Black operator complete.., p.48
Black Operator--Complete Box Set (Books 1-6), page 48
Chapter Two
That night the nightmare returned. The Russians were in the city, and once again hunting her through the dark, barren wastes. At dawn she was wide awake, her eyes dark echoes of the fear that inhabited the world of her subconscious. Cris called down for breakfast, and when the knock came on the door, he was careful to make sure the waiter was who he claimed to be. He took the trolley and relocked the door. She was sitting on the embroidered sofa, staring into space. She pushed the food to one side and drank two cups of fresh coffee. When he tried to engage her in conversation, she answered him in monosyllables. In desperation, he changed the subject to something he hoped would strike a chord.
"Forget that business in the tunnel. We’re going to visit the Louvre today. Don't let them stop us enjoying what little time we have left."
She threw him a questioning glance. "What little time we have left? Do you mean to live?"
"I meant in Paris."
She gave him a blank stare. "Won’t the Louvre be a risk? After yesterday?"
"We’re not hiding. If these bastards show themselves, we’ll deal with it when it happens. Make sure you bring your gun.”
Her eyes opened wide. "You think we may engage in a gun battle inside the Louvre?” She sounded incredulous, "You’re talking about the most famous art gallery in the world."
"No, I’m not expecting anything. But we must be ready for anything. This art gallery may be spectacular, but you mean a lot more to me than a few old paintings."
She chuckled, and he sensed her mood changing. "A few old paintings? Do you know what they have inside that place? Seven miles of galleries, and I doubt even Bill Gates could afford to make a bid for them. They’re worth billions."
"You're worth a whole lot more."
She hugged him. "Thank you.” Once again, the sharp pain ripped through his chest, reminding him of the lead he carried inside. But he was careful not to show anything. The phone rang. Jacques was waiting outside with the limo. They put on their coats and took the elevator to the lobby. When they stepped out through the doors, they stopped. Detective Inspector Claude Jobert was waiting for them, and once again flanked by two uniformed cops. This time both carried submachine guns. They weren’t taking any chances. Paris could be a dangerous place.
"Mr. Rhodes, Miss Tereshkova, I was coming up to see you."
Maria gave him a puzzled glance. "Inspector, we said we’d see you at the Prefecture. Surely you remember? You told us to report every day."
He brushed off the reply. "I know what I said. As you intend to cooperate, I won't place you under arrest, but tell me, when did you plan to report to the Prefecture?"
“After lunch, Inspector."
"Very well, make sure you do. Otherwise, I'll issue warrants for your arrest. One thing more." He looked at Cris. "Are you armed?"
"Armed? What do you mean, a knife, a gun, something like that?"
"Something like that." The sneer was barely hidden. Or was it a challenge?
"Of course I’m not armed. Why would I carry a gun in Paris? Isn't this city supposed to be safe?"
He stared at him for almost a minute, and his lips tightened in anger. "I will see you this afternoon."
He turned on his heel and stalked away with the two uniforms trailing behind him. Cris looked at Maria. "Shall we go?"
She smiled in relief. "I can't wait. I’ve so looked forward to visiting the Louvre. Although this being Paris…” she paused and made sure to speak louder, “You never know what's going to happen on the way. I’m not sure the city is a safe as some people would have us believe.”
Jobert was four or five paces in front of her, and if he detected the sarcasm in her voice, he ignored it and kept on walking.
* * *
Vladimir Ushakov had established not only the name of the hotel they were staying in, but their room number. His men were staking it out front and back, and they had a hire car parked around the corner. His instructions were for them to follow the moment they saw them drive away. There were also to call Ushakov with their whereabouts.
Popov and Zhukov should have been more attentive, doing their job properly. They were not attentive. Popov had spotted a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties, and she’d awakened in him the old lusts. He felt compelled to rape, to destroy, to murder. To leave her body broken and despoiled, like he had with so many women in the past. It was a primal urge inside him, and he never questioned it, but found another victim to sate the lustful rage that dominated his mind.
