With the real George Washington on his way back to the colonies, the Legion heads for Paris to assist Benjamin Franklin in negotiating for an alliance with the French crown. Louis the XVI is wavering in the decision to go to war, and Franklin believes that the presence of the Legion, led by a French Canadian, will help sway the decision. Franklin greets the heroes with enthusiasm and provides them with new clothes and accommodations at Versailles in preparation for their presentation to the king.
The following day Franklin summons the Legion to a private conference. With him is Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, Louis XVI’s foreign minister. Gravier informs them that his wife and three children are missing, having disappeared from his mansion in Paris the previous night. He received a message at Versailles saying that if he did not convince the king to abandon any idea of alliance with the colonists, he would never see his children again. Franklin asks the Legion to see if they can track down and rescue Gravier’s family. Gravier provides a letter of introduction to the major-domo at his house, as well as a copy of the ransom letter he received, and gives the heroes a carriage with a coachman and footman to return them to Paris.
Enroute to Gravier’s home, Godot questions the coachman and footman about their service to Gravier, but finds nothing surprising. When they arrive, Godot asks to search the wine cellar, while Francis examines the back gardens. Suzanna shapeshifts into a bloodhound to examine the house, accompanied by Jacoby. Jacoby and Suzanna find signs of disturbance in both the childrens’ rooms and the wife’s, and Suzanna detects a number of male human scents in the area that do not match up with the household staff, as well as a scent she recognizes but cannot quite place.
Meanwhile, Godot uses his mind-wipe powers to pilfer two vintage wines from the major-domo, concealing them for later sale. Francis discovers disturbed greenery on the back wall of the garden, suggesting someone climbed the wall; he does so as well, finding a small, locked garden gate and footprints from a child’s shoe in the mud of the alley. Suzanna’s nose confirms this is the trail of the abductors, and she follows it through Paris to a Left Bank tenement, seemingly unoccupied.
To provide the team with a stealthy approach, Suzanna transforms all four into rats, allowing Jacoby to activate his armor and claws and Francis his speed and deflection first. The four rats (one very oddly shaped) sneak into the tenement and determine that the first, third, and fourth floors are empty; on the second, however, four thugs guard the wife and children in one room, four more are sleeping in another, and two thugs and Kahwihta are awake in a third.
The team confers with a combination of gestures and written notes and comes up with a plan. Jacoby will shift back into human form with Suzanna’s help in the room with the sleepers and kill them, then hold the hall. The other two will shift into human form in the room with the hostages and engage the thugs while Suzanna chews through the wife’s bonds.
Jacoby succeeds in killing three of the sleepers before the fourth awakes, and quickly finishes him as well. With the hostages, Godot uses his confusion power to strike all four thugs and Francis knifes one of them, taking him down. Francis and Godot continue to engage with the other thugs while Suzanna frees the wife and then, with her help, the children.
In the hall, Jacoby engages with Kahwihta and her two minions, trading heavy blows without immediate result. The minions fire pistols and Kahwihta her musket, alerting the others to her plight. Suzanna shifts into wolf form to provide cover for the hostages as Francis kills another, and Godot runs into the hall in time to see Jacoby go down under a massive strike from a minion’s club and Kahwihta multiply into a second body. Godot hits the enemy with his confusion power as Francis finishes off the thugs in the room (after accidentally knifing Suzanna), and Suzanna shifts to grizzly bear form. The Kahwihtas flee to the first floor and set the tenement on fire, but the ever-prepared Francis has a length of rope with him, allowing everyone to escape unharmed.
With his family restored, Gravier convinces Louis to back the colonial rebellion, and the heroes set sail for home, followed soon after by a French armada.
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