The Riviera Contract

by Arthur Kerns

  He hung his tuxedo on the wooden clothes valet, slipped into his pajamas, and put on his robe. Finding his slippers, he walked over to the paned-glass door leading onto the balcony. With a cigar and a brandy in hand, he pushed the door open and stepped out. The balcony faced the mountain, and above his head, a waning quarter-moon and traces of constellations glimmered in the cool night air. Before he lit his cigar, he breathed in the cool air flavored with Mediterranean spices. The last time he’d stayed in this room, he had smoked inexpensive cigarettes from the navy commissary. Years later, when he started jogging, he quit.

  At nights, when they were young lovers, Lucinda had come to this room. The first time, on her eighteenth birthday, she had taken the hidden passageway, entering through a moveable panel in the closet. He had checked. The panel still opened. Perhaps she would visit him tonight. He turned away from the mountain and leaned back against the banister. The romance had lasted almost a year. She was eighteen, he twenty-two. Memories returned of the last summer they’d spent together.

  Why had he left her? Maybe he believed that with little money of his own and unsure of his future, he would lose her. It was less painful to end the romance before she did. Strange, some of the decisions you make, even knowing at the time they’re wrong.

  Some pebbles dropped on his hair. He looked up, but it was too dark to see from where they came. A bird or bat moving up in a parapet? He took a long puff from his cigar and wondered how at this time of his life he’d found himself invited to stay the night in a palace and hobnob with the glitterati of the Côte d’Azur. During the party, he’d had a difficult time taking his eyes off Lucinda. She was no longer a young girl, but quite a woman. Her auburn hair had darkened over the years, but it still had luster. That black dress, cut snug, ever so slightly revealed her tanned breasts. She played the role of a contessa quite well.

  Again, some pieces of rock dropped from above. As he looked up, he heard his suitcase in the bedroom fall to the floor. Taking two steps forward, he peered through the glass doors into the bedroom. Lucinda passed in front of the table lamp. He smiled, tossed the cigar over his shoulder, and moved toward the door.

  From behind him came a crash. Jagged pieces of granite hit the back of his head. He dove past the door into the bedroom and landed on the floor at Lucinda’s feet.

  “Good God, Hayden, are you all right?” She knelt at his side.

  “What the hell happened?” He stood up and pulled her next to him.

  They inched toward the door. He turned on a floor lamp and positioned it so they could survey the damage on the balcony. A large block had fallen and crushed a six-inch hole in the terrazzo at the spot where Stone had been standing.

  “That has never happened before,” she exclaimed. “Not even during earth tremors.”

  “Thanks for coming. If I hadn’t seen you in the room and moved away from that spot, I’d be dead. You saved my life.” He went to kiss her, but a loud knocking at the door interrupted him.

  She ran to the closet, turned back, and motioned to answer the door. He waited a moment for her to close the panel, then opened the door to find two of the contessa’s employees next to the Devilles, all asking at once about the noise. Invited into the room, they went to inspect the damage on the balcony. Stone opined that a piece of the palace’s façade had come loose. Lucinda now appeared at the door. It hadn’t taken long for her to climb the passageway back to her room and return by the hallway.

  Jonathan asked Stone to come out with him on the balcony. Outside while they looked up into the darkness, Jonathan whispered, “Seems a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “You’re right. Let’s go up and take a look.”

  “If there had been someone there, they’d be gone now,” Deville countered. “We couldn’t do a good job of searching in the dark. We’ll wait for daylight. By the way, who’s staying on the upper floors?”

  “The contessa and the Harringtons,” Stone said. “Also, the staff has the run of the place.”

  “Harrington, you say?”

  “Yes.”

  A half hour passed before they all left Stone’s room. The contessa’s employees, who seemed perplexed, promised that the next morning they would investigate what had caused the block to fall. Finally, alone, Stone refilled his drink and closed the door to the balcony. The night air blew in through the broken panes of glass in the door and chilled the room. He lit the wood in the fireplace and turned off the lights. From his bed, the low flames crackled off a soft glow and created shadows on the walls.

  He put his hands behind his head. So far, the gods were smiling on him. Then, he remembered that Lucinda had come to his room to see him. He closed his eyes and waited.

  The rustle from the clothes on the hangers in the closet didn’t come as a surprise. The contessa emerged quietly, walked over, and stopped a few feet from the bed. She let her gown slip from her shoulders and the firelight revealed her long body in a short black negligee. He pulled the covers back from the bed, and she climbed in and knelt next to him. They did not speak. Her rich perfume came to him in complex waves, which he breathed in deeply. He took her hand and slowly drew her to him.

  After dozing for a time, he stirred. When he inched away, she moved closer. She whispered she was warm. He removed one of the blankets.

  “I was not going to come to you.” She lifted up on one arm and faced him. “Mainly because I knew you wanted me to visit and make love with you.”

  “So why did you?”

  She moved closer and put her face on his chest. “Things are not going well. I told you I must lease the palace to the Saudis because I need the money.”

  “I wish I could help you.”

  “Let me finish, please. I need the funds because Harrington, supposedly my friend, talked me into lending him money. He lost it all and put me into debt. Then there is my brother and his family. They are all more of a problem than a help. And my consigliere wants me to sell antiquities on the black market.”

