Grk Undercover (6 page)

“A little,” said Pierre. “How can I help you?”

“We want to go to the Jules Verne restaurant. Can we go up in your lift?”

“Do you have a reservation?”

“No,” admitted Natascha. “But we’d still like to go there.”

“Many people would like to go to Le Jules Verne,” said Pierre. “But only those with reservations can use the lift.”

Tim said, “Can’t we go in the lift anyway?”

Pierre smiled and shook his head. “I’m sorry, no, this is not possible. The lift is strictly reserved for people who are eating in the restaurant. Ordinary visitors must use the ordinary lift.”

“But there’s a huge line to go in the other lifts,” said Natascha. “And we’re in a hurry.”

Her words had no effect. Pierre simply shook his head. “It is not permitted,
mademoiselle
. Not unless you have a reservation.”

Natascha said, “Is Colonel Zinfandel having lunch there now?”

Pierre glanced at the crowd of protestors, then looked back at Natascha. Now he understood who she was. She had been sent to trap him. The protestors must be using her as a decoy, hoping he would be fooled by her innocent face into revealing some useful information. Well, he wasn’t that stupid. He wouldn’t be fooled by anyone.

“I am very sorry,
mademoiselle
,” said Pierre in a stern voice. “I am not permitted to reveal the identities of our guests.”

His cold smile showed that the conversation was over. He crossed his arms and looked past Tim and Natascha as if they simply didn’t exist.

When someone treats you like that, there are only two things that you can do. You can tread on their toe. Or you can pretend that they don’t exist either. Natascha wasn’t in a toe-treading mood, so she turned to Tim and, talking to him as if there was no one else within earshot, she said, “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Tim. “What do you think?”

Natascha glanced at her watch. “It’s five to one. If we stand in those lines, we’re going to have to wait for hours. We’re never going to get to the restaurant in time.”

“Maybe Max isn’t here either,” said Tim. “Or maybe he’s still waiting in one of the lines.”

Natascha tipped her head back and looked directly upward. “He’s here,” she said.

“How do you know?” said Tim.

“I just do,” said Natascha. “I can feel it. He’s up there in the restaurant. And so is Colonel Zinfandel.”

She turned her head from side to side, looking at the enormous lines of people waiting for the lifts.

“We’ve got to get up there before they kill one another,” she said. “And we don’t have time to waste standing in one of those lines. So what are we going to do?”

The Eiffel Tower is a thousand feet tall.

If you want to be precise, it is actually one thousand and sixty-three feet tall. And if you want to be metric, as the French always do, it is three hundred and twenty-four meters tall.

When the Eiffel Tower was built, it was the tallest building on the planet. That was in 1889. Since then, a whole stack of taller buildings have been built in different countries around the world. But the Eiffel Tower is still the tallest building in Paris, so you can see it from just about anywhere in the city.

It stands on four enormous feet, which were planted in the city’s soil more than a hundred years ago and have stood there solidly since. The tower has survived wind, rain, thunder, lightning and two world wars.

Lifts and staircases lead from the ground to the first floor, which has a café and a viewing platform for looking over the city. The lifts continue to the second floor, which has a restaurant and another viewing platform. From there, you catch a different, smaller lift to the third floor, which has the best views of all.

Every year, several million people visit the Eiffel Tower. They go up in the lifts and look at the view over Paris. They want to see the views from the first floor, the second floor and the third floor.

It takes a long time for all these people to board the small lifts. So the lines are very long. People wait patiently. They know that everyone has to do the same thing. Rich or poor, tall or short, fat or thin, old or young, it doesn’t matter. Whoever you are, if you want to go to the top of the tower, you have to wait in the line.

Everyone is equal.

Everyone except two children and a small dog.

They were forcing their way to the front of the line, pushing past people who had been waiting patiently for hours.

The girl was crying. The boy was mopping his eyes. Even the dog looked depressed. He stumbled along the ground with his head bowed, barely making the effort to sniff other people’s ankles or poke his nose at their ice creams.

