The Shroud of Heaven (6 page)

There was a tortured squeal of metal behind him and Chiron turned to find a man clad in dark riding gear peering in through the opposite door. The cyclist had removed his black helmet, but the gun remained, now held in his right hand.

The assassin looked like a man about to transform into a savage beast. He sneered, thin lips pulling away to reveal teeth that seemed too large
—the better to eat you with
, Chiron thought, manically—and his eyes blazed with barely restrained fury. He glanced at the scientist first, appraising his value as a target and potential threat, then turned his fiery gaze upon the woman and began speaking.

It was a short declaration uttered, Chiron supposed, in the same strange tongue the woman had used earlier with the chauffeur. That their killer shared the mysterious form of speech with the woman ought to have been troubling to him, but somehow it seemed only a minor concern. He did not need to be fluent in their language to comprehend what the man had said. It was unquestionably a gloating pronouncement of victory: a death sentence. As if to underscore this supposition, the man extended the gun toward the woman and aimed down the barrel so that they were looking into each other’s eyes.

A sudden flash of light filled the interior of the wrecked limousine. The gunman flinched involuntarily, blinded by the brilliant burst. The muzzle of the gun wavered as he blinked furiously to clear away the retinal fireworks.

A flash camera
, thought Chiron.
Someone is here to save us.

But any well-intentioned passerby with a camera would be ill-equipped to deal with a vicious, armed killer. That Good Samaritan would simply be added to the list of victims when the assassin’s eyesight recovered. Chiron knew he had to act.

He thought about trying to leap at the man and attempting to wrestle the gun away, but dismissed the idea instantly. He was no fighter, and would have only the vaguest idea of what to do with the gun in the unlikely event that he succeeded in capturing it. Then his eyes fell upon the one weapon he was familiar with, not for close-quarters combat but rather battling the elements.

Without thinking, he snatched the umbrella off the floor and gripped its hook-shaped handle in both hands. The gunman must have seen the movement in his peripheral vision because the end of his weapon shifted toward Chiron, but the French scientist had the advantage. He thrust the metal tip of the umbrella up at the man’s face.

Whether due to good aim or sheer luck, his attack struck home, extinguishing the fierce glow in the man’s left eye. The lupine assassin’s head snapped back and the cane handle was ripped from Chiron’s grasp. The gun fell away as his hands flew up to his face to wrap around the shaft of the object that had reduced his eyesight by half, and he unleashed a bestial cry of pain and rage as he tore it free.

In a moment of unreal clarity, Chiron saw that the tip of the umbrella was now stained red and clumps of tissue were clinging to the metal point like bits of paper plucked up off the grass by a groundskeeper. The wounded assassin continued to cover his ravaged eye with one hand, but the remaining orb was bright with intensity of purpose. He scanned the interior, looking for his lost weapon, then gazed past his victims at the approaching throng of devotees drawn away from the healing waters by the commotion. His attention returned to Chiron.

“Well done.” His voice quavered slightly but was otherwise restrained. “But you now find yourself on the wrong side of this war. Ask her and she will tell you what sort of enemy you have made today.”

Dismissing Chiron, he turned to the woman and made another brief utterance in their shared tongue. She continued to hold her wounded shoulder, but her eyes were triumphant. When she spoke, it was in French, doubtless for the benefit of her companion, and though her comment was cliché, the sentiment rallied Chiron. “Go to hell.”

The assassin chortled as he pulled back through the doorframe and vanished from sight. Chiron slumped in relief, and then roused himself to thank their savior. He turned to the door he had opened but there was no one there. Certainly no one with a camera, close enough to have activated the blinding flash that had distracted the assassin from his lethal task. The closest person—a young man running toward them—was still a hundred meters away.

That’s odd
, he thought.
Was it only lightning
?

“Pierre, listen to me.” The woman’s voice remained defiant, but he could hear a faint hiss of anguish in her gasping breaths. “This man would not have acted alone. He is a soldier, not a general. But I do not know who gave the order, nor whom to trust.”

