The Watchers (69 page)

Streams of brilliant light shot from the lantern and into the sky and burst into thousands of diamond-like sparks, burning bright and fluttering down towards the crooked form in the long black overcoat far below. The sparks touched him, then disappeared. The diamond-like light in the lantern faded into a delicate flame.

‘No, not yet. Oh, make it come back. Please, God, make it come back.
C’est le guet! C’est le guet
, please!’ She began to sink under the weight of tears, still holding the lantern through the railings. ‘Please, don’t go!
C’est le guet
, Marc!’

Something took hold of her.

She surrendered to gentle hands, watched them take the lantern from her, heard a kind voice.

‘It’s all right, Miss Taylor, he’ll be all right now.’

She turned to a large man in a cashmere coat, saw more men running from the tower steps on to the balcony, rushing to Harper.

‘No, please, I have to help him, please. Marc has to find his way to the cathedral.’

‘It’s all right, Miss Taylor, you comforted him before he died. He saw the fire, he heard the words, he knew it was you.’

She looked into the man’s face. She saw the softest light in his green eyes.

‘He did?’

‘Yes, he’s where he belongs now.’

A young blonde woman knelt down, rolled up Katherine’s sleeve, tied off her arm with rubber tubing.

‘This is Officer Jannsen, Miss Taylor, she’s going to give you a sleeping potion.’

The blonde woman pushed a needle into Katherine’s vein. Katherine felt something kind and warm as light, she heard the man in the cashmere coat whisper, ‘“Dulcis et alta quies placidaeque similima morti.”’ And as Katherine slipped deeper into the kindness, she saw the men around Harper stuffing bandages in his wounds and needles in his arms, connecting him to bags of fluids. The man in the cashmere coat holding the lantern over Harper’s eyes, his voice calling softly.

‘Look into my eyes, Mr Harper, listen to my voice.
C’est le guet. Il a sonné l’heure, il a sonné l’heure
.’

Katherine tried to reach for him.

‘Harper’s dying … they’re all dying.’

She felt something soft brush against her hands.

She looked down, saw Monsieur Booty curling into a ball on her lap. The frightened beast looking up to her with sad-hearted eyes. She brought him close to her breasts.

‘It’s OK, Monsieur Booty. Marc’s safe now, he found his way. He’s in the cathedral with all the lost angels.’

Mew
.

of a saturday evening three months later

It hurt like hell but he did it anyway. Bracing his legs against the low stone wall, pulling his mackintosh over the sling on his left arm and leaning down to the stream of clear water pouring from the iron spout. He drank deep, straightened up, wiped dribble from his lips.

A dark blue Merc coming up Rue Curtat and on to the esplanade as five bells rang from the belfry. Harper watched it circle beneath the façade of the cathedral and stop where he stood at the fountain under the trees. Sergeant Gauer emerged from the driver’s seat, circled the rear of the car and opened the passenger door. The cop in the cashmere coat stepped out.

‘Good evening, Mr Harper. Thank you for being prompt.’

Harper looked down at his arm in the sling, saw the beat-up watch on his wrist ticking its way to five minutes before the hour, on the nose.

‘Inspector.’

He leaned down for another drink.

‘I would’ve thought you’d had your fill of that water in hospital. You had poor Sergeant Gauer here running back and forth from the hospital like a pizza delivery man.’

‘Needed my ten glasses a day, Inspector.’

‘Yes, and very healthy it is. But you shouldn’t shy away from the canton’s wines. Our vineyards draw from the same underground source, you know. Mixes with the light in the grapes, very good for what ails you. Care for a stroll to the embankment, if it’s not too taxing?’

Harper recced the fifteen steps to the view of Lac Léman, Lausanne, the snow-covered mountains above Évian.

‘Sure.’

The Inspector walked slowly, Harper hobbled along with a cane in his right hand.

‘Good to see you up and about, Mr Harper. How are you feeling?’

Harper raised his sling.

‘Like I’ve had my wings clipped.’

‘Very amusing. You did give us quite the scare, thought we’d lost you for ever that time.’

