Lisa Emmer Historical Thrillers Vol. 1-2 (Lisa Emmer Historical Thriller Series)

by Rob Swigart

  “I believed he was a retired classics professor and my closest friend. Was he a spy of some kind and I didn’t know?”

  Steve had turned sideways so he could watch the taxi. “That fellow’s a persistent bastard. Hugo’s man or not, I think we’ll have to work a bit harder to get rid of him.”

  “How might we do that?”

  “I have a plan.” He settled comfortably.

  “Don’t they always say that in the movies when they don’t have a plan?” Her playful tone had anxious undertones.

  “True,” Steve admitted. “But I do have a plan, though it includes a fair amount of improvisation.”

  They rumbled down Gay Lussac past galleries and bookstores. The bus stopped, started again. At the Monge-Claude Bernard bus stop he touched her arm. They got off in the middle of a group and dashed across to the short block of Edouard Quenu. At the far end the Church of St. Medard overlooked the open-air market at the foot of the hill. rue Mouffetard was a pedestrian street packed with shops selling everything from wine and cheese to meat and vegetables, olive oil to honey. The smell of fresh fruit and flowers filled the air and the North African merchants were shouting their wares, rolling their R’s: “Et allons y dans la fraise!”

  They stopped once to look back. Their pursuer appeared at the corner of Claude Bernard. “Come on!” Steve dragged her into the dense throng of shoppers and up the hill through the rich aromas of fruit, meat, fish and cheese and the cries of more merchants trying to out-shout one another.

  They climbed toward the Place de la Contrescarpe with its cluster of pubs, but halfway up turned right at l’Épée-de-Bois, raced another block uphill to the Place Monge and descended into the Metro, sliding their Navigo passes over the sensor.

  They were alone on the platform. A minute later a train arrived and they boarded.

  “I think this time we lost him.” Steve watched the entrance. The train pulled out and shot down the tunnel. There was no sign of their pursuer.

  “Fine,” Lisa said. “We’ll take a ride and perhaps you’ll tell me where we’re going.”

  “We keep moving. Just to make sure we’ll change trains at Place d’Italie and again at Denfert-Rochereau where we’ll take the RER, get off at Cité Universitaire, walk to my place.”

  “You live in student housing?”

  He chuckled. “Not far. The Cité Florale,” he said.

  She struggled to keep the incredulity from her face. Only yesterday she had found herself in the Cité Florale in the middle of the night, about the same hour Raimond had been killed, one of her periodic fugue states when she would suddenly find herself somewhere else. At the time she thought it was because she was apprehensive about her meeting at the foundation. This morning it occurred to her maybe she’d had some subconscious inkling about Raimond. But that was absurd. Wasn’t it? What happened to Raimond was unpredictable, surely.

  “We’re nearly neighbors,” she said evenly. “We could go to my place; it’s closer to Place d’Italie.”

  “Chinatown?”

  “The Butte-aux-Cailles.”

  “Nice neighborhood, but we can’t. They’ll probably know your address but they won’t know about my place, at least not yet. It’s unlisted, leased under a corporate name, same as the car and phone.”

  “You sublet?”

  “No, the bank provides discreet housing. We often need anonymity.”

  “You are a wonder,” she said. The train passed the stop at Gobelins and they were approaching the big interchange at Place d’Italie.

  “Yes, I am.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was being ironic or not, but for some reason his humor reassured her.

  “We’ll make a plan, then take my car,” he said. The train screeched to a stop and the passengers poured out. “If Foix was involved in anything like what you suggest, I’ve a feeling we’ll need it.”

  16.

  Clouds hung low over the flax fields, dimming the brilliance of the blue flowers. Tendrils of mist rose off the river, a broad, leaden road between the abbey and the town.

  Gabriel Lacatuchi, Prior General of the Order of Theodosius, turned away from the view with reluctance. The rain had stopped, praise God, and the heavy cloud over the river and the nearly abandoned town on the other side pleased him. He exhaled slowly. Perhaps a walk would do him good.

  In the antechamber Xavier was turning cards as usual. Lacatuchi told him he was going out and was soon walking along the riverbank. The grass was slippery and the footing uncertain so he finally gave up and simply stared at the turgid water, deep in thought.

