Blood Game, page 41
Kris saw the stunned expression on Marcus's face, the brief smile as if it were some joke.
“What are you saying?” Marcus asked, incredulous. He did laugh then. “You cannot be serious! It is a priceless work of art. These scenes are an important part of history.”
“Your history!” Faridani told him. “Not mine! It is a blaspheme against God and it must be destroyed. It must never see the light of day.”
“You have a buyer, you told me,” Marcus exclaimed, still trying to understand. “To find it, after all these years...it is priceless! Why would you want to destroy it?”
But he knew. Kris saw it on his face, that moment when the stunned expression shifted and became anger. And she knew.
The secret, Vilette had told them about. If it was there, something to be feared, and destroyed? Something powerful?
She had studied religion, briefly, theology and faith handed down through the ages and across cultures, the true meaning of faith and how it had influenced civilizations. It was only her first two years of college, before changing her major to journalism after Mark died, when she questioned everything she had believed before, and had turned her back on things that seemed to have no place, no reality in the modern world.
But there were those who still believed in the power of faith, who were willing to kill and die in the name of their God, and would destroy anything that got in their way, including a seven-hundred-year-old artifact that might hold a secret that challenged everything?
Was it there? The secret that Vilette Moreau was so certain her ancestor had stitched into the threads of the tapestry after closing herself away in the abbey at Mont St. Michel? Or was it just another myth that had been passed down from one century to the next, then lost in obscurity until their search began?
It didn't matter.
It only mattered that Faridani, or Malik, or whoever he called himself, was determined to destroy it.
Alyia Malik pushed past them. She knelt at one corner of the tapestry a long handled lighter in her hand.
“No!” Marcus lunged at her and struck the lighter out of her hand.
Gunfire exploded and Marcus staggered back. He stared down at the dark stain that spread across the front of his shirt. He made a sound, part gasp, all anger, and lunged toward Faridani. Another shot and his head snapped back. He fell to the floor of the chamber.
Kris pushed Valentine toward the doorway.
“Run!”
The blow came from behind, pain exploding as she was thrown against the wall, then another pain, sharp on her arm as she went down, Alyia Malik standing over her.
She would be next, she thought, even as she saw Faridani turn toward her. He shouted something, but she couldn't hear over the sudden explosion of gunfire from the entrance of the chamber.
James was through the doorway. He made a quick sweep of the room in the light of Faridani's flashlight and stepped over a body—Aronson by the white hair that was all that was left of his skull. Then a movement to his right, he spun back around aiming chest high at that shadow. Three rounds and Faridani's body spasmed. Then another, and he was down.
Faridani's flashlight hit the stone floor as he went down, the beam spinning crazily. A woman screamed, and someone came out of the shadows at him, dressed in black cargo pants and turtleneck—Alyia Malik. Eyes wide, expressionless, like he'd seen dozens of times in Afghanistan, she lunged at him. The knife grazed his arm, throwing the shot off. A wounded sound and she fell into the shadows.
He swept the far wall, the beam from the flashlight exposing letters painted across the ends of boxes, the warning clear in any language, then a large rolled canvas. He scanned past, the beam playing across dark hair, pale features, eyes wide and dark with the edge of shock.
Kris heard her name over the ringing in her ears. Then a hand on her shoulder.
“Stay down,” he told her.
He swept the room again and nudged the bodies. Alyia Malik wasn't one of them. He bent down and pulled Kris against him.
Her arm went around his neck as she held on, her face buried in his shoulder, a hand fisted on his back.
“He killed Marcus...He tried to destroy the tapestry.”
She was losing it—that part that came after, when the adrenaline was gone. Like that night in London, when everything had fallen apart, and he was there.
“I've got you.” He held on to her. She was alive. He closed his eyes against the doubts, the raw fear that had him running through the passages like a madman.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded, clenching her teeth against the shaking in her legs. She winced.
“I think it's broken,” she said, holding her arm.
“Tuck your hand inside the waist of your jeans to keep it steady until we get out of here.”
She glanced past him to the bodies, outlined in the light from Malik's flashlight, Marcus’s shattered skull all that remained.
“Valentine?”
“Here,” the girl called out. She crawled out of the shadows where Kris had shoved her. She stood, bruised, shaken, but alive. She swore in French.
“I tried to stop her, but the bitch got away.”
“She won't get far,” James assured them. “Are you all right?”
Her face was a mass of bruises, and blood was smeared on her neck where Faridani had cut her. She nodded. She tried to smile, then the tears came. She cursed again, then looked past them to the bodies on the floor.
“They wanted to destroy it,” Valentine whispered.
She crossed the room and knelt beside the tapestry that Micheleine had fought to protect so long ago.
“She was here.” She touched the edge of the tapestry. “In this place, and it was important to her to keep it safe.” She took a deep breath.
“We need to go,” James told them both. They needed to find Albert, then contact the French authorities.
