The Paris Vendetta Page 8

  What an exhausting night.

  So much was happening.

  Three days ago Thorvaldsen had predicted that the situation would escalate, and it certainly had.

  “You do a lot for Henrik,” he said to Jesper over the outboard’s roar.

  “Herre Thorvaldsen has done a lot for me.”

  “Killing people is a little above and beyond, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not if they deserve it.”

  The waters were choppy from a stiff northerly breeze. Luckily, Jesper had provided him with a thick wool coat, insulated gloves, and scarf.

  “Is he going to kill Cabral and Ashby?” he asked.

  “Senor Cabral is dead.”

  He didn’t understand. “When did that happen?”

  Jesper motioned to the boat they were towing. “He underestimated Herre Thorvaldsen.”

  He stared back at the dark hull containing two corpses. He hadn’t liked being dismissed, and now wondered even more what Thorvaldsen and Malone were discussing. Jesper still had not answered his question about killing Ashby, and Sam realized he wasn’t going to. This man was absolutely loyal, and replying would mean breaching that commitment to Thorvaldsen.

  But his silence said it all.

  “ASHBY IS ON A TREASURE HUNT,” THORVALDSEN SAID. “A TREASURE that has eluded people for a long time.”

  “So what?”

  “It matters. I’m not sure how, just yet. But it matters.”

  Malone waited.

  “Young Sam is right about a conspiracy. I haven’t told him, but my investigators confirmed numerous recent meetings of five people, who gather in Paris.”

  “His Paris Club?”

  Thorvaldsen shrugged.

  “People have a right to meet.”

  He noticed a light sweat on Thorvaldsen’s forehead, even though the room was not warm.

  “Not these people. I determined they’ve been experimenting. In Russia last year, they affected the national banking system. In Argentina, they artificially devalued stocks, bought low, then reversed everything and sold for huge profits. More of the same in Colombia and Indonesia. Small manipulations. It’s as if they’re testing the waters, seeing what can be done.”

  “How much harm could they do? Most nations have more than adequate protections on their financial systems.”

  “Not really, Cotton. That’s a boast most governments cannot support. Especially if those attacking the system know what they’re doing. And notice the countries they picked. Places with oppressive regimes, limited or no democracy, nations that flourish with centralized rule and few civil rights.”

  “You think that matters?”

  “I do. These financiers are well schooled. I’ve checked them out. And they’re well led.”

  He caught a note of mockery.

  “Elena Rico was targeting Ashby and Cabral. I’ve learned a lot about Graham Ashby. He would have handled Rico’s death more discreetly. But his ally was tasked with the kill, and did it his way. I imagine Ashby wasn’t pleased with that slaughter in the plaza, but he had no room to complain about it, either. It did the job.”

  Malone did not like the hollow feeling in his stomach, which seemed to worsen by the minute. “You going to kill him? Like Cabral?”

  Thorvaldsen simply stared at the photographs.

  “Ashby is unaware of Cabral’s attacks on me tonight. The last thing Cabral would have wanted is for Ashby to know he’s been exposed. That’s why he came himself.”

  Thorvaldsen spoke mechanically, as if all had been decided. But there was still something else. Malone could sense it. “What’s really happening here, Henrik?”

  “It’s a complicated tale, Cotton. One that started the day Napoleon Bonaparte died.”

  SIXTEEN

  ASHBY WAS THRILLED. ROMMEL’S GOLD WAS NOW SAFELY STORED aboard Archimedes. A quick estimate, applying the current price, told him the stash was worth at least sixty to seventy million euros, maybe as much as a hundred million. The lying Corsican’s prediction had proven correct. He’d off-load the bullion in Ireland, where it could be kept in one of his banks, safe from British inspectors. No need to convert hard metal into cash. Not yet, anyway. The worldwide price was still rising, the forecasts promising more increases, and besides, gold was always a good investment. He now possessed more than enough collateral to secure any immediate financing he may need.

  All in all, an excellent evening.