  Raimond Foix was scion of the House of Foix, descendent of Raimond-Roger, fifth Count of Foix, implacable enemy of the True and Holy Church, insidious protector of heretic Cathars and unrepentant murderer of priests, who had bragged to the pope he only regretted not having murdered more. Well, Foix was dead, and that pleased him. The last of the Pythos, that endless thorn in the side of the body of the church, was no more.

  For that the Prior General crossed himself.

  But the matter of Rossignol and the Alberti disk still troubled him. Loose ends, always loose ends. This never would have happened in Cardinal Santaseverina’s day.

  He wondered suddenly how the interrogation was proceeding. It was already early afternoon. The more time passed without the rest of the disk, the greater the danger. If it was intended for the girl, they must eliminate her. If not, well, Rossignol had been taking it somewhere. Better to deal with it at once.

  He could take the small elevator in the corridor connecting the abbey with his office, but he was impatient, so he continued into the vast ruined hall and started down the winding stone stairway toward the vast subterranean cellars. Before he had descended even half the steps he could hear faint cries and his curiosity died. He would wait. It was more seemly not to be a witness.

  Defago’s methods were necessary, of course, but with age Lacatuchi had grown more fastidious, less tolerant of disturbance. He was continually reminded of stories heard as a child in Rumania under Ceauşescu, stories drenched in blood. And so he retreated, the cries ringing in his ears. Even though he considered himself above the mundane work of extracting confessions, this distaste for pain was a secret shame, a weakness he kept carefully tucked away in his soul. He knew it was childish, a squeamish retreat from the harsher aspects of his job. Fortunately in his position he could indulge it. His presence was unnecessary. Let the monk handle it. They were experts, Defago and his nun.

  He returned to his office and sank down behind his desk. He rubbed his tired eyes, drummed his fingertips on the polished black surface, sucked in his lower lip and let it out with a soft pop. He rubbed his broken nose and gazed at the acoustical tile. He leaned once to smell the bouquet of red roses in a crystal vase on the desk. They seemed to have lost their aroma.

  What if the banker refused to talk? Could they find the rest of the disk? Would it really matter? Rossignol would never return to the world. He was gone, finished, erased. Why not just eliminate the girl? A bit crude, perhaps, but even if it proved unnecessary later, wouldn’t it be more direct, more efficient?

  After a few moments he got up. He couldn’t wait at the empty desk. There was nothing for him to do, not until after the interrogation. He went to the window.

  The fingertips of his left hand, the one with the amethyst ring, stroked his smooth, fat cheek. Xavier had come into the office from the antechamber precisely at noon to give him his second shave of the day. That was shortly before Defago and the nun had arrived with the prisoner. The Prior General hated the feel of whiskers. His skin still smelled faintly of alcohol and musk. He ran his thumb upward, against the grain. The skin was smooth and his sense of wellbeing returned. What could go wrong? After years of studying the evidence and questioning people who might know something, no matter how fleeting or insignificant or unconscious, and no matter how many died under questioning, the Order had finally uncovered the truth about Raimond Foix. Once the evidence he was the P
ythos was incontrovertible, they had acted swiftly and decisively.

  Fortunately they had the foresight (the Prior General showed his teeth in an ironic smile at this word) to watch the apartment after Foix was removed. It had paid off, for thus they had discovered Rossignol.

  The Prior General had sometimes doubted. When the invitation came he had eagerly agreed to join the Order, to become a warrior in the silent, underground struggle against the elusive, almost invisible enemy. But then he faltered; he had shown weakness. His confessor assured him his faith needed testing, his doubts were normal.

  “But there’s no evidence the Pythos even exists,” he once cried.

  “There is no evidence Satan exists, either, Gabriel, except such evidence the moral authority of the Church and your senses offer you,” the confessor said. “That is enough, is it not?”

  “Of course.” Lacatuchi remembered bowing his head. It was inevitable. Of course the Pythos existed; he would dedicate his life, as so many had before, to putting an end to its machinations! He, Gabriel Lacatuchi, was only the latest in a long line of Prior Generals.

