The Project 05 - The Tesla Secret

unfinished. "I'll be in the computer room if you need me."
    The door closed behind her. For the moment, Elizabeth was alone in her office. She took a labored breath and forced herself to relax. There were no lights flashing on her phones. No calls from CIA or the White House. No immediate crisis she was supposed to solve or comment on or stop dead in its tracks. There were plenty of potential problems in the pile of folders on her desk, but they could wait.
    She was tired.
    It wasn't just the illness that made her tired, the disease that almost killed her before the doctors found the drug that saved her life. It wasn't the frequent headaches, an after effect of the .22 round she'd taken in her head.
    She was just plain tired.
    She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. When was the last time you took a vacation? She thought about it. Years ago. She'd gone to the Bahamas and gotten the worst sunburn of her life. In the back of her mind she'd thought she might meet someone on one of those white sand beaches, someone to have a romance novel fling with. She'd never had a fling.
    She'd never been promiscuous, but she was no stranger to sex. The last time she'd let a man into her bed she'd been younger, still working at Justice. She'd thought he was the one. She'd had the classic hopes, a career, a family, a loving husband. Classic hopes had turned into a classic situation. He'd turned out to be a pompous ass. He'd left her for someone who didn't challenge his narcissistic image of himself, someone younger who ended up throwing him out.
    Since then there'd been no one she was really attracted to. Someone who could handle the reality of who she was, her job and all the ripples that went with it. If he was out there, she hadn't met him yet.
    The time was past for children. But she wouldn't mind having someone to share her life with, someone to hold on a cold night, someone to have breakfast with in the morning.
    For Christ's sake, she thought. Elizabeth, you need a break. Maybe Hawaii...No you can't. Not now. Maybe later.
    When all this was over she promised herself she would take that vacation.
    She opened her eyes. Reality returned. Stephanie had been right. She had to send the team after the Codex. Nick and Selena could join Ronnie and Lamont in Portugal after they were done in Prague.

CHAPTER TWENTY- TWO

    Red velvet rope kept a group of tourists away from a glassed case holding the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Emperors. Two armed guards wearing elaborate powder-blue uniforms kept watch on either side of the case. Blue Cap was in the group. Suspenders pretended to study a display of medieval armor a hundred feet from where Nick and Selena stood.
    They looked at the glittering display. The crown was made of hoops of gold rising from a circular band of gold set with precious stones. Four elaborate finials rose from the band, studded with the biggest sapphires Selena had ever seen. The crown was topped with a golden cross embedded with more sapphires. Diamonds, rubies the size of pigeon eggs and gleaming pearls rounded out the decorations. A golden scepter and orb, both set with an abundance of jewels, completed the display.
    "We're lucky to see these," Selena said. "They're usually locked up. It says in the brochure that it takes seven separate keys just to get to where you can access the vault."
    "Some of our politicians in Washington would like a set of those."
    "I'll bet that crown was heavy."
    "Price of being king," Nick said. "You get the toys, you get the headache and the stiff neck."
    "Can you imagine living here?"
    The original castle had been started in 880 CE. It had been added to for centuries. Every style of European architecture was represented somewhere. There were hundreds of rooms. There were chapels, quarters for medieval monks and nuns, kitchens and bedrooms and dungeons, buildings for every use and description, a large cathedral. The castle stretched for half a mile, a rat's maze of halls, passageways, walkways, gardens, bridges and stairs.
    She said as much to Nick.
    "Rat's maze. Our rats are still with us. I'm getting tired of sightseeing. Let's get them somewhere quiet."
    Nick consulted a map of the castle he'd picked up when they came in.
    "Here."
    "The Basilica of St. George?"
    "There will be fewer people around. It's good a place as any."
    The Basilica was located toward one corner of the castle grounds, away from the main buildings, connected to a former Benedictine convent and marked