Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

"Evidently he's trying to increase his power as well as his wealth," Austin said. "No different from any other corporation with its armies of lobbyists."

"Interesting that you should use the word army," Gunn said. "On a whim I ran some of Hiram's findings by the ATF. They immediately caught a whiff of something that smelled very bad. They recognized the name of one of Halcon's companies as an outfit that has been buying arms from the Czech Republic and China."

"What sort of arms?"

"You name it. Everything from infantry rifles to tanks. Lots of missiles, too. SAMs. Antitank. That sort of stuff. The ATF got a search warrant for the company that was handling the shipments. It was an empty office."

"Where has all this stuff been going?"

"Specifically? Nobody knows. Generally, northern Mexico, the Southwest states, and California."

Arms purchases like the ones you've described cost money, big money"

Gunn nodded. "Even a billionaire might become strapped spending enough on arms to start a revolution."

The room became silent as the last word in Gunn's statement hung in the air.

"Madre mia," Zavala whispered. "The treasure. He needs the treasure to do what he wants to do."

"That was my take," Gunn said quietly. "It sounds loony, but he seems to be planning some sort of combined military and political takeover."

Any indication when this is supposed to happen?" Austin said.

"Soon is my guess. Hiram's sources have detected a lot of money being moved around Europe through Swiss bank accounts to arms dealers. He's going to have to replace that in a hurry if he wants to stay off the bad credit report. Which means. he'll be desperate to find the treasure."

"What about our armed forces?"

"On alert. Even if he is stopped militarily a lot of innocent blood will be shed."

"There's another way to stop him. No treasure, no revolution," Zavala said.

"Thanks, Paul and Gamay, you and Dr. Orville have done a great job of pointing us in the right direction," Austin said He rose from his seat and glanced at the faces around the table. "Now it's our turn," he said with a grim smile.

The elegant dining room was largely in darkness except for the center table where Angelo Donatelli sat going over the next day's menu. Donatelli's restaurant was done in a Nantucket motif, but unlike other places with a nautical theme, the decorations did not come from a mail-order house. The harpoons and flensing irons had actually pierced whale flesh, and the primitive paintings of sailing ships were all originals. Antonio sat opposite Donatelli, an Italian newspaper spread out on the spotless white tablecloth. Occasionally they sipped at a glass of amaretto. Neither was aware they were no longer alone until they heard the quiet voice say, "Mr. Donatelli?"

Angelo looked up and saw two figures standing just beyond the circle of illumination. How the devil did these people get in? He had locked the front door himself. The afterhours visit itself didn't surprise him. The waiting period was weeks for a reservation, and people tried all sorts of stunts to shortcut the process. The voice was vaguely familiar, too, which persuaded him that it might be one of his clientele.

"I'm Angelo Donatelli," he said with his unfailing politeness.

"I'm afraid you've come too late, the restaurant is closed. If you would call tomorrow the maitre d' will do what he can to accommodate you."

"You can accommodate me by telling your man to place his gun on the table."

From his lap, Antonio lifted the revolver he had slipped out of his shoulder holster and slowly placed it on the table.

"If you've come to rob us, you're too late for that, too," Donatelli said. "All our cash has been deposited at the bank." .

. "We haven't come to rob you. We've come to kill you."

"Kill us. We don't even know who you are."

In answer, the figure stepped forward into the light, revealing a dark-complexioned slender man who took Antonio's gun and tucked it into the belt of his one-piece black suit. Angelo's gaze lingered for a second on the pistol with its barrel extended into a silencer, but it was the man's thin dark features that sent a chill down his spine. It was a face he had seen in a dream. No. A nightmare. A brief glimpse of an assassin who glanced his way deep in the hold of a dying ship. Incredibly it hadn't aged in more than forty years.

"I saw you on the Andrea Doria, " Donatelli said with wonder.

The man's thin lips curled into a cold smile. "You have a good memory for faces," he said. "But that was my late father. He told me he sensed someone else was in the hold that night. You and I, too, have a more intimate relationship. I talked to you once on the telephone."

Now Donatelli remembered the call coming late at night, waking him out of a sound sleep with the threats against him and his family.