Operation Rubicon Read online

  We do not want to do it this way.

  Necessary change sometimes warrants necessary violence.

  There are those that continue to try and ruin Rome. They want to keep us in the mud and prevent us from ascending to our lost glory. There are those that want the real Rome to stay buried in the depths of the past. They do not want us to rise, but we will ascend nonetheless.

  There was a time when the Second Triumvirate eliminated anyone who was a threat, any known enemies that would harm Rome, whether they were foreign or domestic. These enemies to Rome were purged and the threat they posed was removed altogether. The Second Triumvirate did this by creating the proscriptions, naming these foes and then dealing with them thoroughly and without mercy.

  The Third Triumvirate will do the same.

  Consider this our proscriptions. These people are enemies of the Roman Empire.

  Rome will be restored to greatness.

  Signed, Mr. Nero, Mr. Commodus, and Miss Caligula.

  A list of names followed. There were people from all walks of life on there. There were government officials, police officers, judges, teachers, even store clerks. For all Nina knew, some of these people might have been real problems but some might have just been personal vendettas that the members of the Triumvirate were trying to settle.

  She saw Santino Rossi's name with a line through it. He wasn't the only one. There were three other names that had also been crossed off this kill list.

  They could call it proscriptions to try and make it seem official, but it couldn't hide what this letter really was—a hit list. The Third Triumvirate had quickly taken the leap from thieves to terrorists. They were getting more and more erratic it seemed.

  Nina saw another familiar name on the list.

  Dr. Nina Gould.

  As much as she wanted to pocket the letter, she couldn't. The police needed it, so they could warn all of the names that were being targeted.

  NINA CALLED THE POLICE, and they arrived quickly with an ambulance, not that the ambulance could do much good for Santino. They should have come with a hearse instead. She explained how she found the body and told them that she read the letter just so they weren't wondering why her fingerprints were all over the paper.

  As they were putting together the crime scene, a man came strolling up to Nina with an unusual gape in his steps. He was a middle aged man with long hair tied back into a tight ponytail and a black beard was neatly trimmed along his jaw line. He pulled out a very small notebook and started scribbling in it.

  “Dr. Nina Gould,” the newcomer said without looking up from where he was scrawling in his little book. “That’s your name, yes?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He lowered the notepad for a moment and gave an uncomfortably thin smile that had no real warmth to it. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I’m Inspector Donatello Amaro. I just have some questions that I’d like to ask you about this mess.” He returned his attention back to his notepad and got his pen ready.

  Nina nodded. She’d been honest enough with the police so far, and was going to continue cooperating. She’d tell them any of the necessary information they wanted without getting into the Order of the Black Sun or anything that they didn't need to know.

  “I’ll happily share whatever you require.

  “Fantastic, this may take a minute or two.”

  They sat at one of the visitor benches in the museum's lobby. He took a seat right beside her, still focused on his notebook and ready to start writing.

  “So what would you like to know--”

  She barely had a chance to finish her sentence before the questions started to rain down on her like a flurry of arrows.

  “What were you doing here hours before the museum opens?”

  “Santino asked me to meet him here this morning. I guess he wanted to talk before employees and visitors arrived.”

  “A private conversation then,” the inspector said, mostly to himself and still writing furiously in his notepad, jotting down word after word without pause. He must have been transcribing their conversation as they talked. “What was your relationship with the victim?”

  “Santino,” Nina said firmly. She didn't like how Santino was suddenly nameless in the eyes of the police now that he wasn't breathing. “His name was Santino Rossi.”

  Inspector Amaro looked up from his chicken scratch and looked a bit irritated, but offered another thin, disingenuous smile. “My apologies, of course. My question still stands.”

  He didn't even try to correct himself. Nina didn't like this strange detective but she knew that not cooperating would only make her look bad. It already looked bad enough that she was there with the body in the museum before the museum had even opened. She didn't need to pile anymore suspicion onto herself.

  “Santino and I have known each other for years. We both run—ran—in the same circles of historical societies. But we weren't close. Acquaintances for the most part, really. I hadn't spoken to him in years.”

  “And now you’ll never converse with him again,” Inspector Amaro mused as he made a few more scribbles. He didn't bother looking up this time. He seemed so disconnected from anything outside his line of questioning and the pad of paper in his hands. That was all that mattered to him. It was probably a good trait to have in a criminal investigation but not when speaking to someone. He seemed so callous and didn’t share anything that was even close to empathy.

  “Clearly, given your accent, you aren’t from Italy.”

  “That's some brilliant detective work.” She didn't want to be antagonistic but this inspector was infuriating to talk to. He ignored her sarcasm, still focused on the notepad in his hand.

  “What brings you to Rome, then?”

  “I was invited...by Santino, actually.”

  “What for?”

  “I’ve been helping him look for a new item for the museum to have on display.” She gave some more details, anticipating where Inspector Amaro's line of questioning was going to follow next. “I'm a historian and yes, sometimes I do end up doing quite a bit of traveling.”

  “Interesting,” Amaro said with very little actual interest. “And what item were you helping him acquire?”

