William Dietrich - The Barbary Pirates

The fire's heat kept rising. We rammed like maniacal besiegers and more stones began to drop and bounce, the women shouting warning as each came down. We could hear yells of confusion from the gambling hall above. Finally there was a grumble of grinding stone and cracking wood, building to a roar.

"Back, back, toward the fire!" We retreated out of the way as the ceiling suddenly caved, the vault collapsing of its own weight. Its crash shot out a cloud of dust. As it did so, there was a crack of beams and the casino floor above parted and gave way as well. A shaft of light broke in like a ray of heaven, even as splintered wood, gaming tables, chips, and playing cards plunged and fluttered into the new crater. Two or three stunned gamblers tumbled with it, dropping into our little cook pot as we cheered.

As blessed air rushed in, the fire behind bellowed.

"Up," I gasped. "Climb the beams before the fire consumes them!"

We came out of the column of smoke like a hive of demons, the naked women black as coal, the stumbling savants drunk and punchy, and the swallowed gamblers screeching from their little preview of hell. Fulton leaped clear like a devil-king, singed but triumphant. We'd broken free!

I crawled out on the casino floor, eyes streaming, as patrons stampeded this way and that. Despite the confusion I had the presence of mind to salvage a coin or two.

French fire wagons had pushed to the door of the bordello and salon and were beginning to pump water into the hole we'd made. Beyond, a bleeding Osiris and half a dozen of his henchmen were crouched in the garden shadows in case by some miracle we might emerge. What did he truly want? What did he know about Astiza?

I pointed to Fulton. "There are our enemies."

"What enemies?" He was hacking and wheezing. "I thought we came to be entertained."

"I'm never entirely sure what's going on myself. But we need a way out of the Palais. He meant to seize me, one way or the other, and drug you."

"But how do we get out of his place? We can't outrun them with Cuvier and Smith half sensible and a thousand people between us and the street. Can we fetch the police?"

"They don't come here. If they did, they'd arrest us with that other lot and sort it out later. We might be strangled by our cellmates. And any scandal won't help our causes with Napoleon."

Water began to spout from the leather fire hoses as the fire brigade pumped fiercely. A chain of people were passing water in buckets from a Palais fountain to the copper tub mounted on the back of the fire wagon. It was a splendidly modern idea, although it didn't seem to be making much progress against my fire.

"I'd propose a larger fire wagon and a horse-driven pump," the inventor observed. "Or perhaps steam. But at least the authorities are trying."

"That's it! We'll seize a fire wagon."

"Are you serious? We won't be arrested, we'll be shot. And they need it for the fire."

"They've no weapons, and Madame Marguerite deserves a few more flames for trying to entrap us. Look, more engines are coming, more than the fountains can feed, and that one there is simply waiting in line. We'll pretend we're dashing to get more water. Once we get past the men who tried to manacle me, we'll give the fire wagon back."

"It's hardly bigger than a chariot!" Indeed, the two-wheel contraption was not much wider or longer than a field gun and hardly looked capable of putting out a campfire.

"We'll have to squeeze." And, collaring the dazed Cuvier and Smith, we charged. Fulton untwisted the hose loose from a wagon's brass spigot while I heaved our two friends into a tub they didn't really fit into. Their displacement slopped water over the rim. Then I seized the reins and, to cries of protest, lashed the two engine ponies out into the park and tables of the Palais. Diners scattered, prostitutes ran, and chess pieces went flying as we careened through the cafes. Then we were dashing pell-mell down the palace's quarter-mile central courtyard, smashing aside chairs and batting lanterns as we made for the main entrance, which was an arched carriageway leading to the street beyond. Osiris saw our charge and ran to intercept us. Behind him, still hunched in pain and waddling as he hurried, was the man I'd kicked.

I rode them down.

I'd dealt with the Rite before, and they'd haunted my life like a recurring nightmare. I didn't know what Osiris wanted and didn't care, I only wanted to break free of his breed once and for all. So I balanced on the wagon and shook the reins as if flapping a blanket, horses stampeding, Fulton roaring as he hung on, Cuvier and Smith moaning. The riddler fell under my team. We bounced as we hit him, swerved, and skewed through the gate, hub scraping. I heard a shot and dared not look back.

We clattered out onto the broader rue Saint-Honore, Palais patrons protesting behind us, pedestrians scattering ahead. The immense Louvre was a cliff in the dark. Paris is a mess of traffic at the best of times, delivery wagons blocking lanes and horses backing and pissing, so we came up against some trucks and carts, our horses getting tangled in their harnesses. Giving up the reins, I hauled our party from their perch. "Now, now, run!" We had to hide!

And that was when a languid man with black cane stepped in front of us with an air of utter authority. He held up his hand and said simply, "On the contrary, I command you to stop, Monsieur Gage."

"Stop?"

"I'm afraid you're all under arrest." Around us materialized a dozen gendarmes. We'd run from Egyptian Rite to the Paris police.

"By whose orders?" I tried to bluster.

"By those of the first consul himself, Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Arrest?" I had to think fast. "We were simply trying to escape some thugs who sought to trap us in a fire." I glanced back to see if Osiris was staggering after us, but saw no sign of him. "And fetch water. These men are esteemed savants."

Fulton was gray with smoke and rock dust and Cuvier and Smith were drugged and swaying. Our clothes were torn and our dignity shredded.

"Monsieur Gage, it is not your escape you're being arrested for."

How did this policeman know me? "For what, then?"

"For consorting with the English while on a French diplomatic mission for Talleyrand in North America," he said coolly. "You violated your instructions from the French government-not surprising, perhaps, given your service to the British against French forces in the Holy Land in 1799. To which we could add corruption of the morals of esteemed savants. For conspiring in prostitution, which does, after all, remain illegal. For your colleagues' illicit consumption of drugs imbibed in a brothel. For arson, for promotion of a riot, for destruction of property, for the running down of pedestrians, for theft of a fire wagon, and for the fouling of traffic."

I licked my lips. "I can explain all that."

"Unfortunately, it is not me you are to explain to."

"And you are?"

"Ah." He bowed. "Minister of Police Joseph Fouche at your service." His eyes were sleepy but watchful, his mouth set in an expression of skepticism, and his posture light but alert, like a fencer poised for a match. He was the kind of man who seemed unlikely to believe anything I had to say, which wasn't a bad place to start. He was also extremely able and dangerous. He'd found the conspirators who tried and failed to blow up Napoleon with a keg of gunpowder on Christmas Eve, 1800, executing key royalists and using the excuse to send a hundred French anarchists to the Seychelles Islands.

"Fouche? You bother with tourists like us?"

"Monsieur, I bother with everyone, everywhere, at all times. Including the murderer of a prostitute some four years ago…"

"I had nothing to do with that!" I'd once been unjustly accused, and had some notoriety because of it, but I thought Napoleon had put that issue to rest. "I warn you that I know the first consul myself." I drew myself up. "I'm a hero of the French victory at Marengo, and of the Treaty of Mortefontaine. I also represent President Jefferson of the United States."