Alex Archer - Cradle Of Solitude

He stepped forward as she approached.

“Excuse me. Miss Creed?”

He had a strong French accent.

“Yes?” she replied.

She searched her memory, but she was pretty sure she didn’t know him. Having strangers approach her was nothing new. People often recognized her from Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable television show she cohosted, but something told her this guy wasn’t a fan looking for a quick autograph.

“Please forgive the interruption. I am Commissaire Laroche, of the Police Nationale.”

Annja knew the Police Nationale was the main civil law enforcement agency in France. Commissaire was a commissioned officer rank, sort of analogous to a senior detective in the United States. In other words, this guy was a heavy hitter in the local police community. Annja was alarmed. She’d stayed out of trouble while on vacation and hadn’t done anything to elicit interest from the police.

This time around, at least.

Seeing he had her attention, Laroche continued. “I’m looking for some assistance with a—how do you say…peculiar? yes?—situation. Your name was given to me by Monsieur Garrison at the embassy.”

That, at least, was a name she recognized. She’d met Billy Garrison at a press junket she attended on behalf of the show the last time she’d been in Paris. He was on the ambassador’s staff and had taken her to dinner a few nights later, but there hadn’t been any spark and she’d declined his offer for a second date.

Being dateless was preferable to listening to Billy ramble on about French politics for hours again. Thanks, but no thanks.

“May I see some identification, Commissaire?”

He bowed slightly, an outdated but courtly gesture. “Of course, Miss Creed. And please, call me Henri.”

He handed over a leather case that contained his badge and ID. She glanced at it, confirmed that the man in the picture and the one standing in front of her were one and the same, then handed it back.

“Thank you. One can’t be too careful these days….”

“Of course, of course,” he replied, waving off her apology.

“So how is Billy?” she asked, more to gauge the inspector’s reaction to him than anything else.

He didn’t disappoint. “Monsieur Garrison is as long-winded as usual,” he replied, giving her a tight smile.

Yep, that was Billy.

“So what’s this peculiar situation that you need help with, Henri?” she asked.

Laroche hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as he did so. “Perhaps we might take this outside?” he asked.

When she followed his gaze and found the rest of the dojo’s students watching their discussion, Annja readily agreed.

She accompanied him out the door into the bright spring sunshine and fell into step beside him as he walked slowly up the street, explaining as he went.

“For the past several weeks construction teams have been working on the southern line of the Metro, widening the existing tunnels to make room for the new branch that will be added to the system in May.”

Annja was aware of the project, for the construction workers with their bright orange reflective vests were a familiar sight on the trains in and out of the area.

Laroche went on. “Late yesterday afternoon the floor gave way beneath a work crew in one of the newly expanded tunnels. Thankfully, only two of the men sustained injuries and in both cases they were minor ones. When the dust cleared the crew discovered that they had fallen into a previously unknown second tunnel, running parallel beneath the first. Further exploration revealed several antechambers just beyond, each one filled with stacks of human bones.”

Annja could scarcely believe what she was hearing. A previously undiscovered section of the catacombs? Her heart skipped a beat at the thought.

Prior to the creation of the catacombs in the mid-1700s, the dead of Paris were buried in small cemeteries alongside local churches. But as the city grew, the cemeteries ran out of space. Mass interments became common, often without caskets, and over time this led to the contamination of ground water as the bodies decomposed in the earth.

To deal with the problem, city officials moved to outlaw all burials within the city limits from that point forward. Existing graves were exhumed and the remains were relocated to a series of abandoned limestone quarries that were, at that time, on the outskirts of town. The process of disinterring the bones from their original resting places was carried out with reverence for the dead as well as consideration for the living. The quarry space was blessed, the long trains of carts moving the bones were accompanied by priests and the activity was always conducted at night. No attempt was made to identify or separate the individual bodies, but each set of bones was marked with a plaque indicating the cemetery from which they originated and the year they were moved. By 1860, when the relocation was completed, some five to six million skeletons had been moved to the catacombs.

Eventually, the city expanded and what had once been outside the city limits now lay hidden beneath its streets. Annja knew only a small section of the massive tunnel network was accessible to the public. That left close to two hundred miles of tunnels and caverns extending like a spider’s web beneath the city that only a handful of people had ever seen.

“Most of the men on the crew had seen the catacombs at one point or another in their careers so the rooms full of bones were not at all surprising to them,” Laroche said. “However, the discovery of a fully intact skeleton, partially buried beneath a pile of those older bones, was.”

Annja considered that for a moment. “Sounds like a job for the police rather than an archaeologist,” she said.

“Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” Laroche replied, “but this particular discovery turned out to be a bit more complex than first thought.”

They paused, waited for the light to change, then crossed, continuing walking along the other side of the street.

“When the crime scene unit arrived, it didn’t take them long to determine that the job would be better off in the hands of a forensic anthropologist. While arrangements were being made to bring one in, word of the find was also sent to the American Embassy.”

Annja was surprised. “The embassy? So your mysterious skeleton is that of an American?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

That’s like saying you’re kind of pregnant, she thought, but when she pressed him on it Laroche wouldn’t explain any further.

“I’d rather not prejudice your opinion,” he said as they turned left onto another thoroughfare. Caught up in the puzzle he was laying out before her, Annja barely noticed where they where headed.

“What’s my opinion got to do with any of this?” she asked.

Laroche smiled. “Because of the nature of the find, it was agreed that a representative from the United States should be present when the skeleton is excavated. Mr. Garrison suggested that you would be ideally suited for the task.”

“Is that so?”

Laroche grinned devilishly. “Oui. In fact, it sounded like he said something about you preferring the company of the dead over that of the living, but perhaps I misheard him.”

He is so going to pay for that one, Annja thought, before realizing that in order to carry out her threat, she’d have to see him again.

Perhaps he wasn’t as dim-witted as she’d taken him to be.

Putting the thought aside for the time being, she focused on the opportunity being offered to her. “So are you asking me to get my hands dirty or will this be strictly observational in nature?”

“You can get as dirty as you like, Miss Creed.”

“Am I being brought on as an official consultant?” she asked.