The Cotton Malone Series 7-Book Bundle

by Steve Berry

  “I thought that would be the case.”

  “It’s not that I’m not grateful. It’s just that I want to go. I’ve had enough of—”

  “Rules.”

  “That’s right. Enough of rules.”

  He knew that many of the instructors and caretakers had been raised here, too, as orphans. But another rule forbid them from talking about that. Since he was leaving, he decided to ask, “Did you have a choice?”

  “I chose differently.”

  The information shocked him. He’d never known the older man had been an orphan, too.

  “Would you do me one favor?” Norstrum asked.

  They stood on the campus green, among buildings two centuries old. He knew every square inch of each one, down to their last detail, since everyone was required to help maintain things.

  Another of those rules he’d come to hate.

  “Be careful, Sam. Think before you act. The world is not as accommodating as we are.”

  “Is that what you call it here? Accommodating?”

  “We genuinely cared for you.” Norstrum paused. “I genuinely cared for you.”

  Not once in eighteen years had he heard such sentiment from this man.

  “You are a free spirit, Sam. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just be carful.”

  He saw that Norstrum, whom he’d known all his life, was being sincere.

  “Perhaps you’ll find rules on the outside easier to follow. God knows, it was a challenge for you here.”

  “Maybe it’s in my genes.”

  He was trying to make light, but the comment only reminded him that he had no parents, no heritage. All he’d ever known lay around him. The only man who’d ever given a damn stood beside him. So out of respect, he extended his hand, which Norstrum politely shook.

  “I had hoped you’d stay,” the older man quietly said.

  Eyes filled with sadness stared back at him.

  “Be well, Sam. Try to always do good.”

  And he had.

  Graduating college with honors, finally making it to the Secret Service. He sometimes wondered if Norstrum was still alive. It had been fourteen years since they’d last spoken. He’d never made contact simply because he did not want to disappoint the man any further.

  I had hoped you’d stay.

  But he couldn’t.

  He and Malone turned a corner onto a side street, off the main boulevard. Ahead, the sidewalk rose toward the next intersection, and another wall with an iron fence stretched to their right. They followed the slow shuffle of feet to the corner and turned. A taller wall, topped with battlements, replaced the fence. Attached to its rough stone hung a colorful banner that announced MUSÉE NATIONAL DU MOYEN AGE, THERMES DE CLUNY.

  Cluny Museum of Medieval History.

  The building that rose beyond the wall was a crenellated Gothic structure topped with a sloping slate roof, dotted with dormers. Foddrell disappeared through an entrance, and the two men followed.

  Malone kept pace.

  “What are we doing?” Sam asked.

  “Improvising.”

  Malone knew where they were headed. The Cluny Museum stood on the site of a Roman palace, the ruins of its ancient baths still inside. The present mansion was erected in the 15th century by a Benedictine abbot. Not until the 19th century had the grounds become state-owned, displaying an impressive collection of medieval artifacts. It remained one of the must-sees on any Parisian itinerary. He’d visited a couple of times and recalled the inside. Two stories, one exhibit room opening into the next, one way in and out. Tight confines. Not a good place to go unnoticed.

  He led the way as they entered a cloistered courtyard and caught sight of the two tails stepping through the main door. Maybe thirty camera-clad visitors milled in the courtyard.

  He hesitated, then headed for the same entrance.

  Sam followed.

  The chamber beyond was a stone-walled anteroom converted into a reception center, with a cloakroom and stairway that led down to toilets. The two men were buying tickets from a cashier, then they turned and climbed stone risers into the museum. As they disappeared through a narrow doorway, he and Sam purchased their own tickets. They climbed the same risers and entered a crowded gift shop. No sign of Foddrell, but the two minders were already passing through another low doorway to their left. Malone caught sight of complimentary English brochures that explained the museum and grabbed one, quickly scanning the layout.

  Sam noticed. “Henrik says you have a photographic memory. Is that true?”

  “Eidetic memory,” he corrected. “Just a good mind for detail.”

  “Are you always so precise?”

  He stuffed the brochure into his back pocket. “Hardly ever.”

  They entered an exhibit room illuminated by both sunlight from a mullioned window and some strategically placed incandescent floods that accented medieval porcelain, glass, and alabaster.

  Neither Foddrell nor his tails were there.

  They hustled into the next space, containing more ceramics, and caught sight of the two men just as they were exiting at the far side. Both rooms, so far, had been active with talkative visitors and clicking cameras. Malone knew from the brochure that ahead lay the Roman baths.

  At the exit he spotted the two as they passed through a tight corridor, painted blue and lined with alabaster plaques, that opened into a lofty stone hallway. Down a flight of stone steps was the frígídaríum. But a placard announced that it was closed for renovations and a plastic chain blocked access. To their right, through an elaborate Gothic arch, a brightly lit hall housed remnants of statues. Folding metal chairs were arranged before a platform and podium. Some sort of presentation space that was clearly once an exterior courtyard.

  Left led deeper into the museum.

  The two men turned that way.

  He and Sam approached and cautiously peered inside the next room, which rose two stories, naturally lit from an opaque ceiling. Rough-hewn stone walls towered forty feet. Probably once another courtyard, between buildings, now enclosed and displaying ivories, capital fragments, and more statuary.

