The Armageddon Protocol

TWENTY-FOUR

Harry craned his neck and looked up through the narrow angle between the rear window and the sky above the police cars now racing behind them. The New Yorker was right — the Super Cougar belonged to the Armée de Terre, and was almost certainly carrying a contingent of GIGN men.

The Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale or the National Gendarmie Intervention Group was an elite force of special operations police officers specializing in hostage rescue and counter-terrorism. It was great to know he, Lucia and Andrej had been assessed as worthy of such a high-level manhunt, and with the Czech’s stuttered, nervous words still echoing in his memory, Harry was starting to wonder exactly who was pulling all these strings. His Deep State hypothesis was starting to look more and more real with every second.

“Left here,” Andrej said.

With the Peugeots closing in, Zoey spun the wheel to the left and drove into the east end of the Rue Froidevaux. Harry looked to the left as the Montparnasse Cemetery flashed by them in a blur. The graves and tombs were blocked by a ten-foot high wall of old red brick and a row of plane trees, stripped of leaves by the season and slick with rain. The C3’s windshield wipers raced back and forth furiously as Zoey strained to see ahead.

“They’re still behind us,” Lucia said, glancing over her shoulder.

Niko peered up through his window. “And that chopper’s closing in.”

“Great,” Harry said. “We’re running out of options fast.”

Zoey was unmoved, and continued weaving the car in and out of the Paris traffic without blinking an eye.

“You seem very calm,” Harry said.

“This is nothing,” she said. “You ever heard of Giulio Greco?”

Harry checked the mirror again and nodded absent-mindedly. “The New York Mafia boss?”

“Vegas, but yeah. So after I knocked off his Downtown apartment they chased me with six cars all over town — and if those dudes caught me they weren’t gonna read me my rights, you know what I mean?”

Harry turned to face her. “You broke into Giulio Greco’s apartment?”

Zoey shrugged her shoulders. “Sure, why not?” She spun the wheel and swerved the C3 around a dawdling Ford Focus. “Girl’s gotta eat.”

“But he’s Giulio Greco!”

“And?”

“And he’s well-known to keep a grudge.”

“He’s gotta know who you are to keep a grudge, hun. I’m always on the move. Probably never go back to Sin City so who’s counting?”

“You’re almost mad enough to be in MI6,” Harry said.

Zoey turned to him for a second. “Wait — you were in the Catering Corps and MI6?”

“Not at the same time, but yes… guilty as charged — and it wasn’t the sodding Cater….”

“I knew you weren’t a librarian!” Zoey said, interrupting him.

She pulled up behind a man on a Vespa who was hogging the lane and blew the horn at him but elicited nothing more than a dismissive hand gesture casually waved over his shoulder. He didn’t even turn his head, and he kept going at the same speed.

“What now?”

“Bastard’s getting out my way, is what now,” Zoey said, and increased speed. A second later the front of the Citroën was pushing up against the rear mudguard of the scooter. A loud squealing noise filled the air and the Vespa began to swerve wildly from side to side.

The driver turned in his seat and screamed a load of abuse at them.

“So now I’ve got your attention, Francois, get out of my frigging way!”

He swerved violently out of sight but then it happened in a flash as they were approaching the southwest end of the Rue Froidevaux. Up ahead the entrance to the Catacombs was almost in sight when a monstrous armored truck belonging to the BRI ripped out of the Rue Roger and headed straight for them. The BRI were the Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention, better known as the Anti-Gang Brigade and they usually dealt with serious crimes like kidnapping cases or armed bank robberies, but today their attention was focussed on Harry Bane and his gang of fugitives.

“Speed up!” Harry yelled.

Zoey sighed as she slammed her foot on the accelerator. “You think?”

For a second, the Englishman thought they were going to make it, but then the armored Renault truck smashed into the back of the C3, just clipping the back panel and bumper. The force of the impact was colossal as the heavy armored truck ploughed into the much lighter Citroën and spun them around like a toy car until they were facing the other direction entirely.

As they spun, Harry saw the armored truck was going too fast to stop and smashed through the south wall of the cemetery before disappearing in a cloud of brick dust and exhaust fumes.

Zoey struggled with the wheel and tried to turn into the skid, which impressed Harry, but the momentum of the crash was just too great and they could all feel what was about to happen as the car began to tip over.

“Hold on!” Harry yelled.

And then the C3 went over, smashing down on its left-hand side so Zoey was now just inches from the road. They screeched to a halt in a shower of sparks.

Harry Bane felt the heat rising and knew things were getting well out of hand. Not only was he wanted for multiple murders in Spain, but now he was in the middle of a major incident in central Paris.

So much for a quiet drink and a few hands of blackjack.

He unbuckled his belt and looked around the car. His eyes were met with an unconscious Zoey Conway — her upper body was slumped forward into the airbag and only held up by the seatbelt. In the back, he heard Lucia groaning and turned to see her rubbing at a gash on her forehead. The impact at the rear of the vehicle had spun it around hard and she had smashed her head into the rear window pillar.

“Are you okay, Lucia?” Harry asked. As he moved forward to check her, Zoey began to come to in the front seat and beside her Niko was confused and moaning with pain.

