Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  The police car following him had no time to react. It struck the Mercedes with ferocious force. Airbags deployed. The Mercedes spun ninety degrees. When the airbags deflated, Simon saw that he’d come to a halt only feet from the woman and child. He was done driving. A shadow appeared to his left. He turned his head. A pane of glass separated him from the barrel of a shotgun.

  Simon didn’t have time to close his eyes.

  The gun fired.

  Chapter 60

  It was called the Chesa Madrun, and it had been built 130 years earlier as the mountain retreat of the ill-fated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Set high in an isolated valley among the towns of Pontresina, Samedan, and Zuoz in the Swiss canton of Engadine, the Chesa Madrun had begun life as a modest hunting lodge comprising four rooms: a great room, a kitchen, a communal sleeping area, and a curing room for air-drying meats.

  Since then, the chalet had changed hands numerous times. Upon Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in June of 1914, the chalet passed to his brother, who was forced to give it up four years later, when Austria surrendered to the Western alliance and the Hapsburg dynasty fell from power. The next owner was a friend to the Hapsburgs, an Italian, the Count Melzi d’Eril, who kept the lodge until another European conflict robbed his family of its fortune. Melzi sold it in 1946 to a Frenchman, Le Vicomte de Foucault, who, it was discovered, was neither French nor a viscount but a Russian swindler, Serge Stokovsky. The affair ended with Melzi d’Eril dead by suicide and the Russian imprisoned. The Chesa Madrun was put up for auction and purchased in 1948 by a Luxembourg-based lumber concern controlled by a German businessman with a taste for discretion named August Wilhelm Brandenburg von Tiefen und Tassis.

  With each new owner, the chalet grew in various and odd ways, so that what had started as a spartan lodge meant to rekindle the values of manliness, modesty, and self-sufficiency ended up a fifteen-thousand-square-foot pleasure palace with ten bedrooms, an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool, and an authentic German kegelbahn alley.

  As each renovation, remodel, and addition was designed by a different architect and overseen by a different contractor, it was to be expected that the Chesa Madrun ended up with a few hidden hallways, stairways to nowhere, and bonus rooms that served no purpose other than to give the children who lived there an exquisite territory for playing hide-and-seek.

  The last addition was built in 1963, at the height of the Cold War. In keeping with a new federal law, a fallout shelter, or luftschutzbunker, was constructed to safeguard the chalet’s residents in case of nuclear attack. As the fallout shelter took up too much space to sit empty, and the risk of nuclear annihilation was on the decline, the room had recently been put to different use. It currently housed the chalet’s auxiliary water and power plants, a gasoline-powered generator, and an industrial boiler, all necessary in the event that water and power were cut off due to an avalanche, storm, or other unforeseen occurrence.

  All this raced through Robby’s mind as he lay on his side, trying to keep from falling asleep. He was no longer being held in his bedroom. Elisabeth had taken him to the library instead. It was a cavernous room, his least favorite in the entire house, the ceiling two stories high, shelves and more shelves lining the walls, every inch taken up by books and more books. The only thing he liked at all was the ladder that reached to the very top shelf and ran on a track so that nothing was out of reach. Otherwise, there was a large desk with an old-fashioned reading lamp, several leather chairs, and a giant antique globe set on a spindle. The entire place smelled like a wet blanket.

  Most important, though, Robby figured, was what wasn’t there: windows. There was no way out except through the door.

  At least that’s what Elisabeth thought.

  Elisabeth was evil. Robby hated her more than any person he’d ever come across. When they’d gotten back to the house, she’d made him take off his jacket and shirt and had whipped him with her fat leather belt. First, she whipped him for Viktor, who’d been hit on the head by the rocks that Robby had kicked loose. After, she whipped him for George, who had had to leave because his nose was broken and he needed stitches for the gash on his forehead. Robby didn’t feel bad for either of them. They deserved it. Robby hadn’t known that anger could make punishment less painful. Every time Elisabeth had landed the belt on his bare back, he’d sworn that he was going to escape and that he was going to hurt her. He wasn’t sure if he could kill her, but he wasn’t sure he couldn’t either. He only knew that he wished she were dead.

