Crown Jewel 7

 

Simon?”

The sound of the door closing woke Vika. She pulled herself upright in the club chair, instantly alert. “Simon, is that you?”

The lights in the hotel room were dimmed and it took her a moment to remember that they’d been fully on earlier…before she’d dozed off.

“Hello?” Someone was in the room. She gazed into the dark, paralyzed by fear. Then she saw it. A figure dressed in black lurked near the entry. “Who’s there? Toby?”

Not Toby.

Not Simon either.

He was stockier than either of them. He was watching her. Waiting.

It was him.

Vika lunged for her purse, which held the compact pistol that Simon had made sure was loaded, with one bullet already in the chamber. All she had to do was flick the safety to OFF and pull the trigger. Several times, he said. Keep pulling until there are no more bullets left.

The man started across the room, his intent palpable. Vika dug her hand inside the purse. Her fingers touched steel. The man struck her and the purse fell to the floor. It was the man from the night before. The Serb.

She screamed, and he was on her, his hand covering her mouth.

“Simon can’t help you now,” he said, his face close to hers. “You’re on your own.”

She saw that he had a widow’s peak and she knew he was the man who’d been riding in the passenger seat of Mama’s car. She struggled, but he was too strong.

“You belong to Ratka now.”

And then the Serb hit her and all was black.

*****

The cell measured ten steps by six. There was a cot and a sink and a john, all the same dull stainless steel. The walls were painted battleship gray. The only other feature worth remarking was a small black dome on the ceiling that hid the security camera.

Simon sat on the cot, knees drawn to his chest. Despite having been fired upon point-blank by a twelve-gauge shotgun, he showed no sign of a gunshot wound. The same could not be said for the self-styled neighborhood vigilante who’d been splattered with ricocheting buckshot. The Mercedes-Benz had been built for the future king of the Belgrade underworld. As such, it had been built to protect its owner against like-minded enemies. The glass was bulletproof. In an odd way, Simon owed Ratka his life.

Upon Simon’s arrival at the station, the police had taken his shoes, belt, wallet, watch, and phone. No one had spoken a word to him. Not to ask what he had been doing at the Rue Chaussée, how he had come to have a bloodstained shirt, or whether he required the services of a doctor. Not even to ask his name. He’d been locked up enough times to know that this was not normal procedure. Paperwork came first. They always wanted to know your name. Someone was on Lord Toby’s payroll. Someone high up. Simon reasoned that his name was Le Juste.

An hour passed.

Then another.

Pain and isolation focused Simon’s thinking. Toby Stonewood had had no business hiring him in the first place. Simon imagined that the board of the Société des Bains de Mer had demanded an investigation into the huge losses being suffered. A top man from a renowned firm was hired. Toby had placed a quick call to Ratka and made sure the man disappeared. When the losses continued, the board had requested another investigator. No doubt Toby had suggested a “fresh set of eyes.” Still, Simon should have at least suspected—if not immediately in D’Art’s office, then later. All along, the clues had been right in front of him. As an investigator, he’d failed.

Should anything happen to Vika, he was responsible. He and he alone.

As for his present reality, it was apparent that Toby Stonewood wanted him locked up and out of the way, for all intents and purposes dead. Toby would make that wish a reality soon enough, once he could move Simon to an environment more to his liking.

Not going to happen.

Simon unbuttoned his shirt. The sutures hung loose, like the laces of a poorly tied shoe. The puncture wound had reopened and leaked a brownish bloody discharge. It looked bad, it hurt, but it wouldn’t kill a man. He stood and walked to the sink. Leaning over the basin (so as to block the security camera), he turned on the water and washed his face. As he did so, he ran one hand beneath the sink and felt for the pivot rod that raised and lowered the stopper. He gave it a jerk, then another. It broke off. He examined the long flat strip of metal. It would do.

Concealing the rod, Simon returned to the cot and lay down on his stomach. He dropped his hand to the floor and rubbed one side of the strip vigorously against the concrete beneath the cot, sharpening the edge into a blade.

Drastic times called for drastic measures.

Simon sat up. The next part he wanted everyone to see.

Gritting his teeth, he slid the strip into the open wound, cutting the sutures. He then angled the blade downward and thrust it into his abdomen, slicing through six layers of the dermis, then a little deeper, into the fascia. He paused and, stifling a cry, yanked the sharpened edge toward his sternum.

Blood flowed down his chest.

He dropped the strip onto the floor.

Then he collapsed.

*****

A little deeper and you would have done yourself some serious damage.”

Simon looked on as the doctor slid the needle into his skin and stitched his self-inflicted wound. He had been in the hospital for an hour. He’d had his blood drawn and his chest x-rayed and received a shot of anesthetic that was beginning to work wonders. Two staples closed up the tear to his muscle. He stopped counting stitches at eighteen and closed his eyes. Sometime later he felt a tug and heard the thread snap.

“Leave them in this time,” said the doctor. “They work better that way.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The doctor threw away the needle and gauze. He was fifty and bloated, with shaggy gray hair and a wine lover’s nose. “I’m going to get your x-rays. You didn’t break your own ribs, too, did you?”

“That was the other guy.”

The doctor patted his shoulder and chuckled. “Stay put.”

Simon’s wrist was cuffed to the table. There was a policeman guarding the door. Where could he go?

The doctor left and closed the door, leaving Simon by himself. Radiology was one floor below. The doctor would take the elevator, walk to the end of the hall, and spend the required time evaluating the x-rays. By the looks of him, a croissant and coffee might be in order on the return trip. He would be gone twenty minutes at least.

Simon waited a few beats, then spat out a small silver object. It was the key to his handcuffs. Policemen always carried two. One they kept attached to their duty belt. The other they slipped into one of their pockets. It had been a simple matter to lift the key from the cop’s back pocket during Simon’s transport to the hospital. He unlocked himself from the table and took up position behind the door.

“S’il vous plaît!” he shouted. “I’m bleeding. Please help.”

The policeman entered the room immediately. He was thirty and fresh-faced and as competent as he needed to be. He’d driven Simon to the hospital after the warders had found him half conscious and thrown him into the back seat of a police car. He had no reason to know that the prisoner was an accomplished pickpocket or to suspect that he’d gutted himself with an eye toward escape.

Simon shut the door. As the policeman turned, Simon threw him into a choke hold, one arm around his neck, the other locking it into position and pressuring the head forward to block circulation to the brain. The cop had no chance to cry out. He struggled briefly, then fell unconscious. Simon maintained the pressure a little longer, not wanting him to wake up too soon. He lowered the policeman to the floor and relieved him of his radio and car keys and a hundred euros.

Simon found a dressing gown in a cupboard. After putting it on, he opened a second cupboard—the one with the drugs—and took out vials of lidocaine and codeine, as well as two syringes and a few isopropyl wipes.

He left the room and walked to the end of the hall, nodding pleasantly at the nurses he passed. Nothing to see here. He entered the stairwell and dashed to the ground floor. He gave himself three minutes, five tops, to get as far away from the hospital as possible.

The police car was parked in a designated space near the emergency room. A column obscured it from viewers. Simon opened the trunk and found a sports bag beneath a fluorescent orange traffic vest. He unzipped the bag and rummaged through a pile of dirty clothing. A wrinkled black Lacoste shirt was the best he could do.

The drive to the hotel took four minutes. Simon parked illegally two blocks away. The time was 8:15. The police radio came to life as he was closing the door. A suspect had escaped custody at Princess Grace Hospital. A search of the premises was under way. All available patrolmen were to report to Commissaire Le Juste. There was no mention of Simon’s name or the fact that he might be heading to the Hôtel de Paris.

