The Napoleon Affair

by Ernest Dempsey

  The man made it sound like he was really under arrest, despite the fact that he was being detained for his own protection.

  "Thank you for your time, sir," Sean said as he stood.

  Tommy stood as well and bowed his head low. He wasn't sure if he should extend a hand to shake with the cardinal, or simply leave it at the bow and walk out.

  Adriana stepped forward and offered her hand to the priest. "Thank you, Father. We'll see what we can do about bringing this killer to justice and figuring out what the contents of that letter could mean."

  "You're welcome, my child. And thank you."

  His hand was soft against hers, the skin of his fingers and palm felt like a baby's. This was a man who had never done a day of manual labor in his life, not that she was surprised by that or judged him for it. She'd always thought it interesting how you could glean insight into a person's past with a simple handshake. Sean had talked about that with her at one point, as he'd also found that subtle gesture to be a telling one, in his experience.

  She let go of the cardinal's hand and Sean took over, shaking it twice as was his custom, before letting Tommy do the same.

  "Commander, please keep me informed of any progress you make. I hope that you can find the person or persons responsible for this."

  "I will, sir."

  Bodmer gave a curt nod, turned, and led the way back to the exit.

  No one said much on the elevator ride back up to the main floor. They were too busy mulling over all the new information they'd just received and the theories that had been offered. It was also partially due, more than likely, to the occupants feeling like it was social convention to be silent on an elevator. Few people ever engaged in conversation on a lift, and when they did it often felt forced or awkward.

  The moment the doors opened on the main floor, this notion was proved correct as Bodmer stepped out through the doors.

  "So, the conference rooms are down the hall this way." He motioned past a series of desks to a wide hallway with stone arches bracing the ceiling, much like they'd seen in the bowels of the facility. "We have three primary conference rooms, but none of them are in use at the moment. We normally don't use them often."

  "Why's that?" Tommy asked. He sounded like a kid touring a chocolate factory for the first time.

  "We don't have any committees, and there are few reasons to have meetings other than to discuss security details for upcoming events."

  "Such as the pope making appearances?"

  "Correct."

  "He makes lots of appearances, doesn't he?"

  "He does," Bodmer confirmed as he continued striding down the corridor. He stopped at an open door that led into a sparsely decorated conference room. The table was long and rectangular, made from thick oak. The chairs around it were ordinary desk chairs, not like those fancy leather high-back things that would be found in a billion-dollar corporation's conference room. "We plan everything far in advance, that way we don't encounter any surprises."

  Like one of your priests being murdered right under your nose? Sean thought. He didn't dare voice his inner snark.

  One by one, the group filed into the room and took their seats at the table. They'd left most of their gear in the main office when they'd checked in, but Bodmer had allowed them to carry laptop bags and small backpacks in case this very scenario were to play out.

  Tommy slid his computer out of his bag and flipped it open. The screen was black for a moment before it bloomed to life.

  Sean and Adriana also retrieved computers from their bags and opened them on the table.

  Bodmer gave them the Wi-Fi name and password so they could perform the necessary online searches while working on the case.

  When he saw they were all situated and comfortable, he stepped toward the door. "Is there anything else I can get the three of you? I'm sorry, but I have a few things to attend to and I can't put them off any longer."

  Tommy wanted to ask for a cup of coffee but thought better of it, not wanting to infringe on the commander's time.

  "We're good," Sean said, seeing that caffeine lust in his friend's eyes. Truth was, he could have used a cup of joe himself, but he decided to pass and get down to work.

  "Very well. I'll be out of the office for the next hour or so. If you need anything, talk to Vincenzo at the front desk. He'll be happy to assist you, and I'll instruct him to be accommodating."

  "Thanks, Commander," Sean said.

  The man disappeared around the corner. His footsteps clicked on the floor as he strode away, the sound fading until it finally evaporated.

  Sean looked across the table as Tommy logged in to his computer, his fingers flying across the keys.

  "Just another day in the life of the IAA, huh, Schultzie?" Sean said with a smile.

  "Looks that way, although we did have a good amount of time off between jobs this time."

  "Not long enough to enjoy our vacation."

  "True." Tommy tilted his head to the side and raised his shoulders. "What are ya gonna do, though? This is who we are."

  "I know."

  Adriana was staring at her computer screen, lost in thought. "I wonder what the killer wanted from Jarllson," she said, ignoring the conversation the other two were having.

  "I guess we have to figure that out," Tommy answered, entering a search query into the bar at the top of his screen. The monitor flickered for a moment, and then a new set of search results appeared on the page. He clicked on the top one and started scanning the images and content. “So, it looks like Joséphine Bonaparte was buried near the Château de Malmaison in a place called Rueil-Malmaison. She died there, apparently, and was interred at a nearby cathedral."

  "The church of Saint Peter-Saint Paul," Sean said, still having done nothing with his laptop except for opening it.

  "That's right!" Tommy said, surprised. "How did you know that?"

  "Went by there once when I was in Paris on…assignment."

