The Dauphin Deception
Page 16
"This looks like it might be a boardroom," Alex whispered, to which Sam nodded in reply, his attention already occupied by the interconnecting office to the right. The similarities to the other office were undeniable.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sam whispered as they entered the adjoining office and laid eyes on the computer standing on the nearby desk.
"I say we check it out. Feels like we might have stumbled onto something," Sam said.
Alex didn't hesitate, and her hands moved the mouse track over the screen. The duo stared at a large logo of a chessboard. In the center of the board, a three-dimensional image of a brass queen chess piece zoomed in and out. The cursor blinked on the screen, waiting for the password to be entered. Alex's fingers hovered over the keys. "Any ideas," she asked Sam.
"Yep just one." Sam held Gabriel's spy tech flash drive between his fingers.
She smiled. "Who would have thought we'd use this?"
She inserted the flash drive into the PC's USB port and watched as the little red light activated the process. Within seconds the blimp on the screen was replaced by a row of fast-moving dots before the computer kicked into a series of flashing screens. Flipping through a sequence of opening files the drive searched through the computer's content before copying the entire contents onto the drive.
"We hit the jackpot, Sam. It's everything. The digital dossier of members' names, activities, algorithms, everything! Who knows how far this dates back and who's all involved?"
"That's great Alex, but I wish this gadget would hurry it along so we can get out of here. I'd hate to lose another finger."
Another fifteen seconds went by. Sam had walked over to the window in an attempt to assess their position.
"You'll never guess where we are, Alex. We're at Versailles. No wonder our comms were out of range. This must be where they operate from."
Just then the flash drive's light switched to green before the computer shut down. Alex snatched the drive from the port. "Done, let's get out of here!"
"Better keep that thing safe, I'm not doing this again.” But Sam's words were hardly spoken when Alex reached over and fumbled with his belt buckle.
"Okay, I can't believe I'm going to say this but now isn't the time, Alex."
"Stand still, Sam, you're only making this more difficult."
Confusion mixed with a dash of exhilaration flooded Sam's body all at once as he watched Alex fiddle with the silver clasp in his waist. It was only when the top flipped open to reveal a hidden cavity underneath, that Sam realized what his fiancée was up to. There, neatly tucked around the black leather at his waist was a secret casing in which she hid the flash drive. When she clipped the lid closed and got to her feet, she pecked him on his cheek.
"Oh, you sneaky little minx. You might regret that one of these days. Are you ready to get out of here now?"
"Thought you'd never ask. Lead the way."
To their relief, the building was entirely unoccupied aiding in a clean escape through the front door. Unarmed and with newfound hope the couple ran through the country gardens in the direction of the palace. Dense shrubs and fishponds shouldered the narrow, winding, pebbled path and it dawned on them that the building behind them was the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette's private escape. The brown pebbles crunched beneath their feet as they sprinted through the once cherished lavish French gardens of the former Queen. When the palace grounds drew nearer, and they were just about out of danger, the first bullet hit the ground next to them. Unprepared for the sudden attack, they took shelter behind a nearby marble statue. Another rapid succession of shots announced their position had been compromised and they ran toward the shelter of a nearby peristyle. With only a few pillars to shield behind, they were fast running out of options. Surrounded by a canal, the overrunning bridge to their right was their only way out. The piercing sound of bullets hitting the marble floor of the veranda forced them toward the bridge. Suddenly aware of the multitude of footsteps fast approaching them from all angles, they knew they were outnumbered. Unable to fight back, trapped between an onslaught of angry mobsters, Alex and Sam surrendered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Led by a team of seven armed men, Alex and Sam reluctantly walked toward their vehicle. Vulnerable and physically dehydrated from the past night’s torturous events they had little resilience to fight the men. Again their hands were bound and their eyes covered before the men shoved them into the vehicle’s trunk. The defeated pair lay silently waiting for the car to drive off.
“Sam, this might be the end.”
“Don’t say that, sweetheart. We’ll find a way to escape.”
Alex paused, and with deep sadness, she whispered, “If we don’t, know that I’ve always loved you. You saved me from myself. That day on the plane, when we first met on the way to Tanzania, I knew we were meant to be together. Perhaps you were right, and I should have taken that desk job instead.”
“We’re going to get out of this, Alex! We’ve been through this and worse over all the years we’ve been together. We’re a strong team and we’ll think of something. You’re the smartest person I know. We’re going to get out of this.” Sam’s stern voice did little to console or encourage Alex at this point. From behind her blindfold, she heard him wrestle in an attempt to free his hands.
