Without exception, they all fell to their knees and then face down onto the floor. Within ten minutes, everyone was either dead or moments away from dying.
***
Fadhil checked his watch, butted his cigar, and said to the terrorists in the truck, “Cover up with the plastic clothes, check your oxygen tanks, put on the masks, and turn on the breathing device. Remember, regular clothing can carry the poison for another thirty minutes and kill anyone who’s exposed, so make sure every square inch of you is covered.”
Before Atwah donned his mask he asked, “What does it smell like?”
“It’s odorless.”
“What happens if you inhale it?”
“If you directly breathe in the poison, you die of suffocation within one to ten minutes. And it isn’t pretty.”
“How do you know if you’ve been exposed?”
While donning his protective suit, Fadhil said, “You develop a runny nose and watery eyes. Your vision then becomes blurred. You cough, lose control of your bladder, and then vomiting begins along with severe stomach pain. And depending on your health, chest pain.”
“Then what?”
“If you get that much of a reaction, it’ll all be over within thirty minutes.”
“You die?”
“You die.”
Atwah covered his face with the mask and made sure he was completely protected.
Fadhil fastened his mask and said, “Make sure you can hear me through the wireless transmitters. Can you hear me?”
Atwah confirmed and looked around the inside of the truck at what looked like a group of aliens ready to invade earth.
CHAPTER 32
The terrorists in their spacemen garb began planting the dirty bombs in predetermined locations within the Louvre.
“Why aren’t these on timers? Why do we have to string all these wires,” Atwah asked.
“We don’t want anything to interfere with the detonation. The Louvre’s equipped with interference devices that could stop signals from getting through. Once the Sarin gas is no longer effective, new guards and military personnel could enter, and turn it on at anytime. It can jam cellphone transmission, infrared, microwave, shortwave and various other wireless communications. We want every bomb to detonate. We want maximum chaos,” Fadhil said.
“What if they come in with gas masks and start disconnecting the bombs?”
“First off, they’d have to know it’s Sarin gas. Then, the only filter in a gas mask that would protect them is one made of charcoal. That’s what’s in ours.
“Each bomb will also be attached to a trip wire that’ll be strung to the four corners of the room and crossing in front of the doorways. Each bomb has a small battery in it. If the trip wire is disconnected, the contacts will touch, and the bomb will explode. Just the slightest brush against the wire will set it off.
“We’re also connecting the lasers that crisscross the rooms and hallways so that if someone were to trip them, instead of setting off the Louvre’s alarm system, the bombs would explode.”
“You’re using their fucking system against them.”
“Yeah.”
The terrorists began with the Richelieu wing and set the dirty bombs in each room, attached wires to the terminals, and then ran the wires out into the hallways. Another group of terrorists attached all the wires to a main wire that they then threw down the stairs which was subsequently connected to an even heavier wire that was pushed through a recently-drilled hole in the floor in the section of the Louvre that housed the old castle walls in the basement.
The terrorists worked their way through the Richelieu wing and then began to plant the bombs in the rooms of the Sully wing.
They went to all the floors including the section that held the Objets d’art XVII-XVIII but was closed. They walked into the room. There was scaffolding up one of the walls, and all the paintings were covered with cloth, then plastic, so that the construction dust wouldn’t penetrate the oil paint and damage the masterpieces. Seeing this, they decided to set only one bomb in the middle of the room.
When they were done with the Sully wing, the terrorists rigged the explosives in each room of the Denon wing and then they went to arm explosives beneath and around the pyramid.
Other terrorists were drilling a hole in the basement floor.
“How much longer before you break through?” Fadhil asked.
“There’s thirteen more inches of concrete.”
“Keep drilling. I want this done so that we can get out of here.”
The drilling continued until a terrorist’s flashlight beam was seen through the hole. The cable was shoved down the opening and was let go as soon as the terrorist below grabbed it and began pulling.
It was then attached to another wire that ran off into the dark beneath the city and snaked through the Paris underworld until it came to a dimly-lit room with a panel populated with multiple switches. The array was attached to numerous rows of car batteries that were spread across the dirt floor.
Other wires came from other directions but all terminated in one room beneath the city. At the end of each line was a dirty bomb sitting in each of the tunnels leading to the control center.
Fadhil said, “Once the bombs in the Louvre explode, we’ll escape through the underground. They wouldn’t have anticipated that since we’re not from the area, and they would assume we’d get lost.” Fadhil looked at his cellphone. “They’ve shut down Paris. But we’ll be fine. We’ve all been studying the maps of the underworld for weeks.”
Fadhil was notified that the pack of dynamite had been placed at the bottom of the control panel, set to detonate in case there was an attempt to tamper with the wiring.
Fadhil gave the order to leave the Louvre, and they all exited the museum.
***
After Karen received Durran’s call, Lamboise called and said he would be by to pick her up in about an hour. Karen looked at the clock on the stand.
This is early evening for Parisians.
She examined the clothes available to her. All Durran said was that Lamboise was picking her up and that they were going to check out some suspicious activity north of city center.
