Clive Cussler - Lost City

Austin turned and saw Skye holding a crossbow. She had fitted another shaft to the weapon and was frantically winding back the bow string. Doughboy's eyes went to Austin, who was scrambling for the fallen gun, then back to Skye. He opened his mouth and bellowed. Stopping only to snatch a helmet from the pile of those littering the floor, he lurched toward the shop door and tore the curtain aside in his haste to escape.

With the pistol in his hand, Austin cautiously followed. He heard the tingle of the front door bell, but by the time he stepped out onto the sidewalk the street was deserted. He went back inside, making sure to lock the front door. Skye had cut Darnay's bonds.

Austin helped Darnay to his feet. The antiques dealer was bruised from being slapped around and stiff from kneeling, but otherwise he seemed all right. Austin turned to Skye and said, "You never told me you were a dead shot with a crossbow."

Skye had a stunned look on her face. "I can't believe I hit him. I closed my eyes and just pointed in the general direction." She saw his bloodstained shirt. "You've been hurt."

Austin expected the wound. "It's only a scratch, but someone owes me a new shirt."

"You wielded afauchard very well," Darnay said, as he dusted his knees and elbows.

"What did you say?" Austin replied.

"That weapon you handled so deftly. It's afauchard, a fifteenth-century pole arm similar to the glaive. There was a move to abolish

it in the Middle Ages because of the terrible wounds it produced. Your weapon was a combination between afauchard and a battle-ax. You look puzzled?"

"It's just that I've been hearing that name a lot lately." "I find this weapons discussion fascinating," Skye, said, "but could anyone suggest what do we do now?"

"We can still call in the police," Austin said. Darnay looked alarmed. "I'd rather not have the gendarmes here. Some of my dealings "

"Skye has already filled me in. But you're right; the police might have a hard time buying a story about a big bad man who attacked us with a sword."

The antiques dealer heaved a sigh of relief and glanced around at the wreckage. "I never thought my office would be used for a reenactment of the Battle of Agincourt."

Skye was inspecting the pile of helmets. "It's not here," she said, a bleak expression on her face.

Darnay replied with a smile, went over to a wall and pressed a wooden panel. A rectangular section swung open to reveal a large safe, which he opened with a few clicks of the combination lock. He reached inside and pulled out Skye's helmet. "This little item seems to produce a lot of excitement."

"I'm sorry I brought you into this," Skye said. "That awful man was waiting for me at my apartment and he heard your call. I never dreamed "

"It's not your fault. As I said on the phone, I need to examine this beauty further. I'm thinking that it might be prudent to close shop for a while and do business from my villa in Provence. I'd love to have you as my guest. I'd worry about you as long as that gros co chon is on the loose."

She thought about it. "Thank you, but I have too much work to

do. The department is going to be in chaos with Renaud gone. Keep the helmet as long as you wish."

"Very well, but consider spending the night at my apartment." "You might want to accept Monsieur Darnay's invitation," Austin said. "We can sort things out in the morning."

Skye thought about it again and said she would have to go back to her apartment first to pick up some clothes. Austin made her wait in the hall while he made sure her apartment was safe. He didn't think Doughboy would be feeling too frisky with the crossbow bolt in his shoulder, although the big man seemed to have a high pain threshold and a talent for the unexpected.

Skye was almost through packing her overnight bag when Austin's cell phone twittered.

Austin talked to someone on the other end for a few moments, and when he hung up he had a grin on his face. "Speak of the devil. That was Racine Fauchard's appointments secretary. I've been summoned to an audience tomorrow with the grand dame herself."

"Fauchard? I couldn't help noting your reaction when Darnay identified the poleax. What's going on?"

Austin gave Skye a quick reprise of his visit to the air museum and the connection between the Ice Man and the Fauchard family. Skye snapped her bag shut. "I want to go with you." "I don't think that's a good idea. It might be dangerous." Skye replied with a derisive laugh. "An old lady? Dangerous?" "It does sound silly," Austin admitted, "but this whole business with the body in the ice, the helmet and that goon who killed Renaud seems to go back to the Fauchards. I don't want to involve you."

"I'm already involved, Kurt. I was the one trapped under the glacier. It was my office and this apartment that man searched, obviously looking for the helmet I brought out from under the glacier. It was my friend Darnay who would have been killed if not for you." She

crossed her arms and made her strongest point. "Besides, I'm an arms expert and my knowledge might come in handy."

"Persuasive arguments." Austin pondered the pros and cons. "All right. Here's the deal. I introduce you as my assistant, and we'll use an assumed name."

Skye leaned over and pecked Austin on the cheek. "You won't regret this."

"Right," Austin said. He didn't sound convinced, although he knew Skye had some valid points.

Skye was an attractive woman and time spent in her company was never wasted. There was no direct connection linking the Fauchards and the violent man he had nicknamed Doughboy. At the same time, Grosset's warning about the Fauchard family echoed in his brain like a warning bell tolling in the night. It is said that they have a past.

THE FARMER WAS singing a tearful version of "Le Souvenir" when the red blur filled his windshield and his truck's cab reverberated with an ear-shattering roar. He jerked the wheel to the right and sent the heavily laden vehicle nose first into a drainage ditch. The truck slammed into an embankment, catapulting the load of wooden cages onto the ground. The impact smashed the cages into splinters and freed hundreds of squawking chickens. The driver extricated himself from the truck and shook his fist at the crimson plane with the eagle insignia on the tail. He scurried for cover amid an explosion of feathers as the aircraft buzzed his truck again.

The plane climbed into the sky and did a triumphant rollover. The pilot was laughing so hard he almost lost control of the aircraft. He wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve and flew low over the vineyards that stretched for hundreds of acres in every direction. With a flick of a switch he sent a cloud of pesticides spraying out from the twin pods under the plane's wings. Then he peeled off in a new direction. The vineyard valleys changed to brooding forest and dark-water lakes that gave the land below a particularly melancholy aspect.

The plane skimmed the treetops, heading toward four distant spikes that rose above the forest on a hill. As the plane drew nearer, the spikes became guard towers that anchored the corners of a thick, crenellated stone wall. A wide moat filled with stagnant green water surrounded the wall and was in turn bordered by extensive formal gardens and woodland paths. The plane buzzed the roof of the imposing chateau within the walls, and then it flew out over the woods, dropped down onto a green swath of grass and taxied up to a Jaguar sedan parked at the edge of the airstrip. As the pilot climbed from the cockpit, a ground crew materialized out of nowhere and pushed the plane into a small flagstone hangar.

Ignoring the crew, Emil Fauchard strode to the car, walking with an athletic grace, muscles rippling under his flying suit of black Italian leather. He whipped his goggles off and handed them to the waiting chauffeur along with his gloves. Still chuckling over the expression on the truck driver's face, he settled into the plush backseat and poured himself a shot of cognac from a built-in^ bar