Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

“The classical gods.” Amusement from Pax, but he was thinking about it too.

“He wants to look down on everybody. He’s tucked himself up where there’s a good view.”

Lots of places to hide in the attics of the Louvre. The top floor, up under the roof, had big, wide windows with pointed tops and—what were they called?—plinths running up beside them. Arrogant-looking windows. “What’s on the top floor over there?”

Pax would know. He was like Owl, always running over to the Louvre to see some picture or other. He tapped finger to finger as they walked, counting off. “Exhibits on the ground floor. The office of the curator upstairs. Top floor, it’s workshops. The studios where they do restoration. There’s storage.”

“He’ll use a storage room. Damn, but I need a map of this place.” They were in step, eating the distance across this churned-up gravel. Not moving so fast they stood out in the general mob scene. “He’s upstairs, watching the Tuileries.”

“Likely.”

They crossed one of the charcoal arrows he’d drawn on the ground. “Who did Carruthers send?”

“Hawk, everybody’s scattered out. She’ll send what she can, but . . .”

“Damn.” He thought about it for a while and said, “Damn,” again. “We’re on our own. There’s at least three others with the Englishman. They needed that many to block both doors at once.”

“Let’s hope we don’t run into them all at once.” Pax touched one pocket of his coat and then another. “I have two shots.”

“The Frenchmen have sense enough to get out of—” In a high window, a patch of light color moved against dark. Somebody stood there. “See that? Someone’s taking an interest. What do you want to bet that’s the ballock-sucking pustule who sets fire to a room with women and kids?”

“I never bet with you, Hawk.”

They ran the last fifty paces. In a minute, Napoleon was going step out into the courtyard and show himself to everybody, letting the world know he was safe. The Englishman was going to realize he’d failed. He’d run.

Through the door, into this piece of the Louvre. Pax drew his gun and cocked it. Acres of white marble on the floor. Marble and bronze people on pedestals, not wearing clothes. Archways and columns. Three hundred places for some cove to jump out and shoot a hole in you.

At the end of this gallery, the steps going up were more goddamned marble. A hell bitch to run on. Carved marble grapes and cherubs frolicked around the banister, flight after flight, all the way up. Pax followed him up, keeping an eye behind. If anybody had a gun, he and Pax were going to get holes shot in them on these stairs.

On the second floor, they met two men jabbering their way along the hall, all excited.

“Get back in your office. Stay there.” It was enough to send them skittering. Ten years of war and riot had taught people to get out of the way fast when somebody barked orders.

Outside, shouts and cheering echoed sharp on the stone. Napoleon must have walked out into the courtyard.

Pax said, “The First Consul of France escapes again. Let joy be unconfined.”

“I should have put a knife in him as I passed by. There are some opportunities it is just a sin and a shame to miss.”

Pax whispered, “We do not assassinate foreign heads of state.” They were at top of the stairs, backed to the wall. He leaned to look down the row of doors. “Without orders.”

“I would have saved ten thousand English lives on the battlefields of Europe.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Listen.” Somebody was up here. Footsteps. The middle door opened, and a man ran past, headlong.

Got ’im. He grabbed the man’s coat. Swung him to crash against the wall. Now we do a little talking. Twisted an arm behind his back. For all the brute size and muscle, it was easy to force the gasping, thrashing ape to his knees. “Who’s in it with you? Talk to me, you bastard.”

Pax grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his head back so they could see him.

From the man, in English, “I don’t understand. I don’t speak French.”

This wasn’t the man in charge. This was somebody’s cat-spaw. This was the fool. Le fou. He switched languages, “Who are you working for? Give me their names.”

“You’re English!” Relief filled the man’s face. “Thank God. You have to get me out of here. They’ll be after us in a minute.”

“Who sent you to France?”

“I can’t be taken by the garde. I have important work to finish.”

Killing women and kids. “Who gave the orders?”

“I have to get away. He has to be stopped.”

“Who gave you the fire starter?” He ratcheted the man’s wrist tighter. It was pointless. The stupid lump was incoherent with fear and frenzy. He didn’t feel anything. “You didn’t think of this yourself.”

