The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (78 page)

On he watched, not expecting much.

A policeman was walking what looked like a German Shepard on a short leash when the leash suddenly went taut, and the canine lunged forward. His owner was caught by surprise as the leather snapped tightly, and the dog reared instinctively onto its hind legs.

Philippe raised his lips from the cup and smiled, wondering what would happen next. He silently begged the dog to pull even harder and placed an unspoken wager on how long the tug-of-war would last and on who would win.

It was the first bit of something that was different than the last twenty hours or so they’d been onsite, and he quietly begged the dog to be victorious. Suddenly, he was aware and surprised that he was having a conversation in his mind about a dog excitedly disobeying his master. Sleep deprivation and boredom.

Onward the dog pulled the policeman. Each pull forward by the dog was with more force and strength than the last. Soon, the policeman let him go, or he lost control of the leash; Philippe couldn’t tell.

The newly freed dog lowered its head and bolted forward and up a small pile of rubble where it stopped in front of a large metal object covered in a thick layer of gray dust—just as all items in a half-mile radius of
there,
both animate and inanimate, were. The dog was sniffing and simultaneously barking wildly, while every so often spinning in a complete circle or two.

The policeman was running in pursuit, and it took a moment for him to catch up to the dog. When he did, he rubbed his hand on the dog’s scalp to calm him down. He rubbed his other hand on the side of the round bit of metal protruding from the rocks, next to where the dog was barking wildly. He wiped the metal a bit, exposing its brass coloring.

The Emmanuelle Bell.

The policeman put his ear to the brass of the bell and then suddenly jerked backward. The inexplicable movement by the policeman startled Philippe, and he too jumped a bit. A splash of hot coffee landed directly in the middle of his chest, causing him to curse loudly.

By this time, Philippe’s partner had seen what was transpiring and had pointed the camera in the direction of the policeman and the Emmanuelle Bell.

When he zoomed in, what he saw made him shriek with a mixture of glee and disbelief.

“Philippe, a survivor! The policeman is shouting that there is a survivor! Call the studio!”

Philippe was already on the phone.

CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

HOW CAREERS BEGIN
WHILE OTHERS END
CANAL 16—PARIS

T
he coverage of the destruction of Notre Dame was nonstop. Even from the studio, the scene displayed was somber, only surpassed by what the world had witnessed on September 11, 2001.

Taking the place of a headstone, an ashen, dark-gray plume of smoke floated endlessly upward and over the skyline, marking the final resting place of the many whose bodies would be forever entombed in the rubble.

Reporting since the beginning of the tragedy was anchorman Jean-Pierre Fabrice, who wore the seasoned and sunken face of a man nearing his own end. Dark circles had many hours ago formed under his eyes and could no longer be smoothed over and blended into his natural skin color by the studio’s makeup artist; the turned-up corners of his mouth—a trademark by which he was mostly remembered—had vanished somewhere between the twelfth and fifteenth hour of reporting. Adding to the chaos from Notre Dame were the thefts of the Crown of Thorns, the Shroud of Turin, and Samothrace. Jean-Pierre was more than sleep-deprived, and his face showed it.

He hadn’t left the studio since the first stone of Notre Dame fell.

He had not-so-quietly refused.

His career was at its end, and this was the most important matter he had ever reported; he wouldn’t let the younger, more attractive, and well-chiseled faces of the new breed do this work. They were too eager for something to sensationalize, something by which they could make a name for themselves, but they had neither the breadth of knowledge on world affairs nor the latitude of experience to connect with anything of true significance the destruction of Notre Dame, the murder of two world leaders, and the thefts of priceless works of art.

He secretly loathed the handsome men nearly as much as he detested the pretty faces of the overly attractive and well-proportioned women. No longer did a broadcast journalist have to scratch and claw to get a break, to get a story on the air. No longer did they take any work home; no longer was it necessary to investigate a story, to find the news, and to report on it, to create. Today, one needed only a pretty face, a sultry or memorably husky voice (take your pick), and an ability to read a fast-moving teleprompter.

Gone were the skills needed to be a true journalist.

This story, however, had been his last chance to report on a story of real and historical significance the way it should be reported.

Staring at camera number one, he waited for the red light to come on so that he could continue with his task.

But the red light never illuminated.

Jean-Pierre eyed the in-studio producer and gestured his curiosity at him.

The producer held his hand out, signaling for him to wait, and held tightly with his other hand the earpiece in his left ear, listening intently to whatever it was that was being said. Within a few moments, the producer moved frantically in both directions, shouting his commands with both words and a flurry of hand gestures.

Jean-Pierre had no idea what was happening and certainly had even less knowledge that he would never be seen on the air again.

The in-house producer ran out of the studio and into the control room.

Once in the control room, he shouted, “Go live to Notre Dame, in five, four, three—” He didn’t say two or one. All in the room knew the drill and silently counted down. Where the word “go” should have been was only a hand gesture.

Broadcast to all of France and soon to be picked up by the station’s affiliates in most places around the world was the tanned and perfectly sculpted, patrician face of a handsome Philippe Montreau. A wisp of his thick black hair fell seductively over his left eye as he began to speak. Philippe’s numbers—as his boss called them—were climbing, especially with the female audience. He let the errant hair stay where it was; it was a purposeful tactic.

Women wanted to be with him.

Men wanted to be him.

Good boy,
thought the producer in the control room.

