Callsign: King - Blackout

15

Julia was relieved to learn that the museum director had indeed spoken with Carutius about closing the exhibit early. The Frenchman wasn’t happy about it, but he seemed appreciative of Julia’s attempts to smooth things over. “These things are out of our control, n’est-ce pas?”

She nodded, commiserating, but with the bureaucratic task completed, her smoldering curiosity about the underlying reason for Carutius’s decision blossomed into full fire. Why on earth was Carutius running radiometric dating tests on the fragments? There was no dispute about their age, and the tests would be inconclusive anyway, revealing only the age of the materials used-which in the case of the sandstone chunks would run to millions of years-while telling nothing about when the statues themselves had been fashioned. Carutius was up to something, and Julia wanted to know what. It was, after all, part of her job description.

As she reached the corridor fronting La Chappelle gallery, she noticed a pair of figures lurking at the closed gate-a lithe woman with short, spiky hair, and a teenaged girl with jet-black hair and a swarthy Amerindian complexion. The two were dressed casually-jeans, t-shirts, sneakers-looking no different than most of the other visitors who roamed the museum’s halls, but something about the urgency in their expression told Julia that they were anything but ordinary tourists.

“This exhibition is temporarily closed,” she said as she approached.

Both of them turned to her, but it was the girl that spoke. “I’m looking for Mr. Carutius.” Although she hesitated with the name, as if her mouth had tried to use a different word first, her tone was every bit as serious as the look on her face. “Is he in there?”

Julia peered back at them, wondering what possible business these two could have with the wealthy and influential man. She shuffled through a variety of responses but then sublimated her impulse to put them off, and instead motioned for them to follow her. The woman’s face creased with concern but the girl seemed both grateful and anxious as she fell into step behind Julia.

She led them to a blank access door a few steps down the corridor from the roll-up gate, tapped in her security code and when the electronic lock disengaged, turned the knob.

“I probably shouldn’t be letting you in like this,” she said, but her curiosity was now burning even brighter. Maybe if Carutius was distracted with this pair, she’d be able to figure out why he had really closed the exhibit.

The corridor beyond was conspicuously bland in contrast to the public areas, but it was a short walk to another door that opened in the rear of the exhibition hall. As she reached for the doorknob, Julia became aware of a low buzzing sound, like the noise of fluorescent light fixtures, but amplified several times over, emanating from beyond. Waves of resonance vibrated through the metal skin of the door.

“That’s strange,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. The woman and the girl didn’t seem to grasp how unusual the sound was. Shaking her head, she opened the door.

The atonal sound was considerably louder now, setting Julia’s teeth on edge. A moment later she spied its source, an array of portable speakers lined up in front of the display case containing several pieces of debris from the Sakyamuni Buddha-the smaller and older of the two carvings.

Carutius stood nearby, hunched over a computer monitor, and was so completely focused on what he was doing that he failed to notice the new arrivals. Julia’s attention was drawn to the table and to a bank of little plastic disks that had been positioned to face the display case. She recognized the disks from her time spent in radiometry laboratories; they were film badge dosimeters, designed to warn the wearer of exposure to a potentially lethal dose of x-ray or gamma radiation. Surely he’s not performing the dating tests here, she thought.

“It is you!” The girl had to shout to be heard over the droning sound, and before Julia could think to forestall her, she dashed forward to confront Carutius. “What are you doing here?”

The big man spun around, clearly startled. Julia braced herself for the outburst to come, expecting to be the focus of his rage. She didn’t care; he was up to something, and it was her duty to find out, even if it meant drawing fire from her superiors.

But the flash of anger-if it was even there to begin with-faded as soon as Carutius’s gaze lit on the girl’s face, replaced by equal parts recognition and alarm.

“You?” he gasped.

Julia looked anew at the teenager, wondering how it was possible that this wide-eyed American Indian girl could possibly know the European financier. When Carutius spoke again, Julia realized that whatever the explanation was, it was something beyond her wildest imaginings. It wasn’t so much what he said as his grave demeanor that sent a chill down the curator’s spine.

“Fiona.” His ominous whisper was strangely audible despite the ambient humming. “You shouldn’t be here.”