The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (6 page)

“The wind, sir,” interrupted Cocteau, much to the annoyance of the sous-lieutenant. “I couldn’t hear you; it’s damn loud, not to mention god-awful cold!”

“Cocteau!” shouted the sous-lieutenant. “Keep your mouth closed; I am not interested in your intolerance of the weather. I need you to get over to Pont Neuf and check below the arches on the west side of Île de la Cité. I have reports of a clochard sleeping there.”

“Oui, Lieutenant, I am on my way,” Cocteau obediently grumbled as he tried to hide in his shivering voice the way he detested the self-aggrandizing way in which his fat-bellied superior spoke—so patronizing. The effeminate crackling voice of the sous-lieutenant had a manner that grated on Cocteau’s ears. When he spat out a word, his fat jowls shook; he looked like a pelican finishing off a fish. Cocteau wanted to reach out and silence him through a strong chokehold but didn’t think he could get his hands around the man’s meaty neck.

Although he disliked his superior, Cocteau was not displeased that the short trip to the quais under the bridge would get his blood pumping, and the dominant arches of the four-hundred-year-old span would give him some respite from the brutality of the wind.

Cocteau broke into a slight jog toward the bridge; he kept his eyes on the space beneath the grand arches, looking for the clochard. His eyesight was strong, better than perfect; Cocteau picked up the dark shape of a man lying near the first arch. He quickened his pace and was soon gulping for air, but he never lost sight of the man that was balled up underneath the bridge.

Quickly and noisily, Cocteau slid his way down the wet embankment, sliding nearly to the edge of the Seine. The clochard didn’t seem to take any notice of him, or was too drunk to care. Perhaps, he was dead. Cocteau cringed at this; his uptight sous-lieutenant would somehow see himself fit to make the dead clochard his fault. He would probably make him stand guard over the dead body.

Cocteau shouted out at the man, but he didn’t move. Cloaked in the dirty and greasy rags typical of the homeless and the destitute, the clochard—as the downtrodden of Paris are often called—was content to make the spot under the bridge his current home. In the weeks prior to the visit to the Île de la Cité by the heir-apparent American senator, the Gendarmerie had worked extra hours to diligently clean the streets of Paris of the beggars, the prostitutes, and the runaways—of anything resembling a clochard.

This wasn’t the first time the streets had been cleaned of any semblance to the sides of humanity too unpleasant to acknowledge. It was common practice, a well-choreographed effort by the police, and accepted by those whose misfortune had led them to a life where meals came from tossed scraps and a good night’s rest meant not waking to a shiv in one’s side. Many sat in the Paris jails until whatever dignitary, public official, or other overly important person left the city. Every available cell was crammed until there was little room left to stand. And when the jails were full, the rest were shipped to the countryside and housed into impromptu tent cities.

Cocteau slowed his pace as he closed the distance to the man lying on his side. He eyed him carefully, looking for movement. He saw none. He shouted out, “Hey, you! Get up! You aren’t supposed to be here!”

Again, there was no sign of movement or life in the man.

Deputy Chief Jean Cocteau had no clue that what he would do next would end his life. He was only acting like any other policeman when he placed a fierce kick into the back of the clochard. The man didn’t respond to the kick. Cocteau had no idea that the eyes of the clochard were wide open and that he knew Cocteau was coming; that he had heard his command to get up; that in his left hand, he cradled tightly a fully loaded, silenced, and ready-to-fire .357-caliber subcompact Glock 33.

Cocteau pulled his right leg back, readying to swing his heavy boot in a second kick to the back of the clochard. At the moment that his leg was drawn fully rearward, the dirty-clothed man spun around and sprang to his feet. The clochard’s movements were fast, too fast, and before Cocteau’s brain could process what was occurring, he felt himself floating through the air, landing heavily on his back. The clochard had placed a strong, well-placed kick to the sternum of Cocteau. All of the air in his lungs was forcibly expelled, and the little stars that go along with the blackness belonging to a lack of consciousness floated in front of him.

When Cocteau’s eyes regained their focus, he saw the dirty man standing over him with a small pistol pointed at his face. The little pistol had a short silencer attached to it.

