Crown Jewel 2

 

Paris was behind him, as was the wait at the Channel tunnel, the industrial plain of the north, the furious traffic surrounding the French capital. He was in open country now, old France, the France of the Three Musketeers and Jean Valjean and Joan of Arc. It was the France of a thousand villages and hamlets, of rolling hills captained by church spires, of wheat fields recently harvested and medieval forests never touched, of towering limestone cliffs and lazy meandering rivers. He drove with the windows down, the wind warm and thick with the invigorating scent of tilled earth.

It was an eight-hundred-mile trip better broken up into two days with an overnight stop in Beaune or Dijon. He wasn’t averse to a nice meal and a glass of decent red, and both cities offered numerous appealing opportunities. But Toby Stonewood had been adamant about getting started as quickly as possible and Simon had required a full day to ready himself for the job.

The past twenty-four hours had given him a crash course in the dark arts of expert cheating, and that, along with D’Art’s plea that Simon not let Lloyd’s of London down, had left him consumed with seeing the job through to a successful end. And so it would be a one-day drive: the kind where your butt becomes glued to the seat and everything beyond your window melts into a blur.

Everything except the silver Audi fastback that had been following him at a safe distance for the past two hours.

  

Simon’s preparations had begun just after one o’clock in the afternoon the day before, when he presented himself at the front door of a modest country estate in Surrey, the kind of place that Jane Austen aspired to, an hour south of London. He was expected, and the large man who answered the door frisked him a little less roughly than he might have before leading him upstairs into a dimly lit, leathery office.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Posh himself. Fifty quid says you left one of your fancy cars at home.”

Simon squinted to see through a pall of cigar smoke thick as London fog. “Hello, Eddie. Considered opening a window?”

“I pay top dollar for my Cubanos. I like to enjoy them. Now sit down, stop complaining, and tell me why you’re slumming.”

His name was Edward Margrave, but he was known as Eightball Eddie, and he owned the concession to sell slot machines to pubs across the United Kingdom. Eightball Eddie was seventy, give or take, a sharply dressed bantamweight with graying hair swept off his forehead, a hearty laugh, and the worst false teeth in London. But it wasn’t the teeth you noticed. It was his eyeglasses: oversized black frames with convex lenses thick as a phone book that magnified his eyes to what appeared to be twice their size. He’d explained his condition to Simon once a few years ago, but the crux of it was that even with the glasses, he viewed the world through what amounted to a soda straw.

“Thanks for seeing me,” said Simon. “I know you’re busy.”

“Oh yes,” said Eddie. “Queuing at the door, they are. But I do appreciate your manners. You were always polite to a fault. I never forgot that. Others weren’t.”

Before Simon became an investigator, he’d worked as a private banker at a major international bank in the City. Eightball Eddie was a client who’d followed him into his new line of work. There were two things to know about Eddie. One, he hated leaving his home. Not only was he going blind: he was agoraphobic. And two, he loved gambling. At one point, he’d been a professional billiards player, a hustler on the side, hence the nickname. He didn’t just bet on pool. He bet on everything, always, and for large sums of money.

“Go on, then,” said Eddie. “You’ve got me all hot and bothered. You didn’t come all the way down here to see if I was still kicking.”

“I need your help,” said Simon. “For a job. I’m happy to pay a consulting fee.”

Eddie waved away the offer. “Wouldn’t think of it. Not after all the money you made for me, not to mention the other shenanigans. I should be paying you for what you done.”

Simon preferred not to think of the “other shenanigans.”

“Baccarat,” he said, after he was seated.

“Toff’s game,” said Eddie. “Requires no skill whatsoever. Fucking chimp can win. What do you want to know about it?”

“Just one thing,” said Simon. “How do you cheat?”

  

Simon left Eightball Eddie’s country estate a good deal wiser about the game of baccarat and outfitted with a new understanding of the lengths to which some people will go—and the methods they may use—to earn a dishonest dollar. In his pocket, he carried a list of items required to suss out the person or, according to Eightball Eddie, the persons (no fewer than three and, more likely, as many as a dozen) who were stealing from the Société des Bains de Mer in Monaco.

To obtain the items on that list, Simon traveled north back across the Thames, then due west toward Heathrow, leaving the M4 in Southall and turning up Havelock Road. To his left stood the gurdwara, the monumental temple catering to the city’s Sikh population. To look around him, he was in India, not England. Storefronts advertised fabrics and spices and money remittance services in Punjabi, with the English translations below. Pedestrians wore turbans and saris. Even the air smelled of curry and spices.

He continued past Manor House Grounds and found a parking space on a leafy street of row houses. The business entrance was at the rear. A teenage boy in a hoodie, cell phone in hand, answered the door. “Hello, Simon.”

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” Simon asked.

“I passed my A levels in May,” said Arjit Singh.

“You’re only fourteen.”

The boy shrugged, eyes going to the phone in his hand.

“And now?” asked Simon. “Off to Oxford?”

“I’m going to the States. Caltech.”

“Not alone?”

“I have family in Fullerton, wherever that is. I’ll live with them.” He opened the door all the way and allowed Simon to pass. “Dad’s in his workshop.”

Simon passed through the kitchen and opened the door to a steep staircase leading to the cellar. A rotund man in a dark lab coat stood at a workbench, a stainless steel attaché case open before him. Like all Sikhs, he wore a turban and kept his beard long and neatly groomed.

“I think it presumptuous of you to expect me to drop everything the moment you call and devote myself to your odd requests,” said Vikram Singh.

“And how are you today, Dr. Singh? Or is it professor? I always forget.”

“Behind on a number of projects. You are not my only client.”

“Just your favorite.”

“Hardly.”

“I pay cash.”

“Your saving grace.”

Simon approached the engineer and gave his shoulder a friendly tug. “Congratulations on Arjit’s being accepted at Caltech.”

Singh said in a morose tone, “It isn’t MIT, but it will have to do.”

“You’re not serious?”

Singh shook his head dismissively. By the look of anguish clouding his features, Simon knew he wasn’t simply playing down his son’s accomplishment. He meant it.

“Everything you need is here,” said Singh. “If Mr. Margrave’s assumptions are correct, you should have little problem identifying the culprits.”

To Simon’s eye, the case’s contents looked modest and unimpressive. Singh removed each item and explained its name, function, and operating instructions. The tools were not designed to help someone spot a cardsharp, but to flush out a disciplined and technologically sophisticated team of professionals. When he’d finished, Simon no longer thought the devices were either modest or unimpressive.

“Da hag?” he asked—the two words of Punjabi he knew.

“I won’t bother correcting your pronunciation, but you said that you love me.”

“How much?” repeated Simon, sticking to his mother tongue.

“Twenty.”

“Twenty thousand pounds?”

“And that’s with the cash discount.”

Simon took the roll of bills Martin Harriri had given him that morning and pressed it into Singh’s hand. Easy come, easy go. “And Vikram,” he said in parting, “Caltech is amazing.”

That was twenty-four hours earlier.

  

Simon’s eyes returned to the rearview mirror. The silver Audi was still there, maintaining a neutral distance behind him. British plates. Lone driver, at least as best as Simon could tell.

“No one will know about this,” Lord Toby had stated, as gravely as if swearing an oath. “Just the men in this room.”

Simon studied the car in his rearview a moment longer, then downshifted and floored it.

It was time to find out if Lord Toby Stonewood was a man of his word.

*****

Simon yanked the wheel to the right, crossing two lanes of traffic and taking the off-ramp for Voiron. The Audi sped past, as Simon expected it would. Any professional would do the same. If the car’s presence was in any way related to Simon’s assignment, there would surely be another car farther back. Mounting an operation to cheat a casino out of hundreds of millions of dollars was a feat requiring impeccable planning, discipline, and execution. Setting up a “three-car follow” was a piece of cake in comparison.

Simon guided the Daytona into a service station. The Ferrari’s V12 engine gave him fifteen miles a gallon tops, and its small tank demanded that he stop frequently. Taking his time, he cleaned the windscreen, checked the tire pressure, then walked into the mini-mart. It wasn’t his practice to leave a client’s car unguarded, even for an instant, but circumstances dictated otherwise. He picked up a soda and chips, moving as deep into the store as he could while still able to keep an eye on the road outside. A minute passed. He spotted a Renault gliding off the highway and driving past the service station. A lone man in the cockpit: dark hair, sunglasses, vigilant. Simon exited the mini-mart as the Renault returned for a second look. The timing couldn’t have been better. Seeing Simon, the driver jumped on the gas pedal and disappeared around the corner. It was a mistake on his part and gave Simon the proof he needed.

He was being followed.

Simon climbed into the Ferrari and returned to the highway. It was his turn to put a foot on the gas and he took the car well over the speed limit, enjoying the engine’s confident growl as the needle stormed past 120 miles per hour. It wasn’t long before he spotted the silver Audi in the slow lane ahead of him.

Years had passed since the last time he’d been followed. Back then it was the Marseille flics, and he’d make a game of leading them on wild-goose chases through the city and the surrounding hills. It was a point of pride that he could outdrive them.

“Let’s have some fun,” Simon said to himself.

He zipped past the German coupe without a backward glance.

Game on.

