A clock somewhere announced two AM.
The footsteps stopped a few meters away and a voice said, “The sensors just tripped.”
Jesper had been with him a long time, witnessing all of the joy and pain—which, Thorvaldsen knew, his friend had felt as well.
“Where?” he asked.
“Southeast quadrant, near the shore. Two trespassers, headed this way.”
“You don’t need to do this,” he said to Jesper.
“We need to prepare.”
He smiled, glad his old friend could not see him. For the past two years he’d battled near-constant waves of conflicting emotion, involving himself with quests and causes that, only temporarily, allowed him to forget that pain, anguish, and sorrow had become his companions.
“What of Sam?” he asked.
“No further word since his earlier call. But Malone called twice. I allowed the phone to ring, as you instructed.”
Which meant Malone had done what he’d needed him to do.
He’d baited this trap with great care. Now he intended to spring it with equal precision.
He reached for the rifle.
“Time to welcome our guests.”
Malone 5 - The Paris Vendetta
EIGHT
ELIZA SAT FORWARD IN HER SEAT. SHE NEEDED TO COMMAND Robert Mastroianni’s complete attention.
“Between 1689 and 1815, England was at war for sixty-three years. That’s one out of every two in combat—the off years spent preparing for more combat. Can you imagine what that cost? And that was not atypical. It was actually common during that time for European nations to stay at war.”
“Which, you say, many people actually profited from?” Mastroianni asked.
“Absolutely. And winning those wars didn’t matter, since every time a war was fought governments incurred more debt and financiers amassed more privileges. It’s like what drug companies do today. Treating the symptoms of a disease, never curing it, always being paid.”
Mastroianni finished the last of his chocolate tart. “I own stock in three of those pharmaceutical concerns.”
“Then you know what I just said is true.”
She stared him down with hard eyes. He returned the glare but seemed to decide not to engage her.
“That tart was marvelous,” he finally said. “I confess to a sweet tooth.”
“I brought you another.”
“Now you’re bribing me.”
“I want you to be a part of what is about to happen.”
“Why?”
“Men like you are rare commodities. You have great wealth, power, influence. You’re intelligent. Innovative. As with the rest of us, you are certainly tired of sharing great portions of your results with greedy, incompetent governments.”
“So what is about to happen, Eliza? Explain the mystery.”
She could not go that far. Not yet. “Let me answer by explaining more about Napoleon. Do you know much about him?”
“Short fellow. Wore a funny hat. Always had a hand stuck inside his coat.”
“Did you know more books have been written about him than any other historical figure, save perhaps Jesus Christ.”
“I never realized you were such the historian.”
“I never realized you were so obstinate.”
She’d known Mastroianni a number of years, not as a friend, more as a casual business associate. He owned, outright, the world’s largest aluminum plant. He was also heavy into auto manufacturing, aircraft repair, and, as he’d noted, health care.
“I’m tired of being stalked,” he said. “Especially by a woman who wants something, yet can’t tell me what or why.”
She decided to do some ignoring of her own. “I like what Flaubert once wrote. History is prophecy, looking backwards.”
He chuckled. “Which perfectly illustrates your peculiar French view. I’ve always found it irritating how the French resolve all their conflicts on the battlefields of yesterday. It’s as if some glorious past will provide the precise solution.”
“That irritates the Corsican half of me sometimes as well. But occasionally, one of those former battlefields can be instructive.”
“Then, Eliza, do tell me of Napoleon.”
Only for the fact that this brash Italian was the perfect addition to her club did she continue. She could not, and would not, allow pride to interfere with careful planning.
“He created an empire not seen since the days of Rome. Seventy million people were under his personal rule. He was a man at ease with both the reek of gunpowder and the smell of parchment. He actually proclaimed himself emperor. Can you imagine? A mere thirty-five years old, he snubs the pope and places the imperial crown upon his own head.” She allowed her words to take root, then said, “Yet for all that ego, Napoleon built, specifically for himself, only two memorials, both small theaters that no longer exist.”
“What of all the buildings and monuments he erected?”
“Not one was created in his honor, or bears his name. Most were not even completed till long after his death. He even specifically vetoed the renaming of the Place de la Concorde to Place Napoleon.”
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?”