He entered through a rear door, ducking into the emergency stairwell and exiting on the third floor. He poked his head into the hallway. Vika’s room was halfway down. He saw no one standing guard, though it was impossible to know if Philippe or anyone else was seated on the bank of furniture opposite the elevators. Treading softly, he knocked at Vika’s door. When no one answered, he called her name and put an ear to the cool wood. He heard nothing. With mounting unease, he made his way to the elevators. No one was present.

A door opened behind him. He spun to see a maid pushing a trolley emerge from the linen closet. Simon smiled, a fortuitous surprise, and approached.

“Excuse me. I’m in four twenty-one upstairs. I wanted to see Madame Brandenburg in three twenty. She’s not answering the door or her phone. I’m worried.” He pressed the hundred-euro note into the woman’s palm. “Please. Can you come with me so we can both see if she is all right?”

“Madame Brandenburg is no longer here,” said the maid, holding out the bill for Simon to take back. He refused. “She left early this morning.”

“You’re sure?”

The maid brushed past him and marched to Vika’s door. “Please,” she said, sliding her pass card and allowing Simon to enter.

Vika was gone. The room had been cleaned and made ready for the next guest. Simon contented himself with a rapid look around. Had anything sinister occurred, there was no sign of it. “Of course,” he said, breezily. “She’s leaving today, not tomorrow. Did you by any chance happen to see if she left with anyone?”

“Ah, non,” said the maid. “It was before I came on duty.”

“Before seven?”

“I start at five a.m., monsieur.”

Simon thanked her, deciding it unwise to ask any further questions. He took the stairs to his floor in a state of panic. Ratka had kidnapped her. Toby had cleaned things up on the backside. Still, Simon just might have a way of tracking her down.

There was no one in the corridor and he quickly found a maid and had her open his room. One look told him that everything was still in its place. There was no need to clean up after a man stuck in jail.

Simon locked the door, then went directly to the desk and turned on his laptop. He double-clicked on an SOS app that allowed him to control his iPhone remotely. Vika had not called, nor had she texted. He backed up the phone onto the laptop, then issued a kill command, deleting the contents. He wasn’t just returning the phone to its original factory settings; he was obliterating the operating system.

Next he opened the Apache app that monitored the trackers he’d placed on the thieves. He was interested in only one: VB 4. He’d placed it in Vika’s purse at the Sporting Club the night before so he might know her whereabouts, just in case.

A map of Monaco appeared on the screen. A trail of dots denoted her movements. Clicking anywhere on the line revealed the precise time she’d been at that location.

The trail began at the hotel and made its way to the Sporting Club. After an hour, it curved into the city, stopping at the Église Saint-Marc for seven minutes before continuing back to the hotel, where Vika stayed from 10:12 until 3:50. Simon had no idea why she’d stopped at the church. For the moment, it was of no concern.

At 3:51, the trail left the hotel and led westward across the city to Port de Fontvieille, on the far side of the palace, and farther west still, where it stopped on the border of France and Monaco, at the Héliport de Monaco. The Monaco Heliport.

Vika remained at the heliport for two minutes. Not a second longer.

Simon was looking at a picture of a chopper waiting on the landing pad, rotors turning and Vika being led toward it. Who was with her? Ratka? Or was Toby Stonewood there, too? And where were they taking her?

The final readings, taken thirty seconds apart, showed the helicopter moving on an eastward heading, passing over the Monaco Tennis Club and finally Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The trail stopped there. The tracker could not transmit its signal any farther.

Simon stared at the screen, running the mouse over Vika’s trail.

At 4:02 a.m., Princess Victoria Brandenburg von Tiefen und Tassis had climbed aboard a helicopter and flown east toward Italy.

*****

It was five minutes past eight a.m. in London when Roger Jenkins tapped on Zaab Sethna’s door. “In yet?”

A snort greeted his words. Jenkins poked his head inside the office, where Sethna lay on the floor, his suit jacket folded to make a pillow, his hands clasped over his chest. His dark glasses sat on a book next to him, along with a glass of water. Jenkins stepped inside. Why would Sethna sleep on the floor when there was a perfectly good couch in the break room not ten steps away?

“The break room smells,” said Sethna, sitting up. “That’s why.”

Jenkins jumped out of his socks. “Zaab…Sorry…How did you know?”

“Everyone asks the same thing.”

In the morning light, Sethna’s eyes were puffy and mole-ish, lending him a shy appearance. He noted Jenkins’s intrusive glances and put on his eyeglasses. “It’s because of my back, actually. Broke it in a helo crash in Ramadi province ages ago. Still gives me a devil of a problem. Worth it. We got him.”

“Who?”

“AMZ. Zarkawi. Bad egg.”

Jenkins nodded, the name conjuring images of roadside bombs and butchered bodies. “Is the crisis resolved? I didn’t catch anything on the news.”

“As it should be,” said Sethna. “But yes…for now. And please: don’t ask.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jenkins smiled like an altar boy. “The cuff links?”

Sethna unfolded his jacket, got up, and hung it behind the door. “Couldn’t get there, eh?”

Jenkins shook his head. “‘Sword of God.’ ‘Eight two zero zero.’ ‘Judges seven.’ No, the pieces didn’t fit.”

Sethna went to his desk. “Mossad,” he said, drawing a grand breath. “Israeli intelligence. Unit 8200 is their elite surveillance apparatus. Can hack anything. Listen to anyone. See everywhere. Best in the world by some accounts. Where did you get them, by the way?”

“A friend found them.”

“Where?”

“Monaco.”

“Figures.”

“Why do you say that?”

“All those Israeli boys take their tech and flog it on the open market. Millionaires, the lot of them.”

“And the writing?”

“That’s what gave it away. It’s a name. Dov M. Dragan. Tell your friend that the cuff links belong to the former director of Unit 8200. The post goes to the number two man at the Mossad. If he really is a murderer, this wasn’t the first time.”

*****

CALL ME read the header on the email from Roger Jenkins at MI5.

“What have you got?” Pen in hand, Simon sat at the desk, praying for news that might help him find Vika. He was operating in crisis mode, moving a heartbeat slower than warp speed. He’d showered, shaved, and put on fresh clothing. A second injection of codeine laced with B12 had him feeling better than a fresh batch of dilithium crystals. He’d phoned Harry Mason and asked him to bring over the Daytona as quickly as possible.

After that, he’d spoken with D’Artagnan Moore, pulling him out of a directors’ meeting being held at Claridge’s.

“You can’t be losing that much money,” Moore had bellowed when he’d picked up the phone.

“D’Art. Listen to me. We’ve been had.”

“By whom? How?”

“Toby Stonewood. He’s played us from the start.”

“Toby? The Duke of Suffolk?”

“One and the same.” Simon couldn’t stand how the English never wanted to believe the worst of their landed gentry. Even the most casual perusal of English history showed them to be venal, dishonest, and without scruples. And those were the good ones.

“Just listen to me,” said Simon. “And button it till I’m done.”

He needed ten minutes to explain all that had happened since he’d arrived in Monaco and another five to calm Moore down. When some measure of calm had been restored, Simon played him the recording he’d made while dangling outside the second-floor window of the drop house.

“What is that they’re speaking?” Moore asked petulantly.

“Just wait. You’ll recognize one of the voices in a minute.”

Moore quieted as Lord Toby Stonewood’s baritone entered the conversation.

“The bastard,” said D’Art when the playback ended. “I’m sorry, Simon.”

“You and me both, brother. Just get me the financials I asked for. I want a cavity check of Toby Stonewood’s economic livelihood.”

