The man mutely pointed behind him at the chateau.
Tyler grabbed Brielle’s hand and ran in the opposite direction with her in tow. The couple called out that they were going the wrong way.
Brielle sprinted beside him. “Your first thought was to ask where the bathroom is?”
“It’s the only French I know. And I do have to go at some point. But we need to get to the fountain first.”
Two gendarmes darted around the corner. Brielle put on her best shrieking act and told them in French that two men were shooting guns in the Bains d’Apollon. One of the policeman got on his radio to call it in while the other drew his sidearm and approached the section of woods from which they’d emerged.
Tyler and Brielle kept running. She looked over her shoulder and saw one of the gunmen come over the fence right into the arms of the waiting policemen. The second man, his blond hair rumpled and dirty and his jacket torn, fell back over the fence but dropped his weapon on the path. One of the policemen climbed the fence to pursue him.
“Well,” Brielle said, “you’ve got your distraction.”
They jogged on, turning at the next corner. Just as they reached the end of the path that spilled into the main promenade, the blond gunman leaped over the fence in front of them and took off toward the Grand Canal, not noticing Tyler and Brielle in his haste. She expected the gendarme to appear as well, but there was no sign of him. She guessed that he’d lost sight of his prey.
When they entered the promenade, Brielle saw the Apollo Fountain a few hundred yards ahead spewing water from a dozen spots and showering the entire statue in a fine mist. The tourists seemed more curious than afraid about what was happening, possibly because the gunshots had been muffled and no one had seen anyone shooting. The gunman raced away, but she had no idea where he thought he was going.
A thrum droned from the same direction. Sunlight glinted off a silver plane flying low. Too low, as if the pilot were going to crash. Brielle blinked twice before she realized that it wasn’t an accident about to happen.
A float plane was coming in for a landing on the Grand Canal.
Passengers in their boats frantically paddled to get out of the way of the aircraft, which settled onto the smooth pool. It pivoted at the end of the canal, and the passenger door opened.
She and Tyler skidded to a halt. Standing there on the pontoon like a king surveying his realm was a grinning Victor Zim.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tyler was astounded to see Zim hop off the pontoon and run over to the fountain.
“What’s he doing?” Brielle asked.
“Maybe the same thing we are,” Tyler replied. “I think it confirms your theory that the fountain is our target.”
An electric utility cart driven by a gardener pulled up next to them from a cross path. The gardener got out and spoke on his radio as he stared at the plane idling in the canal. Tyler nodded toward the cart, and Brielle hopped in. Tyler got in the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator as the gardener cursed at them and gave a half-hearted chase before giving up.
Tyler kept his eyes on Zim, who waded out into the pool. Tourists were pointing and taking photos of him walking into the mist, but he didn’t seem to care. He got to the center where Apollo sat on his chariot and bent over. It looked like he had something in his hand, possibly taking a photo like Tyler was planning to do.
“I’ll take Zim,” Tyler said. “You get the photo and send it to Grant. Who knows how long we’ll have before the entire place is swarming with cops.”
As if in response, the music abruptly stopped, and a voice replaced it, speaking first in French and then English.
An incident at Versailles requires evacuation. Please go to the nearest exit.
Many of the tourists simply ignored the plea and kept watching the events unfolding.
Zim finished his task and waded back toward the canal. By this time the blond gunman was at the float plane and climbed aboard.
The cart reached the front of the fountain, and Brielle jumped out and into the water. Tyler drove around, reaching the rear of the fountain as Zim pulled himself out. Tyler aimed the cart at Zim, hoping to run him down, but Zim saw him at the last moment and sidestepped the speeding vehicle.
As he passed, Tyler reached with one arm and grabbed a handful of Zim’s shirt, pulling Tyler out of the cart and both of them to the ground.
Zim reached into his jacket and drew a pistol. Tyler dived for his hand and deflected it before Zim could get a bead on Tyler’s head. The gun went off, and now tourists started running and screaming.
Tyler dug his fingers into Zim’s wrist tendons as he wrenched it sideways. The pistol went flying and slid under the cart.
“You’re a dead man, Locke,” Zim hissed. He backhanded Tyler in the temple, setting off a cacophony of bells in his head. Tyler shook it off and elbowed Zim in the face, connecting with his eye socket.
He had the upper hand until Zim punched Tyler in his healing bicep. Tyler cried out in pain and rolled off him. Zim jumped to his feet and attempted to deliver the final blow by stomping on Tyler’s head, but he rolled again, the foot missing his head by no more than an inch. It was so close that water from Zim’s boot sprayed Tyler in the face.
“Come on!” came a shout from the plane. Zim looked around, and Tyler saw policemen racing down from the palace.
“I’ll finish you next time,” Zim said as he ran off.
Brielle ran up and knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”
Tyler nodded. She thrust something at him. “I found this next to the foot of Apollo. Can you disarm it?”
He could make out a red timer counting down inside a sandwich-sized plastic baggie. It was mounted on a small block of C4 plastic explosive.
They had two minutes.
At a party once, an annoying acquaintance found out that Tyler had disposed of bombs and complained about movies, asking him why they always showed bombs with a convenient red LED timer counting down.
