It was too simple a query to address the events of the last few minutes. He shook his head wearily. He knew he would have to explain everything, and fully intended to do so, but there was one last bit of unfinished business to attend.
Twenty
Every night, crowds of tourists flocked to the Butte Montmartre, both to visit the splendid Basilique du Sacré Coeur and to take in the awe-inspiring view of the city of lights. None of the vacationers there that night were aware of the crisis at the Eiffel Tower, nor would they ever know any more than that a fire had occurred at the summit of the monument and that the tower had been briefly closed to the public. They did however get a taste of the excitement when a French military helicopter descended on the lawn and shattered the quiet with the thunderous beat of its rotor blades.
Inside the basilica, a few eyebrows were raised, but the thick marble walls muffled most of the tumult. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Buttrick was intimately familiar with the sound, but failed to grasp its significance. He continued playing the part of the tourist, idly taking in the majesty of the elaborate depiction of Christ with arms outstretched, reputedly one of the world’s largest mosaic artworks, situated above the choir. Nearly two hours had passed since Marie had received the call directing them to proceed with all haste to Montmartre, and he was itching to know why. Marie had been perfunctorily silent, but he had barely noticed. His thoughts were repeatedly drawn back to the trouble his inquiry into Kismet’s past had caused.
“Nick!”
Marie’s subdued cry startled Buttrick, but he whirled on his heel, searching for the man she had identified. Kismet stood framed in the entry, a grave expression on his haggard face. Buttrick didn’t know the other man that well, but he knew that look. He was instantly on his guard.
Marie moved away from his side and glided toward Kismet, evidently unaware of any tension. She unhesitatingly gave him a gentle hug. “What did you learn?”
Kismet replied softly, almost too softly for Buttrick to hear. “Pierre is dead. Saeed killed him.”
“Saeed? Who is that?”
Buttrick didn’t know the answer to Marie’s question, but thought that she had asked it a little too quickly.
“It’s over, Marie. Or should I call you Miriam?”
Her demeanor reflected appropriate confusion at the statement, but neither man was fooled. Buttrick stepped closer. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Before Kismet could answer however, Marie’s mask fell away, to be replaced by a smile that was at once both guilty and mocking. “It was the helicopter, wasn’t it? That’s when you figured it out.”
“I think I knew all along. I knew the person who killed Aziz was a woman when we fought at the museum.”
Buttrick suddenly understood, and the gravity of the revelation sent him reeling. “Museum? You….”
“I’ll admit, your shrinking violet routine had me fooled. It didn’t help that there was a better suspect. But when it came down to survival, your true colors came through. You produced a gun out of nowhere and started using it like you knew what you were doing. When you shot that man in the cavern where we found the helicopter, it was exactly the same way you killed Aziz: two shots to the chest, one to the head. But you let the other man live.”
“He was unarmed.”
“He was also your accomplice. Colonel Saeed Tariq Al-Sharaf, a former Iraqi intelligence officer who had retired to a life of luxury on the Riviera after discovering a trove of artifacts dating from the dynasty of Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian emperor who conquered Palestine in the sixth century BC and razed the Temple of Solomon.
“Saeed needed someone in a position of authority to grease the wheels of his black-market artifact trade, and when he was approached by Marie Villaneauve, personal assistant to the director of the GHC, he must have thought it was a gift from God.” He chuckled mordantly. “I suppose in a way it was.
“Your story about learning to fly in the military set off the warning bells. France didn’t have compulsory military service for females when you would have been of age, but Israel did. You should have seen Saeed’s face when I told him you were a Mossad agent.”
“You killed my men,” Buttrick snarled. Kismet’s revelations had torn away the bandages of his own guilt and the shared trust Marie had been cultivating now seemed like so much salt in the wound.
When she turned to him however, her expression had shed every trace of condescension. “I never meant for that to happen, Jon.”
Kismet continued. “Saeed ordered you to kill Aziz because he knew that Aziz would point us toward him. You were still playing Saeed, hoping to get a line on where those artifacts might be stored, hoping against hope that somewhere in his treasure house, you might find the holy relics of Solomon’s temple. Alive or dead, Aziz was of no consequence, so you accepted the assignment. But then I walked in and ruined everything.”
“Everything that happened after that was a horrible mistake,” she admitted, still directing her words to Buttrick. “I did not intend to harm anyone but the target. What happened to your men was… regrettable.”
Even now, confronted with the terrible truth, Marie was still trying to win him over. Kismet saw it, too. “Just tell me one thing. You had a silenced weapon. Why didn’t you just kill me and save yourself all that trouble?”
Her eyes swung to meet his gaze. “I don’t know. I never understood why it was so important to him that I not harm you.”
Buttrick drew in a sharp breath, and Marie realized too late that she had played into Kismet’s hands. She took a step back, and then seemingly from out of nowhere, drew a small automatic pistol and aimed it at Kismet. “But I’m not following those orders any more.”
Kismet’s eyes flicked down to the gun, then returned to meet her stare. If he was concerned, he hid it well. “Are you sure you want to do that here? In a house of God?”
“Not my God.” All subterfuge was gone. Where she had once used her appearance as a disguise, hiding behind an illusion of helplessness and sexuality, there was now a confidence that was somehow as beautiful as it was deadly.
“It’s just a damn game to you,” Buttrick took a menacing step toward her, oblivious to the threat of the firearm. “Life and death… Those were my boys you killed.”
The weapon shifted to block his approach even as she took another step back. She was now too far away for either man to attempt to wrestle the gun away. Kismet raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Give it up, Marie. It’s not too late. I can still help you.”
An uncertainty crept over her expression, but her voice remained defiant. “I think you’ve forgotten who has the gun, Nick.”
“Help her?” Buttrick gasped. “You can’t be serious.”
Kismet ignored him. “You still work for UNESCO. Maybe it’s under false pretenses, but legally it’s enough for me to protect you.”
She held him with her gaze, and her tone softened. “You could do that? You could forgive?”
Kismet felt the crust of Chiron’s blood on his outstretched fingertips. “I can forgive quite a bit.”
Her eyes flickered between the two men as if weighing the sincerity of the offer, but then she began edging around them. A few more steps and her path to the exit would be clear.
Kismet divined her intention. “If you walk through that door, you’re on your own.”
“I’ve always been on my own.” She took one more sideways step, and then turned away.
“Marie!” Kismet implored. “Is this really who you are?”