Goddamn!
It was a terrorist attack! This was the kind of thing he’d trained all his adult life to handle, but right now he was hamstrung. Mark had Harper to protect and he was fucking unarmed.
He lifted his head, listening closely. There was no way to tell how many attackers there were but they were running. And shooting. And killing. The ripping sound of machine gun fire was punctuated by the screams of the wounded and the dying.
Mark consulted his inner map. Right now, a pack of terrorists was running up that monumental staircase, maybe the forerunners were at the top of the stairs by now.
The tourists in the huge Gallery were panicking outright, running away from the sounds of violence toward the other end of the Gallery, the exit. Perfectly normal behavior for untrained civilians. But the exit from the Gallery wasn’t the exit from the building. They were far from anywhere they could get out of the building.
The shots were coming closer. Mark did not want to be caught in the big open space when they arrived. They were sitting ducks. But there was nowhere to hide. All the rooms were large, open, without any furniture except a few benches. Nothing that could remotely be considered concealment.
There were more screams now. Whoever was attacking was mowing tourists down by the dozens. Separate guns could be heard. Mark estimated at least twenty separate firearms.
Fuck.
Suddenly, shots were coming from the other end of the Gallery. A pincer movement, carefully planned. Good tactics, all things considered. It would take a battalion to conquer the Louvre, as big as it was. These terrorists were aiming to isolate the Grand Gallery, containing the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa.
“Mark?” He looked down at a shaken Harper, white-faced but not panicking like the other tourists. “What’s happening?”
Mark didn’t answer for a second. He studied the big room just off the gallery, one of a series of ten.
He peered harder and saw a thin line in the wall, barely visible.
He held her by the shoulders. “We don’t have much time, honey. I think I see a door in this room.” He pointed with his chin at the large side room. “Is that possible? The walls are thick. Are there chambers between the walls?”
“Ye-yes. It’s where supplies were stored during the construction of the building. But they’re locked, Mark.”
It was all he needed to know. There was maximum confusion at both ends of the long Gallery and tourists had fled from the side rooms. “Let’s go.”
She followed without question. Mark felt a punch of…something, somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. She was so shocked her face was white, eyes enormous, pupils dilated. This was completely outside anything she could possibly have encountered in life.
And yet, shocked and frightened, she was following his lead. His woman was following his lead. He’d found her and he could lose her any minute.
They had seconds.
Mark was pulling out his little toolkit from his backpack.
His packs, whether a normal one for urban life or his mission backpack, were always packed a certain way and he knew how to instantly put his hands on what he needed. What he needed was his lock-pick set, and he found it immediately. The lock-pick set was miniature and highly effective.
He quickly walked Harper over to the hairline opening in the wall, lock-pick set in hand. “How many people know about these doors?”
“Not many, I imagine.” She turned her ashen, stricken face up to his, then looked at his hands. But her voice was calm. “You’d have to be an architectural historian, I guess.”
Which she was.
“We’re going to have to chance it,” Mark said as the door opened. “Hurry, honey.”
Her eyes widened, but she scrambled inside and he pulled the door closed just as the sounds of the attack breached the Gallery.
The terrorists were here.
Mark switched on the flashlight function of his cellphone.
“That won’t last long,” Harper whispered in a shaky voice.
“I have several high-performance rechargers,” he whispered back, most of his attention on studying the space they were in. It was intramural space, about four feet wide. It was high enough for oxygen not to be a problem and he saw that it followed the walls. To his left, it took a dogleg. On the other side was the eastern wall of the Salle des Etats, the Mona Lisa room.
The floor was dusty and the air felt dead, but it was a good hiding place.
“Here,” he said. “Take this.” He handed Harper a small but powerful flashlight. Without the cellphone and the flashlight, they’d be in pitch darkness. Civilians panicked without light. For Spec Ops soldiers, though, darkness was cover.
He himself preferred darkness, as long as the enemy was in darkness too.
“Shine it upward and make sure you don’t direct it toward the door. The door is beveled and the seams are tight but we can’t take chances.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice firmer. “Thanks. I don’t know anyone else who’d bring a flashlight to a museum, but this is really great. What else do you have in your magic backpack?”
She was trying to joke but he was dead serious when he answered. “Enough food and water to stay alive for at least two days, light and a way to keep track of what’s going on. I think we’re going to be under siege.”
“Good. Excellent. You were a Boy Scout, right?”
Mark flashed her a grin. He was so proud of her. One thing he’d learned on countless missions was that the make-or-break element in surviving wasn’t just having top-tier gear and training, but your attitude. Keeping your head was key. She was keeping hers.
They were going to survive this.
With some help.
They walked around the corner of the great room until they came to the wall of the Salle des Etats. He placed a tiny instrument that looked vaguely like a stethoscope against the wall. It amplified and clarified sounds.
Shots. Screams. Shouts.
