by C. M. Palov
Cædmon, seizing what might be their one and only chance to escape unscathed, quickly stood up. Extending a hand, he helped Kate to her feet. ‘She lost a contact lens,’ he said to one of the men in the group who glanced quizzically at them.
‘Found it.’ Raising an index finger, Kate displayed a nonexistent lens.
Explanation offered, Cædmon immediately insinuated himself into the middle of the foursome, dragging Kate along with him, purposefully sandwiching her between his chest and a hefty blond bloke. Tightly clustered, the six of them entered the café. Once they were safely over the threshold, Cædmon splintered off, pulling Kate towards the polished bar that ran along the back wall of the café. Out of the gunman’s line of sight.
‘Are you all right?’ As soon as he asked, he shook his head. ‘Yes, I know, an asinine question.’
‘H-how is this happening?’ she stammered. ‘How does he k-keep f-finding us?’
‘That is a damn good question.’ His gaze trained on the truck still parked across the street, he said matter-of-factly, ‘The situation being what it is, we can no longer wait for your mastodon.’
‘My what!?’
‘I refer, of course, to McGuire, who is –’
‘Right here. I came in through the back exit.’
Hearing that raspy baritone, Kate spun around, throwing herself at Finnegan McGuire’s chest. Drenched from head to foot, the commando hesitated a moment before wrapping his wet arms around Kate’s backside.
‘I was so worried about you, Finn! I thought … thought that something terrible had –’
‘Hey, Katie. Shhh. I’m here now. It’s all right.’ His movements curiously tender, McGuire smoothed his hand over Kate’s flushed cheek.
‘Actually, it’s not all right. We just came under fire,’ Cædmon informed the other man in a lowered voice. ‘I suspect our gunman is positioned behind the delivery truck that’s parked across the street.’
Eyes narrowed, McGuire stared out of the bank of plate-glass windows. ‘I know that the bastard didn’t follow me. Hell, my own shadow couldn’t keep up.’
‘I assume that our assailant is using some sort of GPS device.’ Cædmon grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the top of the bar, ignoring the waiter’s furious glare. As he dabbed at his jacket, trying to soak up the spilled gin and tonic as best he could, he turned to Kate. ‘I need the laptop computer that’s in your rucksack.’
‘We’ve got a gun-toting Oom-pah-pah on our six and you’re worried about a damned computer!’
Cædmon shoved the saturated napkins on to the bar, halfway tempted to stuff the wad into the commando’s mouth. ‘You earlier mentioned that it was Fabius Jutier’s laptop, did you not?’ When McGuire nodded warily, he said, ‘I believe that’s how the Seven Research Foundation tracked you from Washington to Paris.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Commandos attack, snoops track. Trust me, there’s a microchip implanted on your pilfered laptop.’
McGuire snatched the laptop out of Kate’s hands. ‘If that’s the case, I’m going to use this sucker to throw the hound off the scent. While I’m doing that, I want the two of you to exit out the back alley.’
‘I have a better idea.’ Cædmon reached for his mobile phone. ‘While I may not have battlefield experience, I know how to escape the enemy.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Calling for an ambulance.’
‘Hey, grow a pair, will ya? I’m planning on all of us getting out of here alive.’
‘As am I.’ Turning his back on McGuire, Cædmon informed the emergency operator that an ambulance was immediately required at the Bistro de la Tour Eiffel, an older gentleman having just gone into cardiac arrest in the men’s WC. Call made, he redirected his attention to McGuire. ‘Take the laptop and hide it behind the commode in the gents. When you leave, make certain that the door is locked from the inside.’
Scowling, the commando strode towards the back of the café.
Her delicate features marred with anxiety, Kate sidled next to him. ‘What are our chances of getting out of here alive?’
Unable to offer false comfort, Cædmon told the truth. ‘The situation is extremely fluid. The dynamics could change in an instant.’ He jutted his chin, first at the crowded café with its harried waiters and boisterous clientele, then at the congested streetscape beyond the plate-glass windows.
‘But as long as we stay inside the café, we’re safe, right?’ There was no mistaking the hopeful glimmer in Kate’s eyes.
