The Delphi Agenda

by Rob Swigart

  He uttered an exaggerated shriek of pain when she applied the latter. This she ignored. He merely grunted when she pressed on the tape.

  She sat back and regarded him with a critical eye. “Not professional, I’m afraid, but effective. Cheerleaders do acquire some skills. After all, cheerleading is dangerous, what with the risk of injury.”

  “You were a cheerleader?”

  “In high school, yes, and in college, almost. Raimond Foix diverted me.”

  “Ah.”

  “The Augustine,” she said. They had moved downstairs to the kitchen. She sipped her café au lait. “The nun has it. There’s no longer any way to avoid confronting the Order of Theodosius.”

  “I know.”

  “Can I do it?” she asked, but she knew now she could. She felt alive, filled with purpose. She would find the document, discover what she had to do, find a way to neutralize the Order, end this ridiculous war. This was the twenty-first century, not the fourteenth, or the fourth. The world had changed.

  Despite this new confidence she still had no clear vision of the future, no idea how it would happen. But it would. She cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should listen to the machine?”

  Back upstairs in Foix’s bedroom he paused to look at a black and white photograph on the dresser. It showed a young Raimond Foix looking over his shoulder at the camera with a slightly disapproving frown.

  “That the picture you told me about?”

  “Yes.” Lisa pressed Play on the answering machine.

  “This is a message for Lisa Emmer.” The voice spoke English with a Texas twang.

  She paused the message. “What do you think, man or woman?”

  “Hard to tell. Woman, I think.”

  “The nun? How did they know we’d be here?”

  Steve lifted his chin. “Probably didn’t. I’d guess they left messages everywhere we were likely to go. I’ll check with Alain later. Go ahead.”

  “I have something you must want,” the voice continued. “A Jenson folio edition of Augustine’s City of God, printed on vellum in 1475. If you’d like to discuss it, call.” The number began with zero-six. A cell phone.

  Lisa stopped the machine. “I wonder why she took it in the first place.”

  “Probably has a thing for Augustine,” Steve suggested. “Or she thought it was valuable.”

  “I don’t think it was greed, I think it was an impulse. I don’t think she knows why we would want it, though.”

  “Still, it’s a trap.”

  “Of course it’s a trap. They’ll kill us the same way they killed Raimond, but if they think we know something they’ll question us first. Look, it was Raimond Foix’s book, and like the Hesiod and the biography of Theodosius he put it out for me to find. If Bruno said the clue to the Founding Document was safe in the City of God, I’m sure he meant the book. Raimond had that copy it was because the previous Pythos passed it on, perhaps all the way back to Bruno at least. So we have to have it, whatever the risks.”

  “What is it about the book? If the secret’s in the text, we could just get a Latin copy and look it up.”

  “I don’t think it’s in the text. Augustine wrote in the fourth century, so unless he was a Pythos too, and that certainly isn’t likely, the actual text is out. Raimond’s copy has one of Girolamo da Cremona’s most beautiful opening illustrations, but Girolamo died in 1485, a century before Bruno, so there has to be something else in it. We won’t know until we can examine it.”

  Steve was still troubled. “They’ll want something in exchange. What?”

  “They’ll want to know what we know, but above all, they will want the Founding Document. And then to kill us.”

  He nodded assent. “We can’t let any of that happen.”

  She was feeling too good and almost laughed. “We won’t.”

  “So we call back?”

  The voice that answered was a man, not the caller’s, so it must be the monk. Lisa identified herself.

  “We will meet you at the race track at Chantilly,” the monk suggested. “In front of the stables.”

  Steve shook his head.

  Lisa said, “No.”

  The monk didn’t sound surprised. “Why not?”

  “Too far.”

  “Too far?” He laughed. “Or too deserted? You’re afraid?”

  She glanced at Steve. “We’ll meet in a public place.”

  Muffled voices conferred.

