The Paris Vendetta Page 17

  He didn’t like her condescending attitude. “What if I don’t want a career?”

  She threw him a look he’d seen from his superiors—people who enforced petty rules and imposed time-honored barriers that made it next to impossible for anyone to leap ahead.

  “I thought you wanted to be a field agent. That’s what the Secret Service told me. I’m simply offering you the chance.”

  “What is it you want me to do?” he asked.

  “That all depends on Ms. Morrison here.” The older woman stared at Meagan. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m here to help. So tell me, besides spouting off on your website about world conspiracies that may or may not exist, what tangible evidence do you have that I might find interesting?”

  “Cocky bitch, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Meagan smiled. “You remind me of my mother. She was tough as nails, too.”

  “That just means I’m old. You’re not endearing yourself to me.”

  “You’re still the one holding a gun.”

  Stephanie stepped around them and approached the kitchen table, where Meagan’s gun lay. She lifted the weapon. “Two men died at the Cluny. Another is in the hospital.”

  “The guard?” Sam asked.

  Stephanie nodded. “He’ll make it.”

  He was glad to hear that.

  “How about you, Ms. Morrison? Glad to hear it, too?”

  “It’s not my problem,” Meagan said.

  “You started it.”

  “No. I exposed it.”

  “Do you have any idea who the two dead men worked for?”

  Meagan nodded. “The Paris Club.”

  “That’s not exactly correct. Actually, Eliza Larocque employed them to follow your decoy.”

  “You’re a little behind the curve.”

  “So tell me something I don’t know.”

  “All right, smart lady. How about this? I know what’s going to happen in two days.”

  THORVALDSEN SAT ALONE IN HIS SUITE AT THE RITZ, HIS HEAD resting against the back of a chair. Malone was gone, having assured him that tomorrow he’d retrieve the book from the Invalides. He had confidence in his friend, more so at the moment than in himself.

  He nursed a brandy, sipping from a crystal snifter, trying to calm his nerves. Thankfully, all of the bantering spirits clamoring within him had retreated for the night. He’d been in a lot of fights, but this one was different—beyond personal, clearly obsessive—and that frightened him. He may come in contact with Graham Ashby as soon as tomorrow, and he knew that moment would be difficult. He must appear cordial, shaking the hand of the man who’d murdered his son, extending every courtesy. Not a hint could be revealed until the right moment.

  He sipped more alcohol.

  Cai’s funeral flashed through his mind.

  The casket had been closed because of the irreparable damage the bullets had done, but he’d seen what was left of his son’s face. He’d insisted. He needed that horrific image burned into his memory because he knew that he’d never rest until that death was fully explained.

  Now, after two years, he knew the truth.

  And he was within hours of revenge.

  He’d lied to Malone. Even if he managed to incite Eliza Larocque into moving on Ashby, he’d still kill the bastard himself.

  No one else would do it.

  Just him.

  Same as last night when he’d stopped Jesper and shot Amando Cabral and his cohort. What was he becoming? A murderer? No. An avenger. But was there really a difference?

  He held his glass against the light and admired the alcohol’s rich color. He savored another swallow of brandy, longer this time, more satisfying.

  He closed his eyes.

  Scattered recollections flickered through his mind, faded a moment, then reappeared. Each came in a smooth, silent process, like shifting images from a projector.

  His lips quivered.

  Memories he’d nearly forgotten—from a life he hadn’t known for many years—swam into view, blurred, then disappeared.

  He’d buried Cai on the estate, in the family cemetery, beside Lisette, among other Thorvaldsens who’d rested there for centuries, his son wearing a simple gray suit and a yellow rose. Cai had loved yellow roses, as had Lisette.

  He remembered the peculiar smell from within the casket—a little acidic, a little dank—the smell of death.

  His loneliness returned in a fresh surge.

  He emptied the snifter of the remaining brandy.

  A rush of sadness broke over him with an intolerable force.

  No more doubts nagged him.

  Yes, he’d kill Graham Ashby himself.

