—they blasted out of the tunnel, back into sunlight, just in time to see two French Army helicopters sweep into positions above them.
They were two very different types of chopper: one was a small Gazelle gunship, sleek and fast and bristling with guns and missile pods.
The other was bigger and much scarier: it was a Super Puma troop carrier, the French equivalent of the American Super Stallion. Big and tough, a Super Puma could carry twenty-five fully armed troops.
Which was exactly what this chopper was carrying.
As it flew low over the top of the speeding double-decker bus, along the rising-and-falling roadway on the north bank of the Seine, its side door slid open and drop-ropes were flung from within it—and the French plan became clear.
They were going to storm the bus—the moving bus!
At the same moment, three of the pursuing Panhards swept up alongside the bus, surrounding it.
'I think we're screwed already,' Stretch said flatly.
But he yanked on his steering anyway—ramming hard into the Panhard to his right, forcing it clear off the roadway, right through the low guard-rail fence . . . where it shot high into the air, wheels spinning, and went crashing down into the river with a gigantic splash.
Up on the top deck, West tried to fire at the hovering Super Puma above him, but a withering volley from the Gazelle gunship forced
him to dive for the floor. Every single passenger seat on the top deck of the bus was ripped to shreds by the barrage of bullets.
'Stretch! More swerving, please!' he yelled, but it was too late.
The first two daredevil French paratroopers from the Super Puma landed with twin thumps on the open top deck of the moving double-decker bus only a few feet in front of him.
They saw West instantly, lying in the aisle between the seats: exposed, done for. They whipped up their guns and pulled the
trigg—
—just as the floor beneath them erupted with holes, bullet holes from a shocking burst of fire from somewhere underneath them.
The two French troopers fell, dead, and a moment later, Pooh Bear's head popped up from the stairwell.
'Did I get them? Did I get them? Are you okay?' he said to West.
'I'm all right,' West said, hurrying down the stairs to the lower deck. 'Come on, we've gotta get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge before this bus falls apart!'
The rising-and-falling riverside drive that they were speeding along would normally have been a tourist's delight: after leaving the Louvre behind, the roadway swooped by the first of the two islands that lie in the middle of the Seine, the He de la Cite. Numerous bridges spanning the river rushed by on the right, giving access to the island.
If West's team continued along the riverside road, they would soon arrive at the Arsenal precinct—the area where the Bastille once stood.
After that came two bridges: the Pont d'Austerlitz and the Pont Charles de Gaulle, the latter of which sat beside the very modern headquarters of the Ministry of Economics, Finances and Industry, which itself sat next-door to the Gare de Lyon, the large train station that serviced south-eastern France with high-speed trains.
The big red tourist bus whipped along the riverside road, weaving through traffic, ramming the pursuing Army cars with wild abandon.
It shot underneath several overpasses and over some raised intersections. At one stage the spectacular Notre Dame Cathedral whizzed by on the right, but this was perhaps the only tourist bus in the world that didn't care for the sight.
As soon as West had abandoned the upper deck of the bus, the French troops on the Super Puma above him went for it in earnest—despite Stretch's best efforts at evasive weaving.
And within a minute, they took it.
First, two troopers landed on the open top deck, whizzing down
the drop-ropes suspended from the chopper. They were quickly followed by two more, two more and two more.
The eight French troopers now moved to the rear stairwell of the bus, guns up, preparing to storm the lower deck . . .
. . . just as, downstairs, West called: 'Stretch! They're crawling all over the roof! See that exit ramp up ahead! Roll us over it!'
Immediately ahead of them was another overpass, with an exit ramp rising to meet it on the right-hand side of the riverside drive. A low concrete guard-rail fence separated this ramp from the roadway which continued on underneath the overpass as a tunnel.
'What?' Stretch shouted back.
'Just do it!' West yelled. 'Everybody, grab onto something! Hang on!'
They hit the exit ramp at speed, and rose up it briefly—
—at which moment Stretch yanked left on the steering wheel, and the bus lurched leftward, hitting the concrete guard-rail and . . .
