Charade

by Lisa Marie Rice

“There’s a lot of things I don’t like,” she said, lips curved slightly in a smile as she met his eyes. “But I do them anyway.”

  Yeah. He was the same way.

  Mark reached down for a mask and held it up so she could see it. If she freaked, he didn’t know what he’d do, because she was going to wear it, no matter what.

  She was going to stay within these walls, but Mark had no idea if the gas would seep through. Had no idea of the dosage, if someone who knew what they were doing had calculated strength according to the volume of air in the room. Maybe not. The Louvre authorities would know exactly how big this room was, how big the entrance to the Gallery was, but those people wouldn’t be the people who’d put together the canisters.

  This was a top-secret mission, no one on Robert’s team would have called up a Louvre administrator to query the exact measurements. Knowledge of the strength of the gas would have had to be inside the wheelhouse of Robert’s team. This entire rescue had been organized in a couple of hours by people who were experts on violence but not biochemistry.

  He hated to admit it, but the carfentanyl had a strength that could kill. Carfentanyl was 10,000 times more potent than morphine. He was absolutely certain that the French Special Forces would have done their best, but…shit happens.

  A big dose of carfentanyl could stop a charging rhino in its tracks.

  So, Harper’s life was in the hands of people he didn’t know and couldn’t vouch for, except in the vaguest of terms.

  She’d be wearing the mask and she’d keep it on until they were safe and sound.

  Mark carefully fit Harper’s mask. It wasn’t sized for a woman. They’d simply thrown in two masks from military stock. It was too large for her small face and he had to tighten the straps at the back of the head in a way he knew would be uncomfortable for her, and hope to God nothing penetrated.

  Once it was tightly fitted, he stepped back. Like everyone wearing a gas mask, she looked like an alien. “How is it?” he asked.

  She held up her thumb.

  Yeah, right.

  But she wasn’t fighting it, wasn’t touching it.

  Okay, now for his own. He put on the mask, making sure the rubber seal was intact. He hoped to God that France didn’t have a system where government bureaucrats awarded contracts to the lowest bidder.

  The masks didn’t have night-vision capability so he had to keep the light on, but low. Harper held the flashlight, on its lowest setting and pointed to the ceiling.

  She held the light steady. He pointed at the baseboard and she obediently held it there, rock steady. The area he was going to work in was lit by a dull light, barely enough to see what he was doing.

  Mark walked a meter down and pulled out a silent high-speed drill, calibrated to drill a hole the size of the gas tube. The drill head was pushed against the wall and he switched it on, wincing. But Robert had come through. It was silent.

  Inside a minute, he was through. The drill head was a matte black. In the darkness of the room, it wouldn’t be seen.

  He pulled his cell toward him, studying the screen for several minutes. Nothing changed, no one sounded the alarm. He looked up at Harper and she nodded agreement.

  So far so good.

  They walked through the walls to the other side of the Mona Lisa room where he repeated the drilling sequence and fit the canister tube in. The canisters had a timer and he set the timer for three minutes and rushed Harper back to their original position.

  He checked his watch for the countdown and at three minutes minus ten seconds, signaled to Harper to turn the flashlight off, then fitted the canister pipe to the hole in the wall by touch. It slid in perfectly, with no clearance around it.

  “On,” he whispered through the gas mask, and she switched the light back on, barely illuminating the area.

  He looked up at her, hand on the gas canister switch, hoping to God they’d given him a silent pump. If it gave off the sound of compressed air and the terrorists heard it before succumbing, he and Harper were already dead.

  Now.

  He turned the lever and it was silent. He breathed out, switching his attention between the screen showing the room and the gas level indicator.

  When the level indicator reached one quarter, Mark tapped his ear twice and heard a muffled “Allez!” through the earbud. Robert had given the go command.

  The Louvre was now under counterattack.

  Ambulances had been waiting along the Seine and could now rush to the staging area. Mark could hear sirens faintly, becoming louder as they came closer. The medical personnel would have preloaded syringes full of an antidote to the carfentanyl, to be administered to kids and thin adults first. Hospitals had been told to expect incoming patients.

