Gabriel ignored his question, and instead told them to wait outside a large semi-modern building. Alex read the sign on the building. “Bibliothèque Nationale de France; says here it closed two hours ago. Why would he bring us to the national library when it’s closed? Surely he’s not expecting us to meet the guy out here in public?” Alex felt uneasy. Her hand rested under her jacket on the gun in her back.
Sam pushed his chin out as Gabriel beckoned for them to meet him where he was standing twenty feet away. When they reached him, Alex curled her fingers around her gun’s handle and settled her index finger just above the trigger.
“No need, it’s safe. Come with me.” Gabriel put them at ease and led them down a short steel stairwell one would hardly know was there if you didn’t go looking for it. When they reached the bottom, he knocked twice on a matching black steel door. Sam cast a watchful eye over their surroundings but was given little time to do so before the door flung open. A short man, roughly in his late sixties, opened the door and invited them inside and down a cold dark passage. The corridor’s walls were a total contradiction to that of the building outside in that it was entirely made from stone dating back to at least the fifteenth century. At the end of the seemingly endless dark corridor, it opened up into a sizeable tidy room with marble floors and row upon row of card catalogs. They weaved their way through the tall steel shelving and finally entered a room roughly the size of Gabriel’s apartment. But unlike his messy bachelor pad, this one was warm and neat as a pin.
“Francois, meet my friends Alex and Sam,” Gabriel offered a brief introduction. The man’s friendly, almost exuberant response surprised both Alex and Sam, resembling that of a grandparent rather than a secret contact.
“So, my friend Gabriel tells me you need my help with a document.”
Alex lifted the artifact from the backpack and followed the usual sequence to retrieving the ancient letter.
“Don’t ask, Francois. Trust me, you’re better off not looking at that up close,” Gabriel offered when his friend looked at the heart with intrigue.
He bellowed a warm laugh and carefully unfolded the letter on a nearby desk, shining a tiny green lamp on both it and the shiny bald patch on the crown of his head. Squinting through his reading glasses’ thick lenses, Francois slowly ran his eyes line for line over the letter. About midway through the letter, Francois paused and looked directly at Alex and Sam before continuing. Alex bit a piece of rough skin from the side of her thumb. Without words, she exchanged thoughts with Sam, concluding that he must have found something significant to warrant that glance.
When Francois eventually finished, he switched off the desk lamp and sat staring at the letter in complete silence. It took just about everything for Alex to not ask him the burning question that clearly he had trouble conveying. When he finally took his reading glasses off and fiddled with them in his hands, he looked pensively at Sam and Alex.
“Are you sure you are ready for this?”
After exchanging silent words of agreement, they both nodded in reply.
Francois placed his glasses back on his face and folded his hands in his lap. “The author of this letter introduces himself as R.J. Pinoir II, the son of R.J. Pinoir I, who was the medical practitioner responsible for the autopsy on a ten-year-old boy called Louis Charles de France. He goes on to say he was the surviving child of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and had become the unclaimed King of France upon their death.” Francois paused and glanced with caution at his friend.
“We know that part Francois, what else,” Alex nudged gently.
“He makes mention of a movement.” Francois jumped to his feet and started pacing the room. “I don’t think this is wise. We should burn it and forget we ever saw it.”
Stunned, Alex stopped Francois in the middle of the room. “We’re not going to burn it, Francois. We’re in too deep. It’s our only way out of a mess we unwillingly got dragged into. You need to tell us the rest.”
“You have no idea who you are involved with, Alex. This movement has control beyond this city you find yourself in. They have the power to destroy your life—all of our lives! It’s taken me many years hiding in this hole to get the target off my back.” He turned to Gabriel. “You shouldn’t have brought them here.”
“Francois, my friend, this is our opportunity. These two are our best chance of wiping them out once and for all. You and I, we have nothing left to lose. Apart from the miserable lives we’re clinging onto we’ve already lost everything we once loved. I want my life back. I’m tired of letting them get away with it.” Gabriel shuffled over to his friend and placed his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “Do it for Angelique. You have a chance to prove that you’re not the insane old man she believes her father to be. You still have her. You can win her back.”
The cozy room fell silent as Alex and Sam watched the two men’s despairing exchange. They shared a mutual bond that ran so deep with loss and sorrow that it was hard not to be moved by it.
Alex took Francois’ hand. “I’m sorry we involved you in this. I promise your name will not be mentioned when we leave here tonight. We will defend you and ourselves and expose The Resistance for who they are, I give you my word.”
Something in Alex’s eyes conveyed the truth, and a compassion Francois knew was sincere. He wiped his wet eyes with the cuff of his moss-green cardigan and took a seat behind the desk again. Taking a deep breath, he continued.
