One Step to Danger
Page 8
Jacqui nodded her approval. “Let’s hit the road,” she said. “It’s gone nine.” She stood up, drawing appreciative looks from several of the other male guests. I supposed they were the ones who had given us looks of horror when we arrived the night before. Now the hotel people were treating us royally. Yesterday they couldn’t rush us out of the lobby quickly enough.
I paid and picked up our cases. I declined the offer of assistance and headed to the garage. The car was hardly gleaming. “I think I am going to take a further precaution. We will hire another car in my name. Let’s leave this one in the nearest car park and send a note to the firm to pick it up.”
I thought again, “No Juan is too small a place. Let’s make the switch further up the coast. Nice would be a good place. We’ll make it more difficult for anyone who wants to follow. We can leave the Peugeot here and catch a train to Nice.”
We parked the car and walked over to the small station. A slow train was due in ten minutes. We were in luck. We should be in Nice within the hour. We could hire a car from one of the rental firms near the station. The train arrived. It was one of those typically French ones with open sections between the carriages and doors that shut at your option. We sat at the end of a carriage by the window, our luggage stowed in the rack above. A bit smarter than the average traveller but otherwise nothing unusual. We relaxed. Everything seemed to be working perfectly.
It was only when I looked up, after the train had drawn out of Antibes, that I saw them. Two swarthy, badly dressed youths with shaved heads and earrings in their noses and ears. By now my sense for danger was strong. I could not believe that they were from Jacqui’s people. They definitely were not police. I suspected that they were thugs. The problem was that we were both armed. Our luggage held incriminating signs of the night before. And we could not afford to lose our wallets. I hoped that the train did not empty. We had to steer clear of trouble.
I kept an eye on them. I noticed some other people moving away from the thugs and decided to act. I whispered to Jacqui, “I am going to have to bluff them. We can’t afford to be robbed and we can’t afford to be in a fight. If this doesn’t work, we are going to have trouble. Call out if anyone comes down the aisle behind me.”
She nodded nervously. I got up and walked over to the thugs. One of them took out a flick knife. He opened it and started to run it up and down his boot. His companion put his hand in his pocket.
I stamped on the companion’s foot, sat down and drew my gun. They stopped in mid-movement. I waited a moment and then said, “Don’t even think of touching me, the girl or anyone else in this train. You’re out of your depth. Both of you. You attack me and I will shoot in self-defence. Do as I say, and you’ll get out of this alive. Don’t question anything I ask, and I won’t even hand you over to the police. If I do they’ll be really pissed off and throw the book at you. I doubt you even realise who will be in the cells with you. But I can guarantee they won’t like you. After a night with them, any prison sentence would appear light punishment.”
It appeared to work. They really seemed frightened. I wondered if I had been hardened by the last few days. I sounded in charge. My voice sounded cold. I was convincing and they were scared.
“You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ve bigger fish to fry than you and if you as much as start to screw up our operation, you’re in shit; and up to your necks in it.”
That seemed to do the trick. I wondered if they thought I was undercover police or a criminal. I didn’t care as long as they left us alone. I turned to the one nearest the door, “Open the doors.” He hesitated. I slowly raised the gun till it pointed at his crotch. “The first bullet will get you in the balls; the second will be more painful.” He opened the door.
“Throw your knife on the track.” He did. “Empty your pockets.” Cigarettes, some money and other bits and pieces.” OK pick them up. Now go through his pockets and take out anything that could look like a weapon.” Another knife. Nothing else. “Throw it out,” I said.
I put my hand and my gun in my pocket. The train slowed down We were getting into Nice. “You’re not getting out here. The train moves on to Menton in five minutes. You are staying on board. I won’t be watching you from the platform, but one of my men will. You won’t see them. And you won’t hear them. But get out and you’ll wake up in hospital. Perhaps a couple of days later. That is as long as they don’t hit you too hard.”
By now they were petrified. They were just thugs. Stupid, mindless thugs. But they were not our business. We had more important things to do. We got off the train.
“Are you going to watch them?” asked Jacqui.
“No they’ll keep clear of us now. We need to hire the car and get to Monte Carlo. It’s getting on to eleven and I want to be there in an hour.”
At that time of the year the hire companies had a quiet time. It took us about ten minutes to complete all the paperwork and soon we were heading off down to the Promenade Des Anglais. I had chosen a Mercedes Coupe, like my old one. It was more powerful though. I now appreciated the need to accelerate out of trouble as well as away from it.
The Promenade Des Anglais sweeps along the elegant seafront in Nice. The beach at Nice is fine as long as you drive there and find a place to park. Otherwise you have to negotiate a six to eight lane highway between the town and the sea front. It was sunny, quite warm now. The storms the night before had cleared the air. I kept the hood down though, for the late September had an autumnal chill.
Jacqui laid her head on my shoulder and watched lazily as the landscape unfolded. We passed the bizarre onion shape of the Negresco hotel. We circled the port area and headed out of town. The winding road clings to the cliffs and eases its way from Nice right into Monte Carlo. There was little traffic and we sped along without problem. I felt Jacqui shift and thought she had dozed off.
