The Louvre guards were again looking at the closed-circuit camera monitors when one said, “Captain, look, there’s wires that crisscross the room. And they stretch across the doorways.”
The captain looked at the monitor. “Switch to another room.”
“More wires.”
“And there’s another wire on the floor that leads out into the hallway,” the captain said. “Follow it. Where does it go?”
The security guard manning the closed-circuit TV screens clicked cameras along the sequence that led through the Louvre, down the stairs, and into the basement.
“Go back to the room where the little girl’s located,” the captain said.
The monitor showed the room and the canister in the middle. A wire ran along the floor and out the door and into the hallway. Four other wires were attached to the top of the container and crossed in front of the doorways.
Another guard was at the opposite side of the control room looking at the grid that displayed the laser beams that ran throughout the Louvre rooms. He was watching a light that kept blinking and said, “Captain, what does this light mean?”
The captain came over and looked down at the flashing light. “I’ve never seen it blink before.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a manual. He flipped through a couple of pages. He stopped and read. His mouth opened and his eyes widened. He turned to the group in the control room and asked for their attention.
“I just discovered that this blinking light,” pointing to the control panel, “means that the laser system has been compromised.”
The phone rang. A guard answered it and handed it to the captain. The captain listened and then hung up.
He turned around and said, “French Intelligence has just been informed that the laser system has been tied to the bombs. So either the trip wires or a break in the beams will set them off. We’ve got to keep that little girl up on the scaffolding. Get her parents here. Don’t let anymore hazardous-chemical workers in there. Thank goodness they only went into the hallways.”
***
The police contacted Lillia’s parents and informed them that Lillia was alive and still in the Louvre. They brought them to the control room so they could see their daughter.
The captain explained the situation. “We don’t know how she survived the poison gas that killed all the guards, but now in order for her to stay safe, she has to remain where she is.”
“Can we talk to her?” Brianna asked.
“Yes, through our speaker system. But you won’t be able to hear her. You’ve got to make sure she stays up on the scaffolding. If she comes down, since Sarin gas is heavier than air, she could touch something that has a high concentration of the poison still on it and she will—”
“We know. The police have already explained what happens,” John Martin said.
“Well, the other thing is this: there are laser beams and tripwires that will set off the bombs.”
The captain moved the camera to the middle of the floor and said, “There’s a bomb in the center of the room.” He then moved the camera back across the floor so that the wires could be seen. He then turned it back on Lillia.
“She’s moving toward the edge of the scaffolding,” one of the guards said.
The captain pointed and said, “Here, speak into this.”
Brianna grabbed the microphone and said, “Lillia.”
Lillia stopped and looked up toward the speaker. “Mommy?” she said, but Brianna couldn’t hear her.
“Lillia, I can’t hear you. But I know you can hear me. You can’t climb down off the scaffolding. You have to stay up there.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Lillia said, and continued to begin her climb down.
The captain said, “Tell her to stop. She can’t climb down right now. Ask her if she can show you what she wants to do.”
“Lillia, Mommy can’t hear you. But you can’t climb down. There are very dangerous things down there. Stop and show Mommy with sign language, think of how you can tell me what you want to do. Lillia, please show me what you want.”
Lillia stopped and stood on the top level and grabbed her crotch.
“She has to go to the bathroom,” Brianna said.
The captain said, “She’s going to have to wet her pants.”
John said, “Look, there’s a bucket over in the corner.”
Brianna said, “Lillia, remember when we went camping and we didn’t have a place to go to the bathroom. We had to use a pail. There’s a pail behind you.”
Lillia looked around and then put her hands over her face covering her eyes.
Brianna said, “She’s embarrassed. Lillia, pull the pail over behind the tent. We won’t be able to see you.”
Lillia walked over to the pail and dragged it behind the tarp.
“That’s right, sweetheart. We can’t see you at all. Please use the pail.”
Soon, Lillia came out from behind the tarp. She stood facing the camera and began to rub her tummy in slow circular motions.
John said, “She’s hungry.”
The captain said, “Tell her to look around the scaffolding all over, under the tarp and inside the tool chests. Sometimes the workers have candy bars, health bars, fruit and sometimes nuts to snack on when they work.”
Brianna said, “Lillia, look inside everything. Look for food in the toolboxes.”
Lillia put Chabby down and began her quest for food.
John Martin said, “Why can’t I go in and get her?”
The captain said, “The terrorists have booby trapped any attempt to enter the Louvre. It would result in the detonation of all the dirty-bomb canisters throughout the museum. See,” the captain said, pointing to one of the monitors, “there are wires running all over the floor and crisscrossing throughout the rooms.
“They’ve also connected all the laser beams so that if any one is broken, the bombs will explode. We don’t know how they’re connected or how each bomb can be deactivated. All we know is that we’ve got to stay out of the museum until we can come up with a plan to disarm them. And your daughter needs to stay up above everything.”
