The Ghost of Flight 666

CHAPTER 16: Notre Dame

The gendarme wasn’t so much mad at Slade as much as himself. Slade asked a simple question and it cut to the bone of French pride: What would Napoleon do?

One of the gendarmes looked confused, but the other, the angry one replied, “Donnez-leur un relent de à mitraille!”

It was the famous answer Napoleon gave when asked what he would do about rebels in the streets. Legend had it that the general, a master of artillery, answered, “Give them a whiff of grapeshot!”

Slade nodded approvingly and told them, “France is for the French,” or in his heavily accented French, “La France est pour les Français!”

They gendarmes exchanged glances, sighed, and nodding their heads, admitted, “Oui monsieur, C’est vrai.”

It must have worked, because the next moment a demonstrator got in the gendarme’s face, yelling “Jihad! Jihad! Jihad!” The boy’s spit flew at the gendarme, who reacted appropriately, smashing his rifle butt in the demonstrator’s belly and taking him to the ground. He cuffed the boy, much to the amazement of those protesters nearby, and hauled him to his feet.

As they dragged the boy to the paddy wagon, the gendarme looked at Slade and said, “La France est pour les Français!”

“Vive la France!” Slade responded, adding to himself, “Maybe there’s hope after all.”

Feeling better, Slade made the cathedral in time for vespers. He went there for the music. The Notre Dame choir was world renowned; it wasn’t to be missed. Slade, despite his cold exterior, loved classical music.

After vespers he stayed for mass out of curiosity. Would the cardinal speak about the demonstrations? Slade was raised Catholic, and he’d gone to church with Helen on occasion as they grew up. Then he strayed for a few years; that is, until Helen and the kids moved in. After that, he attended with the family, but only after buying a video recorder for the Vikings games on Sunday.

Now it was easy to tape the games, and Slade still went so as to be a good example for the kids. It ate at him though; his present occupation didn’t fit so well with piety, thus his guilt.

That thought brought out Helen’s softly chiding rebuke in his head. “All right, I need to practice my French anyway,” he grumbled to himself. He stayed for mass.

The Cardinal of Paris was an elder man, robust with glasses. He gave firm, cogent and practical homilies. Tonight was no different. Slade’s French was barely good enough to keep up with him, because he was passionate, railing against the evils going on in France and the Middle East.

“Will we sit here while our brother Christians are given the choice of conversion, becoming slaves or death; while they are crucified along the streets? Will we sit here idly while our brother Muslims, those who wish to live in peace with us are slaughtered, left beheaded in ditches, their only crime that they do not wish to follow the path of jihad? Will we sit here idly while our Jewish brothers, and I remind you we are all Jews at our core, Jesus was a Jew and so are we; will we sit idly by while terrorists and jihadist murder their children and send rockets into their neighborhoods?”

The cardinal paused, looking soberly over the congregation. “Will we sit here idly while they shout jihad within sight of these sacred walls? We invited these people to our land and they repay us by insulting our sacred places and defiling our civilization. We cannot allow them to do so. We must be firm in our resolve and patient with our guests, yet like a father to a passionate son we must set boundaries and expect them to live within the law of our civilization as they would expect us to live within their laws if our positions were reversed.

“We must pray, but there is more we must do. We must resist the ignorant who are shouting without our walls. We must tell the jihadists here in our own streets that they are not welcome if they persist in this path of war and intolerance. If they wish to live in peace among us then Amen I say to you; you are my brother under the Almighty. Yet God taught us to defend ourselves, our families and our Faith. God gave us Charles the Hammer Martel to drive the hordes of jihadists from French soil; who will he give us now?”

Slade couldn’t help but like the cardinal. He felt hope after the homily; hope that France might remain French if only the cardinal’s voice and other voices carried the day. As he took his place in line for Communion he wondered if his hopes outweighed the reality of the jihadist infection spreading across Europe.

Helen’s little voice came on in his head again. He was about to take Communion from the hand of the cardinal. Helen reminded Slade it was not the proper place to be considering violence, war and evil. He whispered, “Dear cousin, you make it hard to do my job sometimes.”

The tall man in front of him must have heard his words, for he turned, looking over his shoulder, over the backpack he wore inside the cathedral, catching Slade with a set of dark eyes — almost black.

