“And what of failure?”

He shrugged. “The consequence of not succeeding. Remember what Homer said. Circumstances rule men, not men circumstances.”

She thought of another line from the poem. “What chilling blows we suffer-thanks to our own conflicting wills-whenever we show these mortal men some kindness.”

Her teacher nodded. “Never forget that.”

“Such a story,” she said to the class. “The Iliad. A war that raged for nine long years. Then, in its tenth, a quarrel led Achilles to stop fighting. A Greek hero, full of pride, a fighter whose humanity stemmed from great passion, invulnerable except for his heels.”

She saw smiles on some faces.

“Everyone has a weakness,” she said.

“What’s yours, Minister?” one of the students asked.

She’d told them not to be bashful.

Questions were good.

“Why do you teach me these things?” she asked Sergej.

“To know your heritage is to understand it. Do you realize that you may well be a descendant of the Greeks?”

She gave him a perplexed look. “How is that possible?”

“Long ago, before Islam, when Alexander and the Greeks claimed this land, many of his men stayed after he returned home. They settled our valleys and took local women as wives. Some of our words, our music, our dance, were theirs.”

She’d never realized.

“My affection for the people of this Federation,” she said in answer to the question. “You’re my weakness.”

The students clapped their approval.

She thought again of the Iliad. And its lessons. The glory of war. The triumph of military values over family life. Personal honor. Revenge. Bravery. The impermanence of human life.

The skin of a brave soldier never blanches.

And had she blanched earlier, when she’d faced down the would-be assassin?

“You say politics interests you,” Sergej said. “Then never forget Homer. Our Russian masters know nothing of honor. Our Greek forebears, they knew everything about it. Don’t ever be like the Russians, Irina. Homer was right. Failing your community is the greatest failure of all.”

“How many of you know of Alexander the Great?” she asked the students.

A few hands were raised.

“Do you realize that some of you may be Greek?” She told them what Sergej told her so long ago about Greeks staying in Asia. “Alexander’s legacy is a part of our history. Bravery, chivalry, endurance. He joined West and East for the first time. His legend spread to every corner of the world. He’s in the Bible, the Koran. The Greek Orthodox made him a saint. The Jews consider him a folk hero. There’s a version of him in Germanic, Icelandic, and Ethiopian sagas. Epics and poems have been written about him for centuries. His tale is a tale of us.”

She could easily understand why Alexander had been so taken with Homer. Why he lived the Iliad. Immortality was gained only through heroic actions. Men like Enrico Vincenti could not understand honor. Achilles was right. Wolves and lambs can enjoy no meeting of the minds.

Vincenti was a lamb. She was a wolf.

And there’d be no meeting.

These encounters with students were beneficial on a multitude of levels, not the least of which was a reminder to her of what came before her. Twenty-three hundred years ago Alexander the Great marched thirty-two thousand kilometers and conquered the known world. He created a common language, encouraged religious tolerance, spurred racial diversity, founded seventy cities, established new trade routes, and ushered in a renaissance that lasted two hundred and fifty years. He aspired to arête. The Greek ideal of excellence.

Her turn now to display the same thing.

She finished with the class and excused herself.

As she left the building, one of her guards handed her a piece of paper. She unfolded and read the message, an e-mail that had arrived thirty minutes ago, noting the cryptic return address and curt message – NEED YOU HERE BY SUNSET.

Irritating, but she had no choice.

“Have a helicopter readied,” she ordered.

VENICE

8:35 A.M.

TO VINCENTI, VENICE SEEMED A WORK OF ART. GOBS OF BYZANTINE splendor, Islamic reflections, and allusions to India and China. Half Eastern, half Western-one foot in Europe, the other in Asia. A uniquely human creation born from a series of islands that once managed to weld themselves into the greatest of trading states, a supreme naval power, a twelve-hundred-year-old republic whose lofty ideals even attracted the attention of America’s Founding Fathers. Envied, suspected, even feared-trading indiscriminately with all sides, friend or foe. An unscrupulous moneymaker, dedicated to profit, treating even wars as promising investments. That had been Venice through the centuries.

And himself for the past two decades.

He bought his Grand Canal villa with the first profits from his fledgling pharmaceutical company. Only fitting that both he and his corporation, now valued in the billions of euros, be headquartered here.

He especially loved Venice in the early morning, when nothing could be heard but the human voice. A morning walk from his palazzo on the canal, to his favorite ristorante on the square at Campo del Leon, constituted his only attempt at exercise. But it was one he couldn’t avoid. Feet or boat were the only means of transportation since vehicles were banned in Venice.

Today he walked with a renewed vigor. The problem with the Florentine had worried him. With that now resolved he could turn his attention to the final few hurdles. Nothing satisfied him more than a well-executed plan. Unfortunately, few were ever so.

Especially when deceit proved necessary.

The morning air no longer carried winter’s unpleasant chill. Spring had clearly returned to northern Italy. The wind seemed gentler, too, the sky a lovely salmon, brightened by a sun emerging from the eastern ocean.

He wove a path through the twisting streets, narrow enough that carrying an open umbrella would have presented a challenge, and crossed several of the bridges that tacked the city together. He passed clothing and stationery stores, a wine shop, a shoe dealer, and a couple of well-stocked groceries, all closed at this early hour.

He came to the end of the street and entered the square.

On one end rose an antique tower, once a church, now a theater. At the other end stood the campanile of a Carmine chapel. Between stretched houses and shops that shimmered with age and self-satisfaction. He didn’t particularly like the campos. They tended to feel dry, old, and urban. Different from the canal fronts where palazzos pressed forward, like people in a crowd jostling for air.

He studied the empty square. Everything neat and orderly.

Just as he liked it.

He was a man possessed of wealth, power, and a future. He lived in one of the world’s great cities, his lifestyle befitting a person of prestige and tradition. His father, a nondescript soul who instilled in him a love of science, told him as a child to take life as it came. Good advice. Life was about reaction and recovery. One was either in, just coming out of, or about to find trouble. The trick was knowing which state you were in and acting accordingly.

He’d just come out of trouble.

And was about to find more.

For the past two years he’d headed the Council of Ten, which governed the Venetian League. Four hundred and thirty-two men and women whose ambitions were stymied by excessive government regulation, restrictive trade laws, and politicians who chipped away at corporate bottom lines. America and the European Union were by far the worst. Every day some new impediment sapped profits. League members spent billions trying to avert more regulation. And while one set of politicos were quietly influenced to help, another set were intent on making a name for themselves by prosecuting the helpers.