Angel City

by Jon Steele

  “What is this place, where the bodies are?”

  “Base Aérienne 442.”

  “Which is what?”

  “A secret facility, twenty-one kilometers outside Paris. The mortuary of Brigade Criminelle was not large enough to house the bodies. After the escape of the terrorist suspect from La Santé Prison, the French president demanded better security.”

  Harper listened to the tone of the big man’s voice. He was telling the truth and lying at the same time. More, the big man was teasing, taunting.

  “I was told, as part of your holy work, that you had encountered this sort of thing before,” Astruc said.

  Harper looked at him, wondering which “sort of thing” the big man was talking about. A subterranean cavern carved from solid rock? Check. Dead forms with their arms crossed over their chests? Check. Both found beneath Lausanne Cathedral. Then the photographs of the bodies themselves. Beheaded and skinned. He flashed through the cathedral job again, landed on a woman hanging by her ankles in the sitting room of her Geneva flat. Same bloody MO. A few thousand years between them, but the same damn thing. More of those swell intersecting lines of causality spilling into the mix.

  “Sure, I’ve encountered it.”

  “May I ask where, as I understand you to be a professor of ancient languages?”

  “All you need know is I’ve seen it before.”

  “Of course,” Astruc said. “The sanctity of your office would preclude you from divulging such details.”

  Harper looked at the shots again, this time noting the time and date stamps in the upper right-hand corners. August 16, 04:15 hours.

  “These shots are official. How did they end up on your mobile?”

  “It’s no concern of yours.”

  “Sure it is. Especially if you want me to take a hike through the tunnels to some underground cavern and decode some scribble you found on a wall or a parchment. That is what you want me to do, isn’t it? Or perhaps with all the evil you seem to encounter, maybe you want me to make the sign of the cross down there, splash around some holy water.”

  Astruc was silent for a moment. He picked up his glass, studied the contents.

  “You would mock the sanctity of your holy office?”

  “What I mock is being played for a sap.”

  Astruc drew on his cigarillo.

  “I obtained them from someone within the French police.”

  “Stole them, you mean.”

  “They are not stolen. They were given freely.”

  “By whom?”

  “Someone like Gilles Lambert.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning someone who now fears for his immortal soul.”

  Harper analyzed the big man’s voice. He was lying through his teeth. Harper closed the photos on the mobile, slid it across the table to Astruc.

  “You know, for a man with a taste for single malt and cigarillos, not to mention a photo album of mutilated corpses on his mobile, you display a touching concern for the immortal souls of men.”

  Astruc eased off his dark glasses, looked down from Harper’s gaze. But Harper could see where the thin scar along the right cheek met a disfigured eye, as if some beast had clawed his face. Astruc slipped on a new pair of glasses, raised his eyes.

  “Then we both have our amusing hobbies, don’t we, Father Harper?”

  Harper stared at him. Clear lens over the left, shaded over the right. Harper tried to scan him for light . . . couldn’t get a read with only one eye.

  “Yes, I suppose we do at that.”

  A black Mercedes van stopped on the boulevard next to the café. The side door slid open, and Harper saw Goose at the wheel. Astruc drank the last of his whiskey, tossed his cigarillo onto the cobblestones, nodded toward the café windows. Inside, Gilles Lambert was coming up the stairs.

  “Our transport is here, and so is our guide with the bad stomach. Allons-y.”

  Harper looked at his watch: T-minus ten to check-in.

  Inspector Gobet would have to wait.

  NINE

  I

  A HARD RAIN FELL AS THEY DROVE THROUGH MONTPARNASSE AND into the working-class neighborhoods of the 14th arrondissement. Gilles Lambert rode up front with Goose and directed their way through the streets. Lights in windows were few and far between. Early to bed, early to rise was the order of the day this end of Paris. At the intersection of Rue des Petits Arbres and Avenue Monforte, Lambert pointed to an empty lot off the road. Goose drove onto the pavement, then into the cover of low-hanging willows. He shut down the motor, killed the lights.

