The Napoleon Affair

by Ernest Dempsey

  Tommy handed the phone back to Adriana and immediately started typing in a new search term. His fingers flew over the keyboard. When he entered the search, he waited for a couple of seconds as the café's Wi-Fi connected him to the internet again and wrangled a new set of results for his query.

  Tommy clicked on the first one and started reading. He stopped momentarily and motioned Adriana to join him and Wagner on the other side of the table so she could see what he found.

  The missing name from the Saint Helena list was Berthier.

  Tommy's search had brought back some tremendous resources on the subject of the man whose name was wedged in the middle of three others whom Napoléon trusted and relied on during his attempts at global conquest.

  The man was born on November 20, 1753, and died on June 1, 1815. According to the first search results, which was one of the more popular internet encyclopedia sites in the world, Louis Alexandre Berthier was the First Prince of Wagram, a sovereign prince of Neuchâtel, a French marshal, and the vice constable of the empire. He also served as Napoléon's chief of staff.

  Tommy left the site and went to the next one, digging deeper into the history between this mysterious officer and the French emperor. The resources suggested that Berthier was one of the most influential leaders in Napoléon's regime and that his abilities as a commander on the battlefield and as a strategist were held in extremely high regard by Napoléon.

  Like so many others in Bonaparte's company, Berthier died before his general.

  "This is the part the riddle was talking about," Adriana said.

  "Which part?" Tommy asked. "There are more than one."

  "What we've learned is that Napoléon was concerned about the Battle of Waterloo. Remember? He suggested that he was going to lose because he didn't have his most powerful asset. That asset would be Berthier. According to this information," she tapped on the screen, "Napoléon fretted over not having the man there to help him plan the battle. It seems the general relied heavily on Berthier, and without him he believed the battle was already lost."

  "There was something about the victory standing forever, too," Tommy said. "That validates the Arc de Triomphe as the location for the four names, especially in regard to Berthier."

  "That's right," Adriana confirmed. "Napoléon built that monument to stand as an eternal tribute to the men who served him loyally during his conquests."

  Tommy beamed proudly at the connection he'd made.

  "Don't get cocky," Adriana chided. "That still doesn't mean we know where the ring is. I doubt it's hidden in the arch."

  "It's possible," Wagner spoke up for the first time in a while. "There are many ways Bonaparte could have hidden the relic in the monument. We'll need to consider every possible angle before we try to break something or dig a hole in the ground."

  Tommy shook his head. "I'm with Adriana. I don't think it's there."

  "No?"

  "It would be too easy. Nothing about this entire mission has been easy. It never is. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that if something is too easy, it's either not right, or there is something else waiting just beyond it."

  "Okay," Wagner acquiesced. "Where is it, then?"

  Tommy's lips were pressed together, but the right corner creased slightly as a mischievous grin crept across his face, causing his right eye to narrow to match the expression.

  "I think I know, but I'm going to have to make a couple of phone calls first."

  37

  PARIS

  Sean's eyelids scraped his eyeballs as he tried to see through the haze. Something smelled vile. It wasn't a scent of decay such as refuse or rotting meat. It was on the other end of the spectrum, pungent and acrid. It burned his nostrils and reminded him of bleach or ammonia, only stronger, like some kind of unholy sterile solution. Was that a hint of iodine mixed in?

  He blinked hard against the dryness of his eyelashes, and the wetness slowly returned, washing away the irritating pain. He had a mild headache reverberating from the back of his skull, but nothing he couldn't handle. Sean had been in situations before where had woken in a strange place after being drugged or knocked unconscious. He had to admit that this was one of the less intrusive wake-ups.

  As his vision returned, he looked around the room, gathering as much intel as he could, which was as common a practice as breathing for him. Sean noted he was in what looked like an old conference room. The windows to his right ran the length of the room from floor to ceiling.

  He craned his neck to try to peek through the slivers between the blinds, but it was no use, although he could hear the bustle of a busy street just outside. From the sound of it, he was several stories up, maybe six or seven, but it could have been nine or ten for all he knew.

  For the moment, that didn't matter. He had to figure out where he was and why he'd been taken. The second question wasn't as difficult to answer as the first. Bodmer was the mole; he was responsible for the murder of Cardinal Jarllson, and basically this entire fiasco. But Bodmer wasn't the one calling the shots. He was a pawn—powerful and clever, but a pawn nonetheless.

  He'd played them all like a maestro, and now Sean was a captive. There was no telling what the knights of the order were going to do to him, but he had a bad feeling it wasn't going to be pleasant. The least he could do was offer them the same unpleasantries, if not physically, then verbally.

  It seemed like hours had passed before he heard the sound of someone coming down the hallway just outside the conference room door.

  The place was devoid of furniture save for the office chair cushioning his backside, though the generous amount of duct tape that strapped him to the seat removed any semblance of comfort the chair's cushion could offer.

  The room had two doors. Sean could see through one of the doors, the one at the opposite end of the room. There were empty cubicles and desks stacked along a wall near a window in what appeared to be a much larger space.

  It must be an abandoned office building, but why was he here? And why were the Teutonic Knights using it? He calculated their strategy in seconds.