“I’ll put on the rubber glove myself,” said D’Art.

“Be careful. He’s not the type to go down without a fight. We don’t know who he has in his corner.”

“Consider it done. What about you?”

Simon zipped up his bag and set it down next to the stainless steel attaché case. If Vika wasn’t welcome in the hotel, neither was he. It was a matter of time before they came looking for him. “Me? I’m going after the girl.”

That conversation with D’Art had ended five minutes ago.

“Did you get all that?” asked Jenkins after he’d finished relaying his information.

“Mossad. Unit 8200,” said Simon.

“Is it any help?”

“More than you can imagine. I have one more thing to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“The other day when I called and you knew where I was: Does that software work for all carriers…I mean, for numbers outside the UK?”

“Wouldn’t be much good if it didn’t.”

“A friend has gone missing. She’s German. Her mobile has a Frankfurt area code. Don’t know her carrier.”

“Give me the number.”

Simon read off Vika’s cell number.

“Nothing,” said Jenkins.

“That fast?”

“Speed of light.”

“You can get a read on a phone even if it’s off. Isn’t that right?”

“As long as the phone is in range of a cell tower.”

“What if the phone is in the air?”

“No go, I’m afraid.”

“Keep trying. And let me know the minute you find out anything. She’s important to me.”

Simon ended the call, his eyes on the words he’d written in neat block letters. He recalled being seated at his desk in the old office at the bank, reading the prospectus of an offering of shares in a new company called Audiax. “Our CEO holds a PhD in mathematics and worked for the Israeli government for twenty years prior to founding the company.”

Of course it hadn’t said what Dov Dragan had done for the government. Spy chiefs were wise to keep a low profile after their retirement, especially if they lived where their government couldn’t offer year-round protection.

Whoever wrote the program, Radek had boasted to Simon twelve hours earlier, is a mathematical genius.

“I fear I sold too early,” Dragan had complained in the Bar Américain. “It’s hard to turn down a billion dollars.”

Maybe the billion was gone and he needed to earn another.

The trust is worth twelve billion, Vika had said.

Dov M. Dragan, head of the Monaco Rally Club’s racing committee, founder of Audiax Technologies, and former chief of Unit 8200 of the Mossad. If Roger Jenkins couldn’t tell Simon where Vika was, Dragan could.

A sharp knock on the door interrupted his violent machinations. Instead of answering it, Simon opened the French doors to the balcony and stepped outside. There was no way down except to jump. He went to the door.

“Open up,” said Harry Mason.

Simon showed the mechanic in. “Hello, Harry.”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

“Misplaced it for the moment.”

“Car’s out front. Gave you a hundred more horses and enough torque to push your bottom right to the floor. By the way, Lucy called. She can’t get ahold of you either. She asked me to tell you that a woman phoned the shop looking for you. She said it was urgent.”

“Name?”

Harry Mason scowled. “Knew you’d ask me that. Maybe something French?”

“Isabelle?”

Mason snapped his fingers. “That’s it.” His eyes fell to the bags set down next to the bed. “Leaving already?”

“I am. And you should, too.”

“What about the time trial?”

Simon checked his watch. It was 9:05. The first car had gone off an hour ago. Dragan was set to go at 9:30. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t be there. Like everyone else, he thought Simon was in jail. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“Reminding you? Isn’t that why we came?”

Simon grabbed his bags. “I need a favor,” he said, then described how he’d left a laptop computer beneath the front seat of a car he’d parked near the botanical garden the previous night. He told Harry he wanted him to retrieve it. He didn’t mention that there were two men in the trunk.

“A laptop under the front seat?”

“It’s very important, Harry. After you get it, go directly to the airport and jump on the first plane home. I’m not a popular man in this town.”

Simon held the door for Harry and they left the room. “And one more thing,” said Simon. “I’m going to need your phone.”

*****

The helicopter brushed the treetops, flying so low that Toby Stonewood was sure the uppermost branches would scrape its belly. He didn’t know how the pilot could see. The rain had grown steadily worse as they’d crossed the Lombardy plain. The wind had picked up, too, batting the aircraft about like a toy on a string, the engine oscillating wildly, screaming and groaning as the rotors sought purchase. The moisture had turned to sleet and then to snow as they’d passed Como and climbed into the Alps. And now cloud. Dense, unfriendly, dark, restless cloud that played hide-and-seek with them. One moment blinding them, the next vanishing to reveal the valley floor.

Toby sat facing backward; Victoria, his stepdaughter, was opposite him, Ratka beside her. All wore headphones to drown out the engine noise. A microphone allowed them to speak to one another. Ratka was not a “good flyer,” as the saying went. His complexion had gone green a while back. He sat, eyes closed, head against the window.

Toby gazed at Victoria, keeping a faint smile on his lips, as calm and relaxed as if they were all sharing a ride to Heathrow. Stonewoods learned at an early age never to betray weakness in any way. He’d kept a check on his emotions for so long that he wondered if he still had any.

Even so, the first few minutes of the trip had been rough. They’d had to tell her they had her boy. Ratka had done the honors, striking her across the cheek and warning her to behave herself after she’d begun threatening them with all manner of ridiculous punishments should the boy be harmed. It was a little embarrassing, actually. Toby nearly felt sorry for the girl.

Even now, Toby could sense the anger brewing beneath the composed surface. Who wouldn’t be upset that her son was kidnapped? He had a hard time bringing himself to think about what was to come. There was a word for it. Familicide. In the best European tradition, he was guaranteeing his inheritance by the most reliable means known. If it had worked for the Borgias, why not for him?

Toby gazed down at the mountains, the swath of pines covering the slopes. He’d become quite the expert on timber of late. He knew the price that spruce brought at market, and oak and birch. It paid to learn about the commodity that stood to make you rich. On behalf of the family, he’d already conducted exploratory discussions with the chairmen of several of the world’s largest logging concerns. The consensus seemed to run to a billion dollars per million acres of old growth forest. It was a start, enough to pay off Ratka and Dragan, have a few crumbs left over to satisfy his creditors, at least partially.

The helicopter dropped abruptly, like a man putting his foot in a puddle and discovering it was a trench. Ratka moaned and shifted in his seat. Poor fellow. He had a hand on the safety straps, his knuckles so white they looked as if they were about to pop through the skin. Toby didn’t like turbulence any better, but he’d be damned if he showed it.

It had been a bumpy enough road to get to this spot. He tried to think when it had started going wrong, “it” meaning his life: his loves, his friendships, and mostly his finances. Fifty, he decided. Maybe forty-eight. That was when demon drink began to rule his life and he’d discovered that he was more or less broke. He told himself he should be proud that he’d made it that far.

The family had a motto: Intra si recta, ne labora. If right within, trouble not. The problem, Toby thought as he pondered all he’d done and what he was about to do, was that he no longer knew, nor frankly cared, what was right. A better motto might be “Do right for yourself, trouble not.”

Toby realized that Victoria was staring at him.

“Why?” she asked.

“Always the same reason,” he replied.

“It was you who refused the divorce.”

“Thought it was the safe play,” said Toby. “Keeping my options open.”

“And the Holzenstein fortune?”

“Never quite what it was made out to be. Grandfather sold off most of the land after the Second War. There was some decent art. A few Rembrandts, Turners, a Sargent. Those went, too. I did the rest. If you’d agreed to your mother’s prenup, none of this would have been necessary.”

“No,” said Vika, admonishing him. “You would have gone through that as well.”

Toby shrugged. “Probably right.”

“And Fritz?”

“You mean Robert. What about him? He’s the rightful heir. You know how it goes. Princes in the tower and all that. Whole thing doesn’t work if he’s around.”