Barely a minute later, the Audi reappeared in his rearview. Simon eased off the gas, daring the Audi to come closer, but the driver slowed, not yet willing to give up all pretense.

“Have it your way.”

He accelerated once again. The Audi matched his speed.

In the distance, a sign announced the exit for Grenoble, a small city at the base of the French Alps. Simon’s route called for him to continue south through Avignon and Aix-en-Provence before dipping down to the coast and following the autoroute to Nice and then onward to Monaco. There was another route, however, a back way through the mountains. Though longer by several hours, it was more suited to his current purpose.

At the last instant, Simon guided the car into the left lane and headed in the direction of Grenoble. The Audi followed as Simon passed through the city and left the highway altogether, beginning a long, curvy ascent into the Alps. The road narrowed from four lanes to two, slimming further to a winding track barely wide enough for a car to pass another. Every ten or fifteen minutes, he’d arrive at a village or hamlet and reduce his speed as he navigated past a bakery and a butcher and one or two general stores. The peaks of the surrounding mountains came into view, many covered with snow. The air grew cooler. The wind picked up. It was on a long series of hairpin switchbacks that he spotted the Renault lower on the mountain.

He arrived at the Col du Ciel, elevation eight thousand feet, and was forced to slow to a crawl. A tractor dragging wagons of freshly cut and baled hay occupied the lane ahead. The Audi drew up behind him. He checked over his shoulder. The driver was dark-haired and swarthy, aviator sunglasses shielding his eyes. A stream of oncoming traffic scotched any chance of passing the tractor. In a minute, the Renault pulled up behind the Audi. A mouse and two cats waiting to pounce.

Then the tractor stopped altogether, its rear signal indicating that it wished to turn across lanes.

Simon had made a mistake. He was caught in a box. He could not drive forward. He could not retreat. A guardrail ran along the right-hand side of the road, and beyond that a vertiginous precipice, a fall of a thousand feet. A stone wall bordered the other side of the road.

Simon looked in the side-view mirror as the driver of the Audi climbed out of his car. He kept his hand close to his leg, but the pistol was evident all the same, as was his intent.

Simon was trapped.

Oncoming traffic cleared out and the tractor began its laborious turn. Simon had no weapon, nothing with which to defend himself. He popped the clutch and put the car into first gear, his heel digging into the gas pedal. The Ferrari’s rear wheels spun madly. Rubber burned road. Smoke rose into the air accompanied by a terrific screech. Taken by surprise, the driver reacted instinctively, jumping back a step. It gave Simon the moment he needed. Dropping the clutch, he shot the Ferrari forward, ramming the trailing hay cart, sending bales flying and filling the air with dried grass.

The road was clear.

Away.

Simon’s relief was short-lived. The Audi closed in rapidly, the Renault lagging behind it. It was not their proximity that rattled him, or the realization that the driver had wanted to kill him. It was the man’s identity. He looked remarkably like the devil who’d rescued his larcenous colleague in Les Ambassadeurs with an expertly placed punch to Simon’s kidney.

This wasn’t about Toby Stonewood.

It was about revenge for losing a large sum of ill-begotten money.

Simon drove aggressively as the road began its descent from the mountain pass, one curve following another. The Ferrari was a high-performance automobile…in its time…but it was no match for a late-model German sports car. The Audi stayed on his tail, closing in perilously on the short straightaways. Simon could not keep his distance for long. On the next section of straight road, the Audi could ram him. Controlling the Ferrari would be problematic. Either he’d crash into opposing traffic, leaving him defenseless against a determined man with a pistol, or careen through the flimsy guardrail and plummet down the mountainside.

He found neither option appealing.

A sign announced the village of Diablerets-les-Monts. Simon brought up the map on his phone, darting glances at the screen. Five hundred meters ahead, there was a turnoff to the right that required him to make a hairpin turn before straightening out, like Bo-Peep’s staff. By the look of the terrain, it either ascended or descended a slope.

Either way, he had to make a move.

Simon threw the car into third gear, redlining the rpms. The Ferrari shot ahead. A distance of ten meters opened between him and his pursuer. The road veered left. A stone wall climbed the opposite side. To his right the slope fell into a grassy cleft. He glimpsed a stream and forest and several wooden huts.

He spotted the turnoff and continued to accelerate. He was going too fast. There was no chance he could hold the turn. Surely he’d end up off the road, dead in a ditch. None of it mattered. He had one chance and he had to take it.

When he was certain that he could not make the turn, that he would crash through the red and white wooden railing, he braked very hard and spun the wheel to the right. The rear of the vehicle slid out. He held the steering wheel tightly, fighting the car’s urge to straighten. No power steering. Only will and muscle. He threw the car into second gear and floored it. The Ferrari straightened out. The nose dove and Simon guided the car down a steep dirt track.

Behind him, the Audi started its turn even later. Too late. It failed to negotiate the hairpin curve. The car splintered the guardrail and tumbled down the hill, turning over several times, coming to a stop on its roof.

The Renault blew past ten seconds later, unaware of what had happened.

Simon ran to the Audi. The driver was conscious but groggy, bleeding profusely from a gash in his forearm. Simon freed him from the car and dragged him into the grass. There was no time to look for a first aid kit. He took off his shirt and tore off a sleeve, using it to fashion a tourniquet around the man’s upper arm.

“What’s your name?” Simon asked as he worked.

The man muttered a few words in a language Simon didn’t recognize, but the gist of it was easy enough to understand. He was not expressing his thanks. Simon patted him down, fighting off the man’s perfunctory attempts to stop him. He opened the man’s wallet and took out the driver’s license. Goran Zisnic, age twenty-eight, resident of Split, Croatia. “I’ll keep this,” Simon said, slipping the license into his pocket. He dropped the wallet in the grass. “Stay put. I’ll call an ambulance.”

Simon returned to the Audi and located the pistol. He didn’t like guns. He dropped the clip, flicked the bullets one by one into the stream, then threw the weapon into the woods.

“I don’t ever want to see you again,” he said, giving Mr. Goran Zisnic a not-so-friendly pat on the cheek. “Ciao.”

He was fairly certain they said that in Croatia, too.

  

Simon caught up to the Renault in the next village. Rounding a curve, he spotted the car parked next to a convenience store a hundred meters further on. He slammed his heel on the brake, nearly giving himself whiplash and narrowly averting bloodying his nose on the steering wheel. Quickly, he backed up so as to be out of sight. There was no place to hide, no side streets to conceal his approach, so he jogged along the edge of the road, doing his best to keep out of the man’s line of sight.

He needn’t have worried. The driver was engrossed in a phone conversation. The window was open, and judging by his tone of voice, he was angry. Simon grabbed the phone out of his hand and tossed it away. The driver protested, but the shout was muffled by Simon’s hand on his throat. When the man went for his gun, Simon caught him by the wrist and wrenched it violently. The ulna snapped like a dry twig.

The man whimpered and Simon used the opportunity to slip the man’s wallet from his jacket. Ivan Boskovic, age twenty-six, also from Croatia. Quite the Balkan party. He took the pistol and stuffed it in his waistband.

“Ivan, I’m going to keep your phone so you don’t call any of your friends and tell them what happened. Your buddy is back about ten kilometers. He had an accident. Don’t worry, I sent a doctor to look after him. Keys, please?”

Ivan Boskovic was a quick learner. Knowing he was in the presence of a superior foe, he handed over the car fob without protest.

Simon jogged back to his car. Along the way, he dumped the pistol into a sewer grate and chucked the car fob who knows where.

It was another three hours to Monaco.

He floored it.

*****

The clock showed the time to be ten minutes past six as Simon guided the car off the Grande Corniche and down the winding road into the principality of Monaco. Traffic slowed and he needed twenty minutes to make the descent to the hotel—a distance of a half mile. The French word for a traffic jam was bouchon, or cork. If that was the case, this cork belonged to a bottle of Lafite Rothschild. Every car in sight was a Bentley, BMW, or Porsche, all polished to a showroom buff.

He kept the windows rolled down, the air warm and pleasant against his skin. He’d visited Monaco on several occasions during his time working as a private banker. He looked at the attractive men and women strolling along the sidewalks and they brought to mind his former clients. The people he’d served for years, as not only a financial advisor but much more.

He saw them here now, dawdling on the steps of the hotel in tan poplin trousers and untucked Lacoste shirts and Italian loafers and Swiss watches. The outfit went for women, too. (No Rolexes allowed, thank you, unless it was the stainless Cosmograph Daytona worn by Paul Newman that had recently fetched a million dollars at auction.)

He heard them speaking French and Italian and German, laughing with an aloof, resentful manner. It was difficult to manage the travails of owning homes in three countries and garages filled with exotic automobiles, of caring for snotty children who only called when they wanted money or favors, or both. He smelled them, too, citrusy colognes and flowery perfumes and their unbearably strong mints to camouflage their smoker’s breath.

In a way, these people had been Simon’s family, and he’d come to know their foibles better than they did themselves. His duties began at safeguarding their money and quickly ran to matters nonfinancial. For a deposit of one hundred million dollars, the client received not only the finest financial advice but a personal concierge to cater to his or her every whim.

