The Shroud of Heaven

Sixteen

He spied them as they entered the terminal building and quickly ducked into a place of concealment until they passed. “Nick Kismet,” he whispered, staring at the receding figures. “There is a God.”

He began to follow, maintaining a casual pace so as not to attract unnecessary attention. The pair moved with no particular haste into the duty-free area. He found a telephone kiosk where he could continue his surveillance and waited for them to emerge. As he waited, he considered what his next move would be.

The woman — he didn’t know who she was, and didn’t really care — was Caucasian, but had dressed in an elegant but modest dress with a matching head scarf, and from a distance was almost indistinguishable from the handful of Arab women who also roamed the vast facility. Kismet’s attire was similarly nondescript. He wore a simple suit and might have passed for a visiting oilman or journalist, but for the bandages swathing his hands.

After browsing the duty-free shops but making no purchases, the pair moved back toward the heart of the airport complex. Their unnoticed observer followed, gradually closing the distance as contemplation fanned his smoldering rage into a blaze of indignation.

They purchased food from one of the concessions and moved to a table in the center of the seating area, as if intentionally seeking the protection of open space. He bought a soft drink and took a seat in the corner, facing the departure gates, with his back to them. Their voices were sometimes audible, and while he couldn’t make out their conversation, one word emerged from the ambient hum: Paris.

Leaving his half-empty cup on the table, he moved into the terminal to make new travel arrangements.

The desert fell away beneath the fuselage of the Kuwait Airways Boeing 737–306, and with it, Nick Kismet felt the macabre gravity of the place loosening its grip on his soul. For a second time, this desolate place had tried to kill him, and while he had once more eluded the Reaper’s grasp, he was nevertheless marked by the encounters with scars that ran much deeper than the damage to his flesh.

Chiron’s treachery remained an open wound in his heart. He could not help but revisit his memories of each and every encounter with the old Frenchman, from that first meeting on the bank of the River Gave to their reunion in the Baghdad Airport, wondering if it had all been a deception leading to this end. The Frenchman had always presented himself as a pacifist rather than a patriot. It seemed almost inconceivable that he had been some sort of agent provocateur, awaiting the orders that would lull him from clandestine sleep to commit acts of sabotage in the interests of French national security. No, it was far more likely that his motives were immediate in nature. His alliance with the DGSE had to be more a marriage of convenience than a mating of sympathetic ideologies. But how had the scientist profited from the cover-up?

He glanced at Marie, seated beside him and evidently napping, and wondered if Chiron’s executive assistant held some piece of the information that would further illuminate the puzzle. For reasons other than courtesy, he decided not to rouse her.

Though he had not yet revealed it to her, he was apprehensive about confronting Chiron on French soil. He had little doubt that the authorization for the mission to destroy the detonators had come from the highest levels of government. Eliminating any witnesses to existence of those weapons and their fate would be imperative to national security. There was a very real possibility that the DGSE would simply make Kismet and Marie disappear.

As the flight crew began the drink service in the steerage class, Kismet rose and made his way toward the commode, more out of a desire to keep moving than any real need to use the facilities. A week of living on little more than adrenaline had left him almost perpetually on edge. If the claustrophobic confines of the plane, with its dry recycled air and pervasive humming machinery, offered little solace, the tiny restroom, barely bigger than a coffin, promised none at all. Nevertheless, he moved inside and gently eased the bi-fold doors closed.

Suddenly the door burst open and someone pushed inside. The intruder’s shoulder slammed into his back and forced him against the bulkhead. The commode platform struck him just below the knees and knocked his feet out from beneath him. Before Kismet could move, a hand snaked over his shoulder and snared his right wrist. His arm was pulled up across his throat and his assailant’s forearm pressed into the back of his neck to form an almost unbreakable chokehold. Kismet rammed backward with his left elbow, but the blow glanced ineffectually against the man’s torso, while the pressure against his airway doubled. Dark spots started to swim across his vision. The unseen attacker had, with almost minimal effort, rendered him completely helpless.

Then, mercifully, the death grip relaxed, if only by the merest fraction. He felt hot breath on his neck, and through the ringing in his ears, heard a voice low and harsh. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

Through his growing panic, Kismet felt a pang of disbelief. He recognized the voice; he knew the attacker. From the corner of his eye, he could just make out the image of the man who held him, reflected in the stainless steel mirror mounted above the lavatory. Despite the civilian attire, he had no difficulty identifying the man. “Buttrick?”

“Good men died because of you, Kismet,” rasped the Colonel. “Those boys would still be alive if I hadn’t let you talk me into that damn fool mission. They were my responsibility, but their blood is on your hands.”

“You know that’s not true.” He barely had the breath to form the words.

There was an interminable silence, as if Buttrick was weighing the merit of his argument, then the pressure returned. “Not good enough.”

“Wait!” Kismet’s plea was choked, but a moment later Buttrick relented again, allowing him to speak. “We’re after the same thing: the person who’s really to blame for what happened. Believe me, I’ve got a lot more reason to want revenge than you. But if that’s not good enough, then how’s this: Let me go, or you’ll spend the rest of your life singing soprano.”

Buttrick glanced down and saw a weapon — a polycarbonate knife — pressed into his groin. The composite of man-made polymers and glass fibers was marketed and sold as a letter opener but had been designed with a somewhat more nefarious purpose in mind: the non-metallic blade was invisible to airport metal detectors. Though he had been compelled to check both his kukri and his sturdy Emerson CQC7 folding knife with his luggage, Kismet always kept the polycarbonate knife clipped to his waistband whenever he traveled by air. Until this moment, he had in fact never used it for anything more illicit than opening his mail. He pushed the blade just hard enough for the other man to feel the point through the fabric of his trousers.

But Buttrick did not immediately relent. “Are you saying that you know who was behind the attack at the museum?”

“Yes. I can’t tell you everything. Hell, I don’t even know all of it myself. But if you want to find the people responsible, then you’ll have to trust me.”

Buttrick resignedly let go of Kismet’s wrist and took a step back. The two men regarded each other warily for a moment until, as if by some telepathic signal, they both started to laugh. Kismet lowered the blade and leaned against the counter. “Maybe we should finish this conversation somewhere else. If we stay in here much longer, people will talk.”

The debacle that had culminated in the riot at Iraq’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier had left Lt. Col. Jonathan Buttrick with a separated right shoulder, two loose teeth, an unknown number of fractured ribs, and more bruises than he could possibly count. The physical injuries would heal in time, but the wound to his career as a military officer was mortal. Despite the unpredictable vagaries of war and the inescapable truth that combat leads to losses of both men and equipment, the United States Army always demanded an accounting, and a summary review of that day’s events faulted Buttrick for the loss of three soldiers, the destruction of four HMMWVs, an incalculable amount of damage to civilian property, and a diplomatic black eye that would not quickly fade. Pending further action, the injured officer was ordered to return Stateside to join the rear detachment of his battalion, knowing full well that his premature retirement would follow as a matter of course.

It was understandable, therefore, that Buttrick upon glimpsing Kismet, the perceived cause of all his woes, could think of nothing but payback. Deep down, however, he knew better. Kismet had done nothing more than ask for a ride to a particular location. The blame for everything that followed fell squarely upon the enemy. But until he confronted Kismet, it had never occurred to him that the persons responsible had nothing to do with the war currently being prosecuted in Iraq.

Buttrick took the keys from the car rental agent and moved toward a waiting silver Mercedes E220 CDI. It was a nicer ride than he would normally have chosen, but since Kismet was picking up the tab, there seemed no reason not to indulge. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine. His right shoulder still ached, but the Mercedes had an automatic transmission and cruise control, so it practically drove itself. He pulled away from the rental lot and wended back toward the “arrivals” area of Terminal 1 at the Charles De Gaulle International Airport. Kismet and Marie were waiting on the sidewalk with their luggage.

As Kismet stowed their bags in the trunk, Buttrick appraised the woman. She had removed her head covering, allowing her dark hair to fall free and frame her angular face. Kismet had made introductions on the plane, where Buttrick had found the woman to be aloof, almost unlikable. But he couldn’t deny that she was a feast for the eyes. Leave it to Kismet to find a woman like that in the middle of a war zone. He shook his head. “Lucky bastard.”

Kismet rode shotgun while Marie had the back seat to herself. Driving through the Parisian streets was a right Buttrick had demanded at the outset, though of the three, he was least familiar with the French capital city. For some reason, he just didn’t trust Kismet behind the wheel.

Marie guided them along the major thoroughfares between the airport and the UNESCO headquarters complex on Place de Fontenoy. The Fontenoy complex consisted of four structures of varying design, ranging from the outlandish Y-shaped main building to the almost mundane four-story cube where the Global Heritage Commission offices were located. Construction of the scientific and cultural agency’s headquarters had commenced in the 1950s and despite the political infighting that had led to the Unites States’ withdrawal in the 1980s, few could debate that the physical presence of UNESCO was a marvelous testament to the spirit of humanity. Elaborate works of art decorated the grounds, including magnificent sculptures and paintings on the walls of the various structures. Kismet had always been captivated by one in particular: a mural, measuring almost thirty meters square, of dark red on plaster by Mexico’s Rufino Tamayo entitled Prometheus Bringing Fire to Mankind.

Leaving the Mercedes parked on the street, the trio made their way along the broad Piazza into the complex. Off to the right, The Symbolic Globe, an enormous illuminated spherical sculpture situated above the six sunken patios collectively identified as Building Four, glowed like a beacon, but their destination lay in the other direction. Passing under the elevated structure of the main building, they moved to the secure entrance of Building Three. Marie signed in at the desk and used her key card to access the elevator.

Chiron’s office looked like a museum exhibit: a lifeless facsimile of a workspace. Though relatively small, the room was well-appointed, with deep burgundy carpet and cherry wood bookcases on either side. A matching desk was situated at the far end of the room, facing a picture window that looked out across the city. The unmistakable spire of the Eiffel Tower, limned in electric lights, was almost perfectly centered in the frame. The arrangement struck Kismet as odd. A person entering the office would have immediately found himself looking at the back of Chiron’s chair with the Tower rising from the backrest. It had been a while since he had visited the headquarters of his organization, but he had no memory of the office. The glare of the interior lights on the windowpane obliterated the view and Kismet struck it from his mind as he pushed the chair away and sat at his former mentor’s desk.

“So what are we looking for?” inquired Buttrick. The Army officer was casually examining titles in the bookcase.

Marie had asked a similar question during the convoy ride to Kuwait City, and Kismet had given her the same answer he now gave his new ally. “I’ll know when I find it.” Of course, Buttrick didn’t know about the nuclear detonators or the French mission to destroy them, the only that Chiron had left Kismet and Marie to die in the desert, so he hastily added: “Look for anything that doesn’t seem to fit.”

The drawers of the magnificent desk held neatly sorted documents and a scattering of supplies, but like the room itself, seemed almost staged. It made sense that the Frenchman would have put everything in order prior to leaving for Iraq; he would not have known in advance how long he would be away. Still, something about the tableau struck him as wrong. The room bore the signs of routine cleaning — the surfaces were dust free and the carpet showed a pattern of straight lines from careful vacuuming — but otherwise there was no indication that anyone had been in the room for some time. It’s like he’s ready to turn over the key. Or…

Marie appeared in the doorway. “I checked the security logs. He hasn’t come here yet.”

