Her dark eyes displayed a peculiar mixture of curiosity and caution. She was clearly uneasy, and trying hard to conceal it. His detectives had informed him of her jet’s arrival. They’d then tracked her from Orly Airport until sure of her destination. So while Malone and Sam trawled for information in Paris, he’d headed south to do some fishing of his own.
“I have to say, Herre Thorvaldsen,” she said, keeping to English, “I agreed to see you out of curiosity. I flew from New York last night, so I’m a bit fatigued and not up to visitors.”
He watched her face, a pleasant composition of graceful curves, noticing the corners of her mouth as they angled into another smile of an accomplished manipulator.
“Is this your family’s country estate?” he asked, trying to keep her off guard, and he caught a momentary flush of annoyance.
She nodded. “Built in the 16th century. Modeled after Chenonceau, which stands not far from here. Another idyllic wonder.”
He admired a dark oak mantelpiece across the room. Unlike other French homes he’d visited, which were bare and suggestive of tombs, this house was clearly no sepulcher.
“You realize, Madame Larocque, that my financial resources are substantially greater than yours. Perhaps by as much as ten billion euros.”
He studied her high cheekbones, serious eyes, and firm mouth. He thought the stark contrast between her creamy patina and her ebony hair intentional. Given her age, he doubted if the hair color was natural. She was, without question, an attractive woman. Confident and smart, too. Accustomed to having her way—unaccustomed to bluntness.
“And how would the fact of your obvious wealth interest me?”
He allowed a measured pause to break the natural flow between them, then said, “You’ve insulted me.”
Puzzlement crept into her eyes. “How is that possible? We just met.”
“I control one of the largest and most successful corporations in Europe. My ancillary businesses, which include oil and gas, telecommunications, and manufacturing, stretch globally. I employ more than eighty thousand people. My annual revenues far exceed those of all your entities combined. Yet you insult me.”
“Herre Thorvaldsen, you must explain yourself.”
She was off guard. But that was the beauty of blind attacks. The advantage always lay with the attacker. True in Mexico City two years ago—equally true here today.
“I want to be a part of what you’re planning,” he declared.
“And what is that?”
“Though I wasn’t on your jet last evening, I can only surmise Robert Mastroianni—a friend of mine, by the way—has been extended an invitation. Yet I am to be shunned.”
She kept her face as stone cold as a grave marker. “An invitation to what?”
“The Paris Club.”
He decided to not allow her the luxury of a response. “You have a fascinating ancestry. Directly descended from Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, who was born near Ajaccio, Corsica, on March 8, 1764. He became the implacable foe of Napoleon Bonaparte. With marvelous skill, he manipulated international politics to the eventual undoing of his lifelong enemy. A classic Corsican vendetta. His weapons not guns or bombs, but the intrigues of diplomacy. Its coup de grâce, the destiny of nations.”
He paused while her mind chewed on his facts.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I’m not an enemy. Quite the contrary. I admire what you are doing, and want to be a part.”
“Assuming for a moment that what you say is even partly true, why would I entertain such a request?”
Her voice was warm and lazy, signaling not the slightest hint of alarm. So he allowed his face to take on an equal look of shrewdness. “The answer to that is quite simple.”
She was listening.
“You have a security leak.”
TWENTY-ONE
PARIS
MALONE FOLLOWED SAM BACK DOWNSTAIRS, WHERE THEY LOCATED a row of cluttered shelves marked BUSINESS.
“Foddrell and I email each other a lot,” Sam said. “He’s big against the Federal Reserve system. Calls it a giant conspiracy that will be the downfall of America. Some of what he says makes sense, but most of his views are really out there.”
He smiled. “Good to see you have limits.”
“Contrary to what you think, I’m not a fanatic. I just think that there are people out there who can manipulate our financial systems. Not to take over the planet or destroy the world. Just for greed. An easy way to get, or stay, rich. What they do can affect national economies in a lot of ways, none of which are good.”
He didn’t disagree, but there was still the matter of proof. Before they’d left Christiangade he’d perused both Sam’s and Jimmy Foddrell’s websites. Not all that dissimilar, except, as Sam noted, Foddrell’s predicted global gloom and doom in a more radical tone.
He grabbed Sam by the shoulder. “What exactly are we looking for?”
“That note upstairs is talking about a book, written by a certified financial planner, who’s also into the same kind of things Foddrell and I talk about. A few months ago, I found a copy and read it.”
He released his grip and watched as Sam scanned the crowded shelves.
Malone’s trained eye also assessed the books. He saw that they were a hodgepodge of titles, most of which he would have never bought from people who lugged them into his shop by the crateful. He assumed that since they were for sale in Paris, on the Left Bank, a few hundred yards from the Seine and Notre Dame, their value elevated.
“Here it is.”
Sam removed an oversized gold-colored paperback, titled The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve.
“Foddrell had to leave this here,” Sam said. “There’s no way there just happened to be a copy. It’s pretty obscure.”
People continued to browse. More wandered in from the cold. Malone casually searched for Skinny, but didn’t see him. He was reasonably sure what was happening, but decided patience was the call of this day.
He relieved Sam of the book and thumbed through the pages until he spotted a slip of paper pressed inside.
Back to the mirror.
He shook his head.
They returned to the upper floor and saw written on the same pink note that had led them downstairs:
Café d’Argent, 34 Rue Dante
Thirty minutes
Malone stepped back across the upper floor to the casement window. The plane trees below stood lifeless, limbs bare as brooms, their spindly shadows already lengthening in the midafternoon sun. Three years ago he and Gary had visited the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. Gary had wanted to learn about what his father did for a living, and the museum turned out to be fascinating. They’d enjoyed the exhibits and he’d bought Gary a book, Handbook of Practical Spying, a lighthearted look at spy craft. One of the chapters, titled “Keeping Caution from the Wind,” explained how contacts could be safely approached.
So he waited, knowing what was coming.
Sam stepped close.
He heard the door below open, then close, and he spotted Skinny leaving the shop holding what appeared, in color and shape, to be the Jekyll Island book from downstairs.
“It’s an old ploy that nobody ever uses,” he said. “A way to check out who wants to meet you. Your friend has been watching too many spy movies.”
“He was here?”
He nodded. “He seemed interested in us when we were out front, then came inside and, I assume, hid behind the shelves downstairs while we found the book. Since you sent him your picture, he knew who to look for. Once satisfied that I looked okay, he came back up here before we did, and went back down a minute ago.”
“You think that’s Foddrell?” Sam asked, pointing.
“Who else could it be?”
ELIZA CAME ALERT. NOT ONLY DID HENRIK THORVALDSEN KNOW her business, he apparently knew something she didn’t. “A security leak?”
“One of the individuals, part of your Paris Club,
is not what he appears to be.”
“I haven’t said that any club exists.”
“Then you and I have nothing more to talk about.”
Thorvaldsen rose.
“I’ve enjoyed my visit to your estate. If you ever come to Denmark, I would be pleased to host you at my home, Christiangade. I’ll leave you now so you may rest from your trip.”