The Paris Vendetta

He stepped off the escalator onto the platform.

Red was standing twenty feet away, still holding his shopping bag.

An electronic billboard indicated the train was 75 seconds away. He studied a schematic of the London subway hanging on the wall and saw that this station serviced the District Line, which paralleled the Thames and ran east to west the city’s full length. This platform was for a westbound train, the route taking them to Tower Hill, beneath Westminster, through Victoria Station, and eventually beyond Kensington.

More people filtered down from above as a train arrived.

He kept his distance, positioning himself well behind, and followed his quarry into the car. He stood, hugging one of the stainless-steel poles, Red doing the same thirty feet away. Enough people were crammed into the car that no one face should draw much attention.

As the train chugged beneath the city, Malone studied his target, who seemed an older man, out for the evening, enjoying London.

But he spotted the eyes.

Amber.

He knew Peter Lyon possessed one anomaly. He loved disguise, but a genetic eye defect not only oddly colored his irises, but also made them overly susceptible to infection and prevented him from wearing contact lenses. Lyon preferred glasses to shield their distinctive amber tint, but had not worn any tonight.

He watched as Lyon engaged in a conversation with a dowager standing beside him. Malone noticed a copy of The Times lying on the floor. He asked if the paper belonged to anyone and, when no one claimed ownership, he grabbed and read the front page, allowing his gaze to periodically shift from the words.

He also kept track of the stations.

Fifteen came and went before Lyon exited at Earl’s Court. The stop was shared by the District and Piccadilly lines, blue and green signs directing passengers to either route. Lyon followed the blue signs for the Piccadilly Line, headed west, which he boarded with Malone a car behind. He didn’t think it prudent to share the same space again and was able to spy his quarry through windows in the car ahead.

A quick glance at a map over the doors confirmed they were headed straight for Heathrow Airport.

FORTY-SIX

PARIS

THORVALDSEN STUDIED THE TWO PAGES OF WRITING FROM THE Merovingian book. He’d expected Malone to hand over the entire book to Murad when they’d met earlier at the Louvre but, for some reason, that had not occurred.

“He only made me copies of the two pages,” Murad said to him. “He took the book with him.”

They were again sitting at the Ritz, in the crowded Bar Hemingway.

“Cotton didn’t happen to mention where he was going?”

Murad shook his head. “Not a word. I spent the day at the Louvre comparing more handwriting samples. This page, with the fourteen lines of letters, was definitely written by Napoleon. I can only assume that the Roman numerals are in his hand too.”

He checked the clock on the wall behind the bar. Nearly eleven PM. He did not like being kept in the dark. God knows he’d done that enough to others, but it was a different matter when it was his turn.

“The letter you told me about,” Murad said. “The one Ashby found on Corsica, with the raised letters coded to Psalm 31. Any letter written by Napoleon to his family would have been an excercise in futility. His second wife, Marie Louise, had by 1821 birthed a child with another man, while still legally married to Napoleon. The emperor surely never knew that since he kept a portrait of her in his house on St. Helena. He revered her. Of course, she was in Austria, back with her father, the king, who’d aligned himself with Tsar Alexander and helped defeat Napoleon. There’s no evidence that the letter Napoleon wrote ever made it to her, or his son. In fact, after Napoleon died, an emissary traveled to Vie

“Lucky for us.”

Murad nodded. “Napoleon was a fool when it came to women. The one who could have really helped him, he discarded. Josephine. She was barren and he needed an heir. So he divorced her and married Marie Louise.” The professor motioned with the two photocopies. “Yet here he is, sending secret messages to his second wife, thinking her still an ally.”

“Any clue what the reference to Psalm 31 means from the letter Ashby found?” he asked.

The scholar shook his head. “Have you read that Psalm? Seems his way of feeling sorry for himself. I did come across something interesting, though, this afternoon in one of the texts for sale at the Louvre. After Napoleon abdicated in 1814, the new Paris government sent emissaries to Orleans to confiscate Marie Louise’s clothing, imperial plate, diamonds, everything of value. They questioned her at length about Napoleon’s wealth, but she told them she knew nothing, which was probably true.”

“So the search for his cache started then?”

“It would seem so.”

“And continues to this day.”

Which made him think of Ashby.

Tomorrow they’d finally find themselves face-to-face.

And what about Malone.

What was he doing?

MALONE STEPPED FROM THE TRAIN AND FOLLOWED LYON INTO Terminal Two at Heathrow. He was worried that his quarry was about to leave London, but the man ventured nowhere near any ticket counters or security screening. Instead he passed through the terminal, stopping at a checkpoint, displaying what appeared to be a picture identification. No way Malone could safely follow, as the corridor was empty, a solitary door at its far end. So he stepped into an alcove, removed the cell phone from his coat pocket, and dialed Stephanie’s number.

“I’m at Heathrow Airport at a checkpoint marked 46-B. I need to get past it, and fast. There’s a single guard with a radio.”

“Sit tight. I have the right people here with me now.”

He liked Stephanie’s ability to instantaneously digest a problem, without questions or arguments, then fashion a solution.

He slipped from the alcove and approached the young guard. Lyon was gone, having exited the door at the far end of the corridor. He told the guard who he was, showed him his passport, and explained he needed to go through the door.

“No way,” the man said. “You have to be marked on the list.” A bony finger tapped a notebook open on the desk before him.

“Who was the man that just passed through?” he tried.

“Why would I tell you that? Who the bloody hell are you?”

The man’s radio squawked and he unclipped the unit and replied. An ear fob prevented Malone from hearing, but from the way he was now being eyed he assumed the conversation concerned him.

The guard finished his conversation.

“I’m the guy who made that call happen,” Malone said. “Now, who was the man who just passed through here?”

“Robert Pryce.”

“What’s his business?”

“No clue, but he’s been here before. What is it you need, Mr. Malone?”

He had to admire the English respect for authority.

“Where is Pryce headed?”

“His credentials assign him to Hangar 56-R.”

“Tell me how to get there.”

The guard quickly sketched a map on a piece of paper and pointed to the door at the far end of the hall. “That leads onto the apron.”

Malone trotted off and exited into the night.

He quickly found Hangar 56-R, three of its windows lit with orange and white light. Jet engines roared in the distance above a busy Heathrow. An array of buildings of varying sizes surrounded him. This area seemed the realm of private aviation companies and corporate jets.

He decided a quick view in one of the windows was the safest course. He rounded the building and passed the retracting door. On the other side he crept to a window and glanced in, spotting a single-engine Cessna Skyhawk. The man who called himself Robert Pryce, but who was surely Peter Lyon, was busy inspecting the wings and engine. The fuselage was white, striped blue and yellow, and Malone memorized the tail identification numbers. No one else could be seen in the hangar and Lyon seemed focused on a visual inspection. The Selfridges bag rested on the concrete floor near an exit door.