Part 18 (1/2)

Face resolute, Remo walked back into the street. He headed back up the roadway in the direction of the battle-ravaged Nelson Monument.

Chapter 20.

While bombs rained down over London and historic buildings erupted in ?ame and collapsed into rubble, a lone van made its way up the Boulevard Invalides on the famous Left Bank in Paris.

It moved slowly in the afternoon traf?c, traveling north toward the Seine.

The driver didn't wish to attract undue attention. To anyone who saw it, this should have been merely another government van.

One of many.

It was an excellent cover. For this was Paris, where it seemed everyone had either a government job or was rudely interrupted on the way to real work by government employees whose duty it was to scowl at and deride those on whom they depended most.

Namely the French taxpayers, of whom there was a dwindling force.

The van drove past the Musee Rodin on the right and the Musee de l'Armee on the left. It stopped short of the Quai D' Orsay, which ran parallel for a time with the Seine.

The driver cut the engine.

Four men climbed from the van-two from the back, two from the front. The two in the rear carried with them a long, ?at dolly, which they set on four well-oiled wheels. A retractable handle was drawn out from beneath the handcart and clicked into place at its side.

Three of the men went to work hauling heavy boxes out of the rear of the truck.

The fourth man looked on. Doubtless he was a supervisor of some sort. In a country with a per capita de?cit greater than that of the United States, there were many government supervisors.

At the direction of the older man, the group pulled their handcart of boxes to the nearest Metro entrance. They used the wheelchair- access ramp to roll their supplies down into the Paris subway system.

A gendarme near the gate spied them immediately. Instead of ?eeing like men with something to hide, the group of four crossed directly over to the guard. They brought their cart with them.

”What is all this?” the policeman asked, indicating the boxes stacked on the wheeled conveyance.

”Traps. For the rats,” said the oldest of the four men, in perfect French. Eyes at half-mast, he spoke as if it was an effort to talk. An unlit cigarette was pasted to his lower lip.

The of?cer sighed. ”Finally. One ran across my shoe the other day,” he said. He waved at the pointed tip of one polished black dress shoe. ”Across the toe. When are they going to ?nd a way to rid us of them?”

The man shrugged. ”These are new. The company has guaranteed them to work.”

”Humph,” the police of?cer scoffed. ”Give me the order,” he said. He held out his hand for the paperwork.

The man reached into the pocket of his white coveralls and produced a few yellow and pink carbon copies. He handed them to the gendarme.

”Are you not past retirement?” asked the policeman as he peered at the papers.

The old man coughed up a ball of thick phlegm, which he swallowed with an audible gulp. ”What am I going to do?” he said with an indifferent shrug. ”Sit at home until I die?” He waved a lazy hand. ”Eh, when they put me in a box, my son will get whatever there is left.”

The gendarme was taking a little too long scanning the work forms. The old man had been a.s.sured by Nils Schatz's personal a.s.sistant that there would be no dif?culties.

Schatz had procured the services of the ?nest forgers in all of France. The paperwork should have been impeccably crafted.

The gendarme ?nished up at the bottom of the third sheet of paper. He ?ipped them back together. According to the work invoices, these men were indeed subway custodians.

”Good luck,” the gendarme said, handing the orders back. ”I have heard stories of some that are more than a meter long.” Like a ?sherman telling about the ”one that got away,” he held his hands about three feet apart to indicate the size of the rats in the Paris subways.

The old man again shrugged apathetically as he replaced the paperwork in his pocket. Without another word he waved his men past the of?cer and toward the cavernous black tunnel at the far end of the raised platform.

Just before they disappeared on the chipped concrete catwalk above the dirty train tracks, the gendarme shouted at the backs of the men.

”Be certain you set the traps correctly!”

”I get paid whether they work or not,” said the old man who, ?fty-?ve years before, had personally put to death seven French Resistance ?ghters and had ordered the deaths of many others. With his handcart laden with explosives, he and his trio of skinhead a.s.sistants vanished in the shadows of the long tunnel.

OVER THE COURSE of several days, while the eyes of the world were on England, the same drama played out in hundreds of locales around Paris.

At the Bibliotheque Nationale three deliverymen brought sealed crates of what were supposed to be books into a bas.e.m.e.nt storage area. Instead of leaving them where they were instructed, they brought them to a dusty room where they wouldn't be discovered for days. By that time it would be too late.

Unexpected s.h.i.+pments of historical artifacts and artwork showed up at several museums around the city. The Musee des Arts Decoratifs, the Musee National d'Art Moderne and the Musee de l'Histoire de France all received truckloads of crates. The Palais du Louvre received the most. Invoices accompanying the s.h.i.+pments stressed that the artifacts had to be opened under precise conditions, but didn't specify what those conditions were. Fearful of damaging the precious contents, the staff left the boxes untouched.Invoices stolen from various museums gained the skinheads access to government buildings. s.h.i.+pments of ”art” were delivered with the same precautions given at the museums. Bureaucrats and government workers at the Palais de l'Elysee and other such buildings were even less likely to toy with the crates than the museum curators. The boxes were stored quietly away.

The Aeroport Charles de Gaulle and the Forum des Halles were easier by far to deal with than anywhere else. At the bustling airport and the large underground shopping center, vans were strategically parked and then abandoned.

By the beginning of the third day, all of the careful planning had ?nally paid off. Everything was in place.

In the little living room of his dingy, out-of-the-way apartment building, Nils Schatz accepted the news of the deliveries with growing excitement.

A detailed map of Paris was spread out on the scratched coffee table before him. Each time a call came in to inform them of a successfully completed mission, a small red mark was made in ink at the spot where the bombs had been placed.

The map was covered with such marks.

Fritz was on the phone, receiving another update. ”The Malesherbes bundle is in position,” he said to Nils Schatz. Nodding, Schatz used his special red pen to make a mark on the map. ”What about Avenue de Villiers?” Fritz said into the phone. As the party on the other end spoke, he glanced at a sheet of paper in his hand. ”Oh, yes. Yes, I have it. Excellent, Klaus. a.s.semble your men.

Call back when you are ready.”

He hung up the phone, making a mark through ”Avenue de Villiers” on the paper. He had missed it the ?rst time, underlining the words instead of crossing them out.

”The last of the Metro packages are in place,” Fritz announced, sitting down across from Schatz. He sighed heavily, as if he had personally hauled the hundreds of crates around Paris.

”I know,” Schatz said. He didn't raise his eyes. He stared at the map reverently, like a nun entranced with the cross dangling from a set of rosary beads. ”Have there been any reports of the Master of Sinanju?”

”None in France,” Fritz hedged.

Schatz looked up. ”Where?”

”London. As instructed, some of our ground troops stayed above the fray. They telephoned in as soon as the London phone system became operational. He and his protege were on the scene during the blitz.”

”Why was I not informed?”