The Paris Vendetta (42 page)

Beretta in hand, he leaped out.

Cold rain stung his cheeks.

S
AM LIFTED THE WEAPON, HIS BLOODY FINGER FINDING THE
trigger. He was deep in the shadows, beyond where Henrik and Ashby lay. He turned just as Lyon jammed a fist into Meagan’s face, knocking her head against the base of one of the tombs, her body settling at a contorted angle on the floor.

Lyon searched for his gun.

The thump of rotors outside had subsided, which meant the chopper had found the plaza. Lyon must have realized that fact, too, as he grabbed his gun, stood, and darted toward freedom.

Sam fought the pain in his left shoulder, stepped from the dimness and raised his weapon. “That’s it.”

Lyon halted but did not turn around. “The third voice.”

“Don’t move.” He kept his gun trained on Lyon’s head.

“I imagine you’ll pull the trigger if I so much as twitch?” Lyon asked.

He was impressed at how Lyon clearly sensed the gun.

“You found the old man’s weapon.”

“That head of yours makes a wonderful target.”

“You sound young. Are you an American agent?”

“Shut up,” he made clear.

“How about I drop my weapon?”

The gun remained in the man’s right hand, barrel pointed to the floor.

“Let it fall.”

Lyon released his grip and the gun clanged away.

“That better?” Lyon asked, his back still to him.

Actually, it was.

“You’ve never shot a man before, have you?” Lyon asked.

“Shut the hell up,” Sam said.

“That’s what I thought. Let’s see if I am right. I’m going to leave. You won’t shoot an unarmed man, with his back to you.”

He was tired of the banter. “Turn around.”

Lyon ignored the command and took a step forward.

Sam fired into the floor just ahead of him. “The next bullet will be to your head.”

“I don’t think so. I saw you before I shot Ashby. You just watched. You stood there and did nothing.”

Lyon stole another step.

Sam fired again.

M
ALONE HEARD TWO SHOTS FROM INSIDE THE CHURCH
.

He and Stephanie darted for an opening in the plywood barrier that wrapped the church’s exterior, this one facing south. They had to find the doors everyone else had used to enter.

The three sets in front were closed tight.

Cold rain continued to slash his brow

T
HE SECOND BULLET RICOCHETED OFF THE FLOOR

“I told you to stop,” Sam yelled.

Lyon was right. He’d never shot anybody before. He’d been trained in the mechanics, but not in how to be mentally prepared for something so horrific. He yanked his thoughts into some semblance of disciplined ranks.

And readied himself.

Lyon moved again.

Sam advanced two steps and sighted his aim. “I swear to you. I’ll shoot you.” He kept his voice calm, though his heart raced.

Lyon crept ahead. “You can’t shoot me.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Maybe not. But I know fear.”

“Who says I’m afraid?”

“I hear it.”

Meagan stirred with a grunt of pain.

“There are those of us who can end a life without a thought and those, like yourself, who can’t bring themselves to it, unless provoked. And I am not provoking you.”

“You shot Henrik.”

Lyon stopped. “Ah. That’s his name. Henrik. Yes, I did. A friend?”

“Stay still.” He hated the element of a plea that laced his words.

Ten feet separated Lyon from the open doors.

His adversary eased another step forward, his movements as controlled as his voice.

“Not to worry,” Lyon said. “I won’t tell anyone you didn’t fire.”

Five feet to the threshold.

“P
APA
. C
OME TO US,”
C
AI CALLED OUT THROUGH A TREMULOUS BLUE
radiance
.

Strange and wonderful thoughts stole upon him. But Thorvaldsen couldn’t be talking to his wife and son. The conversation had to be the rambles of a mind in shock
.

“Sam needs me,” he called out
.

“You can’t help him, my darling,” Lisette made clear
.

A white curtain descended in a muted fall. The last remnants of his strength ebbed away.

He fought to breathe.

“It’s time, Papa. Time for us all to be together.”

S
AM WAS BEING ANTAGONIZED, HIS CONSCIENCE CHALLENGED
.