Mark closed his eyes, concentrating on the shouts. Two men, barking orders. He listened carefully. The Salle des Etats with the Mona Lisa was to become their headquarters.
Two voices, one deep, one lighter, shouting commands. The accent was Syrian. Other voices out in the Gallery shouted in broken English and French. Herding the tourists into the Salle des Etats.
From far away on the left and the right came the sounds of drilling. The deep voice said that the entire Gallery was closed off now, at both ends. They were locking themselves in. Mark was right. It was a siege situation.
He’d heard what was going on. Now to see.
He pulled out a tiny but powerful and silent drill. He ran his flashlight over the wall that was part of the Mona Lisa room and settled on a spot where a corner was formed between the side wall and the back wall, five inches from the floor.
He crouched and applied the drill. Harper crouched beside him, holding the flashlight. She’d discovered that the light’s intensity could be regulated by twisting the handle and had dimmed the light to the lowest setting. Mark could see enough to work by but didn’t have to worry about light accidentally shining through the hole he was drilling.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
She nodded, watching him carefully. “I don’t know what you’re doing but you’re going to need light to do it by.”
The drill ate through the wall silently, all detritus falling on their side of the wall. Mark sent up a silent thanks to the engineers who’d made the drill. Once the drill head made it through the wall, it stopped instantly. Mark knew from experience that it wouldn’t jut out but would be flush with the wall, to all intents and purposes completely invisible.
He pulled out a cable from the other end of the drill and connected it to his cell. Then he pulled out wired earbuds, again fitting the end to the cellphone. He offered one earbud to Harper and she leaned in close, shiny hair swinging over her shoulder, giving off a little burst of lemon scent.
Oh God, the smell of her hair was so wonderful in this ancient, dusty place that felt like a tomb. He looked at her, just a glance. She met his gaze and the electricity of that rocked him. For just a moment, it was if they were one person.
Mark pressed a button and his screen came alive, a wide-angle-lens view of the room, complete with sound. Like a movie from hell.
The man with the deep voice was squat, powerful, the leader. Though black-haired, his skin was very fair. Maybe some Iranian blood there. He was directing his men to stand against the walls, three to a wall, and Mark could see that at least two men were stationed at the wide entry to the room, backs to them, weapons trained outward. Mark could take it as a given that there were other terrorists stationed along the Gallery.
What they saw on his cell screen was bloodcurdling. At least a hundred tourists were sitting on the floor, hands on their heads, some bleeding, all terrified. And the men holding their guns trained on them, holding them hostage, were dressed in French police uniforms.
Which explained how they’d managed the initial attack.
“Youssef,” the leader shouted. “How many out there?”
“The leader is asking how many dead are out in the Gallery.” Mark spoke in a very low voice, barely audible.
“You speak Arabic?” Harper asked, shocked. Instinctively, she followed his lead. Not whispering but murmuring.
He nodded. “Yeah. One of the guys in the corridor, guarding the Mona Lisa room, said there were fifty people down. He said about twenty were wounded and couldn’t walk.” He met her eyes. “Gunshot wounds are dangerous. If they don’t allow medical personnel in immediately—and they won’t—the wounded out there are going to die.”
Her eyes searched his before dropping back to the screen. “I think a lot of people have already died. They shot their way here.”
Mark nodded, and went back to watching and listening carefully. He hadn’t told Harper that most of the tourists out in the Gallery were dead. Those inside the room were cowed, many bloody and bruised. One little girl started wailing, terrified and bleeding from a cut on her forehead.
She attracted the attention of the leader, who scowled at her and her mother. The mother gathered the little girl to her, trying to hush her.
“Shut up!” the leader shouted in Arabic. The girl sobbed in her mother’s arms.
The girl’s sobbing made the crowd on the floor restless. Humans—normal humans—are programmed to respond to a child’s cries. There was a rustling noise. Two men placed their hands on the ground, preparatory to getting up.
“Shut up! Tais toi!” one of the guards shouted. The fact that he was dressed in a police uniform and was speaking both English and French made them hesitate. But the little girl didn’t care how he was dressed or what he spoke. She responded instinctively to the brutality she must have sensed in him.
“Make her shut up,” the leader said in Arabic.
“He’s given an order to shut the little girl up.” Mark tensed.
The man dressed in the police uniform pointed his gun at the girl and the mother screamed, throwing herself over her daughter.
The man pulled her off the little girl, hauled back his booted foot and kicked the girl, hard. So hard she was lifted off the ground. She crumpled to the ground and lay still.
Mark rose, enraged.
“No!” Harper clutched at his arm, pulling him back down. “You’ll only endanger yourself and not help them. Please, Mark, please.” She spoke low but urgently.
Mark trembled. Technically, he could open the door, run into the next room and tackle the fuckhead, but Harper was right. What would he accomplish? He’d be mowed down.
Mark had faced death many times and he wasn’t afraid of dying. On the other hand, dying like an idiot, facing twelve armed men unarmed, was the mark of a fool.
