The French Code (14 page)

Max and Linden appeared in a flash of fluorescent light inside one of the four iron pillars of the Eiffel Tower. When the rain of sparks cleared and the two spies were gently lowered to the ground, Max searched again for signs of the Tracer Bug on the Time and Space Machine.

She sighed and looked up through the laced metal archway. A swirling gust of wind buffeted into them as grey, bloated clouds moved in on either side. ‘She had to be at the top, didn't she?'

Her head began to spin from the curving height of the tower. She looked down and caught hold of the iron frame beside her.

‘I can go by myself if you want,' Linden said. ‘You can keep watch down here.'

‘I'm fine.' Max tightened the straps of her pack. ‘How many police do you think are here?'

Linden scoured the grounds. The nearby roads were blocked off with barriers and police cars with flashing lights. Officers were stationed within metres of the tower base and around the edges of the park, keeping out tourists, Parisians and camera crews. ‘Over a hundred.'

‘That's what I thought.' Max pulled out the lever on her backpack. ‘We can fly through this middle section to the first floor. Let's go.'

The blare of sirens pushed Max and Linden further into the shadows of the tower. Max peeked around the metal edge. ‘It's Tetu. If he goes up, he'll either blow it or be in real danger. We have to stop him.'

They ran from the pillar to a line of police cars pulling up before the tower.

Tetu emerged from the first car. He held up his hand and the officers around him stopped at attention behind him. With snapping steps and a face chiselled into irritated confusion, he stood, legs astride, solid as the tower, as Max and Linden approached.

‘Strangways has Veronique and he's going to –'

‘'Ow did you get 'ere zo fast? You were at ze chateau.'

‘It doesn't matter,' Max said. ‘Strangways –'

‘Is our business!' Tetu shouted. ‘I forbade you to be 'ere. I –'

‘Need us,' Max interrupted. ‘Strangways is about to wreak untold chaos on this city – possibly the world – and unless you let us go up there with you, you won't know how to stop him.'

Tetu's eye twitched like a dancing flea. ‘'Ow do you know zis?'

‘Toby worked it out from a spell Strangways is
going to use that is written in Egyptian hieroglyphics in his private museum.'

‘Spells?' Tetu spat. ‘Discovered by ze other boy?'

‘The other
spy
,' Max corrected. ‘And he's done more than you to –'

‘We have to come with you.' Linden gently took Max's hand to calm her down. ‘We know how to stop him.'

Tetu winced and rubbed his chin. He glanced at the crowds that were growing at the perimeter of the park. He turned to two of his men behind him. Max's Descrambler interpreted. ‘No-one is to get in this park or near this tower. You and Marcel, come with me.'

One of the officers spoke into a walkie-talkie and hurried behind Tetu, who marched towards the tower entrance.

‘Do we follow?' Linden asked.

‘There's no way he's going up there without us.'

At the entrance, four officers stood aside and allowed Tetu and his officers through, but blocked Max and Linden.

‘Commandant Tetu, you have to let us up,' Max pleaded.

Tetu flicked his hand at the guards and the two spies rushed forward, only just squeezing between the closing doors of the elevator.

‘You will not get in my way.' Tetu spoke without looking at Max and Linden. ‘Zis is my investigation and I will 'andle Strangways. You are only 'ere in case you can be useful.'

The elevator began its climb up the slanted metal pillar of the tower, through its intricate weave of ironwork. Max gasped as the glass panels of the elevator revealed Paris slowly falling away, the growing crowds and tops of trees ruffled by a blustery wind. She looked away and took a deep breath to steady her heart. She slipped one of her arms through the strap of her pack.

Tetu spun round. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Getting a drink from my bag,' Max answered. ‘Heights make me feel faint.'

‘Stop fidgeting.' Tetu turned away. ‘Kids,' he snarled, his eye breaking twitching records.

Max reached into her pack and took out the container marked ‘talcum powder'. She and Linden traded smiles before he took a hanky from his pocket and she lifted the neck of her shirt to cover her mouth and nose.