“You can trust me,” Chiron replied, instantly feeling foolish for his eager promise.

She chuckled through the pain. “You are more right than you’ll ever know. Alas, this will likely be our only meeting.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The timing of this crisis is unfortunate for you, Pierre. It would have been a great privilege to offer you a seat at our table, but now I must implore you to forget everything.”

“Forget?”

“Trust no one, Pierre. If someone tries to persuade you that the danger has passed, then you will know that the enemy is close at hand. Only in ignorance will you find safety.”

Chiron sighed, comprehending the wisdom of her strategy, but nevertheless felt a pang of loss.
So close
. “And the tests? The atomic tests?”

Her eyes darted sideways, then fixed his stare once more. “The tests must proceed as I described.”

He nodded earnestly. “It will be so, madame. And will you be safe?”

“I’ll manage.” She looked aside once more, her gaze shifting to the open doorframe behind Chiron. “There is one more thing, Pierre. A personal favor.”

“Name it.”

“Soon, you will cross paths with a young man. He is very special to me.”

“I will welcome him as I would my own son.” Even as he spoke the words, the irony of the statement rang in Chiron’s ears.

“Thank you, Pierre. But he must never know of this conversation, nor anything about the group. He will find those answers in due time.”

“How will I recognize this young man?”

“Oh, I don’t believe you will have any difficulty. Your rendezvous will seem like an act of fate.”

“Are you injured?” shouted a voice in French. “What happened?”

He turned and saw the man he had earlier spied now drawing even with the wreck of the limousine. The newcomer wore casual clothes, a navy blue polo shirt with khaki chinos, but Chiron saw none of the expected accouterments of a devotee; no gold chain around his neck, no crucifix. The man was a tourist, marking this place off a list in a guidebook rather than seeking a blessing from the Divine. Somehow, the scientist found that encouraging. The young man was the vanguard of a small army of Good Samaritans, leaving their devotions at the grotto in order to render assistance to the victims of the accident.

Chiron did not know how to answer the latter question, so he addressed the former. “Yes. For God’s sake, call the medics.” He then turned back to the woman. “Everything is going to be fine…”

The words died on his lips. The woman was gone.

Chiron pulled himself across the seat and thrust his head through the opposite doorway, but there was no sign of his host. She had vanished as completely as the assassin before her. Only the crimson-tipped umbrella remained to give evidence that the encounter was not merely a delusion. Stunned by the disappearing act, he fell back into the seat, a wave of nausea creeping over him.

The tourist stuck his head inside and made eye contact with Pierre. "Help is on the way. I'm going to check on the driver."

The man then splashed into the shallow water surrounding the front end of the vehicle and forced open the driver’s door. Chiron found himself wondering if the chauffeur had likewise evaporated, but a shocked exhalation from the young rescuer affirmed that such was not the case.

The young man reappeared before Chiron, his eyes now accusatory. “That man has been shot, murdered. What happened here?”

Chiron opened his mouth to reply without really knowing what he was going to say. He stared back at the tourist, trying to formulate a plausible fiction to conceal a truth he barely understood. “I’ll wait for the gendarmes to arrive before I tell the story,” he said finally, forcing his eyes away from the young man.

He could feel the young man’s eyes boring into him. There was a familiar fire in that gaze, yet it wasn’t until he looked away that recognition dawned.

It was convenient…

I should have seen it right away
, thought Chiron.

He looked back into the other man’s eyes. “Pardon, monsieur, but what is your name?”

“My name?” The tourist seemed rightly surprised by the question, but answered nonetheless. “I’m Nick Kismet.”

“Kismet?” Chiron savored the word. “That’s an unusual name. You are not French?”

“I’m an American.”

“But the name is something else; Arabic, if I’m not mistaken.” He gazed at the young, masculine face, astonished at the similarity of features. “But you do not appear to be an Arab.”

