Barnaby Neill steered his car along the auxiliary road that ringed the aerodrome. He kept one hand on the wheel while the other massaged his aching shoulder. Years had passed since he’d fired a rifle, and he’d failed to hold it as tightly as needed. Still, he was pleased with his aim. He’d needed one shot to neutralize Ren. Makepeace could not have done any better, rest his soul.
He slowed as he came abreast of the Ferrari, lying on its roof a hundred meters to his left. The car looked more like a recycled Coke can than a masterpiece of Italian design. He could not see Riske inside or, for that matter, anywhere in the grass. It was doubtful he could have escaped unscathed. If he wasn’t dead, he was badly injured. Under normal circumstances, he could simply dismiss him as a factor to be reckoned with. But Riske was anything but normal. He was a cockroach. You could step on him with your boot, you could grind him with your heel, and still he managed to survive.
Enough was enough.
Neill threw the car into park. Opening the door, he unholstered his pistol, chambered a round, then stepped outside. The road was covered with pine needles and he took a deep breath of the warm, fragrant air. A new resolve filled him. It was time to neutralize Mr. Riske just as he’d neutralized Mr. Ren.
He started out across the grass, searching for some sign of the investigator. It was common for people to be expelled from their vehicles in rollover crashes. He kept his eyes on the ruined car and the area nearby. A flurry of activity out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. Not Riske, Coluzzi. With evident difficulty, the Corsican was climbing out of the cab of the armored truck. His face was a bloody mess, his clothing askew. He pulled himself over the foot rail and slid indecorously down the side of the truck, falling into the grass and lying still.
Neill stopped to assess the situation. A moment ago he’d caught the first dissonant wails of a police siren. He could see the flashing blue lights deep in the trees as they neared the aerodrome. Not a single pair, but a dozen. His eyes studied the Ferrari, then dashed to the truck. It was one or the other.
Neill returned to his car at a jog. A minute later he was parked near the truck, using it to shield his presence as best as possible. He approached with caution, pistol in hand.
“Mr. Coluzzi, we meet again.”
“Mr. Neill, is it? I was wondering when I’d see you.”
Up close, Neill could see that Coluzzi had suffered a gash on the forehead as well as a broken nose. He was a mess. “I’m guessing our mutual friend told you my name.”
“Is it Ledoux or Riske? I’m confused.”
“Do you have my letter?”
Coluzzi pointed at the sky. “Airmail to Moscow.” He coughed, expelling a wad of bloody phlegm.
“At least I’ve earned a consolation prize.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to split it? We make a good team. Next time, though, tell me the rules in advance.”
“You have your six hundred thousand euros. Or, rather, you did.”
“It was the money you were after all along, not the letter.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Let’s just say I knew who I was dealing with.”
“I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you.”
“Only a little. You could have killed Riske.”
Coluzzi sighed, a mistake he rued as well. “How are we going to settle things?”
“Get me my money. Then we’ll talk.”
“I can’t,” said Coluzzi. “Knee. It’s ruined.”
“Up,” said Neill, not buying it. “On your feet.”
Coluzzi forced himself to his good knee, then attempted to stand. He managed, just, and wobbled unsteadily. Neill motioned with the pistol for him to walk. Coluzzi took a step and collapsed to the ground, moaning unpleasantly. Neill grabbed his leg below the kneecap. With thumb and forefinger, he squeezed. Coluzzi cried out.
“You really are hurt,” said Neill.
Grimacing, Coluzzi sat up, rubbing his knee. One hand moved slowly toward his ankle. His fingers tugged at his pant leg. The stiletto flashed through the air, its razor-sharp blade angling for Neill’s fleshy neck.
But Neill saw it coming. He caught Coluzzi’s wrist, stopping the blade a breath from its target. He stared at Coluzzi, tightening his grasp, slowly turning the wrist backward on itself. Coluzzi clenched his jaw. His body began to shake. Still, he said nothing. Neill wrenched the wrist violently, snapping bone and tearing cartilage. The stiletto fell to the ground. Coluzzi cried out. Neill cuffed him with the butt of his pistol for good measure.
