The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

SWAT teams by the truckload and shoot me on sight without too much worry about who gets caught in the crossfire. We need a place to lie low.”

“It is Sunday,” Clara said, stroking Otto’s ears. “Perhaps we should go to church.”

“You’re kidding, right? Too many people.”

She leaned to look past him down a long lane and thrust her chin at an island in the river. “Not in that one.”

Notre Dame. The cathedral had been under renovation for years, with years of work still to come.

“There are no workers on Sundays. I’m sure of it.”

He had to give her credit for the idea, but it wouldn’t work. Notre Dame was a national treasure standing empty in a city known for persistent squatters. To keep them out, the government had surrounded the renovations with a ten-foot wall of sheet metal, topped with concertina wire and bristling with cameras. “Too much security. We might as well break into the École Militaire.”

“You think so?”

He sensed a smile in her tone. She knew something he didn’t.

Clara took his fingers—just his fingers—and led him toward the river. “You’re not the only one in Paris with secrets.”

15

Ben and Clara sat on the stepped foundation of Hôtel-Dieu, a giant seventh-century medical center on the Paris river island of Île de la Cité, waiting for the street bordering the construction zone to clear.

A cathedral-shaped shell of pipes and plywood covered two thirds of Notre Dame. Ben shook his head. “Between the lead poisoning of workers and the pandemic, I hear the restoration will drag on late into the decade.”

Clara laughed. “She took more than a century to build. What are two or three extra years when you consider the endless backdrop of history?”

Giselle had said something similar before the team left for Morocco.

Ben missed her. Whenever the high stress of a mission threatened to drag him under, even before they started dating, Giselle’s c’est la vie outlook brought balance. Now, after his failed attempt to contact the Company had brought the entire Paris police force down on his head, he needed some balance.

Ben rested his back against the hospital bricks and saw himself falling into her arms, hearing her whispered comfort. The world had gone off-kilter. Together they’d set it right again. As long as he reached her before Jupiter and Leviathan did.

Clara touched his arm. “You ready?”

Ben sat forward. “No.”

The police were spreading an ever-widening net, checking all trains moving out of the city. Giselle might as well be a world away. He had to focus on the present. Ben made a slow nod at a panel in the steel construction wall—one Clara had shown him when they first arrived. “It doesn’t look loose to me.”

“The workers are not idiots. They pull it tight to keep up appearances.”

“And the hazmat procedures?” The fire had vaporized the cathedral’s lead roof. After a string of poisonings among the crews, the government mandated new gear and protocols.

“A show for the public. If the crews had to shower every time they wanted a smoke break or a coffee, they’d spend more time in lines than on the job.” She tugged at his fingers. “Street’s clear. Now’s our chance.”

The positioning of the security cameras gave credence to her claims. The closest two pointed away from each other, creating a blind spot. Ben ran ahead and pulled the panel’s lower corner away for Clara. “How’d you know about this? Are you seeing one of the crewmen?” He cringed at the touch of jealousy in his voice. Where had that come from?

She scrunched her nose and gave him a mysterious smile before squeezing through. “Come inside and I’ll tell you.”

The loose panel let them into the yard, and Otto trotted ahead into the cathedral, dwarfed by the four-story Portal of the Last Judgement where the central doors had hung. Inside, scorch marks marred the open floor of the cathedral nave. The dachshund spun in a circle and wagged his tail. He seemed to know the place.

Ben turned in a slower circle behind him. “Unbelievable.” So much had been stripped away—a throwback to the cathedral’s medieval days. Two wings of the old hospital next door might fit end to end in the great emptiness.

Patches of sunlight filtered in through white tent coverings far above. Nearer, below the vault supports and buttresses, a metal net stretched across the nave. Scattered chunks of masonry lay in its grasp. The cracked face of a cherub stared down at Ben through the mesh. He shuddered and looked to Clara. “Haven’t they recovered all the debris yet?”

“Those pieces likely fell in the night. The fire weakened the stone more than anyone guessed. Two years later, the church is still crumbling. Shoring it up is an endless task.” She lifted a folding chair from a cart, popped it open, and patted the seat. “Come. Sit.”

He obeyed, removing his backpack and gloves and setting them between his feet. Otto sniffed at the backpack. Ben shooed him away. “You still haven’t told me how you knew about the panel.”

“And you still haven’t told me why the police showed up the moment you called your precious boss.”

She had placed so much faith in him—undeserved despite his earlier confidence. But her faith had waned. He heard it in the question. A reckoning was coming. He delayed a little longer. “So, the panel. Do you work here?”

Clara pulled a first aid box from a plywood cabinet and brought it back, dragging a metal stool close to his chair. “Do I look like a construction worker?”

“Maybe.”

She frowned.

He shrugged. Giselle had taught him the proper escape route for such moments. “Who am I to throw up arbitrary gender barriers?”

“Funny.” Clara sat with the first aid box on her knees. She drew a miniature water bottle from her purse and poured some on a strip of gauze. “I’m an artist, thank you. I came to Paris to study.”

“And that study includes breaking into cathedrals?”

“Take off that silly hat.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s silly about my hat?”

“The way