Paris, France — March, 1995
The thing about being arrested in Paris was that at least the arresting officers were well-dressed.
Perseus had been picked up in eleven countries across the last century and the French were consistently the most sartorially composed about it. The handcuffs were applied with a certain elegance. The officer in charge had good shoes. Someone had ironed his shirt that morning.
Perseus appreciated this. It didn't make the situation less stupid, but it made it easier to bear.
He was sitting in the back of a very clean government vehicle, hands cuffed in front of him — standard French procedure, less theatrical than the Americans — watching Paris slide past the window. The Eiffel Tower appeared briefly between buildings. Perseus had been present for its construction in 1889 and still found it slightly absurd, though he'd come around on it over the last century.
The charge, as best he could determine, was "suspicious activity in proximity to a classified location."
He had been eating a croissant.
The location in question was a government building he had walked past approximately three thousand times in the last forty years because it was between his apartment and the bakery. He had not entered it, looked at it meaningfully, or done anything more suspicious than exist in its general vicinity while consuming a pastry.
He had explained this to the arresting officers.
They had explained that his papers were being verified.
Perseus's papers were impeccable — Whitmore Sterling had made them impeccable, expensively and painstakingly impeccable — but "impeccable" apparently still required verification when a man had been flagged by three separate surveillance teams over the course of a week.
He'd noticed the surveillance teams by day two but assumed they were watching someone else, because he had done absolutely nothing worth watching. He had eaten croissants. He had visited the Louvre, specifically to look at some medieval tapestries he had opinions about, and also specifically not to look at the items they kept requesting to borrow from his vault. He had read in parks.
Apparently this was suspicious.
"You will be processed at the facility," the officer in the passenger seat told him, in French. "It will not take long."
"It will take much longer than you think," Perseus said, in the same language, pleasantly.
The officer turned to look at him.
"I'm not a threat," Perseus said. "I'm genuinely not. I'm a man who was eating a croissant. But there are people who are going to be very annoyed when they find out about this, and I'd like you to be mentally prepared for that."
"You are well-connected?" the officer said, with the tone of a man who had heard this many times.
Perseus considered the question seriously.
"That's one way to put it," he said.
The processing room was institutional beige, which Perseus found offensive. He had spent enough time in government facilities across enough centuries to have opinions about interior design, and institutional beige communicated a fundamental lack of imagination. The British used a slightly more interesting shade of grey. The Americans favoured a dispiriting white. The French, who prided themselves on taste, had no excuse.
He sat at the table. Someone had removed his personal effects — wallet, keys, phone — and placed them in a bag. He had not mentioned the second phone. It was in his coat lining, which no one had searched thoroughly enough, because the coat was very old and looked like it had nothing worth finding in it.
The coat was, in fact, extraordinarily old, and contained several things that would have caused significant consternation.
A man in plainclothes sat across from him. He had the eyes of someone who had worked in intelligence long enough to stop being surprised by things, which Perseus found promising.
"You are registered as Patrick Lefebvre," the man said. "French citizen. Born 1961."
"That's correct."
"Your documentation is thorough."
"I pay for thoroughness."
"Where were you born?"
"Bordeaux," Perseus said, which was what the documents said, and which was technically true in the sense that Patrick Lefebvre had been born in Bordeaux, on paper, thirty-four years ago. Perseus himself had been born considerably further away and considerably longer ago, but this seemed like an unhelpful thing to mention.
The man studied him. Perseus studied him back, which made the man slightly uncomfortable — a natural consequence of being looked at by someone who had watched people lie for two thousand years and found it rather easy to tell.
"You've been in Paris for four years," the man said.
"Yes."
"Before that?"
"London. Before that, New York. I move around."
"For what purpose?"
"I like cities. I find them interesting. People-watching, mostly. History." He paused. "I visit museums. The Louvre keeps asking to borrow some of my things and I enjoy saying no in person."
The plainclothes man's pen stopped moving.
"The Louvre," he said, "has been trying to borrow items from you."
"For about twenty years. Longer, if you count the inquiries to my lawyers. They want the da Vinci notebook particularly. The answer remains no."
A pause.
