The Paris Protection (26 page)

“We can’t waste any more time getting lost,” John said. He turned to Rebecca. “You’re the only one who looked at the map of the tunnel system south of the Latin Quarter, so you’re the only one with any chance of picking the right path. I need you to tell us how to get out of here.”

“I only looked at the map once, a few weeks ago,” she said. “And only for a few minutes. I can’t remember the details enough to know exactly where we are or how to get out.”

“I need you to remember,” John said.

“There are too many tunnels to know exactly,” she said. He had to understand how impossible it was to do what he was asking.

“I need you to remember,” he repeated.

“Come on, Rebecca,” David said. “You can do it.”

“Please,” the president said. “You have to give us a chance to escape.”

But Rebecca knew she couldn’t. If she had only known how important it would be, she would have studied the complex map of the tunnel network and committed it to memory. The system had evolved a lot since the Romans dug their first quarry shafts in the limestone outcroppings, back when Paris was still just a small outpost of the empire. The limestone had been used to erect columns and forums and buildings, some of which still existed today. Then, when the Romans were forced to abandon Paris and their many other colonies as their empire split in two and eventually collapsed, the world slowly rebuilt itself during the Middle Ages. And during that time, the tunnels were forgotten. But when a cave-in swallowed buildings and people in 1774, Parisians got a shocking reminder of the extensive network of tunnels beneath their city. And King Louis XVI created the IGC department to map and manage the underground labyrinth.

She remembered the history she had learned two weeks ago, sitting in her hotel room late at night, preparing for the president’s visit. Every detail of the trip had been rehearsed and planned for. Every site the president was visiting had been scouted and discussed by the advance team. And then, just ten minutes before heading to bed for a short night’s sleep before another long and difficult day of advance work with the team, Rebecca had picked up a magazine on the nightstand and flipped past the history of the Paris underground to stare at its map.

She saw in her mind’s eye the blue line that was the Médicis Aqueduct, running north-to-south across the map. She saw the yellow clusters scattered everywhere, showing the number of solid limestone pillars and structural rock beds. She saw the grid of tunnels running haphazardly as a rabbit warren—impossible for anyone to memorize in just a few idle minutes. Some tunnels had been filled with concrete; some were unfilled but still inaccessible; some were accessible only to engineers and government inspectors. She vaguely remembered the site of the deadly collapse of 1784, the Port Mahon Quarry, and the main catacombs. And then she faintly remembered the brown line on the map, representing the one public-access tunnel that ran north-south, across the aqueduct, and zigzagged through the main catacomb—a two-mile passageway open to the public for a limited tour of the Paris underground and the catacombs. It was their best chance for finding a way back up to street level.

“We’re facing south, correct?” she asked the others.

“That’s right,” David said, checking the compass on his digital watch.

“I don’t remember this specific room, but there were only a few large tunnel splits like this on the map.” She paused. “We might actually be very close to the main catacombs.”

“What’s the main catacombs?” John asked.

“In the nineteenth century, Paris was becoming so overcrowded that the government exhumed many of the bones from the old cemeteries. They had been burying bodies on top of bodies for centuries, and no one remembered any of these dead anymore. So they exhumed them and threw them down into the sewers at night. Water washed them into what’s now the catacombs.”

“The six million dead people,” David said.

Rebecca nodded. “It’s been turned into a huge catacomb now, with bones stacked on other bones to form the inside walls. The Parisians call it the Empire of the Dead.”

“And we’re close to it?” John asked.

“I think so. I think it’s down that way,” she said, pointing to the tunnel leading away from them on the right.

“And why should we go in there?” he asked.

“We can’t make it into the main catacombs: the part open to public tours. The IGC sealed it off, with concrete, from the rest of the tunnel network decades ago. But if we get close to the outer ring around it, we should be able to find one of the IGC shafts leading straight up to a street manhole.”

“Fine,” said John. “Then that’s our best choice.”