“Is the truck unlocked?” he asked, and when Coluzzi refused to answer, he asked again, with menace.
“See for yourself.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Neill walked to the rear of the truck and put a foot on the bumper, reaching a hand to the roof, and hauling himself up onto the side of the truck. He remained prone, as the first police cars entered the aerodrome. One after another, they made a sharp right turn and drove pell-mell to the far end of the field, where Borodin and Ren had engaged in their version of the shootout at the OK Corral. Finally, the sirens died off. He watched as the officers poured from their cars and surveyed the scene. Not one glanced in his direction.
He scuttled crab-like to the cargo door. It opened outward and he lowered himself into the rear bay. It was more cramped than he had expected, with a bench and an enclosed container to accept deposits. He noted how stuffy the air was, how stale and sour. The thought of spending an eight-hour day trapped in such unpleasant confines made him claustrophobic. But that was another man’s fate.
Neill picked up the suitcase, guessing its weight to be close to forty pounds. He saw that there was no combination and that it was unlocked.
Ten million euros.
How long had he waited?
The idea had come to him years before. He had grown tired of this life. He was doing an all-star’s job for a journeyman’s wages. The world was an expensive place and there was money to be had. At some point, between all the cars he’d never drive, the suits he’d never wear, the meals he’d never eat, and the women he’d never screw—out there between Belgrave Square and Rodeo Drive—he decided he wanted a piece. A government salary wasn’t going to cut it. And so he’d set about planning.
He’d started his career as a Russia hand. He’d been a young man when Reagan had visited Red Square as a guest of Mikhail Gorbachev. He’d been in the room when his superior had suggested making a pass at the young KGB officer shipped in from Dresden, along with a hundred others, to populate Red Square. The First Gulf War broke out barely eighteen months later and he was transferred to the Middle East desk. Off he went to Kuwait and an assignment with the Special Activities Division. Russia was a memory.
But over the years, he’d heard whispers about “their man” in Moscow. Whatever the Agency was doing, it worked. From 1990 to 2000, Russia went from being the “main enemy,” a vaunted military power and feared rival, to the closest thing to a failed state. The old USSR broke up into a dozen pieces, most of which—not coincidentally—hated one another. What remained of Russia proper was ruled by the greediest bunch of plutocrats since Nero and his violin had plundered Rome. And presiding over this wholesale pillage was “their man in Moscow,” Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. First as a bagman for the mayor of Moscow, then as an assistant to President Boris Yeltsin (who else could have slipped Yeltsin the bottle of vodka he was forbidden during the fated visit to Washington, DC, when he escaped the White House in his pajamas and was found wandering down Pennsylvania Avenue at three a.m. singing “The Internationale”?), and then as president of Russia himself, a position he had held, on and off, for two decades.
At some point the Agency lost its man, which was par for the course. Putin accumulated too much power, too much money. He decided to be his own man. No one minded much. Russia needed a strong hand. Worse than a dictator was a weak democracy. The West required a reliable bulwark against the Chinese hordes. It also required an enemy with sharp teeth and a set of claws. Of late, however, he had grown too headstrong. It was decided he needed to be reined in. No one suggested replacing him. God, no. Just a slap on the hand to remind him who was “daddy,” to use the vernacular.
Vassily Borodin had been marked as a comer for some time. His rise through the ranks of the SVR had been rapid and without pause. He was smart, capable, ruthless, cunning, and very, very ambitious. For the first time in recent memory, Russia had spawned a man capable not only of replacing Vladimir Putin but of returning Mother Russia to some semblance of her former glory. For Vassily Borodin possessed another quality in even rarer supply. He was an honest man.
And so the letter.
It had been Neill’s idea. An ingenious means to draw the attention of a man with righteousness in his heart and treachery in his blood. A born usurper. The West had operatives by the dozens inside the Kremlin. The United States had operatives, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia. It was just a matter of having one drop a hint here and there. The rest they left to Borodin.