  Nina hesitated. She knew from experience that it was dangerous to talk openly about the artifacts she was seeking. There often too many eyes watching and too many ears possibly listening; especially after the Third Triumvirate had come to her room and had slaughtered Santino. She wondered if they’d already done this—murdered Santino—when they spoke to her in her room. It seemed likely. The Third Triumvirate already knew about Caesar's sword though, so their secret mission was already known to their enemies. She decided that honesty might be the only way to escape this casual interrogation on the bench.

  “We were looking for the sword of Caesar.”

  Inspector Amaro looked up from his notes and seemed legitimately surprised for once. “Caesar? As in Gaius Julius Caesar?”

  “Yes,” Nina said with a shrug.

  “Fascinating...”

  “Not really,” Nina said. “Compared to some of the others things I've seen, believe me--”

  Inspector Amaro cut her off. “You misunderstand me. It's not fascinating because of the item alone. No. It’s fascinating because the victim—Mr. Santino Rossi—was stabbed twenty-three times. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is the exact same amount of times that...”

  He paused, inviting her to complete his sentence. She played with his obnoxious prompt, even though he could’ve just said it himself. They both knew what he meant.

  “It's the same number of times Julius Caesar was stabbed.”

  “Indeed,” Inspector Amaro said with the closest thing he could make to a smile. “That seems like someone was sending a very specific message, doesn't it? Someone who knew about Mr. Rossi's interest in Caesar's sword.”

  Nina didn't like the implication that was starting to form.

  “You can't seriously think that I'm a suspect? And you w
ant to talk about specific messages? How about the one that was written and left on the body? That one sure seemed specific!”

  Inspector Amaro raised his hands in surrender. “You misunderstand me again, Dr. Gould. I don’t believe you’re a suspect just because you found the body. Is it possible? Of course. Anything is possible but it isn’t likely. As you say, that letter that was left behind sure seems like a confession from the real culprits.”

  “The Third Triumvirate.”

  “That is what they’re calling themselves, yes. They’re thieves who have now upgraded themselves into murderers. So unless you’re one of them...then I believe you to be innocent.”

  “I'm not one of them.” Nina tried to hold back her anger at him even voicing the thought.

  “I know you aren’t, especially since your name is on the list of people that the Third Triumvirate wants dead. Interesting that you’re already on the list after you’ve only been in Rome for such a short amount of time. You must have left quite a negative first impression. I imagine that they aren’t fans of your search for the sword of Julius Caesar.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Do you want to end up like the late Santino Rossi over there?” The question caught her off guard and Inspector Amaro said it so flippantly. He wasn't asking out of worry or fear. He was asking it like it was any other simple question. “Laying in your own blood, dying from nearly two dozen wounds?”

  “Of course I don't.”

  Nina was tempted to tell him about the Third Triumvirate visiting her hotel room but decided against it. The inspector didn't need to know everything. He already acted like he did anyway. And he especially didn't need to know everything if it meant that he’d be asking questions about the Order of the Black Sun. It was a secret society for a reason; and now more than ever, as David Purdue tried to fix the order, they needed to stay hidden even more vigilantly. Inspector Donatello Amaro seemed smart enough to figure anything out if he was given enough time to think and talk things through, even if he only got the smallest crumbs of information to use.

  “You don't? Good. Then I suggest a few different options for what you should do next.”

  Nina wasn't excited to hear Inspector Amaro's options. All those recommendations were going to be were a police officer trying to tell her what she should do and how she should protect her own life. She’d gotten this far without assistance from eccentric detectives. Still, she listened to what he had to say, if only to shake her head.

  “One. You allow me and my officers to take you someplace safe, until all of this blows over and I catch those three monsters and lock them away. Two. You catch the next flight out of here and go back home, hopefully far enough that the Third Triumvirate won't be able to reach you.”

  Nina hated both of those options, since either one of those meant abandoning her search for Caesar's sword. Even if it was just a delay, there was no way of knowing if this strange investigator and his police would ever even catch the Third Triumvirate. She might be putting the expedition on hold indefinitely. She wouldn't do that, and she could tell by the way the inspector was looking at her, that he knew that.

  “There’s a third option. I don't recommend it.” He paused, like he was expecting that warning to be enough to deter her. She wanted to hear it. “You could stay, go about your hunt for the sword, test your luck, and hope that the Third Triumvirate doesn't stab you twenty-three times. You’d just ignore the threat and carry about your business, but you would do that of your own accord. We won't be held responsible if anything happens to you.”

  He still looked like he expected her to back down, now that the third option sounded so dangerous.

  “I'm going to do that then,” Nina said. “I've faced worse than those three psychopaths.”

  “Have you?”

  That must have sounded strange coming from someone who was supposed to just be like any other historian. She tried to change the subject before he started pursuing that misstep she made. She worried that if he did, he’d then be able to dismantle her alibi with ease until he found the truth of what might be happening with her visit to Rome.

  Nina did her best to deflect, and explain. “Like I said before, sometimes my work takes me all over the world.”

