The Bonaparte Secret (33 page)

He turned the button over again. “Fenson & Co. Brux.” The
Brux.
was an abbreviation for the French word for Brussels, home, most likely, to Fenson & Co. He leaned back, trying to find what little softness remained in the shabby bus seat. Most of the seat’s foam stuffing had spilled out through a series of cracks and tears long ago, and the Browning in its holster was jabbing at his back. At the same time, he turned the significance of the button over in his mind. A Napoleonic uniform in what was possibly a Macedonian tomb that predated Bonaparte by over two millennia?

The idea wasn’t as absurd as it first seemed. Someone had intentionally sealed off the main burial chamber, someone who had had to use a smoking candle or oil lamp. Hadn’t Napoleon spent time in Egypt? Of course he had. It was his troops, or one of the scientists, the savants, who accompanied them, who had found the Rosetta Stone. It was highly probable they had found and explored the tomb in Alexandria as well. But why close it off?

He stared across his seatmate, now gently snoring, and watched the desert glide by, occasionally replaced by palmfringed green fields along the sluggish brown Nile. Where the river was hidden by levees, its course was marked by the triangular sails of feluccas, small craft virtually unchanged since the time of the Pharaohs.

Lang forgot the scenery. It was time to devise a plan.

From the diary of Louis Etienne Saint Denis, secretary to Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France

Tuileries, Paris

June 1, 1815

The mob cheered the emperor today as they have each day since his return from Elba.
¹
He has all but completed the restoration of his officer corps who have, in turn, reorganized the Imperial Army, men who served with the emperor before and will gladly do so again.

It is good to be away from Elba. We had barely arrived when we received news of the death of Joséphine.
²
Though the emperor took his duties as the island’s ruler seriously, making many improvements,
³
he soon tired of such banal chores and longed to return to the task he viewed as given him by fate, uniting all of Europe
.

Once, brooding upon this unfinished task, he asked his mother what he should do, to which she replied he should fulfill his destiny. I know not if these words inspired him to complete his escape plans, of which few of us were aware.

The Congress of Vienna
⁴
has declared the emperor an outlaw and is raising armies to meet him. It will not be long before he must take to the field again. It was with this in mind, I believe, that he spoke to me last evening.

After the usual polite inquiries into the health of myself, my wife and children, he remarked upon the uncertainties of war, a fact I suppose is much in his mind of late. I bespoke my certainty of his success in the coming campaigns.

Then, he spoke most strangely, saying, “Saint Denis, you have been a loyal servant. It is in your name I leave that which is my most dear possession
.”

I took this to mean he intended to bequeath to me some treasure for my long service upon his death and endeavored to convince him I expected his demise no time soon. I much desired, though, to know the nature of this legacy to be bestowed upon me.

He must have sensed my eagerness to know more, for he added, “It is upon the heel of a return from anonymity”

At first, I thought I had not heard correctly, the phrase was so odd and seemingly out of context. Before I could further query, one of the emperor’s generals, I believe Marshal Ney, insisted upon an immediate audience.
⁵

1
At his forced abdication and May 1814 exile to an island off the Tuscan coast, Napoleon was given the duty of ruling it and its twelve thousand inhabitants. He arrived with his mother, his sister Pauline and one thousand men who agreed to go with him, including Napoleon’s mistress and their illegitimate son and Saint Denis. Napoleon’s second wife and their legitimate child refused to come or, for that matter, answer his letters. By means still not certain, he eluded over a hundred guards and a British frigate, escaped the next February and returned to Paris March 20, 1815. The recently installed Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, fled. The police sent to arrest Napoleon knelt before him and joined his army which, like the phoenix, quickly arose from the ashes of its own destruction.

2
May 29, 1814. Though she and Napoleon had divorced so he might sire a son, they continued to exchange letters. He spent the last days before his exile at her home at Malmaison.

3
The water-delivery system, for instance.

4
The first such gathering of representatives of European states since the days of the Holy Roman Empire (see the author’s monograph, “The Holy Roman Empire: Neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire,” University of Paris Press, 2006). The Congress of Vienna had been convened to decide how to undo what most crowned heads of Eu rope viewed as the damage Napoleon had done to the old status quo, most particularly, the institution of royalty. They were in session when Bonaparte escaped from Elba, and placed the En glish Duke of Wellington in charge of an international force to try to put the genie back in the bottle. Hence the “Hundred Days” campaign leading up to Waterloo.

5
Michel Ney (1769–1815). As noted earlier, Napoleon conferred the title “Marshal of France” on a number of his generals. It had mostly an honorary significance. Ney, however, was marshal in both the military and honorary sense. He and Napoleon might have had much to discuss. Ney had been among those demanding his former commander’s exile and had served the Bourbons before rejoining Napoleon upon his return from Elba. He was hotheaded and heroic, and many blame Ney’s rash actions for the loss at Waterloo.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

472 Lafayette Drive, Atlanta

11:35 the same day

Almost dragging Manfred by the arm, Gurt reached her front door and fumbled in her pocket for the keys. What the hell was happening? Although those two men had not expressly said they were from the Agency, how else would they have known her real name and her Agency reputation? The tactics, poorly executed as they had been, were typical Agency, too. Miles had said he would have someone keep an eye out, not try to abduct . . .

Movement at the corner of her vision caused her to drop Manfred’s hand long enough to grasp the butt of the Glock as she turned, mindful of the ice on her doorstep.

A wet and shivering Randy slowly made his way up the drive. Water sloshed from his shoes and she could see him shivering from where she stood. Steam from his body heat enveloped him as though he were some spirit materializing on the front lawn.