  “Gilles, would you mind waiting outside with Goose? I’d like to make my confession to Father Harper before we go.”

  “Yes, yes,” Gilles said, slipping the strap of his canvas backpack over his shoulder. “I did the same thing this evening, before I came.”

  “Good, Gilles, very good.”

  He climbed out with Goose, and they walked to the back of the van. Goose opened the rear door, hauled out his own backpack and a plastic shopping bag. He dropped them on the ground. When the door shut, Astruc took off his overcoat. He wore a black windbreaker over a black sweatshirt. Somehow, without his overcoat, the man looked two sizes bigger. He reached behind his seat, found a pair of Wellington boots. He kicked off his shoes, slipped on the boots.

  “It’s a constant sixteen degrees in the tunnels. Leave your overcoat and sports coat in the van.”

  Harper waited for more. Nothing.

  “That’s it? That’s your confession?”

  Astruc glanced out the windows. Goose was putting on a set of Wellingtons. Gilles Lambert was nervously watching the road for passing cars. There were none.

  “I want you to keep an eye on Gilles. If he begins to panic, you must keep him under control. It’s imperative we reach the cavern tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “You heard him. They’re filling the access tunnels with concrete. They’re trying to seal the cavern from the world. I would have thought, having seen the photographs, you would want to examine the scene yourself.”

  “Sure. I’m just wondering what else it is you’re looking for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The bodies aren’t there anymore. They were moved to Base Aérienne 442, no?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you are asking, Father Harper.”

  “I’m asking: What is it you’re looking for under Paris?”

  Astruc nodded.

  “There is something else. Something that you must see with your own eyes to verify its credibility.”

  The words registered as truth.

  “Ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys,” Harper said.

  “What?”

  “Your penance.”

  Astruc’s good eye drilled into Harper.

  “The guilty one, Father Harper, is not the one who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.”

  “Sounds like scripture.”

  “It is scripture,” Astruc said.

  No it isn’t, Harper thought, it’s Victor Hugo. Les Misérables, book one, chapter four. The musings of an old bishop who would not condemn a convict named Jean Valjean. Still, Astruc’s gaze let it be known it was scripture enough for him, and that he believed it with the fervor of a fanatic.

  “Must have missed that one in seminary school,” Harper said.

  Astruc slid open his door, jumped out. He stepped away a few seconds, then was back with a pair of Wellington boots and a hooded windbreaker. He tossed them into the van at Harper.

  “Here, you’ll need these.”

  The windbreaker was gray and the boots were black. All of it off the shelf, sales tags still attached. Harper removed his shoes, slid on the boots. Perfect fit.

  “How did you know my size?”

  �
�Goose spotted you at Gare de Lyon. He made you for an eleven and a half.”

  Harper looked back through the rear window. Goose was hiding from the rain with Gilles Lambert. The kid’s glassy eyes stared back at Harper from under the cowl of his hoodie. He made those same quick moves with his hands: What’s up?

  “Clever kid.”

  “I told you, don’t underestimate him.”

  Harper took off his overcoat and sports coat, slipped on the windbreaker. He stepped from the van, followed Astruc around the back. Gilles Lambert opened his backpack, handed out four Petzl headlamps.

  “We will need these in the tunnels. Put them around your necks for now so you don’t lose them. And don’t switch them on till I tell you. We don’t want to attract the attention of the residents. Follow me.”

  Lambert pulled up the hood of his windbreaker and stepped out from under the trees and into the rain. Astruc signed to Goose: Follow him. Goose hooked his arms through the shoulder straps of his backpack and walked after Gilles. Astruc put up his hood, looked at Harper, nodded toward the road.

  “Allez, Father Harper.”

  Harper covered his own head.

  “Sure.”

