Thrillers in Paradise

by Rob Swigart

  A short flight of steps led up to the raised portion of the necropolis and down the other side of the altar, where, just before two o’clock they found the Henri III monument. The twisted red column was pressed against the barrier and they couldn’t get close. The large urn on top supposedly contained the murdered king’s heart.

  Steve said, “They won’t need to buy tickets, so probably they’ll come through the barrier on this side.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed. “No sign of them yet, though. And there it is again.”

  “There what is again?”

  “The helix, like the Camondo Stair.”

  “It’s just a spiral, a support for Henri’s heart,” he said. “Don’t look for symbolism.”

  “They picked it, the nun and the monk.”

  “They picked Chantilly first.”

  “That was a diversion they knew we would never accept. No, Steve, they meant us to come here. They picked a memorial shaped like a helix. Everything means something.”

  “Henri III was assassinated by a fanatical monk, that’s true. But it wasn’t over DNA.”

  “Don’t tell me, was the killer a Dominican, by any chance?”

  “He was. And after the news got out the assassin’s picture was placed on altars all over Paris. Some believed the king’s death was God’s greatest act since the Incarnation.”

  “Ah. And you tell me not to look for symbolism.”

  They pretended to examine the column. Behind them an overweight woman followed by two sullen teenagers and a round-faced man with a thin comb-over gathered in front of the tomb of François I.

  Lisa bent down. “Look at this.”

  Steve whistled. “I don’t believe it.”

  A Phi inside a Delta was scratched on the side of the column. “The Delphi Agenda.”

  He was looking straight into Lisa’s eyes just as the father snapped a picture of his family. The flash turned them into a momentary grouping of incandescent cadavers.

  Lisa blinked away the vision. “They’re here,” she whispered. Steve nodded and drifted away to examine a cluster of monuments near the north wall.

  And there they were, the monk and his nun coming through an opening in the barrier. A guard swung it closed behind them. The nun had only the slightest hesitation in the muted pad and louder thump of her walk.

  Defago, scowling darkly, followed with one hand resting on her back. It was a gesture that was both familiar, even affectionate, and curiously paternal. Sister Teresa carried the dark pigskin leather Augustine. Her lenses jaundiced the points of her cheeks when they caught a stray ray of sunshine pouring in from the south.

  The nun broke into a broad smile at Lisa. “So there you are,” she rasped. The Texas twang was even more pronounced than it had been on the telephone.

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  The light dimmed, as if a cloud had passed overhead, though that wasn’t possible: a heat wave had begun and clouds were nowhere in the empty sky outside.

  So, Lisa thought, the darkness was inside her mind. She couldn’t help but see that despite its façade of good cheer the smile on the face a few feet away was cold and bleak. It seemed to radiate despair and hopelessness like the rotating beam of a lighthouse. Whoever looked at it would be lured onto the rocks, to shipwreck and death. This was the face of evil.

  Lisa had to shake away the feeling. This woman before her was a nun, a religious, a true believer. She may be ruthless and violent, but she was not some satanic minion come to carry off her soul. She was as American as Lisa herself, and as human, made of the same flesh, blood and bone. There was nothing supernatural about her.

  Besides, she had suffered. What violence had caused that odd distortion to the side of her face? What had happened to disturb her gait? Who was she?

  Lisa tried to return the smile, but from the inside her expression felt ghoulish and false. This woman had killed Raimond and probably Rossignol. She was an implacable enemy. There was no escaping that fact. This woman seemed frail and damaged, but she was the killer of the only man (until now, she thought) Lisa had allowed herself to love. The nun might deserve compassion, but Lisa could not fall into the trap of empathy.

  So she said simply, “I see you brought the book.”

  The nun seemed to awake from a trance. “Ah, yes.” She lifted it. Her hands, encased in gray gloves, caressed the binding. The smile had frozen in place. She opened the book to show Lisa the title page: De civitate dei.

  “That’s it,” Lisa said, reaching out.

  The nun let the book fall to her side. “Not so fast. It doesn’t come without a price.”

  Lisa had dropped her hand. “Of course not.” She kept her voice carefully neutral.

