The Paris Vendetta (26 page)

FORTY-NINE

M
ALONE ASCENDED FROM
N
APOLEON’S CRYPT BY WAY OF A MARBLE
staircase, flanked at the top by two bronze funerary spirits. One bore the crown and hand of justice, the other a sword and globe. Stephanie waited for him, standing before the church’s great altar with its canopy of twisted columns reminiscent of Bernini’s in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“Seems Henrik’s efforts were successful,” she said. “He managed an invitation to the club.”

“He’s on a mission. You can understand that.”

“That I can. But I’m on one too, and
you
can understand that. I want Peter Lyon.”

He glanced around at the deserted church. “This whole thing feels wrong. Lyon knows we’re on to him. That plane at Heathrow was useless to him from the start.”

“But he also knows that we can’t tip our hand.”

Which was why the Church of the Dome was not surrounded by police. Why the Invalides’ hospital and retirement center had not been evacuated. Its ultramodern surgical unit catered to veterans, and about a hundred lived there full-time in buildings that flanked the Church of the Dome. The search for explosives had started there quietly, last night. Nothing to alert anyone that there may be a problem. Just a calm search. A full-scale alarm would have ended any chance of nailing Lyon or the Paris Club.

But the task had proven daunting.

The Invalides comprised hundreds of thousands of square feet, spread over dozens of multistory buildings. Far too many places to hide an explosive.

The radio Stephanie carried crackled with her name, then a male voice said, “We have something.”

“Where?” she answered.

“In the cupola.”

“We’re on our way.”

T
HORVALDSEN SHOOK
G
RAHAM
A
SHBY’S HAND, FORCED HIS LIPS
to smile, and said, “A pleasure to meet you.”

“And you as well. I’ve known of your family for many years. I also admire your porcelain.”

He nodded at the compliment.

He realized Eliza Larocque was watching his every move, performing her own assessment of both he and Ashby, so he summoned all of his charm and continued to play the role.

“Eliza tells me,” Ashby said, “that you want to join.”

“This seems like a worthwhile endeavor.”

“I think you’ll find us a good group. We are only beginning, but we have a grand time at these gatherings.”

He surveyed the room again and counted seven members, including Ashby and Larocque. Serving staff wandered about like stray ghosts, finishing their tasks, one by one withdrawing through a far doorway.

Bright sunshine flooded in from a wall of windows and bathed the red carpet and plush surroundings in a mellow glow.

Larocque encouraged everyone to find a seat.

Ashby walked off.

Thorvaldsen made his way to the nearest of the two tables, but not before he caught sight of a young man, one of the servers, storing away extra chairs behind the stage to his right. He’d thought at first he was mistaken, but when the worker returned for one more load he was certain.

Sam Collins.

Here.

M
ALONE AND
S
TEPHANIE CLIMBED A COLD METAL LADDER THAT
led up into a space between the interior and exterior walls. The dome itself was not a single piece. Instead, only one of the two stories of windows visible on the drum’s exterior could be seen from inside. A second cupola, completely enclosed by the first, visible through the open top of the lower cupola, captured daylight through a second level of windows and illuminated the inside. It was an ingenious nesting design, only evident once high above everything.

They found a platform that abutted the upper cupola, among the building’s crisscrossing exoskeleton of wooden timbers and more recent steel beams. Another metal ladder angled toward the center, between the supports, to a second platform that anchored one last ladder leading up into the lantern. They were near the church’s summit, nearly three hundred feet high. On the second platform, below the lantern, stood one of the French security personnel who’d slipped into the Invalides several hours ago.

He was pointing upward.

“There.”

E
LIZA WAS PLEASED
. A
LL SEVEN MEMBERS, ALONG WITH
H
ENRIK
Thorvaldsen, had come. Everyone was finding a seat. She’d insisted on two tables so that no one would feel crowded. She hated to be crowded. Perhaps it came from living alone her entire adult life. Not that a man couldn’t occasionally provide a delightful distraction. But the thought of a close personal relationship, someone who’d want to share her thoughts and feelings, and would want her to share his? That repulsed her.

She’d watched carefully as Thorvaldsen met Graham Ashby. Neither man showed any reaction. Clearly, two strangers meeting for the first time.

She checked her watch.

Time to begin.

Before she could attract everyone’s attention, Thorvaldsen approached and quietly said, “Did you read this morning’s
Le Parisien?”

“It’s waiting for me later today. The morning was busy.”

She watched as he reached into his suit pocket and removed a newspaper clipping. “Then you should see this. From page 12A. Top right column.”

