The Barbary Pirates by William Dietrich Read Free Book Online

required by our new peace treaty. Yet Greece as an ally would be a thorn to Istanbul, Austria, and the English, and a rose to us. All we need is a steady ally, and I have one in mind, a scholarly firebrand named Ioannis Kapodistrias. You’re to meet him, under the guise of an archaeological mission, and see if French help could instigate a revolt.”
    “Didn’t you try that in Ireland?” I reminded, undiplomatically.
    “It will work this time.”
    “And what archaeological mission?” If I sounded wary, it was because I associated the trade with trick doors, collapsing tunnels, and near drowning. Pyramids and temples have a way of pinching in on you, I’ve found.
    Fouché answered. “As minister of police, it’s my responsibility to keep an eye on all factions that represent a possible threat to the state, including the Egyptian Rite. One of my investigators learned that you’d been asking your scientific associates in Paris about the island of Thira at the same time these renegade Freemasons were acquiring books and maps on it.”
    “But all I know of Thira is the name.”
    “So you say. Yet what a remarkable coincidence that so much attention is being paid to an obscure rock on the Aegean Sea. And you, Ethan Gage, return from America after association with the British and seek out the American inventor Fulton, the British surveyor Smith, and a French expert on ancient cataclysms. How conspiratorial! The idea of using a bordello as cover was really quite ingenious.”
    “It was Madame Marguerite who lured us.”
    “Come, Gage, we know each other too well for you to play the fool with me,” Napoleon said. “This charade of bumbling confusion is all very amusing, but you insert yourself in every mystery and conspiracy there is. Nor do I think your esteemed friends would associate with a rake and wastrel like yourself unless there was advantage to be gained. You meet the Rite in the bowels of the Palais Royal, start a fire, initiate a riot, run down your competitors, and pretend to ignorance? All of us know you must be in pursuit of what’s been long rumored.”
    “First Consul!” Cuvier cried. “I swear I know nothing about his plotting!”
    “Of course not,” Bonaparte said mildly. “Gage is using you. Using all of you. He’s a devious rascal, a master of intrigue, and if he were French I’ve no doubt Fouché would have recruited him to the police long ago. Is that not true, Minister?”
    “Even now I do not fully understand his motives and alliances,” Fouché admitted.
    I, of course, had not the slightest idea of what was going on, and was trying to decide if I should be proud or insulted by this new description of me as brilliant, devious, and a master of intrigue. All I’d seen was the word “Thira” on a scrap of golden foil in the middle of the American wilderness—a Norse Templar artifact, according to my late companion Magnus Bloodhammer—and nothing else. Still, if the police were so smart, maybe I could learn something from them.
    “I’m also looking for Og,” I tried. That was written on the foil, too, before Aurora Somerset made a mess of the whole thing. She was the reason I’d sworn off women.
    At that word, Fouché stiffened and looked at me warily. Cuvier, too, stared curiously. But it was Napoleon who’d gone white.
    “What did you say?” the first consul asked.
    “Og.” It sounded silly even to me.
    The first consul glanced questioningly at my three companions, and then addressed the others. “I think Monsieur Gage and I need a moment alone.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    We walked fifty paces from the group and stopped by the pond shore , out of hearing from anyone else. “Where did you hear that word?” Napoleon asked sharply.
    “In America.”
    “America! How?”
    I sighed. It was the first time I’d even tried to relate what really happened, and I didn’t expect anyone to believe me. “You may remember a Norwegian named Bloodhammer who visited Mortefontaine when we