One important branch of the Committee was based in Lyon where it had both headquarters and large-scale means at its disposal. The mysterious man in the turban whom the two agents were trailing had been spotted spying on its facilities several times. Therefore, it was decided to put him under surveillance. He had been followed all over Lyon for a few days without anything in particular to be reported. Then the Hindu had left Lyon unexpectedly and taken the train to Paris. The two men had got on the train with him. When he got off, they continued shadowing him, hoping that he would lead them to his accomplices or put them on the trail of some interesting clue.
They quickly crossed the bridge over the Seine and came to the vicinity of the Gare d’Austerlitz. They were less than ten yards behind the Hindu, in a relatively clear space, exposed and highly likely to be noticed. They looked at each other and made a silent agreement to slow down and get a little more distance between them and the turban.
They continued on, more slowly, across Place Valhubert and found themselves in front of the gates of the Jardin des Plantes. The Natural History Museum on the left inside the park was closed for repairs and surrounded by a wooden fence that prevented access to the work site. The man in the turban headed for the gates, took out a key, unlocked the chains and entered the park. The two agents sped up so they could watch whatever the mysterious Hindu was doing on the other side of the gates. He took a side path and went up to the doors of the museum after slipping through the fence. He took out another key and entered the building. When he closed the heavy glass door, he disappeared from their view, especially since he did not turn on the light in the museum lobby.
“That’s surprising,” Jacques said. “How did he come up with the keys to a public building?”
“We’re going to find out,” Stéphane answered. “Get ready!” He slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a pair of small bolt cutters. “I’m going to cut the chains.”
“Be careful, there’s a policeman coming this way,” Jacques warned him.
With his cape flapping on his back and his baton hanging from his belt a bicycle-riding police agent was cruising along the railings of the Jardin des Plantes. The policeman glanced at the two “workers,” then went on his way without paying them any particular attention. Maybe he was wondering what they were doing in the neighborhood that was pretty deserted at this hour? But after all, there was nothing wrong with being in the street at night.
When he was gone, the two men went to work. They quickly got the chains off, went down the sandy path and reached the door of the Museum. Jacques went up first and got a surprised look on his face. He had reached out to grab the handle but his arm was stopped by an invisible force that seemed to be emanating from the inside. His hand remained flat in front of him, as if hanging in mid-air.
“Look! That’s weird! Look at my hand!”
Stéphane came up next to him and he too reached out his hand, which was also mysteriously blocked by an invisible object. Stéphane pushed harder, spreading apart his fingers. For an instant the air gave way under the pressure but a strong gust threw his arm back once again.
“Well, there’s something blocking it, like a kind of force field that we can’t get through. I’ll try to push harder. This is just impossible to…”
He did not have time to finish his sentence. All of a sudden, he and his partner were hit by a cloud of little, extremely bright explosions that turned them almost instantly into living torches, consuming them and crumbling them. All their cells imploded and in a matter of seconds they were completely pulverized by the mysterious force.
A minute later, all trace of the phenomenon had disappeared and the night returned to its usual calm…
CHAPTER II
The Tower of Babel
The next afternoon, in the big, sunny office of the Blingy mansion near Versailles, Léo Saint Clair was reading Le Matin, his favorite newspaper. He was talking to himself, commenting out loud on the news.
“This Pierre Laval seems a little lazy as Prime Minister. Well, at least, we haven’t been affected so far by the financial crisis that’s hitting our allies… Hold on, that’s weird… A severed hand and forearm were found near the Jardin des Plantes! The locals heard explosions…”
His face, looking very concentrated, stiffened a little and his brow furrowed above his remarkable eyes. Nobody had eyes like this man whom the press had given the nickname of the Nyctalope. Huge and golden brown, with dilated pupils, his eyes were like those of a nocturnal animal. It was before the Great War that he had become famous by being the first European permitted to visit the most secret places in Tibet and it was then that he had gotten his nickname. It was well deserved because of the strange power allowing him to see in the dark as well as in the light of day. This particularity, which had been very useful over the course of his many adventures, fascinated the public and for almost thirty years, the Nyctalope was the talk of the town.
