding to stimuli years before, after his third stroke confined him to his wheelchair for good.

  “Remember what it was like to be a rich and powerful man? How’s it feel to be helpless, useless, to have to wear diapers?”

  No response at all this time, except for some drool that Aldridge Sterling watched trickle down his father’s chin. The great Harold Sterling was an immigrant Jew who had managed to survive the Holocaust to become one of the most esteemed United States senators of his generation, respected by his allies and feared by his enemies toward whom his animus knew no bounds. He had blazed a trail to leadership of the Senate based on compassion and good will that cloaked the ruthless cunning that emerged in stories and magazine articles about him later. His father was, by all indications, two entirely different men, and Aldridge might’ve felt closer to him had he known the ruthless side of Harold Sterling better.

  Harold Sterling had hoped for similarly great things from his lone son, but Aldridge had found the life of a playboy much more to his liking. Any number of failed business deals had depleted enough of the family fortune for his father to threaten cutting him off on numerous occasions. And when he finally followed through on those threats, it was the greatest thing he ever did for his son; in fact, the very thing that had led to Aldridge Sterling becoming one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time. At present, he directed a fund that was growing at a marginal rate of an astounding 2
5 percent annually.

  Sterling specialized in betting on failure, leading a recent cover story in a financial magazine to proclaim him “King of the Short.” Making hundreds of millions, even billions, when stocks went down instead of up. Not that his father cared, past ninety now and forever bound to a wheelchair. This hero of the Holocaust, who survived a concentration camp to become the conscience of the senate and the entire United States, kept from the presidency only by the fact he was born a German.

  “How will it feel witnessing me become the richest man in the world?” Sterling asked from his side of the table.

  The old man finally turned his way, toward a voice instead of a face, no sign of recognition flashing at all. Sterling looked at his father and still saw flickers of his own reflection. Though everything else had given out, the old man’s features had somehow remained strong. Same high cheekbones, same deep-set eyes that looked too small for his face. Identical furrows carved across his tanned brow beneath the same thick shock of hair, white in his case but salt and pepper for Aldridge, that had stubbornly refused to fall out. Same piercing eyes that clung to life even after all else had failed him. He’d ground his once perfect set of teeth down to mere nubs and hated more than anything when one of the attendants tried to brush them.

  Hard to believe this was the same man who’d built a fortune that had formed the foundation for the Sterling legacy of power. No longer the man who’d gone from Holocaust survivor to American citizen and, finally, legendary and beloved United States senator. No longer any man at all, really.

  “How does it feel, Dad?” Aldridge Sterling asked, knowing there could be no response. “How does it feel to be dependent on the son you so despised, to have your life in my hands? I hope somewhere deep inside a part of you can still realize that and it makes your suffering even worse. That’s why I cater to your every need, refuse to allow you a merciful death. Because as long as you’re still alive, it means you’re suffering and nothing pleases me more than to see that.”

  One of Sterling’s cell phones rang. Hong Kong, right on schedule.

  “Good morning, Jin,” he said to his top trader there, where the market was about to open. “I have new instructions for you. Short every gaming stock you can, even in Macau, and keep scooping up every Tyrant Global bond you can get your hands on. Is that clear?… Jin, are you there?”

  “I’m here,” the man said in perfect English. “But your insistence on this position sounds risky. Everyone else is in a stock buying mode.”

  “Because they’re fucking wrong. And don’t ever question me again.”

  “Apologies, Boss, apologies. I meant no offense. Consider it done. The trading floor opens in five minutes.”

  “Good,” Sterling said, continuing while looking across the table at his father and hoping against hope the old man could understand what he was about to say. “And when you’re done with that, review our position on the American dollar. Continue shorting that too. Then put the word out to the other Asian market traders we discussed to do the same and keep it under the radar. Use our funds in Luxembourg, Singapore, and Panama to avoid the prying eyes of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

  “Boss?” Jin posed tentatively.

  “What?”

  “Isn’t such leveraging dangerous, given that the dollar has never been stronger against the rest of world currencies?”

  “A fair question, Jin,” Sterling said, surprising the trader with his conciliatory tone. “But sometimes when you swim upstream, you catch the biggest fish.”

  SEVENTEEN

  RETEZAT MOUNTAINS, TRANSYLVANIA

  Bernard noted the light and let his gaze linger on the magnifying glass. “You’ll need one of those to spot what’s left of your career.”

  “Fuck you, Henri.”

  “Do you always speak to your superiors that way, Ms. Swan?” he asked, barely suppressing a smirk as he glimpsed the contents of the hermetically sealed case.

  “Only the ones I don’t trust. Why don’t you tell me what you’re really doing here, why it was so important for the Romanian government to have you placed in charge?”

