They descended the escalator and joined a throng waiting for the tram to the main terminal. Simon kept his eyes on the passengers lining up behind them, on the faces coming down the elevator. It was easy enough. The rough-and-tumble crowding of the Far East was a thing of the past. Nowhere did he see the thick blond hair, the coffee-toned skin, the blue eyes and massive neck. But this wasn’t the place, thought Simon. Shaka would wait until he had them somewhere to his advantage, somewhere he could kill them and get away scot-free. And if Shaka knew they were stopping in Zurich, he knew they were continuing to Nice.
If he knew…
Of course he knew.
They boarded the tram for the ninety-second ride to the main terminal, greeted along the way by a hologram of a woman standing beneath the Matterhorn flanked by two flag-twirling countrymen. Prato Bornum was everywhere.
They took the stairs up a floor to the transit lounge. Shops, boutiques, kiosks, and cafés lined both sides of the hall. More passengers here, foot traffic headed in every direction. They consulted the monitors for their connecting gate. Simon stopped to change the rest of his Singapore dollars into Swiss francs. He checked his mail, seeing a note from Harry Mason about the new hospital bill. He opened the attachment and frowned. Fifty-two thousand nine hundred pounds. The second this thing was over he was going to drive to D’Artagnan Moore’s office, turn him upside down, and shake him until every last pound, dollar, and euro fell from his tweed pockets. He was done with the art world.
“Two hours till our flight,” said Simon. “Let’s grab a tea and go to the gate.”
London put a hand on his arm. “If he’s here, he’ll know where to look for us.”
“At least we’ll see him coming.”
Simon couldn’t see Shaka trying to take them inside the airport. It was too public, the space too confined, in effect a sealed environment. At the outdoor market in Singapore, he could hit them and run, the open spaces his ally.
Or might he wait until Nice? The airport was smaller, less guarded. Watch for them to leave the terminal, follow them to a hotel…
It was pointless to guess. There was no way to map out every scenario. Simon would have to keep his wits about him.
They stopped at a café and ordered tea and coffee and fresh croissants. He slathered his with butter and honey. London followed suit. No country had better bread. Simple pleasures.
They arrived at their gate at ten minutes before seven. One couple had arrived before them, looking every bit as tired as Simon felt. He studied them all the same. The man fifty, a paunch, wearing a houndstooth trilby; the woman a few years younger, a frosted blonde, trim, hard-bitten.
Simon set down his bag at the row nearest the window and sat looking toward the wide concourse. London sat next to him, laying her head on his shoulder, the touch of her stirring memories of their passionate tryst. He didn’t know if sex was better at forty thousand feet, but it was certainly fiery. Quick, uninhibited, and fiery. No time to worry about pleasing or impressing. Every man for himself. She had matched him every step of the way, maybe even led. Taboo obviously worked for her.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe you can help me out. Prato Bornum—the one pure source—it’s about closing borders, restricting immigration. Keeping undesirables out.”
“Purity, piety, and preservation.”
“But the movie, The Raft of the Medusa, is about the plight of refugees. I mean, ten out of five hundred survive. Pretty tough deal. Without having seen it, I’m going to say it’s a sympathetic depiction of their plight.”
“Yes.”
“Well, if Nadya Sukarno is a majority shareholder in Black Marble and she bankrolled her nephew, presumably she knew what the film was about.”
“Presumably.”
“Why would she allow him to make a movie that espouses everything that Prato Bornum is against?” Simon waited for an answer. None came. “I don’t get it.”
But in his mind an idea had taken root. It was all interconnected. Borgia, Lester, Sukarno, Prato Bornum, and Samson Sun. All of it of a piece.
“This weekend,” Lester had said.
But what? Where? When? How?
An announcement played over the public address system. “Lufthansa flight 564 to Nice is now departing out of Terminal A, gate 67. Passengers are requested to take the escalator to the lower level and await the bus for transport to the aircraft.”
London picked up her bag.