  The contest had been long and dark. On the surface the shadowy organization of the Pythos against which the Holy Roman Church had struggled interfered in God’s work by claiming to know the future. Not just claiming, he thought: repeatedly the Pythos had proved it knew things, for far too many times over the centuries it had revealed to impure ears the Church’s innermost secrets.

  He sighed. The secrets were many. Sometimes the Pythos had publicly revealed the machinations of the Church’s finances, the sins of avarice, of envy, of pride. At other times the Church had cooperated (colluded, some said) with powerful groups, with emperors and kings, helping them destroy whole civilizations. And how had the world learned so much about the sins of lust, the dark sexual scandals so damaging to the organization he loved? Surely that was the Pythos’ work.

  This struggle had been going on since the fourth century. The Pythos and his collaborators were heretics; that much was certain.

  What was worse, and more frightening, disruptive, even evil in Lacatuchi’s eyes, the Pythoi had always been scrupulously honest. Never did a Pythos lie or distort, and because of this others believed. Therein lay its power. Sometimes the Church had to guard its secrets, dissemble, distort, even lie if necessary, to protect itself.

  The Pythos seemed to have the ability to see the future, to delineate the shape of events and anticipate the Church, always one step ahead. Underneath, Lacatuchi feared, was a secret that really did allow the Pythos to transcend time and truly see the future. This was not a gift, he believed, but a technology of vision.

  Such power could not be allowed to remain in the hands of anyone but the Holy Mother Church. The Struggle had gone on far too long; it must end now, before the Church was completely destroyed.

  But the Pythos had never operated in the open. Indeed, it had demonstrated a supernatural patience and cunning. Its influence had always been nearly invisible behind a shield of other motives, other actions, other conspiracies: a usurper here, an assassination there, a court intrigue, a business funded. Only through careful attention to subtle events in the world had the Order been able to detect and counter the Pythos’ influence. No one else could be trusted.

  A diffident knock interrupted these ruminations. He straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. His fingers touched the rings, amethyst on left, Papal insignia on right. The cool stone and metal steadied him. “Come,” he said.

  Defago entered, smiling. “We have what we need.”

  The Prior General pressed his lips together in disapproval. “There’s blood on your jacket.”

  Defago brushed his lapel. “Oh, yes, that. Never mind, Prior General, Rossignol sang.” He let out a little laugh and held up the disk. “This was on its way to Istanbul.”

  “Istanbul?” Lacatuchi managed to keep his voice steady, even indifferent, but his heart had fallen. So the Pythos had people even in Istanbul, the cradle of the Order itself! What alchemy was this? Since the Church had split in half and the heretical Eastern Church took over, Istanbul had become dangerous territory for the Order. Was the Pythos in truth a hydra monster? Every time you cut off a head, two more grew in its place? Well, the Order had its resources as well.

  “Istanbul, yes. To join the other half.” Defago was pleased with himself, but he hesitated.

  “I’ll take it myself. And the message?”

  Defago handed over the disk and a sheaf of paper. “This is the transcript. It’s all there,” he said smugly. He turned to go but the Prior General called him back. “There’s something else you aren’t telling me, Defago. What is it?”

  Defago looked at his shoes. He cleared his throat. “I think we have an informer in our community.” He looked Lacatuchi directly in the eye. “Don’t worry, now we know about him we’ll find him.”

  “Really?” The Prior General’s pitiless stare did not waver.

  Defago lowered his eyes. “We’ll find him,” he repeated.

  Lacatuchi’s eyes were dark pits. “Our Order is unknown to the world, Defago. It must remain that way. We have survived since the time of Augustine by being small, alert, nimble and above all secret. If there is a traitor in our ranks, he must be found now. Do you understand?”

  Brother Defago swallowed. “Yes, Prior General.”

  “Very well.” Lacatuchi turned to the window and stared through the bars at the dark river, as if in a trance. Finally he stirred. “What of the girl?”

  Defago made a dismissive gesture. “She was a student of Foix’s. He had no heirs and left her his apartment, his books and harpsichord, that’s all.”

