The Shroud of Heaven (38 page)

“Good men died because of you, Kismet,” rasped the Colonel. “Those boys would still be alive if I hadn’t let you talk me into that damn fool mission. They were my responsibility, but their blood is on your hands.”

“You know that’s not true.” He barely had the breath to form the words.

There was an interminable silence, as if Buttrick was weighing the merit of his argument, then the pressure returned. “Not good enough.”

“Wait!” Kismet’s plea was choked, but a moment later Buttrick relented again, allowing him to speak. “We’re after the same thing: the person who’s really to blame for what happened. Believe me, I’ve got a lot more reason to want revenge than you. But if that’s not good enough, then how’s this: Let me go, or you’ll spend the rest of your life singing soprano.”

Buttrick glanced down and saw a weapon—a polycarbonate knife—pressed into his groin. The composite of man-made polymers and glass fibers was marketed and sold as a letter opener but had been designed with a somewhat more nefarious purpose in mind: the non-metallic blade was invisible to airport metal detectors. Though he had been compelled to check both his
kukri
and his sturdy Emerson CQC7 folding knife with his luggage, Kismet always kept the polycarbonate knife clipped to his waistband whenever he traveled by air. Until this moment, he had in fact never used it for anything more illicit than opening his mail. He pushed the blade just hard enough for the other man to feel the point through the fabric of his trousers.

But Buttrick did not immediately relent. “Are you saying that you know who was behind the attack at the museum?”

“Yes. I can’t tell you everything. Hell, I don’t even know all of it myself. But if you want to find the people responsible, then you’ll have to trust me.”

Buttrick resignedly let go of Kismet’s wrist and took a step back. The two men regarded each other warily for a moment until, as if by some telepathic signal, they both started to laugh. Kismet lowered the blade and leaned against the counter. “Maybe we should finish this conversation somewhere else. If we stay in here much longer, people will talk.”

***

The debacle that had culminated in the riot at Iraq’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier had left Lt. Col. Jonathan Buttrick with a separated right shoulder, two loose teeth, an unknown number of fractured ribs, and more bruises than he could possibly count. The physical injuries would heal in time, but the wound to his career as a military officer was mortal. Despite the unpredictable vagaries of war and the inescapable truth that combat leads to losses of both men and equipment, the United States Army always demanded an accounting, and a summary review of that day’s events faulted Buttrick for the loss of three soldiers, the destruction of four HMMWVs, an incalculable amount of damage to civilian property, and a diplomatic black eye that would not quickly fade. Pending further action, the injured officer was ordered to return Stateside to join the rear detachment of his battalion, knowing full well that his premature retirement would follow as a matter of course.

It was understandable, therefore, that Buttrick upon glimpsing Kismet, the perceived cause of all his woes, could think of nothing but payback. Deep down, however, he knew better. Kismet had done nothing more than ask for a ride to a particular location. The blame for everything that followed fell squarely upon the enemy. But until he confronted Kismet, it had never occurred to him that the persons responsible had nothing to do with the war currently being prosecuted in Iraq.

Buttrick took the keys from the car rental agent and moved toward a waiting silver Mercedes E220 CDI. It was a nicer ride than he would normally have chosen, but since Kismet was picking up the tab, there seemed no reason not to indulge. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. His right shoulder still ached, but the Mercedes had an automatic transmission and cruise control, so it practically drove itself. He pulled away from the rental lot and wended back toward the “arrivals” area of Terminal 1 at the Charles De Gaulle International Airport. Kismet and Marie were waiting on the sidewalk with their luggage.

As Kismet stowed their bags in the trunk, Buttrick appraised the woman. She had removed her head covering, allowing her dark hair to fall free and frame her angular face. Kismet had made introductions on the plane, where Buttrick had found the woman to be aloof, almost unlikable. But he couldn’t deny that she was a feast for the eyes. Leave it to Kismet to find a woman like that in the middle of a war zone. He shook his head. “Lucky bastard.”

Kismet rode shotgun while Marie had the back seat to herself. Driving through the Parisian streets was a right Buttrick had demanded at the outset, though of the three, he was least familiar with the French capital city. For some reason, he just didn’t trust Kismet behind the wheel.

