“I know about the cipher,” Ashby said. “It’s actually quite ingenious. A clever way to hide a message. The Moor’s Knot, I believe it’s called.”
Pasquale Paoli, a Corsican freedom fighter from the 18th century, now a national hero, had coined the name. Paoli needed a way to effectively communicate with his allies, one that assured total privacy, so he adapted a method learned from the Moors who, for centuries, had raided the coastline as freebooting pirates.
“You acquire two identical books,” Ashby explained. “Keep one. Give the other to the person to whom you want to send the message. Inside the book you find the right words for the message, then communicate the page, line, and word number to the recipient through a series of numbers. The numbers, by themselves, are useless, unless you have the right book.”
He tabled his rum, found a folded sheet of paper in his pocket, and smoothed the page out on the glass-topped table. “These are what I provided you the last time we spoke.”
His captive examined the sheet.
“They mean nothing to me,” the Corsican said.
He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re going to have to stop this. You know it’s the location of Rommel’s gold.”
“Lord Ashby. Tonight, you’ve treated me with total disrespect. Hanging me from that tower. Calling me a liar. Saying that Gustave lied to you. Yes, I had this book. But these numbers mean nothing with reference to it. Now we are sailing to someplace that you have not even had the courtesy to identify. Your rum is delicious, the boat magnificent, but I must insist that you explain yourself.”
All his adult life Ashby had searched for treasure. Though his family were financiers of long standing, he cherished the quest for things lost over the challenge of simply making money. Sometimes the answers he sought were discovered from hard work. Sometimes informants brought, for a price, what he needed to know. And sometimes, like here, he simply stumbled upon the solution.
“I would be more than happy to explain.”
Malone 5 - The Paris Vendetta
SEVEN
DENMARK, 1:50 AM
HENRIK THORVALDSEN CHECKED THE CLIP AND MADE SURE THE weapon was ready. Satisfied, he gently laid the assault rifle on the banquet table. He sat in the manor’s great hall, beneath an oak beam ceiling, surrounded by armor and paintings that conveyed the look and feel of a noble seat. His ancestors had each sat at the same table, dating back nearly four hundred years.
Christmas was in less than three days.
What was it, nearly thirty years ago that Cai had climbed atop the table?
“You must get down,” his wife demanded. “Immediately, Cai.”
The boy scampered across the long expanse, his open palms threading the tops of high-backed chairs on either side. Thorvaldsen watched as his son avoided a gilded centerpiece and raced ahead, leaping into his outstretched arms.
“You’re both impossible,” his wife said. “Totally impossible.”
“Lisette, it’s Christmas. Let the boy play.” He held him close in his lap. “He’s only seven. And the table has been here a long time.”
“Papa, will Nisse come this year?”
Cai loved the mischievous elf who, legend said, wore gray woolen clothes, a bonnet, red stockings, and white clogs. He dwelled in the lofts of old farmhouses and enjoyed playing jokes.
“To be safe,” the boy said, “we’ll need some porridge.”
Thorvaldsen smiled. His own mother had told him the same tale of how a bowl of porridge, left out on Christmas Eve, kept Nisse’s jokes within limits. Of course, that was before the Nazis slaughtered nearly every Thorvaldsen, including his father.
“We shall have porridge,” Lisette said. “Along with roasted goose, red cabbage, browned potatoes, and cinnamon rice pudding.”
“With the magic almond?” Cai asked, wonder in his voice.
His wife stroked the boy’s thin brown hair. “Yes, my precious. With the magic almond. And if you find it, there will be a prize.”
Both he and Lisette always made sure Cai found the magic almond. Though he was a Jew, Thorvaldsen’s father and wife had been Christian, so the holiday had found a place in his life. Every year he and Lisette had decorated an aromatic fir with homemade wood and straw baubles and, per tradition, never allowed Cai to see their creation until after Christmas Eve dinner, when they all gathered and sang carols.
My, how he’d enjoyed Christmas.
Until Lisette died.
Then, two years ago, when Cai was murdered, the holiday lost all meaning. The past three, including this one, had been torture. He found himself every year sitting here, at the end of the table, wondering why life had been so cruel.
This year, though, was different.
He reached out and caressed the gun’s black metal. Assault rifles were illegal in Denmark, but laws did not interest him.
Justice.
That’s what he wanted.
He sat in silence. Not a light burned anywhere in Christiangade’s forty-one rooms. He actually relished the thought of a world devoid of illumination. There his deformed spine would go unnoticed. His leathery face would never be seen. His bushy silver hair and bristly eyebrows would never require trimming. In the dark, only a person’s senses mattered.
And his were finely tuned.
His eyes searched the dark hall as his mind kept remembering.
He could see Cai everywhere. Lisette, too. He was a man of immeasurable wealth, power, and influence. Few heads of state, or imperial crowns, refused his requests. His porcelain, and reputation, remained among the finest in the world. He’d never seriously practiced Judaism, but he was a devoted friend of Israel. Last year he’d risked everything to stop a fanatic from destroying that blessed state. Privately, he supported charitable causes around the world with millions of the family’s euros.
But he was the last Thorvaldsen.
Only the most distant of relatives remained, and damn few of them. This family, which had endured for centuries, was about to end.
But not before justice was administered.
He heard a door open, then footsteps echoed across the black hall.