Nick grunted again, giving me a harder stare.
“...And they looked like damned underwear models,” he added in a grumble.
Angel let out a laugh. “You mean they’re hot?”
“Yes,” Nick said, his voice devoid of humor. “And I’m serious, Ang. There’s something really fucking weird here, and the doc knows more about it than she’s saying.”
Sighing, I folded my arms tighter, also crossing my legs.
“Nick, you’re overreacting,” I said. “And okay, I agree there’s something... strange... about the way they look. But it’s not important right now, okay?”
“Not important now?” Nick gave me an incredulous look.
“It’s not,” I insisted. “I’m telling you, the issue is what they can do, not what they look like. Maybe their looks are connected to the psychic ability... some weird genetic anomaly that makes them look different from other people...” That part was more or less true, even if I couldn’t tell them the extent of it. “...In any case, it’s not the most relevant thing right now, is it? What they look like?”
“What they look like,” Nick countered, pointing a finger at me in an ah-ha kind of way. “Who’s ‘they,’ Miriam? I know you know what I’m talking about. Just the fact that you’re trying to avoid the subject tells me you know more than––”
“Psychics,” I cut in, exhaling. “I meant psychics. Like the kind of psychic Black is. And no, Nick, I don’t know anything more about that than you do.”
Okay, so that wasn’t strictly true. But I couldn’t get into this with them now. If nothing else, it was a distraction none of us could afford, not until we’d found Black.
“You’re saying they’re a separate species, doc?” Angel said, glancing at me again.
I froze. That was a little closer to the mark than I’d intended.
“Why would you say that?” I said.
I saw Nick and Angel exchange another one of their looks.
“Look, we’re here to get Black.” I clenched and unclenched my jaw. “Can we just focus on that first? We can talk about conspiracy theories involving genetic experimentation by ex-KGB psychos later, all right? Maybe Black knows something. Use it as motivation to get him out of this alive, if you need to. But we’re not going to discuss this now.”
Nick gave me another skeptical look. Even so, after he’d studied my eyes a few seconds longer, I saw him decide to shelve it. I continued to hold his stare when he sighed, combing a hand through his black hair.
“Whatever you say, doc,” he muttered.
Rearranging his muscular bulk in the bucket seat so that he faced forward, he glanced at Angel. I saw her quirk an eyebrow in return, but neither of them spoke.
They didn’t have to, really. I already knew this wouldn’t be the last I’d heard about those two seers, or how they looked like Black.
Moreover, I knew their suspicions would only get worse, given where we were going.
Eleven
LOUVRE
WE PARKED THE rental car at a hotel a few blocks from the Louvre.
It seemed safer to go the rest of the way on foot.
Also, if it turned out we couldn’t do much tonight, at least we had our stuff someplace safe, where we could potentially get a room.
Nick, Angel and I geared up in the hotel’s underground parking garage after we’d paid the attendant and found a parking slot. After checking for surveillance cameras nearby, we’d opened our bags in the trunk and donned the longer black coats that I’d pulled from Black’s supply room in San Francisco.
All three of us had tasers, standard issue weapons and tranquilizer guns from the same storage area in Black’s offices. I’d checked all of the equipment out––technically, anyway––but I highly doubted most of this stuff was legal to bring into France without some kind of special permit. More pressingly, I knew it might not be enough, depending on what we found.
I had vests for each of us, too, and a few other things I’d managed to grab from Black’s stores. I hadn’t told Nick or Angel, but I even brought a small explosive device that I proceeded to stuff in one boot in the underground parking lot for the high-end hotel. I velcroed a knife in a concealed sheath around my other calf, hiding that inside my boot as well.
I’d been nervous none of this stuff would make it through customs, but that went off without a hitch too, surprisingly. Everything, including the tranquilizer guns and the pellet-like darts, had been locked inside several X-ray proof pouches in hidden compartments of Black’s travel bags.
Having him as a boss definitely had some advantages.
As I straightened from strapping the knife to my calf, I saw Angel watching me, her eyes holding a thin veil of incredulity.
“Black really has had an... influence... on you. Hasn’t he, doc?” she joked.
I heard the nerves underlying her joke.
“Getting kidnapped might have done that,” I muttered.
I didn’t wait for her reaction or even check if she heard me. Instead I started walking up the ramp towards the street above the parking area. Nick and Angel followed, buttoning up the long coats they wore to hide their weapons as they walked.
“How do you plan to get inside exactly, doc?” Nick murmured, walking to my left and scanning the empty streets with bloodshot eyes. “You know they have like a thousand regular security people, right? For the Louvre alone?”
“Only like eighty or ninety of those work at night,” I informed him. At his questioning look, I shrugged. “I looked it up in the Black Security files on the way here.”
“Only eighty or ninety.” Nick glanced past me to Angel, who walked on my other side. I saw him roll his eyes. “...Well, that’s totally different, then, boss.”
I didn’t bother to answer.
I knew he was right.
There was a really good chance we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the Louvre, at least tonight. But I felt compelled to try anyway.
