They shook hands and Austin said, “Thanks for your help.” “My pleasure. May I ask what interest NUMA has in this situation?”
“None, actually. I discovered the plane as I was working on a NUMA-sponsored project, but I'm pursuing it on my own, primarily out of curiosity.”
“Then you won't be using intermediaries in any dealings you might have with the Fauchards?” “I hadn't intended to.”
Grosset mulled over Austin's reply. “I was in the military for years and you seem to be a man who can take care of himself, but I would warn you to be very careful in any dealings you might have with the Fauchards.” ^
“Why is that?”
“The Fauchards are not just any wealthy family.” He paused, trying to choose his words carefully. “It is said that they have a past.”
Before Austin could ask Grosset what he meant, the car pulled up, they said their adieus and he was on his way to the train station. As Austin sat back in his seat, he pondered the Frenchman's warning. Grosset seemed to be saying that the Fauchards had more than one skeleton in the family closet. The same thing could be said about any rich family on the face of the earth, Austin mused. The fortunes that built grand houses and status were often based on a foundation of slavery, opium dealing, smuggling or organized crime.
With nothing more to go on than nuance, Austin turned his thoughts to meeting Skye once more, but Grosset's words continued to echo in his mind like the tolling of a distant church bell. It is said that they have a past.
SKYE HAD HER OFFICE in the Sorbonne science center, a Le Corbusier influenced edifice of glass and concrete that was sandwiched between some art nouveau buildings near the Pantheon. The street was normally quiet except for the gaggles of university students who used it as a shortcut. But as Skye turned the corner, she saw police cars blocking both ends of the avenue. More official cars were lined up in front of the building and police officers swarmed around the entrance.
A portly policeman manning a barricade raised his hand to bar her way. “Sorry, mademoiselle. You cannot pass.”
“What has happened, monsieur?”
“There has been an accident,” he said.
“What kind of an accident?”
“I don't know, mademoiselle,” the policeman said, with an unconvincing shrug.
Skye pulled her university ID card from her pocketbook and brandished it under the officer's nose. “I work in that building. I would like to know what is going on and whether it concerns me.”
The police officer glanced from Skye's face to the ID picture and
said, “You had better talk to the inspector in charge.” He led Skye over to a man in plainclothes who was standing next to a police car, talking to a couple of uniformed police officers.
“This woman says she works in the building,” the policeman explained to the inspector, a dumpy middle-aged man whose face had the world-weary expression of someone who has seen too much of the underside of life.
The inspector studied Skye's identification card with baggy, red-rimmed eyes and handed it back after jotting her name and address down in his notebook.
“My name is Dubois,” he said. “Please come with me.” He opened the police car door, motioned for her to get in the backseat and slid in beside her. “When was the last time you were in your office building, mademoiselle?”
She checked her watch. “About two or three hours ago. Maybe a little more.”
“Where did you go?” *
“I am an archaeologist. I took an artifact to an antiques expert for him to look at. Then I went to my apartment for a nap.”
The inspector made a few notes. “When you were in the building, did you notice anyone or anything that struck you as strange?”
“No. All was normal as far as I know. Could you tell me what has happened?”
“There has been a shooting. Someone was killed. Did you know a Monsieur Renaud?”
“Renaud? Of course! He was my department head. You say he's dead?”
Dubois nodded. “Shot by an unknown assailant. When was the last time you saw Monsieur Renaud?”
“When I came to work around nine o'clock. We were in the elevator. My office is on the floor below his. We said a good morning and went on our separate ways.”
Skye hoped that the slight shading of the truth didn't show in her face. When she'd greeted Renaud, he had simply glowered back at her without speaking.
“Can you think of anyone who would harm Monsieur Renaud?”
Skye hesitated before replying. She suspected that the inspector's basset hound expression was a mask meant to lull suspects into making self-incriminating statements. If he had talked to others, he would have learned that Renaud was universally loathed within his department. If she said anything to the contrary, he would wonder why she was lying.
“Monsieur Renaud was a controversial figure in the department,” she said after a moment. “Many people didn't like the way he ran things.”
“And you, mademoiselle? Did you like the way he ran things?”
“I was among a number of people on the faculty who thought he was not the person for his post.”
The lieutenant smiled for the first time. “A most diplomatic response, mademoiselle. May I ask where exactly you have been before coming here?”
Skye gave him Darnay's name and the address of the antique shop, and her home address, which he duly noted, reassuring her that it was routine procedure. Then he got out of the car, opened the door and handed her his business card.
“Thank you, Mademoiselle Labelle. Please call me if you can think of anything else regarding this matter.”
“Yes, of course. I have a favor to ask, Lieutenant. May I go to my office on the second floor?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Yes, but you must be accompanied by one of my men.”
They got out of the car and Inspector Dubois called over the police officer Skye had first spoken to and instructed him to escort her through the police cordon. Every policeman in Paris seemed to have
converged on the crime scene. Renaud was a scoundrel, but he was a prominent figure at the university and his murder would cause a sensation.