  THIRTY-SIX

  PARIS

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 24

  11:00 AM

  MALONE ENTERED THE CHURCH OF THE DOME, ATTACHED LIKE a stray appendage to the south end of the imposing Hôtel des Invalides. The baroque edifice, with a façade of Doric columns and a single pediment, was capped by an imposing gilded dome—the second tallest structure in Paris—crowned by a lantern and spire. Originally a royal place of worship, erected by Louis XIV to extol the glory of the French monarchy, it had been converted by Napoleon into a warriors’ tomb. Three of the greatest names in French military history—Turene, Vaubon, Foch—rested here. In 1861 Napoleon himself was buried beneath the dome, and eventually his two brothers and son joined him.

  Christmas Eve had not diminished the crowds. The interior, though only open for the past hour, was packed with people. Though the place was no longer used for religious services, a placard reminded everyone to remove their hats and speak in a low voice.

  He’d stayed last night at the Ritz, in a room Thorvaldsen had arranged, groping for sleep, but finding only disturbing thoughts. He was worried about Sam, but trusted that Stephanie had the situation under control. He was more concerned about Thorvaldsen. Vendettas could be expensive, in more ways than one—something he’d learned from personal experience. He still wasn’t sure how to rein in Thorvaldsen, but he knew that it had to be done.

  And fast.

  He ambled toward a waist-high marble balustrade and glanced upward into the towering dome. Images of the Evangelists, the kings of France, and Apostles stared back. Glancing down, beneath the dome, past the banister, he studied Napoleon’s sarcophagus.

  He knew the particulars. Seven coffins held the imperial remains, one inside the other, two of lead, the rest in mahogany, iron, ebony, oak, and—the visible one—red porphyry, the stuff of Roman sepulchres. Nearly twelve feet long and six feet high, shaped like an ark adorned with laurel wreaths, it rested on an emerald granite base. Twelve colossal figures of victory, and the names of Napoleon’s chief battles, etched into the floor, surrounded the tomb.

  He stared across the busy church at Graham Ashby.

  The Brit matched the description Stephanie had provided and stood on the far side, near the circular railing.

  Thorvaldsen had told him an hour ago that his operatives had tracked Ashby from London to Paris to here. Beside him stood an attractive woman with long flowing hair. She brought to mind another blonde who’d consumed his attention the previous two weeks. One of those mistakes in judgment that had nearly cost him his life.

  The blonde stood with her hips touching the railing, her back arched, pointing upward to the impressive entablature that circled the church, seemingly explaining something that Ashby found interesting. She had to be Caroline Dodd. Thorvaldsen had briefed him on her. Ashby’s mistress, but also the holder of degrees in medieval history and literature. Her being here signified that Ashby believed there was something significant to find.

  The level of noise surrounding him rose and he turned. A sea of people flooded in through the main doors. He watched as each new visitor paid the admission.

  He glanced around and admired the collage of marble rising around him, the dome held aloft by majestic Corinthian columns. Symbols of the monarchy sprang from the sculpted décor, remindi
ng the visitor that this was once a church of kings, now the home of an emperor.

  “Napoleon died in 1821 on St. Helena,” he heard one of the tour guides explain in German to a nearby group. “The British buried him there, with little honor, in a quiet hollow. But in his last will Napoleon wrote that he wanted his ashes to rest by the banks of the Seine in the midst of the French people whom I loved so dearly. So in 1840, King Louis Philippe decided to honor that wish and bring the emperor home. It was a move meant to both please the public and reconcile the French with their history. By then, Napoleon had evolved into a legend. So on December 15, 1840, in a grandiose ceremony, the king welcomed the remains of the emperor to the Invalides. Twenty years were needed, though, to modify this church and dig the crypt you see below.”

  He stepped away from the marble railing as the Germans pressed close and gazed down at the imposing sarcophagus. More groups in tight phalanxes swept across the floor. He noticed that another man had joined Ashby. Medium height. Blank face. Sparse gray hair. He wore an overcoat that sheathed a thin frame.

  Guildhall.

  Thorvaldsen had briefed him on this man as well.

  The three turned from the railing to leave.

  Improvise.

  That’s what he’d told Sam agents did.

