Chapter 8 - MontenegroThe airplane had no Belande markings, no registered connection to Italy, and no passenger manifest containing any of their real names.
Tomasso arranged it through a Greek shipping executive who owed him 3 favors and believed he was transporting wealthy art dealers to inspect a private collection.
Niccolo spent most of the flight studying Marco’s ledger.
Sofia spent most of it looking out the window.
Neither slept.
Tomasso tried.
He failed loudly.
At 3:20 in the morning, somewhere over the Adriatic, Niccolo sat across from Sofia in the dim cabin.
“Why did you disappear?”
She did not turn from the window.
“After the rooftop?”
“Yes.”
“You had Tomasso.”
“You were injured.”
“I’ve been injured before.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
She finally looked at him.
“You would have asked questions.”
“I’m asking them now.”
“Exactly.”
Niccolo shut the ledger.
“Did you know Marco planned Café Luna before it happened?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
“How much?”
“I knew he was compromised.”
“You could have warned me.”
“With what? ‘Your brother might kill you because a covert network might be manipulating him’?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
Niccolo remembered the tunnels.
My brother is coming.
Marco would never.
She was right.
Again.
“I might.”
“No.”
Sofia looked almost gentle.
“You loved him.”
Niccolo’s jaw tightened.
“So did you, apparently.”
“Different kind.”
“What kind?”
She looked back toward the darkness outside.
“The kind you have for someone you survived something terrible with.”
Niccolo understood.
There were men he had hated personally and still trusted in battle because blood created strange loyalties.
“Did you know he was building the Iron Syndicate?”
“Not until 5 months before Café Luna.”
“And you stayed close to me anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because his original request still mattered.”
Protect you.
Niccolo hated that thought.
It made Marco human again.
He preferred his dead brother monstrous.
Monsters were easier to bury.
The plane landed before dawn on a private strip outside Podgorica.
Rain covered the runway.
A black SUV waited.
Sofia drove.
Tomasso insisted on sitting beside her because, as he put it, he wanted to “see which cliff kills us.”
Niccolo sat in the rear with the ledger.
They drove north.
Cities became villages.
Villages became mountains.
The roads narrowed.
Fog settled over forests like smoke.
By 7:00, even Tomasso had stopped complaining.
The landscape demanded silence.
Sharp ridges.
Dark rivers.
Concrete bridges suspended over emptiness.
Sofia seemed to remember every turn.
“You haven’t been here in 8 years,” Niccolo said.
“I remember places where people tried to kill me.”
“That must make vacations difficult.”
“Very.”
At 8:16, she turned off the paved road.
The SUV climbed through forest for another 40 minutes.
Then the trees opened.
Niccolo saw the hydroelectric station.
It looked dead.
Massive Soviet concrete walls scarred by weather.
Rusting pipes descended the mountainside.
Broken administrative buildings surrounded a black reservoir.
No vehicles.
No guards.
No visible movement.
Tomasso stared.
“I don’t like it.”
Sofia parked.
“You haven’t liked anything since we met.”
“I liked you better as a waitress.”
“So did I.”
They stepped out.
Cold air.
Rain.
No birds.
That bothered Niccolo most.
Places with no birds usually contained something louder.
They approached the main structure.
The entrance stood open.
Tomasso stopped.
“Absolutely not.”
Niccolo drew his pistol.
Sofia did the same.
Inside, the facility smelled of wet concrete and machinery.
Emergency lights glowed.
“Eight years abandoned?” Niccolo asked.
“No.”
Sofia touched a clean electrical panel.
“Someone maintains it.”
They moved deeper.
The corridor descended.
Niccolo noticed small black domes in the ceiling.
Cameras.
“He’s watching.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Sofia glanced at him.
“Why good?”
“I want him to see my face when this goes wrong.”
Tomasso muttered:
“Excellent leadership philosophy.”
They reached an elevator.
It opened before anyone touched it.
No buttons inside.
They entered.
The doors closed.
The elevator descended.
One floor.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Niccolo looked at Sofia.
“How deep?”
“Last time, maybe 150 feet.”
The indicator passed -30.
“Apparently renovations.”
At -42, the doors opened.
A white corridor extended forward.
Too clean.
Too modern.
At the end stood the steel door from Rook’s video.
Three panels waited beside it.
The first bore a slot.
