Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Sorry. I don’t have much that I call home. Traveling too much. But if I had a base of operations, I’d have to say that I’m usually found in New York or London.” He released Alexei’s hand to turn him around so they were facing each other. The young assassin’s smirk had gained a questioning expression, but he said nothing. Just letting Soren stroll right out onto that limb all by himself. “I have noticed that London is relatively close to Paris.”
“You know, I never noticed that.”
No, he wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“And I was thinking that after all this was over, I might make some regular trips to Paris.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Really?” Soren’s heart jumped in his chest.
Alexei nodded. “Oh, yeah. I think the food is much better in Paris than London.”
He was going to strangle him. Definitely strangle him. The little shit was practically busting at the seams to laugh right in his face, but he was holding it all in. Only his dark eyes were shining with his mirth.
“Would you consider joining me for some of those meals?”
Alexei shrugged and stepped away from him, walking toward the next statue on display. “It depends,” he tossed over his shoulder.
Soren took a couple of long strides to catch up with him. “And what does it depend on?”
“On whether you get me shot or arrested today.”
Yeah, he was definitely going to avoid those two things. They’d already been on his list of things not to do, but now he had more incentive than ever before.
After the Greek and Roman exhibits, they wandered their way toward the decorative arts exhibit, which was interesting because it gave a person the feeling of stepping back in time. The furniture was preserved and restored to pristine quality. It was easy to imagine members of the French royal court wandering through these rooms, sipping tea and wine, ignoring the needs of the dirty peasants.
From what Soren had seen of it, these rooms received a steady flow of museum visitors, but it wasn’t nearly the crush that could be found in the galleries that held some of the more famous paintings such as the DaVincis.
In his mind, he had clearly worked out the plan, and he carefully explained it to Alexei as they strolled through some of the statues. There were a few interesting expressions that crossed his face, but he didn’t counter or argue with him. He asked a few questions to clarify some things—including the critical question of what he was doing about all the security cameras.
Soren was rather proud of the app built into his phone an associate had designed for him that disrupted the feed of every camera that he passed. After disabling the GPS chip and moving the SIM card to the new phone, the old phone was now little more than a miniature computer to run apps on.
Since they’d entered the museum, Soren had been turning the interference app off and on all while they moved through the museum, giving the impression that the security system was having rolling problems through its entire program. The picture would be scrambled one last time while they were in the decorative arts and then miraculously fix itself.
Unless they stopped…
No. He had Alexei with him. He didn’t need to pick up any other items while in the Louvre. He was still trying to figure out how to keep the shiniest thing of all.
When they reached the right area, they started to slowly drift apart in a natural way, as if one of them were looking at the items slightly faster than the other. Soren’s heart raced as the rolltop desk finally came into sight. He had to admit that he didn’t really know a damn thing about Marie Antoinette other than what he’d seen in movies, and everyone knew that Hollywood wasn’t worried about the truth, just what was entertaining. But standing in front of the desk, he had to wonder how much the queen had used it. Had she written a lot of letters? Or maybe she’d had a secretary who’d sat on a spindle-legged chair and wrote letters by ink and quill.
It was a nice desk, made of a warm, dark honey-colored wood. The staff of the Louvre had taken exquisite care of the piece, making sure that it was restored to its original quality. When he’d first spotted the desk, he’d been very tempted to hide the hard drive within the rolltop part, but there was a lock on it and he wasn’t sure if the staff regularly opened the desk to clean it.
However, the desk did have a decorative piece of wood on the front, directly under the desktop that shielded a person’s view of the bottom of the desk. All he’d needed was a good piece of sticky tape.