The Golden Vendetta (11 page)

M
onte Carlo was tiny, and Lily found the evening streets crushingly jammed.

There was an irritating backup at every intersection. Pedestrians swarmed across the road whenever they wanted. And not only did it appear that somebody had just polished every surface in the town, but the gull-wing Mercedes she'd thought so distinctive was one of about a billion high-end sports cars cruising the pinchingly narrow streets.

So they had no lead at all, other than a hope that five sets of eyes scouring every single street would spot something.

“Let's drive around a bit,” Sara said.

“And look for silver cars,” Becca added.

“Silver Mercedeses,” said Darrell.

Unlike Nice, with its broad, elegant seaside, the Principality of Monaco—of which Monte Carlo was the main part—was compact, built all the way up a surrounding ridge of hillsides, at the base of which stood a U-shaped harbor overflowing with mega-yachts.

“If you can believe it, they race cars on these skinny streets,” said Darrell.

“And now
you
did it,” said Wade. “We'll be racing around in no time.”

Darrell wiggled his eyebrows. “You're welcome.”

They cruised the streets slowly for the next half hour or so, until Sara pulled the car over. “This is pointless,” she said. “For all we know, they're driving around, too. We could be a street ahead of or behind Sunglasses and the bookseller, but we'll never catch up to them. I don't know what to do.”

Then Julian called.

Darrell snapped up his mother's phone and put it on speaker.

“Guys, I think I know why Gerrenhausen's in Monte Carlo. Meet me up at Casino Square, and hurry. It starts in an hour.” He clicked off.

Hearing his voice, a kind of whispered excitement,
Lily's senses jangled. Normally, they were being watched, pursued, hounded by the Order's agents. But since they'd shadowed Sunglasses and Gerrenhausen in Nice, something new was taking shape. They were going on the offensive. They were tailing one of the most dangerous agents in the Order and a little murderous bookseller. The Order hadn't spotted them yet, and they had to keep it that way.

“Casino Square,” she said. “I saw a sign. It's up the hill past the harbor.”

Sara motored up a long curving road from the harbor and into what Julian had called Casino Square, a collection of grand stucco buildings at least a hundred and fifty years old, nestled around an ornamental public garden. Julian waved them down from an open parking space on the street in front of the baroque wedding cake itself, the Casino de Monte-Carlo.

Julian really looked like his father, Lily thought, which made her wonder what his mother was like. She had died when he was little and living in Myanmar. Obviously, she must have been pretty.
What? Never mind. I'm tired.

“Julian, man, good to see you,” said Darrell, slipping out and doing a boy handshake with him. Wade did the same. Julian's small vintage Fiat sports car—Darrell
identified it as a 1962 Spyder—was parked between a Maserati and a Maserati. There sure was a lot of money in the South of France, she thought.

Julian flicked his finger at another wedding cake, sitting perpendicular to the casino. “The Hôtel de Paris is hosting an auction of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century books, manuscripts, and artifacts. I'm willing to bet that Gerrenhausen is here in his official capacity as an antiquarian to purchase something for Galina.”

“Something we probably also want,” said Becca.

“No doubt,” said Julian. “I've been here for about thirty minutes. I took a stroll inside the hotel, helped pad the desk clerk's wallet. Neither Gerrenhausen nor Cassa has appeared yet, but I'm hoping they will.”

“Cassa?” said Sara. “You mean Sunglasses?”

“Sorry. His name's Bartolo Cassa. He's Spanish. Been with the Order for the last three years. Galina recruited him in South America. Which is why he was assigned to . . . you.”

Sara darkened. “It doesn't help, knowing his name.”

“He'll pay someday,” said Darrell. “He will.”

“Look!” Lily gasped. “The Mercedes. Ha! I am such a homing device.”

The silver Mercedes rolled to a stop in front of the hotel. The passenger door swung up. The bookseller got
out, and the door lowered behind him. Sunglasses—Cassa—tore away from the curb around the back of the building.

Oskar Gerrenhausen stood on the sidewalk, checking the time on his wristwatch. Then he spun on his heels and walked nimbly up into the lobby.

“Okay, everybody listen.” Sara collected them behind a large tree. “We have to assume that both Sunglasses—Bartolo Cassa—and the bookseller either know we're here or will soon. It's only a matter of time. We have to stay out of sight, no exceptions. Even you, Julian. So let's be smart. Come on.”

“Wait a second,” said Julian. “Cassa didn't use the hotel's valet parking, but he surely won't leave the bookseller here alone. To me, this means he's parking the car himself and may come back this way on foot. We can't have him stumbling on you from behind. Maybe I should wait here and text you if I see him return, stall him if I can.”

“Good idea,” said Sara.

“Don't do anything brave,” said Becca. “He's a creep.”

“I heard.”

Sara looked around and spotted a loose group of tourists crossing the square. “We go with them. Pretend
like you're with them, but don't draw attention to yourselves. Come on.”

Three minutes later, they had crossed the darkening square and were inside the Hôtel de Paris.

W
ade breathed in a soft gasp when they entered the lobby. “Whoa . . .”

“Uh, yeah,” said Darrell.

