The Emerald Storm by William Dietrich Read Free Book Online Page B

our patron in the ministry doesn’t erase our loyalty to France. We act on our own for the good of the state.”
    A criminal with a badge is the very worst kind. “Your superiors have no idea what you’re up to here?”
    “They’ll thank us for it.”
    It’s never good when evil thinks it’s doing the right thing.
    “I do know one secret,” I tried. “I have friends trying to build a steamboat, which is a vessel powered by one of Watt’s clamorous engines. It’s going to be demonstrated for Napoleon on the Seine this summer. I wouldn’t care to fetch the boiler wood myself, but it may prove a brilliant investment opportunity, though personally I can’t see the logic, yet men like you wagering on the idea at this opportune stage—”
    I was plunged down into the water again.
    Their questions hammered at me. How had I learned about the jewel? Where was the treasure of the Aztecs? What did I know about flying machines? Oh, they were balmy, all right, and not a little happy to keep me so rattled that it gave them an excuse to dunk me again and again. They were having a jolly good time of it, whereas I experienced the shock of cold water, the dark and helplessness, the agonizing holding of breath, the terrible sensation of drowning, excruciating resurrection back to the light . . . how precious is the air we so take for granted! Searing pain of lung, raw throat, leaking nostrils, the dread of extinction . . .
    I’ve had better conversations.
    “I took it from a heathen pasha!” I sputtered. “It’s only proper recompense for serving the first consul. He’s a friend, I warn you!” And down they sank me again.
    Each time was longer, but instead of loosening my lips, the torture was turning me insensible. They began to realize this, as Martel started pacing.
    “Maybe he’s really as stupid as he says,” one of his henchmen suggested.
    “The great Ethan Gage? Hero, explorer, and negotiator? He makes fools of men by playing the fool. The one man in the world to find this emerald just happens to be the one who has roamed from the Holy Land to Canada? Who befriends savants and politicians? Who served the foul Englishman Sir Sydney Smith? No, Gage knows far more than he’s telling us. Look at him hang there, playing the idiot.”
    “But I am an idiot,” I tried. And down I plummeted again.
    Living a significant life is terribly overrated.
    “I believe the treasure is in the Great Pyramid of Egypt,” I tried the next time, making up nonsense just to get them to stop. “The Aztecs and Egyptians were one happy bunch, you see, with nearly the same kind of architecture. Of course I’ve no idea how to get back inside, but with enough gunpowder—”
    They lashed me again, grunting each time they swung the switch. Flogging never works, but we live in an age when it’s the first solution to everything. Lord, it hurt! But at least they didn’t dunk me, since I truly was on the brink of drowning.
    “What do we do now, Martel?” the accomplice said. “Fouché can’t protect us anymore, and Bonaparte will be impatient. I warned you that no man brings his wife on a treasure hunt, or dawdles in Paris while riches await.”
    “Silence!” He glared at me. “He must know more than he’s telling.”
    Why do people assume this? Men never want my advice when I have any, and whip me for it when I don’t.
    “To hell with him,” Martel went on. “Let’s drown Gage and throw the body into the Seine.”
    “His wife had Bonaparte’s ornament.”
    “And Gage his iron collar. By the time anyone finds him he’ll be rotted to cheese.”
    An unpleasant picture. “Why don’t you just keep the emerald?” I countered. “I promise not to tell, and if I hear of any more riches, I’ll be sure to let you know. . . .”
    Then there was a shot, loud and shocking in the close cellar, and a bullet hit the rope I was suspended by, twanging it like a harpsichord string. It frayed, I twirled, it broke, and then I dropped