Two more Blazers appeared on the opposite side.
Shots were fired.
Stone walls, a tile floor, and a glass ceiling did little to deaden the sound and the bangs pounded into Malone’s ears with the force of an explosion.
One of the Blazers collapsed.
More people raced past him.
The other Blazer disappeared from sight.
Flat Face and Burly vanished.
The museum’s geography flashed through Malone’s brain. “I’m going to double back around. There’s only one other way out of the building. I’ll cut them off there. You stay here.”
“And do what?”
“Try not to get shot.”
He assumed that museum security would close the exits and the police would arrive shortly. All he had to do was occupy the two gunmen long enough for all that to happen.
He raced back toward the main entrance.
SAM HAD LITTLE TIME TO THINK. THINGS WERE HAPPENING fast. He immediately decided that he wasn’t going to sit still—no matter what Malone ordered—so he bolted through the towering, sunlit exhibit room, where the shooting had occurred, to the man in a blue blazer, lying facedown, bleeding, his body limp as a rag.
He knelt down.
Eyes glassed over in a distant stare barely blinked. He’d never before seen someone actually shot. Dead? Yes. Last night. But this man was still alive.
His gaze raked the scene around him as he inventoried more capitals, statues, and sculptures. Plus two exits—one a door, locked with an iron hasp, the other an open archway that led into a windowless space. He spotted a tapestry hanging from that room’s far wall and saw a stairway that led up.
All visitors had fled, the museum unnervingly quiet. He wondered about security personnel, employees, or police. Surely the authorities had been called.
Where was everyone?
He heard footsteps. Running. His way. Back from where he and Malone had entered—where Malone had gone.
He did not want to be detained. He wanted to be a part of what was happening.
“Help’s on the way,” he said to the downed man.
Then he ran into the next room, leaping up the steps to the upper floor.
MALONE RETURNED TO THE GIFT SHOP AND ELBOWED HIS WAY through the crowds that were clamoring to exit through the museum’s entrance.
Excited voices boomed in several languages.
He kept shouldering his way through the throng and fled the gift shop, entering an adjacent chamber that the museum brochure had identified as the location for luggage lockers and a stairway that visitors used to descend from the upper floor. At the top, he should be able to backtrack and intercept Burly and Flat Face as they advanced through the museum.
He bounded up the wooden staircase two steps at a time and entered an empty hall that displayed armor, knives, and swords. A tapestry depicting a hunting scene adorned one of the walls. Locks sealed all of the glass cases. He needed a weapon, so he hoped the museum would understand.
He grabbed hold of a chair that abutted another wall and slammed its metal leg into the case.
Glass shards clattered to the floor.
He tossed the chair aside, reached in, and removed one of the short swords. Its edges had been sharpened, most likely to enhance its display. A card inside the case informed visitors that it was a 16th century weapon. He also removed a hand shield identified as from the 1500s.
Both sword and shield were in excellent condition.
He gripped them, looking like a gladiator ready for the arena.
Better than nothing, he reasoned.
SAM RACED UP THE STAIRS, ONE HAND SLIDING ACROSS A SLICK brass banister. He listened at the landing, then climbed the final flight to the museum’s top floor.
No sound. Not even from below.
He kept his steps light and his right hand firm on the railing. He wondered what he was going to do. He was unarmed and scared to death, but Malone might need help, just like in the bookstore last night.
And field agents helped one another.
He came to the top.
A wide archway opened to his left into a tall room with bloodred walls. Directly ahead of him was an entrance to an exhibit labeled LA DAME à LA LICORNE.
The Lady and the Unicorn.
He stopped and carefully peered around the archway into the red room.
Three shots cracked.
Bullets pinged off stone, inches from his face, stirring up dust, and he reeled back.
Bad idea.
Another shot came his way. Windows to his right, adjacent to the stairway landing, shattered from an impact.
“Hey,” a voice said, nearly in a whisper.
His eyes shot right and he spotted the same woman from before, the one who’d started the mayhem with her scream, standing inside the recessed entrance for the Lady and the Unicorn exhibit. Her short hair was now pushed back from her face, her eyes bright and alert. Her two open palms displayed a gun.
She tossed him the weapon, which he caught.
His left hand clamped the grip, finger on the trigger. He hadn’t fired a weapon since his last visit to the Secret Service shooting range. What, four months ago? But he was glad to have the thing
.
He met her intense gaze and she motioned that he should fire.
He sucked a deep breath, swung the gun around the archway’s edge, and pulled the trigger.
Glass broke somewhere in the red room.
He fired again.
“You could at least try and hit one of them,” she said from her hiding place.
“If you’re so damn good, you do it.”
“Toss it back and I will.”
TWENTY-NINE
LOIRE VALLEY
ELIZA SAT IN THE DRAWING ROOM, CONCERNED BY THE UNEXPECTED complications that had arisen during the past few hours. Thorvaldsen had left for Paris. Tomorrow they’d talk more.
Right now she needed guidance.
She’d ordered a fire and the hearth now burned with a lively blaze, illuminating the motto carved into its mantel by one of her ancestors.
S’IL VIENT À POINT, ME SOUVIENDRA.
If this castle is finished, I will be remembered.
She sat in one of the upholstered armchairs. The display case, which held the four papyri, stood to her right. Only the crackling embers disturbed the silence. She’d been told that it might snow this evening. She loved winter, especially here, in the country, near all that she held dear.
Two days.
Ashby was in England, preparing. Months ago, she’d delegated an array of tasks to him, relying on his supposed expertise. Now she wondered if that trust had been misplaced. A lot depended on what he was doing.
Everything, in fact.
She’d dodged Thorvaldsen’s questions and not allowed him to read the papyri. He hadn’t earned that right. None of the club members had, to this point. That knowledge was sacred to her family, obtained by Pozzo di Borgo himself when his agents stole the documents from shipments scheduled for St. Helena, part of Napoleon’s personal effects sent into exile with him. Napoleon had noticed their omission and officially protested, but any improprieties had been imputed to his British captors.