The four uniformed guards raised weapons at his group.
General Rende took a step back.
These were real French police…except for the driver. From his accent, he was obviously an American.
Rende glanced back to the gateway. More French policemen stood guard. He’d been betrayed by his own ruse.
“If you’re looking for your men,” the American said, “they’re already secured in the back of the truck.”
General Rende stared at the driver. Black hair, blue eyes. He didn’t recognize him, but he knew the voice from conversations over the phone.
“Painter Crowe,” he said.
PAINTER SPOTTED a flash of muzzle fire. From the second-story window of the palace. A lone sniper. Someone they had missed.
“Back!” he yelled to the patrol around him.
Bullets chewed across the wet pavement, strafing between Painter and the general. The police scattered to the side.
Rende fled back, yanking out his pistol.
Ignoring the automatic fire, Painter dropped to one knee, lifting two weapons, one in each fist. Aiming instinctively, Painter pointed one pistol toward the upper window.
Pop, pop, pop…
The general dropped to the ground.
A cry sounded from the second story. A body tumbled out.
But Painter noted it only from the corner of his eye. His full focus was on General Rende. They both pointed guns at the other, both kneeling, weapons almost touching.
“Back away from the truck!” Rende said. “All of you!”
Painter stared hard at the man, judging him. He read the raw fury in the other’s eyes, everything falling apart around him. Rende would shoot, even if it meant forfeiting his life.
The man offered him no choice.
Painter dropped his first pistol, then lowered the second gun away from Rende’s face, pointing it at the ground.
The general grinned triumphantly.
Painter squeezed the trigger. An arc of brilliance shot out from the tip of the second pistol. The taser barbs struck the puddle at the general’s knee. The jolt of electricity blew Rende off his legs, slamming him onto his back, gun flying.
He screamed.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Painter said, snatching up his regular pistol and covering the general.
The police swarmed around the fallen man.
“Are you all right?” one of the patrolman asked Painter.
“Fine.” He stood. “But damn…I really miss fieldwork.”
7:57 A.M.
DOWN IN the cavern, the fireworks had only lasted a little over a minute.
Vigor lay on his back, staring up. The screaming had stopped. He had opened his eyes, sensing at the primitive level of his brain that it was over. He caught the last spin of the sphere of coherent light, then watched it collapse inward on itself like a dying sun.
Above stretched empty space.
The entire cathedral had flickered and vanished with the star.
Seichan stirred from where she had sheltered beside him. Her eyes were also fixed above. “It’s all gone.”
“If it was ever there,” Vigor said, weak from blood loss.
7:58 A.M.
GRAY BROKE the embrace with Rachel, the acuity of his senses fading with the light. But he still tasted her on his lips. That was enough.
For now.
Some of the shine remained in her eyes as she searched around. The others were stirring from where they had flattened themselves against the ground. Rachel spotted Vigor, struggling to sit up.
“Oh God…” she said.
She slipped out of Gray’s arm to check on her uncle. Monk headed in the same direction, ready to employ his medical training.
Gray kept guard, staring at the heights around him.
No shots rang out. The soldiers were gone…along with the library. It was as if something had cored out the center, leaving only the amphitheater-like rings of ascending tiers.
Where had it all gone?
A moan drew his attention to the floor.
Raoul lay crumpled nearby, curled around his trapped arm, crushed under the fallen pillar. Gray stepped over and kicked his pistol aside. It skittered across the glass floor, now a cracked and scattered jigsaw.
Kat came over.
“Leave him for now,” Gray said. “He’s not going anywhere. We’d best collect as many weapons as we can. There’s no telling how many others might be up there.”
She nodded.
Raoul rolled onto his back, stirred by Gray’s voice.
Gray expected some final curse or threat, but Raoul’s face was twisted in agony. Tears rolled down his cheeks. But Gray suspected it wasn’t the crushed arm that was triggering this misery. Something had changed in Raoul’s face. The perpetual hard edge and glint of disdain had vanished, replaced with something softer, more human.
“I didn’t ask to be forgiven,” he keened out in anguish.
Gray frowned at this statement. Forgiven by whom? He remembered his own exposure to the light a moment ago. Primordial light. Something beyond comprehension, beyond the dawn of creation. Something had transformed Raoul.
He recalled the naval research done on superconductors, how the brain communicated via superconductivity, even maintained memory that way, stored as energy or possibly light.
Gray glanced to the shattered floor. Was there more than light stored in the superconducting glass? He remembered his own sensation during that moment. A sense of something greater.
On the floor, Raoul covered his face with one hand.
Had something rewired the man’s soul? Could there be hope for him?
Movement drew Gray’s eye. He saw the danger immediately.
He moved to stop her.
Ignoring him, Seichan lifted Raoul’s gun. She pointed it at the trapped man.
Raoul turned to face the barrel. His expression remained anguished, but now a flicker of raw fear lit his eyes. Gray recognized that shine of black terror in the man—not for the gun, nor for the pain of death, but for what lay beyond.
“No!” Gray called.
Seichan pulled the trigger. Raoul’s head snapped back to the glass with a crack as loud as the pistol shot.
The others froze in shock.
“Why?” Gray asked, stunned, stepping forward.
Seichan rubbed her wounded shoulder with the butt of her pistol. “Payback. Remember we had a deal, Gray.” She nodded to Raoul’s body. “Besides, like the man said, he wasn’t looking for forgiveness.”
7:59 A.M.
PAINTER HEARD the echo of the gunshot through the palace. He motioned the French patrol to pause. Someone was still fighting in here.
Was it his team?
“Slowly,” he warned, waving them forward. “Be ready.”