The Take(103)

“Anyone?” he asked.

“Clear,” she said.

It was then that Nikki looked around her and took in the dashboard and the steering wheel and the bucket leather seats. “Really?” she said. “What happened to hiding out?”

“That part of the story is over.”

Simon slammed the car into third and drove down the hill.



Behind them, not fifty meters away, a silver Audi sedan was stopped in traffic opposite the entrance to the police headquarters.

“Still want to go in?” asked the driver, a compact, muscled man with a pockmarked face and sandy hair. His name was Makepeace.

Seated next to him, Barnaby Neill had witnessed Nikki Perez’s flight down the stairs and into a red sports car idling just ahead. Sometimes the gods sent you messages that you were following the proper course, thought Neill. The messages could be subtle or they could be obvious. Coming upon Simon Riske, the very man he was looking for, at the very time he needed to find him, qualified as the latter.

“No,” said Neill. “I want you to follow that red car.”

“The Dino?”

“That’s the one.”

Makepeace put the car into gear. “No problemo.”





Chapter 61



Tino Coluzzi had no illusions. He was distrustful by nature, suspicious by profession, and one backward glance from being paranoid. When shaking a man’s hand, he made a practice of checking afterward that he still had all five fingers. And so it was that he dismissed as preposterous the notion that Vassily Borodin would politely hand over ten million euros in exchange for the letter and go on his merry way. Coluzzi had only to remember the first thought that had crossed his mind when he’d grasped the letter’s import.

No man should be in possession of this letter.

He was in a precarious position.

Equally troubling was the involvement of Alexei Ren. Though Coluzzi knew next to nothing about Ren’s past, there was no mistaking the fire in his eye whenever Borodin’s name was mentioned, the tactile enmity that juiced him up like a live current. Then, of course, there was the matter of Ren’s tattoos. Coluzzi was no expert on Russian prison art, but he’d been in the company of enough vory v zakone to know that each symbol represented a past act and that most of them had to do with robbery, murder, and other accomplishments even he didn’t want to imagine.

For a man like Ren, revenge wasn’t a question of choice. It was a moral imperative. When he’d casually asked where and when Coluzzi would hand over the letter to Vassily Borodin, it was more than idle curiosity.

If that weren’t enough, there was the lurking and unexplained presence of Simon Ledoux to consider. No question, Coluzzi had his hands fuller than he might have liked.

All of which explained why at 4:30 in the afternoon he was driving through an industrial district in the hills west of the city searching for a dented blue iron gate. Behind the gate was a parking depot used to house broken-down municipal buses, dump trucks and cement mixers idled by a stagnant economy, discarded postal vans, and lastly—and of primary interest to him—a host of armored cars either out of service or in need of repair.

Turning onto the Rue Gambon, he spotted the entry gate, a battered piece of iron one story high and ten meters long. A concrete wall topped by barbed wire ran to either side and circled the block. Coluzzi left the car running and pressed the entry button. A screen lit up, showing his face. “Open up,” he said.

A buzzer sounded. The gate rolled back on its track, rattling loud enough to wake the dead. Coluzzi punched the gas and entered the yard, parking adjacent to the office. An unshaven man in dark coveralls was waiting outside, hands in his pockets. With a nod, he motioned Coluzzi inside.

“Didn’t give me much time,” he said, dropping into a chair on the business side of the desk.

“Well?”

The man opened a drawer and tossed a set of keys across the desk. “Brink’s. Brought in yesterday for an oil change, new brake pads.”

“Gas?”

“Full.”

Coluzzi placed a neatly folded wad of bills on the desk. “One thousand.”

“I need it back by midnight. All the armored cars have beacons so the head office can keep track of where they are at all times. There’s an electronic inventory check performed automatically at shift change.”

“At midnight?”

The man nodded.

“I’ll have it back to you by ten.”

The man stood, coming around the desk. “Need any help? Someone to ride point?”

“I’m good.”

“You’re sure? No one drives an armored car alone. What are you after, anyway?”

Coluzzi took the man’s face in his hands, fingers clamping his jaw and cheeks. “I’m fine by myself, thank you very much,” he said, holding him in his grip for a while longer, then shoving the man away.

“Just asking. I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” said Coluzzi. “If you’d upset me, you wouldn’t still be standing.”

The man gathered himself. “Still have your uniform? After what happened in Nice, police are checking drivers.”

“Thanks for the info. I’ll keep it in mind.” Coluzzi patted the man’s cheek. “I’ll be back to get the truck at seven.”