More police officers and technicians were working inside the building. Forensics people were dusting for fingerprints and photographers scurried around snapping pictures. Skye led the way to her second-floor office with the policeman close behind, stepped inside and looked around. Although all her furnishings and papers appeared to be in place, she had the strange feeling that something was amiss.
Skye's eyes scanned the room, and then she went to her desk. She was compulsively neat when it came to her paperwork. Before leaving her office, she had stacked her reference books, papers and files with micrometer precision. Now the edges were ragged, as if they had been hurriedly re-stacked. Someone had been at her deskl “Mademoiselle?”
The police officer was giving her an odd look and she realized that she had been staring blankly into space. She nodded, opened a desk drawer and extracted a file. She tucked the file under her arm without bothering to see what it contained.
“I'm through here,” she said with a forced smile. Skye resisted the impulse to bolt from the office and tried to walk at her usual pace, but her legs seemed made of wood. Her calm facade gave no hint of her racing pulse and her heartbeat seemed to thunder in her ears. She was thinking that the same hand that had disturbed her papers could have held the gun that killed Renaud. /
The policeman escorted her from the building and past the barricade. She thanked him and walked home in a daze, crossing streets without looking either way, a near-suicidal move in Paris. She paid no attention to the screech of brakes, the cacophony of blaring horns and the shouted curses.
Her full-blown panic attack had subsided by the time she turned the corner of the narrow street to where her apartment was located. She wondered if she had done the right thing not telling Inspector Dubois that her office had been searched. In her mind she could see the inspector
thinking that this crazy paranoid woman must go on the list of suspects.
Skye lived in a nineteenth-century, mansard-roofed house in Mouffetard, on the fringes of the Quartier Latin. She enjoyed the busy neighborhood, with its shops and restaurants and street jazz musicians. The old town house had been turned into three apartments. Skye's was on the third floor and her wrought-iron balcony gave her a view of the street life and the ubiquitous Parisian chimney pots. She sprinted up the stairs. Relief washed over her as she opened the door. She felt safe back in her apartment, but the feeling of security lasted only until she walked into the living room. She couldn't believe the sight that greeted her.
The room looked as if a bomb had gone off. Chair and sofa cushions were strewn about the floor. Her coffee table was swept clear of magazines. Books had been pulled from their shelves and thrown about haphazardly. The kitchen was even worse. Cabinets were wide open and the floor was covered with broken glass and dishes. Moving like a sleepwalker, she went into the bedroom. Drawers had been yanked from their dressers and their contents dumped everywhere. The bed covers and sheets had been yanked off the bed and the mattress sliced open, spilling out the stuffing.
She went back into the living room and gazed at the mess. She was shivering with anger at the violation of her privacy. She felt as if she had been raped. The anger gave way to fear as she realized that the person who wrecked her apartment might still be in there. She hadn't checked the bathroom. She grabbed a poker from the fireplace, and with her eyes glued to the bathroom door, she began to back out of the apartment.
The floor creaked behind her.
She whirled and raised the poker over her head.
“Hul-lo,” Kurt Austin said, his coral-colored eyes wide in surprise.
Skye almost fainted. She dropped the poker by her side. “I'm sorry,” she said.
“I should apologize for creeping up on you. The door was open, so I stepped inside.” He noticed Skye's ashen face. “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine now that you're here.”
Austin surveyed the living room. “I didn't know you had tornadoes in Paris.”
“I think the person who killed Renaud did this.”
“Renaud? Not the man who was trapped under the glacier with you?”
“Yes. He was shot to death in his office.”
Austin's jaw hardened. “Have you checked the other rooms?”
“Every one except the bathroom. I haven't dared look in the closets.”
Austin took the poker from her hand. “Insurance,” he said.
He went into the bathroom and came out a minute later.
“Do you smoke?” Austin said.
“Not for many years. Why?”
“You were right to worry.” He produced a cigarette butt. “I found a pile of these in the bathtub. Someone was waiting for you to come home.”
Skye shuddered. “Why did he leave?”
“Whatever the reason, it was lucky for you that he did. Tell me about Renaud.”
They cleared off the sofa and Skye recounted the details of her visit to the university office building. “Am I crazy connecting this disaster and the search of my office to Renaud's murder?”
“You'd be crazy not to make the connection. Is there anything missing from your apartment?”
She looked around the living room and shook her head. “It's impossible to tell.” Her eye fell on the telephone answering machine.
“Strange,” she said. “When I left the apartment, there were only two messages on the machine. Now there are four.” “One is from me. I called as soon as I got into Paris.” “Someone must have listened to the last two messages, because the light isn't blinking.”
Austin hit the play button and heard his recorded voice saying that he couldn't reach her at her office, and was going to drop by her apartment on the chance she might be between home and work. He hit the play button again. Darnay's voice came on.
“Skye. It's Charles. I was wondering if I could take the helmet with me to my villa. It's proving more challenging than I anticipated.”
“Dear God,” she said, her face waxen. “Whoever was waiting for me must have heard the message.” “Who is Charles?” Austin said.
“A friend. He is a dealer in rare arms and armor. I left the helmet with him to examine. Wait ” She salvaged her address book from a pile of papers and looked under the Ds. A page was torn out. She showed the book to Austin. “Whoever was here has tracked down Darnay.”