“Wait,” said Simon, placing a hand on her arm. “Terminal A is for commuter flights. Regional jets. Turboprops.”
“So?”
“We’re on an A320.”
“It’s a gate change. Everyone’s going.”
The couple he’d noticed earlier had stood and were gathering their belongings. A few others trickled out, following the signs to the escalators.
“Do you see anything?” asked London. “Is it him?”
Simon pulled up the Flight Tracker app on his phone and tapped in the flight number. A list appeared showing data for the past ten days: departure times, aircrafts, gates. “Lufthansa flight 564, an A320 out of Terminal B. Every day.” He lowered the phone. “We’re blown.”
“What do you mean?”
“They know we’re here. Someone’s waiting for us at the new gate.”
“Shaka?”
“Him. Someone like him. Them.”
“But how?”
“Your passport, maybe. Flight manifests. Did you tell anyone we were coming?”
“Just Mandy.”
“Mandy? When?”
“Last night. When you called your office, I phoned to tell her where we were going. She’s my editor. It’s what we do.”
“Call her,” said Simon. “Now. But calmly. No stress.”
London called Mandy Blume’s cell. It rolled to voice mail immediately. She shook her head.
“Call the office,” said Simon. “It’s one in the afternoon in Singapore. She should be there.”
London dialed the FT’s main number, identified herself, and requested to speak to Mandy. A moment passed and she signaled that Blume was coming on the line. Simon stepped closer. London held the phone so he could hear. “Mandy…Oh, Anson, hello. I’m calling for Mandy.”
“Mandy’s dead,” said Anson Ho, co-managing editor. “She and her husband were murdered last night. I’m sorry.”
“What? That can’t be. I spoke with her at eleven. Anson, what happened?”
“Someone got into their apartment. Look, I don’t have any more details. The police are here. I can’t talk now. We’re all in shock.”
London dropped the phone to her side, the color drained from her face. “We did this.”
“No, we didn’t. It’s just how things played out. I’m sorry.”
“I’m going to be ill.”
Simon placed his hands on her arms. “Not now, you’re not. You can be sad later. Tonight, tomorrow. Right now, I need all of you.”
Of course emotion overruled logic. “Why did they do this?” said London. “Oh, poor Mandy.”
Simon gripped her tightly. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “You need to believe that.”
London nodded, not believing it. Not for a second.
Then he saw them. Two men standing a ways down the concourse, one older, silver-haired, the other younger, fit. Both trying hard not to pay attention to them, sneaking a look now and then. And then there was the couple a row of seats over who also hadn’t heeded the announcement yet. They stood fussing over a carry-on. Maybe fussing too much. And what was that bulge in the man’s blazer? There, beneath the arm.
Simon pulled up a map of the airport on his phone, running his finger over the layout. Outside. They had to get outside. And from there? He studied the map more closely. It took him a moment, but he spotted a path. Yes, just maybe. He looked at London, at her shoes. “Can you run in those?”
“Run? I guess.”
He put his mouth to her ear. “Listen to me. We got l
ucky last time. Not going to happen again. This time it’s all or nothing.”
“I get the point,” London said sharply.
Simon forced a smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to…well, you know.”
“I’m ready.”
“Leave your bag here. Just you and me flat-out.”
“But I don’t see anyone.”
“They’re here. Believe me.”
“Not my laptop. It has everything.”
“London.”
She nodded, gathering herself. “Where are we going?”
“Just follow me.”
Simon rose wearily, stretching, looking at his watch. “Excuse me,” he said, approaching the couple in the next row of seats. “Are you on the flight to Nice?”
Hesitation. A look passed between the man and woman. “Yes, we are,” said the man in the trilby hat, a German speaker, heavy accent. “Holiday. We are about to head down to the new gate.”
“I doubt that.”
Simon shoved the man against the window, one hand at his throat, the other delving inside his blazer, finding nothing, no gun. Only a fat wallet. The man offered no fight, his eyes blinking wildly. Who is this madman?
