He picked up the receiver and pressed the button next to the man with the tray.
“Oui, Monsieur Harper?”
“I’d like to order water to my room.”
“Pardon?”
“De l’eau, s’il vous plaît.”
“Monsieur has bottled water in his minibar, still and sparkling.”
“I want the local stuff. Fill a jug from the kitchen tap, toss in a few ice cubes. No lemon, no limes.”
“Of course, monsieur.”
Harper opened the curtains and watched raindrops smack at the windows. They dripped down the glass like ragged tears. He reached in the pockets of his coat and pulled out the scraps of Enoch, his notebook. He crumpled the lot in his hands and let it fall to the floor. Then the photographs of Yuriev. Seeing the poor sod dragged from the casino by a pair of bad-guy shadows. Harper tore the photos to bits, sprinkled them atop the small paper mountain at his feet.
“Corpora lente augescent cito extinguuntur.”
There was a double tap at the door. Harper looked through the spy hole and saw the waitress with a gun carrying a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass, a bowl of perfectly squared ice cubes. He opened the door.
“Come on in, champ.”
She walked in, set the tray on the desk with a rude clank. “The name is Officer Jannsen, monsieur.”
“Sure, but from what I’ve just been told in the cathedral, we’re all pals. You, me, the inspector, Mutt, and Jeff.”
“I have no idea of who Mutt and Jeff are.”
“The inspector’s boys, Mutt and Jeff, rhyming slang for death. Rather good when you think about it, not that I ever was.” Harper dropped a few ice cubes in the glass, poured from the pitcher. “It’s like that other rhyme I heard recently, ‘Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of Saint Clement’s.’ What’s the rest of it?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never heard it.”
“No? ‘You owe me five farthings, Say the bells of Saint Martin’s.’”
“Will there be anything else, monsieur?”
Harper drank to the bottom of the glass and poured another. “You know, this really is the most amazing water. You drink this stuff?”
“Ten glasses each day.”
“So that’s the secret. Here I was thinking it’s the milk in this place. Turns out it’s the tap water.” He drank quickly, poured again. There was only half a glass on the third round. “Seems I need a few more glasses to meet my quota, Officer Jannsen.”
“Then may I suggest you refill your glass from the bathroom sink?”
“Swell, I’ll just finish this.”
Harper threw the water in her face and kicked her across the back of her knees. She went down hard. He tore the gun from her holster and tested the weight.
“Well, well. A SIG P229R, necked throat for a .357 hollow-point round, DAK trigger system.”
“What are you doing?”
He flipped off the safety and took point-blank aim at her head.
“Haven’t you heard? There’re traitors everywhere. Can’t trust anyone.”
“Are you insane?”
“In this town, that passes for normal. Now, let’s see if you followed standard operating procedures. Did you load a bullet in the firing chamber before you entered the room or not?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wrong.”
He swung back his arm, pulled the trigger. An explosion punched through the room like a boxer’s fist, the room’s windows blew apart. Harper brought the barrel down on her head.
“Your spare clips, mademoiselle, if you please.”
“You could have killed a local!”
“We’re well above the locals, and the bullet’s already taking a dive in the lake. Odds of killing man or fish are well within rules of engagement.”
Harper heard a polite cough behind him.
“Are we interrupting something?”
Harper turned, saw the cop in the cashmere coat standing in the hallway, Mutt and Jeff on either side with their own hefty weapons drawn. Laser sights targeted on the kill spot between Harper’s eyes.
“May I remind you, Mr. Harper, that regardless of the intended eternity of your being, if my men shoot you in human form, you’ll die.”
“Die in their form, you die forever.”
“I’m pleased you remember how it works.”
Harper lowered the weapon, flipped on the safety, stuffed it in his belt. Mutt and Jeff holstered their guns. Officer Jannsen jumped from the floor, stood at attention.
“Je suis désolée, Inspecteur.”
“Oh, think nothing of it, Officer. Now that Mr. Harper’s finally come around, he’s a very different sort of perch. But would you be so kind as to give him your kill kit?”
