The Loch Ness Legacy Read Free Page B

Tyler said.
    The minister translated, and this time the response was immediate.
    “He says it’s 9,240 kilograms.”
    Tyler looked down at his phone and clenched his jaw when he saw the screen. That was the correct figure.
    “Is that right?” the minister asked.
    Tyler glanced at Brielle, who tilted her head in frustration. “You’re joking.”
    “He’s correct,” Tyler said with surprise. He had been so confident this was part of the attack plan.
    The minister stared at Tyler, then gestured to the maintenance men as he spoke. They picked up their bags and began to move toward the east pillar.
    “Dr. Locke, Ms. Cohen,” Fournier said, “you are no longer welcome at this party. Please leave. Now.”
    Tyler wheeled around. He couldn’t shake the intuition that something wasn’t right about this situation. Before he had time to complete that thought, he spotted movement inside the closed gift shop pavilion across from the Salle Gustave Eiffel and realized what was happening.
    The maintenance workers had been sent up as a distraction. All of the police officers now had their backs to the gift shop.
    “Down!” Tyler shouted, grabbing Brielle with one hand and tackling Fournier with the other arm.
    Automatic weapon fire split the air, killing one of the policemen instantly. The minister was hit in the leg as they fell.
    Brielle scrambled behind a metal girder and Tyler dragged the minister with him to join her.
    Fournier’s eyes were wide with shock. “What’s happening?”
    Rounds pinged off the iron around them. Another policeman went down, and the rest were pinned by the withering assault.
    Now Tyler realized why the elevator had been disabled. It would take several minutes for the police at the base to climb the tower. By then the attack would be over.
    The gunmen didn’t have enough manpower to wipe out the guests, but they could keep them inside the reception hall, which Tyler now believed was the real objective. That conclusion was reinforced when he heard the first explosion.

TWO
     
     
    As Grant picked himself off the floor, shards of shattered glass tumbled down his tuxedo. If he hadn’t seen the shadowy shape careening toward the window two seconds before it exploded, he would have caught the glass full in the face.
    Panicked party-goers, some of them bloodied, screamed past Grant as they searched for an escape, but between the gunfire on the tower’s deck and the explosion outside the window, there was nowhere to find safety. Grant was relieved to see no bodies lying on the floor. The blast must have been timed to blow out the window, leaving an open space for the next bomb to fly through.
    Cool air streamed into the room through the gaping hole where the window used to be. Grant blinked and looked for the source of the airborne explosive, but there was no way to see where the attack had been launched from. A rocket-propelled grenade would have left a telltale streak of flame as it rocketed toward its target, but the attackers were using stealthier quadcopters for the assault. The sophisticated flying bombs weren’t much bigger than a large garbage can lid and were painted black, making them incredibly difficult to see in the night sky. The quadcopters’ bare bones design consisted of nothing more than a central pod carrying the control mechanism and high explosive, with a propeller on each of its four articulated arms.
    The only reason Grant had gotten a warning at all that a bomb had been on its way was because of the preventive measures he and Tyler set up in the hotel room they had rented near the Eiffel Tower. They’d left the multi-paned window open so that their proprietary motion-tracking system would have a clear view of the tower.
    The portable DeadEye targeting system was a product of Gordian Engineering, the firm the two of them worked for and that Tyler had founded. DeadEye had been developed for the military to help infantry units spot snipers. It took a snapshot image of a scene