He reserved tables for them at the finest restaurants and found them rooms at the right hotels—the right rooms, mind you. Every five-star palace had a few rooms where you wouldn’t put your drunk Uncle Harry. Simon made airline reservations, planned safaris, arranged for jewelry to be appraised and art to be authenticated. Once he was charged with tracking down a bracelet lost in Paris the week before. The client had no idea where. Simon found it. He recommended the right doctor, and if the client didn’t have time to visit, he procured a prescription for the right pharmaceutical, invariably Xanax for women and Viagra for men, and he could provide the number of a discreet agency to help put the latter to the test.

In short, he did everything he was asked to the best of his ability. He stopped at murder. And yes, he’d been asked to arrange that, too.

  

The Place du Casino was shaped like a horseshoe, with the casino at its head, the Hôtel de Paris to the right (as one approached), and the Café de Paris with its esplanade of open seating facing it across an expanse of lush grass and topiaries. The Casino de Monte-Carlo, built in the mid-1800s atop a dramatic promontory overlooking the Mediterranean, was a grand Beaux Arts castle, painted an eggshell cream with ornate balconies, Grecian statues on recessed plinths, and a wrought iron porte cochere to welcome its guests. The entire area was a monument to wealth and the overwhelming magnificence of money for money’s sake. Then again, thought Simon, what was one to expect when you crammed sixteen thousand millionaires into one square mile of territory?

A line of cars crowded the curb in front of the Hôtel de Paris. Valets in cream jackets rushed here and there, welcoming guests, ferrying luggage, and moving the cars to the garage. Simon surveyed the scene impatiently. It had been an eventful drive and the prospect of waiting another ten minutes was unacceptable. He revved the engine—a caress of the accelerator was enough—and all heads turned toward the Ferrari. A valet at the front of the line abandoned his charge—a tall red-haired woman in a flowing electric-green outfit—and hurried toward Simon.

Simon got out of the car and handed him the keys. “Riske. Checking in. I have a few bags in the trunk.”

“Yes, sir,” said the valet, snapping to attention. “The reception is up the stairs and across the lobby to your left.”

Simon slipped a hundred-euro note into the valet’s hand. “Keep it safe.”

A shriek and the red-haired woman stormed up the line of cars, hands waving. “Che Cosa! You steal my valet,” she said to Simon. She was Italian and upset. “Give him back.”

Simon held his ground. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

The valet kept his head down and continued removing Simon’s bags from the trunk.

“I am Contessa Maria Borghese. You cannot take him from me.”

“I’ll send him back as soon as he’s finished,” said Simon. “You can tell him who you are yourself. I’m sure he’ll be impressed.”

The Contessa stepped closer. “You…you…are no one. Teppista americano! He only likes the car.”

“At least I have something going for me. Arrivederci.”

Head thrown back in contempt, the woman spun and returned to her car.

“Ouch. That hurt.” A navy station wagon had pulled up behind him. A trim blond woman in a black leather jacket, T-shirt, and jeans stood by the driver’s-side door, a spectator to the event.

“I get it all the time,” said Simon.

“I’m not sure she’s entirely correct.”

Simon noted that the station wagon’s license plates were German. KO for Köln, or Cologne. He had not detected an accent.

“You are here for the Concours?” she asked. “Showing or driving?”

“Driving. The time trial.”

The woman cast her eye over the Daytona. “Is this your car?”

“A friend’s,” said Simon. “More of a client, actually.”

“You,” she said, looking at Simon with the same critical eye. “You belong with a Spider. The old one. Nineteen sixty-five, I think.”

“A little above my pay grade, but thank you. I agree.” Simon smiled. The model was his favorite. He had a picture of one on his office wall. “I take it you are here for the Concours as well, then.”

“Me?” She dismissed the thought with a shiver. “Never.”

Simon discerned that she really meant “Never again.” The woman was his age, give or take, with golden skin and light brown eyes and high cheekbones that gave her an authoritative air. She was nearly as tall as he, with a sharp straight nose and slim, sharply defined lips. A striking woman rather than a beautiful one. He decided that he must get to know her.

“The name is—”

“Will you excuse me?” she said, looking past him.

“Simon,” he rushed to say, but it was too late. She was gone, walking to the head of the line, shoulders set, chin raised to face any challenge. He kept his eyes on her, feeling something spark inside him. Something not entirely welcome.

After a moment, he walked into the lobby, crossing the floor to the reception. The hotelier appeared to be expecting him. He informed Simon that he’d been given a suite on the third floor and repeated Lord Toby Stonewood’s promise that all expenses were on the house, including anything from the hotel’s restaurants and room service, as well as items in the hotel’s shops, but excluding the jewelry boutiques.

“Naturally,” said Simon.

The hotelier smiled and, in a slip of professionalism, vouchsafed that he must be “a very good friend of the hotel.”

Someone chuckled and Simon noted that it was the blond woman from outside. She had taken up a position further down the desk and had overheard the remark.

“The hotel likes the car, too,” he said.

“Obviously,” replied the woman in a near perfect imitation of the Contessa.

They laughed.

Simon accepted the key and was accompanied to the elevators by the hotelier. It was not an establishment where one showed oneself to his or her room. The blond woman arrived in the company of another hotelier a moment later. She stood close enough to Simon that he could smell her perfume—something light and woody. He felt a desire to step closer. An elevator chimed. Its doors opened. She looked at him and he looked at her. Striking, to be sure, but there was something else that drew him to her. Something infinitely more attractive. It was her character, he decided, her confidence and bristling air of competence. She was an army of one.

“After you,” said Simon.

“A gentleman,” she said before entering the elevator.

From this woman, it sounded like the ultimate compliment.

“The name is Riske,” he said too loudly, not giving a damn. “Simon.”

“Good evening, Mr. Riske.”

She made no effort to offer her name. The doors closed and Simon glanced at the hotelier. “Do you know her?”

The hotelier offered a cryptic smile. He’d been asked the question before. The answer was yes, he knew her name, and it was none of Simon’s business.

  

The room was the size of a basketball court, with ceilings high enough to put in a regulation basket with room left over for a twenty-four-second clock. He had declined the hotelier’s offer to send a valet to help him unpack. He opened his bag and put away his clothing, then arranged his toiletries in the bathroom. One washcloth to either side of the sink upon which he placed his toothpaste and aftershave and skin cream, and of course his floss.

A white envelope from the Monaco Rally Club waited on the desk. Simon examined the contents: passes, schedule, guidebook, tickets to the gala dinner and to the lawn event to be held at the Sporting Club. And more important, as far as Simon was concerned, information about the time trial Saturday, including a map of the course. A meeting for drivers was set for the next morning at nine.

Simon showered and put on fresh clothing. One shirt ruined, another dirty. He’d have to take up Toby Stonewood on his offer of free shopping at the hotel’s boutiques sooner than expected. It was the cocktail hour so he chose a patterned shirt, trousers a shade too light for October, and a navy blazer. The boat show was in town. He wanted to fit in.

On the way out of his room, he stopped at the minibar, which wasn’t mini at all: it offered full-size bottles of spirits as well as beer and soft drinks. A certain bourbon from Tennessee was missing. Snobs, he thought, though he knew that D’Art Moore would applaud the omission. Instead, he made himself an espresso with the nifty coffee machine and added three sugars to satisfy his sweet tooth.

There was a packet of Fisherman’s Friend mints on a glass shelf, next to some nuts and napkins. Just the sight of the mint-green packaging provoked a smattering of butterflies. Not knowing who he might run into—hoping it might be her—he popped a mint. His eyes watered at the industrial-strength lozenge and he spit it into the sink. It wasn’t the taste that repulsed him but the memories it summoned. Memories of smoking a pack of Gauloises a day and drinking too much Pernod. Memories of another life, when his name was Simon Ledoux and his hair was long enough to pull into a ponytail and he stole cars the way other people—honest people—brushed their teeth.

Feeling nauseated, he stepped onto the balcony. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scents of jasmine and wisteria, willing away the images of guns and glass vials and half-naked women with sleepy eyes and crooked smiles. The fresh air failed to do the trick. He felt a machine gun bucking his shoulder and smelled the cordite in the morning air, hearing the shell casings tinkle as they danced on the street. It was all coming back. The exhilaration of driving the wrong way down a one-way street with a police car close behind. The unfettered freedom of being on the wrong side of the law. Hovering above the memories, a seductive voice promised him that this time it would be different. This time, he would get away with it.

Why not give it one more try?

After all, Ledoux, you were damned good at it.

And you loved it.

Maybe you still do.

He was sweating when he went back inside and had to change his shirt. Again.

*****

The team arrived at its headquarters in the eastern Swiss Alps in late afternoon. They came in three cars, each taking a different route into the country. The first to arrive came from the south, through Milan, then through the lake district, skirting Lake Como, before turning east at the border, remaining in Italy until the last moment and crossing in time to take the Bernina Pass. The second came from the north, traveling through Zurich, following the main touristic route to St. Moritz, past Sargans and Chur, finally heading east into the mountains at Thusis. The last car came from the northeast, transiting Munich, heading south through Bavaria, past Garmisch, before cutting the corner of Austria and entering Switzerland at its easternmost finger, the mountainous Romansch region, a country unto itself.

