Secrets of the New World (Infini Calendar) (Volume 2) (18 page)

The other soldiers raised their own rifles to fire at her, but she quickly ducked behind the man whose ego—and nose—she had just wounded. His comrades weren’t willing to shoot an ally, so instead they gathered around Washington in a protective circle.

Farahilde grabbed a knife out of a slot in the man’s belt and quickly secured her hostage. She held the knife firmly to his throat. “That’s how it’s done, fräulein.”

“Is it?” Jeanne had simultaneously acquired her own human shield and was holding him with equal ruthlessness. To the group surrounding Washington, she said, “Shoot, and our hostages die. Come after us, and they die.”

From behind his wall of troops, Washington replied, “You will never escape this city. Surrender now and we may yet show you leniency.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Farahilde said. “But I do have one question for you. Where is my brother?”

“He is unharmed, you can be sure of that.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“He is in our custody, and that is all I will tell you. If you wish to know his exact whereabouts, you will have to surrender to us.”

From behind her human shield, Farahilde shrugged. “Meh. You keep him. He’s a bastard anyway.”

She and Jeanne began backing out of the building, their captives in tow. Washington and his armed entourage made no attempt to follow. When they were halfway across the Palace’s front lawn, they knocked out their hostages and bolted.

They soon ran into Frederick, who was walking across the front lawn. “What’s going on?” he asked when he saw them running at full speed in his direction.

“Never mind that; just start running!” Farahilde yelled as she and Jeanne sped past him.

The sudden crack of a rifle shot evidently convinced him she was dead serious, so he took up the chase and went after the two women. “Is someone shooting at us?”

“Yes,” Farahilde replied. “Well—us, as in me and Jeanne. Not you. Well, probably you now that you’re with us.”

“Who’s Jeanne?”

“
I’m
Jeanne.”

“I thought your name was Mary Rose.

“Long story.” Farahilde said. “Fräulein, where are we going?”

Jeanne intentionally ripped her white dress as she ran to have more freedom of movement. “There’s a good chance Deschanel knows who I am. If that’s true, then Pierre could be in trouble. We need to go check on him.”

“What happened back there?” Frederick asked.

“Ugh,” Farahilde groaned impatiently. “We’ll explain along the way.”

“But first: did you find the doctor?” Jeanne asked.

Frederick huffed as he ran behind them. “No, I’m sorry. There aren’t many places open at this hour, and the few people I could find were unable to tell me anything about the doctor without his name.”

“Too bad,” Farahilde said. “He could have vouched for us.”

***

Deschanel sat in her chair aboard the
Minuit Solaire II
’s bridge. Everything was going according to plan. She and her subordinates had started the fire in the President’s Palace to get most of the security detail out of the building, killed the few fools who remained, planted Farahilde Johanna’s confiscated gauntlet on one of the corpses, and made off with the Gnostagar stones.

Granted, this wasn’t part of the Emperor’s plan, but she had little doubt he would complain once she returned with not only the new treaty with America, but news of Jeanne de Fleur’s downfall. He probably couldn’t care less what happened to Farahilde Johanna, though; her defeat was simply a bit of extra gratification to Deschanel. After all, the two people she hated most would soon spend years rotting in a jail cell or worse. Deschanel hoped for worse. All that remained for the Ordre was to dump the stones somewhere, preferably somewhere that would help to implicate the Austrians even further, such as their ship.

Emil came in to report what had happened at the President’s Palace. “Commander.”

“Report.”

“The President confronted Farahilde Johanna, as well as his secretary ‘Mary Rose’.”

“And?”

He was about to answer, when Jean-Louis appeared behind him. “She ‘fessed up! She really
is
Jeanne de Fleur.”

Emil looked at him with annoyance, but simply said, “Yes. She took off her wig and revealed her auburn hair. There can no longer be any doubt that she is Jeanne de Fleur. The President, fortunately, didn’t believe her. He still believes her to be an Austrian spy because of her relationship with Farahilde Johanna. He ordered the arrest of both of them.”

Deschanel burst into laughter. “That will teach them! You can’t defy fate!”

Emil and Jean-Louis exchanged nervous glances. Emil said, “With all due respect, Commander…I…didn’t say they were actually arrested.”

Her good mood came to a crashing halt. She turned to look at him with a deadly serious look that would have overcome a lesser man and sent him to the floor in a fetal position. “What do you mean?”

He nervously blurted out, “They escaped.”

Deschanel sent a fist crashing down onto her chair’s arm rest, accompanied by an enraged roar. “How dare they! They think they can defy fate?
No one
escapes their fate.”

She took a deep breath to calm herself. After all, she had taken steps to prepare for this scenario. Unbeknownst to anyone outside her group, she had brought some new acquaintances of hers to America aboard the
Minuit Solaire II
. The fire she and her subordinates started in the President’s Palace was a cover for not only the theft of the Gnostagar stones, but the release of Deschanel’s new ‘friends’ as well. While George Washington and his underlings were dealing with the fire, the ‘friends’ took the opportunity to sneak out into the city. Soon they would make themselves known to Jeanne de Fleur in a very violent way.