“Excuse me,” said one of the children as they passed down the line. “Sorry, can we get past? Thank you very much.”

“Excusez-moi de vous déranger,”
said the other child.
“Je suis desolée. Pardon, pardon. Merci beaucoup.”

Most people were too polite to stop the children. Hardly anyone demanded to know why they were jumping the line or asked why they couldn’t wait like everyone else. But if anyone did ask any questions, the boy simply wept even louder and the dog howled and the girl said in a pitiful voice, “We’re lost!
Nous sommes perdus!
Our parents have gone up the tower without us!
Nos parents ont disparus dans la tour!
We’ve got to go and find them!”

She never needed to say anything else. No one could be cruel enough to keep two lost children from their parents. People stepped aside and ushered Natascha, Tim and Grk toward the front of the line. “These poor children have lost their parents,” said one of the tourists. “Let them past,” said another. “Lost kids coming through!” yelled a third. Up and down the line people discussed what had happened to the children and asked if they needed any help.

Natascha felt guilty. And so did Tim. They didn’t like what they were doing. But they didn’t have much choice.

It’s never polite to jump a line. When other people have been waiting longer than you, it’s only fair that they should go first.

But when you’re trying to save your brother from certain death, you don’t have time to worry about being polite.

They soon arrived at the front of the line, where three cashiers were sitting behind a long desk. Tim handed over a twenty-euro note. The cashier handed back two tickets and some change.

“Merci,”
said Tim. He gave one ticket to Natascha and kept the other for himself.

“Bonne chance,”
said the cashier, who had already heard what everyone else was saying. “Good luck. I hope you find your mother and your father.”

“Merci beaucoup,”
said Natascha, and hurried into the Eiffel Tower.

“Thank you,” added Tim.
“Merci beaucoup.”
He stood there awkwardly for a moment, feeling guilty that he had told such an outrageous lie. Then he reminded himself not to be so foolish. There was nothing wrong with telling a little lie if it saved Max’s life. He thanked the cashier again and hurried after Natascha.

Tim, Grk and Natascha went through the turnstiles, ran up some stairs and boarded a lift. It was already packed with people, who shuffled backward, making some space so the two children and their dog could squeeze inside.

The doors slid shut. The lift juddered, then started moving slowly upward, easing up the edge of the Eiffel Tower like an ant crawling up a man’s leg.

Tim and Natascha stayed in the lift until it reached the second floor. There, the doors slid open and the passengers poured out.

The lift operator was wearing a yellow uniform. Natascha went up to him and said,
“Excusez-moi, monsieur. Où est Le Jules Verne?”

“Le Jules Verne?”
said the lift operator.
“Il est là.”

“Merci beaucoup,”
said Natascha, and hurried in the direction that he had pointed. Tim and Grk ran after her. They went down a corridor and soon came to a door. It was guarded by a man in a black uniform.

“We’ve come to meet our parents,” said Natascha, assuming that the guard would speak English. “They’re having lunch inside. Can you let us in, please?”

“Of course,” said the guard. He had no reason to disbelieve what she was saying. Parents often brought their children to the Eiffel Tower. The guard opened the door and ushered them into the restaurant.

Natascha went first. Tim and Grk followed.

The door closed behind them.
The Jules Verne was calm and quiet and peaceful.

People were concentrating all their attention on the serious business of eating very expensive food.

They put tiny morsels in their mouths and mopped their lips with thick white napkins. Waiters in black suits glided between the tables, carrying plates and bottles. The only sounds were the clinking of cutlery and the murmur of polite conversation.

And there was one other sound too, even quieter than the clinking or the murmurs.

It was the sound of a gasp.

The gasp came from Natascha.

Her hand flew to her mouth. Her face went white. She had seen, sitting on the far side of the restaurant, the man who had murdered her parents.

A tall, thin waiter stood at the front of the restaurant. He was wearing a black uniform and gold-rimmed glasses. He welcomed diners when they arrived at the restaurant, showed them to their tables and ensured that every moment of their meal was memorable.

