When a person went spelunking they must always chose a trusted friend or guide to share the adventure. Did she trust Ascher?

Yes. Strangely...yes.

The walls were no more than arm's reach to each side of her, and the ceiling loomed a foot above her head.

"Cozy," she muttered, "in a lung-squeezing, heart-pounding kind of way."

Annja had read about the forbidden pa.s.sages that traced over five hundred miles of labyrinthine paths beneath the city during some of her research on Paris. The tunnels dated back to Roman times and were expanded further in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Val-de-Grace tunnels, which Mansart had had to reinforce, dated from the rococo time period.

The tunnels varied in width and height from huge, paved sections that one could drive an army tank through, to the smallest wormholes that a man had to literally slither through, and pray that cheeseburger he'd had for lunch didn't find him stuck in the middle like an entombed mole.

Despite the illegality of it, an entire community lived beneath the city in gypsum and limestone quarries. Cataphiles, they were called, and this was their secret kingdom. There was even a cata-cop force, created in the mid-twentieth century, to police them.

Ascher's hair brushed her wrist.

He bent and unzipped his pack. A second later a pale yellow beam rushed across Annja's hiking boots. It was redirected into her face. His helmet and worklight. She followed suit, strapping on her own yellow helmet. It was the only color besides pink that fit her head. Not much of a choice, but she wasn't worried about fashion down here.

"Just how far down does it all go?" she asked.

"There are perhaps seven levels. Some areas descend three hundred yards. You will get dirty, Annja."

"Good," she said.

She caught a glimpse of the contents before he slung the backpack over one shoulder and tilted that quizzical Frenchman's smirk at her.

"You plan on spending a lot of time down here? What's inside your pack?"

"Gloves, mult.i.tool, a leaf knife, snacks."

"Snacks?"

"Annja, we embark upon a journey now. Into the bowels of Paris."

She flashed the light along the walls. The flash fell across blue-and-red rubber pipes. Must be part of the plumbing system. Bowels, indeed. "Aren't we already there?"

"Not even close," he said.

"But the map. It's very simple. We follow the red line."

"Only because there were not so many tunnels in the seventeenth century as there are now. We'll have to discover the old paths by means of the newer ones."

It made sense. "Hand me the map," she said, "and let's get started."

"We'll take the utility tunnels until we come to an opening to the depths. This level closest to the street is probably not seventeenth century. Where's your compa.s.s?" he asked.

Annja leaned close and placed the pommel on top of the map, to verify the markings she had already made. They had a basic idea where on the map they had descended. The cheese shop was but a few blocks west from Val-de-Grace.

"What an appropriately macabre place for the queen to leave a treasure," she said.

Of course, the aqueducts and underground pa.s.sages had been utilized to transport criminals, or the occasional king who wished to avoid persecution by his starving subjects. Had Louis XVI gone under during the Fronde, would he and his queen, Marie Antoinette, have kept their heads? Probably not. Entombed prematurely in a graveyard of tunnels seemed the more likely result.

"What do you think so far?" Ascher said as he began to walk.

"Too soon to ask. You've spent a lot of time down here?"

"I've been in the catacombs, beyond the small portion that is marked out for tourist consumption."

"How'd you manage that? Or do I even want to know?"

"It's all about who you know and what year wine you bring as a bribe."

"I see. I didn't bring the cheese-maker wine."

"No, but I give his son fencing lessons on the weekends. Have for years. The boy is entering junior compet.i.tions this year. I believe he will do well."

"You like teaching fencing or the kids more?"

"Both. I enjoy watching a young mind grasp a concept and growing with it. Children are much more malleable than adults, open to new ideas, but as well, they are more determined. Eager for a challenge."

"Ascher, I do believe you've just impressed me."

"What about you, Annja? Are there children in your future?"

Now, that question was too left field to even consider.

"Let's get moving, Vallois."

"Oui." He walked ahead. "We should pay attention to where we are going." He walked ahead. "We should pay attention to where we are going."

Like leaving a trail of cheese crumbs?

"I've got an idea." Annja swung down her backpack and dug out her digital camera. "This way we won't attract any rats."

"Ah, yes. We can take pictures at each turn. I will point in the direction for our return."

"Pose," she said.

Ascher did pose, knees bent and c.o.c.ky French smile. He pointed back the way they'd walked. Annja snapped a shot.

Together, the twosome turned to the left, orienting themselves, and comparing their position against Ascher's handheld compa.s.s. It took a few moments, each of them tracing their fingers over the laminated map and guessing at their position, when they finally decided on a point of origin.

"We shouldn't have too far to go," Annja said.

"Horizontally. We've yet to go vertically," Ascher pointed out.

"Lead on, then. I'm not getting any younger."

"You are young and beautiful," he said.

"And you, I'm keeping an eye on. I want to find that treasure and get out of here."

"You don't like spending time with me in a dark, romantic cave?"

"Buddy, if this is your idea of romantic, I can tell you right now, we've got no future."

"Come along." He made to put an arm around her shoulder, but Annja walked forward, leading the way.

"I'm very romantic," he said. "You haven't seen anything yet, baby."

Annja rolled her eyes at his attempt to Americanize the moniker of "baby," and quickened her pace over what was becoming rougher terrain. The ceiling had lowered about half a foot, leaving about a hand's width of s.p.a.ce between it and her head.