Had Alyia Malik gotten past Albert? Or had she escaped through one of the other tunnels?
There were dozens of them spread throughout the quarry. She would have needed to find one of those rooms with the roof caved in, and she would be gone.
They retraced their steps, following those images that Micheleine had drawn on the edge of that letter in the last days and weeks of the war, and finally reached the main passage that led to the entrance.
A loud explosion echoed off the walls of the passage.
“Stay here,” James ordered. He ran ahead, disappearing into the looming darkness.
“Grandfather?” Valentine whispered, and ran after him.
They reached the entrance to the mine, coming up behind him. Albert looked up, the old shotgun he used to scare the crows from his apple trees in the crook of his arm.
Alyia Malik lay sprawled across the limestone floor near the entrance, the pistol under her hand where it had fallen.
Albert patted the stock of the shotgun and shrugged.
“She tried to escape.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE
LONDON
Kris grabbed the remote and turned up the audio on the midday news feed from the BBC.
The broadcast was live from Paris, outside the office of the Directeur Centrale de la Police Judiciare. A reporter from CNN thrust a microphone at the white-haired man who had just emerged from the building.
Albert appeared on screen, in his field coat, work pants, the white hair tucked beneath the beret, his favorite shotgun in the curve of his arm—for shooting the crows that invaded his orchards. Valentine stood beside him.
“There are reports circulating that you were instrumental in stopping a recent terrorist attack, and responsible for the deaths of several terrorists. Can you comment on that now that the official investigation has been closed?”
She smiled at the correspondent's persistence, thinking of someone else who had a reputation for being equally persistent.
“We got them, Cate,” she whispered.
They had all given statements to both the French and British authorities, along with everything they had uncovered about the connection to the terrorists, playing up Albert's role in tracking them down. Shortly afterward, James was called back to London. There had been phone conversations, checking up on her after surgery on her arm and she was released from hospital. Then she returned to London and work.
In the investigation that followed, there had been the usual skepticism over the weapons found at the quarry, along with Albert's age. Then his role with the French Resistance during World War II and his relation to Micheleine Robillard, who was still revered as a hero of the war, made it into the media.
In that curious, often bizarre way that a family connection creates momentum, often outright notoriety, the small village of Montigny and Albert's apple farm had been inundated by the curious, reporters, and historians.
There had been no questions about Alyia Malik's death. During the investigation, Albert had simply stated that he was afraid for his life, she came at him with a gun, and he fired to protect himself. And then there was the connection to her brother, a known terrorist. Anything else was lost in the media frenzy about the death of one of the most notorious terrorists in recent history, who had terrorized the people of Paris and other cities around the world in the past with a series of fatal attacks.
“Eh?” Albert replied with a hand cupped behind his ear. “Je ne vous comprends pas.”
He didn't understand the questions being asked?
Wily old fox, Kris thought with a smile as Albert continued to toy with the journalist, and wished Cate was there to see it.
“Please,” Valentine played her part. “All of this has been very difficult. He is an old man who saw his responsibility and wishes now only to return to his farm.”
She slipped her arm through Albert's and appeared to offer physical support as they were escorted by an officer of the court that had conducted the investigation into the incident at the quarry mine, and had concluded it that day with no charges to be brought against the elderly hero of France, who had once fought with the Resistance.
Her smile deepened as the elderly man bent his head toward his granddaughter to catch something she said as the reporter continued with his segment completely. They both smiled. Checkmate, Kris thought.
“An incredible story from Normandy during World War II,” the reporter continued. “A priceless work of art, known as the Raveneau Tapestry, hidden from the Germans for over seventy years, found in an underground hospital from World War I.
“It was recovered and is currently in the possession of the Louvre Museum at an undisclosed location in collaboration with UNESCO. The Louvre, with the assistance of Ms. Diana Jodion, an expert in Medieval tapestries who is curator at the Bayeaux Museum, will be overseeing the restoration. It is anticipated that restoration will begin immediately, now that the investigation into recent events has concluded.”
Kris looked at the scans Diana had sent her. Contrary to the reporter’s statement, restoration had begun just after the tapestry was recovered from that room in the quarry not quite a month ago, by representatives of the Louvre under supervision by Diana, and with special permission by the Ministry of France.
It was critical, Diana had argued, to avoid damage and possibly theft by fortune seekers or others, after the story first hit the media. In the weeks since, with her team assembled and hard at work, Diana had sent those first photographs.
The tapestry was in surprisingly good condition, considering its age and conditions inside the quarry filled with debris, explosives, many areas caved in, and exposed to the elements. Micheleine Robillard had chosen its hiding place well.
Those first images were now spread across her office wall at Brighton House Publishers, a work in progress, along with Cate's last book.
Kris had been given the monumental task of seeing that unfinished project completed. Just the week before, she'd finished negotiations between Cate's estate, her publisher, and Trevor Allen, a well-known author in his own right, who had agreed to co-author the book and finish the manuscript.
