Chains of Fire (31 page)

But no.

“Now . . . he sleeps!” Madame Moreau smiled at Isabelle, tears in her eyes. “Wait until you see him. He looks so much better. Thank you for curing my boy.”

“I am so sorry, but I promise you, I didn’t cure him, madame.” Isabelle smiled sorrowfully. “The disease is still with him, a part of him.”

“But somehow, you chased it into a corner and made it cower. Even if you gave him only a little more time, it is quality time.” Madame Moreau held open the bedroom door. “Wait here. I’ll wake him. He’ll be so happy to see you.”

After Samuel had made his phone call to Ambassador Moreau, they had flown down to DC in the Masons’ private jet, been driven to the Moreaus’ home, and now they waited while Madame Moreau used a low, sweet, singsong voice to wake her son.

He replied sleepily.

A light went on, and she called them inside.

They walked in—and Samuel was astonished to see Madame Moreau’s report was true. In the space of two weeks, Mathis had gained weight, grown taller, and, most important, he looked stronger, like a boy and not a wraith.

His eyes lit up at the sight of them, and to Samuel’s surprise, Mathis said,
“Monsieur
Faa, I was hoping I would see you again so I could thank you for the rescue. I told Mama I want to be like you when I grow up.”

“Like Samuel? How’s that?” Isabelle sounded droll.

“A hero! He wasn’t afraid to come into that house and rescue me.”

Samuel grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair. “But you’d already shot your guard.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that.” Mathis stared at him worshipfully. “And you were so good about making sure we were safe before you would call in the woman.”

Isabelle raised her eyebrows. “I’ve never been the woman before.”

“I assure you, you have.” Samuel held her gaze for a long moment. “Mathis, we have questions we think only you can answer. Things have been happening to Isabelle, bad things, and we think they have something to do with your kidnapping. We want you to think back—did you hear your guards talking about anything? About their plans for you and for us? About why they were doing what they were doing?”

Mathis shook his head. “I can’t remember most of the evening. I don’t know why.”

Isabelle softly sighed, then hastily said, “You were in shock. Pain and horror will do that to a person—block their memories, change their thoughts.”

Samuel, too, contained his disappointment. He had been so sure this would work. Yet it wasn’t Mathis’s fault. “That’s okay, buddy,” he assured him. “We’ll get it figured out.”

But Mathis was a smart kid. “You wanted to know or you wouldn’t have come to wake me up. I can’t remember, but I can show you what happened.”

Samuel and Isabelle exchanged glances, then looked inquiringly at Madame Moreau.

She seated herself in the chair beside the bed, curled her feet under her, and said, “Watch.”

Mathis lifted his hand and waved it slowly toward the center of the room.

There, in the emptiness, a screen formed.

No, not a screen. A vision, like a movie, transparent yet as real as life.

They saw the room in the Swiss castle where Mathis had been kept prisoner. They saw it as if they sat there in Mathis’s bed. Two men stood in the doorway, frozen in midgesture.

One was the big-bellied man whom Samuel had last seen dead on the floor. The other, smaller, slighter, Samuel didn’t recognize.

Mathis waved his hand again—and it was as if the movie started. Both men shifted their feet, moved their hands—and spoke.

“He’s not going to live long enough for us to collect the ransom.” The big man spoke English with an accent—French or maybe Cajun.

“He will.” The smaller man smiled evilly. He had a gold-toothed smile, a sixties haircut, and a voice like a New Jersey gravel pit. “You forget, the Chosen is coming to heal him.”

“Then what? Will we get the ransom?”

“You’ve got ransom on the brain. We’re not doing it for the money. We’re doing it for the contract.”

“A contract that makes no sense. Why not just take her out cleanly with a bullet to the heart?”

A good question
, Samuel thought.

With exaggerated patience, the short one said, “The contract specifies that the woman be killed in a way that seems natural. So we’ve got the kid as bait. She comes to save his lousy little life—and if you ask me, it’s not worth saving....”

Isabelle stirred.

Samuel calmed her with his hand on her arm.

The short guy continued. “Then she’s swept away with the avalanche. Afterward,
if
we get the ransom and split it, that’s a bonus.”

“I still don’t know why we can’t just kill her.”

“Because Winstead is a pussy, that’s why—”

Now Samuel straightened, and Isabelle patted him.

Still the short one talked: “. . . scared to death the Chosen Ones will find out he’s behind it and take him out. The contract says we play it this way, so play it this way we do. Do you really want to explain to the boss your way is better than his?”

The big guy shivered and shook his head.

“Okay, then. I’m leaving to set the charges.”

“What about me?”

“You stay and watch the kid.”

“What about when the Chosen show up?”

“Get the hell out. What are you, afraid to stay with a little kid? It’s not like he can hurt you.” The short guy shoved him toward the chair in the door of the bedroom. “Now go on. We’ll pick you up later.” He walked down the hall and out of sight.

“Okay.” The big guy started to sit down, then stood, stepped into the corridor, and yelled, “Pick me up where?”

Samuel heard Mathis laughing, but it wasn’t the Mathis that was here with them. It was the Mathis from that day in the past. They couldn’t see him. It was as if he were behind the camera.

“Are you laughing at me, you little shithole?” The big guy started toward the bed. Then, “Where did you get that?” He looked down at his empty holster.

A gunshot sounded, loud and almost in their ears.

Surprised, the big guy looked down at the blood blossoming on his chest.

And he fell over, dead.

The vision faded.

In the here and now, Madame Moreau clutched her robe over her heart and gave a sob. “So close. It was so close. Mathis, where did you get the pistol?”

