The Gilded Seal (49 page)

“Archie, it’s Jean-Pierre.”

“J-P! You okay mate? Whose phone are you calling on?”

“Never mind that. Where’s Felix?” he asked in an urgent

tone.

“On his way to Cuba with Jennifer.”

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“The FBI agent?” Dumas frowned, confused. The last

he’d heard, they were setting her up, not working with her.

“A lot’s happened since you’ve been gone.” Archie sounded

weary.

“You can tell me everything later,” Dumas said impa-

tiently. “You need to get a message to Felix. You need to

warn him about Eva.”

“What about Eva?”

“She’s working with Milo.”

A pause.

“What have they got you on in there?”

“I’m serious,” Dumas insisted. “I just had Troussard in

here, showing off. He told me that the FBI had identifi ed her

from a DNA sample left in the tunnel. She wasn’t there as a

hostage. She was fighting alongside Milo.”

“He didn’t take his phone in case they managed to track

it.” There was a slightly despairing edge to Archie’s voice.

“Then you need to get out there.”

“How? I’m on Interpol’s watchlist as one of Tom’s known

associates. I won’t get past Duty Free.”

“They managed it.”

“They borrowed a plane off some Japanese mobster who

owed Jennifer a favor. Asahi . . .”

“Takeshi,” Dumas completed the sentence for him, his

face set into a grim frown.

“You know him?”

“Archie, they think Takeshi is one of the buyers. Eva was

seen with him a few months ago.”

“They’re walking into a trap,” Archie breathed.

“If you can’t go, you’ll have to find someone else who

can,” Dumas said slowly. “And they’ll need a plan.”

C H A P T E R E I G H T Y- F O U R

MALECÓN, HAVANA, CUBA

24th April— 10:12 p.m.

The girls were turning out along the Malecón, their lip-

stick glowing invitingly in the lights of the passing cars.

Their skirts hitched, they patrolled narrow strips of pave-

ment like lionesses pacing around a small cage, their pimps

resting at a discreet distance against the sea wall, smoking or

playing cards or both. Across the harbor’s dark waters a buoy

blinked red, its pulsing light seeming to serve more as an in-

vitation than a warning to the passing ships.

Jennifer and Tom walked on silently, refusing the occa-

sional offers of cigars smuggled out of the Partagas factory

and the constant whistles of the bicycle taxis encouraging

them to jump on. After ten hours on a plane catching up on

the previous few days’ sleep, both of them seemed to be en-

joying the playful tug of the wind through their hair and the

sharp tang of the sea.

“Do you really think it’s in the museum?” Jennifer asked

eventually as an antique scooter loaded with groceries

chugged past.

“According to the catalog, they own four or fi ve paintings

that used to belong to Antommarchi,” Tom reminded her.

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“But until we get in there tomorrow morning, we won’t know

for sure.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then we keep looking. There’s no reason to think he would

have destroyed it. Besides, what else can we do if we’re going

to prove our side of the story and try and get Eva back?”

A neon- blue ’57 Chevrolet Bel-Air purred past, its tail fi ns

gleaming under the orange streetlights like the afterburn on

a pair of booster rockets. The incongruous sight made Jen-

nifer smile, bringing home the strange series of events that

had led her here. A few days ago she’d been investigating a

small-scale art forgery ring in New York. Now here she was

wandering the streets of Havana with the prime suspect in

the theft of the
Mona Lisa
, a fugitive from justice. However

you spun it, it wasn’t going to look good on her resumé.

Not that she regretted the decisions she’d taken. If she

hadn’t taken her chances with Tom, she’d still be in custody,

forgotten by the FBI, a trophy for Ferrat to parade in front of

his masters as if on a tumbrel on her way to the guillotine.

She never would have known the truth about the
Mona Lisa

or the Louvre’s role in attempting to cover up two hundred

years of subterfuge. Tom had been right. Sometimes you just

had to help yourself.

“Thank you,” she said in a low voice.

“What for?” He gave her a puzzled grin.

“For convincing me to come with you.”

She squeezed his arm. He tensed slightly under her touch.

She let him go and glanced up. He had a thoughtful, almost

sad look upon his face and she wondered if he was thinking

of Rafael and Henri and Eva. The last few days must have

been harder on him than anyone. It was sometimes easy to

forget that he had feelings too.

A pause.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into all this,” Tom said. “You

were right, I didn’t think it through. It was wrong of me.”

“We’ve both done things we regret.” She gave him an awk-

ward look.

“You’re probably right,” he laughed.

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They walked on in silence, the waves breaking gently

against the sea wall, the wash occasionally leaping above the

parapet like a performing dolphin in an amusement park.

Eventually Tom spoke again.

“Do you think it’s ever possible for people like you and me

to . . .” he tailed off.

“To what?”

“Could we ever . . . Do you see that?” he interrupted him-

self suddenly, pointing at a large illuminated monument ma-

rooned in the center of the boulevard to their right. It featured

two large cannons laid flat and pointing in opposite direc-

tions. Between them was an elaborate pedestal decorated

with statues and surmounted by two Corinthian columns.

“It’s a monument to the USS
Maine
, a warship destroyed in

the harbor here. It was meant as a permanent tribute to the

friendship between Cuba and the United States, a reminder

of shared ideals of liberty and sacrifi ce.”

“And?” She frowned, not sure where this was leading.

“Now look over there.”

On the other side of the road was a billboard showing a

sinister-looking Uncle Sam squaring up to a determined Cu-

ban soldier, Kalashnikov at the ready.

“
Dear Imperialists: We are not in the least bit afraid of

you
,” Tom translated the slogan that separated the two fi g-

ures.