Then suddenly she announced, “Once we have sorted out the bank in Switzerland, can we have a couple of days together? We should think what we are going to do. We need to plan things. But I also want to know what you did in the six months since we left each other. And I will tell you what I did. We have time. We need to be in Cannes on Friday afternoon to get the first seed money. It’s no use starting until the weekend. The casinos are not really busy on Thursdays. The professionals and regulars will be there on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This area is not like Las Vegas where gambling is a twenty four hours a day seven day a week occupation.”
“No problem,” I replied. “I really don’t need to be in Rio now till December. So we have plenty of time. Once we have laundered some of the cash, my father could start to trade financial markets and do so seriously. He had already started to dabble in the name of the companies under one or another alias to get a bit known as an independent. The last time I looked he had got lucky on betting against the Yen and the Franc against the dollar. I suspect we are now worth around three million dollars or so more than we were when we started out. He has been the right way up much more than he has lost on the downside.”
The plan was quite simple. My father had set up a money management company. It would be what was known as a hedge fund type operation. He would tell the bankers that he had won new customers as we laundered the money and transferred the funds. That would allow him to raise his sights. Once we had enough money, we would create what was known as a vulture fund. And that would be when our sights really became big.
I told Jacqui, I would run her through the details later, but the hedge fund would borrow money and deal in some very specialised and very high-risk financial instruments. The vulture fund would take stakes in companies and threaten to put them in play, or actually do it. All very legal. All quite risky. But we could end up with a billion or more if we were successful. And I told her of our theory that success was much more assured if one did not fear failure.
She did not quite agree. She wanted us to make enough to get her freedom from her father. I was confident that could be done. She nuzzled me a
nd said, “I hope so. Love you.”
We drew into Monte Carlo and I went straight through to the bank. Monte Carlo is a crazy place. A cramped town of hotels, conference centres and banks. Characterless but rich. Snobbish although money bought status. Ruled by the Grimaldis.
The younger Grimaldis populated the scandal hungry tabloid press. Photogenic girls vied for coverage as they roamed through a selection of companions and husbands. At times the husbands were their own. But that was not always the case. The Prince was a bachelor and circled society beauties and models, but to date had remained single. The father had married Grace Kelly and apparently remained devoted to her memory after she crashed to her death on the road from Nice we had just left.
We even found a place to park by the bank. “We should take both tapes,” I said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
We walked in and looked around the deserted lobby. The cashiers were at their desks, but for a reason I have never understood, like cashiers the world over, seemed to work behind signs indicating that they were otherwise engaged. Perhaps they never have enough customers in banks. Perhaps they have no work but are just employed to make the bank look busy. It did not really matter as we were served quickly at one of the two counters that were open for business. The bored looking youth at the counter listened to our requirements, before quickly calling a companion to take us to the vault.
Bank vaults are fun. One day I must find a way to break into one of them and rifle through those safe deposit boxes. But for now, I had business to do and was grateful for the fact that they looked totally secure. We walked past a huge door with a large wheel and an array of levers. We were inside the vault. A grill separated us from the really important stuff. In the old days this would have been the bearer certificates and the gold bars. I wondered if today it was not there just for show. Perhaps that was where the bank stored all its stationary and paperclips. I smiled wryly at the thought.
“Monsieur De Roche. Please may I see your identity?”
My passport was handed over. He officiously looked through it. There were a couple of visas for the United States and one for Hong Kong. The passport was otherwise empty. But then nobody stamps a passport in Europe any more. That meant that we could have a worn passport with hardly any stamps. It makes the forger’s job that much easier.
He handed it back to me and took out a key. I nodded and did likewise. We went to the safe and opened my box. In it was a largish metal container with a lid that hinged back half way along its length. There was a combination lock.
I pulled out the container and went into one of the small curtained recesses that were on one side of the vault. I placed the container on the shelf there and opened it quickly. I checked that the curtain was drawn and nobody could see me. I put the video inside the container. It joined a series of papers that we had placed there on an earlier visit. I returned. The container was replaced. We both locked the box. The ritual completed, we rejoined Jacqui. I thanked the official and we left.
“Can you imagine anything more boring Charles? Standing in that cavernous vault all day without seeing any natural light or life outside the building. How do they do it?”
“I’ve no idea. Maybe they like the boredom. Perhaps they appreciate the isolation. I can’t believe that a job there means that one is on the fast track to the top of the bank. Did you notice how his hair was sleeked back? He must have used a pot of gel. He had a comb in his top pocket. I saw it. Perhaps he has a phobia. Perhaps he cannot stand the idea of having a hair out of place. He needs to comb it every few minutes. Perhaps he does that all day.”
“Did your father ever do anything like that when he worked in a bank?”