No stops were permitted. Gas tanks were topped off prior to departure. Bathroom breaks were verboten. The members of the team carried their own snacks. Under no circumstance could they risk being photographed. No country was more aggressively surveilled than Switzerland.

The egress, or “getaway,” if one were to be necessary, had been well planned and would be nigh impossible to track. It was their arrival that threatened to jeopardize their long-term freedom.

The fact that police would identify their vehicles was a given. It would take time, but images from every camera leading into the valley would be collected and scrutinized. Cars belonging to visitors would be cross-checked against those belonging to residents. License plates, registrations, bills of sale would be analyzed. Like a noose closing around a doomed man’s neck, the circle would get tighter and tighter. It would take days, weeks, even, but the vehicles would be identified. Make no mistake.

And when they were, authorities would find that all had been purchased legally and for cash, each in a different corner of Europe. Berlin, Madrid, Budapest. The identifications of those who’d purchased the cars were doctored and entirely false, thus illegal.

Another roadblock.

More time.

The progress of the authorities would slow.

Eventually they would give up.

After all, if the team was successful, there would be no victims to save, no villains to hunt.

One by one, the cars arrived at their destination. Few team members had seen a place as grandiose. None had set foot inside one, unless it was a police station or a prison. They called it a mansion, a palace, a fortress, a keep. It was none of those things. It was a chalet. It even had a name. The Chesa Madrun.

It helped immeasurably that the chalet had an underground parking garage. Their orders were strict. Once they arrived, they were not to leave the premises until the day itself, not even to set foot outside and smell the glorious alpine air. Others were watching. Others were laying the groundwork. They were the strike force, the “tip of the spear,” or, to borrow an unfortunate German synonym, the einsatzgruppe.

There were four of them in all, not counting the woman. All had experience in this type of thing, if not the act itself. They were thieves, robbers, extortionists, blackmailers, and bombers. It went without saying that they were killers. All had done time in a maximum-security facility of one nation or another. They knew that in Norway a convicted murderer lived alone in a neat room hardly different from a youth hostel, with a single bed, a duvet, a hot plate, and a television. And that in Turkey, a common burglar was thrown into the general prison population with none of those things. They preferred Norway. None had been convicted in Switzerland or for that matter had ever set foot in the country.

They were individuals who had spent a lifetime outside the law. Men who were accustomed to living with the police on their tail and keeping their cool all the while.

Inside the chalet, the team members settled into their living quarters. The kitchen was amply stocked. Before long, a group meal was prepared. Spirits were high. Until now, everything had gone according to plan. There was no reason to suspect that would change. Soon each of them would get their hands on more money than they’d dreamed of earning in a lifetime.

There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradery when the woman arrived. The men took one look at her and the room went quiet. They knew who she was by name and by relation, but none had expected her beauty.

“So,” said the woman, “did you bring the goddamn plastique?”

*****

There was no time to waste.

Simon set the stainless steel briefcase on the bed and keyed in the six-digit combination. Wall-to-wall gray foam provided safe housing for a variety of electronic devices, ranging from small to smaller to smallest. With thumb and forefinger, he freed a rectangular steel object, not dissimilar to a Zippo lighter in size and weight. The device was smooth on all sides save for an on/off switch easily activated by a thumbnail.

Simon clicked it. A green light appeared. The device paired with an in-ear receiver that he plucked free and placed in his right ear. A low-frequency thrumming was immediately audible.

“The first rule of cheating at any card game,” Eightball Eddie had said, “is that you have to see the cards. Card counters remember the sequence of cards as they appear in a game. Edge counters differentiate between face cards and number cards by the pattern printed on the top of each card. The aim of both is to gain a mathematical advantage over the house of two to ten percent that will play out over a succession of hands. Neither of those methods works for baccarat. Baccarat’s a game of pure luck; the skill is in the betting. Therefore, the only way to cheat is to see the cards before they’re dealt. To do that, someone has to have a camera to scope them out either as they are being put into the shoe and shuffled or, more likely, afterward, when the cards are being cut.”

Enter Vikram Singh.

It turned out that cameras, both still and video, emitted a low-frequency audio signature when activated. The rectangular steel device in Simon’s palm was a highly sensitive microphone, in effect a camera hunter, designed to detect that sound. Upon identifying that audio signature, it transmitted a signal to the earpiece. From there, it was like a game of hotter/colder. The closer Simon got to the camera, the more rapid the pulse. If the pulse became continuous, it meant that he was within thirty centimeters, or twelve inches, of the camera.

“You won’t see it,” said Singh. “Lenses can be made as small as the head of a needle with a Bluetooth transmitter the size of a grain of rice.”

“So they can see the cards?” Simon had asked both men. “Then what?”

Eightball Eddie had scratched his head. “Too smart for me. All I know is someone is telling them how they should bet.”

But Vikram Singh knew the means, if not the method. “Once they know the sequence of the cards, they can plug it into an algorithm that predicts the order in which they’ll be dealt to both players, the punto or the banco.”

“So who’s doing that?” Simon asked.

“His partner or partners. I have no idea how big the team is.”

“One guy takes the pictures…”

“And transmits them to a second person close enough to receive the Bluetooth signal.”

“And the second person…”

“Analyzes the cards and tells his partner when and how much to bet.”

“How can I find that person?”

“He can’t be far. A Bluetooth transmitter that small just can’t throw a signal a long distance.”

“Defined as?”

“A hundred meters. Probably closer. With as few walls in between as possible.”

Which brought Simon to the transparent ziplock bag holding what appeared to be a few dozen chocolate M&M’s. These were his secret weapon and to be saved for later. He wasn’t one to go into the enemy’s den with guns blazing. If he was looking for them, they were looking for him. He’d do best to keep that in mind.

  

Simon left the hotel a few minutes before nine. It was a warm night with hardly a breeze, humid and still. The Place du Casino was a riot of activity. A steady stream of cars made the circuit past the Hôtel de Paris, the casino, and the Café de Paris, music blaring from open windows, arms extended, cigarettes in hand. Nine months of the year, Monaco was a quiet, pleasant backwater, a secure tax-free enclave where you can plant your flag. “Sleepy” wasn’t too strong a word. All that changed during the summer months, when Monaco, like the rest of the French Riviera, became a playground for Europe’s rich and infamous. There was a Festival des Feux d’Artifices, performances at the opera house, and concerts under the stars at the Sporting Club’s Salle des Étoiles. High-class fare for its high-class residents. The International Boat Show was the showstopper that ended the season on a high note.

Simon dodged his way past a troop of blondes wearing the uniform of a luxury car manufacturer and showing off its newest sedans, all parked in front of the casino steps. He navigated his way through the crowd waiting to go inside, showing his passport before being waved through the main entrance. The law prohibited Monégasque citizens from entering the casino.

If Les Ambassadeurs was a posh nineteenth-century English country home, the Casino de Monte-Carlo was Versailles. Simon crossed the entry hall with its marble floors and towering mirrors and proud pillars rising to a glass ceiling. He’d journeyed back in time three centuries to when Louis XIV was king and faro the card game du jour. Simon’s trip was short-lived. An army of slot machines welcomed him back to the twenty-first century. He strode past them and into the gaming rooms, where tables offering roulette and blackjack were crowded to capacity.

Simon, however, was interested in baccarat. He made his way to a quieter room on the second floor and found an empty seat. The tables were crescent-shaped, with room for eight players. He threw a thousand-euro note on the table and received several stacks of chips in return. Though Lord Toby had offered him a house credit of a hundred thousand euros, Simon preferred to use his own money. For now, anonymity was preferable to profit.

Baccarat was a maddingly simple, unpredictable game. Like blackjack, you were dealt a limited number of cards. The object was for the value of your cards to total as close to nine as possible. Only two hands were dealt, one to the house, or banco, the other to the player, punto. Players chose one hand, or both, on which to wager.

Play began when the dealer gave himself and the player two cards each, both dealt faceup. Cards two through nine counted at face value. Aces counted as one and face cards as zero. Two and three equaled a five. Nine and seven equaled sixteen but was counted as six. A third card was dealt to each player if his score was too low. As Eightball Eddie had said, “Even a chimp could win.”

Baccarat was a favorite of the player who believed in luck as a manifestation of good fortune, something as real as rain or sunshine. Fortune that showered its favor on a player in the form of the right card at the right time. A toff’s game, Eightball Eddie had said, “toff” meaning “idiot.”

Simon played two hands, betting on the house each time. He won one and lost one. All the while his eye roved from the smiling dealer to his fellow players to the discreetly positioned opaque domes on the ceilings—the “eyes in the skies”—concealing cameras that covered every square inch of the casino floor and sent back images to a central operations room where security professionals could observe play. He was quick to spot the floor bosses, a few walking the floor, others standing with dealers at their tables. To look at, Toby Stonewood ran a tight ship. It would not be easy to pull a scam in front of so many prying eyes. And yet the casino had lost millions. Hundreds of millions.

Simon collected his chips and stopped at the bar for a drink. He ordered a double bourbon and tipped lavishly, carrying the cocktail to a room where betting minimums were higher. He found a seat at a table requiring a minimum wager of five hundred euros. It was uncommon for tables to go higher, unless it was a private game or after prior consultation with casino staff. He arranged his chips and asked for an additional five thousand euros.

