Chapter 20
The Notre Dame Cathedral was a busy as ever, streams of tourists flooding in and out and the sound of conversation carrying up to its domed ceilings and rebounding as little more than whispers.
Caradoc sat on a chair, fiddling with his watch. He slowly turned the dial on its side, watching the numbers go up one by one. A straight line stretched across the other half of the watch face, occasionally jumping when it detected a signal.
Estok sat down on the chair next to him, a plastic bag in hand. "After walking for two hours I found a Subway."
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten anything since that Mac and Cheese in the motel." He unwrapped a footlong sandwich and took a large bite out of it, chewing silently among the chatter of the tourists around them.
"I'm not hungry," he repeated. He turned the dial one more step, and the line was displaced into a wave pattern. He pressed a button on his glasses. "Hello?"
A burst of static, and then, "Identify yourself."
"This is Caradoc. I'm here with a David Estok to see Charlemagne."
Another bout of static. "Find a priest," the operator said.
Caradoc switched off his glasses, and stood up, turning off the interface in his watch. "We have to get a priest."
"Can I finish this sandwich first?"
"Not the time, doctor."
Estok nodded, re-wrapped his meal and slung the plastic bag over his shoulder, following Caradoc deeper into the cathedral. They reached a small alcove, where a priest was standing, looking down at his feet and whispering to himself.
"Father," Caradoc said.
The priest lifted his head to look at him, blue eyes shining from behind a weathered and wrinkled face. He said something in French.
"I'm sorry, I don't speak French."
"What is your business here?" the priest asked, narrowing his eyes.
"We're looking for Charlemagne."
His eyes widened, and a smile formed on his lips. "Very well. Follow me." He turned in the direction of a side passage, and shuffled along silently.
Caradoc took small steps in his wake, eyes darting around the room. There were a few other priests who looked at them curiously as they were led deeper into the cathedral, and towards a confessional.
The priest raised an aged hand at the curtains.
Caradoc pushed them apart and ducked inside, taking his seat. He glanced through the lattice, past the empty seat in the middle and at Estok, who was sat across from him.
His spectacles beeped - an incoming transmission. Caradoc pressed the answer button, and a flashing bar appeared in the corner of his vision to indicate the strength of the signal, just beside the word "Confidence".
A hologram of a dark-skinned female in a suit flickered into existence in the middle seat. "We got your email."
"Who are you? Where's Charlemagne?" Caradoc asked.
"He's busy. I'm Roland, second in command here. We haven't met, have we?"
"No, we haven't."
"Is the doctor trustworthy?"
Caradoc stopped himself before he could answer. He looked through Roland, towards him, who was tracing a finger along the lattice grating.
"Caradoc?"
"Yes, I trust him. He saved Oberon's life."
"Good. Put your hand on the lattice." Roland's hologram blinked and disappeared.
Caradoc reached out, and pressed his palm flat against the wooden screen. A soft red light emanated from the grille itself, scanning his palm, and then he heard the soft hum of an electric engine.
His seat moved downwards, just as metal panels slid between him and the curtains of his chamber. The elevator rumbled down, and then sped up a little, bringing them to same level as the catacombs. There was another set of curtains where the lift stopped, of the exact same colour and material. A wooden panel slid over his head, blotting out the most of the light - a thin streak shone through the drapes.
Caradoc separated them and walked out into a large room with grey wall, with light fixtures at regular intervals, and several doors leading out. Men and women in work uniform rushed from one door to another, holding clipboards and reports and cups of coffee.
Estok stepped out of the other booth, whistling at the sight of the Paris Kingsman HQ. "I believe you now."
"And you didn't before?"
"I wasn't sure. Where to next?"
"To me," Roland said, appearing from the sea of employees. "Welcome to Paris, agent Beumers." She held out a hand.
He shook it firmly. "It's...very different. Kind of like UK HQ. Love the lighting, though."
"I understand your branch is heavily understaffed?"
"After V-day, yes. We lost a lot of good men. Including Maleagant."
"I saw the report," Roland said. "Didn't you say there were four of you?"
"There was a roadblock near the border. Jonas volunteered to drive Oberon to hospital, so here we are."
Roland nodded. "I'll contact him as soon as possible. Tea or coffee?"
"Tea," Caradoc said. "I never liked coffee."
"And you, Doctor Estok?"
"I'm quite fine. Really." The doctor held his hands in front of him. "Plus, I've a sandwich to finish."
"Very well." Roland grabbed the shoulder of a male aide who was passing by, and whispered into his ear. He nodded and turned down a corridor. "Now, shall we go somewhere more suitable for discussion?"
"Lead the way," Caradoc said.
Roland took them through one of the left doors, down a long corridor with glass windows. Caradoc glanced down them, and was met with the sight of a massive train station below them, filled with Kingsman staff and a few agents.
"That goes all the way to Geneva," Roland said. "And even Berlin. This year we're extending it to Amsterdam, but I think it'll take next year to be fully functional."
"Makes our castle look like a sham."