  The monk, one hand in his jacket pocket, was scowling. Lisa saw again the drooping of the lower lid on one side, the beginnings of a deep scar running down under the beard. “We need something,” he growled. “A gesture of good faith.”

  “Good faith?” Lisa asked. Her astonishment was only partially feigned. There was nothing good about their faith. She glanced at the spiral column of Henri III. It was dark red, a pillar of drying blood.

  The nun’s smile grew, if anything, sunnier, broader, and friendlier, and far more pitiless. She saw where Lisa was looking and lifted her eyebrows. “One of the great enemies of the church.”

  “He was murdered.”

  “Not murdered, stopped. Sometimes extreme measures are necessary. You know that, surely, by now.”

  “Henri of Navarre continued his policies of tolerance.”

  “And was eliminated in his turn.”

  Lisa gave up. “What is it you want?”

  “I think you know,” Defago said.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve inherited an apartment in the Sixth Arrondissement and a few old books. They seem to come with a great deal of trouble.”

  She looked through the barrier at the deep blue carpeting in the aisle and noticed idly that the chairs faced the entrance, away from the altar. Tonight there was a performance of the Mozart Requiem. Somehow that seemed appropriate.

  “Look,” she continued, looking once more at the nun. “I’m a simple person. I lead a simple life. I read old papyrus, parchment, simple, ordinary documents about people’s lives, history. That’s what I care about. Augustine was an important thinker from the fourth century, the period I study. The City of God is an important book. I’m a scholar. I don’t know what gesture of good faith I could possibly give you.” She spread her hands.

  Sister Teresa cut off a bark of laughter.

  “You’re more than a scholar,” Defago said with quiet menace. “Far, far more.”

  For the first time since waking this morning Lisa felt a thrill of fear. “I don’t know what you mean.” Her mind was racing, calculating angles, distances. Would it be possible to make it past the pair to the monument to Louis XII before one of them could produce a gun? There was a large statue of Prudence looking in a mirror on the west corner. Cicero had said Prudence was the knowledge of what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral, and was made up of memory, intelligence, and foresight.

  Foresight was that by which something is seen before it has occurred.

  She was the Pythia. She should be able to see, but even the immediate future was, if not a complete blank, uncertain at best.

  Perhaps this was just paranoia? Surely they wouldn’t do anything violent in such a public place? Surely.

  No matter, she needed the book. It was why she was here. Directions to the Founding Document were in it, and it had answers to her questions.

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “You really don’t know?” The nun seemed genuinely surprised.

  “No.”

  “Why, we want you, my dear.” The chill of his voice sharpened its edge of menace.

  Then Lisa saw Alain coming down the steps behind them and relief flooded through her. Steve was casually approaching from the north. They had the pair bracketed between them.


  Were they close enough to stop the nun if she decided to shoot? If Lisa died, it would no longer matter whether the police solved Raimond’s murder or not. The Delphi Agenda would be gone. There was no Pythos to follow her.

  This was not acceptable. She must have the Augustine.

  I’m not ready.

  She managed to act surprised. “You want me? Why?”

  “The Founding Document,” the nun said. Her voice, unlike the monk’s, had grown harsh, the Texas more dense and brutal. “The Church has pursued it for over sixteen hundred years. We will have it.” She blinked behind her yellow lenses. “Give it to us. That would be a gesture of good faith.”

  Then Lisa made a mistake. “Why would I? You killed Raimond!” The words had escaped before she could stop them and she couldn’t take them back.

  Sister Teresa drew in a breath. “Unfortunate,” she said, but she didn’t seem at all unhappy. She meant unfortunate for Lisa. Her gun appeared like a magic trick.

  Defago squeezed the nun’s shoulder and a cloud passed swiftly over her face. “We need her,” he said softly.

  “We can find the document ourselves!” Sister Teresa raised the book. “With or without her. With is better, yes, but without will work. It may take longer, but it will work.” She lifted the gun.

  Alain was almost there.