Officer Jannsen raised her skirt, pulled two ammo clips from the Velcro garters around her left thigh and the black steel knife strapped to her right. She handed them over.
“Try not to hurt yourself, monsieur.”
“Cheers, and sorry about the water in the face thing. Old tricks being what they are and all.”
“I thank you for the lesson, monsieur. Rest assured I shall not forget it.”
Inspector Gobet signaled Mutt and Jeff to take positions in the hall; he entered the room and saw the damage.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Officer Jannsen, please advise the concierge the windows of room 511 will need repair.”
“Oui, Inspecteur.”
“And draw another kill kit for yourself from stores.”
“Oui, merci.”
She walked out, closed the door. The inspector looked at Harper.
“Not very gallant of you, Mr. Harper. She’s not one of us, she’s a human partisan and she’s still in training.”
“She seems tough enough.”
The inspector removed his gloves, opened his cashmere coat and loosened his silk scarf, noticed the small mountain of papers and shredded photographs on the floor.
“You weren’t planning to set fire to the room, were you? Bullets through windows are one thing; burning the Hôtel de la Paix to the ground might cause the locals to wonder just what is going on in their fair canton.”
“Actually, I was…I don’t know what the hell I was doing, Inspector.” Harper tossed the SIG and clips on the bed. He tossed the killing knife from hand to hand. The inspector watched him.
“You do remember how to use that thing?”
Harper held the killing knife to his eyes. Slightly curved, razor-sharp on the long edge, serrated on the curve, tip shaped like a small fishhook. Designed to slice and rip open a throat in one quick move.
“Sure, like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Harper flipped the knife in the air and caught it by the handle, twisted it over the back of his hand, and gripped it again to reverse the angle of attack.
“Nice to see you in killing form, then. We were losing hope you’d come around.”
“How long was I out?”
“Ninety years. But we only had six months to reanimate you in this form.”
“Christ, no wonder I feel hungover as sin.”
“Indeed. By the way, what was the roughty-toughty with Officer Jannsen?”
“‘Oranges and lemons,’ she couldn’t finish it.”
“Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? You couldn’t finish the same rhyme for Sœur Fabienne. She could have slaughtered you in the gift shop of Lausanne Cathedral.”
“The little old nun is one of us?”
“Old tricks being what they are and all, what? It was only the fact you asked for the maquette of the cathedral that spared you.”
“Lucky me, saved by a cardboard cutout.”
“And for future reference, we haven’t used the Oranges and Lemons code since the First World War. Sœur Fabienne only used it to try to snap you out of your stupor—to no effect, unfortunately.”
“I didn’t recognize her eyes.”
“Not surprising, given your state. Retinal luminance recognition should return within the next forty-eight hours.”
“Right.” Harper held up his hand. He stared at it as if examining it. “And who’s this?”
“British forces captain of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. He was lost in a tribal region of Pakistan six months ago. He’d been captured by Taliban fighters and tortured for some time before managing to escape. His wounds and the exposure killed him. One of our cells snatched the body and got it to London for regenerative stasis. It was in fairly bad shape, I’m afraid. There’s still some rough spots in the lower chest.”
Harper felt the tenderness in his ribs and stomach. “Thought I’d fallen over while pissed.”
“We planted that idea in the hippocampus region of your brain to keep you from asking too many questions. We also did a memory sweep before you took form. You will still sense phantom feelings of the man he was. Very much as the amputee senses the itch of a leg that’s no longer there.”
“I know the drill, Inspector.”
“Yes, well, there’s some concern you might find the sensations to be much more acute. London’s never turned around a body so quickly. But it was the form we needed for the mission, and we’re under some pressure.”
Harper sat on the bed, rubbed the back of his neck. “He didn’t like heights.”
“Pardon?”
“Him, me. He didn’t like heights. Odd for someone in special ops, but he loved the job. And he loved…his wife, I think.”
“He was listed, Mr. Harper. He was finished with this body.”
