"What is the meaning of this?" the attendant asked.
The scene before him couldn't have been worse. Three tourists were huddled around the center of the floor in Napoléon's library. They were on their knees next to a hole that had, he assumed, been cut into the antique wood. There was a little wooden box next to them.
The second the new voice entered the room, Adriana reacted with pure instinct, shoving the parchment into the back of her pants. She'd flipped her shirt down over her waist to conceal the page, though it was up in the air if she'd acted fast enough or not.
"We, um, well…." Tommy couldn't find the right words, none that he believed would satisfy the attendant.
"We're historians," Sean blurted. "Archaeologists. Tell him, Tommy. We're with the—"
"Sorry," Tommy interrupted.
Sean cast his friend a wary glance, wondering why he'd cut him off, but he let Tommy continue.
"We just noticed that there was something odd in the floor. I took the liberty of rolling back the rug and moving that table out of the way to see what it was. I'd hate for the foundation to be sinking or something. Could ruin this entire wing of the palace."
He waved his hand around as if displaying the library to a new visitor.
The man shook his head, and a stern look of disapproval washed over his face. Bodmer was lost, uncertain what he should do.
He put his hands out at his sides, as if seeking the answer from the other three, but there was nothing they could say or do. They'd been caught red-handed.
18
PARIS
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Sean said in an almost cheerful voice. "I mean, think about how many times we've been in situations like this over the years and never got caught."
Tommy let out a pronounced “Pfft.” He tried his best to feign offense. "You make it sound like we're criminals."
"Well, I mean, we did sort of vandalize a historic site that's gone untouched for the last few hundred years. Kind of a big deal when you think about it like that."
"You're not helping. You know that, right?"
Sean chuckled and stepped over to the white bars of their holding cell. He wondered why some jails painted their bars white. Best he could figure was that there was some kind of psychology behind it, but what that was he didn't know.
The corridor beyond was empty save for a guard standing at an electronically locked door to their right, about fifteen feet away.
Tommy sat on a bench with his face in his hands, fingers tickling the hair at the front of his head.
"Sorry," Sean said after a moment of thought. "I got sloppy back there. I should have been more careful."
"Yeah, well that goes for both of us."
"I know, but that's kind of my thing. I'm good at that stuff. At least, I used to be."
"You still are, man. I just hope this doesn't tarnish my reputation or hurt the agency. Hopefully, we can keep this out of the media."
"I can…pull a string to make sure that happens," Sean said.
Tommy looked up through the gaps between his fingers. "Emily?"
"Worth a shot," Sean shrugged. "Although, I think she's probably tired of bailing me out of spots like this. I mean, I've been arrested before, but not for vandalizing a historic site. Certainly not one that was the library of the former emperor of France."
Tommy snorted a forced laugh. "Yeah, no kidding."
"I already called Emily earlier. Had to leave a message. She'll get us out of this mess. I'm sure of it."
"I didn't call anyone," Tommy admitted. Truth was, he didn't know anyone else who could help them out of this situation. His parents might have been of some use, but they were in California playing golf. He doubted he could reach them, and even if he could they didn't have much pull with the French government. Most of Tommy’s connections were through Sean. So there was no need to make the same call twice.
Sean spun around, suddenly struck with an idea.
"Word scramble," he blurted, bordering on incoherent.
"What?"
"The word scramble," Sean said. "I need something to write with."
"Pretty sure they're not going to give us a pen. That's a weapon in this place."
Sean already knew his friend was correct and had no intention of asking for a pen or pencil from the guard looming at the end of the corridor.
Sean's eyes darted around until they came to rest on a piece of ivory soap on the sink. He stalked over to the basin and picked it up. It was still dry. Then he turned to the grayish-blue wall and started writing on it with the edge of the soap.
Tommy's head lifted in curiosity as he watched his friend work.
It took only a few seconds before Sean was done.
"The letters from the parchment," Tommy realized.
"Yes. I memorized them."
"Okay…that's great, but it's not going to do us much good in here. Even if we figure it out, we're stuck in a French prison."
"Jail," Sean corrected. "A prison would be way worse than this. You might as well consider this place a Holiday Inn."
"Fine, whatever. We're stuck is the point."
"Indeed we are, my pessimistic friend."
"You don't have to sound so jovial about it."
Sean snickered. "Well, there is a silver lining."
"Oh? What's that?"
"To start, the people who were following us can't get to us in here."
"Unless, of course, they have connections with the guards or the cops. Which they probably do."
"Why you gotta be Johnny Rain Cloud?" Sean asked. "I doubt that whoever was following us has connections to the cops. Even if they do, what are they going to do, kill us while we're in custody?"
Tommy's eyebrows lifted slightly, and his lips slightly pursed. He chuckled.
"No," Sean quickly added. "They're not. And besides, just because we're in here doesn't mean our entire team is."
Tommy's face twisted into a frown. "Adriana is detained, too, you know. They just took her to a women's cell."
