The Take(93)

“Nothing. The box was empty.”

“Empty? There was nothing in it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But he lied to you. He said it would leave you rich for life.”

“It did.”

For a moment Nikki didn’t answer. Simon looked at her and saw the disappointment in her eyes. Like everyone, she had expected a different ending.

“Don’t you see?” he continued. “The box held my future. Its contents had given me purpose, a goal to strive for. I had an education. I had a job with unlimited prospects. A career on the right side of the law. That empty deposit box made me richer than I ever could have imagined.”

“I think I see now.”

“It was like the book by Dumas. I had found my treasure. The rest was up to me.”

“So here you are.”

Simon nodded. He kept his eyes straight ahead, offering a prayer to whoever or whatever was listening, thanking them for putting the monsignor in his life. The road dipped and began the long descent into Marseille. Already he could see the tips of the apartment buildings on the northern edge of the city.

After fourteen years, he was coming home.

He looked at Nikki and took her hand. “Let’s go get that letter.”





Chapter 53



Neill sat on a bench at the head of the platform reading a copy of the Nice-Matin, watching with dismay as the last of the train’s passengers filed past without any sign of Simon Riske. He was dressed in shorts and sandals, checked short-sleeved shirt, a cap on his head, looking as Gallic as a native of Athens, Georgia, could hope.

The train had arrived ten minutes earlier and was met by a dozen police officers. The passengers had been made to wait to disembark while the police supervised the unloading of the Russian agent. From his vantage point, Neill watched as the body was removed on a stretcher, placed on a gurney, and wheeled past him.

“Where is he?”

“I checked the train. He’s not here.” The voice on the comm link belonged to Dobbs, a Paris-based field agent who’d shared the train with Riske.

“How is that so?”

“He must have gotten off in Avignon.”

“Your brief was to keep an eye on him.”

“I saw him return to his seat after the Russian killed herself. The rail marshal was with him. It was impossible to keep eyes on him without drawing attention to myself. I just assumed—”

“So you didn’t actually see him get off the train in Avignon?”

“At least thirty people disembarked. It was crowded.”

“That’s not my question.”

“No, sir, I did not see Riske or Detective Perez with them.”

“Stay in place.” Neill called Riske’s phone and, when it rolled to voice mail, hung up and dialed the team in the surveillance van. “Get me a location on Riske.”

“One minute, sir. He’s in Marseille…at the station…actually, he’s about twenty meters away from you.”

Neill hung up and addressed Dobbs on the comm link. “Get back on the train. See if you can find Riske’s phone.”

Neill continued to the café, where he ordered an espresso and a lemon tart. He dropped two cubes of sugar into the coffee and drank it before starting on the pastry. During his time in the air, the boys in the van had run a check on the phone numbers Riske had found in Luca Falconi’s apartment. All five SIM cards had been purchased at a kiosk on the Rue Saint-Martin, a block away from the apartment. The first of the numbers had been activated several hours earlier, shortly after the number Riske had reported as belonging to Coluzzi had stopped functioning. At present, whoever was carrying a phone with that SIM card was on or near Entre les ?les, a pair of islands lying east of Marseille.

The men in the surveillance van had also followed Riske’s calls to the Saudi telecom service. With dismay, Neill had listened to the tapes of Riske obtaining the prince’s email password. The evidence led to an unpleasant and unimpeachable conclusion. The man knew too much.

“He ditched us,” said Dobbs.

“Come again?”

“I found their phones stuffed between their seat cushions.”

“Bring them to me.”

With care, Neill carved off a piece of the lemon tart, only for it to crumble before he could place it on his fork. The French, he had come to decide, possessed a mastery of cutlery beyond his ability. He chewed on the creamy filling, pondering his next move. Riske, it had turned out, was that rarest of all birds. He was even better than advertised.

Neill finished his tart and dumped the paper plate into the trash. Walking toward the exit, he placed a call to a home in the hills above Antibes. A man answered. “Jacob.” Zha-cobe.

“Is this Martin Jacob?”

“No, I am Gilles Jacob. I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”

But the call did not go dead. There were several clicks as Neill was switched over to the secure line of the CIA substation located in the basement of Monsieur Jacob’s house.

“Hello, Barnaby,” said Larry Tanner, the agent who ran the place. “Didn’t know you were in the neighborhood. How can we help?”

“I have a situation that’s developing a bit too quickly. I need to borrow one of your men.”