The Last Patriot

CHAPTER 24

When René Bertrand appeared at the appointed time, he wasn’t hard to spot. Even in the quirky world of rare-book dealers, Bertrand was a real character.

The flamboyant dandy in a white three-piece silk suit stood about five-foot-seven. The only thing thinner than his emaciated frame was the pencil-thin mustache that hovered above his almost nonexistent upper lip. His hair was parted on the left and slicked back with some sort of pomade while a pair of gray eyes darted nervously back and forth beneath two overly manicured eyebrows. A pocket watch on a gold chain sat nestled inside his vest pocket. On his feet, the rare-book dealer wore a pair of highly polished black and white spectators while a brightly colored handkerchief billowed from his breast pocket.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and given his overall physical appearance, Harvath wondered if there was more to Bertrand’s paranoia than just being in possession of one of the world’s most valuable books.

Harvath waited as long as he dared and then finally approached the man. “Monsieur Bertrand?”

“Yes?” the book dealer replied in heavily accented English.

Harvath had run through how he was going to play this. Nichols had explained that Bertrand was very careful. He had shown the professor only copies of the first few pages of the Don Quixote with its dedication from Cervantes to the Duke of Bejar, a phrase in Latin that read “After the shadows I await the light,” and of course the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson.

Bertrand was certainly not going to be carrying the book with him. It would be kept someplace safe until a price had been settled upon and he had received his money.

“I work with Professor Nichols,” said Harvath.

“And why is he not here?”

“He’s getting the rest of your money together.”

René Bertrand smiled, his teeth stained from a lifetime of cigarettes and coffee. “That is very nice, but he has yet to make me an offer I can accept.”

Harvath noticed that Bertrand was perspiring. “Are you feeling okay, Monsieur?”

The smile never wavered. “The offer, please?” he asked.

“We are prepared to beat the competitive offer by one hundred thousand.”

“Euros?” asked Bertrand.

“Naturally,” Harvath replied. “I also have been authorized to give you this,” he said as he tapped the outside of his jacket. “Ten thousand euros cash, right now, in exchange for just ten minutes of your time?”

“Ten minutes of my time for what?”

Now it was Harvath’s turn to smile. “For me to explain why you should close the bidding and why the University of Virginia is the right home for this very special book.”

The book dealer’s heavy-lidded eyes narrowed. “And I get to keep the ten thousand no matter what?”

Harvath nodded. “No matter what.”

“May I see the money, please?” asked Bertrand.

Withdrawing the envelope from his inside pocket, Harvath discreetly opened the flap and showed him the stack of bills. “Perhaps we can find a café nearby?”

Bertrand loved dealing with universities, especially American universities. In his experience, they always had much more money than sense. “There’s a café not far from here,” he responded. “I need to use the facilities anyway. Let’s make it quick. I have a meeting with your competition in thirty minutes.”

In espionage, operatives learn to discern and then play to a subject’s vulnerabilities. For Harvath, René Bertrand, to employ a very bad pun, was like an open book. He stood to make a lot of money from his role in the sale of the Don Quixote, but ten thousand euros for ten minutes of his time was a sweetener the man couldn’t say no to. Espionage was often part con game. The surest way to get people under your control was to ask them to do you a favor.

And that’s exactly what Harvath had done. Now, for his plan to work, he needed to get Bertrand out of the building.

The ten thousand euros was nothing more than bait, and the book dealer had taken it. No doubt he saw Harvath as a fool, but he was about to learn who the fool really was.

The pair worked their way up the crowded main aisle to the front of the Grand Palais. They were about two hundred feet from the entrance when Harvath felt something hard pressed into the small of his back.

At the same time, a man leaned in toward his ear and warned, “Do anything stupid and I’ll pull this trigger and sever your spine.”