Chapter Seven- Tonight ,We Make History.

OFF THE VENICE LIDO

As the Dane sat awaiting refueling and a fresh pilot, plans were being formed at a local bistro over breakfast. There were two possible location of the clue; the home of the prominent Devin family and a museum that was closed for upgrades and repair, including a newly expanded Egyptian wing. The clue allegedly lay within a brass statuette of the cat goddess Bast, which could have rested in either location. Tracey and Deanna would look into the former while Corrine and Sasha investigated the latter. The two pairs would meet back at the dock at an agreed time. If one pair was not present at the time, the other one would assume the worst and proceed to aid their companions.

THE DEVINS' HOME

Despite the fact Tracey and Deanna arrived unannounced, they were allowed in and waited patiently while the silver haired Devin patriarch treated them to tea and cakes. Though prominent, his family had exhausted it's fortune many years before. Occasionally, they were compelled to sell off an old family heirloom or artifact to live in their accustomed style. Only a month earlier, he explained, he was compelled to sell an ornate brass statue, shaped vaguely like a cat or a sphinx; he couldn't quite remember which.

"Was it dedicated to Bast ?" Deanna asked pointedly and the man nodded.

"Who bought it?" Tracey asked.

"The Countess Anna Topiloff," he replied.

Tracey was stunned, but held off and said nothing until she and Deanna were finished with the tea. Once outside, she spoke "At least that was a month ago."

"Should we go straight back to the plane or go to the museum?" Deanna asked.

"I don't follow."

"We'll save Sasha and Corrine a lot of time if we go to the museum right away. The clue is out o our hands in any case."

FROM BEHIND A VELVET CURTAIN

"They're coming, Countess," Trixie said. "Corrine Ricce and the detective."

"Very good." The Countess said. "Mimsie, get the chloroform."

Mimsie removed the bottle from a small bag, one suitable for an overnight trip, and two clean rags. 

"Is the mechanism in place ?" The Countess asked over her shoulder.

"Yes Countess, " Trixie replied," And it's in perfect condition."

The Countess smiled and said, " Good. Let's give them something they won't forget."

AT THE MUSEUM
Sasha and Corrine approached the museum and entered cautiously. Before either could react, they were set upon by two unknown figures. Drugged cloths were pressed over their mouths and noses, muffling any outcry as well as administering the chloroform. The girls twisted and fought in their attacker's grip, but to no avail. The drug worked quickly, and the girls became limp and quiet. Corrine was barely able to discern the features of her attacker before she lost consciousness.

When Corrine came to, she felt that old unfortunately familiar sensation of her wrists and ankles bound. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs. She saw Sasha seated in a similar chair, and the Countess standing over her, grinning wickedly. The Countess, Corrine noticed, had not lost any of her flamboyance. Rather than the long slit skirt she'd worn in Naples, the Countess wore a short skirt with the silk blouse and heels. She smiled malevolently at Sasha. "So convenient, you arrived first," she said. "I wouldn't  have been able to lay out a trap for you, if you were not here first."

The Countess stood and savored the view of her captive, then gave a quick slap across the face, followed by a backhand slap.

"Oh, that's very bold of you," Corrine said with a voice brimming with sarcasm. "Very easy to slap somebody without getting slapped back."

"It's also easy to gag somebody with a very loose tongue."

As if the statement were a cue, Trixie rolled a rag into a ball and crammed it into Corrine's mouth and Mimsie secured it in place, with a silk scarf. They started to repeat the process on Sasha, but the Countess stopped them. "I want to do this personally," she explained.

She took the another rag and slowly balled it before she put into Sasha's mouth. Next, she took a silk scarf and presented it as a square. She then folded one corner to form a triangle. From there, the Countess folded the scarf so it would be a long, narrow strip. She held the gag in front of Sasha's face for a few moments before drawing it onto the ball and bringing the ends together behind Sasha's head and knotting it tightly.