***
Time was passing slowly for Lillia and she was becoming board. She began flipping Chabby up in the air to see if she could hit the ceiling.
Her father called to her over the intercom to stop.
Her last throw caused Chabby to bounce back with such force, when Lillia tried to catch her stuffed animal—it flew across the wooden boards of the scaffolding, on its way to the museum floor.
CHAPTER 33
Lillia was down a flight of the scaffolding stairs on her way to reach her stuffed animal that was dangling by one leg, stuck in the crisscross of the metal pipes that framed the temporary structure.
Brianna was beside herself. She grabbed the microphone from her husband and said, “Lillia, please go back up. Leave Chabby. Please listen to Mommy.”
Although Brianna had previously told Lillia that she couldn’t hear her daughter, Lillia gave her mother numerous reasons Chabby needed to be saved.
The security camera panned down. Right below where Lillia was headed and just next to Chabby was a wire that if disturbed, would set off the bomb.
Brianna turned to John and said, “What can we do? She won’t stop until she has Chabby.”
Lillia’s father took the microphone and said, “Lillia, honey. Please leave Chabby until we can come in and get him.”
Lillia stopped and looked up at the speaker. She said something and then continued to work her way toward her stuffed animal. She stepped on a loose piece of pipe and slipped, the metal shot out from the rung.
***
Brianna’s mind flashed back to the trip to the hospital. Her contractions were only seven minutes apart, but this was her third child. Labor wouldn’t continue for very long before she’d give birth, she knew it.
John was up in his study when she called out to him.
He came running down the stairs and grabbed the e
mergency suitcase and headed for the garage. He threw the luggage into the trunk, opened the garage door, and started the car. Brianna called her doctor and quickly joined him.
The next-door neighbor in her bathrobe and slippers shuffled into the garage. “Drive safely. The storm’s getting worse,” she said.
Between controlled breaths, Brianna said, “Are you going to take the hill?”
“How far away are your contractions?”
Brianna swallowed and said, “Five minutes.”
John shot her a look and said, “If we go the other way to the hospital, we’ll never make it in time.”
“If the hill is covered in snow, we might not make it up. That’ll be worse.”
“We have to try.”
As they approached the incline, they could see in the distance a highway truck in front of them.
Brianna said, “Good, we can follow the plow up.”
“How far are the—?”
“Three minutes. Oh no, he’s turning down a side road. He’s not going up the hill.”
John’s face turned white. He slapped the gas pedal to the floor. “But we are,” he said.
The hospital staff was waiting at the door when John arrived.
“Slide into the wheelchair,” the nurse said to Brianna.
Brianna obeyed and she was whisked down the hall and into a delivery room.
By the time John had parked the car and then entered the waiting room, a doctor opened the doors, pulled down his mask and said, “You have a healthy girl.”
Later, he told Brianna, “I didn’t even get to watch any TV,” and they both laughed and thanked God for their safe trip to the hospital.
Soon after Lillia was born, John and Brianna moved from Besançon to just outside Paris.
***
Brianna quickly turned away from the monitor.
Lillia caught herself and watched the pipe fall, just missing the detonation wire and then roll across the floor, coming to rest harmlessly against the far wall. She stretched just enough, and Chabby came loose.
John said, “She’s got it.”
Brianna twisted back and saw Lillia climb up to the top of the scaffolding. Both her mom and dad along with the rest of the guards in the control room began to breathe again.
***
Lamboise quickly drove to the Rue de Rivoli entrance of the Louvre and he and Karen were immediately escorted to the palace security control room.
Captain Chinnard greeted them as they entered.
Lamboise asked, “Are all the cameras working?”
Chinnard affirmed that all areas were covered.
“What about the films. Do we have record of the terrorists planting the bombs?” Karen asked.
“When we arrived and tried to replay the information, we discovered that the recording system was shorted out. We have no record,” Chinnard said.
Karen said, “But we can see into each area with the monitors, right?”
The captain affirmed.
Lamboise said, “I guess we need to look at each room.” Lamboise turned and looked at John and Brianna Martin and asked, “Who are these people?”
The captain walked over and pointed to the screen that showed the upstairs of the Sully wing and said, “Their little girl was trapped in the museum when the rest of the people fled. She survived the Sarin gas and has been up on the scaffolding.”
Karen walked closer to the monitor and said, “There are wires strung above the floor and laser beams shooting the length and width of the room and across the entrances.”
The captain walked to the screen and examined the image and asked, “You can see the laser beams?”
Karen nodded her head.
“The terrorists made it clear that even the slightest nudge of any of the wires that crisscross the museum floors or any break in the laser beams will set off all the bombs. She’ll be killed.
“Fortunately, the workmen left food and a huge container of water. She can stay up there for at least two days. The real problem is how to get her down. The only way is to completely deactivate every bomb. And we don’t know how to do that. We don’t know how the terrorists are controlling them or what else might set them off.”
Karen said, “We need to see into every room. Let’s not waste any time.”
They began a systematic review of each area.
