The Paris Vendetta

cheekbones, and broad nose.

Napoleon stared at the deeply lined face.

“Did you bring the oracle?” the man asked him.

He motioned to the leather satchel. “I have it.”

Napoleon emerged from the pyramid. He’d been inside for nearly an hour and darkness had now swallowed the Giza plain. He’d told the Egyptian to wait inside before leaving.

He swiped more dust from his uniform and straightened the leather satchel across his shoulder. He found the ladder and fought to control his emotions, but the past hour had been horrific.

Monge waited on the ground, alone, holding the reins of Napoleon’s horse.

“Was your visit satisfactory, mon General?”

He faced his savant. “Hear me, Gaspard. Never speak of this night again. Do you understand me? No one is to know I came here.”

His friend seemed taken aback by his tone.

“I meant no offense-”

He held up a hand. “Never speak of it again. Do you understand me?”

The mathematician nodded, but he caught Monge’s gaze as he glanced past him, upward, to the top of the ladder, at the Egyptian, waiting for Napoleon to leave.

“Shoot him,” he whispered to Monge.

He caught the shock on his friend’s face, so he pressed his mouth close to the academician’s ear. “You love to tote that gun. You want to be a soldier. Then it is time. Soldiers obey their commander. I don’t want him leaving this place. If you don’t have the guts, then have it done. But know this. If that man is alive tomorrow, our glorious mission on behalf of the exalted Republic will suffer the tragic loss of a mathematician.”

He saw the fear in Monge’s eyes.

“You and I have done much together,” Napoleon made clear. “We are indeed friends. Brothers of the so-called Republic. But you do not want to disobey me. Not ever.”

He released his grip and mounted the horse.

“I am going home, Gaspard. To France. To my destiny. May you find yours, as well, here, in this godforsaken place.”

Part One

*

ONE

COPENHAGEN

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, THE PRESENT

12:40 AM

THE BULLET TORE INTO COTTON MALONE’S LEFT SHOULDER.

He fought to ignore the pain and focused on the plaza. People rushed in all directions. Horns blared. Tires squealed. Marines guarding the nearby American embassy reacted to the chaos, but were too far away to help. Bodies were strewn about. How many? Eight? Ten? No. More. A young man and woman lay at contorted angles on a nearby patch of oily asphalt, the man’s eyes frozen open, alight with shock-the woman, facedown, gushing blood. Malone had spotted two gunmen and immediately shot them both, but never saw the third, who’d clipped him with a single round and was now trying to flee, using panicked bystanders for cover.

Dammit, the wound hurt. Fear struck his face like a wave of fire. His legs went limp as he fought to raise his right arm. The Beretta seemed to weigh tons, not ounces.

Pain jarred his senses. He sucked deep breaths of sulfur-laced air and finally forced his finger to work the trigger, which only squeaked, and did not fire.

Strange.

More squeaks could be heard as he tried to fire again.

Then the world dissolved to black.

Malone awoke, cleared the dream from his mind-one that had recurred many times over the past two years-and studied the bedside clock.

12:43 AM.

He was lying atop the bed in his apartment, the nightstand’s lamp still on from when he’d plopped down two hours ago.

Something had roused him. A sound. Part of the dream from Mexico City, yet not.

He heard it again.

Three squeaks in quick succession.

His building was 17th century, completely remodeled a few months ago. From the second to the third floor the new wooden risers now announced themselves in a precise order, like keys on a piano.

Which meant someone was there.

He reached beneath the bed and found the rucksack he always kept at the ready from his Magellan Billet days. Inside, his right hand gripped the Beretta, the same one from Mexico City, a round already chambered.

Another habit he was glad he hadn’t shucked.

He crept from the bedroom.

His fourth-floor apartment was less than a thousand square feet. Besides the bedroom, there was a den, kitchen, bath, and several closets. Lights burned in the den, where a doorway opened to the stairway. His bookshop consumed the ground floor, and the second and third floors were used exclusively for storage and work space.

He found the doorway and hugged the inner jamb.

No sound had revealed his advance, as he’d kept his steps light and his shoes to the carpet runners. He still wore his clothes from yesterday. He’d worked late last night after a busy Saturday before Christmas. It was good to be a bookseller again. That was supposedly his profession now. So why was he holding a gun in the middle of the night, every one of his senses telling him danger was nearby?

He risked a glance through the doorway. Stairs led to a landing, then angled downward. He’d switched off the lights earlier before climbing up for the night, and there were no three-way switches. He cursed himself for not including some during the remodeling. One thing that had been added was a metal banister lining the stair’s outer edge.

He fled the apartment and slid down the slick brass rail to the next landing. No sense announcing his presence with more creaks from other wooden risers.

Carefully, he glanced down into the void.

Dark and quiet.

He slid to the next landing and worked his way around to where he could spy the third floor. Amber lights from Hojbro Plads leaked in through the building’s front windows and lit the space beyond the doorway with an orange halo. He kept his inventory there-books bought from people who, every day, lugged them in by the boxload. “Buy for