“It is just that increased antidrug efforts in Colombia have forced many rebel soldiers into the southern Darien Province. I thought you should know.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Mercer answered, but she had already clicked off.
He returned to the main auction gallery. Jean-Paul was just about to announce the next item. Back in his seat, Mercer listened idly as the sale continued around him, only showing interest when something pertaining to the Panama Canal came up. Like before, bidder 127 bought everything, often paying double what the material was worth. He knew that such buyers sometimes sent silent proxies to an auction to report on who they were bidding against. From his vantage at the back of the room, Mercer surveyed the well-dressed crowd but saw no Asians; not that one of the Europeans couldn’t be in the enigmatic Chinese’s employ.
It was nearing 6:00 P.M. when the auction wound down for the day. Mercer’s internal clock said it was 10:00 in the morning, but he was tired enough to only think about getting to his hotel. He’d been awake for twenty hours and had a morning meeting at the Ecole des Mines on boulevard St. Michel near the Luxembourg Gardens.
He found Jean-Paul again at the center of a group of people in the reception room outside the
“Mercer, what a day. I think this is a record for me and the big stuff isn’t being sold until tomorrow.” He turned to introduce the man next to him. “Oh, this is my chief of security, Rene Bruneseau.”
Bruneseau had a compact build and the bearing of an army drill instructor. His receding hair was cropped short and made the heavy brows over his dark eyes more prominent. His head was blocky, more Slovak than French, with chiseled features blurred by excessive stubble. He wore an ill-fitted suit dusted with cigarette ash and his teeth were stained a coffee brown.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Mercer said, then addressed Jean-Paul. “Looks like bidder 127 is going to keep you in frog legs, snails, and other garden pests you French insist on eating.”
“Speaking of which, we must go out for dinner, or at least a drink.”
“Sorry, not this time. I’m going to my hotel and crashing.”
“Staying at the Crillon, as usual?”
“No. My travel agent had a client cancel a reservation at a hotel on the Left Bank near the Montparnasse Tower.” The 690-foot-tall office building was considered a blight on the city that photographers deftly avoided when shooting Paris. “She conned me into taking it over so her client wouldn’t lose his deposit.”
“Slumming?” Jean-Paul teased.
“She guaranteed it was four stars, or was it four cockroaches?”
“Mr. Derosier,” Bruneseau interrupted, his voice rumbling from deep within his barrel chest, “I will get the Lepinay journal for Dr. Mercer and then I must see to that problem we talked about before.”
Jean-Paul’s urbane veneer cracked for a second before a smooth recovery. “Oh, yes, right. The Lepinay journal.”
There were forty or fifty auction-goers still milling around the reception room. It was odd that Jean-Paul would mention the book after telling them it wasn’t for sale. “Sure you guys want to be blurting out that you were selling it after all?” Mercer asked.
“Oh,
“Thinking about those frog legs already?” Mercer joked. Jean-Paul didn’t respond for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Ah, here comes Rene.” The security chief had the journal wrapped in brown paper.
Mercer caught the eye of one of the tuxedoed attendants and asked him to get his steel sample case from the cloakroom. He’d left all his luggage at the reception desk when he’d arrived. While he waited, he pulled out one of the blank checks he kept in his wallet and filled in the information, including the four-thousand-dollar price. He handed it over with an exaggerated flourish. “With my thanks from the Bouncing Check National Bank.”
Once he had his case, Mercer slit the book’s paper wrapper with a pocketknife. He studied the scuffed leather cover for a moment, feeling a tingle of excitement. He didn’t consider Gary’s “final puzzle piece.” What filled him with anticipation was the opportunity to gain some insight on a brilliant engineer who was decades ahead of his time. Slowly, he opened the diary. The journal was handwritten in faded black ink on heavy rag bond that felt as thick as a wallpaper sample. Godin de Lepinay had written in a confident, looping script. Mercer read just a couple of lines, translating in his head as best he could, and knew that he needed to pick up a French-English dictionary before his flight. He slid the journal into the case and snapped the lid closed.
“Can’t wait to start reading it, eh?” Jean-Paul said, correctly reading Mercer’s rapt expression.
“I think you two should go get a drink together,” Rene Bruneseau suggested.
“Come on, Mercer, what do you say?”
Mercer shook his head. “I’ve got a suite at the Victoria Palace Hotel with a bed they promise me is big enough to play soccer on. I’m meeting another old friend in the morning and then I leave for Panama in the afternoon. You’ll be coming to the States when Sotheby’s has that big auction in December. We’ll have time then, I promise.”
“I understand.” Jean-Paul stuck out his hand just as a customer approached. Before he was engaged in this next conversation he called out Mercer’s name once again. “Just watch yourself.”
It was such an odd thing for him to say that Mercer asked him for what.
“Oh, with the rain we’ve had for the past few days, the sanitation department’s been dropping the ball all over the city. Traffic is a nightmare and your cab driver’s going to try to rip you off on the ride to your hotel.”
Mercer laughed. “I can play ugly American with the best of them.”
He retrieved his luggage from the cloakroom, slinging the garment bag’s strap over his shoulder and clutching the matching suitcase in one hand and his metal attache in the other. Outside, the rain hissed under the tires of the cars moving in starts and jerks along rue Drouot. He didn’t have an overcoat and the cold rain trickled down the back of his neck. Across the street, he thought he saw Rene Bruneseau, but the figure ducked into a sedan without looking back.
It took ten minutes to find a cab because rush hour was in full effect, and like all other city dwellers, Parisians hated being rained on more than anything. He told the Algerian driver to head toward Place Denfort-Rochereau across the Seine, and settled into the battle-scarred Peugeot. Paris had never held him enthralled so he closed his eyes while the car fought its way across the city. He barely glanced up at the floodlit Notre Dame Cathedral as they motored across the Ile de la Cite. The cab driver mercifully didn’t try to engage him in small talk. The storms had snarled traffic so badly that he needed all his concentration to avoid the fender benders that erupted around them.
The streets on the Left Bank were a leftover of the city’s medieval past, a warren of obtuse intersections that made Mercer think of a demented maze. The driver seemed sure enough, yet had to take several detours to avoid street department trucks parked near overflowing storm drains.
Through the arcs cleared by the windshield wipers, Mercer could see the yellowed stonework of the seventeenth-century observatory. He remembered that the sprawling Luxembourg Palace, the home of France’s senate, would be right behind him.
He twisted around to see if he was right and just had time to brace himself as a pair of stabbing headlights surged toward the rear of the cab, blinding him to the sight of a large truck barreling toward them. The impact came an instant later, a rending crash that pancaked the taxi into the car in front. The chain reaction shot through several other stalled cars. Caught unaware, the Algerian driver had his face slammed into the steering wheel. He slumped unconscious into the footwell, taking his beaded seat cover with him.
Mercer had cushioned the impact by clutching the driver’s seat and allowing his arms to flex like shock absorbers. Unhurt but rattled, he leaned far over the seat to check on the driver when his door was suddenly wrenched open.
Thinking it was a Good Samaritan lending a hand, Mercer had a second to acknowledge that the person reaching into the vehicle was young, dressed in an army surplus jacket, and that his hair had been shorn off in a skinhead style. Then the punk yanked Mercer’s briefcase from the seat. He held an automatic pistol in his free hand.
The thief paused for an indecisive moment before hissing in French, “Give me your wallet or you’re dead.”
