The needle was six inches long.
It looked more like a tool for stitching leather than treating a human being.
"Hold him down," Dr. Larrey said.
Two Polish Lancers grabbed my shoulders. They pressed me into the silk cushions of the armchair.
"This will hurt, Administrator," Larrey warned. "I have to go between the ribs to drain the pleura. No anesthesia. Your heart can't take the laudanum."
"Do it," I wheezed.
My voice sounded wet. Like bubbles popping in thick mud.
Larrey didn't hesitate. He was a battlefield surgeon. He thrust the needle into my back, just below the left scapula.
Schlick.
I screamed.
Or I tried to. My lungs didn't have enough air for a scream. It came out as a strangled, gurgling gasp.
Pain exploded in my chest. It felt like someone had kicked me with a steel-toed boot, then twisted the heel.
"Vessel connected," Larrey muttered.
He turned a small brass stopcock.
A clear glass tube ran from the needle to a large apothecary jar on the floor.
Immediately, yellow fluid began to flow.
It wasn't blood. It was serous fluid. The plasma that was drowning me from the inside out. It swirled into the jar, foaming slightly. It looked like stale beer.
I watched it flow.
That's my life, I thought. Draining out one pint at a time.
"Pulse is erratic," Charles said.
My son was standing by the window. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his pocket watch, timing my heartbeat against the second hand.
"One hundred and twenty," Charles noted. "Thready."
"It will drop once the pressure is relieved," Larrey said. He watched the jar fill. "Five hundred milliliters. You were drowning, Alex."
I slumped against the cushions. The sharp pain was fading, replaced by a dull, throbbing ache. But for the first time in three days, I could take a breath without rattling.
"The edema is systemic," Larrey said, wiping his hands on a bloody rag. "The Digitalis is keeping your heart pumping, but the toxicity is shutting down your kidneys. You are filling up with water."
He looked me in the eye.
"You need rest. Bed rest. For a month. If you stress your heart again, the pump will fail. And next time, I won't be able to restart it."
I looked at the jar. It was half full.
"I don't have a month," I whispered.
CRASH.
Glass shattered downstairs.
Then came the shouting. Angry voices. French voices.
"Where is he? Where is the corpse?"
Heavy boots stomped up the grand staircase.
"Secure the door!" Charles commanded.
The two Polish Lancers drew their sabers and stepped in front of the bedroom door.
Larrey looked panicked. "What is that?"
"A margin call," I said.
I tried to sit up. The needle was still in my back.
"Don't move!" Larrey hissed. "You'll tear the lung!"
"Pull it out," I said.
"We aren't finished draining—"
"Pull. It. Out."
Larrey cursed. He yanked the needle free.
I grunted. He slapped a bandage over the puncture wound.
The bedroom door shook. Someone kicked it from the outside.
"Open up! We know he's in there!"
"Halt!" the Lancer shouted through the wood. "This is the Administrator's private quarters!"
" The Administrator is dead!" the voice roared. "We saw the papers! The London Times says he died in Spain! Open the door or we blow it off the hinges!"
Charles looked at me. His face was a mask of cold calculation.
"Captain Moreau," Charles said. "Commander of the Bayonne Garrison."
"Why is he angry?" I asked. I buttoned my shirt with trembling fingers.
"The payroll transfer didn't arrive from Paris," Charles said. "The banks froze the assets when the news leaked. The garrison hasn't been paid in three weeks. They think you're dead and the government has collapsed."
I nodded.
It made sense. Soldiers could endure cold, hunger, and bullets. But they couldn't endure uncertainty. If the boss is dead, who signs the checks?
"Let them in," I said.
Larrey's eyes widened. "Are you insane? They will tear you apart."
"If we keep the door closed, they will burn the house down," I said. "Open it."
Charles nodded to the Lancers.
They unlocked the door and stepped back.
The door flew open.
Captain Moreau stormed in. He was a big man, smelling of cheap wine and wet wool. He had a pistol in his belt. Behind him, a dozen soldiers crowded the hallway. Their uniforms were dirty. Their eyes were desperate.
Moreau stopped.
He saw the medical equipment. The bloody rags. The jar of yellow fluid on the floor.
Then he saw me.
I was sitting in the armchair. Pale as a sheet. Sweat dripping down my forehead.
"Citizen Moreau," I said. My voice was low but steady. "You are interrupting my treatment."
Moreau blinked. He had expected a corpse. Or an empty room.
"You... you're alive."
"Obviously," I said. "Though my doctors would prefer I wasn't holding meetings."
Moreau's shock turned back into anger. He stepped forward, hand hovering near his pistol.
"Alive or dead, it doesn't matter," Moreau spat. "My men are starving, Administrator. The shopkeepers won't take our credit. The telegraph says the bonds have crashed. They say France is bankrupt."
He pointed a dirty finger at me.
"We fought for you. In Italy. In Germany. And now? Now we are begging for bread in our own country while you sit in a mansion?"
The soldiers in the hall muttered in agreement. The tension was thick. One spark, and it would be a massacre.
