by Jon Steele
“So if I need to shoot him, be nice about it.”
“Check.”
Harper took another sip of single malt.
“Any idea where I start looking?”
Krinkle grabbed an iPad from the desk. He tapped and swiped the screen a few times, handed it to Harper. Onscreen: one mangled laptop computer, one something else looking like a stereo amplifier, one two-meter sat dish.
“A transmission rig?”
“Most probably the gear used to hack into Blue Brain last night. A local found it at dawn. He called the local gendarmerie. This happens, that happens, then the rig is in Berne within three hours. The laptop is customized, the uplink gear better than current military specs in anyone’s army. Protocol acceleration and encryption, data transfer speeds at nearly four hundred gigs per second; all crammed into a unit the size of a bread box. There was a cable connected to the laptop, probably to an external hard drive. The drive is missing. HQ suspects the kid made the gear himself. His room in Paris was filled with electronic gizmos and microchips. Get this: The kid worked by candlelight.”
Harper thought about it. The kid from Toulouse, the lad from Lausanne Cathedral; the two of them with a thing for candles . . . Bloody hell. He looked at the iPad again, saw a small black tube next to what was left of the laptop.
“What’s this?”
“A thousand-watt laser pointer. The beam can be seen from outer space. It was found planted on the side of the mountain, pointing east. Would’ve laid a line on a west-to-east horizon, perpendicular to the line of sight from the north gate, where they found the rig.”
Harper replayed Leo the Astrophysicist and his theory about the great cosmic clock: He needs a perfectly still horizon, probably a laser.
“It’s Astruc, no doubt about it. Where did they find all this?”
“One hundred twenty klicks south of my bus.”
Harper stared at him.
“I give up.”
Krinkle sipped his drink, reached over, swiped the screen. Harper saw a photograph of a giant rock shooting out of the ground and into the sky. The next photos were different angles of the fortress ruins atop the rock. Medieval, thirteenth century. Took Harper three seconds to make it from the History Channel’s program on the Cathars. Fancy that, Harper thought.
“Montségur, in the Pyrenees.”
“That’s right, brother. Trippy, isn’t it? That place . . . us.”
“Us?”
“You, Astruc, me. The reason we’re talking.”
“I thought we were talking so you could pass along new orders.”
“That too.”
Harper flipped back and forth between the photos. Flashed last night’s scene with Inspector Gobet and the judge. Drilling him about one Bernard de Saint-Martin, dispossessed knight from Languedoc, burned to death as a heretic at the end of the Montségur siege in 1244. In front of ten thousand bloody witnesses, but manages to show up in Paris a year later with an ancient sextant in a reliquary box. Gathers a few disciples, hides the sextant, tells the lads to keep up the good work, vanishes. Fast-forward to nowtimes: Astruc, half awakened, half mad, atop Montségur with the same damn sextant, predicting a celestial event to the bloody second that announces the time of the prophecy is at hand. Harper wasn’t sure what Krinkle meant by trippy, but it sounded spot-on.
“So what’s your connection to Montségur? And why are we talking about it?”
Krinkle reached over, flipped the photos till he landed on a wide shot of the fortress atop the pluton.
“The three of us were there, brother.”
Harper stared at him.
“Inspector Gobet told you this?”
“Put it this way: The one you call Gobet’s seen to it that my timeline is flipped wide open, for one night only.”
Harper looked at the teacup Krinkle had been drinking from.
“Doctor’s orders?”
Krinkle nodded.
“Drink the tea and talk to the one called Harper about old times. Then broadcast tunes through the night, call me in the morning.”
“Lucky you.”
“Book’s still out. We’ll see how it goes.”
Harper sipped whiskey and smoked his fag, realized that he’d been standing since he came on board. He looked back, reached over to grab a chair. It wouldn’t budge.
“It’s a bus, brother,” Krinkle said. “The chairs are anchored to the floor.”
“Right.”
Harper sat down, ran through his meeting with the judge and Inspector Gobet in Paris.