Max twisted the top of the powder and used both hands to squeeze down firmly so that the elevator swelled with smoke.

Tetu looked up. ‘What ze …'

The guards coughed and spluttered. Tetu turned and glared at Max.

‘What 'ave you –' Tetu's question was interrupted by a yawn. ‘Get zem,' he slurred. The officers tried to lift their arms to grab the two spies, but instead collapsed to the ground in a crumpled pile.

‘You will …' Tetu pointed at Max before he keeled over and landed like a heavy sack on top of his men.

‘Must have been tired,' Linden said through his hanky.

He turned to Max, who clung to the railing and had her eyes firmly shut.

The doors opened on the second level of the tower.

Linden grabbed Max's hand and they stepped over the sleepy passengers. Once outside, Max breathed more easily and double-checked the location of Veronique. ‘She's still on the top level. Why couldn't Strangways have chosen a nice place on ground level to take over the world?'

‘This way.' Linden spied the elevator that would take them higher.

The doors opened and Max held onto the rail tightly as she felt the small box climb the height of the tower. She felt her face heat up and turned
away from the windows. She gasped and closed her eyes even more tightly. Linden peeled one of her hands away from the railing and held it tight. ‘It won't fall. I promise.'

Max felt her heart calm. A little. Until she felt the pulsing of her danger meter against her chest.

‘Can you feel that?'

‘Yep.'

When the elevator stopped, Max leapt out. She turned her back on the towering view of Paris and gasped in huge chunks of air while leaning against a solid wall of steel. Linden rubbed his hand.

‘Sorry,' Max said. ‘I'm still no good with heights.'

‘It's okay.' Linden shook his hand. ‘I'm sure I'll get some feeling in it again soon. Where do you think Strangways is?'

A muffled shout spilled from a room nearby.

‘I'd say we just found him.'

Max and Linden crept to the room and peeked over a window ledge. Inside, Veronique was firmly tied to a chair, with Fifi roped to the rung beneath, a rag shoved in her mouth. Strangways lorded over them.

Max shook her head. ‘What is he wearing?'

Strangways was dressed in a long white linen gown with pleated sleeves that flared at the elbow and was gathered around the middle of his waist with a gold belt. Around his neck he wore an elaborate gold neckpiece that was more like a breast plate filled with symbols of fish, eyes and beetles made out of coloured gemstones. He wore a black headdress that fell stiffly around his shoulders and was holding a semi-circular ivory wand. He stood beside a folded-out scroll of papyrus sheets.

‘That's
The Book of the Dead
from his museum,' Max said. ‘François must have brought it to him when he kidnapped Veronique.'

Strangways was talking. Veronique looked quietly defiant.

‘Let's go.' As Max went to move, a thick rope lassoed through the air and wound around them both.

They turned to see François creeping from the shadows behind them.

‘François, you have to let us go,' Max pleaded. ‘Strangways is about to do something really dangerous and we have to stop him.'

François said nothing as he added another loop of rope and tied it off tightly. He dragged his prisoners through the door.

Strangways spun round with a quicker movement than Max would have expected from a frail man. ‘Ah, we have visitors. I guess it won't hurt to have a few guests to watch the show, will it, François?'

François held the rope firmly and didn't answer.

Veronique cried out. ‘Max, Linden. Regi's about to –'

‘Conduct a water spell.' Max frowned. ‘Apparently. Or at least try to.' She directed a smile at Strangways. ‘Toby worked it out. You're planning to use this old book to raise the level of the River Seine and flood Paris. I don't mean to be picky, but don't you think that's just a little deranged?'

‘Oh, it's not deranged, my dear. It's science, just not as we in the modern world understand it.'

‘All right. Let's say it's about to flood in Paris,' Max conceded. ‘Why?'

‘To give the present world a taste of the power of the ancient world, and what better place to do it than from one of the new world's most cherished monuments.'

‘What will it achieve?' Linden asked.