"I know that," Sean said, giving his friend the best Thanks, Captain Obvious face he could. “But the three of us aren't our entire team, are we?"
“The kids.”
"That’s right: The kids are back in Atlanta. If we can figure out what this code, or whatever it is, means"—he pointed at the scrambled soap letters on the wall—"we might be able to send them to the next spot and stay ahead of the bad guys."
"Whoever they are."
"Exactly." Sean beamed with pride as though he'd just solved the fabled unified field theory.
"You want Tara and Alex to go out in the field where they could get hurt or killed?" Tommy sounded skeptical. "I wouldn't feel good about that."
"Okay, first, it wouldn't be their first time in the field," Sean countered. "Second, they handled themselves well enough in Japan that one time."
"True."
"And I trained them myself. They're more than capable of taking care of themselves, and besides, if you're right about the people who are following us, the ones probably responsible for the death of Cardinal Jarllson, they're more than likely watching the doors of this jail as we speak. There's no way they would figure on a—"
"Hail Mary like this?" Tommy finished.
"I was going to say an audible, but yeah.”
"It's a long shot. So, it's a Hail Mary."
"Fine, whatever. The point is, if we can figure out where they need to go next, you still have a call to make. You can tell them exactly where to go and what to look for."
"Yeah, but what if we get out of here in the next few hours?"
"Then there will be more of us to help out. Like one big happy family."
Tommy chuckled and shook his head. "Okay, fine. We'll call the kids. But first, we need to figure out just what in the world all those letters mean. I'm still surprised you remembered all of them."
"It's only eight letters, Schultzie," Sean said plainly.
Sean's memory bordered on eideti
c, though certain things, like people's names, escaped him more often than he liked or cared to admit. It was a glaring and otherwise infuriating exception to his considerable talent. When it came to numbers and letters, however, he could memorize often complex or lengthy words or numerical values within seconds. He also possessed the ability to recall odd details, something that had proved useful when he was writing essays in college. His professors were always impressed that he knew things about certain events or people that no one else did.
"I guess," Tommy resigned. "So, what do you think it spells?"
Sean hadn't taken his eyes off the string of letters for the last couple of minutes. He'd been working through it in his mind while carrying on the discussion with his friend.
"The only vowel is the letter O," he commented. "That's odd."
"Must be a name."
Sean resisted a witty reply and simply nodded. "Yes. That's what I was thinking. A place, but where?"
In his mind, Sean saw the letters moving, rearranging themselves in different patterns. Sometimes they formed two words, but nothing ever made any sense. He continued shuffling the letters around his head, shaking off the nonsensical combinations, and frustrated by the few discernible words that had no bearing on the mystery.
"Wood," Tommy blurted suddenly.
"What?"
"Oh, that's it. Longwood," Tommy added. "Longwood."
"Okay…so it's a song by Green Day?" Sean made no effort to hide his skepticism this time.
"Yes. We found a clue to a Green Day song in Napoléon's library."
"All right, big guy. Settle down. So, let's say it's Longwood. What does that mean for us?"
Tommy stood up and paced the cell for a minute. He put his hands on his hips as he stalked back and forth, pausing momentarily to rest his chin on his thumb to think before picking up the movement once more.
When the answer hit him, he snapped his fingers. "That's it!" He made the proclamation slightly louder than he intended.
Sean tilted his head toward the bars and looked around the corner. The guard appeared to be unfazed by the abrupt noise as he stood there looking at his phone, something Sean was certain to be a breach of security protocol.
"What's it?" Sean asked in a hushed tone he meant to be a hint to his suddenly boisterous friend.
"Longwood," Tommy exclaimed again, more reservedly this time.
"Yes, we established that. What about it?"
"Napoléon's exile," Tommy said. The words weren't coming as fast as the thoughts, and his mouth couldn't keep up. "Napoléon was exiled on the island of Saint Helena. His residence there, after the first few months, was in a place called Longwood House."
Sean's eyebrows stitched together with doubt. "I thought Napoléon was exiled on the island of Elba."
Tommy nodded eagerly. "Yes, he was, but that was his first exile. After his defeat at Waterloo, the British sent him to Saint Helena, a small island in the middle of the South Atlantic. Its closest port with transport to the island is Cape Town."
"That's right. I forgot about the second one. I always think of Elba. I guess some people never learn."
"He learned the hard way," Tommy offered. "Some of the accounts suggest that his living quarters were pretty rough. There were rats, the rooms were cold, and I imagine the food couldn't have been great. Of course, there are other accounts that say he lived in a sort of luxury on the island until the day he died. I'd guess it was probably somewhere in the middle.
"Saint Helena is also the place where he was initially interred until his body was moved to Paris some years later; I can't recall the exact date. The grave site is still there, though it's empty. Some people take a long boat ride from Cape Town to visit Longwood and the vacant tomb."
"So, you call the kids and tell them they need to get to Saint Helena." Sean said it like it was a simple matter.
"And look for what?" Tommy asked. "That's the problem. We don't even know what we're looking for. Not to mention that the boat ride from Cape Town takes a really long time."