“I doubt it. He was an executive. He actually came to the bank as a second job. He never had to go through the boring clerical routines that most bankers go through. That guy was just a clerk, and a pretty lowly one at that. Mind you, dad used to say that you could not often spot the difference between the clerks and the managers. He would call the managers “clerks with a company car.” He really was fairly contemptuous about the bank and banking in general.
“He used to do his job in half a day and then spent the rest of the time doing exactly what he wanted. He would tell me of colleagues who would drone on to him for hours. When they called, he used to put the phone on mute, lay it on the desk and read. Occasionally he would pick it up and mumble a few words into the phone. He said that any phone call of consequence was always repeated through a meeting, so it was not worth listening to the calls.
“He also used to only read the first and last paragraph of any note. He claimed all the rest was waffle and was included to fill the day. Banks are full of under employed people. They make so much money that they can afford it.
“He spent a lot of his time learning about the markets. He studied how they moved. He reviewed the new instruments that came out. He was always interested in what happened in the treasury field. That’s how we plan to get rich. Its putting to use the training he has had over the last few years.”
Jacqui laughed. “Your father’s a great guy really. I do like him, and also your mother. She saved me when I was in shock in Gassin. I could have flipped.”
I nodded in agreement. She was right in her judgement. It was just that my father was too bored and needed to get out. So he ran the scam. And now we were here.
As we left the bank and got into our car, I looked around. Once again I thought that everything seemed suspicious, when you suspect something. I looked through the rear window at the men in the car behind. I wondered what nationality they were. They did not look French. Swarthy but not tanned. I shrugged my shoulders and did not even mention my uncomfortable thoughts to Jacqui.
We headed out of Monte Carlo and into the mountains. I watched the rear mirror but noticed neither the car that was parked behind us at the bank nor anything else that looked remotely suspicious. By now it was approaching midday and I wanted to make it in time to Fucquet’s in Geneva.
The road through the mountains can be slow and often there are heavy lorries that get in the way. That day it was quiet and empty as we sped up towards the Swiss frontier and the Mont Blanc tunnel. It got cooler as we got to the higher altitudes. The air was crisper. The sky was brighter. The clouds were less menacing and soon cleared.
The windy road pulled from one side of the mountain to the other. The odd house or farm populated the fields on either side. The trees climbed at odd angles out of the hillsides. Green and brown were the prevailing colours. Somehow the brown of the trees looked cleaner than in the towns and the cities. The leaves still clung obstinately to the branches before their autumn demise. They were green and brown, turning russet in the sun. Canopies of colour that stretched far in the distance in their last exhibition before they departed. Then the gaunt nudity of the trees would menacingly replace this calming scene. And then the mountains would no longer be harbours of peace. They would be acres of gloom. At least until the snow in the winter covered this challenge and left its own individual imprints on the land.
Jacqui saw me looking at the landscape. “It’s beautiful. It’s so peaceful,” she said. “Sometimes I think we should go into the mountains and find a little village, one with a church. And a few houses. Then we could be there together and go for walks in the hills. We would be alone. There would be no threats. Would we be bored? Or would we survive?”
“In time I suggest we would need to change” I said. “I cannot see us living in total isolation although, after the last few days, I could do with a break.”
“After the last few months also,” Jacqui responded. “I lived a life of hell. They watched me day and night. They even posted a guard in the grounds in front of my bedroom. They did not trust me for one minute. They thought I would try to escape. Their only mistake was to give me the freedom of the house. That allowed me at least to get hold of the tape. I wonder if they played the one I put in its place?”
“Why? You never told me about that.”
I laughed. “That’s appropriate.”
I looked again in my mirror and told her of my suspicion at the bank. She looked around and stared out of the back window.
“I doubt we are being followed. They would not want to try anything now as they know that we are getting in touch. There is always a danger that some of my father’s enemies try to get hold of me. But I doubt it. Usually they leave the women alone. It’s a sort of code of conduct. You know how the Mafia believe in the purity of women, although if they thought of it, my sex has provided a fair number of the most evil people in the world.”
I slowed down, leant over and kissed her. “And the most gorgeous.” We were now approaching the tunnel. I disliked tunnels. I find them claustrophobic. The Mont Blanc may be a masterpiece of engineering but that does not make me feel less uneasy. We drove into the eerie artificial light. We noticed the noise of the tyres change as we drove into its depth. I heard a screech behind me as a white Ferrari pulled out and started to pull alongside me.
Another car behind him reacted immediately and I stamped my foot down on the accelerator in panic. However hard I tried, I saw it was impossible to pull away from him. He drew alongside me and then pulled ahead. I thought they were going to try to fence me in. A hand reached out of the window in the car behind. A gun? No, a blue light was placed on the car roof and a siren that started to roar through the tunnel. It was a police car. I could see a second police car a bit further behind.
The car ahead pulled away. I must have slowed down instinctively. It was speeding. It was fast. The police car overtook me. The second police car overtook me. They gave chase to the fleeing Ferrari. Lights flashing, sirens roaring, tyres screeching, throwing shadows across the walls and the roof of the tunnel. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought they were after us.”