by Tom Wilde
I washed my hands and my face to cool down, then went back to my table, scanning the room to see if anyone was paying any particular attention to me. All the patrons were clustered together in small groups and engaged with each other. I drank my water, then took a sip of brandy, letting the liquid fire burn away the ashen taste in my mouth. I leaned back and let the tension pour out of me as I listened to the sound of a violinist hacking away at Vivaldi’s “La Primavera” somewhere nearby on the street. My left hand rested on the wrapped bundle in my lap—a treasure so valuable that men were willing to kill for it. And I had no idea why.
I had to pull myself together and make a plan. My battered old Seamaster watch told me that it was slightly after ten o’clock—just after four in the afternoon back in New York. I pulled out my phone and checked to see if it was still operational, but the display screen was just a bright mass of swimming pixels. Chalk up another piece of high tech that I managed to convert into useless junk. But while my electronic device failed me, my internal radar was working just fine as I spotted a large, dark-skinned man in a tan overcoat and cap coming into the café. The new arrival scanned the room and set his eyes on me. He gave a dazzling smile and called out as he walked straight toward me. “Hey, Johnny!”
My left hand came up to the brandy glass as my right brought out and palmed my lighter, ready to ignite the alcohol and send it flying as a flaming distraction, while my legs braced themselves to move. The man kept his hands in view as he approached. “It’s me, Sam Smith. From New York,” he said. “Your wife said I’d find you around here.”
My mind raced to change gears, but my keenly honed sense of paranoia stayed in the lead. “Sam Smith,” I repeated. “From New York.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Grandfather wanted me to look you up. Come on, I’ve got a taxi waiting outside.”
If it was a trap, it was a damn good setup. The guy said all the right things to lead me to believe he was one of Caitlin’s people. I decided against the impromptu fireworks display and just nodded my head as I got up to go with him. As we walked to the door, the man said, “You okay, man? You’re not walking so good.”
“Old football injury,” I replied shortly. As I stepped outside, I paused and looked up over the rooftops to see a geyser of black smoke, lit in flickering red from below, pour out across the sky, while more sirens wailed in the distance. “Looks like someone started a fire,” Sam said from beside me. I just nodded, coldly acknowledging the ruthless efficiency of it all. The police wouldn’t discover the real cause of so many deaths at Troyon’s apartment for a while yet.
The man who called himself Sam Smith led me to a taxi, and as he joined me in the backseat, I got a better look at him. He was easily six foot two, and moved like an athlete. When he took off his cap, I saw that he kept his head clean-shaven; it dully reflected the marquis lights from the street. Sam gave the driver an address on the boulevard du Montparnasse. We drove in silence through the busy, narrow streets until we arrived, and as I got out of the taxi I saw one of those familiar signs that are so jarring to see in other parts of the world. I couldn’t help but ask, “You come all the way to Paris, and then stay at a Comfort Inn?”
Sam said as he paid the driver, “Hey, we can’t all have fat expense accounts.”
I followed him into the hotel, where he led me to the door of a room on the second floor. Smith pulled out a phone, checked it, and then opened the door. The man turned on the lights as he waved the phone in a circle around the room. Closing the door after me, he said, “Okay, Blake, I hope you’ve got your passport with you, because we’re going to be leaving soon.”
I looked around the room and saw a large black luggage bag, as well as an open laptop computer on the single desk near the double beds. “Where’s Caitlin?” I asked.
“She’s making her way on her own, and the rest of the team is already moving out. I stayed behind to get you.”
“How in the hell did you find me?”
“You’ve been tagged since before you left New York.”
“Tagged?”
“That wedding ring Caitlin gave you,” Sam explained. “It’s got built-in circuitry. I’ll need that back, by the way.”
I slipped the ring off and held it up to the light, remembering how Caitlin was always making sure I was wearing it. “She’s not coming back, is she?” I heard myself saying.
Sam stopped halfway over to the desk. “No,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “Someone got her.”