I didn’t know where that pull came from. Truthfully, I didn’t care.
I was worried about Black.
If Ian had him, he could be dumping gasoline on his body right now. He could have Black’s arms wired up to some religious statue in the Louvre, getting read to light him on fire in some fucked up quasi-religious ritual.
That thought wasn’t exactly helping things, though.
Crossing the empty road in front of the darkened north wall of the museum, I noted on the GPS tracker that Black’s RFID chip glowed a bright blue dot in the southern section of the museum, called the Denon Wing––which happened to be the most popular wing of the museum since it was where the Mona Lisa lived.
In front of us, the road that led to the turnabout in front of the entrance to the Louvre, Place du Carrousel, was gated shut under the stonemason arches, looking oddly medieval. If the map was right, we should be able to walk around, taking Rue de Rivoli to Rue des Pyramides and walking in alongside the north wing of the extended building. Of course, we had to assume the whole area would be covered by CCTV cameras and whatever else.
Assuming it hadn’t been gated off entirely.
Given that a long park lived there and there were no roads accessible by anything but security vehicles, I had to hope there might be a way through on foot.
It seemed like we walked for a long time.
The occasional car passed us, but since we were wearing all black, I don’t think we stood out much. I kept my phone in my pocket to save the battery and to minimize calling attention to us, but streetlights dotted the road all the way down, so I knew we’d be visible to anyone watching from one of the windows. All those windows appeared to be dark, and it was eerily quiet, and cold––colder than San Francisco with wind that felt sharper against my face––but I knew there might be eyes on us.
Nick and Angel followed soundlessly, all of us keeping to the shadow of the north side of the wing that extended out past the edges of the Jardin des Tuileries.
When we reached the end, we took
a left onto Rue des Pyramides.
The road dove into a tunnel below that section of park, but to our left, prior to the tunnel, a footpath hugged the south side of the same building we’d just walked beside along the main road. Minutes later we were retracing our steps along the inside wall, aiming our feet towards the roundabout and the main entrance of the Louvre.
I could see more lights up ahead of us already.
Even so, it remained unnervingly quiet. All I heard was the occasional crunch of a leaf or sand under one of our feet as we walked across the grass. We stayed in the park and away from the actual footpath to avoid being on the lit lane directly under the windows.
I didn’t see or hear anything.
No tell-tale buzz of a walkie-talkie. No murmured voices or security vehicle engines.
I used another of Black’s gadgets to look for security cameras––a second radio frequency tracker, but this one containing a broad spectrum signal detector and specifically designed for use in finding surveillance. It was about the size of a small phone––half the size of my real phone––and according to it, there was nothing active in our immediate vicinity.
Which meant, if they had surveillance cameras pointed at us out here, they either used some method to send data that the device couldn’t pick up, or they were all switched off.
That probably should have been a relief, but it wasn’t.
We walked the deserted stretch of park all the way to the cement roundabout at the front of the Louvre without hearing or seeing a single sign of life. We arrived at the roundabout itself only to find it completely devoid of vehicles of any kind.
My eyes went to the Richelieu building to the left of the glass pyramid.
Orangish-yellow accent lights lit up the front of the castle-like main structure, making it even more dramatic than it appeared in daytime photos. Streetlights dotted the massive courtyard stretched before us, with additional light coming from square housings embedded in the cement. The pyramid itself glowed a faint yellow, making it look both otherworldly yet also perfectly at home where it sat in the middle of the stone yard. Smaller pyramids on either side and closer to the U-shaped structure glowed with internal light as well.
Mirror pools surrounded the pyramid on three sides, but none of the fountains were on now, since it was the middle of the night.
Again, the silence felt strangely total.
We passed the edge of the park, the ornate stone archway to our right as we entered the road, walking in a diagonal line. I felt unnervingly visible once we’d walked directly into the light of the street lamps rimming the roundabout itself, but I didn’t slow my pace.
I also didn’t see anyone, not a single soul.
As we walked closer to the glass pyramid, the statue of a lone soldier riding a prancing horse stood directly in front of us, only visible as a dark form against the pyramid’s glass. I glanced back at the Richelieu as we entered the edge of the stone courtyard, marveling at the size of the old palace, the beauty of the balconies and pillars that hemmed us in on three sides.
I’d never been to Paris before––or France at all.
It only occurred to me now how strange it was that my first glimpse of the city’s most famous attraction would come like this.
“Where are the people?” Nick asked me, his voice soft.
I could tell he was avoiding sibilants, the “s” sounds that might carry further. I knew he was right to do it, even though the place felt entirely deserted.
I didn’t slow my pace to answer him.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“I don’t like it, doc.”
I nodded, glancing up at him. His eyes didn’t stop scanning the open area around us long enough to return my look.
I didn’t like it either, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
We approached the pyramid without saying anything else to one another. The one time I glanced at Angel, she had a hand inside her dark coat. I knew she probably held the handle of at least one of the guns she carried––the tranquilizer gun at least. I didn’t blame her, but I was glad she kept it out of sight in case someone happened to be watching from one of the dozens of windows or darkened doorways.
