by Tom Wilde
The archway led to another bridge that spanned a dry moat filled with green grass. I crossed the bridge and entered a narrower stone tunnel built through the inner defensive wall of the castle. I hurried through this somewhat claustrophobic artery with visions of old-fashioned murder holes and other historical castle defenses dancing in my head. Once back into the sunlight, I was now at the threshold of an irregular-shaped inner courtyard with tall Renaissance-era walls set with a plethora of windows and doors on one side, across from medieval fortifications on the other. Straight ahead was a melded mix that looked like a brick house was half-swallowed into the defensive wall with a rough-planked wooden door and a narrow single window. The nearest turret sported arrow slits that would accommodate modern rifle fire far too well for my comfort. Near this door I saw a black Volvo sedan parked next to a small white van. It looked like someone was at home.
I crossed the courtyard, feeling like I was under the gun from the numerous paned windows in the tall, gray stone walls, took a breath, then pounded on the door. The minute or so I stood awaiting a reply seemed to stretch into eternity, until one wing of the doors opened a fraction and revealed the half-shadowed face of a woman. “The museum is closed, monsieur,” she said.
“I’m here on behalf of Mr. Ombra,” I replied. “He sent me here.”
The woman hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Ombra? I’m sorry, monsieur; there is no one by that name here.”
I held up the photograph of Ombra, level with the woman’s eyes. “This man,” I said firmly. “And while we’re speaking, would you tell me why you decided to address me in English?”
Her eyes, which were a pale, almost colorless blue, wrinkled in what may have been a smile. “A moment, please,” she said as she closed the portal. I heard the sound of metal clanking behind the door, and then the right-side wing opened with a creaking groan. “Come in,” I heard.
I walked through the entryway, noting the solid thickness of the walls, and took a step to the side as the door was pushed closed. My eyes tried to adjust from the transition of late-afternoon sunshine to the gloomy interior. In the half-darkness, my hostess turned toward me and I saw I was standing in front of a tall, slender woman with long, silver-gray hair that spilled over the full-length black coat she wore. Her face was the color of parchment and etched with fine lines of age on small, delicate features. “Thank you, madame,” I said. “I have news of the utmost importance.”
She smiled, and said in a lilting accent, “I do not believe you should be thanking me quite yet, Monsieur Blake. But you are correct; we do have business.”
“Wait, how do you know my name?” The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I heard a series of metallic clicking sounds coming from behind me as an overhead electric light came on. I turned, slowly, while keeping my hands in plain view, and saw a sight that dropped my heart down to my guts. A youngish, bearded man was standing in the darkened recesses of the room, dressed in casual denim clothes with a dark woolen cap—the last time I saw his face we were both deep under the Paris catacombs, inside Napoleon’s hidden treasure chamber. He was armed, of course, and at first I thought I was being covered by a sawed-off shotgun, but as my eyes adjusted, I saw the man was pointing an antique twin-barreled flintlock pistol at me. The orifices of the gun looked like they were about .70 caliber, a numbed, detached part of my brain reported to me. The man’s dark eyes flashed in angry recognition as he half-whispered, “Merde! C’est l’homme!”
I slowly raised my hands. “I’m not armed. I’m here to talk.”
The woman, who had stepped away from me and out of the line of fire, nodded and smiled, only the smile didn’t seem to be so pleasant now. “So you shall, Monsieur Blake. So you shall.” She gestured to her companion as he came down the stairs, his eyes as unblinking as the barrels of the gun. He motioned toward the castle interior, the gun twitching in time with his head, like they were connected by invisible string. “Après vous,” he said.
“Look, we don’t have time for this,” I began.
“Mr. Blake,” the woman interrupted. “My young man there would be more than happy to shoot you in your legs and drag you along. The choice is up to you.”
The man with the elderly hand cannon understood enough English to grin at the thought, but not enough to completely follow directions as he lowered the gun to point at my groin. I did as told and moved from the antechamber into a passage with a low, arched ceiling, but my attention was on my captors behind me. “We’re running out of time,” I said over my shoulder, my voice sounding hollow in the stonework hall. “I’ve reason to believe this place will be attacked at any moment. You’re in danger.”
The woman’s voice held a musical, if slightly contemptuous quality as she said, “I would not be concerned with that, Mr. Blake. I believe you will find we are most secure in here. Now, no more talking.”
I shut up and let my guards direct me through a confusing series of twists and turns among the shadowed halls. We’d left the lighted area and moved into the interior, and one of my captors turned on a flashlight behind me. The odds just weren’t good enough that I could take them both out under these conditions; what I needed to do was start talking my way out of this. But I wasn’t going to get the chance until they had me where they wanted me, and at the moment I was busy mentally counting steps and turns in the event I was able to run out of here. I was directed to an old wooden bookcase that had been moved aside to reveal a man-sized archway cut into the stonework. Once through the arch, I was inside a circular, vertical tunnel built like a well, with stairs coiling around the walls and leading straight down. A damn long way down. As we descended, it felt like I was being swallowed by a gigantic snake of mythic proportions.
