Paul Christopher - The Lucifer Gospel

And that was that. The story that had begun in the hot sands of the Libyan Desert had its final chapter in the blue-green waters of the Caribbean, a journey of two thousand years and twice that many miles. A journey, like many involving the word and deeds of many gods, that had been drenched in the blood of the innocent and guilty alike.

The rest of the trip from Lyon to Paris was completely uneventful. The train pulled in to the Gare de Lyon exactly on time and a well-mannered Parisian taxi driver took them across the city to the Petit Pont, crossed Ile de la Cite to the Left Bank and deposited them in front of the five-story Hotel Normandie on the rue de la Huchette, a narrow, forgotten backwater off the Place St. Michel that looked as though it hadn’t changed much since Napoleon’s time, or at the very least since German soldiers wandered down its one long block looking for local color on furlough in the City of Light. There were butchers, bakers, a tobacconist, two other hotels of the same pension class as the Normandie, a place that sold orthopedic supplies, and an assortment of other small businesses of the kind found in any other neighborhood. The Cafй St. Michel on the corner fed them a decent meal and a bottle of vin ordinaire, and then they went to their separate beds, exhausted. The following morning, after they consulted first a telephone directory and then a map, they discovered that the Canadian embassy on avenue Montaigne was within reasonable walking distance. They set out in the bright morning sunlight, crossing the Seine at le pont des Invalides, then heading up toward the Champs-Elysйes and the upper end of the diplomatic district off the avenue Foch. The embassy turned out to be a discreet assembly of three Napoleon III buildings on a pleasant, tree-lined street and without a red-coated Mountie in sight. With some trepidation Finn and Hilts ventured inside. The interior had obviously seen some anti-Osama renovations, but in the end the whole process was a completely predictable affair of plastic chairs, number taking, and polite lines in bank lobby zigzags. An hour after entering the embassy they exited, the possessors of two blue-and-gold Canadian passports.

“Well, that was easy,” said Hilts, relieved. They turned down avenue Montaigne, heading back to the hotel.

The takedown was professional, perfectly executed, and went without a hitch. There was a man in front, dressed casually in jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, with a rottweiler on a leash, and two men behind, armed. A green Mercedes pulled up on the left, the rear door swinging open. One of the two men behind stepped forward, nudging something hard into the small of Finn’s back, urging her into the car, the second man doing the same to Hilts, while the man with the rottweiler stood by, blocking the possibility of an intrusion from people on the sidewalk, the dog growling low in the back of its throat. One of the men behind climbed in after Finn and Hilts, the second slammed the door, and the car began to move. It had all taken less than twenty seconds. Finn managed to look out through the rear window. The man with the dog was moving off as though nothing at all had happened, and the second man went off in the opposite direction.

Finn and Hilts were crushed together in the rear seat, a man on either side of them. A third man sat in the front seat beside the heavyset driver. The man beside the driver turned. His hair was dark and very short. He had a full beard and was wearing tinted glasses, and had a small leather folder in his hand with an ID card showing the famous sword-through-the-world-with-the-scales-of-justice logo of Interpol on it. He showed it first to Hilts and then to Finn without a word, glared at them, then snapped the folder shut and turned in his seat, facing forward.

Finn folded her hands in her lap, heart pounding. Beside her Hilts folded his arms across his chest and glared at the space between the driver and his companion. Finn had only been in Paris once before, and then only for a few days. The scenery blowing past meant nothing; broad avenues, statues, trees, long faзades of buildings that all seemed to date from roughly the same Empire period of architecture. A sense of grandeur and grime, of packed, wide sidewalks and chaotic traffic. The Mercedes stopped and started, the driver swearing and blowing his horn along with the rest of them. But the driver wasn’t swearing in French; it was some dialect of Arabic full of spitting gutturals. A barked word from the man beside the driver shut him up.

“Said bousak, Hmar!”

They sped through a traffic circle and Finn saw that they were going up a wide boulevard, an outdoor market set up with dozens of stalls and vendors laid out on the broad, tree-lined sidewalk to their right. They swerved to avoid a car on their left and Hilts slammed against the man beside him. The man gasped and flinched, his face twisting in agony as he lurched against the door. Hilts pushed harder and the door swung open, the photographer’s thrusting shoulder heaving the screaming man hurtling out of the car and into traffic. From behind them came a horrible thumping sound and the screeching of brakes, but almost before anyone could react Hilts’s right hand moved in a blur and four inches of wavy-bladed steel was suddenly jutting from the base of the driver’s neck. He shrieked, both hands flying up from the wheel to flail at the black-handled instrument sticking out of his neck. The car swerved, jolted wildly, and then hit something hard. The car came to a rocking halt. Grabbing Finn’s hand, Hilts threw himself out of the car and into a pile of cabbage.

“Come on!” he yelled. They climbed to their feet and staggered away from the wreckage of the car. The man beside the driver was struggling with his air bag. The driver had pulled the blade out of his neck and was desperately trying to stem the squirting fountain of blood with his bare hand.

Together Finn and Hilts ran through the market, slamming into shoppers and sending string bags full of groceries flying in all directions. Tradesmen swore as they raced on, and they felt hands reaching out to grab at them. Finn could hear a police whistle and in the distance a siren.

Suddenly the flat, cracking sound of an automatic pistol tore through the air. The man from the car was firing at them. The people around them in the market began to panic, dropping to the ground or scurrying away, yelling and screaming. There was a hot breeze half an inch from Finn’s cheek, and then came the sound of the gun again.

“The Metro!” Hilts yelled, dragging her to one side. They were at the end of the line of market stalls. The last one was butted up against the rail of the opening that led down into the subway. Hilts vaulted over the railing and Finn followed him, landing on her feet, almost toppling down the stairs, terrifying a woman and her poodle as they came out of the tunnel. Limping after the long drop, they hobbled down the white-tiled tunnel, fumbled with change to buy a carnet of tickets at a machine, and stumbled through the big pneumatic doors just as a train rattled into the station. They waited until the train came to a stop, then pushed their way on as soon as the doors hissed open. They sat down, chests heaving, and Finn saw their pursuer squeezing himself illegally through the rubber bumpers of the pneumatic doors at the platform entrance. The horn sounded and the man was forced to step onto a car six or seven down from the one they were sitting in.

“He got on,” she whispered to Hilts.

“I saw,” he answered.

“What do we do?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Think faster.”

The train banged through the station then headed into the intersecting tunnels that cut beneath the city. The wheels screeched as they rounded each turn, the cars rocking and heaving. They were on the first and oldest of the subway lines in Paris, Number One, and it felt like it.