“If I put a bomb in your car and activated it,” Tyler had replied, “I’d want to know when it was going off.” That shut the guy up.
Disarming a bomb, however, wasn’t a simple matter. Unless you had time to examine the device so you knew exactly what you were dealing with, cutting a wire was inviting a premature boom.
The goal now was finding somewhere to place the bomb so that it wouldn’t harm anyone when it went off. Tyler saw Zim climbing onto the plane’s pontoon and had a brainstorm.
There was a nylon rope in the back of the utility cart, the kind used to cordon off areas that the gardener was working on. Tyler took one end of it.
“Tie the other end to the cart,” he instructed Brielle as he put the top of the baggie between his teeth and ran for the plane. If he couldn’t put the bomb on the plane, he could at least keep it from taking off.
Zim had already closed the door, and the plane’s engine revved up. If it got any speed, Tyler wouldn’t be able to catch it by swimming.
The plane turned and Tyler hurtled off the edge of the canal. He landed on the pontoon and promptly slipped off. With his single free hand, he grasped the rear strut connecting the pontoon to the fuselage. He pulled himself up so that he was straddling the pontoon like a saddle.
Using two half-hitches, he knotted the rope to the strut. He looked back and saw that Brielle had tied the other end to the frame of the cart.
With all of the boats and passengers now evacuated from the canal, it was wide open. The plane roared as it attempted to take off, and the rope became taut. The extra weight was enough to curb the aircraft’s acceleration, and Tyler looked for a spot to tuck the bomb in the fuselage. He saw a small access panel toward the rear and stood to open it but was pitched backward and nearly fell off when the plane began to move forward again. The pilot had compensated for the drag, and the utility cart was now rolling toward the canal.
Brielle got in and hit the brakes, but the cart was already on the grass. The tires bit but then sli
d along the slick surface. The back tires went off the edge, and the cart tumbled into the water with Brielle still inside.
The cart was slowing the plane so that it couldn’t take off, but Brielle was trapped as the cart was dragged through the water. If he didn’t cut the rope, she might drown before he could free her.
Tyler didn’t need to slow the plane any more. The bomb would take care of Zim. He flicked open his Leatherman tool’s knife and sliced through the rope. He used the blade to pry the access panel open and took the bomb from his teeth.
Thirty seconds left. Perfect.
He put the tool away to jam the bomb in the cubby hole, but he almost dropped the baggie when he was kicked in the leg. Tyler collapsed to the pontoon and saw the blond gunman prepare for another blow.
Tyler leaned forward and grabbed the man’s jacket before he could follow through on the kick. He realized he wouldn’t be able to hide the explosive in the access panel now. But he had a better idea. While he had a hold of the coat, Tyler pushed upward against the guy’s chin and surreptitiously slipped the bomb into the side pocket. The man shoved him back, causing Tyler’s foot to slip off the pontoon. He fell into the water and came up to see the unwitting bomb carrier smiling before he climbed back into the plane.
Tyler stood in the shallow pool with his shoulders above the surface and waved goodbye. He counted the seconds down. There couldn’t be more than five left.
The plane rose from the water five hundred yards down the canal. Just as it did so, the passenger door flew open, and the gunman tumbled out of the plane, pushed by Zim’s boot. The door closed, and the man somersaulted into the water with a splash as the plane banked hard.
A geyser of water erupted from the canal with an ear-splitting crack. The plane zoomed away low over the trees.
Tyler waded back to Brielle, who was already out of the water. She extended a hand and helped him out.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
“Yes, but my plan didn’t work. Either Zim or his man must have noticed the wet bomb soaking the guy’s pocket, and Zim threw him out. How about you?”
“Fine. I got the photo off to Grant before I saw the bomb.”
“We need to warn him that they’re on to us.”
“I don’t think my phone’s any use now.”
“Mine’s soaked, too.”
Two gendarmes ran up to them with guns drawn. Tyler didn’t have to guess what they were yelling. He put his hands up, and Brielle did the same.
Tyler leaned over to her. “It’s good Minister Fournier owes us a favor. Who knew we’d be calling it in so soon?”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Once they had their library cards, Professor Ashburn left Alexa and Grant alone and went back to his lab, telling them to call when they were ready to leave. Although they now had access to the library, they wouldn’t be able to check anything out without him present.
Alexa was happy that she and Grant were alone again. She enjoyed spending time with him and making him uncomfortable. She’d always found him attractive, and her new self-confidence in her body made the teasing even more fun. But she’d reined it in when she saw that he was crabby and a little haggard looking.
Shortly after Ashburn took off, Alexa was surprised to see the texted photo from Brielle because the foot next to a ruler was bronze, not the marble she was expecting. While Grant adjusted the size of the photo on a borrowed computer, Alexa leaned in next to him.
“Tyler’s not answering,” she said.
Grant fidgeted in his seat, as if he couldn’t find a comfortable position, but he kept his focus on the screen. “From the look of the photo, Brielle was in the middle of a fountain when it was taken. Maybe his phone got wet and shorted out.”
“Still, it bothers me.”
“Don’t worry about Tyler. He can handle himself.”