Corrine and Sasha grimaced around their gags, flexing their hands behind them. "Bring them !" the Countess commanded. Trixie and Mimsie seized the girls and began pushing and dragging them across the concrete floor toward and unusual looking mechanism. It looked like two large wooden spindles set on top of equally huge gears, turned by a complicated motor. Two large rolls of silky looking cloth were also fed into the machine, the loose ends dispensed at the base of the spindles. One by one the girls were pushed and towed to their respective spindles and tied in place with additional ropes. Trixie and Mimsie wrapped the loose ends of the fabric around the girls tied ankles so that they couldn't dislodge it.

"A curiosity of the museum." The Countess said with relish," the Curator is a compatriot of mine and was quite explicit to its purpose. When the mummies on display fell into disrepair, they needed to replace them with mannequins until they could be restored. But the question that plagued them was how to wrap the mannequins in hundreds of yards of cloth, without wasting countless man-hours; hence this device."

Trixie turned a knob on the side of the machine," It's all set Countess."

"The machine will encase you in fabric and once you are properly wrapped, the Curator has promised to place you on prominent display in the new Egyptian wing. Enjoy yourselves girls, you're about to be made history !"

The Countess blew them a kiss and hit the starter switch. Slowly the spindles they were tied to began to revolve. As they turned, the fabric drew tight and began to circle them. By the third revolution, it was up to the mid-calf on both girls. Corrine and Sasha struggled in their bonds as the relentless machine sped up and began wrapping them faster and tighter.

The Countess took a step back and surveyed her handiwork, or perhaps gloated over Sasha's predicament. She smiled and said: "Strange thing about it that you had no chance to get the clue. I've had it for about a month now." She hefted a small brass statue of a cat with emerald eyes in one hand and laughed. With a wicked smile, she turned and left, her two companions close behind.

Chapter Eight-  Sweet Suite Silence

VENICE

Within the space of fifteen minutes, Corrine and Sasha had been spun almost senseless by the wrapping machine and tight sheaths of silky white cloth were at their waists. The girls could not longer move and crying out was pointless as they were gagged and the wing of the museum where the machine lay was far away from any patrons or staff. Sasha looked to her young companion as the machine continued its work wrapped them further, higher and  tighter with every passing minute. They would no doubt suffocate under the layers and layers of silk the machine encased them in, and they were helpless to prevent it.

Outside the museum, the Countess and her two hench-women had just stepped aboard a limousine. The blonde woman cast a look at an alley close by and frowned.

"What is it, Countess ?" Trixie asked.

"Nothing we can't deal with... " she replied, lifting the receiver of the car phone.. Tracey and Deanna came around the corner, looking quite worried. The Countess scowled but urged the driver to move on. The detective's luck was phenomenal it seemed. Tracey and Deanna hurried to the museum. They feared there might be problems when they reached the museum. The quick but thorough search of the museum's public areas turned up nothing, which did little to assuage their fears.

Tracey and Deanna made their way to the curator's office and knocked. Professor Anna Vitoli was a harried if efficient looking woman in brown tweed suit jacket, blue blouse and skirt. She appeared to be in her later 40's, her rich black hair was sprinkled with gray. Her blue eyes twinkled behind her glasses as she looked at the two young women. Tracey thought there was something sinister behind that smile as she let them in without waiting for an explanation.  She offered the girls seats in two overstuffed leather chairs in front of her desk which was piled high with papers.

" I already know who you are." the Professor admitted after she escorted the girls into her office," Your friends were here moments ago and said for you to wait for them here."

Deanna frowned," How could that be considering we were supposed to meet with the Devins' ?" The Professor scowled and pulled a large silver knife from behind a stack of papers and lunged at her. Tracey stuck her foot out and tripped her. Deanna sidestepped and woman toppled onto the floor face first.

Deanna and Tracey pounced, the former grabbing the woman by the arms while the latter looked for something to bind her with. She unwrapped the velvet curtain cords and threw them to Deanna who used one of the red silky cords to tie the Professor's wrists behind her back. The Professor winced as the ropes bit in. She tied her ankles next and together they got the woman to her feet and threw her into one of the chairs.

"Now where are our friends !" Deanna cried.

