by Steve Berry
She saw that Mastroianni was learning something. Good. It was about time.
“In Rome he ordered the Forum and Palatine cleared of rubble and the Pantheon restored, never adding any plaque to say that he’d done such. In countless other cities across Europe he ordered improvement after improvement, yet nothing was ever memorialized to him. Isn’t that strange?”
She watched as Mastroianni cleared his palate of chocolate with a swish of bottled water.
“Here’s something else,” she said. “Napoleon refused to go into debt. He despised financiers, and blamed them for many of the French Republic’s shortfalls. Now he didn’t mind confiscating money, or extorting it, or even depositing money in banks, but he refused to borrow. In that, he was totally different from all who came before him, or after.”
“Not a bad policy,” he muttered. “Leeches, every one of the bankers.”
“Would you like to be rid of them?”
She saw that prospect seemed pleasing, but her guest kept silent.
“Napoleon agreed with you,” she said. “He flatly rejected the American offer to buy New Orleans and sold them, instead, the entire Louisiana Territory, using the millions from that sale to build his army. Any other monarch would have kept the land and borrowed money, from the leeches, for war.”
“Napoleon has been dead a long time,” Mastroianni said. “And the world has changed. Credit is today’s economy.”
“That’s not true. You see, Robert, what Napoleon learned from those papyri I told you about is still relevant today.”
She saw that she’d clearly tickled his interest as she drew close to her point.
“But of course,” he said, “I cannot learn of that until I agree to your proposal?”
She sensed control of the situation shifting her way. “I can share one other item. It may even help you decide.”
“For a woman I do not like, who offered me such a comfortable flight home, fed me the finest beef, served the best champagne, and, of course, the chocolate tart, how can I refuse?”
“Again, Robert, if you don’t like me, why are you here?”
His eyes focused tight on hers. “Because I’m intrigued. You know that I am. Yes, I’d like to be rid of bankers and governments.”
She stood from her seat, stepped aft to a leather sofa, and opened her Louis Vuitton day satchel. Inside rested a small leather-bound volume, first published in 1822. The Book of Fate, Formerly in the Possession of and Used by Napoleon.
“This was given to me by my Corsican grandmother, who received it from her grandmother.” She laid the thin tome on the table. “Do you believe in oracles?”
“Hardly.”
“This one is quite unique. It was supposedly found in a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, by one of Napoleon’s savants. Written in hieroglyphs, it was given to Napoleon. He consulted a Coptic priest, who translated it orally to Napoleon’s secretary, who then converted it into German for secrecy, who then gave it to Napoleon.” She paused. “All lies, of course.”
Mastroianni chuckled. “Why is that not surprising?”
“The original manuscript was indeed found in Egypt. But unlike the papyri I mentioned earlier—”
“Which you failed to tell me about,” he said.
“That comes with a commitment.”
He smiled. “A lot of mystery to your Paris Club.”
“I have to be careful.” She pointed to the oracle on the table. “The original text was written in Greek, probably part of the lost library at Alexandria. Hundreds of thousands of similar scrolls were stored in that library, all gone by the 5th century after Christ. Napoleon did indeed have this transcribed, but not into German. He couldn’t read that language. He was actually quite poor with foreign languages. Instead, he had it converted to Corsican. He did keep this oraculum with him, at all times, in a wooden cabinet. That cabinet had to be discarded after the disastrous Battle of Leipzig in 1815, when his empire first began to crumble. It is said that he risked his life trying to retrieve it. A Prussian officer eventually found and sold it to a captured French general, who recognized it as a possession of the emperor. The general planned to return it, but died before he could. The cabinet eventually made it to Napoleon’s second wife, Empress Marie Louise, who did not join her husband in his forced exile on St. Helena. After Napoleon’s death, in 1821, a man named Kirchenhoffer claimed that the empress gave the manuscript to him for publication.”
She parted the book and carefully thumbed though the opening pages.
“Notice the dedication. HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS, THE EX-EMPRESS OF FRANCE.”
Mastroianni seemed not to care.
“Would you like to try it?” she asked.
“What will it do?”
“Predict your future.”
NINE
MALONE’S INITIAL ESTIMATE REGARDING SAM COLLINS HAD been correct. Early thirties, with an anxious face that projected a mix of innocence and determination. Thin, reddish blond hair was cut short and matted to his head like feathers. He spoke with the same trace of an accent Malone had first detected—Australian, or maybe New Zealand—but his diction and syntax were all American. He was antsy and cocky, like a lot of thirty-somethings, Malone himself once included, who wanted to be treated like they were fifty.
One problem.
All of them, himself once again included, failed to possess those extra twenty years of mistakes.
Sam Collins had apparently tossed away his Secret Service career, and Malone knew that if you failed with one security branch, rarely did another extend a hand.
He wheeled the Mazda around another tight curve as the coastal highway veered inland into a darkened, forested expanse. All of the land for the next few miles, between the road and sea, was owned by Henrik Thorvaldsen. Four of those acres belonged to Malone, presented unexpectantly by his Danish friend a few months ago.
