Note:
Chapter totally revised: 12-03-14
The Second Coming
Chapter 5
The Gift
2740 words
At Saint Genis Pouilly, they drove into a small bustling village square. Levi indicated to the left corner, they turned and pulled up to the kerb further around the corner.
The pavements, populated with locals out on daily errands: several carried groceries bought in the nearby shops, some with newspapers, others engaged in conversation with each other as they passed. For a moment, they all glanced in the direction of their car; Rupert imagined a town of zombies attracted by the scent of new untainted blood. With relief, the bloodlust gawps looked away and carried on with their own business.
‘This is it, wait here for my return, I will not delay,’ and with that Levi hopped out of the car and slipped into the streetscape unnoticed.
A few seconds passed, in the rear-view mirror Rupert observed his fellow accomplice meander along the street. His memory played back Levi’s voice from earlier, “For your own safety”. He wondered what he had meant, safe from what, or who. Levi had not expanded any further. He watched the figure shrink in the distance; Rupert’s curiosity got the better of him. He climbed out of the car, kept his eyes fixed on Levi, and followed.
A few steps held back, and careful not to lose him, he trotted along the pavement, darted between pedestrians; using them for cover. He need not have worried, Levi, fixed on the task in hand, did not turn around once. As Rupert viewed over the shoulders of an elderly man and his wife, a plume of Gauloises cigarette smoke wafted and blocked his view. When it had cleared, Levi had vanished. Rupert overtook the couple and ran to a road junction where he had last seen him, he slowed and stole his head around the corner; the last glimpse of brown suit, as it disappeared through an anonymous door opening.
Various posters and fliers covered the galvanised metal door. As he approached, he noticed graffiti and dried urine stains added to the covering. Other than a lock escutcheon, the door had no ironmongery, no knob, no handle, and Rupert possessed no key.
Over the road, back at the junction of the square, Rupert noticed a coffee shop; the recollection of a similar waft of freshly baked pastries that Levi disallowed him at the airport earlier. He made his way back to the café and ordered coffee and pain au chocolat. Seated at an outside table, he waited; eyes looked over to the side street, focused near the door. Not long now, he thought, and checked the clock on his phone.
People came and went, as did his pastry and so too his coffee. Where was he? Rupert glanced at his phone again; Levi delayed longer than a few minutes. He took euro coins from his wallet, left them on the table, and made his way back to the doorway. Absentmindedly, he rattled car keys in his pocket, he stepped towards the secure door and pushed it with his free hand. Rupert half-expected Levi to walk through, but it did not shift.
‘Great,’ he said to himself.
The lock was a straightforward 5-lever cylinder type, he examined it; the kind found on a modern house front door. He pulled out the set of car keys. To his surprise, on a separate interlocking key ring, a similar cylinder key jiggled free.
‘That’s odd, why have a house key on a hire car key fob?’ He looked around, aware he mumbled to himself, and checked that no one had heard him. He looked at the key again. ‘It can’t be.’
With apprehension, Rupert offered the key to the lock, it slipped in without resistance. He turned and the mechanism unlocked, the door clunked ajar. How could this be, he thought, had Levi left the key on the ring and how had he managed to open the door without it? He pocketed the keys, pulled the hood of his zip-through over his head, tried to absolve what he was going to do, and heaved the door wide open. Triggered by the door opening, darkness disappeared, as wall mounted light fittings, fed by metal conduits, flickered into operation. At the same time, a red light appeared above the door and began to strobe. Was the door alarmed? Rupert could not remember any flash light when Levi had entered.
Find Levi, the only answer, and quick. Rupert pulled the door behind him and stepped down a set of stairs that led to a darkened corridor; the noise of the door clunked closed echoed before him. Triggered by movement sensors, bulbs buzzed to life the further he walked. The long grey concrete passage reached another deeper staircase, similarly utilitarian in its concrete and galvanised metal appearance. Rupert peered over the handrail in time to see a cascade of lights flicker into the depths. There was no sign of Levi. There had been no other doors or corridors so this had to be the right direction; he began a descent of the first flight.
‘Shit,’ out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a shiny black-plastic dome fixed high up on the wall, a masked CCTV camera, how many others had he not seen? He pulled over his hood, covered his shame. When he found him, Levi would need to explain.
