by Sean Ellis
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 t
he 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.
He lingered in the shadows of alley a moment, searching for signs of a second trailing vehicle. Typically, intelligence and police agencies trying to maintain contact with a mobile suspect would employ as many as four different automobiles in constant radio contact, to avoid the kind of amateurish mistakes that had alerted Kismet to the presence of the tail. But with no other vehicles in evidence, he rose from his hiding place and moved in the same direction the other cars had gone.
The street opened onto the Rue de Rivoli, which ran along the northern edge of the Jardin des Tuileries. The extensive garden was just a part of the large city park which included such famous Parisian landmarks as the Arc de Triomphe and the Musée du Louvre. Traffic on the boulevard was constant and steady; if there was a backup surveillance vehicle, it had already moved on. This revelation prompted Kismet to eschew his stated plan to use the transit system in favor of a more straightforward means of transportation. He flagged down a passing taxi and in flawless French, gave the driver Chiron’s address.
The building, located on an insignificant thoroughfare which connected the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch, was just as Kismet remembered. No lights burned on the top floor of the three-story house, the floor where Pierre and Collette Chiron had lived most of their married life together in a two-bedroom apartment. Kismet had once asked why the aging couple had not retired to the country, and sensed in the answer that he had unwittingly aggravated an old wound. It had always been their intention to leave the urban environment in order to raise their children, and since fate had not deigned to grant them that fondest wish, there had been no reason to leave. Shaking off the bittersweet memory, Kismet scanned the area looking for anything out of place, then moved inside.
The interior of the apartment building was quiet. A single incandescent bulb depending from the ceiling of each landing provided the only illumination and the only evidence that the structure was in fact occupied at all. Kismet saw no indication that anyone was in the building as he crept up the stairs to Chiron’s threshold.
With a grimace, he unleashed a kick to a point above the latching mechanism. The door burst inward with a noise that seemed, in the stillness, like a gunshot, but if anyone on the second floor heard, they elected not to investigate. He quickly moved inside and closed the door. After a moment of fumbled searching, he found the light switch. Even before his eyes could adjust, he knew something was wrong.
There were four of them, all dressed in black, looking very much like they had in the laboratory complex. Their guns were the same also, and without exception, were fixed on him. “Damn.”
Rebecca Gault stalked forward, her gun sight never wavering. “Kismet? You’re the last person I expected to see here.”
Her incredulity caught him off guard. If they’re not waiting for me…?
“I might say the same thing,” he said, hiding his surprise. He looked past the barrel of the Steyr TMP 9 mm in her hands and stared directly into her eyes. The irises were a remarkable shade of green, something he had failed to notice during their previous encounters. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”
She didn’t respond, and he took a moment to glance at the dour expressions of her comrades before continuing. “You’ve seen me naked.”
Rebecca’s stony mask did not slip, but when one of her men made a rude comment in their shared tongue, she silenced him with a look as lethal as a guillotine. When her gaze returned to Kismet, he saw a glimmer of humor in her eyes. “That was professional. I was your doctor.”
“You’re no doctor. The real Dr. Gault is still in Switzerland.”
“That may be true, but I am nevertheless a physician, Monsieur Kismet.” The gun came up again. “Where’s Chiron?”
“What makes you think I would know? He left us to die in that hole. That was the plan all along, wasn’t it, Doc? No witnesses?” He took her silence as confirmation, and it occurred to him that the death warrant was probably still in effect. Working up his best poker face, he continued. “Well I’ve got news for you. I’ve already told the UN and the US State department. When the sun rises tomorrow, the whole world is going to know about your dirty deals with Saddam Hussein.”
Rebecca’s nostrils flared angrily, but she surprised him by lowering her gun again. “I’m afraid that’s the least of my worries right now.”
Suddenly he understood. “Pierre double-crossed you too, didn’t he?”
“If you know where he is, Monsieur Kismet…” Her tone was more pleading than demanding, and that was sufficiently out of character for her that Kismet felt a whisper of uneasiness.
“What’s really going on here? What’s Pierre done that has you so freaked out?”
She glanced at her comrades as if uncertain what she should say in front of them, then stepped closer to him. “Seven hours ago, Pierre Chiron visited an IAEA facility in Geneva. A nuclear storage facility. After he left, a routine inspection revealed that a small amount of weapon’s grade plutonium was missing.”
“He just walked in and took nuclear fuel?”
“His credentials allow him to conduct research. He’s been there before on several occasions.” She tilted her head to look up at him, to hold his gaze with her own. “He took something from the cave. He claimed it was a relic from an ancient civilization. It was the price of his cooperation. Do you know what is was?”
“Relic?” Had Pierre actually found the Staff of Moses? But then why would he need… “Plutonium. How much?”
“Enough. Six kilograms. Among other things, the facility was storing the cores from decommissioned Soviet SS-18s.”
“Did you count the detonators before you blew up that weapons lab?”
“Of course. I checked their serial numbers. All three detonators were accounted for.”
Kismet shook his head with a grimace. “There was another detonator. One the Iraqis were building based on the same design.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“Of course not. Pierre had it wrapped up in a courier bag. You helped him get it out of there. And now he can arm it.”
He could tell from her expression that she already knew this to be true. “You have known him longer than anyone. What will he do with it? Sell it?”
“That doesn’t sound like Pierre.” As soon as he said it, he realized the flaw in her statement. Though he had been acquainted with Chiron for nearly a decade, it was now very apparent that he really didn’t know the man at all. “He’s obviously been planning this for a while.”
Rebecca nodded. “He approached the Directorate almost eight months ago.”
“But he couldn’t have known that our search would turn up the lab.” Kismet was thinking aloud now, rather than responding to the intelligence agent’s comments. He closed his eyes, trying to remember what had been said during the survey of the Esagilia. He remembered only his incredulity at Chiron’s wild theories about Moses and Solomon. But he was so sincere. If he wanted to dupe me, why would he have concocted such a wild story? “Maybe there’s something here that could tell us. Have you searched the place?”
“We made a cursory search of his papers. If he has a safe, we have not located it.”
He pushed past her, heedless of the machine pistols still trained on him, and moved through the familiar environs of Chiron’s flat. Little had changed since his last visit, but here too he saw the careful orderliness that had distinguished the Frenchman’s office at the UNESCO headquarters. Chiron had squared everything away as if closing shop for the last time. With the decision to embark into the wilderness, he had left his old life behind forever.
Rebecca was right behind him as he entered Chiron’s library. The area had always been the ol
d man’s second office, and in addition to the wealth of published knowledge lining the bookshelves, he had a personal computer equipped with a high-speed Internet connection, which at present was displaying a screen saver program with a slide show of famous paintings.
“Do you know his password?” Rebecca asked as he sat down in front of the keyboard.
He shook his head, but nevertheless tapped the spacebar to banish the screen saver and bring up the security prompt. He stared at it thoughtfully, his fingers hovering above the keys.
Rebecca took out a cell phone. “I’ll send for a computer expert. We should be able to break this—”
Kismet tapped out eight letters: C-O-L-L-E-T-T-E. The password window vanished to be replaced by a graphic desktop display featuring Picasso’s Fall of Icarus. It was, he knew, one of the large murals adorning Building Three of the Fontenoy campus. Rebecca fell silent at his shoulder and continued watching as he began randomly opening files and exploring Chiron’s history of browsing the World Wide Web. A file folder titled “Geomancy” caught his eye.
“What is that?” she asked as the hard drive began whirring to locate the relevant data.