Seven Ancient Wonders

The chase would be carried out by the French Army.

Just as West had anticipated.

And so, as the big red double-decker bus shot away from the Obelisk and its wrecked outer structure, the Parisian police didn't follow. They just maintained their positions around the perimeter of the Place de la Concorde.

Moments later, five green-painted heavily-armed fast-attack reconnaissance vehicles whooshed past the cop cars and shot off after the great ungainly bus.

Horns honked and sirens blared as the double-decker bus roared down the Quai des Tuileries on the edge of the River Seine for the second time that day—weaving between the thin daytime traffic, blasting through red lights, causing all manner of havoc.

Behind it were the five French Army recon vehicles.

Each was a compact three-man scout car known as a Panhard VBL. Fitted with a turbo-charged four-wheel- drive diesel engine and a sleek arrow-shaped body, the Panhard was a swift and nimble all-terrain vehicle that looked like an armour-plated version of a sports 4x4.

The Panhards chasing West were fitted with every variety of gun turret: some had long-barrelled 12.7 mm machine guns, others had fearsome-looking TOW missile launchers.

Within moments of the chase beginning, they were all over the speeding bus.

They opened fire, shattering every window on the bus's left-hand side—a second before the bus roared into a tunnel, blocking their angle of fire.

Two of the Army Panhards tried to squeeze past the bus inside the tunnel, but Stretch swerved toward them, ramming them into the wall of the tunnel, grinding them against it.

With nowhere to go, both Panhards skidded and flipped . . . and rolled . . . tumbling end over end until they crashed to twin halts on their roofs.

On the upper deck, Pooh Bear and West rocked with every swerve, tried to return fire. Pooh spied one of the TOW missile launchers on one Panhard.

'They've got missiles!' he yelled.

West called, 'They won't use them! They can't risk destroying the Piece!'

'West!' Stretch's voice came over their radios. 'It's only a matter of time before they barricade off this road! What do we do?'

'We drive faster!' West replied. 'We have to get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge—'

Shoom—/

—they blasted out of the tunnel, back into sunlight, just in time to see two French Army helicopters sweep into positions above them.

They were two very different types of chopper: one was a small Gazelle gunship, sleek and fast and bristling with guns and missile pods.

The other was bigger and much scarier: it was a Super Puma troop carrier, the French equivalent of the American Super Stallion. Big and tough, a Super Puma could carry twenty-five fully armed troops.

Which was exactly what this chopper was carrying.

As it flew low over the top of the speeding double-decker bus, along the rising-and-falling roadway on the north bank of the Seine, its side door slid open and drop-ropes were flung from within it—and the French plan became clear.

They were going to storm the bus—the moving bus!

At the same moment, three of the pursuing Panhards swept up alongside the bus, surrounding it.

'I think we're screwed already,' Stretch said flatly.

But he yanked on his steering anyway—ramming hard into the Panhard to his right, forcing it clear off the roadway, right through the low guard-rail fence . . . where it shot high into the air, wheels spinning, and went crashing down into the river with a gigantic splash.

Up on the top deck, West tried to fire at the hovering Super Puma above him, but a withering volley from the Gazelle gunship forced

him to dive for the floor. Every single passenger seat on the top deck of the bus was ripped to shreds by the barrage of bullets.

'Stretch! More swerving, please!' he yelled, but it was too late.

The first two daredevil French paratroopers from the Super Puma landed with twin thumps on the open top deck of the moving double-decker bus only a few feet in front of him.

They saw West instantly, lying in the aisle between the seats: exposed, done for. They whipped up their guns and pulled the

trigg—

—just as the floor beneath them erupted with holes, bullet holes from a shocking burst of fire from somewhere underneath them.

The two French troopers fell, dead, and a moment later, Pooh Bear's head popped up from the stairwell.

'Did I get them? Did I get them? Are you okay?' he said to West.

'I'm all right,' West said, hurrying down the stairs to the lower deck. 'Come on, we've gotta get to the Charles de Gaulle Bridge before this bus falls apart!'

The rising-and-falling riverside drive that they were speeding along would normally have been a tourist's delight: after leaving the Louvre behind, the roadway swooped by the first of the two islands that lie in the middle of the Seine, the He de la Cite. Numerous bridges spanning the river rushed by on the right, giving access to the island.

If West's team continued along the riverside road, they would soon arrive at the Arsenal precinct—the area where the Bastille once stood.

After that came two bridges: the Pont d'Austerlitz and the Pont Charles de Gaulle, the latter of which sat beside the very modern headquarters of the Ministry of Economics, Finances and Industry, which itself sat next-door to the Gare de Lyon, the large train station that serviced south-eastern France with high-speed trains.

The big red tourist bus whipped along the riverside road, weaving through traffic, ramming the pursuing Army cars with wild abandon.

It shot underneath several overpasses and over some raised intersections. At one stage the spectacular Notre Dame Cathedral whizzed by on the right, but this was perhaps the only tourist bus in the world that didn't care for the sight.

As soon as West had abandoned the upper deck of the bus, the French troops on the Super Puma above him went for it in earnest—despite Stretch's best efforts at evasive weaving.

And within a minute, they took it.

First, two troopers landed on the open top deck, whizzing down

the drop-ropes suspended from the chopper. They were quickly followed by two more, two more and two more.

The eight French troopers now moved to the rear stairwell of the bus, guns up, preparing to storm the lower deck . . .

. . . just as, downstairs, West called: 'Stretch! They're crawling all over the roof! See that exit ramp up ahead! Roll us over it!'

Immediately ahead of them was another overpass, with an exit ramp rising to meet it on the right-hand side of the riverside drive. A low concrete guard-rail fence separated this ramp from the roadway which continued on underneath the overpass as a tunnel.

'What?' Stretch shouted back.

'Just do it!' West yelled. 'Everybody, grab onto something! Hang on!'

They hit the exit ramp at speed, and rose up it briefly—

—at which moment Stretch yanked left on the steering wheel, and the bus lurched leftward, hitting the concrete guard-rail and . . .

. . . tipped over it!

The double-decker bus overbalanced shockingly and rolled over the concrete fence, using the fence as a fulcrum. As such, the entire double-decker bus rolled, going fully upside-down—off the exi ramp, back down onto the roadway proper—where it