“Six hundred twenty-two thousand.”
“Think of it as your buy-in to the game. In return, you keep all that Borodin agrees to pay.”
“I was thinking more of a shared arrangement.”
“Oh?”
“You make contact with Borodin, help with the negotiations. We split what he pays.”
“An interesting proposition, except for one fact.” Ren put down his glass. “Without me, you have no chance of getting one ruble for your letter. Do you really think he will negotiate with you? A common hoodlum? He’s the chief of the second most powerful intelligence agency in the world.”
“I think he will talk to whoever has the letter. Me, you, or a hooker from Jojo’s.”
Ren threw his head back and laughed. “Maybe you are right after all, Tino. Maybe so. Anyhow, my offer stands. Take it or leave it. I don’t want a kopek from the men who placed me in prison for five years, stole all that I had, then exiled me from my homeland. You, however, are a different story.”
“I’ve had to pay my associates. There were expenses. There is nothing close to six hundred thousand euros left.”
“Let’s say five hundred thousand, then. That’s a nice round number. I’m not a greedy man. I’ll make the call as soon as you hand over the money.”
“You’ll get the money once the meeting is set. I’ll do my own talking, if you don’t mind.”
“Fair enough,” said Ren, as if he’d expected the demand all along. “And, Tino, I will need to look at the letter. I have no doubt that it’s real, but face facts. You’re a small-timer who steals a crumb here, a crumb there, and you’re asking me—Alexei Ren—to use my contacts to reach out to the highest levels of a foreign government.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
Ren extended a hand. His forearm was covered with grotesque drawings of skulls and snakes and onion domes and daggers dripping with blood. “Partners must trust each other,” he said. “Believe me, I want this deal to happen far more than you.”
Coluzzi doubted that, but he shook his hand nonetheless. “How much should we ask?”
“Ten million euros,” said Ren. “Bastards at the SVR have deep pockets. Let’s make Vassily Alexandrovich sweat a little.”
Coluzzi suspected Ren had his own designs on the money. He would have to be like a Russian himself, with a set of eyes to look ahead and another to look behind. Like it or not, there was no other way of contacting Borodin.
“Twenty,” said Coluzzi.
Ren squeezed his hand. “Even better…partner.”
Chapter 25
Delacroix locked the door to his office at precisely five p.m. and left the hotel. It was not his practice to leave promptly at the end of the workday, but he was not feeling like himself. The past few days had been taxing. The hotel had welcomed a larger than usual number of obscenely wealthy clients, and from dusk to dawn he’d been called on to see to their needs. This meant everything from arranging bail for the Indonesian prime minister’s fifteen-year-old daughter after her arrest for shoplifting at Galeries Lafayette to supervising daily surveillance sweeps of a German Internet tycoon’s suite. And, of course, there was the presence of the police, questioning all the staff, and himself, in particular, after the robbery two days earlier.
On top of all this, at some point today he’d mislaid his cellphone and spent a tense hour after lunch combing the hotel for it. By the grace of God, the concierge found it lying on the lobby floor. What rattled him more was that no matter how hard he tried, Delacroix could not remember setting it down anywhere near the concierge.
Still, he knew that neither the phone nor his duties were the root cause of his unease. It was the visit from the American investigator that worried him.
They knew.
Once on the street, he lit a cigarette and threw his jacket over his shoulder. It was a breezy afternoon and the warm, frantic wind lessened his anxiety. He came to the Metro and halted. The thought of taking the subway home held no appeal. He had no desire to spend thirty minutes in a hot, cramped car with his fellow Parisians. He needed to keep moving.
Delacroix threw his cigarette into the gutter. “Riske, Riske, Riske,” he repeated, running over the conversation with the American. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Riske hadn’t believed him. He took the man’s business card from his pocket and called the number. A woman answered and gave the name of the company.
“I’d like to speak with Simon Riske.”
“He’s away on assignment at the moment. May I have him call you or would you like to speak with another of our professionals?”
“No message. Thank you.”
Delacroix hung up. The firm appeared to be legitimate. He’d accessed their website earlier, too, finding it professional but bland. He told himself he was getting worked up over nothing. There was no reason for Riske to suspect him of tipping off the bad guys. Delacroix cursed his luck. How was he to know Prince Abdul Aziz was carrying something of diplomatic value?
