The Take(2)

And now the hotel bill totaling one hundred twenty-two thousand euros.

Which left approximately six hundred thousand for the taking.

“They’re headed your way,” said his contact.

Coluzzi came to attention. In the window’s reflection, he watched as bellmen streamed from the lobby, ferrying mountains of luggage to the automobiles. The bodyguards returned. Four formed a loose cordon to block pedestrian traffic. A fifth—who Coluzzi recognized as their leader—walked between them, eyes sweeping the street for threats. Seeing nothing, he retreated to the door and motioned that all was clear.

By now, passersby on both sides of the street had stopped to pay attention to the spectacle. The line of black sedans. The mountain of luggage. The bodyguards in their black suits. Turning around, Coluzzi allowed himself to gaze openly. It would be odd not to look.

The women and children filed from the hotel like prisoners on their way to jail, heads bowed, not a smile among them. For their return home, the mothers wore traditional black burkas, even their faces shielded from view. The younger girls pulled Hermès scarves over their heads. The boys slouched in ripped jeans and untucked shirts. Not one acknowledged the chauffeurs holding their doors.

The princess passed through the revolving doors and paused as the chief bodyguard ran ahead, looking this way and that. Finally, he waved her forward. The princess was not dressed in a burka like the others but in a navy blazer and tan pants, a large white purse slung over one arm.

“The prince and princess travel in the fifth car,” the American had said, after Coluzzi had agreed to take the job. “It’s his lucky number. The money goes in the sixth, all by itself.”

The princess walked to the fourth car and spoke to the driver. Coluzzi felt a twinge of unease. Not the fourth car, he admonished her. The fifth.

She paid him no heed. She placed a foot inside the back and lowered her head. From the hotel, a man shouted a rebuke. The princess turned her head. Coluzzi saw the prince gesturing unhappily to his wife. Immediately, she retraced her steps and climbed into the fifth car.

Coluzzi relaxed.

And then it was the prince’s turn. He exited the hotel in the company of the hotel’s general manager, the two walking arm in arm across the sidewalk. The prince was a handsome man dressed in his country’s traditional garb of a flowing white thobe and red-checked kaffiyeh secured with a black cord. As was his custom, he wore dark sunglasses. In his hand he carried a calfskin briefcase.

“All I want is the prince’s briefcase. The rest is yours.”

“Just the briefcase?”

“Tan calfskin. Leather handle.” The American had offered no further explanation. “Do we have a deal?”

Coluzzi swore under his breath. For two days he’d seen nothing of the briefcase. He’d begun to worry that the prince did not have it with him on this trip. Tan. Leather handle. There it was, thank God. He was staring so hard at it that he almost didn’t catch the bodyguard delivering the compact metal suitcase to the trunk of the sixth car.

The money goes in the sixth.

As the prince reached the car, his driver extended a hand to relieve him of the briefcase. The prince turned a shoulder to guard it, tensing like a rugby scrum half bracing for a hit. The driver retreated hastily.

The prince offered a last thank you to the hotel manager. There was a handshake. The manager bowed, slipping his gratuity into his pocket with a legerdemain Coluzzi admired. A final wave goodbye and the prince disappeared inside the car.

Not a second later, the first BMW peeled away from the curb. Then the second. In a minute, they were all gone, heading south en route to Orly airfield.

The Avenue George V was quiet once again. The excitement had passed. It was just another lazy Sunday evening in August.

A white Renault pulled up alongside Coluzzi and he jumped into the front seat. He took a two-way radio from the center console as the car sped away.

“The pigeon has flown the coop,” he said. “He’s coming at you.”



Prince Abdul Aziz bin Saud settled into his seat and exhaled. “Hurry up,” he said to the driver. “I don’t want to be late.”

“It is our plane, darling,” said his wife, covering his hand with her own. “We can leave when we choose.”

The prince looked at her red nails, her mascara, and shook his hand free. “What do you know?”

The princess slid toward her door, saying nothing.

Prince Abdul Aziz stared out the window as the car crossed the Pont de l’Alma and slipped into the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. He knew he should be happier, rejoicing even. He’d pulled off the greatest coup of his career, yet it would mean nothing until the letter reached the proper hands. His only wish was to be gone from Paris as quickly as possible.

His eyes fell to the calfskin briefcase at his feet and his heart raced. He thought of the letter inside. A personal note from one man to another, handwritten in blue ink on the most exclusive of stationeries, in appearance as fresh as the day it was penned nearly thirty years ago.

And not just any note, but a note that would cause governments to collapse, alliances to realign, and death to many along the way.

Instinctively, he gripped the case between his ankles.

He leaned forward to squeeze the driver’s shoulder. “Faster.”



Tino Coluzzi followed the convoy across the city. The prince had chosen an unlikely route to the airport, using an August evening’s wide-open boulevards and traffic-free surface streets to navigate through Montparnasse toward Porte d’Orléans at the southern edge of the city. It was a move that shaved ten minutes off the more oft-chosen route along the Périphérique, the eight-lane superhighway that circled Paris. The decreased transit time had a cost, however, and that cost was security. It was nearly impossible to stop a convoy of sixteen vehicles once it was on the highway. Coluzzi would have no such difficulty on surface streets.