‘The danger is that our gunman will simply charge through the front entrance, gun barrels blazing.’ Glancing at his right hand, Cædmon noticed that it was visibly shaking. Bloody hell, but I need a drink. ‘However, you mustn’t dwell on –’
‘The laptop is out of sight, stuffed behind the water tank,’ McGuire interjected. ‘Now what?’ He had to raise his voice to be heard over the shrieking siren, a bright-red ambulance having just pulled up to the front door of the café. ‘I hope to God that you’re not expecting me to fake a heart attack.’
‘I’m not. That said, follow my lead.’
Just as he expected, the atmosphere inside the café instantly changed with the arrival of the ambulance, patrons frantically glancing about, huddled waiters pointing to the front entrance. Everyone wondering for whom the sirens blared.
A suitably worried expression affixed to his face, Cædmon rushed over to the entrance, holding one side of the double doors open as the emergency crew hauled their stretcher and equipment into the café. With an air of heightened excitement, he directed them to the WC, which was located down a narrow hallway.
As soon as the crew was out of ear-shot, he motioned McGuire and Kate through the open door. ‘Hurry! There’s no time to lose!’ Espying a folded umbrella propped near the entry, Cædmon pinched it before stepping across the threshold. He then closed the door and slid his purloined brolly through the metal handles, effectively barricading the entrance.
Since the parked ambulance completely blocked the front of the café, the gunman across the street couldn’t see that they had departed the premises. And, if he was tracking them on a GPS system, he would erroneously assume that they were still inside.
Having correctly guessed the game plan, McGuire opened the passenger door on the ambulance. ‘There are no keys in the ignition.’
‘Ambulances are always equipped with an emergency starter button located under the driver’s seat,’ Cædmon informed him as he climbed into the vehicle. Folding his legs, he awkwardly manoeuvred to the driver’s side.
Taking the co-pilot’s seat, McGuire slid his hands under Kate’s arms and unceremoniously hauled her on to his lap. To say the woman was shell-shocked would be putting it mildly.
‘Let’s haul ass.’
‘Right.’ Reaching under his seat, Cædmon pushed the protruding knob, the engine immediately turning. Yanking the gear lever down, he slammed his foot on the accelerator and pulled away from the kerb at a frighteningly fast speed, city blocks passing in a blur.
‘All in all, not a bad idea,’ McGuire grudgingly complimented as he forcefully ripped the satellite navigation device off the front dashboard. Rolling down the window, he hurled it to the kerb.
‘Bloody brilliant, I’d say.’
Craning his neck, McGuire peered into the wing mirror. ‘I figure we got another forty-five seconds before we run into a cop car.’
‘If that.’ Pulling over to the kerb, Cædmon braked to a stop. ‘There’s a Metro station around the corner. I suggest that we jump into a crowded subway carriage post-haste.’
Kate, still wearing a stupefied expression, reached for the door handle. ‘I can’t get out of this stolen ambulance fast enough.’
‘Er, McGuire.’ When the other man glanced over at him, Cædmon cleared his throat. ‘Earlier today, you saved my life … I’m indebted.’
One side of the commando’s mouth curved in his trademark sneer. ‘Gee, don’t know what got into me.�
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43
A gasoline-laced breeze wafted through the open French doors, carrying with it the discordant blare of honking horns, traffic heavy this time of day in the Marais district. From where he stood, Cædmon could watch the building entryway. An excellent vantage point. Even the commando had acknowledged that the St Merry Hotel was a good choice.
‘ “To be of no church is dangerous,” ’ he murmured, letting the drapery fall into place as he stepped into the room. Let us hope this one proves a safe haven.
Shoulders drooping, Kate deposited her rucksack on the Gothic-style desk across from the bed. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of “Get me to the church on time”. Normally, I’d be bowled over by the fact that we’re staying in a restored seventeenth-century presbytery which is next door to an equally old church. But after everything that’s happened today, I just can’t drum up a whole lot of enthusiasm.’ Peering in his direction, she graced him with a weary smile. ‘Although I’m greatly relieved to be here. And for that we have you to thank.’
‘Flying bullets will make any man quick on his feet.’
‘Luckily, you’re quicker than most.’
