The Paris Vendetta Read online

  “A lot of the mansions are being restored,” she said. “This is becoming the place to live once again.”

  He was trying to gauge this woman. Part of her seemed ready to risk anything to make a point, but she’d shown a cool head in the museum.

  More so than he’d exhibited.

  Which bothered him.

  “The Templar’s Paris headquarters was once here. Rousseau himself found sanctuary in some of these houses. Victor Hugo lived nearby. This is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were imprisoned.”

  He stopped. “Why are we here?”

  She halted, the top of her head level with his Adam’s apple. “You’re a smart guy, Sam. I could tell that from your website and your emails. I communicate with a lot of people who think like we do, and most are looney tunes. You’re not.”

  “What about you?”

  She grinned. “That’s for you to decide.”

  He knew the gun was still nestled at the small of her back, beneath her jacket, where she’d tucked it before they’d left the museum. He wondered what would happen if he walked away right now. She’d fired on those two men in the museum with practiced skill.

  “Lead on,” he said.

  They turned another corner and passed more buildings with entrances flush to the sidewalk. Not nearly as many people now, and much quieter. Traffic lay well beyond the warren of close-packed buildings.

  “We would say, ‘Old as the hills,’” she noted. “Parisians say ‘Old as the streets.’”

  He’d already noticed how street names were announced on blue enameled markers set into corner buildings.

  “The names all have meaning,” she said. “They honor someone or something specific, tell where the street leads, identify its most prominent tenant or what goes on there. It’s always something.”

  They stopped at a corner. A blue-and-white enameled plate read RUE L’ARAIGNéE.

  “Spider Street,” he said, translating.

  “So you do speak French.”

  “I can hold my own.”

  A look of triumph flashed across her face. “I’m sure you can. But you’re up against something you know little about.” She pointed down the narrow way. “See the fourth house.”

  He did. Redbrick façade with diagonals of varnished black, stone-mullioned windows, iron balustrades. A wide archway, crowned by a sculpted pediment, was barred by a gilded gate.

  “Built in 1395,” she said. “Rebuilt in 1660. In 1777 it housed a swarm of lawyers. They were a front for the laundering of Spanish and French money to American revolutionists. Those same lawyers also sold arms to the Continental army against bills for future delivery of tobacco and colonial wares. The victorious Americans welshed on delivery, though. Aren’t we a grand people?”

  He didn’t answer her, sensing she was about to make a point.

  “Those lawyers sued the new nation and finally got paid in 1835. Determined bastards, weren’t they?”

  He still stayed silent.

  “In the 13th century, Lombardian moneylenders settled around here somewhere. A rapacious bunch, they loaned money at outrageous rates and demanded high returns.”

  She motioned again at the fourth house and cocked an eye his way.

  “That’s where the Paris Club meets.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  6:10 PM

  MALONE LIGHTLY KNOCKED ON THE PANELED DOOR. HE’D LEFT the museum and taken a taxi across town to the Ritz. He hoped Thorvaldsen had returned from the Loire Valley and was relieved when his friend answered the door.

  “Were you involved in what happened at the Cluny?” Thorvaldsen asked as he entered the suite. “It was on television.”

  “That was me. I managed to get out before getting caught.”

  “Where’s Sam?”

  He recapped everything that happened, including Sam’s abduction, crocheting the facts while explaining about Jimmy Foddrell being Meagan Morrison, omitting any reference to Stephanie’s appearance. He’d decided to keep that close. If he was to have any chance of stopping Thorvaldsen, or at least delaying him, he could not mention Washington’s involvement.

  Interesting how the tables had turned. Usually it was Thorvaldsen who held back, sucking Malone in deeper.

  “Is Sam okay?” Thorvaldsen asked.

  He decided to lie. “I don’t know. But there’s little I can do about it at the moment.”

  He listened as Thorvaldsen recapped his visit with Eliza Larocque, ending with, “She’s a despicable bitch. I had to sit there, so polite, thinking the whole time about Cai.”