She quickly scanned the piece, which reported a theft yesterday at the Hôtel des Invalides and its Musée de l’Armée. In one of the galleries being renovated, thieves had taken an item from the Napoleon exhibit.

A book.

The Merovingian Kingdoms 450–751 A.D
.

Significant only since it was specifically mentioned in the emperor’s will, but otherwise not all that valuable, which was one reason it had been left in the gallery. The museum staff was in the process of inventorying the remaining artifacts to ascertain if anything else had been stolen.

She stared at Thorvaldsen. “How could you possibly know that this may be relevant to me?”

“As I made clear at your château, I’ve studied you, and him, in great detail.”

Thorvaldsen’s warning from yesterday rang in her ears.

If I’m right about him, he’s going to tell you that he wasn’t able to retrieve whatever it is, that it wasn’t there, or some other such excuse
.

And that’s exactly what Graham Ashby had told her.

FIFTY

M
ALONE CLIMBED THROUGH AN OPENING IN THE FLOOR INTO
the lantern. Frigid air and sunshine greeted him as he stood out in the bright midday, at the top of the church. The view in all directions was stunning. The Seine wound a path through the city to his north, the Louvre rose toward the northeast, the Eiffel Tower less than two miles to the west.

Stephanie followed him up. The security man climbed up last, but remained on the ladder, only his head and shoulders visible.

“I decided to examine the cupola myself,” the man said. “Nothing was there, but I wanted a cigarette, so I climbed up here and saw that.”

Malone followed the man’s pointing finger and spotted a blue box, maybe four inches square, affixed to the lantern’s ceiling. A decorative brass railing guarded each of the cupola’s four archways. Carefully, he hoisted himself onto one of the railings and stood within a few inches of the box. He spotted a thin wire, perhaps a foot long, extending from one side, dangling in the breeze.

He stared down at Stephanie. “It’s a transponder. A beacon to draw that plane here.” He wrenched the unit free, held in place with strong adhesive. “Remote-activated. Has to be. But placing it up here took effort.”

“Not a problem for Peter Lyon. He’s accomplished tougher things than this.”

He hopped down, still holding the transponder, and clicked the unit off with a switch on its side. “That should complicate the matter for him.” He handed the device to Stephanie. “You realize this is way too easy.”

He saw that she agreed.

He stepped to another railing and gazed down to where streets converged at an empty plaza before the church’s southern façade. Christmas Day had siphoned away the vast majority of the daily traffic. So as not to alert anyone on the nearby Eiffel Tower, which offered an unobstructed view of the Invalides, no police had cordoned off the streets.

He spotted a light-colored van, speeding northward, down the Boulevard des Invalides. Moving unusually fast. The van whipped left onto Avenue de Tourville, which ran perpendicular to the Church of the Dome’s main entrance.

Stephanie noticed his interest.

The van slowed, veered right, then abandoned the street and clunked its way up a short set of stone steps toward the church’s main doors.

Stephanie found her radio.

The van cleared the steps and sped forward on a walkway between patches of winter grass. It skidded to a halt at the base of more steps.

The driver’s-side door opened.

Stephanie activated her radio, calling for attention, but before she could utter a word a man fled the vehicle and raced toward a car that had appeared on the street.

He jumped in and the car accelerated away.

Then the van exploded.

“L
ET ME WISH EACH OF YOU A HAPPY
C
HRISTMAS,” ELIZA SAID
, standing before the group. “So glad to have everyone here. I thought this locale would be excellent for today’s gathering. A little different for us. The tower itself does not open until one, so we have privacy until then.” She paused. “And we have a delicious lunch prepared.”

She was especially pleased that Robert Mastroianni had come, keeping the pledge he’d made on the plane.

“We have about an hour of business, then I thought a short trip to the top, before the crowds arrive, would be wonderful. It’s not often that one has the opportunity to be at the summit of the Eiffel Tower with so few people. I made sure that was included in our lease.”

Her suggestion met with a clear approval.

“We’re also privileged to have our final two members present.”

And she introduced Mastroianni and Thorvaldsen.

“It’s wonderful to have you both involved with our group. That brings us to eight, and I believe we’ll keep it at that number. Any objections?”

No one voiced a word.

“Excellent.”

She glanced around at the eager and attentive faces. Even Graham Ashby seemed exuberant. Had he lied to her about the Merovingian book?

Apparently so.

They’d met earlier, before the others arrived, and Ashby had again told her that the book had not been in its display case. She’d listened carefully, watched his every nuance, and concluded that either he was telling the truth or he was one of the finest liars she’d ever known.

But the book
had
been stolen. Paris’ leading newspaper had reported the theft. How did Thorvaldsen know so much? Was Ashby, indeed, a security leak? No time to answer those inquiries at the moment. She had to focus on the task at hand.

