The Shroud of Heaven (19 page)

As Kismet closed to within a hundred meters of the monument, another soldier fast-roped onto the dome surface and directed the heavy line down toward the base of the structure. The helo moved in low over the center of the broad dome, until it was hovering about ten meters from its summit. The additional slack in the rope allowed the soldier to rappel down to the bottom of the arching pedestal, where he began urging Kismet onward. His right hand however maintained a fierce grip on the lifeline.

Kismet hurdle-jumped a short wall, landing in what appeared to be the basin for a fountain—the water supply had been shut off at the onset of the war—and continued up a series of long concrete steps. The final distance was the hardest, requiring him to climb and zigzag a course of ramparts and stairs leading up to the monument. At one turn, he found himself staring out over the oncoming horde, while a glance to his left revealed that a dozen men were now only a few steps behind. Failing to find any reserves of energy in his body, he wrote a mental IOU and sprinted ahead.

A dark vise closed on his skull as a ringing nose deafened him to the sounds of battle. He could just make out the soldier, beckoning frantically only a few steps away, and before the curtain fell over his eyes, he threw out his left hand.

He wasn’t aware of the moment where the soldier’s grip closed around his wrist, nor did he feel the rope go taut as the Black Hawk ascended a few meters, drawing both men up the steep incline toward the top of the dome. The next cognizant moment found him laying supine on the crest of the curved structure, spread out like a sacrifice.

The soldier who had pulled him up knelt beside him, shouting something in his ear. Kismet nodded dumbly and rolled over, automatically sheathing his
kukri
. Had he been more alert, he might have simply discarded the weapon. It had sentimental value, but his rational mind would have judged his situation far too urgent to squander precious seconds keeping track of his equipment.

The helicopter’s rotor wash tore at the ragged remains of his clothing. He was reluctant to stand up, lest the insistent wind blast him from the smooth metal surface of the dome. The Black Hawk moved off however, easing the tempest, and took up a position just off the forward tip of the upraised monument. Several faces crowded around the open side door, urging the three men to make the short jump to relative safety. The soldier who had pulled Kismet up now turned to him, and shouted in his ear.

“This is easier than it looks, sir. Watch me!”

He turned away and crossed cautiously to the edge of the dome, hunched low to avoid the whirling vanes overhead, and stepped out onto the deck of the Black Hawk. From Kismet’s point of view, it seemed that he had not even leapt. The soldier turned to face him, once more exhorting him to hurry.

The crowd was massing at the base of the monument, the initial attempts to scale the forty-five degree slope had been easily thwarted as the remaining soldier clubbed at outstretched hands with the plastic stock of his carbine. But as reinforcements joined the vanguard, the advantage of their overwhelming numbers now became apparent. From several points around the fulcrum of the cantilevered structure, groups of men began boosting individuals high enough to get a purchase on the hot copper surface. The infantryman, recognizing that their tactic would eventually succeed, turned away and ran toward the helicopter. Only then did Kismet realize that it was Colonel Buttrick.

“Get the fuck off this thing!”

Kismet nodded again, then scrambled to his feet, preceding the officer by a few steps. At the outer limit, the gulf between the aircraft and the dome seemed less traversable. Not trusting his weary body to make the crossing in one easy step, Kismet took a running start and hurled his weight forward at the last instant.

No less than four pairs of hands caught him as entered the helicopter. Once his feet were planted on the deck, he turned to watch Buttrick make his move. Directly behind the colonel, the heads and shoulders of the first wave became visible. Desperate to find a vent for their anger, the mob was not relenting, even though it appeared their prey had already eluded them.

Like Kismet, Buttrick was not about to showboat the crossing. All that mattered to him was getting off the dome by the most expedient means. Hunched over, he moved at a dead run across the dome, gathering his strength for the final jump.