“Pinoir mentions the movement which calls itself La Résistance whose sole aim it was to destroy the French monarchy and dominate the world. He talks about how they conspired against the monarchy and ordered the Bastille invasion as well as the King and Queen’s executions. Then he talks about the boy, the dauphin, who they tortured, starved and held a prisoner in the Temple fortress hoping he would die naturally, except he didn’t. Instead, the boy escaped, and no one ever saw him again. They couldn’t let the people find out the truth, so they killed the boy’s doctor and bribed the local doctor, the writer’s father, R.J. Pinoir I. He says they threatened to kill his family if his father didn’t help them. So he did as he was told and stole the corpse of the first dauphin, Louis Joseph who died of natural causes in June of 1789. He was ten, so his heart matched the size of his brother’s. They defrauded the people of France by fabricating the dauphin’s death to destroy what was left of the monarchy.”
Francois placed his reading glasses on the letter and sat back in his chair, staring at the floor. “The entire Republic is nothing but a lie. All fabricated and coerced into existence.”
“That will explain why these people have been hunting us down. If the world knew their secret, they would come down like a house of cards. All their influence and control throughout the world would disappear. For more than two centuries they’ve deceived the people into thinking the monarchy had died during the Revolution. Heck, the entire Revolution was nothing but a deception of epic proportions,” Sam exclaimed.
Alex walked over to where the heart stood on the table. “D’Andigné was one of them. That’s why he needed our help—to expose the truth. He knew this was the single most important evidence, and all that was needed to bring them down. That’s why he had my underfloor safety box installed—because he knew I’d find his. He risked everything and paid with his life to get this to us.”
“And that’s why DuPont was so eager to get his hands on it too. Except he wanted to make sure the secret stayed locked and buried forever,” Sam added.
“We can’t risk anyone discovering this heart or the letter. We have to hide it somewhere safe,” Alex cautioned while placing the letter back in its base and securing it in their backpack.
“You have to take it with you, I can’t keep it here,” Francois declared, waving his wrinkled hands in front of his face.
“My place isn’t safe either,” Gabriel added.
“I think I know exactly where it will be the safest and have the most impact when it is rediscovered,” Sam said with a smug smi
le on his face.
“You’re right,” Alex agreed as if he had declared his thoughts out loud.
“Where?” Gabriel pushed, annoyed at how his new friends seemed to know each other’s thoughts.
“Best you don’t know, Gabriel. For your own protection.”
“And if something happened to the two of you? Your secret hiding place would die with you.”
“You’re a clever man, Duval. I’m sure you’d figure it out eventually. Besides, we don’t plan on getting killed,” Sam assured him.
“Fine, then what, you hide the heart and then? How do we bring them down? I’m not letting go of this. You promised me we’d expose them.”
“Calm down, Duval. We’re not going to break our promise to you. We have every intention of unveiling The Resistance and every single secret, crime and lie we can lay our hands on.”
“Care to share our plan and when we intend to execute it?”
“No-no, you’re not coming with us. It’s too dangerous. Not to offend you, but I’m not sure how fast you can run. And it will come to that. We need you here.”
Gabriel sat on the small brown couch, extending his artificial leg as he always did. “Stupid leg, they’ve stolen my revenge too.”
“You’ll have your moment of revenge, Gabriel. Shooting a man isn’t the answer. In our line of business, we’ve learned to use intellect instead. Be patient,” Alex reassured him.
“Now, Francois, I realize it might be too much to ask of you, but this place makes for the best option to use as our base.” Alex paused as she gave their host time to reflect.
Francois simply nodded in agreement and turned to put the kettle on.
“Thank you. We won’t compromise your safety. If all goes well, we should be back here in an hour, and then we can run through our plan. For now, we need to get this to safety. Gabriel, we’re going to need those blueprints and any information you have on when The Resistance’s next meeting is, the protocol and how to gain entry. Make sure you get it right. There’s no room for error. If we get one detail wrong, the mission fails and we all get killed. Don’t trust anyone, do you hear me? No one! We will meet you back here in an hour. Francois, we’ll knock twice, pause and then knock three more times on the door.”
And with that, Alex and Sam left and disappeared into the darkness of the Paris night.
Chapter Eighteen
The map borrowed from Francois’ underground abode led them to the nearest bus stop not far from their current location. From there it would be a fifteen-minute bus ride and a short walk to where Maurice d’Andigné’s apartment was near the Arc de Triomphe. They walked briskly, keeping an eye on anything out of sorts. Nearing the bus stop, they suspected they were being followed and ducked into the enclave of a closed grocery shop. With their guns in hand, they pinned their backs to the wall and waited for the suspect to approach. When the black-hooded man walked past without any reaction, they fell in behind him to where he eventually entered a quiet apartment block opposite the bus stop. At ease, Alex and Sam stepped onto the bus. Inside the lights were on, illuminating only a few passengers—a couple in full embrace in the back of the bus, a small group of socialites and two more men who also got on and took their seats toward the middle of the bus behind each other. Making provisions for a quick exit, Alex and Sam sat in the first seats on either side of the aisle behind the bus driver. Sam turned sideways in his seat, with his back pinned against the window, while Alex kept her eye on the bus driver’s rear-view mirror that afforded a view of all the passengers behind her.