They reached the embankment wall. Tin-throated bells from Place de la Palud rang the half-hour. The Inspector pulled out his cigarette case, offered Harper one of his gold-tipped smokes.

‘Care for one?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘I’m well awake, Inspector.’

‘Happy to hear it. Though one should remember a dose of radiance now and then does help ease the weight of eternity.’

‘So the medics in Vevey keep telling me.’

The Inspector lit up, took in the view.

‘Nice evening. A few more days like this and the chestnut trees will flower.’

Harper looked at the branches of the trees, the tiny green pods on the smallest twigs. Then his eyes focused through the trees to the belfry of Lausanne Cathedral high overhead. He took a deep breath, it hurt. He dropped his eyes to the Swiss copper guarding the Inspector’s Merc.

‘I suppose I should thank Sergeant Gauer for that cracking head shot.’

‘Not at all. He was quite keen to test our new long-range rifle. He’s very pleased with the results. Says he had another hundred yards to spare. I must say, Mr Harper, you did leave quite the mess behind in the cathedral.’

Harper gave the place a quick once-over. Looked like the same tumble-down pile of limestone rocks it always was, with new scaffolding on the walls.

‘Doesn’t appear the worse for wear.’

‘No, but it was a scramble. We managed to stabilize the time warp long enough to fix things up before the locals became too suspicious. The doors are battered and don’t quite fit properly, but I think it adds to the charm of the place. Other than that, new leaded glass in windows, rose window back together again, new chairs in the nave, skeletons tucked in their graves. Everything in its proper place.’

‘Everything?’

‘Yes, everything. You do realize you took a grave gamble with the first light of creation.’

‘Seemed like a good idea at the time. Especially as you didn’t tell me what the hell was going on.’

‘You’re not alone, Mr Harper.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Contrary to what you may think, Mr Harper, I don’t know everything there is to know. Should have spotted it though. Yuriev coming to Lausanne, trying to contact the Doctor at the IOC.’

‘The Olympic flame; the fire of the gods.’

‘Quite the clever clue when you think about it.’

‘Not like you to miss a clue, Inspector.’

‘Indeed.’

‘What else?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘What else do you know about it?’

‘Like you, nothing more than the legends of men. That one day the light will be revealed to them again, and that the light will pass them on to the next stage of their evolution. And on that day, this place will be paradise once more.’

‘And our job is finished.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any idea when that might be? I mean, we’ve already been here for two and a half million years.’

The Inspector took a long pull of smoke.

‘The knowledge of the whens and hows of this place is well beyond your pay grade. Mine too for that matter. But there is a plan, I’m sure.’

‘Speaking of plans, how could you be sure I’d find the key, or figure out what the hell it was for?’

The Inspector smiled.

‘I was wondering when you’d get around to asking that. We’d been tracking Komarovsky’s communications, knew he’d gone rogue. We knew his plans to drug you and return you to the cathedral to kill the boy. All we needed to do was evacuate the cathedral of partisans and resting souls and leave you alone with the boy and Miss Taylor. There was every confidence you’d take the boy under your wings, as they say, and that he’d lead you to the key and together you’d sort the rest. Which brings me to something I’d like to ask you.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I read your debriefing report. Beyond your description of events you didn’t offer details about the boy.’

‘And?’

‘One would think you had come to know him a good deal.’

Harper slid back in time, saw himself trying to strangle the lad, then the faintest light flashing deep within his eyes.

‘You mean that he was a half-breed, bred by our own side?’

‘I think child would be the better word in his case.’

Harper looked away, his eyes watching ripples on the lake.

‘I’ve been fighting a war longer than … longer than time. And for what? Come back after a hundred years and find we’re doing the same damn thing as the enemy. The very thing that started this bloody war.’

‘Mr Harper, you know how it is. This is all the paradise there is for these creatures of free will. It was choking on the greed and fear. Our forces were decimated, things were desperate, it was an experiment.’

‘The Two Hundred bred a race among men and we called them traitors, we do it and it’s called an experiment?’ Harper tapped his cane on the cobblestones. ‘How many more half … children are there stashed away in that school of yours? Mon Repos is one of your operations, isn’t it?’

The Inspector gave it a few seconds.