  And right now, maybe a hundred Special Forces commandos were dropping from the roof and rushing the entrance of the Louvre with silenced weapons.

  So much activity, yet here in the room itself, silence reigned.

  And there—the first terrorist to fall. The terrorists ringing the walls were the closest to the gas. One of the guards rocked on his boot heels then collapsed. And another.

  A very thin woman who’d been sitting cross-legged on the outer edge of the group just keeled over. Then two men facing each other toppled forward, torsos touching each other, upright but unconscious. Then a couple just sprawled to the floor as if falling asleep really fast. It was hard to tell with the kids, because most of them had been asleep on an adult’s lap. But the adults, they were succumbing.

  Two more guards fell suddenly, as if they were puppets on a string and their strings had been cut.

  One guard looked alarmed, bringing up his weapon, mouth open for a shout. Mark tensed, then the guard fell. He was heavy-set, the gas taking longer to put him down.

  After a minute, two, everyone in the room was down. Two of the guards had fallen noisily, their guns clattering. The rest slumped to the ground.

  Excellent. The whole thing had been almost soundless, except for the squawk from their internal comms units. Faint noise was coming from the corridor, the commandos doing their best to be noiseless, but battle was noise and confusion. Always had been, always would be, until battle became a battle between computers.

  For now, battle was human and there was some noise.

  Fuck! Two guards from the corridor were checking in. They ran, their boot heels loud in the corridor, sliding to a stop at the entrance to the Mona Lisa room.

  They were quick. Both took in the situation, took in their men down, knowing this was an emergency, knowing that this was their last chance to effect a massacre.

  Mark knew enough of the mindset of men like this to know that, to them, an end to the situation without more dead was a loss. He shouldered his weapon, pushing down the lever to open the door into the Mona Lisa room to go fight the next battle in the endless war of monsters vs. humans.

  He was checked by a tug on his jacket.

  “You’re going out there?” Harper whispered, eyes wide. Her voice had the metallic tone of a mechanical voice.

  Hurry. That was a drumbeat in his head.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back. “Have to, honey.”

  “Dracarys,” she whispered. “Kill them all.”

  “Dracarys.”

  And he slipped out the door.

  One minute, Mark was there, the next he was gone, swallowed up in the dim light.

  Harper held his cellphone, watching the screen as if her life depended on it. And in a way, it did.

  Everybody had slumped within a minute or two of the gas being pumped into the room. She understood very well that it was powerful, even dangerous, and was grateful for the mask, though it was fiercely uncomfortable.

  A small price to pay for remaining conscious. Except she had to watch Mark go into war, which was hard. The instant he saw the two terrorists appear at the entrance to the big room, he moved to enter it. She had a side view of him, halfway across the room, big body in a crouch, gun with a silencer—what he’d c
alled a suppressor—held in front of him in a two-handed grip.

  The two terrorists were far apart, which she instinctively knew was bad news. He’d have to shoot fast and true.

  She heard a coughing sound and the terrorist on the right flew backwards, holding his shoulder, then another coughing sound and the terrorist on the left simply crumpled, shot at the hip.

  She couldn’t hear anyone else in the corridor running, so maybe…

  Something…something was moving. At the opposite end of the room, under the Mona Lisa. Mark was now at the entrance, peering both ways, seeing if other terrorists were coming, but behind him was movement.

  The lead terrorist, who had a black scarf covering his nose and mouth, was stirring. He moved slowly, as if in pain, eyes half closed. But then with a huge effort, he raised his submachine gun…

  He was going to shoot Mark!

  She’d read somewhere that pulling a trigger took as much effort as popping the ring on a can of beer. Almost nothing. The man was moving very slowly, not quite out cold, but if his finger was on the trigger, he could strafe the room and hit Mark. The terrorist wouldn’t care at all if his bullets also hit some of the hostages.