The goal was not to depose the sitting president but to weaken him. And at the same time, to remove an unwelcome successor. For there was one hitch that Vassily Borodin could not know.
The letter was a fake.
Everything up to this point had been done to make him think otherwise.
But one of the graphologists in the Kremlin would know better. The error was in Reagan’s signature. A loop that was too big. Or was it a curl that was too tight? Neill couldn’t remember which. Anyway, they would compare it to others and they would know. Goodbye, Borodin.
The money was Neill’s reward for a job well done.
He had an urge to open the case, to look at the piles and piles of currency, to wallow in a few moments of wanton greed. Another time.
He hoisted the case up and out of the truck, sliding it to one side of the door. He began to think ahead. His first order of business would be to kill Coluzzi. From there it was an hour’s drive to the ferry in Marseille. He had just enough time to make the eleven p.m. boat to Ajaccio. He’d be sure to bid Coluzzi’s family a silent hello and thank you. He couldn’t have done it without their son. From Ajaccio, he’d take a plane to Morocco. He had a friendly banker in Marrakech and enough passports to stay hidden for the next fifty years. From there, he would disappear.
Neill smiled at the thought. He’d done it. He’d pulled it off.
He needed a boost to pull himself out of the truck and searched the compartment for a platform where he might stand. The bench would do nicely. He put a foot on it and raised a hand to the doorway. When he looked up, Simon Riske was there, staring down at him.
“Go away,” said Neill. “You’ve done your job.”
“And yours, too.”
“What do you want?”
“You should know. I wanted him. Coluzzi. Now I want something else.”
“The money? Fine. We can discuss it. First, let’s get out of here. I’m sure we can come to a reasonable agreement.”
“Not the money.”
“There’s ten million euros in that case.”
“That’s a lot.”
“Plenty to keep that shop of yours going. You can buy yourself a car. Buy two, even.”
“This whole thing was your plan, wasn’t it? The letter, Borodin, Coluzzi, the money.”
Neill was growing impatient. “Is this about the girl?”
“She’s alive, in case you’re interested.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I never like it when there’s collateral damage.”
“You’re a real caring soul.”
“What’s done is done. Now let me out of here.”
“I can’t do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m still figuring that out. I’m a little shaken up, to tell you the truth. My collarbone’s busted and I think my arm is, too. All I know is that I’m not letting you walk away from here with all this money.”
“So it is about the money?” said Neill, desperation growing. “I knew it. You’ve been after it all along.”
“Sit down and take a rest,” said Simon, pushing the door closed. “I’ll be back to you soon.”
“Don’t you…” Neill went for his pistol and fired a round as the door slammed shut. The bullet ricocheted and penetrated the floorboard. The armored truck was built to withstand automatic weapons fire, rocket-propelled grenades, even smaller improvised explosive devices. But all those delivered their charge to the outside of the vehicle. The truck was not designed to guard against a weapon fired inside it. The floorboard was built of standard sheet metal. The nine-millimeter bullet bounced off the reinforced steel door and passed through the quarter-inch metal plate into the gasoline tank, also armored exclusively on its exterior facing side.
The heat of the bullet and the friction it generated as it passed through the metal caused a spark. The gasoline exploded instantaneously, the force of the blast deflected entirely into the cargo bay.
At once, the truck was enveloped in flames.
Simon leapt from the truck and rolled in the grass, extinguishing his clothing. Coluzzi struggled to distance himself from the flames. Simon got to his feet and dragged him a safe distance from the burning truck. Neill’s screams lasted for a minute.
By now, police were streaming in their direction, drawn by the explosion.
Coluzzi pointed to the suitcase, which had landed perfectly upright a stone’s throw away. “Pity to give it to the authorities.”
“What do you suggest?”
Coluzzi looked at Riske and lay back in the grass. He shook his head, disconsolately. “Where did you go wrong?”