  “The Basilica of St. Denis?” the monk barked. “By the monument of Henri III in the royal necropolis at 1400. It’s public and not too far.”

  He waited just long enough for them to acknowledge before hanging up.

  46.

  While they were on the Metro to St. Denis the balmy weather had ended. They emerged at 1:10 into an inferno of an afternoon.

  The heat staggered them and they paused at the entrance to the Metro station. Around them was a pedestrian mall, with a cinema and dozens of small shops. From here there were two ways to make the short walk to the basilica, one through a passage between commercial buildings, and the other along the street.

  They chose the street, concluding they might get a glimpse of their adversaries.

  Steve, speaking in a mock travelogue voice, intoned, “In 250 A.D Denis, the first bishop of Paris and patron saint of the city, was beheaded at the Temple of Mercury, located atop the highest hill in Paris, ever after called Montmartre, the Mountain of Martyrs. Or so it is said. It is further stated that his faith was so great he picked up his severed head and walked several kilometers north, preaching all the way and finally dropped dead and was buried here, so they sainted him and named the town after him.”

  “Thank you, History Channel.”

  Traffic was light and few people were out shopping. Most were trying to escape into any place that promised conditioned air.

  They passed Alain, seated behind the wheel of a car parked under a tree in the lot across the road. He was studiously reading Le Monde. The headline announced the worst canicule in many years, with afternoon temperatures approaching 40 degrees Centigrade.

  There was no sign of the van from the Rue Delambre.

  They crossed the vast and nearly empty plaza to gaze up at the gothic west façade. Gray stone and the rose window over the main entrance hinted at cool serenity. The three huge doors promised to open onto succor, healing. Above all the basilica promised relief from the heat. The church had been restored in the nineteenth century after the Revolution had damaged it and emptied the tombs. It was once again home to such royal bones as could be found and returned to the necropolis inside.

  Lisa shielded her eyes from the sun so she could see the sculpture above the entrance. It was surprisingly benign for a Last Judgment and only hinted at the other side of darkness. “Where do you think they are?” she murmured.

  “He’s military, very precise,” Steve replied. “He’ll plan carefully, but with tourists and police around I don’t think they’ll try anything violent here. I think they want to get us to trust them.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  They were doing their best to imitate a couple of tourists, and their conversation was covered by the international blend of others around them, but they were both tense and jittery.

  “Don’t act too interested,” Steve suggested, stopping in front of a poster advertising the St. Denis Music Festival. “The Augustine’s valuable, sure, and part of your inheritance so of course you’d like it back, but not that important. Maybe you’d be willing to pay something for it, yada yada yada, but it’s not that important. Let’s see what they want.”

  “They don’t want money, Steve. They’re true believers.”

  “I know. But if they think you believe they’re only after money it might keep them off balance. As far as we know, they believe you’re only Foix’s heir.”

  “What about Mirepoix? They already know I’m more. That’s why they attacked us.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean they know y
ou’re the Pythia. You were meeting with members of Foix’s entourage, after all, to learn about his estate.”

  “They burned it down, Steve. They know.”

  He gave up. “All right, perhaps, but I think the fire was unintentional. If you pretend innocence we can at least find out what they’re after. If they don’t yet know the book is the key, they might tip their hand. If they do know….”

  “If they do know they won’t fall for it. What happens if they call our bluff?”

  “We walk away. They want to finish us as much as we want to finish them. Without the Founding Document it’s a standoff. As long as it exists, they can’t be sure Foix was the only Pythos. Maybe the Founding Document set up a parallel Pythos somewhere else.”

  “Come on.”

  He laughed. “Why not? If we let that slip, they’d go crazy. Whatever happens, Augustine’s the bait and one way or another we’ll know what for soon enough.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “They want the Founding Document and if they think we can lead them to it, we’re safe until they have it.”

  He agreed. “Reasonably safe.”

  “I don’t think I like the sound of that.”

  “Neither do I.”

