Blood Oath Part 25

Now Houston recognized the voice. He'd heard it from the speakers in the towers just before he dove.

"Foolish all the same. You're hurt?" the man continued.

Houston didn't answer.

"You're late," the man explained. "We expected you sooner."

"You expected me?"

"Of course. But please, you can't continue kneeling. Help him up."

Two guards jerked Houston to his feet. He wavered.

"Hold him." The man considered him. "Yes. Surely you don't think you could have found this place without my help."

"I managed."

"Please. You've shown remarkable ability. But on occasion you've been helped.

The calls you made to Paris, London, and New York, for instance. I began to doubt they'd be successful. I suspected you realized how easy I'd made things for you. All the little hints and clues you'd been given."

"I was led here? Those three people knew why I was calling?"

"Not exactly. But they had instructions. Though they didn't know the purpose, they did what was necessary."

"Why?"

"Because you hide too well. You run too quickly. I decided I'd never find you, so I changed the game. I felt it was easier if you instead found me. And as you see, I was right." He paused, smiling.

Houston raged, lunging at the man to punch the smirk off his face.

The guards yanked his arms behind his back.

The man seemed oblivious of the attempt. "I'd hoped you'd bring a guest. The invitation was for both of you. But I don't see Simone."

Houston shook. He sensed Monsard nearby, pushing through the guards.

"Simone?" the old man asked him, worried. "Is she with you?"

"I'm not foolish."

"Close perhaps?" the man in evening clothes asked.

"Hardly. But she knows I'm here, and if I don't return, she'll go to the police."

The man chuckled. "Really?"

Houston blurted, "Who the h.e.l.l Are you my father?"

But the man chuckled louder. "Dear me, Mr. Houston, no. Though I believe you've heard of me. Pierre de St. Laurent."

Chapter 46.

The man's eyes twinkled. Houston shuddered. After his long search, at last he'd been successful. But he felt no triumph, no satisfaction. He was sickened.

Something suddenly occurred to him. He swung to face Monsard. His scalp p.r.i.c.kled. "You spoke English?"

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Just now. You asked if she was with me. You spoke English."

But the old man raised his eyebrows, shrugging in confusion. "Je ne comprends pas."

"You're lying!"

The old man frowned, bewildered. Helplessly he glanced at St. Laurent.

But St. Laurent was more amused. "Jacques, it seems he found you out."

Monsard went rigid. Slowly he nodded. "Yes, it's true," he said.

"Simone?"

"She doesn't know. I don't speak English in the village. Years ago the war was over circ.u.mstances made me learn it."

"But why hide it?"

"To avoid attention. To remain a simple small-town Frenchman. Also, while Simone interpreted my conversations with you, I had time to think. Your difficulty with the language helped me to confuse you."

"I was misled from the start?"

The old man nodded.

Houston watched the old man's face. He realized another trick, another lie.

"Your bruises." Monsard touched his swollen face. "They're phony. They're just makeup. You weren't beaten." In the spotlights, Houston saw how obvious the makeup was.

"Theatrical, I grant you, but effective," St. Laurent said. "Were you entertained? We lit the room as brightly as we could. The actors placed themselves conveniently so you'd see them through the window. We experimented with the makeup. If it wasn't thick, you never could have seen it from the walkway."

"I don't understand."

"Enticement. After all, we couldn't let you wander around the castle. If we'd sprung our trap too soon, you might have escaped. But this way, when we had you where we wanted you . . ." His one hand snared the other.

"Then you're not in danger?" Houston asked Monsard.

The old man shook his head.

"In strong disfavor," St. Laurent explained. "But for the moment, not in danger.

He was foolish to have phoned us, to have run here with absurd demands about his daughter. As I thought about the problem, though, I realized he'd unwittingly done us a service. You'd escaped us at the hunting lodge. We didn't know where you were hiding. But your character's consistent. You're determined. I was sure you'd keep hunting us just as we kept hunting you. The phone calls he made. I was sure they'd eventually bring you to us."

"But you could have had me killed just now. Why capture me instead?"

"Because I need you. And Simone. I do wish you'd tell me where she is."

"Need us? As soon as you get both of us, we're finished."

"Such suspicion." St. Laurent clicked his tongue. "You must be tired. You need rest, food."

"What?"

St. Laurent pa.s.sed Houston. The guards pushed Houston, forcing him to follow.

