The Sanctuary (27 page)

The words didn’t fully register with St. Germain, but he didn’t mind. For now, he was happy to be alive and happy to be with her. Deep down, he knew this would only be temporary, but he didn’t want to think about that right now. He just let himself drift away into the comfort of her arms and tried to shut the world out for as long as he could.

She took him to her apartment, in the newly fashionable Marais district, and had her maid draw up a hot bath. She helped him out of his clothes and into the tub, and later, after she’d dressed his wound and fed him, they put out all the candles save for a solitary one by the bed and made love with ravenous abandon.

He woke up with the first hints of sunlight and watched her sleeping by his side. His shoulder still hurt, but at least the wound had stopped bleeding. He ran his hand gently down to the small of her back, relishing the smoothness of her skin under his fingers, and dreading the inevitable reinvention that he’d soon have to undertake.

Watching her breathing peacefully by his side, his mind escaped to a sunnier life where he didn’t have to live a lie, and where he could take pleasure in the ever-dwindling time he had left. He found himself asking himself the same question that had been tormenting him of late, wondering again about the validity of the quest he had devoted his life to, about whether it was time to finally give it all up and retreat into a blissfully mundane existence.

As he pondered the journey of his life, he also found himself doubting what he would ultimately achieve even if he did succeed in finding what he was looking for.

Finding it was one thing.

Announcing it, revealing it to the world, and making sure that it was available and shared by all…that was a far more insurmountable challenge.

The world wasn’t ready for it, so much was certain. Powerful forces would be aligned to smother it, to keep it from altering—and empowering—mankind. Immortality—spiritual, individual immortality, that is—was a gift only religion was allowed to bestow. Nothing else could be allowed to alleviate the dread of the specter of death’s inevitable and irresistible invitation. The gift he was pursuing was sacrilegious, unthinkable. The Church would never allow it. Who was he to overcome such venomous hostility?

Confusion flooded his mind. Countering his weariness and his feelings of despair was the observation that, despite everything, the future held promise. With every passing year, he felt the winds of change blowing through the cities of men around him. Salons and coffeehouses were brimming with new ideas that were challenging ignorance, tyranny and superstition. Religious dogma and persecution were being undermined. Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, and others were feverishly working while warding off the suppression of their works by the ever-present Jesuits. People were finding themselves lifted and inspired by the words of great thinkers who believed that man was essentially good, and that happiness in this earthly life, achieved through social fraternity and advances in sciences and in arts, was a far more sensible and noble aspiration than hoping to reach paradise through penitence.

They were beginning to dare to value their lives more than their afterlives.

But there was still a lot to overcome.
Poverty and sickness, chiefly.
Premature death lurked around every corner, and the most brilliant minds were still trying to understand what the human body was made of and how it worked. This would be a huge distraction to their work, and it could have disastrous effects. And beyond all that was the seemingly intractable issue of man’s greed, his innate propensity to covet and amass.
As St. Germain had witnessed, firsthand, in di Sangro.

St. Germain looked at the sleeping silhouette by his side. He reached out and stroked her naked shoulder. He studied her
face,
radiant even in sleep, and saw promise and inspiration in its finely sculpted lines, and it tormented him. Something deep within him tore.

He felt exhausted.

Perhaps it was all unattainable. Perhaps it was time to be selfish.

Perhaps it was time to give up.

The thought brought him comfort. But there were more pressing problems to solve.

Either way, he’d have to leave. He had the ability to travel and reinvent himself. He’d undertaken a couple of sensitive missions for the king, who, in another misguided attempt to assert himself, had instituted
le Secret du Roi
, the “king’s secret,” a covert effort of agents he would send abroad to pursue objectives that were mostly opposed to his publicly announced policies, such as seeking peace with the British. St. Germain could make use of the system to slip away and resettle in secret.

With a heavy heart, he knew it was the only option.

As if reading his mind, Thérésia stirred beside him and stretched awake. Her face beamed with a luminous smile as she curled her body into his.

She seemed to read the expression on his face, and her face darkened for a quiet moment, before she asked uncertainly, “You’re going to leave
Paris
, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t bring himself to lie, not to her. He simply nodded without taking his eyes off her.

She held his gaze, then leaned in and gave him a languorous kiss. When she finally pulled back, she simply said, “I want to go with you.”

He looked at her and smiled.

T
he campus was barely stirring to life as Ramez moved cautiously down the quiet, tree-shaded lane that led to Post Hall.

He’d hardly slept. He’d watched his clock tick the interminable hours away, minute by minute, and by the time the sun had finally deigned to make its appearance, he couldn’t take the confinement anymore. Hesitantly, he’d emerged from his apartment and made his way to the university, looking over his shoulder, scanning the street as he hurried along,
alert
to anything that looked even remotely out of the ordinary.

The building itself was deserted this early in the morning. The most conscientious of the staff didn’t come in before
seven thirty
, which wasn’t for another half hour. He paced around his office, looking out onto cypress trees outside, stealing anxious glances at the cell phone on his desk, tormented by indecision—and by fear.

As he heard the first of his colleagues trickling into the department, he decided to put an end to the ulcerous pain that was knotting up his chest and grabbed his phone.

THE FERRET WATCHED intently as the taller detective spoke on the phone. Reading between the lines, he realized what was going on. His suspicions were soon confirmed once his partner hung up. The man who’d called worked with the kidnapped American professor at the university. He’d been contacted by the Iraqi antiques smuggler they were looking for, who wanted to make a deal before coming in. He was scared.