  Just then the family with the camera walked between Lisa and the statue of Prudence. The two boys jostled one another, uninterested in what their parents were looking at. The father lagged behind, reading aloud from his guidebook. “That’s the monument to Henri III. It says here he liberalized policy toward the Protestants and was stabbed in the stomach by a fanatical monk.”

  The older boy got interested then. “Stabbed? Cool.”

  Then his younger brother pointed at Sister Teresa and said in a very loud voice, “She’s got a gun!”

  His mother’s hand flew to her mouth. She started screaming.

  Alain tried to reach past Defago to stop the nun, but as he did, the monk turned and his elbow hit Sister Teresa in the side.

  The pistol report, though silenced, sounded venomous, a sharp, serpentine hiss.

  The bullet hit the woman in the abdomen. She stopped screaming and sat down, her back against the tomb, hands over the wound. Her husband unconsciously triggered his camera flash at Teresa, who fired again reflexively. This bullet struck the older boy, shattering his shoulder. He started crying.

  Defago and Alain were locked together, rocking as if they were grieving on each other’s shoulders. Suddenly Alain threw the monk back.

  Steve reached for the pistol, forgetting the wound under his left arm. Despite the stab of pain he managed to seize her hand. Teresa swung the Augustine upward, striking him in the face. He stumbled back, pulling the book.

  It fell to the floor. As Lisa bent to retrieve it the Glock discharged over her head. Marble chips ricocheted from Henri’s column, hitting the younger boy in the eyes. The balding man crouched beside his wife, patting her on the shoulder helplessly. She was staring at the blood seeping between her hands.

  By now the church was in an uproar. People rushed toward the barriers, knocking them down.

  Alain was struggling to throw Defago to the floor, but the monk grabbed his arm as he fell, pulling them both against the nun, who staggered sideways, blood running from her nose. For a moment she stood unsteadily, mouth twisted in rage, waving the gun.

  Defago drew something from his pocket and threw it on the floor. It exploded with a sharp bang and smoke began to swirl through the room, lit fitfully by shafts of sunlight.

  The father looked up from his wounded wife and yelled at the nun. She whipped the Glock around and let off a burst of shots. The man toppled in a spray of blood. He dropped his camera.

  Teresa swung the pistol toward Alain.

  Lisa hit the nun hard with the flat of the book and knocked her down in a tangle of skirts. Teresa reached for the column, missed and emptied what was left of her clip into the backs of several tourists rushing toward the stair in panic. Bodies tumbled in every direction. Drops of blood flew through a shaft of sunlight, creating a crimson arc.

  Defago bent down and threw Sister Teresa effortlessly over his shoulder. He rushed into the smoke and disappeared through the narrow doorway leading down to the crypt.

  47.

  “Merde, merde, merde, merde!” Captain Hugo muttered, restraining the impulse to stamp his foot in frustration. He paced by the tomb of François I, clenching and unclenching his fists. He might have been trapped behind the bars of a cage. “What in the name of God happened here, Mathieu?”

  The smoke had cleared, but the aftermath of the carnage – dust, stone chips and overturned chairs – was everywhere. Purses, a few cameras, several hats and scarves, were scattered among the tombs. Small pools of blood dried slowly on the paving stones.

  Mathieu observed, “Someone had a gun.”

  “Yes, that would explain so many people being shot.” Hugo’s sarcasm was so heavy-handed Mathieu couldn’t really take offense. It had certainly been a stupid thing to say.

  The klaxon of the last ambulance was diminishing outside and an eerie calm had settled over the vast space. Crime scene tape draped across the central aisle separated the necropolis and altar from the rest of the church.

  Three members of the St. Denis police detachment had gathered witnesses just inside the entrance and were questioning them one by one. Hugo and Mathieu walked down the center aisle toward the raised platform where the orchestra and chorus were to play that night. The performance seemed unlikely, but had not yet been canceled.

  One of the local officers approached and saluted. “My captain asks if you have any questions for the witnesses.”

  Hugo produced a digital photograph. “Ask if anyone saw this woman.”

  The lieutenant whistled. “She’s quite beautiful.”

  “Yes, but dangerous,” Hugo said sourly. “Trouble follows her.”