Kismet stood. “He isn’t going to. Whatever Pierre is up to, he’s done here. And so are we.”

On the slopes of Montmartre, Pierre Chiron looked out across the glittering city. His gaze was riveted upon a point less than five kilometers distant. Behind him, a navy blue Volkswagen Caravelle minibus stood in stark contrast to the chiseled marble grave markers that decorated the Cimetière du Montmartre. The brilliant white dome of the Basilique du Sacré Coeur rose from the crest of the hill like a second moon, reaching for the night sky.

If Chiron had appeared frail to Kismet on the occasion of their reunion, then he was positively a ghost of his former self now. He was thin, having eaten almost nothing since escaping the crumbling tunnels beneath the Babylonian palace, and his flesh was pallid, as if the sun had bleached rather than bronzed his skin. The hollowness in his eyes had deepened, partly because of his lack of appetite, partly because of the hunger in his soul. After a moment of contemplating his final objective, he turned away and moved into the cemetery.

Collette was here, or rather, all that remained of her. He had laid her to rest in the sanctified ground, not to honor her dying wishes or the tenets of her faith, but because his family owned a plot and, should things go wrong this night, his arrangements for his own disposition stipulated that he should be laid here as well, once more at her side. Not that it mattered.

Ashes to ashes…

There was no afterlife, no heaven in which he would find a place in her arms. She was not gazing down upon him, longing for that much delayed rendezvous. She was simply gone.

And if I’m wrong?

But he wasn’t wrong. Because if he was, she would have reached out to him and stayed his hand at the moment in which he had taken the life of the man they both had thought of as their son. If the God to whom she had prayed even in the final hours of her life really existed, He would have sent her, as He sent the angel to Abraham to rescue Isaac from the slaughtering knife. No, there was no longer any doubt in his mind. The entity behind the veil of heaven was no omnipotent, omniscient benefactor, but only a hazy amalgam of humanity’s unconscious superstitions, given life by the awesome unrecognized power of the planet’s magnetic field.

Chiron had been raised in a house divided. His mother, like the woman he had eventually taken as his wife, was a devout believer, while his father, nominally a Roman Catholic, had been a man devoted to secular wisdom. Following the end of the German occupation, the elder Chiron had pushed his son to pursue a life of culture and learning, and the young man’s fascination with both the unrealized potential of atomic power and its horrifying utilization as a weapon, had given him the focus to become both a nuclear scientist and outspoken opponent of weapons proliferation. He now realized that, in his own way, he had been searching for faith as surely as the women in his life. His scriptures were the equations of Einstein, Fermi and Oppenheimer, and in those cryptic texts, he had found the power of God.

And yet, for all that he knew this to be true, here he was at Collette’s grave and standing in the shadow of the cathedral where she and thousands of others had come to pray; Sacré Coeur — the Sacred Heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing that she would understand where further words failed him, knowing that she no longer existed save as a memory in his own fractured conscience, knowing even that his apology was not entirely directed at the ghost of his wife. He was also speaking to the presence ostensibly occupying the grand structure atop the Butte Montmartre. In that respect at least, he was heard.

“We’re being followed,” Kismet announced as the Mercedes raced along the Rue Royale. “I noticed him on the bridge. Everyone else is whizzing by us like we don’t belong here.”

Buttrick glanced in the mirror, then over his shoulder. Rather than comment, he quickly signaled and made a right turn at the next intersection. A pair of headlights, which had maintained a constant distance behind them, made a similarly hasty course change.

“Not too subtle about it,” the officer observed. He made another right, onto the Rue Cambon and the trailing vehicle followed suit. “What do you want me to do?”

“I have to take a look at Pierre’s flat,” Kismet answered, “but there’s no reason we have to let our shadow know that.”

“What are you proposing?” asked Marie.

“We split up. Next time we make a turn, slow down long enough for me to jump out. There’s a Metro stop not too far from Pierre’s building. I should be able to get there and start searching the place in about half an hour. Meanwhile, you can take our friend back there on a scenic tour of the city. After that, go to your place, Marie, and wait for me to call.”

“And what if this guy decides to do more than just tail us?”

Kismet met Buttrick’s stare. “Do what you can. If I can’t reach you at Marie’s, I’ll know something came up. Leave a message for me at UNESCO if you can.”

Marie scribbled her phone number on a torn scrap of paper and gave it to him, along with a quick kiss. “Good luck.”

Buttrick whipped the Mercedes left onto a narrow side street then took the first right onto an unmarked but short street and pumped the brakes. When the car slowed to a mere 20 kilometers per hour, Kismet opened the door and rolled from the passenger seat onto the pavement. The impact exacerbated latent aches in his extremities, but he pushed through the agony and scrambled for cover behind a trash receptacle. The engine of the rental car revved loudly in the confined area as Buttrick hastened away, and no sooner had the Mercedes turned the corner at the far end, when twin spots of brilliance appeared at the other. A rust-colored sedan, moving too fast for him to identify make or model, raced down the cramped street and exited onto the main thoroughfare, all within the space of a few seconds.

He lingered in the shadows of alley a moment, searching for signs of a second trailing vehicle. Typically, intelligence and police agencies trying to maintain contact with a mobile suspect would employ as many as four different automobiles in constant radio contact, to avoid the kind of amateurish mistakes that had alerted Kismet to the presence of the tail. But with no other vehicles in evidence, he rose from his hiding place and moved in the same direction the other cars had gone.

The street opened onto the Rue de Rivoli, which ran along the northern edge of the Jardin des Tuileries. The extensive garden was just a part of the large city park which included such famous Parisian landmarks as the Arc de Triomphe and the Musée du Louvre. Traffic on the boulevard was constant and steady; if there was a backup surveillance vehicle, it had already moved on. This revelation prompted Kismet to eschew his stated plan to use the transit system in favor of a more straightforward means of transportation. He flagged down a passing taxi and in flawless French, gave the driver Chiron’s address.

The building, located on an insignificant thoroughfare which connected the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch, was just as Kismet remembered. No lights burned on the top floor of the three-story house, the floor where Pierre and Collette Chiron had lived most of their married life together in a two-bedroom apartment. Kismet had once asked why the aging couple had not retired to the country, and sensed in the answer that he had unwittingly aggravated an old wound. It had always been their intention to leave the urban environment in order to raise their children, and since fate had not deigned to grant them that fondest wish, there had been no reason to leave. Shaking off the bittersweet memory, Kismet scanned the area looking for anything out of place, then moved inside.

The interior of the apartment building was quiet. A single incandescent bulb depending from the ceiling of each landing provided the only illumination and the only evidence that the structure was in fact occupied at all. Kismet saw no indication that anyone was in the building as he crept up the stairs to Chiron’s threshold.

With a grimace, he unleashed a kick to a point above the latching mechanism. The door burst inward with a noise that seemed, in the stillness, like a gunshot, but if anyone on the second floor heard, they elected not to investigate. He quickly moved inside and closed the door. After a moment of fumbled searching, he found the light switch. Even before his eyes could adjust, he knew something was wrong.

There were four of them, all dressed in black, looking very much like they had in the laboratory complex. Their guns were the same also, and without exception, were fixed on him. “Damn.”

Rebecca Gault stalked forward, her gun sight never wavering. “Kismet? You’re the last person I expected to see here.”

Her incredulity caught him off guard. If they’re not waiting for me…?

“I might say the same thing,” he said, hiding his surprise. He looked past the barrel of the Steyr TMP 9 mm in her hands and stared directly into her eyes. The irises were a remarkable shade of green, something he had failed to notice during their previous encounters. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

She didn’t respond, and he took a moment to glance at the dour expressions of her comrades before continuing. “You’ve seen me naked.”

Rebecca’s stony mask did not slip, but when one of her men made a rude comment in their shared tongue, she silenced him with a look as lethal as a guillotine. When her gaze returned to Kismet, he saw a glimmer of humor in her eyes. “That was professional. I was your doctor.”

“You’re no doctor. The real Dr. Gault is still in Switzerland.”

“That may be true, but I am nevertheless a physician, Monsieur Kismet.” The gun came up again. “Where’s Chiron?”

“What makes you think I would know? He left us to die in that hole. That was the plan all along, wasn’t it, Doc? No witnesses?” He took her silence as confirmation, and it occurred to him that the death warrant was probably still in effect. Working up his best poker face, he continued. “Well I’ve got news for you. I’ve already told the UN and the US State department. When the sun rises tomorrow, the whole world is going to know about your dirty deals with Saddam Hussein.”

Rebecca’s nostrils flared angrily, but she surprised him by lowering her gun again. “I’m afraid that’s the least of my worries right now.”

Suddenly he understood. “Pierre double-crossed you too, didn’t he?”

“If you know where he is, Monsieur Kismet…” Her tone was more pleading than demanding, and that was sufficiently out of character for her that Kismet felt a whisper of uneasiness.

“What’s really going on here? What’s Pierre done that has you so freaked out?”

She glanced at her comrades as if uncertain what she should say in front of them, then stepped closer to him. “Seven hours ago, Pierre Chiron visited an IAEA facility in Geneva. A nuclear storage facility. After he left, a routine inspection revealed that a small amount of weapon’s grade plutonium was missing.”

“He just walked in and took nuclear fuel?”

“His credentials allow him to conduct research. He’s been there before on several occasions.” She tilted her head to look up at him, to hold his gaze with her own. “He took something from the cave. He claimed it was a relic from an ancient civilization. It was the price of his cooperation. Do you know what is was?”

“Relic?” Had Pierre actually found the Staff of Moses? But then why would he need… “Plutonium. How much?”

“Enough. Six kilograms. Among other things, the facility was storing the cores from decommissioned Soviet SS-18s.”

“Did you count the detonators before you blew up that weapons lab?”

“Of course. I checked their serial numbers. All three detonators were accounted for.”

Kismet shook his head with a grimace. “There was another detonator. One the Iraqis were building based on the same design.”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Of course not. Pierre had it wrapped up in a courier bag. You helped him get it out of there. And now he can arm it.”

He could tell from her expression that she already knew this to be true. “You have known him longer than anyone. What will he do with it? Sell it?”

“That doesn’t sound like Pierre.” As soon as he said it, he realized the flaw in her statement. Though he had been acquainted with Chiron for nearly a decade, it was now very apparent that he really didn’t know the man at all. “He’s obviously been planning this for a while.”

Rebecca nodded. “He approached the Directorate almost eight months ago.”

“But he couldn’t have known that our search would turn up the lab.” Kismet was thinking aloud now, rather than responding to the intelligence agent’s comments. He closed his eyes, trying to remember what had been said during the survey of the Esagilia. He remembered only his incredulity at Chiron’s wild theories about Moses and Solomon. But he was so sincere. If he wanted to dupe me, why would he have concocted such a wild story? “Maybe there’s something here that could tell us. Have you searched the place?”

