by K. T. Tomb
“Very well, then,” Baroness Sophia responded. She tapped on the roof and the coach came to a halt.
“Yes, Madame Baroness?” one of the coachmen asked.
“We will need to quit the coach for a moment. What is the name of the next village?”
“It is Sainte-Menehould,” he responded.
The baroness eyed the king, who nodded his consent.
“That will do,” she replied.
“We’ll only rest a moment and then be on our way,” Louis instructed. “We cannot risk too much exposure, disguises or not.”
In Sainte-Menehould, their drama played out perfectly. No one in the small village believed anything other than the Baroness Sophia Karlovna and her entourage had taken a short rest in their town. As far as Marie was concerned, it had been a complete success by the time they were ready to board the coach once more. They had pulled off an enormous victory, but as she began to mount the coach, her foot slipped slightly and she stumbled. In that moment that she reached to brace herself, the tiara that she’d kept hidden in her skirt fell to the ground.
Without thinking, the marquise reached down, scooped it up and held it out to Marie. Marie hid the tiara once more and the two of them looked around to see if anyone had noticed.
“That was a near disaster,” Marie whispered as they got into the coach.
“Why didn’t you stow that away with your other luggage?” Louis asked.
“I forgot about it until we were ready to leave,” Marie responded. “No one saw us.”
“You had better hope not or your lover’s plans will have been for naught.”
She shot him an icy glare. How dare he speak that way in front of the others?
In the tension that followed, the next hour in the coach was passed in silence and then riders began to appear on either side of the coach as they continued along the road toward Verennes, the last village of any consequence before they reached Montmédy.
“Our escort, I presume?” Louis asked aloud.
Marie breathed a sigh of relief. If they were going to be escorted the rest of the way to Montmédy, then she could relax a bit more. She was already considering what she was going to wear once she was able to ditch the bourgeois clothing that was rubbing a rash in a place that only the Count had been privy to see in the last several years.
As they pulled into Verennes, the coach came to a halt and the riders pulled up as well.
“We don’t need a rest,” Louis called out. “We had our rest and we’re ready to move on to Montmédy.”
“Of course not, your highness,” a voice responded from outside the coach. In the next moment, the door was jerked open and a face appeared. “But you won’t be going to Montmédy. We’ll be escorting you back to Paris.”
Marie couldn’t believe what was taking place. They had been found out. In only a few more hours, they would have been safe behind the stone walls of the citadel, but they had fallen short of that goal. The man who had opened the door looked directly at her and grinned.
“You might as well put that tiara on your head, my lady,” he said. “It’s already given you away.”
***
“Arrangements have been made,” the voice on the other end of the call told him as soon as the call connected.
“Good.” Louis Charles Bourbon, formerly known as Oliver Branko, smiled at the response of the man who had agreed to help him gather together an entire collection of powerful artifacts. The last one was one of a much more personal nature to him and he could hardly wait to have the item in his hands. He held back a boyish giggle as he pressed for more information. “When will the Louvre be missing its most valuable treasure?”
“I don’t know that it can be considered its most valuable treasure…” the caller countered.
“It is to me!” Louis bellowed.
There was a pause and then the caller answered the question. “It will be acquired from the museum in about four hours.”
“So, how soon can I have it in my hands?” Louis tried to get his voice back to a calmer and more even tone as he asked the question. Louis looked at his watch. It was close to 10:00 p.m. Belgrade was in the same time zone as Paris. 2:00 a.m., he noted to himself.
“It takes some time,” the caller responded. “Being in too much of a hurry is the best way to get caught. If that happens, you will never see it.”
“I had better see it. I had better touch it, smell it, taste it and hear the sound of it as it is plunked down upon my desk. That is why I hired you.” He was having some difficulty breathing due to the ups and downs he’d been experiencing after having given the order for the crown to be delivered to him. With the other artifacts, he hadn’t had the same problem.
“If you want it, it will have to go through my channels and things will be done my way, understood?”
Another explosion was on his tongue, but he held it back. Having the crown of Marie Antoinette was important enough for him to be patient a little while longer. Besides, once he had it in his hands, he’d have everyone who was involved in the process of acquiring it eliminated. He glanced up at the glass door to his office and the man standing just outside; a man who was accustomed to carrying out his every command.
“Very well, but you will be in constant contact and will deliver it to me personally.”
“Those were our original terms,” the caller responded. “You received all of the other items without an issue, am I right?”
“Except for the rosary,” Louis reminded him.
“We’ve already tended to that problem as well. It should be delivered to you in the next few days, though I would caution you to be quite careful with it. It has some properties that made its acquisition very difficult.”
“And the final item?” Louis avoided using its name. One never knew who might be listening.
“I’ll have it when I deliver the crown.”
“How am I to believe that you’ll come through this time?” Louis asked, testing him.
“I could always forget about the crown,” the caller replied.
The suggestion made Louis backtrack a little bit.
“I’ll stick to my end of the deal as long as you do,” he replied. “But keep in mind that I’m not one to be trifled with.”