  He shook his head.

  Yeah, right.

  ASHBY EXITED THE CHURCH OF THE DOME AND ROUNDED THE exterior, finding a long arcade, lined with cannon, that led into the Invalides. The massive complex encompassed two churches, a Court of Honor, a military museum, garden, and an elegant esplanade that stretched from the north façade to the Seine, nearly a kilometer away. Founded in 1670 by Louis XIV to house and care for invalid soldiers, the connected multistory buildings were masterpieces of French classicism.

  Similar to Westminister, history happened here. He imagined July 14, 1789, when a mob overwhelmed the posted sentries and raided the underground rifle house, confiscating weapons used later that day to storm the Bastille and begin the French Revolution. Seven thousand military veterans had once lived here, and now it was the haunt of tourists.

  “Do we have a way to get inside the museum?” Caroline asked.

  He’d spoken with Eliza Larocque three more times since last night. Thankfully, she’d managed to obtain a great deal of relevant information.

  “I don’t think it is going to be a problem.”

  They entered the Court of Honor, a cobbled expanse enclosed on four sides with long two-story galleries. Maybe a hundred meters by sixty. A bronze statue of Napoleon guarded the massive courtyard, perched above the pedimented entrance to the Soldiers’ Church. He knew that here was the spot where de Gaulle had kissed Churchill in thanks after World War II.

  He pointed left at one of the stern classical façades, far more impressive than attractive.

  “Former refectories. Where the pensioners took their meals. The army museum starts in there.” He motioned right at another refectory. “And ends there. Our destination.”

  Scaffolding sheathed the left-hand building. Larocque had told him that half of the museum was undergoing a modernization. Mainly the historical exhibits, two entire floors closed until next spring. The work included exterior renovations and some extensive remodeling of the main entrance.

  But not today. Christmas Eve.

  A work holiday

  MALONE MARCHED DOWN ONE OF THE INVALIDES’ LONG ARCADES, passing a closed wooden door every ten feet, flanked by cannon standing upright at attention. He made his way from the south to the east arcade, passing the Soliders’ Church, turning a corner and hustling toward a temporary entrance into the east building. Ashby and his contingent stood on the opposite side of the Court of Honor, facing the closed portion of the east museum, which housed historical objects from the 17th and 18th centuries, along with artifacts dating from Louis XIV until Napoleon.

  A gray-coated attendant with a slow pace and a supervisory eye staffed the makeshift entry that led to a stairway up to the third floor, where the relief map museum remained open, along with a bookstore.

  He climbed the stairs, gripping a thick wooden banister.

  On the second floor the elevator doors were blocked by two planks nailed together in an X. Work pallets held more disassembled scaffolding. White metal doors, clearly temporary, were shut and a sign taped to them read INTERDIT AU PUBLIC. ACCESS DENIED. Another sign affixed to the wall identified that past the closed doors lay SALLES NAPOLÉON 1ER. ROOMS OF NAPOLEON 1ST.

  He approached and yanked the handle for the metal doors.

  They opened.

  No need to lock them, he’d been told, since the building itself was sealed each night and there was little of value in the galleries beyond.

  He stepped into the dim space, drained of noise, allowed the door to close behind him, and hoped he wasn’t going to regret the next few minutes.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  NAPOLEON LAY PRONE IN THE BED AND STARED INTO THE FIREPLACE. The tapers burned bright, shedding a red luster on his face, and he allowed the heat and silence to lull him into sleep.

  “Old seer. Do you at last come for me?” he asked out loud, in a tender voice.

  A joyous expression spread over Napoleon’s countenance, which immediately twisted into a show of anger. “No,” he yelled, “you are mistaken. My luck does not resemble the changing seasons. I am not yet in autumn. Winter does not approach. What? You say my family will leave and betray me? That can’t be. I have lavished kindness on them—” He paused, and his face assumed the expression of an attentive listener. “Ah, but that is too much. Not possible. All Europe is unable to overthrow me. My name is more powerful than fate.”

  Awakened by the loud sound of his own voice, Napoleon opened his eyes and gazed around the room. His trembling hand found his moist forehead.

