Rogue Angel - Swordsman's Legacy Part 17

Jacques crossed his arms over his chest. Surely this old man was deluded.

But could it be possible?

He liked having the high-profile figures on file. It was almost comical to witness parents when his administrative facilitator told them they could have a child who looked like a favored historical figure. Who really knew what Joan of Arc looked like? Yet the belief that her personality would manifest in a clone was a detail he never discounted.

That misguided belief was the strongest selling point for BHDC.

Jacques leaned toward the man. "Give me a few days. I'll call you."

"No phone numbers." Roux laid the envelope on the table. "I'll return next Wednesday. Thank you for your time, Mr. Lambert. Best of luck with the treasure hunt."

He left the room, and couldn't see Jacques choke on his own breath. He knew about the sword and the map? Or did he simply know BHDC sought treasure worldwide?

No, Jacques kept that information close to his vest. No Internet search was going to turn up such incriminating evidence. Which could only mean, this Roux was somehow a.s.sociated with Ascher Vallois.

Or...the Creed woman.

Flipping open his cell phone, Jacques connected to his secretary's console. He punched in the three-digit alert code. Sabrina would know what to do.

Roux would not notice his escort home.

Nineteenth century AUGUSTE MAQUET SAT across the room from the man who had given him entry to the writing world by taking his first play in hand and signing his name to the t.i.tle page, Alexandre Dumas.

They had collaborated on many t.i.tles since then, and-so long as he got paid-Auguste was not insulted that his name did not appear on any of the published book covers. He knew Alexandre Dumas was the name the publishers wanted to sell, and the name the reading public wanted to buy.

They were currently halfway through the first in what Alexandre deemed could become a long and multiedition series about three of King Louis XIII's musketeers, and the young Gascon soldier who won his way into the hearts of them all.

Auguste had done all the field research and spent many a day in the dusty study room of the library taking down notes from legal reports, historical memoirs, and recopying maps and a.s.sorted indices and references to events and occasions that would give authenticity to their adventure stories.

Historical figures were utilized copiously; actual history was not.

Neither Auguste nor Alexandre was too concerned that history must be twisted, the dates altered, the occasional anachronistic prop used, in order to scribble out a das.h.i.+ng good read. With the flair of a rapier-armed swashbuckler, Auguste wrote up the initial outline, and then handed it over to Alexandre to flesh out and make wordy-for they were paid by the sentence.

"Interesting about the map, eh?" Auguste tapped his notebook where he had made a perfect copy of the map found in Nicolas Fouquet's files in the Bibliotheque Nationale. "I wonder if the treasure was ever claimed?"

Alexandre looked up from his writing desk, a rare pause during one of his marathon sessions. Breadcrumbs sifted from his belly onto the blue pages he'd been writing on. "Couldn't have been claimed by Castelmore-he died indebted."

"Fouquet?"

"Possible. He may have sent someone after it while he lived out his days in prison. No matter. It cannot be there now. You think to follow that map? When you are sure there is a missing navigational device?"

Auguste shrugged. "If the sword could be found..." He lifted the pen-and-ink drawing of the Val-de-Grace cathedral. There was something about the cathedral. A connection. "I have an idea where the starting point may be."

Alexandre wiped away the crumbs and dipped his quill into the ink bottle.

"Send some young men down into the tunnels. Have them clatter about. Myself, I'm quite sure it is long gone. Likely d'Artagnan's sons found it. It makes the most sense. They had little upon their father's death, and I suspect Charlotte was rather miserable. But surely she did hand over the sword to her children."

"But where would they have obtained the navigational device? What was that device?" Auguste asked.

"My friend, are you troubling over a new plot or personal whimsies?"

Auguste sighed. Alexandre wasn't a slave driver, but he did have a work ethic that would not allow for meandering when one should have his nose to the paper. "Hand me the gold paper. I'll begin the draft on that Monte Cristo idea."

"Another treasure story. My good man, I sincerely believe you may journey down beneath the city for a look about yourself."

"No Parisian catacombs in Monte Cristo's story. Something more adventurous...What about an island near Elba?"