“Take off your kepi; give it to me,” ordered the clochard.

Cocteau said nothing, but did as he was told. Slowly he removed his headgear and extended it forward to the man.

The pistol’s aim never changed; it was pointed directly at Cocteau’s face. The clochard snatched the kepi and put it on his head; it fit perfectly. He smiled.

A wave of fear lapped through Cocteau. The face of the clochard before him didn’t fit with the clothes that he wore. The man was tanned, his skin healthy. His face was chiseled in the manner of an Olympian; he seemed capable. Cocteau looked at the man’s feet; the clochard was wearing the boots of a Gendarmerie officer. Underneath the rags he wore, Cocteau saw the creases of well-tailored pants. He was confused.

Feebly, Cocteau muttered, “Who are you…what do you want?”

The clochard peered at the officer and said matter-of-factly, “My name is Charney. You know me better as the History Thief, but that means little to you under the current circumstances. And with regards to what I wanted,” Charney traced his free hand across the kepi, “I have it, but I didn’t want to ruin it by putting a bullet hole through it. I couldn’t very well impersonate an officer of the Gendarmerie by wearing a ruined kepi, now could I?”

Cocteau’s eyes shook with terror, and he raised his hand toward the armed man more as a defense mechanism than an attempt to stop the bullet. He wanted to shout, but nothing would come out. His vocal chords wouldn’t comply; his brain simply wasn’t strong enough in the face of death. The clochard pulled the trigger of the high muzzle-velocity weapon. The hollow-point bullet flashed through the spiraled tube and out of its bore. The silenced bullet tore straight through Cocteau’s extended palm and, never leaving its course, entered into Cocteau’s brain through his forehead.

His death was instant.

Quickly, Charney threw off the dirty rags he wore for clothes. Underneath, he was wearing the uniform of a Gendarmerie officer with the rank of commandant—a senior officer. He removed the radio from the dead officer and put it on his own uniform. From its sheath, he removed a long knife and cut away the dead man’s clothing. Balling the clothes up, he threw them into the fast-moving river. Grabbing the dirty clothes, he put them on the officer.

Reaching into a small satchel that he had draped over his body, but underneath his coat, Charney pulled out a small and darkened round object. About the size of a large plum and almost the same color, the twelfth-century hand grenade still contained the dozen caltrops within its small belly that had been placed there by the ancient blacksmith who had first produced the antipersonnel weapon. Rudimentary in their design, but effective, the caltrops were razor-sharp, three-point stars that would be violently expelled in all directions when the grenade exploded. It had taken Charney nearly eleven hours to painstakingly modify the nine-hundred-year-old grenade: he had added a modern pin and spoon, primer, a delay element, and a more powerful main charge.

Squatting next to the dead soldier, he rolled him onto his side and then slipped the grenade between his body and the earth. Ensuring that its narrow silver spoon was snug against the dead man’s body, he slowly pulled its pin. It would be the misfortune of any man or woman to be found within a five-meter radius of the dead man when his body was moved.

For a moment he remained crouched next to the deputy chief’s body, a wave of exhaustion sweeping through him. The last two weeks had been met with little sleep, and it was catching up to him. Night after night, after the tourists had retired and the Paris streets were returned to daring lovers and clochards, he had worked tirelessly to make sure that his plan would work.

Everything was in place and ready. Stones containing plastic explosives were adhered to the apex of nearly every flying buttress of Notre Dame; their underbellies had been meticulously chiseled to create spaces that would hold the explosives. Searching for the stones that had the precise color and texture of those used in the buttresses had been no small effort: it had taken nearly a month to find a quarry with a suitable match.

Additionally, small tanks of hydrogen gas had been cleverly buried into the earth of the crypt beneath the cathedral. The tanks had been no small feat, either. They were not made of any metal, lest they be discovered during a periodic security sweep of the crypts. They were made of wood and lined with a thick, nonporous Mylar. The Mylar wouldn’t contain the gas indefinitely, but it would hold the gas long enough for him to complete the operation. His biggest challenge had been creating a pressurized nozzle that contained no detectable materials. It had taken long, frustrating hours to manufacture the nozzles; using a combination of plastic, wood, glass, and thin filaments of copper and silicone, he had been able to adorn the wooden tanks with nozzles that were under his control.