Despite trying to descend with as much stealth as possible, squeaks from his trainers reverberated within the hard interior. He was glad of the hood, the temperature felt like it dropped with every step, and it was cold. After a few minutes and countless stairs he reached the bottom, his legs ached and his breath visible in the chilled air. The only way, a pitch-black opening loomed at the end of the lobby. Anxious, he anticipated the lights would turn on and stepped forward, closer and closer. Although no bloodthirsty ghoul stood there to greet him, he still jumped out of his skin when lights burst in to life.
Ahead of him appeared a small shallow room, curved like an underground tunnel, leading off out of sight to his left and right. A large and shiny pipe thread through blue metal mountings filled the space. Several other pipes, wires, conduits, and lights clung to the walls around the pipe; everything ran in the same direction as the room. Rupert moved forward and looked to the left, the pipe and its attachments continued out of sight. He entered the room and gasped at the sight, the room was not a room, but a very long corridor with a slow curve. The apparatus stretched out and disappeared around the bend in the distance, he turned to face the other direction.
‘I told you to stay in the car,’ Levi said.
‘Jesus, Levi,’ startled for a second time, Rupert jumped at the sight of him.
‘Not two names I would usually put in the same sentence,’ Levi said.
The corridor continued with the same slow-bend behind Levi and the large holdall held at his side.
‘Where are we?’
‘Do you not recognise a Hadron Collider when you see one?’ Levi looked up and down the corridor.
‘Then we are probably in serious trouble.’
‘We are now you triggered the alarm, come on,’ he said and turned back along the curving tunnel.
‘Are we not going back up the stairs?’
‘They will be waiting for you.’
On cue, Rupert heard the sound of feet, they clattered and echoed within the stair core, he followed Levi. They walked along the curving perimeter; the footfall became louder and louder. Another darkened room off the corridor appeared and Levi took it. Lights did not flicker on until Rupert entered, by that time Levi was half-way up a flight of stairs. Levi, with greater stealth, must have done this a few times before, he thought.
‘Your turn to carry the bag, and hurry, they are coming.’
‘What is this?’ Rupert asked.
‘Just take it; we do not have time now.’
Rupert obeyed, grabbed the leather handles and heaved the bag up, it was a ton weight; he put it down.
‘It’s flipping heavy.’
‘I know, come on,’ Levi disappeared fast up the stairs. Rupert pulled up the bag again, threaded his arm through the loops and pushed the bag up onto his shoulder, still heavy, but more manageable.
They climbed another similar utilitarian staircase to the top; Rupert remembered to pull the hood up further, ahead of any CCTV cameras, along another identical corridor to a set of steps and a metal security door, where Levi waited.
‘No looking back, or dawdling, when we go through this door, straight to the car. I expect it will be busy out there and we do not need to get caught up with things.’
‘But—’
‘Ready?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘We can talk in the car, let us go.’
Orders administered, he levered a handle and out they went, greeted by the sunshine and the noise of police sirens, into a deserted side street. Levi closed the door behind them, pulled Rupert’s hood from his head and led the way out to the main road. Rupert followed and recognised the busy street; people had stopped daily errands, stood, looked and pointed in one direction, past where they had parked the car, to flashing blue lights and the source of the sirens.
Before Rupert could say a word, Levi had joined a group of on-looking shoppers and conversed in French. Languages were not Rupert’s high point, so decided to avoid speech, instead continued past them towards the car. In an attempt to eavesdrop, he picked-up two easy words: terrorists and bank.
He placed the heavy holdall into the boot of the car, relieved to shed the weight, daylight gave the first proper look at the bag. It was an old leather holdall, covered in dust and cobwebs, secured by a series of leather straps and buckles; from a different age. A police car sped past, its siren wailed; he hurried and closed the boot. Heat prickled his cheeks, he felt flushed, and an uncontrollable glow of red filled his face with guilt and worry. He hastened into the driver’s seat and closed the door; Levi joined him.
‘Apparently, a group of terrorists have broken into the vaults of a Banque Populaire des Alpes on the corner,’ Levi gave Rupert a frowned expression. ‘You look flustered.’
‘Actually, I’d gathered that much, but we were nowhere near a bank vault and we are hardly a group.’
‘Do you seriously think that CERN would admit to allowing an unknown foreign student into their Hadron Collider?’ he omitted himself from the equation.
‘Levi, you told me you had something to give me, something safe, something that you owned. Yet here we are surrounded by France’s finest, gun wielding I wouldn’t doubt, with a damn heavy bag stolen from an immensely secure world-class scientific research facility. It is all a bit Hollywood don’t you think?’