The taller detective had told him to stay put; he and his partner would be there shortly.

He told the ferret to get ready to head out to the university with him and picked up his cell phone to make a call. He wasn’t exactly bolting out the door at the news. That was good.

The ferret guessed he’d be calling the American agent to give him the news. He had to move fast. They weren’t paying him to stand idle.

He had to let them know. Then he had to delay things at the station long enough for them to get there first.

He told his partner he needed to take a quick leak,
then
left the room. He found a quiet corner in an interview room, made sure he wouldn’t be overheard, and speed-dialed Omar’s number.

THE BRIEF CELL-PHONE RING echoed through the apartment and roused Mia from an almost comatose sleep. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, feeling groggy. She wasn’t sure what time it was. The room was completely dark, the outside world ruthlessly blotted out by roller shutters. She noticed some sunlight creeping in from under the bedroom door and realized it was morning.

She was surprised at how deeply she’d been gone, given the circumstances. She ran her hands through her hair, pulled on her pants, and stumbled out of the bedroom to find Corben in the kitchen. He was already dressed and was talking into the phone while stuffing some files—including the one he’d taken from Evelyn’s apartment—into his briefcase.

His body language, focused and urgent, sent a spasm of dread down Mia’s spine.

He saw her and tilted the phone upwards, away from his mouth. In a low but firm voice, he said, “We’ve got to go.” His steely expression filled in the rest. They had to go
now
. Her questions would have to wait.

She’d hardly managed to get her shoes on before they were heading down in the elevator to the underground garage. Corben filled her in as they hurried into his Cherokee, and within minutes they were rushing towards the university.

“They’re sending a couple of men over,” Corben concluded, “but I’d rather have Ramez in our custody than in theirs when that call comes in.”

He checked his watch. Mia checked hers. “So this Farouk’s supposed to call him at
noon
?”

Corben nodded. “We’ve got about four hours.”

Mia’s mind was racing ahead questioningly, a surge of adrenaline flooding her senses. “So why wasn’t he picking up his phone last night when you tried calling him? What if it had been Farouk? What if he’s changed his
mind,
or something’s happened to him?”

Corben shrugged. “I guess we’ll know in four hours’ time.”

“He should’ve picked up his phone,” she insisted.

Corben turned to her. “This is good. At least he’s made contact.”

Mia took in a deep breath and settled back in her seat, trying to subdue the methodical, analytic scientist inside her, but there were too many unknowns, too many possible variants, for her to switch off. “What if Farouk’s watching him? You don’t want to scare him off.”

“If he’s watching, he’ll see you,” Corben reassured her. “And that should give him some comfort, maybe even encourage him to come out.”

Mia nodded to herself and turned away, looking ahead as the street tore past. She didn’t like the silence. It allowed her to take stock of what she was actually doing, and with that came apprehension. She thought again of her mom, of what she must be feeling. She tried to calm herself by thinking forward and imagining a best-case, uneventful scenario—they pick up Ramez, Farouk calls, he’s brought in, and either they act on his information to track down the hakeem and free Evelyn, or they get the smuggled pieces and trade them for her freedom, and everyone lives happily ever after. But her mind refused to cooperate, insisting instead on fleshing out outcomes that were far less rosy and, despite her best efforts to block them, involved a lot of suffering and a disturbing number of deaths.

Corben made a right turn at the bottom of Rue Abdel Aziz onto the tail end of Bliss and turned into the circular driveway of the main entrance to the university. The Medical Gate, as it was known, was shrouded in darkness at all times of day by the sweeping canopy of a gargantuan, ancient banyan tree. He pulled right up to the cast-iron gate. Vehicular access to the campus was tightly controlled due to the local penchant for car bombs, but Corben’s Jeep had the diplomatic 104 plates that indicated it was affiliated to the
U.S.
embassy and enjoyed special privileges. Sure enough, the guard manning the gatehouse spotted the plates and, after a cursory glance inside the car, waved them in.

They pulled into a parking spot under a row of stately cypress trees up the road from Post Hall. Mia felt her nerves tingling as she followed Corben out of the car. She noticed him look around as if to make sure no one was watching before he opened the SUV’s tailgate. The trunk was bare, aside for a latch in its carpeted floor, which Corben unlocked. He gave the surroundings another quick once-over before opening the concealed lid. Neatly strapped into place and tucked away inside the compartment was a small armory: shotgun, submachine gun, a couple of automatics, and several boxes of rounds. The tingle grew more pronounced as Corben pulled out one of the handguns, rammed a full magazine in, and tucked it into his belt underneath his jacket.

He slammed the lid shut and seemed to spot the apprehension in her expression. “Just in case,” he reassured her.

“Good idea,” she muttered, unsure whether to feel relieved that he was armed this time.

They walked past a couple of students who were hanging out before class and entered the old stone building. There was no receptionist in the lobby—the Archaeology Department was small, with no more than a dozen or so full-time staff. Mia knew that Evelyn’s office was on the upper floor and led Corben past the empty lecture hall and the entrance to the campus museum and up the stairs.

They checked the rooms as they walked down the corridor until they came to Ramez’s office. His door was open. The assistant professor’s face lit up with alarm when he spotted them, then his expression turned to confusion as he seemed to recognize Mia.

“I’m Evelyn’s daughter.” She smiled, trying to put him at ease. “We met here before, remember?
In her office?”

“Of course.”
His eyes were still fearful as they darted from her to Corben and back. He wanted to mouth some more words, but Corben didn’t give him that chance and took over.