“Wait, you found me, right? Can’t you find Caitlin the same way?”
He turned back to me, and I could see he was holding back anger as he said in a growl, “It doesn’t work that way. In case it’s slipped your mind, we were here to do a job, namely catch Vanya’s people in the act of buying stolen merchandise. But that job got blown big time, didn’t it? I suppose that’s the bird in question you got wrapped up there?”
I nodded, then said, “So that’s it? You’re leaving Caitlin behind?”
Sam looked away, speaking toward the wall. “Yes. Yes, I am. Because that’s the way this works. Just so you know, Mr. Blake, people in my business get left behind all over the world. People you never hear about, doing things no one ever gets to see, just to protect people like you.” He took a step closer, looming over me as he said through gritted teeth, “So yes, I’m leaving her behind, just like I’ve left other people behind and just like I’ll do again until someday, somebody has to do the same thing to me. So now you can just shut the hell up and do as you’re told, and I’ll get us out of here.”
That’s when I hit him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Smith really didn’t give me any choice. There was no way I was going off and leaving Caitlin behind. The edge of my hand slammed into the side of his neck and he dropped like a stone. I used my bandanna to tie his hands, and Smith’s own shoelaces to bind his ankles together. With the time I had left before he started to regain consciousness, I turned his pockets inside out and was tossing the contents onto the bed when he groaned and mumbled, “What … stupid!”
“No need to call names,” I said, looking over my inventory. Along with his phone and wallet he carried a passport that stated his name was actually Samuel Quincy Smith, a Casio G-Shock watch, and a wicked-looking Kershaw folding knife with a blackened blade.
“Not you, me,” Sam said as he tested his bonds. “Damn. I saw what you did back at Troyon’s apartment.”
I froze. “You did?”
“Hell, yes. We had the place wired. Audio and visual. I saw you in action. I haven’t seen moves like that since I saw a Russian Spetsnaz dude take out three guys. Before someone iced him, anyway,” Sam added, then said quietly, “So just who are you, man?”
I was trying to cover up the cold, sinking feeling that I’d exposed myself and my special talents badly, and to a government agent no less. But I wasn’t surprised at the comparison Sam Smith made, as one of my many instructors was former Russian Special Forces. “You tell me,” I said. “You’re the guys who hired me.”
Sam laughed darkly. “We thought we were hiring an antiques geek we could pass off as an expert during the sting operation. But you’re obviously something else. And unless I miss my guess, I’m not the first dude you’ve tied up in your lifetime.”
I tried to shake Smith off the subject. “What ever happened to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’? And just who were those other guys, Ombra and DeWinter? Where the hell did they come from?”
Smith sighed. “Can I sit up or something? I’m getting a kink in my neck.”
“Sure.” I helped him up, which did my damaged ribs no good at all, and then guided him as he hopped to one of the beds, where I set a pillow up and let him sit with his back to the headboard. “So who are those guys?” I asked again.
Smith looked away, then said, “We don’t know. They came out of nowhere. I figure Troyon was working some kind of side deal on his own. I got people in Washington trying to identify them now.”
I picke
d up my bundle from where I’d dropped it when I put Sam down, and unwrapped the eagle. I could see now that one of its wings was bent and there was a bad scuff mark on its beak, and I heard the voice of Nick Riley in my head, telling me, not for the first time, “That’s coming out of your salary.” I held the eagle up for Smith to see. “So what do Vanya the cult leader and Ombra want with a Napoleonic icon?”
Smith shook his head. “We have no idea. So just what do you think you’re going to do now?”
I looked down at the eagle and sighed, knowing what I had to do. I thought of the countless men who, hundreds of years ago, faced fire and steel to protect this symbol of their emperor. “It’s obvious,” I said. “The killing didn’t start tonight until Ombra knew that Rhea woman wanted to get a look inside this thing. It’s not the eagle that’s valuable, it’s whatever is concealed inside of it.”