"Napoleon's exile? Hmm, yes, I like that. Perhaps some place close, in the Mediterranean. If! The island of chateau d' If. I like that very much. A treasure to right wrongs?"

"Oh, indeed. The hero must have been wronged by..."

"His closest friend," Alexandre provided.

"Yes, and seek vengeance."

"But he mustn't be the harbinger of such vengeance, merely the catalyst."

Auguste nodded, picking up his pen and began to make notes. "It shall be done."

15.

A mace, a halberd, a longbow. They were a few of the weapons hanging on the wall outside Lambert's office. All thirteenth to fifteenth century, Annja surmised with but a cursory glance over them. Farther along were swords: a saber, a broadsword, a rapier with swept-basket hilt that was most definitely seventeenth century.

It was quite the collection. But she hadn't time for appreciation.

At the end of the long hallway, Annja slipped through an unlocked door. She found herself in another nondescript hallway. If Lambert was going to leave her alone, then she would wander. She wanted information.

Down the hall to her right, a gla.s.s door showed a view of a building across the street. An exit. To her left stretched another hallway.

Annja went right.

Twenty feet from what she guessed was the reception area, she paused and slid up against an inset door, and listened. Two women spoke in comfortable tones. One was telling the other she was a little late for her appointment, and the other rea.s.sured her it was fine. The one Annja guessed to be a receptionist directed the other to take a seat and the doctor would be right with her.

Doctor?

What would a genetic research-?

Of course there would be medical personnel here, she thought. But why patients?

Wanting to dash to the waiting room for a peek, Annja's attention veered down the hallway in the direction she had come. A man in a white lab coat walked toward her, his head down and attention focused on a stack of manila files cradled in one arm.

Pressing herself tighter against the door, set into the frame about eight inches, Annja started summoning excuses for why she was standing there, obviously not looking very patient-like, when the doctor turned into another room. The door, on hydraulic hinges, hung open briefly to reveal a stairwell, and then snapped shut.

Scanning down the hall to each direction, Annja then scampered over to the door. It wasn't marked. A biometric scanner positioned on the wall near the handle blinked red-then suddenly it turned green.

The door pushed open.

Annja, hidden by the steel door, dodged a look around it. The person in a white lab coat headed toward the reception area. She slipped around and sneaked inside the stairwell as the hydraulics eased the door shut.

Cinder-block walls enclosed the stairwell. A fire extinguisher hung behind the door. The stairs didn't go down, so she stepped lightly up two short flights to the next floor.

There was no window on the steel door. Caution slowed her motions. Biting the edge of her lip, she pressed the hydraulic bar and peered out. She saw low lighting on the plain white walls and a glossy linoleum floor. There was no one in sight. Her intuition suggested it was probably a private floor.

Slinking down the hallway, she noted biometric scanners outside every windowless door she pa.s.sed. The feeling that she crept toward doom skittered up her spine.

At the same time, a scurry of excitement pushed her onward. Digging for bones was fun. But skulking for secrets was a thrill. And while she was no expert sleuth, her experience with asking questions about artifacts and discovery of their origins could help her here. It was all about the who, what and why.

Ten feet ahead, the hallway turned both left and right. Pressing herself close to the wall, Annja peered around one corner. The coast was clear. And down the other direction a door opened.

Annja crossed the hall and pressed herself against the opposite wall. She listened, and heard footsteps, softening as they walked away from her.

She dared a look around the corner. Another hydraulic door was halfway closed. The back of another person wearing a lab coat walked away from her.

Das.h.i.+ng around the corner, Annja didn't think she'd manage to catch the door, so she willed her sword to hand. Plunging the tip into the crack of s.p.a.ce between door and frame, she caught it.

The person who'd left the room stopped, about thirty feet up the hall.

Breathing through her nose, Annja tilted the sword outward to open up the door so she could fit her fingers inside. Pulling it open, she slipped inside as the person turned around.

Had she been seen? Not sure if the person had made her-or they could be heading back to this room for something forgotten-Annja remained by the door, back to it, and hands pressed flat to the wall.

She counted ten seconds. Heartbeats pulsed madly in her ears.