Floodlights glistened off the cobblestones. Houston watched St. Laurent enter another huge door; next to it he saw the brilliant window he had studied from the walkway the enormous fireplace, the chandelier, the paneling, the ma.s.sive furniture.

He was shoved along; events controlled him. Through the door and down an arched stone corridor. The chill of night was replaced by dampness. To the left another corridor, but here the walls were wooden, painted. Then a complex hand-carved door, its detail fine. St. Laurent paused, glancing back at Houston, eyebrows raised ironically. He turned the doork.n.o.b.

Guided by the guards, Houston faced the opening and hesitantly entered. Nervous, stiff, in pain, he heard Monsard come in behind him. Then, as if on cue, one guard stepped out. The other shut the door and snapped back to attention, weapon ready.

Houston gazed with wonder at the room its warmth, its glow, its spendor. If there hadn't been electric lights, he would have sworn he'd tumbled through a hole in time. The suit of armor in one corner, the heraldic crest above the mantel, the crossed swords against one wall. The Song of Roland. Tristan, Lancelot, and Eleanor of Aquitaine. The splendor of medieval France.

He lost his breath.

But then his gaze reached St. Laurent, who smiled disarmingly at him. "Some coffee?" St. Laurent said. "A cordial? Brandy?"

Houston stopped himself from gaping, his concentration directed toward three men who stood beside a polished table in the far corner of the room. One man he'd seen completely from the walkway close to sixty, sandy-haired, distinguished, in a light blue turtleneck and navy blazer.

But the other two had been partially hidden. Now Houston saw that the man who wore the brown suit and the vest was close to sixty also thin-haired, deep-eyed, gaunt, and haggard. Next to him, the man who wore the open-b.u.t.toned shirt with the medallion dangling on his chest was younger, maybe thirty, fierce-eyed, cruel-lipped, insolently handsome.

"But I've forgotten my manners," St. Laurent told Houston. "Let me introduce ourselves. You know me as Francois LeBlanc, of course. And these three gentlemen are Jules Fontaine from London . . ."

Fontaine (in the turtleneck and blazer) raised a half-full brandy snifter in salute.

"From New York, Paul Da.s.sin . . ."

The haggard man nodded stiffly.

"His son, Charles," St. Laurent said.

White shirt and medallion. Absolutely no reaction. Haughty and aloof.

"But as you know, we once had other names."

"My father," Houston said, his voice so strong his muscles cramped his neck.

They bulged like strands of swollen leather. "Which of you?" He glared from St.

Laurent to them. "Who is it?"

Jules Fontaine? The man peered past his brandy snifter.

Paul Da.s.sin? The man was rigid.

"Tell me!"

"I am," Paul Da.s.sin told Houston, his eyes deep, darkly circled, voice reluctant, almost whispering. He cleared his throat as if he choked.

Houston didn't know he'd moved until he took three steps. Then, overwhelmed, he stopped and stared. He concentrated, studying. Was this pale, sickly man the ghost of all his boyhood fantasies? Was this the man whom he had once admired in his dreams and now had learned to hate? A haggard, thin, frail man inviting pity more than anger? Delicate, pathetic?

As his vision failed, his legs gave out. He stumbled toward a chair.

But never reached it. He collapsed.

Chapter 47.

"Are you alert enough to understand me?" St. Laurent asked.

Houston smelled the sharp fumes from the brandy snifter pressed against his lips. He shivered, nodding slightly, reaching for the gla.s.s. His back felt bruised. Movement gave him pain, but he was so intimidated that, despite his injuries, he wasn't groggy. Quite the opposite. He felt on edge, stimulated, fiercely wary.

"Excellent. Then we'll proceed to business. I'll be open with you," St. Laurent told Houston. "Totally direct."

"I don't see a need for this."

The voice was urgent, angry. Houston flinched, surprised, and turned abruptly toward the man who had objected. His half-brother, Charles, whose medallion trembled on his chest. "I don't agree. We shouldn't tell him. It's too risky. I say kill him and be done with it."

"We know," St. Laurent replied. "You've told us several times. Indeed you've tried to kill him several times. You weren't successful."

"There'll be no mistake this time."

"You killed my wife?" Houston said.

Charles squinted insolently.

"You?" Houston's voice rose louder as he set his gla.s.s down and rose from the satin chair. "You drove that van?"

"Of course not."