LITMIR.BIZ

      A PIRATE NEVER GAVE UP the location of his best plunder. Never. But when two police officers escorted Jack’s mother from the hospital room where they’d been questioning Jack and his father, Mad Bloody Jack became irate.

      “Don’t touch my mother!” he shouted.

      “They’re not going to hurt her, Jack,” his father reassured. “Though I don’t know where they’re taking her. You have to tell us where you got the money. Please, Jack, to keep your mother safe.”

      In a rush of fear and utter exhaustion, Mad Bloody Jack gave the details of his raid. He didn’t take it all. There had been too much to carry. Now would they please let his mother go and get to ordering that new liver for his brother?

      Toby died three days later. The police had confiscated the money. Jack had been inconsolable. He’d done it. He had found a means to save his brother’s life. And the adults—they’d done nothing! What was wrong with them? Didn’t they want to save Toby?

      “It was never that simple,” his father said. Keith Lambert’s face was drawn and his sigh chilled across Jack’s shoulders.

       1

       France, present day

      Ascher Vallois unlocked the trunk of his car. The hydraulics squeaked as the trunk yawned open. He was ready for a new car, but given the finances, the ten-year-old Renault Clio would have to serve.

      He set a practice épée and mask onto the trunk bed. Tearing the Velcro shoulder seams open on his jacket, he then tugged that off.

      Wednesday afternoons demanded he wear the leather-fronted plastron. The teenage students he taught were overly confident about their lunges. Actually, they thought themselves indestructible. They didn’t give consideration to their teacher’s destructibility. That was why he also wore a full mask. The scar on his jaw had been a lesson to ensure he wore complete protection around kids at all times.

      Tomorrow he planned to bring his collection of instructional videos to the studio. The students could learn the importance of a well-designed weapon from watching a master forge a blade. As well, there was much to be gained from watching fencing masters in competition.

      Ultimately, he wanted to have a camera set up in the studio so he could record students, and then play back their practice matches for them to study. The best way to learn was by observing your own bad habits and then correcting them.

      All things in good time, he told himself. And if his latest expedition proved successful, the aluminum fencing piste he’d been dreaming about could become reality. It was wireless, which would be more practical for movement and scorekeeping, considering he hadn’t the cash to hire an assistant.

      He slammed the trunk shut. It was well past sunset, yet a rosy ambiance painted the horizon, reminding him of a woman’s blush. An autumn breeze tickled the perspiration at the back of his neck, drying his sweaty hair.

      The noise of traffic from the main shopping stretch had settled. Sens had relaxed and let out its belt. The citizens of the French city were inside restaurants chattering over roasted fowl and a bottle of wine, or at home watching the nightly news or shouting at the quiz shows.

      Shoving a hand in his pants pocket, Ascher mined for his keys, but paused. A tilt of his head focused his hearing behind him and to the left.

      He was not alone.

      Swinging a peripheral scan, he paused only a quarter of the way through his surroundings.

      Standing at the front left corner of the Clio, a tall thin man with choppy brown-and-blond hair rapped his knuckles once upon the rusted hood of the vehicle. A silver ring glinted, catching the subtle glow from an ornamental streetlight up the street. Small bold eyes smiled before the man’s mouth did.

      Ascher felt the salute in that look. A call to duel. The foil had been raised with a mere look. He stood in line of attack.

      From where had the man come? This narrow street was normally quiet, save for the business owners who parked in the reserved spaces where Ascher now stood.

      Suddenly aware that others had moved in behind him, Ascher stiffened his shoulders but kept his arms loose, ready. He jangled his keys. A tilt of his head, left then right, loosened his tensing muscles.

      The air felt menacing, heavy, as if he could take a bite out of it.

      The smiling man offered a casual “Bonsoir.”

      Wary, yet not so foolish as to leap into a fight—this may be nothing more than a man asking directions—Ascher offered a lift of his chin in acknowledgment.

      “Mr. Vallois, I am a friend,” the man offered.

      His French accent wasn’t native, and he looked more Anglo than European, Ascher thought. A dark gray suit fit impeccably upon a sinewy frame. Probably British, he assumed from the slim silhouette of the man’s clothing.

      He knew his name? Caution could be a fencer’s downfall. Confidence and awareness must remain at the fore.

      “I have many friends,” Ascher said forcefully, lifting his shoulders. “I know them all upon sight. I do not know you.”

      Sensing the potential threat level without moving his head to look, Ascher decided there were two men behind him. Bodyguards for the man standing before him?

      Ascher eyed the practice épée through the window of the Clio. “Are these gentlemen behind me my friends, as well?”

      “You amuse me, Mr. Vallois. And yes, if you wish it, they can be your very best friends. More preferable than enemies, wouldn’t you say?”

      What the hell was going on? He’d been keeping his nose clean. In fact, the past few years Ascher had gone out of his way to remain inconspicuous. There was nothing like a run-in with the East Indian mafia over rights to claimed treasure to cool a man’s jets.

      “Jacques Lambert.” The man thrust out a thin hand to shake—an advance that put him to lunge distance—but Ascher did not take the bait. This guy was not British. An American using a French name perhaps? “My business card claims me CEO of BHDC, a genetic-research lab in Paris. You have not heard of us.”

      No need to verify that one. Ascher’s interests covered anything athletic, sporting or adventurous. Science? Not his bag. “Genetic research? I don’t understand,” Ascher said.

      “It is a difficult field to get a mental grasp on,” Lambert replied. “But the beauty of it is that you don’t have to understand. Simple acceptance is required.”

      “Sorry, I gave at the office.”

      “I’m not on the shill, Vallois. In fact, I have an interest in financing your current dig.”

      The dig? But he’d only that morning gathered a small crew of fellow archaeologists online. They weren’t set to convene in Chalon-sur-Saône for another two weeks.

      Who had brought in this fellow without consulting him?

      Ascher trusted the two men he had chosen to assist on the dig. Jay and Peyton Nash had accompanied him before. They were his age, far more knowledgeable in archaeology than him, and also enjoyed a challenging mountain bike course, like the one they’d conquered in Scotland’s Tweed Valley.

      Although…he’d recruited another. A woman. He did not know her beyond what he’d learned while chatting with her online. And admittedly, knowledge of her character had been not so important as her figure and those

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