"You want payment," I said.
"We want our arrears," Moreau said. "In silver. Not paper. We know the Assignats are worthless."
"Reasonable," I said.
I looked at Charles.
"Bring me Asset Box 4."
Charles walked to the corner of the room. He dragged a heavy iron-bound chest across the floor. The wood scraped loudly against the parquet.
He stopped in front of Moreau.
Charles didn't say a word. He just flipped the latch and threw the lid back.
The gloom of the room was suddenly illuminated.
Gold.
Spanish Dubloons. Reals. Heavy, jagged coins minted in Mexico and Peru. Thousands of them.
The soldiers in the hallway went silent. Moreau's eyes bulged.
"That is the payroll for the Army of Spain," I lied. "We brought it with us."
I leaned forward. My chest ached, but I ignored it.
"I am not bankrupt, Captain. The Republic is not bankrupt. The banks in Paris are panic-selling because they are cowards. But I am not a coward."
I picked up a towel and wiped the cold sweat from my face.
"I will pay your men," I said. "Full arrears. Plus a one-month bonus. In gold. Today."
Moreau looked at the gold, then at me. His hand moved away from his pistol. The anger drained out of him, replaced by greed and relief.
"That... that would be acceptable, Citizen."
He reached for the chest.
"Stop," I whispered.
Moreau froze.
"That is the severance package," I said. "Now we discuss the terms of employment."
I signaled the Lancer. He handed me my cane.
I used it to point at the soldiers in the hall.
"A mutiny," I said softly. "Storming the Governor's mansion. Threatening a senior official of the State."
"We were desperate," Moreau stammered. "We thought—"
"I don't care what you thought," I cut him off. "I care about the precedent. If I pay you now, without consequence, every regiment in France will be kicking down my door tomorrow."
I looked at Charles.
"Read the names."
Charles opened his notebook.
"Sergeant Lefebvre. Corporal Bastien. Private Gallois."
Moreau went pale. "What is this?"
"My son has been watching the garrison for three days," I said. "He knows who started the rumors. He knows who told the men to storm the mansion."
I looked at the soldiers in the hall.
"Those three men," I said. "They aren't soldiers. They are liabilities. They incited panic. They endangered the chain of command."
I turned my gaze back to Moreau.
"Here is the deal, Captain. You take the gold. You pay your men. But those three men stay here."
"To be punished?" Moreau asked weaky.
"To be liquidated," I said.
The room went dead silent.
Moreau looked back at his men. He saw the three agitators. They looked terrified.
But then he looked back at the chest.
Enough gold to feed his family for five years. Enough to buy a farm.
He looked at me. He saw the yellow skin, the shaking hands. He saw a dying man.
But he also saw the Administrator. The man who had audited the King. The man who treated human lives like line items on a balance sheet.
Moreau swallowed hard.
"Done," he whispered.
He turned to his men.
"Seize them!" Moreau barked, pointing at the three agitators.
"Captain? No!"
"Grab them!"
The other soldiers—hungry, desperate, and eyeing the gold—didn't hesitate. They tackled their own comrades. The three men were dragged screaming down the hallway.
Charles kicked the chest shut.
"Take it," Charles said. "And get out."
Moreau and two aides grabbed the heavy chest. They hauled it out of the room, not looking back at the men they had just betrayed.
The door closed.
Silence returned.
I let out a breath I had been holding for five minutes.
My vision blurred. The adrenaline crash hit me like a physical blow. I slumped forward, coughing. Blood speckled the white towel.
"Did we just execute three men to save a chest of gold?" Larrey asked. He looked horrified.
"No," I wheezed. "We executed three men to buy time."
Charles walked over to me. He poured a glass of water and held it to my lips.
"The garrison is secure," Charles said. "Moreau is complicit now. He took the bribe. He belongs to us."
"Good," I rasped.
Click. Click-click. Click.
The sound came from the corner. The telegraph machine.
It had been silent during the standoff. Now it was chattering like a manic insect.
Charles walked over to it. He pulled the paper tape through his fingers.
His face fell.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Paris," Charles said. "James Rothschild just dumped fifty million Francs in government bonds onto the open market."
I closed my eyes.
The mutiny outside was over. But the real war had just begun.
"Price?" I asked.
"Thirty-eight," Charles said. "And falling. The panic is spreading. The Paris Bourse has halted trading. There are riots in the streets."
He looked at me.
"You stopped the soldiers, Father. But the country is broke. The gold in that chest was the last liquidity we had."
I looked at the jar of yellow fluid on the floor. My life force.
"Then we need to find a new creditor," I said.
"Who?" Larrey asked. "Who lends money to a corpse?"
I gripped the armrests of my chair.
"Get me Monsieur Perregaux," I said. "The Swiss banker. He's in Bordeaux. Tell him to ride here immediately."
"He will foreclose on you," Charles warned.
"Let him try," I smiled. My teeth were stained with blood. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse."
"Which is?"
"I'm going to sell him the Apocalypse."