  “She didn’t kill him.”

  “I don’t relieve her of responsibility so easily. Ashby works with her. There’s a close connection, and that’s enough for me.”

  His friend was tired, the fatigue evident in weary eyes.

  “Cotton, Ashby is going after a book.”

  He listened to more information about Napoleon’s will and The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751, A.D., a volume supposedly on display in the Invalides.

  “I need to get that book first,” Thorvaldsen said.

  Vague ideas floated through his brain. Stephanie wanted Thorvaldsen halted. To do that, Malone would have to take control of the situation, but that was a tall order considering who was currently in the driver’s seat.

  “You want me to steal it?” he asked.

  “It won’t be easy. The Invalides was once a national armory, a fortress.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I do.”

  “I’ll get the book. Then what are you going to do? Find the lost cache? Humiliate Ashby? Kill him? Feel better?”

  “All of the above.”

  “When my son was taken last year, you were there for me. I needed you, and you came through. I’m here now. But we have to use our heads. You can’t simply murder a man.”

  An expression of profound sympathy came to the older man’s face. “I did last night.”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Not in the least. Cabral killed my son. He deserved to die. Ashby is as responsible as Cabral. And, not that it matters, I may not have to murder him. Larocque can do it for me.”

  “And that makes it easier?”

  Stephanie had already told him that Ashby was coming to Paris, and had assured his American handler that tomorrow he would provide full details of what was about to happen. Malone despised the Brit for what he’d done to Thorvaldsen—but he understood the value of the intelligence Ashby could offer and the significance of taking down a man like Peter Lyon.

  “Henrik, you’ve got to let me handle this. I can do it. But it has to be my way.”

  “I can get the book myself.”

  “Then what the hell am I doing here?”

  A stubborn smile found the older man’s lips. “I hope you’re here to help.”

  He kept his eyes on Thorvaldsen. “My way.”

  “I want Ashby, Cotton. Do you understand that?”

  “I get it. But let’s find out what’s going on before you kill him. That’s the way you talked yesterday. Can we stick with that?”

  “I’m beginning not to care about what’s happening, Cotton.”

  “Then why screw with Larocque and the Paris Club? Just kill Ashby and be done with it.”

  His friend went silent.

  “What about Sam?” Thorvaldsen finally asked. “I’m worried.”

  “I’ll deal with that, too.” He recalled what Stephanie had said. “But he’s a big boy, so he’s going to have to take care of himself. At least for a while.”

  SAM ENTERED THE APARTMENT IN A SECTION OF TOWN MORRISION had called Montparnasse, not far from the Cluny Museum and Luxembourg Palace, in a building that offered a charm of days long gone. Darkness had swallowed them on the walk from the Métro station.

  “Lenin once lived a few blocks over,” she said. “It’s now a museum, though I can’t imagine who’d want to visit.”

  “Not a fan of communism?” he asked.

&n
bsp; “Hardly. Worse than capitalism, in a multitude of ways.”

  The apartment was a spacious studio on the sixth floor with a kitchenette, bath, and the look of a student tenant. Unframed prints and travel posters brightened the walls. Improvised board-and-block shelving sagged under the weight of textbooks and paperbacks. He noticed a pair of men’s boots beside a chair and wadded jeans on the floor, far too large for Morrison.

  “This isn’t my place,” she said, catching his interest. “A friend’s.”

  She removed her coat, slid the gun free, and casually laid it on a table.

  He noticed three computers and a blade server in one corner.

  She pointed. “That’s GreedWatch. I run the site from here, but I let everyone think Jimmy Foddrell does.”

  “People were hurt at the museum,” he told her again. “This isn’t a game.”

  “Sure it is, Sam. A big, terrible game. But it’s not mine. It’s theirs, and people getting hurt is not my fault.”

  “You started it when you screamed at those two men.”

