Napoleon's Gold: A Jack Starling Adventure

by Guy Roberts

  Reynard had roughly pulled the pin from behind Jack’s lapel during the limousine ride, passing it over to the curious Deschamps. Now the Frenchman held it up in the afternoon light, rolling it between finger and thumb and feeling the minute indentations along its length.

  ‘Well,’ Deschamps declared at last, placing the pin and the tablet side by side on the table, ‘go on. Solve this riddle.’

  Jack looked around the room. A long row of sharp knives was stuck against a magnetic strip on the far side of the room and dozens of pots and pans hanging from hooks above the central table. A heavy steel door of gunmetal grey stood in one corner, the entrance to a voluminous walk-in-freezer. There were weapons aplenty, but no freedom to exploit the opportunity. Reynard was too alert, his pistol cocked and ready to fire. Focusing himself, Jack leant over the table and gently reached for the pin.

  ‘Remember,’ Deschamps warned, ‘any mistake will end with Cleo’s death.’

  Jack breathed out slowly, trying to keep the room calm. Cleo’s handbag was close by and he gently pushed it to one side. There was a click on the far side of the room, and Jack started at the unexpected noise. The spindly housekeeper had lit a cigarette, watching the scene unfold with a look of world-weary cynicism. Jack pushed her from his mind and picked up the pin, feeling its balance. To bend it in half or snap it would be the work of a moment, but Jack had no doubt such a choice would leave him and Cleo to suffer Deschamps’ immediate vengeance. Jack shut his eyes for a moment, then focused on the tablet. He picked it up carefully, inspecting it on all sides and marvelling once again at its antique craftsmanship.

  ‘Come on,’ Deschamps snapped, jaw tight with frustrated anticipation. Jack ignored him, his eyes examining the tablet minutely, looking for the faintest hint of how the pin connected to the device. He found it in the exact centre of the top of the tablet, a minute hole no larger than the dot at the end of a sentence. Breathing slowly, Jack picked up the pin and slid it into the opening. The pin entered the device smoothly, with the slightest of clicks as each of the notches on the stem came into contact with the gears within. With a final click the length of the pin had vanished into the tablet, the ornate B&B at its head the only part of it still visible.

  ‘Good to go.’ Jack guessed, his mouth dry. He put the completed icon back on the table and breathed out slowly. ‘That’s all I know.’ He declared.

  Deschamps leaned forward, his mangled fingers dancing in the air for a moment before gripping the sides of the golden tablet and drawing it toward him. He took the notebook from his jacket and slowly entered the clues from London into the machine once again. Silent tension filled the room. Once the list of numbers had been entered, Deschamps rose from the chair and stalked from the room in glowering silence. Jack, Cleo and Reynard waited quietly, the only movement in the kitchen being the housekeeper’s twitching fingers as she took sour drags on the cigarette. Several minutes passed before Deschamps returned to the room, his anger dispelled and a look of smug satisfaction spread across his pockmarked face. He carried with him a stout oak chair.

  ‘Success,’ Deschamps declared, depositing the chair in front of the freezer with relish.

  ‘Where to now?’ Reynard asked.

  ‘Brussels,’ Deschamps announced. ‘Tie him to the chair. I’ll watch the girl.’ Reynard nodded and Jack was quickly bound to the chair. He strained slightly, but Reynard’s rope work was quick and efficient and Jack knew he was stuck firmly in place.

  ‘The freezer,’ Deschamps ordered. Without a word Reynard swung the freezer open, then grabbed the back of Jack’s chair and dragged him bodily within. Jack struggled furiously but it was no use. Goosebumps rose on his flesh as he was slid into place amid frozen sides of beef and pork and innumerable packets of vegetables. He could see the house-maid watched from the corner of the room, her eyes gleaming with interest.

  ‘So you’re leaving me to die?’ Jack’s breath plumed out in the frigid air of the cold room as he looked at Deschamps with contempt.

  ‘Such a smart man,’ Deschamps smiled thinly. ‘Your intelligence is formidable.’

  ‘As is your courage,’ Jack snapped.

  ‘Ah. The time for repartee is gone Jack.’ Deschamps shook his head. ‘You should have joined me when you had the chance.’

  ‘So you’re so sure you can find the gold without me?’

  Deschamps nodded slowly. ‘Oh, I think so. We have the clues, we have the tablet and we have Cleo.’ He leered. ‘I realise now she knows as much about the gold as you, if not more. If we are struggling for an answer, we will turn to Cleo. She will be alive, until the gold is found.’

