The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (49 page)

Time and place.
He was learning.

The drive was uneventful. Neither man spoke.

Michael laid his head back and was met with a slight swirl of vertigo. He couldn’t be sure if it was from the vodka, the pain, or a combination of them both. His eyes had long ago gone shallow. His skin was turning gaunt. Disheveled wasn’t the right word for his appearance. Inside, his body ached, and his mind spun. There would be no rest for him. He opened his eyes and stared at the countryside.

Soon the cab was in Paris and making its way through the 2nd arrondissement. The neighborhood appeared postcard-perfect. The roads had an interesting life as they flowed like water through the centuries-old city. To their left and right, old Parisian boutiques and shops straddled them. Over Rue St. Denis they drove; a curious sight materialized as the architecture turned into women. They were everywhere: seductive and inviting. They bent over and peered with elongated smiles into the cab as the two Americans drove by. This was York’s first visit to a true red-light district. His eyes were glued to the side of the road as his head bounced left and right at each new woman in his view.

Michael tapped the driver on the shoulder and motioned for him to pull over at the next corner. He paid the man and then climbed out of the cab.

“Come on, kid. And wipe that drool from your mouth.”

York smiled and pantomimed a wipe.

They were between the Montmartre and Rue St. Denis, in a maze of passages. The women disappeared, keeping their peddling to the more traveled streets. The passageways were narrow and dark in some places, while others sprayed an electric spirit without warning. Michael moved quickly, but his gait was uneven. York stayed close, closer than normal. He was worried about Michael.

Michael knew where he was going. He knew Paris well, and in an instant, he came to an abrupt halt.

“Shit,” he spat out.

“What is it?” asked York.

Michael pointed: “A dead end, kid. A damn dead end.”

They were standing at the address on Charney’s identification, but it was clearly not his home. They were standing directly in front of the Bibliothèque Nationale; it was one of Paris’s treasures, and tourists surrounded it.

“Now what—what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Michael scanned the area carefully; he wasn’t sure how to respond. He didn’t know what he was looking for but trusted he would know when he saw it; his movements were instinctive and from a man who had spent his life in special operations. Near them, an old, bespectacled man sat reading
Le Monde
, a French newspaper. Michael almost looked away, but something caught his attention. He looked back and locked on to its headline.

Close to the seated man was a large, wheeled magazine kiosk. Michael walked to it and picked up a copy of the newspaper—the same that the man was reading. He studied the front page with growing interest.

The kiosk owner was annoyed at the American’s presumption and made it clear. “Quatre euros, monsieur!”

But Michael had seen enough; he tore the front page from the paper and put the rest back, to the ire of the man behind the counter. He smiled at the kiosk owner, tossed him a five-euro note although the man had only demanded four, and replied, “Merci.”

York was sure the Frenchman had responded with some curt, unfriendly words. Michael was moving fast and with a new purpose. “Hey, Doc! Where are we going?”

Michael shoved the torn front page into York’s hands, and then whistled for another cab. He didn’t have to wait long. It was Paris—cabs were as omnipresent as the flies that attached themselves to the strays in the streets.

The two men climbed in, and the driver asked for their destination.

Michael answered the driver’s question along with York’s: “Le hôtel Westminster, si’l vous plait.”

York smoothed out the newspaper and, although he couldn’t speak or read French, translated easily the cognates in the headline:

American Senator in Paris

“You don’t think it’s a coincidence, do you, Doc?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“Who is this guy?”

“Our next president.”

York whistled quietly and said, “We’re in deep, aren’t we?”

Michael didn’t answer. His silence said it all.

At the intersection where Rue Daunou crossed with Rue 4 du Septembre stood the magnificent building that housed the World Exchange. Michael and York were standing on its corner; from their vantage point, they could see the front entrance of the Westminster hotel.

“Doc,” asked York, “what does the article say?”

Michael never took his eyes from the building. “It said that Senator Matthew Faust would be delivering an address to the people of France and would be doing it from the Westminster. From here.”

“And you think the senator is involved somehow?”

“There’s no way to be certain, but it’s all we have. Think about it, kid: Senator Door was killed when Notre Dame fell, and this guy took her place.”

“Doc, I don’t mean to sound like an ass, but so what? Someone had to take her place. If it wasn’t this guy, it would have been someone else.”

The kid had a point. But yet, the newly anointed presidential candidate was here, at the scene of the crime, and the vellum was too.

Michael took his eyes from the door of the hotel and leaned in to York. “Kid, the Order has used the same tired method from one century to the next to get their pawns into positions of power. If they can’t buy their way into office, they kill their way. Paris is where Senator Door was killed, where the Crown of Thorns was stolen. This is where that thief went and where he brought the vellum. Paris is where the exchange will be made. Yeah, kid, I could be wrong; this could all be one great, big, cosmic coincidence, but I’d bet my other leg that it’s not.”

Just then, York grabbed Michael roughly by the elbow. “Hey, Doc! Look!”

Michael turned his attention back to the Westminster. He wasn’t sure what York had seen. The street front was busy, but nothing stood apart.

“What, kid? What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Don’t you see her? Look!” York hurriedly opened up the front page torn from
Le Monde
and held it in front of Michael. “Look in the photo, behind the senator!”