  Inspector Amaro didn't look convinced. He flashed that thin smile again, knowingly. He may not know the full truth, but he definitely seemed to suspect that there was far more to Nina than she was disclosing.

  “Aw, yes, to places far worse than this...places that apparently make death threats from killers seem like nothing more than a slight bother. If that’s your final decision, to stay in Rome, then you’ll be provided some police escort, with myself included, during the rest of your time here in Italy.”

  That sounded very terrible, and she was annoyed that he hadn't mentioned it before she decided. Now that he said it, it’d seem very suspicious to change to a different option. Still, she could try to convince him to steer away from that part of it.

  “That's not necessary.”

  Inspector Amaro shrugged and closed his hands together. “I'm afraid that I'm going to have to insist. For your safety, of course.”

  She knew that was the final word, so she was just going to have to accept it, at least for now.

  The inspector looked pleased that she wasn't going to keep fighting him on the subject. He jotted another line down in his notepad and then started putting the book and his pen back inside of his jacket. “In my experience, all death threats should be taken seriously. They should especially be heeded when one of the people threatened is butchered, wouldn't you agree?”

  Nina bit her lip. “I thought you said that if I decided to stay, it wouldn't be the police's responsibility if I die.”

  “It won't be,” Inspector Amaro said, looking happy about that. Once again, he seemed so detached from human empathy. All of his quirkiness was masking a very cold and calculating individual. “But that doesn't mean we have to sit back and let it happen. This is for your own protection.”

  No, it wasn't. That much was clear.

  “Thanks...”

  She wasn't feeling overly grateful to the man, though. The police were honestly just going to be getting in her team's way. Having them around, especially a wild card like the inspector just raised the risk of the Order of the Black Sun becoming public knowledge.

  Monica Moretti, the floor manager for the museum walked by, her eyes wide with confusion as she arrived on the scene. She was probably arriving for work, expecting a perfectly normal day to be ahead of her. Inspector Amaro signaled for his men to bring her over for his questioning. Nina thought that Amaro would excuse himself to break the news to Monica privately, but he didn't. Nina just had to stand there while the inspector caught the poor woman up to speed about her boss.

  “Monica Moretti, is that right?”

  Nina realized that Inspector Amaro could have easily chosen to speak to Monica in her native tongue to keep their conversation more private since Nina wasn't too fluent in Italian. Instead, the inspector kept it in English, a language that Nina could easily process. He definitely wanted her to be able to hear and understand everything that was being said. Was this part of his idea of working together with her? To make her watch a woman break down?

  “Yes,” Monica said nervously, looking around at all of the police activity. “That is me.”

  “I’m truly sorry to have to tell you this, but your boss, Mr. Santino Rossi was brutally murdered a short while ago.” Inspector Amaro was so blunt about it, his delivery had no remorse at all. There was no need to tell Monica that it’d been vicious; she didn't need to know the gory details but Inspector Amaro had no qualms about presenting terrible news like it was just as casual about talking about the weather.

  “W-w-what?” Tears immediately started filling Monica's eyes. “Are you...?” She looked past them at the museum entrance. “Are you serious? Is he really...?”

  “Yes. He really is dead. Stabbed, actually...twenty-three times...whic
h is interesting because--”

  “I'm sorry,” Nina cut in, trying to offer the woman some bit of warmth and comfort, since she clearly wasn't going to get any from the inspector. “It was the Third Triumvirate. They did it. I found the body...”

  “I just had a few questions to ask you,” Inspector Amaro said. “What time did leave the museum last night after you finished work?”

  Monica looked frazzled and was trying to stop the tears from streaming down her face. She was in no state to be bombarded by Inspector Amaro's questions. Nina had enough trouble with his interrogation, and she wasn't shell-shocked by the death of her boss when she was being asked the questions. She couldn't imagine how hard and confusing this news must be for Monica.

  “Inspector,” Nina said, more firmly than she intended. “Could you please just give her and me a moment alone?”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t protocol,” Amaro said. “We need to have the questions asked before she really speaks with anyone else. That way, there’s less chance of unconsciously diluting the real truth. We can't be getting stories and memories crisscrossed. Contaminated witness stories can be messy...”

  “Please,” Nina said, practically growling at the man. “She isn’t going to be able to answer very coherently if she's sobbing. Please give us a few minutes.”

  Inspector Amaro rubbed his scruffy chin and pursed his lips. “Five. You have five. That’s all I’ll give you...and then I’ll resume my questions and you’ll do your best to give me your answers.”

  It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing and much more than Nina expected. Inspector Amaro walked away to speak with one of the other policeman but glanced back at Nina and Monica before turning his attention back to the officer.

  “I'm sorry about him,” Nina said. “I endured the same thing a little while ago with him, and it was...a lot. He is...how do I put this lightly? He's off his rocker, I'd say, but he also seems very smart. A little obsessive and pushy, yeah, but intelligent. He wants to find these people that did this to Santino and it seems like he's not going to let anyone stop him from doing that. It's annoying...but kind of comforting...I don't know.”