laughed.
Tom set off in the direction he had indicated, trying to re-
main inconspicuous as he negotiated his way through the
bustling corridors, although in truth everyone seemed far too
distracted to notice him. Interview Room 2 was at the far end
of the building, next to a fi re exit.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 5 7
The technician working the video and recording equip-
ment jumped up as Tom announced himself, stubbing out his
cigarette.
“Jean- Pierre Dumas,” Tom flashed his badge but kept to-
ward the back of the darkened room, the only light coming
from a small lamp angled over the main control panel. “Can
she see us in here?” He nodded toward Jennifer, who was sit-
ting at a small table on the other side of a glass wall, her head
resting in her hands.
“Not while it’s switched on.” The technician grinned.
“Electrochromic glass. The current makes it darken.”
“And she can’t hear me either, right?” He removed his
jacket and placed the files down on the desk in front of him.
“Not unless you turn the mike on here first.” He pointed at
a switch, a puzzled frown creasing his face. “It’s a standard
set- up. Where did you say you were from again?”
“I didn’t,” Tom said firmly, picking up a half-empty bottle
of mineral water and swinging it against the side of the man’s
head, the glass echoing with a hollow clunk as it connected
with his skull. He fell back in his seat, out cold.
Wheeling him out of the way, Tom turned the microphone
on, hesitated, and then spoke.
C H A P T E R F I F T Y- E I G H T
23rd April— 1:43 p.m.
Jennifer lifted her head, her eyes incredulously searching
the room before settling accusingly on the mirrored panel
set into the wall.
“Tom?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get in here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“What the hell does it look like I’m doing here?” she shot
back angrily, her surprise evaporating. “They think I was in
on it with you.”
A pause.
“I’m sorry. I never thought that they would . . .”
“Save it,” she cut him off, and stepped toward the glass,
“the only person you thought about was yourself. You used
me, Tom. You used me to make them move the painting.”
“They didn’t believe me,” Tom’s voice echoed back. “I had
no choice.”
“Except now I’m the one stuck in here being asked the
same dumb- assed questions again and again.”
“What about the Bureau? Why haven’t they got you out?”
“Good question.” She gave a sad laugh. “They’re saying I
acted wihout their agreement and that it’s not their problem.
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 5 9
And the French are kicking up too much of a shitstorm for
the Embassy to get involved beyond the standard handhold-
ing.” Her anger was replaced by a sudden melancholy. “I’m
on my own.”
“No you’re not.”
“Why are you even here? You’ve got the painting. That’s
what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“The cops caught Jean- Pierre. I was hoping to break him
out.”
“Dumas is in on this too?” she spluttered. She’d met Jean-
Pierre Dumas with Tom last time she’d been in Paris. It
hadn’t been a pleasant experience, Dumas having threatened
her with arrest for trespassing on a crime scene and then
more or less ordering her out of the country. She wasn’t sure,
therefore, if her outrage stemmed from this tainted memory
or her shock at a French government agent having crossed
over to Tom’s side.
The glass suddenly went clear. Tom was standing directly
in front of her, no more than a foot away.
“I could get you out instead.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea,” she snorted, stepping back. “Let’s
go on the run together. That should help clear things up.”
“We don’t have much time,” he urged her. “You want to
take your chances with the French legal system, fine. Or you
can leave here now and help me figure out what the hell is
going on and how to put it right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Milo’s still got Eva. I tried to make an exchange with a
forged version of the
Mona Lisa
today but the police must
have been following him. That’s how they caught J-P.”
“So you’ve still got the one you took from the convoy?”
she asked with relief.
“Yeah. Except it’s a forgery too.”
“That’s impossible.” She snorted disbelievingly. “They
lifted it off the wall and took it straight down.”
“Henri ran some tests on it. He says—”
“Hold on,” she interrupted with an angry shake of her
head. “Besson is working with you too? Since when?”
“Right from the start.”
2 6 0 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
“Has anyone been straight with me since I got here?” she
fumed.
“He thinks that at some stage in the last couple of hundred
years, it’s been switched.” He quickly ran through Besson’s
findings concerning the discrepant X-rays and paint pigment.
“Unless I can prove what Milo’s up to, they’ll pin the whole
thing on me. Dumas will go down for it. You, too, from the
look of things.”
“It’s got nothing to do with me.” She sat down heavily in
the chair.
“Really? Then where did you get that Louvre accession
number?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It had something to do with your case, right?”
“I can’t tell you,” she insisted.
“The FBI have thrown you to the wolves, Jen. You owe
them nothing. Where did you get that number?”
She stared at him blankly.
“They could send somebody down any moment now to
continue the questioning,” he reminded her. “Every second
counts.”
She shrugged and then gave a heavy sigh. He was right.
Besides, what possible difference could it make anymore?
She quickly told him about Razi and Hammon and the piece
of paper they’d found on his fax.
“How was it signed?”
“It wasn’t. It just had an M with a circle . . .” She tailed off,
the significance of that letter only now dawning on her.
“Milo,” Tom confirmed what she had just guessed. “Don’t
you see? We’ve been working the same case from different
angles. Hammon must have been acting for one of Milo’s
buyers.”
“Then why did he kill him?” she asked.
“Once you’re free we can figure that out together. But we
need to leave now.”
“The FBI will—”
“The FBI don’t give a shit about anyone other than them-
selves,” he cut her off impatiently. “There’s no one to help
you now apart from me.”
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 6 1
“But if I run now, they’ll think we were working to-
gether.”
