“You’re coming with me.”
He’d already anticipated that response, which was why he’d slipped his right hand back into his pocket and regripped the gun.
He withdrew the weapon.
“What do you plan to do? Shoot me?” Stephanie quietly asked.
“I wouldn’t recommend you push me. At the moment, I seem nothing more than an obedient participant in my own humiliation, but it’s my problem, Stephanie, not yours, and I intend to finish what I started.”
She did not reply.
“Get us a cab,” he ordered Meagan.
She ran to the bridge’s end and flagged down the first one that passed on the busy boulevard. Stephanie remained silent, but he saw it in her eyes. An introspective yet alert defensiveness. And something else. She had no intention of halting him.
He was acting on impulse, more panic than design, and she seemed to sympathize with his quandary. This woman, full of expertise and caution, could not help him, but in her heart she did not want to stop him, either.
“Just go,” she whispered.
He scampered toward the waiting cab, as fast as his crooked spine would allow. Once inside he asked Meagan, “Your cell phone.”
She handed the unit over.
He lowered the window and tossed it away ASHBY WAS TERRIFIED.
The motorboat was making its escape past the ?le de la Cité, threading a quick path around other boats coming their way.
Everything had happened so fast.
He was talking to Peter Lyon, then a tidal wave of smoke had burst over him. The man in the green coat now held a gun, quickly displaying it the instant he’d leaped from the tour boat. Who was he? One of the Americans?
“You are truly a fool,” the man said to him.
“Who are you?”
The gun came level.
Then he saw amber eyes.
“The man you owe a great deal of money.”
MALONE PEELED THE REMAINING HAIR AND ADHESIVE FROM HIS face. He held open each eyelid and plucked out amber-colored contacts.
The tour boat had stopped at the nearest dock and allowed frightened patrons to leave. Malone and Sam debarked last, Stephanie waiting ashore, up a stone stairway, at street level.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“A royal mess,” Malone said. “Didn’t go as planned.”
Sam seemed perplexed.
“We had to corner Ashby,” Malone said. “So I called, as Lyon, and arranged a meeting.”
“And the getup?”
“The French helped us out there. Their intelligence people found us a makeup artist. I was also wired, getting admissions on tape. Peter Lyon, though, had other ideas.”
“That was him?” Sam asked. “In the green coat?”
Malone nodded. “Apparently he wants Ashby, too. And good job clearing the smoke bomb.”
“Henrik was here,” she said to him.
“How pissed is he?”
“He’s hurt, Cotton. He’s not thinking clearly.”
He should talk with his friend, but there hadn’t been a free moment all day. He found his cell phone, which he’d silenced before boarding the tour boat, and noted more missed calls from Henrik and three from a number he recognized.
Dr. Joseph Murad.
He punched REDIAL. The professor answered on the first ring.
“I did it,” Murad said. “I figured it out.”
“You know the location?”
“I think so.”
“Have you called Henrik?”
“I just did. I couldn’t reach you, so I called him. He wants me to meet him.”
“You can’t do that, Professor. Just tell me where and I’ll handle it.”
Malone 5 - The Paris Vendetta
SIXTY-SIX
3:40 PM
ASHBY WAS LED FROM THE BOAT AT GUNPOINT NEAR THE ?LE SAINT GERMAIN, south of the old city center. He now knew that the man who held him was Peter Lyon and the man on the tour boat had most likely been an American agent. A car waited up from the river, at street level. Two men sat inside. Lyon signaled and they exited. One opened the rear door and yanked Caroline out into the afternoon.
“Your Mr. Guildhall won’t be joining us,” Lyon said. “I’m afraid he’s been permanently detained.”
He knew what that meant. “There was no need to kill him.”
Lyon chuckled. “On the contrary. It was the only option.”
The situation had just gravitated from serious to desperate. Obviously, Lyon had been monitoring everything Ashby had been doing, since he knew exactly where Caroline and Guildhall could be found.
He spied unrestrained fear on Caroline’s lovely face.
He was scared, too.
Lyon led him forward and whispered, “I thought you might need Miss Dodd. That’s the only reason she’s still alive. I would suggest that you don’t waste the opportunity I’ve offered her.”
“You want the treasure?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“You told me last night in London that things like that didn’t interest you.”
“A source of wealth unknown to any government, with no accounting. There’s so much I could do with that at my disposal—and I wouldn’t have to deal with cheats like you.”
They stood beyond a busy street, the car parked among a patch of trees bleached from winter. No one was in sight, the area largely a commercial center and boat repair facility, closed for the holiday. Lyon again withdrew the gun from beneath his coat and screwed a sound suppressor to the short barrel.
“Set her back in the car,” Lyon directed as they approached.
Caroline was shoved across the rear seat. Lyon stepped to the open door and thrust his arm inside, aiming the gun directly at her.
She gasped. “Oh, God. No.”
“Shut up,” Lyon said.
Caroline started to cry.
“Lord Ashby,” Lyon said. “And you, too, Miss Dodd. I’m only going to ask this once. If a truthful answer is not immediately forthcoming, clear and concise, then I will fire. Does everyone understand?”
Ashby said nothing.
Lyon stared straight at him. “I didn’t hear you, Lord Ashby.”
“What’s not to understand?”