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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Createspace
ISBN-10: 1506197701
Type: Fiction
Pages: 366
Copyright: 1915
ISBN-13: 9781506197708
Price: $4.00 (eBook)
Hostages are taken inside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and The Euros group races to rescue them and the cathedral from the ruthless men inside the building.
How would you rescue women and children held hostage in Notre Dame cathedral in Paris by faceless, nameless and ruthless men, who have attached bombs to each hostage, and threaten to blow up the cathedral if their demands are not met?
That is the problem that The Euros face in this, the first book of a series about them.
The Euros is the name for the Euro Protection Bureau, the highly skilled, well trained super cops unit formed to protect the European Union from threats to its integrity.
With five headquarters - the Puzzle House in London, the Grooming House in Paris, the Toy House in Berlin, the Garage in Rome, and the Story House in Prague - the Puzzlemaker and Headmaster, directors of the London and Paris HQs, have limited time to find a way to make themselves invisible so that they might enter the cathedral, rescue the hostages, save the cathedral, and capture the Bad Guys.
As little children are marched to Point Zero in front of the cathedral, with flickering lights on their explosive vests, and the Headmaster is forced to go into the cathedral, the PuzzleMaker turns to Knuckles, the leader of the Onsite Prediction Unit, to cast her knucklebones and help him anticipate the actions of the Bad Guys.
He also asks a young gypsy girl to help him, and the Gypsy takes him on a hair-raising trip through the catacombs and sewers of Paris.
Excerpt
Knuckles and Control entered the operations room where the rest of The Euros team waited for a debriefing on the questions answered by the expert.
“They kept tight control over him,” Knuckles explained, as she placed her bones on the table before her, next to the folder with the written questions and answers. “Just inside the door a masked man asked for his name, and then selected one of three - I guess we could call them blinders – and fitted it to his head.”
“Blinders?” someone asked.
“Yes. A bit like those funnels you put on a dog’s head to stop it from scratching its ears after an operation. Or the blinkers sometimes used for horses, to narrow their field of vision. He says he could only see what was visible in the small tunnel in front of his head, nothing else. He could not move his head from side to side. The Bad Guy grabbed him and forced him to frog march into the cathedral. His hands were constrained, but left free enough so that he could use his sensing equipment to confirm that there were explosives in the places his guide said they were.”
“Did he hear any voices at all?”
“Earphones were placed on his head; the only thing he could hear after that was one voice.”
“Who spoke to him through the earphones?” the Headmaster asked.
Knuckles shook her head. “It was a second Bad Guy, not the one taking him on the tour. Both voices sounded almost the same: metallic, distorted. Sounds like the voice we hear on the phone.”
“What did the voice say?”
“He was warned to do only what he was told to do, or the little girl would be killed.”
“Where did they take him?”
“He was shown two of the pillars holding up the roof; both had thick layers of plastic explosives strapped around them. He thinks the pillars would be badly damaged if the explosives were triggered. And this could endanger the roof, but he doesn’t know enough about it to be firm on this point.”
“Any other explosive caches shown to him?”
“He saw through the grille around the choir stalls more explosives stacked near the Pieta statue. And as he was taken back to the door, he saw explosive cords right around the doorway, and packages of what he assumed were more explosives.”
She looked up at Control.
“We should assume every door into Notre Dame is also primed to blow,” she said.
“My God!” the Historian exclaimed, his head snapping up as he remembered something. “The roof! There is a forest of wooden beams up there, all old and dry! I forgot to tell you when we talked about similarities between the old Commune and these men, but in 1871, the rebels marched into the cathedral and forced the clergy out. Then they plundered the Treasury. When they started to withdraw, they brought two wagons loaded with petroleum, to set fire to the cathedral.”
His pale face showed his horror.
“They piled up chairs in five different spots, poured petroleum over them and added gunpowder. A fire was started in the choir, and caused some damage; it also burned the altar and some of the flagstones. The heat from the burning chairs melted seven of the bronze lamps that were hanging from the roof. But then the rebels feared the fire might reach the Hôtel-Dieu, where some rebels were being treated, so they did not spread it. Instead, they fled, and people rushed in to save it.”
He grasped Knuckle’s arm.
“Did he say anything about what explosives have been put in the roof?”
She shook her head. “He was not taken up the stairs to the roof, but he was told that explosives had also been placed in the roof.”
The Historian screwed his eyes shut, clasped his hands before him, and started a silent prayer.
“Nor did they tell him where the roof explosives had been placed,” she continued.”
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