by Kim Foster
I held on to my fear tightly, like the terror itself was my life preserver.
I intended to be alive at the end of this day. And that was why I was scrabbling through the remnants of the fire, chewing charcoal.
Then I started vomiting.
It was nasty, driving down to the depths of my being. My throat burned; my stomach heaved and cramped. Adrenaline rushed through my system, bringing out a cold sweat and forcing my heart to beat at a rapid rate. But it was still beating.
I had done as much as I could. I needed to get out now. I spotted my purse lying on the ground, discarded where Reilly had tossed it after not finding the Hope. My phone was inside. My phone had GPS. Was there any way it would work down here? I pulled it out with desperate hope. It was smashed, probably by Reilly’s shoe.
Okay, back to bread crumbs. I could see the faint drops of blood leading away.
I wrapped my purse around me and lit a torch using a strip of fabric from my gown and a stick from the fire. I stumbled down the pathway, doing my best to be silent. I had no idea who else was around these corners, but I had to weigh that against my urgent need to get out of the catacombs as fast as humanly possible. Still, I suspected there were some highly unsavory types down here.
As I went, walking, stumbling, sometimes crawling, I couldn’t help noticing the drops of blood were getting fainter and more difficult to pick out.
The blood was drying. I had a very weak light, and the ground was dark. It was getting harder to see the splotches. My heart squeezed.
It wasn’t long before the traces of blood dwindled to imperceptibility. And at that point, I came to a fork in the pathway, with three different choices.
Shit. Which way to go? I just didn’t know.
Could I make a compass of some kind? Well, I could, probably, if I’d been a Girl Scout. Which I hadn’t.
I needed a map or something. Or someone who knew the way. Should I just wait for someone to come by? There were other people down here. I knew that much. But they could be anywhere. And, most likely, they were the kind of people I did not want to encounter.
I scrabbled around in the dirt to find any sign of blood. But it was invisible. I knew the blood drops were there. I just couldn’t see them.
I leaned against the wall. Nausea flooded over me, possibly from the traces of poison in my system, possibly from terror. Hopelessness followed, and despair pressed down all around.
This was where I was going to die. This was it.
Wait. I groped in my purse, my mind wild with the possibility. Not daring to get too excited . . .
My hand closed around the thing I wanted, and I pulled out my mini UV wand. I flicked it on and shone it around. For a moment, I thought it wasn’t going to work. But it had to work. Blood and body fluids showed up under UV light—even trace amounts that were impossible to see with the naked eye. I held my breath.
And then I saw them. Dark smudges made black and obvious by the UV light. Leading the way out of the far left tunnel.
I exhaled. I had a chance.
After crawling through the tunnel for a long time, fumbling about on the ground at every cross-path to discern the blood drops, I noticed the path finally leading upward. There was a short ladder in front of me. I climbed out the manhole above.
The fresh Paris night air hit me like the first day of spring. I had faced death. And I had won.
But my feeling of victory was short lived. I still needed help.
I took stock of my situation. About the best I could say for myself was that I was alive. Did I need medical attention? Definitely. Did I have time for that? No. Also, going to a hospital would be a poor idea, swarming as hospitals were with officials and police and such.
I needed a phone. I started walking. It didn’t take long before I was in a neighborhood I recognized: a small village on the outskirts, in a largely residential area.
I walked through the streets while people sat in cafés, talking and smiling. Live music wafted on the night air—the trumpets and guitars of a jazz band. The air was unseasonably warm for a springtime night. I moved quickly, avoiding the gaze of anyone who might think to rush to the aid of a woman in obvious distress.
I would have loved to change into something more comfortable and more suitable. This peach chiffon gown just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. Not to mention the fact that it was covered in blood, charcoal, and vomit.
I glanced at a clock in the bar I was passing. It was pushing close to midnight, but there was a music festival happening in this part of town and many people were still out. I chose a particularly busy café and strolled right in, trying not to think too much about my appearance.