Simon released him, framing an apology. “I’m sorry…really I—”
The woman hit him, a fist to the cheek, staggering him. He fell back as she dug her hand into her handbag, eyes narrowed, a ball of will. He grabbed her wrist as she brought a pistol out of her bag, the gun a stainless-steel semiautomatic. He slammed her hand against the window, using his free hand to forcibly pry it from her fingers. She kneed him, missing by an inch, bruising his thigh. The man—her husband—hit Simon with a chop to the back of the neck. Simon spun, pistol-whipping him across the face, opening a gash to the bone, the man tumbling onto a bank of chairs. Simon looked back at the woman, kicking her in the sternum, her body colliding with the window, her head striking the glass with force. She collapsed.
The two men surveilling them approached hastily, caught unawares by Simon’s attack. Simon brought the pistol to bear. “Don’t even think of it,” he said, in German, walking toward them. “Down on the floor. Now. On your belly, arms extended.”
The men raised their hands and complied. Simon kicked the younger man in the ribs, crouched, took their pistols, slid them across the floor. “Put them in the trash,” he called to London.
London gathered up the guns, holding them by the muzzle as if they might scald her, rushing to the trash, dropping them in.
By now, several passengers had gathered, concerned. Simon fired a shot into the ceiling. The people took off running. Europeans knew how to react to an active shooter. He found a pair of handcuffs and cuffed the men together, then struck the younger man at the base of his skull, rendering him senseless.
Simon scrambled to his feet.
“Now what?” said London.
“Outside. Follow me.”
Simon headed down the concourse, London at his shoulder, passengers peeling out of their way. He pushed through a set of double doors leading to a gate on the lower level and descended a flight of steps to a waiting area. The room was deserted. Windows on all sides. The tarmac and runways beyond. He tried the doors. Locked. He kicked the handle and hopped back. “That hurt.”
A folded wheelchair was propped near the agent’s desk. He hurled it at the window, shattering it, then finished the job with a cylindrical metal trash receptacle, wielding it to clear off the remaining shards of glass.
Footsteps behind them.
“They’re coming,” said London, glancing over her shoulder.
Simon jumped over the transom, helping London. They were outside. He headed left toward the bonded warehouses, delivery docks. He hugged the terminal building, all manner of vehicle passing them. Fuel trucks, vans, baggage carts. At the sound of a siren, he turned his head. A police cruiser, blue-and-whites flashing, barreled across the airfield, effectively blocking their path.
To their right, fifteen meters across the tarmac, was a freestanding concrete shed, candy-striped barriers surrounding it—DANGEL, a prominent construction company, stenciled across them—the shed door open.
Simon ran to the shed, vaulting the barriers. London found her way through. A sign on the door showed a lightning bolt. “Vorsicht. Heizung. Strom.” Danger. Heating. Electricity.
“In here.”
Simon entered the shed, closing the door after London, using the pistol to break off the door handle. Stairs led belowground to a high-ceilinged corridor that appeared to run endlessly in either direction, a strip of fluorescent bulbs high on the wall providing a dim, stuttering light.
“What is this place?” asked London.
Simon pointed to a large-bore steel pipe running along the center of the ceiling. “Runway heating. Hot water passing through the pipes melts the snow and ice during the winter.”
“Which way?”
Simon pointed to the right.
“But that’s away from the terminal.”
“Hope so. There has to be an access point at the other end.”
“And from there?”
“We’ll see. We have a better chance the farther away we are.”
“But they’ll know we came in here.”
“Eventually,” said Simon. “But not which way we’re going. There are three runways. That’s a lot of exits to cover. Feeling lucky?”
“You said our luck had run out.”
“Did I?”
They began to run, London setting the pace, the corridor indeed endless, passing one junction then another, similarly endless corridors stemming from each. Already fatigued, Simon began to wonder how long runways were. Two thousand yards? Three thousand?
He pulled up, placed a finger to his mouth. Voices. The patter of running feet. Closer. Closer. Fading. Fading. Gone.
