What a foolish question. Whatever Mark Redmond was, he wasn’t a bland businessman.
Harper would have been angry that he’d lied to her except for the fact that because he was what he was—whatever that was—she wasn’t lying outside in the Grand Gallery in a pool of her own blood.
He’d instantly recognized what was happening and, with seconds to spare, had found them shelter and concealment. She knew about the spaces between the walls but she’d been too shocked to even think of it.
He’d not only known what to do, but he’d had survival basics in his backpack, including a set of lock picks.
Lock picks. Hmm. “You’re not an international thief hoping to steal a painting, are you?”
He smiled, deep grooves bracketing his mouth. God, when he smiled, he become so insanely attractive…and what was wrong with her that she was thinking of that right now?
“Nope. Not an international thief. One of the good guys.”
Harper nodded. Yes. He was one of the good guys. “Military?”
“Former,” he nodded. “Now private security. I have my own company.”
She sighed. A former soldier, now into private security. So not her type, yet here she was. He’d saved her life, he’d given her the best sex she’d ever had and, more surprisingly, she liked him. A lot.
More than liked him.
“Not your style, huh?” His strong, heavy arm curled around her shoulders. He caressed her cheek with his forefinger.
“Right now, you’re exactly my style.”
“Damn right.” The smile dropped from his face and his features grew tight. “I told you, as long as I am alive, nothing will happen to you.”
It was crazy. There were terrorists with machine guns mere feet from them. Mark wasn’t armed. The security measures at the entrance under the Pyramid had been too strong for that. Of course, bad things could still happen to her. He was tall and strong and smart and apparently knew how to handle himself in dangerous situations, but he wasn’t Superman.
And yet…and yet. She was terrified and not terrified at the same time. They were in the middle of a massive terrorist attack, the biggest she’d ever heard of except for 9/11. It had sounded as if the terrorists had swarmed in, armed and bloodthirsty. If they discovered her and Mark’s hiding place, a pull of the trigger and they’d both be dead in a second.
But Mark was smart and knew what he was doing. There was a possibility he could keep them safe if he could stop himself from doing something brave and foolish. She’d recognized the tension in him when the terrorist had viciously kicked the little girl. Every muscle in his body had been screaming at him to go out there and defend the child. She could see it. But he’d controlled himself.
The expression on his face had been terrifying. Muscles tense, eyes cold, and a distinct air of violence around him. She wasn’t scared of him. But the terrorists should be.
No, though Mark Redmond was turning out to be something far more dangerous than a businessman, from some deep well of knowledge inside her, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would die defending her.
So, yes. Maybe they would make it out alive, even if those poor people huddled on the floor in the Mona Lisa room wouldn’t.
“How did the terrorists get in past security?” she asked.
Security everywhere was tight nowadays, even in museums. She’d been shocked at the security measures at the entrance to the museum. She hadn’t been to the Louvre for three years and things were much tighter now. They’d carefully checked her purse and she’d had to walk through a metal detector.
It still shocked her. She remembered the first time there had been security checks in a museum and she’d been dumbfounded. Who would want to attack a museum?
Judging by today, lots of people.
Mark bent closer and she was almost ashamed that his voice in her ear gave her goose bumps. Not fear goose bumps. The other kind. “Remember that a lot of them are dressed as police officers. That’s how they managed. Either they’re simply wearing uniforms, or worse, they really are cops. Infiltrated into the system. They’d have seen to it that the weapons passed through security.”
She looked at him, nudging his thigh with her knee. “They didn’t catch on to your magic backpack with the lock pick. Anything else in there they should have caught?”
“Yeah. A very sharp ceramic knife in my boot and I have a combat baton. Plus some detcord and a small amount of explosives.”
Her breath caught. “Really?”
“Really.”
“But that—that’s—”
“Illegal? Yeah. Useful? Yeah.”
She thought about the Mona Lisa room, the poor miserable tourists huddled in the middle, surrounded by gunmen. “I don’t think explosives would be useful in this particular situation.”
“You’re right. The room is too big. But you never know. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”
She turned to him, looked him straight in the eyes. “The first priority is the safety of those poor hostages. But the paintings in that room—they are invaluable. Part of humanity’s heritage. And the Mona Lisa…” She covered her mouth in horror at the thought of the artwork, of the Mona Lisa, being destroyed.
