The Lucifer Gospel

24

The first person to see Aix-les-Bains for what it was worth was probably a Roman centurion on his way into Gaul from Italy to conquer the unruly barbarians. When he mustered out of the army he returned to the pretty lakeside spot, built a pool over the hot springs, called it Aquae Grantianae, and a tradition was born.

Located under the shadow of Mount Revard by the shores of Lake Bourget, the largest body of fresh water in France, the little town of Aix-les-Bains has been soothing the arthritic joints of its wealthy patrons for the last two thousand years. It came into particular favor in the 1880s after a visit from Queen Victoria of England. She decided she liked it so much Her Royal Majesty attempted to buy it from the French government. They graciously declined, then built a casino and a racetrack to further fleece the charming resort’s guests, renaming the hot springs Royale-les-Bains.

Special trains arrived from Paris full of high society who came to paddle on the plage. Steamers churned their way across the English Channel, filled with the straw hat and tennis set intent on wiling away the hot summer months in the refreshing alpine air as wives cheated on husbands, husbands on wives, and best friends on each other while Clara Butt sang “The Keys of Heaven” on the gramophone. It was La Belle Epoque and as with all Йpoques it faded away like an old soldier, the gilt in the ceilings beginning to peel, the marble floors cracking, and the pipes carrying the hot-spring water making a terrible clanking noise and sounding much like the joints of the patrons it had once serviced. The small and ancient town hidden away in the mountains was virtually forgotten, which was exactly why Mr. Liam Alexander Pyx, the document provider, lived there; that and the town’s proximity to his numbered bank accounts less than a hundred miles away in Geneva, Switzerland.

Finn Ryan awoke as the first pink rays of the sun rose over the mountains and craggy hills that marked the edge of the French Alps of the Haute Savoie. Somehow she had made her way to the backseat of the Mercedes somewhere along the way, and Hilts was now sitting in the front with Simpson, who was still behind the wheel.

“Good morning,” the elderly man said brightly as she sat up, blinking and looking around. “Almost there.”

“Where are we?” Finn yawned. She stared out the window. They were on a high mountain road. To the left, banks of heavy forest tilted upward; below, in the reaching light, she could see the geometric outlines of a town nestled at the far end of a long, wide lake.

“Aix-les-Bains,” answered Simpson. A narrow gravel road appeared on the left and Simpson took it, guiding the old Mercedes up between the scruffy pines, the road winding around outcroppings of rock until they reached a broad, flat meadow on a small plateau. Directly ahead of them was a classic French country house right out of Toujours Provence: a rectangular building of old whitewashed stone, a few deep windows and a steep-pitched tile roof. At the end of the lane a roughly constructed carport with a green rippled fiberglass roof sagged against the side of the house. Under it, gleaming in deep, dark blue was a very expensive two-seater Mercedes SLK230.

“Whoever this guy is he must do pretty well for himself,” Hilts said, spotting the car.

“Pretty well indeed,” Simpson agreed. “The war on terrorism declared by President Bush had much the same effect as Woodrow Wilson declaring war on alcohol. It’s always been the same way: one way or the other, war is good for business. There’s a great deal of demand for Liam’s skills these days.”

There was a wooden sign over the door, a name chiseled out in neat letters: LE VIEUX FOUR.

“What does that mean?”

“The Old Kiln,” Simpson translated. The old man pulled the Mercedes in behind the sports car and switched off the engine, the old diesel dying with a shudder and a cough. They climbed out into the cool of the early morning. Hilts and Finn both stretched and yawned. Simpson lit a cigarette. Pyx must have had some kind of early-warning system because he was already waiting at the door, a broad smile on his friendly face. He certainly didn’t look like a forger to Finn. In fact, he looked more like a rock star on vacation than anything else. He was tall, slightly stooped, wearing jeans and a white shirt with the tails hanging out. There were sandals on his bare feet. He had thick tousled, dark hair, two days’ growth of beard, and behind round, slightly tinted glasses a pair of extraordinarily intelligent brown eyes. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties. Finn felt something stirring in the pit of her stomach and forced the feeling back where it belonged. A few hours ago she’d dumped a murdered body under a pile of rubbish, and there were police all over Italy searching for her in connection with another brutal killing. Rock star or not, this was no time for romance.

“Arthur!” Pyx said happily. “Brought me some business, have you? Or just stopping in for a pain au chocolat and a cup of my excellent coffee?” On top of the good looks he had an Irish accent like Colin Farrell.