“What are you trying to say?” Jennifer pressed him gently,

sensing that he was circling around a point that he wasn’t

quite sure how to make.

“Just that I wonder whether, sometimes, despite everyone’s

best intentions, things start off one way and fi nish another?”

he said slowly, his eyes fixed at some distant point on the hori-

zon. “I wonder if some things just aren’t meant to be.”

She turned to face him, drawing his gaze down to hers.

“Perhaps some things
are
meant to be, only we worry too

much to let them happen,” she suggested with a smile.

“Yes, that’s probably it.” He nodded. “But often I think it’s

better that way.”

They walked on toward their hotel, the rise and fall of the

waves and the frenzied beat of the city filling Jennifer’s ears.

C H A P T E R E I G H T Y- F I V E

MUSEO NAPOLEÓNICO, HAVANA

25th April— 9:55 a.m.

The Museo Napoleónico was located on the far side of the

Universidad de la Habana. Students loitered on the steps

outside its monumental entrance, some reading notes pulled

from leather satchels, others gathered in small groups shar-

ing cigarettes and stories, a few even turning to politics once

they were certain they couldn’t be overheard.

Tom and Jennifer made their way through the university’s

central square and past the library, mindful of the cyclists who

waited until the last possible moment before furiously ringing

their bells, as if it was somehow your fault that they were about

to run you down. At the far side of the park they exited the

compound through a small gate and found the museum at the

top of Calle San Miguel.

Originally a private house, La Dolce Dimora, as the build-

ing was called, had been built in an ornate Florentine Re-

nais sance style totally at odds with the rather more functional

and dirty constructions that surrounded it. It was a small

jewel of extravagance, its lush green gardens sprinkled with

marble sculptures, glinting like an emerald washed up on a

muddy riverbank.

“The museum has four floors,” the girl on reception

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proudly announced as they paid for their tickets. “The fi rst

three are dedicated to the different stages of the French Rev-

olution, while the last floor houses the library and the Fenc-

ing Hall, with tiles from Valencia and . . .”

“Where do you keep the death mask?” Tom inquired, re-

minding Jennifer of the tourists at the Louvre who she had

observed bypassing the untold richness of the rest of the col-

lection for a few snatched minutes with the
Mona Lisa
.

“On the third floor, along with the Emperor’s personal be-

longings and other items relating to the decadence and fall of

the Empire.” She emphasized the word “decadence,” eyeing

Tom disapprovingly. “It’s all on page three.”

He quickly read the passage she had indicated and then

nodded.

“Thank you.”

They took the stairs up to the third floor, Jennifer catching

a glimpse of the Great Hall, which housed a fragment of the

Declaration of the Rights of Man and a triumphal painting of

Napoleon’s coronation by Jean Vivert.

“It’s amazing that all this stuff ended up here,” she mused

as they approached the third-fl oor landing.

“It’s even more amazing that it’s still here.” Tom gave a

short laugh. “Napoleon’s hardly a Communist poster boy.”

The first room was decorated with uniforms and other

personal items: his pistols from the Battle of Borodino; a hat

and spyglass used on St. Helena. The second room, mean-

while, had been laid out to resemble a bedchamber.

“Look—” Jennifer pointed at the gold N surrounded with

laurel leaves embroidered on to the bedspread. “It’s the same

symbol as was on the key we found in the obelisk.”

“It’s the bed he died in,” said Tom, reading the sign next to

it. “Maybe the one where he told Antommarchi his secret.

And look here—”

He nodded toward a polished plaster death mask more or

less identical to the one that they had recovered in the cata-

combs.

“So we’re in the right place. But I still don’t see how we’re

going to know which is the right one.” She glanced despair-

ingly at the paintings lining the walls.

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3 7 5

“My question exactly,” a voice echoed from behind them

as Milo, flanked by four armed men, swept into the room.

Jennifer recognized a large man with tribal scarring on his

cheeks from a series of mug shots of Milo’s known associ-

ates that Ferrat had shown her when she was being interro-

gated.

“How the hell did you find . . . ?”

“Give me some credit,” Milo scoffed. “A death mask cre-

ated by the same person who used to own that book you were

so keen to get hold of—I can read between the lines as well as

you. Although, I have to say, you did make life a little easier

by asking Takeshi to borrow his plane. In case you hadn’t re-

alized it by now, he’s one of my buyers.” He jerked his head at

the two men closest to the door. “Go and round up the other

guards. Quietly. There’s only three or four of them.”

“If you think—”

“You need to do the thinking, Tom,” Milo said coldly as

Djoulou pushed Eva into the room.

“Eva?” Tom called out in concern. “Are you okay?”

Eva looked worn, far worse than Jennifer had expected,

her arm in a sling, hair falling over her face, eyes red where

she’d been crying. Tom’s anguished tone suggested that he

had also been shocked by her appearance, and she guessed

that the only thing holding his anger in check were the guns

being aimed squarely at his chest.

“That rather depends on you,” Milo warned him with a

thin smile.

“This has nothing to do with her,” Tom said angrily. “It

never did.”

“And as soon as you hand over the painting, it won’t have

anything to do with you either.”

“As soon as I hand over the painting we lose the one thing

keeping us all alive. I can read between the lines too.”

“Give me the
Mona Lisa
and this ends now,” Milo reas-

sured him.

“Don’t listen to him, Tom,” Jennifer warned him, her eyes

fixed on Milo’s with a kind of horrified fascination. “You

can’t trust him.”

“This isn’t about trust,” Tom insisted. “This is about honor,

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isn’t it Milo? About the old ways. You remember the debt

between us, don’t you? The life you owe me. Well, now’s your