David Golemon - Primeval

As the seven people complied, they heard slow, methodical footsteps descending the stairs. One step at a time, and it seemed to go on forever. Finally, a well-polished shoe appeared, and then the other. A tall blond man stepped down onto the dirt floor. In the bare-bulb light of the basement, Jack and the other members of the Event Group could not hide the shock they felt at seeing the tall, immaculately dressed man standing before them. He wore a white shirt and was wearing a plain pair of black slacks, but his identity was unmistakable.

"How many of your nine lives do you have left, Henri?" Collins asked, keeping his hands at his side.

Colonel Henri Farbeaux, archcriminal and a decade-long enemy of the Event Group, stood arrogantly before them. He slowly placed a hand in his right pocket and then shook his head. The last thing the Event Group knew about the former French colonel was that he had been supposedly swallowed up by the Ross Ice Shelf as it cracked apart and sank into the Ross Sea three months before.

"It's not the lives, Colonel, it's the man. I just happen to know when to bet one of those lives; sometimes as you can see, that wager pays off."

Sarah stepped forward from where she had been looking for the switch that would open the wall. She was actually happy to see Henri alive; after all, it had been the Frenchman who had saved her, Senator Lee, Alice Hamilton, and the kids from the Leviathan, inside the cave known as Ice Palace.

"Little Sarah, how nice it is to see you again, and the fact that you made it home alive is something that makes me smile."

"Thank you, Colonel. Tell me, how in the hell did you survive?"

"We will save that for another time, my dear. For the moment, I must ask how it comes to be that the Event Group is in the basement of one of my acquisitions people."

Jack shook his head, really smiling for the first time. "Damn Henri, it is a small world, isn't it? But when I think about it, the illegal antiquities community is so small and tight, this was probably inevitable."

"I'll ask again, Colonel, why are you here, and where is my employee?" Farbeaux took a step forward, his right hand coming free of his pocket.

"Chavez is dead. They found his body washed up under the pier at Huntington Beach this morning." Jack watched for a reaction.

Farbeaux lowered his head in thought and half turned to his men and whispered something. Two of the men spread out so they could cover the group better. Jack heard the ominous clicks of their weapons being removed from their safe positions. Henri Farbeaux then turned to face Collins.

"The murder of my man doesn't sound like you, Colonel Collins; it's not your style," Farbeaux said, taking a step toward Jack.

"No, but it is your style, Henri. What did this Chavez do for you that could get him murdered?"

"That is what I am here to find out. I'll start by asking you once more, why you are here?"

"Henri, we need to know what this man Chavez removed from the Denver Museum of Natural History for you," Sarah asked before Jack could pull her back behind him.

"First, who murdered my man?" Henri asked, focusing his considerable personality on Sarah.

"Two ruthless bastards, Gregori Deonovich and Dmitri Sagli," Sarah said quickly.

Collins half turned and looked at Sarah, making her wish she hadn't said anything.

"The names are not unfamiliar to me. They are a little beneath my standards for a working relationship, but I have heard of them."

"That I find hard to believe," Collins said, making Farbeaux look up and into his eyes. "Nothing is really beneath your standards, are they, Henri?"

Farbeaux remained quiet for a moment, eyeing Jack, and then turning his attention to the others. He stepped forward and moved between Collins and Punchy Alexander, who was totally confused as to who it was that had them cornered like rats inside the basement. He walked to the far wall and stood in the left-hand corner. He placed his right hand up against an ordinary piece of Sheetrock. When he finally removed his hand, the wall started to slide outward. He watched for a reaction as the Event Group watched the space widen into the walled and excavated entrance.

"Elysian Park was once riddled with dry underground riverbeds. We built this wall when we used to store stolen goods down here. Imagine our surprise when the excavation we were doing opened up into a natural storage facility. I believe this is what you were looking for?"

Farbeaux stepped aside and saw their reaction to the immense wealth of antique Queen Anne and Hawthorne furniture, a veritable art gallery of paintings and even rows upon rows of glass cases filled with stamp, coin, and paper-currency collections. Also there were row upon row of books — thousands of them.

"This is just one of my many storage facilities. All of it awaiting my soon-to-be-realized retirement."

Jack turned and looked at Henri. His smile was genuine, at least until he noticed Collins staring at him.

"No judgments today, Colonel Collins; you of all people will not sit in judgment of me. I would trade all of this and all of the others just like it, for one more day with my wife. So don't give me any indignant looks, not today ."

"What are you planning, Henri?" Sarah asked after she had ceased admiring one of Farbeaux's many caches of merchandise. After the question, she saw the eyes of the man and the hate reflected in them as he looked at Jack.

"You have once again placed me in a harsh situation, little Sarah. I cannot let you go, and I cannot allow you to hurt this operation more so than what has already happened."

"Colonel Farbeaux, do you have the Lattimer Papers, or a Russian journal penned by a colonel named Petrov?" Jack asked, once more pulling Sarah to his side.

"Worthless. They were destroyed soon after they were contracted for, on my orders. They were a hoax."

The Frenchman watched as Collins visibly deflated, making him curious as to why it visibly affected the American.

"I will have to ask you to wait inside of the storage room until I can figure out — until I can make a few arrangements. So, please, all of you," Henri gestured for them to step inside of the large room. Sarah kept looking back, unable to believe what Henri may be contemplating. She thought she may have learned something about Farbeaux in the time they had spent imprisoned on Leviathan, but as she watched his eyes, Jack pulled her along. She could see the depth of the coldness that haunted them.

"I am truly sorry, but once more your agency was someplace it should not have been." Farbeaux reached out and placed his hand in the same spot. The door started to pull back into the wall. Jack locked eyes with the French colonel and they met like two thunderheads inside of a small valley.

Sarah bit her lower lip as the wall was only two feet from closing. She suddenly made a decision and pulled free of Jack's grip and quickly squeezed through the wall before the outside world was shut out.

"Damn it!" Collins shouted as the room went dark.

"Is she nuts, Jack?" Punchy Alexander asked.

Collins was quiet as he turned away and leaned against the cool dirt of the expanded cave.

Everett stepped up to Alexander, barely seeing his silhouette in the darkness.

"No, not nuts, but Sarah's just like Jack, and that pisses him off to no end."

The three men turned with raised weapons as Sarah came bounding out of the hidden room just as the wall slammed home. She saw she was about to be shot and she skidded to a halt on the dirt floor. Farbeaux, who had already started for the wooden staircase, saw what was about to happen.

"No!"

The three men didn't shoot, but kept their weapons trained on her as Sarah looked from the muzzles pointed at her to the Frenchman standing on the bottom step.