She’d been the one who’d discovered the connection between Gustave’s and the Corsican’s books and the Roman numerals. She’d also discovered, from some research conducted in Barcelona a few weeks ago, the Moor’s Knot. He was glad to have her on his side, and knew what was now expected of him.
“I’ll have a few bars set aside for you.”
She nodded her appreciation. “And I’ll see to it that you have a lovely evening tonight.”
“I could use some relaxation.”
The charmeuse in her gown shimmered as she edged closer to the table. “That solves your money problems.”
“For the foreseeable future. I estimated as much as a hundred million euros in gold.”
“And my few bars?”
“A million. Maybe more, depending on how lovely my evening is tonight.”
She laughed. “How about dress-up? The schoolgirl sent to the headmaster’s office? That’s always fun.”
He was feeling good. After a disastrous couple of years, things were finally starting to go right. The bad times had begun when Amando Cabral had grown careless in Mexico and nearly brought them both down. Thankfully, Cabral solved that problem. Then a combination of poor investments, failing markets, and inattention cost him millions. With near-perfect timing, Eliza Larocque had appeared at his estate and offered salvation. It had taken all he could do to amass the twenty million euros needed to buy his admittance, but he’d managed.
Now he’d finally generated room to breathe.
He finished his entrée.
“I have a surprise for you,” Caroline said.
This woman was a rare combination. Part tramp, part academician, and quite good at both.
“I’m waiting,” he said.
“I think I may have discovered a new link.”
He caught her amused expression and asked, “Think?”
“Actually, I know I have.”
TWENTY-THREE
PARIS
SAM FOLLOWED MALONE AS THEY FLED THE BOOKSTORE INTO the brisk afternoon. Foddrell had turned away from the Seine and plunged deeper into the Latin Quarter’s chaotic streets, each one crowded with excited holiday revelers.
“There’s no way to know if anyone’s on your tail in this crowd,” Malone said. “But he knows our faces, so let’s stay back.”
“He doesn’t seem to care if anyone’s following. He hasn’t looked back once.”
“He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”
“He’s going to the Café d’Argent?”
“Where else?”
They kept a normal pace, submerged within the sweeping tide of commerce. Cheese, vegetables, fruit, chocolate, and other delicacies, displayed in wooden bins, spilled into the street. Sam noticed fish lying on gleaming beds of ice, and meat, boned and rolled, chilling in refrigerated cases. Farther on, an ice-cream shop offered Italian gelato in a variety of tempting flavors.
Foddrell stayed a hundred feet ahead.
“What do you really know about this guy?” Malone asked.
“Not a whole lot. He latched on to me maybe a year ago.”
“Which, by the way, is another reason the Secret Service doesn’t want you doing what you’re doing. Too many crazies, too many risks.”
“Then why are we here?” he asked.
“Henrik wanted us to make contact. You tell me, why is that?”
“Are you always so suspicious?”
“It’s a healthy affliction. One that’ll prolong your life.”
They passed more cafés, art galleries, boutiques, and souvenir shops. Sam was pumped. Finally, he was in the field, doing what agents did.
“Let’s split up,” Malone said. “Less chance of him recognizing us. That is if he bothers to look back.”
Sam drifted to one side of the street. He’d been an accounting major at college and almost a CPA. But a government recruiter, who’d visited the campus during his senior year, steered him toward the Secret Service. After graduation, he’d applied and passed the Treasury test, a polygraph exam, complete physical, eye test, and drug screen.
But he was rejected.
Five years later he made it the second time around, after working as an accountant at several national firms, one of which became heavily implicated in a corporate reporting scandal. At the Secret Service’s training center he’d been schooled in firearms, use of force, emergency medical techniques, evidence protection, crime detection, even open-water survival. Then he’d been assigned to the Philadelphia field office, working credit card abuse, counterfeiting, identity theft, and bank fraud.
He knew the score.
Special agents spent their first six to eight years in a field office. After that, depending on performance, they were transferred to a protective detail, where they stayed for another three to five years. Following that, most returned to the field, or transferred to headquarters, or a training office, or some other DC-based assignment. He could have possibly worked overseas in one of the international offices, since he was reasonably fluent in French and Spanish.
Boredom was the reason he’d turned to the Internet. His website had allowed him to explore avenues that he wanted to work as an agent. Investigating electronic fraud had little to do with safeguarding the world’s financial systems. His website provided a forum in which he could express himself. But his extracurricular activities had generated the one thing an agent could never afford. Attention to himself. Twice he was reprimanded. Twice he ignored his superiors. The third time he’d been officially questioned, just two weeks ago, which caused him to flee, flying to Copenhagen and Thorvaldsen. Now here he was, in the liveliest, most picturesque section of Paris, on a cold December day, following a suspect.
Ahead, Foddrell approached one of the quarter’s countless bistros, the quaint sign out front announcing Café d’Argent. Sam slowed and searched the crowd for Malone, finding him fifty feet away. Foddrell disappeared through the front door, then reappeared at an inside table that abutted a plate-glass window
Malone walked over. “All that paranoia and he ends up framed out for the world to see.”
Sam still wore the coat, gloves, and scarf Jesper had provided last night. He could also still see the two corpses. Jesper had cast them away with no ceremony, as if killing was routine. And maybe it was for Henrik Thorvaldsen. He actually knew little about the Dane, other than that he seemed interested in what Sam thought.
Which is a lot more than he could say for anyone else.
“Come on,” Malone said.
They entered the bistro’s brightly lit interior, decorated in a 1950s motif using chrome, vinyl, and neon. The climate was noisy and smoky. Sam caught Foddrell staring at them, clearly recognizing their faces, reveling in his anonymity.
Malone walked straight to where Foddrell sat and slid out one of the vinyl chairs. “You had enough fun?”
“How do you know who I am?” Foddrell asked.
Malone pointed at the book in Foddrell’s lap. “You really should have covered that up. Can we dispense with the drama and get on with this?”
THORVALDSEN LISTENED AS THE MANTELPIECE CLOCK STRUCK half past three, the hour confirmed by more clocks chiming throughout the château. He was making progress, maneuvering Eliza Larocque into a corner where she’d have no choice but to cooperate with him.
“Lord Ashby is broke,” he made clear.
“You have facts to back this up?”
“I never speak without them.”
“Tell me about my security leak.”
“How do you think I learned what I know?”
She threw him a keen, dissecting glance. “Ashby?”
He shook his head. “Not directly. He and I have never met nor spoken. But there are others he’s spoken to, people he approached for financial assistance. They wanted assurances that their loans would be repaid, so he gave them a unique guarantee, one that involved explaining what he was part of. He was quite vocal about the profits to be made.”
“And you do
n’t plan to tell me any names?”