“Business actually, but I don’t think we’d turn down pastry and coffee.” He turned to Finn and Hilts. “Would we?” He introduced them, one after the other, and Pyx stood aside and ushered them into his kitchen. It was relentlessly low-tech with the exception of a bright red Gaggia espresso machine making hissing, steaming noises on a simple plank countertop that looked as old as the house. The floor was dark flagstone, the ceiling plaster and exposed oak beams, the walls whitewashed stone. There was an ancient refrigerator, a freestanding pantry, a separate oven and a large, professional-looking set of gas burners. Herbs hung from nails, copper-bottom pots and cast-iron frying pans hung from the beams, and early-morning sunlight poured in through a single, multipaned window with rippled old glass set into the wall beside the grill. Outside Finn could hear birds chirping. At any other time it would have been an idyllic moment in the country; right now it was edged with fear, worry, and terror. Pyx sat them down at a yellow pine kitchen table in the middle of the room, brought out a plate of warm and aromatic chocolate croissants from the pantry, and busied himself at the exotic-looking coffeemaker for a moment, making them each a large foaming cup of cappuccino, which he then brought to the table. He sat down himself, dunked one end of a croissant into his coffee, and took a bite of the soggy pastry. Finn did the same. There was so much butter used in the flaky crust that it really did seem to melt in her mouth.

“So,” said Pyx, “you don’t look like the kind of people Arthur here usually brings to me, but I’ve learned that appearances can be deceiving.”

“Passports,” said Simpson. “And all the other paraphernalia.”

“Talk to me,” said Pyx, turning to Finn.

“What do you mean?”

“Say something-Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to see if you have an accent.”

“I don’t.”

“Depends on your point of view. In Castleknock I wouldn’t have an accent, but here I do. Speak.”

Finn did as she was told.

“Columbus, Ohio,” Pyx said and nodded. Finn stared.

“How did you know that?”

“Vast experience,” he said, grinning. “It’s what I do.” Pyx turned to Hilts. “Now you,” he said. “Same thing.” Hilts grudgingly repeated the line of doggerel.

“Born in Florida, either Tallahassee or St. Petersburg, but you’ve spent a lot of time in New York, right?”

“Close enough.” The photographer seemed mildly irritated that Pyx had gotten it right. If Finn hadn’t known better she’d have thought Hilts was jealous, but that was ridiculous.

“Neither of you have an accent that anyone’s going to be able to pick up unless they’re an expert, which most U.S. passport control officers aren’t. We’ll make you Canadians. Either of you done much traveling there?”

“I’ve been to Toronto a few times, and Montreal,” said Finn.

Pyx turned to Hilts. “You?”

“Same.”

“Ontario then. Easy. They’ve got simple birth certificates and driver’s license. You’ll have to have a health card as well.”

“Health card?”

“It’s free. Ontario government. Very efficient about having the cards, and for some sort of privacy act reason they’re not allowed to cross-index the databases between the bureaucracies. Good photo ID. I can do the health card, the driver’s license, and the birth certificate right here.”

Finn didn’t understand a word of what the man was saying.

“The passports,” Simpson prodded.

“Even simpler.” Pyx smiled. “But first the photographs.” He stood up and led the way to the rear of the house. They turned into an L-shaped hallway lined with bookcases leading to the bedroom, but instead of moving on Pyx stopped at the turn of the L and pulled out a volume from the bookcase. There was a faint clicking sound and the bookcase swung open on a completely invisible hinge.

“Open sesame,” said Pyx, and stood aside to let them enter. He followed and shut the bookcase doorway behind them. Finn looked around the secret room. It was large, fifteen feet on a side and windowless. Work counters ran around three walls with built-in shelves above. There were dozens of neatly labeled binders on the shelves, color-coded, and in one corner was an array of half a dozen large flat-screen monitors. Beneath the monitors on steel racks was a row of featureless black computer servers, each one with a blinking green light on its front surface. The counters were loaded with an array of peripherals, from large flatbed scanners to photo light tables and several very professional-looking color printers and photo printers. Along the far wall was a complex three-screen Lightworks computer editing console for motion pictures.

“You’re awfully free with your secrets,” said Hilts. “We could have been cops.”

“You’re not,” said Pyx. “Arthur would have killed you by now if you had been. He also let me know you were coming, and if he hadn’t I would have known about it from the moment you turned off the main road.” He smiled, clearly taking no offense at Hilts’s comment. “And I wouldn’t have greeted you with coffee and croissants, believe me.” He shrugged and nodded toward the Lightworks console. “Besides, I have a perfectly valid film editing enterprise going on. There’s nothing here that’s particularly incriminating except on the drives, and I can dump data faster than any copper could ever get into this room.”

Hilts frowned. “I didn’t see him call you.”