‘How do you know about the school, Mr Harper?’

‘The lad told Miss Taylor, she told me.’

‘I see.’

‘How many?’

‘The number is classified. And with that, I suggest you drop it.’

Harper looked up at the belfry.

‘Newspapers said he died in an accident, slipped over a patch of ice on the upper balcony and fell.’

‘It was the most plausible cover story.’

Harper looked the Inspector in the eyes.

‘Accident at birth, accident at death. He was bred for a job and died doing it. No part of that lad’s sad life was an accident.’

‘Part of him was human, so yes, he had a life of some sadness. They all do. But he also had a life of dreams and wonder as only they can have. And I would’ve thought the manner of his death speaks to the best of him.’

‘He was listed, remember? What sort of choice did he have about the manner of his death?’

‘The boy wasn’t listed, Mr Harper. We told you that to keep the emotions of your form in play.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘You’re a warrior, Mr Harper. You exist to hunt down and slaughter the enemy. Your social skills are, how should I put it, somewhat lacking.’

‘True. But I still don’t get it.’

‘We’d been aware for some time the boy was awakening to the duality of his being despite having suffered a brain injury at birth. Our medical team had him on a regimen of potions to keep his imaginations in check, but his imaginations became increasingly profound. It must have been terribly confusing for him. We had arranged for him to be married to the daughter of a partisan, someone to care for him and give him a sense of normality in his life. We were planning to take him from the cathedral, to a small cottage in the country. For his own good.’

‘He would have never left. To him, that place was alive. It’s as if …’

‘As if what, Mr Harper?’

‘He knew before any of us the reason the cathedral is sacred beyond belief.’

‘Yes, that does seem to have been the case, doesn’t it? And in the end, he killed one of their chiefs and sent the enemy into a tailspin. Intelligence tells us they’re locked in internecine slaughter. A rather good result for our side.’

‘And what about the locals? Lucy Clarke and Stephan … I never knew his family name.’

The Inspector took another pull of smoke.

‘Gomaz, his family name was Gomaz. And for the record, the loss of their souls was unforeseen and regrettable, but it happens. You know it does.’

Harper wanted to tell the Inspector to fuck off. Then again, he thought, what’s the bloody use.

‘You really play hardball, Inspector, don’t you?’

‘And so do you, that’s why we’re here.’

Harper looked at the lake, saw windtrails on the surface.

‘Mind if we walk back? I need another drink.’

‘Of course.’

They walked over the cobblestones to the fountain. Harper handed the Inspector the cane.

‘Mind holding this?’

‘Not at all.’

Harper leaned over the well and grabbed the spout. He bent down, let the cool water run through his mouth. He straightened up, looked at the Inspector.

‘Really does taste better from the spout.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘So that’s what this chat’s about, is it? Make sure I keep my mouth shut about the lad and your school?’

The Inspector handed Harper his cane.

‘Oh, I’m sure once given the order to keep your mouth shut, you would. No, it’s something else. Miss Taylor is leaving for America today.’

‘America, why?’

‘Because I say so. She’s going deep underground. We’ve given her a new identity, a complete back story.’

‘Where?’

‘I’m afraid you’re not cleared to know the details. But I will tell you she’ll be in a very quiet and remote place where she’ll open a candle shop.’

‘Candles?’

‘Yes. She took up candle-making as part of her recovery. Seems to have helped her immensely.’

Harper remembered the night in the nave. Her holding a candle, talking about calling all angels in the darkest hour before the dawn.

‘That’s good.’

‘Officer Jannsen will be heading Miss Taylor’s close-protection unit. They’ll be travelling together.’

‘Does she know?’

‘Does who know what?’

‘Miss Taylor. Does she know she’s pregnant? And if you give me that classified excuse I’ll drop you where you stand.’

‘My, my. We are feeling like our old selves, aren’t we? Happy as I am to see it, I wouldn’t push your luck. You’re well within kill range of Sergeant Gauer, you know how serious those Swiss Guard types can be. Simple tone of voice can set them off.’

Harper saw the Swiss copper next to the Merc. Jacket open, SIG sidearm and a killing knife in his belt.