They didn’t know it, but the young woman’s name was Yvonne Dupree, and she was well known in certain circles in the Paris community. Zhukov was angry with the other man for allowing his dark fantasies to interfere with their work. Although he still went along with it.
After all, before he kills her, I will avail myself of her luscious body. Why not, this is Paris, where anything goes? I’ll use the girl for my own pleasure, and hand her on to Popov to finish. A pity he’ll brutalize her, she’s so pretty.
They disappeared around the corner, failing to see Jacque Moreau’s limo waiting outside the hotel. They also failed to see Rhodes and Tereshkova climb inside, and the car drive away. They followed the girl, admiring the way she walked, as if she was almost floating along the sidewalk, like a ballet dancer. Both men decided that was what she did. She was slim, graceful, and pretty. A dancer, tiny, ethereal, and a pushover.
She’ll soon be mine.
Popov was already gloating over what he’d do to her. They followed her into a narrow, cobbled lane, and it terminated with a dead end. Perfect, she couldn’t get away. She approached a narrow doorway and took a key from her purse. It was their chance, and both men looked around. The lane was deserted, apart from a line of parked motor scooters and motorcycles. Narrow, so the sunlight struggled to penetrate, gloomy enough to cover what they were about to do.
"Hey, Mam’selle, stop one moment. My friend needs help."
The young woman swung around, and she was even prettier than they’d realized. Popov was openly gloating, for she was perfect. They increased their pace until they were standing a yard away from her, near enough to stop her getting away.
"I wondered if you’d like a date," Popov smiled at her.
“No." Her voice was without inflection. She knew instinctively he was trash, not worthy of wasting even a single second of her valuable time.
His brow darkened. "I was trying to be polite. If you won't come willingly, we’ll have to do it the hard way." He glanced at Zhukov, "Get her."
He made the biggest mistake of his life. It was also the last mistake of his life. Yvonne Dupree was a 4th grade black belt karate instructor. As Zhukov reached for her, she turned sideways, and her hand was like a rigid blade when it slammed into the Russian’s neck. He growled in pain and anger, and tried to rush at her. She moved again, her leg came up in a scything kick, and he collapsed on the cobblestones, gasping in agony. Popov couldn't believe what he was seeing. He rushed in, took hold of her coat with one hand, and hammered at her with a fist. She easily deflected the blow, took hold of his wrist, and twisted. The crack was loud as the bones broke, and he staggered back.
Zhukov was getting up off the ground, and if she understood Russian, she'd have heard him snarl something about catching him unawares with a lucky blow. He went for her again, and this time she'd had enough. She stood back, letting them come to her. They charged in shoulder-to-shoulder, fists raised, ready to inflict real damage. She went into action. Arms and legs hammered out in a blur, almost invisible as they smashed into the two much bigger men.
They hadn’t realized it was possible a mere girl could be so lethal. By the time they understood the truth; it was too late. Yvonne Dupree was incandescent with rage. Affronted by these brutal, cropped headed thugs with faces like resurrected corpses, who’d dared to attack her in the street, in the center of her beloved Paris.
She didn't pull any punches, and the blows hammered repeatedly at the two Russians. Their cries of pain were loud, along with the sharp cracks as bone after bone broke. She literally demolished them, and in a last act of fury and rage, slashed out with a final vicious strike, and this time she hit a vital spot. The carotid artery carried blood to the brain, until a hammer blow slammed into it. After a few seconds, Zhukov collapsed onto the cobblestones. His ruined artery refused to permit further blood to flow, and inside of a minute, he was dead. Popov tried to run, at last realizing the mortal danger he was in. She went after him and lashed out with her foot, hooking it behind his ankle. As he fell, he almost somersaulted, almost, but not quite. Instead, his head hit the roadway with a sickening thud, and he lay still.
She stood back, wary he might be about to get up and keep fighting. But Popov would never get up again. When his head slammed into the cobblestones, a chip of bone cracked off his skull and penetrated the brain. He was in a coma from which he would never recover. She decided it was over and continued to her destination. The door was at the end of the street, and she reinserted the key, opened it, locking it behind her.
She was in her holy of holies, the martial arts gym where she practiced, usually on her own. This was her inner sanctum, and if she felt any concern for the two men she’d left dead and dying in the street, she didn't display it. Calmly, and with purpose, she calmed her breathing and went through a series of karate katas to focus her mind. Later, when the cops went knocking door-to-door to find out who’d beaten the two men so savagely, she expressed surprise.
“Officer, how could such violence occur on the streets of Paris?”
Rublev had been staking out the rear of the hotel, and he called Zhukov for a report. When his cellphone didn't answer, he cursed, knowing they'd left their posts, and he went looking for them. He found the two bodies, and immediately turned back and called Ushakov. The man from the Kremlin was incandescent with rage.
"How is it possible these two men are dead? Could Rhodes somehow have gone after them and killed them?"
"I doubt it. I haven't seen any of them leave the hotel."
“Stay where you are. I’ll make some calls.”
Several minutes later, he called back. "Rhodes and Tereshkova just left the hotel, so it couldn’t have been them who killed them. You let them slip through your fingers.”
"I was watching the rear."
His tone dripped acid. "Perhaps they went through the front?"
"Yes, perhaps. But how did you…"
"Never mind. I know the direction they’ve gone. Get the car and head south, toward the River Seine. I’ll tell you when I know more.”
He rushed to the parked car; the Renault Twingo Ushakov had made available for them, and started the engine.
As he drove away, his cell phone rang. Ushakov. "I know where they're going. I believe their destination is again the Louvre, as they failed to make it last time. Go after them."
"Yes, Sir."
Rublev floored the gas pedal, but the Twingo was a ‘green’ eco-model. Built with low exhaust emissions in mind. Low fuel consumption, and he'd already found the tiny engine didn't have sufficient power to pull the skin off a rice pudding. He struggled to fight his way through the Paris traffic, several times colliding with parked vehicles as he drove through impossibly narrow gaps.
A crosswalk was ahead, and he didn't slow, didn’t see a mother with a stroller crossing in front of him. Despite his fearsome propensity for brutality and violence, the death of a mother and child would cause him more grief than he needed right now. He jammed on the brake, and the tiny Renault skidded, turned through one hundred and eighty degrees, and slammed into another car. The driver had just emerged, and the man raised his fist and ran toward him. Rublev hit the gas and roared away in a cloud of environmentally friendly low-Co2 emissions.
He was facing in the wrong direction. He went around the block and found the bridge over the River Seine. On the other side, the traffic was backed up, but he spotted the limo driving into a basement parking garage. On the other side of the street lay the huge building that he recognized as the most famous art gallery in the world, the Louvre.
The barrier had closed to block the entrance, but he was in a hurry. He drove through, snapping it off at the base, and went after the limo through the gloomy subterranean levels. He was close, and soon he’d move in for the kill.
He called Ushakov. “I’m right behind them. They’re at the Louvre.”
“Don’t let them get out alive. I’ll send someone to help, but if you see them inside, you know what to do.”
“Discharging a weapon inside the Louvre will cause trouble.”
“I don’t care if you shred the Mona Lisa. Kill them.”
* * *
The pedestrian tunnel was well marked with signs to the Louvre. When they emerged in the vast lobby, Maria glanced up in wonder.
"You know where we are? This is the glass pyramid. Cris, I can't believe it. We’re really here. The Louvre, and this time we weren’t followed.”
I wish to Christ I could be certain.
"No, it doesn’t look like we were followed.” But he couldn’t shake the feeling, like a premonition, a bad premonition.
They climbed wide stone staircases, threading their way through crowds of people, pushing along vast, echoing corridors. Everywhere, art masterpieces hung on the walls, so many they almost became a blur. Up another staircase, and in front of them, mounted on a plinth, the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace. They stopped and admired the sculpture for several minutes, and Cris had a fleeting thought. Victory was a good omen. He brushed the stone sculpture with his hand, as if to borrow some of its ancient power.
