The Paris Vendetta Read online

  “That’s the target,” he said. “The one Lyon’s protecting.”

  “And you have one more problem,” the president said.

  “I already know,” Malone said. “We can’t blow this one up. It’s well over the city.”

  He heard Daniels sigh. “Seems the son of a bitch plans well.”

  ELIZA HEARD A BOOM IN THE DISTANCE, FROM THE TOWER’S opposite side. She stood on the south portion of the observation deck, gazing out toward the Champ de Mars. Private houses and blocks of luxury flats lined both sides of the former parade ground, wide avenues paralleling both sides.

  A quick glance to her left and she saw the Invalides, the gilded dome of the church still intact. She wondered about the noise, knowing that what she’d planned for so long was still a few minutes away. Ashby had told her that the plane would come from the north, swooping in over the Seine, following a locator beacon that had been hidden inside the dome a few days ago.

  The plane would be loaded with explosives and, combined with its nearly full tanks of fuel, the resulting explosion promised to be quite a spectacle. She and the others would have an unobstructed view from nearly three hundred meters in the air.

  “Shall we move to the east side for a final look before heading down?” she said.

  They all rounded a corner.

  She’d purposefully orchestrated their route around the platform, slowly gazing at the sights and the delightful day, so that they would end facing east, toward the Invalides.

  She glanced around. “Has anyone seen Lord Ashby?”

  A few shook their heads.

  “I’ll take a look,” Thorvaldsen said.

  THE WESTLAND LYNX SLICED ITS WAY THROUGH THE AIR HEADING toward the Skyhawk. Malone kept his eyes locked outside the windows and spotted the plane.

  “Eleven o’clock,” he told the pilot. “Swing in close.”

  The chopper swooped around and quickly overcame the single-engine plane. Malone spied the cockpit through binoculars and saw that the two seats were empty, the steering column moving, as in the other plane, with calculated strokes. Just as before, something lay on the copilot’s seat. Beyond, the aft area was packed tight with more packages wrapped in newspaper.

  “It’s just like the other one,” he said, lowering the binoculars. “Flying automatically. But this one’s for real. Lyon timed it so that there’d be little opportunity to deal with the problem.” He glanced toward the ground. Nothing but streets and buildings stretched for miles. “And few options.”

  “So much for him telegraphing messages to us,” Stephanie said.

  “He didn’t make it easy.”

  Outside the helicopter’s window he spied a rescue hoist with steel cable.

  What had to be done was clear, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. He turned to the corpsman. “You have a body harness for that winch?”

  The man nodded.

  “Get it.”

  “What are you thinking?” Stephanie asked.

  “Somebody has to go down to that plane.”

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  He motioned outside. “A gentle drop.”

  “I can’t allow that.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I’m the senior officer here. And that’s final.”

  “Cotton’s right,” Daniels said into their ears. “It’s the only play. You have to get control of that plane. We can’t shoot it down.”

  “You wanted my help,” he said to her. “So let me help.”

  Stephanie stared at him with a look that said Do you really think this is necessary?

  “It’s the only way,” he said.

  She nodded her assent.

  He wrenched the headset off and slipped on an insulated flight suit that the corpsman handed him. He zipped it closed, then tightened a harness around his chest. The corpsman tested the fit with a few stiff tugs.

  “There’s big wind out there,” the younger man said. “You’re going to be swept back on the cable. The pilot’ll keep the distance tight to minimize drift.” The corpsman handed him a parachute, which he slipped on over the harness.

  “Glad to see you have some sense,” Stephanie yelled over the turbines.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.”

  “You don’t lie well,” she said.

  He donned a wool cap that, thankfully, shielded his entire face like a bank robber. A pair of yellow-tinted goggles protected his eyes.

  The corpsman motioned, asking if he was ready.

  He nodded.

  The compartment door was slid open. Frigid air flooded in. He slipped on a pair of thick insulated gloves. He heard a snap as the steel hook of the hoist was affixed to the harness.

  He counted to five, then stepped outside.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  THORVALDSEN MADE HIS WAY AROUND FROM THE NORTH TO the west side of the caged deck. He passed windows on his right that exhibited wax figures of Gustave Eiffel and Thomas Edison, made to look like they were chatting in Eiffel’s former quarters. Everything loomed still and quiet, and only the wind accompanied him.

  Ashby was nowhere to be seen.

  Halfway, he stopped and noticed that the glass door for the exit was closed. When the group had passed here a few minutes ago, the door had been open. He gripped the handle and tested.

  Locked.

  Perhaps one of the staff had secured it? But why? The tower would soon be open to visitors. Why lock one of only two ways to the top deck?

  He walked back to the east side, where the others stood gazing out at the panorama. The second exit door was closed, too. He tested its handle.

  Locked.

  He listened as Eliza Larocque pointed out some landmarks. “That’s the Invalides, there. Maybe three kilometers away. It’s where Napoleon is entombed. Seems some sort of disturbance has occurred.”