“We made a cursory search of his papers. If he has a safe, we have not located it.”

He pushed past her, heedless of the machine pistols still trained on him, and moved through the familiar environs of Chiron’s flat. Little had changed since his last visit, but here too he saw the careful orderliness that had distinguished the Frenchman’s office at the UNESCO headquarters. Chiron had squared everything away as if closing shop for the last time. With the decision to embark into the wilderness, he had left his old life behind forever.

Rebecca was right behind him as he entered Chiron’s library. The area had always been the old man’s second office, and in addition to the wealth of published knowledge lining the bookshelves, he had a personal computer equipped with a high-speed Internet connection, which at present was displaying a screen saver program with a slide show of famous paintings.

“Do you know his password?” Rebecca asked as he sat down in front of the keyboard.

He shook his head, but nevertheless tapped the spacebar to banish the screen saver and bring up the security prompt. He stared at it thoughtfully, his fingers hovering above the keys.

Rebecca took out a cell phone. “I’ll send for a computer expert. We should be able to break this—”

Kismet tapped out eight letters: C-O-L–L-E-T-T-E. The password window vanished to be replaced by a graphic desktop display featuring Picasso’s Fall of Icarus. It was, he knew, one of the large murals adorning Building Three of the Fontenoy campus. Rebecca fell silent at his shoulder and continued watching as he began randomly opening files and exploring Chiron’s history of browsing the World Wide Web. A file folder titled “Geomancy” caught his eye.

“What is that?” she asked as the hard drive began whirring to locate the relevant data.

“Earth magic. It’s the belief that the planet itself has power which can be tapped for…well, whatever a person wants, I suppose. The Chinese still practice a form of it today: Feng Shui. It was the driving force behind most Pagan religions as well, Wicca, Druidism, and so forth.” He trailed off as the cathode ray tube began displaying lines of text. The folder marked “Geomancy” was a journal of Chiron’s musings and revelations on the subject.

Before attempting to decipher and digest the information, Kismet checked his watch. Almost twenty minutes had elapsed since his separation from Marie and Buttrick. It was almost time to make contact. Then the irony of his situation hit home. He had left them in order to throw off pursuit, and in so doing had walked right into the web of the woman he most believed to be his enemy, only to forge a tacit truce in pursuit of a greater need.

But who had been following them?

“You know,” he said, half turning to Rebecca. “There is something you could do for me.”

With Marie’s guidance, Buttrick expertly navigated the boulevards of Paris, running a gauntlet of traffic signals and fearless French drivers from one end of the city to the other. The sedan pursuing them made a valiant effort to keep up, but without even trying, Buttrick managed to lose them somewhere along the way. After another five minutes of observing the flow of traffic around them, Marie confirmed that they had lost their shadow. A few minutes after that, they pulled over in front of her apartment building.

The excitement of the chase was like a tonic to the Army officer. He had no idea who their pursuer had been and didn’t really care. It had been enough for him to have an opponent against whom to pit his talent and wit. The company wasn’t too bad either.

Marie had opened up more and more during their ride together, and when she finally guided him into her tastefully decorated flat, it felt as natural as a visit to an old friend. She directed him to a seat at the breakfast bar and began preparing a light snack for them to share.

“How long have you known him?” she inquired, taking a seat beside him.

“You mean Nick? We’ve only just met.”

She raised an eyebrow in obvious surprise. “I had no idea. You two seem to have a genuine rapport.”

“Well, you should have seen us earlier,” he answered with a grin. “How about you?”

Marie touched her fingers to her chest in a quizzical gesture. “Me? I too have only known Nick a short time. In fact, I had only just met him at the airport when we came under attack.”

It was Buttrick’s turn for surprise. “I just assumed that since you both work for… You are a… I mean, together, right?”

She gave a coquettish smile. “Nick is very brave and charismatic. Given the circumstances, I suppose it was inevitable that we would…” She shook her head as if trying to dismiss a bothersome notion. “Who can say what the future holds? Nick will return to New York, I will stay here.”

For some reason, Buttrick was suddenly in a very good mood, but before he could respond, Marie let her smile slip and put on a serious mask. “There is one thing that has troubled me. Nick told me that, when he was attacked that day at the museum, the assassin indicated he was under orders not to kill him. He was specifically told not to be the cause of Kismet’s death. How can that be?”

The mere mention of the museum incident had instantly soured Buttrick’s euphoria, but it took a moment for the precipitation from that dark cloud to actually soak in. “Hold on. Are you suggesting they were in cahoots?”

“No,” she answered, earnestly. “I don’t see how that could be possible. I mean if that were true, why would Nick reveal what was said? There has to be another explanation. There’s something about Nick that makes him very important to his enemies. I thought you might have some insight to that.”

“Do you think it could have something to do with his military service?” Wheels began turning in his head. He checked his watch. “It’s still afternoon in Washington. I know someone who might be able to help. Can I use your phone?”

Although vehicle traffic to the area was restricted, Chiron managed to thread the minibus through the barricades and drove right to the edge of the structure he thought of only as “le observatoire”. Despite the lateness of the hour, the area was crowded with tourists and it took a few moments for park security personnel and the gendarmes to reach him. As they got close, they wisely assumed defensive positions and those few equipped with handguns covered one of their comrades who cautiously approached him. Chiron rolled down his window.

“Monsieur, you must get out of the vehicle.”

Chiron did not attempt subterfuge. He slowly raised his hands, openly displaying the remote. “This is the trigger for a very large explosive device. If I let go, it will detonate.”

The gendarme blanched, but did not retreat. Chiron could almost see the wheels turning in his head — the blank look as he searched his memory to find the correct response for the scenario. The paralysis was contagious. Chiron knew that if he did not keep moving, if he got stalled here on the ground, it would all be for naught.

“Young man!” he snapped. “You are wasting time and endangering lives. It is not your job to negotiate with me. Evacuate the area, or the blood of all these people will be on your hands.”

His words galvanized the policeman into action. The man hastened away without comment and began conversing with his peers. Chiron kept his hands up, careful to hold the remote in their view. Beyond their perimeter, rumors were already beginning to surface and he could hear the shouts of panic welling up from the group. Even before the security guards could sound an alarm, the stampede began.

With a heavy sigh, recognizing that he was now irretrievably committed to his chosen course, Chiron opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. He heard the young gendarme he had spoken with shouting for the others to hold their fire, but did not look to see the result. If even one of them unthinkingly loosed a shot, they would realize that the object in his hand was nothing more than the remote control unit for a television set. He had contemplated actually arming the device, but there was too much risk associated with a wireless remote. All it would take was a cell phone or garage door opener randomly hitting the same frequency to set the weapon off prematurely. There would be plenty of time to arm the detonator once he reached his ultimate goal. His bluff worked and the discipline of the gendarmes held. No shots were fired. Chiron moved to the rear of the Caravelle and opened the door.

For all the technical complexities of the device and his plans for it, the thing that had stymied him almost to point of failure was the physical difficulty of moving the bomb the final distance. Although it was not yet armed, in order for his deception to be convincing, he could not let go of his decoy control for even a moment. He was faced with the logistical dilemma of moving the detonator, which weighed almost as much as he did, one handed. The answer had occurred to him only recently, while watching a hospital drama on television: a medical stretcher with spring-loaded collapsible wheels. It now took only a minimum of effort for him to draw the mobile gurney from the spacious interior of the minibus, and as soon as the undercarriage was exposed, the accordion-like wheel assembly deployed with the suddenness of a trap being sprung. The multi-directional rollers glided along on the concrete surface as if there was no burden at all.

Why then, thought Chiron as he began the long walk toward his destination, does it suddenly feel like the heaviest thing in the world?

Seventeen

The suggested connection between the 1995 French atomic tests and the worldwide increase in volcanic activity was just the beginning for Chiron. He had discovered an area of science — or rather fringe science — dedicated to the study of just such a phenomenon, linked not surprisingly to the theories, both actual and suggested, of radio pioneer Nikolai Tesla. Tesla’s experiments with seismology and the generation of acoustic waves, conceivably with the potential to destroy the planet, were so plausible, so inflammatory, that it was easy to gloss over the seemingly minor flaws and inconsistencies.

For a brief while, Chiron was sucked in; the link between the bombs and the period of increased volcanism seemed beyond dispute. But experimental and computer models did not support the hypothesis that an acoustic wave from the tests could have awakened slumbering mountains. Such a catastrophic harmonic could only be generated by repeated detonations of relatively small yield, not a single massive explosion. There had to be another explanation, but it would require turning his back on the exciting, but ultimately mistaken ideas put forth by the Tesla supporters. The answer occurred to him one day while he was contemplating the observatory.

“What observatory?” inquired Rebecca.

Kismet scanned the surrounding paragraphs. “That’s all he says about it: ‘le observatoire’. Oh, wait… it seems to be some sort of lab for studying the earth’s magnetic field.” He kept reading.

When the world entered the atomic age, the governments with the bomb made the classic mistake of leaping before they looked. The full range of side effects from the weapons was not immediately understood, and it took decades of testing, which of necessity involved hundreds of detonations, before these unintended consequences came to light. One such was the EMP, or electromagnetic pulse.

Those first tests had revealed that in the instant that radioactive material went critical, it released a flux of gamma rays, which in turn produced a burst of high-energy free electrons. Trapped in the earth’s magnetic field, these electrons created an oscillating current and a rapidly rising pulse of magnetism that would destroy power systems and unprotected circuitry anywhere within the visual horizon of the burst point.

Chiron, as a leading scientist in the field, knew all about the discovery of the EMP effect, yet did not immediately see how it could affect the geological makeup of the planet. But his explorations into the radical theories of fringe scientists had taught him to look for connections in unlikely places. A review of those ideas brought unexpected illumination.

Ancient man had known about the existence of the magnetic field, and had even gone so far as to lay out the supposed course of these Telluric currents. The Chinese had called them lung-mei, the Dragon Current, and had believed these invisible lines of force to be the qi, or life force of the planet itself. Pagan cultures in England had erected monoliths known universally as ‘Standing Stones’ along what early twentieth century spiritualist Alfred Watkins dubbed ‘ley lines’. His contemporaries further speculated on how the druids and other pre-Christian cultures might have made use of their advanced knowledge, even putting forth the theory that the Neolithic monument Stonehenge might have been erected using geomancy, perhaps even by the legendary wizard Merlin. Alternately, it was believed that Stonehenge might have been a means of focusing the earth’s power with a technology indistinguishable from magic.

Kismet let out a low sigh. “I remember this. Pierre told me all about it. Only he was discussing pyramid power and the miracles of Moses.”

A trilling noise from Rebecca’s pocket interrupted him, and as she took the call, he resumed reading. He heard her say, “Right now? Yes… No, continue surveillance.”

Chiron’s writings thoroughly detailed the theories he had shared with Kismet in the ruins of Babylon, but then abruptly switched gears by jumping to the modern age. When Rebecca finished her phone conversation, he showed her the information.

“Listen to this. ‘What Project Argus and its successors demonstrated is that modern man now has the capacity to permanently alter or damage the earth’s magnetic field.’ Project Argus? Ring any bells?”

