Lisa Emmer Historical Thrillers Vol. 1-2 (Lisa Emmer Historical Thriller Series)

by Rob Swigart

  “So much for impossible,” Steve muttered. “Nice of them to let us know how they did it.”

  The translator ignored the interruption. “One: Very funny. Two: It’s time.”

  One removed an oblong box from Two’s backpack and started toward the stairway door.

  “Bomb?” Lisa asked, removing two jackets from the closet.

  “Likely.” Steve tapped another icon, and something hazy poured down on the two figures with the sound of falling water. The pair jumped back out of sight with loud shouts.

  “They’re angry,” the translator said, unnecessarily.

  “Just a temporary distraction,” Steve said. “They’ll wait for it to stop. It’s going to make a mess in the neighboring building.”

  “A bomb would make a worse mess,” Lisa observed.

  “Hmph. Next time I’ll install narcotic gas.”

  “And they’ll just bring gas masks.”

  He sighed. “I guess we’ll always be a step behind.”

  The translator said, “They’re trying to figure out how they triggered the sprinklers.”

  The water stopped. The two appeared at the edge of the images. Number One tilted the box back and forth once before opening it.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Looking inside. It’s not a bomb.”

  She had put on a jacket, and was holding one for him. “How do you know?”

  “Hard to tell, but there’s something alive in there.”

  “Alive? I don’t see anything.”

  He traced a nearly invisible violet loop hovering between bright orange hands.

  “A rope?”

  “Rope wouldn’t have a thermal signature, even a faint one.”

  “That’s a snake?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Then the librarians were right, it’s Ophis Sophia. What are they going to do, throw a Wisdom Snake at us?”

  Steve snorted. “Funny. It’s more likely a viper or cobra. These people are beastly, all right.”

  “Beastly? Suddenly you’re British.”

  “Is that British? Probably picked it up from Ted. I meant they have a certain… intimacy with reptiles, but even if they manage to get one into the apartment, snakes are slow moving and disinclined to attack first, not a reliable form of assassination, despite Indiana Jones.”

  “They made it into the garage,” she observed. “Halfway here.”

  He dipped his head in dubious agreement and pointed at an article about snakes on the monitor. “OK, the desert cobra is small, alert and fast, but the saw-scaled viper is also small but much more aggressive, prone to bite, and incredibly toxic. My vote. Hmm. Cold slows them down, so just in case I’m lowering the temperature….”

  Clouds of frigid air poured from multiple vents into the apartment. Lisa handed him a jacket. “Good thing I got these out.”

  He looked at her in admiration. “You saw this in advance.”

  “Do I need to remind you I’m the Pythia? Why are they just standing there?”

  “The sprinklers threw them off. I wonder if maybe they want to put a snake in the car to send us a message?”

  “A message? How do they even know about us?”

  Steve grinned. “You’re the Pythia.”

  “Very funny.”

  He leaned back. “They were monitoring Usem, so they know he contacted Frédo. If they monitored Frédo’s texts and emails, they know about us. You said it might be Delphi Agenda business, so they know our name. With that they might be able to trace us back to the Oracle.”

  “So quickly?” Lisa closed her eyes. “Yes, that’s how it happened. Well, Étienne Viginaire, since they are in our basement garage, they must have a plan to get up here. Don’t give me that look! Maybe they’re waiting for the guy on the roof!”

  Steve showed his even white teeth in a happy smile, and she realized he was enjoying himself.

  Down in the garage One had crossed his arms and leaned back against the car as if prepared to wait, glaring at Two.

  “Let’s give them a little surprise.” Steve tapped an icon and the car emitted an unnerving screech, the lights flashed, and the horn honked repeatedly. The thermal image vanished, replaced by full color. The two men tore off their night vision goggles and rubbed their eyes. Number One dropped the box, speaking rapidly. The car’s headlights flickered over the water as a snake crawled from the broken box and disturbed the surface.

  “I can’t really translate what they’re saying,” the translator informed them. “But they’re upset.”

  “We got that,” Steve said.