The game had officially gotten serious.

  

Simon played for an hour, finding himself up a few thousand euros. The shoe passed from player to player. When the cards ran low and it came time to shuffle, a pre-shuffled stack of eight decks was placed into the shoe. The dealer offered the cutting card to a sharply dressed man who’d been winning on a regular basis and was up fifty thousand euros. With his slicked-back hair and hooded eyes, he certainly looked the part of a sharp, or a cheat. If he had a camera up his sleeve, he would use it to record the flutter of the cards as he ran the cutting card along their edge.

Simon watched as best he could without staring, his attention directed inward as well, hoping to hear the pinging that would indicate a camera in use. To his disappointment, the man jabbed the cutting card into the deck without ceremony. Camera or not, he had made no effort to preview the cards.

There was no joy to be had at this table.

It was then that Simon heard a hoot of excitement from an adjacent room. Collecting his chips, he headed toward the merriment. A crowd had gathered around another baccarat table, also with a five-hundred-euro minimum, where a balding man with rimless spectacles and a pencil mustache held the shoe. An enormous pile of chips sat before him. In short order, Simon watched him win three consecutive hands, letting his wager ride each time. Ten thousand euros grew to forty thousand in five minutes’ time.

There were no seats free so Simon moved as close to the man as possible. If he had a camera, Simon figured he should hear it now. No pinging came from his earpiece. Another hand was dealt. Another win. Eighty thousand euros. By now every player at the table was betting with the winner. You always followed a streak. The only thing Simon noticed, if it was anything at all, was that the man seemed to be concentrating intensely (far more intensely than a game of luck would demand) and appeared to be staring at the cards in the shoe. Was he counting them? Or doing something else?

Suddenly, the man looked directly at Simon, catching him in flagrante, staring right back at him. Simon smiled awkwardly, but it was too little, too late. Without delay, the balding man pushed his chips to the dealer, who issued him a marker to take to the cage for payment. It was a jarring decision. He left the table seconds later.

Simon had no idea what the man had been doing, but he’d been doing something. He didn’t know if the man thought he was a floor boss or security, but there could be no doubt that Simon’s presence had rattled him. He waited until the man was out of sight and followed. The main hall was a swirl of activity. Simon stopped at the head of the stairs, surveying the scene. He spotted his man leaving the cashier’s cage and heading in the direction of the front door.

Simon studied his purposeful gait, his hunched shoulders, his air of anxious flight. He decided to follow the man. He had no reason, other than that the man had won six hands in a row and Simon had come all this way to find the individuals who were stealing from the casino. True, he had not picked up any electronic signal indicating the presence of a camera, but anyone who wins six hands in a row is guilty of something, even if it’s just being too damned lucky.

There was another reason. He was no surveillance expert—a “pavement artist,” in the words of a favorite author. Given the crowds out and about, it might be a safe time to practice.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Simon hurried down the stairs and across the main hall, halting outside the front door. The Place du Casino was in full swing. A line of cars leading all the way up the hill made their slow circuit. It was a pleasant evening. There wasn’t a table to be had at the Café de Paris. Simon looked to his left and spotted the man. He was dodging past several couples, arms linked and taking up the sidewalk. The man was headed down the incline to the port.

Simon slipped his hands into his pockets and followed, sure to keep a safe distance. Keeping the same driven pace, the man continued to the bottom of the incline, not once looking behind him. He crossed the Boulevard Albert 1er and walked along the port, presenting himself at one of the guarded entries. He showed a badge and passed through the gate. Simon jogged ahead but lost the man as he disappeared into the canyons of giant ships.

He pulled up, deciding he’d done as well as could be expected. It was doubtful the man belonged to any gambling ring. Why would anyone who owned a boat worth tens of millions need to cheat? On the other hand, Simon couldn’t ignore the small voice inside him telling him that he’d been witness to wrongdoing.

It was after eleven. He yawned, feeling the events of the past few days catching up with him. It would be wise to log some rack time. The attractions of the city could wait. He set off back up the hill, looking forward to slipping his feet between the sheets and picking up his book, the latest Philip Kerr novel set in World War II Berlin, and simply relaxing.

Then he saw her and all thoughts of bed, book, and slumber vanished.

*****

Simon followed her, telling himself it was for no other reason than that he was also going to the hotel. His natural stride was longer, and in due course, he passed her, offering a nod, no more. A gentleman didn’t force himself on a woman, even conversationally.

He looked at the port, lit by row after row of fairy lights strung across the docks with impeccable care. He recalled reading that all yachts less than two hundred feet in length had been banished to a port down the coast for the duration of the show. The smallest yacht moored was 250 feet, the biggest too big for any private individual. He made an approximate count of the vessels and decided that the fair value would come to something close to six billion dollars.

“Here you are again. The valet thief.”

Simon looked over his shoulder. It was her. “I only steal from those who can afford it,” he said. “Or deserve it.”

“A regular Robin Hood.”

“I’d prefer John Robie.”

“‘The Cat.’”

“You know him,” said Simon, pleased.

“Of course I do. But you’re not quite that handsome.”

“Who is?”

“And I hope you’re not after my jewels!” She laughed and he slowed so she could catch up. “Do you have one of the big ones?” she asked, looking down at the port and the boats.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Some are so enormous. I really can’t imagine.”

“You don’t like the big ones?” Simon asked.

“I prefer a more moderate size. Something manageable.”

“But not too small?”

“Of course not,” she said as if her pride were insulted. “But with a wide beam. For comfort.”

“Width is important. The bigger ones are harder to maneuver, anyway.”

“Not for a skilled captain.”

“No?”

She shook her head. “Not one that knows his vessel. They welcome the challenge.”

“Ah,” said Simon. “It’s boats we’re talking about.”

“What did you think—” The woman broke off midsentence. She put her hands on her hips and gave Simon an appropriate scowl. “You are quite the devil.”

“I had a long day.”

“I had a longer day, believe me. And English is my fourth language. It wasn’t fair.”

“In that case, I apologize.”

“Accepted.” They came to the top of the incline. A broad plaza offered pedestrians a promontory for looking over the port and across to the palace. “Well, it is nice to end the day with a laugh, isn’t it, Mr. Riske?”

“You remembered.”

“I did,” she said.

A soft breeze was blowing off the sea, feathering the woman’s hair, scattering strands across her face.

“Shall we start over?” said Simon.

The woman stepped closer, close enough that he could see the flecks of amber in her eyes and the white-blond hairs in her eyebrows and linger in the delicate wash of her perfume. “Why not?”

“Simon Riske.”

“Victoria Brandt.” She offered a hand and gave a firm shake. “My friends call me Vika.”

“Vika,” said Simon. Vee-ka. “That’s unique.”

“I hope so.”

“Time for a nightcap?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“Herbal tea?”

“Do I look like a woman who drinks herbal tea?”

The answer was final, but she did not seem in a hurry to go.

“Shall we go back, then?” he suggested.

Victoria Brandt—Vika to her friends—nodded. They walked side by side without speaking. Once inside the hotel, Simon summoned the elevator, and when it arrived he allowed her to take it alone. “Good night, Ms. Brandt.”

“Good night, Mr. Riske.”

*****

Simon rose at dawn. He threw on his athletic gear and took a run down the hill past the port, the array of giant yachts distracting him from his exertions until he reached the far side. From there it was an uphill slog to the Palais des Princes. He made a circuit of the grand square and then called it quits. Five kilometers was enough for any reasonable human being. He rewarded his discipline with a warm chocolate croissant and an espresso at a café overlooking Port Hercule. The weather was holding nicely, the sea air crisp and invigorating. According to his weather app, the first chance of rain wasn’t until Saturday, the day of the rally. It figured.

He walked back to the hotel, wandering onto the docks, not to admire the boats but to size up security measures. A tall white mesh fence ran the length of the port. He counted five entrances, each manned by guards. If there were real police in the vicinity, Simon didn’t see them. The gates were left open, the atmosphere one of relaxed, convivial authority. Everyone was among friends here. The flow of men and women in and out of the docks was constant. Crew, technicians, repairmen, press, and of course the owners of the yachts, their family and friends.

He wondered which boat belonged to the unremarkable bland man with the remarkable run of luck. One thing was for certain: the boats were neither bland nor unremarkable. Something about this observation rankled him, no matter how random it might be. The man didn’t go with the boats—any of them.

The bells of the cathedral tolled eight o’clock. He had an hour before the rally briefing was set to begin. The location was the Sporting Club at the eastern end of the principality. He’d have to hurry to make it on time. Still, he made no move to return to the hotel.

Simon jogged across the street and entered a storefront selling nautical supplies. He purchased a cap with the name of a prominent shipbuilder on it and a flashy navy and white windbreaker. On his way back to the dock, he stopped at a kiosk to buy a coffee.

“Large.”

He poured out half and replaced it with milk. He had no intention of burning anyone.

Cup in hand, wearing his new purchases, Simon moved to the nearest entrance. Several young men dressed in pressed khaki shorts and white short-sleeved shirts—ship’s crew—were passing through the gate. All wore their entry badges on lanyards around their necks. Simon aimed for the shortest in the group. Head down, he collided with the man’s shoulder, spilling his coffee onto the man’s shorts.

