Seven Ancient Wonders jw-1

by Matthew Reilly

  And at the base of this temporary scaffold structure, guarding its only entrance, were six security guards.

  A large sign in French and English apologised for the inconvenience as the Obelisk was covered for 'essential cleaning work'.

  'They're cleaning it,' Stretch scoffed. 'A little convenient, don't you think? Our European rivals are onto this lead.'

  'The Heretical Gospel of St Mark is notorious. There are other copies of it around the world,' West said. 'Del Piero would surely have one. He must have already checked and measured the Obelisk and since he can't remove it from here, he's sealed it off, stopping us from doing the same. Which means—damn it—del Piero is one step short of locating Alexander's Tomb and getting the topmost Piece . . .'

  West gazed at the scaffolding-enclosed Obelisk, re-thinking, re-planning, adapting.

  'This changes things. Everyone. Switch of plans. We're not going to do the Obelisk first anymore. We're going to take the Louvre first, in the way we planned. Then we'll grab a look at the Obelisk on the way out.'

  'You have got to be kidding,' Stretch said. 'We're going to be running for our lives. Half the gendarmerie will be on our asses by then.'

  'Confronting the Europeans at the Obelisk now will attract too much attention, Stretch,' West said. 'I was hoping to climb up and down it unnoticed. I can't do that now. But after we do what we plan to do at the Louvre, Paris is going to be in uproar—a state of chaos that'll give us the cover we need to get past those guards at the Obelisk. And now that I think about it, our intended escape vehicle will also come in handy.'

  'I don't know about this . . .' Stretch said.

  Pooh Bear said, 'What you know or don't know is irrelevant, Israeli. Honestly, your constant doubting grates on me. You'll do as Huntsman says. He is in command here.'

  Stretch locked eyes with Pooh Bear, biting his tongue. 'Very well then. I will obey.'

  West said, 'Good. The Louvre plan remains the same. Big Ears: you're with Lily and me; we're going in. Pooh, Stretch: get the escape vehicle and make sure you're in position when we jump.'

  'Will do, Huntsman,' Pooh Bear nodded.

  Twenty minutes later, West, Lily and Big Ears—gunless—strode through the metal detectors at the entrance to the Louvre.

  The building's famous glass pyramid soared high above them, bathing the great museum's atrium in brilliant sunshine.

  'I think I'm having another Dan Brown moment,' Big Ears said, gazing up at the glass pyramid.

  'They didn't do what we're going to do in The Da Vinci Code,' West said ominously.

  Lily provided the perfect cover; after all, how many snatch-and-grab teams enter a building holding the hand of a small child?

  West's cell phone rang.

  It was Pooh Bear. lWe have the exit vehicle. Ready when you

  are.'

  'Give us ten minutes,' West said and hung up.

  Eight minutes after that, West and Big Ears were both dressed in the white coveralls of the Louvre's maintenance crew—taken from two unfortunate workers who now lay unconscious in a storeroom in the depths of the museum.

  They entered the Denon Wing and ascended the impressive Daru Staircase. The staircase wound back and forth in wide sweeping flights, disappearing and reappearing behind soaring arches, before it revealed, standing proudly on a wide landing . . .

  ... the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

  She was, quite simply, breathtaking.

  The goddess stood with her chest thrust forward into the wind, her magnificent wings splayed out behind her, her wet tunic pressed against her body, perfectly realised in marble.

  Six feet tall and standing on a five-foot-high marble mounting, she towered above the tourists milling around her.

  Had her head not been missing, Winged Victory would almost certainly have been as famous as the Venus de Milo—also a resident of the Louvre—for by any measure, the artistry of her carving easily outdid that of the Venus.

  The management of the Louvre seemed to recognise this, even if the public did not: Winged Victory stood high up in the building, proudly displayed up on the First Floor, not far from the Mona Lisa, while the Venus stood in confined clutter on an underground level.

  The marble mounting on which the great statue stood resembled the pointed prow of a ship, but this had never been a ship.

  It had been the armrest of Zeus's throne, the broken-off tip of the armrest.