“I stole it from him when he carried me in.” Mathis fell back on the pillows, looking tired and dismayed. “Was my life really not worth saving?” he asked.

“You have a very interesting gift, young man.” Samuel tucked the blanket around him. “And that helped us very much.”

Isabelle smiled at him. “If not for you, we wouldn’t have known all this incredibly useful information. So in my opinion, your life is valuable indeed.”

Mathis reached for her hand.

She gave it to him.

He kissed her fingers with all the elegance and charm of any Frenchman. “I am glad to help . . . but I fear you are the woman they wanted to kill. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” Isabelle told him.

“Do not worry,
mademoiselle
,” Mathis said with assurance. “Samuel will save you from harm.”

“Indeed it is.” Going to the door, she gestured to the servant waiting outside. “Please take Mr. Faa to Monsieur Moreau in his office.”

“Good night, Mathis, and thank you for your help. It has been most valuable.” Samuel shook Mathis’s hand, then leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.” He followed the servant down the corridor, down the stairs, and waited while he knocked, then opened the door. When Samuel was inside, the door was closed behind him.

“Samuel!” Moreau stood up from his desk, came around, and shook Samuel’s hand. “I’m glad you had time to speak with me. What can I do for you?”

“I have a problem.” Samuel seated himself where Moreau indicated and accepted a cigar. He did no more than tap it on his knee, but it kept his hands busy when what he wanted to do was . . . kill somebody. “Actually, several problems, and I remembered your promise to do us a favor if you could.”

“I owe you a thousand favors, you and Miss Mason, for what you’ve done for my son. So if it is in my power . . .”

“Someone”—Samuel scowled as he remembered the name Mathis had revealed—“has put out a contract on Isabelle.”

“On
Isabelle
?” Moreau’s eyebrows rose all the way to his nonexistent hairline.

“I know who took out the contract on her. When it came to finding a name, your son has been most helpful.”

“He will have been pleased to be of help. He speaks of you both fondly and often.”

“He’s a good kid, and because of him, I look forward to showing the son of a bitch who would harm Isabelle exactly what a mistake he’s made.”

Samuel must have sounded fiercer than he realized, because Moreau scooted back a little. “I would suppose you do.”

“But it isn’t clear which organization he hired. I don’t know who to go to see the contract overridden.”

Moreau clicked his teeth together as if he imprisoned words at the back of his throat.

“Monsieur, is it possible that you have the connections to find out what I need to know?” A delicate question with no easy way to ask it.

“Perhaps. My connections are mostly European, but there is always gossip, and as we all know, gossip is frequently . . . truth.” Seating himself behind his desk, Moreau started typing.

Samuel watched him, and all the while, he cursed himself for his own ego that imagined the assassination attempt in Switzerland had been on him, cursed himself on the shortsightedness that led him to imagine the assassins would stop when they realized he had successfully retrieved the bank accounts in Switzerland. “Also...”

Moreau looked up inquiringly.

“There’s a safety-deposit box in one of the Swiss banks that belongs to the organization I work for.”

Moreau shifted suddenly, awkwardly.

Samuel pretended he hadn’t noticed. “Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, the directions on how to open that safety-deposit box have been lost and the contents are trapped within. I was wondering if you had any connections with the Swiss banking authorities that would help us discover the combination that would open the box. The contents are very precious to us.”

“Out of idle curiosity, do you know what’s in the box?”

No, but I’m not sure that you don’t.
“I haven’t a clue.” Who was Moreau? Not merely the French ambassador to the US. But certainly someone with more knowledge than Samuel had previously suspected.

“Yet you think you need those contents?”

Samuel weighed his answer. “You know your son has a gift?”

Moreau gestured noncommittally.

“You know Isabelle has a gift, also?”

Again the gesture.

“Those who are gifted in different ways”—Samuel could also gesture noncommittally—“tell me that the contents should be in our possession. Whatever is inside the bank will soon be required outside. Disaster has already befallen us with the explosion of our headquarters.”

“Yes, I know.”

“We fear the beginning of the end.” Remembering Jacqueline’s vision, Rosamund’s revelations, Samuel didn’t feel as if he were overstating the matter.

Moreau treated Samuel’s pronouncement with appropriate solemnity. “I will see what I can do. There are rules and safeguards, but—” An alert sounded on Moreau’s computer, interrupting him. He stared. His ruddy complexion paled. He said, “This contract on Isabelle—it was made with the Others.”

“The Others?” Samuel’s knee-jerk reaction was disbelief. “They don’t do contract killings.”

“They do what they are told to do. Do you know that their leader, Osgood, controls the corruption on the East Coast? That includes prostitution, drugs, graft—”

“And assassination.”

“Assassination is a good moneymaker, especially with politics being such big business here.”

“Of course it is.”

“The problem—Osgood is bound by his word. Once he has made a vow, he cannot fail to keep it, or the eternal rules have been violated.”

Moreau’s knowledge confirmed all Samuel’s suspicions about him. Somehow, Moreau
knew
things. Someday Samuel intended to come back and see what he could learn, but for now . . . “What happens if Osgood breaks his vow?”

“He loses everything, and in recent months, he has acquired much—more wealth, power, publicity. Osgood was a wicked man, and invited Lucifer into his soul. That’s been done before. But never have I heard of such a creature becoming so influential.” Moreau frowned. “It is as if it was the perfect joining.”

Samuel filed that information away in his mind.

“So—the payment for Isabelle’s murder has been given. The deal has been made. There is no canceling this contract.” Moreau looked drawn and tired as he made his pronouncement. “The Others will never stop . . . until Isabelle is dead.”