“This matter has to be cleared up. There’s something very odd about this story,” he muttered.
Two pages in was a long, popular science article doubting the existence of canals on Mars. Old memories came back to Saint-Clair. Before 1914, he had had the opportunity to go the red planet. He fought, loved, suffered and set up a French colony… Like every time he recalled this period of his life he tried to remember how the expedition had ended, but in vain. Something terrible must have happened because his mind stubbornly refused to remember. After focusing on recalling the events that might have happened there to no avail, he shook his head and went back to reading.
A few minutes later, someone knocked quietly at his door.
“Come in!” the Nyctalope said.
A big man, dressed in a black servant’s outfit, entered. It was Bertrand, his butler.
“Monsieur, Monsieur Michel Dorlange is asking to see you,” he said respectfully.
“Show him in, please,” Saint-Clair answered.
A tall, well built man with blue eyes full of candor and energy, walked up to him, holding out his hand:
“Bonjour, Monsieur Saint-Clair.”
Saint-Clair nodded, glanced at his watch and said:
“Bonjour. Four o’clock on the dot. You’re exactly on time, as usual, good old Michel. Come, sit down.”
After making sure that the door was firmly closed Saint-Clair went to the bookcase and pressed a button hidden under a shelf. One of the wall panels on the left slid open and revealed a big combination safe containing the files of the CID, of which the Nyctalope was now the president. Michel Dorlange, his visitor, was the Secretary General of the organization and Saint-Clair’s chief collaborator. They met regularly to go over their cases and make any necessary decisions. The meeting today had been organized weeks ago.
The Nyctalope grabbed a few documents, dropped them on the desk and began:
“OK. The agenda today is a little busy. Let’s first deal with the priorities. Where do we stand with the final French members of the Cult of the Blood Worshippers?”
“As agreed in our last meeting, I sent a few agents to check if the pact you made with Princess Alou T’Hô has been honored by her adepts. I can assure you that, since coming back from China, they have done nothing on French territory.”
“Great! So, she’s kept her word. I’m relieved. I would’ve hated to start another conflict with her. And the affair ended in a treaty. And how about the other important operation concerning the Radion?”
“The engineer Yves Le Moal has informed us that he found the missing element. He resumed the experiment that was interrupted by Gorillard and he’s succeeded in perfecting the Radion. The final tests to make the invention completely operational are being carried out.”
“Very well. This vehicle, with its seven different ways of locomotion, will give us a serious advantage if enemies come to attack us. I guess you don’t have only good news for me?”
“On the crucial files, yes. But in other matters, some very disturbing events have happened in the la
st few weeks. Some of our agents, on completely unrelated missions, have disappeared without a trace. At first, we figured they were just coincidences. But six in three weeks is a little much and we might be dealing with a sneaky, organized attack.”
“Do you suspect anybody in particular?”
“Nobody. The men disappeared. Like they just vanished in thin air and the missions they were on have nothing in common. Some of them were simply routine.”
“This sounds very serious indeed. We have to put the entire CID on maximum alert immediately. Our agents have to be at the ready and tell us right away about any suspicious incident… Contact all the offices and get them to beef up security. Double up the teams so our men won’t be isolated. We have to be able to face any possibility. I’ll alert my contacts in the Ministry of the Interior and Defense so they can send us reinforcements. Vanished, you say? That reminds me of something… Monsieur Dorlange, you’ll have to investigate this story of the severed limbs found at the Jardin des Plantes. There might be a connection with the matter at hand, but in any case it’s a curious event that deserves to be cleared up.”
“Right away, Monsieur Saint-Clair, I’ll open a file and take the necessary measures.”
“Great! Let’s look at the missions of our agents in the various European capitals. Let’s begin with Berlin. The political situation there is getting more and more tense…”
The two men started studying the different files in progress and their meeting ended around 7:30 p.m. When they had gone through the agenda, Dorlange got up to leave.
