The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

A plainclothes officer, a woman with dark hair and a no-nonsense attitude, pushed through the uniforms. “You must come with us,” she said in firm but charmingly accented English.

“Sorry, ma’am, we can’t do that,” Mack said.

“But I insist,” the woman said. “We know that you were involved in the disturbing incidents on the bridge. People were hurt.”

“Sorry about that. But we’re kind of in the middle of something,” Mack said. Again in his most winning, charming, harmless, trustworthy, smiling way.

“I am Inspecteur Bonnard of the police nationale,” she said. It wasn’t in the nature of a friendly introduction. “You will come peacefully. Or you will come with … difficulty. But either way, you will come.”

“Boat,” Stefan said. Just that one word. And his eyes flicked toward the bateau mouche that was passing beneath them.

“We’ll get killed,” Mack hissed, still smiling at the inspecteur in an ingratiating way that really wasn’t working.

“Nah,” Jarrah said dismissively. “We’ll most likely survive.”

“I will count to three,” the inspecteur said. “I will not count slowly.”

“Oy,” Mack said, and sighed. “Everyone? Follow me.”

He turned suddenly and raced for the railing on the far side of the bridge. The police were not slow to notice. From both sides the uniforms surged.

Mack jumped, landed on the rail, and leaped.

* * *

Twenty-three

* * *

Now, if this were a movie, we’d know exactly what happens next. The Magnifica plus Stefan would leap and then fall in slow motion while yelling comical catchphrases. They would land on the bateau mouche’s awning and slide down safely, and the cops would be left fuming helplessly.

Ah, if only life could be a movie. Or a movie could be life. Although not some movies.

As it happened, Mack did not land on an awning; he landed on a transparent covering that looked like it might be glass but was in fact plastic. The plastic didn’t break. It cracked from the impact but it was thick and str

ong, so it didn’t shatter. Mack landed hard on his heels, fell on his butt, smacked his head, and lay as stunned as a slapped catfish.33

Sylvie, Xiao, and Charlie all landed in a heap of tangled legs and arms. The two girls seemed to have landed on top of Charlie, who softened their landing but was now groaning that his back was broken. (It wasn’t.)

Jarrah was the only one to shout anything at all, and it was, “Yeeeeeaaaah!” followed shortly by, “Owww, that hurt.” Followed by some interesting Australian expressions that we cannot repeat here lest some Australian get hold of this book and be offended.

Dietmar missed the boat altogether and landed in the water. So did Rodrigo.

However they both landed quite close to the side of the bateau, and when Stefan leaped last and spotted their splashes, he hit the plastic cover, bounced easily off the side into the water, and came up with one Rodrigo and one Dietmar in each hand.

He basically threw Dietmar aboard. Then he grabbed one of the bumpers, held on, and pushed Rodrigo up over the side before following him up.

The police refused to be comically helpless. Instead they hopped into their vehicles and were now, with sirens lamenting loudly and blue lights flashing, racing down both banks of the Seine.

Also, in a movie the crew of the boat would just kind of shrug off the fact that eight kids had dropped onto their boat from a bridge. But in reality they were somewhat upset, actually. The dropping bodies had made a mess of the plastic, and the passengers were concerned and asking questions like, “Is this normal?” and, “Is this part of some kind of street theater?” And one man even asked, “Are they mimes?”

The French are very touchy on the subject of mimes, so this created some real resentment on the part of the crew. Said crew were now edging forward cautiously and demanding to know just who they thought they were landing like that without even a ticket. One of the crew was holding a pepper mill as a weapon.

Mack reached for his pocket.

The armed crewman said, “Don’t try anything!”

“I’m just reaching for a credit card,” Mack said. And out came the black plastic rectangle that signaled great wealth. “I want to pay for tickets, and I’ll pay for damages. And I’d like to leave a tip of five hundred euros for every crew member and twice that for the captain!”