Hunt Through Napoleon's Web (3 page)

The two-bedroom suite was a little piece of paradise for Gabriel. Like most New York apartments, the place wasn’t large, but it was everything he needed. The master bedroom had a four-poster and a dresser, though barely enough room to walk between the two. The guest bedroom was more of a catchall; it contained a lot of his “stuff,” such as traveling gear and clothing. The living room was comfortably compact, dominated by a tiger
skin rug (Gabriel had reluctantly been forced to shoot the animal when it had tried to eat him in India). The space had a lone couch, a desk, a few shelves of books. No computer, no television. Gabriel’s prized piece of furniture was an antique Baldwin upright grand piano, manufactured in 1924 and as near to mint condition as one could get after nearly ninety years. He took better care of it than he did his own body—his sore arms attested to that.

Michael had arranged things so Gabriel could take the Foundation’s private jet the following day. It beat having to deal with commercial airlines, and it also meant Gabriel could bring his Colt .45 pistol in his carry-on without anyone batting an eye. He hated being out of the country without it—so whenever possible he took the jet.

Michael had been delighted to put it at his disposal, but had been surprised when he’d insisted on flying into Nice, France, rather than directly to Cairo. “Why there, Gabriel? I’d understand if you wanted to stop in Paris, talk to the people at the Louvre, but—”

“There’s an Egyptologist I know,” Gabriel had said vaguely, “in Nice.”

“Really?” Michael had said. “Who? Bourgogne? But no, he hasn’t been at Antipolis since ’08 . . .”

“It’s no one you know,” Gabriel had said.

“An Egyptologist I don’t know?”

“Yes, hard to believe, isn’t it,” Gabriel had said, and changed the topic as quickly as he could.

There was no Egyptologist in Nice that Michael Hunt didn’t know. Nor was there one Gabriel was going to meet. What there was in Nice was the last address Gabriel knew of for his sister. She’d been under house arrest for a time in Arezzo, Italy, and then somehow the charges
wound up being dropped, or anyway that’s what she’d claimed in her e-mail. The hasty change of countries was typical, and for all he knew she’d since abandoned the apartment in Nice. But since Nice was the last place he’d known her to be, Nice was the first place he had to go.

Gabriel showered, toweled off, and studied himself in the bathroom mirror. His slightly curly, midnight black hair was in need of a cut, but that could wait. The various scars and bruises on his well-toned torso told many tales. He even remembered some of them.

Barefoot and bare-chested, Gabriel went to his kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Remy Martin, and poured himself a shot. He then sat on the piano bench and let his fingers roam absently over the keys. After a moment a melody emerged—“In the Still of the Night,” one of his favorites. But somehow tonight it didn’t fit his mood.

A framed photograph of the three Hunt children sat atop the piano. Gabriel had just turned sixteen when it was taken. That would make Michael ten and Lucy only four years old. She’d been an adorable little girl. Somewhere between four and fourteen, the adorable had faded and all sorts of simmering hostility had taken its place—but somehow never directed at Gabriel. Their parents, Michael, her classmates, her teachers . . . they’d all come in for their share of Lucy’s particular brand of resentment. But Gabriel had always been spared. Maybe, he thought, it’s because I wasn’t around much.

By the time she’d run away—run away for good, Gabriel corrected himself; there’d been briefer disappearances before—she’d become quite the rebel, outspoken and independent and always looking for something to tear down. If she’d grown up in the sixties, he imagined Lucy would have found her way to Haight-Ashbury or onto Kesey’s bus; in the seventies, she’d have been into
punk rock. In fact, she
was
into punk rock, or at least the trappings that went with it. She had so many tattoos and piercings now that Gabriel had stopped counting them the last time he’d seen her.

He had to save her
.

It was that simple. They’d taken her because of him, and now he had to find a way to get her back.

The first step toward which was to find her, period.

Which was not so simple.

Thinking about Lucy in Nice—or was she now in North Africa?—put him in mind of
Casablanca
and he found himself picking out the melody line of the
Marseillaise
.

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

Speaking of rebels.

