Leah described someone who could only be Thierry. Aimee hit 'Eject,' grabbed the floppy, and ran down the stairs. By the door, she deactivated the security system in just the way Solange had described. On her way out, she tiptoed past the guard, who didn't even snort himself awake.
By the time she stood at the traffic light on the corner of rue de Rivoli, she knew she was being followed. She ducked into the Metro, remembering how she and Martine used to hide from their cronies after school. Latched to the tiled walls were hinges that held the swing doors of the Metro, and enough empty space for two giggling teenagers. Now it was a harder squeeze for her. But she just fit. A big rush of hot air, the screech of brakes, and the whoosh of pounding feet as passengers disgorged up the steps past Aimee. She counted to thirty, then ran back up the Metro steps and found a taxi by the western entrance of the Louvre.
'WHERE IS SARAH?' AIMEE asked into her cell phone.
'You haven't found her?' Hartmuth said.
From the second floor of her cousin Sebastian's cluttered antique poster store on rue St. Paul in the Marais, she surveyed the narrow alley wedged below her. Sarah, not realizing the danger from her son, had gone with Thierry. Or maybe he had forced her.
Aimee pushed that thought from her mind. She had to get to a computer with municipal on-line capability and find Sarah.
Sebastian, in black leather pants, jacket, and matching black bushy beard, was helping outfit Rene. She'd rescued Sebastian once, her cousin by marriage and a former junkie. As he often said, he owed her for at least one lifetime.
Rene emerged from the upstairs loft, his arm hanging in a sling, wearing a fisherman's vest customized with flashlights Velcroed in all the pockets. Sebastian gently lifted him up and down into thigh-high rubber fishing boots.
'What's the salamander?' Aimee said into the phone.
Hartmuth let out a ripple of breath. 'The marble arms of Francois the First.'
Loud rumbling noises from below reached her ears. Sounds of distant thunder came from the direction of Bastille.
'Skip the history lesson,' she said, frustrated that she might be too late. 'What does it mean?'
'The salamander is a sculpture, carved in the arch of the seventeenth century building she'd lived in, opposite the catacombs.'
Below her on narrow, medieval rue St. Paul, the street slowly filled with a line of khaki light utility tanks. Sleek and streamlined Humvees rolled over the cobblestones, straddling the stone
'Has there been a bombing?' Aimee said.
'Radicals versus rightists,' Hartmuth said. 'I'm afraid I have something to do with it.'
'What do you mean?'
Hartmuth's voice sounded tired. 'My failure to vote. The EU was unable to ratify the trade agreement with its exclusionary policies.'
'Thierry took Sarah to the catacombs,' she said. 'How does he know about them?'
'I showed him the old exit,' Hartmuth sighed. 'Hidden in the Square Georges-Cain.'
'Meet me there,' Aime said. She clicked off.
'We won't get through on any surface route, Aimee,' Rene said as he walked over to her. 'Checkpoints all over, armed militia is sealing the Marais.'
She kissed him on both cheeks. 'I cracked Soli Hecht's locked file with 'Checkmate.''
Rene smiled. 'Ditto.'
'Great minds think alike, eh?' she said. 'That's why we're going underground.'
'The catacombs don't extend this side of the rue St. Antoine,' he said.
'But the sewers do, Rene.'
He rolled his eyes. 'You know I don't do well with. . .'
'Rodents, me neither, but Sebastian's got something to help us with that,' she said. 'Did you bring the laptop?'
'Talk about addicted to computers!' he said. 'Making a wounded man just out of the hospital borrow pirated software from friends!' He growled but his eyes shone. 'I love it! What is the plan?'
'Hook the laptop to the municipal system and access FRAPOL 1 incognito,' she said.
'Why?' Rene winced as he slung the backpack over his good shoulder.
'So I can identify that bloody fingerprint and find out who owns the building in the Marais,' she said. 'I'll nail the killer in dot matrix or laser gray scale.' She quickly changed behind a 1930s poster that proclaimed 'Ski the Alpes Maritimes' with parka-clad figures cavorting stiffly among old-fashioned ski lifts.
'Unload here or outside?' Sebastian asked, his beard muffling his voice. He had arranged everything she asked for.
She nodded to the rear door, which opened on a rain-soaked alley. He bundled up the bulky materials, then crouched under the eaves of his shop, his black leather pants glistening with raindrops.
'Thanks.' She sidled near him in her dark vinyl hooded jumpsuit.
She gripped the handle of a small gray box, while Sebastian lugged a large backpack. They trudged in the light rain along the cobbled alley to the Quai des Celestins, a block away. Rene kept up the rear.
'What about the inhabitants below?' Rene said. 'The ones with long greasy tails?'
She pointed to the box. 'Sonic disturbance. They hate it. At least that's what the advertisement promised.'
'It's high tech all the way with you, Aimee,' Rene puffed.
'You're the one who's bothered by the rats, remember? Didn't you mention the epidemic proportions of rabies among the rodent population as recently as last week?' She tried not to sound out of breath. 'This is the best I can do on such short notice.'
Sebastian smiled out of his beard and Rene just glared.
'The back door to my place is always open, Aimee; just jiggle the hinges and slip in the bolt,' he said.
'Sounds obscene,' Rene muttered.
Sebastian grinned and was gone.
Aimee slid a thin metal rod out of her sleeve and hooked it under a sewer lid. Using a quick twist and thrust, she hauled the lid up and onto the pavement with a loud scrape. As inconspicuously as possible—on a quai overlooking the Seine with a dwarf at twilight—she gestured elegantly.
'After you,' she said.
She hefted the backpack, then gripped the box as she climbed down the slippery rungs. Finally, she pulled the heavy, scraping lid back on top of them and it clanged shut.
A rotten mix of vegetables, feces, and clay and the smell of the sewers wafted through the damp tunnel. Dripping concrete arches oozed shiny patterns as if a giant snail had slimed over them.
Whenever Rene moved, the flashlight beams bobbed and bounced off the subterranean sewer walls. Splashes came from down the passage, and when he turned, pairs of beady red eyes were locked into the flashlight beams. It was no time to be squeamish but hordes of squealing rats were hard to ignore. She opened the box and switched the sonic meter on. The arrow wavered, dipped to zero, then shot up to five hundred decibels. Flat buzzing was emitted from the box, echoing off the dripping sewer walls.
'It's a good thing this frequency is only audible to animal ears,' she said.
Rene looked dubious. 'Do they get hypnotized like deer?' he asked as the rats remained staring at them.
'I doubt it,' she said and shivered. These rats were the size of rabbits.
