Triple Threat - James Patterson Page 0,47

was little the exhausted soldiers could do to help. They gave her directions to the nearest emergency government shelter, only a few kilometers away, but warned it was already filled to twice its intended capacity.

It wasn’t worth the risk. Chloe ducked inside the first suitable place she saw—an abandoned bakery—and hunkered down with Eli for the night.

Using napkins and pastry boxes as tinder, she started a small fire—not just for warmth, but in hopes that the flames would help hide her and her son’s scents from any nearby creatures. Chloe also found a few ancient mille-feuille pastries still in the cracked display case, which she shared with Eli as a little treat. They were hard as rocks but, given the circumstances, tasted absolutely delicious.

Early the next morning, the rain came. Chloe considered staying inside the bakery, where it was nice and dry, but decided against it.

Oz would likely be calling the apartment to check in, and he would grow sick with worry when no one answered. Chloe knew she had to let her husband know that she and Eli were all right. She’d memorized his satellite phone number, thankfully, but how could she—

No. First things first. Chloe had to get somewhere safe. That was the priority.

But where? She racked her brain. Government shelters were bursting at the seams, and she’d heard horror stories about the conditions inside. She still had a few old friends and distant relatives in the city, but no way of contacting them or even learning if they were alive—let alone if they’d take her and Eli in. She could try to get ahold of Oz, but even if he pulled every string he could at the highest levels of the American government, an evacuation would take too long.

There was one other option.

About a week ago, Chloe had overheard her stepmother speaking with a neighbor, a middle-aged political science professor named Pierre. He’d heard from a colleague that a few hundred people had built a shelter, or a fortified commune, at Versailles—not inside the famous palace itself but somewhere close by. It was open to all and apparently safer, cleaner, and better run than any government one.

Chloe has no idea whether this magical place really exists or not. But the Batterie de Bouviers, an old fortification built in the 1870s, is a few miles from the palace gardens and would make the perfect spot for it.

Versailles is over ten miles from the center of Paris, roughly where she is now. That’s a grueling hike with a four-year-old on a perfect day. On a cold and rainy one, with feral animals stalking the streets? Forget it.

Chloe knows she might be insane for putting any faith at all into this too-good-to-be-true rumor. But, really, what other choice does she have?

Pulling the trash bag around the two of them like a shawl, Chloe sets out with Eli.

In the waning daylight, she certainly feels safer than she did last night. But she can finally see in full, stark relief just how hellish things have gotten in her beloved city. The shattered storefronts. The overturned cars and buses. The gutters flowing with human blood.

Clutching Eli even closer, she turns onto Boulevard Saint-Michel. Once one of the city’s scenic tree-lined streets, it now looks like a deserted war zone.

Chloe is hurrying along the sidewalk, staying close to the buildings for cover…when she hears something. A low rumbling. Or growling. Speeding toward her.

She tenses. She says a silent prayer. She looks up.

But it’s not an animal.

It’s a gray Citroën Jumper, a boxy commercial van. It screeches to a halt beside her and its rear doors fly open.

“Mes amis!” says one of the young women inside, flashing Chloe a clownlike grin and holding what looks like a medieval dagger. “My friends! You must get off the street. It is not safe. Come with us, quickly!”

Like the other seven or eight people crammed inside the van, this woman’s head is completely shaved, and she’s wearing a flowing brown robe tied at the waist.

Chloe stands completely frozen—terrified, but trying desperately not to look it. She’s never seen these freaks before in her life.

But she knows exactly who they are.

“You are…the Fraterre?” she asks nervously.

“Oui!” the woman happily exclaims. “Now hurry, we don’t have much time!”

The Fraterre, short for La Fraternité de la Terre. The Brotherhood of the Earth.

Chloe has heard rumors about this group, an eccentric cult—part Greenpeace, part Heaven’s Gate. It sprung up across France over the past few months in bizarre, quasi-spiritual solidarité with Mother