Meanwhile Sasha and Corrine had been encased up to their shoulders in white fabric. The pressure from the wrapping was intense and the girls could scarcely breathe. All the fight had been bled out of them. The girls' heads hung low as the dreadful machine continued to spin and wrap.

The machine suddenly powered down and ground to a halt. Sasha, weak and dizzy lifted her head barely and saw three figures standing some distance away . As her vision cleared, she saw it was Deanna and Tracey with some swarthy looking gentleman in gray coveralls. He was yelling in Italian, gesturing wildly at the machine while the girls rushed forward and began the delicate process of cutting Corrine and Sasha from their ropes and sheaths.

It took quite awhile for the girls to recover from their experience but they seemed more bruised than truly injured.

"The Countess roughed Sasha up a bit," Corrine said.

"Just a slap," Sasha said dismissively. "I've been smacked worse. I thought that machine would be the death of us."

"That's neither here nor there. We have one clue, but our Iraqi friends have it, too. The Yorkshires have two pieces, and the Countess one."

"Do you think they might join up somehow?" Deanna asked.

"I doubt it," Sasha answered. "All three are in it for different reasons. The Countess wants to make Demeter the planetary religion, the Yorkshires are in it purely for profit, and Saddam's flunkies want to please their boss. More likely, they'd go after each other rather than co-operate."

"Not much we can do here," Tracey observed. "Might as well go back to plane."

As they boarded, they noticed a well-dressed woman of about thirty checking in with the purser. She had sunglasses perched atop her dark hair. When she turned, Sasha picked up dark eyes, which seemed to be fixed on Tracey. "A former student?" she asked.

"Never seen her before," the archeologist replied. "I wouldn't know her from Eve."

A SUITE OF ROOMS AT A POSH HOTEL CLOSE TO THE DOCKS

The next morning, Tracey left the cabin for breakfast. As she did so, Corrine left for her morning workout, while Sasha was returning from hers. Deanna, for her part, was still asleep. Tracey was coming to believe her student assistant was a late riser. As she approached the breakfast buffet, she heard somebody say, "Excuse me, Doctor Seward."

Tracey turned to face the speaker, a woman of about average height with black hair. She wore sunglasses, a beach robe open to reveal a bikini, and sandals. She carried a copious beach bag over her left shoulder and a towel in her right hand. Tracey walked over to the woman, who stood in a doorway.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know you," Tracey said.

"I read about you in an archeological journal a few months ago," the woman continued. As Tracey came next to the mysterious woman, the woman's tight hand came up. With her left hand, the woman slid back the towel just enough to reveal the barrel of an automatic pistol. "Please do as I say," she said calmly.

"What do you want?" Tracey asked.

"Let's go to your suite."

The woman said nothing as she and Tracey went to the suite. At the door, Tracey produced the key card, which the woman took, then pocketed. She looked to see if other passengers were in the corridor, but there were none. With quick speed, the pistol went into the bag, and a length of rope came out, which she used to bind Tracey's wrists. A silk scarf was produced and secured around Tracey's mouth.

By the time Deanna rose, Sasha was finished with her shower. Both planned to spend most of the morning in and around the pool and they were dressed for the occasion. Deanna was looking around for the sunscreen when a knock came at the door. Sasha went to answer and was surprised to see a woman pointing an automatic at her with one hand and guiding a captive Tracey with the other. Without hesitation, Sasha raised her hands and stepped back. Deanna came into the main room and gasped. "Better do as she says, Deanna," Sasha said.

"Very sensible of you," the woman said. "Both of you stand over there."

"What do want?" Deanna demanded.

"Your clues the location of the Jade Skull."

"Why? So you can find them and sell them?"

"On the contrary," the mystery woman said as she removed two strands of nylon rope from her bag. "So nobody gets the Skull."

Deanna was shocked into a bewildered silence as the woman tossed the rope to Sasha. "You kneel while she ties you."