  They crossed the intersection, walked along Rue des Petits Arbres. With their hoods, Harper imagined they looked like a gang of monks up to no good. They came to an overpass crossing a ravine. Forty meters deep, thirty meters wide, rail tracks running through it. Lambert stopped, pointed down.

  “That’s what’s left of La Petite Ceinture, the railway that once circled Paris. We need to climb down to it and follow the tracks for two kilometers. This way.”

  They crossed the overpass, turned down a dimly lit road, followed the pavement along a rusting chain-link fence almost hidden by tall weeds and wild bramble. A crooked elm tree, more dead than alive, stood on the other side of the fence. Coming close to it, Lambert checked the road and the few windows with lights. All clear. He stepped from the pavement and reached the weeds and grabbed hold of the fence where it joined a steel post. He yanked hard and peeled away the fence, just enough to squeeze by.

  “Quick, before someone sees us. I will follow last.”

  They hurried through, pushed through the weeds, and came out at the top of the ridge. A manila rope, two inches in diameter, was anchored to the elm. The rope dropped to the bottom of the ravine. Harper saw knots tied in the rope every two meters. Looked military. He wondered if there was more to Gilles Lambert than met the eye.

  “I’ll go first,” Lambert said. “Please, hurry after me. If a car comes, duck down into the weeds, wait for it to pass.”

  They lowered down in turn. Gilles, Astruc, Harper, Goose. They gathered around the rope. The high-above streetlamps offered enough light to make out their surroundings. They weren’t far from the overpass of Rue des Petits Arbres, and the overpass cast a band of shadow across the width of the ravine. There were overpasses up and down the rail line and just as many bands of shadow.

  “Which way are we going?” said Harper.

  Gilles pointed south, away from Rue des Petits Arbres.

  “That way. It’s easiest if we walk along the tracks.”

  They moved to the center of the ravine.

  Astruc looked at Harper and Lambert.

  “Wait here. Goose and I will walk ahead and make sure the police aren’t about.”

  “But the police don’t know about this place,” Lambert said.

  “Just the same, we’ll check. The two of you stay here where I can see you.”

  Astruc and Goose walked ahead without making a sound.

  Harper looked at the ground. Rotting sleepers, corroding rails, broken bolts and shoulder ties. Beneath the lot of it was a thick layer of gravel that went crunch with the lightest touch.

  “Pretty good.”

  “Pardon, mon père?”

  “Them. Quiet as church mice,” Harper said.

  He heard a rustling sound behind him. He turned, saw three faces peer from makeshift cardboard shelters tucked in the shadow of the overpass, protected from the rain.

  “And who might they be?”

  “Tramps,” Lambert said. “But don’t worry, they’re always here. This is their home. They fixed the rope to the tree.”

  “The tramps fixed the rope, not you?”

  “I think so. It was never here before they made this place their home. I used to have to walk another three kilometers to get up to the street. One day I saw them coming down the rope and setting up their huts. They don’t seem to mind me using it. I leave them food and wine sometimes. They prefer the wine.”

  Harper looked at the tramps. Too dark to scan their eyes.

  “Do you ever talk to them?”

  “Non. They keep to themselves.”

  Harper looked toward Astruc and Goose. They were standing still now. Astruc talking, the kid signing. They couldn’t see the tramps from where they were. Maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe they already knew the tramps were there, or maybe they didn’t care. He turned to Lambert.

  “Tell me something, Gilles: Was there anything down there besides the bodies?”

  “Quoi?”

  “In the cavern, was there anything else down there? Artifacts, pieces of metal, anything?”

  “Non, there was nothing but the bodies. Not that I noticed. I ran away . . .”

  A wraithlike light moved along the top of the ridge. It panned through the dark and illuminated the rain. Then came the sound of wheels rolling over wet asphalt before slowing to a stop. Doors opened and closed, the wheels rolled on. Harper listened for the sound of copper boots pounding on pavement. Nothing. A bus dropping passengers, he thought.