"Charter a floatplane," Sean said. "Fly them in and out. Should be something like that available in Cape Town."
Tommy bit his lower lip and nodded. "That's true. I never considered that as an option. But we still don't know what we're trying to find."
Sean thought for a moment. He rubbed the scruff on his chin with a thumb and forefinger. "The clue said let their victory stand eternal, heroes of the Empire. It must be a reference to men he considered heroes of France."
"Good one, but which heroes? That could be thousands of men who served under Napoléon." Tommy stopped to think for a second. "Although it was probably some of his officers. That would narrow it down to a few hundred. Still too many names to consider."
"If we find those names…that must be the secret," Sean realized. "We find the names of the heroes."
"There must be a clue, or clues, where these heroes are buried," Tommy added. "The list of these heroes might be on Saint Helena. So, if we send the kids there—"
"They’d need to search for a document with those names on it."
The two were finishing each other's thoughts in rapid succession.
Tommy nodded. "Exactly. Okay. It's still a long shot even if we're right, but it's worth a try. I'll call them and let them know. I just hope you're right about them being safe. I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened to those two."
"Schultzie," Sean said, putting his right hand on his friend's shoulder, "they're going to be fine. Like I said, I've trained them myself. They work hard on their skill sets every day. Honestly, I kinda feel bad for anyone who gets in their way."
Tommy considered what his friend was saying and then gave a reluctant nod. "I hope you're right."
19
MALBORK
Lucien strolled through the garden outside of his countryside manor. He took in the sweet smell of late spring flowers that wafted through the property. He'd been waiting patiently for an update from his people, but as the hours ticked by, Lucien realized he was going to have to take his mind off things for a while.
The garden was small, taking up a few thousand square feet of the backyard behind the manor, but it was a pleasant day out, and walking among the flowers and shrubs was something he'd done for the last few years to help relieve the stresses and concerns that could so easily fill his mind.
He stopped by one of the rosebushes and reached out to touch a petal. The flower was soft against his fingertips and he rubbed it for a moment, appreciating the delicate feel against his skin.
Lucien's moment of peace was interrupted by the vibrating of the phone in his pocket. He wasn't one given to being easily startled, and his reaction to the abrupt interruption was as calm as if he'd simply seen a cloud appear in the sky.
He pressed the device to his ear after glancing at the screen. Not that anyone else would be calling. Only the people on his team would be calling this number. Most of the other members of the order didn't have that direct line. Some of his higher-ranking knights did, but they had no reason to call him…yet.
"Yes?"
"Hello, Grand Master," the woman's voice came through the line. Throughout their history, women had not been part of the Teutonic Order. It was more tradition, now, than anything, but for this particular woman, Lucien Berger had made an exception. She was the only female member, though not the first. There had been a few others in the past, but none as skilled as this one.
She'd basically spent her entire life living in the care of the order. Berger did his best to train her, to make her into a ruthless killing machine. She was an assassin, a soldier, a warrior in the truest sense of the word.
Her name was Kallia, a name Berger had given her when she was a baby. It was the name of an ancient warrior princess he'd read about and he thought the name fitting for her.
Especially as she was his daughter.
Berger appreciated that she didn't call him dad or daddy or father on the phone. It was rare when she did that anywa
y, but all through her adult life she'd kept things professional. He'd cautioned her about it early on since he knew the rest of the knights would expect the same. They would not tolerate nepotism in any form, and they'd been careful to keep to that code.
Kallia had been an orphan, only three or four months old when fate brought her into Berger's life. It was sheer happenstance. He'd been in the city, walking through the open-air market. He had paused by a stand of produce and was eying some vegetables when he heard something in the alley behind the cart. The old woman running the stand apparently didn't hear the noise.
Berger hadn't been surprised. His ears were well trained, better than most. And he honed his skill constantly to be more lethal in the dark, and safer. When he ventured into the shadow-filled alley, he discovered the child in a wicker basket, wrapped in newspapers. Berger didn't spend much time trying to find the girl's parents. Even if they'd only left her there for two minutes, people like that didn't deserve to be in charge of a child's life.
He took it upon himself to raise the girl as his own, training her in the deadly arts as well as in religious and cultural values. She'd grown to become a fine young woman, relentless and cunning. He was proud, though he rarely allowed such feelings into his heart. To do so was against the rules, guidelines set forth by his predecessors to keep the knights humble and focused.
"What news have you, my child?" Berger asked.
"We've run into a bit of a problem, sir," she answered.
"Oh?" This surprised the man greatly as he'd grown accustomed to his daughter's keen ability to work through almost any problem and find a suitable solution, even when doing so required extreme measures.
"The targets…they…were arrested."
That caused lines to form on his forehead and he rubbed the side of his skull with his fingers. "Arrested? Where?"
"Paris, sir. They were detained at the Château de Malmaison."
"That's not a problem," he countered her original statement. "We have loyal vassals in the Parisian police."
The Napoleon Affair Page 15
