The Paris Vendetta (5 page)

SEVEN

DENMARK, 1:50 AM

H
ENRIK
T
HORVALDSEN CHECKED THE CLIP AND MADE SURE THE
weapon was ready. Satisfied, he gently laid the assault rifle on the banquet table. He sat in the manor’s great hall, beneath an oak beam ceiling, surrounded by armor and paintings that conveyed the look and feel of a noble seat. His ancestors had each sat at the same table, dating back nearly four hundred years.

Christmas was in less than three days.

What was it, nearly thirty years ago that Cai had climbed atop the table?

“You must get down,” his wife demanded. “Immediately, Cai.”

The boy scampered across the long expanse, his open palms threading the tops of high-backed chairs on either side. Thorvaldsen watched as his son avoided a gilded centerpiece and raced ahead, leaping into his outstretched arms
.

“You’re both impossible,” his wife said. “Totally impossible.”

“Lisette, it’s Christmas. Let the boy play.” He held him close in his lap. “He’s only seven. And the table has been here a long time.”

“Papa, will Nisse come this year?”

Cai loved the mischievous elf who, legend said, wore gray woolen clothes, a bonnet, red stockings, and white clogs. He dwelled in the lofts of old farmhouses and enjoyed playing jokes
.

“To be safe,” the boy said, “we’ll need some porridge.”

Thorvaldsen smiled. His own mother had told him the same tale of how a bowl of porridge, left out on Christmas Eve, kept Nisse’s jokes within limits. Of course, that was before the Nazis slaughtered nearly every Thorvaldsen, including his father
.

“We shall have porridge,” Lisette said. “Along with roasted goose, red cabbage, browned potatoes, and cinnamon rice pudding.”

“With the magic almond?” Cai asked, wonder in his voice
.

His wife stroked the boy’s thin brown hair. “Yes, my precious. With the magic almond. And if you find it, there will be a prize.”

Both he and Lisette always made sure Cai found the magic almond. Though he was a Jew, Thorvaldsen’s father and wife had been Christian, so the holiday had found a place in his life. Every year he and Lisette had decorated an aromatic fir with homemade wood and straw baubles and, per tradition, never allowed Cai to see their creation until after Christmas Eve dinner, when they all gathered and sang carols.

My, how he’d enjoyed Christmas.

Until Lisette died.

Then, two years ago, when Cai was murdered, the holiday lost all meaning. The past three, including this one, had been torture. He found himself every year sitting here, at the end of the table, wondering why life had been so cruel.

This year, though, was different.

He reached out and caressed the gun’s black metal. Assault rifles were illegal in Denmark, but laws did not interest him.

Justice.

That’s what he wanted.

He sat in silence. Not a light burned anywhere in Christiangade’s forty-one rooms. He actually relished the thought of a world devoid of illumination. There his deformed spine would go unnoticed. His leathery face would never be seen. His bushy silver hair and bristly eyebrows would never require trimming. In the dark, only a person’s senses mattered.

And his were finely tuned.

His eyes searched the dark hall as his mind kept remembering.

He could see Cai everywhere. Lisette, too. He was a man of immeasurable wealth, power, and influence. Few heads of state, or imperial crowns, refused his requests. His porcelain, and reputation, remained among the finest in the world. He’d never seriously practiced Judaism, but he was a devoted friend of Israel. Last year he’d risked everything to stop a fanatic from destroying that blessed state. Privately, he supported charitable causes around the world with millions of the family’s euros.

But he was the last Thorvaldsen.

Only the most distant of relatives remained, and damn few of them. This family, which had endured for centuries, was about to end.

But not before justice was administered.

He heard a door open, then footsteps echoed across the black hall.

A clock somewhere announced two AM.

The footsteps stopped a few meters away and a voice said, “The sensors just tripped.”

Jesper had been with him a long time, witnessing all of the joy and pain—which, Thorvaldsen knew, his friend had felt as well.

“Where?” he asked.

“Southeast quadrant, near the shore. Two trespassers, headed this way.”

“You don’t need to do this,” he said to Jesper.

“We need to prepare.”

He smiled, glad his old friend could not see him. For the past two years he’d battled near-constant waves of conflicting emotion, involving himself with quests and causes that, only temporarily, allowed him to forget that pain, anguish, and sorrow had become his companions.