“Neither am I,” the caller responded, disconnecting the call.
Louis placed the phone back in its cradle, scooped up the photos of the crown, slid back into his chair and reclined it against the credenza. He studied every detail of the crown, knowing that, in spite of the best quality photos that he could get of the artifact, pictures of it would never satisfy him the way holding it in his hands would.
It was the symbol of the culmination of all of the power that he had accumulated. It was a symbol of who he was and where he came from.
***
“We’ve got a problem,” Alfonso said as soon as Tony connected the call.
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s a fake,” Alfonso replied.
“How do you know it’s a fake?”
“I know these things. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this sort of thing. It’s a replica set out for display. It’s very well done; a good enough job to fool the most critical eye, but the moment that I got it in my hands, I could tell it was a fake.”
Tony considered the mess that he was in. After the difficulties he’d had with the other artifacts, delivering a fake crown was not going to help make the situation any better. In fact, it was likely to get him killed and jeopardize his entire operation.
“So, where is the original?” It was a stupid question, but he didn’t have a single idea to chase down and he needed a suggestion, a lead, some speculation; anything.
His question was greeted by a snort. It was probably the correct response.
“Not even some speculation?” Tony pressed.
“For all I know, the damned thing was never there,” Alfonso replied.
Tony didn’t like the sound of that. The crown had, no doubt
, been snatched from the queen’s head at some point during the uprising. For all he knew, the real one might be inside a velvet lined box inside of a trunk and buried in some French peasant’s barn. Had the original been stolen? If so, when had it been swiped and by whom? Had the Louvre ever had the original? There was no way for him to answer those questions. Worse yet, he’d burned all of the connections that he’d once had in order to go into the deep cover that he was in.
“So?” Alfonso asked when Tony had spoken for several long seconds. “What do you want me to do, have the guy put it back where he found it?”
“Put it in a box and ship it back to the Louvre for all I care. If it’s fake, it might as well not exist,” Tony replied. He knew that Alfonso knew better than to double cross him. He’d witnessed what happened to people who did; a display Tony had carried out in order to strike fear in the hearts of those who followed him.
“I could probably hawk it for a couple hundred grand, if I could find the right mook,” Alfonso laughed.
Tony wasn’t listening anymore. He’d already started trying to sort out his own dilemma. He couldn’t afford to blow his cover in order to solve it.
“Seriously, though, what do we do with it?” Alfonso asked.
“That’s up to you,” Tony replied, disconnecting the call and focusing on his own problem. He had to figure out where the real crown was and he had to have it in his hands to deliver to his client or all of the work that he’d done, all of the sacrifices that he’d made, everything that he’d lost would all be for nothing. Everyone that I’ve lost. The moment the last thought entered his mind, he thought of Chyna.
“There’s not a single chance in hell,” he whispered aloud.
Chapter Two
A faint sound… a movement. Something. Chyna Stone didn’t know what. Keeping her eyes closed and focusing on the source and direction of the sound, she slowly reached for the SIG under her pillow. In the same moment that she realized that it wasn’t there, she heard a familiar voice.
“I suppose you’re looking for this,” Tony said, clicking on the lamp and making a show of tucking the pistol into his own waistband. “We’ll just keep this tucked away safe until we finish talking.”
Rage rushed through her and she sat up. “Talk?” she hissed. “I’d rather watch you bleed to death or put a bullet through your head.”
“I deserve that,” he said quietly.
She’d never seen Anthony Stewart acting the way he was in that moment. He was humble, apologetic even.
“Oh hell, no,” she said through clenched teeth. “If you came here to apologize or to try to…” She couldn’t get the words to come out because of the fury that had taken her over inside.
“That’s not why I came,” he replied in a quiet voice. “That’s not the main reason, anyway.”
“Have you forgotten the fact that I put a bullet in your leg in Cordoba? Are you aware that I wished that I’d put it into your head? There is nothing for us to talk about, so just get the fuck out!”
“I need your help,” he said, pushing forward.
“You need my help?” In spite of the fact that the situation was anything but funny, she started to laugh. “After the shit that you’ve taken me through, the lies that you’ve told me, the slick double-cross that you pulled, you need my help? Oh, Jesus, I’ve gotta hear this, I’ll bet it’s rich. Go ahead, tell me, what kind of help do you need from me?”
“I need you to find something for me,” he replied. Continued with the act of humility, she wasn’t buying it, but it was certainly a new approach.
“It gets better,” she smirked. “I found out that you were able to get the rosary after all, by the way. You’ve about completed your collection, what’s next? What do you want me to find for you?”
“The Crown of Marie Antoinette,” he replied.
“Have you tried looking in the Louvre?”
“It’s a replica,” he replied.
“So, you’ve already stolen it, but it was a fake.” She couldn’t help the mocking laughter. “Do go on, please. Tell me why this crown is so important to you. What is important enough to break into my room… No, wait, assume that I would help you, break into my room and put on this elaborate act of fake humility on for me. Come on, now, why do you need me to help you find Marie Antoinette’s crown, if that is really why you’re here?”
