In All the Empty Places, Part XI
After arriving in Lutetia, Abel and Johanna chose a small hotel that was centrally located between the four cathedrals that they would need to investigate.
"Two rooms this time, Father," Johanna teased as they approached the front desk.
Abel's cheeks went slightly red at her reminder of their trip to Antwerp. While there, the priest had absentmindedly gotten one room for three people, forcing Johanna to share a bed first with himself, then with Leon the following night. As embarrassing as that had been, it had only been compounded when Johanna and Abel had awoken the following morning to find that the priest's hands had wandered during the night. Since then, neither Johanna nor Leon had let Abel live that one down. "Well, given the danger of our current situation, I really don't think having separate rooms would be a wise idea."
"Uh-huh." The Sister's eyes were positively twinkling.
"We don't have to share a bed again!" he whispered, looking around in dismay. "Just ask for separate beds!"
"Right," she smirked. "Well, I won't tell her Eminence if you won't."
"It's not like that!" he protested, blushing hotly, but Johanna only laughed, then turned to the concierge. "Une chambre, avec deux lits, s'il vous plait." (One room with two beds, please.)
"Pour combien de temps?" (For how long?)
"Une semaine. Peut-être moins." (A week. Maybe less.)
The concierge nodded, but gave both of them semi-amused looks. "Un prêtre et une nonne partageant une chambre?" (A priest and a nun sharing a room?)
Johanna shrugged with supreme indifference and remarked, "Il n'est pas mon défaut qu'il a peur de l'obscurité." (It's not my fault he's afraid of the dark.)
The concierge laughed and handed Johanna a set of keys. "Chamber deux cents et seize. En haut et vers la gauche." (Room 216. Upstairs and to your left.) He pointed behind her, and she turned to see the staircase leading up to the second floor.
Johanna gave the concierge a grin. "Merci." (Thanks.)
Picking up her bag, she led Abel up the stairs to the corner room they had been given.
Halfway up the stairs, he drew alongside her and asked, "What did you say to the concierge that made him laugh?"
She barely managed to hide her smile. "Nothing."
But like Abel, she quickly became all business as they settled in, finding the fastest way in and out of the hotel, as well as ways to get in and out that attracted minimal attention. She also helped him shift the furniture around to allow them access to the window if necessary, and moved a chair near the door so they could block it if they had to.
"You've learned well," he complimented her after several minutes, and she shrugged.
"Thank Father Tres, he's been drilling this into my head ever since we got back from Antwerp. Father Leon's been teaching me, too. I draw the line, though, at hiding C4 under my pillow." She stretched for a moment, rounding her shoulders to unkink them, then headed for the bathroom. "I'm going to take a minute or two to clean up, see if I can wash some of the trip off," she said, and Abel absently nodded as he began unpacking.
"So what's our next move?" he asked her.
"Hard to say," she called out to him over the sound of rushing water. "We don't know when the Rosencreutz is going to strike, although my guess is, they'll wait 'til nightfall."
"Why?"
"Draw less attention to themselves that way. Assuming, of course, that they are in fact going to strike here and not in Londinium." She turned the water off and came back out, drying her face. "I almost wish I could be there if that happens, just to see the look on their faces before Father Tres blows their heads off."
"Hardly charitable thinking, Sister," Abel chided her.
"'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,'" Johanna quoted back, tossing the towel back onto the bathroom counter. She flopped down on her bed, dragged her bag over, and began rummaging through it for her notes. She spread them over the bedspread, and Abel sat down next to her as she pulled out a map of Lutetia.
"Okay, here we are," she said after a few moments. "Saint Sulpice is here, Notre Dame here, Sacre Coeur here, and Saint Eustache here. We've got four choices, and really no way to know which one is the right one." Johanna rested her chin in her hands. "I don't suppose the bishops would be too thrilled about me asking if we could disable the organs for the forseeable future."
She caught the glare he gave her over the tops of his bifocals. "I didn't think so. It was just an idea."
"I hope that's not the 'surprise' you mentioned on the train," he said, and she shook her head.
"Nope. I've got something else in mind. Not my first choice, but it should do the trick if necessary. But we're going to have to split up."
"Absolutely not," Abel said hotly. "You are not fully qualified as field personnel, especially since you're still on medical leave."
"We don't have any choice," Johanna reminded him. "As it is, it's still a terrible gamble, but I'll take slim chances over none any day of the week." She pointed to the map. "Of the four, I think that Notre Dame is the most likely target, especially given its proximity to the Louvre. And for pure psychological shock value, destroying Lutetia from Notre Dame sounds like just the Rosencreutz' style."
She moved her finger to point toward Sacre Coeur's location on the map. "This would be my second guess for historical significance. So, I vote that you cover Notre Dame, while I cover Sacre Coeur."
Abel looked extremely unhappy. "I don't like this at all, Johanna."
"Neither do I, Abel," she said quietly. "Neither do I."
