The Paris Vendetta

ALSO BY STEVE BERRY

The Amber Room
The Romanov Prophecy
The Third Secret
The Templar Legacy
The Alexandria Link
The Venetian Betrayal
The Charlemagne Pursuit

For Gina Centrello, Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Cindy Murray,
Christine Cabello, Carole Lowenstein, and Rachel Kind

With Thanks and Deep Appreciation

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my agent, Pam Ahearn—I offer another bow of deep gratitude. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? To Mark Tavani, Beck Stvan, and the wonderful folks at Random House Promotions and Sales, thanks again for a terrific job. You’re all, without question, the best.

A special thanks to a fine novelist and friend, James Rollins, who saved me from drowning in a Fijian pool; to Laurence Festal, who offered invaluable assistance with the French language; and to my wife, Elizabeth, and Barry Ahearn, who found the title.

Finally, this book is dedicated to Gina Centrello, Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Cindy Murray, Christine Cabello, Carole Lowenstein, and Rachel Kind.

Seven marvelous ladies.

Professionals, one and all.

Collectively, they’ve brought implacable wisdom, consistent leadership, and a vibrant creativity to all of my novels.

No writer could ask for anything more.

It’s an honor to be a part of your team.

This one’s yours.

Money has no motherland;
financiers are without patriotism and without decency:
their sole object is gain
.

—NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

History records that the money changers have used
every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible
to maintain their control over governments
.

—JAMES MADISON

Let me issue and control a nation’s money
and I care not who writes the laws
.

—MAYER AMSCHEL ROTHSCHILD

PROLOGUE

GIZA PLATEAU, EGYPT
AUGUST 1799

G
ÉNÉRAL
N
APOLEON
B
ONAPARTE DISMOUNTED FROM HIS HORSE
and stared up at the pyramid. Two more lay in succession nearby, but this was the grandest of the three.

What a mighty prize his conquest had yielded.

The ride south yesterday from Cairo, through fields bordering muddy irrigation canals, and the quick trek across windblown sand, had been uneventful. Two hundred armed men had accompanied him, as it was foolhardy to venture this far out into Egypt alone. He’d left his contingent a mile away, camped for the night. The day had been another arid scorcher, and he’d intentionally waited until sunset before visiting.

He’d arrived ashore, near Alexandria, fifteen months ago with 34,000 men, 1,000 guns, 700 horses, and 100,000 rounds of ammunition. He’d quickly advanced south and taken the capital, Cairo, his aim being to disorganize any resistance through rapidity and surprise. Then he’d fought the Mamelukes not far from here, in a glorious conflict he’d dubbed the Battle of the Pyramids. Those former Turkish slaves had ruled Egypt for five hundred years, and what a sight—there had been thousands of warriors, dressed in colorful garb, mounted atop magnificent stallions. He could still smell the cordite, feel the roar of cannon, hear the snap of muskets, the screams of dying men. His troops, many veterans of the Italian campaign, had fought bravely. And while suffering only two hundred French dead, he’d captured virtually the entire enemy army, gaining total control of lower Egypt. One reporter had written that
a handful of French subdued a quarter of the globe
.

Not exactly true, but it sounded wonderful.

The Egyptians had dubbed him Sultan El Kebir—a title of respect, they’d said. During the past fourteen months, ruling this nation as commander in chief, he’d discovered that, as other men loved the sea, so he loved the desert. He also loved the Egyptian way of life, where possessions counted little and character much.

They also trusted providence.

As did he.

“Welcome, Général. Such a glorious evening for a visit,” Gaspard Monge called out in his usual cheerful tone.

Napoleon enjoyed the pugnacious geometer, an older Frenchman, son of a peddler, blessed with a wide face, deep-set eyes, and a fleshy nose. Though a learned man, Monge always toted a rifle and a flask and seemed to crave both revolution and battle. He was one of 160 scholars, scientists, and artists
—savants
, the press had labeled them—who had made the journey from France with him, since he’d come not only to conquer but to learn. His spiritual role model, Alexander the Great, had done the same when invading Persia. Monge had traveled with Napoleon before, in Italy, ultimately supervising the looting of that country, so he trusted him.

To a point.