  Tommy knew better than to ask for details of his friend’s previous career. Many of them, no doubt, were grisly in nature, and while Tommy was no stranger to violence or trouble, he did his best to avoid that stuff whenever possible. It brought him down and caused him to lose focus. Neither was something he needed at the moment, so he got back to finding Joséphine.

  "So that sounds easy enough," Tommy said. "They allow visitors there. Seems like a good enough place for the three of us to start our little investigation."

  Little? Sean chuckled at the notion. There was nothing little about it. One of the highest-ranking officials in the Catholic Church had been murdered within the confines of the Vatican. They'd flown across the Atlantic Ocean to investigate the case, and now it appeared they were going to be leaving Italy soon to head to France.

  No, Sean knew there was nothing little about any of this. And he also realized that they were heading into this investigation almost blind. For evidence, they had nothing but the ramblings of an old war general and a strange set of symbols at the bottom of the letter as their guiding light. Hardly the best set of circumstances.

  He leaned closer to his computer and started typing. Google appeared on the screen and he entered a new query. Within seconds, a new page appeared with several results in blue highlighting the page. Adriana leaned close to see what he was doing. Sean playfully twisted his computer so she couldn't see the screen, as if he was a high school kid taking a test and didn't want the other kids cheating off his answers.

  She let out a short laugh and then punched him in the arm. "What are you doing?" Her tone was playful and curious.

  "Reading up on Napoléon," he said matter-of-factly. "I admit, I studied the guy in high school and a little in college, but there's a lot I don't remember, and I'd like to get some context if we're working on something that involves him."

  "He always does this," Tommy said without looking up from his monitor.

  "And you don't?" Sean joked.

  "I'm doing it right now." The two shared a laugh.


  "I know you are. Seriously, though, Napoléon was a fascinating study. While he wasn't a particularly religious man, he understood how to use the religious beliefs of a culture to his advantage, and he always did his best to show respect to those he would subdue."

  "Which is a high contrast to the typical visage of him that history portrays."

  Adriana nodded. "Yes, everything I learned about the man was that he was brash, ambitious, and egotistical. He wanted to control the entire world. Anyone with goals that big must have a gigantic ego."

  "Indeed. And he could be a cruel leader at times, too," Tommy added.

  Sean was busily reading the passages on the page. "He was really in love with Joséphine, though. She was a few years older than him. He built her that immense rose garden, the Château de Malmaison, and from the sound of it, even after their divorce he still thought of her. The argument could even be made that he spent the rest of his life trying to get over her."

  Tommy's eyebrows knitted together as he thought about what Sean had said. "What was it in the letter, something about his greatest strength?"

  "Yep. The great general was afraid he was going to lose the Battle of Waterloo because he didn't have the relic—we still don't know what that could be—and because he'd lost his greatest strength."

  "Joséphine died in 1814, a number of years before him," Adriana said, looking at Sean's screen. "This says she passed soon after walking in the gardens with Czar Alexander the First of Russia."

  "That's interesting. Makes you wonder what the two were talking about in her private garden."

  Sean arched one eyebrow at his friend. "You think the czar had something to do with her demise?"

  "Don't know," Tommy admitted. "And I'm not sure what that would have to do with this case, other than the fact we think the letter is pointing at Napoléon's ex-wife for the location of the relic."

  "So that's where we'll go," Sean said. "To the tomb of Joséphine Bonaparte."

  "Shouldn't be too difficult to locate," Adriana said.

  "No," Sean agreed. "We can get there easily enough." He pushed the rest of his comments to the back of his mind, deciding to keep them to himself for the time being.

  He was concerned that there was a killer on the loose, a killer looking for the same artifact or relic that they were searching for. That could mean trouble, which also meant Sean would have to stay on his toes. It had been months since his skills had been put to the test. He hoped it wouldn't take much to knock the rust off.

  "Paris it is," Tommy said, leaning back in the chair. "That was easy enough. Maybe we didn't need this whole conference room after all." His statement was tongue and cheek. Tommy knew all too well that there was no way everything had been solved in just a few minutes with their computers. There were still a million questions looming around the case. Luckily, he had a few other resources he could depend on for assistance with difficult problems like this one.

  "Sean, can you make the arrangments with the Vatican’s pilot? We need that plane ready."

  "Sure. When should he expect us?"

  "Within the next two hours. Tell him we're going to Paris. He'll know what to do."

  Sean didn't need his friend to walk him through the basics. He'd taken the IAA Gulfstream by himself on plenty of occasions. He picked up his phone and dialed the number.

  "Adriana, see if you can book us a place to stay, preferably close to Rueil-Malmaison."

  She nodded at the order, slightly impressed with Tommy taking charge of the situation. He'd done it before, but it still caught her off guard since he was usually the quieter of the two and certainly the less domineering.

  "What are you going to do?" Sean asked as he pressed the phone to his ear.

  "I'm going to call the kids and see what they can make of all this."

  He pressed the phone to his ear. It only rang twice before a young man's voice came through the earpiece. "Hey, Tommy," Alex said. "Having fun in Rome?"

  Tommy blew air through his lips in a short whistle. "Yeah, about that, it's more work than fun right now."

  "Which is why you're calling us."

  "Bingo."

