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.
Part One: Reflection
One
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.
That’s why they call it the desert, Kismet thought darkly.
He hated this place, hated the arid nothingness and the severe temperatures and the scouring sandstorms. He loathed the constant thirst, the ever-present smell of scorched iron, and the way his clothes felt like sandpaper against his skin. Yet, there was much more to his contempt than recognition of the physical hardships imposed by the harsh conditions.
This was the place where he had almost died.
The desert extremes did not adequately represent the totality of the environment. As the plane sailed onward through the roiling air mass, shedding altitude and cruising speed on approach to its destination, Kismet began to see more green in the brown landscape below. The Tigris River was a barely visible ribbon, glinting in the sun, but its benevolent effects, courtesy of an ancient network of irrigation canals, were visible all around the city. From a distance, it was hard to believe that this place was still a war zone.
The aircraft began to vibrate as it struck pockets of disturbed atmosphere. The turbulence was not unlike slamming into potholes on a paved road, and as the plane made a particularly violent drop, Kismet was grateful for his seat belt. He overheard snatches of conversation from some of his fellow passengers, mostly relief workers from UNICEF and other international agencies, wondering if the plane was taking ground fire.
He smiled humorlessly at the notion. If the civilian aircraft was indeed under attack from anti-aircraft artillery batteries, or even small arms fire, there would be no time to wonder. The plane would simply break up in the air over the city. Yet it was only right that the volunteers be concerned. For most, this endeavor would represent the greatest peril they would ever face — stepping willingly into one of the most violent places on earth in order to do nothing but good — and they certainly had every right to be apprehensive. If he did not share their trepidation, it was only because for him, this would not be such a singular event. As the soldiers with whom he had once served were fond of saying: “Been there, done that.”