Afterward, Lamboise will probably want to go to dinner.
Karen stepped into a pair of thonged, black frilled panties and a matching Amanda’s Boudoir bra from her sister’s wardrobe. She pulled on stockings, slipped on a white, narrow-collared, silk shirt, and pulled on a short, black, pencil skirt. She wore no jewelry except for Sharon’s ankh.
She looked at the shoes and chose a black, Cuban-healed, sling-back pair. She painted her lips red and was about to walk out the door when she remembered her weapon. She pulled up her skirt, fastened the holster to her leg, slipped in the Glock G33 and positioned it against her inner thigh. She pulled down her skirt and looked at herself in the mirror. A sheepish smile spread across her face.
Maybe Sharon’s right.
Karen went down to room thirty-eight and waited. Lamboise called again and said he was nearby. She left her room, entered the lobby, and handed the concierge her key as Lamboise drove up. She stepped outside to meet him.
Upon seeing her, Lamboise said, “Wow! You look amazing.”
Lamboise held open the car door and Karen thanked him.
“Durran filled you in?” Lamboise asked.
Karen slid into the passenger’s seat and said, “Somewhat.”
Lamboise slipped behind the wheel and said, “Apparently, the Mourabitounes, you’ve heard of them?”
“They killed a number of hostages at an Algerian gas plant last year.”
“Since then, they’ve grown in number and have spread throughout France. They’re on a jihad.”
“Not good.”
“Durran said we need to check out—”
Lamboise was interrupted by a call from his boss. When he got off the phone, he gave Karen a look and said, “Something’s gone down in the nineteenth arrondissement where they were last seen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like you’re seeing me for the first time.”
Lamboise cleared his throat and said, “I just can’t believe you put together those shreds of paper. We had to use a sophisticated computer program and it took two days to unravel the scraps. Yet by yourself you came up with the same information.”
“What are you implying? You still think I might be one of them.”
“Or you’re a genius,” Lamboise said with an inflection of disbelief.
Karen said nothing but let a slight smile appear on her mouth.
***
Lamboise pulled up in front of the Compagnie Parisienne de Chauffage Urbain building. The utility staff and police were already there. Karen and Lamboise showed their IDs and entered the lobby. A dead guard was lying in a pool of blood. Homicide detectives were standing over the body having a quiet conversation.
Lamboise turned to an officer and asked, “What’s happened?”
The officer said, “We’re not sure, except that the night watchman has been murdered and we’ve discovered that whoever they were, decided to destroy the ductwork in the north end of the building.”
“Where do the lines lead?” Karen asked.
“We’re waiting for the plans right now. Normally, when there’s a failure, one of those lights,” pointing to a large grid inside the receptionist’s console, “turns on, indicating the location that is losing air flow. But as you can see, no lights.”
A man in street clothes walked into the vestibule and spread detailed drawings over the surface of the lobby’s large, reception desk. After flipping through a couple of pages, he said, “Here’s where the ducts are destroyed. In the north end of the building.”
Lamboise asked, “There was no other damage done to the facility?”
“None that we can find.”
Karen looked at the drawings, pointed to the damaged section and asked, “Where do these go?”
The man flipped through a number of pages, and finally pointed to the drawing and said, “The Louvre.”
A man rushed into the room carrying a trashcan and said, “This is full of empty gas containers.”
One of the detectives leaned over the wastebasket and read a sticker on one of the canisters, “Sarin.”
“Those evil bastards,” Karen said.
“What?” Lamboise said.
“Sarin gas is lethal. If the terrorists injected Sarin gas into the air supply of the Louvre, everyone who breathes it would be dead in the matter of minutes.”
They immediately ran toward their car. On the way, Lamboise called Durran and filled him in on the details of the CPCU facility.
Durran told Lamboise to get to the Louvre and see what could be done. They were to meet with the captain of the security guards, and then do a complete analysis of the situation.
Durran said he would contact the captain of the guards at the Louvre to let him know about the gas and send over some specialists.
Lamboise got off the phone and filled Karen in on what Durran wanted them to do. He opened the passenger’s door and Karen slid into the front, pulling her skirt down as she settled in the seat.
Lamboise slipped behind the wheel, and glancing at her exposed legs, immediately commented on how attractive she looked.
Karen, not wanting to let him think she was enamored by his flattering remarks, said nothing.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to be another one of his conquests.
***
The terrorists climbed into the empty truck they had used to carry the dirty bombs. Atwah quickly slipped out of his spacesuit and drove while Fadhil and the rest of the men stripped off their protective gear and masks and carefully stuffed them into thick-walled, trash bags.
They abandoned the contaminated clothing and the vehicle and disappeared down into the hidden maze of tunnels beneath Paris’s Latin Quarter.
Their goal was to hide in the Rive-Gauche underworld until the bombs were detonated and then battle to the death anyone who tried to stop them from escaping.
Atwah’s last and most important task was to get to the control panel and set off all the bombs and contaminate the Louvre’s priceless artwork if the French Government didn’t pay the ransom.
