“I know these hotels,” Marcel said. “They are fairly good hostelries, but they could use much improvement.”

“We are prepared to make that investment,” Majorov said, “and we are prepared to make an attractive offer for the Arrington Group, whose expertise would be of benefit to us in refining our hotels. Our offer would be a sum greater than the current value of your hotels.”

“By whose standards?” Marcel asked.

“By objective assessments by real estate experts in Los Angeles and Paris.”

“All right, Marcel,” Stone said, “I have heard out Mr. Majorov, and now I wish to say that I have no interest in any offer from his organization and no interest in hearing further from Mr. Majorov on the subject of our hotels—or on any other subject, for that matter.” He turned to Majorov. “Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Majorov was redder, now, and his hands trembled slightly as he spoke. “Perfectly clear,” he said. “But I wish you to remember that I made this offer in good faith, and that you insulted me.”

“I rejected your offer,” Stone said. “Any insult is your inference.”

Majorov stood, knocking over a glass at his table setting. His two companions swiftly moved to either side of him.

Stone was eyeing a sharp-looking knife on the table.

“I should tell you, Mr. Barrington,” Majorov said, “that the conflict in my organization has not entirely ended, and that there are still those who would regard your absence from the scene as beneficial.”

“I should tell you, Mr. Majorov,” Stone replied, “that I will hold you entirely responsible for any further attempt on the persons of M’sieur duBois or myself or any of our associates or properties. And you may regard that as personal, not business.”

Majorov threw his napkin onto the table and stalked from the room, accompanied by his two bodyguards.

“Whew!” Marcel said. “That man appeared in my bedroom this morning and frightened me half to death. I thought you dealt with him brilliantly.”

“I don’t think either of us is through dealing with him,” Stone said.

43

Stone had a cup of coffee with Marcel and tried to calm him down. When he went downstairs there were no guards present outside the building. He went back inside and looked around the ground floor, then he heard a banging noise and traced it to a closed door. He opened it and found a supply closet containing half a dozen people, bound and gagged, sitting on the floor.

Stone freed one of them and told him to free the others. “Then I suggest you resume your posts and do your work with more care.” He left the building and found a cab in the street. Strangely, he found comfort in being in an ordinary taxi rather than an armored van. “Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” he said to the driver in his best French, which he knew made him sound like an American schoolboy working on his pronunciation.

He wanted a day off from all this. He got out of the cab in front of the old church and began to walk, window-shopping in galleries as he went. He entered a small shop and bought a small sculpture he had seen in the window and asked that it be shipped to his home in New York. He walked for another two hours, then had a good lunch in a small restaurant. His cell phone rang several times, but he ignored it.

He passed a cinema and, on a whim, bought a ticket and saw a film in French with English subtitles, no doubt a nod to the tourists. He lost himself in the film, and when he came outside the November day was beginning to lose its light.

He stopped in another gallery and bought a picture, then he resolved to walk back to the Arrington. He was crossing a bridge over the Seine, and he stopped to have a good look at the Eiffel Tower, watching its light show. Then he looked around and found that he was alone on the bridge. Each end was blocked by black SUVs, and from both sides, men in dark clothes were approaching him. He caught a glimpse of an assault rifle and realized he had no place to go.

Then the men walking toward him began to run, and Stone took the only escape available to him. He placed his hands on the bridge’s railing and vaulted over it. The dark water rushed up at him, and he managed to enter it feet first, having no idea how far he had fallen. He grabbed a breath as the icy Seine closed over him, and he resolved to stay under as long as he could. He experienced a detailed flashback of the experience of the night before with Holly in bed, which seemed to last several minutes. He must be dying, he thought, even though it was not his life flashing before him, but visions of Holly’s body.

He broke the surface, gasping for breath. He could not have been underwater for more than half a minute, he guessed, but the bridge seemed far away. Men were running in both directions, and some were looking down into the water. He had not realized how swift was the Seine’s current, nor how cold it was. His strength was being sapped by the chill and his trench coat seemed to be pulling him down. Still, he didn’t shrug it off; it might contain a little body heat. A barge was bearing down on him, and he swam a few strokes to get out of its way. He had not got far enough, though, and he found himself being bumped along the length of its hull. He saw a tire coming toward him, suspended from the barge’s deck by a short rope, and he managed to get an arm through it.

Now he was being towed downstream, and his feet rose to the surface, trailing behind him. He reached up and got hold of a large cleat, from which the tire was suspended, and hoisted himself high enough to get a foot inside the tire. With his last strength he used the tire as his ladder and pulled himself onto the narrow deck. Then he knew nothing.

—

NEXT, he heard a woman’s voice. “Pierre!” she was shouting, over and over. “Pierre, venez!” Stone stared up into an upside-down face, then he passed out again.

When he woke for the second time, he was warm. He was under a heavy blanket—no, several blankets—in a small cabin. He sat up and looked around. There was a little chest of drawers built into one wall, and there were framed pictures resting on it, family photographs. He stood up and found that he was naked, and he wrapped one of the blankets around himself. He peeked out the door and saw a hallway leading aft to what seemed to be a saloon. “Hello!” he called out. “Bon soir!” No reply. His words had been lost in the sound of the barge’s rumbling engine. He staggered down the hallway and emerged into the nautical version of a family living room. A woman stood with her back to him, bent over an ironing board. On a table behind her was a little pile of things that had once been in his pockets—a credit card case, euros held by a large gold paper clip, a comb, and his iPhone.

“Pardon!” he shouted, and she turned around. She was perhaps fifty, with a weathered but handsome face, dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. “Mon Dieu!” she said.

“No,” Stone said, “just an American. Parlez-vous Anglais?”

“Oui,” she said. “Ah, yes, pretty good. You would like some soup?”

“Merci, yes, please.”

She went to the galley and returned with a large mug containing a dark, steaming liquid: onion soup, as it turned out.

He sipped some. “Wunderbar,” he sighed, and she laughed.

“You are Deutsch? Ah, German?”

“No, just a poor linguist.”

She laughed again.

“Who is Pierre? I heard you calling to him.”

“My husband. He is in the wheelhouse.”

“Where are we?”

“Half the time to the Channel Anglais. Where have you come from?”

He thought about that. He couldn’t think of the name of the bridge. “A bridge,” he said.

“Are you, ah, suicide?”

Stone laughed. “No, but some people were trying to help me in that direction.”