He shook his head, chagrined. “Sorry, Mrs. Reilly, I don’t know what happened. One minute you and the little boy were in full view, the next I was floating in a fishpond. Some sort of tranquilizer delivered by . . .”

“By a dart gun,” Gurt finished for him, ignoring his surprise as she finished opening the door.

“Yeah, I guess that could have done it,” he admitted sheepishly. “But I don’t understand—”

She interrupted him with a motion. “Come. Inside before you die of hypothermia. You can take a hot shower, take some of Lang’s clothes.”

He crossed the threshold, visibly savoring the warmth. “Thanks. But first I need to call the office for reinforcement. Whoever knocked me out was obviously going after you. Are you all right?”

“Quite,” she assured him. “I saw the men responsible. You can call whoever you wish after you have shed those wet, cold clothes.”

His professional curiosity overcame his discomfort. “You
saw
whoever . . . ?” He glanced round. “Where . . . ?”

“They give no longer a problem and will not be back soon. Now, the hot shower.”

To the sound of water running upstairs, Gurt checked and rechecked the house’s alarm and security features before she called Lang’s BlackBerry. Perhaps he could explain what had happened. She got a cheery recording assuring her that if she left a name and number, he would call her back. Next, she called Lang’s office. Sara had not heard from him in two days. Unusual but not unheard of.

If only she knew how to contact Miles. Lang had his number around here somewhere. But where? Relenting and letting Manfred turn on the television as he ate a hastily prepared peanut butter and jelly sandwich, she left him to enter the closet under the stairs Lang referred to as his office. A five-minute search of the file cabinet produced a list with Miles’s name and a Washington, D.C., phone number.

She called it, leaving her name and BlackBerry number. Before she got back to where Manfred was teasing Grumps with the remainder of his sandwich, he called back.

“Gurt?” Miles’s voice lacked the normal breezy self-assurance. “I’ve been trying to contact Lang. I’ve gotten no answer.”

“I also,” Gurt said. “But that is not the only difficulty. Not an hour ago, two men tried to snatch Manfred and me.”

She paused, waiting for an explanation.

When none was forthcoming, she said, “The two were from the Agency, I am certain. What is happening, Miles?” she added pointedly.

“Er, I’m not sure. The reason I was trying to get hold of Lang was to tell him I was ordered to drop protective surveillance of him, your house and family. No explanation.”

“Miles . . . ,” she began with more than a trace of accusation.

“No, no, I swear! That’s all I know, really.”

“But why?”

“I told you. I don’t know. Would I lie to you and Lang?”

As long as you have been employed by those people, in a heartbeat.

“It is possible the reason has been concealed from you?”

A snort. “Of course. No one is told more than they need to know. Surely you remember that.”

“It is also possible there has been some change in the policy that made protective surveillance desirable.”

“True,” Miles admitted, “but it would have to have been a change from outside. I get the internal memos.”

Gurt thought for a moment. “Outside? You mean . . . ?”

“Anyone from the State Department, the White House, Defense. The possibilities are endless. It’s not the
who
that bothers me, it’s the
why.
As in
why
would this anonymous policy maker suddenly want to take you somewhere?”

“They said there were some very nasty people.”

“So, what’s different? There always are. No, my guess is they want to make sure you stay quiet about what you know, don’t go to the press.”

“About what?”

Another snort from Miles. “I’d guess this Chinese-in-Haiti matter. For whatever reason, some branch of government wants a lid kept on it.”

Gurt was truly puzzled. “But why?”

“Above my pay grade. If I knew that, I’d be heading up some government department, meeting with the prez on a daily basis. For the moment, I’d suggest you keep your head down.”

“What about Lang?”

“Lang will have to look out for himself. He has a pretty good record of doing just that. I hear from him, I’ll let you know.”

“But, Miles . . .”

He had ended the call.

Cairo International Airport

21:49

Lang had been unable to figure out what, if any, pattern there was to the bus’s stops. It seemed that a man waiting on the road’s shoulder merited stopping to let him aboard, as did a lone camel who preferred macadam to sand, or a herd of goats crossing the pavement. At last, the livestock delays diminished as darkness grew. At various points, a rider would stand, remove his luggage from the overhead bin and make his way forward to speak to the driver, who would then bring the bus to a wheezing halt to allow the passenger to disembark into the darkness. At each stop, whether or not someone was getting on or off, the door opened, admitting a hot cloud of swirling sand particles stirred up by the bus itself.

Lang had been relieved to hear the roar of a jet overhead, a noise that got louder with each takeoff or landing. When he could see signs in multiple languages bearing a pictograph of an airplane, indicating the road to the airport, he stood and retrieved his bag preparatory to getting off. By the time he reached the driver, two other men were also exiting the bus, both in blue short-sleeve shirts, dark pants and wearing identity tags around their necks. There was not enough light to read the cards, but Lang would have bet they indicated employment by one of the airlines.

Lang followed them as they dismounted and walked toward what looked like some sort of transportation shelter, a roof but no sides, like the bus stops in some American cities.

“Does a bus to the airport stop here?” Lang asked, hopeful one or both spoke English.

“Yes,” they said almost in unison before the smaller of the two continued. “The bus circles both terminals, the one we call the new airport, where Western European and American airlines are, and the old airport, where Eastern European, Arab and African airline gates are. We are going to the new airport.”

Lang sat beside them on a wooden bench, waiting until the bus chugged to a stop. All three boarded. In minutes, he was following the two into the terminal.

Due to the late hour, the chaotic mob Lang associated with Egyptian transportation hubs was absent. There were, however, the police with automatic weapons common to air terminals everywhere outside the U.S. A quick glance revealed two of these officers were showing an unusual degree of diligence in inspecting the papers of every person passing through the single security checkpoint while two more watched.