  ‘And then?’ Jack’s eyes narrowed.

  Deschamps looked at him with amusement, then cast an eye around the well-stocked freezer. ‘Perhaps I shall bring her here and let the two of you be reunited. You would make such beautiful statues – whenever I feel a little lonely, I could come here to look at your frozen bodies.’ A chuckle escaped from Deschamps’ lips as he pondered their fate.

  Jack lunged forward helplessly, his eyes alight with fury.

  ‘Oh, hoho,’ Deschamps gave a laugh and stepped back despite himself. A mocking smile lit up his face. ‘That’s the spirit, Jack. Hatred warms a man – and you will need all the warmth you can find. Au revoir.’ With that, he swung the freezer door shut with a smile of contempt. Jack was left with a last glimpse of the Frenchman’s sardonic blue eyes and then a muffled boom echoed around the freezer’s narrow confines as the steel door was sealed shut. Silence followed.

  The rosy warmth of the kitchen seemed unreal to Cleo. Deschamps and Reynard stood smiling by the heavy freezer door. Cleo took a deep breath, trying to steady her trembling nerves, doing everything she could to think of some way to get Jack out. The fumes from the housekeeper’s cigarette were heavy in the air, the woman’s grey face inhuman and uncaring. Not even the deliberate murder of a man could bring humanity to her reptilian expression.

  Deschamps turned to her and smiled. ‘Cleo Draycott,’ he purred, ‘as lovely and inquisitive as ever… but did our time in the Library this morning teach you nothing?’ He shook his head sadly. A ringing cell-phone interrupted his words. Deschamps pulled the phone from his pocket and looked at it in exasperation then swept from the room, the phone pressed to his ear. Reynard slunk across the room and slipped onto a kitchen chair, a sardonic smile on his face as he watched her face for any hint of weakness.

  The room was quiet but for a ticking clock on one wall.

  Cleo stared at the freezer, imagining Jack trapped within, her heart in her mouth at the callous way in which Deschamps and Reynard had simply left him there to freeze.

  ‘He’s dying in there,’ she whispered eventually in flawless French. ‘A man is dying in there.’

  Reynard shifted in his seat and a silent laugh spread across his face for a moment.

  ‘But he’s dying, Jack is freezing to death,’ Cleo turned to look at the housekeeper in desperation. ‘Why won’t you do something?’ she implored, ‘they’re going to kill him!’ Despite herself, Cleo began to shout.

  The slap on her face knocked her back into her seat and threatened to topple her out of it and onto the ground. Head ringing, Cleo looked at the housekeeper in shock. The old woman sneered at her, then picked up her cigarette in one wizened claw and continued to smoke it as if nothing had happened.

  Cleo gulped, a red mark on her cheek stinging from where the housekeeper’s blow had struck. Despite herself, tears began streaming down her face and she sank into herself. The afternoon sun drifted in from the windows and Reynard and the housekeeper watched her tears silently, the old woman chain-smoking expressionlessly.

  The clock ticked onward. Cleo could hear Deschamps’ voice somewhere in the building, occasionally raised in furious bellows of rage, yet Reynard and the housekeeper simply sat and watched her. Any attempt she made at conversation was met with a look of contempt from the housekeeper or amused sarcasm from Reynard, and her one attempt at running to th
e freezer and wrenching it open resulted in Reynard grabbing her by the arms and throwing her to the ground before she had covered two steps.

  Arms aching from Reynard’s iron grip, Cleo withdrew into herself, silently praying for Jack as the minutes slipped past. Throughout it all, not a sound had come from the freezer.

  Almost two hours passed before Deschamps returned to the room, wearing a newly pressed suit and a look of restrained anger on his face.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Cleo forced her voice to sound normal and assured.

  ‘We are leaving Paris for a time,’ Deschamps smiled, ‘since the tablet has revealed what I believe to be the genuine location of the gold, I have organised a special transport for us and one which I think you will appreciate. I know how much you enjoy the finer things in life.’ Deschamps’ voice had dropped to a whisper and his blue eyes measured Cleo’s strong facial features like a tradesman measuring a statue. ‘We are travelling by train. Do anything and Reynard will shoot you down, do you understand?’ Deschamps cautioned her. Cleo nodded slowly. She knew full well what her two captors were capable of. ‘You have seen my influence here in Paris.’ Deschamps’ eyes were assured. ‘My influence in Brussels is just as strong. Make a scene, whether here, or there, and you will wish you had never been born.’ Deschamps looked at her carefully for one more moment, then turned to leave the kitchen. ‘Come,’ he declared.

