"Monsieur le Comte, we are here," said the leader of the second squad. All of them had every right to feel secure. This old mansion on Rue St. Jean was a gigantic electronic trap put together with the brilliance that had made the SDEC the only real counterweight in all of Europe to the Russians.
How many agents had died in the streets of Paris looking to eliminate the director? How many times had the SDEC stymied the triumphant legions of the KGB? If any enemy did find this house, he would only find his death.
"The returns from your gift, director," said the leader of the squad. Already rumors throughout Paris had told of the millions paid for the coins, even before the envelope had made its way through the city streets.
The leader and the squad waited for their commander to open the sealed letter. As a treat for his "boys," as he liked to call the most dangerous men in France, de Lyon opened the letter to show the size of the check.
It was a fortune, but such was the inner calm of this French aristocrat that he had to force a happy surprise. He did not care. If it weren't for minor inconveniences, he would not have minded being penniless.
Valery, Comte de Lyon, was one of those rare persons to walk upon the face of the earth who was always successful.
He had overthrown governments, performed eliminations around the world for France, and whenever it was in the interest of France, Valery de Lyon stopped the Russians every time.
It was not, of course, in the interest of France to see Russia stopped all the time. That was America's problem. The SDEC was inordinately successful and de Lyon was happy for that same reason. Alone in this world, de Lyon loved his work. He knew many of the KGB by name, not because it was his job but because, like boys would admire soccer stars, de Lyon admired the perfect coup, the successful assassination, the theft of state documents done in such a way that the other country did not even know they were missing.
Every time de Lyon sent France up against another power, he imbued his men with respect for the enemy's deeds. He followed details of secret missions in a way a father might inquire about his son's first job. He did not take work home, because it was not work. Parties were work. His stables on the estate in the southern province were work. His wife was work. Even an occasional affair was work.
Fun was observing hand-to-hand fighting by his selected operatives in the sand pits outside of Marseilles, where any blood spilled would be soaked up instantly.
Fun was watching a good Danish counterintelligence operation wither in Eastern Europe because it lacked support. The joy was picking the month it would founder.
De Lyon came by this love of his work not by some quirk but by blood. His ancestors had been the most ferocious of Frankish knights, the first royalty to side with Napoleon. They had been warriors not by greed of, conquest, but by love of the fight.
Thus did de Lyon that dark night have to pretend joy before his men at the fortune coming his way. To this trim, arrogant noble, all the fortune meant was that he wouldn't have to worry about money for his lifetime, which was something he wouldn't worry about anyhow. But the men always liked the show.
"Twenty-two million American dollars. Hah, it will pay for a liter of wine or two, or a woman or two. Or if it is the right woman, one woman on a shopping spree for an afternoon."
The men laughed. De Lyon was about to order drinks for them to salute their good fortune, a ten-minute act of grace before he could get back to an interesting African situation on his desk. Then he saw it.
At first he was not sure he saw anything. It was a darkness in the hallway, moving beyond the open door. Since he did not hear it, he assumed it was a fleeting aberration of his eye. Certainly nothing could move in this house without his own men knowing and reporting it.
But the wine did not come. He sent one of his men out to hurry along the steward. The man did not return. De Lyon checked his buzzer system. It worked, but no one answered it.
"Come, there is something strange going on," said de Lyon. The two operatives unholstered their machine pistols. They made a sandwich of their commander as they left the room, looking for any possible trouble.
It was in a hallway that de Lyon finally saw the darkness. The darkness was a robe, and the count's men fell like pitiful stalks of wheat to movements he could not even see. He only knew they had to have happened when the heads rolled on the hallway floor.
"You," said the apparition in a French so ancient that de Lyon had to translate from the older Latin. "Where is my treasure?"
De Lyon noticed the trunk of a nearby body twitch as the heart pumped out the last blood from the open neck. The head looked dumbly at the ceiling farther down the hall.
The apparition had the face of an Oriental. Its voice was high-pitched.
"I have stolen nothing," said de Lyon. Where were the guards? Where were the safety devices?
If he had not smelled his own fear on his breath, he would have thought he was dreaming. But could a person hear a language he did not understand in a dream?
"Franks steal everything. Where is the treasure?"
"I cannot help you," said de Lyon. He noticed that the strokes this man had delivered were apparently so fast that the nerves in the dead man's hands, still on the machine pistol, had not been activated. A useless hand on a useless body on a useless gun. He stole a short look behind him. The trailing man had also been taken care of. Head gone.
De Lyon sensed that if he could reach that gun, he could put many bullets into the darkness before him. His sense of the fight was overcoming his initial fear. A de Lyon had been confronted. And de Lyons never lost.
He would have to get the gun in such a way as not to look as though he was attacking. There was a small derringer tucked inside his evening robe, but he chose to ignore that. He would use it for another purpose.
"One should not steal like a tawdry thief, Frank," said the man. De Lyon saw the face was old.
"How did you get in here?"
"A thief's home is always a hovel. You may tell me where the treasure is now."
"I would love to," said de Lyon. "May I give you my personal gun as a sign of surrender? It is quite valuable and a treasure itself."
"You have sold my coins. Where is the rest of my treasure?" said Chiun. He would use this man to carry it back to his village. The House of Sinanju had not taken slaves for over three thousand years, but this Frank would be enslaved before being given over to someone else for the lowly task of execution. The House of Sinanju were assassins, not executioners.
"Ah, the rest. Of course. Please take this," said de Lyon. He handed over his derringer with one hand as he seemed to bow toward the darkness which now was clearly an old man in a black kimono. He would shoot off the stranger's knees, and then begin his own questioning.
The old man, for all his awesome talents, made a foolish move. He took the gun, exposing his midsection and allowing de Lyon to get the machine pistol with the other hand. In a motion so smooth as to be the envy of swordsmen from generations past, de Lyon put the machine pistol to the kimono and began firing.
It was a silent firing. The gun was broken. He started to throw it to the floor, but the machine pistol would not throw. De Lyon had lost control of his hand. It was his hand, not the pistol, that was broken.
And then the pain began, a pain that knew his body better than he did. Pain that came when he lied, and left when he told the truth, and then pain that would not stop even when he told the truth.
"The coins were a gift. A gift. I do not know where they came from. Yes, millions of dollars' worth and yet a gift. We did not find out who sent them."