Highlander - Donna Lettow [98]
Chapter Nineteen
Paris: The Present
“Amy!” Constantine called out as he entered the office of the assistant curator of the Musée National des Antiquités without knocking, as was his usual custom. “Amy?” He was surprised to find it empty. The young archaeologist was generally quite diligent about her work.
He saw a figure walk past the office door, and he hurried out into the hallway. It was his secretary. “Naomi, where’s Dr. Zoll?” Naomi always knew everything. Some days Constantine wondered how he’d ever functioned for twenty-five hundred years without her. She directed him to the lunchroom and he set off in search.
The lunchroom wasn’t much. A few half-empty vending machines, a microwave, a coffeepot half-full of tepid mud, and an ancient television. All the money in the museum’s modest budget was spent on the public areas and the exhibits. As Constantine entered the lunchroom, it appeared that more than half his staff were gathered around the TV.
“What the devil’s going on here?” Constantine fumed. The staff snapped to attention at his approach, their guilt plain on their faces. “We open in ten minutes and there are already busloads of twelve-year-olds stacking up outside.” He spotted the assistant curator still staring at the screen, wide-eyed. “And you, Doctor, were supposed to have those attendance projections on my desk this morning.”
“Look, Marcus, I know you’re not interested in years that have four digits in them, but could you possibly show a little compassion here?” The young archaeologist was always the only member of the museum staff with the guts to stand up to Constantine. The old general often thought what a fine Centurion she would have made. She was also a hell of a poker player, almost as good as his friend who was calling himself Pierson. “There’s history happening, Marcus,” she chided him.
“What do you mean?” Constantine asked, but his colleague shushed him.
On the TV, the news anchor spoke in clipped, somber tones. “Once again, two are confirmed dead in this morning’s shocking attack: Nigel Coles, a veteran cameraman for the BBC, and Ibrahim Nasir Assad, a member of the Palestinian delegation’s security team…”
Constantine was appalled. “When did this happen?”
“…Among the wounded, which some sources have placed as high as thirty, are three of the Palestinian delegates:” The talking head was replaced by silent video of Maral giving the Palestinian statement to the press. “Former PLO terrorist turned negotiator Salim Ghassan, who’s been taken to Hospital in serious condition; Omar al-Sayyeed, the deputy minister of labor, who is listed in good condition; and the spokesperson, Bir Zeit University professor Maral Amina, who is reportedly undergoing tests at this hour…”
“Poor Duncan,” Constantine murmured. “And that poor woman.”
The video panned away from Maral and the other delegates and swept across the mass of media personnel and equipment covering the Palestinian statement. “Several of the other delegates were treated at the scene for minor injuries and released.” And then for a second Constantine saw him. Avram. Clear as day in the sea of reporters. As the muted video panned back to the podium, the delegates began to shudder and fall as the assassin’s bullets hit their marks. Then the camera spiraled to the ground and the video ended. The image of the news anchor filled the screen once more. “Within minutes of the attack, a Jewish fundamentalist organization called Oneg Shabbat had claimed responsibility in a call to Paris police. Oneg Shabbat is also implicated in the massacre of forty-three Muslim Palestinians outside a Hebron mosque exactly one week ago.”
“Marcus, are you okay?” the assistant curator asked, concerned by the uncharacteristic