"You own a Leonardo da Vinci notebook."
"He gave it to me. I'm sentimental."
The plainclothes man set his pen down. He looked at Perseus with the expression of a man who had identified that something was wrong with this situation but hadn't yet determined what.
"Monsieur Lefebvre," he said carefully, "is there anything you'd like to tell us?"
"I'd like to tell you," Perseus said, "that I'm going to make a phone call now, and that the next hour of your life is going to be significantly more eventful than you planned for."
"You're not entitled to a phone call yet—"
"I know. I'm going to make one anyway." Perseus reached into his coat — the officer by the door shifted — and produced the second phone. "Please don't take this one. I'll be very quick."
The officer by the door looked at the plainclothes man. The plainclothes man looked at Perseus. Perseus smiled pleasantly.
Something about the smile made the plainclothes man decide, on a purely instinctive level, not to push this particular point.
Perseus unlocked the phone.
He had been going to call Echelon.
That had been the plan. Echelon, seventeen minutes, Ghost Protocol, mild chaos, the usual. He had only used it once since Truman signed the order in '47. Reliable. Effective.
But it was a Tuesday afternoon in March, the sun was doing something genuinely beautiful over the Seine, and Perseus was in an unusually good mood despite the handcuffs, and he found himself looking at his contact list and thinking: or I could make this more interesting.
He scrolled.
The officers watched him scroll. This seemed to unsettle them, which was reasonable, because most detainees did not scroll through their contacts with the expression of a man choosing a restaurant.
The contact list was long.
It was, if viewed by someone with appropriate security clearances and a strong constitution, one of the most alarming documents in private existence. Built over decades, updated as names changed and numbers shifted, a rolling index of everyone Perseus had found it useful to be able to reach directly. Which was, after 2,000+ years, quite a lot of people.
He scrolled past:
🏛️ The Oval Guy (POTUS) 🇺🇸
Not for this. Clinton would want a briefing and a meeting and probably a committee. Americans never did anything simply.
👑🏰 The Nice Lady in a Castle (Queen)
Tempting. Elizabeth would be magnificently dry about it. She'd also tell him to sort it out himself and stop getting arrested on the continent, which, fair, but not useful right now.
☕🕶️ The Tea Drinkers (MI6)
Also tempting. But they'd send someone and also a note that said something like again? in very small handwriting and Perseus didn't need that today.
🧠🛰️ The Langley Lady (CIA)
The Americans would turn it into a thing. No.
🕵️📁 The Hoover Guy (FBI Director)
Absolutely not. He was still dealing with paperwork from the last time.
⚖️🇺🇸 The US ⚖️ Guy (US Attorney General)
Jurisdiction issues. He is in France.
🐻🥃 The Bears & Vodka (FSB)
Perseus paused on this one with mild amusement. Gorshkov would find it hilarious. He'd also tell absolutely everyone, and Perseus would be hearing about it for years.
🗼 The Quai d'Orsay Guy (French Foreign Ministry)
He scrolled past this one twice. Theoretically the most efficient option given present geography. Also the option most likely to result in a formal diplomatic incident that Whitmore & Sterling would have to spend three months untangling.
🔐🗂️ The Guy in Charge of Spies (DNI)
Dilworth would help. He'd also sigh so heavily it would be audible through the phone, which Perseus found draining.
💼📜 My ⚖️ Guys (Whitmore Sterling)
Always an option. Richard would send a letter so legally devastating the French government would apologize just to make it stop. But that would take days and Richard would give him a look at the next quarterly review that Perseus wasn't in the mood for.
⛪🎩 The Old Hat Guy (Pope)
John Paul II would absolutely help, and would be genuinely, warmly kind about it, which would make Perseus feel slightly guilty for the entire situation despite having done nothing wrong. Not today.
🗡️ The Pointy Hat Guy (Secretary-General, UN)
Perseus had the personal number of four consecutive UN Secretaries-General, which said something about the last fifty years that he hadn't entirely processed.
🎌 The Rising Sun Guys (Japanese Cabinet Intelligence)
Efficient. Discreet. Would do it without comment and send a very polite thank-you note afterward. Tempting, but the French would find the involvement of Japanese intelligence baffling and the confusion would add time.