  “You had to see reality.”

  He decided, instead of arguing again about the obvious, he’d do what the Secret Service had taught him—keep her talking. “Tell me about the Paris Club.”

  “Curious?”

  “You know I am.”

  “I thought you would be. Like I said, you and I think alike.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that, but kept his mouth shut.

  “As far as I can tell, the club is made up of six people. All obscenely wealthy. Typical greedy bastards. Five billion in assets isn’t enough. They want six or seven. I know someone who works for one of the members—”

  He pointed. “Same guy who wears those boots?”

  Her grin widened into a crescent. “No. Another guy.”

  “You’re a busy girl.”

  “You have to be to survive in this world.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m the gal who’s going to save you, Sam Collins.”

  “I don’t need saving.”

  “I think you do. What are you even doing here? You told me awhile back that your superiors had forbidden you to keep your website and talk to me. Yet it’s still there and you’re here, wanting to find me. Is this an official visit?”

  He couldn’t tell her the truth. “You haven’t told me a thing about the Paris Club.”

  She sat sideways across one of the vinyl chairs, legs draped over one arm, her spine pressed to the other. “Sam, Sam, Sam. You don’t get it, do you? These people are planning things. They’re expert financial manipulators, and they intend to actually do all the things we’ve talked about. They’re going to screw with economies. Cheat markets. Devalue currencies. You remember how oil prices were affected last year. Speculators, who artificially drove the market mad with greed, did that. These people are no different.”

  “That tells me nothing.”

  A knock on the door startled them both, the first time he’d seen a crack in her icy veneer. Her gaze locked on the gun, lying on the table.

  “Why don’t you just answer it?” he asked.

  Another knock. Light. Friendly.

  “Do you think bad guys knock?” he asked, invoking his own measure of cool. “And this isn’t even your place, right?”

  She threw him a discerning glance. “You learn fast.”

  “I did graduate college.”

  She stood and walked to the door.

  When she opened it a petite woman in a beige overcoat appeared outside. Perhaps early sixties, with dark hair streaked by waves of silver, and intense brown eyes. A Burberry scarf draped her neck. One hand displayed a leather case with a badge and photo identification.

  The other held a Beretta.

  “Ms. Morrison,” the woman said. “I’m Stephanie Nelle. U.S. Justice Department.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  LOIRE VALLEY

  7:00 P.M.

  ELIZA PACED THE LONG GALLERY AND EAVESDROPPED ON A WINTER wind that battered the château’s windows. Her mind replayed all of what she’d told Ashby over the past year, disturbed by the possibility that she might have made a huge mistake.

  History noted how Napoleon Bonaparte had looted Europe, stealing untold amounts of precious metals, jewels, antiquities, paintings, books, sculptures—anything and everything of value. Inventories of that plunder existed, but no one could vouch for their accuracy. Pozzo di Borgo learned that Napoleon had secreted away portions of the spoils in a place only the emperor knew. Rumors during Napoleon’s time hinted at a fabulous cache, but nothing ever pointed the way toward it.

  Twenty years her ancestor searched.

  She stopped before one of the windows and gazed out into the blackness. Below her, the River Cher surged past. She basked in the room’s warmth and savored its homely perfume. She wore a thick robe over her nightclothes and sought comfort within them both. Finding that lost cache would be her way of vindicating Pozzo di Borgo. Validating her heritage. Making her family relevant.

  A vendetta complete.

  The di Borgo clan was one of long standing in Corsica. Pozzo, as a boy, had been a close friend of Napoleon. But the legendary revolutionary Pasquale Paoli drove a wedge between them when he favored the di Borgos over the Bonapartes, whom he found too ambitious for his liking.