  He entered Archimedes’ grand salon. The Corsican’s rum still lay on the table between the sofas. He lifted the tumbler, stepped out onto the deck, and tossed the glass into the sea. The thought of drinking from the same tumbler as that lying cheat disgusted him. The Corsican had every intention of confiscating the gold and being paid a million euros. Even in the face of irrefutable exposure, the lying bureaucrat had continued the charade.

  “Sir.”

  He turned. Guildhall stood just inside the salon.

  “She’s on the phone.”

  He’d been expecting the call, so he walked into an adjacent lounge, a warm room adorned with polished woods, soft fabrics, and split-straw marquetry papering the walls. He sat in a club chair and lifted the phone.

  “Bonsoir, Graham,” Eliza Larocque said.

  “Are you still in the air?” he asked in French.

  “We are. But the flight has been a good one. Signor Mastroianni has agreed to sign the pact. He will deposit his earnest money immediately, so expect a transfer.”

  “Your instincts proved correct.”

  “He’ll make a fine addition. He and I have had a wonderful conversation.”

  If nothing else, Eliza Larocque was persuasive. She’d appeared at his English estate and spent three days tantalizing him with the possibilities. He’d investigated and learned that she was descended from a long line of wealth, her Corsican ancestors first rebels then aristocracy who wisely fled the French Revolution—then smartly returned when the time was right. Economics was her passion. She held degrees from three European universities. She headed her family concerns with hands-on management, dominant in wireless communication, petrochemicals, and real estate. Forbes had estimated her wealth at nearly twenty billion. He’d always thought that figure high, but noticed that Larocque never corrected its quotation. She lived both in Paris and to the south, on a family estate in the Loire Valley, and had never married, which he’d thought odd, too. Her voiced passions were classical art and contemporary music. Strange, those contradictions.

  And her flaw?

  Too quick to violence.

  She saw it as the means to almost every end.

  Personally, he wasn’t opposed to its use—tonight had demonstrated the inherent need—but he tempered its application.

  “How has your weekend been so far?” Larocque asked him.

  “I’ve enjoyed a peaceful cruise on the Mediterranean. I love my boat. It’s a pleasure I so rarely savor.”

  “Far too slow for me, Graham.”

  They each loved their toys. Larocque cherished planes—he’d heard about her new Gulfstream.

  “You’ll be at the meeting Monday?” she asked.

  “We are cruising toward Marseille now. I’ll fly out from there.”

  “And so I shall see you then.”

  He hung up the phone.

  He and Larocque had become quite the team. He’d joined her group four years ago, anteing up his twenty-million-euro initiation fee. Unfortunately, ever since, his financial portfolio had taken a massive beating, which had forced him to tap deep into his family reserves. His grandfather would have chastised him for taking such foolish risks. His father would have said, So what, take more. That dichotomy accounted, in many ways, for his present financial precariousness. Both men were long dead, yet he continued to try to please each.

  When the Retrievers of Lost Antiquities had been exposed, it had taken all he could muster to keep Europol at bay. Luckily, proof had been scarce and his political connections strong. His private art cache had not
been discovered, and he still maintained it. Unfortunately, that precious hoard could never figure into his bottom line.

  Thankfully, he now controlled a stash of gold.

  Problem solved.

  At least for the foreseeable future.

  He noticed the Corsican’s book—Napoleon, From the Tuileries to St. Helena—lying on the chair beside him. One of the stewards had brought it from the salon, along with the briefcase once again full of euros.

  He lifted the book.

  How did an unremarkable child, born to modest Corsican parents, rise to such greatness? At its height the French Empire comprised 130 départements, deployed over 600,000 troops, ruled 70,000,000 subjects, and maintained a formidable military presence in Germany, Italy, Spain, Prussia, and Austria. From those conquests Napoleon amassed the largest treasure hoard in human history. He gathered loot at unprecedented levels, from every nation he conquered. Precious metals, paintings, sculptures, jewels, regalia, tapestries, coins—anything and everything of value seized for the glory of France.

  Much of it had been returned after Waterloo.

  But not all.

  And what remained had metamorphosed into legend.