“He text messaged me from Modane. I gather you had a little trouble there.”

“Some.” Hilts’s attention was suddenly drawn to a large camera mounted on a professional tripod against the wall, facing the bookcase doorway. “That’s a Cambo Wide DS with a Schneider 35mm f/5.6 XL Digitar lens, and a Phase One P25 medium format back.” His eyes widened. “That’s what, thirty grand?”

“More like thirty-five,” said Pyx. “Just about the most expensive point-and-shoot you can buy.”

“I’d hardly call it point-and-shoot,” said Hilts.

To Finn it looked like a fat lens attached to a big, flat, square piece of metal. It didn’t really look like a camera at all.

“It’s in line with the digitizing equipment governments use,” said Pyx. “Which is how they make passports now, at least in the United States and Canada. It’s supposed to be foolproof. Instead of photographs being glued and laminated, they’re digitized, then thermal printed right onto the page.”

“Must make your job harder,” Hilts said.

“Much easier, as a matter of fact.” He gestured toward the back of the bookcase door. It was painted a neutral off-white and a pair of low-level lights placed high on either side of the doorway effectively washed out any shadow. “Stand there, would you?” he asked. Hilts positioned himself against the doorway. “Head up, no smile, mouth closed,” he instructed. There was a snapping sound and a bright flash and Finn realized the lights on either side of the door were photographic strobes. “Now step away and let Miss Ryan take your place.” Hilts moved and Finn stood against the door. Pyx adjusted the tripod down to compensate for the difference in their heights and the strobes flared again. “Great,” Pyx said and nodded. He took the flash card out of the camera, slipped it into a special drive unit beside one of the flat screens, then typed a set of instructions into the computer. “Any name preferences?”

“No,” said Hilts.

“Me neither,” agreed Finn.

“Okay, you’ll be uh… Norman Page, and Miss Ryan will be Allison Mackenzie, how’s that?”

“Whatever.” Hilts shrugged.

“Fine,” said Finn.

“Good Lord,” Simpson said and laughed. “Do I detect a literary allusion?”

“Hardly literary,” Pyx said with a smile.

“I don’t get it,” said Finn.

“Of course not, dear, you’re far too young.”

Pyx went back to the keyboard and started typing again. “Place of birth, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, date… 1981 or so, mother’s maiden name… father… documents provided… guarantor.” He typed on, humming under his breath, and finished the online form a few moments later. “Next thing is the routing, so it doesn’t come back to me here,” he explained. “First I grab an appropriate Canadian consulate… Albania, say, and put in their address as a point of origin.” He read it off the screen, “Rruga, Dervish Hima, Kulla, number two, apartment twenty-two, Tirana, Albania, telephone number 355 (4) 257274/ 257275, fax number 355 (4) 257273, and finally the packet switching code.” He finished typing with a flourish.

“What does all this accomplish?” Hilts asked.

“This will tell the Passport Office computer in Ottawa that Mr. Norman Page and Miss Allison Mackenzie, both presently in Paris, France, which is the closest actual passport-issuing office in the area, are renewing their passports, and have in fact already done so. It is telling the computer that the new passports are actually waiting at the embassy in Paris. Meanwhile a different set of instructions has been sent to new files along with a request for a JPEG digitization of two new passport pictures. Everything gets backdated by a few days, the passports get printed during today’s run, and they’ll be ready and waiting for you when you get to the embassy. Show them the birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and Social Insurance Numbers I’ll provide you with and they’ll provide you with two perfectly authentic Canadian passports, hot off the press, orchestrated by yours truly. If one of their forensics electronic people tried to reverse-analyze the transaction, it will dead-end at the Albanian consulate, which is probably located in a dirty little hole-in-the-wall office above whatever passes for a convenience store in Tirana. It’s a little convoluted, but it’s a perfect hole in the system. Bust into their own database, they assume that the instructions are their own and thus legitimate and authorized. Hasn’t failed me yet.”

“Don’t you mean Social Security Numbers?” Hilts asked.

“Don’t make that mistake at the embassy in Paris if anybody happens to question you, which they won’t. Social Security is American, Social Insurance is Canadian.”

“But we’re not going to Paris,” Finn argued.

“Oh yes you are,” said Arthur Simpson.

“What about Lausanne?”

“The man you’re looking for doesn’t live there anymore.” He paused. “In fact, the man you’re looking for has been dead since Thursday, September eight, 1960, at eleven twenty-two p.m.”

“Awfully precise,” commented Hilts dryly.

“That’s when the ship went down,” said Simpson. “Let’s finish up with Liam and then I’ll tell you all about it.” Which he did.