Part 29 (2/2)

No-one noticed them.

They were just workmen going about some unknown but presumably authorised task.

Then West grabbed a rolling 'Repair Work in Progress' screen from a nearby storeroom and placed it in front of Victory, blocking her from view.

He looked at Big Ears, who nodded.

Then Jack West Jr swallowed.

He couldn't believe what he was about to do.

With a deep breath, he stepped up onto the marble podium that was Zeus's armrest and pushed the Winged Victory of Samothrace- a priceless marble carving 2,200 years old-off its mount, to the floor.

No sooner had Victory tilted an inch off her mount than sirens started blaring and red lights started flas.h.i.+ng.

Great steel grilles came thundering down in every doorway- bam!-bam!-bam!-bam! bam!-bam!-bam!-bam!-sealing off the stairwell and the landing.

All except one doorway.

The southern doorway.

Its grille whizzed down on its runners- -only to bang to a halt two feet off the ground, stopped by the two solid treepots that Big Ears had placed beneath it moments earlier.

The getaway route.

Victory herself landed in the two potted trees that West had placed to her left, her fall cus.h.i.+oned by them.

West rushed to the upturned statue, and examined her feet, or rather the small cube-shaped marble pedestal on which her feet stood.

He pulled out a big wrench he'd taken from the maintenance room.

'May every archaeologist in the world forgive me,' he whispered as he swung down hard with the wrench.

Crack. Crack. Craaaack.

The tourists on the landing didn't know what was going on. A couple of men stepped forward to investigate the activity behind the screen, but Big Ears blocked their way with a fierce glare.

After West's three heavy blows, the little marble pedestal was no more-but revealed within it was a perfect trapezoid of solid gold, a perfect trapezoid of solid gold, maybe eighteen inches to a side. maybe eighteen inches to a side.

The Third Piece of the Capstone.

It had been embedded in Victory's marble pedestal.

'Lily!' West called. 'Get a look at this thing! In case we lose it later!'

Lily came over, gazed at the l.u.s.trous golden trapezoid, at the mysterious symbols carved into its top side.

'More lines of the two incantations,' she said.

'Good. Now let's go,' West said.

The Piece went into Big Ears's st.u.r.dy backpack and, with Lily running in the lead, suddenly they were off, sliding under the propped-open grille that led south.

No sooner were they through than West and Big Ears kicked the pot plants free and the grille slammed fully shut behind them.

Running flat out down a long long corridor, legs pumping, hearts pounding.

Shouts came from behind them-shouts in French, from the museum guards giving chase.

West spoke into his radio mike: 'Pooh Bear! Are you out there?'

'We're waiting! I hope you use the right window!'

'We'll find out soon enough!'

The corridor West was running down ended at a dramatic right-hand corner. This corner opened onto a superlong hallway that was actually the extreme southern flank of the Louvre. The hallway's entire left-hand wall was filled with masterpieces and the occasional high French window looking out over the Seine.

And right then, a second team of armed museum guards were running down it, shouting.

West hurled his huge wrench at the first French window in the hallway, shattering it. Gla.s.s sprayed everywhere.

He peered out the window.

To see Pooh Bear staring back at him, level with him, only a few feet away...

...standing on the open top deck of a double-decker bus!

Only one thing stands between the Louvre and the River Seine: a thin strip of road called the Quai des Tuileries. It is a long riverside roadway that follows the course of the river, variously rising and falling-rising up to bridges and dipping down into tunnels and underpa.s.ses.

It was on this road that Pooh Bear's recently-stolen double-decker bus now stood, parked alongside the Palais du Louvre. It was one of those bright red open-topped double-deckers that drive tourists around Paris, London and New York, allowing them to look up and around with ease.

'Well! What are you waiting for!' Pooh Bear yelled. 'Come on!'

'Right!'

West threw Lily across first, then pushed Big Ears with the Piece in his backpack, before finally jumping from the First Floor window onto the double-decker bus-just as the onrus.h.i.+ng guards in the hallway started firing at him.

A second after his feet hit the open top deck of the bus, Stretch, in the driver's seat, hit the gas and the bus took off and the chase began.

The big red double-decker bus rocked precariously as Stretch threw it through the midday Paris traffic at speeds it was never meant to reach.

Police sirens could be heard in the distance.

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