“You good?” he whispered.
“Just go,” said London.
“You first,” he said.
London set off. It was apparent she could run faster and farther than he could. He redoubled his efforts but still found himself fighting to keep up. Minutes passed. Then far, far away, a shaft of natural light. Finally, they arrived at the end of the corridor. Stairs led to a door, ajar, as was the other, a sliver of sky visible.
Simon slowed, then stopped, hands on his thighs. He dropped the cartridge and counted the bullets. Seven. He couldn’t shoot a policeman. Shaka was another story.
London regarded him, hands on her hips. Ready when you are.
“Okay,” he said, straightening up, then charging up the stairs, out the door. “Come on.”
They stood at the very end of the runway, fields of spring grass on either side, farther out a fence. A kilometer beyond that, a village. He looked to all points of the compass. No sign of their pursuers. He’d been wrong about their luck.
They crossed the tarmac, a jet barreling at them, landing gear lifting off the asphalt, nose climbing into the sky, the silver belly sliding overhead, jet blast flattening the grass, buffeting them, the noise ungodly.
At the fence, Simon gave London a foot up. She clambered over the wires nimbly. He followed suit, not quite so. A path led through a forest. Ten minutes later, they stood in the center of the village of Glattbrugg. It was eight o’clock. They had been running for an hour.
They walked to the train station and climbed into a taxi. “Forty-five Grossmuttstrasse,” said Simon. “Schnell, bitte.”
“You know your way around Zurich?” said London.
“Did I ever tell you what I do for a living…I mean, when I’m not doing this?”
The Garage Foitek in Zurich-Urdorf served as the official Ferrari dealership for the city of Zurich. Similar to the high-performance Italian sports cars they sold, the building was new, shiny, and sleek. Sacha Menz, the manager, spotted Simon passing through the doors and rushed to greet him. “Simon Riske, what are you doing in my town without telling me in advance?”
“Hello, Sacha. Flying visit. Can we talk?”
“O
f course. Come into my office.”
“Actually, the lot is better.”
“Whatever you say. You look rather serious. How can I help?”
At 9:03, Simon and London left the dealership, turning left onto Birmensdorferstrasse, Simon at the wheel of a red 2015 F12 Berlinetta. The car belonged to the Grand Tourer class and was the fourth fastest road car Ferrari had produced, with a 6.3 liter, naturally aspirated V-12 engine capable of generating 730 horsepower with a top speed of 280 miles per hour. In short, an ass-kicker of the first order.
In minutes, Simon had them on the A4 driving south through the Sihltal in the direction of Zug. He kept his foot to the pedal, passing where it was safe, and often where it wasn’t. There were radar traps everywhere—cameras carefully hidden to record your speed—and he knew that his friends at the dealership would be receiving letters from the traffic authority very soon containing photographs of an F12 Berlinetta with Simon and London visible inside the cockpit and their speed emblazoned across the bottom.
He wasn’t thinking about the fines, however. Of course he’d pay them, though he’d never be legally allowed to drive in Switzerland again. He was thinking about something else altogether.
It had been too easy.
Chapter 63
Cannes
A light rain fell on the Côte d’Azur. Samson Sun left his villa in the hills above Cannes at nine for the short trip into the city. He was a cautious driver and negotiated the winding road well below the speed limit. By the time he reached the bottom of the hill, a line of cars ten long stretched behind his Bentley, including a tractor. He paid them no heed. With less than twelve hours to go before the premiere, he did not intend on risking injury.
He turned right onto the Rue Jean de Riouffe, pleased to be back on a straight, flat road. Traffic moved slowly toward the coast. It was the festival. He saw the first sign of it soon enough. Policemen in fluorescent vests stood in the median, directing traffic. Accompanying them were soldiers dressed in blue utilities, armored vests, machine guns cradled to their chests. He had made sure his credentials were visible, hanging from a lanyard around his neck.
The Palace Page 32