“So?”
“So I’m going to crack this bird open and see what’s so goddammed important. And when I find out, I’ll use whatever it is to get Caitlin back.”
“Blake, we don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
“Shut up,” I said. In the single desk I found a telephone directory to use as a makeshift operating table, and laid the eagle on top of it. I held the eagle to the light and peered inside the hollow shaft at the base where the icon would be joined to a flagpole, but the cavity was featureless. I took Sam’s knife and snapped it open, seeing the blade was serrated halfway up its length. Trying not to feel sick as if I was desecrating a sacred object, I used the knife to chip and saw open the softer bronze of the eagle. It was hard work, but I eventually was able to pry the eagle’s head off, and was rewarded by the sight of a dull gray cylinder nestled inside.
I freed the cylinder from the remains of the eagle and cleared the bronze shavings off the table. The metal felt light, and there was a crimped cap on one end. I slowly put pressure to the top, until it gave way and unscrewed. With a final small pop, the top came free, and I caught a brief scent of old parchment. I could see a flattened roll of paper inside, and I coaxed it out until I saw the pale red wax seal affixed to the side. Turning it toward the desk lamp, I saw the impressed eagle—the coat of arms of Napoleon.
I tried to disengage the seal while keeping it intact, but it broke apart and crumbled to pieces. I steadied my hands and unrolled the parchment, seeing it was actually three papers stacked together. The first was handwritten in French, with a date of the sixteenth of April in the year 1815. I focused on the spidery and faded script, blessing all the Latin language courses I had in college and cursing the fact that I should have studied harder as I labored to translate the letter, which began: “In the name of His Majesty, by the Grace of God and the Constitution of the Republic, the Emperor Napoleon of France.”
As I parsed out the words, I learned that the letter directed the reader to go forthwith to Le Chapelle du Val de Grâce, and present this Warrant to Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, and secure the property of his Majesty, the Emperor Napoleon. The bottom of the letter was signed: J. Fouché, Minister of Police, Duke of Otranto.
I felt that electric, tingling sensation I always got when I was on the trail of something big. The second paper was a portion of an age-browned and sepia-toned street map of Paris, dated 1814, marked with a circle in the southeast corner. From the notations on the map showing the River Seine, the indicated area was well south from my current location. The third page was an exacting, hand-drawn floor plan of the Chapel du Val de Grâce, with written notations on the side, indicating directions of two hundred yards south and two hundred yards west. On the floor plan itself there was a circle drawn around the eastern portion of the church, indicating the “Sacristie Interieure.” I thought briefly that there should have been an X to mark the spot.
If I was reading this right, I was holding in my hand a map to a lost treasure of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The brittle paper rattled as my hands began to shake at the enormity of the thoughts crashing inside my head. Napoleon not only conquered half of Europe, he looted it as well. The wily old bastard must have set up a secret cache, like an emergency war chest, and kept the knowledge of it among a few trusted men. But now, with such a treasure of historical significance, the value of whatever was locked away in his private vault would be multiplied countless times. No wonder people were willing to kill for this. I was dimly aware of Sam Smith when he asked, “What did you say? What’s a ‘Fouché’?”
I must have spoken out loud. I swallowed with a dry throat and tried to get a grip on my runaway emotions. “Not what, who,” I said, glad my voice wasn’t shaking. “Fouché was Napoleon’s minister of police. More likely he was His Majesty’s spymaster.”
“Thanks for the history lesson,” Smith said flatly. “Now just what the hell did you find inside that thing?”
I started to speak, and then realized I should just keep my mouth shut about my treasure map. “How do I find Caitlin?” I asked instead.
“You’re really going to try and find her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The simple question stopped me for a moment. The smart thing to do would be to get the hell out, but I knew for a gut-deep certainty my conscience would never allow it.
“Because she said she’d protect me,” I answered. “I believed her. If I was the one who got captured, she’d come for me.”