  Reynard looked at her with contempt and collected the golden tablet from the table.

  Cleo resignedly stepped forward and slipped her hands into the handbag lying on the table in front of her, fumbling awkwardly for a moment. Reynard hissed, sliding his pistol up to her face in an instant. Deschamps turned and looked at her in surprise. Cleo swallowed carefully, sliding her hands out of the bag and lifting a stick of lipstick to her lips. Reynard lowered the pistol with a look of wry amusement on his face.

  ‘Putain.’ The housekeeper hissed the word with judicious venom. Deschamps smiled approvingly.

  ‘Such elegance,’ he smiled, ‘I like a woman who appreciates the importance of her looks.’ He waved a hand dismissively. ‘Leave her things here,’ Deschamps declared, ‘she will not need them where she is going.’

  Reynard gestured with his pistol and Cleo reluctantly walked from the kitchen, one hand brushing helplessly against the freezer door. It had been two hours. Surely Jack must have died, yet the freezer remained as silent and ominous as before. Reynard’s pistol pushed painfully into her spine and she let her hand drop. The last she saw of the kitchen was the dried old house-maid grinding her spent cigarette into a saucer.

  2000 hrs 17 June 2015, COBRA, Whitehall, London.

  GR 51.503721, -0.126270

  Brice leaned back in his chair at the head of the COBRA briefing table. He was exhausted and unwashed, having spent the night in a camp bed tucked away in a Whitehall basement near the COBRA office. His rumpled shirt was unbuttoned at the top and untucked at the bottom and the air-conditioning system of COBRA was fighting a losing battle against the smell of Brice’s unwashed flesh. Brice was confused. The discovery of several dead men in Freemasons’ Hall only underlined the seriousness of the situation, but his conversation with a French counterpart about Deschamps had been equally baffling – they had already received an anonymous British request that he be arrested by the French internal security force, the DGSI.

  ‘There’s a signal.’ Highgrove suddenly looked up from her monitor, dark brown eyes fiery with intent. Highgrove was impeccable as ever, her shirt looking crisply laundered. Brice wondered how she managed to look so professional and well-groomed every hour of the day.

  ‘What signal?’ Brice pushed his thoughts back to the issue at hand and shuffled forward from his chair, thrusting his head toward the monitor as if expecting it would personally answer his demands.

  ‘It’s Sir Johnathon’s cell phone.’ Highgrove sounded mystified. ‘It’s coming from Europe.’

  ‘His cell-phone?’ Brice frowned. ‘The one Starling took at Apsley House? What game is he playing at?’

  ‘What game is who playing at?’ Highgrove turned to look at him in confusion.

  ‘Johnathon Fairchild… or Jack Starling.’ Brice’s face was furrowed with concentration. ‘That phone was taken from Fairchild at Apsley House… or he said it was, so why would it be activated now?’

  ‘It’s in Paris,’ Highgrove’s fingers flashed across the keyboard. ‘Near the Gare du Nord.’

  Brice’s eyes widened in surprise.

  ‘They’ve arrived in Paris?’ Brice chewed his lip, ‘or are they leaving?’

  ‘Leaving for where?’ Highgrove glanced up curiously.

  ‘Gare Du Nord is five minutes’ walk from Paris Est.’ Brice’s eyebrows were lowering with intense concentration. ‘And Paris Est is the train line that goes to Moscow.’

  ‘On their way to Russia?’

  ‘Right,’ Brice nodded. ‘Do we know who turned the phone on? Is it Jack Starling or the woman or Johnathon Fairchild?’

  Highgrove shook her head. ‘I can’t tell. All we have is the mobile phone signal location.’

  ‘Can we contact the French?’

  Highgrove looked up sceptically. ‘Perhaps… but it’ll take time.’

  Brice frowned. He wasn’t going to let his foes get away because of continental incompetence.

  ‘No, we can’t wait.’ He put a heavy hand onto Highgrove’s shoulder. ‘This is your chance, Michelle,’ he declared. ‘Scramble whatever assets we have in Paris. Whoever turned that phone on, I want them caught, right now.’

  Brice smiled. The moment has arrived at last! Vindication and victory!

  He watched in satisfaction as Highgrove reached across the table to a discreet telephone on the corner of her desk, activating a scrambling device on the side before lifting the handset to her ear. She glanced at the monitor for a moment then focused as the connection was made. ‘Scramble Asterix One.’ Her voice was calm.

