He planned on going back to Paris, to Père Lachaise, where he could find the other two graves and compare them to what he was seeing here, in Villers-Cotterêts. The truth was, Sean was unsettled. Something else was going on here, and he couldn't figure out what it might be. That was the overarching frustration in his mind. Riddles, clues, mysteries, all of those had answers set in stone. That didn't change the feelings tugging at his chest cavity. There was something else. What was it?
"Lovely day for a stroll through the cemetery," a man's voice said from behind them.
Sean started to turn.
"Don't," the man said. "It won't help you to know who I am. Not yet, anyway."
"What? You gonna shoot me here in the middle of a café in broad daylight, in front of all these people?" Sean muttered so the other patrons couldn't hear. There weren't many since it was a slow time of day.
"Shoot you? Mr. Wyatt, I have no intention of shooting you. Make no mistake, though, there is a gun pointed at you right now. So, please, don't make a scene. I truly don't wish to kill you."
The man's limited facility with English was expected in Europe, but his accent was strange, unlike anything Sean had ever heard before. He tried to place it but couldn't. It could have been from one of the Mediterranean countries, but that was still a wide swath. Then again, the man sounded almost Middle Eastern. And was that a hint of…French in it? Sean couldn't tell, and it was fruitless to worry with it.
"Okay, let's say I believe you. I already got a good look at you before."
"Ah, very astute," the man groused.
Adriana was tempted to turn and look, but she kept her head still, paying close attention to everything around them. If there was one of them, there might be more surrounding the little café. After a quick-and-dirty assessment, however, she didn't notice anything unusual, save for a guy reading a newspaper. The culprit may well have been on his own.
"What do you want?" Sean asked. "Why were you following us in Paris? And why here?"
"Those are good questions, Sean. I'm glad you asked. Because you already know."
Sean's brow tightened. It was then he noticed the second gunman, a guy across the street, reading—of course—a newspaper. Whoever these people were, they weren't creative. "Never use the same gag twice," Sean muttered, only loud enough for Adriana to hear.
She'd already noticed the man with the paper the moment he sat down. How many more reinforcements were going to show up? She got her answer in seconds when another man pushing a baby stroller stopped at a lamppost and started chatting on his phone. The bundle in the stroller looked real enough, but Adriana knew it was a doll. The man was well dressed, with black pants and a slim-fitting white button-up shirt. Those facts helped give him away.
He turned in various directions, clearly trying to look casual. He even took a couple of steps away from the stroller as he pretended to be nonchalant and oblivious to the group at the café. Adriana knew no parent would do that, leave their kid sitting alone on a sidewalk. Of course, cultures varied. She was well aware of that, but this man was dressed like someone who took parenting seriously, like a responsible person. Not some deplorable from the gutter. This man, like the other, was watching them.
"I already know what?" Sean asked, continuing the conversation with the mystery man. He, too, noticed the second tail appear on the sidewalk about fifty feet down from the first.
"What it is I want. The same item you and your friends are searching for."
"And what item is that?" Sean asked sardonically. He sensed the man's hesitancy to speak again and so continued. "If you're talking about whatever we're looking for on this particular trip, we actually don't know."
Sean saw the two men across the street getting into position, casually checking the weapons they hid, one behind a newspaper and the other in—of all things—the baby stroller.
There was no panic in Sean's voice even as he watched the gunmen getting ready for—what, he wasn't sure, but he knew it wasn't going to be quiet. Were they going to wait until their leader was done with his chatter?
The little town would be thrown into chaos; people could get hurt, people who had nothing to do with any of this. That was Sean's concern, the people. And most importantly, his wife.
"What do you mean you don't know?" the stranger asked. His voice left no doubt as to his sincerity.
"We don't know what we're supposed to find." Sean said the words as though he didn't care. "We've been on this hunt for some relic, but we don't know what it is. You seem to know. Maybe you could tell us."
"You're…you're not serious." Up to that point, everything about the man screamed professional. He was stoic, emotionless, unable to be fazed. Sean's question and honest statement about their ignorance regarding the missing artifact had disarmed him.
"We are, Chief," Sean said. He flicked his fingers up as if discarding an irritating insect.
"How could you have made it so far and not know what you seek?"
"It's a funny business we're in. So, you gonna draw down on that smoke wagon or are you just gonna sit there and chirp? Because, quite frankly, I'm tired of the games."
"It is not my intention to shoot you, Sean."
"Oh," Sean said. "I'm sorry. I wasn't talking to you."
"What?"
"He was talking to me," Tommy said.
The stranger turned and looked up into the barrel of a pistol. Tommy was careful to make sure Bodmer shifted in front of him so any passersby wouldn't see the weapon and raise a stir. He shielded the other field of view with his own body and kept the gun out of sight from the people inside the café.
Sean twisted around and crossed one leg over his knee. "Well, it looks like we caught ourselves something."
The shock on the man's face was evident, and he clenched his jaw in frustration. He wondered how he could have been so careless.