🦅 The Eagle People (Interpol)
Interpol had a do not investigate order on file for him, which was useful, but using it here would require explaining why, and the explanation would involve the vault, and that was a conversation for never.
🔱 The Trident Guys (NATO Intelligence)
Overkill. Enormous overkill. He'd used them once in 1987 in Berlin and the paperwork had been extraordinary.
He scrolled further.
He reached:
👁️🔺 (Illuminati)
Perseus stopped scrolling.
He looked at the contact.
He looked at the plainclothes man, who was watching him with increasing unease.
He looked back at the contact.
The Illuminati owed him three favours from a situation in 1887 that he was not going to think about right now, but the favours were documented, witnessed, and valid, and this seemed like a perfectly reasonable time to use one.
He called.
It rang twice.
"This line is monitored," said a voice, which was technically a greeting.
"I know," Perseus said. "It's P. I need an extraction. Paris, 15th arrondissement, government processing facility, third floor. I was eating a croissant."
A pause.
"You were—"
"Eating a croissant. Yes. Surveillance teams found it suspicious. I need someone to make a call."
Another pause, longer.
"We are currently," the voice said, with the tone of an organisation that had existed in the shadows for three centuries and did not appreciate being used as a personal taxi service, "managing seventeen active operations across four continents."
"I know. This will take twenty minutes of someone's time."
"We have," the voice said, "better things to do than bailing you out of a Tuesday afternoon croissant incident."
Perseus looked at his contact list.
He scrolled down two entries.
He found: ⚔️🛡️ The Sword People (Templars)
"Alright," he said, mildly and conversationally. "I'll call the Templars instead."
The silence that followed had a very specific texture. Perseus had been producing this particular silence for about six centuries and he never got tired of it.
It was the silence of an ancient institutional rivalry being poked directly in its most sensitive point.
"Don't," said the voice.
"It's no trouble," Perseus said pleasantly. "Given who I am to them, they'll mobilize within the hour. Probably more people than strictly necessary — you know how they are about ceremony — but it'll get done."
"You are not calling those self-righteous, over-equipped, ceremonially obsessed, historically revisionist—"
"I'm the Summus Magister Maximus," Perseus said. "They created the rank specifically for me. I feel obligated to use it occasionally."
"DO NOT CALL THOSE BASTARDS. WE ARE BETTER THAN THEM. WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN BETTER THAN THEM—"
"I'm going to start dialing—"
"WE WILL HANDLE IT," said the voice, with the energy of an organisation that had spent the better part of a millennium in rivalry with the Knights Templar and was not, under any circumstances, going to be shown up by them over a croissant in Paris on a Tuesday afternoon.
"Wonderful," Perseus said. "I'll be here."
He hung up.
The plainclothes man had not moved.
The officer by the door had not moved.
They had both heard, clearly and without ambiguity, a man in handcuffs in a government processing facility casually threaten to mobilize the Knights Templar as a negotiating tactic, and then apparently succeed.
"The Knights Templar," the plainclothes man said, very slowly, "were dissolved in 1312."
"Mmm," Perseus said, which was not a confirmation or a denial.
"Who were you speaking to?"
"Someone who's going to make a phone call," Perseus said. "You'll hear from someone senior shortly. I'd suggest putting me in a slightly nicer room in the meantime — not for my sake, it just tends to go better for everyone. More comfortable energy in the room when the call comes."
The plainclothes man stared at him.
"Also," Perseus added, "any chance of coffee? The croissant was excellent but I didn't finish it."
The first call came eleven minutes later.
Perseus heard it from the room they'd moved him to — marginally nicer, slightly less beige, a window with a view of a courtyard — and which had been accompanied by the removal of the handcuffs, which he appreciated.
He couldn't hear the words. He could hear the tone, which shifted in the space of ninety seconds from professional to uncertain to the specific register of a man who has just been told something that has reorganised his entire understanding of a situation.
The second call came four minutes after that. Higher up the chain. Shorter. Much quieter.
The third call was barely a minute long and sounded like it consisted almost entirely of one person saying "yes" repeatedly to someone who did not require lengthy explanations.