“Right on both counts.” The young man remained aloof, evidently suspicious of the stranger who shared a car with a gunshot victim and now seemed so interested in his name. “It’s a long story.”

“I imagine so. Still, it is a unique name. A powerful word. I believe it means luck or destiny. Or fate.”

It was convenient…an act of fate.

Kismet nodded hesitantly, but said nothing.

Chiron managed a thin smile. “Well, I hope you will count this meeting an instance of good luck. My name is Pierre Chiron, and I am the director of the Global Heritage Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. If there’s anything I can do to assist you during your stay in my country, please do not hesitate to ask. I have a feeling I can be of great assistance to you.”

He knew by the sudden gleam in the young man’s eyes that he would have to make good on his offer in ways he could scarcely imagine.

***

Six days shy of four months from the occasion of Collette Chiron’s annual pilgrimage to the Grotto of Lourdes, a small borehole in the basalt gut rock of the Mururoa atoll vomited forth an eruption of force and fire. Though modest by the standards of modern destructive power, equivalent only to about eight thousand metric tons of TNT, the explosion nevertheless rocked that remote corner of the world.

Twenty-four thousand miles away, Pierre Chiron stood at the foot of the structure he now thought of as “
le observatorie
”. He had arrived ninety minutes ahead of the projected time for the test and lingered for three hours beyond that pivotal moment. Yet he saw no indication of activity, nothing to suggest that an experiment was being monitored in the observatory, nor any sign that the atomic test in the South Pacific had exerted an influence here, on the other side of the globe. At last admitting defeat, Chiron left, pausing only long enough to take a picture for a tourist couple posing gaily in front of the monument, blissfully unaware of its dual purpose.

In the four months since the incident in the Haute-Pyrenees, Chiron had received no further contact from the woman or any of her agents. He had however developed a close friendship with the young man with the unusual name, fulfilling the second of two promises made that fateful day. Now, with the underground detonation of an atomic device at Mururoa, both pledges had been satisfied. He remained curious to see what fruit each of those disparate branches would bear.

The second test, an airburst over Fangataufa on the second of October, was judged a success by both the military scientists overseeing the project and the nationalist politicians intent on flexing the French military muscle in the face of NATO and the United States. Because he was paying attention on a different level, Chiron’s observations were less sanguine.

Almost immediately following the Fangataufa test, Mount St. Helens, an active volcano in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, began to resonate with tremors. In New Zealand, Mount Puapehu entered into a period of intense eruptive activity, as did Mount Merapi in Java. One week after the test, Mount Hosshu, dormant for over 250 years, rumbled to life in Japan.

Over the next few months, Chiron saw fingers of force reaching out from the test sites to distant locations around the world, a series of unprecedented volcanic and seismic events coinciding with the atomic detonations. His observations led to more research, which in turn revealed an astonishing link between the weapons tests and geological activity, but he shared his findings with no one. He knew others were also watching and had perhaps been doing so for decades.

Meanwhile, a cluster of cells began to thrive and multiply in the warm and dark embrace of Collette Chiron’s womb. It would yet be two months before she and her husband would discover that what grew there was no miracle.

She would make just one more journey to Lourdes, but her supplications would once more go unanswered.

May 2003

Between heaven and earth, a veil.

It was an illusion—more accurately a mirage—and Nick Kismet was not fooled. Nevertheless, his eyes were drawn to the shimmering curtain of superheated air rising from the earth, pooling in mid-air like the surface of a vast lake somehow turned on its side. The Airbus A320 speared onward into the heart of the distortion and the convection waves magically receded.

Spring was now half done and already the desert days had become brutally hot. At sunrise, temperatures of nearly ninety degrees Fahrenheit were reported; by midday, the mercury would reach well into the triple-digit range. And yet, with the fall of night, the day’s heat would radiate back into space to plunge temperatures in the austere environment to the opposite extreme. Indeed, it was a place of extremes.