Rebecca indicated negatively with a toss of her coppery hair.

“Those two words are in English. I wonder…” He minimized the “Geomancy” file and opened an Internet browser. Within a few moments, a search engine had returned several hits on “Project Argus”. He chose one from a reputable resource and read the information there.

“‘When the US Department of Defense first conceived it, Project Argus was considered the biggest scientific experiment ever undertaken. In the Fall of 1958, the US Navy exploded three atomic bombs almost 500 kilometers above the South Atlantic Ocean, in the lower part of the Van Allen radiation belt. The Van Allen Belt, an area of intense electromagnetic activity which had only been discovered less than a decade previously, served to shield the planet from a near constant barrage of cosmic rays. Project Argus, and the subsequent EMP, created a new belt of radiation that almost completely encompassed the planet. Four years later, another DOD experiment, Project Starfish, further disrupted the Van Allen Belts, actually destroying one section completely, and created a new band of electromagnetic activity at a lower altitude.’”

“It is interesting information,” commented Rebecca, “but I hardly see its relevance. Chiron is out there with a live nuclear bomb, which he intends to use or sell.”

“I don’t think he’s going to sell it. What worries me is how he plans to use it.”

“You think he is going to attempt his own Project Argus?” Her tone was skeptical.

“What am I missing here?” Kismet leaned back in the chair and steepled his fingers, trying to see the pattern of the puzzle from the scattered pieces. “Pierre isn’t in his right mind. No matter how ridiculous his actions might appear to us, they make perfect sense to him.”

“He seemed lucid enough to me.”

“He’s changed since I first met him. Collette’s death…” Kismet suddenly stiffened as if struck by lightning. “My God, that’s it.”

“What? Revenge for his wife’s death? She died from an illness. There’s no one to blame.”

“Who do you blame when there’s no one else?”

Rebecca blinked in disbelief. “God? Chiron blames God? Then he’ll choose a target with religious significance.”

“I don’t think so,” Kismet answered, shaking his head. “Pierre’s beef isn’t with the Church. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been an atheist. Collette was a practicing Roman Catholic, but Pierre never believed. Science was his religion. But he said something, just before we went into that cave, which seemed completely out of character. He claimed to be looking for proof of the existence of the Divine: God’s fingerprint.

“Then he started talking about the earth’s magnetic field. He was speculating that it somehow gathered psychic energy — our psychic energy — to the extent that it had become a sentient entity.”

“Lung-mei,” Rebecca whispered. “The earth’s life force, not just as a force, but an actual living thing. And Pierre thinks he can… can kill it…? With the EMP from a nuclear detonation?”

Kismet was grateful that she did not burden him with further incredulity. “We just have to figure out exactly how he plans to do it.”

“Project Argus was an airburst. He might try to set it off aboard an airplane.”

“Maybe. But Pierre started this research on the ground. The ley lines have to be the key to his plan. It’s like Chinese acupuncture. Find a critical point and put the needle in.” He scrolled the computer back to the relevant section of Chiron’s journal. Crude maps showed the proposed path of the Telluric currents as they flowed across the planet’s surface. There was a concentration of lines in the British Isles, but the thread also flowed in every direction, across oceans, to touch every continent. One line passed directly through Paris, but the map was too general to pinpoint the juncture. Kismet let his mind wander back to his mentor’s discourse on the eve of their ill-fated subterranean journey. They had talked about miracles… the ten plagues and the exodus from Egypt… Moses’ staff… “The Solomon Key!”

Rebecca was nonplused by his outburst. “Is that some sort of religious artifact?”

“Not exactly. Occult practitioners have always believed that King Solomon had some special insight into the spirit realm, and as early as the twelfth century, manuscripts purporting to contain his wisdom began to appear. Collectively, they became known as Clavicula Salomoni, or the Key of Solomon. But Pierre speculated that the legendary wisdom of Solomon lay in his understanding of how to manipulate the Telluric currents. He did it by building a temple. It was the structure itself that somehow channeled the energy, just like the Giza pyramids or Stonehenge. The Solomon Key has got to be a building of some kind, and I’ll bet my last dollar it’s this observatory he keeps talking about.”

Before she could venture a question, her cell phone rang again. Kismet ignored the distraction and kept talking, not so much to share information with Rebecca as to put his thoughts in coherent form. “It would have to be tall, like a skyscraper… Incorporate metal in the frame…”

Suddenly he knew the answer. It had been staring him in the face earlier in the night. But as he saw a look of aghast horror spreading across Rebecca’s countenance, he knew that she had somehow beat him to the answer. “Chiron,” she rasped, barely able to speak. “He’s—”

“Let me guess.” There was no triumph in his tone, only bitter certainty. “The Eiffel Tower.”

When it was erected as part of the World Exposition in 1889, the Tour Eiffel, stretching more than three hundred meters into the sky, was the tallest man-made structure in existence. That record endured for more than thirty years until technological advancements made possible the construction of skyscrapers like the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building in New York City, USA. And while the Eiffel Tower had ceased to be ranked among the world’s tallest structures, it remained one of the most instantly recognizable monuments on earth.

From the turret-like observatory, just a few meters below the television antenna that completed the steel tower’s extraordinary skyward reach, Pierre Chiron had a spectacular view of the city. Unlike most residents of Paris, for whom it was a destination only for visiting tourists, Chiron was intimately familiar with La Tour Eiffel. He had made the vertical journey to the summit many times in the last six years and had made an exhaustive study of all available reference materials. Yet there was more to the history of the tower than what was reported in books and travel guides. There were perhaps only a handful of people alive who knew the real story, and for a brief moment, Chiron had almost joined their number.

His fleeting glimpse into the shadows that surrounded that group had left him with more questions than answers, but what little he did know drove him deeper into the mystery. He knew that the Eiffel Tower was some kind of observatory, and that it would be a focal point for some experiment connected to atomic testing. Everything else was supposition.

When in 1886 Alexandre Gustave Eiffel had submitted the plans for his entry in a competition to build a tower to celebrate French progress on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the revolution, he could not have imagined it would have anything to do with nuclear physics. Or could he? The architect, who in 1877 had designed the steel skeleton for the magnificent statue Liberty Enlightening the World, a gift from France to the United States of America, known universally as the Statue of Liberty, was without question a genius, but had his namesake tower been designed with an ulterior motive in mind?

Chiron had come to believe that Eiffel too had been a member of the secret society of intellectuals, and that his tower reflected advance knowledge of the coming atomic age. More than that, he believed that Eiffel, and all the others in the inner circle, had known what he now knew: the Divine Entity, worshiped by many, reviled by some, resided in the earth’s magnetic field. An amalgam of charged photons and human psychic energy, God existed because of the faith of his followers and the unalterable constant of global magnetic force.

But global magnetism wasn’t a constant. The charged poles were constantly shifting, changing the location of compass north. Moreover, recent experiments had shown that it was possible to obliterate the Van Allen radiation belts — the electromagnetic shroud which separated heaven from earth, and was, Chiron believed, the abode of the Entity.

They had known it — Eiffel and his co-conspirators. Perhaps knowledge of the secret went back to the dawn of civilization, to the builders of the Tower of Babel itself, who said among themselves: “Let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven.” They had tapped into that inexhaustible source, creating miracles which could only be described as magic. But Eiffel and the others had gone a step further.

Chiron tried to recall what Kismet had said that day as they rolled along the highway toward Baghdad: We are the Chains of God….

The memory was suddenly painful. Unbidden, the image of the cavern and the blank wall of steel with which he — he, Pierre Chiron who had sworn an oath to watch over that young man — had entombed Nick Kismet and left him to die.

“This too, I lay at your feet,” he whispered. “And you will pay.”

He had manhandled the stretcher into the turret and positioned it at the exact center of the structure. Now safely out of the line of sight of any observers, he could work undisturbed. He laid aside the ersatz trigger and began removing pieces from the device itself. A globe of black metal, the plutonium core of a Russian warhead, lay innocuously beside the French-designed Iraqi detonator. The nuclear fuel was relatively safe in this form; unlike the unstable isotopes of uranium that had powered the first atomic weapons, plutonium was not neutron heavy. The greatest threat to safety was a very high risk of lung cancer if particles of the element were inhaled, but Pierre Chiron knew that cancer would not be the cause of his death.

The Eurocopter AS 565UB “Panther” roared above the city of lights like a Valkyrie charging toward an epic battlefield. Its twin Turbomeca Ariel 2C engines screamed like those mythical creatures, hungry for the flesh of dead warriors. The image was oddly appropriate; if the aircraft did not reach its destination in time, the streets of Paris would resemble the aftermath of Ragnarok — the Norse equivalent of Armageddon.

Unlike Rebecca and the other DGSE commandos, Kismet didn’t have a flight helmet or even a headset to both muffle the harsh noise of the engines and keep him informed of their progress. The latter point was of little consequence. Their objective lay centered in the cockpit windscreen, stabbing heavenward and continuously sweeping the night with a blazing searchlight.

It was impossible to know if they would reach the Eiffel Tower before Chiron activated his bomb. Every soul aboard the helicopter knew that at any moment the famed monument might erupt with the brilliance of a thousand suns, erasing them and the City of Light from existence, yet here they were rushing toward ground zero.

Rebecca leaned close and shouted in his ear. “He hasn’t made any demands! The police say that he has a dead-man switch. If we try to kill him, it may trigger the device!”

The words stunned Kismet. Kill Pierre? Despite what the old man had done to him, he had never expected that it would come down to that. He tapped the side of her helmet, indicating that he wished to answer. “You have to let me speak with him! Maybe I can talk him out of it!”

Rebecca’s expression was grim and doubtful. “He tried to kill you! What makes you think he will want to listen now?”

That stopped him. Chiron was no longer a creature of reason. What could Kismet possibly say that would turn him from his meticulously thought out endgame? If he could not convince Pierre to abort his scheme, what other options were there?

He gestured for one of the commandoes to give up a headset, and at a nod from Rebecca, the man surrendered the earmuffs to Kismet. The foam insulation reduced some of the noise, but he still had to shout into the lip mic to be heard. “I’ve got an idea.”

Rebecca stared in disbelief as he sketched out his plan, and when he had finished, shook her head. “Is that even possible?”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Pierre has to believe we have done it. If we can do this, we’ll take away the only reason he’s up there.”

No less incredulous, she shrugged in resignation. “What do you need?”

Kismet took a deep breath before answering. He knew she was right. It was a crazy, desperate plan, and there was no way to know if it would be enough to disarm Chiron. But even a bad plan was better than simply waiting for the blade to fall.

The Panther flared above the vast greenspace, two hundred meters from the base of the Tower. On a normal night, the area would be thick with tourists wandering through the Champ de Mars and lovers picnicking on blankets, but tonight those crowds had been pushed back another three hundred meters beyond the helicopters landing zone. The gendarmes controlling the scene knew only that a madman had ascended to the summit possibly with some kind of bomb, and believed five hundred meters to be an adequate margin of safety. Ghoulish spectators could rarely be persuaded to leave such a drama completely. No one on the ground could have imagined that the minimum safe distance that night would be not five hundred meters, but fifty thousand.

