Magic Lantern (Rogue Angel) (37 page)

Certain parts of the map Anton Dutilleaux had left on the lenses weren’t on anyone’s maps, though. That had been expected. There were a lot of areas in the catacombs that were still being discovered—rediscovered.

“Were these tunnels always under Paris?” Edmund flicked his light around the wall of bones nearest him. “Some kind of natural system?”

“No. This is where the stone was quarried that was used to build the city. The construction crews found natural veins of gypsum and plaster.” Annja kept moving forward, halted at an intersection and chose the left fork. The dark pressed in at her, barely kept at bay by the flashlight.

“Why did they dig under the city?”

“The mines were dug in the fourteenth century. Most of them at the time were open-air pits that allowed the workers to haul rock up out of the earth. But the stratification was deep. It made more sense to dig into the side of a hill and empty out all the rock through an underground mine. For the next five hundred years, Paris kept growing, until it finally grew over the mines.”

“It’s a wonder the tunnels didn’t collapse.”

“They did.” Annja turned left at the next turn. Her flashlight beam skated over a wall covered with graffiti, probably kids who came down into the catacombs on a dare, judging by the content. “Sometimes they still do. Erosion is a problem.”

“Lovely thought.” Edmund’s voice was tight.

“Sometimes whole buildings have dropped into the mines.”

“We climbed down, what? Forty, fifty feet?”

“At least. But there hasn’t been a cave-in for a long time.”

“So once they finished taking all the stone out, the city administrators decided that it would be easier to transfer skeletons here to reclaim the land as the city grew?”

“Reclaiming the land was only part of it. Paris, like London, had grown fast. Buildings sprang up almost overnight. The growing population also aged. Bodies had to go somewhere. While it’s true that the graveyards filled up quickly, and funerals were using the same casket over and over again, space wasn’t the most important issue. Buried bodies were decomposing, and the various body matters were returning to the soil. Paris depended heavily on well water. The water table is quite close to the surface. The upside was that wells were easy to dig. However, the downside was that the water table often flowed through the cemeteries.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Annja saw Edmund flinch.

“The resulting sickness from the bad water triggered the removal of the bodies.” Annja couldn’t help smiling. “I guess that kind of lends a whole new meaning to
urban decay.
”

Edmund sighed. “All right, I am grossed out quite enough, thank you.” He paused. “I don’t know why anyone would want to come down here.”

“Same reason Anton Dutilleaux drew crowds down to watch his phantasmagoria. For the atmosphere. And the illegality of the adventure.” Annja hesitated for just a moment at the next intersection and checked her sat-phone. She no longer had a signal, but she’d uploaded maps into the device’s memory. “One of the caverns down here was even set up as a movie theater.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am. The police discovered it in 2004. The operation was set up by La Mexicaine De Perforation, the Mexican Consolidated Drilling Authority. It’s just another name for a group of
cataphiles,
a splinter off the UX.”

“What’s that?”

“Urban Experiment. La Mexicaine De Perforation is dedicated to delivering clandestine artistic events. They had a movie screen, a bar and a kitchen down here.”

Annja continued. “After the police came back for a more in-depth investigation, all the equipment had vanished.”

“Vanished.”

“Like magic. There were whispers that the whole thing was run by ghosts. Rumors get out of hand pretty quickly.”

Fiona snorted. “Children. All for the momentary thrill of being afraid of the dark.”

“A lot of criminals have used the place, too.” Fiona flicked her beam across a section of graffiti. “Marijuana growers, mushroom growers, any number of drug dealers…”

Edmund cleared his throat. “I suppose there’s a chance of bumping into them, too?”

Annja turned another corner and was surprised by the steep descent in front of them. The map hadn’t indicated that. She headed down thirty yards, measuring the distance by counting her strides. If it became necessary, she had a Leica DISTO D2 laser distance meter to measure spans. So far the way had been easy to follow.

A moment later, her flashlight beam revealed the calm surface of a gray-green pool of water that blocked the tunnel mouth.

38

“What’s wrong?” Edmund pressed into Annja, adding his flashlight beam to hers.

“The tunnel’s flooded ahead.” Annja moved her beam around, looking for intersecting tunnels that might offer another route.

Fiona stepped up and did the same. “The walls look solid. It doesn’t appear to be a cave-in.”

“No. Probably caused by the rising water table. Groundwater levels reroute themselves occasionally.” Annja took out her sat-phone and opened the file she had that contained the catacombs maps.

“So the adventure ends here?” Edmund stuck a foot into the water.

“Not necessarily.” Annja slipped off her backpack and set it on the stone floor. She opened it and withdrew a scuba mask and small oxygen tank. There was also a pair of swim fins. “I knew some of the tunnels in the catacombs were flooded. I thought maybe we’d encounter them. So I came prepared.”

Fiona shook her head. “Surely you’re not planning on going down there.”

“I am now.” Annja tied her hair back and pulled on the scuba mask. She took out the yellow-and-black canister of Spare Air. The small tank was a little over a foot long and about two and a half inches in diameter. She slid into a harness and attached the tank over her shoulder.

Fiona looked worried. “That can’t hold much air.”

Annja smiled. “You’ve never used one of these?”

“No.”

“They come with the equivalent of fifty-seven breaths. Three or four minutes if you space it out, and you can’t deep dive because you’ll use the air up faster. Enough for a little exploring.”

“Enough to get you into serious trouble, you mean.”