"Yeah," Sean went on, "I didn't see you on the train. Even after we got off, you were doing a good job of staying out of sight. It wasn't until we were at the fountain that I first noticed you. By the way"—Sean glanced at the man's new lavender shirt—"that shirt was a nice touch." He bit his lip to keep from laughing.
"What? You…" The man couldn't form coherent words. All that came out was frustrated bluster. "You tricked me?"
"Yeah, pretty much. I could tell pretty quickly that there was nothing to find in that cemetery. I knew my friend would disagree at first. The only thing that made sense was that we needed some pieces of what's on the tombstone to combine with information from the others. As soon as we do that, we should be able to locate the artifact, or at the very least another clue. Seems like that's how it goes pretty often with these things."
"What do you want?" Tommy asked, tightening his grip on the weapon.
"We were just talking about that," Sean cut in. "Our friend here was going to inform us as to what it is we're trying to find."
"He knows?"
"Sounds like it."
Tommy's eyelids narrowed. "What is it?"
The man stared up at his captor, still in disbelief. "You truly do not know, do you?"
Tommy shook his head slowly back and forth.
"I can't believe it. You really don't know," he repeated his previous sentiment.
"We'll know when you tell us. Or I can take you out to one of the farms near here, and we can interrogate you." Tommy sounded tough. He made it appear as if he was willing to do whatever it took to get the information. It was all bravado, though, on his part. He wouldn't torture another human. Even if this guy was the one who had killed Jarllson.
The stranger searched Tommy's eyes for truth and found nothing but a cold, hollow stare. It was an expression he'd been working on for a while. Sean called it his poker face. It conveyed nothing but the absence of feelings, an emotionless vacuum that made it nearly impossible to tell if he was bluffing or telling the truth.
"I…I don't know what to say. This is all very awkward."
Tommy motioned with a slight incline
of his head. "Put your gun down. Nice and slow." He couldn't see the weapon, but the man had on a windbreaker now, and one of his hands was shoved into the pocket.
The lightweight jacket was something the man wasn't wearing when they were in Paris. Had he been carrying the weapon there, as well? And if so, how did he conceal it? Those thoughts drifted in and out of Sean's mind quickly as he assessed the situation. He didn't give his full attention to Tommy and the gunman, instead choosing to only turn slightly. That way, he could still keep an eye on one of the gunmen across the street while Adriana watched the other. He noticed that the gunman with the newspaper looked momentarily confused by the sudden appearance of Tommy and Bodmer. Perhaps the two gunmen weren't expecting that move. Sean had never been good at chess, but in the game of life he was as good as they came.
"Look," Sean paused, suddenly realizing he didn't know what to call the man, "I'm sorry, what's your name?"
The stranger didn't appear angry. He was clearly frustrated that the Americans got the drop on him, but that seemed to be a mild irritation. He withdrew his hand from his pocket, careful to move deliberately so Tommy wouldn't put a bullet through his head right there in the café, if he was so brazen to do such a thing.
As the man's hand appeared from the pocket, Tommy saw the dry-erase marker clutched in his finger. It wasn't a gun at all.
The man shrugged as if to say "you got me" and then set the marker on the table. "I am…at the moment, unarmed."
Sean turned his full attention to the older man for a few seconds. He didn't dare take his eyes off the two across the street. "For the moment?" Sean asked.
The man put his hands up in surrender. "I am usually well armed, but I had no intention of hurting any of you."
Sean's eyes narrowed.
The stranger saw his doubt and set to allay it. "I am from a long line of priests," he said. "Though I am no ordinary priest."
"Yes, I can see that," Sean said dryly. "I don't know many priests who follow us around, or anyone for that matter."
"Like I said, I'm not ordinary. I'm part of a group of elite warriors. You probably have never heard of us."
Tommy kept his weapon on the man but had to pull it closer to his body as a couple of young kids—high-school age, most likely—walked by, chatting about what video game they were going to play when they got home.
"Try us," Tommy said.
The man tilted his head and looked up at Tommy with a quizzical expression on his face. "We are from an old order, long dead to civilization, at least on the surface. We're called Deus Militibus." He waited for a moment to let the information process.
"God's Warriors?" Adriana asked first.
"I had a feeling you all knew Latin," the man said. "Our original name was the International Order of Saint Hubertus. We were founded in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck. We no longer go by that name since it has been adopted by many others throughout the world since the Second World War."
"World War Two?" Tommy asked. He didn't admit it, but this particular secret organization was one he didn't know much about, if anything.
"Our order declined to permit Nazis into our ranks, and so Hitler dissolved the group—or so he thought. We simply ceased operations under that name and began working under the title of Deus Militibus."
The man looked at the others and assessed their demeanor. Seeing they were interested in what he was saying, he went on. "Most people believe that the order was put together simply as a sort of hunting club, if you will, a place for some of the best hunters of the nobility to enjoy their sport together. It was, however, much more than that. The reason we chose hunters is because they are the best at tracking, not only animals but signs, symbols, things that lead to answers. Certainly, many of the men who joined our ranks were expert trackers and hunters of all kinds of game. The purpose of our true hunt, however, had nothing to do with animals. It was for the same purpose you four now stand here in this place."
