Rather than back down, Roux moved to meet him. “You’re right—it is myhome that was attacked, mysecurity that was penetrated. And I suppose it is just a strange coincidence that it happened on the evening that youplanned a surprise party for me, now, isn’t it?”

Annja watched as Garin’s face grew red with anger. “You think I had something to do with this? That I would stoop so low as that? To try and kill you in your own home?” He was shouting now, and Roux was shouting right back, throwing accusations back and forth like some misguided game of catch.

Henshaw stepped between the two men, hands up, holding them back, trying to dissipate the anger before the two went after each other with more than words. The goodwill generated earlier in the evening was gone. If she didn’t do something quickly, Annja realized, there would be blood on the floor soon.

“Stop it, both of you!” she said sharply, and much to her surprise, they actually did.

“Given the incredible number of artifacts and pieces of art inside this house, the most reasonable assumption is that this was nothing more than a well-staged robbery. Lucky for us and unlucky for them, they just happened to choose the wrong night.”

Both men backed off but it was clear that no one was happy with the situation. After a few minutes of angry silence, Roux pulled Henshaw aside and spoke to him quietly, occasionally casting glances in Garin’s direction.

Garin, on the other hand, pretended to ignore him, then announced that he was returning to the study downstairs. Annja went with him. It was a good ten minutes before Roux joined them, which was probably for the best as it gave both men some time to cool down.

Within minutes of his arrival it was clear that the night was over. What had made the evening enjoyable was gone and the chances were slim that they would be able to recapture it. It wasn’t so much the armed assault on Roux’s home, though that would normally be enough to put anyone off their game, but the suspicions that had been tossed around afterward that made their continued conversations strained and uncomfortable. After a short period of time Garin excused himself, claiming a business engagement early in the morning, and offered to give Annja a ride back to her hotel.

When she refused, he said, “Suit yourself,” and left the estate without even a goodbye to their host.

What had started so well had ended badly and Annja couldn’t help but wonder how many times over the years the same thing had happened.

No wonder the two of them were reluctant to spend any time together, she thought.

To fill the silence after Garin’s departure, Annja asked Roux whether he had called the local authorities or those in Paris. “Detectives from the city would probably be better equipped to handle this kind of thing,” she reasoned.

Roux stared at her. “Why on earth would I want to do something so…counterproductive?”

Annja was almost certain that the word on his lips had been stupid,not counterproductive,but she let it go in order to deal with the issue at hand. “Your estate has been attacked. People have died. How can you not call the police?”

“Quite simply, really. We’ll deal with this internally, just as we always do.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “I said no police, Annja. I don’t need incompetent idiots poking around my house, touching my things, when my staff is perfectly capable of handling this on their own.”

At that moment Henshaw stuck his head in the door. “The room’s been cleared, sir. The cleaning crew will be in first thing in the morning to scrub the blood off the floor and to patch the bullet holes by the window.

“Very good, Henshaw. Thank you.”

Annja was aghast. “You can’t just destroy evidence like that!”

Roux laughed and this time it was an ugly sound. “This is my home, Annja. I can do whatever I want in it, including shooting armed intruders foolish enough to enter it. You and your friend Garin would do well to remember that I am not the feeble old man you appear to think I am.”

With that he got up and left the room, leaving Annja staring openmouthed in amazement that he had felt the need to threaten her, of all people. Just what had this night come to?

Deciding she’d had her share of five-hundred-year-old egos for the evening, she strode through the house and back to the second floor, intending to collect her backpack from the room she’d stored it in and get the heck out of there before she said something she would regret later.

But once on the second floor, she felt herself drawn back to the room where she’d come close to losing her life, as if called there by the secrets they were trying so hard to figure out.

5

Annja Creed stood inside the doorway and let her gaze just wander about, without focusing on anything in particular. Her thoughts kept returning to those few moments just before the fight, when she’d first entered the room. She could still see them in her mind’s eyes, the first five men arranged in two precise rows, their swords out and ready, providing the most protection possible for their leader. They had all been standing still, eyes forward, almost as if they had been…

Waiting.

That was what was bothering her.

They hadn’t been moving throughout the room. They hadn’t been actively looking through the artifacts on the walls or heading toward the door to join their colleagues at the front of the house.

They’d been standing still.

Waiting.

But for what?

She didn’t have a clue.

She looked past the bloodstains on the floor and the pile of extra sheets that had been set there in case more were needed to transport the bodies out of the house, and tried to see the place through fresh eyes.

She was missing something and she knew it. It hovered there, on the edge of her mind, like a presence felt but not seen, a watcher in the darkness. There was something here for her to find, something important, but all she could see was row upon row of swords and the fragments of the window scattered across the floor thanks to the combination of Garin’s bullets and the concussion wave of the grenade.

Finally, frustrated and more than a bit annoyed at everyone involved, she turned away, intending to arrange a ride back to her hotel and call it a night.

That was when her eye caught something out of place, a slight anomaly in the otherwise orderly arrangement of the collection.

She turned back and began going over the rows of weapons again, one item at a time, piece by piece, until she could rule each out.

There!

Standing on the hilt of a broadsword that was remarkably similar to the one that had come to her through the centuries was a small figure. When she stepped closer to get a better look, she discovered that it was made from paper. The origami figure was in the shape of a dragon, with swept back wings and a long winding tail.

She stared at it, trying to figure out how it had gotten there.

Annja had been around Henshaw enough times to know that he ruled the cleaning staff with an iron hand. None of them would have dared leave something like the origami dragon behind, no matter how innocuous it seemed. Certainly Henshaw would never do such a thing himself.

The lack of dust on the weapons meant that the display had been cleaned recently, probably in the past day or two. In turn, logic dictated that the paper figurine could only be that old, as well; after all, had the cleaning crew found it they would have thrown it away, if only to save themselves from Henshaw’s ire if he found it himself.