Clever, actually, on Lyon’s part. Goad a reaction, knowing that doing so could well prevent anything from happening. Lyon was apparently a student of character. But that didn’t necessarily make him right. And besides, Sam had ruined his career by defying authority.

Lyon kept approaching the door.

Three feet.

Two.

Screw you, Lyon.

He pulled the trigger.

M
ALONE SAW A BODY CAREER FORWARD, OUT AN OPEN SET OF
double doors and thud to the wet pavement with a splash.

He and Stephanie rushed up slick stone steps, and she rolled the body over. The face was that of the man from the boat, the one who’d abducted Ashby. Peter Lyon.

With a hole through his head.

Malone glanced up.

Sam appeared in the doorway, holding a gun, one shoulder bleeding.

“You okay?” Malone asked.

The younger man nodded, but a dire expression crushed all hope from Malone’s heart.

Sam stepped back. He and Stephanie rushed inside. Meagan was staggering to her feet and Stephanie came to her aid. Malone’s eyes focused on a body—Ashby—then another.

Thorvaldsen.

“We need an ambulance,” he called out.

“He’s dead,” Sam quietly said.

A chill ran across Malone’s shoulders and up his neck. He urged his legs into tentative, stumbling movements. His eyes told him that Sam was right.

He approached and knelt beside his friend.

Stickly blood clung to flesh and clothes. He checked for a pulse and found none.

He shook his head in utter sadness.

“We need to at least try to get him to a hospital,” he said again.

“It won’t matter,” Sam said.

Dread punctuated the statement, which Malone knew to be true. But he still couldn’t accept it. Stephanie helped Meagan, as they stepped close.

Thorvaldsen’s eyes stared out blindly.

“I tried to help,” Meagan said. “The crazy old fool … he was determined to kill Ashby. I tried … to get there—”

Choking sobs pulsed from her throat. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

Thorvaldsen had interjected himself into Malone’s life when he really needed a friend, appearing in Atlanta two years ago, offering a new beginning in Denmark, one he’d readily accepted and never regretted. Together they’d shared the past twenty-four months, but the past twenty-four hours had been so different.

We shall never speak again
.

The last words spoken between them.

His right hand clutched at his throat, as if trying to reach through to his heart.

Despair flooded his gut.

“That’s right, old friend,” he whispered. “We will never speak again.”

SEVENTY-SEVEN

PARIS
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30
2:40 PM

M
ALONE ENTERED
S
AINT
-D
ENIS BASILICA
. T
HE CHURCH HAD
remained closed to both the public and construction crews since Christmas Day, the entire site treated as a crime scene.

Three men had died here.

Two he could not give a rat’s ass about.

The third death had been more painful than he could have ever imagined.

His father had passed thirty-eight years ago. He’d been ten years old, the loss more loneliness than pain. Thorvaldsen’s death was different. Pain filled his heart with an unrelenting, deep regret.

They’d buried Henrik beside his wife and son in a private service at Christiangade. A handwritten note attached to his last will had expressly stated that he wanted no public funeral. His death, though, made news throughout the world and expressions of sympathy poured in. Thousands of cards and letters arrived from employees of his various companies, a glowing testament of how they felt about their employer. Cassiopeia Vitt had come. Meagan Morrison, too. Her face still carried a bruise and as she, Malone, Cassiopeia, Stephanie, Sam, and Jesper filled the grave, each one shoveling dirt onto a plain pine box, not a word had been uttered.

For the last few days he’d hidden inside his loneliness, remembering the past two years. Feelings had leaped and writhed within him, flickering between dream and reality. Thorvaldsen’s face was indelibly engraved in his mind, and he would forever recall every feature—the dark eyes under thick eyebrows, straight nose, flared nostrils, strong jaw, resolute chin. Forget the crooked spine. It meant nothing. That man had always stood straight and tall.

He glanced around at the lofty nave. Forms, figures, and designs produced an overwhelming effect of serenity, the church aglow with the radiant flood of light pouring in through stained-glass windows. He admired the various saintly figures, robed in dark sapphire, lighted with turquoise—heads and hands emerging from skillfully crafted sepia shadows through olive green, to pink, and finally to white. Hard not to have thoughts of God, nature’s beauty, and lives gone, ended too soon.