“Pardon,” exclaimed Simon, playing up his Gallic roots, arms waving. “Désolé.”

“Crap,” said the sailor, retreating while brushing the liquid off his shorts.

Simon remained uncomfortably close to him, making ineffectual gestures to help clean up the mess.

The sailor’s friends erupted into laughter. They were Australian and immediately set about ribbing their unlucky shipmate, calling him a “bloody blind donkey” and making other comments about him wetting his pants, or worse, while assuring Simon that it was their friend’s fault, not his.

After a minute, Simon parted company with the group. The first rule of pickpocketing was to put as much distance as possible between you and the mark with the shortest possible delay.

Tucking the sailor’s badge into his pocket, he headed to the opposite end of the port, skirting the public swimming pool before stopping to check that the Aussie crew wasn’t following him. Satisfied that he’d pulled off the theft, he put the badge around his neck, picture facing his chest. He continued to the security checkpoint at the western end of the port, flashing his badge and giving a thumbs-up, not for a moment slowing. The guards waved him past without a second look.

Inside the fence, he made a sharp left and essentially retraced his steps. There was the usual dockside traffic. Crew members on errands to get hold of one part or another. Mechanics driving ATVs loaded with pumps, valves, driveshafts, and propellers. The air smelled strongly of diesel fuel cut with salt and bacon. Representatives from firms maintaining booths at the show hurried to their appointments and stood in tight knots, conversing with ship captains. Simon fit right in.

He reached the eastern end of the port and turned right at the first dock extending into the harbor. It was his aim to follow the path taken by the balding man the night before. The yachts were moored cheek by jowl, fantail facing the dock. The megayachts—three hundred feet and up—were moored farthest out, hugging the contours of the port. Those a class smaller had spots in the center of the harbor. Simon came to a dock extending to his left and slowed. It was here he’d last seen the balding man. He put his phone to his ear, feigning conversation as he studied the boats moored nearby. Five yachts shared this section of the dock. Pulling his cap a shade lower, Simon walked past them. The Alexis out of Hamburg, the Magnum Opus out of Porto Cervo, the Golden Crown out of Piraeus, the Czarina out of Nassau. Not a modest name among them. Then again, there was nothing modest about a three-deck motor yacht measuring the length of a football field. The Magnum Opus boasted a landing pad with a black Bell Jet Ranger tied down and ready for service. The Golden Crown carried four Jet Skis on its rear deck. Simon preferred the Czarina’s vintage Riva motorboat with its lacquered wooden hull, shiny as the day it was made, hanging from davits on the afterdeck. But nowhere did he see anyone resembling his friend from the casino.

Simon came to the end of the dock. The last boat was named the Lady S, out of Biarritz, the only one with a navy-blue hull. A gangway was lowered from the aft sundeck to the dock. He saw no one on deck or inside the cabin. He zipped up his jacket, put down his coffee. Sitting on the dock across from him was a coil of rope with a small pump, most likely broken, set atop it. He picked up the pump, examining it to see if there were any visible flaws. He saw none.

With confidence, he walked up the gangway onto the boat. The glass doors to the salon stood open. It was a large room, leather couches running along each side, a polished wooden table in its center, plush white carpeting. An enormous flat-screen television took up the far wall. Closer, a young woman clad in a T-shirt and shorts, hair a mess, face puffy, lay on a chaise longue, engrossed in the mysteries of her phone. She glanced up at Simon, then returned her attention to the phone.

“Where’s the captain?” he asked first in French, then in English. The woman shrugged, not giving him another look.

So much for security.

Simon advanced to the back of the salon. Stairs led down to the guest quarters and the engine room. Belowdecks was off-limits for a ship’s chandler delivering a pump. Another set of stairs led up to the second level. He climbed them to the dining room. The table wasn’t set for breakfast. Sales brochures, a photograph of the Lady S on the cover, were strewn over the surface. He picked one up and turned it over to see the name of the broker and the price. Eighty million euros, knocked down from one hundred twenty.

“Can I help you?” The ship’s captain addressed Simon from a sliding door leading to the deck. He was tall and bronzed and wore his uniform well.

Simon held up the pump. “From the chandlery. Your replacement bilge pump.”

“Wrong boat.”

“This is the Lady S.”

“We didn’t order a new pump. Our bilge pump is ten times that size. That’s for a sailboat.”

Simon held his ground. “You’re certain? I was told the Lady S.”

“Boat show,” said the captain, shaking his head. He was Italian, though his French was near perfect. “Everything is a mess. Can’t wait till it’s over. Good luck with that.”

“Thank you. Nice boat. Who’s the owner?”

“It’s on the account. But if you’re looking for work, you’re on the wrong vessel. We haven’t put to sea in a month. Owner can’t afford the fuel. I hope he’s paying your bills, because he isn’t paying my salary.”

Simon left the boat, dropping the pump where he’d found it. He might not know the owner’s name, but he’d learned plenty more. Under his arm, he held one of the sales brochures. Amazing the things people will tell you if only you keep your mouth closed.

*****

A group of thirty men milled around the auditorium on the second floor of the Sporting Club. Most were over forty and there wasn’t a woman in sight. A slim formal gentleman in a blazer and gray trousers moved to the lectern and introduced himself as André Solier, president of the Monaco Rally Club. He spent fifteen minutes giving a history of the club before reading off the names of the drivers participating in Saturday’s race and the automobiles they would be competing in. Each man in turn raised a hand and offered a hello. Simon recognized two of the drivers as clients whose vehicles he’d restored, though neither was driving a Ferrari on this occasion.

“And a last-minute entrant, Simon Riske, of London, England, racing in a nineteen seventy-two Ferrari Daytona.”

Simon kept his gaze straight ahead as all eyes turned to him. So much for keeping a low profile.

“This is Mr. Riske’s first time racing with us. Let’s be sure to offer him our warmest welcome.”

The president of the Rally Club went on to discuss the details of the event: arrival time, prerace judging, and the order of start. Simon drew place fifteen, squarely in the middle. The rally was a time trial. The cars were far too valuable to race head-to-head.

The lights dimmed and a map of the course appeared on the screen. Solier spent an hour going over the circuit. He pointed out three areas of concern. The first was a hairpin turn just past the town of La Turbie that fed immediately into another sharp turn—“a real dipsy doo,” according to Solier. “Slow down. This is not the place to gain time.” The second was a steep descent at the fifteen-kilometer mark that ended with a ninety-degree right-hand turn. “Do not test your brakes,” Solier warned. The last area of concern was a section he called the “camel’s back,” a series of subtle dips and rises where excessive speed would cause the vehicle to catch air. “And if you do, perhaps our new friend, Mr. Riske, will have the pleasure of repairing your vehicle.”

The course measured thirty kilometers, or eighteen miles. Drivers made three circuits. Prizes were awarded for the fastest time overall, the fastest single circuit, and the fastest short course, a section of the circuit where drivers could let it all hang out. Each winner received a gold cup and an invitation to a private cocktail party with Prince Albert of Monaco, the club’s patron.

“I look forward to seeing you all at the Dîner de Gala on Thursday night,” said Solier in closing.

There was a smattering of applause as the lights came up. Simon gathered the folder he’d been given and headed for the exit.

“Riske, isn’t it?” A slim, rugged man intercepted him at the door.

“Hello.”

“Dov Dragan. I chair the racing committee. Have a moment?”

“Of course.”

“Rather a last-minute entry. You kept us on our toes.”

“Like Monsieur Solier said, I usually fix cars.”

“Yes, I know. I looked you up. Not often we have mechanics racing. Or are you the owner of the car, too?”

When registering for the Concours, it was obligatory to indicate the name of the car’s owner. As chair of the racing committee, and thus someone privy to the entry forms, Dragan knew full well that the Daytona did not belong to Simon. “I hope it didn’t cause a problem.”

Dragan waved off the suggestion. “Same group’s been racing for the last ten years. It will be nice to have someone new to beat.”

He was around sixty, of indeterminate nationality, with steely blue eyes and silver hair cut very short. Despite the insouciant tone, he was not a nice man. Simon knew this at once.

“Sounds like you’re afraid that I might win,” he said.

“That’s not possible,” Dragan replied. “My Bugatti Veyron does zero to sixty in three seconds. Yours manages eight at best. It’s a dinosaur. Beautiful, mind you, but as for racing? I think not.”

Simon thought it best not to respond. He had his own opinions. The Bugatti Veyron was a two-million-dollar piece of high-tech junk, a publicity stunt trading on the Bugatti name—not an automobile of distinction.

“Still, it is a scenic course,” continued Dragan. “Very touristic. At your pace you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the views.”

Simon made a note to get Harry Mason down there to see what he could do about putting a little more vim into the Daytona’s engine. “I know the course. I have that going for me.”

Concern tightened Dragan’s already tight face. “Have you driven professionally?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Simon didn’t elaborate and he could see Dragan forcing himself not to inquire further. “I grew up here.”

“No one grows up in Monaco.”

“I meant in the area. Marseille. And you, Mr. Dragan: where are you from?”

“Cap Ferrat. At least for now.”

Simon looked rudely at his watch. “Excuse me. I have to run. I have a car to repair.”

