The Paris Vendetta

“When Napoleon died, he left a detailed will. It’s long, with numerous monetary bequests. Something like three million francs. Most were never honored, as there were no funds from which to pay them. Napoleon was a man in exile. He’d been dethroned. He had little, besides what he’d brought to St. Helena. But to read his will, you would think him wealthy. Remember, it was never intended that he would leave St. Helena alive.”

“I never understood why the Brits didn’t just kill him,” Malone said. “He was an obvious danger. Hell, he escaped from his first exile, in Elba, and wreaked havoc in Europe.”

“That’s true, and when he finally surrendered himself to the British, that surprised a lot of people. He wanted to go to America, and they almost let him, then decided better. You’re right-he was a real danger. And nobody wanted any more wars. But killing him would have posed other problems. Martyrdom, for one. Napoleon was revered, even in defeat, by many French and British. Of course, there is also another explanation.”

He caught sight of his face in the mirror above the dresser, his eyes, for once, alight with energy.

“It was said he harbored a secret, one the British wanted to learn. Untold wealth, all that unaccounted-for loot, and the English wanted it. The Napoleonic Wars had been costly. That’s why they kept him alive.”

“To bargain with him?”

He shrugged. “More likely waiting for Napoleon to make a mistake and they’d learn the treasure’s location.”

“I’ve read about his time on St. Helena,” Malone said. “It was a constant struggle of wills between him and Hudson Lowe, the British commander. Down to even how he should be addressed. Lowe referred to him as Général. Everyone else called him Your Majesty. Even after he died, Lowe wouldn’t allow the French to place Napoleon on the tombstone. He wanted the politically neutral Napoleon Bonaparte. So they buried him in an unmarked grave.”

“Napoleon was clearly a polarizing figure,” Thorvaldsen said. “But his will is most instructive, written three weeks before he died. There’s a provision, to his valet, Saint-Denis, where he left a hundred thousand francs and then directed him to take his copy of The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751 A.D. and another four hundred of his favorite volumes from his personal library, and to care for the books until Napoleon’s son reached sixteen. He was then to deliver the books to the son. Napoleon’s son lived to age twenty-one, but died a virtual prisoner in Austria. He never saw those books.”

Anger crept into his voice. For all his faults, every account ever written acknowledged how much Napoleon loved his son. He’d divorced his beloved Josephine and married Marie Louise of Austria simply because he needed a legitimate male heir, one that Josephine could not supply. The boy was but four when Napoleon had been exiled to St. Helena.

“It is said that within those books was the key to finding Napoleon’s cache-what the emperor skimmed for himself. He supposedly secreted that wealth away, in a place only he knew. The amount was enormous.”

He paused again.

“Napoleon possessed a plan, Cotton. Something he was counting on. You’re right, he played a game of wills with Lowe on St. Helena, but nothing was ever resolved. Saint-Denis was his most loyal servant, and I’m betting Napoleon trusted him with the most important bequest of all.”

“What does this have to do with Graham Ashby?”

“He’s after that lost cache.”

“How do you know that?”

“Suffice it to say that I do. In fact, Ashby desperately needs it. Or, more accurately, this Paris Club needs it. Its founder is a woman named Eliza Larocque, and she holds information that may lead to its discovery.”

He glanced away from the dresser, toward the bed where Cai had slept all his life.

“Is all this necessary?” Malone asked. “Can’t you let it go?”

“Was finding your father necessary?”

“I didn’t do it to kill anyone.”

“But you had to find him.”

“It’s been a long time, Henrik. Things have to end.” The words carried a somber tone.

“Since the day I buried Cai, I swore that I would discover the truth about what happened that day.”

“I’m going to Mexico,” Cai said to him. “I’m to be chief deputy of our consulate there.”

He saw the excitement in the young man’s eyes, but had to ask, “And when does all this end? I need you to take over the family concerns.”

“As if you’d actually let me decide anything.”

He admired his son, whose wide shoulders stretched straight as a soldier’s, his body lithe as an athlete’s. The eyes were identical to his from long ago, brittle blue, boyish at first glance, disconcertingly mature on further acquaintance. In so many ways he was like Lisette. Many times he felt as if he were actually talking to her again.

“I would allow you to make decisions,” he made clear. “I’m ready to retire.”

Cai shook his head. “Papa, you will never retire.”

He’d taught his son what his father had taught him. People can be read by gauging what they wanted in life. And his son knew him well.

“How about only another year with public service,” he said. “Then home. Is that acceptable?”

A feeling of remorse filled him.

Another year.

He faced Malone.

“Cotton, Amando Cabral killed my only child. He’s now dead. Graham Ashby likewise will be held accountable.”

“So kill him and be done with it.”

“Not good enough. First I want to take from him all that is precious. I want him humiliated and disgraced. I want him to feel the pain I feel every day.” He paused. “But I need your help.”

“You’ve got it.”

He reached out and clasped his friend’s shoulder.

“What about Sam and his Paris Club?” Malone asked.

“We’re going to deal with that, too. It can’t be ignored. We have to see what’s there. Sam derived much of his information from a friend in Paris. I’d like for you two to pay that man a visit. Learn what you can.”

“And when we do, are you going to kill all of them, too?”

“No. I’m going to join them.”

Part Two

EIGHTEEN

PARIS, FRANCE

1:23 PM

MALONE LOVED PARIS. HE REGARDED IT AS A DELIGHTFUL CONJUNCTION of old and new, every corner volatile and alive. He’d visited the city many times when he worked with the Magellan Billet, and knew his way around its medieval hovels. He wasn’t happy, though, with this assignment.

“How did you get to know this guy?” he asked Sam.

They’d flown from Copenhagen on a midmorning flight directly to Charles de Gaulle Airport and taken a taxi downtown into the boisterous Latin Quarter, named long ago for the only language then permitted within the university precinct. Like almost everything else, Napoleon abolished the use of Latin, but the name stuck. Officially known as the fifth arrondissement, the quarter remained a haven for artists and intellectuals. Students from the nearby Sorbo

“We met online,” Sam said.

He listened as Sam told him about Jimmy Foddrell, an American expatriate who’d come to Paris to study economics and decided to stay. Foddrell had started a website three years ago-GreedWatch.net-that became popular among the New Age/world conspiratorialist crowd. The Paris Club was one of its more recent obsessions.

You never know, Thorvaldsen had said earlier. Foddrell is getting his information somewhere, and there might be something we can use.