The prince, it seemed, was the chief of his nation’s secret police.
But surely the American knew this already. After all, he was some sort of spy himself. Such information did not warrant employing Coluzzi’s services.
There had to be something else.
Coluzzi poured himself another glass of wine and waited for his heart to slow. There was nothing more hidden in the case’s walls. He was sure of it. Therefore, it must be concealed in a false bottom. He pressed his fingertips around the perimeter, searching for a release. He picked up the case, studying it from each side, then from below. He decided the prince wasn’t the sort to waste time searching for a hidden release mechanism. He set the briefcase back down on the counter and studied the lock. To open the case one had to first unlock it, then slide a circular nub to the left. He tried pushing the nub up, then down. Nothing happened.
Suddenly angry, he depressed the nub with his thumb. Harder still. He felt a catch. A tray slid from the base of the satchel.
Voilà!
Coluzzi pulled the tray all the way out. He viewed the contents and his heart sunk. A letter, he thought disappointedly as he took the envelope in his hands. It was small, square rather than rectangular, and unsealed. No name, but an address on the rear flap. Coluzzi was not an educated man in the traditional sense and it took him a moment to recognize the words embossed in blue ink.
“Really?” he whispered.
With care, he removed the paper inside and read the engraved header. Beneath it, in gold leaf, was a drawing of a structure he vaguely recognized.
“Dear Colonel,” the note began.
The body of the letter was handwritten in neat, cursive script and ran to four sentences. On first reading, Coluzzi didn’t grasp what might be so important as to warrant the chief of the Saudi Arabian secret police hiding it inside a briefcase or, for that matter, to induce a shadowy operator to offer a Corsican thief six hundred thousand euros to steal it. It was a thank-you note between two men. Nothing more.
Coluzzi read the note a second time, the names of both sender and recipient slowly registering. Anxiously, he picked up the envelope and studied the address inscribed on the rear flap to make sure he was getting all this correctly. His skin turned to gooseflesh.
No man should be in possession of this note, he told himself. Not the chief of the Saudi secret police. Not an American spy who arranged meetings at luxury hotels. Most of all, not a lifelong bandit who’d been lying and stealing since he could say “Give me all of your money or else.”
Seized by a sudden and irrational fear for his safety, Coluzzi slipped the letter back inside the envelope, replaced it in its hiding place, and dumped the rest of his wine in the sink. He was out the door seconds later.
Cases in hand, he returned to his car and, in minutes, was traveling at rapid speed through the forest. He was not a man who scared easily, but he was smart enough to know when he was in over his head. Experience had taught him that fear was the better part of self-preservation.
Yet even now he did not consider giving the American the briefcase.
Only when he reached the highway and joined the anonymity of his fellow late-night travelers did he breathe easier. He followed the signs south toward Beaune and Aix-en-Provence. He would not be safe in Paris. He was going where he could take sanctuary among his own kind. Corsicans. Thieves. Brigands. He was going home.
The drive calmed him, and before long, his natural, larcenous instincts asserted themselves. Others would come looking for the letter. This he knew. He had two choices. He could wait until they found him, in which case he would be a dead man, or he could find them first and make them a proposition.
Tino Coluzzi’s fear vanished. In its place, he saw opportunity.
The letter was worth far more than six hundred thousand euros.
In the right hands, it was worth a million. Five million. Ten million euros, even.
And in the wrong hands?
Coluzzi smiled. In the wrong hands, it was invaluable.
Chapter 5
Nicosia, Cyprus
Another man was waiting to receive the letter Tino Coluzzi had found, but he was not American. He was Russian. Vassily Borodin stood like a sentry beside the landing strip, his face lifted to the sky. The plane was not due for another thirty minutes, but he preferred to stay out of doors, listening to the waves crash onto the rocky cliffs, enjoying the scent of the coastal scrub. Anything was better than remaining inside the waiting area with its wheezing air conditioner and ancient linoleum floor. The riches that his fellow Russians had brought to Cyprus had yet to make it to the northern side of the island. He allowed himself a look at his watch. It was nearly midnight. Four hours had passed since his last and only contact with the plane.
“There was a problem,” the pilot had said. “A robbery.”
“What do you mean ‘a robbery’?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Let me speak to him.”