‘Talking of Hollywood, might I suggest if you do not make a move soon, it will be you in front of all the cameras. The bag is not stolen. It was stored securely and safely for me until I needed it again; that time is now,’ Levi had an uncanny ability to put Rupert in his place. ‘With all due respect, Rupert, if you had not followed me through the door, this would not have happened.’
The car fell silent. Rupert’s well-reasoned mind could not comprehend what Levi told him. How could Levi have entered the building; passed by countless security devices; acquired a hefty old bag from deep in the recesses of CERN; and still not triggered any alarm? Although it pained him to admit it, Levi was right; if only he had stayed put in the car.
He started the engine and they made their way. A gendarme hurried to reroute backed-up traffic away from the scene; they departed without a hitch.
They drove west to the outskirts of town on the Rue de Lyon, past more airport hotels, and on to the main B255 headed towards Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. The route took them on a bendy road at the foot of the Jura Mountains and for the most part ran alongside the Rhône River. At Bellegarde they joined the A40 Autoroute and after the half an hour the journey took, Rupert spoke.
‘When will I get to see this thing?’ he said.
‘At the next services, pull off,’ Levi said, his eyes closed, as they had been for the whole journey, he barely moved. ‘We will stop for coffee and I will show you.’
‘It had better be worth it.’
‘Trust me.’
Rupert drove; Levi rested his eyelids. The E21 E-road and the A40 Autoroute, Rupert noted the same, at least for the current stretch of road. Confused by the numbering, he found solace in the satellite navigation.
‘Aire de la Semine, will that do?’ Rupert asked Levi.
‘No café there, drive on.’
Rupert glanced across to the services, as they sped past, several parked articulated-trucks and sure enough, just picnic benches complete with a toilet block. How did he do that? Either, he had been here several times before, had a photographic memory, or he could see through his eyelids, Rupert thought.
The motorway continued through the country, pine trees scattered across the hillsides from crest to the dusty grey verges of a well used Autoroute des Titans. Rupert had picked out the name on the sat-nav device, he had not given it much attention, and he now glanced back and forth from road to screen. The two lanes of westbound carriageway split from the eastbound, changed proximity and elevation, as they passed over the Viaduc du Tacon; Rupert focused on the dashboard guidance.
‘Do not look down,’ Levi said.
Rupert glanced out of the window, trees and buildings disappeared beneath the road, as they sailed high above. He noted Levi’s closed eyes.
‘How do you do that?’ Rupert said.
‘It is a sixth sense thing,’ a slight condescension in his voice. ‘I could teach you sometime; I know you are receptive.’
Regular attendance at various conferences, Rupert had met many hundreds of people, along with challenging personas of those devote, yet, despite only meeting twice, Levi managed to take it to a personal level, offered up a challenge that required focus and similar retort.
‘That might be interesting, it could come in handy,’ he tried hard not to sound cynical. ‘I have a sixth sense of my own.’
‘Really?’
‘I’m a good reader of people.’
‘Yes,’ Levi opened his eyes; intrigued. ‘I am aware of that.’
‘I can tell if someone is telling the truth, or if they are wasting my time with superfluous acts or information.’
‘Well that is interesting, what—’
‘It’s not something I readily share with people, especially what I am feeling,’ Rupert truncated Levi. ‘Fifteen minutes to Aire de Ceignes services.’
They disappeared into the Tunnel de Saint-Germain. The glow of red taillights ahead of them filled the car’s interior. Rupert stole a peek at Levi to read the expression on his face and there it was again, not what he had expected, a smile.
Once more, with eyes closed he remained that way until they pulled into the motorway services at Aire de Ceignes, Haut Bugey. Greeted by a flamboyant cladding of red and yellow graphic panels, the Agip service station, a welcome interlude from the dull greys and browns of the tarmac and mountains that surrounded the landscape. They pulled into a parking space outside the main building and jumped out the car.
‘I will arrange coffee, you bring in the holdall,’ Levi said, he marched his way to the door and did not wait for an answer.
‘You really know how to push your luck,’ Rupert said to himself, he turned to the back of the car and opened the boot; not aware Levi was out of earshot.
He looked up. ‘Great, I’m talking to myself, and not for the first time today. Jeez, this bag is bloody heavy.’
Preparing his attempt to move it, he studied the rows of buckled straps for a second, and although tempted, realised it would take too long to unfasten the thing, have a sneak peep, and buckle it back up again. He lifted the holdall clear, closed the boot, and locked up the car.
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