Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  “The hotel likes the car, too,” he said.

  “Obviously,” replied the woman in a near perfect imitation of the Contessa.

  They laughed.

  Simon accepted the key and was accompanied to the elevators by the hotelier. It was not an establishment where one showed oneself to his or her room. The blond woman arrived in the company of another hotelier a moment later. She stood close enough to Simon that he could smell her perfume—something light and woody. He felt a desire to step closer. An elevator chimed. Its doors opened. She looked at him and he looked at her. Striking, to be sure, but there was something else that drew him to her. Something infinitely more attractive. It was her character, he decided, her confidence and bristling air of competence. She was an army of one.

  “After you,” said Simon.

  “A gentleman,” she said before entering the elevator.

  From this woman, it sounded like the ultimate compliment.

  “The name is Riske,” he said too loudly, not giving a damn. “Simon.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Riske.”

  She made no effort to offer her name. The doors closed and Simon glanced at the hotelier. “Do you know her?”

  The hotelier offered a cryptic smile. He’d been asked the question before. The answer was yes, he knew her name, and it was none of Simon’s business.

  The room was the size of a basketball court, with ceilings high enough to put in a regulation basket with room left over for a twenty-four-second clock. He had declined the hotelier’s offer to send a valet to help him unpack. He opened his bag and put away his clothing, then arranged his toiletries in the bathroom. One washcloth to either side of the sink upon which he placed his toothpaste and aftershave and skin cream, and of course his floss.

  A white envelope from the Monaco Rally Club waited on the desk. Simon examined the contents: passes, schedule, guidebook, tickets to the gala dinner and to the lawn event to be held at the Sporting Club. And more important, as far as Simon was concerned, information about the time trial Saturday, including a map of the course. A meeting for drivers was set for the next morning at nine.

  Simon showered and put on fresh clothing. One shirt ruined, another dirty. He’d have to take up Toby Stonewood on his offer of free shopping at the hotel’s boutiques sooner than expected. It was the cocktail hour so he chose a patterned shirt, trousers a shade too light for October, and a navy blazer. The boat show was in town. He wanted to fit in.

  On the way out of his room, he stopped at the minibar, which wasn’t mini at all: it offered full-size bottles of spirits as well as beer and soft drinks. A certain bourbon from Tennessee was missing. Snobs, he thought, though he knew that D’Art Moore would applaud the omission. Instead, he made himself an espresso with the nifty coffee machine and added three sugars to satisfy his sweet tooth.

  There was a packet of Fisherman’s Friend mints on a glass shelf, next to some nuts and napkins. Just the sight of the mint-green packaging provoked a smattering of butterflies. Not knowing who he might run into—hoping it might be her—he popped a mint. His eyes watered at the industrial-strength lozenge and he spit it into the sink. It wasn’t the taste that repulsed him but the memories it summoned. Memories of smoking a pack of Gauloises a day and drinking too much Pernod. Memories of another life, when his name was Simon Ledoux and his hair was long enough to pull into a ponytail and he stole cars the way other people—honest people—brushed their teeth.

  Feeling nauseated, he stepped onto the balcony. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scents of jasmine and wisteria, willing away the images of guns and glass vials and half-naked women with sleepy eyes and crooked smiles. The fresh air failed to do the trick. He felt a machine gun bucking his shoulder and smelled the cordite in the morning air, hearing the shell casings tinkle as they danced on the street. It was all coming back. The exhilaration of driving the wrong way down a one-way street with a police car close behind. The unfettered freedom of being on the wrong side of the law. Hovering above the memories, a seductive voice promised him that this time it would be different. This time, he would get away with it.

  Why not give it one more try?

  After all, Ledoux, you were damned good at it.

  And you loved it.

  Maybe you still do.

  He was sweating when he went back inside and had to change his shirt. Again.

