The Paris Vendetta Page 0,7

to count to three.

"We can't just sit here."

"I could give you to them and go back to sleep."

"You could. But you won't."

"Don't be so sure."

He still remembered what Collins had said. Henrik Thorvaldsen is in trouble.

Collins eased past and reached for the fire extinguisher behind the counter. Malone watched as Collins yanked the safety pin and, before he could object, fled the counter and spewed a chemical fog into the bookshop, using a rack of shelves for cover, propelling retardant toward the gunmen.

Not a bad move except-

Four pops came in reply.

Bullets sprang from the fog, sinking into wood, pinging off stone walls.

Malone sent another round their way.

He heard glass crash in a tingling crescendo, then running footsteps.

Moving away.

Cold air rushed over him. He realized they'd escaped through the front window.

Collins lowered the extinguisher. "They're gone."

He needed to be sure, so he kept low, eased away from the counter and, using more shelves for cover, rushed through the dissipating fog. He found the end row and risked a quick look. Smoky air retreated out into the frigid night through a shattered plate-glass window.

He shook his head. Another mess.

Collins came up behind him. "They were pros."

"How would you know?"

"I know who sent them." Collins laid the fire extinguisher upright on the floor.

"Who?"

Collins shook his head. "Henrik said he'd tell you."

He stepped to the counter and found the phone, dialing Christiangade, Thorvaldsen's ancestral estate nine miles north of Copenhagen. It rang several times. Usually Jesper, Thorvaldsen's chamberlain, answered, no matter the hour.

The phone continued to ring.

Not good.

He hung up and decided to be prepared.

"Go upstairs," he said to Collins. "There's a rucksack on my bed. Grab it."

Collins ran up the wooden risers.

He used the moment to dial Christiangade one more time and listened as the phone continued to ring.

Collins thumped his way down the stairs.

Malone's car was parked a few blocks over, just outside old town, near the Christianburg Slot. He grabbed his cell phone from beneath the counter.

"Let's go."

Chapter Two

FOUR

ELIZA LAROCQUE SENSED THAT SHE WAS CLOSE TO SUCCESS, though her flying companion was making the task difficult. She sincerely hoped that this hastily arranged overseas trip would not be a waste of time.

"It's called the Paris Club," she said in French.

She'd chosen 15,000 meters over the north Atlantic, inside the sumptuous cabin of her new Gulfstream G650, to make one last pitch. She was proud of her latest state-of-the-art toy, one of the first off the assembly line. Its spacious cabin accommodated eighteen passengers in plush leather seats. There was a galley, a roomy lavatory, mahogany furnishings, and mega-speed Internet video modules connected by satellite to the world. The jet flew high, fast, long, and reliably. Thirty-seven million, and worth every euro.

"I'm familiar with that organization," Robert Mastroianni said, keeping to her native language. "An informal group of financial officials from the world's richest countries. Debt restructuring, debt relief, debt cancellation. They float credit and help struggling nations pay back their obligations. When I was with the International Monetary Fund, we worked with them many times."

A fact she knew.

"That club," she said, "grew out of crisis talks held in Paris in 1956 between a bankrupt Argentina and its creditors. It continues to meet every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry, chaired by a senior official of the French treasury. But I'm not speaking of that organization."

"Another of your mysteries?" he asked, criticism in his tone.

"Why must you be so difficult?"

"Perhaps because I know it irritates you."

Yesterday she'd connected with Mastroianni in New York. He hadn't been pleased to see her, but they'd dined out last night. When she'd offered him a ride back across the Atlantic, he'd accepted.

Which surprised her.

This would be either their last conversation-or the first of many more.

"Go ahead, Eliza. I'm listening. Of course, there's nothing else I can do but listen to you. Which, I suspect, was your plan."

"If you felt that way, then why fly home with me?"

"If I'd refused, you would have simply found me again. This way we can resolve our business, one way or the other, and I receive a comfortable flight home as the price for my time. So please, go ahead. Make your speech."

She quelled her anger and declared, "There's a truism born of history. 'If a government can't face the challenge of war, it ends.' The sanctity of law, citizen prosperity, solvency-all those principles are readily sacrificed by any state when its survival is challenged."

Her listener sipped from a champagne flute.

"Here's another reality," she