Come, sons of France: the day of glory has arrived!
Followed by:
To arms, citizens! March!
Music to shed blood by.

They all were, anthems. Bombs bursting in air, and all that. Gabriel knew that at one point Napoleon Bonaparte, when he was emperor of France, had banned the
Marseillaise
—but what had he replaced it with? A cheery tune called
Le Chant du Départ
. Gabriel picked it out on the keys and sang softly to himself.

La trompette guerrière
A sonné l’heure des combats
. . .

The war trumpet has sounded the hour of battle.

Gabriel pulled the cover shut over the piano keys, downed his drink, and stood up.

Those bastards who took Lucy probably had an anthem of their own, some Egyptian version of the same bloody sentiments. War trumpets, battles, marching, marching.

Well.

They’d be singing a different tune soon.

Though he wasn’t much for Paris, Gabriel was fond of the south of France and Nice was his favorite city in the country. Even under the present circumstances the sight of the countryside coming into view through the plane’s windows brought a smile to his face.

Charlie dropped him off at Aéroport Nice Côte d’Azur and then flew the custom-built Bombardier Challenger CL-X to a hangar where it, and he, would stay until Gabriel needed them again. A man in his fifties, Charlie had been with the Foundation for years. Never said much; Gabriel had given up trying to engage the pilot in conversation long ago. But the man did his job well and took care of the plane as if it were his own, and what else did you need? Better to be in silent, safe hands than talkative, careless ones.

Gabriel made his way into the hilly, picturesque seaside town on his own. It didn’t surprise him that Lucy had taken an apartment near the port; as she’d once told him, she found flat horizons comforting. On a quiet evening like this, the sight of the Mediterranean receding into the distance would’ve given her all the comfort she wanted.

The sun was setting as Gabriel located Lucy’s building in the section known as Vieux Nice, which consisted of
narrow, winding streets and old-town structures. The building was a crumbling, brick affair on a dimly lit lane near the water and the farmers’ market. It figured that Lucy would be living in a ramshackle place like this. She’d never had a taste for luxury. It was one of the things she’d spent her life rebelling against.

After checking to make sure there was no one around, Gabriel selected the thickest of a set of lock picks and used it to turn the heavy tumblers of the ground floor door lock. He replaced the pick inside the flat, leather money belt he wore beneath his shirt and let himself in. A set of creaking wooden stairs took him two flights up to the top floor. Number 303 was the door nearest the staircase. Gabriel reached for his picks again—but then he saw that the door was slightly ajar, the lock broken.

Moving slowly, he silently pushed the door open. The place was dark, heavy drapes drawn across the windows.

Except for one tiny spot of light moving on the other side of the room.

Gabriel felt along the wall beside the door and, when he found it, flicked the light switch.

A bare bulb went on overhead.

The first thing Gabriel noticed was that the apartment had been ransacked. Sofa cushions sporting deep slashes lay on the floor beside a pair of wooden desk drawers. Papers and debris littered the place.

The second thing he noticed was that the ransacking was still in progress. A woman with a penlight was standing by the desk, bent over its one remaining drawer. She looked up.

Gabriel shouted, “Hey!”

The woman quickly jumped away from the desk and darted through a doorway into the next room over.
Gabriel leaped over the cushions in pursuit. The door to the other room slammed shut. Gabriel grabbed the knob—but as he did he heard the lock turn on the other side. He banged on the door with the side of his fist.

“Hey, open up! Who are you?” He repeated the question in French, adding, “I won’t hurt you!”

Silence.

Well
, he thought,
would you believe it if you were her?

Raising one leg, he brought the heel of his boot down on the metal knob. It took two blows before the knob smashed and the door swung open.

The bedroom beyond was empty.

Gabriel went straight for the adjoining bathroom. No one in there. He pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing. He returned to the bedroom and opened the clothes closet. Just clothing. He swept his hands through the outfits hanging from the rod. There was no one hiding between or behind them. He dropped to his knees and looked under the bed. Just dust. He then went to the room’s only window and opened the Venetian blinds. It was shut. There was a fire escape outside, but the window was locked from the inside. Unless she could move through solid walls, the woman couldn’t have gone that way.