After the negotiations, she had taken a few days off to deliver the contract to Cate's legal team, and take a meeting with Dickie Simson, Inspector of the Inverness Police, after it was determined that Cate's death was no accident, but a homicide.
It was Candlemas, and after everything that had happened, and with James still in London, Anne Morgan had suggested a holiday getaway to the Shetland Islands. The locals who claimed Viking blood were celebrating Up Helly Aa.
There were traditional feasts, a lot of single-malt whisky, and a full-sized Viking galley with dragon’s head, complete with shields and oars, and a processional with participants dressed as Viking warriors that looked as if they could have stepped off a television soundstage for the series.
The last night of their stay, the galley was pulled by a torch-bearing procession to the beach. After a traditional blast from a ram's horn, the galley was set ablaze by hundreds of torches, then cast adrift in true Viking tradition.
She had returned to London with an extensive file of Cate's notes and had been knee-deep in work ever since. There were daily Skype meetings with Nina and David, roundtable discussions with the marketing department in New York and Trevor Allen, not to mention coordination with distributors in the US as well as the European market. It was possible they might be able to make the Frankfurt Book Fair for prelaunch.
And there had been regular calls with James Morgan as he handled inquiries by the military about his involvement in hunting down Faridani. Anything else he was involved with, he couldn't talk about. She had hoped they could get together for dinner, but that hadn't happened.
There was a light knock, and Jewel poked her head inside. So much for do not disturb, Kris thought.
“There's a gentleman to see you,” she explained. “From the telly,” she whispered.
Kris groaned. She'd made only one brief statement to the media after returning to London; any further comments were handled by their legal team out of the New York office. She pulled the latest draft from Trevor out of the printer. She'd be burning the midnight oil the next few nights, then get back to him with any changes, and they just might stay on schedule.
“Tell them 'no comment,'” she said, adjusting her glasses.
“He said you would say that.”
Kris shoved her reading glasses back on her head as Jewel pushed the door open.
James Morgan stood just outside the door to the office.
“He didn't look the sort to say 'no' to.” Jewel grinned, gave him an openly admiring glance from her five-feet-two-inches, then made an excuse about work that needed to be done.
Kris hadn't seen him since first returning from France, a quick trip that ironically ended as it had begun, at an airport. He'd been required to report in right away after everything came out in the media.
“He's down to Taunton, I think,” Anne Morgan had explained on that earlier holiday trip. “He wouldn't say more than that. All official, you see.”
But there had been something in her voice, something hesitant, a pause, then a too-quick smile at something she didn't want to think about.
Now he stood in the doorway of her office—jeans, sweater, and leather jacket, but different—clean shaven, hair cut short.
How many times had she seen that same expression—the way one dark brow lifted slightly, that direct look, one corner of his mouth angled up, that thin scar from some teenage mishap, at the airport in Edinburgh, at Danny's flat in London.
How long did it take to know a person? Months? Years? Or only a few days?
She had known her ex-husband for almost eight years, two of the years married to him, but she had never really known him, what was important to him, things that mattered.
She had known James Morgan only a few weeks by comparison, yet she knew him—someone who had saved her life and risked his own, someone with his own pain, the losses, someone who held her when the nightmares slipped out of the box.
She rounded the desk, then leaned back against it, arms folded. She knew him, just as she knew the jeans, the sweatshirt, and leather jacket were deceptive. It was there in the expression in his eyes, and the haircut. High and tight, her brother called it.
“Back at it,” she said, forcing the words past the sudden tightness in her throat. This was what Anne Morgan hadn't mentioned.
He nodded. “I've been cleared to return to active duty.”
Keep it light, she told herself.
“Bullet hole and all? How did you pull that off?”
There was that half smile again. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in that way she had come to know meant something that vaguely resembled the truth was next.
“Aye, well, I explained that it was just a cat scratch while on leave.”
“Blaming poor Robbie, are you now?” Robbie, Cate's resident cat at the tavern, that was now living with Anne Morgan.
He nodded. “Sneaky beast, that one.”
She laughed in spite of the tightness in her throat. He gestured to the desk, barely visible beneath stacks of print-outs, memos—that whole “less paperwork with computers,” that only seemed to add to paperwork.
“You're back at it as well.”
“There's a lot to do. We're hoping to have Cate's last book out by next Christmas.”
“How's the arm?”
She held her cast aloft. “Two more weeks, and it comes off. Then I just have to remember not to swing at anyone for a while.”
And he would be gone, she saw it in the way he looked over at the windows and the dark sky beyond, icy rain hitting the glass.
“When we left France, there was something I should have told you.” He did look at her then.
As in, 'I'm in a relationship,' or 'that was an incredible night, see you around,’ or some sort of bullshit comment that people said to each other to ease their way out?
She'd heard it all before from her ex. She wasn't into explanations.
“I have a lot of work to do...” she said, not quite meeting that dark gaze. “Maybe a drink later?” Keep it light, no explanations, no expectations.