“Inspector Gobet says I made an unauthorized apparition in 1244,” Harper said.
“Wrong. You were assigned to Montségur from 1243–1244, the three of us were. It’s your trip to Paris, after the fire, where you went AWOL. And just because you’re listed as AWOL doesn’t mean it’s legit. Because, I’m telling you, the shit I’m seeing in my eyes is mind-blowing.”
From trippy to mind-blowing in sixty seconds. He did look wide-eyed, Harper thought.
“What can you see?”
Krinkle settled back in his swivel chair.
“Astruc and me, inside Montségur with the fighters. Him as Jean de Combel, me as Raymond de Marseillan. We both fought alongside Bernard de Saint-Martin—the man, I mean. He was one tough bastard. Led a few hard battles, massacred ten Inquisitors at Avignonet. I’m not surprised you slipped into his form. After the fighting, I mean. Of course he was dying from a crossbow wound, so that helped.”
“Mate.”
“Yeah?”
“Focus. Was I in the form of Bernard de Saint-Martin at Montségur or not?”
“Not till the fighting was over. All through the siege you were form-jumping, picking up whatever was lying around. You worked in the shadows of the pluton and down on the plain; you were tracking the Crusaders, hunting bad guys in the ranks. And when you found one, you mutilated him, left him in pieces with a killing knife buried in his chest. Scared the Crusaders shitless. They had a name for you: le chevalier fantôme.”
Harper smoked deeply.
“What was our mission, exactly?”
“To keep the treasure of the Cathars from falling into the hands of the bad guys. What else?”
Harper stared blankly. “What treasure?”
“You playing me for a sap, brother?”
“Let’s say I’m checking how the tea’s working.”
“Coming on strong. And let’s call ‘the treasure’ that thing you took from Montségur and hid in Paris when you went AWOL. The thing Astruc got his hands on a few days ago. The thing he brought back to Montségur to make his big splash with the comet.”
Harper flashed the sextant.
“And since you were there in 1244, you know what that thing is,” he said to Krinkle.
“Didn’t know then, don’t know now.”
“No?”
“The one you call Gobet didn’t tell me, and for the likes of you and me, that means ‘don’t fucking ask about it.’ And so what? During the siege, none of us did.”
Harper glanced at the teacup, then Krinkle.
“Mate, what did they put in your tea? Because you’re not making sense.”
“No idea, brother. Package arrived by messenger. Open it up and there’s the jars, your kill kit, and a tea bag with a note: Drink me. Maybe you’re not supposed to mix the tea with alcohol. Whatever, I’m all over my timeline now, but there you go. What I’m telling you is, back then none of us—you, me, Astruc—knew what the real treasure of the Cathars was. All we knew was there were hundreds of bad guys hiding in the Crusaders’ ranks, and we were ordered to keep them off Montségur. I Googled the place as the tea was coming on to see if I could kick-start my timeline. Down there, all across the Pyrenees near Montségur, legends and myths grow like weeds. Biggest one says Mary Magdalene came from
Jerusalem and brought the Holy Grail of Jesus Christ with her. People think there was a pagan temple up there where people worshipped the sun. Some people think the Cathars were up to the same thing. Another legend says the Cathars had the Holy Grail and they were hiding it in the fortress. And that four Cathars escaped with it before the rest of them were burned to death.”
Harper gave it a few beats.
“You asking me if the treasure was the Holy Grail? Because if you are, you’re wasting your time.”
“At the moment, I ain’t asking shit. At the moment, I’m babbling like a speed freak trying to get to the point. Look, the Grail didn’t hold significance for the Cathars. It was a thing of the physical world with no real connection to their faith. They didn’t have a sacrament of communion, even, and they didn’t believe that Christ was the Son of God. For the Cathars, Christ was an angel in human form, like all human souls. Hey, I remember where I was going . . . Astruc and me, in the forms of de Combel and de Marseillan, saw the real treasure before it was smuggled away. Gold, silver, writings on their faith, that’s it. No Holy Grail, no anything the bad guys would be interested in, and nothing our kind would be interested in. Astruc reported the intel to HQ, HQ advised the three of us were being pulled out.”