  If you looked closely, you could see Zeus's gigantic marble thumb beneath Winged Victory.

  The natural conclusion was mind-blowing: if Victory was this big, then the Statue of Zeus—the actual Wonder itself, now vanished from history—must have been absolutely gigantic.

  Victory's position on the First Floor of the Denon Wing, however, created a problem for West.

  As with the other key exhibits in the Louvre, all items on the First Floor were laser-protected: as soon as a painting or sculpture was moved, it triggered an invisible laser, and steel grilles would descend at every nearby doorway, sealing in the thieves.

  On the First Floor, however, there was an extra precaution: the Daru Staircase, with all its twists and bends, could be easily sealed off, trapping any would-be thief up on the First Floor. You could disturb Victory, but you could never take her anywhere.

  Dressed in their maintenance coveralls, West and Big Ears strode up onto the landing and stood before the high statue of Victory.

  They proceeded to move some potted trees arrayed around the landing, unnoticed by the light weekday crowd strolling past the statue.

  West placed a couple of trees slightly to the left of Victory, while Big Ears placed two of the big pots far out of the way, over by the doorway that led south, toward the side of the Louvre that overlooked the River Seine. Lily stood by this doorway.

  No-one noticed them.

  They were just workmen going about some unknown but presumably authorised task.

  Then West grabbed a rolling 'Repair Work in Progress' screen from a nearby storeroom and placed it in front of Victory, blocking her from view.

  He looked at Big Ears, who nodded.

  Then Jack West Jr swallowed.

  He couldn't believe what he was about to do.

  With a deep breath, he stepped up onto the marble podium that was Zeus's armrest and pushed the Winged Victory of Samothrace— a priceless marble carving 2,200 years old—off its mount, to the floor.

  No sooner had Victory tilted an inch off her mount than sirens started blaring and red lights started flashing.

  Great steel grilles came thundering down in every doorway— baml-baml-baml-baml—sealing off the stairwell and the landing.

  All except one doorway.

  The southern doorway.

  Its grille whizzed down on its runners—

  —only to bang to a halt two feet off the ground, stopped by the two solid treepots that Big Ears had placed beneath it moments earlier.

  The getaway route.

  Victory herself landed in the two potted trees that West had placed to her left, her fall cushioned by them.

  West rushed to the upturned statue, and examined her feet, or rather the small cube-shaped marble pedestal on which her feet stood.

  He pulled out a big wrench he'd taken from the maintenance room.

  'May every archaeologist in the world forgive me,' he whispered as he swung down hard with the wrench.

  Crack. Crack. Craaaack.

  The tourists on the landing didn't know what was going on. A couple of men stepped forwards to investigate the activity behind the screen, but Big Ears blocked their way with a fierce glare.

  After West's three heavy blows, the little marble pedestal was no more—but revealed within it was a perfect trapezoid of solid gold, maybe eighteen inches to a side.

  The Third Piece of the Capstone.

  It had been embedded in Victory's marble pedestal.

  'Lily!' West called. 'Get a look at this thing! In case we lose it later!'

  Lily came over, gaz
ed at the lustrous golden trapezoid, at the mysterious symbols carved into its top side.

  'More lines of the two incantations,' she said.

  'Good. Now let's go,' West said.

  The Piece went into Big Ears's sturdy backpack and, with Lily running in the lead, suddenly they were off, sliding under the propped-open grille that led south.

  No sooner were they through than West and Big Ears kicked the pot plants free and the grille slammed fully shut behind them.

  Running flat out down a long long corridor, legs pumping, hearts pounding.

  Shouts came from behind them—shouts in French, from the museum guards giving chase.

  West spoke into his radio mike: 'Pooh Bear! Are you out there?'

  'We're waiting! I hope you use the right window!''

  'We'll find out soon enough!'

  The corridor West was running down ended at a dramatic right-hand corner. This corner opened onto a superlong hallway that was actually the extreme southern flank of the Louvre. The hallway's entire left-hand wall was filled with masterpieces and the occasional high French window looking out over the Seine.