She steeled herself, tilted her chin. “And it doesn’t bother you?”

He thought about lying, but decided he was past that. “Not in the slightest.”

Vika nodded toward Ratka. “And him?”

“Ratka? He’s got the manpower. I needed his men to raise the funds to pay the death duties. Your German authorities up and raised the ante last week. Some bill to fund that immigration nonsense. Someone’s got to pay for all the darkies coming into the country—oh, excuse me, I mean the ‘refugees.’ Might as well be the rich.”

“You’re horrible.”

“The truth, Victoria. Only telling the truth. Smart of you to take advantage of that provision to avoid inheritance taxes if you keep the entire estate intact for two generations. You can’t touch the assets, but Robert can do whatever he likes. Or the presumptive heir. That would be me. Assuming, that is, I can cover the tax bill.”

“So you cheated your own casinos?”

“Riske tell you that?”

“Why did you bring him in, anyway?”

“Didn’t have a choice. I’m the chairman of the company. The first man we brought in was an expert. Had it figured out the first night.”

“So you killed him.”

Toby shot a finger at Ratka. “Not me. Him. That’s his line of work. Riske was the perfect alternative, at least at the outset. Good record of working with businesses. Strong recommendations. Honest to a fault. I argued that we needed someone from outside the industry. I wasn’t kidding when I said he had a checkered background. He’s done serious time. Used to rob banks. Almost killed a few policemen. The board liked that. Takes-one-to-know-one kind of thing. Turned out he was everything he was cracked up to be. Couldn’t have that. Problem was that he met you. A little taste of schnitzel got him all fired up.”

Vika slapped Toby across the face.

Toby grabbed her wrist. “Vorsicht, meine Prinzessin,” he said. “Be careful.” He released her and continued. “Anyway, Riske’s in jail. He won’t be getting out for a long time. Le Juste is making sure he has all the evidence he needs to put him away.”

“Le Juste is with you?”

“Everyone is with me, Victoria. Everyone is together on this.”

“And what will you do?” she asked. “When you have it all.”

“Sell,” said Toby. “Sell, sell, sell. The forest. The castles. The art. The furniture. All of it.”

“How much are you giving to him?” she asked, looking at Ratka.

“He gets his rightful share. None of your concern. Besides, we’re going to be close for a while to come.”

A gust rocked the helicopter and it danced sideways, the tail swinging out wide. His stomach went with it.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Vika.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

*****

It was nine kilometers up the hill to La Turbie. Simon drove like a madman, not stopping for lights, passing when he could and when he couldn’t. He could feel the changes Harry had made to the Daytona. The car had always been fast. Now it was dangerous.

He’d put the phone on the center console. He had Isabelle Guyot on the speaker.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” she began. “You know that, don’t you? It’s against everything I stand for.”

“I’m grateful.”

“As it turns out, it’s me who should be grateful. Or rather the bank. How did you know?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“You said you were interested in Dragan for personal reasons. But surely it’s connected to whatever you’re investigating down there. Our side missed it completely.”

“Glad I could help,” said Simon, though he remained at a loss regarding what Isabelle had discovered. “Dov Dragan gave me a bad feeling. Something didn’t mesh.”

“As usual, your radar is accurate,” replied Isabelle. “Initially, we viewed him as another successful executive and investor. Following the IPO of his company, Audiax, he opened an account with an initial deposit of just over one billion dollars. That was ten years ago. He’s always been a player. He bet heavily on currency plays. Placed money with the riskier venture cap funds. Funded a few start-ups himself. If there’s the opposite of a Midas touch, Dragan had it. Everything he touched went belly-up. Every month his account lost value. He started taking out large sums of cash over the counter. A million euros at a time. Maybe there was a drug habit or a gambling problem. Over the last two years, the decline became precipitous. He was hemorrhaging money. He started carrying a negative balance.”

“You didn’t like that.” Simon recalled visiting Isabelle at her office. A sense of rectitude was as much a part of the furnishings as the Paul Klee watercolors. There was no word for “overdraft” in the Swiss banking lexicon.

“Finally,” she continued, “we sent him a letter informing him that he had to make good or we were going to close his account.”

“But you didn’t,” said Simon, powering a long curve in the road.

“He did as we asked.”

“I’m listening.” He veered left.

“About nine months ago, just after the beginning of the year, Dragan started making deposits into his account through our rep office in Monaco. I’m not talking twenty thousand here, thirty thousand there. I’m talking real money. Millions.”

“Maybe one of his start-ups paid off?”

“Doubtful. Start-ups burn through cash—they don’t mint it. Every few days Dragan would show up at the rep office down there and deposit cash and checks issued by the casino to a dozen different people, all signed over to him.”

“Sirens didn’t start flashing?”

“In Monaco? God, no.”

“Monaco isn’t Cyprus,” said Simon.

Since the rise of the oligarchs and their systematic pillaging of the former Soviet Union, Cyprus had become the black money capital of Europe. Banks there had learned to turn a blind eye.

“A close relation,” said Isabelle.

“And in-house? Nothing from compliance?”

“Not a whisper,” said Isabelle. “It gets worse. Dragan didn’t even keep the money at the bank. A day after depositing the money, two days at most, he’d wire all of it out.”

“Not to the same account, I’m guessing.”

“To a dozen, maybe more. An account in the Netherlands, one in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Panama. The usual suspects.”

“Did you get a total of the amounts Dragan wired out to all the accounts?”

“So far around two hundred million euros.”

Exactly the amount Toby stated had been stolen from the casino.

“You have a record of the wire instructions?”

“Of course. All holding companies. What else is new?” Isabelle read off a slew of them. “Granite Partners. Oak Ventures. Quartz Millennium Group. Linden Concerns.”

The pattern wasn’t lost on Simon. Stone. Wood. “No names?”

“That would defeat the purpose.”

“Thought I’d give it a shot. I’m rusty.”

“Try again.”

Simon put on his figurative jacket and tie and sat down at his old desk in the City. “Any of the accounts at Pictet?”

“Maybe you’re not so rusty after all. Four of the accounts he regularly wired the money to were opened at our Geneva offices.”

“Were you able to take a look?”

Isabelle paused, and Simon knew he was pushing too hard. “Access was denied,” she said finally. “The accounts were blocked. The only person allowed to see them was his personal banker.”

“But you have the account docs,” said Simon, meaning the original paperwork.

“There were no names, but all of them had something interesting in common,” explained Isabelle. “All four accounts were opened with a referral from a member of our executive board of directors. The same member.”

A bank’s executive board usually comprised corporate and social luminaries, retired executives, philanthropists, politicians, aristocrats from inside and outside the region. In this case, none worked directly for Pictet.

“Let me guess,” said Simon. “Lord Toby Stonewood.”

Isabelle was unable to hide her surprise. “Know him?”

“Not as well as I should.”

“Are they his accounts?” she asked.

“I’d say he controls them.”

“So you know what this is all about…Dragan’s deposits, his transfers—the bunch of it.”

“Now I do. If I’d known earlier, I would have told you.”

“What are we looking at, Simon?”

“Cash deposits. Wire transfers in and out. Holding companies. A pattern of suspicious activity from a client with no proven means of income who was until recently flat broke. You tell me.”

“A criminal endeavor. It should have been caught on day one.”

“And it wasn’t,” said Simon. “For a reason.”

“This is bad.”

“Isabelle, listen to me. Be careful who you bring this to. This is more serious than you can imagine. These are dangerous people.”

“One of our outside attorneys is a friend. I’ll ask him to make it look like it was his firm that discovered the problems. Toby Stonewood won’t learn about it until he gets a call from the police.”

