“Rocky, it’s Bill Brockton.” I backed into a doorway in a narrow street that was just around the corner from Miranda’s hotel. She’d gone to her room to catch up on her e-mail for an hour, and Stefan had headed off to an electronics store to buy a motion detector and alarm for the treasure chamber. I was on my own until seven, when I’d arranged to fetch Miranda for dinner.
“Doc? I thought you were in France,” said Stone. “Did you just make that up so you could get the extra helicopter ride?”
“No, I am in France. Rocky, I need to know if there’s a chance—any chance at all—that one of your drug smugglers might have followed me here?”
The line was silent for a moment. “Are you serious, Doc?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “I realize it’s unlikely, but I need to know. Somebody’s watching us—me, Miranda, and this French archaeologist we’re working with.”
“Are you sure? What happened? Exactly?”
“We just caught someone watching us through binoculars from about a hundred yards away. Then he traded the binoculars for a camera with a really long lens.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t just sightseeing? Taking in the scenery?”
“Come on, Rocky. Howitzer-sized binoculars, followed by a foot-long telephoto? What would you think if you saw that kind of optical artillery aimed at you?”
“I’d probably think, ‘Oh shit,’” he acknowledged.
“So. Any chance your bad guys have tailed me to France?”
“I doubt it,” he said…but his tone was hedging. He sighed. “The truth is, I can’t completely rule it out. We’ve got a bad leak somewhere, Doc. I don’t know where, but we’ve just had another operation compromised. So yeah, it’s possible they know we called you in. If they do, they know you’d be important at a trial. I’m sorry, Doc. I was gonna call you soon—you’re on my list, but I’m up to my ass in alligators, and I’ve got half a dozen undercover operatives I’m trying to pull in before it’s too late.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to it. Good luck, Rocky.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Meanwhile, watch your back.”
Suddenly, just as the call ended, I felt myself falling, toppling straight back. Reflexively I yelled; an answering shriek sounded in my ear as I thudded into someone and we landed in a tangle of arms and legs. A moment later, I was helping an irate Frenchwoman to her feet—a woman whose door I’d been leaning against at the moment she opened it. Mortified by my clumsiness—and by my inability to say anything but “pardon, pardon” by way of apology—I slunk down the street and around the nearest corner.
But it’s not paranoia, I finally consoled myself, if they really are out to get you.
CHAPTER 6
“OKAY, YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW,” I SAID.
She did, and she squealed with delight. “Oh, sweet—a fancy hotel named after moi!”
“We’re having dinner here.”
“Cool! That’s so…boss, Boss.”
We were standing, Miranda and I, in front of the Hotel La Mirande, an elegant little jewel box tucked into the dead-end street behind the Palace of the Popes. I’d stumbled upon La Mirande only forty-five minutes before, shortly after I’d stumbled upon the slightly bruised, very irate Frenchwoman.
I had never stayed in a place this fancy, and surely never would—the rooms started at eight hundred dollars a night—but how could I pass up a chance to take Miranda to a swanky restaurant that bore her name? Besides, Stefan was occupied procuring the motion detector and alarm for the treasure chamber. A quiet dinner seemed like a good chance to catch up with Miranda—and to learn more about her prior history with this pretentious pedant who might soon be the world’s most famous archaeologist.
I pulled a glossy brochure from my pocket. “Here, this gives a little background about your establishment.”