The Medusa Amulet (51 page)

The clock continued to tick, the freezers—two of them—hummed, and the dishwasher gently rattled its plates, but there was no sign of further activity. Finally, Ascanio crept out from behind the rack, and after glancing out the kitchen door, came back and began to shake the remaining drops of gasoline onto the floor. When the jug
was empty, he tossed it out of sight under the sinks. He stashed his flashlight in his backpack, then, gripping the hilt of the
harpe
, he whispered to David,
“La Medusa?”
It was as if he was asking him if he wanted a beer.

“Yes,” David said, relieved to discover that his own voice was firm and determined. He wiped the grime from his glasses and looped the wire sidepieces firmly back behind his ears.
“La Medusa.”

Chapter 37

There had been no sign of the Maserati on the lonely country road, but several times Escher had come to junctions and turnoffs, and at each one he had to stop and look for fresh tire tracks. Once or twice, he followed what turned out to be dead ends—spurs that ended in vineyards or empty barns.

But whenever he came on a small store or gas station, he pulled in and asked if anyone had seen his friends go by, in their brand-new silver Maserati. Fortunately, it was the kind of car they were likely to remember. At one station, a teenager working the register said it had gone by about an hour ago and pointed toward the town of Cinq Tours.

Escher had purposely looked puzzled, as if he’d forgotten something, and said, “What’s in Cinq Tours?”

“Fuck if I know. You want to buy anything?” he said, anxious to return to his video game.

Escher bought a pack of Gitanes and got back in the car. He fished his flask out from under the seat, had a shot of whiskey to restore his spirits, and headed on. Twenty minutes later, he had to pull over to let a flock of sheep amble by. When he asked the shepherd about the car, the man said not a word, but jerked his staff toward Cinq Tours again. It was getting late, the sun setting, and none of this was going to get any easier after dark.

Escher drove the little Peugeot over an old stone bridge, past a millrace, and thought,
This is just the kind of picturesque crap tourists love
. Give him a city anytime. Up ahead, he saw the lights of a town square, with a white cross in its center. There was an inn on one side, with a couple of muddy trucks parked in front, but no Maserati. He pulled in next to the gas pump and got out.

There were a bunch of locals inside, in woolen shirts and work boots, and a TV was mounted on brackets over the bar. The evening news was on, but no one was watching. Escher went straight to the bar and asked the bartender about the car, and whether or not two men and a woman had recently stopped in together. The bartender said, “I just came on, but the owner’s been here all day.” He called back into the kitchen, and a harried woman, wiping her hands on an apron, popped out.

Escher repeated his question, and she said, “Oh yes, your friends were here, oh, maybe an hour or two ago. They had the rabbit stew—it’s very good tonight,” she added, cleaning a spot on the bar where she could serve him and setting up a wineglass with the other hand.

“Thank you,” he said, “but I need to catch up with them. They forgot something important. Do you have any idea where they were going from here?”

She shrugged, fast losing interest. “They had a map. Maybe the chateau, though God knows why.”

Escher had seen no signs for a chateau, nor any tour buses.

“Of course,” he said, nodding. “How would I get there?”

She was already halfway back to the kitchen. “Keep going. A few more kilometers. Pierre!” she hollered at someone inside. “What’s burning?”

Escher charged out to his car, sorry to hear that they had such a lead on him, but relieved to know that they had so little idea they were being tracked that they’d actually dawdled over bowls of stew. He steered his car around the monument and onto the road leading out of town, which he discovered was even worse here than it was coming in.

Night had fallen, and the moon was going in and out of the clouds racing in from the west. He followed the road, but wondered why there were no signs for the chateau that the innkeeper had mentioned. There were no signs for anything, in fact—just reflectors, popping up like red eyes in the darkness every so often. But at least there were no other turnoffs or intersecting roads they might have taken, and before long he spotted a gatehouse, where he stopped and got out of the car. There was no one in the house, no chateau as far as he could see, and a massive padlock on the gates. Getting back in the car, he continued on, hoping he might come across another entrance, but all he saw was a long stone wall that didn’t look easily breached. Just when he had decided to go back and take one more look at that gate—how hard would it be to shatter that padlock?—he noticed that the wall had given out, and in a space between two trees, a broken chain was lying on the ground. When he stopped and got out, he could see bits of a broken headlight, too. His own headlights didn’t penetrate very far into the woods, but he could see that there was some kind of old driveway here.
Is that where they went?

But why?

He drove his car far enough into the trees to be unseen from the road, turned it around, and left the key in the ignition for a quick getaway if he needed one. Then he got out with a flashlight in one hand and his Glock 9mm in the other. It was easy enough to follow the worn old trail, but he was careful to make as little noise as possible and to keep his beam close to the damp leaves and soil. Eventually, he could hear the sound of the river, and he could see something gleaming in the intermittent moonlight.

And damned if it wasn’t a silver Maserati. He hadn’t lost his touch, after all.

Crouching low, he crept up on the car and peered inside. There was no one in it.

But when he looked down toward the river, he saw a platform of some kind, like an old loading dock, and a wooden pier—at the end of which someone was smoking a glowing cigarette.

