He folded the letter and secured it with his wax seal, then placed it on the desk and turned back to the tiny box. With the steady hand of a surgeon, he rotated it in his hands as he dripped red wax along the seam made by the lid. The box was too small for a lock, for one with any significance certainly, and the contents weren’t valuable enough to steal, not in that way. But the seal would tell the man who received it that he was the first to open it, that the treasure within came untouched from its source.
That and his letter, Pichon knew, were about the only assurances he could offer his distant ally.
He rose and walked around his desk, taking the letter and sealed box with him, and knelt in front of a wooden chest, a small strongbox that he’d acquired from a dealer on the Ile de la Cité. “Barely used” had been the promise, which meant its owner had probably died of the plague or, more likely in this case, under the knife of a pirate. This chest was more ornate than the traditional sailor’s chest, made from walnut not oak, with strong brass hinges and ornamental inlay of the same metal, golden and polished bright by Laurence. And this chest had other attributes, too, secret compartments revealed by sliding wooden panels in the lid and sides, the front itself entirely a façade that folded down and allowed the secretion of larger items. The cleverness of the chest was that it let you think you’d found everything and even now, a year after buying it, Monsieur Pichon had a sneaking suspicion it contained a compartment or two he’d not discovered. Nor would he, not now.
The strongbox already held an assortment of clothes, folded small and tight along with a pair of new, if petite, leather boots. Pichon buried his hands into the box, shoving the clothes aside and pressing his finger into a raised knot of wood that doubled as release. A square of panel gave way, and with great care he slid the small wooden box into the space and let the cover fall back into place; the fit was perfect.
The old man’s fingers then moved to the front of the chest and fiddled with the hole where the latch would fall when the lid closed. Pichon poked around in the tiny space until he found the brass tip that slid left-to-right, letting the front fall open. He placed the letter in the space above the hinges and closed up the false front of the box, two treasures hidden away with a satisfying click.
A knock at the door. Laurence with his guest?
“Come in,” Pichon said.
The man in front of him was barely thirty, and had a tired look to him exacerbated by his unshaven face and wild, dark hair. “Monsieur Pichon, comment ça va?”
“I’m well. You?”
The man didn’t answer, just looked around the room and then down at the chest.
“Is everything ready?” Pichon asked, suddenly wary. “How is … he?”
“He is still quite sick.”
The man’s eyes had flickered in a way Pichon did not care for. “Sick? Il n’est pas mort?”
“Non, monsieur, he is not dead. But sick.”
The man finally met his eye and Pichon chose to believe him. “The chest, it’s ready.”
“That’s it? Everything is in there?”
“Yes,” said Pichon. “You will send it ahead and follow as soon as you can?”
“Oui. As soon as I can.” He gave a weak smile. “I should take it, and go.”
The man made his way out into the street, the heavy wooden chest in his hands. He felt more than a little guilt as, behind him, Monsieur Pichon watched from his doorway. The young man was not a good liar and took no pleasure in it, and he suspected that old man Pichon had sensed something was wrong.
Wrong indeed, the young man thought as he climbed into his carriage. Every man has his own agenda and sometimes circumstances change, requiring honest people to choose a different path.
He placed the chest on the leather seat beside him and left his hand on top, thinking about another box at his home, one not much bigger than this. A box more simple in design and more commonly used, a rectangle of oak that flared out at the sides and contained the lifeless remains of a child.
Two
Hugo Marston walked into the embassy’s security offices with one hand behind his back. His secretary, Emma, a handsome woman who was never anything but perfectly attired and coiffed, looked up from her computer screen.
“Good morning and happy birthday,” he said, “to the most efficient and wonderful secretary an RSO could have.”
“Oh, Hugo, you remembered.” She took the bouquet and inhaled. “You are a sweet man.”
Hugo picked up a stack of mail from the corner of her desk. “I know.”
“Although as regional security officer, you seem to have forgotten some basic training.”
“Meaning?”
She nodded toward the closed door of his office. “You should lock it at night.”
“If it’s who I think it is, he has a key.”
“I suppose he would,” said Emma, “being the ambassador.”
“Did you make him coffee?”
“No, I made it for you, but I have no doubt he’s drinking it.”
“I better get in there, then.” He opened the door to his office and entered, smiling at the rotund, bald man who sat with his polished shoes on Hugo’s desk, sipping at a cup of coffee. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re not using my chair.”
“Wouldn’t want to,” Ambassador Taylor said. “It looks like something out of Star Trek.”
“It’s ergonomic, and it’s better for your posture than sitting with your feet on a desk.”
Taylor patted his stomach. “I’m way past anything a chair can do.”
“And I may have mentioned this before.” Hugo sat down. “But if you let me out in the field now and again, I wouldn’t need a space-age chair.”
“Every time you go out in the field, someone gets shot. And being the observant fellow that I am, I’ve noticed that the person getting shot is never you.”
“That’s because I duck.” Hugo reached for the coffee pot. “So, are you here for the beverages or do you have a new stack of papers for me to read, sign, or otherwise shuffle?”
“I have a special assignment for you, as it happens. In the field.”
Hugo perked up. “Oh yes?”
“We’re having a surprise visit from Charles Lake.”
“The senator?” Hugo asked.
“Yes, but more specifically the presidential candidate. Or about-to-be presidential candidate, I can’t keep up.”
“That season already, is it?”
“Seems like it’s always that season. Point is, and bearing in mind he’ll either fire me or be my next boss, I want my best man on it.”
“If he’s a presidential candidate, he should have Secret Service help.”
“He will. When you’re around they’ll defer to you; their presence is a courtesy rather than a necessity. But yes, they’ll be here with him.”
Hugo groaned. “So I’m the babysitter, not security.”
“Correct.”
“I did that in London not too long ago. A movie star, that time. Did you hear about that?”
“I did. A gruesome business, if I recall correctly.”
“Precisely. With that in mind, you want to rethink the assignment?”
“Quite the opposite. No doubt you learned from that experience and will be even better at it this time around.”
“No doubt.” Hugo poured himself coffee from the pot. “So when and why is he coming? And why aren’t you babysitting your own future boss?”
“I plan to meet him and feed him when he gets here, but you get to have him when there’s actual work to do.”
“And what work is that, exactly?”
“You’ve been reading up on the whole Guadeloupe Archipelago thing.”