Mark nodded, then frowned. He’d been keeping an eye on the screen. He tapped his ear, which she understood to turn the cellphone audio on, and angled the screen so they could both watch.
“They’re dragging something into the room.”
Harper’s heart skipped a beat. “Explosives?”
“No,” he murmured, eyes glued to the screen. He tilted his head then sucked in a breath. “I knew it.”
“What?” she mouthed.
“Camera and a tripod,” Mark said, his mouth a thin line. He shot her a glance then went back to watching the screen intently. She looked down, too.
Camera. Tripod.
Oh, dear God.
Harper dug her fingers into Mark’s strong shoulder, so hard she’d hurt a lesser man. She knew what was coming next.
The leader took a collapsible stool and positioned it under the Mona Lisa.
Two of the attackers brought out a bright green sheet with Arabic writing in black and held it as a backdrop, right under the Mona Lisa.
“What does the writing say?”
Mark waited until the sheet was fully extended. He sighed softly, hanging his head for a moment. “Surah 47.”
She looked at him, waiting.
The muscles of his jaw worked. “When you encounter an unbeliever, strike him at the neck.”
Harper’s eyes widened in horror. “You mean—”
“Yeah.” He gave a jerky nod. “Behead him.”
They stared at each other wordlessly, then dropped their eyes back down to the screen. The leader was sitting on the stool and began a chant in Arabic.
The leader started sliding slightly right or left on the stool, according to the signs made by the man staring down into the camera. Finally, they got the position to their liking.
Insanely bizarre. They were behaving like amateur filmmakers, making sure they got the best shots possible, as if they weren’t monsters who’d left a trail of blood behind them.
The leader started speaking, voice low at first. Then, he worked himself up into a screaming rage, spittle flying from his mouth. Finally he stopped and, incredibly, smiled at the cameraman. The cameraman smiled back, holding up a thumb. The universal symbol for approval.
The leader stood up, grabbed a small bottle of water from a backpack lying on the floor, finished it in three long gulps, then sat back down again.
Mark put his lips to her ear. “I think he’s going to repeat what he just said in Arabic. He’ll speak either English or French. If he speaks French, can you translate for me? I want to know if he says the same thing he said in Arabic.”
“Sure.” She fit one earbud into her ear.
They watched as the leader shouted a few orders at the men lining the walls. One of the men walked forward. Mark manipulated the screen until the focus was on the man, who reached down and pulled a pretty young woman up by her long honey-blonde hair. She screamed, terrified.
A young man, tall and gangly, dressed in a tee shirt and shorts, stood up instantly, shouting “Let her go!”
The leader made a casual gesture with his hand and one of the terrorists behind the young man lifted the butt of his rifle and brought it down hard on the young man’s head.
He fell to the floor instantly, as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut. Harper stifled a sob. No one could hear her in the room. People were screaming, the leader was screaming. But she understood that their lives depended on no one knowing they were in here so she swallowed her horror.
Mark’s arm around her tightened. “He didn’t shoot that boy. That’s something.”
Harper nodded, not trusting her voice.
Pandemonium in the room, everyone’s eyes on the young boy and the pretty girl. The boy lay face down, blond hair bloody. But his feet and hands were working. He was alive.
The leader lifted his gun and shot a couple of bullets into the ceiling. The room instantly quieted.
“We are going to record a message the whole world will be seeing. The next one to make noise will be shot. Do you understand?” he said in French and then English.
Harper translated. The hostages on the floor were quiet, frozen. Even the children.
The leader put down his gun and lifted a huge sword. It looked like a ceremonial sword but it also gleamed. It was a working sword. Harper glanced up at Mark’s grim face. His expression was hard and cold as he watched the screen.
The leader pulled a balaclava over his head and nodded to the camera operator on the other side of the huge room. The operator had his back to the huge painting The Wedding Feast at Cana. The leader had his back to the Mona Lisa. And Harper had no doubt that he’d artfully framed his shot of the scene that would be seen around the world. The terrorist clad in black, faceless, holding a young woman by her long blonde hair, behind him poetry inciting to a beheading, above that the most famous painting in the world.
A real marketing coup for the insane terrorist brand.