We’d all expected the pyramid’s entrance to be closed.
I didn’t really know how we would get inside, but I never in a million years thought it would be through the front door. When I aimed my feet towards that entrance, it was with the half-formed thought to simply check it out, to look for any signs of security or other people.
Or maybe it stemmed from some other instinct I was less conscious of.
Nick and Angel followed me without protest, walking past the row of chrome poles jutting out of the cement in a diagonal line, marking the direction of the human lines around the glass structure during the day.
When we reached the front, I came to an abrupt halt.
Revolving glass doors stood there, but nothing blocked them on either side. I saw no metal bars holding them shut, no gates down in front of the rectangular entrance past the museum’s curved entrance sign. I didn’t see anything that indicated those glass doors had been locked up at all. Pulling out the phone, I turned it on long enough to glance at the GPS.
Black was to our right.
Definitely the south end of the museum, so Denon. He looked closer to the Sully wing side, meaning the east side of the museum, than where the Mona Lisa and a few other DaVinci masterpieces were stored.
Dimming the screen, I walked directly to the revolving doors without putting my phone away. Nick walked after me, speeding up a bit to reach my side. I felt a spark of panic off him even before he touched my arm, trying to slow me down.
“What are you doing?” he murmured.
I didn’t answer, just motioned for him to wait, for him and Angel to stay back, to not get too close. I knew he expected the alarms to explode around us the second I touched that door, but at this point, I had my doubts. It was too much of a coincidence, it being this quiet here tonight.
We were being invited in.
Nick ignored my warning, joining me right as I reached the glass doors.
“I think they’re open,” I murmured.
“I’m not worried about that, Miri.”
I looked up. I could meet his gaze since we stood by the pyramid’s front doors and yellow light shone through the glass all around us.
“We’re being led,” he said, softer still. “You’re being led, Miri.”
I nodded, looking back at the door. “I know.”
When I glanced up next, his jaw hardened, visible in the light coming off the pyramid.
“You’re going to let them? Lead you?”
I threw up my hand gripping the phone. “What can I do?” I said. Thinking then, I added, “You and Angel. You should go back. Wait for me at the hotel.”
“Not gonna happen.” Angel that time, standing next to Nick.
I frowned, trying to decide if I should push it. “Well?” I said, looking between them. “I’m going in. I really think you two should go back.”
I’d given up trying to speak without sibilants. After all, all three of us were silhouettes against a bright yellow background making up the main entrance to the most famous art museum in the world. They didn’t need to hear us––if anyone was watching, they could see us.
Angel shook her head. “Not without you,” she said.
I looked at her, then shook my head. “They won’t kill me.”
“You don’t know that, doc,” Nick said.
I glanced at him. “No, not for sure. But I really don’t think they will. Not while they can use me to control Black. Especially not after what I said to Black on the phone the other day.” I gave Angel a warning look. “I’m not at all sure about you two. They might kill you just to keep you quiet about all this. Or they might want to keep you to find out who your contacts are in the military or whatever else...”
I felt Nick’s dismissal of that.
He thought
if Lucky wanted him and Angel dead, they’d be dead already.
I suspected he was right.
I also knew that, for Nick at least, this wasn’t about saving Black so much as saving his country and people from what he perceived as a potentially deadly threat in the form of Lucky and his trained “psychics.” That intelligence and military side of Nick frightened me too, if in a different way––but again, it wasn’t my priority right now.
I could feel that stubbornness emanating off both of them.
When neither said anything more for a few seconds, I shoved against the door.
It opened easily under my hand.
Taking a breath when I heard no alarms, I looked back at them.
“Well?” I said, looking between them. “You might think I’m crazy, but I honestly think I’ll be okay. I mean it. You guys did most of the set up. You gave me the leverage I needed... and you got me here in one piece. We’re never going to outgun them, so risking both of you for a few extra weapons makes no sense.” I swallowed, glancing at Nick. “I’m just here to get Black. That part’s my job. Not yours.”
But Nick was already shaking his head, glancing at Angel.
She shook her head, too.
“If they want us dead, they’ll just kill us at the hotel,” Nick said, turning back towards me. “We’re all-in at this point, Miri. We might as well help you get your psycho boyfriend back while we’re here...” He gave me a grim smile.
Looking between them, I couldn’t think of a good response, so I just nodded.
A sharper pain rose in my chest as his words sank in however.
I didn’t want to think about whether I’d gotten my friends killed already.
Shoving hard at the revolving door, I pushed my way inside the glass structure.
The door created wind on its tracks, the rubber seals squeaking, and the next thing I knew, I stood inside the structure, on a terrace illuminated by yellow track-lighting that ran along the base of the pyramid’s glass walls. There wasn’t a sound apart from the swish of the door and a faint hum of electricity from the lights themselves.
Black On Black (Quentin Black Mystery #3) Page 16