  She wore the latex gloves, which were too big and had ripped where they caught on the equipment she’d handled. They were in her way, and she tore them off and opened the door.

  There was no time to yell to Mark, there was no time to do anything but rush out of the room. She was only steps away from the terrorist. She stooped to snatch the weapon of one of the guards on the floor. The machine gun had flown from his hands and was lying on the hardwood floor. She scooped it up, feet flying.

  For a second, she thought of using it as a gun, but she didn’t know anything about guns. In the movies, you had to cock a gun, or slide something forward or backward, or do something…there was no time to study the mechanism for firing and she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t knock herself on her backside if she did.

  So firing was out. But the butt was solid metal and would make a fine weapon.

  These thoughts ran through her head so slowly while her body moved as fast as it possibly could.

  Out the door, snatching the gun from the floor, running on silent feet to the head terrorist, holding the gun by the barrel, watching him slowly turn his head, the whites of his eyes visible in the dark room, his clumsy struggle to change the direction of his gun barrel…

  But it was too late because with one last push of her foot, she was there, right above him, filled with rage and a ferocious protectiveness—he was not going to kill Mark!

  And she pulled her arms back and swung the butt of the rifle against his head—and rejoiced when she heard a distinct crack!

  One crack, then two as his head bounced on the floor.

  She didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, and she didn’t care. The important thing was that Mark was safe. She checked the entrance to make sure he was okay—but he wasn’t there.

  Where…

  God, had that asshole terrorist got off a shot anyway? How could that be? She hadn’t heard anything!

  Was Mark right now lying in a puddle of his own blood?

  Harper started toward the entrance—but something held her back.

  She struggled mightily, trying to turn the gun around to shoot whoever was stopping her from making it to Mark, when she heard a metallic but familiar voice.

  “That’s enough, superwoman.” A big hand appeared in the narrow field of vision the gas mask afforded and lifted the weapon from her lifeless fingers.

  Everything came crashing down. She stopped moving, but it felt like her insides were still traveling at a million miles an hour. Every cell in her body tingled and felt numb at the same time. Her legs wobbled. She looked around for something to sit on but there was nothing. Maybe she could just collapse to the floor…

  A strong arm went around her waist and she leaned into him, trying to breathe him in even though the only thing she could smell was the rubber of the gas mask. She fumbled at the straps and he blocked her hands.

  “Not so fast, Daenerys. The gas is still potent and it’ll knock you out.” He pulled her into his arms, held her tight. He bent his head and their masks knocked together. “I lost about ten years off my life when I saw you head out the door and make for that fucker. That armed fucker. What on earth possessed you? What were you thinking?”

  She had no idea what she’d been thinking. The truth was, she hadn’t been thinking at all, just feeling. Rage and terror at the thought that the head terrorist would fell Mark.

  She pushed against him feebly, trying to put outrage into her voice, which came out muffled and metallic. “I just saved your life! A little gratitude here.”

  He sighed, the sound coming out as if from the bottom of a well. “You did save my life, but then I nearly died of a heart attack when I saw you running toward him, so it’s a wash.”

  “It is not a wash!” She pushed against him again, but it was pointless. He was holding her tightly and his grip was strong. “I’ll have you know—”

  She stopped. Even through the mask, there was the sound of a few shots and running feet. Mark immediately let her go, took her arm and ushered her back into the wall, closing the door behind them just as a number of men rushed into the room.

  They both hunched over the cellphone screen. At least twenty soldiers rushed into the room, heavily armed, dressed in black combat gear and with gas masks. They all had combat rifles tightly fitted to their shoulders. One of the soldiers set up a big halogen lamp and the room was suddenly illuminated bright as day.

  It was an apocalyptic scene—the hundred or so hostages unconscious, in a heap in the middle of the room, the fallen terrorists around the perimeter.

  Four soldiers were deployed as guards along the walls and at the entrance and they kept their rifles at their shoulders, body language showing they were ready for anything. The other soldiers let their weapons drop and started putting flex cuffs on the terrorists’ wrists and ankles. Inside of a minute or two, they were all immobilized.