Dragan didn’t smile at the gibe. He watched Simon leave without another word.

Outside, the wind had freshened. The ocean was a flurry of whitecaps. Gusts forced women to grab their skirts and men to hold on to their hats.

As Simon walked, he tried to place Dragan’s accent. Central European? Russian? Further east, maybe? He wasn’t sure. He decided that Dragan reminded him of a senator from ancient Rome. The one who’d stabbed Caesar.

*****

Vika arrived at the headquarters of the police judiciaire at 9 Rue Suffren Reymond at exactly ten o’clock. It was a four-story concrete slab sandwiched between other like buildings a block up from the port. She gazed up at its angular, undistinguished facade, thinking that surely it deserved an award for being proudly ugly and entirely forgettable at the same time. The word POLICE stood above the entry in large red block letters that she could tell lit up at night.

At the reception, she gave her name and asked for the commissaire.

“He is expecting you,” said a secretary without meeting her gaze. “Please sit.”

Vika looked at the row of plastic chairs and decided to remain standing. From the start it had been a difficult day. A day for confronting the past, for taking a long hard look at herself, and for coming to terms with the present.

It had begun at five, when daybreak was two hours away and the bed was suddenly her worst enemy. Unable to sleep, she’d risen and visited the hotel’s fitness room, where she’d spent an hour on the elliptical. After a breakfast of coffee and toast, she’d put on her sensible shoes and made her way to Princess Grace Hospital to claim her mother’s body. It wasn’t her first visit to a morgue. All of her family had predeceased her, excepting her son. She was expecting the institutional lights, the odor of tart disinfectant that made her eyes water and set her instantly on edge, the alien environment that screamed “This is not a place where the living belong.” Nonetheless, the sight of the corpse, partially burned, the face disfigured, the neck swollen grotesquely, had upset her. She hadn’t expected to cry.

A daughter should not have to look upon her mother’s lifeless body when they hadn’t seen each other in years, not when the last time they’d spoken her mother had been blind drunk, and mostly not when there wasn’t a detail about her death that made a whit of sense.

A visit to the mairie, or town hall, followed. There she’d signed a raft of papers, necessary to officially proclaim her mother deceased. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d signed her name. The paperwork had calmed her, if only by blunting her emotions.

And now the police.

A door slammed farther back in the building. Footsteps advanced down the hall. A brisk, officious man dressed in his formal uniform, silver epaulets, a braided cordon hanging from his shoulder, approached her. “Hello, Madame la…”

“Ms. Brandt.”

The man bowed his head. “I wasn’t sure how to address you. I am Rémy Le Juste, commissaire of the Police Urbaine. Follow me.”

Le Juste was fit and bald and walked as if on parade, which Vika imagined he thought he was. Three officers, also in formal uniforms, lined the corridor, backs to the wall, heads bowed. She wished them good morning and followed Commissaire Le Juste into his office. He showed her to a chair facing his desk and waited until she sat before taking his own seat.

“So,” he began. “You have been to the hospital and to the town hall.”

“Yes. Very efficient,” said Vika, with a nod of the head. “I appreciate all you’ve done.”

“Only our duty. It is a tragedy.”

“Thankfully no one else was hurt.”

“This is true.” Le Juste inquired about her trip and her lodging, showing surprise that she was staying in the hotel when she had other options.

Vika scooted to the edge of her chair.

“Please, Commissaire, can you walk me through the incident again?” she asked. “I was distraught when we spoke the other night. The surprise…you can imagine.”

She was lying, at least a little. The news, sudden though it was, had not been entirely unexpected. It wasn’t her mother’s passing so much as the details surrounding the accident that caused her agitation.

Three nights earlier, Le Juste began, Vika’s mother, Stefanie, age seventy-two, had left her apartment alone and driven her Rolls-Royce convertible to the Grande Corniche, where she guided the car west, in the direction of Villefranche and Nice.

(Vika knew the route well. The Grande Corniche was a narrow, curvy, constantly hazardous road running along the crest of the mountains from Monaco to Nice. It had hardly been improved since Napoleon had built it two hundred years earlier.)

A few kilometers past the turnoff for the N4 autoroute, she’d missed a curve, crashed through a guardrail, and driven straight off the cliff. From the trajectory of the car’s flight, it was estimated that she was driving well over the speed limit, probably faster than one hundred kilometers per hour. There were no skid marks. The automobile fell one hundred meters before landing on its roof and tumbling a further distance down the mountainside. There had been a fire. At some point, Vika’s mother had broken her neck. Death was instantaneous, the doctor had assured him.

All this Commissaire Le Juste explained with his deepest sympathy.

“And this occurred at what time?” Vika asked.

“Just after midnight.”

“How can you be sure?”

“The clock.”

“Pardon?”

“The car had an analog clock in the dashboard that stopped at the time of the accident.”

Meaning, Vika understood, that it had stopped when the car smashed onto the rocks below.

“And there was no one else in the car?”

“No, madame.”

“Just my mother?”

Le Juste shifted in his chair. It was apparent that he resented her questions. “Ah, oui. She was intoxicated.”

“Intoxicated people often drive with others.”

“I have the report for your inspection…”

“She was always intoxicated,” said Vika. “That’s why she never drove.”

She clasped her hands in her lap and sat up straight, a teacher speaking to a difficult student. “Monsieur le commissaire, my mother had a detached retina in her right eye. It was difficult for her to drive under any circumstance. At night, it was impossible due to the refraction of light from oncoming headlights.”

“Is that so?” asked Le Juste.

“It is. She rarely left her apartment. When she did, she had a helper who drove. A woman who did her shopping and took her to doctor’s appointments.”

Le Juste considered this as long as politeness demanded. “And yet, that evening she did,” he said.

“That’s my point. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Madame Brandt, I am a policeman. My opinions are not my own. They are dictated by the evidence. In this matter, the facts are unequivocal.”

“Then you don’t have all the facts.”

Le Juste sat forward, eager to parry her retort. “Is there something you are not telling us? If so, please. I’m waiting. I welcome any evidence you wish to add to the record.”

Vika did not answer. There was something else, something that in her view was sufficient to launch an investigation. She doubted, however, that the police would find a voice mail left by a woman in a blackout drunk reliable grounds to do so.

  

“Vika, are you there? Can you hear me?” her mother had begun on the voice mail that constituted their last communication. Her words were clear, her diction impeccable. “I’m in trouble. You’ve got to come down and help me. There’s a man. He wants to know about the family. I didn’t tell him anything. Of course, you know I’d never. But he keeps asking. I’m worried for you. For Fritz. I didn’t say a word. Please, darling. I thought he was my friend, but now I’m worried. He scares me.”

At that point, the conversation took a sharp turn. The diction lost its precision. The voice grew clotted. Vika had realized that her mother was drunk. Very drunk.

“You were always your father’s favorite. Far more than I was. The bastard. He was a sick man. You know that, don’t you? He got what he deserved.” A crazed laugh, then a lengthy pause, a rattling of glass in the background, and her mother started over in her clear aristocratic voice, as if the phone had just picked up and she was leaving her message all over again.

“Vika, are you there? Can you hear me? I’m in trouble. You’ve got to come down and help me. There’s a man.”

  

“No,” said Vika. “I don’t have any additional evidence. I was hoping that enlightening you about my mother’s condition would lead you to reexamine the accident.”

“And open a criminal case? Are you suggesting she was murdered?”

“No,” said Vika, and she meant it. “I’m suggesting she may not have been alone that night. All I know is that she could not…she would not…have driven her car up to the Grande Corniche—then, or at any other time—all by herself. It’s out of the question.”

“Do you have an idea who she might have driven with? A name, perhaps? If so, we would be more than happy to speak with this person.”

“If I had, I certainly would have told you. I mean, just where in the hell was she supposed to be going?” Vika said in frustration, at once angry with herself for losing her calm.

“I don’t think you should be considering murder, but perhaps something else.”

Vika flinched. At least he was polite enough not to say it. Suicide. The thought had crossed her mind and vanished immediately thereafter. Her mother was a devout Catholic. Besides that, she was happy, living in her own little world, manufacturing all her byzantine plots and rumors, having her vodkas, dressing for lunch and dinner, and ordering her helper, poor Elena, hither and yon. Le Juste was wrong, but Vika couldn’t fault his logic.

“Madame?” Le Juste pushed a box of tissues she didn’t need across the desk. Vika pushed them back. After a moment, she said, “What about the tapes from her apartment?”

“Tapes?”

“Security cameras. Something showing her driving out of the garage that night. Or one from the lobby or elevator. The building has cameras everywhere. Have you looked at them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Le Juste considered this. “We would need to open a criminal investigation in order to gain access to the building’s security apparatus. If, that is, there are tapes and they are still intact.”

“What do you mean?”

“Security systems are all the same. After a few days the tapes or discs record over themselves. It is a question of storage space.”

“Is that so?” Vika’s smile was exquisite torture. “Then we had better check today.”

Le Juste squirmed in his chair, already shaking his head.

“We won’t know until we look,” Vika continued. “Given everything I’ve just told you, I would think you would be as interested as I am to see what’s on those cameras.”

