The Double Eagle. James Twining

Mid-embrace, the girl caught sight of him and broke away with an embarrassed shrug. Her fingers flew unconsciously to the small silver crucifix that hung around her neck.

       ‘Bonsoir, mon père.’

       ‘Bonsoir, mon enfant.’

      He smiled and nodded at them both as they walked past him to the other side of the Pont de Grenelle, noting that it was only then they allowed their guilty laughter to echo up through the fading heat. Against a crimson sky, the lights on the Eiffel Tower sparkled as if it was on fire.

      He rested his arms on the parapet and looked out at the Statue of Liberty. Identical to her much larger sister across the Atlantic, she dominated the Allée des Cygnes, the narrow island in the middle of the River Seine upon which she had been erected in 1889, according to the inscription on her base. She had her back to him, smooth bronze muscles of crumpled fabric and taut skin, eternally youthful despite the green patina of old age.

      As a child, his grandmother had once told him that many members of their family had made the long and difficult journey from Naples to America in the 1920s. When he looked at the statue, he felt somehow connected to those faceless relatives, understood something of their sense of wonder at their first sight of the New World, their unshakeable faith in a new beginning. So he always chose this place. It felt familiar. Safe. Protected. Caso mai. Just in case.

      Two men appeared out of the shadows of the bridge below and looked up at him. He sketched a wave, crossed to the other side of the road and made his way down the shallow concrete steps towards them, walking under the bridge’s low steel arch. He stopped at the edge of the wide area encircling the statue’s massive stone pedestal, careful as always to keep about twenty feet between himself and them.

      They must have been there all the time, he thought to himself; watching him, checking that he was alone, hiding in the lengthening shadows like lions in long grass. That figured. These were not people to take chances. But then neither was he.

      ‘Bonsoir,’ the large man on the left called clearly through the night air, his long blond hair melting into a thick beard. An American, he guessed.

      ‘Bonsoir,’ he called back warily.

      A large Bateau Mouche swept down the river past them, its blinding lights reaching into the darkness, probing, feeling. The heavy folds of the statue’s robe seemed to ripple and lift gently under their touch as if caught in some unseen draught. As if she was teasing them.

      ‘You got it?’ The bearded man called out in English when the throb of the ship’s engines had faded and the burning lights had shifted their relentless glare further along the bank.

      ‘You got the money?’ His voice was firm. It was the usual game, played out more times than he cared to remember. He looked down, feigning indifference and noticed that his polished black shoes were already dusty from the dry gravel.

      ‘Let’s see it first,’ the man called back.

      He paused. There seemed to be something strange about the bearded man’s voice. A slight tension. He looked up and checked over his shoulder but his escape route was clear. He blinked his concern away and gave them the standard response.

      ‘Show me the money and I’ll take you to it.’

      There. He saw it this time. Most wouldn’t have noticed but he had been around long enough to read the signs. The stiffening of the shoulders, the narrowing of the eyes as the lone antelope strayed just that little too far from the rest of the herd.

      They were preparing themselves.

      He looked around again. It was still clear, although it was difficult to see beyond the trees as night closed in. Then he realized. That’s why they’d been late.

      So it would be dark.

      Without saying a word he spun on the gravel, running, running as fast as he could, his slick leather soles spraying stones behind him like tyres accelerating on a dirt track. He couldn’t let them get it. He couldn’t let them find it. He snatched a glance over his shoulder and saw the two men bearing down on him, a gun barrel glimmering in the orange glow of the lights that lined the bridge overhead like a sharp claw.

      Instinctively, he snapped his head back round just as he ran onto the point of the knife. Now he understood. The dark shape that had appeared in front of him, arm outstretched, face masked by the night, had been hiding in the shadows until he had come within striking distance. He’d been herded into the arms of death like an animal.

      With a short, sharp punch, the six-inch serrated blade carved up into his chest and the shock of the impact made him swallow hard. He felt its coldness slicing through the soft cartilage at the base of his sternum, cutting into his heart.

      It was the last thing he felt.

      In the orange light, the blood that had leaked over the starched whiteness of his dog collar glowed green as Lady Liberty’s weathered skin. But unknowing, unseeing, unfeeling, her steady gaze was fixed instead towards America.

      Towards New York.

       PART I

       Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal

       Charles Dickens – Nicholas Nickleby

       ONE

       Fifth Avenue, New York City16th July – 11:30pm

      Gracefully he fell, his body arcing in one smooth movement out from the side of the building and then back in, like a spider caught in a sudden gust of wind as it dropped on its thread, until with a final fizz of the rope through his gloved hand he landed on the balcony of the 17th floor.

      Crouching, he unclipped the rope from his harness and flattened his back to the wall, his dark, lithe shape blending into the stained stone. He didn’t move, his chest barely rising, the thin material of his black ski mask slick against his lips.

      He had to be sure. He had to be certain that no one had seen him on the way down. So he waited, listening to the shallow breaths of the city slumbering fitfully below him, watching the Met’s familiar bulk retreat into shadow as its floodlights were extinguished.

      And all the while Central Park’s dark lung, studded with the occasional lights of taxis making their way between East and West 86th Street, breathed a chilled, oxygenated air up the side of the building that made him shiver despite the heat. Air heavy with New York’s distinctive scent, an intoxicating cocktail of fear, sweat and greed that bubbled up from subway tunnels and steam vents.

      And although a lone NYPD chopper, spotlight primed, circled ever closer and the muffled scream of sirens echoed up from distant streets through the warm air, he could tell they were not for him. They never were. Tom Kirk had never been caught.

      Keeping below the level of the carved stone balustrade, he padded over to the large semicircular window that opened onto the balcony, its armoured panes glinting like sheet steel. Inside, he could see that the room was dark and empty, as he knew it would be. As it was every weekend during the Summer.

      A few taps on each of the hinges that ran down the side of the right-hand window and the bolts popped out into his hand. Then carefully, so as not to break the alarmed central magnetic contact, he levered the edge of the window away from the frame until there was a gap big enough for him to slip through.

      Once inside, Tom swung his pack down off his shoulder. From the main compartment he took out what looked like a metal detector – a thin black plate attached to an aluminium rod. He flicked a switch on the top of the plate and a small green light on its smooth surface glowed into life. Keeping completely