Clearly fatigued, Kate plopped into a high-backed chair. Like everything else in the room, it was fit for a feudal lord, the room’s stone-block walls enlivened with oak quatrefoils and tracery cutouts, the centrepiece being a massive bed with an intricately carved seven-foot-high headboard. Fit for the feudal lord and his lady love. Despite the fact that Kate had vehemently denied a romantic involvement with McGuire, Cædmon couldn’t help but wonder at their sleeping arrangements.
‘This wood-beamed ceiling reminds me of your room in Oxford,’ Kate remarked, tilting her head to glance upward.
‘The hearty souls were housed in the medieval wing of the college; those able to withstand winter chill, summer heat and leaky pipes. Punishment for crimes yet committed,’ he deadpanned.
‘Faulty plumbing aside, I used to think that there wasn’t anything quite as beautiful as when the setting sun tinted your centuries-old window a rich shade of tangerine.’ As she spoke, Kate girlishly tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Such a lovely memory.’
Cædmon seated himself on the opposite side of the desk. Surprised that Kate harboured warm memories of their time at Oxford, he was at a loss for words. Sixteen years had come and gone since they’d last seen one another. A lifetime. And yet he could easily envision her studiously bent over an open book. Claude Lévi Strauss’s A World on the Wane. Or some other anthropology tome. Committed scholars, they used to spend hours in that medieval room, each engrossed in their separate studies. Each oblivious to the other’s presence. Until one of them would look up and catch the other’s eye. A come-hither smile later, they’d end up under the duvet. Now that was a lovely memory.
‘Do you realize that I wouldn’t know how to ride a bicycle if it wasn’t for you,’ Kate remarked, unaware that his thoughts were running along a more lurid path. ‘Since my parents were both academics, they didn’t consider riding a bike a necessary life skill.’
‘Don’t know if it’s necessary in the larger scheme of things, but certainly essential at Oxford.’ Still stuck under the duvet, he smiled fondly. ‘Indeed, you were so enamoured with your newly acquired skill that you would drag me out of bed at an ungodly hour for early morning rides in the mist.’
‘You can’t deny that there was a surreal beauty to it. As though we were trapped in a medieval dreamscape. Just the two of us peddling through a heavenly realm.’ She closed her eyes; a woman lost in reverie.
‘I also taught you how to drink sherry.’
Hearing that, her eyes popped wide open. ‘Dry, chilled, served in a hand-blown copita glass, and –’ an animated gleam in those greyish-blue eyes, Kate raised an imaginary glass – ‘accompanied by your favourite toast –’
‘Bottoms up and knickers down,’ he chimed in, chortling.
No sooner did the shared chuckle fade into silence than a furrow appeared between Kate’s brows. ‘Were you really that upset by my lettre de rupture?’
Take aback by that unexpected query, he was tempted to play the cavalier. To make light of the whole affair.
‘Utterly destroyed,’ he confessed at the last, hoping the truth would finally set him free. ‘I’d given you my heart.’
‘As I recall, you were quite obsessed with the Knights Templar. I was tired of playing second fiddle to a bunch of dead monks.’
His regret real, Cædmon penitently bowed his head and stared at his hands. ‘Like most men, I didn’t realize what I had until I lost it.’
‘And when we lose that thing that we hold so dear, it never comes back.’
Hearing a husky catch in her voice, he intuited that Kate was referring to her own life. Her own painful loss.
Raising his head, he gazed intently at the sad-faced woman seated across from him. He knew from Kate’s dossier that life had flung her to the cement pavement. And from a very high rooftop. Her only child, a baby boy named Samuel, had died from SIDS. An unfathomable loss.
‘I know about Samuel.’
Eyes welling with emotion, Kate flinched. A terrified animal caught in the headlights. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned.
He reached across the desk and cupped her cheek in his hand. Gently, he swiped the pad of his thumb under her eye socket, catching a runaway tear. ‘You probably loathe the “I’m so sorry” speech, but I understand, Kate. There’s a gaping hole in your heart. I know … I, too, lost someone,’ he confessed, words and sentiments jumbling together. ‘And when Juliana died, it devastated me.’