"The relic," Sean realized. "You were hunting the same relic?"
The stranger nodded. "I am Bertrand Wagner. I am the head of the order, the true order. It is our mission, and has been since the seventeenth century, to locate holy relics and bring them to the church. One relic, in particular, has held our…interest, since the early nineteenth century."
The dots connected.
"So, your…group," Tommy said the last word with chagrin, "has been looking for this thing for a couple of hundred years?"
"Yes," Wagner admitted. "We have seen clues but nothing definitive. We've always kept in close contact with the Vatican, however, and when your friend the cardinal discovered that information in the archives, we knew about it within a few hours."
"How?" Bodmer asked. He was incredulous that some foreign entity, Catholic or not, could infiltrate his security systems, the detail, the countless measures that were in place to prevent just such an incursion.
"How did we get through the walls, the cameras, your Swiss Guard, Commander?" He added the last piece just to further display the order's capability. He knew who Bodmer was.
The commander twitched, momentarily unnerved by the comment.
"Those things are all of human design," Wagner said. "Because of that, they are flawed. Even your men, Commander. No one is perfect, and nothing designed by man is, either. We have our ways."
He left it at that, and Bodmer could see he wasn't going to get any more information, for now.
Sean looked nervously across the street and then back at the man. "So, you've told us who you are." He let his words hang a moment to show the stranger he still had doubts about his backstory. "What is it you…we are looking for? Why are you telling us this now?"
Wagner took a deep breath and sighed. "Sean, we have searched for hundreds of years for this particular relic. We have exhausted every lead, which were few and far between. We'd all but lost hope until that fateful day when the cardinal went into the vault and came out with the first lead we'd heard about in more than three decades. We believe you four are working for the same side we are. You are good people from what I understand. I know much about your exploits, Thomas," he motioned to Tommy with a nod of the head. "And yours as well," he nodded at Sean. "This woman, I know little of, but if she is with you two, I'm sure she is a good person, as well. And I know the commander serves the Lord."
Bodmer's face reddened, but he said nothing.
"And the relic?" Sean asked. He could see from the man's expression that he still didn't believe the group didn't know what they were looking for.
"One of the most prized and holy relics of all time. It was taken in the early 1800s by none other than General Napoléon Bonaparte himself." Wagner paused for effect. "You seek the ring of John the Baptist."
27
Villers-Cotterêts
Sean, Tommy, and Adriana had been through some pretty fantastical journeys together. They'd been all over the world, searched underground chambers, discovered priceless objects that had been long thought lost to history. They'd heard of most of those artifacts and relics. Some were more obscure than others. This, however, was one that none of them knew about.
"The ring of John the Baptist?" Sean asked with genuine curiosity.
"Yes," Wagner said, unmoving. "The ring was taken by Napoléon on his way to Alexandria. He and over thirty thousand of his men were sailing to the Egyptian port. It was a mission to take control of British trade interests in that region and effectively reduce Britain's strength there. Of course, there were other reasons for the campaign.
"Napoléon was a historian and a scientist. He desired to learn more about the ancient world from the ruins and cultural remnants of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. It was on that campaign, I'm sure you know, that his people discovered the Rosetta Stone, effectively allowing us to decode ancient hieroglyphics."
Tommy and the others nodded.
They knew about the Alexandria campaign in that regard but didn't know anything about the ring of John the Baptist.
"On the way to Egypt," Wagner went on, "Napoléon made a stop on the island of Malta. While there, he sought to make a visit to the church in Valletta, Saint John's Co-Cathedral."
Tommy and Sean exchanged a curious glance. The church wasn't one they'd visited. In fact, neither man had been to Malta before. They were beginning to think that was a huge oversight on their part.
"He met resistance from the Knights of Malta, also known as the Knights Hospitaller. There was also a strong contingent of the Knights of the Teutonic Order on the island at the time since it was a period of strife and concern with the rising emperor in France. The knights knew the man was set on world conquest, and they feared he might stop there on his way to Alexandria to resupply.
"They called on every ally, every soldier they could muster, but the siege didn't last long, and in the end after a short stretch of fierce fighting, the knights were vanquished. Most died. A few managed to escape with nothing more than their lives. Their defense of the city was commendable, especially considering they were fighting overwhelming odds. The knights were outnumbered by tens of thousands, yet they still fought honorably."
Wagner sounded despondent for a moment, as if he'd been there for the battle.
"After the fighting ended, Napoléon made his way into the church. He threatened the priests, though it's doubtful he would've done anything to harm them. While Napoléon had a reputation for cruelty in certain circumstances, he wasn't always a monster. He respected the clergy—despite his doubts about their character from time to time. The general found the head priest of the church and demanded to be taken to the reliquary. There, Napoléon found what he was looking for. It was the golden glove that contained the skeletal hand of John the Baptist."
Sean and his companions listened intently as the man spun his yarn, while at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the two gunmen across the street. They appeared to be confused for some reason, and he couldn't pinpoint why. There was even a moment where he saw the two men glance questioningly at each other, as if they weren't sure if they should proceed as ordered.
The Napoleon Affair Page 21