“You know, Gaspard, as a child I wanted to study science. During the revolution, in Paris, I attended several lectures on chemistry. But alas, circumstances made me an army officer.”

One of the Egyptian workers led his horse away, but not before he grabbed a leather satchel. He and Monge now stood alone, luminous dust dancing in the shadow of the great pyramid.

“A few days ago,” he said, “I performed a calculation and determined that these three pyramids contain enough stone to build a wall a meter wide and three meters high around the whole of Paris.”

Monge seem to ponder his assertion. “That could well be true, Général.”

He smiled at the equivocation. “Spoken like a doubting mathematician.”

“Not at all. I just find it interesting how you view these edifices. Not in relation to the pharaohs, or the tombs they contain, or even the amazing engineering used to construct them. No. You view these only in terms related to France.”

“That is hard for me not to do. I think of little else.”

Since his departure, France had fallen into impossible disarray. Its once great fleet had been destroyed by the British, isolating him here in Egypt. The ruling Directory seemed intent on warring with every royalist nation, making enemies of Spain, Prussia, Austria, and Holland. Conflict, to them, seemed a way to prolong their power and replenish a dwindling national treasury.

Ridiculous.

The Republic was an utter failure.

One of the few European newspapers that had made its way across the Mediterranean predicted it was only a matter of time before another Louis sat on the French throne.

He had to return home.

Everything he cherished seemed to be crumbling.

“France needs you,” Monge said.

“Now you speak like a true revolutionary.”

His friend laughed. “Which you know I am.”

Seven years ago Napoleon had watched as other revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace and dethroned Louis XVI. He’d then faithfully served the new Republic and fought at Toulon, afterward promoted to brigadier general, then to Général of the Eastern Army, and finally commander in Italy. From there he’d marched north and taken Austria, returning to Paris a national hero. Now, barely thirty, as Général of the Army of the Orient, he’d conquered Egypt.

But his destiny was to rule France.

“What a superfluity of wonderful things,” he said, admiring again the great pyramids.

During the ride from his camp he’d spied workers busy clearing sand from a half-buried sphinx. He’d personally ordered the excavation of the austere guardian, and was pleased with the progress.

“This pyramid is closest to Cairo, so we call it the First,” Monge said. He pointed at another. “The Second. The farthest is the Third. If we could but read the hieroglyphs, we could perhaps know their true labels.”

He agreed. No one could understand the strange signs that appeared on nearly every one of the ancient monuments. He’d ordered them copied, so many drawings that his artists had expended all of the pencils brought from France. It had been Monge who devised an ingenious way to melt lead bullets into Nile reeds and fashion more.

“There may be hope there,” he said.

And he caught Monge’s knowing nod.

They both knew that an ugly black stone found at Rosetta, inscribed with three different scripts—hieroglyphs, the language of ancient Egypt, demotic, the language of current Egypt, and Greek—might prove the answer. Last month he’d attended a session of his Institut Egypt, created by him to encourage his
savants
, where the discovery had been announced.

But much more study was needed.

“We are making the first systematic surveys of these sites,” Monge said. “All who came before us simply looted. We shall memorialize what we find.”

Another revolutionary idea, Napoleon thought. Fitting for Monge.

“Take me inside,” he ordered.

His friend led him up a ladder on the north face, to a platform twenty meters high. He’d come this far once before, months ago, with some of his commanders, when they’d first inspected the pyramids. But he’d refused to enter the edifice since it would have required him to crawl on all fours before his subordinates. Now he bent down and wiggled into a corridor no more than a meter high and equally as wide, which descended at a mild gradient through the pyramid’s core. The leather satchel swung from his neck. They came to another corridor hewn upward, which Monge entered. The gradient now climbed, heading toward a lighted square at the far end.

They emerged and were able to stand, the wondrous site filling him with reverence. In the flickering glow of oil lamps he spied a ceiling that rose nearly ten meters. The floor steeply planed upward through more granite masonry. Walls projected outward in a series of cantilevers that built on each other to form a narrow vault.

“It is magnificent,” he whispered.

“We’ve started calling it the Grand Gallery.”

“An appropriate label.”

