The Alchemist

26

Central Paris

Flann O’Brien’s pub is an oasis of Irish music and Guinness just around the corner from the Louvre museum, not far from the Seine. At 11.27 that night, following the specific instructions they’d received from an email from the unexpectedly alive and kicking Michel Zardi, four men entered the pub. Glancing around them, they approached the bar, which was thronging with people. The pub was filled with raucous laughter, clinking glasses and the sound of fiddles and banjos.

The leader of the four men was stocky and muscular with a bald head, wearing a black leather jacket. He leaned across the bar and spoke to the large, bearded barman. The barman nodded, reached under the bar and took out a mobile phone. He handed it to the bald man, who signalled to his friends and led them back outside into the street.

At exactly 11.30 the phone rang. The bald man answered.

‘Don’t speak’, said the voice on the other end. ‘Listen to what I say, and follow my instructions exactly to the letter. I’m watching you’.

The bald man looked up and down the street. ‘Don’t look for me,’ the voice in his ear said. ‘Just listen. One false move and the deal’s off. You lose the American and you’ll be punished’.

‘OK, I’m listening,’ the bald man replied.

‘Use this phone to call a cab,’ Ben said on the other end as he sat behind the wheel of the Peugeot 206 half a mile away across Paris. ‘Go alone, repeat, go alone or the woman runs. When you’re in the taxi, dial “Zardi” and I’ll tell you where to go.’

The bald man sat in the Mercedes cab as his African taxi driver drove him along the quayside by the river Seine. Away from the brightly illuminated pleasure-boats and the parties of drinkers and tourists, the taxi turned off and took a route down a dark narrow road that led to the shadowy bank of the river. The bald man stepped out, still clutching the mobile phone. The taxi pulled away.

The bald man’s footsteps echoed under the dark overhead bridge as he neared the rendezvous point he’d been given. He glanced around him.

‘Ben, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ she whispered in the darkness. ‘You sure this was such a good idea?’ The moonlit river Seine rippled and gurgled beside them. Down below street level, the rumble of the city seemed muted and far away. In the distance, Notre Dame cathedral towered, gold-lit, over the water. He checked his watch. ‘Relax.’

A door slammed on the street above them, a car pulling away, footsteps. She turned to see a figure approaching. ‘Ben, there’s…’

‘Now listen,’ he said softly in her ear. ‘Just trust me here. It’ll be all right.’ He took her arm and led her out from under the shadows of the bridge as the bald man approached. A twisted smile appeared on the man’s face. ‘Zardi?’ he asked, his voice echoing under the stone arch.

‘C’est moi,’ said Ben. ‘Vous avez l’argent?’

‘The money’s in here,’ the bald man replied in French. He held up a briefcase.

‘Set it down on the ground,’ Ben commanded. The bald man gently laid the case down. He looked away from Ben for a second. Ben let go of Roberta’s arm and moved towards him fast. He grabbed the man by the wrist, twisted him round and then the cold steel of the Browning’s silencer was pressing against the man’s crinkly neck. ‘Down on your knees.’

Roberta stared in horror at the pistol in Ben’s hand. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move and she stood there frozen, unable to take her eyes off Ben as he shoved the gun against the back of the man’s head and began to frisk him. Ben’s gaze flicked momentarily to the expression on her face and he knew what she was thinking. He gave her a look that said just let me deal with this.

The bald man had come ready. There was a Glock 19 in his leather jacket. Ben kicked it across the ground and it slipped over the edge of the riverbank with a soft splash.

‘You’ll die for this, Zardi,’ the bald man muttered.

‘Are you Saul?’ Ben asked.

The bald man wasn’t talking. Ben brought the butt and trigger guard of the pistol down on his head. ‘Are-you-Saul?’ he repeated deliberately. The man whimpered and a trickle of blood ran down his shiny scalp.

Roberta looked away.

‘No,’ the bald man said. ‘I’m not Saul.’

‘Then who is Saul, and where can I find him?’

The man paused, and Ben hit him again. He fell to the ground and rolled over, staring up with frightened eyes. But not too frightened. Ben could see that this guy was used to a little punishment. ‘OK, you’re no use to me.’ He thumbed off the safety and aimed the gun in his face.

It must have been the look in Ben’s eye that persuaded the man that this was no bluff. ‘I don’t know who he is!’ he protested, in the truthful way of a man with everything to lose. ‘I just get orders over the phone!’

Ben lowered the pistol and took his finger out of the trigger guard. Clicked the safety back on. ‘Who calls who? You call him? What’s his number?’

The bald man knew the number well. He muttered it out.

Ben watched him, weighing up what to do with him. The man’s jacket was hanging open and under it he was wearing an open shirt with a gold chain nestling in his hairy chest. Ben saw something else and keeping the gun on his face he reached down and ripped the shirt open. By the dim light of the moon and the street above, reflected by the gently rippling water, he could see the tattoo.