“It is not so simple,” said Rémy Le Juste, with offense. A line had been crossed. A diplomatic incident risked. “Only a juge d’instruction can issue a subpoena for such tapes. It is not a question of just ‘checking.’ A formal case must be opened and for that we must have grounds.”

“Perhaps the tape will provide the grounds.”

“The facts are clear, madame. Your mother’s Rolls-Royce drove off the Grande Corniche a little after midnight with a sole occupant. It was an accident. Nothing more.”

“I thought the job of police was to investigate. What are you afraid of finding?” Vika stood. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already. You’ve been very helpful.”

Le Juste rose and made to come around the desk. Vika stopped him with an icy glance. “Thank you again.”

Le Juste sank back into his chair. “My assistant will give you your mother’s affairs.”

  

Vika left the station, a tight smile on her face, lips pursed to keep her from shouting exactly what she thought of Le Juste and his “grounds.” The meeting had not gone as expected. She’d arrived certain that when told about her mother’s condition, Le Juste would be quick to adopt her point of view and zealously launch an investigation into her mother’s death. That was not the case.

Gazing with disdain at the building’s unwelcoming facade, she crossed the street and walked into the first café she saw. Inside, she set the plastic bag containing her mother’s effects on the table and ordered an espresso. She drank it slowly, pondering her next steps. Over the years, she’d developed what some called a “contrary nature.” The word “no” had stopped having its intended effect. Instead, it acted as an accelerant, urging her to follow her own inevitably more logical and well-reasoned course of action. In this case, however, she didn’t know where to begin.

First things first.

One last inventory.

Vika finished her espresso and opened the plastic bag holding her mother’s affairs.

One watch, Papa’s old Breitling Navitimer, which had hung like a millstone on Mama’s wrist.

One diamond ring. Eight carats, pear-shaped, so white it threatened to blind you, as near flawless as such a large stone can be, set on a platinum band.

Vika couldn’t imagine wearing such a thing. It was an affront, a million-dollar middle finger raised at the rest of the world. The rest of the world being not only the less moneyed but the untitled. Those poor lambs not mentioned in the pages of the Almanach de Gotha.

One wedding band.

Not from husband two—Bismarck, they had called him because he claimed to be German, but he wasn’t. Not really. It was the wedding ring Papa had given her. A simple gold band. A tear came to Vika’s eye as she rolled the ring between her fingers. Her mother and father had truly loved each other, if in their own strange way.

Vika decided that she’d wear it when she remarried. Or rather, if. Any man who opted to marry into the family would have to be crazy, and thus, by definition, unsuitable.

She swiped angrily at her cheek and proceeded through her mother’s effects.

One Cartier tennis bracelet.

One Bulgari serpenti wristlet.

One wallet. A single credit card. The stupid black one for snobs only. No driver’s license. No other identification. No money. It was a point of pride that Mama never carried paper currency. And tucked inside a fold, photos of Vika and Fritz. It’s just the two of us now, Vika thought, looking at her son. The rest are all gone. 

One pair of sunglasses. Black aviators. Odd for someone to take with them on a midnight drive. But odd enough to constitute grounds for an investigation?

She set them down.

The bag was empty.

It took Vika a moment to realize that something was missing. Not just something, but the most important thing.

She ran her fingers through the bag, though she could see perfectly well that nothing more was inside.

Vika clasped her hands and put them on the table. When she was angry or upset, which was far too often, she made herself sit still and take a deep breath. The ring bearing the family crest was missing. A chunk of fourteen-karat gold with their ancient coat of arms expertly carved into a square face. Two hundred years old, and itself a replica of those that came before it. In all her life, Vika had never seen her mother without it. And before her, Papa the same.

“He wants to know about the family…I didn’t say a word.”

A chill gripped Vika. She hadn’t given those particular words much thought. It was her mother’s fear of being harmed that had roused Vika’s concern. But now, with the ring missing, she knew she’d discounted them too soon. Maybe he wasn’t just asking but digging for information about the family’s most private affairs.

Vika turned her head in the direction of the police station. Was the ring enough to rouse Le Juste’s concern, too?

Of course it wasn’t. She had the feeling that Le Juste’s mind had been made up.

Vika left a twenty-euro note on the table and fled the café. She knew what must be done. She’d spent the last ten years saving the family, defending it against all comers, prevailing over indomitable odds. This was different, however. Her foe was not the law, not some obscure codicil from a dusty legal tome or a technicality in the tax codes. It was a person.

“Please, darling. I thought he was my friend, but now I’m worried. He scares me.”

One last crusade, then. Le Juste could go to hell. It would be up to Vika to find out exactly what had happened to her mother and how it came to be that she was driving on the Grande Corniche at midnight.

First things first.

Where was the ring?

*****

Vika left the café and headed toward Boulevard Albert 1er and the hotel. It was just after ten. An offshore breeze made the sun more bearable. Everyone was dressed in shorts and colorful attire. Music playing from loudspeakers along the port drifted through the narrow streets. For all intents and purposes, summer was still in full swing.

She hadn’t expected it to be so warm, not ten days into October. Fall was well advanced at home. The forest around her estate burned fiery shades of persimmon and rust. The next storm would dash the last stubborn leaves from the trees. Vika wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and looked up the incline toward the opera house. Her mother had lived on the other side of the hill, halfway down the Plage du Larvotto. Vika dug in her purse for the keys, only to drop them back inside. The apartment couldn’t answer her questions. She knew one person who could.

Vika found a piece of shade beneath the awning of a small gelateria. A stream of cold air escaped the door, along with the enticing scents of chocolate and fragolini. She consulted her phone and noted that Elena had still not returned her calls. Elena Mancini, her mother’s helper, was sixty-something, a squat, earthy Sicilian, more peasant than not, though Vika knew that was a horrible thing to say.

For the past ten years, Elena had spent nearly every day with Vika’s mother. She was not just her helper, but her companion, maid, and, most important, her confidante. As such, she was forbidden from being anything more than polite to Vika. Battle lines between mother and daughter had been drawn long ago. Like her Sicilian ancestors, Elena was loyal to a fault.

Vika phoned her again. Again, the call rolled to voice mail. She frowned. Apparently, omertà was not reserved for the mafia alone. Vika brought up her list of contacts. She had two addresses for Elena. One for her apartment in the city, the second for her home in the hills above Ventimiglia, an hour’s drive across the Italian border. Vika mapped the apartment’s location and saw that it was on the outskirts of the city, a twenty-five-minute walk uphill. Everything in Monaco was either up the hill or down the hill. So be it, then. Pulling the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she set off up the hill.

She left the commercial district, mostly office buildings housing notaries, attorneys, and accountants, with the occasional pharmacy or hair salon. After a quarter of an hour, she could see the botanical garden to her left—even further up the hill. Elena’s apartment was to the right. Vika needed a moment before continuing. The short trek made clear that she was not in the shape she’d thought. Vika was a great planner of exercise and a terrible practitioner. Every week, she’d map out a vigorous schedule of Pilates and spin and cardio classes and reserve two mornings for a brisk hour’s walk through the forest. Rarely did she honor even one of those commitments.

Gathering her breath, she observed a man walking up the sidewalk a half block behind her. He was slim and dark-haired and pale. It was his legs Vika noticed. He was wearing shorts and his knees and calves were as white as ivory. She’d seen him earlier, across the street from the gelateria. He stared right back and his cold gaze sent a shiver up her spine.

Dismissing him, Vika continued to her destination. Elena’s apartment was a six-story slab of concrete with shaded terraces and window boxes brimming with colorful flowers. The lobby door stood open. She found Elena’s name on the directory—MANCINI 6F—and pushed her buzzer. Vika lowered her ear closer to the intercom. No one responded.

The elevator brought her to the sixth floor. In a measure to keep the building cool, the lights were kept off. A corridor extended to her left, tapering into darkness. She slowed at each doorway to read the name below the doorbell. Of course there were no numbers on the doors. Vika found Elena’s apartment at the end of the hall, needing her phone’s flashlight to read the nameplate.

She thumbed the doorbell. A buzzer sounded. When no one answered, she knocked and put her ear to the door. Silence. Then a faint meow. She tried the handle. Locked. “Elena,” she said. “It’s me. Victoria.”

“She’s not there.”

Vika spun, gasping. An older, portly man stood directly behind her. He was dressed in work pants and a stained white T-shirt stretched tightly over an enormous belly. A heavy set of keys hung from his belt. The building superintendent.

“Have you seen her?” Vika asked after a moment.

“Who are you?”

“A friend. Elena worked for my mother.”

The man considered this. He had terrible bags under his eyes and a two-day stubble. “Go,” he said.

“I only want to know if you’ve seen Elena.”

“I told you. She’s not there. Tell your friends.”

“Excuse me?”

“I only open the door for family. They weren’t family. Neither are you.”

“Someone else was here looking for Elena?”

“Go,” he said again.

“It’s important that I—”

“Now,” the man said forcefully, his voice echoing down the hall.

Vika slid around his large form. “Of course,” she said.

Outside the building, she saw the pale, dark-haired man still standing at the corner. Hands in his pockets, he leaned against the bus shelter. He made no disguise of the fact that he was watching her.

Vika hugged her bag to her side and hurried down the hill.

*****