At that instant, the pilot saw the telltale plume of another RPG launch off in the distance. Although he knew there was a still a man outside, his instinctive response occurred a millisecond ahead of rational thought. He tapped the rudder pedal with his left foot, swiveling the helicopter a few degrees on the axis of the main rotor. The grenade’s trajectory brought it nowhere near the aircraft, but that momentary correction came at the worst possible moment.

Buttrick had already committed to the jump. There was no halting or redirecting his momentum. The opening in the side of the Black Hawk was no longer where he expected it to be. He managed to throw an arm around the edge of the door before slamming into the armored side of the helicopter and surrendering to gravity.

Inside, the sudden maneuver had thrown everyone off balance. The confident soldiers, unprepared for the shift, abruptly found themselves clutching for handholds. Kismet, nearest to the door, was hurled against the bulkhead, but even as he hugged the wall, trying to keep his feet, he saw Buttrick make his doomed leap from the monument. He threw out a desperate hand and somehow snared the colonel’s wrist.

As Buttrick’s full weight came down on the outstretched arm, Kismet was pulled to the deck. The colonel’s face twisted in agony as the burden wrenched his shoulder out of joint, but Kismet did not let go. He felt the other man groping with his free hand for a purchase, but dared not release the grip of his other hand on the bulkhead, lest both of them fall. After a few seconds of scrabbling, the colonel’s fingers knotted into the fabric of Kismet’s shirt, easing the strain on his pinned arm.

With the platform beneath them stable once more, the soldiers hastened to assist their colonel, forming a human chain to keep one another secure. It took them only a moment to pull their leader to safety, after which the helicopter pulled away. Kismet struggled to his feet, still clinging to the bulkhead, and gazed down at the receding mass of people swarming around the monument. As the distance grew, the individual faces smeared into an indistinguishable mass.

“So that’s what it looks like from up here,” he mumbled.

Then he realized that everything else was growing blurry. Despite the desert heat, he began to shiver uncontrollably as his world darkened. He felt strong hands seizing his arms and body, holding him fast, but he nevertheless began falling and there was no pulling him back.

When he awoke, his first impression was that he was back home in a cool bed, and that everything that had happened in the desert was merely a bad dream. But when he tried to rouse himself, all that he had endured returned with a vengeance. Blinding agony speared through his head and he winced involuntarily, thrashing as he reached up to hold the halves of his skull together. That was when he realized he was in water, laying naked in a makeshift basin filled with tepid liquid. Bracing himself against the expected pain, he cautiously opened his eyes.

Beyond the fact that he was laying naked in a few centimeters of water, it was difficult to discern anything. The room was dark, lit only by a sliver of light seeping in around the edges of the window blinds. Even that nominal amount of illumination felt like a spike piercing through his retinas, so he stopped looking and relaxed once more. It took him a moment to perceive that he was not alone.

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

The soft voice seemed familiar, but he did not open his eyes to identify the female speaker. “Where am I?”

“Back where you started. The airport.” He sensed her moving closer. “Open your mouth.”

He obliged without thinking, and abruptly found a thin probe thrust under his tongue. He clamped his teeth down to hold the thermometer in place. A moment later, a beeping sound signaled that it had completed its task. The woman removed the device.

“Well?”

“Your fever has broken,” she announced, matter-of-factly. “I consider that no small accomplishment. When you arrived, your body temperature was forty degrees Celsius and you were badly dehydrated.”

“Marie?” He risked opening his eyes once more, trying to bring the face of his caregiver into focus. He immediately recognized the woman, but it was not Marie Villaneauve.

“No,” remarked the auburn-haired woman he had initially encountered on the plane. She looked no different than in that initial encounter, save for a butterfly tape bandaging a small cut under her left eye. “I’m Dr. Gault, and your life is in my hands, so stay put and do as I say.”

I could have killed you…

Staring at her, Kismet suddenly felt vulnerable and it had nothing to do with his nakedness. She gazed down at him a moment longer, her dour expression never softening, then turned away long enough to procure a plastic bag of dextrose solution. Kismet noted a similar container, nearly drained, secured with hemostat clamps and white tape to a wall near his head. A long tube snaked from the fluid bag to his arm, where an intravenous needle had been inserted.