  As Robby’s eyes closed and he fell asleep, he was thinking of one thing and one thing only. Escaping.

  There were other ways to get out of the house. Lots of them.

  And Robby knew every last one.

  Chapter 61

  Simon?”

  The sound of the door closing woke Vika. She pulled herself upright in the club chair, instantly alert. “Simon, is that you?”

  The lights in the hotel room were dimmed and it took her a moment to remember that they’d been fully on earlier…before she’d dozed off.

  “Hello?” Someone was in the room. She gazed into the dark, paralyzed by fear. Then she saw it. A figure dressed in black lurked near the entry. “Who’s there? Toby?”

  Not Toby.

  Not Simon either.

  He was stockier than either of them. He was watching her. Waiting.

  It was him.

  Vika lunged for her purse, which held the compact pistol that Simon had made sure was loaded, with one bullet already in the chamber. All she had to do was flick the safety to OFF and pull the trigger. Several times, he said. Keep pulling until there are no more bullets left.

  The man started across the room, his intent palpable. Vika dug her hand inside the purse. Her fingers touched steel. The man struck her and the purse fell to the floor. It was the man from the night before. The Serb.

  She screamed, and he was on her, his hand covering her mouth.

  “Simon can’t help you now,” he said, his face close to hers. “You’re on your own.”

  She saw that he had a widow’s peak and she knew he was the man who’d been riding in the passenger seat of Mama’s car. She struggled, but he was too strong.

  “You belong to Ratka now.”

  And then the Serb hit her and all was black.

  Chapter 62

  The cell measured ten steps by six. There was a cot and a sink and a john, all the same dull stainless steel. The walls were painted battleship gray. The only other feature worth remarking was a small black dome on the ceiling that hid the security camera.

  Simon sat on the cot, knees drawn to his chest. Despite having been fired upon point-blank by a twelve-gauge shotgun, he showed no sign of a gunshot wound. The same could not be said for the self-styled neighborhood vigilante who’d been splattered with ricocheting buckshot. The Mercedes-Benz had been built for the future king of the Belgrade underworld. As such, it had been built to protect its owner against like-minded enemies. The glass was bulletproof. In an odd way, Simon owed Ratka his life.

  Upon Simon’s arrival at the station, the police had taken his shoes, belt, wallet, watch, and phone. No one had spoken a word to him. Not to ask what he had been doing at the Rue Chaussée, how he had come to have a bloodstained shirt, or whether he required the services of a doctor. Not even to ask his name. He’d been locked up enough times to know that this was not normal procedure. Paperwork came first. They always wanted to know your name. Someone was on Lord Toby’s payroll. Someone high up. Simon reasoned that his name was Le Juste.

  An hour passed.

  Then another.

  Pain and isolation focused Simon’s thinking. Toby Stonewood had had no business hiring him in the first place. Simon imagined that the board of the Société des Bains de Mer had demanded an investigation into the huge losses being suffered. A top man from a renowned firm was hired. Toby had placed a quick call to Ratka and made sure the man disappeared. When the losses continued, the board had requested another
investigator. No doubt Toby had suggested a “fresh set of eyes.” Still, Simon should have at least suspected—if not immediately in D’Art’s office, then later. All along, the clues had been right in front of him. As an investigator, he’d failed.

  Should anything happen to Vika, he was responsible. He and he alone.

  As for his present reality, it was apparent that Toby Stonewood wanted him locked up and out of the way, for all intents and purposes dead. Toby would make that wish a reality soon enough, once he could move Simon to an environment more to his liking.

  Not going to happen.