The bus pulled away and made its way toward the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The streets were much quieter than earlier, and it was hard not to be mesmerized by all Paris had to offer. When they got off at their arrival stop, Sam noticed two men getting off using the second door at the back of the bus. He silently alerted Alex, who had seen it too. Continuing with their silent communications, Alex and Sam reverted to what they were trained to do in these situations and split up where the Arc de Triomphe was directly in front of them, and the road circled it. They remained alert as they walked in opposite directions from each other along the quiet road around the monument. As predicted, the two men split up too—one behind Alex and one behind Sam. Their suspicions were further confirmed when Alex and Sam once again tested their pursuit and walked toward the open square positioned around the historic building. Again, both men did the same. Alex increased her pace as she approached the large arch. So did her stalker. Until now, she only had her hand close to her gun, but as she neared the structure, she pulled her firearm from her waistband and placed her finger on the trigger. Her eyes searched for Sam but turned up empty. Behind her, she heard her stalker’s footsteps quicken. Her free hand tightened each of the backpack’s straps, securing it closer to her body. A few yards and she’d use the arched structure to hide behind. She increased her pace too, still searching for Sam, who was nowhere to be seen. Resolving that he’d be fine on his own, she placed her focus on her enemy. When she reached the building, she hid behind the square column. Operating on instinct and adrenaline alone, she waited for the man to make his move. And, as expected, he did. Her arm blocked his powerful punch, catching him off guard. He swung his other fist, narrowly missing the side of her face. His foot thrust a powerful blow to her knee, and she fell to the ground. Overestimating that he had won the fight already, he took too long to deliver his next blow, and Alex caught his arm and twisted it securely into her armpit. Back on her feet, she rotated his body, forcing his arm against his elbow’s bend. The man cringed with pain when she lifted his arm higher, inflicting even more injury to his shoulder joint.
“Who are you and who are you working for?”
The man didn’t answer. Placing more force on his arm, she asked again, but the result was the same. Her thoughts trailed to Sam. Deciding they had to get on with their mission, she slammed the back of her pistol against her stalker’s head, yielding him unconscious at her feet.
She hid behind the concrete structure and listened for any clue to indicate Sam’s position. She knew he had to be nearby. In the distance she heard groaning and a split second later, the dull, muffled sound of a gun discharging through a silencer numbed her body with fear. She ran toward the direction it had come from and saw two male figures on the ground. With her gun pointed and aimed at them, she approached with vigilance. As she neared, she saw Sam flat on his back with his stalker’s body spread diagonally across his torso. She kept her gun on the man’s back.
“Sam! Get up, Sam!” Panic restricted her breathing in her throat as she watched her fiancée and partner lie dead still on the ground. She kicked the man’s feet, discovering them to be flaccid. He didn’t respond. She went down on one knee and kept her gun firm against the attacker’s back while, with her other hand, she gently tapped Sam’s cheek.
“Get this imbecile off me,” Sam groaned as he attempted to move out from under his victim.
“Are you shot?”
“Not that I know of, but he is.”
Alex pushed the man off with her foot. He rolled onto his back to reveal the sizeable self-inflicted bullet wound in his abdomen. With his gun still in his hand, it was clear the two had had a struggle, and the gun had gone off.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked Sam again as she helped him to his feet.
“Certain. That was a close call though. Where’s your guy?”
“Unconscious, over there. We need to get out of here. We don’t have much time.”
Relieved that they had both escaped unscathed, they entered Maurice d’Andignè’s apartment less than five minutes later.
The apartment was dark and unoccupied. Fingerprint powder lay scattered on just about every door, surface, and windowsill throughout the apartment. Up in the office, his corpse had been removed and the scene was pretty much as they had left it. Comforted by the fact that the police hadn’t discovered the underfloor safe, they carefully replaced the artifact in its original place of safety an
d rolled the carpet back in place.
“Let’s get back to HQ,” Sam urged, but Alex ignored him. She was standing stationary behind d’Andigné’s desk, taking in every angle of the room.
“I know that look, what’s brewing?”
“I just thought if d’Andigné was one of them, and he had the bishop emblem in his ring, then he was pretty influential in the hierarchy.”
“I suppose. Why?”
“Don’t you think he’d have some other kind of evidence, like a dossier with all the member’s names?”
Sam grew quiet as he reflected on her words.
“They did take his computer, so I would say that the theory might be very accurate. I doubt something that powerful would have a paper trail. It would be encrypted or password-protected at the very least. It entirely explains why they took his computer.”
“You’re right. Assuming that’s accurate, it would mean that the original file would be at La Conciergerie. We have to get our hands on that list.”
When they reached the front door, Sam trailed off toward the garage.
“Where are you going? We have to get out of here, Sam.”
“You didn’t think we were going to take the bus back again, did you? Look what I found in his desk while you were playing Sherlock Holmes.” Sam dangled a set of keys between his index finger and thumb, smiling as if he had just won a prize. “Besides, it will be faster.”
Sam was right when less than six minutes later, they parked d'Andigné's Mercedes SL500 in an underground parking lot about a block away and delivered the coded knock on their newly established headquarters' black steel door. Angst overcame them when, after having to repeat their coded knock, Francois still didn't open. It was only after the third attempt that he opened the door, looking anxious and far less effervescent than when they first met him.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked.
"Gabriel's not come back yet. He should've been here already."
The Dauphin Deception Page 13