  He opened the book to a section he’d read a few days ago. Gustave had willingly surrendered his copy, upon a down payment on the promised one million euros. The book’s author, Louis Etienne Saint-Denis, had served as Napoleon’s valet from 1806 to 1821. He voluntarily went into exile with Napoleon, first on Elba, then St. Helena. He maintained Napoleon’s library and, since the emperor’s penmanship was atrocious, prepared clean copies of all dictation. Nearly every written account from St. Helena had been penned in his hand. Ashby had been drawn to Saint-Denis’ memoir. One chapter in particular had caught his attention. He again found the page.

  His Majesty hated St. Helena, a British dot on the world map, west of Africa, hammered by wind and rain, ringed by steep cliffs. Napoleon’s thoughts upon seeing his island prison in 1815 remained his thoughts throughout. “Disgraceful. Not an attractive place. I would have done better to remain in Egypt.”

  But in spite of the trials which Napoleon had to suffer, the memory of his power was always an agreeable dream. “I placed all of my glory,” he said, “in making the French the first people of the universe. All of my desire, all of my ambition, was that they should surpass the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, as much in arms as in the sciences and arts. France was already the most beautiful, the most fertile country. In a word, it was already worthy to command the world as was ancient Rome. I should have accomplished my end if marplots, conspirators, men of money, immoral men, had not raised up obstacle after obstacle and stopped me in my march. It was no small accomplishment to have succeeded in governing the principal part of Europe and to have subjected it to a unity of laws. Nations directed by a just, wise, enlightened government would, in time, have drawn in other nations, and all would have made one family. When once everything had been settled I should have established a government in which the people would have nothing to dread from arbitrary authority. Every man would have been a man and simply subject to the common law. There would be nothing privileged, only merit. But there are those who would not have liked that to be. Debt barons who thrive upon the greed and idiocy of others. My goal was always to rid France of debt. Their desire was to drive France deeper into the abyss. Never were loans meant to be employed to meet current expenditures, whether they be civil or military. One has only to consider what loans can lead to in order to realize their danger. I strove against them. Finance would never have possessed the power to embarrass the government since, if that had been the case, the bankers and not the leaders of government would have controlled. The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland. Financiers are without patriotism and without decency. Their sole object is gain.”

  He’d never realized Napoleon’s passionate convictions regarding money lending. Previous and later French monarchs easily succumbed to the lure of debt, which had only hastened their downfall. Napoleon resisted. Which, ironically, may have hastened his end as well.

  One other item in the book had drawn his eye.

  He thumbed through the brittle yellow pages and found the critical reference in the introduction, written in 1922, by a professor at the Sorbonne.

  Saint-Denis died in 1856. He left to the city of Sens some of the articles which he had preserved in memory of his Emperor: two volumes of Fleury de Chaboulon with notes in Napoleon’s handwriting; two atlases in which Napoleon had made some notations in pencil; the folio volume of the campaigns of Italy; a copy of The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 A.D.; personal relics; a coat with epaulettes; a cockade from a hat; a piece of the St. Helena coffin; and a bit of one of the willows which grew over the Emperor’s tomb. His final words were specific, “My daughters should always remember that the Emperor was my benefactor and, consequently, theirs. The greater part of what I possess I owe to his kindness.”

  • • •

  Ashby had known of some of the items Saint-Denis left the city of Sens. The two volumes of Fleury de Chaboulon. The atlases. The folio volume of the campaigns of Italy. But a copy of The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 A.D.?

  That was new.

  Perhaps the answer he sought lay with it?

  SEVENTEEN

  DENMARK

  THORVALDSEN HAD COME TO CAI’S ROOM FOR STRENGTH. THE time for resolution had arrived. He’d plotted this path carefully, planned every detail, anticipated the possible moves. He believed himself ready. All that remained was to enlist Cotton Malone’s help. He’d almost called his friend Cassiopeia Vitt, but decided against it. She’d try to stop him, tell him there was another way, while Malone would understand, particularly given what had happened over the past couple of weeks.