  And right then, a second team of armed museum guards were running down it, shouting.

  West hurled his huge wrench at the first French window in the hallway, shattering it. Glass sprayed everywhere.

  He peered out the window.

  To see Pooh Bear staring back at him, level with him, only a few feet away . . .

  . . . standing on the open top deck of a double-decker bus!

  Only one thing stands between the Louvre and the River Seine: a thin strip of road called the Quai des Tuileries. It is a long riverside roadway that follows the course of the river, variously rising and falling—rising up to bridges and dipping down into tunnels and underpasses.

  It was on this road that Pooh Bear's recently-stolen double-decker bus now stood, parked alongside the Palais du Louvre. It was one of those bright red open-topped double-deckers that drive tourists around Paris, London and New York, allowing them to look up and around with ease.

  'Well! What are you waiting for!' Pooh Bear yelled. 'Come on!'

  'Right!'

  West threw Lily across first, then pushed Big Ears with the Piece in his backpack, before finally jumping from the First Floor window onto the double-decker bus—just as the onrushing guards in

  the hallway started firing at him.

  A second after his feet hit the open top deck of the bus, Stretch, in the driver's seat, hit the gas and the bus took off and the chase began.

  The big red double-decker bus rocked precariously as Stretch threw it through the midday Paris traffic at speeds it was never meant to reach.

  Police sirens could be heard in the distance.

  'Go left and left again!' West yelled down. 'Back around the Louvre! Back to the Obelisk!'

  The bus took the bends fast, and West came down to look over Stretch's shoulder.

  'When we get there, what then?' Stretch asked.

  West peered forward—and saw the Obelisk appear beyond the rushing line of trees to their left, its base still shrouded by scaffolding.

  'I want you to ram into the scaffolding.'

  The double-decker bus screamed onto the Place de la Concorde, almost tipping over with its speed.

  The guards at the scaffolding surrounding the Obelisk realised just in time what it was going to do and leapt out of the way, diving clear a moment before the bus slammed into the near corner of the scaffold structure and obliterated a whole chunk of it.

  The bus shuddered to a halt—

  —and the tiny figure of Jack West could be seen leaping from its open top deck onto the second level of the scaffolding with some rope looped over his shoulder and climbing gear in his hands.

  Up the scaffolding West ran, until he came to the topmost level and saw the Obelisk itself.

  The size of a bell tower, it was totally covered in deeply-engraved hieroglyphics. It soared into the sky high above him.

  The hieroglyphs were large and carved in horizontal lines— approximately three glyphs to a line, depicting pharaonic cartouches, images of Osiris, and animals: falcons, wasps and in the second line from the very top, owls.

  Using the deeply-carved hieroglyphs as hand- and footholds, West clambered up the ancient Obelisk like a child scampering up a tall tree.

  Stretch's voice exploded through his earpiece. 'West! I've got a visual on six police cars approaching fast along the Champs-Elysees!'

  'How far away?'

  'About 90 seconds, if that. . .'

  'Keep me posted. Although somehow I think we're going to have more to worry about than the Paris cops.'

  West scaled the great stone needle quickly, climbing higher and higher, until even the big red bus looked tiny beneath him.

  He came to the top, more than seventy feet above the ground. The Sun reflecting off the golden pyramidion at its peak was blinding.

  He recalled the quote from Hessler's notebook:

  THREAD THE POWER OF RA THROUGH THE EYES OF

  GREAT RAMESES'S TOWERING NEEDLES,

  FROM THE SECOND OWL ON THE FIRST

  TO THE THIRD ON THE SECOND . . .

  . . . WHEREBY ISKENDER'S FINAL RESTING PLACE WILL BE REVEALED.

  'The third owl on the second obelisk,' he said aloud.

  Sure enough, on the second line of this obelisk—the second obelisk from Luxor—there were three carved owls standing side-by-side.

  And near the head of the third one was a small circle depicting the Sun.

