HOTEL IMPERIOLI – SORRENTO – ITALY

She raised the heavy crystal lighter to the tip of the cocktail cigarette, and set it burning, savoring the taste as she drew it in through bright lips the color of blood. Exhaling, she turned across the glass table and blew a thin line of smoke out over the balcony.

The man seated across from her laughed gently, amused by the act. As the sun had set and cast its fading light over the Gulf of Naples, they shared a bottle of that agreeable Conterno Monfortino, here in the hotel’s presidential suite. Now, amid the cool evening air, they basked in the afterglow of the potent wine.

“I do like the silence,” she said, and with a sweep of her hand she took in the room. “Tonight, this belongs only to us.”

He smiled. “My dearest Beth, everything belongs to us.”

She drew on the cigarette again. Aside from this suite, the entirety of the Hotel Imperioli was unoccupied. The only other humans in the grounds were their security detachments and a skeleton staff of serviles. The former groups were amusingly bullish toward each other, each squad of personal bodyguards sizing up the other like competing packs of wolves stalking the same territory.

The actual cost of such extravagance would never have crossed her mind. Elizabeth DuClare lived in a world where what she wanted was what happened. It was like a force of nature, as ingrained in her existence as the rising and setting of the sun. To even consider a reality where the world did not bend to her will would have been anathema to her. Born into great affluence as a daughter of one of the richest dynasties on Earth, it was her birthright. And as such, being a woman of great means and intellect and ambition, it was inevitable that she would fall into the Illuminati’s orbit.

They hadn’t recruited Elizabeth, like talent scouts spotting an aspiring athlete. It simply didn’t work like that. No, in a way she had always been one of them, groomed from birth to take a place on the Council of Five. It was meant to be, and there had never been an impulse in her to question it. DuClare was a queen of the world… Why would she ever have wished otherwise?

Her dinner companion leaned in and patted her on the hand, his smile widening. She wondered if it might be a hint of interest in her that ran beyond the professional. “You do look lovely this evening, my dear,” he noted.

“Lucius,” she said, with mild reproach. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

He grinned at her. “You can’t blame an old man for trying.”

Although his actual age was his most closely guarded secret, Lucius DeBeers carried himself with the thoughtful gravitas of an elder statesman. Much of that stemmed from the cutting-edge biotechnology she herself had put his way. Her role as the de facto head of the World Health Organization gave DuClare unprecedented access to experimental medical systems that the common people of the globe would never be aware of. She helped DeBeers fight off the ravages of time and illness, and in that a special bond had been born between them.

But despite knowing those truths, she enjoyed him. His fatherly manner could be comforting, and while she would never be so foolish as to talk of childish things like love, she possessed a unique kind of affection for Lucius that she could not deny.

Is it a fondness for him, or for his power? DuClare had asked herself that question many times, and never examined the answer in too great detail. It didn’t matter. DeBeers was, as he liked to call himself, the Prima Illuminatus, the leader of the council. To be the woman he considered his peer and occasionally, his confidante, was a very good place to inhabit.

“Do you think the others talk about us?” she said. “Your protégé? Or Stanton and that damned climber Page?”

“Morgan, Dowd and all the rest…” DeBeers chuckled and looked away. “They know you and I have our private conversations. But does it matter what sordid motives they might ascribe to us?”

“They’ll think it makes us weak.”

He gave a nod. “Good. Wrong thinking emboldens foolish choices, and I’d rather I knew sooner than later if one of them is going to strike at me… At us.” He poured out more wine for them. “Page, perhaps, if the day ever comes that he can find his courage. Dowd will never make a move. He likes his domains too much the way they are.”

DuClare made a sour face. “Dowd’s Templar minions are the reason I stay away from Paris these days. I smell them on everything when I go back to the chateau. They act like they own the city.”

“Well, they do. But we own them.” DeBeers handed her a glass. “Pay it no mind, my dear. Besides, the climate in Geneva agrees with you. You’re positively radiant.”