When we finally reached the bottom of the circular staircase, we arrived at another opening. It felt much colder down here than in the air outside, and I realized I must be in the heart of the mountain. At the base of the stairwell was a chamber that opened to three low tunnels, cut out of the rock like mine shafts. I was directed toward one, and saw that it terminated at an open, rusty iron door with a large, old-fashioned key left in the lock. It was this final chamber that manifested my worst fears as the weaving light from behind me exposed the iron bars and chains riveted to the solid rock wall. They had taken me to the dungeon.
I turned around and saw the woman place a large, handheld lantern on a low wooden table. She switched the light from a white spotlight to a red area lamp, illuminating the chamber in blood-colored light. The man handed the big pistol to the woman, and then pushed me back against a wall. I could have taken him out right then and there, but not before the woman could have blown my head off from across the room. He raised my hands and I felt him clamp cold irons around my wrists. When he had my hands locked up, he unzipped my jacket and ran his hands across my body in all the obvious places a gun could be hidden while missing the flat black box in my inside jacket pocket. He then stepped back and placed a key on the table, taking the gun back from the woman. I pulled at my restraints and heard chains rattle while feeling a small shower of rust particles fall on the back of my neck.
My insistent hosts spoke in low, fast French with their heads together. Finally, the man placed the pistol on the table and with a final hateful look toward me, he took out a flashlight and left the room. The woman seated herself on a plain wooden chair, the red lamp bathing her face the color of burning coal. “Well, now that we are comfortable, tell me all about this danger we are supposedly in.”
There was something in her pleasant-sounding, matter-of-fact speech that turned my guts colder than the stone wall I was chained to. “Listen,” I said urgently, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but right now a man named Philip Vanya, who has his own private army, believes you’re holding something he wants, something he’s willing to kill for.”
“And what would that something be?”
“He’s looking for the lost sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, and he believes that Joseph Fo
uché knew where it was hidden by Napoleon Bonaparte.”
I almost held my breath waiting for her reply to my fantastic claim, but I only heard her make a small sigh as she said, “Ah, Fouché. Dead all these years, and still he causes trouble.”
She was speaking as if she were discussing a slightly unruly child. “So,” I said, “it’s true?”
She ignored my question. “Tell me, Mr. Blake, what is your part in all of this? And why are you betraying your own people to me?”
“They’re not my people. I’ve been forced to work for Vanya.”
“Forced?” she replied in a disbelieving tone. “You were seen in Paris, and I was told how you ruthlessly killed our men while pursuing one of Fouché’s little trinkets. No, you are no innocent at all.”
I rattled my chains. “I’m in no position to argue,” I said. “But you’ve got to believe me when I say none of this is going to matter when Vanya’s men come crashing in here.”
She was as unmoved by my voice as a glacier. “Mr. Blake, do you know what the word ‘oubliette’ means?”
“It means ‘place of forgetting’; it’s where people used to toss prisoners.”
“It’s was the end of the world for some,” she said. “And you, I’m afraid, are now in your own personal oubliette. This is but one of many secret places hidden within the castle’s walls, like the needle in the haystack. You should feel honored—when the tourists come, they only get to see a, how do you say? A mock-up of a dungeon. No one will ever find you here. As for an army coming to attack us? I think you will find our fortifications adequate.”
I nodded to the firearm on the table. “What, you’re going to repel attacking boarders with antique muzzle-loaders? I told you, Vanya has an army, with automatic weapons and plastic explosives. Probably nerve gas, too.”
“Now you are just trying to frighten an old woman,” she calmly replied.
“Fine. If you have all the answers, then why are you keeping me around?”
She looked away, her face falling into shadow. “I would like for you to tell me the truth,” she said. “The man you know as Ombra, he is alive?”
“Yes. The last time I saw him, anyway, about twenty-four hours ago.”
“And he was in good health?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“I see,” she said slowly. She looked toward me again, and now the lantern showed her face looking as hard as carved amber. “Then it may interest you to know that your fate and Ombra’s are linked. For your sake, it is hoped he is still alive.”
“At least you have concern for your men.”
“He is my husband,” she replied simply.
“Oh,” was all I could say, feeling my hope sink like a rock in a pond. “Wait, I was told there was going to be a trade—you get Ombra back in exchange for Fouché’s document.”
“Truly?” she asked, her face a blood-colored mask. “I was told something quite different.”
“What?”
“I was told that the man who was responsible for my husband’s imprisonment would be delivered to me, and I could do with him what I will.”
“The man who…” I didn’t believe my predicament could get any worse, and just then I discovered how enormously wrong I could be. “Wait a goddamn minute,” I said. “Whatever you’ve been told, I am not the man responsible.”