It was a sword, of medieval type with a straight blade and flat crossguard, shaped to look like a crucifix. Wrapped around the blade was a banner with the words GLADIUS DOMINI.

‘What’s that?’ Ben asked, motioning with the gun. The bald man glanced down at his chest. ‘Nothing.’

‘Gladius Domini. Sword of God,’ Ben murmured to himself. He stepped on the bald man’s testicles, and he let out a scream.

‘For Christ’s sake…’ Roberta pleaded.

‘I think you want to tell me,’ Ben said to him quietly, ignoring her and keeping pressure on.

‘OK, OK, take your foot off,’ the bald man panted, sweat streaming down his contorted face. Ben took his foot away, the gun still pointed unwaveringly at his forehead. The man breathed a sigh of relief and lay back on the stone ground. ‘I’m a soldier of Gladius Domini,’ he muttered.

‘What is Gladius Domini?’

‘An organization. I work for them…I don’t know…’ His voice trailed off. He stared blankly. There was a vagueness, an empty look in his eyes that made Ben think back to the cathedral suicide. Someone was getting inside the heads of these guys.

‘Soldier of God, are you?’ Ben said. ‘And when you kill innocent people, you do it for Him?’ He raised the pistol and stepped back. Slipped his finger through the trigger guard. ‘Now you’re going to meet Him personally.’

Roberta ran out of the shadows towards them. ‘What are you doing! Don’t kill him! Let him go-please-you have to let him go!’

Ben saw the pleading earnestness in her eyes. He took his finger off the trigger and lowered the gun. It was against all his instincts.

‘Go,’ he said to the bald man. The man gathered himself up slowly, clutching his groin in agony. His shirt was wet with blood and sweat glistened on his face in the moonlight. He staggered to his feet.

Roberta stared at Ben. Her face was tight. She shoved him angrily. He didn’t react. She thumped his chest. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

He saw the bright red dot pass across her forehead a third of a second before he grabbed her collar and wrenched her violently to one side.

Then, all at once, the laser-sighted rifle across the river was tearing chunks of masonry out of the wall. Three-shot burst, fully automatic fire. One of the shots went straight through the bald man’s head. His skull burst apart, spraying blood across Roberta. His falling body crashed against hers and took her down with him as it crumpled to the ground. Her legs kicked from under the corpse as she screamed in panic.

Ben had already seen the glint of the rifleman’s scope lens fifty metres away and he was returning fire. The Browning flashed and kicked in his hand. The sniper let out a stifled cry, tumbled from his perch and splashed into the river. His AR-18 assault weapon clattered to the ground.

Two more men were running up the riverbank towards them. Pistols in their hands. A bullet went past Ben’s ear and another sang off the wall next to him.

He raised the pistol. Calm. Focus centre of target. The trigger breaks without conscious thought. Two double-taps in rapid succession, bringing both men down in just over a second. Their bodies slumped to the ground and lay still, black shapes in the moonlight.

Ben hauled the dead man off Roberta and kicked the body to one side. Half of the bald crown was missing. Her clothes and hair were soaked in blood. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked urgently.

She staggered to her feet. Her face was pale, and the next thing she was spewing her guts out against the wall. Ben heard police sirens in the distance, several of them, their high-pitched wails rising and falling in and out of phase with each other, approaching fast. ‘Come on.’

She wasn’t responding. There was no time to reason with her. He put his arm around her waist and half-carried her along the quayside to the flight of steps leading up to the street.

At the top of the steps she seemed to regain her senses. She struggled in his grip and tore away from him. He yelled her name. But she was running frantically the opposite way, straight towards the sound of the sirens. Any moment now the police would be on top of them. ‘Get away from me!’ she screamed at him. He chased her, tried to take her arm, reasoning with her. ‘Don’t touch me!’ She staggered away from him.

Flashing blue lights were appearing at the end of the street among the scattered traffic. Ben had no choice. He had to let her go. At least she’d be safe in police hands, and within the hour he’d be out of the city and far away. With a last glance at her, he turned and started running back towards the Peugeot.

Roberta was staggering dazed up the middle of the road. A couple of cars honked, swerving to avoid her. Ben watched from a distance as the police car skidded to a halt beside her. Three cops got out, took one look at the shocked, bloody state of her and connected her right away with the reported shooting. More sirens were shrieking in the distance-three, maybe four more cars racing to the scene.

They were putting her into the back of the police car when the black Mitsubishi pulled up next to them.

Ben was a hundred metres away when he saw the Mitsubishi’s doors fly open and the two men with sawn-off pump shotguns step out. They blasted the cops before either of them had a chance to draw a pistol. Roberta was crawling out of the back as they walked round the side of the police car, racking the slides on their shotguns.

The Peugeot slammed into the nearest one, sending him flying in a broken heap. Ben fired a shot through the open window at the other, who ducked for cover behind the police car and then ran for it. Ben threw open the door, hauled Roberta in and skidded off over the bridge and away, just in time to screech around the nearest bend down a sidestreet before the wailing fleet of police arrived on the scene.