‘Oh, Cædmon … I … I’m so very sorry … there, I said it.’ Turning her head, Kate lightly pressed her lips to his palm. She then gazed at him, eyes clouded with concern. ‘If you need someone to talk to … or a shoulder to cry on … I can help you get through this. Maybe that’s why we’ve re-connected after all these years. Because we need each other.’ Clearly empathizing with his pain, she placed her hand over his. ‘Was Juliana your wife?’
He dolefully shook his head. ‘But I had given great thought to asking –’
‘Sorry to interrupt the canoodle fest.’
Hearing that deep-throated voice, Cædmon and Kate quickly and gracelessly pulled apart. McGuire, an old-fashioned skeleton key in one hand and two plastic shopping bags dangling from the other, stood in the doorway. ‘I bought some refreshments. Not that you two lovebirds would care.’ He stomped over to the desk, managing to look more intimidating than usual.
‘We were just reminiscing about old times at Oxford,’ Kate assured her surly companion, cheeks guiltily stained a vivid bright red. ‘Cædmon, do you remember Sidney Hartwell?’
‘Pudgy Classics major prone to drunken stupors,’ he replied, playing along with the game. ‘Liked to wave his trousers in the air while he shouted obscene profanities.’
‘In Latin and in the middle of the night, no less.’ Never good at subterfuge, Kate nervously giggled.
McGuire dragged a chair over to the desk and set it inches from Kate’s Gothic monstrosity. A man staking his claim. He then proceeded to remove a six-pack of beer from one bag and a litre bottle of water from the other. ‘Choose your poison – Kronenbourg or H2O. And just so you know, I cannot abide a country that doesn’t sell cold beer at the grocery store. Here. You look like you could use one of these.’ McGuire pulled a can free from the plastic ring and slid it across the desk in Cædmon’s direction.
‘An Irishman who would refuse a pint of warm Guinness. Well, well, wonders never cease.’
‘You’d turn your nose up, too, if you’d ever seen how my Da downed the black stuff. Surprised I’m able to enjoy a brewski.’ Shaking his head, McGuire rolled his eyes. ‘If only he’d waved his trousers in the air.’
Cædmon wondered at the startling admission. Perhaps the earlier brush with death is causing the three of us to come apart at the seams.
Seams ready to burst, he rapaciously eyed the unopened can. Like McGuir
e, he didn’t much care for warm beer. A G&T on ice would be better. But this might quell the pang.
He reached for the Kronenbourg.
Only to retreat at the last.
Then, not fully trusting himself, he slid the proffered can back in McGuire’s direction.
‘No, thank you.’ Jaw tight, those three simple words sounded unnaturally clipped. Probably because he’d recently come off a three-day binge. A bender, as the Yanks called them. Usually his drinking bouts lasted no more than a few days. Although the first, after the ‘incident’ in Belfast, extended to a full two weeks. The boys from Thames House found him slumped over a bar in Budapest. According to his passport, he’d been to six different countries in those two weeks. To this day, he had no recollection of that drunken fortnight, although it was his lone act of vengeance in Belfast that angered the powers that be at Thames House more than the drunken spree. In the two years since, he’d paid heavily for the transgression. Seconded to MI6, he’d been made to run a safe house in Paris. A humiliating demotion.
‘You know, I’ve been thinking about it –’ McGuire popped the lid on his can, misting the air with the tang of Strisselspalt hops and a light citrus aroma – ‘and no way in hell can I accept that the Holy Grail is “the stone in exile”. Sister Michael Patrick, a woman whose authority even a smart aleck like me didn’t dare question, taught us that the Grail is the chalice that was used at the Last Supper. And when Jesus was on the cross, that same chalice was used to collect his blood. That’s how it became the Holy Grail.’
Dissertation delivered, the commando raised the can to his lips and drank deeply.
Astonished that the other man had deliberated on the matter, Cædmon countered by saying, ‘Don’t know how “holy” it is. According to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the Lapis Exillis was the stone knocked free from Lucifer’s crown when he was cast from heaven. As you undoubtedly know, Lucifer had originally been God’s favourite until he committed the grave sin of putting himself on a par with the Almighty. A heavenly insurrection ensued, the angelic legions battling for supremacy. In the end, Lucifer was tossed on his arse.’ As he spoke, Cædmon belatedly realized that he shared a common bond with the ousted angel, having taken upon himself the power of life and death. And look where it landed me.