Rebecca and Kismet hit the ground before the Panther’s wheels touched down and hastened toward a line of waiting vehicles just inside the perimeter. A dozen men stood nervously in front of the four utility trucks, each wearing workman’s coveralls and molded plastic hard hats. One of the men — his hat was white instead of yellow — moved forward to greet them.

Kismet cut short the introductions and launched into a repeat of his earlier monologue. The chief engineer’s eyes grew wide as he spoke, but he waited until Kismet had finished to voice his concerns. “Monsieur, what you suggest — making the tower into an enormous solenoid — even if it could be done, it might tear the tower apart.”

Kismet glanced at the brightly lit grid work towering above them. It was difficult to believe anything short of an atomic bomb could bring down the ten-thousand-ton structure. But the engineer continued. “You must understand. The tower, like any steel building, is aligned with the earth’s magnetic field. If you try to reverse the polarity, the tower will want to repel… It will try to flip over.”

“We’ll have to take that chance,” Kismet declared. “It may not be the best idea, but I need to know if you can do it?”

The man frowned, then glanced back at his team. “Oui. It can be done. We need perhaps… two hours?”

“Try to do it in one. That’s about how long it will take for me to climb those stairs.”

The engineer shook his head as he turned away, but immediately began shouting orders to his men. Kismet started moving in the opposite direction.

“The lift is still operational,” Rebecca pointed out, racing to match his brisk pace.

“Then disable it. We need to buy some time. Once Pierre knows I’m coming up, he’ll hold off taking any action.”

“Nick, there is something else that I need to tell you.” She waited until she had his full attention, then took a deep breath. “That matter you asked me to investigate when we were back at Chiron's apartment. Your suspicions were correct.”

For a moment, Kismet struggled to grasp what she was talking about. Then he remembered and swore under his breath. “I need to call her.”

Buttrick almost jumped out of his skin when the telephone rang. The brief conversation with his friend at the Pentagon had not gone well and now he was… Damn it, I’m actually afraid. What kind of hornet’s nest had he stirred up?

Nick Kismet, former 2LT in the Army Reserves, had an open file at the Defense Department, flagged for immediate action. Anyone who even attempted to look at the file came away with a big bull’s eye on their back. Who is this guy? Buttrick wondered, not for the first time.

He allowed Marie to answer and held his breath as she spoke in French. The telephone call was not the “black spot” he had been expecting.

“Nick?” A pause. “Mon dieu… oui…oui… Très bien. We will meet you there.”

Buttrick could barely contain himself. As soon as she returned the handset to the cradle, he asked, “Well?”

“That was Nick. We must go now.”

Chiron had just finished connecting the timer mechanism to the primary when the public address speakers crackled to life. They had made several attempts to communicate with him. They used his name now, which was, he supposed, a good thing. They would know that he was no amateur, and would therefore make no hasty attempt to storm the tower and disarm him. He had been a little anxious about the helicopter that had set down to the southeast a few minutes before, but nothing had happened subsequent to its arrival.

He ignored the hum of amplified sound and began keying in the time delay sequence. No sense in prolonging the inevitable, he thought. Acting on a perverse impulse, he punched in one digit three times: 6:66.

“Pierre, this is Nick.”

Chiron’s finger hovered above the ‘start’ button, motionless, but every cell in his body seemed to be quivering. Nick is alive! But that’s not possible.

He was in that instant both overjoyed and filled with despair, torn between the love of a father for a son who has been rescued from the lion’s jaws and the guilt for having been the instrument of that peril.

“Pierre, I need to talk to you. I know what you are doing, and what you think… what you have to do. I’m not going to do anything but talk, but there is something you need to know before you do this.”

And then, something new was added to the stir. Chiron ignored the amplified voice issuing from the speakers and directed his gaze out over the night. “You did this,” he rasped, his joy turning to bile. “It’s just your self-defense mechanism. You’re no better than an animal.”

Kismet, unaware of the imprecations, continued speaking. “The police have turned off the elevators so I’m going to have to climb the stairs. It’s going to take me a while, Pierre, maybe an hour. Please let me come up. Give me an hour, Pierre. I’m on my way up now.”

“You saved him, just so he could stop me.” Chiron’s voice was taut. The thread holding his rage in check vibrated in his throat like a piano wire tuned too tightly and ready to snap. “You could do that, but you couldn’t give her what she asked for? What she begged for?”

He lowered his gaze to the number pad for the timer. His finger was still poised above the start button. He moved it back to the six and pressed the numeral once more, then without hesitation, started the countdown. “Save yourself now. If you can.”

Kismet had heard Parisian tour guides tell visitors that there were 1,792 steps to the summit of the Eiffel Tower, a number that commemorated the year of the birth of the French Republic. The tower engineer he had spoken with before beginning his ascent gave the official number, starting at ground level, as 1,665. The real number was probably somewhere in-between, but by any reckoning, the task of climbing more than eighty stories worth of stairs was not for the faint — or weak — of heart.

Kismet was already weary as he topped the first flight, nearly four hundred steps, and was beginning to wonder if he had not erred in deciding not to make use of the elevators. At the time, it had seemed to best way to delay Chiron from executing his mad scheme, but now he was wondering if he had the stamina to make the three hundred meter vertical journey. Fifteen minutes had passed since he had made his plea to Chiron for one hour, and while he had not immediately commenced the climb, he now would be hard pressed to meet that deadline.

But as he left the first level, he caught his second wind and began making steady-if-plodding progress. His conscious effort at breath control had the added benefit of helping focus his thoughts, and the enormity of what he was now marching toward no longer filled him with dread. His entire world consisted of nothing more than putting one foot ahead of the other, and before he knew it, he reached the second level, where the Jules Verne restaurant was located. Like almost every foreign visitor to Europe, Kismet had visited the Tower, but he had never seen it like this, completely deserted. If was as if the world had ended, and he was the sole survivor. Shaking off the dark image, he proceeded to the locked gate that secured the stairway to the uppermost level, and opened it using a key provided by the chief engineer.

A few minutes later, a figure that had gone unnoticed by Kismet, moved out of the shadowy stillness and softly padded up the stairs behind him.

Eighteen

Chiron sat with sphinx-like calm at the top of the short flight up to the turret, the highest accessible point on the tower. Kismet kept a wary eye on his former mentor as he unlocked the gate at the end of the east pillar stairway, but said nothing until he was only a few meters away.

It was an awkward moment, and Kismet sensed that Chiron felt it as well. Finally, he broke the stalemate with a gesture toward the Frenchman’s hands. “They said you had a dead-man switch.”

Chiron glanced at his empty palms. “A necessary deception. It was the only thing that kept them back.”

“Christ, Pierre, what are you doing?”

The impassive mask cracked, but Chiron kept his composure. He gave a heavy sigh. “I’m glad you made it out of Iraq. Is Marie…?”

“Marie is safe. Hussein didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” was the hoarse reply. A shadow fell over Chiron’s eyes, but then he straightened, as if once more finding his resolve. “I’m sorry you made it through that, only to come to this. I have to do this, Nick, and I think you know why.”

“Because of Collette?” Kismet chose his words carefully. Chiron was beyond the reach of ordinary logic. “You believe that you can strike a blow against God — against the entity you believe occupies the earth’s magnetic field — because he let Collette die. Is that right, Pierre?”

Chiron gave a sad, almost embarrassed smile. “It sounds absurd when you put it that way.”

“Absurd? It’s obscene, Pierre. You’re willing to kill two million people just because you’re disappointed in a God you don’t even believe in?” He shot a surreptitious glance at his wristwatch. Fifty-eight minutes had elapsed since he had given the chief engineer his task. He could only hope that the job was done.

Chiron’s smile did not falter, but something behind it changed, as though his blood had turned to acid. “Two million?”

It was not the response Kismet had been expecting, and something about the way he said it made Kismet realize that he had underestimated both Chiron’s resolve and the magnitude of his scheme.

Chiron continued speaking, a condemned man explaining his crimes, if not quite confessing and asking forgiveness. “Everything we know is a lien illusion created by our symbiosis with this… this thing called God. We have given Him life through generation after generation of faith, and He in turn has become a keystone to our continued existence.

“The men who built this tower understood this all too well. With it, they sought to enslave the entity, to hold God in chains and bend him to their will. But like the banderillas of the bullfighter, this tower is an open wound in its body. What I do here today will not simply twist the knife, it will drive the blade to the very heart of God. And when it dies….”

Kismet felt numb. He didn’t know if he believed what Chiron was saying, didn’t know if all of the wild speculation about God living in the Van Allen Belts held even a grain of truth. It was easy to say that, sane or not, Chiron was threatening the lives of more than a million Parisians who would be obliterated in an atomic fireball, but underlying that very real concern Kismet felt a growing dread. What if he’s right? What if the very fate of the world rests on this moment?

“You would kill everyone on earth to avenge Collette? How can you imagine for even a second that she would want that?”

“Everyone dies, Nick. Most people live miserably short lives, filled with pain and futility. Whom do you blame for that? You think I do this because of what happened to Collette? You are mistaken. I do this to avenge every soul who has ever died wondering why their beloved Holy Father has forsaken them.”

His measured tone left little room for negotiation. Chiron had become a true believer, as driven as any suicide bomber. There would be no turning him from his path. Kismet had one card left to play. He spoke very slowly, afraid that the older man would panic in the face of an ultimatum. “Pierre, I can’t let you do this.”

“You cannot stop it,” Chiron replied, matter-of-factly. There was no defiance in his tone, only grave certainty.

“I already have. Before I came up here, I had the Tower engineers start wrapping the corner pylons in copper wire. As of—” he made a show of checking his wristwatch, but paid no real attention to what the face showed, “—about five minutes ago, they started running an electrical current through that wire.”

He saw comprehension in the other man’s eyes, but continued talking, hoping that the sound of his voice and the confidence he projected would be enough to disarm Chiron where reason had failed. “You see, I was paying attention when you talked about this in Babylon. I know that you think the Eiffel Tower is your Solomon Key, your magic staff to control — or destroy — the magnetic fields. So I had to come up with some way to neutralize it: magnetism. We’ve turned the Tower into an oppositely polarized electromagnet. Right now, whatever sort of interaction this structure had with the radiation in the atmosphere has diametrically changed. I’ve taken away your Solomon Key. You can still hurt a lot of innocent people, but that’s all. It’s over, Pierre.”

Chiron stared back at him like he was speaking a foreign language. But as the weight of the words settled in, he seemed to deflate. “Two million,” he mumbled. “For nothing. What have I done?”

Kismet advanced on Chiron, but the latter paid no heed. Chiron buried his head in his hands and sagged onto the stairs. Kismet muscled past him and ascended into the turret. Only there, as he caught sight of the detonator, did the reality of the situation finally hit home. His employer and mentor, a person almost as close to him as his father, had assembled an atomic weapon with the sole intention of wiping out all life on earth. He bit his lip and banished the paralyzing emotional response. Rage and incredulity weren’t going to help him avert this catastrophe. Only a clear head and rational thought process stood a chance of doing that. But as he reached the turret and gazed at the now completely assembled detonator, even his best attempt to remain dispassionate failed.