I wove my way through the mingling crowd, scanning for an unattended phone. You know, dangling out of a purse, protruding from a back pocket.
Then I saw one. Just sitting on a table. Its owner had stood up and turned to greet someone who’d just arrived. The hug was my cue to sweep by, snatch the phone, and simply keep walking.
I walked straight out of the bar, down the street, and directly up the steps into a church as though I was going to admire the frescoes and the stained glass. I needed someplace safe, someplace quiet. I had a very pressing issue to address, namely, the poison antidote.
I flicked on the phone and called the person I needed the most: Templeton. Mercifully, he answered.
“Templeton, don’t panic. But let’s just say hypothetically that you were in Paris and you were poisoned with something . . . arsenic maybe. Where would you go to get medical attention?”
There was silence for a moment. I could hear polite chatter and the clinking of glassware in the background. I glanced at my watch. Templeton must be having guests over for afternoon tea.
“Good God, Catherine. Are you okay?”
“Well, I will be if you can give me the name of a very discreet clinic in Paris, something AB&T uses or recommends?”
I could hear him rummaging in desk drawers. “Yes. Here we are.” Then he spoke as though he was reading from something. “Nineteen rue Thibaud, in the Fourteenth. You go to the back door. They will take care of you.”
“Thank you, Templeton. And please don’t worry.”
“Arsenic, hmm? An old-fashioned remedy to an old-fashioned problem. Well, at least it has style.”
I smiled a wry smile as I disconnected and immediately started in the direction of the Fourteenth Arrondissement.
As I walked along damp cobblestones and past cafés filled with live bands and people on their final glass of Pernod liqueur, I was thinking hard. And one conclusion came to mind. I was going to have to go after the Hope. The real one. In the vault far beneath the Louvre.
And I was going to have to do it tonight.
Chapter 59
The physician at the back-door clinic gave me the antidote. He attached me to a monitor and took some blood to ensure the effects of the poison had been fully reversed.
While I lay there, waiting for everything to be okay, I picked up my phone. And hesitated. Who did I want to call first? Jack or Ethan?
I decided and dialed the number. But the phone rang and rang without a response. The call went to voice mail. I hung up before leaving a message. I dialed the second number. But again, there was no answer. This time, however, I left a message. “It’s me. I’m okay. Call me when you can.”
I lay back, churning everything through in my mind. The Hope was going to be shipped out of the Louvre first thing in the morning. Reilly would be stealing it en route home. It was all arranged; I wouldn’t be able to interfere with that theft. The only thing I could do was grab it first.
I shifted on the gurney and stared at the bottles of liquid and the clear jars of cotton swabs and tongue depressors as my mind worked the problem over and over.
Admittedly, I had the advantage of surprise. Reilly and Madeleine wouldn’t be trying to stop me now—they would assume I was dead.
This would be my only chance.
I thought about attempting to
contact Faulkner. I thought about attempting to renegotiate with him and telling him what happened. But I knew the response I would get, and it terrified me. He was not a man to negotiate with. He’d made it clear many times prior to tonight that failure was not an option. Well, not an option without dire consequences.
No, I really only had one way to go.
My phone rang. It was Ethan calling me back. “Montgomery! Holy shit! You’re alive,” he breathed when I answered the phone. “Are you okay? Where are you? I’m here with Jack. We’ve been going out of our goddamned minds over here.”
I told him to meet me at the clinic. And I asked him to bring everything.
“What do you mean by everything?”
“Rappel harness, glass cutter . . . everything,” I said.
It didn’t take Jack and Ethan long to get to me. They burst in, concerned looks on their faces. Jack’s eyes raked over the IV the physician was detaching and the bottles of pills on the table, and Ethan came directly over to me, wincing at the sight of my bruised nose.
“I’m fine. Everything is fine,” I said, knowing I would need to repeat this, at minimum, twenty more times.