  Taking him out of the city would, no doubt, be in their cards, but they'd kept him here, in Paris. The sounds coming from the street below were from a city with a large population. Paris was the easiest to figure. If he'd been flown somewhere else, though, he wouldn't have known.

  For now, imagining that possibility was not helpful in formulating a plan to escape.

  Sean reeled in the straying thoughts and wiggled his arms and wrists. He knew it would be futile, but he had to try. As he suspected, he was secured tightly to the chair. Not only that, but his wrists were also bound together with duct tape that dug into his skin and cut off the circulation. His ankles were secured with what was probably too much of the thick tape. That only served to tell him that Bodmer knew who he was dealing with. Sean was a dangerous man, maybe the most dangerous that the commander of the Swiss Guard would ever meet. He wouldn't be stupid enough to leave Sean with any sliver of hope, no minuscule chance of getting away.

  Sean had to hand it to him: Bodmer was smart in that regard. That didn't change the fact that Sean was going to kill the man if he ever got out of this chair.

  He'd been working through his issues around killing. He only took lives when he had to and there was no other option, but with Bodmer it was already decided. The man had signed his own death warrant when he betrayed Sean and the others, when he killed an innocent man. It was one thing to stick a knife in Sean's back or the backs of his companions—that didn't sit well—but this guy killed a cardinal, a man Bodmer was charged with protecting, keeping safe.

  It sickened Sean to think about it, and those kinds of things rarely got to him. He possessed an innate ability to compartmentalize that stuff. It was how he had survived this long, how he'd managed to get through so many missions a lesser agent would have questioned and likely failed at.

  He would have treated the act the same if it had been an innocent child or a ra
ndom stranger, but the fact that the cardinal was a person of importance, a person revered by many? That made it all the more pertinent for Sean to exact justice, his brand of justice that came without mercy.

  Unfortunately, justice would have to wait until he could find a way out of this jam.

  He snorted, frustrated, and managed to wiggle his toes enough to roll an inch or two toward the window. It was the only part of his body that could move, save for a full-on jerking motion with his torso, which he also started using in conjunction with his toes to move toward the window faster. When he reached the blinds, his knee bumped into one of them and the entire contraption moved in a slow wave, back and forth.

  Sean peeked through the gap as the blinds rippled forward for a moment. He'd been right. He was still in Paris.

  The blinds clapped against the window and ruffled again, this time for less than two seconds. Sean used the brief moment to take another look. This time, his focus was on a clock on a building across the street.

  He had to assume it was the same day he'd been abducted. Based on the clock, he'd only been out of it for around three hours. It could have been much worse, though his situation was still less than optimal. In fact, it was dire.

  This was no amateur he was dealing with; none of them were. He'd met challenges before from professionals, mercenaries, secret sects of warriors trained in ancient methods and martial arts. He'd faced madmen, too, though they were usually easier to handle than their underlings. He doubted that would be the case here.

  Bodmer was an elite soldier and security officer, and the fact he was a knight of the Teutonic Order meant he probably had a higher level of training than most soldiers in the world. He couldn't be sure, and conjecture wasn't always helpful, but he had the feeling that Bodmer, along with his puppet master, likely spent most of their days working on techniques in a vast array of combat forms.

  "Enjoying the view?"

  The familiar voice echoed in the empty room as it bounced off the shiny black marble floors and the sterile ceilings.

  "Not much to look at here, Commander," Sean said flatly. "If you're going to duct tape people to chairs in abandoned office buildings, could you at least pick one near the Eiffel Tower? Maybe one that overlooks a park or something?"

  "Your jesting has made you sloppy," Bodmer said.

  "Oh, sorry. You thought I was joking. Have you looked out this window? There's not much to look at."

  "You were right about him, Brother." This new voice was deeper and had a baritone growl to it.

  Sean turned his head and saw Bodmer standing just to the side of the doorway. Another figure appeared a moment later. He was older than Bodmer, probably by ten or fifteen years. Gray strands of hair streaked his locks and beard. Like Bodmer, the man was fit. His broad shoulders and taut muscles looked as though they might rip through the suit jacket covering his torso. He was decked out in black from head to toe: slacks, shoes, and shirt, all of it. It was a fact Sean refused to let slide.

  "And who's your friend here?" Sean asked. "He certainly likes the color black."

  "You know who I am," Berger said coolly.

  "Do I? Because I don't think we've ever met. Pretty sure I'd remember. Have you considered incorporating some other colors into your wardrobe, or is this, like, a thing for you?"

  The other two men turned their heads slowly toward each other, exchanging an annoyed glance.

  "And did they only have youth medium? Looks like that suit is about three sizes too small."

  "You know why we are here," Berger drawled. "I would appreciate it if you give us what we want, what is rightfully ours."

  "Rightfully yours? I thought it belonged to the Hospitallers—you know, the Knights of Malta?"

  "We were allies. The Hospitallers and the Templars worked with us, not against us. Their orders, as they once were, are no more. They're shells of their former selves, nothing more than symbols drifting in a sea of apathy. We, however, remained strong."

  Sean chuckled to himself. "Shows how much you know."