“That’s the idea,” said Simon. “And move quickly. Freeze the accounts as fast as you can. Today, even.”

“That’s impossible. You know that it takes a court order to freeze an account.”

“Put an internal block on them.”

“I can’t do that without authority from the top.”

“Tell your friend the attorney and set up a meeting with him and the president of the bank. And Isabelle: today.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.”

*****

The helicopter put down at an old airstrip near Samedan. A Land Rover waited on the tarmac. Two people got out of the car: a trim, alert man in a leather jacket and a beautiful younger woman with dark blond hair and green eyes. The man put flexicuffs on Vika’s wrists and told her not to speak. The woman hugged Ratka and kissed him on both cheeks.

“This is Elisabeth,” said Ratka to Vika. “My daughter.”

“And my fiancée,” said Toby, looping an arm around her waist and kissing her. “Hello, darling. As I said, we’re going to be closer. Family, in fact.”

“Maybe she’ll be a princess one day, too,” said Ratka.

“Nice to meet you,” said Elisabeth to Vika in flawless German. “Your son is a very polite young man.”

Vika threw herself at the woman, but Ratka grabbed her and bundled her into the car.

“Calm yourself,” said Toby.

Elisabeth looked on, bemused. She had her father’s dead gaze. The apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

The Land Rover drove rapidly along the highway, making no concession for the snow. Toby rode in front. Vika was sandwiched between Ratka and his daughter.

Until now, Vika had been able to rationalize her fear, to explain away her vulnerability. Somehow, she would get out of this. She would escape from Ratka. She would save Fritz. She’d been taught that confidence wins out, that positive thinking yields the desired result. That was wrong. She wouldn’t escape. She could not save Fritz. She was driving to her death.

She looked across the lake at the town of St. Moritz, at the tower of the Palace Hotel and the angular steeple of the Lutheran church. There was a hollow pit where her stomach used to be. Her skin was ice-cold, her heart beating much too fast. She was scared.

Scylla. Charybdis. Stream.

The words arrived on her tongue unbidden. She closed her eyes, recalling the only other moment in her life when she’d been as frightened. She hadn’t been in danger, at least not like this. In imminent peril. She had been twelve, and if possible she’d been even more scared.

Curzon. Brabazon. Rise.

Vika threw herself back in time. There was a narrow white chute before her, a tall groove of ice so cold as to be blue, and at her feet a sled. To be precise, it was a skeleton, a rectangle of scarred black leather for her to lie down on attached to two long, razor-sharp struts.

Gunther, Mama’s silver-haired boyfriend, handed her a helmet and she put it on without hesitation, essentially some kind of automaton. By now she was hyperventilating, out of her mind with terror at what she was being made to do.

For the last three weeks, Gunther had been teaching her how to ride the skeleton. Short runs on hard snow. She’d learned to drag the toe of her right foot and lean left when she wanted to guide the skeleton left and the toe of her left foot and lean right when she wanted to guide it right. She’d learned never to touch the ice with her hands and to keep her head absolutely still. She’d learned to never try and slow down lest she lose control of the skeleton altogether and be rocketed out of the run like a bullet from a gun. But not once had she traveled more than one hundred meters without falling off.

Gunther had drawn her a map of the course and they’d reviewed it turn by turn. Each section had a name. Curzon. Brabazon. Rise. Scylla. Charybdis. Stream.

To each name, an instruction.

Turn right. Turn left. Straightaway.

She’d memorized them all, but there was no way to practice the run before attempting the entire course. Once on the ice, you couldn’t stop. You could only go faster.

It was called the Cresta run. It was two kilometers long, with a total of sixteen curves. She would reach a speed of 140 kilometers per hour. A week before, a man had lost control of his skeleton and flown out of the run, breaking his back. It had all happened in the blink of an eye. He would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. If Vika finished, she would receive a medal.

The starter’s tower stood behind her.

A tocsin bell rang once.

A man called her name. All of it, with her title. A crowd of spectators drew near.

Vika stepped to the starting line. Her body quivered like a violin string strung too tight.

“Locker,” said Gunther. Relax.

Despite her terror, Vika smiled at him. Even now, thirty years later, she regarded the smile as the single bravest act of her life.

It had been a cloudy day with light flurries, visibility poor, the temperature well below freezing. Vika remembered none of that. Nor did she remember the run itself, or her time of one minute sixteen seconds, a record for a first timer younger than fifteen years of age.

She remembered only the moment when Gunther had said “Go,” and she’d started running and thrown herself onto the black leather square. A blink and she was barreling into the orange foam cushions that stopped her flight. It was over. She’d done it.

No one had been there to congratulate her.

She opened her eyes. Ratka was staring at her.

Vika looked at him and grinned.

*****

The town of La Turbie sat atop the mountain like a tile and terra-cotta crown, gazing down from on high upon Monaco and the Côte d’Azur. It was a quiet place, just three thousand inhabitants, famous as much for the Trophée des Alpes, a towering Roman ruin dating from the Emperor Augustus, as for its training grounds, where AS Monaco, the local soccer team, practiced year-round.

Simon guided the Daytona through the narrow streets, slowing to a crawl as he approached the town hall, where participants in the time trial had gathered in the parking lot. There were enough fancy cars and colorful banners and pretty young women with fat older men to look almost like a real Formula One race. A timer straddled the main road. A Jaguar E-type convertible (“roadster,” to those in the know) in British racing green, chrome spokes, so pretty that Stirling Moss should have been driving it, took the start flag and roared off. A leaderboard showed the best time as seventeen minutes, sixteen seconds, which counted as either insanely foolhardy or just plain brilliant, given the wildly curving course and the poor condition of the roads.

It was 9:24. Dov Dragan was next to run.

Simon revved the engine as he entered the lot. He wanted Dragan to see him. He wanted Dragan’s ass to pucker as he realized that the jig was up. Simon didn’t know if it was the smartest move in the book, but it was the only one he could think of. He hadn’t slept in a day. He hurt all over. He had no way to locate Vika. He was desperate.

There was a space waiting for him with his name stenciled on the pavement. He killed the engine and climbed out of the car. Many of the drivers were attired in racing gear: jumpsuits decorated with stripes and badges and the makes of their automobiles. Mercedes, Porsche, Lamborghini. Or Bugatti. Wearing sky blue, Dragan was easy to spot, helmet in one hand, a socket wrench in the other.

Simon shouted his name. The Israeli turned. He stared at Simon for a long second. His mouth moved as if he was trying to shout back, but no words materialized.

“Where is she?” asked Simon so everyone would pay attention. “Where did Ratka take her?”

Heads turned. Dragan tried to wave Simon off but couldn’t manage it. The knowledge of being a rat caught in a trap robs a man of confidence.

“I have one of your laptops,” Simon went on. He could only hope that Harry Mason had found it. “It was Radek’s, actually. That’s some cheating program. Radek bragged that whoever wrote it was a mathematical genius. Who am I to argue? You and your boys stole over two hundred million from the casino. Hear that, ladies and gentlemen?” Hands held out wide, Simon turned so that all would pay him note. “This man, Dov Dragan, formerly the director of Unit 8200 of the Mossad, a real-life spy in the flesh, wrote a software program that allowed him to cheat at baccarat so efficiently that no one could catch him. Of course, it turns out he had some help on the inside.”

A half-dozen people drew nearer, unsure of what was transpiring.

By now Simon was face-to-face with Dragan. “You have one chance to tell me where she is.”