Karen said, “They’ve planted a bomb in front of the Mona Lisa. That’s what the dead Sehali guard was trying to communicate.”
Captain Chinnard said, “If they destroy that, the attendance for the Louvre will drop in half.”
“One’s in front of the Moneylender and His Wife,” Lamboise said. “And the Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon the First, and Liberty Leading the People.”
As the camera images for each room and hall were transmitted to the monitors, Karen began to call out the priceless treasures scheduled for demolition. “And Delacroix’s Death of Sardanapalus, The Raft of Medusa, Winged Victory, and the Venus de Milo.”
She suddenly said, “We’ve seen enough of what will be lost if we can’t stop the terrorists. Let’s concentrate on spotting the bombs and trace the wires to see where they go.”
They began in the top levels of each wing and worked their way down to the lower levels ending in the sector that housed the old castle wall.
Karen said, “As the wires descend each level, they become a little thicker. The last wire seems to disappear beneath the castle wall. Is there a way to go beneath the castle-wall floor without detonating the bombs so we can see what happens to the wire?”
Captain Chinnard instructed one of his men to take Karen and Lamboise down below the basement level of the Louvre to investigate the multiple strands of wires. Before they descended, they put on gas masks and gloves just in case the Sarin gas was active below the main museum floors.
As the guard led them to the dark, unlit tunnel that snaked along the base of the castle wall he said, “The passageway’s very narrow, and the air’s thin because it’s almost a completely sealed area. It’ll be cool, though.”
He handed each of them a flashlight and said, “The passageway only goes one way. When we reach the end, we have to do an about face and come back the way we came. There’ll be no room to pass each other. I’ll go first.”
Karen went second and Lamboise brought up the rear. They walked for about ten minutes, and then Karen suddenly said for them to stop.
She pointed her flashlight to the ceiling. “There’s a wire. It crosses over us and into that crawl space up there.”
The guard looked up and said, “That looks like a ten-gauge wire. It can carry a lot of power.”
Karen turned to Lamboise and said, “Lift me up so I can see where it goes.”
Lamboise extended a knee and held out his arm so Karen could step up and see into the opening.
She shone her light and said, “It disappears off into the distance, north.”
“How does she know the direction?” the guard asked.
Lamboise asked, “Is it north?”
The guard told him it was.
Karen again shone her light. “It seems to be a straight passage. Is there a way we can find out where this small tunnel goes besides crawling through it?”
The guard said, “We’ll have to go back to the control center. We have a closet there with all the plans of all the tunnels, shafts, lofts, everything on palace property.”
They turned around, and in single file went back the way they came.
They returned to the Louvre’s electronics control room and stood before a large, conference table while the guard spread out various sets of plans.
After scrutinizing the blueprints for over an hour, Karen said, “It appears that the only thing north of the Richelieu wing is the Metro tunnel of the M7 line.”
Lamboise said, “We’re going to have to visit the tunnel. We’ll have to get Durran to stop the trains along M7 so that we can see if the wire appears and continues or shoots off in another direct
ion.”
“We’ll be looking for a thick, red wire,” Karen said.
Lamboise looked at his watch. “It’s just after performance-and-concert rush hour. Durran’ll never go for stranding all those people trying to get back home or to their hotel rooms.”
“We don’t have much time to stop the bombs. He’ll have to stop the train,” Karen said.
Lamboise looked at his watch and said, “I’ll take you back to your hotel. I’ll check with Durran to see when I can pick you up again. You might want to change your clothes.”
Karen furled her eyebrows and said, “You head back to French Intelligence. I’ll walk to my hotel. It’s only a few blocks away.”
They parted, marching in opposite directions.
***
Karen stepped into the Hotel d’Angleterre lobby and the concierge welcomed her with a bright “Bonjour.”
Karen answered in French and requested the key for room thirty-eight.
“Ici vous allez Madame Krystal. Passez une bonne soirée,” he said, and handed her the room key.
“Merci,” Karen said, although crawling in a Metro tunnel was not her idea of a good evening.
She started toward the room, turned her head and glanced at the concierge. His back was to her. She went to bypass the door but then stopped for a second.
Something smells odd. Explosives? Like the package back home from Amanda’s Boudoir.
She shook her head and continued to the end of the hall to the elevator.
Karen entered her suite and immediately took off her outer clothes and weapon holster. Clad in her underwear, she walked into the bathroom and was about to strip down and step into the shower when she felt a vibration and heard an explosion. Within seconds, the fire alarm in the hotel sounded.
The “in case of fire” protocol was that all the patrons were to meet across the street in front of Restaurant AU 35. Karen wrapped herself in a towel and ran to the window. People were briskly walking across the road. Most were dressed in street clothes. A couple of men were just in slacks, their well-fed stomachs protruding over their belts—looking like they were nine-months pregnant. One female in her bare feet and wrapped in a towel was scurrying across the street.
Krystal Scent (Krystal Vibration Series Book 2) Page 24