The second a hand scanner.
The third a circular recessed plate.
Sofia approached carefully.
“No guards.”
Tomasso said:
“Maybe he wants us relaxed.”
Niccolo looked around.
“I’m not.”
A speaker activated.
“Welcome back, Seventeen.”
Sofia’s jaw tightened.
Rook’s voice.
“And welcome, Don Belande.”
Niccolo removed the ledger.
“Where are you?”
“Nearby.”
“Coward.”
“Survivor.”
Niccolo almost smiled.
“People confuse those.”
Sofia examined the panels.
“First key.”
Niccolo inserted the metal clasp hidden inside Marco’s ledger binding.
It fit.
A green light.
KEY HOLDER 1 VERIFIED.
Sofia placed her palm on the scanner.
A needle snapped from the panel and pierced her finger.
She jerked back.
Tomasso raised his weapon.
“Biometric sample,” she said.
Lights scanned her face.
S-V17 VERIFIED.
The third panel opened.
Inside was a sterile needle apparatus.
Niccolo looked at it.
Tomasso said:
“No.”
Niccolo rolled his sleeve.
“If he wanted my blood, he could have collected plenty from the rooftop.”
“Encouraging.”
Niccolo placed his arm inside.
The needle entered.
A vial filled.
The machine hummed.
Then:
PRIMARY BELANDE LINE VERIFIED.
The steel door began to move.
For the first time since arriving, Sofia looked afraid.
Not nervous.
Afraid.
Niccolo noticed.
“What?”
“I never got past this door.”
The opening widened.
Cold air flowed out.
The archive beyond was enormous.
Rows of servers stretched into darkness.
Metal shelves held thousands of sealed boxes.
Film.
Paper.
Hard drives.
Physical records.
Decades of secrets.
Tomasso whispered:
“Madonna.”
Screens illuminated one by one.
Faces appeared.
Politicians.
Generals.
Businessmen.
Judges.
Crime bosses.
Some living.
Some dead.
Niccolo recognized people who had supposedly died in accidents.
Others who had resigned after scandals.
Others who had risen unexpectedly after those scandals.
Succession architecture.
Sofia walked slowly.
“This could bring down governments.”
Niccolo touched one storage box.
“That’s why we burn it.”
“No.”
Both men looked at Sofia.
She shook her head.
“Not yet.”
Tomasso laughed in disbelief.
“Not yet?”
“We need Rook.”
Niccolo understood.
“If we destroy the archive but not the organization—”
“They rebuild,” Sofia said.
A monitor nearby activated.
Marco appeared.
Niccolo froze.
Not live.
Recorded.
Marco sat in a dark room.
He looked exhausted.
Older than he had at his funeral.
“If you’re seeing this, Nico, I’m dead.”
Niccolo could not breathe.
Tomasso looked away.
Sofia went perfectly still.
Marco continued.
“I don’t know whether you killed me or they did. Maybe both.”
A faint smile.
“I’d like to pretend I have something profound to say, but you always hated my speeches.”
Niccolo whispered:
“Idiot.”
Marco leaned toward the camera.
“Lazarus owns people because it owns their secrets. But secrets are not its real weapon.”
The screens around them began displaying organizational charts.
Companies.
Governments.
Criminal networks.
Arrows showing removals and replacements.
“The real weapon is prediction.”
Marco continued.
“They study systems until they know exactly which person must fall for a specific person to rise.”
Niccolo watched.
A mayor removed by corruption scandal.
Replacement backed by a development company.
A union leader murdered.
Deputy promoted.
A crime boss arrested.
Ambitious lieutenant inherited.
“They don’t create evil, Nico.”
Marco’s recorded eyes seemed to look directly into him.
“They find what already exists in people and give it permission.”
Niccolo thought of his brother.
That was the cruelest truth of all.
Marco had not been hypnotized.
Lazarus had simply found his ambition.
Fed it.
Protected it.
Let it grow.
“If I tried to kill you,” Marco said, “then they found enough darkness in me.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
Niccolo looked down.
He could not watch.
Sofia did.
Marco continued.
“But I changed the archive access because there are 2 things Rook needs and cannot manufacture.”
“Bloodline,” Tomasso whispered.
“And her,” Niccolo said.
On screen, Marco nodded as if hearing him.
“You and Sofia.”
Niccolo’s head lifted.