His commands to the tanks would be sent wirelessly; with the simple push of a button on a high-frequency remote, the tanks would begin to pump the odorless, tasteless, and invisible gas throughout the ancient and unused hypocaust and into the floors and walls of Notre Dame. He reveled in the plan for a moment; it was pure genius, really. The ancient system used to heat the cathedral was unused and, instead of being replaced during the many reconstructive periods of Notre Dame, was built around and quietly hidden from floor to ceiling by the cathedral’s walls.

In his pocket was the wireless device that would bring down Notre Dame. When the appropriate time arrived for him to enter in the correct code, the gas-filled floor and walls would explode magnificently. The charges hidden in the explosives attached to the buttresses would be triggered the moment the gas ignited and would destroy the critical element that managed the vertical thrust of the large and heavy vaulted ceilings. The destroyed floors and walls of Notre Dame would not be able to support the massive ceiling without the flying buttresses. He was about to accomplish the impossible. He knew what would occur would shake the world—Notre Dame would fall and would do so in dramatic fashion.

The cathedral could easily hold a few thousand visitors and would be full on this day. Outside would be countless more. But the coup de grace would be the death of the visiting American senator who would certainly be flanked by the cooing president of France. The deaths wouldn’t stop there: anyone within fifty yards of Notre Dame’s perimeter—and there would be hundreds, thousands perhaps—would perish in the wake of its destruction. He was being paid to kill the senator and to steal the Crown of Thorns, but the president of France was his own target and the reason he had accepted the job.

A slight, but wicked, smile caused his normally pursed lips to widen, showing a small measure of emotion. Exhaling slowly, he rubbed his eyes and reminded himself that there were still two last things to do.

Standing, he adjusted his posture to emulate how he thought a commandant of the Gendarmerie Nationale would carry himself. He looked left and right and then quickly made his way toward the 422 steps of the South Tower of Notre Dame.

CHAPTER FIVE

OPERATION MONGOOSE
TARGET: ABU
MOHAMMED IBRAHIM

T
he day was rapidly growing hot. York looked down at his wristwatch, which also displayed the temperature: 107 degrees.

The climb was slow and arduous.

York was at the point, but he had difficulty moving expeditiously while simultaneously scanning for combatants and signs of the irrigation canal—his marker—that fed into the cave complex. A bulbous drop of salt-laced sweat dripped from his upper eyelid and into his left eye; he ignored the deep stinging, only squinting slightly at its intrusion.

Scanning slowly, he saw another karez just ahead. The underground irrigation system quietly punctuated the steep slope and was his only visual marker that the team was fast approaching the mountainside cave complex. The holes opened to long shafts, and York was careful to mark each one so that the approaching team members didn’t mistakenly step into them.

The shafts burrowed into the earth anywhere from twenty to one hundred meters deep and often were the cause of broken ankles, legs, and the occasional soldier buried embarrassingly to his waist, or worse. York bent lower and spilled some water from his canteen, marking an × in the dirt, a few meters in front of the shaft’s obscure opening. The watermark would let his teammates know another karez was just ahead. The mark would soon dry, ridding any evidence of the team’s presence.

York readied to move forward. He knew that they were close to the cave. The altimeter on his watch stated that they had climbed nearly twelve hundred meters—twelve hundred very steep meters. Nearly three hours had passed, and the dense foliage was beginning to lose its abundance: the first sign that the underbelly of the earth was more rock than dirt and that the woods would give way to caves.

Moving slowly, York snaked his way from karez to karez until he caught the first glimpse of the entrance to their target. Stopping, York immediately went to one knee and held up his left hand, which was balled into a fist. The message to the rest of the team was clear: they had arrived. If York had turned around, he wouldn’t have been able to see his teammates, but they were there. York’s unspoken command was repeated from one Green Beret to the next. Each man had taken a knee and waited.