  “You, my dear, are in a bind.”

  “Yes, I am. But with you I can escape reality for a few hours.”

  Stone reached around and embraced her. He held her for a long time, until his arm started to go numb. When he moved, she sat up and crossed her legs.

  In her low, cognac voice she said, “So let us talk about what will happen tomorrow.” She let out a long sigh. “I will have to get the staff organized for the move down to the villa.” She pointed to the balcony. “In addition, that has to be repaired.”

  He ran his fingers across her belly. “You don’t think someone wants me dead, do you?”

  “Very strange. This palace is well built. Remember years ago when I showed you the foundations?”

  She had taken him into the bowels of the building and showed him ruins on the floor of a large cavern connected to the basement of the structure. She had pointed out walls and marble columns that archeologists had identified as ancient Greek and Roman. A tunnel ran from the basement under the mountain ridge and emerged about a mile from the palace, dug by a medieval lord during the time of seaborne raids by the Moors. One day they had explored the length of the tunnel and had come out onto a thicket of bushes and trees that clung to the side of the mountain.

  “It’s amazing how many people have lived here. Right on this spot,” he said.

  She had turned slightly toward the fire, and he studied the outline of her breasts. He looked for the mole under her left nipple. “I wonder what happened to that religion,” he continued. “You know—people who believed in Zeus, Neptune, and all those gods in mythology?” He rubbed his hand along the smooth skin inside her thigh. “Do you think our religions will pass away some day?”

  “Enough.” She took his hand and pressed it down on her stomach. “You are the same after all this time. After making love, you like to lie on your back and talk philosophy, or make jokes. At least now you do not smoke a cigarette afterward.” She crawled over and straddled him, her thighs pressing again
st his sides. Apparently comfortable, she began pulling at his chest hairs one by one. “I have a busy day tomorrow. And what will you do? Go back and write your book?”

  “I suppose. Is there anything I can do to help you here?”

  She shook her head, caressing his chest. “I will have to read one of your books.” A moment’s silence. “I wanted to ask, how do you know the Devilles? Rhonda Deville mentioned that you and Jonathan had worked together on something.”

  “We did, some years ago.”

  “So you were a policeman like Jonathan?”

  “FBI. I’m retired, and now I write.”

  “And you know Maurice Colmont?”

  “We’ve met. I can’t say we’re friends.”

  She leaned down on him and he hugged her. She stretched back and looked at him. Although he could barely see her face in the dark, he felt her staring.

  “It would be so nice if I could trust you, Hayden. But of course I cannot.” She ran her right hand through his hair. “Why did your wife leave you?”

  “She said I bored her to tears.”

  She threw back her head and laughed. “That is hard to believe.” She kissed him hard and said in his ear, “One more time and then I go. Tomorrow is a busy day for me.”

  The next morning the palace was in turmoil. The contessa’s staff rushed about moving furniture and packing objets d’art. Holding a cup of coffee, Stone explored the first floor level and found himself in the library. He read the titles on the shelves. The framed old maps held his interest for a while, and then he thought of the ruins down in the lower level.

  He descended a set of stairs to the basement and passed through a door to the cavern. Switching on the lights, he saw before him the columns and relics as he remembered them. Evidently, the contessa took guests down there on tours, because the lighting system appeared modern.

  Before he returned to the main floor, he searched for the entrance to the tunnel. He found it in the basement behind a huge water-stained breakfront that looked at least three hundred years old. It blocked the door leading to the tunnel. Pushing hard with his back, he managed to budge the cabinet a foot from the door. An open padlock hung from a clasp, which fell apart when he touched it. He tested the door and it creaked open. It was difficult to close. Losing interest, he threw the broken padlock behind the breakfront and returned to the main level of the palace.

  Jonathan approached as Stone put his suitcase in the Porsche’s trunk. “Hey buddy, I found out something interesting this morning. I accompanied the workmen up to the roof to find out why that block came crashing down.” He turned his face up to the parapet above Stone’s room. “The workmen are still puzzled. However, I saw gouges that would indicate that someone pried the block off its base, like with a crowbar.” He squeezed Stone’s arm. “You know, pal, you’ve got to stop pissing people off around here.”

  The contessa stood by the palace front door, giving instructions to a member of her staff who was loading a painting into the back of a van. She looked over and waved at Stone. He blew her a kiss, slid into the seat of the car, and turned on the ignition. The low, throaty rumble of the exhaust sounded good. In the rearview mirror, he glanced back at her. She was still watching his car. The bright sun brought out touches of red in her auburn hair and, for a moment, in her white slacks and tan polka dot blouse, she looked eighteen again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nice—May 12, 2002

  The chimes from nearby church bells drifted into Claudia’s hotel room along with the sun-warmed sea air. Charles Fleming sat in one of the red and white patterned armchairs next to the door of the narrow balcony where Sandra sat, gazing off to the distance, a cappuccino in her hand.

