Last Chance, page 14
Bernie looked in to the department store. He was stricken. ‘They have the Mona Lisa. They could damage it in that time.’
‘It could be damaged already,’ said Friday.
‘Pursuing this investigation has made us accomplices,’ said Uncle Bernie in despair. ‘We can’t just stand here and do nothing.’ He stepped forward.
‘What are you doing?’ demanded the metro officer.
‘I’m opening negotiations,’ said Bernie.
‘You’re not qualified,’ said the metro officer.
‘I’ll improvise,’ said Bernie. He turned and yelled at the department store. ‘You’ve been cornered. There’s no way out. You’re in an underground room. There is only one exit and we’re blocking that escape route. Give up now. We don’t want this situation to get worse.’
There was a pause as they waited to see how the thieves would respond.
Bernie turned. ‘They’re considering it.’ Suddenly, a barrage of perfume bottles flew out of the store. One hit Bernie on the back of the head, another in the middle of his back. The others smashed on the marble floor. ‘Hey! That hurt,’ protested Bernie.
‘It’s really starting to stink,’ said Friday, holding her nose. Perfume is nice in small quantities – a millilitre or so dabbed on your wrist. But to have several litres of it, and in competing fragrances, pooled on the floor . . . The smell was so intense. It was literally starting to affect their vision.
‘Stay back,’ one of the thieves called from inside the store. ‘We will cut a chunk off the Mona Lisa if you come any closer.’
‘No!’ cried Bernie. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t make this situation worse for yourself. Right now, you’ve just stolen the painting. If you damage it too, that will make things much more serious.’
‘They’ve done way more than just steal a painting,’ said Friday. ‘There’s been armed robbery, intimidation, fraud, threats with deadly weapons, property damage to the Louvre and thousands of euros’ worth of perfume destroyed.’
‘Terrorism too,’ added Agent Okeke.
‘Shush,’ said Bernie. ‘We’re trying to reassure them, not frighten them more.’
‘We should just shoot them,’ said Agent Okeke. ‘That would give them second thoughts about doing this sort of thing again.’
‘You missed the day they taught negotiation and de-escalation at the academy, didn’t you?’ said Uncle Bernie.
‘We want a helicopter to the airport,’ yelled the leader from the other side of the barricade. ‘And a plane to meet us there, with a pilot and enough fuel to go anywhere in Europe.’
‘I can’t authorise that,’ yelled Bernie.
‘Then get someone who can,’ the leader yelled back. ‘We’re not leaving here until there is a helicopter in the Tuileries Garden waiting for us.’
‘They’ll never let you get on a helicopter without handing over the Mona Lisa,’ said Uncle Bernie.
‘We’ll hand it over once we’re at the airport, safely on the jet,’ said the thief.
‘I’ll make some phone calls,’ said Bernie. ‘This will take a while.’
‘You’ve got thirty minutes,’ called the leader. ‘Every ten minutes you take beyond that, I’ll cut a piece off the painting.’
‘This is bad,’ said Uncle Bernie. ‘This is really bad.’
‘I told you, you should wait for the proper negotiator,’ said the metro officer. ‘This is all going in my report.’
‘They’re here!’ one of the security guards called out. ‘The counter-terrorism squad. They’ve just pulled up outside.’
It took a couple more minutes for the heavily armed squad to make their way downstairs into the metro station. The lead negotiator was wearing a more formal version of the police uniform. The main difference was he was carrying less weaponry. He also had a strangely crooked nose.
‘Ugh,’ said Agent Okeke.
‘You know him?’ asked Friday.
‘He’s my old boss,’ said Agent Okeke with a sneer.
‘The one whose nose you broke?’ asked Friday.
‘Nose and cheekbone,’ said Agent Okeke, with a note of satisfaction.
As the negotiator strode over to Bernie, he reached out with his hand. ‘The phone,’ he said. ‘Give it to me.’
‘The phone?’ said Bernie.
‘That you’re using to speak to the subject,’ said the negotiator.
