They left the café in two cars and traded them for two others stolen the night before, new plates, full tanks of gas. Simon rode with Léon and Marcel, both a year younger, both as crazy as he was, rock solid. Theo Bonfanti, Il Padrone’s son, drove the other car, with Franco and Tino Coluzzi, a few years older, the veteran. Two years pulling jobs together and they’d never been caught. They were invincible.
They parked near the Port de Toulon and waited. Lookouts along the route reported as the Garda truck passed by, until finally Simon spotted it in his rearview and flashed his high beams.
Theo Bonfanti pulled into traffic ahead of the truck. Simon cut in behind it. The guns were out. AKs for every man, round chambered, safety off, two spare clips apiece. A thousand bullets between them.
They followed the truck for ten minutes through town. Their destination was the Crédit Lyonnais. The largest bank in the city. The government’s bank.
They hit the truck as it stopped at the last light a hundred meters out, the bank in sight. Simon gave the signal. Theo and his guys jumped out, firing before their feet hit the ground, raking the front of the truck, flaming out the engine block, blowing the tires, fragging the windscreen to leave the driver blind.
Simon and his team took the rear, Léon keeping an eye for police who came too close. Simon emptied his clip, firing on full auto, mainlining adrenaline, juiced by the heat and the noise and the drugs. He placed a charge on the lock and blew the door, the guards jumping clear, deafened, hands raised. Simon met each with the butt of his AK, putting the two on the ground, bleeding, semiconscious. He jumped into the cargo bay and hurried to the sturdy twill bags bulging with cash.
Except there were none. The bay was empty.
It was then he heard the sirens. Flashing lights approached along the Avenue de la République. Not one car but three…no, four…too many to count. Simon leapt from the truck and slammed home a fresh magazine as the police cars skidded to a halt, blocking their retreat, doors opening, cops coming at them with shotguns and automatic weapons.
For a moment, there was calm. A last vehicle braked too hard. Somewhere a church bell tolled.
The police opened fire.
Léon went down right away. Marcel stood tall, rifle to his shoulder, blowing the hood off one of the cars, the windows out of another. And then he collapsed, knees buckling, falling to the ground like a rag doll.
Simon fired in disciplined bursts, adrenaline pumping, but something new with it. Fear. Over his shoulder, he saw Theo on the ground, dead. A head shot. Franco had dropped his AK and stood with his hands raised above his head. And Tino, already cuffed and standing out of the line of fire, the cops pretty much leaving him alone.
Simon gave no thought to giving up. He continued firing, spraying the police wildly, the bullets deafening him to his own war cry.
The first bullet hit his thigh and he dropped to a knee. Another struck his forearm. Another grazed his shoulder. Blood spurted from his leg like a blown well. He felt dizzy, spent. The machine gun fell from his hands. He propped himself against the rear tire as the police surrounded him.
Graziano, the city’s commandant de police, kneeled beside him. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ledoux,” he said in English. “Our American.”
“Who told you?” He desperately needed to know, but the words crumbled in his mouth.
The police formed a cordon around him, and when the ambulance arrived, they refused to let the attendant pass. They stared down at him, hating him. Through their ranks, he spotted Tino Coluzzi being led to a patrol car. He was smoking a cigarette.
It was Coluzzi, thought Simon as the world grew hazy.
Light faded.
The sirocco gusted.
Chapter 11
Tino Coluzzi walked down La Canebière toward the Vieux-Port de Marseille. It was a humid, windless afternoon, the sun relentless. He navigated his way through the sea of pedestrians, muttering about the endless parade of North African faces. If he had ten euros for every Algerian, Tunisian, or Libyan walking past, he’d never have to pull another job in his life. The pieds-noir were bad enough. But this…this was an outright invasion. There wasn’t a real Frenchman to be seen.
Flushed, sweating, and anything but relaxed, Coluzzi looked nothing like the man watching the Hotel George V the day before. He’d cut his hair as short as a recruit in the Légion Étrangère. He’d traded his blazer and slacks for a T-shirt and jeans. A pair of scuffed-up sneakers completed the trick. Hands stuffed in his pockets, wraparound sunglasses shielding his eyes, he was indistinguishable from the other jobless wretches crowding the sidewalks of his country’s poorest city. A day or two in the sun and he’d be as brown as a Somali.
He passed beneath a stand of Mediterranean pines and slowed to take advantage of the shade. There were others around him doing the same, and over the course of several minutes he picked up a gaggle of languages. Spanish, English, Arabic, Italian. A regular United Nations. The only language he was interested in, however, was Russian.
Coluzzi wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued down the hill. The problem of Russians—or, more precisely, how to contact one—had been first and foremost on his mind since opening the prince’s briefcase. On the surface, it shouldn’t present a challenge. The South of France was crawling with them, but most were thieves of one stripe or another. Even those he counted as friends he couldn’t trust. What he needed was an honest Russian, if there were such a thing. And not just an honest Russian, but one with contacts at the highest levels of his country’s government.
It was a tall order.
He’d come to the conclusion that there was only one place to start.
Jojo’s.
That’s where things got tough.
Reaching the bottom of the hill, he skirted the old opera house and cut down an alley toward the port. Ten years ago, the four square blocks adjacent to the waterfront had been the city’s toughest. Even at four in the afternoon, he would’ve been watching his back. Times had changed. The only thing to be afraid of today was choking to death on the perfume drifting out of all the froufrou boutiques and clothing stores. At least there weren’t so many Africans near the water.