“You’ve been through a lot together, haven’t you? He’s told me a bit about his adventures with you, but I get the feeling he’s leaving out the good parts in some brotherly urge not to scare me.”
“I don’t know if they could be called the good parts. He does what he needs to get the job done, and he always puts others first. When things get hairy, he’s the guy you want on your side.”
“Of that I’m sure,” Alexa said. “I may not have gone through what you have with him, but I’ve known him a lot longer. He’s always stood up for people. I remember one time when he took me to a car race — you know how into racing he is. Since I made him ride horses, much to his regret, Tyler got to introduce me to his passion. I was fourteen and he was sixteen. We were walking through the concourse at the race track, and two older teens started harassing me. Tyler told them to back off, and he received a punch in the nose for his efforts. He got right back up off the ground and went at them until track security arrived and took the boys away for beating him up.”
“Sounds like the Tyler I know,” Grant said.
“Except now he looks the part. He wasn’t always the man’s man that he seems to have become during his time in the military. He was as skinny as a flagpole in high school.”
Grant finally took his attention from the screen. “You’re kidding.”
“You didn’t know?”
“We’ve never whipped out his old photo albums from childhood.”
“Oh, yeah. He couldn’t even do a push-up. He didn’t build any muscle until he reached his full height in college. His metabolism was through the roof. I was so jealous.”
“Why?”
“Because he got all the good genes. Smart, tall, good-looking in a geeky way, the ability to gorge himself on Big Macs without gaining an ounce. I’ve always been pudgy.”
“You’re more like him than you think, Doctor Locke. And you definitely aren’t pudgy any more. You look…very fit.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” She rubbed his arm, and he turned away. “Thanks, but it required two-hour workouts and a steady diet of cottage cheese and rice cakes to get rid of the fluff.”
“Well, it worked.” He pursed his lips as if considering his next line, then said, “Listen, I’m sorry I barked at you earlier. That wasn’t called for.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You didn’t. I’m just…not myself right now.”
Alexa stared at Grant as he went back to resizing the photograph. “We should go out when we get back.”
The mouse stopped moving, and Grant sighed, with more dejection than exasperation. “Alexa, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? Because Tyler’s my brother?”
“No, because he’s my best friend.”
“Then we won’t tell him.”
“That’s an even worse idea.” The mouse started moving again.
“Oh, come on. The guys I meet in university biology departments or at conferences are so dull or gay or married or dorky or insecure. I know you like me. You may have been a good pro wrestler, but you’re a terrible actor.”
“There’s no point, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“We…we don’t have time.”
“I don’t mean this minute. I’m talking about when this whole business with Loch Ness is over.”
Grant shook his head. “Believe me, Alexa, you’ve set your sights on the wrong guy.” He hit PRINT, and a page spooled into the printer.
“I don’t know,” Alexa said. “I have pretty good aim.” She grabbed Grant by the cheeks and pulled him to her, kissing him softly on the lips. At first, he kissed back but then drew away.
“Alexa.” He hesitated. “Ask me again next week.”
She smiled and winked at him. “I knew I could be convincing. Now let’s find us a manuscript.”
She took the printout from the tray and laid a white sheet of paper over it, tracing the outline of the bronze foot. When she was done, she laid Laroche’s numbered sheet over that. The big and little toes were perfectly aligned with the chromosome numbers for harp seal and polar b
ear.
Alexa circled all the numbers and letters that touched the outline. She wrote them out in order starting with the big toe and going clockwise starting at the three as Laroche instructed.
3 74 c 91 32 5 6
“Type this into the catalogue,” Alexa said.
When the computer returned no results, Grant said, “Are you sure that’s the number?”
“Positive. No other letters or numbers come close to the outline of Apollo’s foot.”
“Well, nothing in the library matches it.”
She peered at the screen. “If this is a catalogue number, it looks like the last set of digits is too long. Let’s try truncating it.”
“How?”
“Try 374.c.9.13.”
Grant typed it in. Still no result. He tried a few more combinations. 374.c.91.325. 374.c.9.1. It wasn’t until he input 374.c.91.3 that they got a title.
Practical Taxidermy: The preparation, stuffing, and mounting of animals for museums and travelers by Henry Bosworth, pub. 1935.
“Taxidermy?” Grant huffed. “Laroche sent us to find a book on stuffing animals? Does he think Nessie is mounted on someone’s wall?”
Alexa jotted the number on a note card. “Let’s find out.”
They made their way up to the fifth floor and found the book in the stacks. The cover had a picture of a rhino on display in an exhibit with a child pointing it out to his father.
“What are we looking for?” Grant asked in a low voice.
“There were three digits left over from what we used in the catalogue identifier. Two, five, and six. I think that’s a page number.”
She flipped the book to page 256. The header atop the page read, Taxidermy Through History. The section was labeled John Edmonstone.
“This has to be it,” Alexa whispered.
“It is? How do you know?”
“John Edmonstone was a taxidermist in Edinburgh in the early eighteen hundreds. He was a freed slave from Guyana.”
“A brother in Scotland?”
The Loch Ness Legacy tl-4 Page 17