“No jumping the gun, then, being as you were under pressure and all?”
“The devouring of the human souls and theft of their still-living forms are the tactics of the enemy, not us.”
Harper looked again at his hand. “Did his soul make it?”
“For the record, Jay Michael Harper was comforted before he died. His soul has already been born into another life.”
The inspector pulled his cigarette case from his cashmere coat, offered Harper a gold-tipped smoke.
“More of that fine hand-rolled Moroccan tobacco, Inspector?”
“Please, take one. An awakening can be something of a jolt. A good strong dose of radiance might be helpful in maintaining balance.”
“As in keeping my eternal being separate from a dead man named Jay Michael Harper?”
“That and clearing the cobwebs, what?”
Harper grabbed one and lit up, drew the smoke into his lungs, let it soak into his blood. He sat on the bed, looked down to the shreds of paper and photographs at his feet.
“One more thing, for the record, Inspector?”
“If I can.”
“Alexander Yuriev. Our kind, or human partisan?”
“Does it matter? Either way, he’s gone forever.”
“It matters.”
The inspector took one of his own flash smokes and lit up. “The real Alexander Yuriev drank himself to death shortly after returning to Russia. We’d been tracking him for many years as part of a long-term operation in Moscow.”
“An operation that went belly-up, I take it, or you wouldn’t have had to pull a rush job with me.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Yuriev and his operating cell of partisans were exposed by a mole in our Paris operation. All our partisans working with Yuriev were slaughtered and their souls fed to the devourers.”
“You say ‘devourers’ as if I’m missing something, Inspector.”
“Since you were last here, the enemy has perfected the manipulation of half-breed DNA. What was once a mutation has become a swarm, following fast at the enemy’s heels, waiting to dine at the table of mass death.”
“‘For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land.’”
“Indeed, Mr. Harper. Except these monsters, unlike the locusts of Moses, devour the chemical substance of the human soul.”
Harper drew at his fag, remembering something from somewhere. The History Channel, episodes on World War I maybe. No, he’d seen it himself. He could still smell it. He’d been there. Lacerated fields where only death lived among the blackened stumps of trees and barbed wire and shell holes filled with bloodstained water. Slogging through fields of mass death, hunting down the devourers of souls. All the time hearing the cries of the dying ones begging to be saved. What was once a mutation has become a swarm, bloody Christ. The inspector’s voice dragged Harper back to now.
“Mr. Harper?”
“Yes, sir, I’m with you. Yuriev’s partisans were slaughtered in Moscow.”
“His last message to us was that he’d make a dead drop at Lausanne Cathedral. That was twenty years ago.”
“He knew the bad guys were after him. He went underground.”
“Twenty years’ worth of deep, Mr. Harper. Not once coming in from the cold for regenerative stasis, not once making contact with a partisan. The weight of his form must have crushed down on his being with excruciating pain. It was a rather remarkable feat that he found the strength to complete his mission. We had hoped you might bring him in, but Komarovsky and his half-breeds got to him first.”
Harper inhaled from his smoke. The inspector was right: A dose of radiance was swell for clearing the cobwebs. He looked down to the shredded papers at his feet. Yuriev’s eyes were still staring at him. Christ, Harper thought. There’s only a handful of our kind left in this place. Battle buddies from the time the cries of men reached the heavens, on a mission to save paradise from the bad guys. You were his last chance, and you let him down.
“I should’ve been bloody faster off the mark. I might’ve saved him.”
“Those are the phantoms of your form speaking, Mr. Harper. I suggest you ignore them.”
“He dropped that formula in my lap. If I’d been even half awake, I would’ve known it was the enemy’s breeding formula, not some bloody performance-enhancing drug. He was begging me to recognize who he was…what he was.”
“Mr. Harper, if you remember, Yuriev didn’t drop the formula in your lap, I did. In the end, the state of Yuriev’s being was all but lost. He could no longer separate his being from his human form. And every human partisan in Europe was trying to save him—that is their job, isn’t it? Fight with us, save us if they can. And they have, through the ages. But the sad fact is Yuriev was already dead but for the beating of his heart. Indeed, he had become what men call a paranoid schizophrenic.”