Bomb disposal was not something Kismet had been trained for, but he understood the principles of making and detonating most devices. Everything from a stick of dynamite, to a hand grenade, to this, a medium-yield nuclear device, worked on the basic principle of pushing an unstable chemical to its flashpoint. This was typically done through the introduction of a blasting cap — a small explosive that, when activated by a very low voltage electric charge, would trigger a cascade reaction in the larger payload. A nuclear detonator required engineering at an unparalleled level. The titanium sphere had to be machined to meet the highest tolerances, and the timing of the primary explosions had to be precise to within nanoseconds. Yet, for all the necessary exactitude, it remained a simple, electrically activated fuse. The trigger could be anything from a barometric device designed to activate at a preset altitude, to a radio-controlled detonator, but the end result would be the same: a tiny electrical charge would activate the blasting caps impregnating the plastic explosives, and a chain reaction lasting less than a tenth of a second would begin.

When Kismet saw the device moderating Chiron’s bomb, his heart fell. It was nothing more complex than a kitchen timer, affixed to the metal body of the detonator with two strips of black tape, but its humble origin was deceptive. Sprouting from the back of the cheap timer were no fewer than eight wires which disappeared into the larger device and gave an implicit warning: cut the wrong wire and everything goes away. But even more shocking was the innocuous black display which methodically counted down the remaining minutes until detonation.

5:48…5:47…5:46

“Pierre, we have to stop this thing. Tell me what to do.”

Chiron shook his head without looking. “You cannot. I knew that someone might try to prevent me, so I made it impossible to disarm. Stop the timer or cut any of the wires, and it will detonate.”

“Damn it.” His oath was barely a whisper. If the bomb could not be turned off, what did that leave? He glanced down at the illuminated park lawn below where the aerodynamic fuselage of the Panther lay like a slumbering wasp. It was conceivable that the pilot could have the helicopter airborne in less than a minute, but then what? He could not hope to remove the bomb to an area remote enough to minimize loss of life in the very few seconds that would be left.

5:18…5:17…5:16….

A plain gray box lay next to the oblong cube-shaped bomb. On an impulse, Kismet flipped it open and found inside a variety of electrician’s tools and a small rechargeable drill-driver. “What about the nuclear core, Pierre? Can I remove it without triggering a detonation?”

Because of the precise engineering requirements of such a device, even a partial disturbance of the titanium sphere surrounding the plutonium fuel would prevent it from going nuclear. It would still explode, right on time, conceivably bringing down the tower and certainly killing anyone in close proximity, but millions of lives would be saved.

Chiron did not immediately answer, so Kismet chose to recognize his silence as an implicit affirmative. If he was wrong… well, that would only hasten the inevitable by a mere five minutes.

5:00…4:59….

He took up the handheld drill and selected a five-millimeter socket head. It was a perfect fit with the machine screws that secured the cowling over the guts of the bomb. Fixing it into the chuck of the drill, he commenced unscrewing the cover. He was so focused on the task at hand that he failed to register the significance of the declaration that broke the stillness, until in a more strident tone, the speaker repeated the threat.

“Step away, Kismet!”

4:49…4:48…4:47….

He glanced sidelong at the person who had joined Pierre on the platform below the turret. He wore the coveralls of a Tower maintenance engineer, but his physical appearance gave lie to the façade that he was just another Parisian in the employ of the city. His face was a dark bronze hue that could only be gained through a combination of natural swarthiness and long hours under a desert sun, and looked like distressed leather. Capping the classic Arab countenance was a mane of black hair shot through with streaks of preternatural white, a hint of some unspeakable trauma in the man’s recent past. It was his eyes however that told the tale. The muscles at the corners of each eye were bunched tight, in a perpetual squint, as though he had gazed upon the face of God and been struck blind. Kismet knew the look well. The desert sun had left its brand on his eyes too. He did not have to study the man’s face for signs of familiarity. This was the same man whom he had encountered in the cavern where the Hind had been hangared. The unarmed Iraqi whom he had knocked senseless and left for dead. Kismet had almost remembered the man then, and in the days and hours that had passed, the memory had congealed into recognition. This was the man who had tortured him on that fateful night in the desert twelve years before.

“Colonel Saeed.” The statement was terse, barely escaping through unconsciously clenched teeth. “Pardon me for not being more excited at this little reunion, but I’ve got bigger…”

The gun in Saeed’s hand discharged and the sound of the report was almost simultaneous with the metallic noise of the bullet ricocheting from the side of the turret less than a meter from the opening where Kismet stood.

“I said, ‘Step away.’ I won’t say it again.”

Kismet glanced at the timer. Less than four and a half minutes remained. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here, Saeed.”

“Oh, I understand.” A cryptic smile creased the Iraqi’s otherwise pained visage. “I’m pleased that you recognize me, Kismet. That makes this easier.”

“Makes what easier? Revenge? Whatever it is you think I’ve done, it doesn’t involve the two million people who will die if you don’t let me finish.”

“No?” He gave a bitter chuckle. “I don’t care about them. But I shall enjoy watching you suffer as that clock ticks down, knowing that you are powerless to save them.”

“You’ll die too.”

“Yes.”

Kismet lowered the drill but did not move away from the bomb. Saeed couldn’t possibly know that only about four minutes remained, and revealing the urgency of the situation might only feed his suicidal resolve. “I have to confess, I didn’t recognize you right away. The truth is, I hadn’t thought about you in years.”

Saeed’s eyes narrowed as he searched the comment for some hint of an insult. “I too would have forgotten the events of that night but for one thing. I never understood why I was ordered to let you escape.”

Kismet’s heart seized for an instant. The unexpected admission had ripped away the stone sealing the abyss of his memories. And yet, he had already glimpsed this truth during his encounter with the masked assassin in Baghdad. He remained silent, hoping that the Iraqi would further tip his hand.

“I should have taken your life that night,” Saeed continued. “No matter the consequences. My brother, in whose shadow I am unworthy to walk, would yet be alive.”

“I didn’t drag him into that cave,” Kismet countered, affecting a surly unrepentant tone. “If anyone killed your brother, it’s you.”

Saeed’s smile twisted into something that was not quite pure hatred. “It is true. And I will repay that debt tonight with the blood of a million souls. And yours.”

“When this goes off, the world will believe only one thing: An Iraqi nuclear weapon fell into the hands of terrorists and was used against innocents. Support for the war will be universal.”

“I do not care.”

Kismet could see the truth of the denial in the other man’s eyes. He had only one card left to play. A glance revealed that another minute had ticked away. There was still time to prevent the nuclear detonation, but the margin would be slim. “Poor Saeed. Even at the end, you’re just a puppet.”

The gun wavered, but the former Mukharabat officer did not answer.

“When I finally remembered you, I did a little investigative work. I learned all about your little art smuggling enterprise. I’ll bet you never even realized you were working for the Israelis.”

Saeed’s mask cracked, revealing an even hotter rage beneath. “What are you saying?”

“That’s right. Your partner in the endeavor — the person who murdered Mr. Aziz and is responsible for the deaths of several American soldiers — is an agent of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. You’ve been working for your greatest enemy.”

“You are lying.” The gun dropped imperceptibly; Saeed had almost forgotten about it.

Almost, thought Kismet. “Think about it. You controlled the largest known source of artifacts from the dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King who sacked Jerusalem and carried off the holy relics of Solomon’s Temple. Who would want that more than the Israelis? They put one of their best deep cover agents in the perfect position to help you smuggle and fence the artifacts, and in so doing, guaranteed themselves first pick. Who knows, maybe you’ve already given them the one holy relic that will rally faithful Jews around the globe for a final assault against their enemies.”

The accusation hit Saeed like a blow, driving him back a step, but Kismet did not relent. He turned to fully face the other man, tensing his muscles in readiness as he hurled the final verbal assault. “I’m sure your brother would be proud.”

As the Iraqi staggered back another step, Kismet saw his chance. But in the instant he leapt from his perch, fully intending to pounce on Saeed in order to wrestle the gun away, the other man was abruptly swept off his feet. From out of nowhere, Chiron had launched a simultaneous attack, tackling the Iraqi to the metal deck. Even before Kismet’s feet touched down, the noise of a gunshot, muffled by the close proximity of bodies, punctuated the violence of the action.

Kismet landed badly twisting his right ankle and sprawled headlong, but in the grip of adrenaline, barely felt the pain. He sprang to his feet and charged at the writhing tangled shape that was Saeed and Chiron. The gun roared again, and a scarlet mist appeared for an instant in the air above them. Then Pierre Chiron, who had once attacked and defeated a similarly armed killer with only his umbrella, rolled away, clutching ineffectually at the gushing torrent of crimson that boiled from his chest.

In the instant that Kismet made his leap from the turret, a very different struggle was reaching its climax three hundred meters below. Phillipe Baudoin, the acting chief engineer stared anxiously at his wristwatch, then wiped a hand across his forehead. He had tacitly promised Kismet that the last-ditch plan to thwart the madman atop the tower would be in place in one hour. That had been sixty-three minutes ago.

He had expected that there would be delays. Experience had taught him that events rarely proceeded according to plan. Anticipation of these unpredictable but foreseeable problems had been the reason for his original two-hour estimate, but he had been confident that, if only a few things went wrong, he would be able to have the tower pylons wired ahead of the one-hour mark. True to expectations, those problems had become manifest. The supply of copper wire he had requested from the power company had to be drawn from several locations, requiring an unparalleled feat of logistical juggling. Traffic around the tower had snarled to a halt, making it difficult for the trucks to get through. The last shipment had arrived forty minutes after his request, leaving precious little time to splice and coil it around the last remaining pillar. There had been other setbacks. The team on the north pylon had inadvertently wrapped the wire in the wrong direction, and while it had not actually delayed the operation, it was typical of what Americans called Murphy’s Law: anything that can go wrong, will. Even more frustrating was the evident disappearance of one of his crew leaders. Perhaps the man had succumbed to panic or abandoned his post in a futile effort to warn loved ones. Baudoin knew the missing man, and knew him to ordinarily be of unimpeachable character, but these were not ordinary circumstances.

He had not once stopped to consider the merit of what he had been instructed to do. He had no illusions about the efficacy of depolarizing the tower in order to prevent some kind of catastrophe. Kismet had made it clear that the procedure’s real value was as a psychological bargaining chip with the madman high above, and as such, it really didn’t matter whether they completed the job or not, so long as Chiron believed it done. But Baudoin was driven by a different motivation. He was an engineer, a problem solver, and when he committed to a course of action, he would settle for nothing less than absolute success.

“Phillipe,” crackled a voice from his walkie-talkie. It was Renny on the south pylon. He held the radio to his ear and glanced up to the sloping column where the last section of wire was being strung. The whole affair seemed like some insane Christmas decoration. “Go ahead.”

“”Phillipe, it is done!”

Baudoin heaved a sigh of relief and checked his watch one last time. Sixty-five minutes. “All teams get clear of the tower. I will activate the system in twenty seconds.”

