She took it, surprised at the strength she felt in his grip. Then it felt as if she'd grabbed hold of a branding iron.
The old man took his hand back and the strange sensation ended.
"Are you all right?" Concern touched his blue eyes beneath the thick white eyebrows.
"Yes," Annja replied, annoyed that he would think she wasn't.
"Good." He paused and looked back at the road. "My name is Roux," he said, as if it would explain everything.
Two hours later, Annja sat waiting quietly in the Lozère police station. She was pointedly ignored.
"I think you've disrupted their day," Roux said. "Now there will be paperwork generated, reports to file."
"This is ridiculous," Annja said.
"You're an American." Roux sat in a chair against the wall. He held a deck of cards and shuffled them one-handed. "They aren't particularly fond of Americans. Especially ones that claim to have been shot at."
"There are bullet holes in your vehicle."
Roux frowned and paused midshuffle. "Yes. That is regrettable. I don't get overly attached to vehicles, but I did like that one."
Annja shifted in the hard chair she'd been shown to. "Don't you want to know who was shooting at us?"
The old man grinned. "In my life, I've found that if someone truly wishes to harm you and you survive the attempt, you usually get a chance to get to know them again." He paused and looked at her. "You truly don't know who tried to kill you?"
"No."
"Pity."
"Back at the cave, one of the men mentioned someone named Lesauvage," Annja said.
Roux took a moment to reflect. Then he shook his head. "I don't know anyone named Lesauvage."
Working quickly, he shuffled, cut the deck and dealt out four hands on the chair between them. When he turned the cards over, she saw that he'd dealt out four royal flushes.
"Are you certain you won't play?" he asked.
"After seeing that?" Annja nodded. "I'm certain."
Smiling a little, like a small boy who has performed a good trick, Roux said, "Not even if I promise not to cheat?"
"No."
"You can trust me."
Annja looked at him.
"I believe in the game," Roux said. "Cheating… cheapens the sport."
"Sure."
Roux shrugged. "Let's play a couple hands. I'll put up a thousand dollars against the trinket you found in that cave."
"No."
"We could be here for hours." Roux shuffled the cards hopefully.
"Mademoiselle Creed."
Glancing up, Annja saw a handsome man in a black three-piece suit standing in front of her. His dark hair was combed carefully back and he had a boyish smile.
"I'm Annja Creed," she said.
The man looked around. No one else sat in the waiting room.
"I'd rather gathered that you were." He held out his hand. "I am Inspector Richelieu."
"Like the cardinal," Annja said, taking his hand and standing.
"In name only," the inspector said.
Since Cardinal Richelieu had been responsible for thousands of people being beheaded on the guillotine, Annja realized her faux pas.
"Sorry," she said. "I haven't met anyone with that name before. I meant no insult."
"I assure you, mademoiselle,no insult was taken." Richelieu pointed to the rear of the room. "If you would care to join me, I will take your statement in my office."
Chapter 6
BROTHER GASPAR OF the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain sat at his desk and contemplated his future. It was not a pleasant task. Thankfully, there was not much of it left. Surely no more than three or four more thousand mornings and as many evenings.
He wore a black robe against the chill that filled the room. The years had drawn him lean and spare. Beneath his cowl, his head was shaved and his skin was sallow from seldom seeing the light of day. He got out at night. All of his order did, but they couldn't be seen during the day because it raised too many questions among the townsfolk.
As leader of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain, he did not truly have a future. His mission was to protect and unlock the past. If he succeeded in the first, no one would ever know the monstrous predations his order had allowed to take place three hundred years ago.
But if he succeeded in the second and unlocked the past, made everything right again, his whole life would change. He looked forward to that possibility.
Even at sixty-eight years old, he believed he had a few good years left. It wasn't that he looked forward to getting out into the world. He had renounced all of that when he took his vows. But he had read all the books and manuscripts in his small post.
He longed for the true manuscripts, the ones he had seen as a child in Rome, where he'd been trained in the secrets he had to keep. The documents that told of secret histories and covered holders of power who weren't known to the general masses.
He sighed and his gentle breath nearly extinguished the guttering candles that illuminated the stone cave. The monastery, hidden from sight, was located deep inside the Cévennes Mountains. It wasn't a true edifice built by the hand of men in service to the church. Rather, it was an aberration within the earth that earlier monks had discovered and elaborated on.
On good days, Brother Gaspar thought of the monastery as a gift from God, made expressly for his order. On bad days, he thought of it as a prison.
He sat at his desk and wrote his weekly letter to Bishop Taglio, who guided his moves and provided counsel when needed. Although written with handmade ink, in elegant calligraphy, on paper made by the order, the letter was merely perfunctory. It was merely a chore that occupied his head and his hands for a short time.
After thirty-seven years, since he had taken on the mantle of the leader of the order, Brother Gaspar had begun to have difficulty finding ways to express the situation. Everything is fine and going according to plan. We are still searching for that which was lost.
He kept the references deliberately vague. Enemies didn't quite abound these days as they had three hundred years ago, but they were still out there.
In fact, even a few treasure hunters had joined the pack. Corvin Lesauvage had snooped around for years. Over the past few the man had become extremely aggressive in his search. He had killed two monks who had fallen into his hands, torturing them needlessly because they didn't know anything to assuage his curiosity.
Only Brother Gaspar knew that, and he shuddered to think about falling into Lesauvage's hands. Of course, he would not. He would die before that happened.
His fellow monks had orders to kill him the instant he fell into someone else's custody. Since he never went anywhere alone, and seldom ventured outside the monastery walls, he didn't think he would ever be at risk.
Only the imminent disclosure of the secrets he protected would bring him forth. God willing, he would find the truth of those secrets himself. But, as they had remained hidden for three hundred years, there was little chance of that.
"Master."
Startled, Brother Gaspar looked up from his broad table and the letter he had been writing. "Yes. Come forward that I may see you."
Brother Napier stepped from the shadows. He wore hiking clothes, tattoos and piercings, and looked like any young man who prowled the Parisian streets.
"Yes, Brother Napier," Brother Gaspar inquired.