  The Prior General lifted his thick eyebrows and once again Defago felt fear. As soon as it arose, rage followed. With some difficulty he swallowed both the rage and the fear and said quietly, “The girl isn’t important, Prior General. We can deal with her if necessary.”

  “Can you?” the Prior General said, deliberately shifting the pronoun.

  Defago took the hint. “Of course. She can go on a trip and not return. She has an insignificant job as a scholar. The Institute may wonder where she went, why she failed to come back, but in the end they’ll forget about her.”

  “All right, first the girl,” Lacatuchi decided. “Even if she has nothing to do with this, we don’t want loose ends, not at this stage. We should expect some, what do they call it these days? Collateral damage? I’ll take care of Istanbul. We must move swiftly.”

  Istanbul, it seemed, had again become a parasite in the heart of the Order, a previously unnoticed center of corruption or disease. The Pythos had used the city at the time of Theodosius, but Lacatuchi had thought all that was long over. It was worrisome to discover it was still used. He must cut out the cancer, but every time he excised a tumor, he found more tainted cells, and had to keep cutting. Sometimes it seemed it would never end. He sighed. Yes, Istanbul required his personal attention.

  He felt his attention was like a cold blade, finding he preferred the surgical metaphor to the mythological one. Being the surgeon put him in control. This wasn’t a hydra-headed monster he was fighting, after all, but people, flesh and blood, dark and perverse and heretical, perhaps, but ultimately human. He could deal with flesh and blood. He nodded. “You may go.”

  “Yes, Prior General.” Defago bowed and backed away.

  “No loose ends,” Lacatuchi called. “You understand, Brother Defago, there must be nothing remaining where the Pythos had been?”

  Defago nodded and backed from the room.

  The door closed, leaving the Prior General alone. He would take care of Istanbul personally. That suited him: he had personal interests in the former capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Besides, he wasn’t sure he really trusted his Inquisitor.

  Defago hurried through the antechamber without a glance at Xavier, the Prior General’s misshapen guard, assistant, and barber. He was busy turning over his Tarot cards and did not look up.

&n
bsp; Defago scurried up the steps and into the ruined abbey, slamming the door behind him.

  Rage had overcome his fear and he fumed at the injustice of it. Upstart! he thought. Lacatuchi was an officious incompetent. He, Defago, had more experience in the struggle, had done more, was more dedicated, more efficient. He, Defago, had cultivated Sister Teresa, had brought her to the Church, sponsored her entry into the convent and ordination as an inclusa, a Dominican nun. He had recruited and trained her. He was responsible for the death of the Pythos, not that fat bogeyman, for all his influence in the Order. He, Defago, should be Prior General!

  17.

  Lisa and Steve descended a curving path in the Parc Montsouris toward the rue Gazan and its line of stately apartment buildings. A rain shower had just passed, leaving the lawns a rich green that sparkled in the intermittent sun striking through the cloud. Flowerbeds were bands of red, yellow and blue, colors seemingly heightened by the rain, but already women in small groups were pushing strollers along the damp pathways, chatting animatedly. From time to time they glanced up, readying their umbrellas to bloom at the slightest sign of more rain. For now, though, the air was fresh and bracing.

  Steve broke the silence. “What’s your address?”

  “Rue de l’Esperance. Isn’t that poetic, the Street of Hope?”

  “You speak with irony?”

  He wore no hat and she found herself admiring the way his short gold hair clung to his skull after the rain. They might have been related, their hair was so close in color. She had sheltered her own with her shoulder bag and only the ends were damp. She thought it must look awful. “Only a little irony,” she admitted. “In spite of what’s happened, whoever’s after me, and whether I’m going to be arrested for Raimond’s murder or not, it’s a beautiful day; gray, but beautiful. I love Paris after a rain, or even during one. I guess I really do believe in hope, after all.”

  He smiled but said nothing.

  They were walking up Auguste Lançon toward his neighborhood when a crow in the garden of an apartment building screeched. Another across the street answered. The first, a large, dark shadow flapped across in front of them with a violence that sent a small shiver of premonition through Lisa, like a reminder of what had happened.