“All the more reason to save him.”
“Yes, well, in our line of work the same orders stand when it comes to saving anyone, or anything. It’s not our job. Our job is the mission. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, time is not on our side. Are you feeling reasonably up to speed?”
“Monsieur Gabriel seems to have done the trick. And you did have me watching the History Channel 24/7 for, what was it, six months? Clever, the whole telly thing, communications embedded in the pictures.”
“It’s proven somewhat more effective than the deciphering of nursery rhymes. Shall we begin the briefing and mission profile?”
Harper took another hit off his smoke. Radiance seeping deeper, the tumblers in his brain spinning again, another safe cracking open, and a rush of light to the brain. Ab uno disce omnes…
“Go ahead.”
The inspector took a sizable draw from his own smoke. “In the late 1950s, a half-breed rose to prominence as a member of the Soviet Politburo, ending up as the Minister of Public Construction. His primary work was the management of urban prisons and slave labor camps in Siberia. However, we learned of a plan within his ministry code-named Firelight. The plan involved the rebuilding of Christ the Savior Cathedral along the Moscow River just outside the Kremlin walls. It was to be an exact replica of the original, built on the very same site.”
Harper’s mind flashed through Great Cathedrals of the World on the History Channel. Built in the nineteenth century to commemorate Mother Russia’s victory over Napoleon. One of the largest cathedrals in the world till Comrade Stalin blew it to hell in 1931.
“Bit odd in the mother ship of the Communist state, particularly as the Commies destroyed it.”
“Precisely the thing that caught our attention. Obviously, the cathedral couldn’t be built under Communism, so the enemy had to bide its time until they could engineer the proper political climate. That time came with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a new enemy cell emerged posing as a group of Russian businessmen.”
“Enter Komarovsky.”
“Indeed. He and his half-breeds flourished in the corrupt climate of the new Russia through a series of shell companies. He managed to gain control of the assets of the state-owned construction company outright. He then secured the contract for the excavations of the new cathedral. We activated Yuriev and, using his status as former hero of the Soviet Union, he secured a job as a laborer when the project broke ground. The excavation of the site went slowly and was often delayed due to mysterious equipment malfunctions.”
Harper drew from his smoke. “Let me guess, they were searching for something in the original cathedral foundations.”
“A bit deeper than that. A tunnel, hand-cut, two and a half kilometers deep, leading to a cave deep beneath the Moscow River. It was in the cave Yuriev found the object he carried to Lausanne.”
“What was it?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Couldn’t or won’t?”
“Same thing in the end, isn’t it?”
“Fine, but the foundations of Christ the Savior were built in 1839. The locals didn’t have the technology to dig a tunnel like that till the twentieth century. When was it built?”
“Well spotted, Mr. Harper. It was dug long before the dawn of man, long before our kind were sent here.”
“Yuriev ran carbon-dating tests. It was built in the Miocene Epoch, seven million years ago.”
Harper waited for the inspector to spill with the rest. When he didn’t, Harper’s mind sorted through another episode on the History Channel, The Dawn of Man.
“The time of Homo ergaster. Hominids became bipeds, learned to control fire and file stones into hand axes. Christ, they must have found the reason man evolved—”
“At this point, I give you an official caution, Mr. Harper. You are not to speculate on what the enemy may have found. Your mission is quite specific.”
“You’re not going to tell me what it is.”
“In truth, we don’t even know what it is. We only know Yuriev got it before the enemy and he sacrificed the eternity of his being to keep it from them.”
“So where is this thing, whatever it is, Yuriev lifted from Moscow?”
“You’re not cleared to know that information, I’m afraid.”
“Not cleared to know what it is or where it is. So how do I bloody find it?”
“You don’t find it. You were never meant to find it.”
“Then what the hell am I doing here?”