  “Right. You went in, found the bodies, ran away.”

  Fear flickered in Lambert’s eyes.

  “Non, I ran away when . . . when . . . I heard voices.”

  “What sort of voices?”

  “Moaning, as if they were in pain.”

  “Who?”

  “The bodies. They were moaning, they were in pain.”

  Fear could drive human beings mad. Harper had seen it over and over again. Like some last place of refuge. Checking Lambert’s eyes just now, Harper wasn’t convinced the skinny man wasn’t halfway there already.

  “Gilles, those bodies were thousands of years old.”

  “I know, mon père. But I heard them. That’s why I ran away. I didn’t tell the police, I was sure they would have me committed. But I heard them, mon père. I’m not lying to you.”

  Tink, tink.

  Harper looked down, saw a stone skip along the rail and hit his boot. He turned around. Astruc had tossed it from twenty meters and was now signaling them to advance. Harper made a mental note: And that one is a good shot.

  “We’d best go. One more thing, Gilles: When did you find the cavern?”

  “August fifteenth. It was my birthday.”

  The date fit with the photos Astruc had of the bodies.

  They followed the rails, caught up to Astruc.

  “Everything okay up ahead?” Harper said.

  “It’s clear. Shall we continue?”

  Half a kilometer up the line, the earthen sides of the ravine gave way to high concrete walls and an abandoned train station. Platforms and benches sat like ghostly things in the pale light. Harper watched shadows move over the walls, checked them against the motion of the weeds and trees along the ridge. They matched. Now and again he looked back over his shoulder. Nothing but straight lines of perspective squeezing down to a point of unseen singularity. And when he turned ahead, it was the same damn thing. So if this was the train line that once circled Paris, where was the bend in the line? Then again, if no one else saw it, why bring up the subject?

  They kept walking.

  Harper kept his eyes to the ground where he could watch the way Astruc and Goos
e walked without making a sound. He flashed back to learning the same trick, somewhere. Or maybe he was imagining it. Or maybe it was the dead guy in his head, Captain Jay Michael Harper, remembering it. The tracks disappeared into the gaping mouth of a railroad tunnel. Lambert stopped.

  “We’ll need to use our lamps from now on,” he said. “Be careful not to trip over the sleepers. And don’t worry if you feel something running around your feet. It’s only the rats.”

  They each fitted their headlamps and switched them on. Four narrow beams of light shot through the rain and into the beckoning dark. They walked ahead, pulling the cowls of their windbreakers from their heads. Everyone but the kid, Goose. Even in the dark he kept his face hidden.

  Harper counted his paces.

  He hit four hundred twenty when Lambert stepped off the tracks and walked to the sidewall. He kicked away a pile of rubbish hiding a long piece of corrugated metal. He lifted one corner. There was a meter-wide hole in the ground. Lambert anchored a steel bar against a rock, braced the bar under the metal sheet to hold it up.

  “It’s best to go in feetfirst. It’s very steep, so try not to lose your footing or you might break your leg, or your head. And whoever comes last, knock away the bar to cover the entrance.”

  He disappeared down the hole. Astruc followed. Goose removed his backpack, climbed in, pulled in the backpack. Harper looked back up the tracks. He could just make out the shapes of the tramps from Rue des Petits Arbres standing at the opening of the rail tunnel. Only now, there were four. Shadows in the rain, watching.

  “Don’t be shy, lads. We’re all shadows here.”

  II

  HE EASED INTO THE OPENING, KNOCKED AWAY THE STEEL BAR. The cover slammed down, and Harper half climbed, half slid on his arse down the hole. Kept thinking he’d pass a sign any second: Abandon all bloody hope, ye wankers who enter here. When he found solid ground under his feet, he was at the head of a horizontal shaft. Ceiling low as the walls were wide, which wasn’t much. Gilles Lambert, Astruc, and Goose were crouched in the cramped space a few meters ahead, waiting for him.