  “Napoleon died peacefully on May 5, 1821, just after six o’clock in the evening,” he explained to Malone. “One observer noted, he went out as the light of a lamp goes out. He was buried on St. Helena, but exhumed in 1840 and returned to Paris, where he now lays in the Hôtel des Invalides. Some say he was murdered, slowly poisoned. Others say natural causes. Nobody knows. Nor does it matter.”

  He caught sight of a knotted tail stretched across one of the shelves. He and Cai had flown the kite one summer afternoon, long ago. A flash of joy passed through him—a rare feeling, both wondrous and uncomfortable.

  He forced his mind to concentrate and said, “Napoleon stole so much that it’s beyond comprehension. On his way to Egypt, he conquered Malta and acquired coin, art, silver plate, jewels, and five million francs’ worth of gold from the Knights of Malta. History says it was lost at sea, during the Battle of Abukir Bay. Isn’t it interesting how we title battles, as if they were some great dramatic epic? When the British destroyed the French fleet in August 1798, seventeen hundred sailors died. Yet we give it a title, like some novel.”

  He paused.

  “The Malta treasure was supposedly on one of the ships that went down, but no one knows if that is actually the case. There are many more stories like that. Homes, castles, entire national treasuries looted. Even the Vatican. Napoleon remains the only person to have successfully plundered the church’s wealth. Some of that booty made it back to France in an official capacity, some didn’t. There was never any adequate inventory. To this day, the Vatican maintains there are items unaccounted for.”

  As he spoke, he fought with the ghosts this sacred room hosted, their presence like a chain of missed opportunities. He’d so much wanted for Cai to inherit his Thorvaldsen birthright, but his son had wanted first to commit himself to public service. He’d indulged the desire since he, too, when young, had satisfied his curiosity with a trip around the world. The planet had seemed so different then. People didn’t get shot while simply enjoying their lunch.

  “When Napoleon died, he left a detailed will. It’s long, with numerous monetary bequests. Something like three million francs. Most were never honored, as there were no funds from which to pay
them. Napoleon was a man in exile. He’d been dethroned. He had little, besides what he’d brought to St. Helena. But to read his will, you would think him wealthy. Remember, it was never intended that he would leave St. Helena alive.”

  “I never understood why the Brits didn’t just kill him,” Malone said. “He was an obvious danger. Hell, he escaped from his first exile, in Elba, and wreaked havoc in Europe.”

  “That’s true, and when he finally surrendered himself to the British, that surprised a lot of people. He wanted to go to America, and they almost let him, then decided better. You’re right—he was a real danger. And nobody wanted any more wars. But killing him would have posed other problems. Martyrdom, for one. Napoleon was revered, even in defeat, by many French and British. Of course, there is also another explanation.”

  He caught sight of his face in the mirror above the dresser, his eyes, for once, alight with energy.

  “It was said he harbored a secret, one the British wanted to learn. Untold wealth, all that unaccounted-for loot, and the English wanted it. The Napoleonic Wars had been costly. That’s why they kept him alive.”

  “To bargain with him?”

  He shrugged. “More likely waiting for Napoleon to make a mistake and they’d learn the treasure’s location.”

  “I’ve read about his time on St. Helena,” Malone said. “It was a constant struggle of wills between him and Hudson Lowe, the British commander. Down to even how he should be addressed. Lowe referred to him as Général. Everyone else called him Your Majesty. Even after he died, Lowe wouldn’t allow the French to place Napoleon on the tombstone. He wanted the politically neutral Napoleon Bonaparte. So they buried him in an unmarked grave.”

  “Napoleon was clearly a polarizing figure,” Thorvaldsen said. “But his will is most instructive, written three weeks before he died. There’s a provision, to his valet, Saint-Denis, where he left a hundred thousand francs and then directed him to take his copy of The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 A.D. and another four hundred of his favorite volumes from his personal library, and to care for the books until Napoleon’s son reached sixteen. He was then to deliver the books to the son. Napoleon’s son lived to age twenty-one, but died a virtual prisoner in Austria. He never saw those books.”