Michael hadn’t noticed her before, but behind a placating and smiling Senator Faust was a woman. She was both voluptuous and serious. Her hair was styled tightly back and spoke of her demeanor. She appeared to be all business. But that wasn’t the thing about her that stood out the most. No. It was her hair: red as fire and hard to miss.

Michael looked up quickly at the crowd of people on the street. It took only a moment. And then he saw her; it was her inviting shape that caught his attention first. Her renaissance femininity swayed enticingly from side to side; she stood out in a city of unnecessarily thin women. She was moving fast from the front of the hotel and down the street. Atop her head was a large, stylish hat, expected for this part of Paris. Her hand was pulling downward slightly on the hat’s edge as if to ward off the sun.

Michael focused on her as she walked down the street.

Patiently and silently he waited; York too.

It was just for a moment, but that moment was all that Michael needed. As she walked, she turned her head back, over her right shoulder, and nervously scanned behind her. Most of her pale face was covered, but not all of it. A deep shade of inviting crimson poked out from over her ear. She reached up and tucked the errant red hair over her ear and deeper into the hat. The woman that had just hurriedly left the Westminster was the same as in the newspaper photo.

Michael was impressed, but he didn’t show it. “Time to go!”

Rue de la Paix was busy. The two men had to dart carefully and inconspicuously between tourists and Parisians. Michael pointed at York—the signal was clear, and York moved to the other side of the street.

Justine weaved anxiously between the pedestrians, clearly quickening her strides the further she separated herself from the hotel.

News vans and trucks were parked and double-parked along the curbside. Antennae booms filled the sky as reporters from numerous countries staked out their positions and awaited their scoop.

Putting her head down and her eyes cast away, nary an eyelash batted toward Justine as she walked past them, to her quiet satisfaction.

Within a block, the street ended (however, Parisians would say this is where the street began) and opened up into the eighteenth-century tribute to the spectacular armies of the solipsistic Louis XIV: Place Vendôme.

In a dominating fashion, la Colonne Vendôme—originally erected as a tribute to an even more solipsistic Napoleon—pierced the slightly octagon-shaped square of Place Vendôme. Jutting two hundred and eighty meters skyward, the Corinthian bronze column of spiraling bas-reliefs had at its center a stone core and was capped with a likeness of Napoleon, showing the emperor in Roman dress. The square was designed to appear palatial and was surrounded by ribbed, ornate pilasters.

As York entered its vast confines, he felt small and overwhelmed, almost unworthy as its royal features rained down on him. Michael entered separate from York; they both followed the senator’s assistant.

Vendôme was lined with the storefronts of the best of the fashionable and anchored by hotels of only five-star caliber.

The two men watched like eagles with their eyes latched onto their prey. Justine picked up her pace and moved toward a small shop on the Place’s interior.

Michael motioned for York to slow down, to be patient.

He did.

He was.

At 28 Place Vendôme, the storefront window was illuminated by impressive displays of multi-colored fabrics from around the world. The colors of the shirts and haberdashery were loud in reflection with the solemn square. A well-dressed man stood in front of the window and admired the world-famous cuts by Charvet—a cornerstone of Paris since 1838, and the first ever shirt shop in the world.

Charney raised his right hand to his mouth and massaged his lips with the butt of his cigarette as he admired the expensive clothing. He wore only custom-fit shirts cut by Charvet. He slowly inhaled and admired the new collection while watching the reflection of the round-figured woman who approached from behind.

He almost turned to greet her, but stopped in his tracks. It happened quickly, and he almost didn’t see it—
almost.

Behind the woman, he caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered man as he melted in behind the square’s column. It took his brain a moment, but when the moment passed, what he saw registered—it was York.

Instead of turning around, he continued to stare into the window. He doubted they recognized him. He was wearing one of his custom-fit suits, and his hair was slicked back.

Justine walked toward the window, toward the man who stood at its front. He was there, just as he said he would be. She slowed her stride as she felt her breathing go shallow. Her chest expanded and contracted with a bit more fervor, in pace with her heart; she realized that she was scared.

Across the Place, Michael watched as Justine approached the man at the window. He lowered his gaze and squinted. The backside of the expensive suit fit in with the environment, and the man stood erect and firm, in the manner that a man with means should.

He watched as the man swallowed another pull of his cigarette. He watched as the man held the butt to his face and inspected what remained. Taking one more drag, the man slowly let his hand fall in apposition to his side. He dropped the cigarette. It landed near another.

He didn’t flick the finished cigarette away.

He didn’t fling it away.

He just let it drop.

He didn’t smother it with his toe.

It was then that Michael knew. The man just simply slowly opened the two fingers that had held the cigarette butt. It was an instinctive movement—
a tell
. It was a simple mistake by a professional that only another professional could see.

It was the same manner in which the man in Portugal—the man who had attacked him—had allowed his finished cigarettes to pile up at his side at the sidewalk café in front of the safe house.

Michael snapped his head toward his underling, but they were too far apart to communicate verbally. He doubted that York knew. Instead, Michael held up his hand toward York, telling him to wait.

York nodded that he understood.

Justine let out a breath and stepped next to Charney.

Charney did what any man would do in front of her: he gazed over the curves of her femininity, letting his eyes fall upon her torso first before meeting her face. Like every woman, she was used to it. He then coolly uttered his question: “Do you have my money?”

“Let me see it first,” she responded.

He smiled and then reached into his inside breast pocket, pulling out the vellum.

“Open it please,” she demanded, surprised that her confidence was finding its way back.