Steve Berry - The Paris Vendetta

“Something like that.”

“Sam, that old man wants to kill Ashby. Nothing’s going to stop him.”

“I am.”

She shook her head. “Sam. I like you. I really do. But you’re all insane. This is too much.”

She stood in the rain, her face twisting with emotion. He thought of their kiss, last night, underground. There was something between them. A connection. An attraction. Still, he saw it in her eyes.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice cracking.

And she turned and ran away

THORVALDSEN CHOSE HIS MOMENT WITH CARE. ASHBY AND HIS two companions were nowhere in sight, vanished into the gloomy nave. Darkness outside nearly matched the dusky interior, so he was able to slip inside, unnoticed, using the wind and rain as cover.

The entryway opened in nearly the center of the church’s long south side. He immediately angled left and crouched behind an elaborate funerary monument, complete with a triumphal arch, beneath which two figures, carved of time-stained marble, lay recumbent. Both were emaciated representations, as they would have appeared as corpses rather than living beings. A brass plate identified the effigies as those of 16th century François I and his queen.

He heard a clamor of thin voices, beyond the columns that sprouted upward in a soaring Gothic display. More tombs appeared in the weak light, along with empty chairs arranged in neat rows. Sound came in short gusts. His hearing was not as good as it once was, and the rain pounding the roof wasn’t helping.

He needed to move closer.

He fled his hiding place and scampered to the next monument, a delicate feminine sculpture, smaller than the first one. Warm air rushed up from a nearby floor grate. Water dripped from his coat onto the limestone floor. Carefully, he unbuttoned and shed the damp garment, but first freed the gun from one of the pockets.

He crept to a column a few meters away that separated the south transept from the nave, careful not to disturb any of the chairs.

One sound and his advantage would vanish.

ASHBY LISTENED AS CAROLINE FOUGHT THROUGH HER FEAR and told Peter Lyon what he wanted to know, fishing from her pocket a sheet of paper.

“These Roman numerals are a message,” she said. “It’s called a Moor’s Knot. The Corsicans learned the technique from Arab pirates who ravaged their coast. It’s a code.”

Lyon grabbed the paper.

“They usually refer to a page, line, and word of a particular manuscript,” she explained. “The sender and receiver have the same text. Since only they know which manuscript is being used, deciphering the code by someone else was next to impossible.”

“So how did you manage?”

“Napoleon sent these numbers to his son in 1821. The boy was only ten at the time. In his will, Napoleon left the boy 400 books and specifically named one in particular. But the son wasn’t even to receive the books until his sixteenth birthday. This code is odd in that it’s only two groups of numerals, so they have to be page and line only. To decipher them, the son, or more likely his mother, since that’s who Napoleon actually wrote, would have to know what text he used. It can’t be the one from the will, since they would not have known about the will when he sent this code. After all, Napoleon was still alive.”

She was rambling with fear, but Ashby let her go.

“So I made a guess and assumed Napoleon chose a universal text. One that would always be available. Easy to find. Then I realized he left a clue where to look.”

Lyon actually seemed impressed. “You’re quite the detective.”

The compliment did little to calm her anxiety.

Ashby had heard none of this and was as curious as Lyon seemed to be.

“The Bible,” Caroline said. “Napoleon used the Bible.”

MALONE STUDIED THE CONGREGATION, FACE AFTER FACE. HIS gaze drifted toward the processional doors at the main entrance, where more people ambled inside. At a decorative font many stopped to wet a finger and cross themselves. He was about to turn away when a man brushed past, ignoring the font. Short, fair-skinned, with dark hair and a long, aquiline nose. He wore a knee-length black coat, leather gloves, his face frozen in a bothersome solemnity. A bulky backpack hung from his shoulders.

A priest and two acolytes appeared before the high altar.

A lecturer assumed the pulpit and asked for the worshipers’ attention, the female voice resounding through a PA system.

The crowd quieted.

Malone advanced toward the altar, weaving around people who stood beyond the pews, in the transept, listening to the services. Luckily, neither of the transepts was jammed. He caught sight of Long Nose edging his way forward, through the crowd, in the opposite transept, the image winking in and out among the columns.

Another target aroused his curiosity. Also in the opposite transept. Olive-skinned, short hair, he wore an oversized coat with no gloves. Malone cursed himself for allowing any of this to happen. No preparation, no thought, being played by a mass murderer. Chasing ghosts, which could well prove illusory. Not the way to run any operation.

He refocused his attention on Olive Skin.

The man’s right hand remained in his coat pocket, left arm at his side. Malone did not like the look of the anxious eyes, but he wondered if he was leaping to irrational conclusions.

A loud voice disturbed the solemnity.

A woman. Midthirties, dark hair, rough face. She stood in one of the pews, spewing out something to the man beside her. He caught a little of the French.

A quarrel.

She screamed something else, then rushed from the pew

SAM ENTERED SAINT-DENIS, STAYING LOW AND HOPING NO one spotted him. All quiet inside. No sign of Thorvaldsen, or Ashby, or Peter Lyon.

He was unarmed, but he could not allow his friend to face this danger alone. It was time to return the favor the Dane had extended him.

He could distinguish little in the bleak light, the wind and rain outside making it difficult to hear. He glanced left and caught sight of the familiar shape of Thorvaldsen’s bent form standing fifty feet away, near one of the massive columns.

He heard voices from the center of the church.

Words came in snatches.

Three forms moved in the light.

He could not risk heading toward Thorvaldsen, so he stayed low and advanced a few feet straight ahead.

ASHBY WAITED FOR CAROLINE TO EXPLAIN WHAT NAPOLEON had done.

“More specifically,” she said. “He used Psalms.” She pointed to the first set of Roman numerals.

“Psalm 135, verse 2,” she said. “I wrote the line down.”

She searched her coat pocket and located another sheet of paper.

“‘You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.’”

Lyon smiled. “Clever. Go on.”

“The next two numerals refer to Psalm 142, verse 4. ‘Look to my right and see.’”

“How do you know-” Lyon started, but a noise, near the main altar and the door through which they’d entered, arrested their captor’s attention.

Lyon’s right hand found the gun and he whirled to face the challenge.