The Delphi Agenda

by Rob Swigart

  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 tapped the book with her free hand. “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 discretely; 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.

  The waiter approached with their tea and Lisa closed the book.

  When he was gone she opened it again. “You see,” she said, pointing at the bottom of the page where Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, stood in his library gazing across a body of water at the walls, ramparts and gates of a city. In the foreground a lawn was alive with deer and rabbits. To the right of the city two more deer with long pointed ears lay together in a meadow.

  “Extraordinary,” Steve said. “What do you make of these two deer hunters?”

  She clicked her tongue. “The spear in the side? Jesus, do you think?”

  “Odd, with cherubs as Roman soldiers. They’re out hunting in the countryside. No city nearby.”

  “I’m a papyrologist, not an art historian,” she said, turning the pages with the pad of her finger on the edges. The stiff vellum rustled.

  There were notes in the margins, written in several hands. Most were very old. Some were indecipherable, others merely mysterious. What did “Count seven” or “occasio facit furem” mean? “Opportunity makes a thief?” Lisa read. “What does that have to do with…?” She stopped and touched a marginal note in red ink. “This.”

  It was carefully written Latin and it said simply, “Guyton de Morveau, to his mother, Bois le Roi, 1586.”

  “I have no idea.”

  Her finger hovered over the inscription. “Bruno,” she said at last.

  “He wrote it?”

  “Yes. It feels right.” She continued to leaf through the book. At the end she flipped back, carefully reading each scrap of marginalia. “It’s the only one that makes sense.” She closed the book.

  “Not to me. Who’s Guyton de Morveau?”

  “I think Bruno hid the Founding Document among the letters Guyton de Morveau wrote his mother.”

  Steve stared at her. “Where would we even begin to look for them? Who was he?”

  “Listen,” she said earnestly. “During the 1580s Giordano Bruno was a Reader for Henri III. Henri sent him on a mission with the French ambassador in London. Bruno and the king were, if not friends, at least friendly, so I’d guess Bruno hid the Founding Document somewhere among the king’s archives. If so, we just need to find the royal archive, look for the papers of Guyton de Morveau. That’s where we’ll find the Founding Document.”

  “Another insight of the Pythia?”

  “I choose to ignore your sarcasm, doubter. Call it whatever you like. Do you have a better suggestion?”

  “No. Where do we look for Henri’s papers?”

  “The National Archives,” she said.

  “Great. We walk in and ask to see the papers of Guyton de Morveau, you know, of the Bois le Roi Morveaus. Perhaps that way we can attract some attention.”

  “In fact I believe that is exactly what we shall do.”

  They were about to leave when Captain Hugo and Lieutenant Mathieu entered the café and ordered at the bar.

  Lisa and Steve sat down again and leaned together, deep in hushed conversation.

  The two policemen chatted while they sipped their drinks. Lisa glanced up from time to time, but they showed no sign of leaving any time soon.

  “He’s watching us,” Lisa murmured.

  “Ignore him. We’re just a traditional couple out for tea. There’s no reason for him to be interested in us.”

  But Hugo kept glancing at them, as if he knew them but couldn’t quite place how. Lisa kept her eyes lowered, affecting the modesty befitting a woman of her faith, but once, when she lifted them momentarily, her eyes caught Hugo’s. Could he see hers were blue at this distance? She lowered them and whispered nonsense into Steve’s ear.

  The policeman seemed embarrassed and his gaze slipped away. She breathed again.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes away for long, though, and glanced at her again and shook his head thoughtfully, clearly trying to dredge something up from his memory.

  Despite the relatively effective integration of Muslims into French society, tensions were still high. Perhaps it was only hostility because of their dress?

  Hugo put down his drink and approached them. “Good afternoon,” he said in a friendly manner.

  Steve looked up. Lisa kept her eyes lowered.

  “I wonder if you heard about what happened at the basilica this afternoon,” Hugo continued with elaborate courtesy. “If you know anything it would be most helpful.”

  Steve shook his head.

  “Ah, I see. You have arrived in St. Denis too recently, then. May I ask when?”

  “Just a few minutes ago.” Steve put the faintest hint of a Maghreb accent into his French. “We are from Minguettes.”

  “Ah, yes, near Lyon. You have relatives in St. Denis, then?”

  Steve shook his head no.

  Hugo arched his eyebrows. “So, why come, if I might ask? You are tourists? Alas, you have picked the wrong day. There has been an incident not long ago, very bad situation. You’re sure you haven’t heard anything? Conversation in the street?”

  “Sorry, nothing,” Steve said.

  Hugo smiled. “I suggest you don’t linger here in St. Denis.” His voice was light but there was steel underneath. “Things are a bit tense at this moment, and the basilica is closed to visitors. Just a friendly word of advice.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Hugo started away, then turned back and said, “There’s something…. Your eyes are very blue. You are not Berber, are you?”

  “My mother,” Steve said. “She was German.”

  Hugo smiled. “Yes, I see, that would explain it, then. And your wife, does she also have blue eyes?”

  Lisa kept her eyes on the Augustine in her
lap.

  “She is a good Muslim,” Steve said.

  “Of course,” Hugo replied, examining her sharply. After a long pause he said, “Well, have a good afternoon.” He returned to the bar where he and Mathieu shared a joke.

  “We’d better go,” Steve whispered. “I think he’s on to me.”

  “The eyes,” Lisa said. “We should have bought dark glasses.”

  They were at the door when Hugo stopped them. “Just a moment, please.”

  Steve looked openly into the policeman’s eyes. “Yes?”

  Hugo showed his teeth in good humor so obviously false Steve nearly laughed. “Titkallam bil-arabi?” he asked. Do you speak Arabic?

  “Shwaya bark!” Only a little. Steve laughed at Hugo’s surprise. The policeman’s trap had failed.

  Hugo didn’t give up immediately. “Min feen inta?” Where are you from?

  “Min al Minguettes. As I said.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, shukran.”

  “Bislama.”

  Steve pushed past Hugo and out the door, trailed by Lisa. After the cool of the air-conditioning, the furnace outside smacked them hard. They hurried past the Metro entrance, pausing only to look across the street at Alain’s empty car.

  Lisa made a painful effort to lighten their grim mood. “All that and you speak Arabic, too?”

  “Just a few words. Important for a banker to know how to be polite in several languages, especially ones that might involve large sums of money.”

  In front of the basilica four police vehicles aimed at the entrance, and groups of cops stood in three or four disconsolate groups, sweating and trying to smoke. The crime scene tape was gone, but the church was closed. No doubt the investigators were still inside picking through evidence. They would stay as long as possible. It was much cooler inside.

  Yet the concert that night had not yet been canceled. Perhaps the Requiem would happen after all.

  They paused, irresolute, and then entered the Hotel de Ville. It was cooler inside and near the entrance Lisa used Steve’s cell phone to call Ted.