‘Oh, we’re not,’ said Bernie. ‘I’ve just been yelling to them over their barricade.’
The negotiator sighed and shook his head. ‘When we seek to de-escalate, we do not yell.’ He snapped his fingers at a junior officer behind him, who was carrying an open laptop and tapping on the keyboard. ‘Have we triangulated their communication?’
‘Yes, there are ten active phones within the store,’ said the technician.
‘You see,’ said the negotiator. ‘This is how it is done. We are going to calm everything down. We are going to slow everything down. We are going to lower our volume.’ He spoke again to his assistant. ‘Call one of the phones for me.’
The assistant took out a phone and dialled a number from his screen. ‘It’s ringing.’
The negotiator snapped his fingers again and the assistant passed the device to him.
‘I don’t know a lot about not being rude,’ Friday whispered to Ian. ‘But even I know it’s rude to snap your fingers at someone.’
‘That’s why he’s doing it,’ murmured Ian. ‘He wants to be rude. He’s asserting authority by forcing subservience.’
‘And how is that helping?’ asked Friday.
‘I think at the moment his main goal is humiliating Bernie,’ said Ian.
‘Shouldn’t he be focused on getting the Mona Lisa back?’ said Friday.
‘Police officers are public bureaucrats,’ said Ian.
‘With guns,’ said Friday.
‘Yes, but essentially bureaucrats,’ said Ian. ‘For them, getting the Mona Lisa back would be nice. But their main concern is not getting in trouble if they don’t get it back. That’s the reason that making Bernie look like a fool is so important right now. In case things go badly later.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Friday. ‘Making Bernie look like a fool is so easy.’
‘He does give off buffoonish energy,’ agreed Ian. ‘He’s usually good at making that work for him. Getting others to underestimate him. But in this situation, it could go pear shaped.’
Suddenly the phone stopped ringing as someone on the other end picked up.
‘Yes,’ said the voice on the phone.
Now the negotiator was all purring reassurance. ‘Hello, this is Vincent Pierre of the Paris Préfecture de Police. I am a negotiator. It is my job to talk to you and reach an arrangement whereby nobody gets hurt and the Mona Lisa is returned undamaged.’
There was a pause.
‘You have twenty-three minutes to bring me my helicopter,’ said the thief. ‘I have already negotiated with the bearded buffoon in the lobby. If the helicopter is not in the Tuileries Garden in twenty-three minutes, I will cut the nose off the Mona Lisa.’
‘Monsieur Barnes was not in a position to offer such a thing,’ said the negotiator. ‘He is just part of the security team for the Louvre. It will take more than twenty-three minutes to make this arrangement. We will need more time.’
‘Do you know what the main chemical ingredient is in Chanel Number 5?’ asked the thief.
‘Umm,’ said the negotiator.
‘Ethanol,’ whispered Friday. ‘Most commercial perfumes are eighty to ninety per cent ethanol.’
‘Ethanol?’ the negotiator said into the phone.
‘Very good,’ said the thief. ‘Ethanol. The same substance we use in fuel for cars. It is a type of alcohol. Like cleaning alcohol, it can get stains out of so many things, because it is a strong substance that dissolves oils. Paint is made of oil. Now, can you imagine what effect it would have if I poured a bottle of perfume, that is ninety per cent ethanol, over an oil painting.’
‘Don’t do that!’ said the negotiator.
‘Exactly,’ said the thief. ‘You don’t want me to do that, so you will hang up this call now and get to work, arranging my helicopter.’
The line went dead.
‘This is all your fault!’ The negotiator turned on Bernie. ‘You made promises you couldn’t keep.’
‘I did not!’ said Bernie. ‘They made demands I couldn’t keep.’
‘Which is why you had no business opening negotiations,’ said the negotiator.
‘This isn’t an intellectual exercise,’ said Bernie. ‘This is a real time situation where my officers and civilians have been threatened by highly organised criminals carrying guns. I took action because the situation required it.’
‘Can I just punch him?’ asked Agent Okeke.
‘What’s she doing here?’ demanded the negotiator in alarm as he suddenly noticed his former employee.