“I thought I would begin by telling you a story. Signore Mastroianni will have to excuse the repetition. I told him this same story a couple of days ago, but for the remainder of you it will be instructive. It’s about what happened to Napoleon while in Egypt.”

M
ALONE RUSHED FROM THE
C
HURCH OF THE
D
OME, THROUGH
its shattered main entrance. Stephanie followed. The van continued to burn at the foot of the stairs. Besides the glass doors of the entrance itself, little damage had occurred to the church. He realized that a van loaded with explosives this close should have obliterated the entire south façade, not to mention the nearby buildings housing the hospital and veterans’ center.

“That wasn’t much of a bomb,” he said. “More flash in the pan.”

Sirens blared in the distance. Fire and police were headed this way. Heat from the smoldering van warmed the chilly midday air.

“Could have been a malfunction?” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

Sirens grew louder.

Stephanie’s radio came to life. She answered the call, and Malone heard what the man on the other end reported.

“We have a live bomber in the Court of Honor.”

T
HORVALDSEN LISTENED AS
L
AROCQUE FINISHED HER EGYPTIAN
tale, explained Napoleon’s original concept of a Paris Club, and provided an overview of the four papyri. He noticed she hadn’t mentioned that he, too, had been previously told much of the information. Clearly, she wanted their conversations private. Her reading of the newspaper clipping had surely affected her.

How could it not?

Her reaction also told him something else. Ashby had not reported that, thanks to Stephanie and Cotton, he now possessed the book.

But what was the Magellan Billet doing in this business?

He’d tried to make contact with Malone during the night and all morning, but his friend had not answered his phone. He’d left messages, and none had been returned. Malone’s room at the Ritz went unused last night. And though his investigators had not spied the title of the book Stephanie gave to Ashby, he knew that it was the one from the Invalides.

What else could it be?

There had to be a good reason why Malone handed the book over to Stephanie, but he could not conceive of one.

Ashby sat calmly across the table, watching Larocque with attentive eyes. Thorvaldsen wondered if the other men and women sitting in this room realized what they’d actually signed on for. He doubted Eliza Larocque was solely interested in illicit profits. He sensed from their two meetings that she was a woman on a mission—determined to prove something, perhaps justify her family’s denied heritage. Or maybe rewrite history? Whatever
it
may be, it was more than simply making money. She’d assembled this group here, at the Eiffel Tower, on Christmas Day, for a reason.

So he told himself, for the moment, to forget about Malone and concentrate on the problem at hand.

M
ALONE AND
S
TEPHANIE RACED INTO THE
C
OURT OF
H
ONOR
and stared out into the elegant square. In the center stood a young woman. Maybe early thirties, long dark hair, wearing corduroy trousers and a faded red shirt beneath a black coat. One hand held an object.

Two security men, guns aimed, were positioned in the shadows of the opposite arcade, near the scaffolding where Malone had entered the museum yesterday. Another armed man stood to the left, at the archway that led out through the Invalides’ north façade, the iron gates closed.

“What the hell?” Stephanie muttered.

A man appeared behind them, entering the arcade from glass doors that led into the museum. He wore the protective vest and uniform of the French police.

“She appeared a few moments ago,” the man informed them.

“I thought you searched these buildings,” Stephanie said.

“Madame, there are hundreds of thousands of square meters of buildings here. We have been going as fast as we can, without drawing attention, per your instructions. If someone wanted to evade us, it would not be hard.”

He was right.

“What does she want?” Stephanie asked.

“She told the men she controlled a bomb and told them to stand their ground. I radioed you.”

Malone wanted to know, “Did she appear before or after the van exploded in front of the church.”

“Just after.”

“What are you thinking?” Stephanie asked him.

He stared at the woman. She swung around, looking at the various men who continued to train their weapons on her. Wisely, she kept the hand with the controller moving, too.

“Gardez vos distances et baissez les armes,”
she screamed.

Malone silently translated. Keep your distance and lower your weapons.

None of the men complied.

“
Il se pourrait que la bombe soit à l’hôpital. Ou à l’hospice. Fautil prendre le risque?”
she yelled, displaying the controller. The bomb could well be in the hospital. Or the pensioners’ home. Do you risk it?

The policeman standing beside them whispered, “We searched both of those buildings first. Carefully. There is nothing there.”

“Je ne le redirai pas,”
the woman called out. I shall not say it again.

Malone realized that it was Stephanie’s call on what the French would do, and she was not one to be bluffed.

Still.

“Lower the weapons,” she ordered.