  Chapter 14

  The team arrived at its headquarters in the eastern Swiss Alps in late afternoon. They came in three cars, each taking a different route into the country. The first to arrive came from the south, through Milan, then through the lake district, skirting Lake Como, before turning east at the border, remaining in Italy until the last moment and crossing in time to take the Bernina Pass. The second came from the north, traveling through Zurich, following the main touristic route to St. Moritz, past Sargans and Chur, finally heading east into the mountains at Thusis. The last car came from the northeast, transiting Munich, heading south through Bavaria, past Garmisch, before cutting the corner of Austria and entering Switzerland at its easternmost finger, the mountainous Romansch region, a country unto itself.

  No stops were permitted. Gas tanks were topped off prior to departure. Bathroom breaks were verboten. The members of the team carried their own snacks. Under no circumstance could they risk being photographed. No country was more aggressively surveilled than Switzerland.

  The egress, or “getaway,” if one were to be necessary, had been well planned and would be nigh impossible to track. It was their arrival that threatened to jeopardize their long-term freedom.

  The fact that police would identify their vehicles was a given. It would take time, but images from every camera leading into the valley would be collected and scrutinized. Cars belonging to visitors would be cross-checked against those belonging to residents. License plates, registrations, bills of sale would be analyzed. Like a noose closing around a doomed man’s neck, the circle would get tighter and tighter. It would take days, weeks, even, but the vehicles would be identified. Make no mistake.

  And when they were, authorities would find that all had been purchased legally and for cash, each in a different corner of Europe. Berlin, Madrid, Budapest. The identifications of those who’d purchased the cars were doctored and entirely false, thus illegal.

  Another roadblock.

  More time.

  The progress of the authorities would slow.

  Eventually they would give up.

  After all, if the team was successful, there would be no victims to save, no villains to hunt.

  One by one, the cars arrived at their destination. Few team members had seen a place as grandiose. None had set foot inside one, unless it was a police station or a prison. They called it a mansion, a palace, a fortress, a keep. It was none of those things. It was a chalet. It even had a name. The Chesa Madrun.

  It helped immeasurably that the chalet had an underground parking garage. Their orders were strict. Once they arrived, they were not to leave the premises until the day itself, not even to set foot outside and smell the glorious alpine air. Others were watching. Others were laying the groundwork. They were the strike force, the “tip of the spear,” or, to borrow an unfortunate German synonym, the einsatzgruppe.

  There were four of them in all, not counting the woman. All had experience in this type of thing, if not the act itself. They were thieves, robbers, extortionists, blackmailers, and bombers. It went without saying that they were killers. All had done time in a maximum-security facility of one nation or another. They knew that in Norway a convicted murderer lived alone in a neat room hardly different from a youth hostel, with a single bed, a duvet, a hot plate, and a television. And that in Turkey, a common burglar was thrown into the general prison population with none of those things. They preferred Norway. None had been convicted in Switzerland or for that matter had ever set foot in the country.

  They were individuals who had spent a lifetime outside the law. Men who were accustomed to livin
g with the police on their tail and keeping their cool all the while.

  Inside the chalet, the team members settled into their living quarters. The kitchen was amply stocked. Before long, a group meal was prepared. Spirits were high. Until now, everything had gone according to plan. There was no reason to suspect that would change. Soon each of them would get their hands on more money than they’d dreamed of earning in a lifetime.

  There was an atmosphere of laughter and comradery when the woman arrived. The men took one look at her and the room went quiet. They knew who she was by name and by relation, but none had expected her beauty.

  “So,” said the woman, “did you bring the goddamn plastique?”

  Chapter 15

  There was no time to waste.

  Simon set the stainless steel briefcase on the bed and keyed in the six-digit combination. Wall-to-wall gray foam provided safe housing for a variety of electronic devices, ranging from small to smaller to smallest. With thumb and forefinger, he freed a rectangular steel object, not dissimilar to a Zippo lighter in size and weight. The device was smooth on all sides save for an on/off switch easily activated by a thumbnail.