  Foddrell was nowhere to be seen, but Tweedledum and Tweedledee were headed toward the next exhibit space, which opened at the top of more stone risers.

  “Those two are after me,” someone yelled, disturbing the librarylike silence.

  Malone’s head craned upward.

  Standing at a balustrade, on what would be the upper floor of the next building, pointing downward at the two men they were following, was a woman. Perhaps early thirties, with short-cut brownish hair. She wore one of the blue smocks that Malone had already noticed on other museum employees.

  “They’re after me,” the woman screamed. “Trying to kill me.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  LOIRE VALLEY

  Thorvaldsen followed Larocque from the drawing room as they strolled farther into the château, out over the Cher, which flowed beneath the building’s foundations. Before coming, he’d learned the estate’s history and knew that its architecture had been conceived in the early 16th century, part of François I’s gallant, civilized court. A woman initially formulated the design, and that feminine influence remained evident. No power was asserted by buttressed walls or overwhelming size. Instead, inimitable grace evoked only a pleasant affluence.

  “My family has owned this property for three centuries,” she said. “One owner built the central château on the north shore, where we were just seated, and a bridge to connect to the river’s south bank. Another erected a gallery atop the bridge.”

  She motioned ahead.

  He stared at a long rectangular hall, maybe sixty meters or more in length, the floor a black-and-white checkerboard, the ceiling supported by heavy oak beams. Streams of sunshine slanted inward through symmetrically placed windows that stretched, on both sides, from end to end.

  “During the war, the Germans occupied the estate,” she said. “The south door at the far end was actually i
n the free zone. The door on this end the occupied zone. You can imagine what trouble that created.”

  “I hate Germans,” he made clear.

  She appraised him with a calculating gaze.

  “They destroyed my family and country, and tried to destroy my religion. I can never forgive them.”

  He allowed the fact that he was Jewish to register. His research on her had revealed a long-held prejudice against Jews. No specific reason that he could identify, just an inbred distaste, not uncommon. His vetting had also exposed another of her many obsessions. He’d been hoping she’d escort him through the château—and ahead, beside the pedimented entrance to another of the many rooms, illuminated by two tiny halogens, hung the portrait.

  Right where he’d been told.

  He stared at the image. Long ugly nose. A pair of oblique eyes, deeply set, casting a sidelong cunning glance. Powerful jaw. Jutting chin. A conical hat sheathing a nearly bare skull that made the figure look like a pope or a cardinal. But he’d been much more than that.

  “Louis XI,” he said, pointing.

  Larocque stopped. “You are an admirer?”

  “What was said of him? Loved by the commons, hated by the great, feared by his enemies, and respected by the whole of Europe. He was a king.”

  “No one knows if it’s an authentic image. But it has a strange quality, wouldn’t you say?”

  He recalled what he’d been told about the stink of theater that hung around Louis XI’s memory. He ruled from 1461 to 1483 and managed to forge for himself a wondrous legend of greatness. In actuality, he was unscrupulous, openly rebelled against his father, treated his wife villainously, trusted few, and showed no mercy on anyone. His passion was the regeneration of France after the disastrous Hundred Years’ War. Tirelessly, he planned, plotted, and bribed, all with the aim of gathering under one crown lost lands.

  And he succeeded.

  Which cemented him a sainted place in French history.

  “He was one of the first to understand the power of money,” he said. “He liked to buy men, as opposed to fighting them.”

  “You are a student,” she said, clearly impressed. “He grasped the importance of commerce as a political tool, and laid the foundations for the modern nation-state. One where an economy would be more important than an army.”

  She motioned and they entered another of the rooms, this one with walls sheathed in warm leather and windows screened by draperies the color of port wine. An impressive Renaissance hearth sheltered no fire. Little furniture existed, other than a few upholstered chairs and wooden tables. In the center stood a stainless-steel glass case, out of place with the room’s antiquity.

  “Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt was a military and political fiasco,” she told him. “The French Republic sent its greatest general to conquer, and he did. But ruling Egypt was another matter. In that, Napoleon did not succeed. Still, there is no denying that his Egyptian occupation changed the world. For the first time the splendor of that mysterious and forgotten civilization was revealed. Egyptology was born. Napoleon’s savants literally discovered, beneath the millennial sands, pharaonic Egypt. Typical Napoleon—an utter failure masked by partial success.”

  “Spoken like a true descendant of Pozzo di Borgo.”

  She shrugged. “While he lies in glory at the Invalides, my ancestor, who quite possibly saved Europe, is forgotten.”

  He knew this was a sore point so, for the moment, he left the subject alone.

  “While in Egypt, though, Napoleon did manage to discover a few things of immense value.” She motioned at the display case. “These four papyri. Encountered by accident one day, after Napoleon’s troops shot a murderer on the side of the road. If not for Pozzo di Borgo, Napoleon may have used these to consolidate power and effectively rule most of Europe. Thankfully, he was never allowed the chance.”

  His investigators had not mentioned this anomaly. On Ashby, he’d spared no expense, learning everything. But on Eliza Larocque he’d targeted his inquiries. Perhaps he’d made a mistake?