“You have nothing,” said Dragan. “I don’t know how you got out of jail, but that’s where you’re going back to. Get out of here. You are embarrassing yourself.”

“I have this.” Simon opened his palm to reveal the cuff link. “I also have you on disc driving the Rolls from Stefanie’s apartment building thirty minutes before she died. I suppose that’s something.”

Dragan looked at the cuff link and swallowed, his eyes suddenly blinking far too rapidly.

“Is everything all right?” It was André Solier, the president of the Monaco Rally Club. “Is he bothering you, Dov?”

“Am I?” asked Simon.

“Mr. Riske,” Solier continued. “This is no place for personal disputes. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“You heard him,” said Dragan. “Leave.”

When Simon didn’t move, Solier said, “Should I get the police?”

“Be my guest,” said Simon.

“This man is crazy,” said Dragan. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

“No?” said Simon. “Maybe this will jog your memory. Account five one five point seven eight eight ZZ.” Simon spoke each number as if counting down a launch. “Banque Pictet. Geneva. Tell me again that I’m crazy.”

Dragan’s face drained of color. He shook his head, swallowing dryly, a man who had received a terminal diagnosis.

“And you’re right,” added Simon. “It is the finest private bank in the world.”

Dragan lashed out with his wrench, clubbing Simon across the face, knocking him to the ground.

When Simon was able to stand, he saw that Dragan had reached his car and was driving rapidly through the crowd, men and women jumping aside, crying out, banging on his chassis.

Brushing aside offers of help, Simon ran back to the Daytona. He put a hand to his face and it came away covered with blood. He felt nothing, only rage and the will to avenge. He fell into the driver’s seat and fired the engine. Dragan and the Bugatti had a lane clear to the starting area and passed beneath the official time clock, accelerating madly as the race officials ran after him, shouting and waving for him to stop.

Simon nosed the car forward, hemmed in on all sides by the race competitors and their support teams. He rode the horn, window down, calling “Out of the way! Emergency.” People recoiled at the sight of him.

Finally, Simon entered the starting area. A band of race stewards blocked his path. Burned once by Dragan, they maintained a solid front, standing with arms akimbo on the starting line. Simon waved them away, to no avail. When they refused to move, he threw the car into first, swore at the top of his lungs, and accelerated as if they weren’t there, knocking the men aside like bowling pins. The man positioned in front of the car rolled onto the bonnet, his face pressed against the windscreen. After fifty meters, Simon braked hard and the man rolled off the car onto the pavement. Simon decided he’d never liked race stewards to begin with.

Simon rounded the first bend and caught sight of Dragan’s silver-blue Bugatti half a mile ahead. It was a two-lane road, following the contours of the ridgeline with plenty of curves and a few straightaways. A light rain was falling, with darker clouds spilling over the mountaintop. Simon drove the car as hard as he knew how, keeping the rpms high, using the engine to decelerate, rarely lifting his foot off the accelerator. He knew where Dragan was headed: to the north side of the mountains, where there was an on-ramp to the A4 superhighway. If Dragan made it, Simon would never see him again. Dragan would slip out of the country. Harry had made the car faster, but not fast enough.

Simon flew past a sign for the Grande Corniche and braked, searching for Dragan’s car on the feeder road snaking up the hillside. He had a clear view of the road to the top of the mountain. There was no sign of the Bugatti and he brought the car back up to speed. The speedometer read 130 kilometers per hour—well over eighty miles per hour. Too fast. A burst of rain blurred the windscreen, forcing Simon to brake.

But Dragan suffered the same obstacles. The rain was playing havoc with his skills. He over-accelerated on the short straightaways and braked too early and too long on the curves. Despite driving the fastest production car on the planet, he couldn’t get out of Simon’s sights.

The road climbed a hill, the first long straightaway on the course, and Simon pushed the pedal to the floor. The Ferrari growled magnificently and he picked up speed faster than he could have imagined. A tall stone wall ran to his right, a field strewn with rocks and gravel to his left. There were few houses or structures of any kind on this part of the course. Simon reached the crest of the mountain. The road narrowed considerably. He braked and downshifted, preparing for a ninety-degree left-hand turn. He slowed, only a little, and touched his foot to the gas as he completed the turn. He was a moment too soon. The car traversed a slick patch of asphalt and began to slide out behind him. Ahead stood a squat weathered mile marker on the side of the road: a block of immovable stone. He turned the wheel in the direction of the skid and pumped the gas. The car straightened and missed the marker by a finger’s width.

Simon was headed west toward Villefranche and Nice. The road flattened out and began a ten-kilometer stretch hewing to the contours of the mountains, a procession of bends, straightaways, and near hairpin turns that allowed the driver to view the road far ahead. A gentle curve and the Bugatti came into view. Dragan was closer than Simon had expected, his brake lights flaring before he disappeared around a jagged escarpment.

Simon threw caution to the wind, attacking the corners, selecting the fastest line, daring the car to lose its purchase on the wet asphalt. The course departed the Grande Corniche and shot down a dizzyingly steep feeder road onto a less used track, barely wide enough for a single vehicle. Small pitted-stone homes alternated with towering hedges, the pavement in lamentable condition: potholes, crumbling borders, depressions where the asphalt had been dug up and not properly repaired. The road dipped and rose and dipped and rose, making Simon feel as if he were riding out a rising sea. The hedges dropped away. No more houses now, just open territory, the mountainside diving vertically to his left. Only rocks and more rocks and the ocean below. Dragan’s lead had dwindled to less than a hundred meters. He disappeared again, hidden by the next curve. Simon chose his moment. He pressed the accelerator to the floor, waiting, waiting as the bend neared, then downshifting a second too late, braking, spinning the wheel, feathering the gas as he came out of the turn.

Dragan was right there, nearly stopped after apparently losing control in the turn. Simon’s fist slammed the horn. He braked. His nose touched Dragan’s bumper. Dragan leered at him in the wing mirror. In a flash, the Bugatti sped away, so fast it seemed an illusion, as if it hadn’t been just an arm’s length away. A blink and it was fifty meters down the road.

But Simon knew he was the better driver. He had him. It was a matter of time.

Faster.

  

Faster.

Dov Dragan spun the wheel, keeping his foot on the accelerator, feeling the tires tear into the crumbling asphalt as he rounded the bend. He glanced into the rearview mirror. The bonnet of Riske’s Ferrari looked like the snout of a marauding shark. Closer and closer it came, no matter what he might do. The man was relentless. First interfering with the princess, and now discovering Cutter.

Cutter.

He’d given the name to his card-counting program because it was when the player was given the cutting card that the casino made itself vulnerable.

Dragan had been a gambler his entire life. He’d played pinochle with his father on their farm in the Negev and poker with his barracks mates while doing his national service. In his forties he developed a taste for blackjack. He taught himself to count cards, but at his peak his skill gave him only a two percent advantage over the house. It required playing (and counting) for hour upon hour to win any real money. Even then, Lady Luck could double-cross you. Baccarat had been Toby’s suggestion, almost as a dare. After all, how can one cheat at a game of pure chance?

It was a year ago. They’d taken to meeting for drinks at the Bar Américain every afternoon at five. Two expats in Monaco. Billionaires once. Bachelors. In his cups, Dragan had complained to Toby about his run of bad investments. To his surprise, Toby had an even longer list of his own. A far longer list, as it turned out. Dragan had seen something in Toby’s eye. Maybe Toby had seen something in his. It wasn’t long before they began discussing ways to scratch back their fortunes. By hook or by crook.