He had needed an answer, so she had come up with the best one she could find. She tried not to think of how significant her decision might prove for her country.

Leaving the large chamber room, they entered the tight tunnel on the right. Again their lights bounced off the wet, hard rock walls. Again they hunched over to avoid hitting their heads on the low ceiling that seemed ready to come down on them and grind them into nothing.

She thought she heard a small clink of stone somewhere behind them. Not loud enough to make her stop or look—in fact, barely enough to register. At any moment, they could come across hostiles in front of them or overtaking them from behind.

As they rounded another turn, she heard David swear under his breath. He was staring directly ahead of him.

She instinctively positioned herself in front of the president as they slowed, though she knew from his reaction that whatever had stopped him wasn’t a direct threat.

Rebecca could see it now: a split gate of crisscrossing bars, mounted in concrete. The bars had three-inch gaps and a double-barred door with a chain and a heavy antique padlock.

“We can’t get through,” David said. “And we can’t just keep hitting dead ends and backtracking until we come across the attackers.”

John shook the gate, then examined the lock. Bigger than his hand, it looked like something from an ancient prison. There was little chance of breaking this monster with pistol rounds.

“It’s okay, Madame President,” he said. “We’ll head back to the main chamber and start again. We’ll take the tunnel closest to this one heading in the direction of the catacombs. Eventually, we’ll make it.”

The president responded with a tired nod.

“No, wait,” Rebecca said, moving closer to the gate. “This is right.” She touched the iron bars. “This gate is right. This
tunnel
is right.” She looked at the concrete placements that had been poured to hold the thick iron bars in place. “The IGC did this to block off part of the tunnel.” She moved her eyes across the pattern of iron squares, then shined her light through the bars to an engraving on the next tunnel wall. “Rue Dareau,” she read. “That means we’re below Rue Rémy Dumoncel. The street name was formally Rue Dareau. We must be very close to the catacombs tour. We have to go through here. There must be an IGC shaft somewhere along it. The other tunnels might not go near the main catacomb tunnel—and even if they did, they would all probably have gates.”

“Can we break the lock?” the president asked.

John looked at it again. “It won’t be easy. It will take time and make a lot of noise. But, Madam President, if this is our best chance to get you out of these tunnels to safety, I’ll
chew
through it if I have to.”

As John examined it more closely, David stepped back in the direction they had come from. He knelt by the inside curve of the tunnel and trained his eyes and ears on the darkness behind them. Rebecca led the president over against the limestone wall. Then, while David kept watch at the entrance, she turned to help John with the lock.

“Can you get it open?” she asked.

“No.”

“Can we break it?”

“Maybe. I’ll need a rock—a big one.”

She looked for anything that had been knocked loose from the limestone wall. During the past fifteen minutes, they had run across countless chunks of stone, some the size of a blacksmith’s anvil. But now she couldn’t find anything bigger than a golf ball. Then, at the base of the gate, she spied a crack in the concrete footing. A large corner of the placement holding the bars had broken free from the rest. She squatted and picked up the heavy piece of concrete, roughly the size of a gallon jug, and lugged it over to John.

“Will this work?”

He looked at the heavy slab. “Good job! If
that
doesn’t work, then nothing down here will.”

He took it from her, lifted it high, and brought it down hard on the lock. A loud metallic pop echoed through the tunnel. In the dark silence, it sounded as loud as a gunshot.

The loud crack of concrete on iron made the president jump back against the limestone wall. Even Rebecca, who had watched John’s movements and had every reason to expect the sharp bang, was startled by the noise.

He raised the heavy block again for another strike. This time, she covered her ears. She heard the muffled crash and saw the spark fly from the lock when it was hit.

And still it did not break.

