by Lex Lander
After a while the rains eased off. The gurgle in the pipe became a trickle and the splashing a stutter. The sun peeked timorously out like a nervous actress making her stage début, plunged back behind a cloud, emerged again more strongly, more certainly, to pierce the gap between the shutters with a lance of white light.
The alarm clock beeped. He wasn’t sure why he had set it, since waking up had never been a problem. Maybe it was to remind him that today he would put himself at serious risk for the first time since he accepted this job.
During the weeks following his acceptance at the comte’s house in Venoy, he had mulled over the promised freedom and though he only half-believed it would happen, the more he mulled the more desirable it became. And the progression from desirability to indispensability was logical. For Lux now, freedom had become a drug: he had been given a whiff of it and he was hooked. Kill a President? Yes, he would do that to get it back, and more. He’d kill the Pope, if it were required.
If God were mortal, he’d even kill him.
That was how badly he wanted it.
* * *
His ex-wife’s holiday house - a converted barn - was set high in a hillside overlooking the resort of Ste Maxime and the bay towards St Trop. On a clear day, which this wasn’t yet, the view was stupendous. The beaches were a couple of kilometres by road, about half that by a precipitous footpath strictly not designed for the unsure of foot.
It had four cavernous bedrooms, a sitting room big enough to play badminton in, and the usual functional appointments. Outside, the obligatory patio with a swimming pool under construction. Excavation equipment occupied a space near the garden entrance; it had an abandoned air and certainly no one had been near it since Lux took up residence, two days previously.
The garden was unkempt, populated by olive trees, fig trees and some haphazardly-planted cypress. Blooms of all shapes and size and hue proliferated. But the scent of it had to be smelled to be appreciated. Even Lux, no flora enthusiast, had been known to rave about it to others back when he’d had a stake of sorts in the place.
Now, as he sauntered onto a patio that still glistened from the recent inundation, the memories of a marriage gone rotten soured the smell of the flowers and dulled the blue of the Mediterranean that twinkled below. It was simply a secluded base for his project, and less than half an hour’s drive from the Crillon property. Operating from here also ensured that his own house in Menton remained ‘clean’ in the event of a security leak.
After a breakfast of black coffee and brioches he drove down into Ste Maxime in his hired Renault Safrane, arriving on the sea front just as the skies unleashed another typical April shower, sending flocks of early season tourists scuttling for cover, heads protected by a miscellany of newspapers and shopping bags.
He parked facing the sea and waited out the shower. When it was over but for the accumulated water sliding off the long fronds of the date palms and pinging on the car’s roof and hood like so many tiny hammers, he made a dash for the shops, specifically a small supermarket. There he purchased a pack of Evian bottled water, some fruits, cheese, and a baguette. His picnic lunch. Even assassins need sustenance to function.
To get to the Crillon house from Ste Maxine the obvious and the only viable route was initially via the N98 as far as the crossroads where it meets the D98, which serves St Tropez, and the D559, the coastal road to Le Lavandou. At the crossroads you have a choice: continue on the N98 for about eight kilometres, then turn off left into the hills of the littoral, or follow the D559 as far as Cavalaire-sur-Mer, turning right just beyond the village.
His choice for today was to stick with the route nationale. During this pre-season period when traffic was relatively light, he would invariably opt for the busier route. By mixing with the crowds he would avoid drawing attention, just one of the herd. Anonymity ever lay in numbers.
He drove sedately, was passed frequently and flamboyantly by local vehicles and the occasional Dutch or German visitor. Through the village of Cogolin, a bottleneck of old houses and streets of fluctuating width clogged with illegally parked cars. A large van delivering cartons to a computer shop halted the traffic as effectively as any road block. Lux didn’t get agitated, didn’t sound his horn. He was in no hurry and to remain unnoticed overrode all other considerations.
Leaving the N98 brought about a transition from wide busy highway to a rough and ready track. It ran fairly straight and level for a few kilometres, then began simultaneously to twist and climb. The rain returned at this point, a solid sheet of it, slowing him to a second gear creep. It quit eventually or else he left it behind and he was back under the Mediterranean sunshine, dazzlingly bright. A red squirrel darted across the road almost under his wheels, tail stiff with fright. When Lux came to a spot where the road ceased to climb he pulled off and braked. He opened up his map of the area. It was one of half a dozen in the same series, covering the whole of the French Mediterranean coastline from Spain to Italy. The other five maps were window dressing, to divert any suggestion of a special interest in the area, in the event of his falling into the clutches of the gendarmerie. In his line of business you learned to cover every angle. Either that or you didn’t survive.
The service road to the Crillon property did not appear on the map but purported to be the first turnoff right after the highest point, signposted ‘Les Molières’. And there it was, the sign tilted and in need of refurbishment, though the track itself was in a reasonable state of repair.
If this route proved an impasse, the only way in and out, it would be a potential trap. Unusable for the actual hit. To drive along it at all was to attract curiosity. So he would allow himself this one and only reconnoitre on wheels. Future forays would be on foot, posing if challenged as an enthusiastic rambler and bird-watcher. A bit eccentric, like many American tourists.
