And there was still a need.
“Excuse me,” he said, brushing past a group of Japanese tourists. “Merci, merci.”
He squeezed by the group, fitting himself into the front of the crowded elevator. He clutched a computer case to his side and waited as the doors lingered while several more passengers fitted themselves in.
Across the crowded plaza, he saw a gendarme turn his way. Just a casual tilt of the head and then a moment of hesitation, but the hesitation bothered Ranga. The policeman began walking toward the elevator, not hurrying, just strolling, not even really focused on the elevator anymore, but headed his way.
And then the doors closed, the gears whirled, and the elevator began to rise.
As the car raced upward toward the observation deck Ranga exhaled, relaxing for the moment. The computer case slung over one shoulder weighed heavily. Inside lay every ounce of funding he’d been able to put his hands on and it was still ten thousand euros short.
He guessed his contact would do little besides glance at the cash, but the man had his own needs and if an argument ensued Ranga had come prepared for that as well.
A ceramic object in his pocket that looked like a cellphone was actually a handgun. Barely bigger than his palm, it carried four shots. And though Ranga had never fired a gun, under no circumstances would he leave this place empty-handed.
The elevator doors opened and the tourists pushed their way out. Ranga moved with them, wiping a sheen of sweat off his upper lip. He spotted a figure in the southwest corner, at the very edge of the decking. A patch covered one of his eyes and a package rested at his feet.
Ranga walked over. “Bonjour,” he said.
The man turned toward Ranga. His weatherbeaten face, tanned skin, and coarse hair suggested a life of hardship. A scar disappearing beneath the eye patch confirmed it.
“The language of the Frenchman is not mine,” the seller said coarsely.
“But you make your home here,” Ranga said.
“Your money helped me escape,” the man said. “But I do not wish to forget.”
Ranga had made contact with this man during a stay in Iran. His name was Bashir, a onetime archaeologist and then a curator for a private museum. Bashir had been an opponent of the ayatollahs for many years. He’d kept a low profile until 2009, when he’d stood up and had then been caught and tortured for supporting the Green Revolution after the contested elections.
The hard-liners took his eye and then his family. Bashir had taken revenge by fleeing to France with treasures the world had long thought destroyed. He now sold them to fund the resistance.
“If it is the will of Allah, I will go back one day,” he said.
Ranga offered a sad smile. During their time together the two men had debated this concept many times. Apparently neither had changed his position.
“My friend, there is no God,” Ranga said. “Neither yours, nor mine, nor any other. There is only man and the stories we tell to explain the unexplainable.”
Bashir laughed a little bit. A laugh every bit as sad as Ranga’s smile. “They have tainted your mind.”
“They have poisoned many things, but this belief is my own.”
Ranga said nothing more, not wishing to think of the pain he’d endured at the hands of the radical group he’d allowed himself to join or the despair he felt from their legacy.
“Even as you speak I hear the doubt,” Bashir said. “Why else would you want the tablet and the truth it contains?”
Ranga understood how it looked. His interest in Bashir stemmed from the man’s knowledge, particularly of the cultures that had grown up in the Middle East thousands of years before the time of Christ. Cultures like the Uruk and the Sumerians and the Elamites, cultures that had left a record of man’s earliest quest to understand a being they could neither see nor hear but felt compelled to obey.
Indeed, Ranga was obsessed with the subject, but his reasons were more concrete than spiritual. He could not risk explaining them to Bashir.
“Do you have what you’ve offered?” Ranga asked. “Or must I wait?”
“I waited thirty years to see it again,” Bashir said. “So I understand your need. If I am right, this tablet was carved by the hand of Adam, the first man. Do you understand what that means?”
Ranga tried not to react. He had been fooled by hoaxes before. “How can you be sure?”
“There is no sure,” Bashir said. “But the writings that led us to his grave spoke of the Garden, the fall of man, and the exile. They also told us of—”
“Not here,” Ranga insisted.
Bashir seemed agitated. “But you must know. It is not what you think. It talks of water, the sword of fire, and of death.”
“And of life,” Ranga insisted, though he didn’t know for sure.
“Yes,” Bashir said. “And also of life.”
“And what of the scroll?”
“To the auction in Beirut, as I told you,” Bashir said sadly.
Ranga felt a spike of emotion, desperation mixed with panic. He had hoped Bashir would be able to find the scroll he’d spoken of, but in truth it didn’t matter now. Not if he was right about the tablet.
“Have you ever chased something that stubbornly remained just beyond your grasp?” Bashir asked.
“All my life,” Ranga admitted.
“The scroll has been that way for me. No matter how many times I’ve gotten close, it has always fled from me,” Bashir explained. “I will recover it with what you’ve given me. I will have it once and for all and I will share with you what it tells me.”
Bashir had promised to go to Beirut with the money Ranga was paying him, to bid on the scroll. The effort might avail him, might even prove what Ranga and Bashir both believed about Adam and the Garden, though for vastly different reasons. But now Ranga thought — he hoped — it was no longer necessary. The tablet was all that mattered.
“Let me see it.”
Bashir slid the satchel toward him. Ranga opened it. He could see the brownish stone inside and could just make out the carving.
Ranga took a breath and held it. He was so close he could feel it. The end of a quest that had driven him to madness was growing near.
Glancing up, he noticed Bashir’s eye shift. Bashir was looking past him, focusing on a spot near the center of the tower. A look of fear grew on his face.
“You’ve been reckless,” Bashir whispered.
Ranga began to turn.
“Don’t,” Bashir said.
Ranga straightened up, placed the computer case down, and reached into his pocket. Craning his neck around just far enough to see, he spotted four gendarmes spreading out through the crowd. Reflective vests marked them. Their hands rested on holstered weapons as if they expected a fight.
“The Sûreté,” Bashir whispered.
Ranga recognized one of them and felt a wave of fear shoot through him like flash of pain. “Not the police,” he said. “It is them. They have come for me.”
“Surely they wouldn’t—”
“They would do anything,” Ranga said.
He pushed the computer bag filled with cash toward Bashir and grabbed for the package. If he could just find a way back into the crowd and down he could—
He took a step but a heavy hand fell on his shoulder like a claw. It spun him around. Ranga placed the satchel down, raised one hand in surrender, and almost simultaneously reached into his pocket and pressed the trigger of his little weapon.
The gunshot echoed through the observation deck. The crowd jumped. The “policeman” fell backward bleeding and clutching his abdomen.
The tourists screamed at the sight and bolted for the elevators and stairwell.
Ranga’s hand and side burned from the blast and he stood in foolish shock at what he had done. As the crowd raced around him, he sought a way out. He grabbed the package and tried to move, but more shots rang out. Bullets flew in his direction, forcing him to dive and take cover.