  Simon unbuttoned his shirt. The sutures hung loose, like the laces of a poorly tied shoe. The puncture wound had reopened and leaked a brownish bloody discharge. It looked bad, it hurt, but it wouldn’t kill a man. He stood and walked to the sink. Leaning over the basin (so as to block the security camera), he turned on the water and washed his face. As he did so, he ran one hand beneath the sink and felt for the pivot rod that raised and lowered the stopper. He gave it a jerk, then another. It broke off. He examined the long flat strip of metal. It would do.

  Concealing the rod, Simon returned to the cot and lay down on his stomach. He dropped his hand to the floor and rubbed one side of the strip vigorously against the concrete beneath the cot, sharpening the edge into a blade.

  Drastic times called for drastic measures.

  Simon sat up. The next part he wanted everyone to see.

  Gritting his teeth, he slid the strip into the open wound, cutting the sutures. He then angled the blade downward and thrust it into his abdomen, slicing through six layers of the dermis, then a little deeper, into the fascia. He paused and, stifling a cry, yanked the sharpened edge toward his sternum.

  Blood flowed down his chest.

  He dropped the strip onto the floor.

  Then he collapsed.

  Chapter 63

  A little deeper and you would have done yourself some serious damage.”

  Simon looked on as the doctor slid the needle into his skin and stitched his self-inflicted wound. He had been in the hospital for an hour. He’d had his blood drawn and his chest x-rayed and received a shot of anesthetic that was beginning to work wonders. Two staples closed up the tear to his muscle. He stopped counting stitches at eighteen and closed his eyes. Sometime later he felt a tug and heard the thread snap.

  “Leave them in this time,” said the doctor. “They work better that way.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  The doctor threw away the needle and gauze. He was fifty and bloated, with shaggy gray hair and a wine lover’s nose. “I’m going to get your x-rays. You didn’t break your own ribs, too, did you?”

  “That was the other guy.”

  The doctor patted his shoulder and chuckled. “Stay put.”

  Simon’s wrist was cuffed to the table. There was a policeman guarding the door. Where could he go?

  The doctor left and closed the door, leaving Simon by himself. Radiology was one floor below. The doctor would take the elevator, walk to the end of the hall, and spend the required time evaluating the x-rays. By the looks of him, a croissant and coffee might be in order on the return trip. He would be gone twenty minutes at least.

  Simon waited a few beats, then spat out a small silver object. It was the key to his handcuffs. Policemen always carried two. One they kept attached to their duty belt. The other they slipped into one of their pockets. It had been a simple matter to lift the key from the cop’s back pocket during Simon’s transport to the hospital. He unlocked himself from the table and took up position behind the door.

  “S’il vous plaît!” he shouted. “I’m bleeding. Please help.”

  The policeman entered the room immediately. He was thirty and fresh-faced and as competent as he needed to be. He’d driven Simon to the hospital after the warders had found him half conscious and thrown him into the back seat of a police car. He had no reason to know that the prisoner was an accomplished pickpocket or to suspect that he’d gutted himself with an eye toward escape.

  Simon shut the door. As the policeman turned, Simon threw him into a choke hold, one arm around his neck, the other locking it into position and pressuring the head forward to block circulation to the brain. The cop had no chance to cry out. He struggled briefly, then fell unconscious. Simon maintained the pressure a little longer, not wanting him to wake up too soon. He lowered the policeman to the floor and relieved him of his radio and car keys and a hundred euros.

  Simon found a dressing gown in a cupboard. After putting it on, he opened a second cupboard—the one with the drugs—and took out vials of lidocaine and codeine, as well as two syringes and a few isopropyl wipes.

  He left the room and walked to the end of the hall, nodding pleasantly at the nurses he passed. Nothing to see here. He entered the stairwell and dashed to the ground floor. He gave himself three minutes, five tops, to get as far away from the hospital as possible.

  The police car was parked in a designated space near the emergency room. A column obscured it from viewers. Simon opened the trunk and found a sports bag beneath a fluorescent orange traffic vest. He unzipped the bag and rummaged through a pile of dirty clothing. A wrinkled black Lacoste shirt was the best he could do.