“I think so… my head hurts. You?”

“I’m shaken, but not stirred.”

Zoey groaned. “Oh… give me a break…”

“What about you, Zoey — are you okay?” Harry asked.

“Sure, but with jokes like that I wish I was still unconscious.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, James.”

“007, eh?”

“In your case more like just a double zero.”

Harry gave her a look but now saw flames flicking up from under the hood, and turned to Liška. He was in the middle between him and Lucia and turning a pale green color.

“What about you?”

A sad nod.

“Listen, the car’s on fire so we have to get out of here right now.”

He had to move fast. With flames crawling all over the engine compartment and the sound of the Peugeots growing in the distance, it was game over in less than two minutes.

Harry opened his door and climbed up and out of the car, and in the front Niko popped his belt and followed the same way. Standing on top of the stricken C3, Harry helped Andrej and Lucia out of the back and then leaned into the front to help pull Zoey free, but she was searching through the glove box under the dash.

“Hurry up!” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere without Sally.”

“Eh?”

She pulled a Smith & Wesson Crimson Trace snub-nose revolver from the glove compartment and slipped it in her bag.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Nice snub-nose.”

Zoey make a big show of fluttering her eyelashes. “I do hope you’re referring to my gun, sir.”

“Of course.”

“Good. You got me into this, Mister, and you’re damn well going to get me out of it.” As she spoke she grabbed a small flashlight as well. “Not going caving without one of these.”

They clambered out the car and emerged into the noisy chaos of the cold Paris afternoon. A column of black smoke was belching up into the sky from the armored truck in the graveyard, and above them the Super Cougar was circling and trying to get a clear shot through the smoke.

Two of the police Peugeots screeched to a halt at the end of the road and officers tumbled out and raised their guns at them. A senior officer began to bark instructions through a megaphone and then without warning Zoey fired just once but the single shot was enough to send the French police into a frenzied spiral of over-reaction.

Lucia jumped when the gun went off, and Harry’s mind raced as he calculated what to do next. He was already starting to regret telling the casino floor manager to let Lucia Serrano into the bar. At the time it had felt like the right thing to do, but now he was getting the impression his life was better before all of this started.

“Which way?” Zoey said.

“I’m guessing the large painted words saying Entree des Catacombs and the big white arrows pointing in that direction are a clue,” Harry said.

Zoey gave him a look, but before she could reply, Andrej spoke. “He’s right — the entrance is just over here.”

Deep beneath Paris is a sprawling network of underground tunnels formed by the limestone mines of previous centuries. The general public is banned from exploring the notorious tunnels, but this doesn’t stop the occasional daredevil or thrill seeker from descending into the darkness beneath the southern arrondissements of the city.

The most famous part of these tunnels is the Catacombs of Paris, the world’s most famous ossuary. Containing over six million skeletons, the Catacombs were created by the city’s authorities during a crisis in the 1780s when the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery in central Paris no longer had any room in its mass graves.

Because they were once mines, there were over two hundred entrances into the Catacombs, but only one reserved for official use, and now as they approached this entrance, Harry glanced over his shoulder to see the remaining police officers bearing down on them. “It’s now or never,” he said, looking up at the warning above the door: Arrète! C’est ici l’empire de la mort.

“What the hell does that mean?” Zoey said.

“It’s telling us to stop, because this is Death’s empire.”

“Oh, that’s okay then,” she said. “I was afraid it was something bad.”

“This is where the nanodust is hidden,” Andrej said apologetically. “We have no choice if we want to secure it, plus we should be more afraid of the living than the dead.”

“I’m more concerned about how we’re going to get out,” Harry said, looking back at the police. They were now fanning out and making their way toward them from the end of the street.

“They’re going to be all over our asses in a few seconds, Harry,” Zoey said. “We have to get this thing on right now.”

They raced down the stairs and entered the Empire of Death. The City of Lights was gone now, replaced with a dark, cold vault whose ceiling was supported with crumbling stone pillars. “Which way now, Andrej?”

“This way,” the Czech scientist said, with the panic in his voice clear for all to hear. “We must go this way.”

Behind them at the top of the stairs they heard men screaming in French and then the sound of boots pounding down the steps. Without delay, they began to run along the narrow Port-Mahon corridor and then turned onto the famous Quarrymen’s footpath.

Passing a circular staircase that wound its way downwards until disappearing into a pool of frozen black water, Zoey turned to Andrej. “I hope you can remember where this damned thing is, Chekov,” she said, sliding some gum into her mouth. “Because I ain’t never been caught by the law or anyone else and I don’t intend to start now.”

“We met in jail cell,” Harry said. “How’s that you not getting caught?”

“If it’s not overnight, it doesn’t count,” she said with pride. “That’s what Mack used to say.”

“Who’s Mack?”

“An old friend. Taught me everything I know.”

Harry shook his head in disbelief. His service in MI6 had sent him to dozens of different countries and he’d met countless hundreds of people in his travels from every walk of life, but he’d never met anyone quite like Zoey Conway before.

But he had no time to think about her or anything else because right then they reached the main attraction — the Ossuary.