All the time, Sasha was making a mental assessment of the woman. Sasha was positive she'd seen her boarding the previous day. Middle Eastern type, but from a country that did not insist on total cover when it came to women's clothes. There was one country where that was the rule, and that had a vested interest in keeping the Skull buried forever. "You're Mossad, aren't you?" Sasha said as she finished tying Deanna's wrists.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the woman deadpanned. "Nice ropework. Girl Scouts?"

"Of course."

She's Mossad, all right, Sasha thought as the woman threw a towel at her, according to the woman's instructions, she tore it two, lengthwise. (She was aided immensely by cut made in the middle of the towel.) That done, Sasha was ordered to tie a large knot in the center, then stuffed the knot into Deanna's mouth. She secured the gag with a tight knot at the back of the head.

Without being told, Sasha knelt next to Deanna and crossed her wrists behind her back. The mystery woman quickly tied her wrists. "Before I gag you, I'll have to ask you where the clues are."

"Right Bedroom. In the night stand drawer between the two beds." Sasha replied. "We have only one clue."

"That's all right. I know about the Yorkshires."

The woman applied the gag, then bound Sasha's ankles. She went into the bedroom and retrieved the paper. She then walked Tracey beside Sasha and ordered her to kneel, from where she gently lowered Tracey to a face down position and tied her ankles. Without further word, she left the suite.


Corrine returned to the suite and, with a casual roll of the eyes said "This is getting ridiculous." at the sight of her bound and gagged companions. She quickly undid the gags and said, "I have something to work on these."

The actress disappeared into her bedroom and after a few minutes appeared with a rubber-handled stainless steel knife. "A diver's knife?" Sasha asked.

"If there's even a remote chance I can get some diving in…" Corrine began.

"You bring your gear." Sasha concluded. "I'm the same way."

"Who did this to you?"

"I don't know, but I'll bet anything she's Mossad."

"She?"

"What's Mossad?" Deanna asked.

"Israeli intelligence service." Sasha replied.

"I can certainly understand why they'd want to keep the Skull buried," Tracey said.

A BEACH ELSEWHERE

Desrae lowered her binoculars and bit her lip, no point wasting time, she had a mission to complete. Getting the clues from the Americans had been ridiculously easy, but this Countess might prove to be another matter entirely. She pushed the rubber raft into the water and lowered herself into it. The yacht drifted lazily offshore, within easy paddling distance. Slowly, the young woman pulled the small oars into the dark water.

She saw they yacht and found it to be even more impressive from sea level. A rubber boat soon came up and Linda climbed aboard, with the help of its two occupants; a young woman in dark blue shorts and white polo shirt and another young woman in a pink bikini. She supposed the former was a member of the yacht's crew and the latter the daughter of it's owner. When she was within swimming distance, Desrae nicked the side of her raft with her diving knife and went into a well-rehearsed panic.

At first nothing happened, but slowly the yacht deck came to life and searchlight flickered across the water. By this time Desrae was in the water, waving frantically. The vessel drew close enough for her to swim to the rope ladder being lowered over the side. Desrae was helped up the ladder and onto the deck. Shortly there after, a tall, imposing blond woman appeared. She wore an ankle length robe of black silk, which was open to reveal a black bikini and a toned, muscular figure. As an absolutely redundant accessory she wore stiletto heels. Behind her was another young woman, dark haired and in a yellow bikini.

"Bongiorno, Signora," the tall woman said. "Welcome aboard the Demeter. I am the Countess Anna Topiloff. This is my.... niece, Mimsie."

"Linda Alvarez, " Desrae said with practiced ease,”My raft came apart.”

"Would you like to get into some dry clothes? I host many impromptu cruises and have ample clothes in all sizes."

"I don't want to make a fuss."

"No trouble at all, I insist." the Countess replied with a smile.

"That would be nice, thank you. Now I need to get into something dry."

Desrae was guided to the wardrobe, In the privacy of a cabin, she smiled at her luck and quickly threw on a dry robe over her swimsuit.

On her way back to the deck, Linda passed through the main salon, where she spotted a ceramic pot on a sideboard. Egyptian, it appeared and she set it back down. She was about to turn when felt something blunt hit the back of her head and everything went dark.