. . . tipped over it!
The double-decker bus overbalanced shockingly and rolled over the concrete fence, using the fence as a fulcrum. As such, the entire double-decker bus rolled, going fully upside-down—off the exi ramp, back down onto the roadway proper—where it slamme down onto its open-topped roof . . .
. . . crushing all eight of the French troops on it!
But it wasn't done yet.
Since it had tipped over the dividing rail from a considerable height, it still had a lot of sideways momentum.
So the big bus continued to roll, bouncing off its now-crushed roof and coming upright once again, commencing on a second roll—only to bang hard against the far wall of the sunken roadway, which had the incredible effect of righting the bus and plonking it back on its own wheels, so that now it was travelling once again on the riverside drive and heading into the tunnel having just performed a full 360-degree roll!
Inside the bus, the world rotated crazily, 360 degrees, hurling West's team—Lily included—all around the cabin.
They tumbled and rolled, but they all survived the desperate move.
Indeed, they were all still lying on the floor when West scrambled to his feet and launched into action.
He took the wheel from Stretch as their mangled and dented bus swept out of the tunnel and into the Arsenal district. Having seen what West was prepared to do to anyone who tried to storm his bus from above, the Super Puma just flanked them now, swooping low over the river parallel to the speeding bus.
And just then, the modern glass-and-steel towers of the Economics Ministry came into view up ahead.
'That bridge up ahead is the Pont d'Austerlitz,' Pooh Bear said, peering over West's shoulder. 'The Charles de Gaulle Bridge is the one after it!'
'Gotcha,' West said. 'Tell everybody to get their pony bottles and masks ready, and then get to the doors. Go!'
Pooh Bear gathered everyone together—Lily, Stretch and Big Ears—and they all clambered to the side and rear doors of the bus.
The bus swept past the Pont d'Austerlitz, roaring towards the next bridge: the Pont Charles de Gaulle. Like the Austerlitz before it, the Charles de Gaulle Bridge branched out to the right, stretching over the river; beyond it, the glass towers of the Economics Ministry stabbed into the sky.
The riverside drive rose to meet the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, providing West with a ramp of sorts.
And while every other car in Paris would have slowed as they climbed this exit ramp, West accelerated.
As such, he hit the Charles de Gaulle Bridge at phenomenal speed, whereupon the great battered double-decker tourist bus performed its last earthly feat.
It exploded through the low pedestrian fence on the far side of the bridge and shot out into the air above the Seine, flying in a
spectacular parabolic arc, its great rectangular mass soaring through the sky, before its nose tipped and it began to fall, and West bailed out of the driver's compartment and the others leapt from the side and rear doors and the big bus slammed into the
river.
As the bus hit the surface of the Seine, the four people on its doors went flying to the side of it, also crashing into the water, albeit with smaller splashes.
But
to the shock of those in the two pursuing French helicopters, they never surfaced.
Underwater, however, things were happening.
Everyone had survived the deliberate crash, and they regrouped with West, all of them now wearing divers' masks and breathing from pony bottles.
They swam through the murky brown water of the river, converging on the cobblestoned northern wall of the Seine, underneath the Charles de Gaulle Bridge.
Here, embedded in the medieval wall, under the surface of the river, was a rusty old gate that dated back to the 1600s.
The padlock sealing it was new and strong, but a visit earlier that morning by Pooh Bear with a boltcutter had altered it slightly. The padlock hung in place and, to the casual observer, it would have looked intact. But Pooh Bear had cut it cleanly on the rear side, so that now he just pulled it off the rusty gate by hand.
Beyond the gate, a brick-walled passageway disappeared into the murky gloom. The team swam into the passageway—with the last person in the line, Big Ears, closing the underwater gate behind them and snapping a brand-new padlock on it, identical to the one that had been sealing it before.
After about twenty yards, the underwater passageway rose into a tight sewer-like tunnel.
They all stood in the sewer-tunnel, knee-deep in foul-smelling water.
'How very Gothic,' Stretch said, deadpan.