Then nothing for three minutes.
Then the door opened.
The plainclothes man came back in wearing the expression of someone who has been informed, from multiple directions simultaneously, that they have made an error of some magnitude and should convey regret immediately and thoroughly.
"Monsieur Lefebvre," he started, and then visibly reconsidered the name.
"It's fine," Perseus said, genuinely. "You were doing your job. I was near a classified location repeatedly with no obvious employment. It was a reasonable flag."
"We've been asked to release you. With apologies."
"Apologies are unnecessary. But kind."
"We have also been asked to convey—" The man looked at a note he was holding. He appeared to be reading it for the third or fourth time, in the hope that it would make more sense. "—that the relevant parties confirm no further action will be taken and that any files pertaining to this incident will be classified at the highest available level and that we should, going forward, ensure that our surveillance protocols include a review of the—" He stopped. "Of the list."
"The list," Perseus agreed.
"There is apparently a list."
"There is," Perseus said. "It's very thorough. Whitmore Sterling maintains it."
The man set the note down. He looked at Perseus with the eyes of someone who had entered this day as a competent intelligence professional and was leaving it as a man who had encountered something he would think about for the rest of his career.
"Who are you?" he said. Not aggressively. Genuinely.
Perseus stood, collected his belongings from the table, and put on his coat.
"I'm a man who was eating a croissant," he said. "Good afternoon."
Outside, Paris was still beautiful.
Perseus stood on the pavement for a moment. Forty-three minutes from arrest to release, including the room change. Slower than Echelon by a margin but considerably more entertaining, and no load-bearing walls had been damaged.
He checked his phone.
Two missed calls from Whitmore Sterling.
One text from an unknown French number: next time you're in the 15th, try the almond one. better than plain.
Perseus stared at this.
He saved the contact as 🥐 The French Guy Who Got Fired Probably and texted back: noted. thank you.
Then he walked back toward the bakery.
He had not, in fact, finished his croissant.
This was the most pressing remaining problem, and he intended to solve it.
Whitmore, Sterling & Associates — London, Two Days Later
Richard Ashworth III had a very specific face for when Perseus had done something.
It was not angry. Richard was professionally incapable of angry in a client-facing context. It was a face of elevated composure — the expression of a man maintaining full control through long practice and significant effort, while communicating through subtle channels that he was aware of recent events and had thoughts.
Perseus was very familiar with this face.
He put the cookies on the desk — orange peel, the good ones, plus a paper bag from a Paris bakery — and sat down.
"The quarterly review isn't for another six weeks," he said.
"I know," Richard said. "I called you in because I received four separate phone calls on Tuesday afternoon from four separate organisations, none of which are your primary emergency contacts, all of which were informing me that I should be aware of a Paris incident."
"The croissant thing."
"The croissant thing." Richard looked at the paper bag. "Is that—"
"Almond. The other kind. I was told it was better." Perseus paused. "It is better."
Richard looked at the bag for a moment longer than was strictly professional. Then he looked at Perseus. "You used an Illuminati favour to get out of a routine detention."
"They owed me three."
"You threatened to call the Knights Templar."
"It worked."
"It always works," Richard said, with the weariness of someone who had been hearing variations of this sentence for fifteen years. "That's not the point. You have a protocol specifically designed for this situation. Echelon. Which we lobbied extensively to establish. Which involves no favours, no secret organisational politics, and no contact with groups whose official non-existence they work very hard to maintain."
"Echelon takes seventeen minutes," Perseus said. "The Illuminati took fourteen."
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
"And no walls were damaged," Perseus added. "Last time Ghost Protocol arrived they took out two load-bearing walls. The building owner was furious. Whitmore Sterling had to handle the claim."
"We did," Richard said. "It was an interesting filing."
"So this was better."
"This was," Richard said, opening his eyes, "a Tuesday afternoon in Paris that somehow involved three senior government officials, the French Foreign Ministry, Interpol, and an organisation that officially dissolved in the fourteenth century, all within forty-three minutes, over a croissant." He paused. "May I see the contact list?"
Perseus handed over the phone.
Richard scrolled.