Like Henrik’s.

But he told himself to focus on the task.

He found the paper in his pocket and unfolded it.

Professor Murad had told him exactly what to search for—the clues Napoleon concocted, then left for his son. He began with Psalm 135, verse 2.
You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God
.

Then Psalm 2, verse 8.
I will make the nations your inheritance
.

Typical Napoleonic grandeur.

Next came Psalm 142, verse 4.
Look to my right and see
.

The precise starting point—from where to look right and see—had been difficult to determine. Saint-Denis was massive, a football field long and nearly half that wide. But the next verse solved that dilemma. Psalm 52, verse 8.
But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God
.

Murad’s quick class on Psalms had made Malone think of one that more than aptly described the past week. Psalm 144, verse 4.
Man is like a breath, his days are like a fleeting shadow
. He hoped Henrik had found peace.

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God
.

He glanced right and spotted a monument. Designed in a Gothic tradition, elements of an ancient-style temple sprang from its sculpture, the upper platform decorated with praying figures. Two stone effigies, portrayed in the last moments of their life, lay flat atop. Its base was figured with Italian-inspired reliefs.

He approached, his rubber-soled shoes both sure and silent. Immediately to the right of the monument, in the flooring, he spotted a marble slab with a solitary olive tree carved into the marker. A notation explained that the grave was from the 15th century. Murad had told him that its occupant was supposedly Guillaume du Chastel. Charles VII had so loved his servant that he’d bestown on him the honor of being buried in Saint-Denis.

Psalm 63, verse 9, was next.
They who seek my life will be destroyed, they will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals
.

He’d already received permission from the French government to do whatever was necessary to solve the riddle. If that meant destroying something within the church, then so be it. Most of it was 19th and 20th century repairs and reproductions anyway. He’d asked for some tools and equipment to be left inside, anticipating what may be required, and saw them near the west wall.

He walked across the nave and retrieved a sledgehammer.

When Professor Murad related to him the clues, the possibility that what they sought lay below the church became all too real. Then, when he’d read the verses, he was sure.

He walked back to the olive tree carved in the floor.

The final clue, Napoleon’s last message to his son. Psalm 17, verse 2.
May my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right
.

He swung the hammer.

The marble did not break, but his suspicions were confirmed. The hollow sound told him that solid stone did not lie beneath. Three more blows and the rock cracked. Another two and marble crashed away into a black rectangle that opened beneath the church.

A chilled draft rushed upward.

Murad had told him how Napoleon, in 1806, halted the desecration of Saint-Denis and proclaimed it, once again, an imperial burial place. He’d also restored the adjacent abbey, established a religious order to oversee the basilica’s restoration, and commissioned architects to repair the damages. It would have been an easy matter for him to adjust the site to his personal specifications. How this hole in the floor had remained secret was fascinating, but perhaps the chaos of post-Napoleonic France was the best explanation, as nothing and nobody remained stable once the emperor had been ensconced on St. Helena.

He discarded the sledgehammer and retrieved a coil of rope and a flashlight. He shone the light into the void and noted that it was more a chute, about three feet by four, that extended straight down about twenty feet. Remnants of a wooden ladder lay scattered on the rock floor. He’d studied the basilica’s geography and knew that a crypt once extended below the church—parts of it were still there, open to the public—but nothing had ever stretched this far toward the west façade. Perhaps long ago it had, and Napoleon had discovered the oddity.

At least that’s what Murad thought.

He looped the rope around the base of one of the columns a few feet away and tested its strength. He tossed the remainder of the rope into the chute, followed by the sledgehammer, which might be needed. He clipped the lamp to his belt. Using his rubber soles and the rope, he eased down the chute, into the black earth.

At the bottom he aimed the light at rock the shade of driftwood. The chilly, dusty environs extended for as far as the beam would shine. He knew that Paris was littered with tunnels. Miles and miles of underground passages hewed from limestone that had been hauled, block by block, to the surface, the city literally built from the ground up.

