Therefore no one, of course, expected him to show up at the auction. And he didn't, for his whereabouts were always secret. The questions abounded. Were these coins in his family for centuries? Where had he gotten them? Could they have been some bribe?
These questions were not entertained long, however, among the fashionable elite entering the marble floors of the House of Arnaud.
For one, any financial dealings of a man in such a delicate position were always secretly investigated by the government. And many in this audience knew what the investigation had found because they ran the government.
First, the package had been mailed from a Paris post office to the postal drop used by the SDEC. It carried a fraudulent French return address. Since there had been several attempts at destroying the SDEC, all packages were opened by robotic arms in a bombproof room.
Then the logical question posed to the investigators was, had the Count of Lyon accepted a bribe and had it mailed to himself?
Possibly. Except every paper and package he handled was counterinvestigated, because the French, like the Russians, had enough experience in the affairs of men to understand that they were not dealing with a reliable species.
The count had probably not sent the package to himself. Third, had he accepted a bribe and used this as a cover? Maybe. But why a bribe of this nature? Why a bribe of such rare and perfect coins as to become a major item of Paris gossip?
The conclusion was that the coins, as the accompanying note had said, were a gift from someone for the Count's service to France. The paper and ink were French. The handwriting-printing-was somewhat shaky, as if done by someone not used to French script.
The count immediately had the package shipped to Arnaud for auction.
"I have no time to waste men guarding one hundred coins," he had said.
Now, under a glass case, the gold Alexanders sat on one hundred small velvet pillows. Each bidder was allowed to pass by the case twice. Some lingered.
"It is strange. I have the feeling they were just paid out this morning. They're so real. So modern," said one woman. Her bosom was raised in the modern fashion by her white silk gown. Diamonds of inordinate brilliance graced her neck. When she looked down the rows of Alexanders, each on its own velvet pillow, she would have traded all her jewels and all her wealth, including the gown and what was in it, to own them.
"It is like owning eternity," said one French official. The bidding floor was ten million dollars. It was established by an Arab whose main contribution to the economy of the world was having been born over a lot of oil and then having figured out how to gouge the rest of the world for it.
The figure was topped immediately by a million. This from a man who had figured out how to transfer thoughts more quickly from one computer chip to another.
And that was topped, with applause from the audience, of course, by a Frenchman whose family had owned most of a province since Charlemagne forced illiterate bandit kings into a grand nation of Franks.
At twenty-two million American dollars the coins were sold, bid final. A Texas financier, who felt something that fine ought to be his, had made the winning bid. He was planning to make the "little fellers," as he called them, into cufflinks.
"Give 'em out to fifty friends, but shoot, I don't have no fifty friends. Ain't fifty people in the world I know who are worth a set of them little fellers."
Applause echoed through the great hall of the House of Arnaud. Even the auctioneer applauded. The guards stood at attention. They too knew they were part of something important. It was history.
And then amid the applause came the high squeaky voice in a French so ancient that it resembled Latin tinged with Gallic.
"Woe be to you, Franks whose fathers were of the Gaulish race. Heed now a warning. These coins are not yours, but meager tribute to ones who deserved them. Do not traffic in stolen goods but save your lives if you do not have the decency to save your honor."
Guards ran into closets looking for the voice. Detection devices searched out hidden microphones. The best of France in that marble bidding hall looked for the voice and found nothing.
Later the Texan, ashen-faced, would say he happily gave the coins back to the real owner, but would not describe the owner. He would repeat over and over again:
"What ain't mine, ain't mine, and I was durned glad to give it back."
But the Master of Sinanju that day of infamy in Paris did not care who had bought the coin tribute to Sinanju, did not care which thief passed goods to which.
The goods were Sinanju. They would be reclaimed. What the Master sought that day among the Franks was he who had dared defile the House of Sinanju. And the answer to that was not in the coin. The answer came later that night when the proceeds were tallied.
The chief accountant prepared the check for the director of the House of Arnaud. Since the Count of Lyons' whereabouts were always a secret, the director would not even have the joy of mailing such a huge sum. It was to be given in a plain white envelope to a squad of SDEC. The plan was, of course, after such a public display involving the director of the SDEC, to move the check itself through a warren of what were called street baffles.
In simpler terms, if anyone wished to follow that check, he had better be prepared to lose a multitude of agents because each baffle was designed to strip anyone following the squad.
It was a brilliant maneuver, which at best would act as a magnet for any enemy agents operating in France. At worst, the check would be delivered unharmed and untraced to the Comte de Lyon, director of the SDEC.