* * *
When Lux set out from the municipal car park in Rayol he carried a knapsack on his back. Inside it, waterproof clothing, binoculars, camera, a book entitled Mediterranean Birdlife, a variety of maps by the Institut Géographique National, a bottle of Evian and his lunch. He wore jeans, sweatshirt, heavy shoes with corrugated soles for grip on slippery surfaces, sunglasses, and a battered sun hat. He hoped he looked like a serious walker.
The weather stayed fine for most of his ascent, via a well-defined path to the summit of le Drapeau, a 1000-foot peak two valleys away from that of the Crillon residence. It was warm but not so warm as to make him sweat from it, and his breathing was easy. He made a point of keeping fit without the fanaticism of some, seeing it as a bare professional necessity.
A feather of breeze ruffled the shrubs that grew thickly here and drew the heat from his skin. The sky overhead was still clear but to the west an angry stack of cumulus was on the march. He gave it an hour to arrive. By then he calculated that he should be at or close to his journey’s end.
The going was rougher now, for he had left the recognised path and was taking a line of little resistance, skirting impenetrable growths, squeezing through gaps between bushes. Descending brought him into a zone of maritime pines, their carpet of needles springily pleasant underfoot after the hard, rock-strewn terrain higher up. He broke into a lope. The sun was weakening, the air growing chill as the cumulus neared. The first spots landed on him as hail when he crossed the road that ran down into Rayol. He swerved onto the service road leading to the entrance of the estate. The hail was now falling in earnest, he raced for the nearest cover, the estate wall. The distance was less than fifty yards but he was soaked long before he reached it. Nor did it offer much shelter.
The storm was fierce but mercifully short. The sun soon broke through again. Birdsong was restored. Staying within sight of the wall, he resumed his walk, wet through, uncomfortable, his clothes steaming in the heat. It was mid-day. The terrain climbed, yet so gradually that he was hardly aware of it. Only when, after twenty minutes, he took a break and scrambled up the wall to peer over it did he realise how much higher was the
west side of the estate than the east. He slithered to the ground and moved away at right angles to the wall and uphill until he could look over it, across the whole estate. He took an apple from his knapsack and munched it while surveying the area. The valley on the west side of the estate was banana-shaped and curved away out of sight. Through the Swarovski binoculars he searched for the service road; short of the valley’s edge it split into two, the left fork plunging into the thickly wooded slopes while the right limb veered off towards the two neighbouring villas on this side of the valley, his view of which was obscured by a salient of rock.
He focused more intently on the far slope in an attempt to trace the course of the road. Eventually he lit upon a short stretch where it left the trees to run parallel to the valley. By now he had seen enough to form a fairly clear picture - and it was not propitious.
A single road out meant he couldn’t come and go by car - not from this end anyway. Unless there was another road that was passable, not marked on the map. A motorcycle might be the solution, enabling him to travel cross country. After the event, all he had to do was get clear and stay at large for the few days it would take for Barail’s political supremo to be installed at the Elysées Palace and for his amnesty to come into force. However, in that interim period it was likely that the full weight of the law would be mobilised against the assassin. It would show no mercy.
Escape from the immediate vicinity and subsequent evasion of capture remained the most elusive of all the answers he sought. Only when he had solved it would there be any point in researching the kill itself.
He swigged Evian, hefted the knapsack, and went on. Still staying close to the wall, topography permitting, taking a short detour when it didn’t. In due course he rounded the most northerly point of the estate and continued on down the east side. There he was soon thwarted. The terrain became seriously rugged and boulder strewn and the downward slope perilously steep. Standing on top of a rock the size of a small car, he saw where the slope ended and the canyon began.
It was a no-go zone.
From the wealth of intelligence thrown up by Barail, Lux had gleaned that during extended absences of the Crillon family the staff at the house, normally four strong, was reduced to a single housekeeper who lived in the village. She did not work at weekends, hence Lux’s choice of Sunday for his reconnoitre. The only other employees were two permanent security guards who lived on site when the Crillons were away. Not policemen but civilians employed by a security outfit, semi-retired, both in their sixties. These two individuals occupied a mobile home just inside the garden perimeter, screened from the house by shrubbery.
Back at his earlier vantage point on the western side of the wall, where the curve bulged its maximum, Lux again climbed the wall and peeked over the top. Through the binoculars he scanned the house and its immediate surroundings. As he traversed the patch of shrubbery by the gate he spotted what he had failed to spot before: the end section of the roof of a mobile home protruding from the foliage.
As far as he could tell neither of the security guards was out and about. A Citroën Xantia and an old VW Golf stood in the parking area, side by side, the only evidence of human presence. He shoved the binoculars in their case and was up and over the wall in a matter of seconds, dropping flat as he landed on a trampoline of maquis. The nearest of the three copses was less than a hundred metres away, ahead and slightly to his right. If he moved at a crouch the maquis would screen him for most of the way, leaving an exposed patch of maybe twenty or thirty metres of grass to cover. He would do that on his belly.
He sucked air into his lungs and set off, bent double, bushes snagging his clothing. As he came to the open ground he paused to check out the terrain below and the house. No movement at all. He removed his hat, to let the sun dry his hair. It was now pleasantly hot, the hailstorm a faint memory.