He groped for the contours, the crevices, the protruding shards, and followed the twisting passage for maybe two hundred feet. A smell similar to warm peaches, which he recalled from his Georgia childhood, made his stomach queasy. Grit crunched beneath his feet. Only cold seemed to occupy this bareness, easy to become lost in the silence.

He assumed he was well clear of the basilica, east of the building itself, perhaps beneath the expanse of trees and grass that extended past the nearby abbey, toward the Seine.

Ahead he spotted a shallow recess in the right-hand wall. Rubble filled the passageway where somebody had pounded their way through the limestone.

He stopped and searched the scene with his light. Etched into the rough surface of one of the rocky chunks was a symbol, one he recognized from the writing Napoleon had left in the Merovingian book, part of the fourteen lines of scribble.

Someone had propped the stone atop the pile like a marker, one that had patiently waited underground for more than two hundred years. In the exposed recess he spied a metal door, swung half open. An electrical cable snaked a path out the doorway, turned ninety degrees, then disappeared into the tunnel ahead.

Glad to know he’d been right.

Napoleon’s clues led the way down. Then the etched symbol showed exactly where things awaited.

He shone the light inside, found an electrical box, and flipped the switch.

Yellow, incandescent fixtures strewn across the floor revealed a chamber maybe fifty by forty feet, with a ten-foot ceiling. He counted at least three dozen wooden chests and saw that several were hinged open.

Inside, he spied a neat assortment of gold and silver bars. Each bore a stamped
N
topped by an imperial crown, the official mark of the Emperor Napoleon. Another held gold coins. Two more contained silver plate. Three were filled to the brim with what appeared to be precious stones. Apparently the emperor had chosen his hoard with great care, opting for hard metal and jewels.

He surveyed the room and allowed his eyes to examine the ancient and abandoned possessions of a crushed empire.

Napoleon’s cache.

“You must be Cotton Malone,” a female voice said.

He turned. “And you must be Eliza Larocque.”

The woman who stood in the doorway was tall and stately, with an obvious leonine quality about her that she did little to conceal. She wore a knee-length wool coat, classy and elegant. Beside her stood a thin, gnarled man with a Spartan vigor. Both faces were wiped clean of expression.

“And your friend is Paolo Ambrosi,” Malone said. “Interesting character. An ordained priest who served briefly as papal secretary to Peter II, but disappeared after that papacy abruptly ended. Rumors abounded about his—” Malone paused. “—morality. Now here he is.”

Larocque seemed impressed. “You don’t seem surprised that we are here.”

“I’ve been expecting you.”

“Really? I’ve been told that you were quite an agent.”

“I had my moments.”

“And, yes, Paolo performs certain tasks that I require from time to time,” Larocque said. “I thought it best he stay close to me, after all that happened last week.”

“Henrik Thorvaldsen is dead because of you,” Malone declared.

“How is that possible? I never knew the man until he interjected himself in my business. He left me at the Eiffel Tower and I never saw him again.” She paused. “You never said. How did you know I’d be here today?”

“There are people smarter than you in this world.”

He saw she did not appreciate the insult.

“I’ve been watching,” he said. “You found Caroline Dodd faster than I thought. How long did it take to learn about this place?”

“Miss Dodd was quite forthcoming. She explained the clues, but I decided to find another way beneath the basilica. I assumed there were other paths in and out, and I was right. We found the correct tunnel a few days ago, unsealed the chamber, and tapped into an electrical line not far from here.”

“And Dodd?”

Larocque shook her head. “She reminded me far too much of Lord Ashby’s treachery, so Paolo dealt with her.”

A gun appeared in Ambrosi’s right hand.

“You still have not answered my question,” Larocque said.

“When you left your residence earlier,” Malone said. “I assumed you were coming here. Time to claim your prize, right? You’ve been working on some contract help to transport this fortune out of here.”

“Which has been difficult,” she said. “Luckily, there are people in this world who will do anything for money. We’ll have to break all this down into smaller, sealed crates, then hand-carry it out of here.”

“You’re not afraid they’ll talk?”

“The crates will be sealed before they arrive.”

A slight nod of his head acknowledged the wisdom of her foresight.