  Berger's face cracked with curiosity, but he didn't pursue Sean's teasing comment. He didn't care to hear anything from Sean save for one piece of information.

  "Where is the ring, Sean? Tell us where it is, and we will give you the honor of a swift death."

  Sean snorted another laugh and turned his head to face forward. "Sorry, guys. Can't keep looking at you that way. My neck is starting to get a little stiff." He started struggling in the chair, wobbling it back and forth until it began inching its way around to the left. "If I can just…get…it…to turn." He let out a relieved gasp as if the exercise had required intense effort. "There," he said, facing the two men, "that's much better. I'm sorry; you were saying?"

  "The ring, Sean. Where is it?" Berger's voice carried a deep rumble, reflecting the irritation that was surely swelling with every passing second.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were on a first-name basis. And I'm sorry I'm not sorry, but I don't know where the bloody ring is. Your boy, Commander Bodmer there, stuck me with something before I could find it. I guess that means you two are out of luck, huh? Unless, of course, I take you to it."

  Berger's right eyebrow rose with suspicion. "We both know you wouldn't do that."

  Sean chuckled dramatically. He was stalling, hoping to find a way to break free from the bonds, though doing so at the moment would have been a bad idea. These two would cut him down before he took a step; of that he was absolutely certain. If he found a weak spot in the tape, he'd have to wait to exploit it, but with every passing second he realized that was fantasy. Without some kind of tool or a knife, there was no way he was getting out of the chair unless one of these two let him out.

  "True," Sean said. "And you also know that torturing me won't do you any good. There's nothing you could do that would make me tell you a thing."

  "Yes, I'm sure you're right, though we may hurt you merely on principle."

  Sean nodded slowly. He was afraid of that. For all his bravado and the display of emotionless courage, he knew these two were likely experts in extracting every ounce of pain from the human body. He'd been through different kinds of torture before, the worst of which was waterboarding. He shuddered at the thought and hoped Berger didn't have that in mind. It wouldn't make Sean talk, but it would definitely make his life a living hell for however long they decided to do it.

  "What if I do what you don't expect?" Sean asked. "What if I'm willing to tell you where the ring is if you promise to leave my friends alone?"

  It was Bodmer's turn to laugh, but he quickly silenced himself. The man hadn't said anything since Berger appeared. It was a fact that didn't escape Sean's observation.

  "You've been awfully quiet over there, Commander. Does Daddy not let you talk when he's around?"

  Bodmer did his best not to let Sean's jab get to him, but Sean could see it struck a nerve. Bodmer's eyelids narrowed ever so slightly, but he kept his lips pressed tightly together.

  "Don't try to instigate something with my associate, Sean. To your question: You know we can't offer that. You friends are going to die one way or the other."

  "You won't find them."

  Berger smirked at the insinuation. "You don't realize it, do you? The power we wield? The connections we forged long ago and have sustained all these centuries? We can find anyone, anywhere. Your friends will be found, and when they are, they will die long, slow deaths, just like you. And we will make you watch."

  So, that was what they were keeping him around for. Sean knew they wanted the information he had in his head, but they were misguided. He didn't know where the ring was. The only new bit of intel he had on this hunt was the gap in the names on the list from Saint Helena. That list wasn't in his possession, and without it he couldn't determine how exactly it figured into the ring's location. He'd easily memorized the names, though he still kept that minor detail to himself.

  A thought occurred to him. He might not be able to get out of this alive, but
he could buy his friends time, draw these men away from them until they found the ring or, at the very least, got out of the country.

  A deception bubbled in his head. It was nothing elaborate. He had to pick a place, any place where there was some kind of historical marker. The Eiffel Tower? No, that would be too obvious. Then he had another idea. He had to be careful. It was a dangerous game he was playing.

  "If I tell you where the ring is, you may be able to beat my friends to it. If you do, I want you to swear you will let them live."

  Berger stepped deeper into the room and strode casually over to the window. He twisted the long rod connected to the blinds, and the shutters turned, opening the view to the street below and the buildings surrounding them. The man stared thoughtfully through the window.

  "No," he said.

  "No?"

  "I can't trust you, Sean. You're too bent on protecting your friends. You would happily mislead me to protect them." He kept speaking, cutting off any intrusion Sean may have offered to the conversation. "While I do appreciate your…sentiments around taking such an oath, I will do no such thing. And even if I did, how could you trust me?"

  He slipped his hands behind his back and laced the fingers together. He turned his head slightly and glanced at Sean out of the corner of his eye, adding a short humming sound to reiterate the question.

  "I don't, but you are a man of God, are you not? You hold oaths in high regard. They're sacred. Like the ones your order took to protect the church so long ago."

  "Hmm." Berger's head turned back around to face the window, and for a moment he seemed pensive. "Do you think you can manipulate me?" His voice remained calm, eerily so. "I am aware of your abilities, how you use mind games to get what you want. Psychology was your first degree, no?"

  Sean said nothing at first.

  "Your attempts to dupe me won't work."

  "I'd rather use my fists."

  Berger allowed a short cough of a laugh. "I'm sure you would, Sean. That's how you handle most of your problems—with guns and fists."