“What of Sam?” he asked.

“No further word since his earlier call. But Malone called twice. I allowed the phone to ring, as you instructed.”

Which meant Malone had done what he’d needed him to do.

He’d baited this trap with great care. Now he intended to spring it with equal precision.

He reached for the rifle.

“Time to welcome our guests.”

EIGHT

E
LIZA SAT FORWARD IN HER SEAT
. S
HE NEEDED TO COMMAND
Robert Mastroianni’s complete attention.

“Between 1689 and 1815, England was at war for sixty-three years. That’s one out of every two in combat—the off years spent preparing for more combat. Can you imagine what that cost? And that was not atypical. It was actually common during that time for European nations to stay at war.”

“Which, you say, many people actually profited from?” Mastroianni asked.

“Absolutely. And winning those wars didn’t matter, since every time a war was fought governments incurred more debt and financiers amassed more privileges. It’s like what drug companies do today. Treating the symptoms of a disease, never curing it, always being paid.”

Mastroianni finished the last of his chocolate tart. “I own stock in three of those pharmaceutical concerns.”

“Then you know what I just said is true.”

She stared him down with hard eyes. He returned the glare but seemed to decide not to engage her.

“That tart was marvelous,” he finally said. “I confess to a sweet tooth.”

“I brought you another.”

“Now you’re bribing me.”

“I want you to be a part of what is about to happen.”

“Why?”

“Men like you are rare commodities. You have great wealth, power, influence. You’re intelligent. Innovative. As with the rest of us, you are certainly tired of sharing great portions of your results with greedy, incompetent governments.”

“So what is about to happen, Eliza? Explain the mystery.”

She could not go that far. Not yet. “Let me answer by explaining more about Napoleon. Do you know much about him?”

“Short fellow. Wore a funny hat. Always had a hand stuck inside his coat.”

“Did you know more books have been written about him than any other historical figure, save perhaps Jesus Christ.”

“I never realized you were such the historian.”

“I never realized you were so obstinate.”

She’d known Mastroianni a number of years, not as a friend, more as a casual business associate. He owned, outright, the world’s largest aluminum plant. He was also heavy into auto manufacturing, aircraft repair, and, as he’d noted, health care.

“I’m tired of being stalked,” he said. “Especially by a woman who wants something, yet can’t tell me what or why.”

She decided to do some ignoring of her own. “I like what Flaubert once wrote.
History is prophecy, looking backwards.”

He chuckled. “Which perfectly illustrates your peculiar French view. I’ve always found it irritating how the French resolve all their conflicts on the battlefields of yesterday. It’s as if some glorious past will provide the precise solution.”

“That irritates the Corsican half of me sometimes as well. But occasionally, one of those former battlefields can be instructive.”

“Then, Eliza, do tell me of Napoleon.”

Only for the fact that this brash Italian was the perfect addition to her club did she continue. She could not, and would not, allow pride to interfere with careful planning.

“He created an empire not seen since the days of Rome. Seventy million people were under his personal rule. He was a man at ease with both the reek of gunpowder and the smell of parchment. He actually proclaimed
himself
emperor. Can you imagine? A mere thirty-five years old, he snubs the pope and places the imperial crown upon his own head.” She allowed her words to take root, then said, “Yet for all that ego, Napoleon built, specifically for himself, only two memorials, both small theaters that no longer exist.”

“What of all the buildings and monuments he erected?”

“Not one was created in his honor, or bears his name. Most were not even completed till long after his death. He even specifically vetoed the renaming of the Place de la Concorde to Place Napoleon.”

She saw that Mastroianni was learning something. Good. It was about time.

“In Rome he ordered the Forum and Palatine cleared of rubble and the Pantheon restored, never adding any plaque to say that he’d done such. In countless other cities across Europe he ordered improvement after improvement, yet nothing was ever memorialized to him. Isn’t that strange?”

She watched as Mastroianni cleared his palate of chocolate with a swish of bottled water.

“Here’s something else,” she said. “Napoleon refused to go into debt. He despised financiers, and blamed them for many of the French Republic’s shortfalls. Now he didn’t mind confiscating money, or extorting it, or even depositing money in banks, but he refused to borrow. In that, he was totally different from all who came before him, or after.”

“Not a bad policy,” he muttered. “Leeches, every one of the bankers.”