What the hell . . . ? Where did she go?

Gabriel went back to the other room. She wasn’t there either. He skirted the mess on the floor and went into the small kitchen that was off to one side. He opened a cupboard and several pots and pans fell out.

He went back to the front door and looked out into the hall.

There
had
been a woman in the apartment, right?

He closed the door and surveyed the flat. There wasn’t
any other place she could have gone. A living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. A coat closet by the door was open slightly. Gabriel yanked the doors the rest of the way and looked inside. She wasn’t in there either.

Bizarre
.

He recalled the brief glimpse he’d gotten of the woman. She was young—probably around Lucy’s age, but it certainly wasn’t Lucy. Midtwenties, reddish hair down to her shoulders. About five-foot-seven. Wearing a black blouse and dark pants.

And very attractive. Nice figure, big blue eyes. Pouty mouth. It didn’t take more than a glimpse for those sorts of things to register with Gabriel.

Lucy, meanwhile, stood maybe five-two in heels (not that she ever wore heels), and if her weight had ever tipped over into the triple digits he’d have been amazed.

Who was this woman? What was she doing searching through Lucy’s things?

And how the hell had she gotten out of the apartment?

Just to make sure, Gabriel went through every room one more time. She wasn’t there. The woman had vanished into thin air.

He took stock of the situation. The place was a mess—but it wasn’t clear all the mess had been the handiwork of the woman he’d interrupted. Bits of electronic equipment were scattered all over the floor. A cheap flat-screen monitor lay facedown on the threadbare carpet. If they’d grabbed Lucy here, she wouldn’t have gone without a fight; what he was seeing might have been the result.

A print of Jacques-Louis David’s famous
Napoleon Crossing the Alps
hung over the desk. It had been slashed
several times with something sharp. Gabriel moved closer to get a better look. Someone had also scrawled Arabic characters over one corner of the painting.

The Alliance of the Pharaohs? No way for Gabriel to know; he spoke only a few words of Arabic, mostly gutter slang he’d picked up on streets around the world, and he couldn’t read the language.

Michael, on the other hand, could.

Gabriel whipped out his thirty-thousand-dollar cell phone, fumbled till he found the button to activate the camera, and snapped a close-up of the line of Arabic script. Instants later, the image was winging its way wirelessly back to New York. Modern technology had its uses, much as he hated to admit it.

Next Gabriel examined the clutter around the desk. A laptop computer was spread open on the floor, its spine bending the wrong way. It looked as if someone had stomped on it with a heavy boot.

Then he noticed the dark spot on the floor near the sofa. Gabriel moved closer and crouched.

Dried blood.

Was it Lucy’s? Or had she wounded one of her assailants?

After canvassing the rest of the living room and kitchen, Gabriel returned to the bedroom. The double bed was unmade. A pair of pillows was on the floor and the sheets were in a torn heap. Bending to peer under the bed again, Gabriel spotted something on the far side. He got up, went around the bed, pushed it away from the wall and carefully lifted the object up.

It was half of a broken glass hypodermic syringe. The piece with the needle. There was some residue within the shattered barrel.

It either meant the kidnappers had used this on her
or that Lucy had started shooting up for fun. Hell of a day when “your sister’s a junkie” is the better of your two options.

A sound from the hallway outside the apartment caught his attention. Gabriel heard heavy footsteps ascending the stairs. He rushed back to the front door and stepped out. Looking over the staircase rail, he could see all the way down to the ground floor.

Policemen. French policemen. Heading his way.

Gabriel looked around—he was already on the top floor, so there was no way out except down the stairs. He hurried back into the apartment, shut the front door as best he could, ran into the bedroom, and shut
that
door as best he could. Two broken locks meant two doors that wouldn’t keep the
flics
out for long. He went to the window, unlocked it and raised it, just as the police thundered into the living room. Gabriel swung a leg over the sill and stepped out onto the fire escape landing. Steps led down to the landings on successive floors and a narrow ladder attached to the exterior wall led upward, to the roof. Gabriel saw that two police vehicles were parked directly beneath him. Down was not an option.