  He saw a vehicle smoldering in front of the church, a multitude of fire trucks and police dotting the avenues that stretched away from the monument. He wondered if what was happening there was connected to the two locked doors. Coincidence rarely was coincidental.

  “Madame Larocque,” he said, trying to catch her attention.

  She faced him.

  “Both exits leading down are locked shut.”

  He caught the puzzled look on her face. “How is that possible?”

  He decided to answer her question in another way. “And there’s one other disturbing piece of news.”

  She stared at him with an intense glare.

  “Lord Ashby is gone.”

  SAM WAITED ON THE FIRST-LEVEL PLATFORM AND WONDERED what was happening five hundred feet overhead. When the Paris Club had vacated the meeting room, and the staff had returned to prepare for lunch, he’d blended into the commotion.

  “How’d it go?” Meagan whispered to him as they adjusted the silverware and plates at the dining tables.

  “These people have some big plans,” he murmured.

  “Care to enlighten me?”

  “Not now. Let’s just say we were right.”

  They finished preparing the two tables. He caught an enticing waft of steaming vegetables and grilled beef. He was hungry, but there was no time to eat at the moment.

  He readjusted the chairs before each place setting.

  “They’ve been at the top about half an hour now,” Meagan said as they worked.

  Three security men kept watch on the attendants. He knew that this time he could not remain inside. He’d also seen Henrik Thorvaldsen’s reaction as the Dane realized Sam was there. Surely he had to be wondering what was happening. He’d been told that Thorvaldsen was unaware of the American presence, and Stephanie had made it clear that she wanted to keep it a secret. He’d wondered why, but had decided to stop arguing with his superiors.

  The chief steward signaled that everyone should withdraw.

  He and Meagan left through the main doors with everyone else. They would wait in the nearby restaurant fo
r the signal to return and clear away the dishes. He stared upward into the latticework of brown-gray pig iron. An elevator descended from the second level above.

  He noticed that Meagan saw it, too.

  They both hesitated at the central railing, near the restaurant’s entrance, as other attendants hustled inside from the cold.

  The elevator stopped at their level.

  The car would open on the far side of the platform, beyond the meeting room, out of sight from where he and Meagan stood. Sam realized they could only hesitate a few moments longer before drawing the suspicion of either the head steward or the security men, who’d retaken their positions outside the meeting room doors.

  Graham Ashby appeared.

  Alone.

  He hustled to the staircase that led down to ground level and disappeared.

  “He was in a hurry,” Meagan said.

  He agreed. Something was wrong.

  “Follow him,” he ordered. “But don’t get caught.”

  She flashed him a quizzical look, clearly caught off guard by the sudden harshness in his voice. “Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  He had no time to argue and started off.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To the top.”

  MALONE NEVER HEARD THE HELICOPTER DOOR SLAM CLOSED behind him, but he felt when the winch began to unwind. He positioned his arms at his side and lay prone with his legs extended outward. The sensation of falling was negated by the cable’s firm grip.

  He descended and, as the corpsman predicted, was swept back. The Skyhawk was flying fifty feet below him. The winch continued to slacken the cable and he slowly eased himself toward the wing top.

  Bitter-cold air washed his body. The suit and wool face cap offered some protection, but his nose and lips began to chap in the arid air.

  His feet found the wing.

  The Skyhawk shivered at his violation, but quickly stabilized. He gently pushed off and motioned for more slack as he maneuvered toward the cabin door on the pilot’s side.

  A gust of cold air rushed past, disrupting his equilibrium, and his body swung out on the cable.

  He clung to the line and managed to swing himself back toward the plane.

  He again motioned and felt the cable lengthen.

  The Skyhawk was a high-wing craft, its ailerons mounted to the top of the fuselage, supported by diagonal struts. To get inside he was going to have to slip below the wing. He motioned for the chopper to fall back so he could be lowered farther. The pilot seemed to know intuitively what Malone was thinking and easily slipped down so he was level with the cabin windows.

  He peered inside.

  The rear seats had been removed and the newspaper-wrapped bundles were indeed stacked ceiling-to-floor. His body was being buffeted and, despite the goggles, dry air sapped the moisture from his eyes.

  He motioned for more slack and, as the cable loosened, he grabbed the flap’s leading edge and maneuvered himself over to the strut, planting his feet onto the landing gear housing, wedging his body between the strut and wing. His weight disrupted the plane’s aerodynamics and he watched as elevators and flaps compensated.

  The cable continued to unwind, looping down below the plane, then stopped. Apparently, the corpsman had realized that there was no longer any tension.

  He pressed his face close to the cabin window and stared inside.

  A small gray box lay on the passenger’s seat. Cables snaked to the instrument panel. He focused again on the wrapped packages. Toward the bottom, in the space between the two front seats, the bundles were bare, revealing a lavender-colored material.

  Plastique explosives.

  C-83, possibly, he figured.

  Powerful stuff.

  He should to get inside the Skyhawk, but before he could decide what to do, he noticed the cable slack receding. They were winching him back to the chopper and the wing blocked his ability to signal no.

  He couldn’t go back now.

  So before the cable yanked him from his perch, he released the D-clamp and tossed the hook out, which continued a steady climb upward.