“I knew she would keep you alive if anyone could.”
Sofia’s expression broke for a fraction of a second.
“And I knew you would hate each other enough not to become predictable.”
Niccolo almost laughed through the pain.
Marco smiled.
“One last thing, brother.”
The screen zoomed slightly.
“If Rook is showing himself, he’s desperate.”
Then Marco’s face became serious.
“Do not believe he is the founder.”
Sofia stepped closer.
“What?”
Marco continued.
“Rook is a custodian.”
A diagram appeared.
ORPHEUS.
Below it:
LAZARUS NODE 1.
NODE 2.
NODE 3.
NODE 4.
Dozens of branches.
Niccolo stared.
Not one organization.
A network.
“Lazarus isn’t a man,” Marco said.
“It’s a protocol.”
The recording ended.
Silence.
Then slow applause came from behind them.
Real applause.
Not recorded.
Niccolo turned.
A man stood in the doorway.
Late 50s.
Gray hair.
Tall.
Dark suit with no tie.
No visible weapon.
Sofia raised her pistol.
“Rook.”
The man smiled.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everyone I shoot.”
“You were always sentimental.”
Tomasso aimed at his head.
“Where are your guards?”
“Closer than you’d like.”
Rook walked into the archive.
Niccolo studied him.
He looked ordinary.
That made him more dangerous.
“Marco says you’re not in charge.”
Rook smiled.
“Marco learned many things shortly before becoming inconvenient.”
“You used him.”
“I offered him opportunities.”
“You planned his death.”
“I plan everyone’s death eventually.”
Niccolo’s finger tightened against his pistol.
Rook raised a hand.
“If I die, the facility seals. Oxygen extraction begins. You have roughly 4 minutes.”
Tomasso looked upward.
“Is he lying?”
Sofia did not lower her gun.
“Probably not.”
“Wonderful.”
Rook approached the central terminal.
“You came because you believe this archive can destroy Lazarus.”
“Can it?” Niccolo asked.
“No.”
Sofia answered first.
“Yes.”
Rook smiled at her.
“Still optimistic.”
“You’re here.”
Sofia gestured around them.
“If this archive were irrelevant, you wouldn’t need us to open it.”
Rook’s smile faded.
Good.
She had touched something.
Niccolo saw it.
“So what’s inside that scares you?”
Rook glanced toward the deepest section of the vault.
A red door.
Unlike the others.
Small.
Unmarked.
Sofia followed his gaze.
“There.”
Rook said nothing.
Niccolo began walking.
Rook’s voice sharpened.
“Don Belande.”
Niccolo stopped.
Finally.
Fear.
Tiny.
But present.
Niccolo smiled.
“Thank you.”
Then the lights turned red.
Sirens erupted.
Rook stepped backward.
Sofia shouted:
“What did you do?”
“I did nothing.”
That frightened her more.
A mechanical voice announced:
EXTERNAL BREACH DETECTED.
Tomasso stared.
“External?”
Gunfire echoed faintly above them.
Someone else had entered the facility.
Rook looked toward the elevator.
And for the first time, the man behind Lazarus seemed genuinely confused.
Niccolo raised his pistol.
“Your people?”
“No.”
Sofia looked at the screens.
Camera feeds flickered.
Black-clad soldiers moved through the upper levels.
Not Rook’s guards.
Their insignia displayed a silver wolf pierced by a sword.
Tomasso recognized it first.
“Volkov.”
Niccolo stared.
Dmitry Volkov.
The Russian everyone had blamed for Café Luna.
The man Marco had intended to absorb after Niccolo’s death.
The man whose initials had appeared beside Project Lazarus.
Rook whispered:
“He shouldn’t know this location.”
Niccolo smiled without humor.
“Seems nobody tells you anything anymore.”
The first explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
Sofia ran toward the red door.
“Open it.”
Rook did not move.
She aimed at him.
“Open it!”
“No.”
Niccolo stepped beside her.
“What’s behind it?”
Rook looked at the door.
Then at the incoming soldiers on the security screens.
His calculation lasted 2 seconds.
“Proof,” he said.
“Of what?”
Rook’s face hardened.
“That Lazarus has already selected the next Don Belande.”
Niccolo felt the world contract.
“I’m the don.”
May you like
Rook gave him a pitying look.
“For now.”