He continued counting audibly into the speaker as he started the gasoline generator that was spliced into a DC power converter. Although a relatively low voltage was required to create the desired electromagnetic effect, there was no escaping the simple physics. They had used more than a kilometer of copper wire, and it was going to take a lot more than a dry cell battery to make this work. His finger hovered near the switch that would start the flow of electricity into the circuit until finally the moment came. For safety’s sake, he made a final visual sweep of the tower base.

All clear, he thought, and threw the switch.

A torturously loud humming noise issued from the power converter, followed by a flash of brilliant light. Baudoin did not need to smell the ozone and burnt wiring to know that something had gone wrong. The exact nature of the malfunction eluded him. Perhaps the tower’s intrinsic magnetic field was greater than he had believed, or maybe he had miscalculated the resistance in the line. Whatever the cause, there was no escaping the totality of his failure. He had promised Kismet an oppositely charged electromagnet in order to thwart Chiron’s plan. That wasn’t going to happen.

He could only pray that Kismet had already succeeded in bluffing the madman atop the tower into relenting from his mad scheme. If not…

If not, Baudoin realized darkly, I suppose I’ll never know.

Saeed brandished the pistol at Kismet, but he was a fraction of a second too late. Kismet’s left fist wrapped around the barrel and, with a deft twist, he ripped it from the other man’s grasp, but a flailing blow from Saeed knocked the gun away and sent it skittering across the platform. A second strike, directed with more force and intention, caught Kismet in the chest and redirected the momentum of his charge so that he flew over Saeed’s supine form and crashed headlong. He recovered almost instantaneously, but his assailant had likewise regained his senses. Saeed struck first.

There was no hesitancy in the Iraqi’s attack. His hands flew toward Kismet’s throat, his fingers digging into flesh like the talons of a raptor. Kismet instinctively struck at Saeed’s forearms and wrists, but his foe merely pulled himself closer to limit Kismet’s range of motion. Kismet felt his pulse pounding in his veins as the stranglehold tightened. Abandoning the futile defense, he instead launched an attack of his own.

Saeed was a killer, but he wasn’t a fighter. Though his victims during the long years prior to his exile were almost innumerable, they were without exception prisoners, deprived of sleep and food and tortured into submission. As an officer, he had disdained combat training, and now, faced with a battle of the most primitive kind, he had only his atavistic impulses to guide him. It was a poor substitute for skill.

Threading his hands between Saeed’s forearms, Kismet gripped the lapels of the other man’s garment and crossed them over to form a makeshift garrote. Ferocious though it was, Saeed’s assault was ineffectual alongside Kismet’s cross-collar chokehold. The Iraqi’s eyes bulged, first with distress, then from the pressure of depleted blood trapped in the vasculature of his face. Realization dawned, but it was already too late; Saeed’s grip on his neck simply fell away as his oxygen-starved brain ceased transmitting nervous impulses.

Kismet held on a moment longer, fearful that his foe was feigning collapse, but the foul odor of his bowels releasing signaled that the battle had indeed been to the death. For a moment, measured by the thudding of his heart in his chest and a syncopated throb of pain behind his eyeballs, he could only lie motionless on the steel deck. His memory returned in crashing waves — his tormentor was dead… Chiron was wounded… The bomb was….

“The bomb!” The words broke from his bruised larynx as he heaved Saeed’s unmoving form away and scrambled to his feet. The turret, though only a few steps away, felt like the last mile of a marathon. His feet seemed mired in quicksand as he struggled up the stairs. The device, for all its potential destructiveness, gave no indication of imminent peril; it might as well have been a discarded refrigerator. The only thing that had changed since last he looked was the digital readout on the timer, and when his eyes finally focused on the black and gray liquid crystal display, his triumph over Saeed wilted.

0:05… 0:04…0:03…0:02….

“No.”

0:01… 0:00.

Nineteen

In the sixty years since their development, atomic weapons had only been used twice against living targets: the occupants of Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, Japan. For maximum effectiveness, those bombs, thirteen and twenty kilotons respectively, had each been detonated approximately 500 meters above the ground. Five hundred meters, nearly a quarter of a mile, was the closest anyone had even been to the uncontrollable storm of energy released by the fission of an atom.

Although explosive yield — as reckoned in metric tons of TNT — was the yardstick by which bombs were measured, all the dynamite in the world could not duplicate the effects of even a low-yield nuclear weapon. An atom bomb did not simply release heat and kinetic energy, the forces that wreak devastation upon their intended victims. Rather, when the nuclear core reached critical mass, it became a small-scale quasi-stellar object — a miniature star on earth, which annihilated its entire mass in a single instant. The blinding flash of light, which to a distant observer seemed to precede the shock wave and firestorm by a few seconds, was in fact a burst of electromagnetic energy across the entire spectrum — X-rays, gamma rays, and light visible and invisible in a storm of photons dense enough at close range to etch shadows into stone.

It was an enduring indictment of the short sightedness of human intellect that none of the scientists involved in creating and refining the so-called “doomsday weapons” considered for an instant that the creation of a tiny temporal quasar might have a sympathetic effect, not simply on the planet, but on the cosmos itself. Realistically however, no one could possibly have known what sort of phenomena might occur at the event horizon; no one had ever been that close. Yet, the Theory of Special Relativity which had enabled those scientists to unleash the destructive power of the atom — expressed in the simple equation E=mc²—ought to have enlightened them to the other effects of bringing new energy into the universe.

Any physical object accelerating toward the speed of light experienced what Einstein described as “time-dilation;” a variation in the perception of the passage of time depending on the velocity of the observer. It should have been obvious to them that in nuclear weapons, as in stars, at the event horizon where matter gives birth to energy, time has virtually no meaning.

Kismet stared at the row of zeroes for a long time before it occurred to him that perhaps something more ought to have happened. Had the bomb malfunctioned somehow? The wind had died away to nothing and the foreboding silence offered no answers.

He glanced down at Chiron. Even from several meters away, he could see that the gunshot wound was dire. A bubble of bright scarlet had risen from the center of his chest and seemed poised to erupt. Odd that it hasn’t, he thought, morbidly. It was an arterial bleed and ought to have been spurting like a fountain so long as the old man’s heart continued to pump. The explanation was brutally obvious: Chiron was already dead.

Except somehow that didn’t quite seem like the right answer. His gaze shifted to the other body occupying the platform: Colonel Saeed Tariq Al-Sharaf. He did not feel the same sort of doubt regarding the fate of his old nemesis. Death hovered over the Iraqi torturer like a black aura, sucking the last vestiges of his life force into the still night. The image was so vivid that Kismet looked away, fearful that the grinning skull beneath the shadowy cowl might next turn its gaze upon him.

0:00

It was only then that he realized he had not turned his head at all. His gaze had never left the unblinking display of the countdown timer. Then how…?

His attention was drawn upward, to where the television aerial speared the sky, and what he saw there staggered belief.

His first thought was that he was hallucinating. In fact, he could not be literally seeing the gyrating column of energy that spiraled into the heavens for the simple reason that he was under the cover of the turret. For that matter, his eyes were still locked on the unchanging numeric display of the bomb. It was that impossibility, however, which convinced him of the accuracy of his observations and further verified his growing suspicion that he was no longer completely in the physical world. He also realized in that instant that the nuclear device had not malfunctioned; it had detonated right on schedule.

The gyre stabbed out of the upper atmosphere and into the tower like a tornado of light. It was magnetic energy, he realized, invisible to the naked eye, but easily discernible in this frozen moment. There was no mistaking the direction of the current. The lines of force undulated down into the tower exactly as Chiron had described in his writings. And somewhere high above, something was moving in the tempest, struggling against its tether as the flames of imminent destruction licked at its back.

Oh, God. It’s all true. And I failed.

The Eiffel Tower had still been polarized at the moment of detonation. Maybe the engineers had missed their deadline, or maybe Kismet’s grasp of how to manipulate the geo- and electromagnetic energies had been found wanting. Whatever the reason, the end result was the same. The electromagnetic pulse from the bomb would feed back into the planetary web, just as Chiron planned, and destroy it and any sort of sentient being that dwelled therein. It was only a matter of time. It was already too late.

0:00

Rage consumed him for a long time, rage at Chiron for having conceived of such a diabolical scheme, at himself for having failed to notice the subtle signs pointing to the coming apocalypse, and even at God for not doing something more on His own behalf. Inevitably, the anger gave way to despair. Much later, when he had wrung the last drops of self-pity from his psyche, he began looking for a better answer.

He reached for the bomb, thinking that if he could carry out his original plan to remove the plutonium core, he might somehow undo the moment in which he now found himself a prisoner. Nothing happened. His physical body was completely unresponsive to the commands of his mind, or rather, the electro-chemical impulse that would instruct his limbs to move had not yet happened. Movement required time, and time was something Kismet no longer had. The only thing that could save him now was a miracle.

He once more fixed the churning heavens in his mind’s eye. Miracle. I guess that would be your department.

But if the entity in the swirling mass of energy heard his implicit request — or if it even existed at all — it gave no indication. Nothing happened, nothing at all. The clock still read zero and time remained at a standstill.

He pondered Chiron’s words, spoken only a few minutes before — what now seemed like a lifetime ago — on the function of the tower in the schemes of the nameless conspirators who had sought to imprison the divine being. He had likened it to a knife in an open wound. Yet, the tower had only been in existence for a century. Did that somehow mean that prior to the emergence of the industrial age, God — if that was in fact what it was — had roamed freely above the terrestrial domain, doing whatever He — or It — pleased? It wasn’t too hard to reconcile the tragic wars of the twentieth century to that time period…

Forget it, he thought. Don’t get lost in the spiritual debate. Focus on the problem.

He realized with a start that he’d had the right idea all along. Depolarizing the tower was the solution, but how could he do it from this tesseract of time and space? How could he change the magnetic constant of a three hundred meter iron structure from the confines of a frozen moment?

“How did Thutmosis defeat the other priests who were also tapped into the Telluric energies?” Chiron had asked him in the sands of Babylon. “And how did he sustain his own connection to this power once removed from close proximity to the pyramids?”

How did Moses part the Red Sea?

Kismet’s answer had been flippant and skeptical: “He used a stick.”

The Eiffel Tower was that stick, the modern equivalent of Moses’ magic wand. It was the ultimate Solomon Key, built for the express purpose of manipulating the energies of the planet. But having the key was not enough. If Chiron’s supposition was correct, Moses had been privy to all the secrets of Egyptian Geomancy. Nick Kismet was no sorcerer’s apprentice. The most sophisticated tool in the world was little better than a hammer in the hands of an ignorant child.

Then he recalled an earlier conversation.

“That’s where faith comes in,” he had told Chiron as they contemplated sunset over Baghdad.

“Ah, yes. Faith. Jesus’ disciples asked for more faith. Do you know that what he told them? ‘If you have faith as a grain of a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you.’”

Was it that simple? Did he just have to tell the tower — his magic staff — what to do in order to make it happen?