It was on a damp December day that Toby first mentioned the von Tiefen und Tassises and how he would be better off without them. He floated the idea as a kind of wild “What if?,” almost as a joke. Only three of them left. Kill ’em all and take their money. Toby wouldn’t really inherit it all, would he? He’d separated from Stefanie ten years earlier. It couldn’t be. But of course Toby had studied the matter. He knew the law to a T. He had a plan all worked out. The killing was the easy part. The hard part was gathering money to pay the death duties.

“You’re the smart one,” Toby had said over a glass of his favorite grappa. “I own the casino. You figure it out.”

So Dragan had. As Riske had said, he was a mathematical genius.

Dragan had no compunction about breaking the law. He had lost his soul years before. For a spell in the nineties, he’d run his government’s targeted assassination program. It was difficult to order the deaths of people day in, day out, without sacrificing a portion of one’s humanity, even if the people were the enemy. They deserved it. But did their wives deserve it, too? Their kids? And what had it accomplished, anyway? He was a murderer. Fact.

So when Toby Stonewood offered his hand and said “Shall we give it a go?,” Dragan shook it and said “Why not?” A little theft and murder was nothing compared to the crimes that already tormented him. It wasn’t even a question. It was a challenge.

Looking back, Dragan realized now that none of it had been Toby’s idea, or his own. It had come from Ratka, and from his daughter, Elisabeth, who was smarter than all of them. She’d been screwing Toby for a year by then, long enough to have learned that he wasn’t the rich man he claimed to be. She was the one who’d suggested that Toby kill off his family.

Dragan was thinking about all this, along with Cutter and the princess and that maniac, Ratka, when he noticed the curve approaching much too quickly. Ahead, the strip of pavement made a sharp turn to the right. Beyond the curve was sky, ocean, and a five-hundred-foot vertical drop.

Dragan slammed his foot on the brake. The Bugatti decelerated violently, propelling him into his safety belt, his head ricocheting off the steering wheel. For a second or two, the car held its line. Dragan realized he didn’t have enough space. He yanked the wheel hard to the right. The Bugatti’s massive V12 engine was mounted in the rear of the vehicle. By far the heaviest part of the automobile, the engine block’s forward velocity overruled the grip of the car’s sticky low-profile tires. The Bugatti entered an uncontrolled spin. The rear of the car slid out from its center of gravity, striking the flimsy guardrail. Frantic, Dragan forgot everything he’d been taught and steered against the skid. Instead of straightening out, the car continued its wild, uncontrolled slide. Dragan touched his foot to the gas, compounding his error. The car’s course was set. 

The chassis collided with the strip of metal, the force of the impact bending it into a convex curve. Bolts popped. The guardrail broke free. One section separated from another and boomeranged off the cliff. The right front wheel left the pavement and skidded across the shoulder. The car yawed left. Dragan saw blue sky, the rugged cliffside, and, far below, a stand of sharp rock rising out of the sea. All to an earsplitting chorus of metal scraping metal. He grasped the wheel with both hands. The passenger seat was suddenly above his shoulder, looking down on him. He cried out.

The car stopped.

Dov Dragan stared out the window.

He was a dead man.

  

“I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

Simon stood ten paces from the Bugatti, arms crossed over his chest. He’d watched the car spin out and was amazed that it hadn’t plummeted off the mountainside. It was the first piece of luck he’d had all day.

The passenger window was open. Dragan stared up at Simon, eyes wide, hands trembling on the wheel. “Riske, get me out of here.”

“Where is Victoria Brandenburg?”

“Just get me out. I’ll tell you everything.”

“You’re safe,” said Simon. “For the moment.” He sidestepped down the escarpment and set his foot on the Bugatti’s front tire, leaning on it.

The chassis groaned.

“Riske!”

“Talk.”

“She’s in Switzerland.”

“I’m listening.”

“Somewhere in the mountains. Her family has a chalet there.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“How should I know where? That part of the operation doesn’t concern me.”

“Not buying it. I have you figured for a details kind of guy.” Simon gave the car a shove. Dirt shifted. The Bugatti slid a foot farther down the slope, a foot closer to the rocks below. “Where in the mountains, Dragan?”

“If you kill me, you won’t find her.”

“You willing to bet your life on that?” Simon bent at the waist and placed both hands on the Bugatti’s hood and began to push. The car was heavier than he’d expected, but the loose terrain and the angled slope helped greatly. Dragan begged for him to stop. Simon continued to shove the car closer to the precipice. “Where?”

“Pontresina. It’s called the Chesa Madrun. Five kilometers off the main highway. There’s a private road. It’s the only place within miles.”

Simon saw himself standing at Vika’s back as she searched her keys to open her mother’s apartment. One color for each of her homes. Paris, Manhattan, Pontresina.

And later, inside her mother’s apartment, the picture of a boy, thin and pale, wearing a rugby jersey, with Vika’s straight nose, a thatch of curly blond hair, and blue eyes that looked right through you.

“Fritz?”

“Well, that’s what we call him. His full name is Robert Frederick Maximillian. He’s away at school in Switzerland.”

Zuoz.

The name came to Simon in a flash. He had a few clients at the bank who either had graduated or had a child in school there. Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz. Located a stone’s throw from Pontresina.

“And the boy?”

“They’ve got him, too. He’s already there.”

“Who’s got him?”

“Ratka’s men. Toby Stonewood.”

“He’s a kid.”

“It wouldn’t work without him. Toby’s the surviving heir by marriage. The estate goes to him.”

“Why two hundred million?”

“To pay the death duties,” said Dragan. “The taxes owed to the German government due on transfer of the estate. Otherwise, it all ends up in probate for years. The judge decides which assets to sell off to pay the taxes.”

“So you decided to kill them all?”

“It’s the only way.”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“Explosion. A gas leak. It has to look like an accident. There can’t appear to be any foul play or the court will get involved. That means a delay. Toby’s not getting any younger. Neither am I. We can get our hands on the estate in ninety days.” Dragan gazed at Simon, eyes wide, confident. “We can cut you in…a hundred million…That’s real money, Riske…Just get me out. A hundred million.”

“Cut me in?” Simon saw red. He leaned against the hood, pushing with all his might. The car slid and slid some more. Simon could nearly see its underside. A back tire dropped over the edge. The car teetered dangerously. Dragan screamed for him to stop.

Simon lifted his hands off the car. Dragan said “Thank you” over and over, hyperventilating.

“What were you looking for in the apartment?”

“A ring,” said Dragan. “A family heirloom. We had to have it.”

“Why?”

“Same reason. To keep the administration of the estate out of the hands of a judge. All part of the ancient protocol from God knows when. The ring signifies a lawful succession. No questions asked. A load of horseshit, but that’s the way it is.”

“So you killed Stefanie.”

“Ratka killed her. He brained her with an old glass vase. Thing shattered and made a mess of the bathroom. I got her drunk before. She didn’t know what was going on.”

“You brought her the grappa?”

Dragan nodded. “Toby arranged for me to meet her one day at that Italian place she always went to. She was a lush. I took her out a few times after.”

“But you scared her. You didn’t know she was borderline paranoid. She guessed what you were after and hid the ring.”

“That’s enough of this,” said Dragan. He’d gone white with terror. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Help me, Riske.” Timidly, he removed a hand from the wheel and extended it toward Simon. “Get me out. Please.”

Simon looked at the Israeli spymaster in his blue racing suit and silver helmet. He’d never seen anyone so frightened.

“Get yourself out.”

*****

Simon walked away from the car. He checked his watch. It was 9:45. Switzerland was a five-hour drive. He gazed up at the sky. An armada of black clouds approached from the north. The rain was falling harder by the minute. If it was raining here, it was snowing in the Alps. A sturdy helicopter with a very good pilot might be able to make it, but that wasn’t going to happen. Simon couldn’t show his face at the heliport. He was a wanted man.