  Lisa pulled a watch cap down over her golden hair. It was already cold enough to freeze her breath when she spoke. “These men went to a lot of trouble to bring us a snake, Steve. They would be thinking symbolically. If we die of snakebite, it would send a message to the other followers, so it is a cult. I’m sure Ted and Marianne will confirm.”

  Steve made an impatient gesture. “Elevator and stairs are locked down. Without a very big boom from the basement we’re still secure. Our air is triple filtered behind fireproof steel. They can’t gas us. Blasting may be the only way, but an explosion will attract attention. Alain will be here in five minutes. Symbolic or not, they must be counting on our friend on the roof. So is Ophis Sophia a gang of Gnostic jihadis? Do Maronite martyrs get a bevy of virgins in heaven?”

  He enhanced the image capture of the hooded man on the roof. A scarf covered his lower face. The handle of a curved knife stuck up from his belt. Steve shook his head. “We still don’t have eyes on him.”

  A muffled thump above them triggered a third alarm. “Breached,” he snapped. “Small, shaped charge over the bedroom. What’s he up to?” The bedroom exploded into a storm of plaster dust in a small window. Steve enlarged it.

  “He’s sure made a mess,” Lisa clicked her tongue in disapproval.

  “Wait here.” Steve grabbed a Bluetooth earbud and raced for the stairs. At the bedroom door he could hear falling debris and distant sirens. Someone had called the fire department.

  They would have planned for that. Their plan would be fast, in and out. Were they there to kill or just annoy?

  The speaker in his ear crackled. Alain said in laconic French-accented English, “Two in the basement neutralized.”

  Steve grunted acknowledgement, put his hand on the doorknob, and turned slowly.

  Alain said with what sounded like a shrug, “Fire department here soon.”

  Steve eased the door open, reached in and flipped the light switch.

  Plaster was cascading from the edges of a hole in the ceiling. The bed was covered with heaps of dust and fragments in the middle of which a black leather sack writhed.

  A figure, face wrapped in a scarf and hood, rose in the settling dust, lifting a heavy handgun. Steve recognized the long barrel of a Mark XIX Desert Eagle, the powerful handgun favored by the Israeli military. Its .50 action express bullet would tear a man to shreds.

  The intruder raised his gun, shouting, “For the Divine Mother.”

  A report and flash of heat snapped next to Steve’s head. He jerked it away. “What the…?” he cried, hand over his ear. His breath plumed white in the chill.

  The man fell back, knocking over a side table. His weapon bounced once on the mattress, sending up a puff of plaster dust. He vanished behind the bed.

  In the sudden silence the sack on the bed emitted an angry hissing sound, like water on a hot stove, which quickly died down.

  Steve turned. Lisa was holding the Springfield XD 9 by the trigger guard as if it were distasteful. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot to give this to you.”

  She began to shake violently.

  Friday: Usem Awake

  Usem Izri grasped at letters drifting upward, past him, his past, a vista long and white and cold as far as he could see, and the name in the letters, his name, Roman letters faint gray against the white. He knew them, U, then S. Usem.

  His eyes must be open to this glare, for his eye
lids felt sticky, thick, one with a tick, open quick. No, stop rhyming in English; stop. The white mounded like a snow hill before his open eye, the right one, a pillow.

  He turned his head a little and saw the upper left corner of the tablet, the wedges of the signs small and sharp and clear: Dimme, daughter of the great god An.

  He closed his eyes, but the fragment remained solid; the rest of the tablet, wrapped in glassine, was a translucent screen against white. He remembered putting it in the envelope, could feel the texture of the clay on the tips of his fingers.

  “Where’s the tablet?” a man’s voice demanded.

  Usem let his eyes close. He didn’t want to look at this person with the harsh voice. He tried to speak. “What?” A croak, not a word. Where was the tablet? He could not say. Would not. Forget the tablet.

  “You know what I’m saying. The tablet, where is it?”

  The voice near his left ear spoke French with a strong Near Eastern accent. Usem struggled to understand. When he thought he knew the words, what they meant, he lifted his hand and touched the tablet. He felt nothing.

  “It’s hopeless.” The man was moving away, not speaking to Usem, so Usem, floating slowly, adrift, uplifted by a current, forgot about him. Strange, he felt so light. Except his limbs; they were heavy. He let his arm drop, heard a soft sound; his hand hit the bed and something squeezed his thigh, gently, like a nurse.

