The Paris Vendetta

ASHBY WAS GLAD TO BE INSIDE. THE BASILICA’S INTERIOR WAS both warm and dry. Only a handful of overhead light fixtures burned, but they were enough for him to appreciate the lofty nave’s majesty. Soaring fluted columns, perhaps thirty meters high, graceful arches, and pointed vaulting conveyed an awe-inspiring sense. Stained-glass windows, too many to even count, dark to the dismal day, projected none of the sensuous power their luminous tones surely could convey. But the impression of seemingly weightless walls was heightened by the lack of any visible feature holding something so tall upright. He knew, of course, that the supports were outside in the form of flying buttresses. He was forcing himself to concentrate on details as a way to relieve his mind of stress. He needed to think. To be ready to act when the moment was right.

“Miss Dodd,” Lyon said. “What now?”

“I can’t think with that gun out,” Caroline blurted. “There’s no way. I don’t like guns. I don’t like you. I don’t like being here.”

Lyon’s brutish eyes narrowed. “If it helps, then here.” He stuffed the weapon beneath his coat and displayed two empty, gloved hands. “That better?”

Caroline fought to regain her composure. “You’re just going to kill us anyway. Why should I tell you anything?”

All congeniality faded from Lyon’s face. “Once we find whatever there is to find, I might have a change of heart. Besides, Lord Ashby there is watching my every move, waiting for me to err. Then we’ll have a chance to see if he’s really a man.”

Ashby clung to his last tatters of courage. “Perhaps I might have such an opportunity.”

Lyon’s lips parted in an amused grin. “I do hope so. Now, Miss Dodd, where to?”

THORVALDSEN LISTENED FROM THE HALF-OPEN DOOR THAT Ashby had battered. He and Meagan had crept forward after Ashby, Caroline Dodd, and the man in the green coat had slipped inside. He was reasonably sure that the third participant was the second man who’d leaped from the tour boat with Ashby.

“What do we do?” Meagan breathed into his ear.

He had to end this partnership. He motioned for them to retreat.

They fled the portal, back into the rain, retreating to their previous position beneath a covered walk. He noticed restrooms and an admission office and assumed this was where people bought tickets to visit the basilica.

He grabbed Meagan by the arm. “I want you out of here. Now.”

“You’re not so tough, old man, I can handle myself.”

“You don’t need to be involved.”

“You going to kill the woman and the other man, too?”

“If need be.”

She shook her head. “You’ve lost it.”

“That’s right. I have. So leave.”

Rain continued to torrent down, spilling off the roofs, dashing the pavement just beyond their enclosure. Everything seemed to be happening in a hypnotic slow motion. A lifetime of rationality was about to be erased by immeasurable grief. How many substitutes for happiness he’d tried since Cai died. Work? Politics? Philanthropy? Lost souls? Like Cotton. And Sam. But none of those had satisfied the hysteria that seemed to constantly rage within him. This was his task. No others were to be involved.

“I don’t want to get myself killed,” Meagan finally said to him.

Scorn tinged her words.

“Then leave.” He tossed her his cell phone. “I don’t need it.”

He turned away.

“Old man,” she said.

He stopped but did not face her.

“You take care.” Her voice, low and soft, hinted at genuine concern.

“You too,” he said.

And he stepped out into the rain.

SIXTY-NINE

MALONE PUSHED HIS WAY THROUGH A HEAVY SET OF OAK doors into the Church of St. André. Typical of Paris, gabled apses, crowned by a gallery, a high wall encircling the ambulatory. Sturdy flying buttresses supported the walls from the outside. Pure Gothic splendor.

People filled the pews and congregated in the transepts on either side of a long, narrow nave. Though heated, the air bore enough of a chill that coats were worn in abundance. Many of the worshipers carried shopping bags, backpacks, and large purses. All of which meant that his task of finding a bomb, or any weapon, had just become a million times harder.

He casually strolled through the edge of the crowd. The interior was a cadre of niches and shadows. Towering columns not only held up the roof, they provided even more cover for an assailant.

He was armed and ready.

But for what?

His phone vibrated. He retreated behind one of the columns, into an empty side chapel, and quietly answered.

“Services here are over,” Stephanie said. “People are leaving.”

He had a feeling, one that had overtaken him the moment he entered.

“Get over here,” he whispered.

ASHBY WALKED TOWARD THE MAIN ALTAR. THEY’D ENTERED the basilica through a side entrance, near one inside staircase that led up to the chancel and another that dropped to a crypt. Row after row of wooden chairs stretched from the altar toward the north transept and the main entrances, the north wall perforated by an immense rose window, dark to the disappearing day. Tombs lay everywhere among the chairs and in the transepts, most adorned with inlaid marbles. Monuments extended from one end of the nave to the other, perhaps a hundred meters of enclosed space.

“Napoleon wanted his son to have the cache,” Caroline said, her words sputtering with fear. “He hid his wealth carefully. Where no one would find it. Except those he wanted to find it.”

“As any person of power should,” Lyon said.

Rain continued to fall, the constant patter off the copper roof echoing through the nave.

“After five years in exile, he realized that he would never return to France. He also knew he was dying. So he tried to communicate the location to his son.”

“The book that the American gave you in London,” Lyon said to Ashby. “It’s relevant?”

He nodded.

“I thought you told me Larocque gave you the book,” Caroline said.

“He lied,” Lyon made clear. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. Why is the book important?”

“It has a message,” Caroline said.

She was offering too much, too fast, but Ashby had no way of telling her to slow down.

“I think I may have deciphered Napoleon’s final message,” she said.

“Tell me,” Lyon said.

SAM WATCHED AS THORVALDSEN ABANDONED MEAGAN AND she plunged back into the rain, ru

Meagan appeared.

“Where are you going?” he quietly asked.

She stopped short and whirled, clearly startled. “Damn, Sam. You scared me to death.”

“What’s going on?”

“Your friend is about to do something really stupid.”

He assumed as much. “What was that clamor I heard?”

“Ashby and two others broke into the church.”

He wanted to know who was with Ashby, so he asked. She described the woman, whom he did not know, but the second man matched the man from the tour boat. Peter Lyon. He needed to call Stephanie. He fumbled in his coat pocket and found his phone.

“They have trackers in them,” Meagan said, pointing to the unit. “They probably already know where you are.”

Not necessarily. Stephanie and Malone were busy dealing with whatever new threat Lyon had generated. But he’d been sent to babysit Thorvaldsen, not confront a wanted terrorist.

And another problem.

The trip here had taken twenty minutes-by subway. He was a long way from Paris central, in a nearly deserted suburb being drenched by a storm.