Page 15 (1/2)

A pity, he thought, that his director’s present physical and mental condition rendered him useless, possibly in the perer man’s fate as soon as the physicians reported back to hinosis

From the hospital Genaro had his driver take him to his private estate outside the city Genaro rarely visited his personal residence during the week, as the guest suites at the GenHance building were ht he needed a few hours alone to think

His butler, who had once served in the households of British royalty, , Mr Genaro" He took his coat and briefcase "Will you be dining at ho it down to the armory" He walked to the elevator and took it down to the third sublevel of the house, where he stepped out, closed his eyes, and waited as jets of cool air blen froht passed over him A soft chime indicated the end of the decontamination cycle, and he went up to the wall scanner beside two massive steel doors and leveled his left eye with the lens

The automated security system scanned his retina, identified him, and produced a small keypad from a concealed slot Genaro entered his h as the doors slid silently apart

He’d originally built the armory to serve as his personal vault and a lockdown safe room where he could retreat if the house security was compromised The room had independent power, ventilation, and water supply systele occupant alive for as long as eighteen months One wall contained security camera screens that continually monitored the interior of the house and sublevels as well as the grounds of the estate; the other had been outfitted with televisions that received their signals from three different satellites, an Internet server and access terminal, a powerful radio array, and direct voice lines to trusted allies in half a dozen countries

An adjoining roo space, with a coe bath, and movie screens modeled as faux s that displayed realistic outdoor views of the country and were ti on the actual hour of the day

When Genaro had left Italy to coht with him a small but unique collection of antiquities, which at first he displayed in the house and then ile relics began to show signs of deterioration The filtered air and climate-control units helped to preserve his collection, but there was another,them away fro the antiquities, and felt very possessive about the them in the one place where they were safe and only he could enjoy them

That was soht ht have understood him, his noble ancestor Septus Janus Genarius of Roed from marble statues liberated from his ancestor’s ancient Tuscan villa to dozens of bronze and terra-cotta figurines that had been purchased from collectors or the various Middle East black markets for antiquities All depicted the head, bust, or fora of a Roion commander

Several ensembles of armor, exact reproductions of what Genarius would have worn during his years serving in the legion, were displayed on e of his ancestor’s many busts and statues He would have preferred to have the originals, but they had been lost to the sands of time

Genarius had been one of the wealthiest ed life: costly bronze ant lamps had been recovered frolass ornas of the era known to still exist The cautious senator had also hidden beneath his villa sacks of coins, soed by anyone in the world except Genaro

Records and carbon dating indicated that all of his possessions had been reround bunker by Genarius a short time before he had died Perhaps he had been warned about the epidemic and tried to secure his wealth before the sickness reached his household; Genaro would never know for certain In any case, before he had died the senator had moved most of his wealth to secret caches and vaults, where it had lain undisturbed for two er to find the scrolls Genarius had written, sealed, and secreted away in the tunnels beneath his city compound, but eventually Genaro had also discovered and opened that vault There were books, letters, andhinificantthe tale of the coh the ranks until he had commanded his own arinal procla Genarius to the Roh countless generations of the Genaro family as proof of their ancestor’s nobility

Genarius had been an i much of the Roman Empire Aside from the Caesars, few Roman noblemen had ever been depicted in stone, which e the elite of the empire