“That’s why I brought spares.” Annja reached into her backpack and took out another cylinder. She’d left her computer and cameras in the car to make room for the gear. The foray into the catacombs was about exploration, not documentation. “Georges was able to get me a half-dozen tanks. Should be more than enough to get through this.” She attached a second tank. “They transfer quickly. If the dive is longer than that, we’ll come back with proper scuba gear.”

Edmund gaped at her. “You expect to descend into those stygian depths, search for a way through that tunnel
and
keep track of how many breaths you take?”

“Actually, I figure if I run out of air in the first cylinder, I’ll switch over to the second and head back. Kind of keeps things simple, don’t you think?”

“I think you’re barking mad to even consider diving into that.” Edmund flushed deeply enough to be seen even by the secondhand glow from the flashlights. “No offense.”

“As I recall, I had to watch you do the whole water torture chamber thing.”

“That was staged.”

“I know what I’m doing, Edmund. If I didn’t think I could do this, I wouldn’t.”

Fiona snorted. “I don’t think you’re in any way close to a litmus test for safe precautions.”

“I can do this.” Annja strapped a long knife to her right shin, tested the grip the holster had on it and stood.

Fiona grimaced. “Before you do that, we could look around. There could be another tunnel that intersects this one past this point.”

“That would take time and we could get lost.”

“Annja, that whole tunnel could be flooded.”

“If it is, we’ll come back prepared for that.”

Fiona sighed in resignation. “Show me how to use one of those. In case I have to come after you.”

“You’ve used a scuba?”

“Yes.”

“These aren’t much different.” Annja went through the procedure, showing both of them. Then she strapped on the swim fins. “I’ll be back in minutes.” She turned and stepped into the pool.

The cold water quickly rose to her ankles, then to her knees and thighs and hips. The tunnel took a severe incline down, but she didn’t feel any debris that would suggest there had been a collapse. The flashlight was waterproof and remained on, but the viscosity of the pool dampened the beam so that it only illuminated up to a few feet. She wouldn’t be able to see much underwater.

A few steps farther on, the water came up to her chin and the tunnel roof angled down to meet the pool. She filled her lungs with air, then clenched the Spare Air mouthpiece between her teeth and dove.

* * *

WITH THE NIGHT-VISION GOGGLES in place, the catacombs stood revealed in multiple shades of green to Jean-Baptiste Laframboise. The flashlights held by the two people ahead of him churned his vision with too much brightness when he rounded the corner, though, and he had to raise his goggles.

Campra was at his side, their men behind. Laframboise looked at Campra in the darkness, and the man nodded and raised his machine pistol. Moving carefully, Campra went ahead.

Laframboise trailed after the man. They wore Kevlar vests from neck to knees, and Kevlar military helmets.

In the pool of water, the flashlight Annja Creed had carried with her dimmed and grew steadily smaller.

For a moment, Laframboise wondered if they should have closed in earlier.

Then he decided letting the woman forage on had been best. Although the three people weren’t going to be able to put up much resistance, having them split up—and inattentive—was advantageous. Laframboise could capitalize on surprise, as well.

You will never see the treasure.

He forced Magdelaine’s words away and concentrated. There were riches waiting.

The woman, Fiona Pioche, must have sensed something at the last moment. Laframboise was certain Campra had made no noise, but the woman reached into her pocket and came up with a small pistol as she spun around.

Ruthlessly, Campra moved in and smashed his rifle butt in the woman’s face. She went back and down into the water, and the pistol flew from her hand.

The woman tried to get back up, but Campra pointed the rifle at her and growled, “Stay down or I’m going to kill you.”

For a moment, she looked as if she was going to lunge at him, anyway. Then she remained still. “The water’s cold. May I get out?”

Campra gestured with the rifle and directed her against the wall to the left. They took the professor into custody easily enough.

“Hello, Ms. Pioche,” Laframboise said, pistol in hand.

She was bleeding from her mouth and nose, and her right eye was already starting to turn black. “Laframboise. Sorry. It took me a moment to pick you out from all the other sewer rats down here.”

He grinned at her. “I’m still deciding whether I need to keep you alive.”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she drew her sleeve across her face. It came away bloody.

“Where is Annja Creed?”

She just smiled at him through her split lips.

He smiled back. “Be stubborn if you wish, I won’t have you killed.” He pointed his weapon at Edmund Beswick. “I’ll start with the professor.”

* * *

THE WATER WAS ALMOST ARCTIC and the cold leached into Annja’s bones. She swam effortlessly, gliding through it with both hands ahead of her. In her left hand, the flashlight served only to create a lighted cone for her to swim through. Still, when she was close enough, she could see either the tunnel’s floor or the roof. Either was fine. Both together would have meant the tunnel was narrowing and the way was coming to an end.

She counted her breaths as she went, and made sure she stayed oxygenated. The movement warmed her slightly, but she still felt cold. After twenty-two breaths, the cone of light flattened at the top. She angled upward and came out of the water at about the same time her flippers touched the tunnel floor.

Cautiously, she walked out of the water and sniffed the air. It was fetid and stank of mold, but there was no noxious odor of harmful gases. She took a deep breath and held it, checking for vertigo or any other indication that there wasn’t enough oxygen. She felt fine, so she started breathing normally.

She estimated the time she’d been underwater and figured it was something over a minute based on the number of breaths she’d taken. The average adult breathed between twelve and twenty breaths a minute based on physical shape and circumstance. She guessed she’d been breathing about fifteen breaths a minute and revised her underwater trip estimate to just over a minute and a half.