The Paris Protection Read Online Free Page B

room was stripped, forgotten after the war, abandoned in the darkness for all eternity by soldiers long since dead.
    Mehmet, the older of the two guides spoke to him. “We are very near point Beta,” he said, pointing at a map in a soft binder of pages in plastic sleeves. “The tunnels used by the Inspection Générale des Carrières are just ahead. We will be at the old aqueduct in less than five minutes.”
    “And we still believe going through the catacombs is the best route?” Maximilian asked.
    “Yes,” Mehmet said. “Fastest and safest. Won’t get lost in them . . . won’t have collapses.”
    These were advantages enough, but he also saw value in taking his men through the Empire of the Dead before assassinating the American president. It would put his men into a dark and sober mind-set before the attack. And days from now, when investigators started putting together the pieces of what had happened on this singular night, the added horror of the catacombs’ part in the story would send chills down the spine of every American. The effect was too perfect to pass up, and it was exactly the sort of strategy that Hannibal would have taken.
    The tunnel narrowed, and a pair of large rusted pipes stretched down the corridor only a foot above his head before curving right and disappearing down a branching corridor. The ceiling was lower now, and it was clear they were past the shelter area.
    His heartbeat ramped up as the team hurried through the claustrophobia-inducing passageway. By attacking at night, they had the most flexible time schedule in case they should have trouble navigating the web of tunnels. In preparation for his plans, the guides had spent months walking and, where necessary, crawling through much of the two hundred miles of passageways that honeycombed the bedrock below Paris. They shouldn’t get lost. But like Hannibal in the Alps, he must move his men with caution as well as speed, for over the centuries, the tunnels had been known to take the lives of lost visitors. But they had time. The president wouldn’t leave the hotel tonight, and the US Secret Service would soon fall into a strong but predictable night watch.
    The bricks lining the tunnel walls were now larger, which meant this part was older. Maximilian smiled, knowing they had just entered the concentrated network of IGC access tunnels west of the old Arcueil Aqueduct. The Rochefoucauld Hospital was somewhere on the streets far above them. He slowed to give the line of men another chance to close the gaps.
    Red graffiti scarred the bricks near him, as if the walls were bleeding. This was the hell he must journey through to pay for failing to protect the man who would have brought peace to his country—a peace that would have protected Naomi and Eli. A peace that would have prevented him from becoming the monster he now saw every time his dark, dead eyes gazed for too long into the mirror.
    His past haunted him now more than ever. But after tonight, his demons would leave him forever.
    Now in the IGC tunnels, they often encountered diverging paths. Mehmet and his assistant led the way with spotlights glued to their plastic-covered maps. No more straight running, for they continually hit forks and were constantly turning, this path then that path, as if in a hedge maze with a low ceiling and stone walls. Maximilian was disoriented by the headlamp beams slicing through the enclosing shroud of darkness. The floor crunched as the men’s boots trod the grains of rock that had fallen from the walls and ceiling over the centuries. Without the guides, he would have been lost.
    Then, after moving through the IGC tunnels for what seemed an eternity, the tunnel came to a dead end. It was filled with gray concrete that reflected his light more brightly than the darker-gray rock walls and ceiling he had encountered so far.
    “Is that it?” he asked excitedly.
    “Yes,” Mehmet said, looking from the wall to the plastic-sheaved map.
    “The