The old familiar warning bells went off in Slade’s head. The man was an Algerian, which was not uncommon in Paris especially. Many transplants from the former French colonies lived in the capital. This man was tall and lankly; the whites of his eyes stood out, almost glowing in the gloom of the dim cathedral. It was his expression that caught Slade’s attention; he’d seen it so often in jihadists, the half mad, half doomed demeanor — it set him on edge.

That he was wearing a backpack in the cathedral was suspicious, but many people brought their purses or bags with them, not wanting to lose them in the vastness of the church. No, Slade was profiling. He was suspicious only because the man was almost certainly Muslim. Almost all the Algerians were Muslim, although it wasn’t unheard of to see a convert.

He played down his fears, assuming they rode upon the train of his earlier thoughts; hadn’t the Justice Department just issued an order prohibiting profiling even in the case of National security? He chuckled dryly to himself, “You’re just a bigot Slade — a hater!”

Still, he kept an eye on the man regardless. He could always apologize to the Lord for his suspicions about his fellow man later. Maybe he’d file a report on himself; turn himself in for violating Justice Department policy!

The man reached the cardinal. The cardinal smiled and held up a wafer, saying in French, “The Body of Christ!”

For Slade, it was almost like watching a movie. The man’s bearing changed almost instantly. With exaggerated fury he spat at the cardinal. Slade was surprised but ready.

The unexpected nature of the attack was not the attack itself, but that the Algerian took the time to show his contempt for the center of Christianity in France.

“You have kept us down for too long,” he yelled, almost incoherent. “Our time has come again. You will submit or die; submit or die! Death to the infidels! Allahu Akbar!” The jihadist finished his tirade and raised his arms. There was a switch in his right hand.

Before the last breath of the terrorist’s praise of Allah passed his lips, as the cardinal’s face showed complete surprise and horror, as the first screams erupted from the surrounding crowd, Slade’s punch connected.

It started at his feet. He crouched, throwing his hips forward in a counterclockwise twist, like a spring unwinding. His torso followed and then the right arm flew, the force aided by the uncoiling of his body. The short, sharp punch connected with the base of the jihadist’s skull, shattering the Atlas vertebrae and the base of the skull, shoving shards of bone into the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata.

The punch would at the very least render the victim unconscious, but thrown with the strength of angst and desperate need, the jihadist was dead before he finished his curse.

The body crumpled to the ground. Slade was instantly on top of him. He grabbed the trigger switch from the trembling hand and tore the wires from the box. Ripping open the backpack he found the battery perched on top of the load of explosives and shrapnel. Quickly he yanked the wires out of the power unit. Then he turned the body over and ripped open the jacket.

“You bloody bastard, you’re wearing a vest as well!”

Again he ripped out the wires and removed the battery. The dead jihadist was no longer a threat, but there still might be other jihadists around; they would wait for the panic to ensue and guard the exits, massacring the fleeing congregation.

Slade looked up at the cardinal, who was still standing there holding his golden goblet and Communion wafers.

“Father, I need your help; there’s no telling if there are more of these jihadists around! Do NOT clear the Church — keep everyone calm — I will get the police and INTERPOL here right away!”

Slade hit his Bluetooth as he grabbed the jihadist by the collar. The head lolled over on the spindly neck, wagging side to side in a grotesque way.

“Brueget!” he barked, keying the number that Director Gann gave him

Slade dragged the bomb laden body out of the vestibule, looking in the crowd for more jihadists. He saw an usher, and yelled for him to open the door out of the south end of the vestibule. The portly man scurried for the door, waving people back, flinging it open. Slade dragged the jihadist outside the church and away from the people.

“Brueget here, how can I help you?”

“Brueget, my name is Slade. We have a meeting set up for tomorrow; I’m going to have to move that up. I’m down here at Notre Dame. Jihadists just tried to assassinate the cardinal and blow up the cathedral. Everyone is still in the church. I need the exits cleared. They may have other jihadists waiting for the people to queue up at the doors!”

“Mon Dieu! I have the military two blocks away at St. Michel; they will be there in two minutes!”

When he got outside, Slade laid the jihadist next to the stone side of the rectory; that would at least partially minimize the damage of any blast. The usher was watching; he waved people back, shouting for his fellow ushers. They effectively cordoned off the area.

Two minutes later Slade heard the pounding of boots. He looked toward the front of the cathedral. Two columns of black garbed troops bearing SCAR assault rifles trotted into the courtyard. Six men rushed down the alley between the cathedral and the rectory. Two levelled their SCARS at the jihadist, two covered Slade and the other two set up posts on either side of the doors.