  One of the soldiers tapped his shoulder and spoke into a built-in microphone.

  Before Mark could ask her to interpret, Harper murmured, “He’s reporting that the terrorists are under control, that they have cleared the Grand Gallery, and to send in medical personnel.” She looked up. “Do they know we’re here?”

  “They know someone was here. Robert knows we’re here, we’ll be evacuated shortly.”

  Okay. Harper trusted Mark’s judgment.

  They waited quietly, watching the screen. The French Special Forces soldiers were efficient. They must have taken care of all the terrorists one way or another because no one even attempted an attack. They dragged the terrorists out into the Grand Gallery and arranged them like logs, then started evacuating the hostages, starting with the children.

  “The quicker they can get the hostages away from the gas, the quicker they will recover,” Mark said, and she nodded.

  Masked medical personnel came running and piled the hostages onto gurneys, sometimes two or three at a time. The children, in particular, were loaded onto the gurneys with their mothers. There were a lot of hostages but they’d come prepared and worked fast. In less than a quarter of an hour, all the hostages were gone as were the terrorists outside in the Gallery.

  Soldiers were still milling around, gathering evidence, pulling bullets out of the walls. The room with the Mona Lisa was now a crime scene.

  A broad-shouldered man dressed in a suit and overcoat instead of combat gear, but wearing a gas mask, broke away from talking with the French commandos and walked directly to their door. The way the camera was set up, he loomed like a big-headed monster by the time they heard two sharp raps.

  Mark opened the door a crack and the big man slipped through. He wasn’t as tall as Mark but was broad-chested and held himself like Mark. Like a soldier.

  “Robert?” Mark held out his gloved hand.

  It was caught in the other man’
s gloved hand. “Redmond, I assume.”

  Mark nodded and watched as the man brought out a small wand made of steel and plastic. It had a small indicator inset in the steel. He nodded and peeled off his mask, revealing a tough, almost brutal face.

  “There is a negligible amount of gas in here,” he said. “We can remove our masks.”

  Mark took his mask off—then stood astounded as Robert gave him a huge hug and kissed him on both cheeks. “Mon ami!” he cried. “Vous nous avez sauvés!”

  “You’ve saved us,” Harper translated helpfully, amused as hell at the expression on Mark’s face. It was hard to look both astounded and embarrassed, but he managed it. She took off her own mask and breathed in deeply. God, it was good to smell air, even dusty and dirty, as opposed to rubber. The mask had made her feel as if she were choking instead of breathing.

  However, it had also kept her from being gassed. There was that.

  Robert was holding Mark’s shoulders tightly, beaming a smile up at him. Clearly, Mark was afraid he’d kiss him again.

  Harper came to the rescue. She touched Robert’s arm and said in French, “Monsieur, can we get away from here? I-I’m feeling faint.” To add to the lie, she closed her eyes and slumped a little.

  Wrong. She felt fine. She felt more than fine. They’d done the impossible and saved over a hundred lives. They’d saved the Louvre. She was tired but she was also revved. She wanted to sleep for a hundred years and she wanted to eat cake and drink champagne.

  Both. Right now.

  “Mais oui, mademoiselle!” Robert exclaimed. “Avec plaisir.” He offered his arm and she took it with a secretive wink at Mark.

  Robert took out two ski masks, handing one out to Harper and one to Mark. She looked questioningly at the black wool mask in her hand.

  Mark took it from her and slipped it over her head, tucking in her hair. It was scratchy and, frankly, a little smelly. Better than the gas mask but not by much.

  He took her shoulders again. “Honey,” he said, his voice low and serious. “We’re going to make our way out through a side entrance, but make no mistake, the building is surrounded by every journalist in Paris, plus a billion people with cellphones. It’s going to be a media circus. We’re going to try to avoid as many people as possible, but you never know. So keep that thing on, are we clear?”