He considered calling the Swiss police…and saying what? Victoria and her son had been kidnapped and were being held captive in their chalet…or that a team of Serbian criminals along with Victoria’s stepfather planned on killing them to get their hands on the family’s twelve-billion-dollar fortune? The first piece of information the police would require was Simon’s name. Who was he to make such an accusation? It would end there. Simon had no doubt that Toby and his man, Le Juste, had seen to it that the name Simon Riske, escaped murderer, was on every police blotter across the European continent.

Going to the Swiss police was out.

Before Simon had a chance to think of anything else, a late-model Audi rounded the curve and accelerated straight at him. It was déjà vu all over again. He backed up a step before the car braked hard and came to a halt. The doors opened. Two men climbed out and came at him. One held a pistol and it was aimed at Simon’s face. Simon recognized him. It was Goran, one of the Croats who’d been following him the other day. The second man, recognizable by the flexicast on his left wrist, had to be Ivan.

“What are you doing?” said Goran. “You’re not supposed to leave until five minutes after the Bugatti. The starting times were posted online. We waited all night and you ruin it.”

“What is this all about?” demanded Simon. “We’ve never crossed paths. I’m not in your line of work. What exactly do you want?”

“We’re here for the car,” said Ivan. Then he hit Simon hard across the face, staggering him. “I owe you,” he said. “For breaking my hand.”

Ivan walked past Simon and looked at the Bugatti, perched precariously on the mountainside. He looked over his shoulder at Simon. “You run him off the road, too?”

“He did it himself,” replied Simon, confused.

“Why don’t you help him?”

“I’m busy.”

Ivan looked at Goran, who barked out instructions in a language Simon didn’t understand. Ivan sidestepped down the slope to the Bugatti. Dragan was shouting for help. Ivan told him to unbuckle his safety belt, then reached into the cockpit and pulled Dragan out through the passenger window. It helped that Dragan weighed 140 pounds sopping wet.

Dragan scrambled up the hillside. He saw Goran and the gun and was quick to appraise the situation. “Look who’s in the shit now,” he said to Simon. “You should have taken my offer.” He turned to Goran. “You…What’s your name?”

“What’s your name?” retorted Goran.

“He’s Dragan,” said Ivan. “I remember him from the starting list.”

“I’m a friend.” Dragan took off his helmet. “A friend who is going to offer you a lot of money.”

“Really? What for?”

“Shoot him. Shoot Riske. I’ll pay you.”

“You are serious?” said Goran. He added, “You two really don’t like each other.”

“How much?” asked Ivan.

“Take my car,” said Dragan. “It’s the finest sports car in the world. A Bugatti Veyron. A V12 engine. Zero to sixty in two point three seconds. Alcantara leather seats. Only fifty in the whole world. It’s worth two million dollars.”

“I’d say it’s worth more,” said Simon. “Two million five, easy. But he doesn’t own it. The bank does. For that kind of money, they’ll come looking. Like Mr. Dragan said, only fifty of them in the world. Hard enough to drive without being noticed. Forget about selling it.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s a thief. He used to be a gangster. A criminal.” Dragan approached Simon, breaching his personal space. “I don’t care what you think you have: no one will believe you. You’re a murderer. You killed all the men in the drop house. Le Juste is with us. Anyway, Ratka will take care of you. I’ll see to it. We know where to find you, Riske. I’m not the one in trouble. You are.”

At the mention of Ratka, Goran stepped closer. “What did you say about Ratka?”

“He’s my partner,” said Dragan. “A close friend. He’s from your part of the world. Know him?”

“We’re talking about same Ratka…Zoltan Mikhailovic from Belgrade?”

“The very same,” said Dragan. “A very good businessman. You have my word I will speak highly of you to him. Maybe you two can work for him one day.”

“Me?” said Goran. “Work for Ratka?”

“Why not? I can see you are intelligent. You and your friend can become two of his lieutenants. I assume that is your line of work?”

Simon noticed that Ivan was no longer interested in him. Instead, his attention had shifted to Dov Dragan. Ivan was staring at the Israeli in a way that Simon hoped no one would ever stare at him.

Goran noticed this, too. “See my friend Ivan?” he said to Dragan. “He knows Ratka.”

“You do?” said Dragan. “Perfect. I’m still happy to reintroduce you.”

Simon retreated a step.

“Yes,” Goran continued. “He knows Ratka very well. Ivan is from Srebrenica. You know it? When he was a boy, Ratka visited his town. It was during the civil war. Ratka is a Serb. Ivan and me, we are Croats. Ivan’s father was Muslim, his mother Orthodox Church. Back then, no one cared about religion. Ratka came with his soldiers and took over the town. He built a camp outside—a concentration camp—and rounded up all the men and boys. Took them there. Also, Ivan’s father and three brothers. Ivan was too small, just three years old. Anyway, Ratka, he cared about religion. He didn’t like Muslims. He and his Silver Tigers…they killed all the men and boys. He made them dig their graves, then shot them. Five thousand. More, maybe. Yes, we know Ratka very well.”

Dragan listened intently, eyes shifting among Goran and Ivan and Simon, as if analyzing where he stood, calculating the probabilities of his next move. Simon didn’t think his mathematical skills were going to be of much assistance.

“He’s your friend, eh?” asked Ivan. “A close friend.”

“I mean…we are working on something together,” said Dragan. “I’m not sure he’s really a friend. More of an associate.”

Ivan looked at Goran. “Friend, associate, whatever of Ratka wants to give us car he doesn’t own. Asks us to work for Ratka. Be lieutenant. What do you say, Goran? You want to work for Ratka?”

Goran shook his head. “No, thank you, Ivan.”

“Me neither.” Ivan turned back to Dragan. “You going to see him soon?”

“Possibly.”

“Yes or no? After all, you have to give him message about your friend, Riske.”

“I believe so,” said Dragan, haltingly.

“Good. Because I have message for you to give Ratka. ‘Fuck you.’”

Two stiff fingers to the chest emphasized the final words. Dragan backed up a step. “I’ll tell him.”

“I want to make sure he gets the message.”

“I promise.”

“What do you think, Goran…you think he tell Ratka ‘Fuck you’ from us, from Goran and Ivan?”

Goran shook his head. “No chance.”

“Me neither. I think better we send message ourselves.”

“I’ll tell him,” Dragan insisted. “You can believe me.”

Ivan was holding a pistol in his right hand. A nickel-plated .45. He raised it. “What you going to tell him?”

“‘Fuck you,’” said Dragan.

“What?”

“‘Fuck you.’” Louder this time. Dragan was red in the face.

Ivan lowered the gun. “Good. I think he gets it.”

Dragan nodded earnestly as Ivan looked at Goran.

A moment later, Ivan raised the pistol and emptied the clip into Dov Dragan, the final shot sending the Israeli over the precipice. Ivan wiped off the pistol with his shirttail and threw it over the cliff. “That was for my papa,” he said, walking past Simon.

“Him…the driver…bad guy?” asked Goran.

“Very.”

Goran put his hand on Simon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but we have to take the Ferrari. Martin Harriri owed us a lot of money. He gave us the car as payment. That’s why you saw us the other day. We didn’t know you were one of us.”

Simon didn’t think it necessary to tell him that he’d been out of that side of the game for twenty years.

Goran looked at the Bugatti. “You don’t have a car anymore. You want that one? I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Sure,” said Simon. “Give me a hand?”

“Ivan, come here!” shouted Goran. “We gotta move this car back on the road.”

*****