  Simon clicked it. A green light appeared. The device paired with an in-ear receiver that he plucked free and placed in his right ear. A low-frequency thrumming was immediately audible.

  “The first rule of cheating at any card game,” Eightball Eddie had said, “is that you have to see the cards. Card counters remember the sequence of cards as they appear in a game. Edge counters differentiate between face cards and number cards by the pattern printed on the top of each card. The aim of both is to gain a mathematical advantage over the house of two to ten percent that will play out over a succession of hands. Neither of those methods works for baccarat. Baccarat’s a game of pure luck; the skill is in the betting. Therefore, the only way to cheat is to see the cards before they’re dealt. To do that, someone has to have a camera to scope them out either as they are being put into the shoe and shuffled or, more likely, afterward, when the cards are being cut.”

  Enter Vikram Singh.

  It turned out that cameras, both still and video, emitted a low-frequency audio signature when activated. The rectangular steel device in Simon’s palm was a highly sensitive microphone, in effect a camera hunter, designed to detect that sound. Upon identifying that audio signature, it transmitted a signal to the earpiece. From there, it was like a game of hotter/colder. The closer Simon got to the camera, the more rapid the pulse. If the pulse became continuous, it meant that he was within thirty centimeters, or twelve inches, of the camera.

  “You won’t see it,” said Singh. “Lenses can be made as small as the head of a needle with a Bluetooth transmitter the size of a grain of rice.”

  “So they can see the cards?” Simon had asked both men. “Then what?”

  Eightball Eddie had scratched his head. “Too smart for me. All I know is someone is telling them how they should bet.”

  But Vikram Singh knew the means, if not the method. “Once they know the sequence of the cards, they can plug it into an algorithm that predicts the order in which they’ll be dealt to both players, the punto or the banco.”

  “So who’s doing that?” Simon asked.

  “His partner or partners. I have no idea how big the team is.”

  “One guy takes the pictures…”

  “And transmits them to a second person close enough to receive the Bluetooth signal.”

  “And the second person…”

  “Analyzes the cards and tells his partner when and how much to bet.”

  “How can I find that person?”

  “He can’t be far. A Bluetooth transmitter that small just can’t throw a signal a long distance.”

  “Defined as?”

  “A hundred meters. Probably closer. With as few walls in between as possible.”

  Which brought Simon to the transparent ziplock bag holding what appeared to be a few dozen chocolate M&M’s. These were his secret weapon and to be saved for later. He wasn’t one to go into the enemy’s den with guns blazing. If he was looking for them, they were looking for him. He’d do best to keep that in mind.

  Simon left the hotel a few minutes before nine. It was a warm night with hardly a breeze, humid and still. The Place du Casino was a riot of activity. A steady stream of cars made the circuit past the Hôtel de Paris, the casino, and the Café de Paris, music blaring from open windows, arms extended, cigarettes in hand. Nine months of the year, Monaco was a quiet, pleasant backwater, a secure tax-free enclave where you can plant your flag. “Sleepy” wasn’t too strong a word. All that changed during the summer months, when Monaco, like the rest of the French Riviera, became a playground for Europe’s rich and infamous. There was a Festival des Feux d’Artifices, performances at the opera house, and concerts under the stars at the Sporting Club’s Salle des Étoiles. High-class fare for its high-class residents. The International Boat Show was the showstopper that ended the season on a high note.

  Simon dodged his way past a troop of blondes wearing the uniform of a luxury car manufacturer and showing off its newest sedans, all parked in front of the casino steps. He navigated his way through the crowd waiting to go inside, showing his passport before being waved through the main entrance. The law prohibited Monégasque citizens from entering the casino.

  If Les Ambassadeurs was a posh nineteenth-century English country home, the Casino de Monte-Carlo was Versailles. Simon crossed the entry hall with its marble floors and towering mirrors and proud pillars rising to a glass ceiling. He’d journeyed back in time three centuries to when Louis XIV was king and faro the card game du jour. Simon’s trip was short-lived. An army of slot machines welcomed him back to the twenty-first century. He strode past them and into the gaming rooms, where tables offering roulette and blackjack were crowded to capacity.

