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Sean motioned with his hand that the others follow as he led the way across the cobblestone square to the ticket office, embedded in another arched entryway.

“Where are you going?” Dufort asked calmly, a few steps behind Sean.

“We have to buy a ticket,” Sean said over his shoulder in a tone that suggested the answer was obvious. “And don’t expect me to pay for yours.”

Dufort stepped in front of the group when they reached the doorway to the ticket office. He went in first, cutting Sean out of the way and produced a pocketful of Danish currency. He purchased the tickets without thanking the kind-looking, round-faced woman at the desk, and returned in less than two minutes with a fistful of tour passes.

The castle’s entrance was behind where Adriana was standing at the rear of the group. The two men guarding her kept a close eye on her every move. If they’d been privy to her reputation, their watch would have been even closer. Her narrow eyes were always searching for a moment, the briefest of openings that could allow her to make a move. So far, there’d been none.

Dufort walked by the group and stopped at the entrance. He handed the woman in the doorway all of the tickets and explained they were for everyone. She smiled and returned the stubs to him, then he motioned for the others to follow.

Sean wished he could pass along a message to the woman that they were being held at gunpoint, but it was too risky. Dufort was the kind of man that, if put into a corner, would kill everyone. Sean had dealt with men like that before. Evil people, when made desperate, would take as many with them as possible.

Once the group was inside the foyer, Dufort turned to Sean and asked, “Where should we go first, Monsieur Wyatt? The clock is ticking.” He tapped the Bulgari watch on his wrist.

Sean had known the man would leave it up to him, so he’d already prepared his answer. “Let’s start at the basement. The lower sections of the castle were closest in their construction to the time when Holger and his captain would have lived. Maybe there’s something down there.”

“Lead the way.” Dufort put out his hand toward the staircase behind him that led down into the bowels of the castle.

Sean didn’t wait for him to ask twice. He stepped confidently into the stairwell and began his descent.

* * *

Tommy crossed a barricade that was nothing more than a loose chain hanging from a series of iron pylons. It was put there as a means to keep vehicles from driving on the grassy field, rather than to prevent people from walking around on it.

The first big droplets of rain began pattering on his coat. At first, only a few fell, but as he waded through the tall grass, the pace of the raindrops increased, and soon he was in a full-on downpour. Fortunately, his coat was waterproof, and the droplets rolled off the fabric and onto the ground. His pants, however, were not. In just a few minutes, the bottom half was completely soaked, as were his socks and shoes.

Tommy pressed on, heading for the first hill he’d seen on the map. The closer he got to it, though, the more he realized it was likely a dead end. The smooth sides of the huge hump presented no points of entry. The hill was probably sixty feet from one end to the other, and maybe fifteen feet high at its crest. If something were hidden inside, the entrance had been covered long ago. It reminded him of one of the burial mounds he’d seen before, and of the mysterious Native American mounds in Georgia and Illinois. This, though, seemed to be a natural occurrence.

He spent fifteen minutes plodding around in the rain-soaked grass, examining every foot of the hill’s surface, but found nothing of note. Off to the right of his current position, he looked at the other rise, surrounded by a patchwork of trees and rocks.

The wind whipped across the field, and lightning struck the water in the sound, followed immediately by a crackle and a boom. Tommy shook his head and started for the second hill. He needed to get out of the hazardous weather conditions. Visions of being struck by lightning danced through his head, but he pushed them away and took off at a jog as the wind continued to drive the rain at him.

Chapter 37

Paris

Through a pair of binoculars, Emily stared out from the passenger-side window at the concrete block warehouse below. They’d parked their van next to the sidewalk near the gated entrance to the facilities.

Two armed guards stood on either side of a corrugated aluminum sliding door, both carrying submachine guns slung over their shoulders. The men stared blankly ahead, occasionally turning when they heard something out of the ordinary, but for the most part just standing at a slack form of attention.

Another guard paced around the front of the massive facility. He was more aware of the weapon he carried, keeping it hidden away in the left flap of his overcoat.

“That’s the most heavily guarded cleaning facility I’ve ever seen,” the blond guy said from the driver’s side.

“Yeah,” Emily agreed.

“This is the kind of operation that would probably be a lot easier at night,” the redhead said from the back. “You sure we can’t wait for the cover of darkness and go in then?”

“Would you want us to wait if you were one of the girls inside?” Emily asked, keeping her eyes straight ahead. “We go in now.”

The girl said nothing, signaling that Emily’s point was well taken.

“What’s the plan?” the driver asked.

Emily drew in a slow, deep breath and glanced over at the gate. She pointed at it with one finger. “They have cameras here in the front. It would be reasonable to assume they have them in several places, which means we go in with masks. But it also means we can’t go in through the front. If we do, it will likely raise an alarm.”

“So we go in the back? Circle around?” the dark-haired man in the back asked.

Emily shook her head. “No. I’d wager there are more guards and cameras in the back too. They’d be ready for that.”

She spied some large shipping containers just beyond the fence that wrapped around the warehouse facilities. An idea began to form in her head.

“Have you ever been in a car accident?” she asked the driver with a raised eyebrow.

He wasn’t sure how to respond or where the question was going to lead. “Sure, a few times.”

“Maybe today would be a good time to have another one.”

His eyes grew wide at the comment, but he didn’t say a word.

Emily laid out the plan to the four agents and explained how it would work. Her team listened intently until she had finished.

“Make sense?” she asked.

Every head nodded except the driver’s.

Emily peered into his eyes. “You don’t have to hurt yourself. Don’t go in there at fifty miles an hour. Just a nice, slow crash will be fine. All we need is for you to get their attention.”

“What do you want me to do when they send their guards up here?”

“What you’re trained to do. Take them out.” The words carried no remorse and no ambivalence.

“The rest of you will come with me. We’ll have to hurry. Our opening won’t last long. We go in between those containers, take out the perimeter guards, and enter the building. Once we’re in there, we’ll have to search quickly. I’m sure Dufort has more people guarding other areas on the property. Once the alarm sounds, it’s only a matter of a minute or two before they rally to the main building.”

The driver nodded. “Okay, let’s do it. I’ll come in behind you once I take out whoever they send to the gate.”

Three minutes later, Emily, the two female agents and the dark-haired male agent she called Number 6, crouched next to the chain-link fence surrounding the warehouse. They were careful to use some of the metal shipping containers to remain hidden from the guards’ view as they waited for the driver to do his thing.