Steve Berry - The Paris Vendetta

“It won’t matter,” Sam said.

Dread punctuated the statement, which Malone knew to be true. But he still couldn’t accept it. Stephanie helped Meagan, as they stepped close.

Thorvaldsen’s eyes stared out blindly.

“I tried to help,” Meagan said. “The crazy old fool… he was determined to kill Ashby. I tried… to get there-”

Choking sobs pulsed from her throat. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

Thorvaldsen had interjected himself into Malone’s life when he really needed a friend, appearing in Atlanta two years ago, offering a new beginning in Denmark, one he’d readily accepted and never regretted. Together they’d shared the past twenty-four months, but the past twenty-four hours had been so different.

We shall never speak again .

The last words spoken between them.

His right hand clutched at his throat, as if trying to reach through to his heart.

Despair flooded his gut.

“That’s right, old friend,” he whispered. “We will never speak again.”

PARIS

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 30

2:40 PM

MALONE ENTERED SAINT-DENIS BASILICA. THE CHURCH HAD remained closed to both the public and construction crews since Christmas Day, the entire site treated as a crime scene.

Three men had died here.

Two he could not give a rat’s ass about.

The third death had been more painful than he could have ever imagined.

His father had passed thirty-eight years ago. He’d been ten years old, the loss more loneliness than pain. Thorvaldsen’s death was different. Pain filled his heart with an unrelenting, deep regret.

They’d buried Henrik beside his wife and son in a private service at Christiangade. A handwritten note attached to his last will had expressly stated that he wanted no public funeral. His death, though, made news throughout the world and expressions of sympathy poured in. Thousands of cards and letters arrived from employees of his various companies, a glowing testament of how they felt about their employer. Cassiopeia Vitt had come. Meagan Morrison, too. Her face still carried a bruise and as she, Malone, Cassiopeia, Stephanie, Sam, and Jesper filled the grave, each one shoveling dirt onto a plain pine box, not a word had been uttered.

For the last few days he’d hidden inside his loneliness, remembering the past two years. Feelings had leaped and writhed within him, flickering between dream and reality. Thorvaldsen’s face was indelibly engraved in his mind, and he would forever recall every feature-the dark eyes under thick eyebrows, straight nose, flared nostrils, strong jaw, resolute chin. Forget the crooked spine. It meant nothing. That man had always stood straight and tall.

He glanced around at the lofty nave. Forms, figures, and designs produced an overwhelming effect of serenity, the church aglow with the radiant flood of light pouring in through stained-glass windows. He admired the various saintly figures, robed in dark sapphire, lighted with turquoise-heads and hands emerging from skillfully crafted sepia shadows through olive green, to pink, and finally to white. Hard not to have thoughts of God, nature’s beauty, and lives gone, ended too soon.

Like Henrik’s.

But he told himself to focus on the task.

He found the paper in his pocket and unfolded it.

Professor Murad had told him exactly what to search for-the clues Napoleon concocted, then left for his son. He began with Psalm 135, verse 2. You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God .

Then Psalm 2, verse 8. I will make the nations your inheritance .

Typical Napoleonic grandeur.

Next came Psalm 142, verse 4. Look to my right and see .

The precise starting point-from where to look right and see-had been difficult to determine. Saint-Denis was massive, a football field long and nearly half that wide. But the next verse solved that dilemma. Psalm 52, verse 8. But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God .

Murad’s quick class on Psalms had made Malone think of one that more than aptly described the past week. Psalm 144, verse 4. Man is like a breath, his days are like a fleeting shadow . He hoped Henrik had found peace.

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God .

He glanced right and spotted a monument. Designed in a Gothic tradition, elements of an ancient-style temple sprang from its sculpture, the upper platform decorated with praying figures. Two stone effigies, portrayed in the last moments of their life, lay flat atop. Its base was figured with Italian-inspired reliefs.

He approached, his rubber-soled shoes both sure and silent. Immediately to the right of the monument, in the flooring, he spotted a marble slab with a solitary olive tree carved into the marker. A notation explained that the grave was from the 15th century. Murad had told him that its occupant was supposedly Guillaume du Chastel. Charles VII had so loved his servant that he’d bestown on him the honor of being buried in Saint-Denis.

Psalm 63, verse 9, was next. They who seek my life will be destroyed, they will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals .

He’d already received permission from the French government to do whatever was necessary to solve the riddle. If that meant destroying something within the church, then so be it. Most of it was 19th and 20th century repairs and reproductions anyway. He’d asked for some tools and equipment to be left inside, anticipating what may be required, and saw them near the west wall.

He walked across the nave and retrieved a sledgehammer.

When Professor Murad related to him the clues, the possibility that what they sought lay below the church became all too real. Then, when he’d read the verses, he was sure.

He walked back to the olive tree carved in the floor.

The final clue, Napoleon’s last message to his son. Psalm 17, verse 2. May my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right .

He swung the hammer.

The marble did not break, but his suspicions were confirmed. The hollow sound told him that solid stone did not lie beneath. Three more blows and the rock cracked. Another two and marble crashed away into a black rectangle that opened beneath the church.

A chilled draft rushed upward.

Murad had told him how Napoleon, in 1806, halted the desecration of Saint-Denis and proclaimed it, once again, an imperial burial place. He’d also restored the adjacent abbey, established a religious order to oversee the basilica’s restoration, and commissioned architects to repair the damages. It would have been an easy matter for him to adjust the site to his personal specifications. How this hole in the floor had remained secret was fascinating, but perhaps the chaos of post-Napoleonic France was the best explanation, as nothing and nobody remained stable once the emperor had been ensconced on St. Helena.

He discarded the sledgehammer and retrieved a coil of rope and a flashlight. He shone the light into the void and noted that it was more a chute, about three feet by four, that extended straight down about twenty feet. Remnants of a wooden ladder lay scattered on the rock floor. He’d studied the basilica’s geography and knew that a crypt once extended below the church-parts of it were still there, open to the public-but nothing had ever stretched this far toward the west façade. Perhaps long ago it had, and Napoleon had discovered the oddity.

At least that’s what Murad thought.