The Nyctalope smiled at him, “You won’t stay for dinner tonight? We had the pleasure of inviting my old friend Hubert de Pibriac.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t. I have to meet my wife at the Opera.”
“That’s really too bad. And how are things going with dear Erin? By marrying you, one of the best CID agents was taken away from us,” the Nyctalope smiled again.
“You’re exaggerating a little, Léo,” Dorlange smiled back. “She’s only cut back a little on her work. Anyway, I’ll warn her, too, about the disappearances so she’ll be on the alert.”
“Obviously. No matter what, don’t forget to do it! Besides, we’ll certainly find another time soon to have dinner together.”
The Nyctalope stood up and Michel Dorlange to the door. His collaborator was at the bottom of the front steps when Saint-Clair saw three men at the gate, heading toward the mansion. When they passed Dorlange, they gave him a polite greeting.
One of them, a real athlete, a force of nature, was Saint-Clair’s friend, Comte Hubert de Pibriac, nicknamed Herkulos, the old sportsman of world-renowned talent. It was with him that the Nyctalope had conquered Mount Everest. The other visitors, two young men in their 20s, with brown hair and blue eyes, looked strangely alike and were clearly twin brothers. Although he had never seen them before, Saint-Clair figured they were Pir and Bob O’Connell, whom he had invited to dinner at Hubert’s request.
When they were at the foot of the steps, Saint-Clair greeted them cordially.
Hubert de Pibriac came next to his friend and pointed at the two young men. “Hello, Léo. I hope you’re well. Let me introduce Pir and Bob O’Connell. As I’ve told you before they’ll be taking part in my next expedition.”
“Welcome all of you! Come in, come in! We’ll be more comfortable talking in the salon.”
Saint-Clair and his guests crossed the entrance hall and entered a big room, brightly lit by two Art Deco iron lamps.
They were comfortably seated in oversized armchairs around a low table on which Bertrand had set cases of cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco. Bottles of various alcohol and fruit juice stood next to tobacco. The Nyctalope invited his guests to serve themselves, taking a cigarette and saying:
“We’ll eat in half an hour. My wife Sylvie and my son Pierre will be joining us. We’re still waiting for your friend Professor Nicolas Noque who should be here soon. But Hubert, in the meantime, maybe you could tell me something about this famous expedition?”
Comte de Pibriac was just about to begin when Sylvie and Pierre walked into the room.
As always, Sylvie made a strong impression on the people present. She was, without a doubt, exceptionally beautiful. Slender, blonde, with green eyes, she exuded a strong charisma. After years of marriage, Saint-Clair could still not look at her without being deeply moved. He jumped up and offered her a seat. Meanwhile, Pierre, a hearty, eighteen-year old young man, said hello to his father’s guests and sat next to Pir and Bob, who were almost the same age.
When everyone was settled in, Hubert started talking again:
“As you know, after the discovery of the strange wall inscriptions in that lost Aztec pyramid in Mexico, I’ve made several expeditions there. I’ve carefully recopied the texts, written in an unknown language, completely different from those identified and used by the pre-Columbian civilizations. In vain I followed some clues that always led to dead ends. So, I came back to France to study the documents with respected linguists in order to draw parallels, if need be, that might direct my search. You have to understand that it was fruitless at first. Until one day, by chance, I got in touch with a specialist in Semitic languages who confirmed that the document could have been written in a language that was a very ancient form of Hebrew and that almost nobody today was able to decipher. I admit that I couldn’t imagine what kind of text could be written in a language from the Middle East and found in the heart of an Aztec pyramid. But the specialist had said ‘almost’ and I was intrigued. Therefore, I asked him about who exactly could decipher the writing and he gave me only one name: Professor Nicolas Noque, the leading authority in France and maybe in the world in this matter.