I told them what had happened in the catacombs. As I described the situation, I watched Jack’s face cloud over into a rather homicidal expression. Ethan’s face grew dark and uncharacteristically serious.
“And, Jack, there’s something else you need to know,” I said. “Madeleine is the Gargoyle.”
Jack’s mouth opened, and then his eyes grew wide as all the pieces dropped into place.
I looked between them both. “So here’s the situation. I need your help, because I’ve got one last chance,” I said.
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, Cat?” he said. “It’s over. You have to let this go. There’s no way. Contact Faulkner. Maybe he’ll understand.”
But, of course, there was no way Faulkner would understand. They knew that, and I knew that.
I shook my head. “I have to try again. I have to go in and get the Hope before they take it tomorrow morning. It’s in the vault. It has to be.”
There was silence for a moment. “You’re not serious, Montgomery,” Ethan said. “We already considered that. It’s an undoable job. There’s no way.”
“Cat, you’re in no condition—”
“I’m fine.”
The ultra-discreet doctor, at this point, left us alone to discuss things.
“Forgive me,” Ethan said, “but even for a thief at the top of her game, that vault is impenetrable. And . . . well, I’m not sure you’ve been at the top of your game lately. You know what I mean?”
I knew exactly what he meant.
But I could do it. The past few weeks I’d lost faith in myself, in my abilities, because I thought fear was my problem. I now knew it was the opposite.
“I can do it,” I said firmly. After what had happened in the catacombs, I knew a fear of death didn’t own me anymore. I owned it.
Jack rubbed his chin, and Ethan folded his arms, looking down at me doubtfully.
I kept talking. “I can’t assume you guys are still in. If you don’t want anything to do with this, I totally understand. But I’m going to do it. And if you want to help me, that would . . . Well, it would mean a lot.”
Jack furrowed his eyebrows, clearly agonizing. “I have to raise it again. Why don’t I try to stop them tomorrow? I could talk to Hendrickx. . . .”
I sighed. “Well, that would certainly help the Hope, but it wouldn’t help me. I still won’t have fulfilled my command from Faulkner. You know he’ll hurt my family, Jack.” I lowered my voice. “You know it’s true.”
“Montgomery,” Ethan said after a while, “why don’t I do this? You were just poisoned, for Christ’s sake. You’re not going to be able to concentrate. Let me do it.”
“No, Ethan, I have to do it. This is my job. My responsibility.” I attempted a smile. “Besides, I’ve got something else I need you to do. And only you can do it.”
Ethan watched me carefully for a moment. “You know I think you’re crazy, Montgomery. But . . . I’m in.”
I looked at Jack reluctantly. He stood there a long time, saying nothing. Finally, he closed his eyes and said, “After this, no more.”
In short order, Ethan pulled out the blueprints and we got down to work. What we needed was a kick-ass plan. And that was what we started creating.
And while we were in the thick of that, I received a message, a response to one I’d sent, and it made me smile with eager anticipation. We just might be able to pull this off.
Chapter 60
I slipped silently along the shadows of the Louvre courtyard, making my way to the far Denon wing. I checked the time. Six minutes to complete this part of the operation.
The cobblestones were slick—there had been a brief rain shower just after midnight, two hours ago. My breathing was heavy, but I controlled it. I tried not to think about the armed guards who patrolled outside the Louvre, wearing fatigues accessorized with semiautomatic weapons.
I knew Ethan was also moving toward his target entry point, approaching from a different direction. We had split up for safety, as a precaution.
“You there, Gladys?” I said quietly, knowing it would be picked up by my earpiece.
“Yes, dear. All set,” Gladys answered.
This was the good news I’d received at the clinic. While Gladys had not been able to be there to help us during the gala, because her plane had been delayed, that delay meant she’d arrived just in time for this attempt on the vault.
She was positioned in a crepe truck outfitted with all the equipment she needed, and parked just outside the Louvre gates, courtesy of Jack and his Parisian hacker contact, Taylor. This fact, of course, gave me a cramp of guilt in my chest, which I tried hard to dislodge and ignore.