***

Pierre dreamt of the moments he had shared with Jeanne, and of moments yet to come.

Without warning, though, he was roused from his sleep. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard a sound coming from downstairs in the smithy.

It was too dark to see in the bedroom he shared with Jeanne, but he felt her side of the bed and discovered she was not in it. It was most likely her downstairs, though what she was doing down there he didn’t know.

He walked downstairs to the forge. There was a little bit of light coming in through the front windows, but not enough to really see by. “Jeanne? Are you in here?”

He quickly received an answer, and it became clear it wasn’t Jeanne in there.

Someone tackled him from his left, and fell onto the forge. Although it wasn’t lit, it still hurt his side to be hurled into stone with that much force.

Before his mind could register what was happening, more shadowy assailants were upon him. He kicked and thrashed, and although he was a very large man, there were simply too many enemies to contend with, and he could barely see them. It wasn’t long before they had him subdued.

One of them said, in a thick accent he couldn’t place, “That is enough, Aadil.”

“What is Aadil?” Pierre asked. He was both confused and angered at this vile treatment.

A lantern was lit, illuminating his adversaries. They were men wearing full-length white robes and strange headpieces that looked like hats except they flowed down past the men’s shoulders. Two large men held Pierre down, while four more stood over him menacingly. Furthermore, each of them had a curved sword called a scimitar hanging from their waists.

But that wasn’t the most striking thing about these mysterious brigands. The most striking thing was their complexion; they were almond-skinned, just like Pierre.

The one holding the lantern was a vicious-looking man with sadistic eyes and a thick beard. “
You
are Aadil.”

“That’s not my name.”

He gave Pierre a twisted smile. “We shall see.” To one of the men standing over Pierre he said, “Do it.”

The man bent down and ripped Pierre’s night shirt right off his torso. They each expressed satisfaction when they saw his birthmark: a crescent moon.

One of them said, “It is he.”

The one holding the lantern, whom Pierre took to be their leader, said, “Aadil al Hassan.”

“I told you—that is not my name. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

The leader snickered. “You talk brave words, but in a foreign tongue. You don’t sound like a true Arab.”

“So you are from the Arabian Kingdom?” Pierre asked. He didn’t think anything they said could justify attacking him in his own home, but he still wanted to know why they were doing it.

“You might call me an envoy of King Aalee. My name is Abdul Jabbar. The King has a grievance against you, and he has sent me here to settle the dispute.”

“I’ve never even heard of this man.”

“But he has heard of
you
. Years ago, he staged a coup in the Arabian Kingdom, overthrowing the previous king.” He then added, “Your father.”

Pierre was dumbstruck. “My…father?” He had never known his biological father or mother.

Abdul Jabbar nodded. “If he had stayed in power, you would now be the king. You are—or
were
—Prince Aadil al Hassan.”

“I…am a prince?”

“
Former
prince.”

Pierre couldn’t believe it. All his life, he had just been a normal man. Granted, he had been accepted into an elite unit of the French military, but he had never been considered anything close to royalty.

He laughed, an action which surprised his captors. “I’ve read enough stories to know how this goes. This King of yours sent you here to make sure I never come back to challenge him for the throne. Am I right?”

Abdul Jabbar frowned. “I do not believe you appreciate everything we had to go through to find you.”

“Enlighten me.”

“We shall consider that your last request,” Abdul Jabbar said. “A while back, word reached King Aalee of the events of the French Revolution. One of the stories he heard was of an Arab who took part in numerous battles and played a key role in deciding the outcome of the Revolution. He said to me, ‘It is not likely this man is the prince who was supposed to have died ages ago, but I want to be absolutely sure. Go to France and investigate. If you find this man is indeed the prince, look for an opportunity to kill him’. So we went to France, but little did we know that would only be the beginning of our quest.

“We approached your Emperor—”

“He’s not
my
emperor.”

“Duly noted,” Abdul Jabbar said dryly. He then began pacing back and forth, lantern still in hand. “We approached Napoleon Bonaparte and asked him if he knew the whereabouts of a French soldier named Pierre Girard who looked like us. Bonaparte informed us that you had abandoned him and possibly fled to America. We were very disappointed, until Bonaparte told us he was sending an envoy to America to negotiate a treaty and offered to let us accompany them. He introduced us to the person who would be leading the mission. This
woman
,” he said, putting a nasty emphasis on the last word, “was to have full authority aboard the French airship that was heading to America. Normally we would have beheaded a woman before suffering the indignity of following her orders, but this was our best chance to find you and so we choked back our pride and agreed to it. Earlier this evening, that woman told us she had discovered your location, and so here we are.