But before Atwah left, Fadhil said, “It’s time we called our famous French leader and gave him an ultimatum.”
“We’re still asking for eight million.”
“Right.”
“He’s going to fucking choke,” Atwah said.
“I’m sure he’s still choking from the warning letter I sent him earlier.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That he’d have to pay the ransom or sacrifice their precious artwork in the Louvre. He took it seriously and increased the number of guards on duty. Now that they’re all dead, he has a minimum force to protect the artwork.
“He’ll have to recruit more and train them properly. In the meantime, he’ll have to use military personnel, which leaves less of them to bother us.”
“What if he pays the Euros?”
“Then the fucking bastard’ll be out both the money and the income from the Louvre.”
“We set off the bombs anyway?”
“Right. Make the call.”
Atwah dialed the phone.
***
President Charpentiér was just about to leave for a late dinner when his Chief of Staff, Lucas Michaud, knocked on the door and entered the ornate office.
“Excuse me Mr. President, but you have a call from a member of the World Massacre Movement. He says he has the instructions for the ransom.”
President Charpentiér sat back down in his chair and put the phone on speaker. “Charpentiér here.”
Atwah refused to recognize the position of the president and just began to speak. “We want to make you aware that the Louvre has been infiltrated. The guards you ordered to protect the treasures are all dead. We have planted dirty bombs, and the artwork will be destroyed unless you meet the ransom demand.”
Michaud slipped Charpentiér a note:
All are dead at the Louvre. Durran thinks Sarin gas.
Charpentiér read it, looked at Michaud, and asked Atwah, “What is it you want?”
Atwah said, “You’ve already received a message from us demanding the amount we require. You have until twenty-three hundred to deposit the money in unmarked, large bills into the trashcan in the men’s bathroom at the Porte d’Orleans Metro station. Make sure you drop it off before twenty-three hundred. If you don’t and are late, there will not be enough time to stop the bombs from going off at midnight.” Atwah hung up.
Michaud said, “Mr. President, they believe everyone at the Louvre is dead. We are attempting to contact the captain.”
“Were there any visitors in the museum when the gas was expelled?”
Michaud hesitated.
“Lucas?”
“They think a little girl was trapped in the museum during the panic to exit.”
Charpentiér looked through the window and then said, “Find the parents. We may want to bring them here. Call and cancel my appearance at the dinner. I’m staying here.”
Michaud left, and Charpentiér sat back down at his desk and called for his speechwriter.
***
The captain of the guards at the Louvre along with a police sergeant were now in the control room. They were joined by a few of the men who returned the captain’s calls too late to be in the museum when the terrorists flooded the landmark with lethal gas. The control room air filtration system had been switched over to a standalone unit before they had entered.
By means of the closed-circuit, security cameras, they were watching a pair of hazardous-chemical workers in their protective suits sent to the Louvre by Durran, taking samples of the clothing worn by one of the dead guards in the hallway.
“His tag says his name is Benny,” the one HAZMAT worker said to the other.
Th
ey placed the cloth in a scanner. They waited and then went to the other guard who was dead in the hallway and did the same thing. They looked at the readings and nodded their heads.
“Look Captain, they’re giving a thumb’s up. They’re coming out,” the sergeant said.
They entered the control room, took off their helmets, and one said, “It’s Sarin gas all right. It’s very deadly, but it dissipates fairly quickly. It’s still on their clothes, but it isn’t in the air. The bodies have to be removed in sealed bags like the two that were in here. It’s a good thing we were told it might be Sarin so that we could use charcoal-filtered masks.”
“Sergeant, look at this,” a security guard said, pointing to the monitor. “There’s that kid who was missing.”
The sergeant came over and looked over the security guard’s shoulder. “Where is she?”
Pointing to the screen, the guard said, “She’s up there on the scaffolding.”
“Is she alive?”
“Look, she’s moving.”
“How could she have survived? No one else did. Why isn’t she dead?”
The security captain walked over. “What are you looking at?”
“That little girl who was lost. She stayed in the museum and survived the gas attack.”
The captain looked at the screen. “She’s on the third floor where they’re resurfacing the ceiling. They’re sanding it. They covered the vents so that none of the dust would get up in there. So the gas couldn’t come out. Or very little did.” The captain watched the screen. “She’s reaching under the tarp. She must have hid under there.”
“Well, now we have to get her out of there somehow without anyone getting exposed to the gas,” the sergeant said.
The captain was handed a note. He read it and said, “And before the dirty bombs explode.”
“Dirty bombs?” the sergeant said.
The captain handed him the note and said, “From Charpentiér from the terrorists.”
“Shit.”
One of the hazardous chemical men said, “Sarin gas is heavier than air. It sinks to the floor. You say you think she was up on the scaffolding all this time?”
“The longer she stays up there, the better our chances of rescuing her. We have to find a way to communicate with her so that she knows not to come down and touch anything,” the captain said.
Krystal Scent (Krystal Vibration Series Book 2) Page 23