Tariq gazed wide eyed at the structure towering before him. He raised his head to appreciate its enormity. For all his time in Paris, he had never visited. Why should he? The last time he was in a church of any kind was back at Eton Chapel a million years ago. But this was not a church, this was a cathedral. Perhaps the most famous cathedral in the world. Notre-Dame de Paris.
Tariq checked his watch. The time was 5:42.
After all this, right on schedule.
Go ahead, he told himself. Say it.It was fated.And yes, Tariq believed it.
The broad plaza in front of the cathedral was nearly deserted. Police officers stood near the tall ornate doors to the cathedral. “Portals,” he recalled. He dropped his pistol into a waste bin, then ran a hand through his hair and mopped his forehead with his sleeve.
A guard at the center portal looked inside his backpack. No need to hide the transmitter. For all intents and purposes, it was a cell phone. The transmitter, however, could only call one number. Once connected, Tariq must enter two sixteen-digit codes: the first to remove the weapon’s safety, essentially unlocking it; the second to detonate it.
Tariq entered the cathedral. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim interior and to take in the chandeliers hanging everywhere, the Gothic flying buttresses high above, the ribbed vaults, the stained-glass windows. He refused to be awed. It was not his god.
He turned to his left and walked behind the back row of chairs, half filled, and turned right down the aisle running down the left side of the nave. Memories from a theology class rose from a foggy past. The interior of a cathedral was built in the shape of a Latin cross. The nave ran down its center. The transept crossed the T, so to speak, and the altar sat at the far end. As it was, so shall it ever be.
Every few steps, a small chapel was set back into the wall, almost a grotto. He stopped at the sixth in line, where there was a statue of a woman holding a small child. A bronze nameplate identified her as St. Genevieve.
“She saved Paris from Attila the Hun,” said a voice behind him. “Don’t ask me how.”
Tariq turned. “Hello, Yehudi. Interesting spot to meet.”
“I couldn’t think of a safer place,” said Yehudi Rosenfeld.
“An Arab and a Jew conversing inside a cathedral,” said Tariq. “Nothing to see here, officer.”
“Not an Arab and a Jew,” said Rosenfeld. “Look around you. What do you see?”
Tariq’s eye wandered the interior of the cathedral. Even at this hour, it was crowded with men and women ambling slowly here and there, heads upturned, reading guidebooks, listening to audio tours. “Tourists,” he said.
“Exactly what we are,” said Yehudi Rosenfeld. “Tourists.”
Chapter 60
Île de la Cité
Paris
Harry Crooks dialed Mac’s number again. Again, the call rolled to voicemail.
“Goddamn you, Dekker,” he said, staring out the window at the imposing facade of the cathedral. “Call me back. I’ve got him. I’ve got your bloody prince. He just walked into bloody Notre-Dame.”
Harry hung up. He wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t just stay here. Mac was an old friend—more than that. They’d worked together, fought a common foe. He was a brother. But Harry was sixty-seven years old and a cripple. These days they called him “handicapped” or “physically challenged,” but no matter how you softened the words, the facts remained the same. He was stuck in this damned chair. It had been a long time since he’d felt sorry for himself, and the sentiment took him by surprise. He was Harry friggin’ Crooks, the scourge of the Special Air Service, winner of the Victoria Cross. As long as his heart kept beating, he would be a warrior. To hell with the chair; he’d do his best.
“Let me out,” he said to the driver. “What do I owe you?”
Two minutes later, Harry Crooks was charging across the Place Jean-Paul II toward the cathedral of Notre-Dame. He was done feelingsorry for himself. Three words rolled off his tongue, filling him with the fire of his youth. He hadn’t said them aloud since the day he’d taken off his uniform for the last time.
Who Dares Wins.
The motto of the British SAS.
Chapter 61
Préfecture de Police, Île de la Cité
Paris
Mac Dekker stood shivering beneath the portico at the entrance to the Préfecture de Police, encircled by Don Baker, Eliza Porter Elkins, and his daughter, Jane McCall. He looked from face to face, rubbing his shoulder, rocking on his feet, whiplashed by his dramatic reversal of fortune.