“Les portes sud obtiennent!”

Slade raised his hands, and said, “I work with Jean Brueget INTERPOL!”

“INTERPOL?”

The usher at the door interrupted, telling the soldiers loudly, “Don’t arrest him! He saved the cardinal! He killed the terrorist; I saw it all!”

Nodding, the soldier lowered his SCAR, telling him in English, “It was INTERPOL who called us from the demonstration. Relax, but stay here please!”

The bells began to ring, signaling the end of mass. Slade heard the cardinal’s strong voice asking people to file out of the church and praising God.

A few minutes later Brueget and half a dozen other INTERPOL agents arrived with the bomb squad. The bomb squad took over control of the body and bombs. Brueget took Slade inside the emptying cathedral. They exchanged introductions, and then with everything under control Brueget smiled with relief, looking around at the people still filing out of the church. “France is indebted to you my friend,” he said. “This could have been a terrible day!”

“We got lucky this time,” Slade said, shaking his head. “This could have been Buckingham Palace, the Smithsonian — anywhere. We’re reacting instead of being proactive. How the Hell does a terrorist get into the cathedral with thirty pounds of C-4?”

Brueget nodded, and said, “If we do nothing else than what we are doing it is only a matter of time before they succeed.”

“Maybe you can help me with that,” Slade said. He filled Brueget in on what he was doing in Paris. “Waters has already met with Colonel Nikahd of Iran. Now he’s supposed to meet with someone from Soekarno Industries.”

“Eva Accompando?” Brueget asked.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Eva is often in Paris,” he explained. “We have taken an interest in her over the last few years. She is Soekarno’s international broker and buyer. Her boss does not always desire to buy or sell legal items, shall we say. The only common thread is that everything is expensive. Eva only does multi-multi-million dollar deals. Naturally we are always interested in her activities; especially if they involve a former American terrorist who has been seen with the head of Iran’s Special Operations.”

“I’m meeting with her tonight in place of Waters,” Slade told him. “Would you like in on the deal?”

“With pleasure,” Brueget smiled.

A priest came up to them. “Monsieur, if you please, the cardinal would like to see you both.”

They entered the vestibule. The cathedral was still clearing, but as Jean pointed out there were gendarmes and paramilitary officers combing the crowd, looking for anyone else. “If they were here they are already gone,” he said sadly. “They’ve probably joined the demonstration at St. Michelle. Who knows what else these vermin are capable of?”

The priest led them through the gates and then right again through the hallway into the rectory. He knocked on a thick oak door. The door opened a crack and he announced himself. Another priest opened the door the rest of the way and motioned them in.

The cardinal was seated in a tall chair in the reception room. Cradling a goblet of wine, he looked up and smiled. “Sacramental wine,” he admitted. “It’s all we have here, but I think it’s for a worthy cause!”

“I’d have to agree Father.”

“I am Cardinal Martel; you heard me mention my great ancestor Charles — I invoke him especially at these times. It is for good reason it seems.” He stood and held out his hand, taking Slade’s warmly in both of his and shaking very firmly. “Thank you my son for your rescue, not for me, but for all of the people who could have—” he stopped, shaking his head. “Can you imagine how many people would have died, waiting to take Communion? It is deplorable! It is a travesty! Such unrelenting evil and hatred; it is the work of the Devil himself!”

“I couldn’t agree more Father.”

“We must stop this; we cannot allow it,” he continued. “It is one thing to turn the other cheek, but our Lord never intended for us to become lambs for the slaughter. For too long we’ve sat on our heels waiting and hoping for reason. We must act!”

The cardinal got up and paced around his chair, head down, speaking as if ticking off items on a list. “We face unrelenting evil against innocents. We have tried everything, but now we must be responsible for stopping the evil. We have the strength to stop it successfully. Certainly the evil that way do along the way is less than the evil of inaction — yes, we have the responsibility to act!”

He circled around the chair, seemingly at peace with his decision. Smiling, Cardinal Martel patted Jean on the shoulder. “I am told you are American CIA.”

“That’s true,” Slade answered. “I’m in town on other business.”

“We should stay in contact, work together, INTERPOL, your CIA and the Church,” the Cardinal told him emphatically. “More importantly, we should get to know each other. This event cannot have happened for no reason. Providence brings us together.”

They settled on dinner the following day. For Slade, however, the evening was just beginning. He still had dinner with Eva ahead of them.