  Alex Simms and his wife, Tara, worked in the lab in the bowels of IAA headquarters in Atlanta. They were both highly intelligent, extremely curious about all things related to both science and history, and were gifted with the almost superhuman ability to seemingly never need sleep. Tommy knew they left the building to go to their home, but they were nearly always at the building before and after him. Tommy had even installed a couple of cots in one of the unused closets, but from the looks of the makeshift beds, they'd never been used.

  While Tommy and Sean had significant investigative resources close by, the quantum computers back at the lab could search for information exponentially faster than almost any other computer on the planet—save for some of the higher-end tech developed by private industry and sparingly shared with only the most classified of government agencies.

  "What can we do for you today?" Alex asked.

  "We're here in the Vatican," Tommy started.

  "Oh, cool. I've always wanted to go there."

  "Really? I thought you guys didn't get out of the building. Wouldn't your roots wilt and die?"

  "Hilarious," Alex said. The twenty-seven-year-old had a good sense of humor, and he knew how to throw it back just as well as he could take it. "Just let me know when you get back and I'll have the Sanka ready for you."

  Tommy blurted out a laugh. "How do you even know what that is?"

  "I'm not that young."

  "And I'm not that old. I'm only like twelve years older than you."

  "Try thirteen."

  "Whatever. Can we please get back to the subject?"

  "Sure, boss. What's up?"

  "I need you to see what information you can dig up about Minerva and Apollo."

  "The two gods from Ancient Greece and Rome?" Alex asked.

  "Yeah. But I need you to dig a little deeper. I know the basics about them. My specialty isn't really in mythology, but I learned enough to understand enough to get by, as in the deity's specialty or what they were the god of."

  "Right. Like gods of war or agriculture."

  "Correct," Tommy said. "I need to know any other details about them. Maybe there's something I missed."

  Tara's voice came on the line. "Hey, Tommy. You're on speakerphone. Are you saying that you're at the Vatican, the home of the pope and the seat of the Catholic Church, and you're looking for information about pagan deities?"

  "Yeah," Tommy sighed. He could already see where she was going with this.

  "I'm guessing the pope doesn't know."

  "I'm not sure, but we're leaving within the hour."

  "Oh, where are you going?"

  Tommy rubbed his forehead. "Paris. We're looking for a connection between those two pagan gods and a letter Napoléon wrote."

  "As in the Napoléon?" Alex asked.

  "Is there another one? Besides the one in that movie from a few years back?"

  "Good one. No, I suppose there isn't."

  "What's the connection between Napoléon and Minerva and Apollo?" Tara asked.

  Sean eyes were locked on his friend, and he couldn't help laughing at the question.

  "That's…that's what I'm getting at," Tommy said. "Seriously, guys. Are you messing with me?"

  There was a pause on the line for a few seconds.

  "Guys?" Tommy asked. He looked at his phone and saw the connection was still live. "You there?"

  "Hello? Who is this?" Alex asked.

  "It's…Alex, it's me."

  Sean was dying of laughter at this point. Adriana didn't seem to understand what was going on, but she put two and two together when she glanced at Sean's lap and saw he was holding his phone under the table. He'd been texting the kids, and she guessed he was telling them to mess with Tommy.

  She snorted and shook her head. "Would you stop."

  "Sorry," Sean mouthed. "Couldn't resist."

&
nbsp; "We got ya, boss," Tara said finally. "Dig up whatever we can about those two gods and Napoléon. We'll let you know as soon as we find something."

  "Thank you," Tommy said, exasperated. "You can reach me anytime. Call as soon as you have something."

  "What are you doing in Paris?" Alex asked.

  "You mean other than trying to find a connection between those deities and Napoléon?"

  "Obviously."

  "We're going to the tomb of Joséphine Bonaparte. We think there might be a clue there that can help us figure out this whole murder mystery."

  "Murder mystery? What are you, cops now?"

  "How dare you! Secondly, no. The Vatican asked for our help, as you know, so we're doing what we can. But from the looks of it, there's something deeper going on here."

  "As usual."

  "No kidding. Anyway, we have to get moving. Call me if you find anything."

  "You mean when we find something," Tara corrected.

  "That's the attitude. I'll speak soon."

  "Bye, boss," the two said cheerfully.

  He ended the call and set the device on the table. His eyes lifted and met Sean's mischievous gaze. "What?" Tommy asked. Then he realized what Sean was trying to contain. "Oh, you put them up to pushing my buttons, didn't you?"

  Sean shrugged and started laughing.

  Adriana shook her head disapprovingly, though she had to fight to contain the smile that tried to escape. She stood up and closed her laptop. "Come on, boys. We need to get to Paris."

  11

  MALBORK

  Berger pressed the phone to his right ear as he stared out of the window of his study. Rain lapped against the glass, spattering intermittently. Every few minutes, thunder boomed from somewhere a few miles away, seeming to never draw closer or push farther away.

  "They're on the move, sir," Michael said. There was no urgency or panic in the younger knight's voice. Only information.

  "Where?"

  "They left the Vatican seventeen minutes ago and are on their way to the airport."