  A formal feud commenced when Napoleon, as a young man, sought election as a lieutenant colonel in the Corsican volunteers, with a brother of Pozzo di Borgo as his opponent. The high-handed methods Napoleon and his party used to secure a favorable result roused di Borgo’s enmity. The breach became complete after 1792, when the di Borgos sided with Corsican independence and the Bonapartes teamed with France. Pozzo di Borgo was eventually named chief of the Corsican civil government. When France, under Napoleon, occupied Corsica, di Borgo fled and, for the next twenty-three years, skillfully worked to destroy his sworn enemy.

  For all the attempts to restrict, suppress, and muffle me, it will be difficult to make me disappear from the public memory completely. French historians will have to deal with the Empire and will have to give me my rightful due.

  Napoleon’s arrogance. Burned into her memory. Clearly, the tyrant had forgotten the hundreds of villages he’d burned to the ground from Russia, to Poland, to Prussia, to Italy, and across the plains and mountains of Iberia. Thousands of prisoners executed, hundreds of thousands of refugees rendered homeless, countless women raped by his Grande Armée. And what of the three million or so dead soldiers left rotting across Europe. Millions more wounded or permanently handicapped. And the destroyed political institutions of a few hundred states and principalities. Shattered economies. Fear and dread everywhere, France itself included. She agreed with what the great French writer Émile Zola observed at the end of the 19th century: What utter madness to believe that one can prevent the truth of history from eventually being written.

  And the truth on Napoleon?

  His destruction of the Germanic states, and the reunifying of them, along with Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony, facilitated German nationalism, which led to their consolidation a hundred years later, which stimulated the rise of Bismarck, Hitler, and two world wars.

  Give me my rightful due.

  Oh, yes.

  That she would.

  Leather heels clicked off the floor from the gallery. She turned and watched as her chamberlain walked her way. She’d been expecting the call and knew who was on the other end of the line.

  Her acolyte handed her the phone, then withdrew.

  “Good evening, Graham,” she said into the unit.

  “I have excellent news,” Ashby said. “The research and investigation have paid off. I think I may have found a link, one that could lead us directly to the cache.”

  Her attention was piqued.

  “I require some assistance, though,” he said.

  She listened, her mind cautious and suspicious, but stimulated by the possibilities his enthusiasm promised.

  Finally, he said,
“Some information on the Invalides would be helpful. Do you have a way to make that happen?”

  Her mind raced through the possibilities. “I do.”

  “I thought you might. I’m coming in the morning.”

  She soaked in more details, then said, “Well done, Graham.”

  “This could be it.”

  “And what of our Christmas presentation?” she asked.

  “On schedule, as you requested.”

  That was exactly what she wanted to hear. “Then I shall see you on Monday.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  They said their goodbyes.

  Thorvaldsen had teased her with the possibility that Ashby may be a traitor. But the Brit was doing everything she’d recruited him to do, and doing it rather well.

  Still, doubt clouded her thoughts.

  Two days.

  She’d have to juggle these unstable balls, at least until then.

  SAM CAME TO HIS FEET AS STEPHANIE NELLE ENTERED THE apartment and Meagan closed the door. Ice-cold perspiration burst out on his forehead.

  “This isn’t the United States,” Meagan said, her passions clearly aroused. “You have no jurisdiction here.”

  “That’s true. But at the moment, the only thing stopping the Paris police from arresting you is me. Would you prefer I leave, allow them to take you, so we can talk while you’re in custody?”

  “What did I do?”

  “Carrying a weapon, discharging a firearm within the municipal limits, inciting a riot, destruction of state property, kidnapping, assault. I leave anything out?”

  Meagan shook her head. “You’re all alike.”

  Stephanie smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She faced Sam. “Needless to say, you’re in a world of trouble. But I understand part of the problem. I know Henrik Thorvaldsen. I assume he’s at least partly to blame for why you’re here.”

  He didn’t know this woman, so he wasn’t about to sell out the only person who’d treated him with a measure of respect. “What do you want?”

  “I need you both to cooperate. If you do, Ms. Morrison, you’ll stay out of jail. And you, Mr. Collins, you might still have a career.”