Marie guided them along the major thoroughfares between the airport and the UNESCO headquarters complex on Place de Fontenoy. The Fontenoy complex consisted of four structures of varying design, ranging from the outlandish Y-shaped main building to the almost mundane four-story cube where the Global Heritage Commission offices were located. Construction of the scientific and cultural agency’s headquarters had commenced in the 1950s and despite the political infighting that had led to the Unites States’ withdrawal in the 1980s, few could debate that the physical presence of UNESCO was a marvelous testament to the spirit of humanity. Elaborate works of art decorated the grounds, including magnificent sculptures and paintings on the walls of the various structures. Kismet had always been captivated by one in particular: a mural, measuring almost thirty meters square, of dark red on plaster by Mexico’s Rufino Tamayo entitled
Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind
.

Leaving the Mercedes parked on the street, the trio made their way along the broad Piazza into the complex. Off to the right, The Symbolic Globe, an enormous illuminated spherical sculpture situated above the six sunken patios collectively identified as Building Four, glowed like a beacon, but their destination lay in the other direction. Passing under the elevated structure of the main building, they moved to the secure entrance of Building Three. Marie signed in at the desk and used her key card to access the elevator.

Chiron’s office looked like a museum exhibit: a lifeless facsimile of a workspace. Though relatively small, the room was well-appointed, with deep burgundy carpet and cherry wood bookcases on either side. A matching desk was situated at the far end of the room, facing a picture window that looked out across the city. The unmistakable spire of the Eiffel Tower, limned in electric lights, was almost perfectly centered in the frame. The arrangement struck Kismet as odd. A person entering the office would have immediately found himself looking at the back of Chiron’s chair with the Tower rising from the backrest. It had been a while since he had visited the headquarters of his organization, but he had no memory of the office. The glare of the interior lights on the windowpane obliterated the view and Kismet struck it from his mind as he pushed the chair away and sat at his former mentor’s desk.

“So what are we looking for?” inquired Buttrick. The Army officer was casually examining titles in the bookcase.

Marie had asked a similar question during the convoy ride to Kuwait City, and Kismet had given her the same answer he now gave his new ally. “I’ll know when I find it.” Of course, Buttrick didn’t know about the nuclear detonators or the French mission to destroy them, the only that Chiron had left Kismet and Marie to die in the desert, so he hastily added: “Look for anything that doesn’t seem to fit.”

The drawers of the magnificent desk held neatly sorted documents and a scattering of supplies, but like the room itself, seemed almost staged. It made sense that the Frenchman would have put everything in order prior to leaving for Iraq; he would not have known in advance how long he would be away. Still, something about the tableau struck him as wrong. The room bore the signs of routine cleaning—the surfaces were dust free and the carpet showed a pattern of straight lines from careful vacuuming—but otherwise there was no indication that anyone had been in the room for some time.
It’s like he’s ready to turn over the key. Or…

Marie appeared in the doorway. “I checked the security logs. He hasn’t come here yet.”

Kismet stood. “He isn’t going to. Whatever Pierre is up to, he’s done here. And so are we.”

***

On the slopes of Montmartre, Pierre Chiron looked out across the glittering city. His gaze was riveted upon a point less than five kilometers distant. Behind him, a navy blue Volkswagen Caravelle minibus stood in stark contrast to the chiseled marble grave markers that decorated the Cimetière du Montmartre. The brilliant white dome of the Basilique du Sacré Coeur rose from the crest of the hill like a second moon, reaching for the night sky.

If Chiron had appeared frail to Kismet on the occasion of their reunion, then he was positively a ghost of his former self now. He was thin, having eaten almost nothing since escaping the crumbling tunnels beneath the Babylonian palace, and his flesh was pallid, as if the sun had bleached rather than bronzed his skin. The hollowness in his eyes had deepened, partly because of his lack of appetite, partly because of the hunger in his soul. After a moment of contemplating his final objective, he turned away and moved into the cemetery.