“Then untie me. I want to help.”
I was sorely tempted, but I realized that Sam Smith was probably too good a soldier. “Sorry. I can’t trust you.”
“But I should trust you?”
“Hey, you’re the one who was all set to leave without her,” I said as I carefully rolled up the letter and map, placing them back inside the tin cylinder, wishing my phone hadn’t been busted so I could at least get a photograph of the documents. I looked sadly for a moment at the wreck of the eagle and the broken bits of wax from the Napoleonic seal. I glanced around the room and found a plastic garment bag. As I placed the pieces of the eagle into the bag, Sam said, “Caitlin had a tracer that she was supposed to attach to the eagle, so we could follow whoever it was that bought the thing, and hopefully it would lead us straight to Vanya. Only it looks like Caitlin never got the chance to put the device on the eagle and she still has it with her. I’ve been monitoring her movements. From what I’ve seen, Caitlin’s being driven around the city and they’re circling your hotel. You head back there, and I guarantee whoever kidnapped her will find you.”
I suddenly realized why Caitlin had attacked Rhea back at the apartment when Rhea made her mad dash with the eagle. Caitlin was obviously making a last-ditch attempt to plant the bug on the bird before Rhea ran off with it. I grabbed my topcoat and regarded my borrowed knife for a moment; I’d pretty much trashed the blade when I took apart the eagle. “You got a gun around here?” I asked.
“Hell, no.”
“What kind of secret agent are you, anyway? Look, just give me thirty minutes, and then you can make a racket and get someone from the hotel to let you out.”
“Great, I get seen going into a hotel room with another man, and then I get found like this?”
“Sorry,” I said from the doorway.
“Hey, Blake?”
“What?”
Sam Smith didn’t look at me as he sat on the bed, and just said softly, “Bring her back, man. Bring her back.” I just nodded, checked the hallway, and left the room.
It was only eleven at night according to the bells I heard as I flagged a cab and took the short drive back to the Saint Michel Hotel. When I paid the driver and walked through the wood-paneled lobby, it felt like I’d been gone for years. I made it to the door to the room I’d shared so briefly with Caitlin, then braced myself and entered quickly. There was no one waiting for me, and I only had the blinking message light on the phone to greet me. I played back the recorded call, and heard the voice of Mr. Ombra as he recited a telephone number to call. I punched the numbers in, and he picked up right away.
“Where’s Caitlin?” I demanded.
“She’s safe,” Ombra said. “I assume you know what we want?”
“Yes. I have it. Let me talk to Caitlin.”
“No,” he said simply. “You’ll see her as soon as we have the item in our possession.”
I had a sudden idea. “Fine. Meet me at Notre Dame. Bring Caitlin.” I hung up the phone. At least now I was the one who chose the location for the meeting, instead of using a place Ombra would know and be able to set up a trap in ahead of time. I took a few moments to prepare myself, then left the hotel and headed north to the stone bridge over the Seine. It was raining again, and I kept moving as fast as my injured leg would allow, hoping Ombra’s men wouldn’t spot me before I arrived.
I crossed the ornate bridge, too well lit with streetlamps for comfort, and saw how the man-made stone banks of the island ahead made for a sheer drop into the night-black river below. Downstream, I saw a boat lit up like a constellation of stars slowly motor away. Once on the other side, I had a clear view of the Notre Dame Cathedral, but even with my recent experience with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomph, my sense of scale and distance weren’t equal to the task of appreciating the enormity of the structure. I found myself standing before a football-field length of open concrete square, staring up through the falling rain at the mountainous gothic cathedral. It was nearly a thousand years old, and encompassed all the grace that mortal man could invest into a monument to God. But the beauty in my vision quickly faded as I realized I was in the absolute worst possible position—a wide-open area with no cover whatsoever. Even at this hour and in the rain I could see people over by the front of the cathedral. What I needed now was the best spot I could find for an ambush.