  “To keep you under control, perhaps, since they don’t trust Americans to do right by their own country. More than one precious find has found its way out of Romania onto the shelves of American and British museums.” Bernard’s eyes fell on the case again. “This constitutes theft of intellectual property, Ms. Swan. I could have you arrested by the Romanian authorities now.”

  “I didn’t steal anything.”

  “No. What would you call it then?”

  “My job.”

  “According to who?”

  “The person paying for this dig,” she said, lowering herself from the stool stiffly to face him.

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is you think you’ve found there?”

  “Why don’t you tell me why the Romanian government would put someone like you, with minimal field experience, and none when comes to ancient Rome, in charge of this dig? We both know you haven’t even been on one in over five years. So what’s so important about this one?”

  “You’re digging your grave even deeper, Ms. Swan.”

  “Digging’s my specialty, unlike you apparently.”

  Bernard glared at her. “Consider yourself suspended. If I see you anywhere near the site of the find or this tent, I’ll have you arrested and deported. Give you more time to spend with those wretched gypsies.”

  Some of those gypsies helped supply the team with food and had taken to providing laundry services. One teenage boy spent every afternoon selling water out of his overstuffed backpack, actually bottled from a mountain stream located somewhere nearby. The boy, whose name was Ilie, had been born deaf but was fluent in ASL, American Sign Language, in the most widely accepted version across the globe. Ilie had been taught to sign by missionaries, but Scarlett proved the only member of the archaeological team able to communicate with him, since her grandmother was deaf and she’d learned to sign practically before she learned to talk. She welcomed the opportunity to use the skill again, as much for the practice as the fond memories it brought to mind. And Ilie delighted in signing the Romanian word lebădă, which meant “swan,” when addressing her.

  “Have I made myself clear?” Bernard resumed.

  “Better make sure nothing happens to the remains of that manuscript, Henri.”

  Bernard smirked again. “Of course, Scarlett.” His eyes seemed to twinkle. “I’ll guard it with my life, while you’re gone with the wind.”

  She could only shake her head. “Like I’ve never heard that before.”

  EIGHTEEN

  ISTANBUL, TURKEY

  Ismael Saltuk, bodyguard on either side of him, slid past the ancient remains of a Byzantine triumph arch and down a set of stone stairs leading to Istanbul’s underground network of cisterns used centuries before to supply the city with water.

  Flanked by his bodyguards, Saltuk entered the largest of these, known as the Yerebatan Sarayi or, more simply, the Basilika Cistern, although locals preferred to call it the “Sunken Palace,” and for good reason. Built in the fourth century, the Sunken Palace was a massive structure that had withstood the ages thanks to 336 marble columns arranged in a dozen neat rows from floor to ceiling. A convenient pathway allowed tourists to stroll past fish that dotted the dark waters.

  Saltuk waited until no one else was around before ducking down a narrow, dark alcove with his bodyguards until he came to a section of wall outfitted with a latch he jerked one way, then the other, then back again.

  Click.

  The door to his secret domain opened and Saltuk entered, leaving his bodyguards on watch and closing the door behind him.

  “Hello, Ismael,” a female voice called to him, as he threw the locks from the inside.

  * * *

  Saltuk looked at Raven Khan standing in the atmospheric half light of his beloved gallery, his unconscious guards slumped in the chairs on either side of her.

>   “I’m here to talk about the Lucretia Maru,” she told him.

  “Was there a problem with the cargo?”

  “The ship wasn’t carrying copper piping, Ismael. It was carrying people, mostly women but children, too,” Raven said, not bothering to disguise the disgust in her voice. “A few stood out, a toddler hugging her mother most notably. Because she was dead. The little girl was hugging her and crying because she was dead.”

  Saltuk’s mouth dropped. He looked honestly shocked.

  “They’d been at sea for several days, in port likely for several more,” Raven continued. “Enough time for some awful disease to begin spreading. In such tight confines…” She stopped there, not wishing to relive those images. “I think you get the idea.”

  “Oh, I get that idea, repulsive as it is, just not why it has affected you so much.”

  Raven glanced about the fully restored, palatial great room dressed with ancient furniture and priceless paintings hanging from walls covered in dark ironwood. The dull lighting came courtesy of sconces placed discriminately about the walls. They could have been fueled by kerosene, although Raven thought she detected the quiet hum of generators pulsing from somewhere beyond, likely powered by propane instead.

  Ismael Saltuk’s lair was just as she remembered when brought here by her own late mentor, Adnan Talu, various times when he had dealings with the man. It was one thing to be a high-end thief, quite another to be able to successfully move the most rare and priceless of stolen merchandise, given the limitations and peculiarities of that market.

  Saltuk was also an established collector in his own right. His appreciation for the finer things in life allowed him to furnish his private hideaway with priceless treasures that added life and color to its otherwise dark, somber confines. He had more than his share of enemies in both the criminal underground and among various agencies of law enforcement from dozens of countries. As a result, he seldom ventured out of Istanbul, or even from his lair for that matter.