‘Her job,’ said Uncle Bernie.
‘You’re more of a danger here than they are,’ the negotiator accused Bernie. ‘You took action because you are a thoughtless buffoon!’
‘Stop!’ cried Friday.
‘What?’ said Bernie.
‘Why are there even children here?’ demanded the negotiator.
‘Because these children are two of Interpol’s top consultants,’ said Bernie.
The negotiator rolled his eyes and made a scoffing noise. ‘This does not surprise me. Interpol will be taking recruits from clown college next.’
‘For a negotiator, you really have terrible interpersonal skills,’ said Ian.
‘All of you stop bickering,’ said Friday. ‘Can you feel that?’
Friday was standing in the middle of the lobby, the same as everyone else. She wasn’t reaching out and touching anything, so no-one understood what she meant.
‘Has the child gone insane?’ asked the negotiator.
‘That child is smarter than you, me and anyone else in this room,’ said Bernie. ‘So how about you tais-toi and listen to her.’
‘Under our feet,’ said Friday. ‘Can you feel that?’
Everyone looked at their feet.
‘It’s vibrating,’ said Bernie.
‘Huh,’ said the negotiator. ‘It’s just the metro trains. They cause this vibration.’
‘Didn’t you stop the metro?’ said Friday.
‘Yes,’ said Bernie. ‘It was the first thing I did. The metro officers know the procedure. If there is an alarm at the Louvre, all trains are stopped until we give the all clear.’
‘So what’s causing that vibration?’ said Friday.
‘Street work above,’ said the metro officer.
‘There is no street above us,’ said Friday. ‘We’re directly below the Tuileries Garden.’
Bernie crouched down and put his hand on the floor. ‘But someone must be using a power tool.’
‘Someone in there,’ said Friday, pointing in to the department store. ‘They’re cutting through the floor.’
‘They’re getting out!’ said Bernie.
Friday had already taken off running towards the barricade. Ian was close on her heels.
‘Stop her!’ yelled the negotiator.
The counter-terrorism officers hesitated – they weren’t sure how. They couldn’t shoot two teenagers. But they weren’t sure if they were supposed to storm the barricade themselves. One officer pulled out his taser and fired it at Friday, but a taser dart does not travel as fast as a bullet. Friday had been at the top of the barricade, standing on a pile of display shelves, when he pulled the trigger, but in the next instant she had tripped over the strap of a $10,000 handbag and tumbled head first into the store. Ian lunged forward to see if she was all right and the taser hit him in the back instead.
‘Nuunggggh,’ said Ian as he convulsed on the wreckage of the designer display.
‘Ian!’ cried Uncle Bernie, rushing forward to help his stepson. ‘I’m going to be in so much trouble with his mum.’
‘I’m all right,’ mumbled Ian. ‘Check on Friday.’
Bernie peered over the barricade.
‘This is a siege situation!’ yelled the negotiator. ‘I forbid you to interfere further!’
Uncle Bernie ignored him. ‘Friday?’ he called out. He couldn’t see his niece anywhere.
‘Back here,’ called Friday from the far side of the store.
‘Don’t go in there!’ said the negotiator. ‘I am in charge of this situation.’
‘I’m not taking orders from someone who thinks it’s okay to tase a teenager in the back,’ said Uncle Bernie as he clambered over the barricade.
The negotiator nodded at one of his subordinates, who fired off another taser. But Uncle Bernie was wearing a bulletproof vest, so the electrode darts bounced right off. He was soon inside and running through the store.
Uncle Bernie found Friday right down the back, near the changing room.
‘Look at this,’ said Friday.
There was a large hole cut in the marble floor, and ten mobile phones sitting on the ground around it.
Bernie carefully picked up one of the phones. ‘What is this?’
‘What’s going on?’ Ian had caught up with them. He was still twitching a bit from being tasered, but otherwise all right.
‘They’ve disappeared underground,’ said Friday.
‘But we’re already underground,’ said Ian. ‘How much lower can they go?’