As he moved closer, he could see that it was the girl, Olivia, huddled in her dark coat, her hair tucked up under a knitted cap. This was too good to be true. Looking all around, he saw that she was alone. A sitting duck. If he’d had a reason to eliminate her, he couldn’t have asked for a better chance. But he had no such reason—not yet, anyway—and something told him that she might wind up being a valuable bargaining chip before the night was over.

Stepping softly onto the dock, he called out, “Catch any fish?”

She whirled around, the cigarette flying from her fingers.

He raised the Glock just enough for her to see it, and said, “Keep your hands out of your pockets and walk toward me.”

She hesitated.

“Now.” He raised the gun higher.

With her arms held away from her body, she walked toward him, and when she got close enough, he said, “Where are your friends?”

“What friends?”

“Please don’t spoil things. We’ve been getting along so well.”

“They’re … gone.”

“And they left you here, alone, in the woods?”

He was considering his options, and they were all good. She was completely at his mercy, and if he played his cards right, he might even be driving back to Paris in a new Maserati.

“Come on,” he said, waving her on with the gun. “Back to the car.”

She moved slowly, her body tense. She was thinking, he could tell, of sprinting into the woods.

“Don’t even think about running,” he said. “I was the best marksman in my class.”

When they reached the car, he told her to open the boot and stand back. When she did, he played his flashlight over the interior. But there weren’t any weapons there, nor did he see that damn valise David Franco had always been carrying. Of course, if it had fallen into his lap that easily, he might have thought a trap had been laid for him.

“Okay,” he said, closing the lid, “get in the car.”

He waited until she got in on the driver’s side, then slid into the passenger seat, with the gun still trained on her. “This could all have been avoided,” he said.

“If we’d let you steal the valise on the train?”

He gave her a cold smile. “Nice to know I’m remembered.” He opened the glove compartment and rummaged inside. “So, what time are David and your driver due back?” To encourage an honest answer, he touched the muzzle of the gun to her cheek.

“Get that thing out of my face,” she said with a snarl.

He had to give her that; she had guts to go along with her looks. “What time?” he repeated, glancing at the dashboard for the clock. There were so many goddamn dials and knobs and temperature controls that he couldn’t even locate it.

“Who are you, anyway?” she said. “Your accent sounds Swiss.”

“Swiss Guard,” he said, still proud of the credential, even if he had been dishonorably discharged.

Olivia scoffed. “You’re not working for the Pope tonight.”

“No,” he admitted, “I’m self-employed.”

She twiddled her fingers atop the steering wheel, as if she were waiting for a bad date to end, and Escher decided to move the car farther into the trees. When David and his friend came back, he wanted them to have to walk out into the clearing where he would have the drop on them.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I know a better place where we can wait for your friends. Put the car in gear, and drive out … slowly. If you touch the horn, I’ll kill you where you sit.”

Olivia did as she was told, her mind racing a mile a minute. She started the car, and the seat-belt warning bell began its rhythmic chime. She buckled up, and said, “You do it, too, or that damn thing will keep on ringing.”

A plan was already forming in her head. But could she possibly pull it off?

Without taking his eyes off her, Escher reached over and slung the seat belt across his chest.

Olivia fumbled around, pretending to look for the headlights switch. The car was already facing the road, as Ascanio had earlier instructed her to have it positioned. But the delay allowed her to hit the button on her armrest that lowered her own window, and then hit another that clicked the doors locked.

“Stop fucking around,” Escher said, flicking the gun barrel up from his waist.

“Give me a break,” she said. “I’ve never driven this thing before.”

She glanced up at the rearview mirror, tilting it to get a good look at what was right behind her.

And it was the loading dock and the wooden wharf beyond it.

As she took hold of the gearshift, Escher sat back in his seat, the gun down, and said, “Steer toward those trees up ahead.” Discreetly, and with one foot still on the brake, she put the car into reverse and undid her own seat belt. The chime started ringing again.

“Why is that damn bell ringing?” he said, but then his whole body jerked forward as she took her foot off the brake and slammed it down on the gas pedal, pushing it all the way to the floor. The car rocketed backwards. She held the wheel firmly to keep it on course, but the bumpy ground bucketed them around as the gun went off with a deafening blast, blowing a hole in the dashboard. She was barely able to steer the car across the dock before, with a stomach-dropping sensation, she felt it hurtle off the end of the wharf and into the empty air.

The splash, a second later, rocked the car like a seesaw, as water gushed in through her open window.

But Olivia was already scrambling out of it. Escher was struggling to unfasten his belt with one hand and jerking madly at his locked door with the other.

She was almost clear when she felt his hand groping at her legs, trying to drag her back inside, but all he got was one of her shoes.

The Loire was cold and the current was strong, but Olivia was able to wriggle free of the car as it spun slowly downstream. Its lone headlight was still shining in the water. As she squirmed out of her sodden coat and let it sink, she saw the panicked Swiss Guardsman, still entangled, gasping behind the windshield. The interior was almost filled by now.

The river was carrying her downstream, too, and she had to strike out hard for the riverbank. By the time she made it, she was several hundred yards from the wharf. She clambered up onto the rocks with one foot bare, shivering wildly, and looked back at the water. There was no sign of a swimmer, anywhere. All she could see, in fact, was the silver roof of the Maserati skimming along the moonlit surface, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake.