The Paris Vendetta

“Madame Larocque,” he said, trying to catch her attention.

She faced him.

“Both exits leading down are locked shut.”

He caught the puzzled look on her face. “How is that possible?”

He decided to answer her question in another way. “And there’s one other disturbing piece of news.”

She stared at him with an intense glare.

“Lord Ashby is gone.”

SAM WAITED ON THE FIRST-LEVEL PLATFORM AND WONDERED what was happening five hundred feet overhead. When the Paris Club had vacated the meeting room, and the staff had returned to prepare for lunch, he’d blended into the commotion.

“How’d it go?” Meagan whispered to him as they adjusted the silverware and plates at the dining tables.

“These people have some big plans,” he murmured.

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Not now. Let’s just say we were right.”

They finished preparing the two tables. He caught an enticing waft of steaming vegetables and grilled beef. He was hungry, but there was no time to eat at the moment.

He readjusted the chairs before each place setting.

“They’ve been at the top about half an hour now,” Meagan said as they worked.

Three security men kept watch on the attendants. He knew that this time he could not remain inside. He’d also seen Henrik Thorvaldsen’s reaction as the Dane realized Sam was there. Surely he had to be wondering what was happening. He’d been told that Thorvaldsen was unaware of the American presence, and Stephanie had made it clear that she wanted to keep it a secret. He’d wondered why, but had decided to stop arguing with his superiors.

The chief steward signaled that everyone should withdraw.

He and Meagan left through the main doors with everyone else. They would wait in the nearby restaurant for the signal to return and clear away the dishes. He stared upward into the latticework of brown-gray pig iron. An elevator descended from the second level above.

He noticed that Meagan saw it, too.

They both hesitated at the central railing, near the restaurant’s entrance, as other attendants hustled inside from the cold.

The elevator stopped at their level.

The car would open on the far side of the platform, beyond the meeting room, out of sight from where he and Meagan stood. Sam realized they could only hesitate a few moments longer before drawing the suspicion of either the head steward or the security men, who’d retaken their positions outside the meeting room doors.

Graham Ashby appeared.

Alone.

He hustled to the staircase that led down to ground level and disappeared.

“He was in a hurry,” Meagan said.

He agreed. Something was wrong.

“Follow him,” he ordered. “But don’t get caught.”

She flashed him a quizzical look, clearly caught off guard by the sudden harshness in his voice. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

He had no time to argue and started off.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To the top.”

MALONE NEVER HEARD THE HELICOPTER DOOR SLAM CLOSED behind him, but he felt when the winch began to unwind. He positioned his arms at his side and lay prone with his legs extended outward. The sensation of falling was negated by the cable’s firm grip.

He descended and, as the corpsman predicted, was swept back. The Skyhawk was flying fifty feet below him. The winch continued to slacken the cable and he slowly eased himself toward the wing top.

Bitter-cold air washed his body. The suit and wool face cap offered some protection, but his nose and lips began to chap in the arid air.

His feet found the wing.

The Skyhawk shivered at his violation, but quickly stabilized. He gently pushed off and motioned for more slack as he maneuvered toward the cabin door on the pilot’s side.

A gust of cold air rushed past, disrupting his equilibrium, and his body swung out on the cable.

He clung to the line and managed to swing himself back toward the plane.

He again motioned and felt the cable lengthen.

The Skyhawk was a high-wing craft, its ailerons mounted to the top of the fuselage, supported by diagonal struts. To get inside he was going to have to slip below the wing. He motioned for the chopper to fall back so he could be lowered farther. The pilot seemed to know intuitively what Malone was thinking and easily slipped down so he was level with the cabin windows.

He peered inside.

The rear seats had been removed and the newspaper-wrapped bundles were indeed stacked ceiling-to-floor. His body was being buffeted and, despite the goggles, dry air sapped the moisture from his eyes.

He motioned for more slack and, as the cable loosened, he grabbed the flap’s leading edge and maneuvered himself over to the strut, planting his feet onto the landing gear housing, wedging his body between the strut and wing. His weight disrupted the plane’s aerodynamics and he watched as elevators and flaps compensated.

The cable continued to unwind, looping down below the plane, then stopped. Apparently, the corpsman had realized that there was no longer any tension.

He pressed his face close to the cabin window and stared inside.

A small gray box lay on the passenger’s seat. Cables snaked to the instrument panel. He focused again on the wrapped packages. Toward the bottom, in the space between the two front seats, the bundles were bare, revealing a lavender-colored material.

Plastique explosives.

C-83, possibly, he figured.

Powerful stuff.

He should to get inside the Skyhawk, but before he could decide what to do, he noticed the cable slack receding. They were winching him back to the chopper and the wing blocked his ability to signal no.

He couldn’t go back now.

So before the cable yanked him from his perch, he released the D-clamp and tossed the hook out, which continued a steady climb upward.

He clung to the strut and reached for the door latch.

The door opened.

The problem was the angle. He was positioned ahead, the hinges to his left, the door opening toward the front of the plane. Air sweeping from the prop beneath the wing was working against him, forcing the door closed.

He wrapped the gloved fingers of his left hand around the door’s outer edge, his right hand still gripping the strut. At the limit of his peripheral vision he spied the chopper easing down to have a look. He managed to open the door against the wind but found that its hinges stopped at ninety degrees, which left not nearly enough space for him to slip inside.

Only one way left.

He released his grip on the strut, grabbed the door with both hands, and swung his body inward toward the cockpit. Airspeed instantly worked the door hinges closed and his parachute pounded into the fuselage, the metal panel lodging him against the open doorway. His grip held and he slowly worked his right leg inside, then folded the rest of his body into the cockpit. Luckily the pilot’s seat was fully extended.

He snapped the door shut and breathed a sigh of relief.

The plane’s yoke steadily gyrated right and left.

On the instrument panel he located the direction finder. The plane was still on a northwesterly course. A full moving map GPS, which he assumed was coupled to the autopilot, seemed to be providing flight control but, strangely, the autopilot was disengaged.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see the chopper now snuggled close to the left wing tip. In the cabin window was a sign with numbers on it. Stephanie was pointing to her headset and motioning to the numbers.

He understood.

The Skyhawk’s radio stack was to his right. He switched the unit on and found the frequency for the numbers she’d indicated. He yanked off the wool cap, snapped an ear-and-microphone set to his head, and said, “This plane is full of explosives.”