‘They can go down into the sewers,’ said Friday.
‘Gross,’ said Ian.
‘No, it’s genius,’ said Friday. ‘The Paris sewers mimic the streets above ground exactly. They could go anywhere from here.’ She sat down on the floor and swung her legs into the hole.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Ian.
‘Going after them,’ said Friday.
‘You can’t just go into the sewer,’ said Ian. ‘That’s disgusting.’
‘They’ve got the Mona Lisa down there,’ said Friday. ‘This is our last chance to stop them. We’ve got to follow.’ With that, Friday dropped into the dark hole.
Ian and Bernie heard a thud.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Bernie.
‘Yeah,’ said Friday. ‘Although I’m going to need a new pair of shoes after this.’
Ian got down and swung his legs into the hole next. He turned on the flashlight on his phone, figured out where he could land without crushing Friday and dropped. But when Uncle Bernie tried to follow it didn’t go so well.
‘The hole is too small,’ muttered Bernie. His hips had snagged on the hole. He couldn’t get any further. As Friday and Ian looked up – they could just see his legs scissoring back and forth as he tried to wiggle through.
‘I can hear them at the end of the tunnel,’ said Friday. ‘Hurry up, we’ve got to get going, or we’ll lose them.’
Uncle Bernie grunted and groaned as he tried to push himself down into the hole, but it wasn’t going to happen.
‘I can’t get through,’ said Uncle Bernie. ‘I’ll send down Okeke.’
But when Bernie tried to pull himself back up, he found that even harder.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Friday.
‘I’m stuck,’ said Bernie.
‘This is just like Winnie the Pooh,’ said Ian.
‘We’ve got to go after them,’ said Friday.
‘We need to leave it to the police,’ said Ian. ‘These are armed robbers. We can’t stop them.’
‘If we follow them, we can tell the police where they are,’ said Friday. ‘They can follow us above ground.’
‘Okay, I’ll tell the others,’ said Bernie. ‘But keep your distance. Let our officers handle it.’
Friday and Ian were lit by a single bulb directly above them. The sewer was not what Friday had imagined. It wasn’t a round concrete tube like a modern sewer pipe. It was an egg-shaped tunnel that had been crafted out of bricks. The sewer was wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, where a shallow stream of sewerage flowed. A walkway had been built into the brickwork partway up each side. Friday could stand up straight here, but Ian was six foot tall and he had to stop a little to avoid scraping his head on the curved ceiling.
Beyond the arc of light, the sewer tunnel disappeared into darkness. Although, in one direction, the tunnel was dark but at the far end, several hundred metres away, there was a faint light. Friday peered at it, trying to make out what it was . . . then suddenly, the distant light flicked off.
‘No!’ cried Friday. She took off running in that direction.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Ian, hurrying after her.
‘The lights have motion sensors,’ called Friday. ‘If we can see the light, we know where they are.’
‘But we can’t see it anymore,’ said Ian.
‘We saw where it was, which means we saw where they were,’ Friday panted as she ran. ‘That light had to have been triggered by the thieves.’
Friday ran as hard as she could into the blackness. She was not a great runner, but she had to get to the next junction before they lost the thieves. Her motion was switching lights on as she ran, but they were designed to come on for someone moving at walking pace. Because Friday was moving at speed, she was always just ahead of them. Every step she took she was plunging forward into darkness.
Suddenly Friday put her foot down and the ground wasn’t there. She tried to reel back but Ian was close behind and he slammed into her. They both toppled off the walkway and fell forward. Friday was horrified for a millisecond, assuming she was about to land face-down in the sewerage. But instead, she landed hard on a large pipe. Ian slammed down on top of her.
‘Oomph,’ said Friday.
‘What happened?’ asked Ian.
The light had switched on above them. They were lying on a pipe that was suspended across the top of the sewer – it was part of some kind of sluice to control the flow. They had fallen off the end of walkway where it had branched out in three directions.
‘Which way did they go?’ asked Friday.
Ian looked about. There was a faint glow at the end of one of the tunnels.