  “Keep trying,” a different voice, gruff Arabic? No, not Arabic, Aramaic. Not like home back in Bechar Djedid when he was a child and the Arabic was pure, the adhan call to prayer five times a day, there is no god but God, beautiful verses of the Qur’an, though the Qur’an was not his Book. He was born into Tamaziɣt, the language of the Berbers, his first language, mostly forgotten now, except Sin meant two. He remembered that, two men speaking nearby, voices rising and falling, interrupting each other, angry. Finally the questioner said, “All right.” He was unhappy. Then, “Where’s the tablet? I ask this in the name of the Divine Mother.” To him, French again.

  Usem lived in Paris, in a room with a narrow cot, but he wasn’t there, he was somewhere white. Alarms rang so loud his head hurt, and people running. Then he was pushed inside an ambulance and it was dark.

  No, those were memories. He rubbed his arm where they stabbed him with the needle and felt a lump.

  The man spoke again. The letters floated away, leaving behind a light so white and bright he had to squint and turn his head, and saw a dark balloon floating beside him. His eyelids grated together and the balloon congealed into an angry face, dark-bearded. Black hair. Black eyes, thin lips, and a red tongue licking them.

  Usem tried to stretch his own mouth into a smile. The balloon face leaned toward him, grew large. There was no answering smile and Usem gave up. “Maa?” he croaked. He had almost no voice. The word was Arabic. Close enough. He understood Aramaic but didn’t really speak it; it had never been necessary, though it was the language of Our Lord. He swallowed and tried again, English: “What?”

  His interrogator sat back, surprised.

  Usem had to suppress a desire to smile over this small victory.

  The dark man leaned closer and hissed into his face, spitting the words: “What did you do with the tablet? You hid it. Where did you hide it?”

  Usem felt stupid and decided that was good. He repeated, “Tablet?” but he was wondering who the Divine Mother might be, and why she would be interested in his tablet.

  The man was so close Usem could smell hot peppers, garlic, sour milk. The face was a red knot, a frown, eyes filled with hate. Usem was a simple scholar who wrote articles for Études Sumeriennes few people would ever read. But this, now, here, wherever here was, this was his terror come for him, the phantoms that pursued him through the park. They would read the tablet and unleash horror, this horror first, then others, whatever they were, for they had taken him. Dimme. Lamaštu. She brought fever, plague, despair. She couldn’t be the Divine Mother. No, the terror was here now. He closed his eyes and drifted up, up into the blaze of white, letting it all go.

  When he awoke, the men’s voices were quiet, a low rise and fall like waves washing against pebbles, a place his family took him, that stony beach under a low cliff and burning sun, small ripples nibbling at the stones like candies. His sister was there. He hadn’t remembered her in such a long time. She disappeared. She was twelve. The voices were like that, like the waves. His sister. Dounia.

  He lay quietly, daring quick glances through the window. Through the branches of a locust he saw the corner of a wall of cream-gray limestone, different from the honey limestone of Jerusalem he’d seen when he visited with other Jesuits. He asked himself if he dared remember what he did with the tablet, and then he couldn’t help seeing the FEDEX box, the glassine envelope, his laptop. He hadn’t had time to photograph the tablet. Had the package left the Collège yet? Who had he sent it to? No, never mind; don’t think about it.

  The leaves of the locust stirred, touched by brushes of sunlight. It was late in the day when they grabbed him in front of the Collège, so this must be Friday. It was still March. Surely someone had seen them.

  “Well, Dr. Izri, you’ve returned to us at last.”

  The man had appeared as if through some sleight-of-hand. He was short, middle-aged, slim, and clean-shaven. His thinning black hair, brushed carefully along the sides and over his ears, curled under at the back. Rimless glasses reflected light from the window, concealing the color of his eyes. He carried a wooden bed tray.

  Usem struggled up, bracing his back against the headboard padded with tan leather. The man set the tray on the bed. Steam rose from a bowl of clear broth. Usem stared at it.

  “You must be hungry,” the man said kindly. “Please, eat.”