  2100 hrs (2000 hrs GMT) 17 June 2015, Rue de Passy, 16th Arrondissement, Paris.

  GR 47.387844, 1.043409

  No sound from the outside world reached into the freezer’s icy depths. The result was that Jack’s breathing filled his ears, adding to a sense of helplessness. He swallowed, flickering his eyes open and shut. It made no difference. The blackness was absolute. For a sudden moment Jack felt panic surge through his body, threatening to overwhelm him. Blood roared in his ears and he felt his breath punching in and out of his body in uncontrollable spurts. He tried to focus on the face of Deschamps, to retake control of his body through the hate he felt toward the criminal sadist, but panic continued to rise in Jack’s breast as the darkness embraced him in its frozen claws.

  Jack could tell he was losing the battle against fear. The icy cold of the freezer was winding around his limbs and his lungs were taking in short gasps of air that were more like bites than breaths. He knew he was at risk of hyperventilation – which would trigger more dizziness and panic. Despite himself, Jack could not help gasping for more air, even though he knew there was only a limited amount of oxygen in the freezer.

  He could feel his arms and legs cramping. Amid the panic, an image of Cleo suddenly filled his mind, her teeth gleaming white as she leaned forward in the apartment of the Shard building in London, eyes bright as she thought through the puzzles they had been set. The picture stayed with Jack for a long moment and he focused on it with all his might, remembering the curve of her cheeks and the lightness of her hair, feeling his heart rate slowly decrease and his breathing come back under his control. Calmness slowly descended. He took several long deep breaths, stretching his mind down through his body to feel every tightly knotted rope that bound him to the chair. The air of the freezer was cooling his body with frightening speed and as the panic subsided Jack could feel a deeper fear seeping through his body. He tensed his arms with slow deliberation, trying to twist the cord past his wrists. Blood pounded in his ears as he strained his shoulders and arms but the movement was futil
e. Each knot had been expertly tied. He paused again and realised he was beginning to shiver uncontrollably. This was no lack of control – Jack knew this was the first stage of hypothermia. A clattering staccato filled his ears and it took Jack a moment to realise it was his teeth.

  He clamped them shut, then twisted and shook his bound body desperately. A roar of frustration burst out of his mouth as he threw his body back and forth in an animalistic frenzy. A few moments later he slumped helplessly back into his bonds. He could feel the cold air stealing heat from his lungs with every breath. The bonds were too strong, the chair too sound. By the time Deschamps returned, he would be frozen solid – a real Jack Frost. The thought brought a bitter smile to his lips. Jack straightened himself up as far as he was able, then shut his eyes, willing himself to ignore the fatal cold as he reviewed his options.

  There were none. With a grimace of frustration, sealed into an impenetrable darkness, Jack Starling began to freeze to death.

  2105 hrs (2005 hrs GMT) 17 June 2015, Rue Du Cygne, 1st Arrondissement, Paris.

  GR 48.863493, 2.348234

  A driver leaned on his car-horn in frustration as he was cut off by old Renault darting from a side street near the mammoth Metro station Chatelet-Les Halles. A casual observer would have seen nothing amiss with the battered exterior of the truck, nor the sun faded “Jaques et Fils, Peintres” emblazoned on one side. Given its shabby look, however, a mechanic from the Renault factory would have been surprised at the powerful throb of the well-tuned V8 engine under the hood. The ultimate surprise, however, would be for the unfortunate gendarme who would open the truck doors to find the six British SAS troopers within, each one armed to the teeth with a variety of lethal weaponry.

  As it was, however, no gendarme was on hand to witness the Renault racing through the streets of Paris as fast as its driver could go, the elite soldiers inside calmly checking their weapons and equipment. Tiny Tom, the biggest of the group, sat cradling a sixteen kilo Enforcer battering ram in his arms. This heavy assault weapon was a 58 centimetre steel tube with handles on either side. Known as the ‘big key’, the Enforcer was used in police raids around the world – a violent, effective way to quickly unlock any criminal’s front door – by shattering it from its frame. This one had been specially retrofitted with a piston within the metal cylinder that would fire automatically when the Enforcer struck its target, enhancing the momentum of the blow to well over seven tonnes of kinetic energy in a single square inch. The beefy Lancastrian carrying it took great pride in the device – even if the power unleashed by the thing often destroyed doors, rather than merely opening them.