  The drive to the hotel took four minutes. Simon parked illegally two blocks away. The time was 8:15. The police radio came to life as he was closing the door. A suspect had escaped custody at Princess Grace Hospital. A search of the premises was under way. All available patrolmen were to report to Commissaire Le Juste. There was no mention of Simon’s name or the fact that he might be heading to the Hôtel de Paris.

  He entered through a rear door, ducking into the emergency stairwell and exiting on the third floor. He poked his head into the hallway. Vika’s room was halfway down. He saw no one standing guard, though it was impossible to know if Philippe or anyone else was seated on the bank of furniture opposite the elevators. Treading softly, he knocked at Vika’s door. When no one answered, he called her name and put an ear to the cool wood. He heard nothing. With mounting unease, he made his way to the elevators. No one was present.

  A door opened behind him. He spun to see a maid pushing a trolley emerge from the linen closet. Simon smiled, a fortuitous surprise, and approached.

  “Excuse me. I’m in four twenty-one upstairs. I wanted to see Madame Brandenburg in three twenty. She’s not answering the door or her phone. I’m worried.” He pressed the hundred-euro note into the woman’s palm. “Please. Can you come with me so we can both see if she is all right?”

  “Madame Brandenburg is no longer here,” said the maid, holding out the bill for Simon to take back. He refused. “She left early this morning.”

  “You’re sure?”

  The maid brushed past him and marched to Vika’s door. “Please,” she said, sliding her pass card and allowing Simon to enter.

  Vika was gone. The room had been cleaned and made ready for the next guest. Simon contented himself with a rapid look around. Had anything sinister occurred, there was no sign of it. “Of course,” he said, breezily. “She’s leaving today, not tomorrow. Did you by any chance happen to see if she left with anyone?”

  “Ah, non,” said the maid. “It was before I came on duty.”

  “Before seven?”

  “I start at five a.m., monsieur.”

  Simon thanked her, deciding it unwise to ask any further questions. He took the stairs to his floor in a state of panic. Ratka had kidnapped her. Toby had cleaned things up on the backside. Still, Simon just might have a way of tracking her down.

  There was no one in the corridor and he quickly found a maid and had her open his room. One look told him that everything was still in its place. There was no need to clean up after a man stuck in jail.

  Simon locked the door, then went directly to the desk and turned on his laptop. He double-clicked on an SOS app that allowed him to control his iPhone remotely. Vika had not called, nor had she texted. He backed up the phone onto the lap
top, then issued a kill command, deleting the contents. He wasn’t just returning the phone to its original factory settings; he was obliterating the operating system.

  Next he opened the Apache app that monitored the trackers he’d placed on the thieves. He was interested in only one: VB 4. He’d placed it in Vika’s purse at the Sporting Club the night before so he might know her whereabouts, just in case.

  A map of Monaco appeared on the screen. A trail of dots denoted her movements. Clicking anywhere on the line revealed the precise time she’d been at that location.

  The trail began at the hotel and made its way to the Sporting Club. After an hour, it curved into the city, stopping at the Église Saint-Marc for seven minutes before continuing back to the hotel, where Vika stayed from 10:12 until 3:50. Simon had no idea why she’d stopped at the church. For the moment, it was of no concern.

  At 3:51, the trail left the hotel and led westward across the city to Port de Fontvieille, on the far side of the palace, and farther west still, where it stopped on the border of France and Monaco, at the Héliport de Monaco. The Monaco Heliport.

  Vika remained at the heliport for two minutes. Not a second longer.

  Simon was looking at a picture of a chopper waiting on the landing pad, rotors turning and Vika being led toward it. Who was with her? Ratka? Or was Toby Stonewood there, too? And where were they taking her?

  The final readings, taken thirty seconds apart, showed the helicopter moving on an eastward heading, passing over the Monaco Tennis Club and finally Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. The trail stopped there. The tracker could not transmit its signal any farther.