“Can you use your mouth to pull the blindfold off my eyes?” Sam urged, but she didn’t react.
“Alex, stay focused! We can do this. Use your mouth and get my blindfold off.”
They lay facing each other, so when Alex still didn’t respond, Sam leaned in and caught her blindfold between his teeth. The grip was enough to lower the blindfold around her neck, urging her to reciprocate, which she did.
Seeing Sam’s eyes filled her with strength as it so often did and when he instructed her to turn her back to his and their fingers started at the knots, her fear all but subsided.
But, much to their dismay, their efforts were fruitless when the vehicle stopped before any of the knots were untied. With the trunk open and their blindfolds off, they caught sight of the man wearing the black executioner’s mask. The armed men hastily replaced their blindfolds and dragged Alex and Sam from the car. Dread and fear raged through their bodies, knowing full well an executioner symbolized death. Alex stumbled to the ground when one of the men shoved her forward.
“What do you want from us?” Sam shouted. “We gave you what you wanted, now let us go.”
The men ignored them, pushing and shoving them to keep walking. When they finally stopped, they were forced to their knees. Exposed and terrified, Alex and Sam waited for their fateful death. When, after what seemed like an eternity of tortured silence, no shots were fired, Sam pleaded again.
“Let her go and take me. I was the one who infiltrated your secret meeting. She had nothing to do with it. D’Andigné contacted me. Leave her out of this.”
Stunned, Alex choked on the lump that sat wedged in her throat and prevented her from speaking. Sam didn’t deserve to die. It was all her fault.
Unexpectedly their blindfolds were yanked off their faces and, for the first time, Alex and Sam got a grasp on what their futures held. Directly in front of them, as they knelt in its shadow, was a larger than life guillotine. Next to it, the executioner stood waiting. Terror ripped through their loins settling in the pit of their stomachs as reality washed over them. Aware of the gunman at the rear of them, the silence finally broke with an unidentified tapping and footsteps behind them.
“I thought you might appreciate dying like this since this is what brought you here in the first place.” The voice behind them was now all too familiar.
“You got what you wanted, now let us go,” Alex pleaded.
“Now don’t go spoiling our fun, Alex. You know, back during the Revolution this was how they entertained the crowds. Petty thieves like you received their punishment in this exact spot. That glistening silver blade over there has made many heads roll, and today, the honor falls on you.”
<
br /> “You’re a coward whoever you are. Why don’t you show your face instead of hiding behind us?” Sam taunted him.
The challenge worked, and they heard the man’s footsteps, mingled with the peculiar clicking noise from before, approach and stop before them. Sam gasped as the man came into full view and his eyes settled on the recognized pewter cane he’d first seen back at the police station in London.
“You! You’re the Queen?”
“You know him?” Alex gasped, surprised that Sam knew the man who was responsible for her attack in her apartment.
“He’s the guy from the police station. The one who was behind my interrogation.”
“Well done, Sam, I knew you’d remember my face.”
“I never forget the face of a traitor. You won’t get away with this. I don’t care how much power you think you have.”
“Oh, I already have, Sam. You see, The Resistance is much bigger than the two of you might think. We’re a family; entrenched in governments, financial sectors, law societies, you name it. We own the world. There isn’t a country on the globe we don’t own, and we’ve been doing it for centuries.”
“You’re criminals fighting against justice,” Alex injected.
“Justice! We are justice, Alex. That’s what The Resistance is: Liberté, égalité, fraternité. We resist being ruled over.”
“So your secret brotherhood killed an innocent child, royalty, only to rule your own order.”
“The dauphin was what we call collateral damage, Alex. Besides, we never killed the boy. We just made the world believe that we did.”
“Nice try. We saw the heart and the doctor’s confession remember.”
“Oh, the doctor, he was nothing but a quack, a pawn in the greater plan, conned into thinking he did the autopsy on the real dauphin. The heart belonged to the young boy’s brother who died of natural causes two years before he was taken. See, even mother nature had a hand in this.”
“What happened to the boy if he lived? He had the right to take a throne that was destined for him.”
“The boy and his delightful sister were adopted and lived a long, healthy life, and we took care of France and the rest of the world. And as for my dear friend Maurice, we had to kill him. He knew too much. The stupid man took it upon himself to have DNA tests done on the heart and traced it to a royal descendant in Normandy. We couldn’t let that happen. But who knew the man would involve you? D’Andigné always did think he was smarter than me.”
Alex fought against the anger that threatened to overwhelm her.
“Now, which one of you wants to go first, huh? I have a meeting to get to, so let’s get on with business, shall we? How about we show some chivalry and allow the lady to go first? Think you can watch your fiancée’s head roll?”