Philippe was still breathing a bit hard from the run he and his cameraman had just completed from one side of the Seine River to the other. Now atop the Pont Neuf, Philippe gave a knowing glance at the cameraman who nodded that they were ready to begin his broadcast.

They were live; Philippe began: “For the previous two days, I have been fixed to the grounds, or what was left of them, of Notre Dame. For two days, the only life that could be witnessed over the cracked stone and destroyed marble belonged to officials and to the stonefaced rescue workers. Their mission long ago had converted from one of search and rescue to one of search and recover. There were no survivors found during those horrible first long days and nights. Onward, the men and women have worked. They have toiled through the day and all through the dark of night, asking for nothing. They have not stopped. They have not surrendered. Never did they give up on their task. Their gruesome mission has been to recover every human life lost under this rubble. Under the rock and dust are the remains of friends, family, and loved ones—”

Philippe paused and slowly inhaled; this, too, was for effect. He lowered his gaze at the camera and continued without knowing if what he would say was entirely true, “Not one man or woman has left this site; each has worked tirelessly and selflessly in order to recover and identify every victim. They all knew that the world watched; that it was their duty to bring closure to every waiting family member and friend who has lost someone in the tragedy. It was the only thing that has continued to drive them forward in their somber task—”

By now, the other news organizations had picked up that something big was happening and scrambled to catch up, but it was too late. Philippe had seen it first; the story was his.

“Today, that somber work is being rewarded—a survivor, a survivor has been found! Almost impossible to believe, when the half-ton Emmanuelle Bell came crashing to the earth from the height of the south tower, one lone person was fortune to be underneath it! In a twist of miraculous fate, the bell encapsulated the survivor, saving one soul from the fate met by the thousands of Notre Dame’s victims. We are paying witness to a miracle!”

In the studio, a collective gasp resonated in the control room.

Jean-Pierre Fabrice slumped in his chair. The cameras were no longer on and pointed at him. As much as he wanted to celebrate this one life, he couldn’t. He knew that he had been overtrumped by the younger, better-looking, and just damn lucky Philippe Montreau. He could almost hear the producer dialing his boss and recommending Philippe for the role of anchor.

By now all of the cameras of the different news organizations had zoomed in on the location where the south tower once stood with the organizations’ respective journalists frenetically playing catch-up.

In the distance, a frenzy of seemingly uncoordinated movement blurred the many bodies of the policemen and rescue workers into one homogenous blur.

The reporters struggled to understand what they saw. Philippe took a chance; they don’t come often in this business, and he took it without question. Yanking his cameraman and partner of four years, he ran toward the collection of rescue workers while shouting for his partner to keep the camera focused on the scene.

It was more luck than skill. Philippe didn’t have a knack for getting a story; hired only for his good looks and ability to speak well and eloquently, he was merely in the right place at the right time. As Philippe’s cameraman zoomed in and peered through the optical lens, the entire world had tuned in and was now watching live—seeing what he was seeing.

The two men had stopped running, and Philippe began to report in a torrent the narrative of what the world now watched. “It appears as if the rescuers are trying to lift the bell themselves! They have chosen to not wait for any heavy equipment, which would surely rob them of precious minutes to get to the survivor underneath. There are six or seven men moving a long piece of iron—what looks like an iron beam, a piece of Notre Dame herself. They have heaved the iron over a large piece of stone and are attempting to use it as some sort of lever to lift up the bell! A few others are now digging frantically at the base of the bell, trying to create a hole within which to stick the piece of iron under the lip of the bell!”

The cameraman zoomed in on the strained faces of the rescuers as the men pushed and pulled the lever with all of their might. Others joined in. At first the bell didn’t move; a few more strong hands were added to the lever. A small sliver of space parted the bell from the ground; the moment that it did, dozens of fingers and hands slid under the bell and began to lift while the others worked the lever.

With each bit of newly created space, other rescuers were shoving stones and small boulders in the gap to stop the bell from crashing down.

One policeman was on his belly and had crawled halfway under the bell with the bottom half of his body still halfway out, unaware or not caring that one slip of the heavy bell would certainly end his life.

The policeman had a long flashlight and was illuminating the interior—time stood still. For a moment, there was nothing: no sound, no movement, and no clear idea of what was happening.

Philippe was suddenly aware that he might have made the most horrific mistake of his budding career. He had announced to the world that a survivor had been found at Notre Dame, when, in fact, no such concurrence had been given.

It had been a gamble.

Without warning, the policeman shouted from underneath the bell, and two other men quickly pulled him out by his legs. Grasped in each of his hands were the dirtied and dust-covered hands of another man. As the two men pulled the policeman from under the bell, the lifeless, limp and broken body of a man in a black suit appeared.

It was obvious that he was dead.

Philippe’s head sunk even lower into his chest.

The policeman let go of the dead man and dove back under the bell, shouting.

Philippe’s head rose; for the first time in a long time, he prayed and begged that it would be answered.

The policeman shouted again from underneath the bell, and the same two men pulled him from under, sliding his chest along the sharp fragments of the graveled stone.

The bare arms of another victim emerged first; the men continued to drag. The body was leaner and smaller than the other; it had a head full of long hair—it was a woman.

Two paramedics crashed to their knees alongside her body and obscured it from the camera’s view. Philippe’s cameraman moved to get a better angle.

The seconds ticked long; the world was breathless. For the second time in as many days, nearly the entire world shared the same emotion, but instead of a profound sadness and despair, the world felt hope.