Collette was here, or rather, all that remained of her. He had laid her to rest in the sanctified ground, not to honor her dying wishes or the tenets of her faith, but because his family owned a plot and, should things go wrong this night, his arrangements for his own disposition stipulated that he should be laid here as well, once more at her side. Not that it mattered.

Ashes to ashes…

There was no afterlife, no heaven in which he would find a place in her arms. She was not gazing down upon him, longing for that much delayed rendezvous. She was simply gone.

And if I’m wrong
?

But he wasn’t wrong. Because if he was, she would have reached out to him and stayed his hand at the moment in which he had taken the life of the man they both had thought of as their son. If the God to whom she had prayed even in the final hours of her life really existed, He would have sent her, as He sent the angel to Abraham to rescue Isaac from the slaughtering knife. No, there was no longer any doubt in his mind. The entity behind the veil of heaven was no omnipotent, omniscient benefactor, but only a hazy amalgam of humanity’s unconscious superstitions, given life by the awesome unrecognized power of the planet’s magnetic field.

Chiron had been raised in a house divided. His mother, like the woman he had eventually taken as his wife, was a devout believer, while his father, nominally a Roman Catholic, had been a man devoted to secular wisdom. Following the end of the German occupation, the elder Chiron had pushed his son to pursue a life of culture and learning, and the young man’s fascination with both the unrealized potential of atomic power and its horrifying utilization as a weapon, had given him the focus to become both a nuclear scientist and outspoken opponent of weapons proliferation. He now realized that, in his own way, he had been searching for faith as surely as the women in his life. His scriptures were the equations of Einstein, Fermi and Oppenheimer, and in those cryptic texts, he had found the power of God.

And yet, for all that he knew this to be true, here he was at Collette’s grave and standing in the shadow of the cathedral where she and thousands of others had come to pray; Sacré Coeur—the Sacred Heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing that she would understand where further words failed him, knowing that she no longer existed save as a memory in his own fractured conscience, knowing even that his apology was not entirely directed at the ghost of his wife. He was also speaking to the presence ostensibly occupying the grand structure atop the Butte Montmartre. In that respect at least, he was heard.

***

“We’re being followed,” Kismet announced as the Mercedes raced along the Rue Royale. “I noticed him on the bridge. Everyone else is whizzing by us like we don’t belong here.”

Buttrick glanced in the mirror, then over his shoulder. Rather than comment, he quickly signaled and made a right turn at the next intersection. A pair of headlights, which had maintained a constant distance behind them, made a similarly hasty course change.

“Not too subtle about it,” the officer observed. He made another right, onto the Rue Cambon and the trailing vehicle followed suit. “What do you want me to do?”

“I have to take a look at Pierre’s flat,” Kismet answered, “but there’s no reason we have to let our shadow know that.”

“What are you proposing?” asked Marie.

“We split up. Next time we make a turn, slow down long enough for me to jump out. There’s a Metro stop not too far from Pierre’s building. I should be able to get there and start searching the place in about half an hour. Meanwhile, you can take our friend back there on a scenic tour of the city. After that, go to your place, Marie, and wait for me to call.”

“And what if this guy decides to do more than just tail us?”

Kismet met Buttrick’s stare. “Do what you can. If I can’t reach you at Marie’s, I’ll know something came up. Leave a message for me at UNESCO if you can.”

Marie scribbled her phone number on a torn scrap of paper and gave it to him, along with a quick kiss. “Good luck.”

Buttrick whipped the Mercedes left onto a narrow side street then took the first right onto an unmarked but short street and pumped the brakes. When the car slowed to a mere 20 kilometers per hour, Kismet opened the door and rolled from the passenger seat onto the pavement. The impact exacerbated latent aches in his extremities, but he pushed through the agony and scrambled for cover behind a trash receptacle. The engine of the rental car revved loudly in the confined area as Buttrick hastened away, and no sooner had the Mercedes turned the corner at the far end, when twin spots of brilliance appeared at the other. A rust-colored sedan, moving too fast for him to identify make or model, raced down the cramped street and exited onto the main thoroughfare, all within the space of a few seconds.