Uzi drew in a breath and pulled open the door. He peered out — the area looked clear. He moved across the room, walking on his toes to prevent the click of heels against the floor.
He got to the steps and knew he had about two hundred to descend. And he had no idea who, or what, awaited him below.
He made his way down the spiral staircase, moving at a fairly rapid clip, getting into a rhythm as his feet clomped down the stone slabs.
When he hit the landing, three police officers were standing in a triangle, handguns drawn. Uzi immediately raised his hands and said, “I was in the museum and people came running down the stairs saying they heard gunshots. I thought it was a car backfiring, but the police came running up and told me to go down, not to go to the terrace. But I’m leaving for Chicago tomorrow morning and I won’t have another chance to see—”
“Move along,” the cop said with a heavy French accent. “Outside. If everything okay, you go back up. Keep your ticket.”
“Any idea how long it might be?”
The cop’s brow hardened. “Long time if you keep talking. Go wait outside.”
“Right,” Uzi said, backing away. “Sorry.”
He walked through the tunnel and up the stairs, past another two cops at the entrance. Uzi nodded at them — a quick dip of his chin in acknowledgment — and started walking at a normal pace, wanting to run but exercising restraint.
The arch was at the center of a twelve-spoked wheel; a dozen streets radiated out in a 360 degree arc. He could not spend much time here — he would either see Fahad right away or he would move on.
He thought of grabbing a cab, but those in the vicinity had passengers and he did not want to stand around in sight of the police. Ahead was a Métro station, which would give him a decent chance of getting away from the vicinity and putting distance between himself and the victim.
He walked up Avenue de Friedland to get the train at the Charles de Gaulle de Etoile station when an ivory-colored Citroën pulled up in front of him.
“Get in,” Fahad said through the passenger window.
Uzi pulled open the door and hit the seat the same second Fahad accelerated.
“So what was that?” Fahad asked. “Where the hell was the meet?”
“There was no meet,” Uzi said as he buckled his belt.
“But you said—”
“It was an ambush, a setup.”
“That’s impossible. How could they know we were headed there? Unless—”
“They sent us there.”
“You think those counterterrorism officers were invol—”
“No. The tangos probably had some kind of incursion detection system. Either when we entered the flat or when I turned on the computer monitor, it started transmitting our conversation or—” he slapped his right thigh. “The webcam. When I started the PC it must’ve notified them and activated the camera. They saw what I was doing on the computer and they sent me a bogus email about a meet. They knew we’d take the bait. It’s like dangling a flourless tort in front of a chocoholic. He has to take a bite. That’s exactly what I did. And that’s why they only gave us just enough time to get there. They knew how long it’d take to drive there, and they had people in the area ready to execute us. Or me. Maybe they didn’t know about you.”
Fahad turned left on Rue de Longchamp.
“Where we going?”
“How about back toward their flat. To get even.”
Uzi bit down on his molars. He did not know if he should feel incensed or pleased that he and Fahad had beaten back their plans to kill him. In truth, he felt both.
Uzi pushed his buttocks back into the seat and sat up straight. “Let’s go find the bastards.”
52
DeSantos came up behind the two guards and rendered one unconscious with a vicious blow to the back of his cranium with the handle of his Glock. As the other turned, DeSantos struck him with an equally violent backhand. He went down but was still moving, moaning and writhing. DeSantos stuck his knee in the man’s mid back then slammed him again in the head.
He would have a hell of a headache, a couple of nasty welts, a concussion, and some memory loss, but he would recover. And he would be alive. He would never know how lucky he and his partner were.
DeSantos grabbed the arms of the first man and started pulling him along the slick floor. Vail did likewise with the second guard, but struggled to move his mass, even though he was fairly slight. They got both bodies against one of the display cabinets, out of the direct view of the approaching officers.
“Cops must’ve gone in one of the other entrances,” Vail said, peering out into the near distance at the sortie of the Sully access.
“There’s a Denon access,” DeSantos said. “I saw it on the map when we first came in. I think that’s one of the places where the Roma were going to set off the alarm.”
“So you want to just walk right out?”
“Something like that.”
Vail gave him a dubious look.
“Best I’ve got. If we can get outside, we’ve got a shot.”
“You want to split up?”
“Normally I’d say yes. But I think we’d look less suspicious if we were a husband and wife who got lost during the commotion of an emergency evacuation.”
They walked straight out and then took the escalator down. Ahead was the mall — and several police officers and military personnel deployed at strategic points, no doubt there to prevent looting of the abandoned shops.
“What do you want to do?” she asked as they approached the cops.
“You’ll think of something.”
“Stop right there,” yelled one of the officers, his right hand held up in front of him. “What are you two doing in here?”
“My husband was in the bathroom, he’s got a bad case of the runs and he was stuck on the toilet when the alarm—”
“Honey!” DeSantos feigned surprise. “Really? That’s too much information. Embarrassing.”
Vail shrugged and turned back to the cop. “I couldn’t leave him alone. I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“Oh.” DeSantos bent over. “There it is again.”
“You need a bathroom?” she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“No, just — just some fresh air.”
“Go on,” the man said. “Up the stairs. Through the pyramid.” He grabbed his radio and spoke rapid-fire French into it, hopefully telling the cops at the top that they were cool to let through. Either that or he was saying, “Arrest these jokers and throw them in the slammer. They tried to pull the old ‘stuck on the shitter’ ruse on me.”
They emerged on the plaza, where hundreds of people were gathered, impatiently awaiting readmittance into the museum. DeSantos pulled his phone, read the display, then looked up. “C’mon. We’ve got a debt to pay.”
“Now?”
“Got a rep to protect.”
He led Vail ahead, toward the Tuileries Gardens and Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. He made eye contact with a Roma Vail remembered seeing in the Mona Lisa Room then reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He shook the man’s hand, deposited the euros in his palm, and kept walking down the path.
“You think we got out of there without getting captured on video?” Vail asked as they walked briskly, but normally, along the finely graveled, damp path. A drizzle had apparently been falling for some time as small puddles had formed on the walkway’s decomposed granite.
“Not a chance,” DeSantos said, head moving from side to side, surveilling the park. “But the only thing they’ll have on us — if there were cameras there — is me attacking two security guards. Simple assault.”