“Who gave you the fire starter?” He ratcheted the man’s wrist tighter. It was pointless. The stupid lump was incoherent with fear and frenzy. He didn’t feel anything. “You didn’t think of this yourself.”
“Napoleon must die. No peace till he dies.” He was fighting, trying to get up, sputtering, “Have to try again. I’ll get him next time.”
Pax had his head to the side, listening. “They’re coming. A lot of them.”
The man was spewing English loud enough to tell the world they were up here. “He killed my boy. Killed my Roger. Roger Cameron, Lieutenant of The Valorous. My boy died at the Battle of Aboukir. He killed my boy.”
A man willing to murder a hundred innocents because his son died in a naval battle. He’d do this again. The next bomb might go off in the middle of the Comédie-Française.
Shouts from below and the tromp that meant soldiers. They were about to deal with the French authorities.
“Napoleon must die.” Spittle and gasps from the Englishman. “Only way to save England. The army’s behind me. Important men. Highest levels. They know what he is.”
“Give me the names.” But this man didn’t know anything. He was a tool in somebody’s hands. He hadn’t been sent here to kill Napoleon. He’d been sent here to be captured and talk.
“I’m doing this is for England. For England.”
Casus belli. This blind idiot, this bull-headed, stupid animal would be the cause of war.
Soldiers shouted back and forth in the marble halls downstairs. No getting the Englishman away where they could question him. Only one choice.
“Get back.” He wouldn’t make Pax part of this. He’d keep the load on his own conscience.
It didn’t take strength. It took knowing how to balance the weight. It took being used to the work of killing. It took being the Hawker.
The Englishman rolled over the banister with chilling grace. The man let out one yelp on the way down. He had a second to be scared. Probably less.
The body sprawled faceup at the bottom. It had a cleanly broken neck, among other things. A fast and clean way out of life. Better than dying in a fire.
Better than what the French would do to him and Pax, if they caught them. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They took off with the soldiers pounding up the stairs after them.
Thirty-eight
THE GALLERIES OF THE LOUVRE WERE ALMOST DESERTED. Pax didn’t see anyone as he strolled past a fine collection of art looted from Italy. More of Napoleon’s contribution to the history of plunder. The statue of Laocoön wrestling a snake took most of the end of the hall. A reminder he wasn’t the only one with problems.
He and Hawk had been spotted killing the Englishman. The soldiers had their description. Time to run.
“Paxton.”
Carruthers. She wore crow black, all the respectable widow. At her side, Althea was in a neat dress and heavy fichu that said “comfortable, old-fashioned maidservant.” God help the man who thought that’s what they were.
“The Englishman is dead,” he said, skipping the preliminaries.
“We heard.” Carruthers was disapproving. “A regrettable accident to mar the general rejoicing for the First Consul’s escape from the fire. Did you learn anything before killing him?”
“We didn’t have much time.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“You, my dear boy, are sought as one of the radical Jacobins who set the fire.” Althea smiled. She’d filled a handkerchief with gray ash from the fire. “You were seen and described. Your hair is most impressively memorable.” She moved behind a plinth which carried a Roman copy of a fifth-century bust of Pericles. “Lean down, please. That’s right.”
He took his hat off and let her dust gray into his hair.
“Not wholly convincing at close quarters.” She brushed at his face with the back of her fingers. “It will do from a distance. There. Turn around. I’ll tie your hair back.”
Carruthers stood, concealing them. “At least his death will placate the French. They’ll know we tidied him up. Adrian?”
“Took off the other way. I don’t know where he is.” Althea had picked up an art pencil from one of the easels standing around. He couldn’t speak while she drew lines on his face.
“Enough.” Carruthers looked him over. “Let us dodder harmlessly away.”
The Head of Section for Paris at his side, a senior agent of the British Service trailing behind, he hobbled down the long gallery. In the jubilation at Napoleon’s narrow escape, no one paid attention to an old man, overcome by excitement.
The guards at the door argued over whether a dead Englishman had been shot or tossed out a window and didn’t even glance up as he shuffled down the stairs.
Down the Rue de Rivoli, left, two streets over, and one up. They entered the alley behind a boulangerie. It was stacked with old barrels, smelling of flour and yeast, hot from the bakery ovens. This led to a storage room that was one of the safe houses of the British Service.
Carruthers said, “I’ll send the fiacre for you at dusk. You will grace England with your presence for a while.”
He put out a hand. “Wait.” And he told her he was a Caché.
Thirty-nine
JUSTINE FOLLOWED LEBLANC INTO THE CROWD, keeping an eye out for any dark, slim man decorated with ashes. She saw no one of interest, neither Hawker nor his friend with the so-obvious hair. The fire in the Pavillon de Marsan had dusted everyone with bits of black. If Hawker had stupidly remained to hide among the crowd, he would blend in.
“He was seen,” Leblanc pointed, “headed that way. We go to the main building.”
Two guards followed them, armed. “Yes, monsieur.”
It was dim inside, after the bright sun of the courtyard, even with the long windows that reached to the ceiling. They passed no one. All the world was in the courtyard, cheering the arrival of the pumping engine. The galleries of the Louvre led one into another, endless canyons of paintings, studded with statues. It was as good an escape as most, and Hawker would not linger to admire the artwork. He was gone from here. Long gone.
Leblanc muttered to himself, “I saw him at the presentation. Just before the fire. I’ll know him when I see him again.”
With luck, Leblanc would not see him again.
While Hawker had killed his Englishman, two men from the Department of Antiquities came out to the stairs and looked. Leblanc had questioned them closely. They wore flamboyant cravats and chattered and were as shocked and pleased as if they had done the deed themselves. They were, unfortunately, observant and exact witnesses. They were also artists. Leblanc would soon have pencil sketches of Hawker and Paxton.
Leblanc said, “He set the fire and escaped from the room.”
She shook her head. “I do not think so. He was trapped with the rest of us.”
“You are wrong. It is the work of a great operative to see these things, Justine. You would do well to take your lessons from me.” Leblanc limped mightily from some small injury acquired in the panic of the fire. She hoped it hurt. “The English fight among themselves. One spy has disposed of his accomplice and fled. That is the cause of this murder.”
“Or it is Jacobins,” she said. “In any case, they are not here.”
It was eerie to be in the great vaulted halls, alone. She could have stolen the artwork of centuries at this moment and walked out with it under her cloak. She did not mention this. The guards, following, were unlikely to recognize the theoretical nature of this observation. Leblanc would probably steal something, if it were once suggested to him that he could.
Leblanc said, “You. Search that way. You. Down there.” And the guards went to obey. She hoped they would not shoot someone entirely innocent. She also hoped they would not shoot Hawker.
In a gallery at the end of this corridor was a small picture by Vouet that had hung in her bedroom when she was a child and the Mademoiselle de Cabrillac, an aristocrat. The Republic confiscated it when the chateau was sacked. She was not certain whether she would steal it back or not. How strange to almost be given the chance.