Alena had cached two pistols – a Browning and a Beretta – with ammunition for each. The money came to almost thirty thousand in Swiss francs, with another ten thousand in dollars. There were also papers for Genevieve Pontchardier, a young woman who lived in Bern and worked for one of the banks there, as well as a mix of toiletries and clothes. There were also binoculars and a thirty-five millimeter camera. Except for the weapons and the cash, it was the kind of bag someone might pack for a weekend excursion along Lac Leman.
I burned Genevieve Pontchardier's papers over the toilet, then moved everything to my bag, except for the money. This I put into three hotel envelopes, then put the envelopes inside my coat. I dumped the grip in the trash and went down to the lobby. Most of the staff spoke English fluently. The concierge smiled knowingly when I asked him if he could suggest a discreet bank nearby.
"All of our banks are quite discreet, Monsieur Murphy," he told me, and then he took one of the paper maps of Geneva he kept by his desk, and conscientiously traced out my route for me. "Their English is very good, and you will find them extremely helpful."
I thanked him, then asked if he could suggest someplace for lunch. He could and I enjoyed some of the finest trout I've ever eaten at a restaurant that charged me more for fish than I'd ever paid. Then I went to the bank, and less than an hour later I had my very own numbered account, with a starting balance of thirty thousand Swiss francs and ten thousand American dollars. It was distressingly simple to do. I'd given basic, anonymous information, and then been asked to sign a form declaring that the money I was depositing was, in fact, legally my own. That was pretty much it, and I left wondering if all of the things I'd read about the Swiss tightening their banking laws hadn't been just smoke.
Finally, with all of my groundwork laid, I returned to my room and loaded the Browning, then stuck it in my coat. I unwrapped my new gloves and stuffed them in another pocket, along with the roll of duct tape. I took the binoculars, and then I headed out again, this time behind the wheel of a rented car, and went to see the villa of M. Laurent Junot.
If I'd had time, if Oxford hadn't been breathing down our necks, I would have hired five people through Moore and put everything under a magnifying glass, would have worked the whole thing up as if I'd been preparing the advance for someone like Antonia Ainsley-Hunter. I'd have put Junot under surveillance for at least six or seven days, watching him while he went from home to work to play, noting who he met, where, and when, and why. I would have invested in some pricey electronics and tried to tap the phones and bug the house, and I certainly would have devoted a fair chunk of time and resources to learning the details of the alarm. I'd have taken a small mountain of photographs. In short, I'd have been very careful.
But I didn't have the time, and as I sat in the rental car, peering at the house through the binoculars, I could feel the nervousness rising. It wasn't just what I had to do next that was causing it; it was the knowledge that the clock was running, that Oxford was certainly in New York, and maybe closer to Mahwah than I wanted, that perhaps he was already doing all of those things I didn't have time to do myself. Another city across the world, another man was marking another target, and if I didn't hurry things up, there wasn't going to be anything I could do to stop him. I was beginning to regret having told Scott to wait for me before approaching Gracey and Bowles.
I was running out of time.
I started with a drive around the area, then abandoned the car half a mile up the road and moved in on foot for a closer look. It was late afternoon by the time I actually stepped onto the grounds, and there was a chill breeze coasting off the lake. I put on my new pair of gloves and took in as much as I could.
The villa was stately, with grounds that wound down to the shore of the lake. A boathouse rose beside a private pier, and moored to it was a boat the size of the La Petite Marie, but of a quality to suggest it would rather sink than be tied near its lesser cousin. The grounds were pristine, and even with winter closing in, looked capable of withstanding nature's entropy for a while longer. There was a back door that led onto a small patio for summer dining and, farther along, another door, smaller, that looked to be the servants' entrance.
The structure itself was built of gray stone with dark wood framing its portals, and all of the doors looked heavy enough to withstand gunfire, although I doubt that had ever been a consideration of the owner. Twice I saw people moving around inside the house, once a man, wearing a black suit, and once a woman, also in black, though this time in a dress.
At seven-nineteen, a black Bentley pulled up in front of the house, and I watched as the driver let M. Laurent Junot out of the car. If the photographs from Moore's file were to be believed, I had the right man, white, in his mid-forties and balding. Junot's shoulders were rounded and his back was straight, and he walked like a man who spent all of his days and perhaps the majority of his nights sitting at a desk. Nothing about him struck me as out of the ordinary, and I thought that if I was Oxford, that would be just as I wanted it.
When Junot reached the house, he was greeted by the man in the black suit, and apparently whatever words they exchanged were brief, because Junot barely broke stride as he continued inside. The driver then brought a black barrister's case from the car to the other man, and they spoke for a while longer before the driver returned to the Bentley. The woman came outside, spoke to the man who now held the case, and then headed for the garage. The man with the case went back inside as the driver moved the Bentley out of the drive and into the garage. I caught a glimpse of a Porsche also parked in the garage before the door shut. Beside the garage were two other cars, an older Audi and a Peugeot.
The woman followed the driver, and when he emerged again she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He opened the passenger door on the Audi for the woman, then got in himself. They drove away.
Lights continued to burn on the first and second floors of the house, and I retreated to the cover of some red spruce and pines that formed a privacy screen along the south side of the estate. If my surveillance so far had worked, there were only two people in the house, and one of them was my target. That was manageable, but I needed to be sure there were only two of them inside. For a few seconds I toyed with retreating to a phone, trying to reach Alena to talk it out with her.
I knew what she would say, though. I knew exactly how she'd get inside if she were in my place, if the clock was pressing for action. Not liking what I would have to do wasn't going to change anything, and the sooner I accepted that, the easier it would be to do the rest. It was a question of efficiency, and I knew the value of that – it had been Alena's guiding principle; if Bequia really had been – as Bridgett had told any and all who would listen – my indoctrination, then that lesson had indeed taken firm hold.
For another hour and a half I watched the house from the perimeter, catching glimpses of silhouettes moving past windows. It grew into full darkness, and my hands and feet began to ache with chill. No exterior lights came on to illuminate the grounds. I hadn't seen any security lights mounted on or around the house, although if that was because they'd been deemed unnecessary by the occupant or rejected out of a sense of aesthetics I would never know. Shortly before nine-thirty I crept onto the grounds, trying to get a closer look.