“Try to warn him.”
She picked up the telephone, dialed a number and listened for several moments. “No one is answering. What should we do?” “The smart thing would be to call the police.” She frowned. “Charles wouldn't like that. He operates his business on the fringes of the law and sometimes beyond that. He'd never forgive me if the police descended on his place and started poking around.”
“What if his life depended on it?”
“He didn't answer the phone. Maybe he's not even there. Maybe we're worrying for nothing.”
Austin was less optimistic, but he didn't want to waste precious time in a fruitless argument. “How far is the shop from here?”
“On the Right Bank. Ten minutes by taxi.”
“I've got a car outside. We'll do it in five.”
They ran for the stairs.
THE ANTIQUE SHOP window was dark and the door was locked. Skye produced one of the few keys Darnay had entrusted to outsiders, and opened the door. A line of light seeped out from under the office curtains.
Austin cautiously pushed the curtain aside. The bizarre scene that greeted him looked like an exhibition in a wax museum. A kneeling gray-haired man had his chin resting on a wooden shipping container, like a condemned man with his head on the chopping block. His hair was disheveled; he was bound hand and foot, his mouth gagged with duct tape.
A big man stood over him like an executioner, leaning on a long two-handed broadsword, a black mask covering the upper part of his face. The executioner looked up and smiled at Austin. He pulled the mask off, threw it aside and raised the sword over Darnay's neck. The light gleamed wickedly on the double-edged blade.
“Please stay,” he said in a voice that was surprisingly high-pitched for his size. “Your friend here would simply lose his head if you left.”
Skye dug her fingers into Austin's arm, but he hardly noticed. Austin remembered the descriptions he had heard and knew that he was looking at the fake reporter who had flooded the glacial tunnel.
“Why would we leave?” Austin said nonchalantly. “We just got here.”
The dough-faced man smiled, but his sword remained poised over Darnay's neck.
“This man has been very foolish,” he said. He glanced at a shelf lined with old helmets. “He refuses to tell me which of these head pots is the one I'm looking for.”
Darnay's stubbornness had probably saved his life, Austin thought. The old man must have known he'd be killed as soon as his assailant got what he came for.
“I'm sure any one of them would fit you,” Austin said helpfully. The man ignored the suggestion and fastened his gaze on Skye. “You'll tell me, won't you? You're the expert on these things.” “You killed Renaud, didn't you?” Skye said. “Don't shed any tears for Renaud. He told me where to find you,” the man said. The sword elevated a few inches. “Show me the helmet you removed from the glacier and I'll let you all go.”
Not lively, Austin thought. Once Renaud's killer had the helmet, he would dispatch all three of them. Austin decided to make a move even though it meant gambling with Darnay's life. He'd been eyeing a battle-ax on a wall a few feet away. He stepped over and snatched the weapon off its hooks.
“I'd suggest you put that sword down,” he said, his voice low and cool.
“Would you like me to put it down on Monsieur Darnay's neck?” “You could do that,” Austin said, his eyes locked on the man's face so there would be no miscalculation. “But then your fat bald head would be rolling on the floor next to his.” r />
He hefted the ax for emphasis. The weapon was primitive but fearsome. The carbon steel head was elongated and designed so it could be used as a spear. A spike stuck out from behind the ax head like the sharp beak of a stork. Metal lange lets extended from the ax head to protect the hardwood shaft.
The man pondered Austin's taunt. He knew from the uncompromising tone of Austin's voice that if he killed Darnay or Skye, he'd be a dead man. He would have to take care of Austin first, and then deal with the others. Austin had anticipated the move, actually welcomed it. In his experience, big men sometimes underestimated lesser human beings.
The man took a step toward Austin, raised the sword high and quickly brought it down in a blurry arc. Austin was unprepared for the move and realized it was he who had underestimated his opponent. Despite his large physical bulk, the man moved with feline quickness. Austin's reflexes took hold before his mind had time to process the metallic blur. His arms came up, holding the ax levelly in front of him.
The sword blade clanged against the ax shaft's protective sheathing. Shards of pain stabbed Austin's arms from the shock of the powerful blow and the blade stopped mere inches above his head, but he pushed the sword off, slid his hand down the shaft and swung the ax like a Louisville Slugger. It was an aggressive move fueled in part by the urgent need to defend his life. There was another reason; he simply didn't like this guy.
The deadly ax blade would have eviscerated the big man had he not seen the windup and leaned back at the waist. Austin was learning the hard way that there was more to medieval arm-to-arm combat than sheer muscle. The weight of the ax head whipped him around like a centrifuge. He spun in a full circle before he was able to check his swing.
Doughboy was driven back by the unexpected ferocity of the attack, but he recovered quickly. Seeing that Austin's wild swing had thrown him off balance, he changed tactics. He held the sword straight out in front of him and lunged.
It was a clever move. The sword point only needed to penetrate Austin's defense by a few inches to kill him. Austin sucked his chest in and sprang back, turning his side to his attacker. He evaded the