“Turn around and walk away,” Harper said.
“Tempus fugit, aeternitas manet, brother. HQ said the bad guys had it wrong, there was nothing hidden at Montségur. HQ didn’t want to take a chance of us being killed in our forms for nothing more than a bad guy mass killing. You were ordered to Toulouse to take out an enemy chief hiding in the Office of the Inquisition. Astruc and me were kept at Montségur till the end, just in case something popped hot on the treasure front. But like I said, there was nothing.”
The filter of Harper’s smoke was singed, Krinkle’s, too. Krinkle grabbed his teacup, offered it to Harper. Harper dropped in his fag, Krinkle gave his a toss. Phhht, phhht. Krinkle set the cup on the desk, looked at Harper.
“You want my two cents, seeing as I’m the only one on this bus drinking the tea?”
“Sure.”
“I think in the last days before the fire, while you were carving up bad guys, one of the goons under the knife let slip the truth. There was something hidden at Montségur. I think you reported that intel through a back channel and you were given new orders; orders you were told not to share with Astruc and me.”
“Don’t go to Toulouse,” Harper said. “Take a form in the fortress, find what the bad guys were after.”
Krinkle drank his whiskey. “And that’s when it all went belly-up. Because by then, looking at my timeline, there was only one way of getting off Montségur without tipping off the bad guys.”
“The fire.”
“Amen.”
“Can you see it?”
Krinkle’s eyes lost focus for long seconds, then he blinked.
“The three of us are dragged down the mountain with the Cathars. Our ankles shackled with ropes. Astruc and me still clueless that you’ve taken the form of Bernard de Saint-Martin, so we stay separate from you and from everyone as much as we can.”
“So the time mechanics could get a fix on you.”
“Yup.”
“And then?”
“There’s an open field at the foot of the rock. The Crusaders build a palisade there and cram us inside. Two hundred twelve terrified souls, knowing they’re about to die a horrible death. Men, women. Nobody can move, everyone’s pressing up next to one another, everyone’s standing on a thick floor of straw and pitch. Plan is, fire starts, smoke rises under the hay, a time warp drops over Astruc and me, and we’re pulled from our forms.”
“You sure you had no idea I’d jumped into de Saint-Martin? You’re sure it actually happened?”
Krinkle looked straight into Harper’s eyes.
“The Crusaders torch the corners of the palisade, the fire goes up fast, runs around the outer walls. Looking at the fire, I can tell something’s not right. The fire isn’t spreading, it’s hunting. The Cathars at the outer edge of the pack get it first. The fire curls around legs, crawls up chests, wraps around faces. People start crushing to the center, then fire begins to burn up through the hay. It’s all happening too fast. Then bodies start going up like matchsticks, but the fire’s playing with them, torturing them. And the heat, man, the heat. Stuff I read on Google said the fire was so hot, the Crusaders were chased kilometers away. Burned into the night. Next day, when the Crusaders came back, the ash was still smoldering, stayed that way for days.”
“The enemy spiked the pitch with fire potions.”
Krinkle nodded.
“The heat caused the time warp to flutter. The mechanics couldn’t stabilize a signal. You know how it is getting sucked into a warp; one microsecond feels like forever. They got a lock on me, I was suspended in time and safe . . . but Astruc caught fire, totally fucking the warp signal again. He was suspended in time, trapped in his burning flesh, and he suffered badly. He had this terrible look in his eyes. First I was thinking it was the pain, but in those microseconds, I realized he was experiencing a vision in the flames. Then I saw it, too.”
“What vision?”
“You.”
Harper stared at him. Wide-eyed or not, he knew Krinkle was spilling absolute truth.
“Keep talking, mate.”
“You’re walking through the fire, giving the Cathars comfort . . . and, brother, you don’t burn. Fucking flames part for you like the Red Sea before the Israelites. You see us, suspended in time. You see him burning, suffering beyond imagination.”