She gave him a kittenish smile, and gestured around, the red tip of the lit cigarette dancing like a firefly. “But it is so desperately dull there. I leapt at a chance to come to Italy.”

He nodded, crossing the balcony to the balustrade. “One might almost think it was a pleasurable experience to share my company,” said DeBeers, in a mock-sad tone.

“Lucius, don’t be melodramatic.” Her voice switched back to her more usual manner; a colder, harder tone that she used on her inferiors. DuClare stubbed out the cigarette as she sensed a shift in the tenor of the conversation. The real reason for their meeting was about to emerge.

“Our latest adversary…” he began, his back to her. “Who do you think it is?”

“My answer is the same as it was before. Janus hides his or her identity better than anyone we’ve ever come across. We won’t find them easily, not unless a mistake is made. And given previous form, that doesn’t seem likely.”

“Janus…” DeBeers sounded out the name. “The Romans and their minor god, seeing past and future all at once.” He snorted with derision. “Two faces on one head. What a trite choice for a double-agent’s sobriquet.” He shot her an irritated look, and in that instant he looked like the old man that he really was. “There have been too many interdictions of our work, Elizabeth. Events too precise and too perfectly pitched to be the deeds of some random troublemaker. Janus is an uncommon foe.”

DuClare had to admit he made a strong point. Failures like the botched assassination of William Taggart, once the leader of the now-splintered pro-humanist Humanity Front, or the damning leak of the secrets held in the black site prison at Rifleman Bank could not have been chance events. There was a guiding hand at work, one in clear opposition to the Illuminati’s grand, complex design.

DeBeers’s mood was shifting, turning irritable. “I told Morgan that Janus and his ridiculous little band of hackers were dealt with. But it seems I declared victory too soon. The so-called Juggernaut Collective is not as dead as I would wish it to be. Like roaches. Hard to stamp them out in one go.” He glared at her, all warmth suddenly gone. “Who do they think they are?” he demanded, affronted by the temerity of an enemy that dared to antagonize him. “I have not sacrificed my years, I have not made our plans my life’s work, just to be derailed by a pack of activist children sniping at us from the cover of cyberspace!”

“We’ll deal with them,” she told him. “Of course we will deal with them. Our group has always weathered such attacks, from the very first days of Weishaupt and the founding. We have never veered from our course.” DuClare allowed a careful measure of warmth into her voice. “I remember something you once said. The burden of governance, the stewardship upon us is great. Perhaps at this moment in history greater than any of our group have ever had to shoulder.”

“The responsibility falls to us…” he said. “Yes. I recall that day.”

“History is how we transcribe it. We are the ones with courage, the insight and the moral right. We lead, Lucius. That’s what we are destined to do. The acts of some faceless coward cannot prevent that.”

He fell silent for a long moment. “You’re right, of course.” His smile returned briefly. “You center me, dear Beth. Thank you.” DeBeers put down his glass and took her hand. His grip was firm, more so than she found comfortable. “But I don’t need a reminder of our mandate. I want a way to cut off Janus’s head – whomever he or she may be – and terminate these irritants once and for all. Mankind is at a critical societal juncture, it is divided and fracturing. There is too much at stake to become distracted!”

“I promised you I would formulate a plan of action,” she told him. “And I have. I’ve utilized certain resources in our possession. Pawns across the board are in motion.” He released his grip and gestured for her to carry on. “We will need to play a subtle and lengthy game, Lucius. Janus will make it hard for us to get close, but I believe I have found a way.”

“I want Janus’s true face, dear girl,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I want to know it and expose it. Then we’ll erase these upstarts from the world. Every moment of their lives, every iota of their identities, every mark they ever made will be gone forever. I’ll make it so they never existed.”

DuClare felt an icy, familiar thrill run through her. The exercise of real power, more potent than any drug. “We have already begun,” she told him.

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