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jet-black hair. He was, in fact, a remarkably good-looking man. He was wearing a black turtleneck, black jeans, expensive black loafers and a shoulder holster with what appeared to be a Smith & Wesson .45 ACP automatic pistol.
    â€œKarl Bömelburg’s old place,” Holliday said, approaching the man on the steps.
    â€œYou know your history, Colonel.”
    â€œI taught it once upon a time. You’re Lazarus, I presume.”
    â€œYou presume correctly.”
    â€œDressed for friendly chats, I see,” said Holliday, nodding at the shoulder holster and the weapon it contained.
    â€œI’m a cop. How else should I dress?”
    â€œMaybe you’re not the person I should be speaking to.”
    â€œI’m the right person. Come on in for a minute and I’ll explain.”
    Holliday went up the three steps and into the house. The main hall was wide and the white plaster walls were covered with million-dollar paintings.
    Lazarus led Holliday to a large room at the rearof the house, which was set up as a gentleman’s study: leather chairs, dark carpets, the smell of pipe tobacco and a large oak desk. There were more paintings on the walls—Sisley, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Braque.
    â€œQuite the collection,” said Holliday, seating himself in one of the leather chairs while Lazarus sat down behind the desk.
    â€œAnd each and every one of them is a phony. Part of an insurance scam from the eighties and nineties. Steal a painting from a museum, a gallery or a private home and ransom back the forgery in its place. Took us almost ten years to crack that one and then only because one of the forgers died.”
    â€œUs?”
    â€œI work for a backwater unit of Interpol called the Combined Art and Artifact Recovery Division. CAARD for short.” Lazarus laughed, his voice a cool baritone. “Short by name and short by nature. I’m the chief and only investigator and my only backup is a nice young lady named Molly Malone who’s half a computer genius and half an Asperger’s syndrome idiot savant who collects Barbie dolls that she uses in meticulously detailed dioramas of famous murder scenes.”
    â€œMolly Malone . . . you’ve got to be kidding.”
    â€œHer parents thought it was amusing.”
    There was a long pause. Finally Holliday spoke. “All right, you’re some kind of art cop. What does that have to do with me?”
    â€œWe’ll talk about that later. First we have to pick up your friends and get you out of Paris.”
    â€œHow about a clue?”
    â€œI want you to help me rob theVatican.”

5
    The old farmhouse rented by Lazarus was a few miles from the village of Brévonnes on Auzon Lake, a hundred miles east of Paris in the commune of Aube. The house was large, stone and thatch-roofed, heated with fireplaces in the upstairs rooms and a huge hearth on the main floor. The floors were broad slabs of honey-colored pine and the walls were rough plaster.
    The group was gathered around the kitchen’s old monk’s table drinking wine while Lazarus made them omelettes aux herbes on the massive wood stove in the center of the room.
    â€œWe’ve had enemies in the past, but it seems as though everyone is suddenly on our case,” Holliday said, frustration in his voice.
    â€œMost likely because everyone is into everyone else’s business these days,” said Lazarus, sliding an omelet onto the plate in front of Eddie.“The world operates on corruption of all kinds now and there’s no way to tell them apart anymore. Fine art is used for currency transfers in terrorism and organized crime. Intelligence agencies use drugs to finance their black operations and to line their own pockets. It’s every man and woman for themselves now. Honor, truth, loyalty . . . words like that have no meaning anymore.”
    â€œPretty cynical,” said Carrie Pilkington.
    â€œPretty naive if you