  “What do these papyri say?” he casually asked.

  “They are the reason for the Paris Club. They explain our purpose and will guide our path.”

  “Who wrote them?”

  She shrugged. “No one knows. Napoleon believed them from Alexandria, lost when the library there disappeared.”

  He had some experience with that artifact, which wasn’t as lost as most people thought. “Lots of faith you place in an unknown document, written by an unknown scribe.”

  “Similar to the Bible, I believe. We know virtually nothing of its origin, yet billions model their lives on its words.”

  “Excellent point.”

  Her eyes beamed with the confidence of a guileless heart. “I’ve shown you something dear to me. Now I want to see your proof on Ashby.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  PARIS

  Malone watched as two men, garbed in rumpled blue blazers and ties, museum ID badges draped around their necks, rushed into the exhibit space. One of the men who’d followed Foddrell, a burly fellow with shocks of unkempt hair, reacted to the assault and punched the lead Blazer in the face. The other minder, with gnomic, flat features, kicked the second Blazer to the floor.

  Guns appeared in the hands of Flat Face and Burly.

  The woman above, who’d started the melee, fled the balustrade.

  Patrons noticed the weapons and voices rose. Visitors rushed past where Malone and Sam stood, back toward the main entrance.

  Two more Blazers appeared on the opposite side.

  Shots were fired.

  Stone walls, a tile floor, and a glass ceiling did little to deaden the sound and the bangs pounded into Malone’s ears with the force of an explosion.

  One of the Blazers collapsed.

  More people raced past him.

  The other Blazer disappeared from sight.

  Flat Face and Burly vanished.

  The museum’s geography flashed through Malone’s brain. “I’m going to double back around. There’s only one other way out of the building. I’ll cut them off there. You stay here.”

  “And do what?”

  “Try not to get shot.”

  He assumed that museum security would close the exits and the police would arrive shortly. All he had to do was occupy the two gunmen long enough for all that to happen.

  He raced back toward the main entrance.

  Sam had little time to think. Things were happening fast. He immediately decided that he wasn’t going to sit still—no matter what Malone ordered—so he bolted through the towering, sunlit exhibit room, where the shooting had occurred, to the man in a blue blazer, lying facedown, bleeding, his body limp as a rag.

  He knelt down.

  Eyes glassed over in a distant stare barely blinked. He’d never before seen someone actually shot. Dead? Yes. Last night. But this man was still alive.

  His gaze raked the scene around him as he inventoried more capitals, statues, and sculptures. Plus two exits—one a door, locked with an iron hasp, the other an open archway that led into a windowless space. He spotted a tapestry hanging from that room’s far wall and saw a stairway that led up.

  All visitors had fled, the museum unnervingly quiet. He wondered about security personnel, employees, or police. Surely the authorities had been called.

  Where was everyone?

  He heard footsteps. Running. His way. Back from where he and Malone had entered—where Malone had gone.

  He did not want to be detained. He wanted to be a part of what was happening.

  “Help’s on the way,” he said to the downed man.

  Then he ran into the next room, leaping up the steps to the upper floor.

  Malone returned to the gift shop and elbowed his way through the crowds that were clamoring to exit through the museum’s entrance.

  Excited voices boomed in several languages.

  He kept shouldering his way through the throng and fled the gift shop, e
ntering an adjacent chamber that the museum brochure had identified as the location for luggage lockers and a stairway that visitors used to descend from the upper floor. At the top, he should be able to backtrack and intercept Burly and Flat Face as they advanced through the museum.

  He bounded up the wooden staircase two steps at a time and entered an empty hall that displayed armor, knives, and swords. A tapestry depicting a hunting scene adorned one of the walls. Locks sealed all of the glass cases. He needed a weapon, so he hoped the museum would understand.

  He grabbed hold of a chair that abutted another wall and slammed its metal leg into the case.

  Glass shards clattered to the floor.

  He tossed the chair aside, reached in, and removed one of the short swords. Its edges had been sharpened, most likely to enhance its display. A card inside the case informed visitors that it was a 16th century weapon. He also removed a hand shield identified as from the 1500s.

  Both sword and shield were in excellent condition.

  He gripped them, looking like a gladiator ready for the arena.

  Better than nothing, he reasoned.

  Sam raced up the stairs, one hand sliding across a slick brass banister. He listened at the landing, then climbed the final flight to the museum’s top floor.

  No sound. Not even from below.

  He kept his steps light and his right hand firm on the railing. He wondered what he was going to do. He was unarmed and scared to death, but Malone might need help, just like in the bookstore last night.

  And field agents helped one another.

  He came to the top.

  A wide archway opened to his left into a tall room with bloodred walls. Directly ahead of him was an entrance to an exhibit labeled LA DAME À LA LICORNE.

  The Lady and the Unicorn.

  He stopped and carefully peered around the archway into the red room.

  Three shots cracked.

  Bullets pinged off stone, inches from his face, stirring up dust, and he reeled back.

  Bad idea.

  Another shot came his way. Windows to his right, adjacent to the stairway landing, shattered from an impact.