'Christian catacombs from the 17th century,' Pooh Bear said. 'They're all over Paris, over 270 kilometres of tunnels and catacombs. This set of tunnels runs all the way along the Boulevard Diderot. They'll take us past the Economics Ministry, right to the Gare de Lyon.'
West checked his watch.
It was 12:35 p.m.
'Come on,' he said. 'We've got a train to catch.'
The three remaining French Army Panhards descended on the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, disgorging men. The big red bus was still actually half-afloat, but in the process of sinking.
The two choppers patrolled the air above the crash-site, searching, prowling.
Curious Parisians gathered on the bridge to watch.
Extra commando teams were sent into the Ministry complex and also into the Gare d'Austerlitz, the large train station that lay directly across the Charles de Gaulle Bridge, on the southern side of the Seine.
Every train that hadn't yet departed from it was barred from leaving. As a precaution, trains from the Gare de Lyon—further away to the north, but still a possibility—were also grounded.
Indeed, the last train to depart the Gare de Lyon that day would be the 12:44 TGV express service from Paris to Geneva, first stop Dijon.
An hour later, and now dressed in dry clothes, West and his team disembarked from the train in Dijon, smiling, grinning, elated.
There they boarded a charter flight to Spain, where they would rendezvous with Sky Monster and the Halicarnassus and commence their journey back to Kenya.
But their smiles and grins said it all.
After two failed attempts—or three if you counted the Mausoleum Piece—they had finally obtained a Piece of the Capstone.
They were now in a position to bargain.
They were now well and truly in the game.
ST PETER'S BASILICA
VATICAN CITY, ROME
18 MARCH, 2006, 12:45 P.M.
2 DAYS BEFORE THE ARRIVAL OF TARTARUS
At the same time, 2,000 kilometres away in Rome, a long-bearded man wearing the all-black robes of a Catholic priest strode across the wide square in front of St Peter's Basilica, the magnificent domed cathedral designed by Michelangelo, the most holy place of worship in the Roman Catholic Church.
With his long grey beard and stooping walk, Max Epper looked very much the part: an old and wizened priest, perhaps even an Eastern Orthodox one, making a pilgrimage to the Vatican.
With him walked Zoe and Fuzzy, and as they crossed St Peter's Square in the midst of hundreds of tourists, Zoe gazed up at the gigantic stone obelisk that stood proudly in the exact centre of the Square.
'Cult of Amun-Ra,' Wizard said flatly, striding past the towering stone needle.
Zoe turned as she walked, gazing up at this Egyptian structure taking pride of place in front of the biggest Catholic church in the world.
She shrugged. 'The Cult of Amun-Ra . . .'
They entered the Basilica.
Few man-made structures on earth can match St Peter's Basilica
for sheer scale. It is shaped like a giant crucifix—just like the centre of Paris—and its famous dome soars 300 feet above a glistening marble floor. Brilliant shafts of sunlight penetrate its impossibly high windows, as if sent by God himself.
Michelangelo's Pieta flanks one side of the main entrance. Giant statues of saints stand in alcoves lining the main hall—St Ignatius, St Francis of Assisi—looming over the faithful.
It is designed to inspire awe.
But the most spectacular section of the great cathedral is to be found at its most holy place, the junction of the cross.
Here you will find the altar of St Peter's, covered by a colossal four-pillared awning made of sturdy iron laced with gold. At the top of each tree-trunk-like pillar, you will find angels leaning outward, blowing trumpets, praising the Lord.
And beneath this awning is the altar.
'It looks so plain,' Fuzzy said, gazing up at it.
He was right. The altar of St Peter's is remarkably plain, just a large oblong block of marble mounted on a raised platform. At the moment, since it wasn't being used, it was covered by a simple red-white-and-gold cloth and some candles. A thick rope suspended from brass poles prevented the public from surmounting it.
'Yes,' Wizard said. 'Considering its importance, it is very plain.'
'It's only important if Zaeed was telling us the truth,' Zoe commented.