50

MAXIMILIAN DARTED THROUGH THE JAGGED crack in the hotel’s basement wall, with two dozen men in tow, including Tomas and Asghar: the Merchants of Death. From the scramble radio, he knew that Kazim was already in the tunnels with another dozen men, pursuing the target. His soldiers still in the building had to fight off the Secret Service emergency response teams trying to push their way in. If the president was still somewhere inside, it would give his remaining men a chance to kill her. But if she had escaped into the tunnels, holding the perimeter would delay the response teams from realizing that the chase had moved underground.

He had hoped to burn the president alive in the hotel, so that the horrors of such a death would live forever in the collective American consciousness. But even if she had escaped into the Paris underground, she would never make it out alive. He and his men had studied the tunnel maps and knew them well; the president and her protectors did not. And the dark underground labyrinth would confound and trap them in its grasp until his men could close in and finish the job they had set out to do.

While tracking their target, Kazim had dropped mini flares in the tunnels for him to follow. And with each little hissing orange sparkler that he passed, he felt his eagerness quicken. Like Hannibal, he wanted to be with his men during the battle. Unafraid to take bold chances with his own life or those of his men, he could almost taste the sweet moment of conquest as he closed in on the smaller force cowardly fleeing the battlefield.

Rounding the third fork in the tunnel, he saw no flares indicating which direction to take. He stopped. Unsure which direction Kazim’s team had gone, he sent two scout teams, one led by Tomas, the other by Asghar, out in different directions to find the next tracking flare. He rarely separated the Merchants of Death, but they were both smart on their feet and could maneuver through dangerous situations.

As Maximilian waited, he reached for the clasp under his shirt. Pulling it out, he held it with his thumb on the small latch. But he couldn’t will himself to open it. He had thought he wanted to see Naomi’s and Eli’s faces one last time, but after all the violence of the past hour, he couldn’t look into their eyes. Right now he didn’t need to be reminded of the love lost by death. To finish his mission, he had to remain strong. He had to focus on hate. So he replaced the clasp under his shirt and turned his thoughts to Dominik Kalmár.

He recalled their first meeting, in a glass tower overlooking Hong Kong, and their second, the next evening, in a Macau casino. He had listened to Kalmár talk about a world that had lost its moral compass. Kalmár was a man on a personal mission so important, he was willing to break ties with the other syndicates. And he was a man of power, inviting others of superior skill and dedication to join his fight. Much of what Kalmár said made sense to Maximilian—especially the need to cut the United States out of the struggles in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Maximilian had spent his entire life surrounded by hate and violence and suffering. He had long ago given up on the notion of a peaceful world. Life was a constant bloody fight. The bold and visionary ideas that Dominik Kalmár had presented for changing the world were exactly what Maximilian needed to hear. And the strategy to realize those goals was as brilliant as any ruse ever devised by Hannibal.

The noise of a returning scout team brought him back to the present. Tomas appeared and shook his head. 

A minute later, Asghar rushed out of the darkness. “We found the path,” he gasped. His sharp voice bounced off the rock walls. “The next flare is this way.”

Maximilian waved his men forward. He would soon catch up with Kazim, and together they would run down their fleeing prey.

51

JOHN LIFTED THE CONCRETE SLAB again and swung it down, but the heavy iron lock held. “I need more force,” he said. “Help me.”

Rebecca helped him raise the slab to shoulder height, and together they slammed it down as hard as they could. Still it did not break.

“I hear something,” David hissed back at them from his lookout around the corner.

Setting the slab down, John listened as Rebecca darted back to the president and drew her pistol. Then she heard it, too: whispers bouncing off the rock walls and carrying through the moist air. They were no longer alone.

John grabbed David’s shoulder and pulled him back toward the gate. To Rebecca, he said, “You have to hold them off while we get this open. They’re in this tunnel and coming at us. Our noise will only make them come faster, but we don't have a choice.”

“How many?” she asked. 

“It sounds like a lot.”

Rebecca jumped up and lifted the president to her feet. “Madam President, I’m going to need your help!” Looking at David, she said, “Gun!”

David took his pistol by the barrel and handed it to Rebecca. With both guns in hand, she hurried back to the president and moved her to the left wall.