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“There are risks”

“I don’t care I’ these people all over Europe You have a man in mind?”

“Yes,” Kholkov said “According to my sources, he’s the only one with a fahters”

“Get started”

“If he reports it rather than—”

“Then make sure he doesn’t report it Convince him that cooperation is his only way out You can do that much, can’t you?”

“I’ll make the call”

CHAPTER 53

VENICE, ITALY

The water taxi pulled to a stop and Saether they stared at the surrounding buildings

“No matter how many times I see it, it always takes my breath away,” Remi said

Known to English tourists as Saint Mark’s Plaza, the Piazza San Marco is in fact a trapezoid sitting at the eastern eometric “hopscotch” stone inlays, it is perhaps the reatest attractions,back a thousand years or more

Sa it for the first time: Saint Mark’s Basilica, with its Byzantine domes and spires; the Ca Gothic Palazzo Ducale, or Doge’s Palace; and finally, directly opposite the basilica, the Ala Napoleonica, the one-time home of Napoleon’s administrative residence

Whether a coincidence or not they would soon know, but they were keenly aware of Napoleon’s connection to Venice and the Piazza San Marco, which he’d dubbed “the drawing room of Europe” In 1805, soon after Venice was nadom of Italy, Napoleon ordered the Ala Napoleonica built after realizing his initial choices—the Zecca, or mint; the Libreria Marciana; and the Procuratie Nuove—were not large enough to accommodate his court

It was nearly six o’clock and the sun was dipping toward the horizon over the roof of the Marciana Library So amber pools on the arches and domes Most of the day’s tourists had left and the piazza was quiet save for the background babble of voices and the cooing of the pigeons