  The basilica echoed with footsteps and muffled conversation. Despite the small clusters of visitors spotted along the sides, the space had an empty feel. Metal fencing blocked off the vast central aisle, which was carpeted in blue and filled with chairs for the music festival. Though only the sides aisles were open to the public, the exterior’s promise of serenity was fulfilled. Stained glass windows lining both sides just under the ceiling sent multicolored light flickering along the soaring columns, capitals and vaults of the nave. The windows above the choir behind the altar at the far end glowed pearl and rose and a faint aroma of sandalwood drifted on the cool air. Lisa and Steve smiled happily at each other.

  They bought tickets to the necropolis at the counter outside and for some time they wandered among the monuments, pausing to examine the sculptures over the elaborate tomb of François I and his wife Claude just inside.

  A short flight of steps led up to the raised portion of the necropolis and down the other side of the altar, where, just before two o’clock they found the Henri III monument. The twisted red column was pressed against the barrier and they couldn’t get close. The large urn on top supposedly contained the murdered king’s heart.

  Steve said, “They won’t need to buy tickets, so probably they’ll come through the barrier on this side.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed. “No sign of them yet, though. And there it is again.”

  “There what is again?”

  “The helix, like the Camondo Stair.”

  “It’s just a spiral, a support for Henri’s heart,” he said. “Don’t look for symbolism.”

  “They picked it, the nun and the monk.”

  “They picked Chantilly first.”

  “That was a diversion they knew we would never accept. No, Steve, they meant us to come here. They picked a memorial shaped like a helix. Everything means something.”

  “Henri III was assassinated by a fanatical monk, that’s true. But it wasn’t over DNA.”

  “Don’t tell me, was the killer a Dominican, by any chance?”

  “He was. And after the news got out the assassin’s picture was placed on altars all over Paris. Some believed the king’s death was God’s greatest act since the Incarnation.”

  “Ah. And you tell me not to look for symbolism.”

  They pretended to examine the column. Behind them an overweight woman followed by two sullen teenagers and a round-faced man with a thin comb-over gathered in front of the tomb of François I.

  Lisa bent down. “Look at this.”

  Steve whistled. “I don’t believe it.”

  A Phi inside a Delta was scratched on the side of the column. “The Delphi Agenda.”

  He was looking straight into Lisa’s eyes just as the father snapped a picture of his family. The flash turned them into a momentary grouping of incandescent cadavers.

  Lisa blinked away the vision. “They’re here,” she whispered. Steve nodded and drifted away to examine a cluster of monuments near the north wall.

  The nun had the slightest hesitation in the muted pad and a louder thump of her walk, and there they were, the monk and his nun coming through an opening in the barrier. A guard swung it closed behind them.

  Defago, scowling darkly, followed with one hand resting on her back. It was a gesture that was both familiar, even affectionate, and curiously paternal. Sister Teresa carried the dark pigskin leather Augustine. Her lenses jaundiced the points of her cheeks when they caught a stray ray of sunshine pouring in from the south.

  The nun broke into a broad smile at Lisa. “So there you are,” she rasped. The Texas twang was even more pronounced than it had been on the telephone.

  “Yes,” Lisa said.

  The light dimmed, as if a cloud had passed overhead, though that wasn’t possible: a heat wave had begun and clouds were nowhere in the empty sky outside.

  So, Lisa thought, the darkness was inside her mind. She couldn’t help but see that despite its façade of good cheer the smile on the face a few feet away was cold and bleak. It seemed to radiate despair and hopelessness like the rotating beam of a lighthouse. Whoever looked at it would be lured onto the rocks, to shipwreck and death. This was the face of evil.

  Lisa had to shake away the feeling. This woman before her was a nun, a religious, a true believer. She may be ruthless and violent, but she was not some satanic minion come to carry off her soul. She was as American as Lisa herself, and as human, made of the same flesh, blood and bone. There was nothing supernatural about her.