After Abel took his turn at washing up, Johanna gave him a cheerful smile. "We've got time to kill, what do you say we hit the Louvre while we're here?"
"We're here to stop Lutetia from being levelled, not to go sight-seeing!" he protested.
"Well, we can sit in church all day if you'd like, but we run the risk of getting noticed and alerting the Rosencreutz to our presence here," she pointed out, but Abel wasn't convinced. "Come on, the Louvre is centrally located, too, and it's less than a mile away from Notre Dame. Hell, we could run that distance if we had to. Come on, how often do you get a chance to soak up culture?"
"We live in the Vatican," he reminded her, and she rolled her eyes.
"You can be such a stick in the mud, Abel," she sighed, stretching out on her bed, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the priest go ashen, and she sat up again in concern. "What's wrong?"
Abel turned away to face out the window, but not before she saw a look of profound sadness cross his face. "It's... it's nothing."
"Don't give me that," she said, getting up and moving to stand behind him. "What did I say wrong?"
Not looking at her, he sighed. "It's... it's just that... that's what Noelle called me. In Barcelona."
Johanna flinched, inwardly wincing at her inadvertent reminder of the other nun.
Abel went on. "We were having dinner, and she was... she was having fun. But I was... more concerned about trying to be responsible, like her Eminence expects of us."
"Oh," Johanna said softly. "I'm sorry, I..."
Abel turned around and rested his hands on her shoulders. "It's all right. Don't worry about it." With an obvious effort, he smiled at her.
"So, shall we visit the Louvre?"
Johanna's answering smile was radiant.
Unfortunately, their trip didn't start on the best note, when museum security insisted that they would have to check their weapons before entering. Even after showing their Vatican credentials, the security guards were firm.
Johanna looked at Abel in consternation. "What do we do? Should we just leave?"
"It's either that, or we do as they say," he replied. "We shouldn't be here too long, though, so I don't see it being a problem."
The Sister shrugged, then removed her hip holster with the Peacekeeper and handed it to the guard just as Abel did the same. The guards then double-checked to make sure neither of them was carrying any other weapons, and then they were allowed in. Johanna, however, took some small measure of revenge by complaining just enough to get them both in for free.
"You didn't have to do that," he chided her in a whisper as they entered the main hall, but the nun just shrugged.
"Hey, if I'm going to be inconvenienced, I expect something out of it. What was I going to ask for, free souvenirs?"
Abel laughed.
For the next several hours, Abel and Johanna wandered happily from room to room, taking in the work of famous masters. At Abel's insistence, they went to look at the Mona Lisa, and joined the small crowd of people standing before the painting. Abel stared raptly at the picture, but Johanna was less enthused.
"You know, she doesn't have any eyebrows," she remarked, and Abel shot her a look.
"Honestly, is that all you can say? You're looking at one of the greatest pieces of art in history, the famous La Gioconda, and all you can say is 'she doesn't have any eyebrows'?"
Then he took a second glance at the painting, leaning a bit closer, and blinked.
"You're right," he said in surprise. "She doesn't. I wonder why."
Johanna shrugged again. "Don't know. Besides, I've seen the Mona Lisa before. Not my favorite Da Vinci picture."
"Oh, really?" he asked, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "And what is-"
But just then the priest froze, and his fingers closed around Johanna's arm in a warning gesture. She looked at him in surprise, but as she opened her mouth to speak, he quickly pulled her away from the painting and into one of the side hallways.
"Abel, what are you-"
"Shh!" he hissed, his eyes sweeping over the crowd of people in the gallery.
Johanna craned her neck to try and see past him, but she couldn't tell what had spooked him. She waited several moments before her patience finally ran out, then she tugged at his sleeve. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"We need to get out of here," he said, his voice low.
"What?" It was only with great effort that Johanna managed to keep her own voice down. "Why?"
"We're being followed."
"How do you know?" She tried once again to see past him, but Abel blocked her way.
"I noticed it a little while ago. Same man has been following us from room to room. At first I thought it was just a coincidence, but he kept looking at us, and not the art."
"That's ridiculous," Johanna whispered back fiercely. "Who the hell could know we were here? We arrived only hours ago, and Lutetia has over two million people!"
"How else can you explain that when I was watching him in the glass that covers the Mona Lisa, I saw him talking into a communicator?"
"Maybe he's security," she said, still not convinced. "They might just be checking up on us - we did come in here armed, remember?"
"No," he said firmly. "Trust me on this one." He turned around and looked her directly in the eyes. "Please, Johanna."
She nodded. When it came down to it, she trusted the priest with her life. "If you say we're outta here, we're outta here."
But as they re-entered the gallery, Abel froze when he saw that the man who had been following them was again speaking into his communicator... and on the far end of the gallery, near the exit, was another man doing the same.
Grabbing Johanna's hand, Abel quickly pulled her back into the side hallway to head for the gallery adjacent to the one they were in, but just as he did so, the two men who had been following them turned and saw them, and began shoving their way through the crowd toward them.
"They've seen us! RUN!"
To be continued...