"Arthur is aware of your lack of funding, agent Beumers. He's said that as soon as Berlin is operational again he'll reinforce you."
"That can't be soon enough."
Roland opened a door. "Come. We've much to discuss."
Caradoc and Estok entered a bleak grey conference room with a large circular glass table that had the Kingsman logo engraved in the middle. He sat down in the closest chair, Estok next to him and Roland herself a few seats away.
"What couldn't you tell me in the email? We have secure channels, you know."
"Can't risk them," Caradoc said. "You heard what happened to Stockholm?"
"We all did. A tragedy."
"Well, whoever caused that have our database. Or at least part of it, which is why this place is still standing."
"How would they have it? We stopped every leak on V-day."
He shook his head. "I don't know. But right now I really need your help with something."
"Just ask."
"My partner Gawain is...somewhere. She's been kidnapped by the men who attacked a motel on the Dutch border the night before."
"We'll run a search. I can't promise you we'll find her."
"There's a trainee with her. The replacement for Maleagant. Knowing them, they'll stick together."
"Noted. Who exactly is Jonas?"
"He's the Chief of Security of Phoenix. The company we hit a few months ago. He shot Gawain and almost shot me too."
"And you trust him?"
"The president of Phoenix is dead. Jonas want...redemption for that. He's got some information on the men behind the attack on Stockholm."
"Is he with Sagramore?"
"That's the thing. Sagramore is dead. They attacked our HQ and killed him."
Roland developed a frown almost immediately. "That's...that's not possible. Even with your current staff you're more than a match for them."
"They knew when Val- when Gawain and I would leave. And they had a bit of help from one of our ex-agents."
"Merlin detonated the chip. There aren't any Kingsman defectors any more."
"Well, you're wrong." He pulled the shiny silver hard drive out from his coat and set it on the table. "He's from this very branch as well."
"Palamedes," Roland whispered.
"Not anymore. Not he's just Antoine Dufour. But it looks like he's been training."
Roland stood up. "I need to contact Arthur. Is there anything else?"
"One more thing. Antoine wasn't the only one who survived the signal. We've two more names. Garth Hendricksen - yes, the US senator - and I think a Diana Vex is involved."
"Your help is appreciated, agent Beumers. Cafeteria's just down the stairs at the end of the corridor." She vanished through the doorframe.
The silence of the next ten minutes of deafening.
"So what now?" Estok asked.
"Now we wait. We can't do anything for the time being, and even if we could, Roland's people are probably better at it."
Estok stood up. "I'm going to eat my sandwich."
"I'm hungry."
"I don't know about you, but I smelled some meat grilling when we were in the corridor. You coming?"
Caradoc looked up at the lights for a moment, and then at Estok. "Hell yeah. They better have steak."
"Below? Are you sure?" Marcel asked, holding the phone against his ear.
"Certain," his agent said. "Sonar doesn't lie."
"Do you have enough explosives?"
"We'll need a lot more if we're going to blow into a concrete bunker. There's got to be another way."
"You think it's inside the building?"
"I saw the guy go in. He hasn't come out yet."
Marcel pursed his lips. He looked across to the armed men opposite him, and then at the ones sitting beside him. "How many do you estimate?"
"A place that big needs at least fifty."
"Do you know if they're all like Izaks?"
"Doubt it. We'd be dead by now if they were. I say only a few like that."
"How sure are you?"
"Very."
"Good." He hung up, and knocked on the screen separating them from the driver. "We attack out front," he said when the screen was slid open. "Minimal civilian casualties. Once we're in, leave no survivors, understood?"
"Understood!" the mercenaries chorused.
"Not too bad," Caradoc said, cutting another piece of the large beef sirloin the man in the cafeteria had retrieved from the kitchen for him. "Bit chewy, but then again good beef is really expensive."
Estok dusted the crumbs off his hand, and onto the piece of paper on the table in front of him. "I prefer lamb, really."
"It smells."
"Not if you've a good sauce. Braised lamb is particularly good."
"Never could get into that. Where'd you grow up, doc?"
"England."
"Well, which part of England?"
"Manchester. Ellen and I moved to Scotland after a while, though. Much nicer there." He folded up the wrapping paper and scrunched it into a ball.
"Ellen? Your wife?"
"Yes, my wife. I think I've said we met in hi-"
The world around them was plunged into darkness, and then the black was replaced by red. An alarm went on loop, stirring up the people in the cafeteria. They moved out in a file, as if it were normal.
"What's going on?" Estok asked.
Caradoc pressed the button on his glasses to select Roland's signal, and connected to her. "What's happening?"
"Bad news." A camera feed from the front of the Notre Dame came up in his vision. Civilians were on the ground, and armed men walked to and fro between them, rifles pointed down. A black APC was parked on the street.
A man with grey hair who wore a uniform like the rest of the men, but with an additional pauldron, walked towards the door. Three steps short of the entrance, he stopped in his tracks and drew his pistol.
Caradoc identified it as an FN Five-seveN just as he raised it, and the camera went black.