“You’re not going to tell me why you’re here, in Denmark, are you?” he asked Collins.
“Can we deal with Thorvaldsen? I’m sure he’ll answer all of your questions.”
“More of Henrik’s instructions?”
A hesitation, then, “That’s what he said to tell you—if you asked.”
He resented being manipulated, but knew that was Thorvaldsen’s way. To learn anything meant he’d have to play along.
He slowed the car at an open gate and navigated between two white cottages that served as the entrance to Christiangade. The estate was four centuries old, built by a 17th-century Thorvaldsen ancestor who smartly converted tons of worthless peat into fuel to produce fine porcelain. By the 19th century Adelgate Glasvaerker had been declared the Danish royal glass provider. It still held that title, its glassware reigning supreme throughout Europe.
He followed a grassy drive lined by trees bare to winter. The manor house was a perfect specimen of Danish baroque—three stories of brick-encased sandstone, topped with a curving copper roof. One wing turned inland, the other faced the sea. Not a light burned in any window. Normal for the middle of the night.
But the front door hung half open.
That was unusual.
He parked, stepped from the car, and walked toward the entrance, gun in hand.
Collins followed.
Inside, the warm air reeked with a scent of boiled tomatoes and a lingering cigar. Familiar smells for a house that he’d visited often during the past two years.
“Henrik,” Collins called out.
He glared at the younger man and whispered, “Are you a complete idiot?”
“They need to know we’re here.”
“Who’s they?”
“The door was open.”
“Precisely my point. Shut up and stay behind me.”
He eased across polished flagstones to the hardwood of a nearby corridor and followed a wide hall, past the conservatory and billiard parlor, to a ground-floor study, the only light courtesy of a three-quarter winter moon stealing past the windows.
He need
ed to check something.
He threaded his way through the furniture to an elaborate gun cabinet, fashioned of the same rich maple that encased the rest of the salon. He knew that at least a dozen hunting rifles, along with several handguns, a crossbow, and three assault rifles were always displayed.
The beveled glass door hung open.
One of the automatic weapons was gone, as were two hunting rifles. He reached for one of the pistols. A Welby target revolver—blued finish, six-inch barrel. He knew how Thorvaldsen admired the weapon. None had been made since 1945. A bitter scent of oil filled his nostrils. He checked the cylinder. Six shots. Fully loaded. Thorvaldsen never displayed an empty gun.
He handed it to Collins and mouthed, You can use it?
The younger man nodded.
They left the room through the nearest doorway.
Familiar with the house’s geography, he followed another corridor until he came to an intersection. Doors framed with elaborate molding lined both sides of the hall, spaced sufficiently apart to indicate that the rooms beyond were spacious.
At the far end loomed a pedimented entrance. The master bedchamber.
Thorvaldsen hated climbing stairs, so he’d long ago occupied the ground floor.
Malone stepped to the door, slowly turned the knob, and pushed the slab of carved wood open without a sound.
He peered inside and inventoried the silhouettes of tall, heavy furniture, the drapes open to the silvery night. A rug filled the center, its edge a good five paces from the doorway. He spied the duvets on the bed and noticed a mound, signaling where someone may be sleeping.
But something was wrong.
Movement to the right caught his attention.
A form appeared in a doorway.
Light flooded the room.
He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the burning rays and caught sight of Thorvaldsen, a rifle muzzle pointed straight at him.
Jesper appeared from the walk-in closet, gun leveled.
Then he saw the bodies.
Two men, lying on the floor at the far side of the bed.
“They thought me stupid,” Thorvaldsen said.
He did not particularly enjoy being caught in a trap. The mouse never did have much fun. “Is there a reason I’m here?”
Thorvaldsen lowered his weapon. “You’ve been away.”
“Personal business.”
“I spoke to Stephanie. She told me. I’m sorry, Cotton. That had to be hell.”
He appreciated his friend’s concern. “It’s over and done with.”
The Dane settled onto the bed and yanked back the covers, revealing only pillows beneath. “Unfortunately, that kind of thing is never done with.”
Malone motioned at the corpses. “Those the same two who attacked the bookshop?”
Thorvaldsen shook his head, and he spotted pain in Thorvaldsen’s tired eyes.
“It’s taken me two years, Cotton. But I finally found my son’s murderers.”
TEN
“NAPOLEON STRONGLY BELIEVED IN ORACLES AND PROPHECY,” Eliza told her flying companion. “That was the Corsican in him. His father once told him that fate and destiny were written in the sky. He was right.”
Mastroianni did not seem impressed.
But she was not to be deterred.
“Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife, was a Creole from Martinique, a place where voodoo and the magical arts flourished. Before leaving that island and sailing for France, she had her fortune told. She was assured that she would marry young, be unhappy, widowed, and would later become more than the queen of France.” She paused. “She married at 15, was extremely unhappy, became widowed, and later rose to be not queen, but empress of France.”