What they did not know was that this maneuver was as new as the King of Crete, the Ojab of Odab, the Emperor Theodosius. In fact, it was more traditional than deceptive, and the Master of Sinanju easily kept pace with the check through the darkened streets of the French capital. For this night, he had chosen a black velvet kimono with darkened purple lines to smother the light. His shoes were sandals of soft wood, cut round and smooth for the perfection of friction. Because, too, this was Paris, Chiun had swept his hair back, but under a dark night cap, it was raised like a cone.
It was an ensemble to bring the French to their knees. The squad passed through three baffles and saw no one. A younger member mentioned that he felt a frightening presence, but he was ignored, and told if he mentioned such immature fears again he would be put on report. When they were sure no one was following, they delivered the envelope to another squad which took it to the director himself.
"Monsieur le Comte, we are here," said the leader of the second squad. All of them had every right to feel secure. This old mansion on Rue St. Jean was a gigantic electronic trap put together with the brilliance that had made the SDEC the only real counterweight in all of Europe to the Russians.
How many agents had died in the streets of Paris looking to eliminate the director? How many times had the SDEC stymied the triumphant legions of the KGB? If any enemy did find this house, he would only find his death.
"The returns from your gift, director," said the leader of the squad. Already rumors throughout Paris had told of the millions paid for the coins, even before the envelope had made its way through the city streets.
The leader and the squad waited for their commander to open the sealed letter. As a treat for his "boys," as he liked to call the most dangerous men in France, de Lyon opened the letter to show the size of the check.
It was a fortune, but such was the inner calm of this French aristocrat that he had to force a happy surprise. He did not care. If it weren't for minor inconveniences, he would not have minded being penniless.
Valery, Comte de Lyon, was one of those rare persons to walk upon the face of the earth who was always successful.
He had overthrown governments, performed eliminations around the world for France, and whenever it was in the interest of France, Valery de Lyon stopped the Russians every time.
It was not, of course, in the interest of France to see Russia stopped all the time. That was America's problem. The SDEC was inordinately successful and de Lyon was happy for that same reason. Alone in this world, de Lyon loved his work. He knew many of the KGB by name, not because it was his job but because, like boys would admire soccer stars, de Lyon admired the perfect coup, the successful assassination, the theft of state documents done in such a way that the other country did not even know they were missing.
Every time de Lyon sent France up against another power, he imbued his men with respect for the enemy's deeds. He followed details of secret missions in a way a father might inquire about his son's first job. He did not take work home, because it was not work. Parties were work. His stables on the estate in the southern province were work. His wife was work. Even an occasional affair was work.
Fun was observing hand-to-hand fighting by his selected operatives in the sand pits outside of Marseilles, where any blood spilled would be soaked up instantly.
Fun was watching a good Danish counterintelligence operation wither in Eastern Europe because it lacked support. The joy was picking the month it would founder.
De Lyon came by this love of his work not by some quirk but by blood. His ancestors had been the most ferocious of Frankish knights, the first royalty to side with Napoleon. They had been warriors not by greed of, conquest, but by love of the fight.
Thus did de Lyon that dark night have to pretend joy before his men at the fortune coming his way. To this trim, arrogant noble, all the fortune meant was that he wouldn't have to worry about money for his lifetime, which was something he wouldn't worry about anyhow. But the men always liked the show.
"Twenty-two million American dollars. Hah, it will pay for a liter of wine or two, or a woman or two. Or if it is the right woman, one woman on a shopping spree for an afternoon."
The men laughed. De Lyon was about to order drinks for them to salute their good fortune, a ten-minute act of grace before he could get back to an interesting African situation on his desk. Then he saw it.
At first he was not sure he saw anything. It was a darkness in the hallway, moving beyond the open door. Since he did not hear it, he assumed it was a fleeting aberration of his eye. Certainly nothing could move in this house without his own men knowing and reporting it.
But the wine did not come. He sent one of his men out to hurry along the steward. The man did not return. De Lyon checked his buzzer system. It worked, but no one answered it.
"Come, there is something strange going on," said de Lyon. The two operatives unholstered their machine pistols. They made a sandwich of their commander as they left the room, looking for any possible trouble.
It was in a hallway that de Lyon finally saw the darkness. The darkness was a robe, and the count's men fell like pitiful stalks of wheat to movements he could not even see. He only knew they had to have happened when the heads rolled on the hallway floor.