  Simon, however, was interested in baccarat. He made his way to a quieter room on the second floor and found an empty seat. The tables were crescent-shaped, with room for eight players. He threw a thousand-euro note on the table and received several stacks of chips in return. Though Lord Toby had offered him a house credit of a hundred thousand euros, Simon preferred to use his own money. For now, anonymity was preferable to profit.

  Baccarat was a maddingly simple, unpredictable game. Like blackjack, you were dealt a limited number of cards. The object was for the value of your cards to total as close to nine as possible. Only two hands were dealt, one to the house, or banco, the other to the player, punto. Players chose one hand, or both, on which to wager.

  Play began when the dealer gave himself and the player two cards each, both dealt faceup. Cards two through nine counted at face value. Aces counted as one and face cards as zero. Two and three equaled a five. Nine and seven equaled sixteen but was counted as six. A third card was dealt to each player if his score was too low. As Eightball Eddie had said, “Even a chimp could win.”

  Baccarat was a favorite of the player who believed in luck as a manifestation of good fortune, something as real as rain or sunshine. Fortune that showered its favor on a player in the form of the right card at the right time. A toff’s game, Eightball Eddie had said, “toff” meaning “idiot.”

  Simon played two hands, betting on the house each time. He won one and lost one. All the while his eye roved from the smiling dealer to his fellow players to the discreetly positioned opaque domes on the ceilings—the “eyes in the skies”—concealing cameras that covered every square inch of the casino floor and sent back images to a central operations room where security professionals could observe play. He was quick to spot the floor bosses, a few walking the floor, others standing with dealers at their tables. To look at, Toby Stonewood ran a tight ship. It would not be easy to pull a scam in front of so many prying eyes. And yet the casino had lost millions. Hundreds of millions.

  Simon collected his chips and stopped at the bar for a drink. He ordered a double bourbon and tipped lavishly, carrying the cocktail to a room where
betting minimums were higher. He found a seat at a table requiring a minimum wager of five hundred euros. It was uncommon for tables to go higher, unless it was a private game or after prior consultation with casino staff. He arranged his chips and asked for an additional five thousand euros.

  The game had officially gotten serious.

  Simon played for an hour, finding himself up a few thousand euros. The shoe passed from player to player. When the cards ran low and it came time to shuffle, a pre-shuffled stack of eight decks was placed into the shoe. The dealer offered the cutting card to a sharply dressed man who’d been winning on a regular basis and was up fifty thousand euros. With his slicked-back hair and hooded eyes, he certainly looked the part of a sharp, or a cheat. If he had a camera up his sleeve, he would use it to record the flutter of the cards as he ran the cutting card along their edge.

  Simon watched as best he could without staring, his attention directed inward as well, hoping to hear the pinging that would indicate a camera in use. To his disappointment, the man jabbed the cutting card into the deck without ceremony. Camera or not, he had made no effort to preview the cards.

  There was no joy to be had at this table.

  It was then that Simon heard a hoot of excitement from an adjacent room. Collecting his chips, he headed toward the merriment. A crowd had gathered around another baccarat table, also with a five-hundred-euro minimum, where a balding man with rimless spectacles and a pencil mustache held the shoe. An enormous pile of chips sat before him. In short order, Simon watched him win three consecutive hands, letting his wager ride each time. Ten thousand euros grew to forty thousand in five minutes’ time.

  There were no seats free so Simon moved as close to the man as possible. If he had a camera, Simon figured he should hear it now. No pinging came from his earpiece. Another hand was dealt. Another win. Eighty thousand euros. By now every player at the table was betting with the winner. You always followed a streak. The only thing Simon noticed, if it was anything at all, was that the man seemed to be concentrating intensely (far more intensely than a game of luck would demand) and appeared to be staring at the cards in the shoe. Was he counting them? Or doing something else?