“You’re the only one that can find it,” he replied.
“Well, then you’ve got a big problem, because all I’ve got to say to you and your request is fuck off!” It felt good to say the words. She’d tortured herself over his betrayal. She’d nearly driven herself mad over him. She’d nearly killed him and she’d finally gotten closure, but there was nothing like spitting out those two words to bring a final bit of bliss to her heart and mind.
Tony didn’t respond. He just sat there. He didn’t even look at her. He kept his eyes focused on the floor. It was strange behavior, even stranger than whatever the hell it was that she’d seen in him in Dresden and in Cordoba. She was beginning to wonder, more than ever, who the real Anthony Stewart was. She thought she knew once, but none of what she had known about him had been true.
“I gave you your answer,” she replied. In spite of herself, she couldn’t resist the taunt, though even as she was saying the words, she wondered if she was baiting the bear. “So, are you going to kill me now or let me go back to sleep?”
“Things aren’t the way you think,” he replied.
“What the hell do you know about what I think?”
“I can’t. Not specifically. I supposed I’d be as angry as you are if the shoe was on the other foot.”
“The shoe on the other foot!” she snapped. There was no more humor in the acidic words that came out of her. “The shoe would never be on the other foot, Anthony Stewart. I am not arrogant enough, evil enough, lacking in integrity and honesty, nor black-hearted enough to ever do to you what you’ve done to me. I trusted you and you lied to me. I counted on you and you betrayed me. I…” She almost said that she had loved him, but she didn’t want to give him even that tiny bit of acknowledgment.
“I had to!” he snapped, filling in her pause with the first bit of emotion that he’d shown the entire time that he’d been there and looking directly into her eyes.
“You had to?” She glared at him. “No one in history has ever HAD to do what you’ve done to me.”
“I’m undercover,” he said. “There was more to the role that I played in Kiev when I went to meet with Ionesco. Connections that we made through our interrogation of Petrovik started us down a path that led me into a cover that involved the Masons and the Illuminati. I can’t explain it all to you, but there is some very deep, very serious, world dominance shit going down and I’m right in the middle of it.”
“Orchestrating it, you mean?” she responded, still not believing his story.
“It has to appear that I am in order for us to get to the root of all of this.”
“Just for laughs, because my original ‘fuck off’ still stands, how will my finding this precious crown for your help out your deep, undercover investigation?”
“Because it is the key to actually getting to the head of the organization that is stealing the artifacts.”
“You’re the organization that is stealing the artifacts.”
“Not true. I’m just filling an order so that I can reach the source. But the crown is different. It has no powers of any significance, not like the others. It’s the last item on the order and it’s personal. That means that it is something that only has value to whomever the head honcho is.”
Tony stood, pulled Chyna’s SIG out of his waistband, dislodged the clip from the pistol, tossed the clip out of reach and then tossed the pistol to her. They both knew that there was a cartridge in the chamber. They stared at each other for a moment, silently acknowledging the opportunity that was before her and then Tony turned and moved toward the door, he opened it and turned back toward her.
“By the way, did you notice that all of the artifacts that have been stolen belonged to powerful women?”
He slipped through the bedroom door, closed it behind him and was gone.
Chapter Three
Chyna was still sitting up in her bed and holding the pistol when she heard the main door close. She still had no idea why she couldn’t shoot the man. She had loved him once, but there wasn’t a trace of that left after all that he’d done; all that he’d put her through. She had hesitated before, but she’d also shot him before. Why couldn’t she shoot him again? Why couldn’t she put an end to all of it?
“Screw it,” she said aloud, moving across the room and getting down on her hands and knees to search for the clip. She located it, reached under the dresser, retrieved it and snapped it back into place. “If he comes back, I’ll put a cap in his ass.”
She wasn’t sure if it was just a release of tension or the fact that she had just used that stupid gangster phrase, but she started laughing. The laughing didn’t last long, a sure sign that she was, in fact, losing her mind. What if he’s telling you the truth?
“Oh hell, no!” she shouted. “We’re not even going there again. We got that out of our system and we’re not going back. Jesus, I’m talking out loud to myself. Just go to bed, Chyna.”
She lay back down in bed, slipped the SIG under her pillow and turned off the lamp. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and tried to convince herself that she could go back to sleep. Her eyes suddenly snapped wide open again. She sat up, reached for her cell on the nightstand and pressed the speed dial button for Thorin.
“Yeah, boss, what’s up?” he answered when the call connected.
“Could you send someone to keep a watch on my place?”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“You don’t have to come. You can just send somebody. It’s no big deal, really.”
“Yeah, right,” he chuckled. “I’m on my way.”
The call disconnected before she could respond again. She knew that Thorin would check in with her as soon as he arrived, so there wasn’t any point in going back to bed. She’d just wait on him, let him check the place out and then she could go back to bed.