“So you do speak French.”
“I can hold my own.”
A look of triumph flashed across her face. “I’m sure you can. But you’re up against something you know little about.” She pointed down the narrow way. “See the fourth house.”
He did. Redbrick façade with diagonals of varnished black, stone-mullioned windows, iron balustrades. A wide archway, crowned by a sculpted pediment, was barred by a gilded gate.
“Built in 1395,” she said. “Rebuilt in 1660. In 1777 it housed a swarm of lawyers. They were a front for the laundering of Spanish and French money to American revolutionists. Those same lawyers also sold arms to the Continental army against bills for future delivery of tobacco and colonial wares. The victorious Americans welshed on delivery, though. Aren’t we a grand people?”
He didn’t answer her, sensing she was about to make a point.
“Those lawyers sued the new nation and finally got paid in 1835. Determined bastards, weren’t they?”
He still stayed silent.
“In the 13th century, Lombardian moneylenders settled around here somewhere. A rapacious bunch, they loaned money at outrageous rates and demanded high returns.”
She motioned again at the fourth house and cocked an eye his way.
“That’s where the Paris Club meets.”
THIRTY-FOUR
6:10 PM
MALONE LIGHTLY KNOCKED ON THE PANELED DOOR. HE’D LEFT the museum and taken a taxi across town to the Ritz. He hoped Thorvaldsen had returned from the Loire Valley and was relieved when his friend answered the door.
“Were you involved in what happened at the Cluny?” Thorvaldsen asked as he entered the suite. “It was on television.”
“That was me. I managed to get out before getting caught.”
“Where’s Sam?”
He recapped everything that happened, including Sam’s abduction, crocheting the facts while explaining about Jimmy Foddrell being Meagan Morrison, omitting any reference to Stephanie’s appearance. He’d decided to keep that close. If he was to have any chance of stopping Thorvaldsen, or at least delaying him, he could not mention Washington’s involvement.
Interesting how the tables had turned. Usually it was Thorvaldsen who held back, sucking Malone in deeper.
“Is Sam okay?” Thorvaldsen asked.
He decided to lie. “I don’t know. But there’s little I can do about it at the moment.”
He listened as Thorvaldsen recapped his visit with Eliza Larocque, ending with, “She’s a despicable bitch. I had to sit there, so polite, thinking the whole time about Cai.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t relieve her of responsibility so easily. Ashby works with her. There’s a close connection, and that’s enough for me.”
His friend was tired, the fatigue evident in weary eyes.
“Cotton, Ashby is going after a book.”
He listened to more information about Napoleon’s will and The Merovingian Kingdoms 450-751, A.D., a volume supposedly on display in the Invalides.
“I need to get that book first,” Thorvaldsen said.
Vague ideas floated through his brain. Stephanie wanted Thorvaldsen halted. To do that, Malone would have to take control of the situation, but that was a tall order considering who was currently in the driver’s seat.
“You want me to steal it?” he asked.
“It won’t be easy. The Invalides was once a national armory, a fortress.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I do.”
“I’ll get the book. Then what are you going to do? Find the lost cache? Humiliate Ashby? Kill him? Feel better?”
“All of the above.”
“When my son was taken last year, you were there for me. I needed you, and you came through. I’m here now. But we have to use our heads. You can’t simply murder a man.”
An expression of profound sympathy came to the older man’s face. “I did last night.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not in the least. Cabral killed my son. He deserved to die. Ashby is as responsible as Cabral. And, not that it matters, I may not have to murder him. Larocque can do it for me.”
“And that makes it easier?”
Stephanie had already told him that Ashby was coming to Paris, and had assured his American handler that tomorrow he would provide full details of what was about to happen. Malone despised the Brit for what he’d done to Thorvaldsen-but he understood the value of the intelligence Ashby could offer and the significance of taking down a man like Peter Lyon.
“Henrik, you’ve got to let me handle this. I can do it. But it has to be my way.”
“I can get the book myself.”
“Then what the hell am I doing here?”
A stubborn smile found the older man’s lips. “I hope you’re here to help.”
He kept his eyes on Thorvaldsen. “My way.”
“I want Ashby, Cotton. Do you understand that?”
“I get it. But let’s find out what’s going on before you kill him. That’s the way you talked yesterday. Can we stick with that?”
“I’m beginning not to care about what’s happening, Cotton.”
“Then why screw with Larocque and the Paris Club? Just kill Ashby and be done with it.”
His friend went silent.
“What about Sam?” Thorvaldsen finally asked. “I’m worried.”
“I’ll deal with that, too.” He recalled what Stephanie had said. “But he’s a big boy, so he’s going to have to take care of himself. At least for a while.”
SAM ENTERED THE APARTMENT IN A SECTION OF TOWN MORRISION had called Montparnasse, not far from the Cluny Museum and Luxembourg Palace, in a building that offered a charm of days long gone. Darkness had swallowed them on the walk from the Métro station.
“Lenin once lived a few blocks over,” she said. “It’s now a museum, though I can’t imagine who’d want to visit.”
“Not a fan of communism?” he asked.
“Hardly. Worse than capitalism, in a multitude of ways.”
The apartment was a spacious studio on the sixth floor with a kitchenette, bath, and the look of a student tenant. Unframed prints and travel posters brightened the walls. Improvised board-and-block shelving sagged under the weight of textbooks and paperbacks. He noticed a pair of men’s boots beside a chair and wadded jeans on the floor, far too large for Morrison.
“This isn’t my place,” she said, catching his interest. “A friend’s.”
She removed her coat, slid the gun free, and casually laid it on a table.
He noticed three computers and a blade server in one corner.
She pointed. “That’s GreedWatch. I run the site from here, but I let everyone think Jimmy Foddrell does.”
“People were hurt at the museum,” he told her again. “This isn’t a game.”
“Sure it is, Sam. A big, terrible game. But it’s not mine. It’s theirs, and people getting hurt is not my fault.”
“You started it when you screamed at those two men.”
“You had to see reality.”
He decided, instead of arguing again about the obvious, he’d do what the Secret Service had taught him-keep her talking. “Tell me about the Paris Club.”
“Curious?”
“You know I am.”
“I thought you would be. Like I said, you and I think alike.”
He wasn’t so sure about that, but kept his mouth shut.
“As far as I can tell, the club is made up of six people. All obscenely wealthy. Typical greedy bastards. Five billion in assets isn’t enough. They want six or seven. I know someone who works for one of the members-”
He pointed. “Same guy who wears those boots?”
Her grin widened into a crescent. “No. Another guy.”
“You’re a busy girl.”
“You have to be to survive in this world.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the gal who’s going to save you, Sam Collins.”
“I don’t need saving.”