Time to go. Down on his belly, hopefully out of sight to anyone down at the base of the slope, he wriggled through the scrawny, still damp grass.
It was his ill-luck that the helicopter chose that moment to pass overhead. He had virtually zero warning: the hammer of its engine was deadened by the hillside that continued upwards beyond the wall, and when it leapt into sight above the copse he was caught in the open between the bushes and the haven of the trees. He mouthed an obscenity and flattened himself to the earth. No use running. Any movement would only attract the chopper’s crew.
He turned his head to follow the machine as it flew a diagonal course across the estate. There was no change in direction, no sudden swerve to indicate he had been spotted. It was an olive green painted machine with military markings. It was flying too fast for proper surveillance so maybe its presence was a coincidence. And maybe not.
The helicopter peeled off to head due west and dropped down into the valley beyond the wall. Lux’s shoulders slumped with relief. One life used up, how many were left to him?
He recommenced his crawl with more haste than before and was into the copse inside half a minute. It was like a homecoming. A few feet inside the treeline he stood up and brushed soil, grit and other adhesions from his soggy clothing, before taking stock of his haven.
The trees were mostly a species of pine, giving adequate cover from above but less at ground level. Although the copse was about a hundred metres across at this point, sky was visible between the bare lower trunks. It was of no consequence, he decided, as the rising ground and the wall behind would create a dark backdrop when viewed from lower down. By dressing in fatigues and blackening his face, he would be undetectable, especially from where the President’s helicopter would land, the best part of a kilometre away.
He struck out through the trees. Underfoot was spongy with fallen pine needles and strewn with dead branches that he knew from experience would crack like a pistol shot if he stood on one. Before each step he paused to sweep aside the branches with his foot and to listen. This retarded progress but was a heap better than running into the resident watchdogs.
Deeper into the copse the trees had thickened somewhat. Now, as he approached the other side they opened up again, letting in bands of sunshine like stage spotlights. A vibrato of wings behind froze him momentarily. It was just a bird, but he twisted round to check his rear anyway. Nothing stirred apart from the occasional quiver of foliage in the desultory breeze.
The end of the treeline was mere paces away. He stopped short of it and once again surveyed the house and the shrubbery through the binoculars. The zoom magnification gave him a close-up image of the semi-circular turning zone at the front of the house. To many, hitting a target as small as the human head at a range of nearly one thousand metres would seem an impossible feat. Even a body-hit would be a challenge. But Lux had supreme confidence in his skills and in his choice of weapon. He had hit smaller objects over greater distances with the same kind of gun. Including moving objects - and he had to assume that the President’s head would be a moving object.
None of what he had seen so far helped him in his essential objective of securing a safe exit. If he was to make the kill from here in the copse he would have to make his escape from here. Prior to, during, and immediately after the President’s arrival, the grounds would be searched and the walls guarded. So said Barail. Even sticking around until the President was settled in and the guards perhaps grown a little lax, a stratagem he had considered, was not the solution. The longer he stayed here the greater the danger of discovery.
No, short of making himself invisible, he was not going to be able to do this job. So, how was he to make himself invisible?
Sighing, he sank to the ground and unscrewed the cap from his Evian bottle. The renewed stammer of the helicopter stopped him in mid-swallow. Clearing the roof of the house by a few metres, it rushed on up the slope towards the north end of the estate. The feathered inhabitants rose in clusters from trees and undergrowth, wheeling hither and yon like Spitfires and Messerschmitts in a dogfight.
That was when he saw the woman.
* *
*
She was away to his right, weaving stealthily through the trees towards the open, intent on what lay ahead not to either side. Dressed in a bright yellow anorak and blue jeans, only her slight build and the yellow band around her long straight black hair betrayed her sex.
Wondering what she was doing here, even whether she could conceivably be a security guard, Lux slipped soundlessly behind the nearest tree. From here he took a more leisurely peek, through the binoculars. The first thing he noticed about her was her camera: it was slung from her neck, a far more sophisticated piece of equipment than his. Unlikely to be a bodyguard then. Probably a trespasser. Perhaps a journalist.
He also noted that she was young or youngish, probably slim under the unflattering waterproof, and had a passably attractive profile.
He swung the binoculars back onto the house and the shrubbery. The security men were still lying doggo. The woman’s yellow anorak shouted to be noticed. If she left the shelter of the trees and strolled openly down the hill she might just get away with a little-girl-lost plea, especially if she was a looker. But, with the President’s visit coming up, the chances were she would find herself in a mess of trouble.
Abruptly, as if she had become aware of how conspicuous she was in her garish outfit, she swung to the left, towards Lux, and advanced in parallel to the edge of the copse. This placed him directly in her line of sight. To change position would be asking to be spotted. He kept perfectly still, hugging the tree trunk, hoping she would pass him by. Her footfall was deadened by the pine needles and other than the drone of an aircraft to the south all was silent, even the birds seeming to hold their breath. As she came into view around his tree he edged to the right, keeping the trunk between them. He heard a startled gasp.