The room flashed with the brilliance of a million chandeliers. Massive columns held up a very high ceiling that was painted blue and gold with hundreds of chubby baby angels flying from corner to corner. The slick marble floors reminded Wade of a museum's, except for the constant rumbling noise and movement of people crisscrossing the floor like at a railway station.

With so many rolling suitcases, the pattering of flip-flops, the tootling of bellhops' whistles, the smell of coffee and sea air, and piano music floating across the
lobby from a woman surrounded by a jungle of blooming pink and blue flowers, it was hard to focus on any one thing.

Becca did. “There he is,” she whispered.

The bookseller was speaking to a middle-aged man in a light-colored suit. The man wore a name tag on the lapel of his jacket. He gestured up the grand staircase toward a room with double doors. A small easel stood outside the room, and two security guards were stationed, one on either side.

“The auction,” said Darrell, checking his watch. “In forty-five minutes.”

Gerrenhausen glanced at his watch, too, for the hundredth time, turned from the man in the light suit, and hurried straight to the elevator.

“I'll ask at the front desk if we can get in,” said Sara.

Wade went with her. The young man behind the marble counter smiled stiffly when they approached.
“Oui, madame?”

When Sara asked about the auction, his smile faded.

“I am very sorry, madame. It is an auction by invitation only. You must have proper credentials, yes?”

“Where do we get those?” asked Wade.

The man glared at him. “One does not
get
credentials. One
has
credentials! Now if you will excuse me, I
have guests to deal with”—there were none waiting at the counter—“and I em
completed
wis you!”

“Thank you,” said Becca as she pulled them away from the desk. “Julian texted. Sunglasses is coming up the street.”

Sara hissed under her breath. “Everyone behind the palm trees. Hurry.”

Wade hated how his stepmother had gotten sucked into the relic hunt—kidnapped, shuttled halfway across the world in a coffin, trapped like a prisoner by Galina Krause in Kronos, the Order's creepy time machine. But he totally admired how she had accepted the whole espionage deal they'd had to adopt—and were still refining. Staying under the radar, keeping safe, being bold when you had to, hiding otherwise. Sara was good at it.

He didn't like that his dad wasn't there, but if his father had to be away for a little while on Guardian business, Sara was proving a good leader.

Moments later Bartolo Cassa pushed into the lobby, took three or four long steps, then opened his phone. He read a message, then texted a reply. He waited for an answer. When it came a few seconds later, he read it, pocketed the phone, and headed directly to the elevator.

“I think my names for people are better than their actual names,” said Lily. “It helps keep them not real
people but units. Lousy murdering units.”

“Okay, Lily,” said Sara. “Look, I'll call the university in Austin and talk to my director. I'm sure I can get into the auction because of my archive work.”

“Smart, Mom,” said Darrell. “Using your connections. We need to know what Gerrenhausen is after.”

“Which is what Galina's after,” said Lily. “Which is what we want.”

Becca grinned at her. “You sound like Darrell now.”

“It's idol worship,” Darrell said. “I get that. Wade does it, too. . . .”

Wade stopped listening. A broad-chested man in a jet-black suit swept in from the street, speaking over his shoulder in a language Wade had never heard before. Behind him floated a slender but sturdy woman in a flowing black dress with a black headscarf fastened under her chin and framing her face. Not stopping at the desk, they went directly to an open elevator, and the doors closed behind them.

Becca admired the way Sara's position as archivist at the University of Texas gave her quick last-minute entry to the auction. Her director even agreed to give her authorization under her latest fake name: Dr. Theresa McKay.

But there were two minor hitches. They needed a
certified check—a problem Julian easily solved even at night because of his father's extensive bank contacts—and only two people per party were allowed into the salon. Obviously, Sara had to be one of them.

“I think Becca should be the other one,” Wade said, and Becca wondered how that would go over. “It makes the most sense,” he went on. “Becca's the translator. She knows the most about Copernicus, really. They're practically personal friends. Becca is my choice.”

Which was way too odd to respond to, but she didn't have to, because Julian said, “Even in a blond wig?”

“A blond wig? Who said anything about a wig?” said Becca.

“With bangs,” said Lily. “And glasses. You, too, Sara.”

“And shades,” added Darrell. “Not like you-know-who, but nice ones. Stylish. But not too stylish, or you'll attract attention. And a hat so low you have to peek under it to see anything, but no one will see you. It's either that or body armor.”

It was settled. Sara and Becca would go undercover while the others stayed outside. Not so secretly, Becca was overjoyed. She
was
the right choice. But there was also the danger of being discovered no matter how blond-wigged she was.

One of the Ackroyds' “acquaintances” in the Nice
underworld, a gentleman known as Maurice Maurice, was able on short notice to provide a wire—both audio and visual—for one of the chosen people to wear, so that the others could see and hear what happened at the auction. Maurice Maurice claimed it was waterproof, too.

“In case you must go swimming,” he said. “Or are thrown into a fountain!”

It was decided that Becca would wear Mr. Maurice's wire. The others would watch the auction on Lily's tablet from the restaurant located just off the lobby.

Evening fell over the sparkling city, and Julian, Wade, Darrell, and Lily set up shop in the restaurant. Lily's tablet was hooked up to Becca's camera, her earpiece, and her microphone.

After they made sure the connection worked, Becca and Sara entered the gilded salon.