“You’re a warrior, Mr. Harper, a killer. You know what you’re here to do. Leave the finding to us.”
Harper looked at the killing knife in his hand. Something didn’t feel right. Phantoms of his form rising maybe. He forced them down.
“Where’re Komarovsky and his half-breeds now?”
“Waiting for you to make the next move.”
“Sorry?”
“Komarovsky and his half-breeds are well aware of what you are, as well as the next phase of your mission.”
“Since when?”
“Since I told them, the day you arrived in Lausanne.”
“You what?”
“Komarovsky’s half-breeds in Moscow have been trying to decipher our SX traffic since Yuriev went underground. Upon your arrival in Lausanne, we let slip the codes embedded in the BBC signals, giving the enemy the impression they had secured a back door into our communications. Happily, they took the bait.”
Harper tapped his cigarette and watched the ashes tumble to the floor again, not liking the sound of things already.
“What exactly did they read in your SX traffic?”
“That you met secretly with Yuriev before he was slaughtered, that he told you where he’d hidden the object in Lausanne Cathedral, and that you now have it in your possession. That message was transmitted two days ago. Within the last hour I’ve let it slip you’re bringing the object to our Paris cell tonight.”
“Now I truly don’t get it.”
“You’ll leave this room with your overnight bag and make your way to LP’s Bar. Take the scenic route, make sure you’re noticed. At LP’s, have more than a few drinks, chat with your bartender friend, Stephan. Tell him you’re off to London for a break, allow yourself to be overheard. Then allow yourself to be followed to Gare Simplon, where, very plainly and drunkenly, you board the midnight TGV to Paris.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“You’re not meant to get anything, Mr. Harper. You’re meant to follow orders and leave for Paris tonight.”
“Komarovsky’s killers won’t buy it—they’ll know my leaving Lausanne is a bluff no matter what you sent in your bloody SX traffic.”
“Precisely. They’ll assume we’re trying to draw them from the cathedral and never see the real reason you’re going to Paris.”
“Track down and slaughter the mole in the Paris operation.”
“With extreme prejudice, Mr. Harper.”
Harper took a final draw of the inspector’s fine North African tobacco. It felt like a last puff before the firing squad got the order to fire.
“There’s a problem, Inspector. Two problems.”
“Yes. Miss Taylor and the boy in the cathedral, you mean.”
“You knew all along?”
“As did the enemy.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s the way the counterintelligence game’s played. Bluff, bluff, double bluff, and hope you don’t come up with the short stick. The enemy has been watching you and noted your behavior.”
“Courtesy of your SX traffic?”
“Of course. Your apparent abandoning of Miss Taylor and the boy in the cathedral will cause the enemy a measure of doubt. Throw them on the back foot.”
“I said I’d come back to the cathedral tonight. The lad and Miss Taylor, they’ll be waiting for me.”
“Nothing we can do about that, I’m afraid. Mission timeline has already begun.”
“I promised I’d help them.”
“You did what?”
“I promised I’d come back.”
“You realize such a thing is a direct violation of the rules of engagement with locals.”
“I didn’t at the time, but it’s done. I can’t just leave them.”
“Again, those are the phantoms of your form, you mustn’t let them interfere with your mission.”
“You’re asking me to abandon two innocent souls.”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling you to abandon them and get on the midnight train to Paris.”
“This isn’t right.”
“We don’t live in a place of right or wrong, we follow orders.”
Harper jumped from the bed. “No, what’s not right is you not telling me something.”
“I tell you everything you need to know. If I say jump, you ask how high on the way up.”
“Bullshit.”
“Control yourself, Mr. Harper, anger can lead to free will. I’m ordering you to limit cognitive functions to the confines of your mission. Is that clear?”
“What’s clear is whatever Yuriev hid in the cathedral is still there, isn’t it? You let that bit of info slip on your bloody SX traffic, along with where it is, didn’t you? My orders are a diversion; the real mission is here. You want to capture an enemy chief in human form, let Officer Jannsen at him with her enhanced interrogation techniques. Moving Miss Taylor and the lad from the belfry would show your hand, so you’re willing to sacrifice their souls.”