  He imagined that very few people in history had actually seen

  this carving up close, since it was designed to sit so high above the populace—but up close, the carved image of the disc-like Sun looked odd, as if it were not a carved image but rather . . . well . . . a plug in the stone.

  West grabbed the plug and pulled it free—

  —to reveal a horizontal cavity roughly two fingers wide and perfectly round in shape, that bored right through the Obelisk.

  Like a kid scaling a coconut tree, West clambered around the other side of the Obelisk's peak, where he found and extracted a second matching plug and suddenly, looking through the bore-hole, he could see right through the ancient Obelisk!

  'West! Hurry! The cops are almost here

  West ignored him, yanked from his jacket two high-tech devices: a laser altimeter, to measure the exact height of the bore-hole, and a digital surveyor's inclinometer, to measure the exact angle of the bore-hole, both vertically and laterally.

  With these measurements, he could then go to Luxor in Egypt and recreate this obelisk 'virtually', and thus deduce the location of Alexander the Great's Tomb.

  His altimeter beeped. Got the height.

  He aimed his inclinometer through the bore-hole. It beeped. Got the angles.

  Go!

  And he was away, sliding down the Obelisk with his feet splayed wide, like a fireman shooting down a ladder.

  His feet hit the scaffolding just as six cop cars screeched to a halt around the perimeter of the Place de la Concorde and disgorged a dozen cap-wearing Parisian cops.

  'Stretch! Fire her up! Get moving,' West called as he ran across the top level of the three-storey scaffold structure. 'I'll get there the short way!'

  The bus reversed out of the scaffolding, then Stretch grinded the gears and the big red bus lurched forwards, just as Jack West took a flying leap off the top level and sailed down through the air . . .

  . . . landing with a thump on the top deck of the bus, a second before it sped away toward the River Seine.

  From the moment of their daring heist at the Louvre, other forces had been launched into action.

  As one would expect, a theft from the Louvre instantly shot across the Paris police airwaves—airwaves that were monitored by other forces of the state.

  What Stretch didn't know was that the Paris police had been outranked at the highest levels and taken off this pursuit.

  The chase would be ca
rried out by the French Army.

  Just as West had anticipated.

  And so, as the big red double-decker bus shot away from the Obelisk and its wrecked outer structure, the Parisian police didn't follow. They just maintained their positions around the perimeter of the Place de la Concorde.

  Moments later, five green-painted heavily-armed fast-attack reconnaissance vehicles whooshed past the cop cars and shot off after the great ungainly bus.

  Horns honked and sirens blared as the double-decker bus roared down the Quai des Tuileries on the edge of the River Seine for the second time that day—weaving between the thin daytime traffic, blasting through red lights, causing all manner of havoc.

  Behind it were the five French Army recon vehicles.

  Each was a compact three-man scout car known as a Panhard VBL. Fitted with a turbo-charged four-wheel-drive diesel engine and a sleek arrow-shaped body, the Panhard was a swift and nimble all-terrain vehicle that looked like an armour-plated version of a sports 4x4.

  The Panhards chasing West were fitted with every variety of gun turret: some had long-barrelled 12.7 mm machine guns, others had fearsome-looking TOW missile launchers.

  Within moments of the chase beginning, they were all over the speeding bus.

  They opened fire, shattering every window on the bus's left-hand side—a second before the bus roared into a tunnel, blocking their angle of fire.

  Two of the Army Panhards tried to squeeze past the bus inside the tunnel, but Stretch swerved toward them, ramming them into the wall of the tunnel, grinding them against it.

  With nowhere to go, both Panhards skidded and flipped . . . and rolled . . . tumbling end over end until they crashed to twin halts on their roofs.

  On the upper deck, Pooh Bear and West rocked with every swerve, tried to return fire. Pooh spied one of the TOW missile launchers on one Panhard.

  'They've got missiles!' he yelled.

  West called, 'They won't use them! They can't risk destroying the Piece!'

  'West!' Stretch's voice came over their radios. 'It's only a matter of time before they barricade off this road! What do we do?'

  'We drive faster!' West replied. 'We have to get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge—'

  Shoom—/