Having my hacker on-site was definitely a boon. Everyone was doing his or her part; now I just needed to do mine.
And my first task was breaking in. This is always a tricky maneuver in the best of circumstances, but it was especially true in this case because the Louvre was a fortress.
Except for one spot: the roof.
Being a former palace, the Louvre contained grand rooms with ceilings that soared high above. And many of those ceilings were made of glass.
That would be my way in.
I was wearing my black Lycra. It felt good to be moving easily again after spending so much time in that peach chiffon. The other thing that made me feel more free was the fact that I wasn’t wearing a Kevlar vest.
Ethan had held it out as I was getting ready. I had stared at it and shaken my head.
His eyebrows had gone up. “You sure?”
I’d nodded. “I’m sure.”
The tarot card, however, was a different story. I had it tucked in my bra. I suppose this meant I wasn’t entirely able to let everything go, but that was okay. Once this was all over, I’d get therapy or something. For now, I was solid enough to do this job.
I hoped.
The rest of my equipment was tucked into a sack wrapped around my body. I had a glass cutter, a CCTV jammer, a rappel harness, a magnet, and two lengths of rope. Plus a small, portable scuba tank. Just in case.
I approached my target area, and after glancing around to be sure there were no guards in sight, I began scaling the wall. My fingers, gloved, worked their magic, and the muscles in my legs and shoulders burned as I crawled ever upward. I paused briefly to readjust my positioning and took a fleeting look down. The ground was incredibly far away.
But I wasn’t scared. I mean, I was nervous and apprehensive, but I wasn’t terrified. It wasn’t stopping me from doing what needed to be done. There was no panic attack hovering offstage in the wings.
I silently prayed that it would last.
I reached the roof and levered myself onto it. I slithered the rest of the way and stayed low, moving over the glass like it was a frozen pond until I reached my objective. I shone a flashlight into
the dark cavern to locate just the right spot.
Far below, I knew these floors contained movement sensors. There was an override panel in this wing, and I needed to drop down and disable it.
I cut the ceiling panel with my glass cutter. It sliced like a dressmaker’s shears through silk, making a faint scraping sound that gave me shivers. I cut a hole just big enough to fit through and anchored the rope from my rappel harness to the far edge of the panels, right where the glass met the stone of the roof.
I licked my lips, took a deep breath, and clambered through the hole. I eased my weight onto the rope holding me, then gingerly dropped down. With that, I was committed.
Jesus, what the hell was I doing?
Breaking into the Louvre, that’s what.
I paused for a moment as the full insanity of it hit me like a falling piano. Surely they must know what I was about to do. They were probably just waiting for me to break in and grab the Hope. They’d all have a good laugh. Of course that was what they were doing. This was the goddamned Hope Diamond, after all.
And then I reminded myself that this was the Louvre. There were countless treasures in here. The museum itself was over six hundred thousand square feet, and every inch was covered in priceless objects. And the fact was, the French guards were much more concerned with protecting, say, the Mona Lisa than the Hope Diamond. The Mona Lisa was a national treasure. The Hope was just on loan from the cursed Yanks.
There just weren’t enough guards to protect it all. And that was why this was going to work. Why it had to work.
“Do you have a fix on the patrol locations?” I whispered to Gladys.
I knew guards patrolled inside. I did not know exactly when the next one would be approaching my area. That was where Gladys came in handy, and her ability to hack into the CCTV system.
“There’s a patrol in the east part of the Denon wing, but they’re not coming your way just yet. You’ve got time, my dear.” Breaking into this system had also allowed her to block out the feed from the CCTV for the immediate area in which I was operating.
But she had no control over the floor sensors—they were strictly manual access. I needed to disable the panel, and I needed to do it fast. I was hanging here like a fish on a hook. I pulled myself horizontal and set to work, hacking in.