“They think that already,” he retorted.
“Yeah, but if I stay put, there’s a good chance this will
work itself out,” she said firmly, wondering if she was trying
to convince him, or herself.
“A good chance? Are you really willing to roll the dice
with the next twenty years of your life?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Look, I listened to you once Jen,” Tom pleaded. “I lis-
tened to you, and I was right to do so. Now you need to do the
same for me before someone comes and it’s too late.”
“That was totally different,” she shot back, even though
she could sense her re sistance fl agging.
“Why? Because then I was the thief and now you’re the
one in a cell? We’re both looking for the same answers. Mi-
lo’s the key to everything. If we stop him, we’ll both be in the
clear.”
She hesitated, knowing he was right and that it came down
to a simple choice: Wait here and trust the system, or get out-
side and force the issue. In the end, the decision was easier
than she might have expected. She’d never been the trusting
type.
“Even if I say yes, how are you planning to get me out of
here?”
Tom grinned with relief.
“Straight out the front door.”
He disappeared from the other side of the glass. A few mo-
ments later, the cell door buzzed open.
“Put these on.” He tossed her a pair of handcuffs and
slipped his baseball cap back on.
“You must be kidding.”
“You got a better idea?”
She shook her head sullenly and held her arms out in front
of her with a sigh. An FBI agent being cuffed by a thief. It
wasn’t exactly how she’d seen this case playing out when
she’d first taken it on.
“This place is crawling with people from about fi ve differ-
ent agencies. No one knows anyone anymore,” Tom explained
2 6 2 j a m e s
t w i n i n g
as he snapped them shut. “We can use that. Just keep your
head down. Everyone will assume you’re being moved to a
different cell or interview room.” He cracked the door open
an inch and peered into the corridor. “Okay. Let’s go.”
He led her back toward the entrance. As he had predicted,
no one gave them a second glance. Reaching the security
barrier, he signed Jennifer out and then pushed her roughly
ahead of him through the revolving gate.
“Does Ferrat know you’re transferring her?” The same of-
ficer that Tom had questioned earlier stepped into their path
just as they were about to exit on to the street.
“What do you think?” Tom shot back irritably.
“Just checking.” The man held his hands up apologetically
and stepped aside.
Tom steered Jennifer toward where Archie was waiting for
them, the engine running.
“Wait a minute . . .” The offi cer had followed them out on
to the street. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
“Keep walking,” Tom whispered to Jennifer as he turned
to face him. “I don’t think so.”
“Yes . . .” A look of shocked realization spread across the
officer’s face. “You’re . . .”
Tom threw the radio at him before he had a chance to fi n-
ish his sentence, catching him on the side of his head and
sending him reeling to the fl oor.
“Run!” he shouted, shoving Jennifer toward the waiting
car as the officer staggered to his feet and raised the alarm.
“What the hell is she doing here?” Archie exclaimed an-
grily as they leaped inside. “Where’s J-P?”
“Can we do the explanations later?” Tom nodded toward
the pack of officers loping toward them.
“They’d better be good,” Archie insisted, putting the car
into gear and pulling away. They stalled with a sudden lurch.
“Archie!” Tom exclaimed as the officers reached them and
tried the doors.
“French piece of shit,” Archie fumed as he started the en-
gine again. “Clutch is shot to bloody pieces.”
The window nearest to Jennifer shattered as one of the
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 6 3
policemen swung his torch against it. Another man leaped on
to the hood and reached for his gun.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Tom shouted as he leaned across
to help Jennifer fight the man off.
With a roar, the car suddenly swung out and accelerated
away, sending the man on the hood spinning to the ground.
Meanwhile a well- aimed kick from Jennifer dislodged the
officer who had forced his upper body through the window.
The remaining men gave chase for about five hundred yards
before giving up.
“You’d better be right about this.” Jennifer glared at Tom.
“You’d better hope I can get those handcuffs off,” he
smiled.
C H A P T E R F I F T Y- N I N E
AVENUE DE L’OBSERVATOIRE, 14TH ARRONDISSEMENT,
PARIS
23rd April— 2:17 p.m.
How long have you known Besson?” Jennifer asked Tom
as he closed the gate behind them and pressed fi ve.
“Almost since I got started, really. He’s been clean for
years, but that didn’t stop him helping out here and there.”
“He’s a handy bloke to know,” Archie confi rmed, having
calmed down a bit now that Tom had explained exactly how it
was that he’d gone in for Dumas and come out with Jennifer.
Even so, Tom sensed that Archie was already taking a per-
verse pleasure in her tasting life on the other side of the law.
“He’s a convincing liar,” she retorted as the elevator shud-
dered and scraped its way up the shaft.
Tom wasn’t surprised by her resentful tone. No one liked
having the wool pulled over their eyes, least of all Jennifer,
who from what he’d seen, already suffered from a slight ten-
dency to think that everyone was out to get her.
“Don’t hold that against him,” he urged her. “He didn’t lie
to you about your case. Anything else he did or said was to
help me and Eva. It’s nothing personal.”
Besson greeted them warmly until he caught sight of Jen-
nifer and stopped in his tracks, peering out beyond her into
t h e g i l d e d s e a l
2 6 5
the corridor with a worried frown that pulled one half of his
face into a question mark.
“Where’s Jean- Pierre?”
“The police were on to us,” Archie explained. “Someone
must have followed Milo from the meet this morning. J-P got
pinched.”
“And her?” Besson asked as if she wasn’t there.
“Ask Tom.” Archie shrugged.