When he saw two children and a dog coming through the door, he stared at them for a moment, wondering what on earth they were doing in his restaurant. He didn’t like children and he didn’t like dogs. Given the choice, he would have preferred to ban them from the restaurant entirely. But some misguided parents insisted on bringing their children when they came to eat at the Jules Verne. And other, even more misguided people brought their dogs. These three intruders must be the children and the pet of someone who was eating here.

The waiter stepped forward, looked down his long nose at the children and the dog, and said,
“Oui? Puis-je vous aider?”

Neither Natascha nor Tim said a word. Tim hadn’t understood what the waiter had said, and Natascha hadn’t even heard him. All her attention was focused on a long table at the other side of the room.

Natascha couldn’t see Colonel Zinfandel’s face, but she recognized him by the shape of his head and shoulders. He was sitting at the near
end of the table with his back to the door. He was throwing back his head and laughing loudly at something that someone had said.

Down on the ground, Grk growled. The bristles stood up on the back of his neck. He had seen Colonel Zinfandel too. Even more importantly, he had smelled him. And the smell filled Grk with fury.

The waiter was getting impatient. He clasped his hands together, peered through his glasses at the children and said in a low voice,
“Vos parents sont ici?”

Tim looked at Natascha, then the waiter, and realized he would have to say something. So he said, “I don’t speak French.”

“Then you are lucky,” said the waiter in a strong French accent. “Because I speak English. So, tell me. Are your parents here?”

Tim stared stupidly at the waiter, wondering what to say.

“You have come to meet your parents?” said the waiter. “What are their names? Where are they?”

Tim stayed silent.

“Can you see them?” said the waiter, who was starting to lose patience. “Please, point them out to me.”

“They’re not here,” said Tim, suddenly feeling awkward and ashamed.

Now the waiter understood what was happening. These children were ordinary tourists who had wandered in here by mistake, somehow slipping past the guard at the door, and now they were determined to cause chaos in his beautiful restaurant. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger and more insistent. “You must leave now. Come on, children. It is time for you to go.”

The waiter’s voice snapped Natascha’s attention away from Colonel Zinfandel and back to her present situation. She took a deep breath and tried to forget that she was standing in the same room as the man who had murdered her parents. Then she turned to the waiter, gave him a radiant smile and said in a calm voice, “We would like a table for two, please.”

The waiter stared at her. “A table?”

“That’s right,” said Natascha. “For two.”

“You wish to eat?”

“Yes,” said Natascha. “This is a restaurant, isn’t it?”

“But you are a child!”

“I still like eating,” said Natascha. “And I’m very hungry. So can we have a table for two, please?”

The waiter looked down his long nose at her. “If you want to eat,
mademoiselle
, there is another restaurant on the first level of the tower which will be more suitable for you. If you go there, you will be able to buy yourself a burger and some chips.”

“We don’t want a burger and chips,” said Natascha. “We want to eat in this restaurant.” She pointed at a nearby table that had been set for two. “Can we sit at this table, please?”

The waiter stared at her. He was speechless. He had been working as a waiter for fifteen years, but he had never been presented with a situation like this. Two children had walked into his restaurant and demanded to be treated like adults.

The waiter didn’t have a clue what to do. He knew very little about children, but he would have guessed that these ones were only ten or eleven years old. What were they doing in his restaurant? And now that they were here, what was he supposed to do with them?

After a moment’s thought, he realized who these children were. They must be the son and daughter of a multimillionaire. Or, even worse, they were the offspring of important, influential politicians. Who else would have the cheek to come in here and demand a table? If he threw them out of the restaurant, their parents would march into the
restaurant, summon the manager and make sure he was fired. There was only one thing that he could do. He smiled at Natascha and said, “Of course,
mademoiselle
. We should be pleased to serve lunch for you both. Please, come and sit down.”

“Thank you,” said Natascha.