“Would you like to be rid of them?”

She saw that prospect seemed pleasing, but her guest kept silent.

“Napoleon agreed with you,” she said. “He flatly rejected the American offer to buy New Orleans and sold them, instead, the entire Louisiana Territory, using the millions from that sale to build his army. Any other monarch would have kept the land and borrowed money, from the leeches, for war.”

“Napoleon has been dead a long time,” Mastroianni said. “And the world has changed. Credit
is
today’s economy.”

“That’s not true. You see, Robert, what Napoleon learned from those papyri I told you about is still relevant today.”

She saw that she’d clearly tickled his interest as she drew close to her point.

“But of course,” he said, “I cannot learn of that until I agree to your proposal?”

She sensed control of the situation shifting her way. “I can share one other item. It may even help you decide.”

“For a woman I do not like, who offered me such a comfortable flight home, fed me the finest beef, served the best champagne, and, of course, the chocolate tart, how can I refuse?”

“Again, Robert, if you don’t like me, why are you here?”

His eyes focused tight on hers. “Because I’m intrigued. You know that I am. Yes, I’d like to be rid of bankers and governments.”

She stood from her seat, stepped aft to a leather sofa, and opened her Louis Vuitton day satchel. Inside rested a small leather-bound volume, first published in 1822.
The Book of Fate, Formerly in the Possession of and Used by Napoleon
.

“This was given to me by my Corsican grandmother, who received it from her grandmother.” She laid the thin tome on the table. “Do you believe in oracles?”

“Hardly.”

“This one is quite unique. It was supposedly found in a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, by one of Napoleon’s
savants
. Written in hieroglyphs, it was given to Napoleon. He consulted a Coptic priest, who translated it orally to Napoleon’s secretary, who then converted it into German for secrecy, who then gave it to Napoleon.” She paused. “All lies, of course.”

Mastroianni chuckled. “Why is that not surprising?”

“The original manuscript was indeed found in Egypt. But unlike the papyri I mentioned earlier—”

“Which you failed to tell me about,” he said.

“That comes with a commitment.”

He smiled. “A lot of mystery to your Paris Club.”

“I have to be careful.” She pointed to the oracle on the table. “The original text was written in Greek, probably part of the lost library at Alexandria. Hundreds of thousands of similar scrolls were stored in that library, all gone by the 5th century after Christ. Napoleon did indeed have this transcribed, but not into German. He couldn’t read that language. He was actually quite poor with foreign languages. Instead, he had it converted to Corsican. He did keep this oraculum with him, at all times, in a wooden cabinet. That cabinet had to be discarded after the disastrous Battle of Leipzig in 1815, when his empire first began to crumble. It is said that he risked his life trying to retrieve it. A Prussian officer eventually found and sold it to a captured French general, who recognized it as a possession of the emperor. The general planned to return it, but died before he could. The cabinet eventually made it to Napoleon’s second wife, Empress Marie Louise, who did not join her husband in his forced exile on St. Helena. After Napoleon’s death, in 1821, a man named Kirchenhoffer claimed that the empress gave the manuscript to him for publication.”

She parted the book and carefully thumbed though the opening pages.

“Notice the dedication.
HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS, THE EX-EMPRESS OF FRANCE
.”

Mastroianni seemed not to care.

“Would you like to try it?” she asked.

“What will it do?”

“Predict your future.”

NINE

M
ALONE’S INITIAL ESTIMATE REGARDING
S
AM
C
OLLINS HAD
been correct. Early thirties, with an anxious face that projected a mix of innocence and determination. Thin, reddish blond hair was cut short and matted to his head like feathers. He spoke with the same trace of an accent Malone had first detected—Australian, or maybe New Zealand—but his diction and syntax were all American. He was antsy and cocky, like a lot of thirty-somethings, Malone himself once included, who wanted to be treated like they were fifty.

One problem.

All of them, himself once again included, failed to possess those extra twenty years of mistakes.

Sam Collins had apparently tossed away his Secret Service career, and Malone knew that if you failed with one security branch, rarely did another extend a hand.

He wheeled the Mazda around another tight curve as the coastal highway veered inland into a darkened, forested expanse. All of the land for the next few miles, between the road and sea, was owned by Henrik Thorvaldsen. Four of those acres belonged to Malone, presented unexpectantly by his Danish friend a few months ago.