“Astruc.”
“No, Jean de Combel—I mean, yes, Astruc . . . they’re the fucking same. He recognized you for what you really were. He cried to you, ‘Brother, brother, help me!’ He begged you to stop the flames. You couldn’t, but you were talking to him. And as if trying to comfort him, too, you told him everything. The treasure of the Cathars, what it’s for and what it means, your orders.”
“And then?”
“Nothing. That’s where my timeline stops. That’s when the mechanics must have stabilized the warp and pulled me out. Astruc . . . I don’t know how long it took for him.”
Harper looked at the whiskey in his own glass; nothing. He looked at Krinkle.
“Why can’t I see it? If it happened and you’re telling me the names, Jean de Combel and Raymond de Marseillan, I should see it.”
Krinkle sighed, glanced at the reel-to-reel reaching the end of its roll.
“Just a sec.”
He turned to the desk, put on his headphones, flipped switches. One reel-to-reel stopped, another one began to roll. Krinkle leaned into the microphone.
“So goes the Grateful Dead at the Dream Bowl many moons ago. Coming back to nowtimes with a band of shoegazers from Sweden, Immanu El, and their epic track, ‘Under Your Wings I’ll Hide.’”
Krinkle hit a switch, and the bus filled with an ethereal sound, hanging in the air like flight. Then guitars softly playing against each other in descending progressions, then a voice like something from a forgotten dream:
“Fire haunts us, holds us now . . .”
Krinkle lowered the fader, took off his headphones, turned to Harper.
“I’ll tell you why you can’t see it. It’s because you’re fucked up, too. And come tomorrow, when this tea wears off and everything I’ve just told you gets wiped from my timeline and I’m staring at nothing but a black fucking hole, I’ll probably have the same look in my eyes as you do right now. All of us that are left are fucked up, brother . . . We’re tired. That’s my two cents.”
Flash Traffic
tdc: y032-77zfd
Ex: Dragon6/SUTF
Eyes Only: Blue4/GrovMil
Subject: Threat Level: 8
re: SX INTEL
attachments:
&nb
sp;
Summary:
Item 1: SX reports enemy strike detected 19:58 GMT. 42°42ˈ35.18̎ N, 1°24ˈ 19.54̎ E. Intel places last known location of offline asset suspected of bearing critical data
Item 2: SX reports encoded enemy thread on Internet discussing “prophecy.” Intel reveals discussion not in relation to critical data but advanced, detailed knowledge.
file://localhost/
Item 3: Advise proceed “attack drill” scenario next 72 hours. Advise Swan Lake renew weapons ready status: 9 Mil, Glock 19.
Item 4: Engage exfil from GrovMil upon direct order from Dragon 6. Exfil codes listed:
file://localhost/
Item 5: Priority exfil: Blue Marble. Secondary exfil: Swan Lake (abandon if necessary). RNDVS: 45°31'06.28" N, 122°40'47.32" E.
TWENTY
I
OH, OH, BUSTER. WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR face.”
Max stared at his mother, dribbles of oatmeal spilling from the corners of his mouth as he smiled. He recognized the words your face, buster, and oh, oh. And he recognized his mother’s body language. Her head was tilted to the side, her face scrunched up, eyes smiling. All together, Max knew something very funny was happening. He kicked his feet and banged his spoon on the tray.
“Goog.”
Bits of wet oatmeal splashed onto Katherine’s face.
“Yo, when I want a homemade exfoliating facial, I’ll do it myself.”
She wiped his mouth and chin, handed him his sippy cup of apple juice.
“Here, knock yourself out with the good stuff.”
She picked up his bowl of oatmeal and carried it to the counter. She left the spoon, as Max’s hammer was upstairs. She turned on the water pump, opened the tap, washed the bowl. Out the window above the sink, it was a nice autumn day. There was a patch of big leaf maple amid the pine, and just now, the sun sparkled on gold-colored leaves.
“Wow, don’t get days like this very often, not this time of year; do we, Max?”