And worse. He’d leave Harper undefended.
But it was hard, sinking back into a crouch and watching his cell screen. Watching terrorists hold innocent people at gunpoint. Watching a man kick a child. Knowing that these men had shot and killed their way to this point.
“Mark,” Harper murmured, putting her hand over his where he was clutching the cell so hard the plastic crackled.
He blew out a breath, loosened his hold.
She stroked his hand, trying to get him to calm down. “I tried to call the police. The 9-1-1 number in France—everywhere in Europe—is 1-1-2. But I couldn’t make the call. It wouldn’t connect.”
The rage was slowly subsiding in Mark’s head. Cold mission awareness took its place. “They’re using a jammer. They’ve got hundreds of hostages and each one has a cell. The first thing they’d need to do is create uncertainty.” He dug into his backpack. “But this is a satphone and doesn’t use cell towers.”
She gave a little gasp of surprise. “Excellent! Call 1-1-2!”
“Not yet. Not calling the police.” Mark punched in the first number on speed dial and inserted a separate earbud. “Some of the terrorists are dressed in French police uniforms. They have an inside guy. Maybe several. Yo.” He sat up as he heard his COO’s voice. It was 5 a.m. back in Boston but Mike sounded awake and alert. “Mike. Code Red. I’m in the Louvre. It’s under attack by about twelve tangos that I know of. More in the building, probably many more. They’re holding over a hundred hostages in the Grand Gallery, in the Mona Lisa room; there are more wounded and dead tourists out in the corridor. AK-47s. Each tango has about ten mags and several have suicide vests.”
He felt more than saw Harper look up at him in shock. She hadn’t recognized them but he had.
“More tangos are outside the room and they’re laying explosives. Several had backpacks.”
He’d seen two terrorists out in the wide corridor pressing C4 between the floor and the wall just before he’d closed the door.
“Are you safe?” Mike asked.
“For the moment, yes, we’re safe.”
A slight pause as Mike processed the we. “There’s no chatter on this yet.”
Mark glanced at the cell screen. “They’ll contact the outside world. They’ll have demands. They have hostages.”
“Agreed. Implicitly, they also have the most famous work of art in the world. I have a friend high up in French law enforcement.”
“Careful, Mike. Like I said, some of the tangos have police uniforms. There’s some kind of leak there. A mole. Maybe several.”
“Okay. I’ll get back to you soonest.” The connection cut off.
Mark studied the screen, the dynamics. The hostages were crowded together in the immense room. Nine tangos with AK-47s pointed at them, another two at the huge entrance to the room, AK-47s pointed outward.
The men, women and children sitting on the floor were terrified. After seeing what happened to the little girl, the children were muted, stifling their sobs.
Mark saw the little girl, unmoving, her mother silently crying over her still little body. She was alive, though. Breathing shallowly, that small torso moving up and down. He watched the man who’d kicked her so viciously, dressed in a police uniform, marking his face carefully.
That man would pay. They all would.
Harper was seated against the wall, the dimmed flashlight placed on the floor next to her. It heightened her features, highlighting the high cheekbones, the full mouth, the long lashes. She was holding her knees with trembling hands, but she was keeping it together.
“A siege,” she said.
“We’re okay,” Mark bent to murmur in her ear. “I have enough water to last two days. Three actually. I can go without water for long periods. I have some protein bars for food. We just have to hang tight.”
Okay. She mouthed the word rather than say it.
He drew back a moment to look her in the eyes. She was scared but functional. Of course she was scared, she’d have to be crazy not to be scared.
A few inches of wall separated them from terrorists who’d already killed God knew how many people. Mark had dealt with crazed fanatics all his adult life. He knew that they’d kill them without a second thought.
Mark placed a hand over her linked hands, letting her feel his strength and warmth, which would do more to reassure her than words could ever do. But she’d need the words, too.
He placed his mouth against her ear again and breathed in her scent, this woman who was precious to him.
“It will be okay. As long as I’m alive, you will be fine. And I’m a hard man to kill.” He couldn’t resist dropping a kiss on her hair.
Her hands flexed under his, one of her thumbs curling around his hand. She nodded.
Mark shifted to sit next to her, back against the wall, legs bent. He put his arm around her shoulders and she dropped her head to his chest.
There wasn’t much he could do right now. Outside this wall he was badly outnumbered and completely outgunned. Mike would be working it. Everything he could do, he would do. But for now, it was a waiting game.
He had no weapons. But they had water and food and for the moment, a secure location. Harper was safe and would stay that way.
“Mark?” She was keeping her voice so low he wouldn’t have heard her a foot away.
“Yeah?”
She looked up at him, searching his eyes. “You speak Arabic. You come prepared for a siege of the Louvre. You’ve got scars all over. You’re not a plumbing supplies importer, are you?”
He tucked a lock of soft, shiny hair behind her ear and kissed her cheek.
“No.”