  Usem took in a spoonful of broth and warmth flowed through his mouth and down his throat.

  “Now, then, isn’t that better?” The man pulled a chair close to the bed. His starched tan robe rustled when he sat.

  Usem nodded, not trusting his voice. He sipped another spoonful. His hand was shaking. The wallpaper was a pale blue fleur-de-lis motif, like the house of an eighteenth century aristocrat. Old etchings of hunting scenes lined the walls. There was an antique wooden dresser with a basin and pitcher on top.

  The man smiled broadly, showing small, even teeth. “I am most pleased, Dr. Izri. Allow me to introduce myself. I am called Ibrahim.” His French was excessively formal, but without accent. He clasped his hands in his lap, tilted his head, and continued in a low, melancholy voice, “I must first of all apologize on behalf of my colleagues. They treated you badly. Such is the price of over zealousness, shall we say? Excessive zeal is without doubt a defect of character, but they should be forgiven, for they are crude men of poor education and it is perhaps not surprising. Alas, men with such a quality are sometimes essential in these troubled times. Unfortunate, but there you are. I am truly sorry. Things will change.”

  “Where am I?” Usem whispered, instantly feeling foolish.

  But his companion took the question seriously. “In the house of one of our sponsors, Dr. Izri. He is a kind and compassionate man but his name is of no consequence. Paris is not a large city as great capitals go, yet one can vanish into it without difficulty.”

  The light outside had grown more somber. The locust leaves shivered.

  With enormous effort Usem lifted the tray and moved it aside. “I want to leave.”

  “Of course, of course,” Ibrahim said soothingly. “You are free to leave just as soon as you are able. No one is keeping you here.”

  “I’m able now,” Usem said. His legs felt heavy and sluggish. “I…”

  “Do not worry, you’re going to be fine, Dr. Izri. Our patron’s personal physician has examined you, and assured us that the event that occurred during your transport was nothing serious, a temporary weakness, that’s all. Please, here, finish your soup. Take your time. Then you and I can talk.”

  Usem sighed deeply. After a moment he picked up
the spoon again and took small sips. It tasted nourishing. It was too late to worry if something was in it. He hadn’t eaten since his interrupted breakfast yesterday.

  When he put down his spoon, Ibrahim set the tray aside and settled once more on the chair. “Now, Dr. Izri, I will tell you a story.”

  “A story?”

  “A story, yes. Long, long ago in Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization, the gods created mankind. Do you know why they did this? The gods had grown tired of digging canals and tending crops, for, like men, they had to eat, and so they created men to do this work for them. But the men grew numerous, and noisy, and contentious, so the gods destroyed them, not all, but most: plague, drought, flood. You know this, don’t you?”

  Usem had fixed his eyes on the man. Of course Usem was a scholar of the region and knew about the gods.

  “You may not know this particular story, though,” Ibrahim continued. “At that time there was a shepherd, a poor man, as wealth was measured in those days, but pure of spirit. One day when he took his sheep into the desert between the rivers he grew weary and sat on a boulder beside a tree to rest. While he was sitting there in the shade of the tree, a snake appeared, coiled at his feet. Although this snake was a viper, the shepherd was not afraid. ‘Hello,’ he greeted the snake, and the snake replied, ‘I see you are a man without fear. Come, let me bite you that you may also become wise.’”

  Usem could barely hold up his head. “What…?” His voice was thick.

  “You would ask what was the shepherd’s reply? Did he say, ‘Of course you may bite me, that I may become wise.’? Or did he refuse, knowing the viper’s bite was deadly? It was a dilemma, for even though a shepherd, he desired to become wise, yet he did not want to die.”

  “What… did you do to me?”

  Ibrahim put his finger beside his nose. “You seemed agitated, so we administered something to calm you. As I said, you will be fine. Why, very soon now you will walk out the front door of this magnificent house, free as the birds in the park. I’m sure of it. You see, I just want to know about something you found recently, a tablet, third millennium, dedicated to Dimme. We know you found it, Dr. Izri, but I think, and of course this is only an opinion not shared by some of my colleagues, but I think you don’t really know what the tablet is, so I am going to tell you.”