Before they had all split up on their separate missions, Zaeed had explained that the Artemis Piece of the Golden Capstone lay embedded in the altar at St Peter's Basilica. The trapezoid, he claimed, had been incorporated face-down in the otherwise solid marble altar— so that its base lay flush with the flat upper surface of the altar. To the uninitiated, it would just look like a square plate of gold on the flat surface, a square plate with a crystal in its centre.
To the initiated, however, it would mean much more.
Wizard stared at the altar, i imagine that only a handful of cardinals have ever been allowed to gaze upon the naked surface of this altar. Fewer still would know the true nature of the golden trapezoid
embedded in it. All would be very senior, privileged initiates into the true history of the Church.'
'So what do we do?' Zoe asked. 'We can't just pull out a crowbar and prise the trapezoid from the altar in front of all these people.'
'I only need to look at it,' Wizard said. 'To memorise the inscription if I can.'
They were surrounded by tourists and uniformed Swiss Guards—and, Wizard guessed, many plainclothed guards, ready to grab anyone who tried to step onto the altar.
Anyone except maybe a doddery old Orthodox priest.
'Run me some interference,' Wizard said. 'Here I go.'
He moved quickly, gazing adoringly up at the awning above the altar, stepping close to the rope, seemingly rapt with wonder.
Then before anyone could stop him, Wizard stepped over the rope and up the steps . . .
. . . and stood behind the altar of St Peter's, running his hands across the flat surface of the big oblong block as if it were made of some holy substance itself.
Plainclothed Swiss Guards appeared at once, emerging from the crowds, converging on the altar.
Standing behind the great oblong block in the exact heart of the Basilica, Wizard swept aside the cloth that covered the altar and beheld its bare upper surface.
What he saw was dazzling.
The flat surface of the altar was made of exquisite white marble, except in its very middle. Here Wizard saw, flush with the flat marble surface, a square-shaped section made of gold.
It wa
s medium-sized, perhaps three feet to each side. And you couldn't tell it was a golden trapezoid, since only its base side was visible. But there in its exact centre was a small diamond-like crystal.
The Artemis Piece.
Wizard saw the inscriptions carved into the surface of the trapezoid:
His wide eyes flashed like camera lenses, attempting to memorise the inscriptions in the short window of time he had—
'Excuse me, Father, but you cannot step up here.' Wizard was yanked away from the altar.
Two Swiss Guards had grabbed him firmly by the arms and were moving him politely but forcibly away.
At the same time another guard redraped the cloth back over the altar-top, concealing the golden trapezoid—although he seemed to do it merely to restore the order of the altar, not out of any sense that a great secret had been unveiled.
'IT-I'm s-s-so sorry,' Wizard stammered, feigning senility and offering no resistance. 'I just wanted to f-f-feel the power of my Lord in all h-h-his glory . . .'
The lead guard escorting him off the raised stage assessed him more closely, saw Wizard's earnest eyes, his scraggly beard, his tattered robes, and he softened. 'All right, old man. Get out of here. Just stay behind the rope next time.'
'Th-th-thank you, my son.'
The guard escorted Wizard back to the main doors.
As he walked, Wizard tried to contain his excitement. He had the Artemis inscription burned into his brain—which was the next best thing to getting the Piece itself. Soon, he, Zoe and Fuzzy would be winging their way out of Rome's Leonardo da Vinci International Airport and heading for home.
Flanked by the guards, he stifled the smile that was beginning to spread across his face.
At that very same moment, in a darkened room elsewhere in the Vatican, someone was watching Wizard on a small security monitor.
Francisco del Piero.
'I knew you would come, Max, my old colleague,' del Piero said to the image on the screen. 'That's why I did not remove the Piece from the altar. I knew it would bring you out into the open.'
Del Piero turned to the Vatican Security Chief next to him. 'They'll head for the airport. Follow them, but do not grab them yet. Monitor their radio transmissions. The old man will send a signal soon after he leaves St Peter's to inform his team-mates that he has succeeded in his mission. Let him send his message. Then seize him and his accomplices at the airport and bring them to me.'
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