How after his father’s death—Simon never said “suicide”—he was sent to live with his mother in the South of France. He was the sixth child and eighth body in a house built for four. His stepfather viewed the new arrival strictly as another mouth to feed, one that didn’t speak French and looked nothing like him. Marseille was a violent city, especially the northern districts. Simon, always a quick learner, adapted. By fourteen, he had forsaken homework for a job acting as a lookout for the small-time crime bosses who ruled the government housing blocks that sprung from the steep hillside behind his home. By sixteen, he was no longer a watcher but a participant. His specialty was boosting automobiles. No one could break into a car and have it running and on the road faster than Simon Ledoux.
At eighteen, after taking part in a series of audacious heists targeting jewelry stores, banks, and armored cars, he came to the attention of Il Padrone, a fifty-year-old Corsican who ruled organized crime in Marseille with an iron fist. Il Padrone gave Simon his own crew, and Simon delivered in spades, turning over hundreds of thousands of euros to his boss in short order. He learned how to use an AK-47. He also learned how to drink and abuse drugs on a daily basis. Life was good and getting better.
At nineteen, he planned his most daring heist yet, taking down a government payroll delivery to the French navy. Unbeknownst to him an informer had alerted the police. When it was over, four of his men were dead. Simon took three bullets before laying down his weapon. His sentence was six years. He spent the first two in solitary confinement, imprisoned in an underground cell measuring ten feet by six without a window and lit by a weak incandescent bulb twenty-four hours a day. A fellow prisoner saved him from insanity. He was an elderly man, a fallen Jesuit priest sentenced to life imprisonment, for what, he never would say. Simon called him “the monsignor.”
The priest gave Simon the education he had so assiduously avoided yet secretly yearned for. Classes were taught through a tunnel the width of his fist, which he and the monsignor had bored in the rotting concrete and plaster that divided their cells. Math, history, philosophy, art, Latin, modern languages. No fee was extracted, save Simon’s promise that one day he would leave his old life behind. The monsignor eventually told Simon he had only one thing of value to his name. A treasure held inside a safe-deposit box at a prominent bank in London. The monsignor had no key, no proof that it belonged to him. He couldn’t remember the number, just the name and branch of the bank. To gain access to it, Simon took the only route he could. He earned a university degree, then obtained employment at the bank. One day he would find out what was inside.
All this he’d told Rafa.
Slowly, Simon returned to the present. An urgent energy ran through him. He looked at the envelope Dickie Blackmon had left him.
Long ago a debt had been incurred, and damn the Spaniard, despite his desperate circumstances, for not reminding Simon of it, for not shouting that he was owed and that it was Simon’s obligation to repay him. A man incarcerated in a foreign prison thousands of miles from his home, facing a sentence that would surely kill him, had taught Simon the ultimate lesson. How to behave as a gentleman.
The monsignor would approve. Cervantes, as well.
Chapter 9
Umbria, Italy
Luca Borgia stood on the terrace of Castello dell’Aquila, one leather boot on the stone retaining wall, as he overlooked the rugged, densely forested hills of the Nera Valley. It was old country, dark, imposing, essentially untouched since man had come to the Apennine Peninsula millennia before. It was a land of myth and folklore, of legend and superstition.
The Borgia family had owned most of the valley and adjoining countryside for five hundred years. He could recite the names of the ten oldest families in the region, most of whom had lived here as long as his own. Many worked for the Borgias, on farms growing olives and hunting truffles, on ranches breeding cattle and sheep, in towns and cities toiling in factories owned by the Borgias. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him. It was a land of long tradition and prized heritage. Proud country for proud Italians.
As the sun edged above the horizon, mist shrouded the treetops, snaking through ravines and rising up the steep mountainsides. Borgia turned his head, catching the far-off growl of an approaching vehicle. Flashes of silver and black blinked from beneath the canopy. He checked his wristwatch, his father’s Omega worn strapped atop his cuff. His visitors were on time. One would expect no less from the German military.
Borgia slipped his sterling-silver cigarette case from the pocket of his riding jacket and, using a manicured thumbnail, flipped the catch. He favored English cigarettes, Silk Cuts, a reminder of his time at Cambridge, limiting himself to ten a day. As he lit the cigarette, his phone rang.
“Guten Morgen, Herr General,”he answered in perfect High German.
“Guten Morgen,”answered the German. “We will be there in ten minutes.”
“You’ll be the first to arrive,” said Borgia. It was ever so. First, the Germans, and last, his own Italians. “The coffee is hot, and Mariella has prepared a plate of your favorite pastries.”
“Thank you, Luca. Prato Bornum.”
“Prato Bornum.”
Borgia ended the call. By now he’d spotted the convoy of vehicles climbing the switchbacks leading to the town of Castelluccio, and he set off across the terrace. He was a tall man, fifty years old, wiry black hair swept off his forehead and kept in place by a generous handful of pomade. He walked with an aristocrat’s bearing, shoulders back, jaw raised, and had an aristocrat’s features, too: prominent cheekbones, a Roman nose, steadfast mouth, cleft chin adorning an indomitable jaw. His skin was tan and weathered, his forehead carved with deep lines. One eye was blue, the other brown. This never failed to provoke a moment of discomfort when first meeting someone. His profile belonged on a valuable coin. A gold aureus, if he had his choice. He was not a handsome man, thank God, but there was no mistaking his vigor. So when he smiled and broke into a spontaneous laugh, which he did often, it came as a surprise. One didn’t expect such warmth from so fierce and commanding a figure.
Borgia walked through the stable, stopping at the ties where a groom curried his horse, Charlie, and instructing him to add an extra measure of alfalfa to the animal’s breakfast. Charlie, short for Charlemagne, a fitting name for a Hanoverian gelding that stood eighteen hands and thought himself a king. Borgia ran a hand along the horse’s muzzle and kissed his nose. After a last pat, he left the stable, walking briskly through the rose garden. In the cool morning air, his breath was visible, his boots raising puffs of dust from the gravel path.
Inside the mudroom, he pulled off his boots and threw them in the corner to be cleaned and polished. A servant waited with his espresso. He drank it and replaced it on her tray before running upstairs to his living quarters. He showered and dressed, a bespoke midnight-blue suit of Vitale Barberis Canonico wool, white shirt, no necktie. He took care with his grooming and appearance. A splash of cologne…
His phone rang. A familiar name on the screen. He put the call on speaker.
“Danni,” he said, impressed. “A woman who keeps to a schedule. You may be the first.”
“Your boy is a smooth operator. He knew we’d come looking.”
“How so?”
“He fragmented his hard drive. It’s like throwing a hand grenade into a china store.”
“Has that stopped you before?”
“Nothing stops us. It has, however, slowed us down.”
“I thought I’d made the urgency of the situation clear. Perhaps I’m speaking with the wrong person.”
