Steve Berry - The Paris Vendetta

A few clicks and a voice said, “I’m back.”

“Care to tell us what’s going on?” Malone asked Danny Daniels.

“The plane deviated off course. First it headed north, away from the city, and now it’s turned back south. No radio contact can be made. I want you two to check it out before we blow it from the sky. I have the French president on the other line. He’s scrambled a fighter. Right now the target’s not over any populated areas, so we can take it down. But we don’t want to do that, obviously, unless absolutely necessary. Too much explaining to do.”

“You sure this threat is real?” he asked.

“Hell, Cotton, I’m not sure of crap. But Lyon had a plane at Heathrow. You found it. Which, I might add, seems like he wanted us to find-”

“So you know what happened last night?”

“Every detail. I want this son of a bitch. I had friends die when he bombed our embassy in Greece, and they are only a few of the many he’s killed. We’re going to punch this guy’s ticket.”

One of the pilots slid the panel door to the cockpit open and motioned ahead. Malone searched the sky. Clouds lay like tracks above the French landscape. The outskirts of Paris rolled past beneath the chopper’s undercarriage. He spotted a blue-and-yellow-striped fuselage in the distance-another Cessna Skyhawk, identical to the one seen last night-cruising at about five thousand feet.

“Close the gap,” he told the pilot through his headset.

“You see it?” Daniels asked.

He felt power seep from the rotors as the helicopter knifed its way forward.

The plane’s metal sheeting sparkled in the sunshine.

“Stay behind him, out of his vision field,” Malone told the pilot.

He spied red identification numbers on the tail that matched the ones from last night.

“That plane’s ID is the same as the one in Heathrow,” he said into the headset.

“You think Lyon is in the plane?” Daniels asked.

“I’d be surprised,” Malone answered. “He’s more the conductor than a member of the orchestra.”

“It’s turning,” the pilot said.

He stared out the window and saw the Skyhawk bank east.

“Where are we?” he asked the pilot.

“North of Paris, maybe four miles. With that vector the plane has turned away from the city center, which will take us beyond the town proper.”

He was trying to make sense of all that he knew. Scattered pieces. Random, yet connected.

“It’s turning again,” the pilot said. “Now on a westerly course. That’s completely away from Paris, toward Versailles.”

He wrenched the earphones off. “Did he spot us?”

“Not likely,” the pilot said. “His maneuver was casual.”

“Can we approach from above?”

The pilot nodded. “As long as he doesn’t decide to climb.”

“Do it.”

The rudder control angled forward and the chopper’s airspeed increased. The gap to the Skyhawk began to close.

The copilot motioned to the headset. “That same bloke again on the radio.”

He snapped the headphones back on. “What is it?”

“The French want to take that plane down,” Daniels said. “What do I tell them?”

He felt Stephanie’s grip on his right arm. She was motioning forward, out the windshield. He turned just as the cabin door on the Skyhawk’s left side sprang fully open.

“What the-”

The pilot jumped from the plane.

ASHBY WAS THE LAST TO CLIMB ABOARD THE ELEVATOR. THE eight members of the Paris Club filled three glass-walled cars that rose from the second platform another 175 meters to the Eiffel Tower’s summit. The giddy ascent, within the open ironwork, was a bit harrowing.

A bright sun set the world below glittering. He spied the Seine and thought its name apt-it meant “winding,” and that was exactly what the river did through central Paris with three sharp curves. Usually car-jammed avenues that paralleled and crisscrossed the waterway were short on traffic for Christmas. In the distance rose the hulk of Notre Dame, engulfed by more church domes, zinc roofs, and a forest of chimney thickets. He caught a quick glimpse of La Défense and its avenues of high-rise towers. He also noticed lights affixed to the Eiffel Tower’s girders-the source, he surmised, of the electric shimmy that illuminated the thing each night.

He checked his watch.

11:43 AM.

Not long now.

MALONE WATCHED AS A PARACHUTE SPRANG OPEN AND THE canopy caught air. The Skyhawk continued its westerly course, holding altitude and speed. Below was a vast expanse of field, forest, villages, and roads that dotted the rural landscape outside Paris.

He pointed to the plane and told the pilot, “Head in for a closer look.”

The chopper eased forward and approached the Skyhawk. Malone shifted his position to the port side of the helicopter and stared out at the single-engine plane.

“No one inside,” he said into the microphone.

He didn’t like any of this. He turned to the corpsman. “Do you have binoculars?”

The young man quickly produced a pair. Malone focused across the bright sky at the Skyhawk.

“Ease forward some,” he told the pilot.

Their parallel course changed, the chopper now slightly ahead of the plane. Through the binoculars he zeroed his gaze past the tinted windshield into the cockpit. The two seats were empty, yet the steering column moved in calculated jerks. Something lay on the copilot’s seat, but a glare made it difficult to make out. Beyond, the aft seat was packed with packages wrapped in newspaper.

He lowered the binoculars.

“That plane’s carrying something,” he said. “I can’t tell what, but there’s an awful lot of it.”

The Skyhawk’s wings dipped and the plane banked south. The turn was controlled, as if someone was flying.

“Cotton,” Daniels said in his ear. “What’s your assessment?”

He wasn’t sure. They were being led-no question-and he’d thought this plane to be the end. But-

“This is not our problem,” he said into the microphone.

“Do you agree, Stephanie?” Daniels asked.

“I do.”

Good to see that she still trusted his judgment, since her expression contradicted her words.

“Then where’s our problem?” the president asked.

He played a hunch. “Have French air traffic control scan the area. We need to know about every plane in the sky.”

“Hold on.”

ELIZA STEPPED FROM THE ELEVATOR INTO THE EMPTY SUMMIT-level observation area, seventy-five stories above the ground. “A bit unnerving to be here with no one else,” she said to the group. “This platform is usually packed.”

She pointed to metal stairs that led up through the ceiling, outside, to the uppermost deck.

“Shall we?” she said.

She watched as the group climbed the stairs. Ashby stood with her. When the last of them exited through the doorway at the top, she turned to him and asked, “Will it happen?”

He nodded. “In exactly fifteen minutes.”

MALONE KEPT HIS EYES ON THE SKYHAWK AND SAW THE PLANE alter course once again. More southerly, as if seeking something.

“Is that fighter here?” he asked into the headset, wondering if anybody was still there.

“It’s in position,” Daniels said.

He made a decision. “Take it down while we still can. Nothing but fields below, but the city is coming up fast.”

He banged on the window and told the pilot, “Back us off, and fast.”