“So someone is lying, yes? No matter. I will have the truth soon enough. As for being responsible, consider this: We would never have had to destroy the hidden chamber of Val de Grâce, except for you. I assure you, monsieur, that I and my people will go to any lengths to perform our duty.”
“What do you mean by that? What duty?”
She leaned back on her chair. “You’ll see.”
“What exactly was the deal you made?”
“It won’t matter to you,” she said with cold indifference. Then she laughed softly, shaking her head. “So you believe that Fouché’s paper will lead you to the body of Alexander the Great? Ah, well. You are not the first man to seek after secrets best kept buried. I can promise you this: Whatever else may come, no one who comes here will get their hands on any of Fouché’s records, no matter what.”
“So that means the document is here? In this castle?”
“For now,” she admitted slowly. “But it will soon be gone and safe for another hundred years at least.”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for? Get out now, while you still can.”
Madame Ombra tilted her head to one side, studying me like I was a specimen pinned to a board. “You appear concerned for me? Even now?”
“Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re guarding here that’s so important you’re willing to kill for it, but unless your particular religion encourages martyrdom, you’re going to wind up dying for the cause.”
For the first time, she looked genuinely surprised. “Religion? What does religion have to do with anything?”
“What? Wait … Vanya said that your people are trying to stop him from finding the body of Alexander because he could cause a worldwide crisis of faith, changing the foundations of the world’s religions. But if you don’t care about that, then what…?”
She gave me an almost pitying look. “Mr. Blake, I am very afraid you have involved yourself with something that has caused the death of many men, and women, before you for hundreds of years. For what it is worth, I am sorry if it comes to that for you. I only wish I could tell you why.”
I rattled my chains a bit. “Why not? Sounds like I’m already condemned. Whatever happened to the tradition of the last request?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. My people have been entrusted with the task of keeping secrets, and we have faithfully done so for hundreds of years. And we have not become as old as we have without learning to be cautious. The only question you need to concern yourself with is will there be daylight for you tomorrow? You must forget everything else.”
“Like I told you before, lady. I’m not the one in trouble here. You’re the one facing an imminent invasion.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and silently regarded me with narrowed eyes. “You are not lying?”
“Hell, no. I just figured it out myself. I was sent in here as a diversion, like a Trojan horse’s ass. An expendable one at that.”
The woman in black held up her hand for silence. “I believe we may both have our answers now,” she said. I heard the sounds of footsteps approaching and the creak of the iron prison door.
Rhea was smiling as she entered the red-lit antechamber of hell. “Hello, Jonathan,” she purred. “Have you missed me?”
“Like a plague,” I replied. “What are you doing here? Wait, let me guess—you cut a side deal with our hostess here.”
Madame Ombra remained seated when Rhea entered, followed by the young bearded man who’d escorted me down here. He was holding a modern pistol now, and he looked flushed and winded from climbing up and down the long, circular staircase.
Madame Ombra stood and said sternly to Rhea, “You were not to send Monsieur Blake to me until midnight. That was our arrangement.”
“Sorry,” Rhea replied insincerely. “Change of plan.”
I rattled my chains, getting another shower of itchy rust particles down the back of my neck. “Would this be a good time for me to say ‘I told you so’ about this being a trap?”
Rhea replied, “Don’t be upset, Jonathan. I got a good price for delivering you here. We’ve had Ombra’s cell phone since we picked him up in Paris—that’s how we contacted his organization. So sorry if we gave you the impression that you were actually joining us.” Rhea faced the woman in black and said, “As you see, I’ve kept my end of the bargain.”
“So it appears,” the woman replied coolly. “However, I have some questions.”
“Oh?” Rhea said silkily. “Has Blake been telling stories again?”
“Indeed. But more to the point, I believe we need to alter our agreement. You said you’d deliver Monsieur Blake to me i
n exchange for a certain document. I agreed at the time, but I’m sorry to inform you that I never intended to keep to that bargain. Now, you and Monsieur Blake will remain here with us until the man you call Ombra is released.”
“A double cross?” Rhea said, nodding as if in agreement. “I see.”
In the blink of an eye, Rhea took a fast side step and hurled Madame Ombra into the wall, then she raised her hand and pointed toward Ombra’s bodyguard, all the while smiling like the maniacal Cheshire cat. Madame Ombra’s boy was fast, and he had the gun aimed at Rhea and was pulling the trigger in rapid staccato snaps; only the gun wasn’t firing. Then came the ear-splitting crack and flash from Rhea’s hand, and the man’s head snapped back as he collapsed to the ground like all of his bones had disconnected at once.
Rhea glided in behind the table, reached down, and pulled Madame Ombra to her feet. Rhea’s hand was under the older woman’s chin, and in the red light I caught the faintest glimmer from a sliver of steel. “Now,” Rhea purred, “about our agreement?”
Madame Ombra, her voice strained by holding her neck away from Rhea’s blade, said, “I will never give you what you seek.”