‘I've spent my whole life searching for the secret to creating
heka
and now I've found it. This modern world, with its fuss and noise and hunger
for technology, has lost touch with the true meanings of life and living. The ways of ancient Egypt, one of the most intelligent civilisations to have ever lived, were true and pure. Now it's all clothes and money and destroying the environment. How advanced can we really call ourselves when, in order to live, we're destroying the very planet that keeps us alive?'

Max frowned. ‘I agree with you about the environment bit, but how is flooding Paris going to help you re-create a dead civilisation?'

A calmness floated across his face like a quietly approaching storm cloud. ‘It will clean out the filth, install me in a position of power where I can lead the world through its current chaos and into enlightenment.'

‘Right, well, it's a shame none of that is going to happen. Now that we're here.'

Strangways laughed. ‘You have been watching too much TV, my dear.'

‘And you've been hanging around too many bad costume hire shops.'

‘You don't like the outfit?' Strangways stepped into an easy turn. ‘That's a shame, it's genuine and befits my status as a descendant of a long line of Egyptian nobles.'

‘You're not limping,' Max said. ‘So you were faking it?'

‘No, the limp was real and, believe me, I was quite ill. My doctor gave me six months to live at most.' Strangways smiled broadly and pulled a jar from his pocket with what looked like a muddy green mixture. ‘With this potion, a spell from my beloved book, this neckpiece and a small healing ritual, it seems I'm not dying anymore. I knew it would work,' he cried, ‘and that all my years of searching would not have been wasted!'

‘Where is Veronique's dad?' Linden asked.

‘He is somewhere that need not concern you.'

‘But Papa has been helping you for years and was the one who found
The Book of the Dead
for you.' Veronique wrenched at the ropes around her. ‘How could you kidnap him?'

Fifi ground her teeth into the rag and spat it from her mouth. She put her front paws onto the bottom rung at the back of the chair and began to chew at Veronique's ropes.

‘The book belongs to me,' Strangways said darkly. ‘It was passed down through many generations of my family, until an unscrupulous ancestor sold it to pay his mounting gambling debts.'

‘So your family is full of liars and thieves? You'd fit in nicely, then,' Max said.

‘I am simply taking back what is mine.'

‘With a little kidnapping along the way.'

‘That was unfortunate, but I am not going to let a few people stand in the way of the progress of history.'

‘Or of your ego.'

Strangways slapped his ivory wand into the wall only centimetres from Max's face. ‘This is about the resurrection of a better civilisation. Ego has nothing to do with it.' He calmed. ‘You know this is a high tower, many people feel an overwhelming sense of vertigo. It would be terrible if that happened to you and you just … fell.'

Max opened her mouth to speak, but Linden squeezed her hand.

‘I am sorry about your father, Veronique. After he found the book, he discovered we needed one element to activate its power.' He ran his hand over his chest. ‘This neckpiece.'

‘So that's what you stole from the Louvre the night you met Antoine in his office?' Max asked.

‘Yes, completely intact except for one single element. With that we would have our dream of creating
heka
.'

Strangways's face darkened. ‘But Antoine discovered how powerful it was and decided the neckpiece and book were too dangerous to be in the hands of just anyone.'

His voice grew louder. ‘He decided that after all the money I had given him, after all the years I had supported him, that he wouldn't hand me what was rightfully mine.'

He took a deep breath. ‘Trouble is, even though your papa thinks he is so clever, I worked out what the missing element was for myself.'

Fifi continued chewing at Veronique's rope, breaking it apart, strand by strand.

‘Was it you who left the note in the museum warning us to
mind the girl
?' Max asked.

‘That's a funny thing.' Strangways said. ‘I did it to throw the investigation off track by making the French police focus their attention on Veronique, until I realised I needed her.'

‘For what?' Veronique asked. ‘I don't have anything.'

‘That's what I thought until I overheard your little fudge discovery. That's when I orchestrated the shooting to scare Tetu into letting you stay with me.'

‘It was
you
who shot into Veronique's house?'
Max fumed. ‘You almost killed me!'

Strangways smiled. ‘If I'd wanted François to kill you, he would have.'

He walked over to Veronique and, using the tip of his wand, slid it under the chain around her neck.