He scrolled for quite a long time. His expression during the scrolling was one of progressive discovery — not shock, because Richard had long since passed shock as a response to Perseus, but the specific look of a man cataloguing information he was going to need to process privately later.
He stopped.
"The President of the United States," he said, "is saved as 'The Oval Guy.'"
"It's descriptive."
"The Queen is 'The Nice Lady in a Castle.'"
"She is a nice lady. She does live in a castle."
"The Pope is 'The Old Hat Guy.'"
"Very distinctive hat."
"The Russian intelligence service is 'The Bears and Vodka.'"
"Accurate on both counts."
"My firm," Richard said, "is 'My ⚖️ Guys.'"
"You are my legal guys. It's affectionate."
Richard was quiet for a moment. Then: "The Illuminati are a triangle and an eye."
"Seemed appropriate."
"The Knights Templar are a sword and a shield."
"Yes."
Richard looked up from the phone. "You are their Summus Magister Maximus."
"Technically. It's largely ceremonial."
"The title of Summus Magister Maximus," Richard said carefully, "does not appear in any documented historical record of the Knights Templar."
"No. They created it specifically for me around 1150. Any existing rank felt — inappropriate, given the circumstances. Grand Master seemed presumptuous when I'd been alive longer than the Order. We negotiated." Perseus paused. "I also told them I wasn't joining unless they stopped calling me 'brother.' That took two years to resolve but we got there."
Richard set the phone down.
He picked up his pen.
He set the pen down.
He looked at the bag of pastries.
"Going forward," he said, "please use Echelon first. The walls are manageable. The paperwork that follows when you involve organisations that officially ceased to exist in the fourteenth century is considerably less manageable."
"The paperwork is your job."
"It is. I would prefer," Richard said, with great precision, "less of it."
Perseus took a cookie. "I'll consider it."
"That's not a commitment."
"No," Perseus agreed pleasantly. "It isn't."
Richard looked at him for a long moment. Then he reached across the desk and took a piece of the almond pastry.
He ate it.
He was quiet for a moment.
"That," he said, "is better than the plain."
"That's what I was told."
"Who told you?"
"The surveillance officer who arrested me. He texted after I was released." Perseus paused. "I think he may have been dismissed. The text had a valedictory quality."
Richard looked at him. "You are in contact with the man who arrested you."
"He had good pastry recommendations. These seem like separate issues."
Richard closed his eyes again. When he opened them he had the expression of a man who had, somewhere in the last ten minutes, made his peace with something.
"The quarterly review," he said, "is in six weeks. Please attempt to avoid any further incidents involving classified organisations between now and then."
"I'll do my best."
"That's not—"
"A commitment. I know." Perseus stood, put on his coat. "The 350th anniversary of the firm is in a few decades. I assume there will be a party."
"There will be a dinner."
"I'll bring the good cookies. And the almond ones." He paused at the door. "Richard. You should add the Templars to the file. Under 'emergency contacts, historical.'"
"I'll create a new category," Richard said, in the tone of a man who had been creating new categories for forty years. "Emergency contacts, organisations that officially don't exist."
"That's the one."
Perseus left.
Richard sat alone at his desk.
He opened the firm's private journal, turned to a new page, and wrote:
March 1995. Paris incident resolved in 43 minutes. Client used Illuminati favour, citing three-minute advantage over Echelon and concern about load-bearing walls. Both reasons are, irritatingly, valid.
He threatened to call the Templars. The Illuminati mobilized immediately. This is, apparently, a reliable tactic he has been using for six centuries. Adding to the file.
He is the Summus Magister Maximus of the Knights Templar. The rank was created specifically for him circa 1150 because existing titles were, in his words, "presumptuous." He negotiated a custom rank with a medieval military order. This is consistent with his general approach to institutions.
He has us saved in his telephone as "My ⚖️ Guys." I find I don't mind this.
He brought the orange cookies and also an almond pastry from Paris which was, in fact, better than the plain.
The man who arrested him gave him the pastry recommendation by text message after the incident was resolved. They are apparently now in contact. I have decided not to think about this.
Everything, as always, is fine.
He'll be back in six weeks.
I'll make sure we have the orange ones.