feed from the Louvre security center. "GrandeGalerie! Toilettes Messieurs!"
Fache wheeled to Collet. "Where's Langdon?"
"Still in the men's room!" Collet pointed to the blinking red dot on his laptop schematic. "He must have broken the window!" Collet knew Langdon wouldn't get far. Although Paris fire codes required windows above fifteen meters in public buildings be breakable in case of fire, exiting a Louvre second-story window without the help of a hook and ladder would be suicide. Furthermore, there were no trees or grass on the western end of the Denon Wing to cushion a fall. Directly beneath that rest room window, the two-lane Place du Carrousel ran within a few feet of the outer wall. "My God," Collet exclaimed, eyeing the screen. "Langdon's moving to the window ledge!"
But Fache was already in motion. Yanking his Manurhin MR-93 revolver from his shoulder holster, the captain dashed out of the office.
Collet watched the screen in bewilderment as the blinking dot arrived at the window ledge and then did something utterly unexpected. The dot moved outside the perimeter of the building.
What's going on? he wondered. Is Langdon out on a ledge or -
"Jesu!" Collet jumped to his feet as the dot shot farther outside the wall. The signal seemed to shudder for a moment, and then the blinking dot came to an abrupt stop about ten yards outside the perimeter of the building.
Fumbling with the controls, Collet called up a Paris street map and recalibrated the GPS. Zooming in, he could now see the exact location of the signal.
It was no longer moving.
It lay at a dead stop in the middle of Place du Carrousel. Langdon had jumped.
Chapter 18-20
CHAPTER 18
Fache sprinted down the Grand Gallery as Collet's radio blared over the distant sound of the alarm.
"He jumped!" Collet was yelling. "I'm showing the signal out on Place du Carrousel! Outside the bathroom window! And it's not moving at all! Jesus, I think Langdon has just committed suicide!"
Fache heard the words, but they made no sense. He kept running. The hallway seemed never-ending. As he sprinted past Sauniere's body, he set his sights on the partitions at the far end of the Denon Wing. The alarm was getting louder now.
"Wait!" Collet's voice blared again over the radio. "He's moving! My God, he's alive. Langdon's moving!"
Fache kept running, cursing the length of the hallway with every step.
"Langdon's moving faster!" Collet was still yelling on the radio. "He's running down Carrousel. Wait... he's picking up speed. He's moving too fast!"
Arriving at the partitions, Fache snaked his way through them, saw the rest room door, and ran for it.
The walkie-talkie was barely audible now over the alarm. "He must be in a car! I think he's in a car! I can't - "
Collet's words were swallowed by the alarm as Fache finally burst into the men's room with his gun drawn. Wincing against the piercing shrill, he scanned the area.
The stalls were empty. The bathroom deserted. Fache's eyes moved immediately to the shattered window at the far end of the room. He ran to the opening and looked over the edge. Langdon was nowhere to be seen. Fache could not imagine anyone risking a stunt like this. Certainly if he had dropped that far, he would be badly injured.
The alarm cut off finally, and Collet's voice became audible again over the walkie-talkie. "... moving south... faster... crossing the Seine on Pont du Carrousel!" Fache turned to his left. The only vehicle on Pont du Carrousel was an enormous twin-bed Trailor delivery truck moving southward away from the Louvre. The truck's open-air bed was covered with a vinyl tarp, roughly resembling a giant hammock. Fache felt a shiver of apprehension. That truck, only moments ago, had probably been stopped at a red light directly beneath the rest room window.
An insane risk, Fache told himself. Langdon had no way of knowing what the truck was carrying beneath that tarp. What if the truck were carrying steel? Or cement? Or even garbage? A forty-foot leap? It was madness.
"The dot is turning!" Collet called. "He's turning right on Pont des Saints-Peres!"
Sure enough, the Trailor truck that had crossed the bridge was slowing down and making a right turn onto Pont des Saints-Peres. So be it, Fache thought. Amazed, he watched the truck disappear around the corner. Collet was already radioing the agents outside, pulling them off the Louvre perimeter and sending them to their patrol cars in pursuit, all the while broadcasting the truck's changing location like some kind of