Closing her eyes did not help to increase her hearing. She couldn't hear beyond the swish of the overhead fans. Aware of the temperature change, Annja shrugged a hand up her sleeveless arm.

A minute pa.s.sed. Reasoning that if someone was returning it would have happened by now, Annja turned her focus to the room she stood in.

Scanning the four upper corners of the ceiling, she sighted two cameras. She hadn't a.s.sumed she was walking around unnoticed. Perhaps Lambert watched her on his laptop at this very moment. This would be a quick reconnaissance.

The room was twenty feet wide and about twice as long. Three aisles of silver metal file cabinets stretched before her. To even begin to guess which would offer the most intriguing information would take too long.

She needed visuals. Hard evidence. She wasn't sure what she expected to find. Clones? Bodies suspended by wires and fed through intravenous tubes? Jars with fetuses preserved in alcohol?

"You don't see that that many movies," she muttered. many movies," she muttered.

Turning to inspect the wall behind her, Annja noted a particular case of steel file cabinets to her right. It was the only standing file with a lock. And yet the top drawer was open about half an inch.

"Like candy left out for a child."

Stepping lightly, she gave the nearest camera one last glance, and then tugged open the top drawer of the file cabinet. It was stuffed with manila folders and neatly filed doc.u.ments.

She scanned the file tabs. Each was marked with a six-digit number. Two or three letters preceded some of the numbers. A holographic device the size of a dime ended each label. She guessed it must be a scannable recording device. She wasn't up on advanced technology, but nowadays, anything was possible.

A clear label, like Cloned Humans, would have been helpful, but utterly ridiculous.

She tugged out one file and scanned the first page inside. There were no names, only case numbers, which matched the file tabs. Lists of medical abbreviations read like hieroglyphics to her. Yet hieroglyphics she could eventually decipher. This, not so much.

"'Genetic markers,'" she read aloud one of the only lines she could understand. "'Matches verified.'" More indecipherable abbreviations and codes.

Another file, followed by others, each offering the same impossible-to-discern evidence. The sixth file slowed Annja's pace and she read further.

"Implantation date? Now this is interesting."

"'Subject, gravida 1, implanted on 08/14/07. In vitro successful. Embryonic and fetal development normal.'"

She scanned down the page, glossing over all the stuff she couldn't understand. There were comments about general health noted on three different dates, which Annja a.s.sumed coincided with doctor's visits at BHDC.

"'Gestation premature at thirty-three weeks. Cesarean delivery.'" At the very bottom were measurements and weight. And the designation-female. "A baby?"

And yet, the final notation disturbed her the most. "'Survived sixty-eight minutes. Complications due to-"

The door to the room slammed open. Annja shoved the file back into the drawer.

"I've been expecting company," she said. Reaching out to her right, she curled her grip around a rea.s.suring solidness. "What took you so long?"

WHEN HE RETURNED to find his office empty, Jacques rushed to the door, only to find it wouldn't open. Something large lay on the other side, blocking his exit. His downed man.

Dispatching security, Jacques then went to his desk and tapped in a few commands on the laptop to activate the security program. He had access to all of the building's cameras from his command station.

"She knocked out my biggest guard, and now she's infiltrated the records room." He pounded the desktop. "Just who are you, Annja Creed?"

Switching to full screen, he found the correct camera. Annja stood with her back to him, rifling through a file drawer. The most important one. The information contained in that file cabinet would threaten his future, his very dream for a future.

Jacques ran a hand over his hair. Fine perspiration formed at his temples. A lump rose in his throat. "How did she get into that? How did she even gain access to the third floor?"

Jaw held tight, he resisted pounding the computer monitor. He'd been so eager to acquire the DNA evidence that Roux offered, he'd grown overconfident of his hold on his uninvited visitor in this room.

The video showed Annja turning suddenly. The top of Theo's head showed at the bottom of the surveillance video.

And then the most remarkable thing occurred.

Theo drew his pistol to aim, but the woman brought a sword down across his forearm, disarming him.

A sword?

"Where the h.e.l.l did she get that? From my collection?"

But she hadn't held it a moment ago. Both of her hands had been flying through his private files. Unless she'd stashed it beside her somewhere...