  “What a terrible dream,” he said to himself.

  Saint-Denis drew close. Good and faithful, always at his side, sleeping on the floor beside the cot. Ready to listen.

  “I am here, sire.”

  Napoleon found Saint-Denis’ hand.

  “Long ago, while in Egypt, a sorcerer spoke to me in the pyramid,” Napoleon said. “He prophesied my ruin, cautioned me against my relatives and the ingratitude of my generals.”

  Absorbed by his reflections, in a voice made rough by fading sleep, he seemed to need to speak.

  “He told me I would have two wives. The first would be empress and not death, but a woman would hurl her from the throne. The second wife would bear me a son, but all my misfortune would nevertheless begin with her. I would cease to be prosperous and powerful. All my hopes would be disappointed. I would be forcibly expelled and cast upon a foreign soil, hemmed in by mountains and the sea.”

  Napoleon gazed up from the bed with a look of undisguised fear.

  “I had that sorcerer shot,” he said. “I thought him a fool, and I never listen to fools.”

  Thorvaldsen listened as Eliza Larocque explained what her family had long known about Napoleon.

  “Pozzo di Borgo thoroughly researched all that happened on St. Helena,” she said. “What I just described occurred about two months before Napoleon died.”

  He listened with a false attentiveness.

  “Napoleon was a superstitious man,” she said. “A great believer in fate, but never one to bow to its inevitability. He liked to hear what he wanted to hear.”

  They sat in a private room at Le Grand Véfour, overlooking the Palais Royal gardens. The menu proudly proclaimed that the restaurant dated back to 1784, and guests then and now dined amid 18th-century gilded décor and delicate hand-painted panels. Not a place Thorvaldsen usually frequented, but Larocque had called earlier, suggested lunch, and selected the location.

  “Reality is clear, though,” she said. “Everything that Egyptian sorcerer predicted came to pass. Josephine did become empress and Napoleon divorced her because she could not produce an heir.”

  “I thought it was because she was unfaithful.”

&
nbsp; “That she was, but so was he. Marie Louise, the eighteen-year-old archduchess of Austria, eventually captured his imagination, so he married her. She gave him the son he wanted.”

  “The way of royalty, at the time,” he mused.

  “I think Napoleon would have taken offense at being compared to royalty.”

  Now he chuckled. “Then he was quite the fool. He was nothing but royalty.”

  “Just as predicted, it was after his second marriage, in 1809, that Napoleon’s luck changed. The failed Russian campaign in 1812, where his retreating army was decimated. The 1813 coalition brought England, Prussia, Russia, and Austria against him. His defeats in Spain and at Leipzig, then the German collapse and the loss of Holland. Paris fell in 1814, and he abdicated. They sent him to Elba, but he escaped and tried to retake Paris from Louis XVIII. But his Waterloo finally came on June 18, 1815, and it was over. Off to St. Helena to die.”

  “You truly hate the man, don’t you?”

  “What galls me is we’ll never know the man. He spent the five years of his exile on St. Helena burnishing his image, writing an autobiography that ended up being more fiction than fact, tailoring history to his advantage. In truth, he was a husband who dearly loved his wife, but quickly divorced her when she failed to produce an heir. A general who professed great love for his soldiers, yet sacrificed them by the hundreds of thousands. Supposedly fearless, he repeatedly abandoned his men when expedient. A leader who wanted nothing more than to strengthen France, yet kept the nation constantly embroiled in war. I think it’s obvious why I detest him.”

  He thought a little aggravation might be good. “Did you know that Napoleon and Josephine dined here? I’m told this room remains much the same as it was in the early 19th century.”

  She smiled. “I was aware of that. Interesting, though, that you know such information.”

  “Did Napoleon really have that sorcerer killed in Egypt?”

  “He ordered one of his savants, Monge, to do it.”

  “Do you adhere to the theory that Napoleon was poisoned?” He knew that, supposedly, arsenic had been slowly administered in his food and drink, enough to eventually kill him. Modern tests run of strands of hair that survived confirmed high levels of arsenic.