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Remi flipped through her Post-it Note-marked Frommer’s guidebook. “In Portoferraio, on the northern coast. He had two homes, actually, the Villa San Martino and the Villa dei Mulini. He had a staff of somewhere between six hundred and one thousand, and took the title Emperor of Elba.”
“Took the title, or was slapped in the face with it?” Sam asked. “After having had a good chunk of Europe under his thumb, ‘Emperor of Elba’ had to have been something of a letdown.”
“True. Another fun fact: before leaving for Elba Napoleon tried to poison himself.”
“No kidding.”
“Apparently he kept it in a bottle around his neck—a cocktail of opium, belladonna, and white hellabore. Before leaving on the Russian Campaign he had it mixed up.”
“He probably didn’t want to fall into the hands of the Cossacks.”
“Well, I can’t say I blame him. They still don’t like him. Anyway, he drank it but by then it was a couple years old and too weak. He spent the night writhing in pain on the floor, but survived.”
“Remi, you’re a font of knowledge.”
She ignored him, still reading. “What none of the historians seemed to agree on is how exactly he escaped. There were both French and Prussian guards stationed all over the island and offshore there was a British man-o’-war on constant patrol.”
“Tricky little devil.”
“Car behind us,” Sam said a few minutes later. Remi turned and looked out the back window. A half mile down the mountain road a cream-colored Peugeot was rounding a curve. It disappeared from view for a few moments behind a hillside, then reappeared.
“He’s in a hurry.”
Since leaving the Bahamas both Sam
and Remi had been hyper-vigilant to signs of pursuit, but had so far seen nothing. The problem with an island as small as Elba was that it had limited points of entry and Bondaruk’s wealth could go a long way here.
Sam tightened his grip on the wheel, eyes alternating between the rearview mirror and the road ahead.
A couple minutes later the Peugeot appeared behind them and closed the gap until it was only a few feet off their bumper. Glare from the sun kept the occupants in silhouette, but Sam could make out two shapes, both male.
Sam stuck his arm out the window and waved for them to pass.
The Peugeot didn’t move, glued to their tail, then abruptly it pulled out and started speeding up. Sam tensed his foot, ready to hit the brake. Remi glanced out the passenger window; there was the narrowest of dirt shoulders there, followed by a sharp drop-off. Five hundred feet below she could see goats grazing in a pasture; they looked like ants. Their passenger tire swerved a few inches right. Gravel peppered the side of the car. Sam eased left, back onto black-top. “Buckled in?” he said through clenched teeth.
“Yep.”
“Where are they?”
“Coming up right now.”
The Peugeot drew even with Sam’s door. Sitting in the passenger seat, a swarthy man with a handlebar mustache stared at him. The man nodded once, curtly, then the Peugeot’s engine revved and it sprinted ahead and disappeared around the next bend.
“Friendly folks,” Remi said with a loud exhale.
Sam relaxed his hands on the wheel, flexing his fingers to get blood flowing back into them. “How far left to go?”
Remi unfolded the map, her finger tracing along. “Five, six miles.”
They reached their destination in the late afternoon. Perched on the slopes of Monte Capanello and surrounded by forests of Aleppo pines and juniper, the village of Rio nell’Elba, population nine hundred, sat under the shadow of the eleventh-century castle, Volter raio, and was to Sam’s and Remi’s eyes the epitome of a medieval Tuscan village, complete with narrow cobblestoned alleys, shadowed piazzas, and stone balconies overflowing with orchids and cascading lavender.
Remi said, “Says here Rio nell’Elba is the rock-hunting capital of Tuscany. They’re still finding mines that date back to the Etruscans.”
They found a parking spot across from the Hermitage of Santa Caterina and got out. According to Yvette, their contact, a man named Umberto Cipriani, was the assistant curator of the Museo dei Minerali, the Mining Museum. Remi got herself oriented on the map and they started walking, finding the museum ten minutes later. As they crossed the piazza Sam said, “Here, let me take your picture. Stand in front of the fountain.”
She did as he asked, smiled for several shots, then rejoined Sam, who called up the images on the camera’s LCD screen. “We should take another, Sam, I’m a little out of focus.”
“I know. Look at what is in focus. Smile, look pleased.”