At the foot of each sidewall a flat-topped ramp, half a meter wide, extended the length of the gallery. A passage measuring another meter ran between the ramps. No steps, just a steep incline.

“Is he up there?” he asked Monge.

“Oui
, Général. He arrived an hour ago and I led him to the King’s Chamber.”

He still clung to the satchel. “Wait outside, below.”

Monge turned to leave, then stopped. “Are you sure you wish to do this alone?”

He kept his eyes locked ahead on the Grand Gallery. He’d listened to the Egyptian tales. Supposedly, through the mystic passageways of this pyramid had passed the illuminati of antiquity, individuals who’d entered as men and emerged as gods. This was a place of “second birth,” a “womb of mysteries,” it was said. Wisdom dwelled here, as God dwelled in the hearts of men. His
savants
wondered what fundamental urge had inspired this Herculean engineering labor, but for him there could be but one explanation—and he understood the obsession—the desire to exchange the narrowness of human mortality for the breadth of enlightenment. His scientists liked to postulate how this may be the most perfect building in the world, the original Noah’s Ark, maybe the origin of languages, alphabets, weights, and measures.

Not to him.

This was a gateway to the eternal.

“It is only I who can do this,” he finally muttered.

Monge left.

He swiped grit from his uniform and strode ahead, climbing the steep grade. He estimated its length at about 120 meters and he was winded when he reached the top. A high step led into a low-ceilinged gallery that flowed into an antechamber, three walls of which were cut granite.

The King’s Chamber opened beyond, more walls of polished red stone, the mammoth blocks fitted so close only a hairbreadth remained between them. The chamber was a rectangle, about half as wide as long, hollowed from the pyramid’s heart. Monge had told him that there may well be a relationship between the measurements of this chamber and some time-honored mathematical constants.

He did not doubt the observation.

Flat slabs of granite formed a ceiling ten meters above. Light seeped in from two shafts that pierced the pyramid from the north and the south. The room was empty save for a man and a rough, unfinished granite sarcophagus without a lid. Monge had mentioned how the tubular drill and saw marks from the ancient workmen could still be seen on it. And he was right. He’d also reported that its width was less than a centimeter greater than the width of the ascending corridor, which meant it had been placed here
before
the rest of the pyramid was built.

The man, facing the far wall, turned.

His shapeless body was draped in a loose surtout, his head wrapped in a wool turban, a length of calico across one shoulder. His Egyptian ancestry was evident, but remnants of other cultures remained in a flat forehead, high cheekbones, and broad nose.

Napoleon stared at the deeply lined face.

“Did you bring the oracle?” the man asked him.

He motioned to the leather satchel. “I have it.”

  Napoleon emerged from the pyramid. He’d been inside for nearly an hour and darkness had now swallowed the Giza plain. He’d told the Egyptian to wait inside before leaving.

He swiped more dust from his uniform and straightened the leather satchel across his shoulder. He found the ladder and fought to control his emotions, but the past hour had been horrific.

Monge waited on the ground, alone, holding the reins of Napoleon’s horse.

“Was your visit satisfactory,
mon
Général?”

He faced his
savant
. “Hear me, Gaspard. Never speak of this night again. Do you understand me? No one is to know I came here.”

His friend seemed taken aback by his tone.

“I meant no offense—”

He held up a hand. “Never speak of it again. Do you understand me?”

The mathematician nodded, but he caught Monge’s gaze as he glanced past him, upward, to the top of the ladder, at the Egyptian, waiting for Napoleon to leave.

“Shoot him,” he whispered to Monge.

He caught the shock on his friend’s face, so he pressed his mouth close to the academician’s ear. “You love to tote that gun. You want to be a soldier. Then it is time. Soldiers obey their commander. I don’t want him leaving this place. If you don’t have the guts, then have it done. But know this. If that man is alive tomorrow, our glorious mission on behalf of the exalted Republic will suffer the tragic loss of a mathematician.”

He saw the fear in Monge’s eyes.

“You and I have done much together,” Napoleon made clear. “We are indeed friends. Brothers of the so-called Republic. But you do not want to disobey me. Not ever.”

He released his grip and mounted the horse.

“I am going home, Gaspard. To France. To my destiny. May you find yours, as well, here, in this godforsaken place.”