“Napoleon must die. No peace till he dies.” He was fighting, trying to get up, sputtering, “Have to try again. I’ll get him next time.”

Pax had his head to the side, listening. “They’re coming. A lot of them.”

The man was spewing English loud enough to tell the world they were up here. “He killed my boy. Killed my Roger. Roger Cameron, Lieutenant of The Valorous. My boy died at the Battle of Aboukir. He killed my boy.”

A man willing to murder a hundred innocents because his son died in a naval battle. He’d do this again. The next bomb might go off in the middle of the Comédie-Française.

Shouts from below and the tromp that meant soldiers. They were about to deal with the French authorities.

“Napoleon must die.” Spittle and gasps from the Englishman. “Only way to save England. The army’s behind me. Important men. Highest levels. They know what he is.”

“Give me the names.” But this man didn’t know anything. He was a tool in somebody’s hands. He hadn’t been sent here to kill Napoleon. He’d been sent here to be captured and talk.

“I’m doing this is for England. For England.”

Casus belli. This blind idiot, this bull-headed, stupid animal would be the cause of war.

Soldiers shouted back and forth in the marble halls downstairs. No getting the Englishman away where they could question him. Only one choice.

“Get back.” He wouldn’t make Pax part of this. He’d keep the load on his own conscience.

It didn’t take strength. It took knowing how to balance the weight. It took being used to the work of killing. It took being the Hawker.

The Englishman rolled over the banister with chilling grace. The man let out one yelp on the way down. He had a second to be scared. Probably less.

The body sprawled faceup at the bottom. It had a cleanly broken neck, among other things. A fast and clean way out of life. Better than dying in a fire.

Better than what the French would do to him and Pax, if they caught them. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They took off with the soldiers pounding up the stairs after them.

THE GALLERIES OF THE LOUVRE WERE ALMOST DESERTED. Pax didn’t see anyone as he strolled past a fine collection of art looted from Italy. More of Napoleon’s contribution to the history of plunder. The statue of Laocoön wrestling a snake took most of the end of the hall. A reminder he wasn’t the only one with problems.

He and Hawk had been spotted killing the Englishman. The soldiers had their description. Time to run.

“Paxton.”

Carruthers. She wore crow black, all the respectable widow. At her side, Althea was in a neat dress and heavy fichu that said “comfortable, old-fashioned maidservant.” God help the man who thought that’s what they were.

“The Englishman is dead,” he said, skipping the preliminaries.

“We heard.” Carruthers was disapproving. “A regrettable accident to mar the general rejoicing for the First Consul’s escape from the fire. Did you learn anything before killing him?”

“We didn’t have much time.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“You, my dear boy, are sought as one of the radical Jacobins who set the fire.” Althea smiled. She’d filled a handkerchief with gray ash from the fire. “You were seen and described. Your hair is most impressively memorable.” She moved behind a plinth which carried a Roman copy of a fifth-century bust of Pericles. “Lean down, please. That’s right.”

He took his hat off and let her dust gray into his hair.

“Not wholly convincing at close quarters.” She brushed at his face with the back of her fingers. “It will do from a distance. There. Turn around. I’ll tie your hair back.”

Carruthers stood, concealing them. “At least his death will placate the French. They’ll know we tidied him up. Adrian?”

“Took off the other way. I don’t know where he is.” Althea had picked up an art pencil from one of the easels standing around. He couldn’t speak while she drew lines on his face.

“Enough.” Carruthers looked him over. “Let us dodder harmlessly away.”

The Head of Section for Paris at his side, a senior agent of the British Service trailing behind, he hobbled down the long gallery. In the jubilation at Napoleon’s narrow escape, no one paid attention to an old man, overcome by excitement.

The guards at the door argued over whether a dead Englishman had been shot or tossed out a window and didn’t even glance up as he shuffled down the stairs.

Down the Rue de Rivoli, left, two streets over, and one up. They entered the alley behind a boulangerie. It was stacked with old barrels, smelling of flour and yeast, hot from the bakery ovens. This led to a storage room that was one of the safe houses of the British Service.