“You have your orders, Mr. Harper.”
“There’s something about the two of them, something you’re not telling me. I mean the lad knows how to read shadows, he sees things. His own mother told him an angel was coming to the cathedral…Christ, none of this is an accident. You brought them both to Lausanne. You’re using the two of them as double agents and they don’t even know it. You can’t do this, damn it, they’ll be slaughtered.”
The inspector drilled deep into Harper’s eyes. “Cura nihil aliud nisi ut valeas!”
Something snapped to attention in Harper’s brain, overpowering the phantom of a dead man named Jay Harper. “Yes, sir.”
The inspector adjusted his silk scarf, closed his cashmere coat. “Mr. Harper…Some of them, the sensitive ones like the boy, the woman for that matter, they affect us. In some ways, it’s the greatest weight of our eternity, knowing we can never cross the line to their world even though we hide in their forms, mimicking their lives. Show me one of our kind who can draw a picture or write a piece of music, a line of poetry. We can’t. We can only stand in the shadows and watch them with wonder. And yes, too many of them are lost to us, I know.”
“‘Lost’ is a polite way of expressing it, isn’t it? Human souls ripped from bodies, fed to the devourers.”
“It happens when the enemy hides in the form of men.”
Harper held his hand before his eyes, studying it again. “And what do you call this?”
“We didn’t start this war, Mr. Harper, and we have no choice but to fight. We are here to save what is left of paradise. Do you read me?”
No choice, no bloody choice.
“Understood, will comply.”
The inspector stepped closer to Harper. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but as it’s been such a rough go for you…perhaps this will make it easier for you. The boy in the cathedral. The fact is he is listed, his life is nearly finished.”
Like a kill shot to the head. Not even hearing the crack.
“When?”
“That sort of thing is way above my pay grade. But from what I gather, it’s to be soon.”
“And Miss Taylor?”
“The woman isn’t listed as such, but…well, you know what they did to her.”
“And you won’t let Komarovsky take her alive.”
“It’s for the best. You know what they do to their women when they’re finished with them. What was done to Simone Badeaux was an easy death in comparison.” The inspector took a step toward Harper. “And as we’re on the topic, I need not remind you of the rules regarding locals who’ve been listed.”
“No contact, no interference that would affect the time and manner of their death.”
“Quite. Now get a move on, the clock’s ticking.”
Harper stuffed the killing knife in his belt, picked up the gun and ammo clips from the bed. He looked at them. “You know, I saw a newspaper the other day, read some new words for the slaughter of the innocent. They call it ‘collateral damage.’”
“Go easy with those thoughts, Mr. Harper.”
“Go easy?”
“Whatever it’s called these days, you know this isn’t the first time you’ve had to turn and walk away.”
“Will they receive comfort, will their souls make it to another life?”
“We’ll do all we can, of course. But you know how it is, mission success comes first.”
The inspector stepped to the door and pulled it open. Mutt and Jeff filled the passageway like two immovable and immortal things. Harper looked through the shattered balcony windows, saw rain falling hard in the dark night, felt words rise within him from an unremembered place.
“‘Blessed are the dead…’”
The inspector turned back. “I beg your pardon?”
“‘Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon.’ Who wrote those words?”
“Edward Thomas, a poet and soldier of the Great War, Artists’ Rifles Regiment.”
“What happened to him?”
“Killed in action on the Western Front, Easter Monday, 1917. His name is listed at Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.”
“Right, I remember him.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I took his human form, the last mission, didn’t I? I gave him comfort, helped carry him to his grave at Agny, and then I snatched his body for regenerative stasis.”
“As I said, go easy, Mr. Harper. You’ve only just been awakened.”
“I remember him, Inspector. I remember everything about him; I remember every last one of them.”
“Then remember this: They are not us, and we are not them. Now, get a move on. Give us a good show.”