  Seated at a russet desk, Claudia wrote nervous scribbles on a notepad embossed with the hotel’s hallmark. With the secure satellite phone to her ear, she listened to her boss, Howard, who had called from CIA Headquarters. It was early Sunday morning in Washington, DC, so he considered the call important.

  He rambled on, as the people who worked for him were accustomed to. Claudia made hard doodles on the pad and at one point, ripped off the page, and started scribbling on the next one. Between sharp, hacking coughs, Howard said, “A Colonel Frederick will arrive in Nice tomorrow. For your information, the colonel’s office is on the seventh floor at Langley. He’s attached to the Director’s staff.”

  Swiveling around from the desk, Claudia looked out through the open balcony door at the sun-splashed sea. In the distance, a small fishing boat passed with a lone man standing on the open deck tending the tiller.

  Howard droned on. “My counterpart in the Near East Division called me a few hours ago and registered concern that multiple threats in the South of France were not being addressed.”

  Claudia rose from the chair and paced. It had been five minutes since she had managed to say anything. Fleming, who she knew had a sort of sixth sense for situations like this, had begun to fidget.

  Addressing the attempted capture of the al Qaeda terrorist, bin Zanni, Howard emphasized each word. “I’m displeased with your team’s failure to capture him. The military in Frankfurt, Germany registered a complaint directly to the Deputy Director of Operations. But what’s most disturbing is that I received a report from Paris Station indicating our liaison with the French has broken down.”

  Whenever Howard used the word “disturbing,” smart people in the CIA ran for cover. Claudia stopped pacing and, rubbing her stomach, felt the beginnings of a severe stomachache. Apparently, Howard was not interested in hearing her version of events.

  Before signing off, Howard said, “Just be sure to arrange for Colonel Frederick’s arrival in Nice. And by the way, Claudia, give my salute to that fellow, Hayden Stone, who has evened the score with the opposition.”

  Claudia switched off the phone and tossed it to Fleming. “Call Paris and find out when Colonel Frederick arrives to assume control. Make appropriate hotel arrangements for him. He’s very high up, a super grade.”

  She stared out to the balcony and studied Sandra drinking her coffee. When did Sandra call and report on her to the Paris station chief? Before or after last night’s pleasant dinner together?

  Villefranche

  Under the canvas-covered fantail of the Red Scorpion, Abdul Wahab reclined on an embroidered Turkish cushion. Across from him, the prince sat gazing at Villefranche. As a slight breeze from the sea gradually swayed the anchored boat to the right, the town and the mountains behind it slipped by like a panning cinema shot. The clear air and yellow sun invigorated Wahab, and he wished he were riding his favorite Arabian in the mountains above the town.

  Thick steam rose from a pot of black tea sitting on a low round table of intricate marquetry. The prince gracefully pulled back the white sleeves of his robe, picked up a cup and saucer from the engraved serving dish, and took a sip. “When will these people from Riyadh move into the contessa’s palace? Tomorrow?”

  “It will be Tuesday before they can move in, Excellency,” Wahab answered. “The contessa must transport her personal belongings down to her villa. As it is, her staff is moving in haste.”

  “That man, Harrington, is very foolish. He reminds me of those so-called scholars running about the town of Boston. Why do you bother with him?”

  Wahab leaned over and selected a honeyed fig from the tray. “In life one becomes involved with fools. He is useful for some of my business dealings.”

  “I am not impressed with your dealings with the poppy growers in Afghanistan.”

  Leaning back on his cushion, Wahab sucked honey from a fig. Next, he would receive a soft admonishment about the welfare of the prince’s daughter, Wahab’s first wife, who lived in Jeddah. All the while, the prince’s unasked question hung there: Why did he, his son-in-law, take another wife, that English woman he kept in London?

  “They are Taliban. Our brothers,” Wahab said. “They receive money for their crops, poison is sent to Europe, and I have money to finance the infrastructure o
f my new network.”

  The prince studied a passing sailboat. “I need not know the details of your network.” He paused. “These people from Riyadh are anxious to take their medical equipment to the palace. The men from the interior ministry will go with them. I will be happy to see them leave the Red Scorpion.”

  The prince set down his cup and his servant poured fresh tea. He then waved the servant away. “I am not comfortable with this escapade, but an important member of the royal family has seen fit to assist bin Zanni.” He peered over his wire-framed glasses. “Of course, bin Zanni is a brother Saudi and a believer in the true faith of the desert. We must support him against the infidels, polytheists, and heretics, even if he considers you and me to be corrupt.”

  “Bin Zanni’s handlers sent me a message asking assistance,” Wahab said. “He escaped capture two days ago. The CIA and the French know he is in France.”

  “That is not good news.”

  “He and his people are in the mountains near the Swiss border. They will stay there until it is safe for them to move to the contessa’s palace.” Wahab looked up at the mountain and tried to pick out the hulking mass of stone that comprised the palace. “They say they need help getting bin Zanni to the palace.”

  “They should go on to Switzerland. All these people on the yacht could follow them there,” the prince huffed. “It would solve a lot of problems.”

  Wahab dabbed his beard with a linen napkin and looked at the prince, who started moving his eyeglasses up and down the bridge of his nose as he did when he felt uncomfortable with a political predicament. The prince’s instincts were unequaled.