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exactly what to do. She stepped back into her office, and with a demure smile to the major, she lifted the phone. “I’ll just call the custodian and ask him to meet us at the storage area.”
    The connection was made after two short rings. “Je cherche Monsieur Monet. J’ai besoin de le recontrer dans l’aile Sully,” she said. I’m looking for Mr. Monet. I need to meet him in the Sully Wing.
    A brusque, deep voice replied that Monsieur Monet wasn’t available. She hung up the handset. “He wasn’t there,” she said in German to the two men occupying her office. “I can try someone else—”
    The German officer placed his left hand over hers before she could lift the phone to place another call. Her body shivered in response to his cold touch.
    “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure you know the way.”
    The major had good information, Colette thought. The Sully Wing was the easternmost annex of the Louvre, ringed by a thirteenth-century moat, and showcased invaluable eighteenth-century paintings from French artists like Fragonard and Watteau. Many had been wrapped, boxed, and shipped out in the fall of 1939, but with 15,000 works of art in the Louvre’s possession at the start of the war, thousands of paintings had to be left behind in the Louvre’s basements.
    And now some rogue Nazi was treating the most famous museum in the world like a shopping gallery. She wished her boyfriend, Bernard Rousseau, had picked up the phone when she dialed Maintenance.
    She led the Germans from the Richelieu Wing into the main palace courtyard, which was empty except for a pair of gardeners clipping potted hedges to the left of the Sully Wing entrance. The German major was a step behind her, followed by the soldier who had shouldered his carbine.
    As they approached the ornate double doors, the German major called to her, “Fräulein, one moment.”
    Colette came to a stop in the magnificent courtyard and turned to face him. The major paused his steps and leaned in slightly.
    “We will keep this our little secret, ja ? If not—” The officer tapped his black leather holster, a visual reminder to Colette that he was prepared to use his Luger.
    Colette did not respond. Her attention was directed elsewhere—to movement behind the Wehrmacht soldier. In one fluid motion, one of the gardeners swung a short-handled tool into the back of the unsuspecting infantryman.
    With a muffled grunt, the soldier fell face-first to the cobblestone square, the blunt end of a pickaxe extruding from his back.
    The German major swiveled and fumbled for his Luger as a shadow of a shovel darted across the walkway ahead. The broad blade of the tool struck him square in the face. The sharp crackling of bone and cartilage was muffled by splitting skin. The dazed officer covered his face and doubled over in agony, blood dripping between his fingers. Colette placed her hands over her mouth and stepped back.
    Windmilling the shovel, the gardener brought the blade down hard against the back of the major’s head, flattening the base of his skull. The German crumpled to the ground. Colette stared in horror as the gardener delivered the coup de grâce—a pair of hedge shears ferociously driven between the officer’s shoulder blades.
    A grotesque sucking sound caused her stomach to lurch as the long-handled shears were pulled from the dead officer. The gardener quickly removed the Luger from its holster and tucked it under his belt.
    “Et voilà,” he said, breaking the silence with his gruff voice. There you have it .
    Colette felt her world spinning. She knew that her code phrase—“Je cherche Monsieur Monet”—would alert the maintenance crew that she was in danger, but up until today, she had never needed to make that call. She moved to a nearby bench and sat down, taking several deep breaths to steady herself.
    “Quick—help me load this pig.” The gardener beckoned his partner to give him a hand.
    Within seconds, the second gardener