  The lieutenant took the photograph with a salute.

  Hugo glowered at the chaos. “Where were the police when all this started, Mathieu? Cigarette break?”

  Mathieu had no answer.

  “It’s like November, 2005, all over again,” Hugo mused.

  “Not really, sir,” Mathieu replied. “This did not involve angry youth burning cars in protest.”

  “No, no, of course not. We would not have driven all the way out here for riots.” Hugo calmed himself with an effort. “We are here because I had a hunch this was related. Three people are dead, Mathieu. More than a dozen injured, shot or trampled! Some of them foreigners! It’s going to have a depressing effect on tourism. It’s having a depressing effect on me. And I’m sure the Emmer woman is involved somehow.”

  “But the nun actually killed people, Captain. Shouldn’t we be after her?”

  “Of course we should be after her, but I want to bring in the Emmer woman and anyone with her. Ever since that woman came into this case strange things have happened – Rossignol, the house in Mirepoix. Now she’s evaded us again, Mathieu. Quai d’Orsay wants her, too, but very discreetly; I had two more calls from that nameless secretary at the Foreign Ministry. We probably should have arrested them Sunday night.”

  “But you ordered me to watch them,” Mathieu protested. “Follow and report, that’s what you said. You didn’t tell me to arrest them.”

  “I know, I know.” Hugo sighed, rubbing his cheek as if trying to remove a stubborn stain. “This whole thing’s out of hand.” He started abruptly toward the entrance, leaving Mathieu to follow when he had recovered from his surprise.

  The lieutenant from St. Denis was waiting. “Several witnesses saw this woman.” He waved Lisa’s photograph. “She was talking to a nun. There are lots of versions of what happened once the shooting started, but from the angles of the shots the nun was the shooter.”

  Hugo sighed. “All right. Keep me advised if anything else turns up. Let’s get out of here, Mathieu. I need to take a
drink before our meeting with Dupond. Let’s hope he doesn’t disappoint us.”

  48.

  Alain’s car was still parked nearby, but there was no sign of the driver. Steve called Ted to ask if he’d heard anything.

  “No, why?”

  Steve filled him in. “I saw Alain fall, but Defago threw a smoke bomb of some kind and all hell broke loose. The nun and monk got away through the crypt. We don’t know what happened to Alain. We managed to get out with the crowd, but we’re worried about him.”

  “Get someplace safe,” Ted said. “I’ll make inquiries.”

  “We’re obvious, two blue-eyed blonds walking around,” Lisa said when Steve had disconnected.

  They passed under the cinema announcements over the Metro station and strolled along the shops lining the passage. There were several boutiques, a chain store selling eyeglasses, a chocolatier. The shops were opening up after the lunch break, but there were few people about.

  Lisa put out her hand to stop her companion in front of a small Arab boutique. “I have an idea.” She led him inside.

  They emerged somewhat later to find dozens of armed police officers patrolling the mall, but no one paid any attention to the young Muslim couple.

  Lisa wore a long, dark blue belted jumper. Her blond hair was completely covered by a black hijab, the traditional scarf that wrapped under the chin and trailed down the back.

  Steve’s blue and white striped, long-sleeved robe, called a thobe, loosely covered his shoes. He pulled the pointed hood over his head, casting his face in shadow.

  She followed him, head down, into a café. The only customers were standing at the bar. After ordering tea they moved to the back and found a secluded table.

  The Augustine was large, about 20 by 12 inches, and thick. The cover of tooled dark leather over wood had three ridges on the spine. The title was printed in gold. She touched it reverently. An observer might have thought it was a Koran.

  “All right, let’s take a look,” she murmured, opening it.

  Steve’s breath hissed. The colors of the illuminated painting – gold, blue, red, green – wrapped around the two columns of text and were as vibrant and alive as if freshly painted. Vines festooned with sphinxes, pearls and gemstones filled all the space not occupied by text. At the top left a panel contained two angels waiting by the door of a tower with a handless clock. To the right, two winged cherubs had just killed a stag. One held a spear still plunged into the animal’s side. The other had bludgeoned or cut its neck and was about to swing again.