“It was a pleasant surprise when the professor readily granted me a meeting in his office at La Sorbonne. I remember that first meeting like it was yesterday. I was a little taken aback at his age: thirty-five at most and he seemed too young to have such an eminent reputation. Tall and athletic, dark eyes, both warm and penetrating at the same time. He was friendly and after the normal courtesies he spent a long time scrutinizing the papers on which I’d recopied the signs from the bas-relief.
“He looked surprised as well but he stayed calm and professional. He got up without saying a word, went to a bookshelf and took down two fat files full of yellow sheets. He sat back down at his desk, opened a folder and leafed through the pages, stopping at a document covered with small, fine writing in an ancient hand. Then he asked me:
“ ‘Where did you say you found this text?’
“ ‘In an Aztec pyramid, hidden down in Baja California,’ I answered. ‘No one knew of the existence of these important remains in a region that was sparsely inhabited, mountainous and quite unwelcoming. I should also tell you that I have Aztec ancestors. I learned about them a few years ago when I had a falling out with the descendants of an ancient, pre-Columbian tribe that has a small community today. They saw me as the heir of the royal Aztec crown. Obviously it was flattering but far from getting crowned, I was almost sacrificed to their gods because it was the only way for them to bring back the ancient regime. Thanks to a fortunate series of events I managed to escape this gruesome fate but with knowledge of my origins I decided to redirect my research from Africa to the mysteries of the Mesoamerican past.
“ ‘Thanks to my lineage I was able to make different contacts in the region and through them I discovered this hitherto unknown site. The pyramid was thought to contain the mummy of a high priest of a secret cult dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent god whose return was awaited by the Aztecs. I made a meticulous search of the monument but I found no trace of the mummy. Some of my companions lost their lives during the expedition because the tomb was booby-trapped and had a number of lethal traps to protect it. The only real discovery we made was this bas-relief surrounded by numbers and some metallic objects that were badly deteriorated by time. We don’t really know what the objects were used for, but I’m tempted to think of t
hem as some kind of technological artifact, understood, of course, in a relative historical sense because given their state they must have been very old when the Aztec civilization emerged.’
“ ‘And how far back would you date these objects?’ the professor asked me.
“ ‘They must go back thousands of years, which is obviously impossible.’
“ ‘The translation of the bas-relief likewise presents an impossible interpretation…’
“ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked Professor Noque.
“ ‘I’ll need more time to decipher the text in detail,’ he said, ‘but I can tell you that it is a pre-Semitic language considered by many experts as dating back to before the Flood. Moreover, the word you see here means Tower and this one means Babel…’
“ ‘The Tower of Babel on a Mexican bas-relief!’
“ ‘Indeed!’”
At this moment, in the Nyctalope’s salon, the almost religious silence around Hubert de Pibriac’s story was interrupted by Professor Noque’s arrival. Wearing an old frock coat like university professors often do, he looked around the room with a big smile on his face. Even though Hubert had told them how young he was, which clashed with his old-fashioned clothes, everyone was surprised.
Pibriac stood up to shake his hand and introduce him. Everyone sat back down and the explorer turned to Nicolas Noque, “I think the professor can relate what he discovered in translating the text.”
“Gladly, if you’d like, Madame and Messieurs.”
They all nodded.
“To sum up the situation,” the professor began, “the text that your friend Pibriac brought me was written in a language that is the oldest known form of Hebrew and it tells a very strange story. According to what it says, at a time that is already very remote from when it was written, a powerful civilization had evolved. The author marveled at the tremendous knowledge that it had and the incredible inventions that the men of that time had perfected. This knowledge seemed to have been given to them by men coming from a distant continent who traveled through the air in chariots of fire. The strangers called themselves Watchers and indeed seemed to be always on guard, scared of the arrival of far-off enemies who were hunting them. Their supreme chief answered to the name of Shemehaza and his right-hand man was Azazel. They wanted to form a strong alliance, protected by fortresses built in the four corners of the earth, to be ready to fight against the enemies who were coming for them from this distant continent. After a period of prosperity, war broke out between the Watchers and their enemies. The conflict ended in a cataclysm that destroyed both peoples.
The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel Page 21