The Serpent’s Curse

The rush of the Order’s recent renaissance, their rebirth at light speed over the last four years under Galina’s leadership, had not been without blunders. The unprecedented and impatient Kronos program, the Order’s secret mission to create its own time machine, had resulted in catastrophically botched incidents:

The ridiculous Florida experiment, an ultimately insignificant test that was still trailing its rags publicly. The spontaneous crumbling of a building in the bustling heart of Rio de Janeiro. And, perhaps worst of all, the strange, half-promising, half-calamitous episode at the Somosierra Tunnel, a mere hour’s drive from where he stood right now.

Somosierra was particularly troublesome.

Ebner drew the newspaper clipping from his jacket.

The incident remains under investigation by local and federal crime units.

Of course it does! A school bus vanishes in a tunnel and reappears days later, bearing evidence of an attack by Napoleonic soldiers from 1808? To say nothing of the disappearance of two of its passengers or the subsequent deadly illness of the survivors?

To Ebner, these mistakes meant one thing: only Copernicus’s original device—his Eternity Machine, as a recently discovered document referred to it—could ever travel through time successfully.

Every effort otherwise seemed doomed to failure. That was why he had issued a moratorium. No more experiments until further data was amassed and analyzed.

Meanwhile, the workers worked, the researchers researched, and the Copernicus Room, Ebner’s beloved brainchild, hummed on.

For example … him … there … Helmut Bern.

The young Swiss hipster sat hunched over his station as if over a platter of hot cheese and sausages. With an improbably constant three days’ stubble, an artfully shaved head, and a gold ear stud, Bern had just been relocated from Berlin. The man was now dedicated to uncovering the errors in the Kronos program, and especially Kronos III, the time gun used in the Somosierra mess.

Ebner was strolling over to question him on his progress when the thousands of fingers stopped clacking at once. There was a sudden hush in the room, and Ebner swung around, his heart thudding wildly.

It was she, entering.

Galina Krause—the not-yet-twenty-year-old Grand Mistress of the Knights of the Teutonic Order—slid liquidly between the elevator doors and strode into the Copernicus Room.

As always, she was dressed in black as severe as raven feathers. A silver-studded belt was nearly the only color. But then, who needed color when the different hues of her irises—one silver, one diamond blue, a phenomenon known as heterochromia iridis—took all one’s breath away, made her so forbidding, so strangely and mysteriously hypnotic? The very definition, Ebner mused, of dangerous beauty. Femme fatale.

Draped around her neck was a half-dollar-sized ruby carved into the shape of a kraken, a jewel once owned by the sixteenth-century Grand Master Albrecht von Hohenzollern. Galina’s personal archaeologist, Markus Wolff, had found that particular item, though he, Ebner, had been the one to present it to her last week.

Ebner bowed instinctively. Anyone standing did the same.

Observing the attention, Galina waved it off with her hand. “Vela will inform the Kaplans where the next relic is,” she said, her voice slithering toward him as she approached. “If they are intelligent enough to decipher its message. Where are they at this moment?”

“Newly arrived in New York City,” Ebner said. “Alas, after Markus Wolff left them in California, they are once again safe and sound. Our New York agents got nothing from them but the blade of Magellan’s dagger. We have dispatched a more seasoned squad from Marseille.”

“The Kaplan brood is learning to defend itself,” Galina said. “Continue to have them watched closely and every movement entered into these databases. Assign one unit specifically to monitor them, but do not stall them. We may need their lead, if all of this”—she flicked her fingers almost dismissively around the vast chamber—“does not offer up the names of the original Guardians.”

“It shall,” Ebner said proudly. “No expense has been spared. One hundred interconnected databases are now online.”

“Alert our agents in Texas to watch their families, too, and ensure that they know they are being watched.”

“Ah, an added element of fear, good,” said Ebner. “On another matter, we have traced a courier working with the present-day Guardians.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Prague. He recently returned there from somewhere in Italy. We do not have his Italian contact yet, but the courier’s identity is known to us.”

“Curious,” she said softly. “I have business in Prague. I will …” Galina suddenly looked past Ebner at a tall, broad-shouldered man with a deep tan stepping off the elevator. He wore wraparound dark glasses.

Who the devil is this, thought Ebner, a film star?

The man approached. Ebner raised his hand. “You are?”

“Bartolo Cassa,” he said. “Miss Krause, the cargo from Rio is now on Spanish soil.”

Galina studied him. “The cargo from South America. Yes. Sara Kaplan. Have it transferred to my hangar at the airport.”

“Yes, Miss Krause.” He bowed, turned, and left the room the way he had come.

Good. The fewer minutes this “Bartolo Cassa” is around, the better. Something about him is simply not quite right. Not … normal. And those sunglasses? Is he blind?

Galina gazed across the sea of workers. Her voice was low. “Despite all this data gathering, Ebner, there are holes in the Magister’s biography. We require someone on the ground.”

“On the ground? But where?” he asked, gesturing to the tiny lights glowing on one of two giant wall maps. “From Tokyo to Helsinki, to London, Cape Town, Vancouver, and everywhere in between, our agents span the entire globe—”

“Not here. Not now,” Galina said. “Then. There. We need someone in Copernicus’s time to follow him. One hundred databases, and yet there are far too many gaps in our knowledge of the Magister. We must send someone back.”

“Back?” Ebner felt his spine shudder. “You do not mean another experiment?”

“One that will succeed,” she said, her eyes piercing his.

“With a human subject?” he said. “A subject who can report to us? From the sixteenth century?” Ebner found himself shaking his head, then stopped. It was unwise to deny one so powerful. “Kronos Three is by far the most successful temporal device we have constructed, yet you see the untidy result at Somosierra. Two souls were left behind in 1808! These experiments are far too risky for a person. The possibility of simply losing a traveler is too great. You must realize, Galina, that only the”—he barely whispered the next words—“only Copernicus’s original Eternity Machine has been proved to navigate time and place accurately. The Kronos experiments are far from foolproof—”

A desk chair squeaked, and Helmut Bern hustled over, breathing oddly. “Miss Krause!”

Helmut Bern! Always Johnny-on-the-spot, lobbying for Galina’s blessing.

“What is it?” Ebner snapped.

“Two things. Forgive me, I heard you discussing the Kronos program. I believe I have just pinpointed the central error of the devices. A rather long and twisted string of programming. A difficult fix, but I can manage it. Three days, perhaps four.”

“And the second thing?” Galina asked.

“A bit we’ve just picked up,” Bern said, grinning like an idiot. “Copernicus sent a letter from Cádiz in May of 1517. It mentions a journey by sea. Much of it is coded, but we have begun to decrypt it.”

“Cádiz,” Galina said, studying the other large map in the room, one illustrating the sixteenth-century world of the astronomer. “Fascinating. The Magister sails the Mediterranean. Good work, Bern. Continue with all due haste.”

“Yes, Miss Krause!” Bern returned gleefully to his terminal.

“There. You see, Galina,” Ebner said. “There is no need for another Kronos experiment. This information will help us track—”

“Send her.”

His eyes widened. “Send …”

“You told me our recent experiments were too risky,” Galina responded. “A trial, then. A minor experiment. With someone expendable. Send Sara Kaplan.”