He shrugged. “More of the French way of looking backward to find answers.”
“Perhaps. But my mother lived her life by this oracle. I was like you once, a nonbeliever. But I now have a different opinion.”
She opened the thin book.
“There are thirty-two questions to choose from. Some are basic. Shall I live to old age? Shall the patient recover from illness? Have I any or many enemies? Shall I inherit property? But others are more specific. You spend a few moments formulating the question, and are even allowed to substitute a word or two in the query.” She slid the volume before him. “Choose one. Something that perhaps you may already know. Test its power.”
A shrug and a wink conveyed his amusement.
“What else do you have to do?” she asked.
He surrendered and examined the list of questions, finally pointing to one. “Here. Shall I have a son or daughter?”
She knew he’d remarried last year. Wife number three. Maybe twenty years younger. Moroccan, if she remembered correctly.
“I had no idea. Is she pregnant?”
“Let’s see what the oracle says.”
She caught the warning of suspicion in a quick twitch of his eyebrow.
She handed him a notepad. “Take the pencil and mark a row of vertical lines across the page of at least twelve. After twelve, stop where you please.”
He threw her a strange look.
“It’s how it works,” she said.
He did as she instructed.
“Now, mark four more rows of vertical lines, one line each, under the first. Don’t think about it, just do it.”
“At least twelve?”
She shook her head. “No. Any number you like.”
She watched as he marked the page.
“Now count all five rows. If the number is even, place two dots to the side. If it’s odd, one dot.”
He took a moment and made the calculation, ending up with a column of five rows of dots.
She examined the results. “Two odds, three evens. Random enough for you?”
He nodded his head.
She opened the book to a chart.
“You chose question 32.” She pointed to the bottom and a row marked 32. “Here, at the top of the page are the dot possibilities. In the column for your chosen combination, two odd, three even, for question 32, the answer is R.”
She thumbed through and stopped at a page with a capital R at the top.
“On the answer page are the same dot combinations. The oracle’s reply to the two odd, three even combination is the third one down.”
He accepted the book and read. A look of astonishment came to his face. “That’s quite remarkable.”
She’d allowed herself a smile.
“‘A son will be born who, if he receives not timely correction, may prove a source of trouble to thee.’ I am, indeed, having a son. In fact, we only learned that a few days ago. Some prenatal testing has revealed a developing problem that the doctors want to correct while the baby is in the womb. It’s risky to both mother and baby. We’ve told no one the situation, and are still debating the treatment.” His original dismay faded. “How is that possible?”
“Fate and destiny.”
“Might I try again?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The oracle warns that an inquirer may not ask two questions on the same day, or ask on the same subject within the same lunar month. Also, questions asked under the light of the moon are more likely to be accurate. It’s what, nearly midnight, as we head east toward the sun?”
“So there’s another day soon coming.”
She smiled.
“I must say, Eliza, that is impressive. There are thirty-two possible answers to my question. Yet I randomly chose the precise one that satisifed my inquiry.”
She slid the pad close and flipped to a clean page. “I haven’t consulted the oracle today. Let me try.”
She pointed to question 28.
Shall I be successful in my current undertaking?
“Does that refer to me?” His tone had clearly softened.
She nodded. “I came to New York specifically to see you.” She leveled her gaze. “You will make an excellent addition to our team. I choose carefully, and I chose you.”
�
�You are a ruthless woman. More than that, you’re a ruthless woman with a plan.”
She shrugged. “The world is a complicated place. Oil prices go up and down with no reason or predictability. Either inflation or recession runs rampant across the globe. Governments are helpless. They either print more money, which causes more inflation, or regulate the situation into another recession. Stability seems a thing of the past. I have a way to deal with all those problems.”
“Will it work?”
“I believe so.”
His swarthy face seemed as strong as an iron, his eager eyes finally conveying decisiveness. This entrepreneur, affected by the same dilemmas that she and the others faced, understood. The world was indeed changing. Something had to be done. And she might have the solution.
“There is a price of admission,” she said. “Twenty million euros.”
He shrugged. “Not a problem. But surely you have other revenue sources?”
She nodded. “Billions. Untraced and untouched.”
He pointed to the oracle. “Go ahead, make your marks and let’s learn the answer to your question.”
She gripped the pencil and slashed five rows of vertical lines, then counted each row. All even numbers. She consulted the chart and saw that the answer was Q. She turned to the appropriate page and found the message that corresponded.
She resisted the urge to smile, seeing that his passions were now thoroughly aroused. “Would you like me to read it to you?”
He nodded.
“‘Examine strictly the disposition of thy intended partner and, if it is in accord with thine own, fear not but happiness will attend you both.’”
“Seems the oracle knows what I’m to do,” he said.
She sat silent and allowed the drone of jet engines to sweep through the cabin. This skeptical Italian had just learned what she’d known for all of her adult life—what her Corsican mother and grandmother had taught her—that the direct transmission of provenance was the most empowering form of knowledge.
Mastroianni extended his hand.
They shook, his grip light and sweaty.