All the Devils Are Here(106)

“Wait a minute,” said Daniel. “This Thierry Girard was the second-in-command at the Préfecture de Paris before Fontaine?”

“Oui,” said his father. “Irena Fontaine took over eighteen months ago.” Armand turned back to Beauvoir and was about to speak, when Daniel interrupted.

“I was in Fontaine’s office this afternoon. There’re posters around, including one of Copenhagen Harbor. I commented on it. Asked how she liked Copenhagen. But she said she’d never been outside France.”

Beauvoir was about to ask what that had to do with anything when he suddenly got it.

“Cologne,” he said.

“Cologne,” said Armand, nodding, and smiling at his son. “Well done.”

“I don’t understand,” said Séverine Arbour.

“Irena Fontaine couldn’t have been the one who bought the cologne for Claude,” said Armand.

“Not if she’s never been outside France,” said Daniel.

“When Monique Dussault told me that Claude’s second-in-command gave him the cologne,” said Reine-Marie, “I assumed she meant Commander Fontaine. But actually she meant Thierry Girard, who also bought some for himself. Was he the one we interrupted in Stephen’s apartment?”

“Perhaps,” said Armand.

They were getting closer to the truth, but there was still far too much they didn’t know. And time was short. It was now quarter to six. Just a few hours before he was to meet Dussault in Place de la Concorde.

Information would be his only ammunition, and so far he had precious little of that.

He checked for the messages that had downloaded when Reine-Marie took his phone to the surface.

Jean-Guy, the rational man who lived in a near perpetual state of magical thinking, also checked his phone.

Not surprisingly, it was empty of new messages.

Armand’s was not.

“What is it?” Reine-Marie asked, noticing Armand’s brows drop, then draw together.

“An update from Mrs. McGillicuddy. It looks like Stephen sold all his holdings.”

“We know that,” she said. “The fake art—”

“Non. All his holdings. Everything,” said Armand. “All his shares, his investments, even in his own company. He’s mortgaged his homes. Liquidated everything.”

“But that’s not possible,” said Daniel, moving to his father’s side to read the message.

“He’s in the hospital,” said Reine-Marie. “How … ?”

“It says here he did it late Friday,” said Daniel, scanning the message. “Minutes before market close.”

“Mrs. McGillicuddy’s just discovered it,” said Armand. “This was no last-minute whim on Stephen’s part. He’s obviously spent years putting everything in place. This”—he held up his phone—“was the coup de grace.”

“That would come to—” Daniel began.

“Billions,” said Armand.

“Wouldn’t the markets react?” asked Arbour.

Daniel was shaking his head. “He timed the sell orders so they wouldn’t be noticed until the European markets opened tomorrow morning. By then they’d be unstoppable and he’d have the weekend to do whatever else he needed.”

“But what was that?” asked Jean-Guy. “Does Mrs. McGillicuddy say?”

Armand shook his head. “She’s as shocked as we are.”

“Maybe he wasn’t the one who sold it all. Maybe someone else did,” said Reine-Marie. “Broke into his accounts and did it.”

“No, it was Stephen. Mrs. McGillicuddy confirmed it before writing me.” Armand looked at Daniel. “What do you think he’s up to?”

Daniel returned to his crate and thought, finally shaking his head. “Buying his way onto the board would take maybe a hundred million, maybe more. Not billions. He had something else in mind. But what? It looks like he’s going all in on something. If there’s a sell order, was there also a buy order?”

“Mrs. McGillicuddy’s looking. Is it possible to put in a buy order late on Friday,” asked Armand, “to be executed first thing Monday?”

“Yes, for sure. But there’d still be a record. Somewhere. We might be able to track it down,” said Daniel, considering. “If I go to the bank, I can at least see if the money is still in his account, and if not, I might be able to trace where it’s gone. I can also look into those numbered companies he and Monsieur Plessner were buying into.”

Armand brought out his wallet and without hesitation gave the tattered old JSPS card to his son. “This might help.”

Reine-Marie watched Daniel put it in his jacket pocket, and she wondered if he understood the magnitude of what his father had just done.

Armand did not particularly value possessions. But there were two that he held precious. One was his wedding ring. The other was that small card, which he hadn’t been parted from in half a century.

“We need to find out which board member, if any, Stephen approached,” said Armand.

“That’s something I can look into,” said Reine-Marie. “Research the members, see who might be the most vulnerable. I’ll call Madame Lenoir from the hotel reception and see if we can use the terminals at the Archives nationales.”