  He clung to the strut and reached for the door latch.

  The door opened.

  The problem was the angle. He was positioned ahead, the hinges to his left, the door opening toward the front of the plane. Air sweeping from the prop beneath the wing was working against him, forcing the door closed.

  He wrapped the gloved fingers of his left hand around the door’s outer edge, his right hand still gripping the strut. At the limit of his peripheral vision he spied the chopper easing down to have a look. He managed to open the door against the wind but found that its hinges stopped at ninety degrees, which left not nearly enough space for him to slip inside.

  Only one way left.

  He released his grip on the strut, grabbed the door with both hands, and swung his body inward toward the cockpit. Airspeed instantly worked the door hinges closed and his parachute pounded into the fuselage, the metal panel lodging him against the open doorway. His grip held and he slowly worked his right leg inside, then folded the rest of his body into the cockpit. Luckily the pilot’s seat was fully extended.

  He snapped the door shut and breathed a sigh of relief.

  The plane’s yoke steadily gyrated right and left.

  On the instrument panel he located the direction finder. The plane was still on a northwesterly course. A full moving map GPS, which he assumed was coupled to the autopilot, seemed to be providing flight control but, strangely, the autopilot was disengaged.

  He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the chopper now snuggled close to the left wing tip. In the cabin window was a sign with numbers on it. Stephanie was pointing to her headset and motioning to the numbers.

  He understood.

  The Skyhawk’s radio stack was to his right. He switched the unit on and found the frequency for the numbers she’d indicated. He yanked off the wool cap, snapped an ear-and-microphone set to his head, and said, “This plane is full of explosives.”

  “Just what I needed to hear,” she said.

  “Let’s get it on the ground,” Daniels added in his ear.

  “The autopilot is off—”

  Suddenly the Skyhawk angled right. Not a cursory move, but a full course change. He watched the yoke pivot forward, then back, foot pedals working on their own, controlling the rudder in a steep banked maneuver.

  Another sharp turn and the GPS readout indicated that the plane’s course had altered more westerly and rose in altitude to eight thousand feet, airspeed a little under a hundred knots.

  “What’s happening?” Stephanie asked.

  “This thing has a mind of its own. That was a tight sixty-degree turn.”

  “Cotton,” Daniels said. “The French have calculated your course. It’s straight for the Invalides.”

  No way. They were wrong. He’d already determined the end point of this venture, recalling what had fallen from the Selfridges bag last night.

  He stared out the windshield and spotted the true target in the distance.

  “That’s not where we’re headed. This plane is going to the Eiffel Tower.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  ELIZA APPROACHED THE GLASS DOOR AND TRIED THE LATCH.

  She stared down through the thick glass panel and saw that an inside lock had been engaged. No way that could have happened accidentally.

  “The one on the other side is the same,” Thorvaldsen said.

  She did not like the Dane’s calculated tone, which conveyed that this should be no surprise.

  One of the other members turned the corner to her left. “There’s no other way down from this platform, and I saw no call box or telephone.”

  Overhead, near the top of the caged enclosure, she spotted the solution to the problem. A closed-circuit television camera that angled its lens toward them. “Someone in security is surely watching. We simply have to gain their attention.”
/>   “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that easy,” Thorvaldsen said.

  She faced him, afraid of what he might say, but knowing what was coming.

  “Whatever Lord Ashby planned,” he said, “he surely took that into account, along with the fact that some of us would be carrying our own phones. It will take a few minutes for someone to get here. So whatever is going to happen, will happen soon.”

  MALONE FELT THE PLANE DESCEND. HIS GAZE LOCKED ON THE altimeter.

  7,000 feet and falling.

  “What the—”

  The drop halted at 5,600 feet.

  “I suggest that fighter be sent this way,” he said into the headset. “This plane may need to be blown out of the sky.” He glanced down at the buildings, roads, and people. “I’m going to do what I can to change course.”

  “I’m told you’ll have a fighter escort in less than three minutes,” Daniels said.

  “Thought you said that wasn’t an option over populated areas?”

  “The French are a bit partial to the Eiffel Tower. And they don’t really care—”

  “About me?”

  “You said it. I didn’t.”

  He reached over to the passenger seat, grabbed the gray box, and studied its exterior. Some sort of electronic device, like a laptop that didn’t open. No control switches were visible. He yanked on a cable leading out, but it would not release. He tossed the box down and, with both hands, wrenched the connection free of the instrument panel. An electrical spark was followed by a violent buck as the plane rocked right, then left.

  He threw the cable aside and reached for the yoke.

  His feet went to the pedals and he tried to regain control, but the aileron trim and rudder were sluggish and the Skyhawk continued on a northwest vector.

  “What happened?” Stephanie asked.

  “I killed the brain, or at least one of them, but this thing is still on course and the controls don’t seem to work.”

  He grabbed the column again and tried to veer left.

  The plane buffeted as it fought his command. He heard a noticeable change in the prop’s timbre. He’d flown enough single-engines to know that an altered pitch signaled trouble.