  Besides, she had suffered. What violence had caused that odd distortion to the side of her face? What had happened to disturb her gait? Who was she?

  Lisa tried to return the smile, but from the inside her expression felt ghoulish and false. This woman had killed Raimond and probably Rossignol. She was an implacable enemy. There was no escaping that fact. This woman seemed frail and damaged, but she was the killer of the only man (until now, she thought) Lisa had allowed herself to love. The nun might deserve compassion, but Lisa could not fall into the trap of empathy.

  So she said simply, “I see you brought the book.”

  The nun seemed to awake from a trance. “Ah, yes.” She lifted it. Her hands, encased in gray gloves, caressed the binding. The smile had frozen in place. She opened the book to show Lisa the title page: De civitate dei.

  “That’s it,” Lisa said, reaching out.

  The nun let the book fall to her side. “Not so fast. It doesn’t come without a price.”

  Lisa had dropped her hand. “Of course not.” She kept her voice carefully neutral.

  The monk, one hand in his jacket pocket, was scowling. Lisa saw again the drooping of the lower lid on one side, the beginnings of a deep scar running down under the beard. “We need something,” he growled. “A gesture of good faith.”

  “Good faith?” Lisa asked. Her astonishment was only partially feigned. There was nothing good about their faith. She glanced at the spiral column of Henri III. It was dark red, a pillar of drying blood.

  The nun’s smile grew, if anything, sunnier, broader, and friendlier, and far more pitiless. She saw where Lisa was looking and lifted her eyebrows. “One of the great enemies of the church.”

  “He was murdered.”

  “Not murdered, stopped. Sometimes extreme measures are necessary. You know that, surely, by now.”

  “Henri of Navarre continued his policies of tolerance.”

  “And was eliminated in his turn.”

  Lisa gave up. “What is it you want?”

  “I think you know,” Defago said.

  “No, I don’t. I’ve inherited an apartment in the Sixth Arrondissement and a few old books. They seem to come with a great deal of trouble.”

  She looked through the barrier at the d
eep blue carpeting in the aisle and noticed idly that the chairs faced the entrance, away from the altar. Tonight there was a performance of the Mozart Requiem. Somehow that seemed appropriate.

  “Look,” she continued, looking once more at the nun. “I’m a simple person. I lead a simple life. I read old papyrus, parchment, simple, ordinary documents about people’s lives, history. That’s what I care about. Augustine was an important thinker from the fourth century, the period I study. The City of God is an important book. I’m a scholar. I don’t know what gesture of good faith I could possibly give you.” She spread her hands.

  Sister Teresa cut off a bark of laughter.

  “You’re more than a scholar,” Defago said with quiet menace. “Far, far more.”

  For the first time since waking this morning Lisa felt a thrill of fear. “I don’t know what you mean.” Her mind was racing, calculating angles, distances. Would it be possible to make it past the pair to the monument to Louis XII before one of them could produce a gun? There was a large statue of Prudence looking in a mirror on the west corner. Cicero had said Prudence was the knowledge of what is good, what is bad, and what is neutral, and was made up of memory, intelligence, and foresight.

  Foresight was that by which something is seen before it has occurred.

  She was the Pythia. She should be able to see, but even the immediate future was, if not a complete blank, uncertain at best.

  Perhaps this was just paranoia? Surely they wouldn’t do anything violent in such a public place? Surely.

  No matter, she needed the book. It was why she was here. Directions to the Founding Document were in it, and it had answers to her questions.

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “You really don’t know?” The nun seemed genuinely surprised.

  “No.”

  “Why, we want you, my dear.” The chill of his voice sharpened its edge of menace.

  Then Lisa saw Alain coming down the steps behind them and relief flooded through her. Steve was casually approaching from the north. They had the pair bracketed between them.

  Were they close enough to stop the nun if she decided to shoot? If Lisa died, it would no longer matter whether the police solved Raimond’s murder or not. The Delphi Agenda would be gone. There was no Pythos to follow her.