The leader started talking and Harper translated as he spoke.
“Attention France! We are your sons, and we reject you and everything you stand for! You are an immoral people, an abomination in the eyes of God. He will smite you through us. You are holding warriors for justice in your prisons. Fourteen of them. Here are their names.”
Harper stopped translating as the man read out names. Many Arabic names, some with either a French first name or last name.
“Our brothers in arms will be freed from your unjust imprisonment immediately. We have one hundred and twelve infidels in this room. Not to mention the obscene and immoral painting behind me.”
He turned slightly so whoever was watching could not mistake his meaning. Two of his men had taken down the Plexiglas shield in front of the Mona Lisa so it was unprotected.
“We have also planted explosives throughout this building full of immoral and obscene depictions of depravity. If our brothers in arms are not freed within twenty-four hours, the people in this room will die, one by one, this building will be destroyed and—”
The man kept his fist in the young woman’s hair, turned and slashed at the Mona Lisa, leaving a ten-inch gash across the neck. If the Mona Lisa had been a person instead of a painting, she would have been beheaded.
There was a collective gasp in the room, audible even through the earbuds. Harper was terrified for the poor tourists under a death threat. But there was also something coldly evil about the desecration of one of the most beautiful works of art in human history.
The terrorist understood full well the power of the slashing of the Mona Lisa. When he turned back to the camera, his dark eyes were glittering with triumph, knowing that the entire world would see what he’d done.
“If you try to storm the building, we will kill ten hostages for every martyr brother killed. Free our warriors or we will bring down this building with all its abominations.”
With a gesture of contempt, the terrorist let go of the young woman’s hair and she fell to the ground weeping. He panned the room, sword held high, the other terrorists around the room with guns pointed at the terrified hostages.
Everyone was still and silent except for the weeping woman, crawling to the young man who’d defended her.
Mark put his mouth to her ear. “That was different from what he said in Arabic, which was a call to arms. This was the first salvo in hostage negotiations. What was his French like?”
“Perfect,” Harper said, turning her head to brush her lips against his ear. Her nose was close enough to his cheek to feel the slight bite of his beard. His skin was warm, rough. His smell was familiar. She’d had her face against his skin all last night.
A bloom of heat shot through her, a cruel and inappropriate reaction of her body that had nothing to do with her. She felt as if he’d hijacked her body, so it responded helplessly to the smell of his skin, the rough feel of his beard.
“Native speaker?” he asked, and she had to wrench her mind back to their awful reality.
“Yes.” Harper nodded. “Native speaker, probably Parisian. Not very educated French, though. A couple of grammatical errors.”
Mark nodded, pulling out his satphone. He switched earbuds and tapped the new one once.
“Hey,” he said. “Sitrep. There’s going to be a video released soon. Guy’s recorded a hostage video, which he delivered in French, in a mask. But I have footage of him before he put on the mask, when he recorded another video in Arabic. I’m sure he’s in some database, so have someone do a facial recog. Speaks Arabic with a slight foreign accent, speaks French like a native. The Arabic video is a call to arms. The French video is blackmail. Free prisoner friends or we will shoot the hostages and blow up the Louvre. The prisoners are mentioned by name. They are probably in the La Santé Prison. Get in touch with our contacts at DGSE because the French police are compromised.”
Harper couldn’t hear anything bleeding out from his earbud as he listened. Then he nodded.
“Copy that. These guys aren’t joking. I think the Louvre is full of dead bodies and I think they really do have it rigged to blow. Tell the head of the DGSE that I’m here. Use me.”
He thumbed the connection off.
“Um, Mark?”
He’d been lost in thought for a moment after speaking with his teammate, but when he turned his head to look at her it was like being hit with a spotlight, his attention was so intense.
“I’m not a communications expert, but don’t you think they might be monitoring cellphone and even satphone usage? They told all the hostages to throw their phones on the floor and that they’d know if they tried to use them. Could they trace us through one of your phones?”
I don’t think the CIA knows about this frequency, let alone those people out there.”
Okay, that made her feel better. “So, what are we going to do?”
He settled against the wall and put his arm back around her shoulders. God, it felt so good to lean against him. He felt more solid than the wall. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Do?” He dropped his head back against the wall. “For now, we wait.”