The first thought to cross his mind was that the woman had decided to finish the job she had started at the museum. He tried to dismiss the idea as he had no evidence to support his suspicions, but his instincts told him that this woman was not to be trusted. He had felt it first when she had abandoned him during the effort to rescue trapped soldiers during the RPG attack at the airport. She might have called herself a doctor, but she had not behaved as one. When he had determined that Aziz’s killer was female, he had put her at the top of his list of suspects, even though there was nothing to substantiate that accusation.

Yet, she had saved him from heat exhaustion, hadn’t she?

Your life is in my hands…

She finished changing the IV solution, then turned back to him. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you seem to be a living mass of bruises. It’s difficult to tell where one ends and the next begins. Were you dragged by a horse?”

“It kind of feels that way.” He was ambivalent about sharing information with her. If she was the assassin he had chased, then it was conceivable that she was watching for some sign that he had recognized her. In her role as medical care provider, nobody would think twice if Kismet suffered an unexpected fatal relapse. Even if she was innocent, her unpleasant personality made him reluctant to engage in conversation. “Are my friends okay?”

“If you mean Monsieur Chiron, then the answer is that he will be all right as soon as I allow him to see you. He’s been very worried.”

“I’d like to see him now.”

She frowned. “Well, if it were up to me, I’d make you wait until morning. I don’t think you appreciate that you almost died, Mr. Kismet.”

Several times, actually
. He held back the comment, however. “Please, it’s important.”

She crossed her arms. “Very well. I suppose there’s really nothing more for me to do. I’ll come back in about fifteen minutes to remove your line. After that, you’ll be on your own. I can give you some analgesics for your pain… I imagine you’ve got quite a headache. Other than that, you just need to stay hydrated and take it easy.”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

She sighed and turned toward the door. “I hope you brought along some extra clothing. I’m afraid there wasn’t much left of what you were wearing.”

Though it was against his better judgment, Kismet made a final bid for the last word. “Well, I guess this makes us even.”

She paused, then looked back. A single arched eyebrow was just visible in the narrow beam of outside light. “I beg your pardon?”

“I saved your life. Now you’ve saved mine.”

“You give yourself too much credit. I seem to remember that you very nearly killed me.”

Kismet’s lips twitched into a smile but there was no humor in his expression. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”

She held his stare for a long silent moment, her eyes unreadable, then pushed through the door.

Pierre Chiron burst through almost immediately, bathing the room in light from hallway. Kismet raised a hand to shade his eyes, then struggled to a seated position as his old friend rushed to his side. Marie was right behind him.

“Nick, we’ve been so worried. They say you fainted in a helicopter.”

Kismet was mildly irritated by the suggestion that he had “fainted”, but clarification to soothe his ego seemed superfluous. “Who was that woman?”

“Do you mean Dr. Gault?”

“I do. Why was she treating me? I would have expected to end up in an army field hospital.”

Chiron appeared confused by the question. “Dr. Gault is with the International Red Cross. She’s certainly capable, if that’s your concern.”

Marie stepped forward, proffering a blanket to Kismet for the sake of modesty. “I was here when you arrived, Nick. The soldiers seemed to think you were to blame for whatever it was that happened out there. I had them bring you to Dr. Gault in order for you get some treatment. From what she’s told us, it’s a good thing I did.”

“Nick,” Chiron intoned. “What happened? Did you know that Mr. Aziz was murdered?”

“Someone didn’t want us talking to him. I walked in on it and tried to chase after the…the guy that did it.” He decided to withhold his knowledge of the assassin’s gender. That tiny scrap of information was his hole card and he wasn’t ready to play it yet. Not until he knew more about Dr. Gault, at any rate. Kismet pressed his palms to his eyes, trying to force the insistent pain to abate, if only long enough to continue speaking. “From there, everything went to hell. I’m sure it’s already made the news by now.”

Marie flashed a wry smile. “They say you started a riot.”