They strolled along further, past hundreds of sculptures, oil paintings, and watercolors. The Raft of the Medusa, the painting that told the story of a shipwreck in the nineteenth century; the survivors built a raft after their vessel was destroyed in a storm. Later, there was talk of cannibalism, the survivors forced to eat human flesh to stay alive. Another vast painting in an adjacent gallery told of the Emperor Napoleon's coronation. The famous, or infamous, occasion when the French military genius crowned himself Emperor and King of France.
Painting blurred into painting, and they lost themselves in the endless galleries. Until the crowds thickened, and they’d come to what for many was the most famous painting of all.
The Mona Lisa, created by the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. The masterpiece was surprisingly small, surrounded by a mass of people, so they had to struggle to get close. Maria was entranced, although Cris found it more than a little overblown. The jostling crowd was oppressive, and he looked around for an exit. A split second later, he froze.
Ten yards away he’d spotted a savage face in the crowd. The man was almost bald, with a fuzz of short, cropped hair on his head, and his skin pasty white. As if he’d been in a dark, cold place for a long time. The man was staring at Maria, and in that moment, he knew his worst fears were realized. They'd managed to follow them, and as his hands reached out to grab Maria's coat and pull her away, he saw the Russian’s hand come up. It held a black automatic pistol.
"Get down!"
She looked at him, her eyes wide with sudden terror as he jerked her below the heads of the crowd. The man opened fire, and astonishingly, his bullets peppered the wall around the famous painting. Rhodes was already dragging her away, keeping her low. Behind them, people screamed, some in anger at the terrible desecration of the most famous artwork in the world. More screamed when the assassin’s bullets found them; others as they were trampled in the rush to escape, and the crowd of art lovers became a terrified mob.
The mob became stampede, and he pulled her along, running to stay ahead of the surging mass of people. Behind them alarms wailed, and uniformed guards rushed toward the mayhem.
"Cris, it’s the Mona Lisa, how could they?"
"I guess they're not too keen on art."
He dragged her through meandering galleries, past wailing alarms, and guards racing in the opposite direction. Everywhere, people cried in alarm.
‘It’s the Mona Lisa! They’re destroying the Mona Lisa!’
More shots rang out, and he looked behind him. The man was big and powerful, smashing his way through the mass of people. He saw Cris and Maria, raised his gun, and fired.
A man and a woman next to them went down, the man with a bullet through his head, the woman with a shoulder wound. Cris pulled Maria lower and kept running. Down long flights of steps, and the gunman was still behind them. Still firing, and he pulled her into a narrow passage that was empty. It was a dead end, except for a narrow door with a sign that stated ‘no entry.’ He reached out to open the door, but it was locked. There was no way he could shoulder it open, so he took out the Glock and fired two shots into the lock. The door swung open, and he dragged her through.
The passage ended after just a few yards, and the walls were solid bedrock. They ran through a dark, dank tunnel that appeared to have no end. He snatched out his cellphone to use the screen as a flashlight, and they ran for what seemed like forever, along a passage that stretched into infinity. He knew where they were. The Paris catacombs, and they had a chance of escaping through the hundreds of miles of dark tunnels. An hour later, he thought again. They'd tried to stay in the main tunnel, but several times they'd come to places where the tunnel forked, and he'd had to guess which way to go. They were lost. Lost in hundreds of miles of dark, underground tunnels, with no sign of an exit. They couldn’t go back, because one or more gunmen were waiting for them.
"What do we do?"
"I'm working on it. Don't worry. We'll get out of here."
"And if they come after us?"
He stopped her with a finger to her lips. He’d heard something, footsteps. "They have come after us."
Far back along the labyrinth, they heard movement. They were running, at least two men, maybe three, and the beams of their flashlights lit up the cavern.
