The Paris Vendetta

any proof.”

“What if Ashby finds the cache and doesn’t tell you?”

“How would I ever know?”

“You won’t.”

“Is there a point to your badgering?”

He saw that she’d heard the hint of an unspoken promise. “Whatever he’s after, here, today, in Paris, seems important. You yourself said it might hold the key. If I’m right about him, he’s going to tell you that he wasn’t able to retrieve whatever it is-that it wasn’t there or some other such excuse. It will be for you to judge whether that be truth or a lie.”

FORTY-ONE

MALONE LEFT DR. MURAD AT THE LOUVRE, AFTER PHOTOCOPYING the two pages in the Merovingian book with Napoleon’s writing and leaving the copies with the professor. He needed to keep the book.

He grabbed a taxi, crossed the Seine, and headed to the Eiffel Tower. Beneath the ironworks, among a bustling crowd of visitors waiting in line to ascend the elevators, he spotted Stephanie, Sam, and another woman-Meagan Morrison.

“Good to see you’re okay,” he said to Sam. “Of course, you didn’t listen to a thing I said in the museum.”

“I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”

“Actually you could and should have.”

Malone faced Morrison. She was exactly as Stephanie described-short, anxious, attractive, and interesting.

Meagan pointed at Stephanie. “Is she always so pushy?”

“Actually, she’s mellowed over the years.”

“How about you two excusing us a minute,” Stephanie said. She grabbed Malone’s arm and led him away, asking, “What did you find in the Invalides?”

He reached beneath his jacket and showed her the book. “Lord Ashby wasn’t happy it was gone. I watched as he read my note. But I also noticed that he avoided Caroline Dodd’s questions and blamed it all on Larocque.”

“Which explains why Thorvaldsen doesn’t know Ashby is working for us. He’s kept his spying close. I didn’t think Henrik could have the man followed twenty-four hours a day, or listen to every communication.”

Malone knew intense surveillance, no matter how professionally done, was eventually noticed. Better to be selective and careful.

“Our handlers have done a poor job riding herd over Ashby,” she said. “He’s had a free rein, calling all the shots.”

He watched Sam and Meagan Morrison as they stood a hundred feet away. “Is he doing all right?”

“He wants to be a field agent, so I’m going to give him a chance.”

“Is he ready?”

“He’s all I’ve got right now, so he’s going to have to be.”

“And her?”

“Hothead. Cocky. The balls of an alley cat.”

“Easy to see how you two would butt heads.”

She smiled. “I have French intelligence working with me. They’ve been told about Peter Lyon. They want him bad. He’s linked to three bombings here a decade ago where four policemen died.”

“They still pissed about the Cluny?”

She chuckled. “The directeur generale de la securite exterieure knows all about you. He told me about the abbey at Belem and Aachen’s cathedral. But he’s reasonable. That’s how you and Ashby walked in and out of the Invalides with no problem. Believe me, they have better security than that.”

“I need something else.” He motioned with the book. “A press story on its theft. Nothing major-just enough to make tomorrow’s paper. It would help.”

“With Henrik?”

He nodded. “I need to keep him at bay. He has a plan to use the theft against Ashby with Larocque. I don’t see the harm, so let’s indulge him.”

“Where is he?”

“Driving a wedge deeper between Eliza Larocque and Ashby. You realize, like him, I’m playing both ends against the middle.”

“Played right, we may all get what we want.”

He was tired, the strain from the past couple of weeks returning. He ran a hand through his hair. He also should call Gary. Christmas was tomorrow, a day when fathers should talk to their sons.

“What now?” he asked.

“You and I are headed to London.”

SAM STUFFED HIS BARE HANDS INTO HIS COAT POCKETS AND stood in the crowd with Meagan. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless winter sky.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked her.

“Your lady friend there said I’d be arrested if I didn’t.”

“That’s not why.”

Her pleasant face showed no apprehension, something he’d noticed often since yesterday. No negativity in this personality, or at least not any she allowed to surface.

“We’re finally doing it,” she said. “No more talking. We’re here, Sam, doing something.”

He’d felt some of the same ebullience.

“We can stop them. I knew it was real. So did you. We’re not crazy, Sam.”

“You realize what Stephanie wants us to do is dangerous.”

She shrugged. “How bad could it be? Any worse than at the museum yesterday? What’s wrong with being a little cavalier?”

“What’s that word mean?” he asked Norstrum.

“Free. Offhand. Somewhat careless.”

He allowed his fifteen-year-old brain to absorb the definition. He’d broken another rule and risked a free climb up the rock face. Norstrum had told him to use a rope, but he hadn’t obeyed.

“Sam, we all take chances. That’s how you succeed. But never foolish ones. Success comes from minimizing risk, not making it greater.”

“But the rope wasn’t needed. I made it fine.”

“And what would have happened if your grip had not held? Or your foot slipped? Or a muscle cramped?” Norstrum’s terse questions were a clear indication that he was, if not displeased, certainly unhappy. “You would have fallen. Been maimed for life, maybe killed, and what would you have gained from taking such a risk?”

He tried to place the information into context, allowing the rebuke to float through his mind as he determined the right response. He did not like that he’d upset Norstrum. When he was younger he didn’t care, but as he’d grown older he’d come to want not to disappoint this man.

“I’m sorry. It was foolish.”

The older man grasped his shoulder. “Remember, Sam, foolishness will get you killed.”

Norstrum’s warning rang clear in his brain as he considered Meagan’s three questions. Seventeen years ago, when he’d scaled the rock face with no safety rope, he’d learned that Norstrum had been right.

Foolishness will get you killed.

Yesterday, in the museum, he’d forgotten that lesson.

Not today.

Stephanie Nelle had drafted him for a job. Did it entail risks? Plenty. But they should be measured and calculated.