“You’re not going to tell me why you’re here, in Denmark, are you?” he asked Collins.

“Can we deal with Thorvaldsen? I’m sure he’ll answer all of your questions.”

“More of Henrik’s instructions?”

A hesitation, then, “That’s what he said to tell you—if you asked.”

He resented being manipulated, but knew that was Thorvaldsen’s way. To learn anything meant he’d have to play along.

He slowed the car at an open gate and navigated between two white cottages that served as the entrance to Christiangade. The estate was four centuries old, built by a 17th-century Thorvaldsen ancestor who smartly converted tons of worthless peat into fuel to produce fine porcelain. By the 19th century Adelgate Glasvaerker had been declared the Danish royal glass provider. It still held that title, its glassware reigning supreme throughout Europe.

He followed a grassy drive lined by trees bare to winter. The manor house was a perfect specimen of Danish baroque—three stories of brick-encased sandstone, topped with a curving copper roof. One wing turned inland, the other faced the sea. Not a light burned in any window. Normal for the middle of the night.

But the front door hung half open.

That was unusual.

He parked, stepped from the car, and walked toward the entrance, gun in hand.

Collins followed.

Inside, the warm air reeked with a scent of boiled tomatoes and a lingering cigar. Familiar smells for a house that he’d visited often during the past two years.

“Henrik,” Collins called out.

He glared at the younger man and whispered, “Are you a complete idiot?”

“They need to know we’re here.”

“Who’s
they?”

“The door was open.”

“Precisely my point. Shut up and stay behind me.”

He eased across polished flagstones to the hardwood of a nearby corridor and followed a wide hall, past the conservatory and billiard parlor, to a ground-floor study, the only light courtesy of a three-quarter winter moon stealing past the windows.

He needed to check something.

He threaded his way through the furniture to an elaborate gun cabinet, fashioned of the same rich maple that encased the rest of the salon. He knew that at least a dozen hunting rifles, along with several handguns, a crossbow, and three assault rifles were always displayed.

The beveled glass door hung open.

One of the automatic weapons was gone, as were two hunting rifles. He reached for one of the pistols. A Welby target revolver—blued finish, six-inch barrel. He knew how Thorvaldsen admired the weapon. None had been made since 1945. A bitter scent of oil filled his nostrils. He checked the cylinder. Six shots. Fully loaded. Thorvaldsen never displayed an empty gun.

He handed it to Collins and mouthed,
You can use it?

The younger man nodded.

They left the room through the nearest doorway.

Familiar with the house’s geography, he followed another corridor until he came to an intersection. Doors framed with elaborate molding lined both sides of the hall, spaced sufficiently apart to indicate that the rooms beyond were spacious.

At the far end loomed a pedimented entrance. The master bedchamber.

Thorvaldsen hated climbing stairs, so he’d long ago occupied the ground floor.

Malone stepped to the door, slowly turned the knob, and pushed the slab of carved wood open without a sound.

He peered inside and inventoried the silhouettes of tall, heavy furniture, the drapes open to the silvery night. A rug filled the center, its edge a good five paces from the doorway. He spied the duvets on the bed and noticed a mound, signaling where someone may be sleeping.

But something was wrong.

Movement to the right caught his attention.

A form appeared in a doorway.

Light flooded the room.

He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the burning rays and caught sight of Thorvaldsen, a rifle muzzle pointed straight at him.

Jesper appeared from the walk-in closet, gun leveled.

Then he saw the bodies.

Two men, lying on the floor at the far side of the bed.

“They thought me stupid,” Thorvaldsen said.

He did not particularly enjoy being caught in a trap. The mouse never did have much fun. “Is there a reason I’m here?”

Thorvaldsen lowered his weapon. “You’ve been away.”

“Personal business.”

“I spoke to Stephanie. She told me. I’m sorry, Cotton. That had to be hell.”

He appreciated his friend’s concern. “It’s over and done with.”

The Dane settled onto the bed and yanked back the covers, revealing only pillows beneath. “Unfortunately, that kind of thing is never done with.”

Malone motioned at the corpses. “Those the same two who attacked the bookshop?”

Thorvaldsen shook his head, and he spotted pain in Thorvaldsen’s tired eyes.

“It’s taken me two years, Cotton. But I finally found my son’s murderers.”