AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
Human notice: We seemed to be attracting it. As I leaned recklessly on the tubular steel rail of the Bénézet bridge once more, watching a long, slender canal boat slip beneath the outermost arch, Miranda laid her hand on my arm. “Don’t look now,” she murmured, “but someone’s stalking us.”
“Where?” Trying to look casual and touristy, I raised my eyes, pointing to the fortress on the river’s far shore, as if calling Miranda’s attention to it.
She looked in that direction, smiling and saying, just loudly enough for Stefan and me to hear, “Downstream about a hundred yards. Edge of the parking lot. There’s a red-and-blue sign. Guy in a floppy hat standing behind it, propping binoculars on top. Don’t look yet.”
I swiveled slowly, with only a passing glance at the spot she’d indicated, and gazed upward at the cathedral and the papal palace, which loomed above us on the rock. “You’re right,” I said. “That’s the biggest pair of binoculars I’ve ever seen. And they’re pointing right at us.”
“Merde,” Stefan muttered a moment later. “Now he has a camera. A big telephoto lens.” He raised his arm, hitched up the cuff of his sleeve, and made a show of checking his watch. “Allons-y. Let’s go. Turn your backs and cross to the other railing, so he can’t see us. Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
Hugging the far side of the bridge, we hurried back along the span. This time there was no singing or dancing. As we exited the tower and scurried to the car, I asked, “Did either of you get a good look?”
“Non.”
“’Fraid not,” Miranda said. “White guy with tan hat and black binoculars. That narrows it down to about, what, a zillion people?”
I recalled Stefan’s nervousness as we’d driven from Marseilles to Avignon, and again when we’d heard noises near the treasure chamber. I’d been inclined to dismiss it as excessive paranoia — that, or Stefan’s exaggerated sense of importance — but now I was re-evaluating. “Have you seen someone watching you before now?”
“Oui,” he said. “Nothing as obvious as binoculars and a camera, but yes, I think so.”
“When did it start?”
He shrugged. “A few days ago.”
“Maybe the day before you got here,” Miranda added. “Remember, Stefan? You got that phone call when we were having lunch, but then the caller hung up without saying anything?”
“Ah, oui. And then you thought someone was following us back to the Palais…”
“But when we turned around, he ducked down an alley and disappeared,” she finished. “So now I’m questioning everything, everybody. The guy behind me at the café this morning — did he smile because he thought I was cute, or was he just pretending to flirt so he could study me? The woman in the hotel lobby — was she really reading that newspaper? Hell, now that I’m feeling paranoid, even you seem kinda sinister, Dr. B, you know?”
I knew, and I made a mental note to make a phone call to Tennessee as soon as I was alone.
* * *
“Stone here.”
“Rocky, it’s Bill Brockton.” I backed into a doorway in a narrow street that was just around the corner from Miranda’s hotel. She’d gone to her room to catch up on her e-mail for an hour, and Stefan had headed off to an electronics store to buy a motion detector and alarm for the treasure chamber. I was on my own until seven, when I’d arranged to fetch Miranda for dinner.
“Doc? I thought you were in France,” said Stone. “Did you just make that up so you could get the extra helicopter ride?”
“No, I am in France. Rocky, I need to know if there’s a chance — any chance at all — that one of your drug smugglers might have followed me here?”
The line was silent for a moment. “Are you serious, Doc?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “I realize it’s unlikely, but I need to know. Somebody’s watching us — me, Miranda, and this French archaeologist we’re working with.”
“Are you sure? What happened? Exactly?”
“We just caught someone watching us through binoculars from about a hundred yards away. Then he traded the binoculars for a camera with a really long lens.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t just sightseeing? Taking in the scenery?”
“Come on, Rocky. Howitzer-sized binoculars, followed by a foot-long telephoto? What would you think if you saw that kind of optical artillery aimed at you?”
“I’d probably think, ‘Oh shit,’” he acknowledged.
“So. Any chance your bad guys have tailed me to France?”
“I doubt it,” he said…but his tone was hedging. He sighed. “The truth is, I can’t completely rule it out. We’ve got a bad leak somewhere, Doc. I don’t know where, but we’ve just had another operation compromised. So yeah, it’s possible they know we called you in. If they do, they know you’d be important at a trial. I’m sorry, Doc. I was gonna call you soon — you’re on my list, but I’m up to my ass in alligators, and I’ve got half a dozen undercover operatives I’m trying to pull in before it’s too late.”
“I understand,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to it. Good luck, Rocky.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Meanwhile, watch your back.”
Suddenly, just as the call ended, I felt myself falling, toppling straight back. Reflexively I yelled; an answering shriek sounded in my ear as I thudded into someone and we landed in a tangle of arms and legs. A moment later, I was helping an irate Frenchwoman to her feet — a woman whose door I’d been leaning against at the moment she opened it. Mortified by my clumsiness — and by my inability to say anything but “pardon, pardon” by way of apology — I slunk down the street and around the nearest corner.
But it’s not paranoia, I finally consoled myself, if they really are out to get you.
CHAPTER 6
“Okay, you can open your eyes now,” I said.
She did, and she squealed with delight. “Oh, sweet—a fancy hotel named after moi!”
“We’re having dinner here.”
“Cool! That’s so…boss, Boss.”