He could not escape the qualifier: if you have faith…

He did not have faith. He was a pragmatist, and his opinions and beliefs were shaped by facts — by evidence and empirical reasoning. Faith was for… faith was for people who could believe in something without proof. The simple fact was that Kismet did not have faith even as small as the grain of a mustard seed.

Jesus’ disciples asked for more faith.

He stared heavenward wondering how to phrase his request, but then it occurred to him that he already had what he needed. He had faith that an airplane would not fall from the sky because he had seen it happen. He had faith that the sun would continue to rise and set because his eyes were daily given the proof. Faith and proof are not mutually exclusive, he realized, grinning up at the maelstrom. I guess I can’t ask for better proof than that.

Okay, I believe I can do this. Now what?

He reached out again, not for the bomb, but for the tower itself, and in his mind’s eye, there was no impediment. His hands caressed the steel as if searching for the secret switch that would unlock a hidden doorway. And then he found it.

You owe me for this.

A shudder ran through the metal skeleton as every atom of its mass suddenly began to oppose the magnetic field of the planet itself. The transformation was instantaneous — faster even than the speed of light — and the tornado of force spiraling down from the sky abruptly reversed. Something like an eagle taking to flight shrugged out of the tempest and vanished, and at the same instant, the veil separating heaven from earth was drawn aside.

Kismet couldn’t resist a satisfied smile. Only one thing left to do now. He turned his attention back to the spot his eyes had never left.

0:00

A shrill, electronic bleating noise filled the night, startling Kismet out of his reverie. A denial was still on his lips, but his whisper had already been caught away by the unrelenting wind. The timer continued to issue a rapid-fire series of beeps, signaling that the end of the countdown had arrived.

And that was all.

No explosion. No nuclear cataclysm to destroy the Eiffel Tower or the rest of Paris. Just a kitchen timer, trilling away cheerily as though the world had not just about ended.

He took a step back, wondering what to do next, and caught sight of Chiron. The Frenchman’s hands were clutching the wound in his chest, a futile effort to stem the geyser of blood that carried away his life force with each prodigious spurt. But something about his eyes told Kismet that Chiron had finally found peace. He found himself compelled to kneel at the dying man’s side.

Chiron’s mouth moved, trying to form words, but there was no sound. Kismet leaned close, and the old man smiled weakly. “So much to tell you,” he whispered.

Kismet felt an inexplicable rage well up. The old scientist was as good as dead, yet he felt no pity. Chiron had come within a whisper of carrying out an unimaginable atrocity — at the very least, the death of tens of thousands in a nuclear fireball, at worst, the eradication of all life on earth. “Why?”

“I had to know, Nick. She always believed, but I could not. I had to put Him to the test.”

“Him? You did all this to see if God really exists?”

“Rather arrogant of me, don’t you think? Challenging God to show himself and save the world?” He coughed and blood streamed between his lips. “I’ve certainly paid the price, don’t you think? Do you suppose I’ll go to Hell?”

Something in the simple question broke through Kismet’s wrath. He tried to answer, but there were no words. There was nothing he could say to ease the man’s passage. He shook his head, unsure of what he meant by the gesture.

Chiron managed a chuckle. “All this to see God, and instead it seems I’ll meet His opposite number instead.”

Kismet felt his throat tighten. “Was it worth it?”

Something changed deep in the old man’s eyes, and Kismet knew his last breath was not far off. “I got my answer, Nick. He revealed himself. He used you to save His world.”

Kismet decided not to waste Chiron’s remaining seconds of life arguing the point.

“And now I am at peace, Nick. I know that she is with Him. She is in a place of sublime happiness. I know that now.” Another gurgling breath was drawn. “Oh, Nick. She must be so proud of you. There’s so much I should have told you. So much…”

Kismet reached out to take his hand, not caring if the old man misinterpreted the action as a sign of forgiveness. Maybe it was. As Pierre Chiron slipped out of the world, Kismet understood why even the condemned murderer is granted absolution. No one should die unforgiven.

He stayed there a long time with the man who had been for many years his close friend and mentor, and for a few brief hours, his greatest enemy. Later, much later, he remembered that the rest of the world was still waiting for news of its fate. He eased Chiron’s cold form to the steel deck and moved to the edge of the observation deck where he waved the “all clear” to the anxious observers stationed below.

It didn’t take long for Rebecca and her team to reach him at the summit. Her hard eyes were expressionless as she surveyed the aftermath of the struggle with Saeed. “What happened?”

It was too simple a query to address the events of the last few minutes. He shook his head wearily. He knew he would have to explain everything, and fully intended to do so, but there was one last bit of unfinished business to attend.

Twenty

Every night, crowds of tourists flocked to the Butte Montmartre, both to visit the splendid Basilique du Sacré Coeur and to take in the awe-inspiring view of the city of lights. None of the vacationers there that night were aware of the crisis at the Eiffel Tower, nor would they ever know any more than that a fire had occurred at the summit of the monument and that the tower had been briefly closed to the public. They did however get a taste of the excitement when a French military helicopter descended on the lawn and shattered the quiet with the thunderous beat of its rotor blades.

Inside the basilica, a few eyebrows were raised, but the thick marble walls muffled most of the tumult. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Buttrick was intimately familiar with the sound, but failed to grasp its significance. He continued playing the part of the tourist, idly taking in the majesty of the elaborate depiction of Christ with arms outstretched, reputedly one of the world’s largest mosaic artworks, situated above the choir. Nearly two hours had passed since Marie had received the call directing them to proceed with all haste to Montmartre, and he was itching to know why. Marie had been perfunctorily silent, but he had barely noticed. His thoughts were repeatedly drawn back to the trouble his inquiry into Kismet’s past had caused.

“Nick!”

Marie’s subdued cry startled Buttrick, but he whirled on his heel, searching for the man she had identified. Kismet stood framed in the entry, a grave expression on his haggard face. Buttrick didn’t know the other man that well, but he knew that look. He was instantly on his guard.

Marie moved away from his side and glided toward Kismet, evidently unaware of any tension. She unhesitatingly gave him a gentle hug. “What did you learn?”

Kismet replied softly, almost too softly for Buttrick to hear. “Pierre is dead. Saeed killed him.”

“Saeed? Who is that?”

Buttrick didn’t know the answer to Marie’s question, but thought that she had asked it a little too quickly.

“It’s over, Marie. Or should I call you Miriam?”

Her demeanor reflected appropriate confusion at the statement, but neither man was fooled. Buttrick stepped closer. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Before Kismet could answer however, Marie’s mask fell away, to be replaced by a smile that was at once both guilty and mocking. “It was the helicopter, wasn’t it? That’s when you figured it out.”

“I think I knew all along. I knew the person who killed Aziz was a woman when we fought at the museum.”

Buttrick suddenly understood, and the gravity of the revelation sent him reeling. “Museum? You….”

“I’ll admit, your shrinking violet routine had me fooled. It didn’t help that there was a better suspect. But when it came down to survival, your true colors came through. You produced a gun out of nowhere and started using it like you knew what you were doing. When you shot that man in the cavern where we found the helicopter, it was exactly the same way you killed Aziz: two shots to the chest, one to the head. But you let the other man live.”

“He was unarmed.”

“He was also your accomplice. Colonel Saeed Tariq Al-Sharaf, a former Iraqi intelligence officer who had retired to a life of luxury on the Riviera after discovering a trove of artifacts dating from the dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian emperor who conquered Palestine in the sixth century BC and razed the Temple of Solomon.

“Saeed needed someone in a position of authority to grease the wheels of his black-market artifact trade, and when he was approached by Marie Villaneauve, personal assistant to the director of the GHC, he must have thought it was a gift from God.” He chuckled mordantly. “I suppose in a way it was.

“Your story about learning to fly in the military set off the warning bells. France didn’t have compulsory military service for females when you would have been of age, but Israel did. You should have seen Saeed’s face when I told him you were a Mossad agent.”

“You killed my men,” Buttrick snarled. Kismet’s revelations had torn away the bandages of his own guilt and the shared trust Marie had been cultivating now seemed like so much salt in the wound.

When she turned to him however, her expression had shed every trace of condescension. “I never meant for that to happen, Jon.”

Kismet continued. “Saeed ordered you to kill Aziz because he knew that Aziz would point us toward him. You were still playing Saeed, hoping to get a line on where those artifacts might be stored, hoping against hope that somewhere in his treasure house, you might find the holy relics of Solomon’s temple. Alive or dead, Aziz was of no consequence, so you accepted the assignment. But then I walked in and ruined everything.”

“Everything that happened after that was a horrible mistake,” she admitted, still directing her words to Buttrick. “I did not intend to harm anyone but the target. What happened to your men was… regrettable.”

Even now, confronted with the terrible truth, Marie was still trying to win him over. Kismet saw it, too. “Just tell me one thing. You had a silenced weapon. Why didn’t you just kill me and save yourself all that trouble?”

Her eyes swung to meet his gaze. “I don’t know. I never understood why it was so important to him that I not harm you.”

Buttrick drew in a sharp breath, and Marie realized too late that she had played into Kismet’s hands. She took a step back, and then seemingly from out of nowhere, drew a small automatic pistol and aimed it at Kismet. “But I’m not following those orders any more.”

Kismet’s eyes flicked down to the gun, then returned to meet her stare. If he was concerned, he hid it well. “Are you sure you want to do that here? In a house of God?”

“Not my God.” All subterfuge was gone. Where she had once used her appearance as a disguise, hiding behind an illusion of helplessness and sexuality, there was now a confidence that was somehow as beautiful as it was deadly.

“It’s just a damn game to you,” Buttrick took a menacing step toward her, oblivious to the threat of the firearm. “Life and death… Those were my boys you killed.”

The weapon shifted to block his approach even as she took another step back. She was now too far away for either man to attempt to wrestle the gun away. Kismet raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Give it up, Marie. It’s not too late. I can still help you.”

An uncertainty crept over her expression, but her voice remained defiant. “I think you’ve forgotten who has the gun, Nick.”

“Help her?” Buttrick gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

Kismet ignored him. “You still work for UNESCO. Maybe it’s under false pretenses, but legally it’s enough for me to protect you.”

She held him with her gaze, and her tone softened. “You could do that? You could forgive?”

Kismet felt the crust of Chiron’s blood on his outstretched fingertips. “I can forgive quite a bit.”

Her eyes flickered between the two men as if weighing the sincerity of the offer, but then she began edging around them. A few more steps and her path to the exit would be clear.

Kismet divined her intention. “If you walk through that door, you’re on your own.”

“I’ve always been on my own.” She took one more sideways step, and then turned away.

“Marie!” Kismet implored. “Is this really who you are?”

That stopped her… But only for a moment. Then she was gone.

Buttrick started after her, but Kismet placed a restraining hand in his path. “She’s a killer.” The officer’s voice was strident, charged with pent-up rage. “You can’t just let her go.”

“It was her choice.” He knew Buttrick couldn’t possibly understand what he meant with the statement, but he couldn’t quite put into words exactly what the consequences of Marie’s decision would be. In spite of all the hard-won victories, he felt the burden of failure.

And when Rebecca entered the basilica a few minutes later to offer a grim but satisfied nod, he knew that this was one moment in time he would not be able to undo.