Thankfully, they'd yet to find water. That could only mean dank, stinking sewer water. And possibly rats. Rats she could handle. But she wouldn't be disappointed by their absence. There were still miles of caves to explore.

"Mr. Romantic," she muttered, finding the sound of her voice a comfort. "Like stealing a girl's treasure map is so romantic. Must be I don't understand a Frenchman's charm."

"It wasn't so much that I wanted to steal it from you. You're too pretty to want to hurt-" Ascher knelt and tapped an iron slab.

"And yet you did steal it," Annja said.

"Self-preservation," he explained. "Snap a shot of this, Annja."

She did so, and he posed pointing in the direction they had walked, and would want to walk when they needed to backtrack to get out of there.

He lifted the iron, which appeared more a door, and flashed the light down inside.

"Hold this." He handed her the light, slid his legs into the shaft and lowered himself in a lunge, until he hung by his fingertips. He dropped. A few seconds pa.s.sed before Annja heard him hit ground. "Come on, Annja!"

Flashing the light, it flicked across his face. It was probably a good ten feet straight down. The walls behind him were rough-hewn stone.

Ascher called to her again. Peering down the hole, she saw he made a beckoning gesture with a hand.

"Catch!" she called, and dropped her backpack.

The tunnel she knelt in grew dark as a starless sky. Annja couldn't see her hand before her face. For that split second she became aware of the gravity of this excursion. Should their batteries run out, they would be lost.

Below, the sweep of the headlight beam rea.s.sured.

The leap left her stumbling to right herself against the wall, until a warm hand slid around her stomach and pulled her upright.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Of course."

Ascher shoved the backpack into her hands, and then adjusted her headlamp. "There are cata-cops all over. And there's a hefty fine if you're caught down here," he warned.

"You know quite a bit about the seedy underbelly of the city." She followed as Ascher started one way then stopped. "I guess that shouldn't surprise me, you being a thief and all."

"Will I ever live that down?"

"I'll drop it. I'm not one to hold a grudge," she said.

He stepped into a dark pathway that ran north and south. The tunnel was narrow, so that two could not walk side by side, but the ceiling was much higher, which gave a claustrophobic-like atmosphere, yet whispered cool air over the crown of her head.

Annja snapped a picture. "Look there." She beamed her light onto a plaque that had been cast in stone. It read in French: Crazy that you are, whyDo you promise yourself to liveA long time, you who cannotCount on a single day.

"Just what I needed to read." Annja studied the map to avert the creepy shudder the poem had stirred in her. "The map is crinkled here. Difficult to tell without smoothing it, and that's impossible because someone laminated it."

"You Americans and your implied anger." Ascher took off to the right, and didn't bother to wait for her.

For a moment, Annja stood there in the junction, headlamp beam not illuminating Ascher's path. There was something so wrong about the man, and yet, so utterly right.

She liked spending time with him. He met every challenge this adventure had presented with head-on glee. And despite a character flaw of thievery-which Annja must admit was induced by the threat of death-he was genuinely charming. He'd been overly flirtatious with her online, but now, the man beneath the cyber surface had risen to shine. She would definitely miss the man after they'd completed their quest.

Ascher made a sound. And it wasn't a good one. Most similar to losing one's breath. Having it choked away?

"Ascher?"

21.

Seventeenth century Blazing torchlight crept along the ceiling of the low limestone tunnel. Ribald laughter and feminine giggles. .h.i.t the dull stone and dropped the echo immediately.

Pressing a lace-trimmed handkerchief to his perspiring brow, Francois Mansart turned to face his merry brigade of revelers and threw out his arms in declaration. "To the queen!"

"To the queen!" they shouted out behind him.

A particularly buxom maiden stumbled into Francois. Her bosom crushed against his arm and he dipped his head to kiss her right there. She let out a squeal, tinged with wine and l.u.s.t. He scooped her up closer, waded his fingers through layers of voluminous fabric and gave her derriere a squeeze.

"Watch those torches!" another maid shouted from behind him.

The queen's maid. A perfectly staunch and lacking-in-humor bit of lace and overtightened stays. She hadn't cracked a grin since they'd entered the darkened underground tunnel, nor had she taken a drop of wine or beer.

"Can we hurry onward?" she said to Francois, pushing past him and becoming entangled in the skirts of the wench he held. "I desperately want out from here!"

"Yes, yes, I wish you gone, as well."

Queen Anne had designated the uptight wench as her personal envoy to the cache she wished placed in the tunnel. Just behind her two of the queen's footmen carried a chest about the size of a footstool, and locked with a bra.s.s mechanism.

He could only imagine what lay inside. Many more times the small gift he'd been given for drafting a map to this elusive hiding spot. He suspected Anne sought to hide her affairs from Cardinal Mazarin. The Italian had a leering eye always focused on the queen. Francois pitied her.

Mazarin had played his own cruel game against Francois, recently accusing him of wild extravagance and machinations against the crown. He wasn't sure how much longer he'd have the Val-de-Grace project should the king be swayed to side with the cardinal.

So he'd agreed to help the queen. She wasn't a critical political ally, but she did have the king's ear. Anne had not given details, beyond that she wished it safely hidden away, but findable. And yet, the find must be a quest, not easily gained.