Alex and Sam were numb with fear and disgust. The man with the cane stopped talking and nodded to his men to take Alex to the guillotine.
“You don’t have to do this! Let her go!” Sam shouted in anguish, tears streaming down his face, but they ignored his desperate plea. Unable to look away, he watched Alex climb the wooden steps to where she met the hooded executioner. When they forced Alex to her knees in front of the guillotine and left her alone in the hands of the executioner, the fear inside her gave way to serenity.
“Don’t say a word and do exactly as I tell you,” the executioner whispered next to her. A surge of adrenaline engulfed her when she recognized his voice. He pulled her to her feet and proceeded with a dramatic display by which he delivered her sentence, all the while, discreetly slicing a blade between her bound wrists. After reciting another sequence of dramatic words, he slipped a gun into her hand.
Sam, filled with disgust, listened as his fiancée’s judgment was spoken over her. Consumed by guilt and hatred, he stared into her eyes. But instead of defeat, her eyes revealed the opposite. Confusion ripped through his torture when Alex’s eyes suddenly declared victory. At that moment, he found himself yielding to what had always been their secret weapon—communication without words. Sam wiped his face on his shoulder and honed in on his fiancée’s face. And what followed next, neither could have ever anticipated.
When the executioner spoke again, he delivered his final sentence—Victory, equality, liberty and ripped his hood from his head. Seconds after his signal, an onslaught of special forces descended upon the small gathering.
Still shaken by the dramatic and unexpected turn of events, Alex faced Count Etiénne du Bois.
“You saved our lives, thank you.”
“I wish I could take all the credit but I can’t. Meet the brain behind the operation.” Etiénne pointed his chin out to where Chief Inspector Shawn McDowell stepped out of a police vehicle.
“You? You’re the brain behind this?” Sam asked, astonished.
“He’s been on it for nearly two decades,” Etiénne said proudly. “Meet Mr. Anonymous. He was dealt his lot when his father passed down his inheritance. He comes from a long lineage of Resistance members, but the man has a good heart and decided to infiltrate the movement. I’ve been working undercover for him since we first met ten years ago.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, my friend,” McDowell declared. “In fact, the entire team went above and beyond on this one.”
One more police car pulled up behind them and a still stunned Alex and Sam watched with disbelief as Francois and Gabriel approached them.
“Well, what do you know?” Sam commented. “You pulled the wool over my eyes, Duval.”
“Sorry, Sam, duty called.”
“I guess it will be a good time then to return this.” Sam retrieved the flash drive from his buckle and dropped it into Gabriel’s hand.
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BONUS The Dauphin Deception research
The Young Dauphin
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Behind The Dauphin Deception
About the Author
Urcelia Teixeira is a mystery and adventure thriller author of clean, fast-paced archaeological action-adventure novels.
Her Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller Series has been described by readers as 'Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft with a twist of Bourne.'
She read her first book when she was four and wrote her first poem when she was seven. And though she lived vicariously through books, and her far too few travels, life happened. She married the man of her dreams and birthed three boys (and added two dogs, a cat, three chickens, and some goldfish!) So, life became all about settling down and providing a means to an end. She climbed the corporate ladder, exercised her entrepreneurial flair and made her mark in real estate.
Traveling and exploring the world made space for child-friendly annual family holidays by the sea
. The ones where she was forced to build a sandcastle and barely got past the first five pages of a book. And on the odd chance she managed to read fast enough to page eight, she was confronted with a moral dilemma as the umpteenth F-word forced its way off just about every page!
But in a strange twist of fate, upon her return from yet another male-dominated camping trip, when fifty knocked hard and fast on her door, and she could no longer stomach the profanities in her reading material, she drew a line in the sand and bravely set off to create her own adventure!
It was in the dark, quiet whispers of the night, well past midnight late in the year 2017, that Alex Hunt was born.
Her philosophy
From her pen flow action-packed adventures for the armchair traveler who enjoys a thrilling escape. Devoid of the usual profanity and obscenities, she incorporates real-life historical relics and mysteries from exciting places all over the world. She aims to kidnap her reader from the mundane and plunge them into feel-good riddle-solving quests filled with danger, sabotage, and mystery!
For more visit www.urcelia.com or email her on books@urcelia.com
Also by Urcelia Teixeira
The PAPUA INCIDENT - An Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller (Prequel)
The RHAPTA KEY - An Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller # 1
The GILDED TREASON - An Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller # 2
The ALPHA STRAIN - An Alex Hunt Adventure Thriller # 3
Contents
Preface