“I know that. But they have video of you two leaving the nightclub together before it blew up.”
“What?”
“Seventeen dead, including bin Rashidi… twenty seconds. Cowboy?”
I hung up the phone as a second police car parked behind the Lamborghini.
I grabbed a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and a pack of cigarettes and handed them to the cashier. “Avez-vous matches?”
She handed me a book of matches.
I lit the cancer stick, tossed her ten euros, and exited.
The gendarmes were running the Lamborghini’s license plate. Heading straight for the pumps, I casually dropped the lit cigarette onto the pool of gasoline that had spilled out of my tank. Circling behind a truck, I waited.
Seeing the flames, the attendant chased off two cars and ran toward the police.
The first explosion sent the gasoline pump rocketing into the petrol station’s roof.
By the time the second pump ignited, I was back inside the car, accelerating onto the A6.
I took the next exit into someplace called Macon and diverted to the A40, heading east toward Annecy. In the distance were picturesque snow-covered Alps, the Geneva border less than fifty miles away.
It was risky hanging onto the Lamborghini, but driving at speeds in excess of 140 miles an hour quickly put a critical distance between myself and the cops, adding far too many route options to organize a roadblock.
It was dusk by the time I arrived at my destination.
The city known as “Little Venice” was built on the northern tip of Lake Annecy. Its streets were picturesque freshwater canals, their presence creating islands that harbored Swiss-style row homes, bed-and-breakfasts, inns, hotels, and shops, all of which serviced a healthy tourist trade.
The address on the GPS turned out to be the Hôtel du Château Annecy — a quaint two-story stone bed-and-breakfast located a block from Annecy Castle.
I took a circuitous route, searching for a place to leave the car. Locating a self-park parking lot, I drove up to the third floor and backed into a narrow space on a crowded row.
Not much of a hiding place for something so valuable.…
A minute later, I found myself descending the concrete steps of an empty stairwell. After exiting to the street, I had to cross two pedestrian bridges to get back to the B&B.
Exhausted and hungry, I entered the lobby, registering a strange sensation of déjà vu.
The first floor held an open dining room. The scent of food caused my stomach to growl as I approached the front desk, the diners serenaded by a pianist playing Sinatra on the baby grand.
The owner was gray-haired and in her sixties. She welcomed me like an old friend. “Ah, Monsieur Ledger, we’ve been expecting you.”
“Have you now?”
“We have you staying tonight in your usual room.” She handed me the key to Room 4. “Your charges were taken care of this afternoon.”
“And which one of my many friends should I thank?”
“I would assume it was your sponsor, Monsieur Clemenza. Your invitation to tonight’s big event arrived by messenger. I placed it in your room, along with your luggage.”
I stole a quick glance at her nametag. “How thoughtful, Maria.”
I headed for the staircase, wondering if I was living a double life.
Room 4 was at the end of an L-shaped hall, the floorboards creaking beneath my weight. Wishing I had kept the 9mm, I pressed my ear to the door and knocked.
Nothing.
I keyed in and entered, greeted by sunshine-orange wallpaper and a queen-size bed with heart-shaped throw pillows decorating a worn white bedspread. Wicker chairs, a small wood desk… and an envelope leaning against the single-bulb lamp.
The bathroom looked as if it had last been grouted back in World War II.
It wasn’t the St. James, but there wasn’t a dead girl in the bed, either.
The musk of age greeted me as I pried open the closet door from its warped frame. Hanging from a horizontal pole was a suit bag. I laid it on the bed, then examined the envelope.
It was an engraved invitation, raised white letters on shiny black paper:
Captain Joseph Ledger:
Your presence is requested at 9:00 PM at the Castle Annecy.
I unzippered the suit bag. Inside was a black tux, white shirt, belt, shoes, socks, bowtie… even a new pair of briefs.
Apparently the honey pot was formal.
I glanced at the alarm clock on the night table: 8:12. “Not much time. I need to shower and shave—”
What the hell was I saying? I needed to think!
From the moment I awoke to worship the porcelain gods, I had been running on a proverbial treadmill, always behind two steps, forced into reaction mode without knowing the rules of the game.
If I had traveled from the United States, then surely I had brought luggage… a standard-issue DMS carry-on, the aluminum casing configured to disguise concealed weapons compartments from airport security.
I had a vague recollection of stowing the suitcase in the Lamborghini behind the driver’s seat… but it wasn’t there this morning. And it wasn’t in the room.
“The woman downstairs insists I was here. Where would I have hidden my gun?”
I searched every drawer, under and inside the mattress, checked for loose floorboards—
Wait! Who did the woman say had paid for my room?
“Mr. Clemenza.”
Clemenza was a character in The Godfather, one of my favorite movies. As a prelude to one of the film’s major scenes, the fat capo Clemenza had hidden a gun in the men’s room of a restaurant where Michael Corleone could later find it and kill the bad guys who were after his father.
I entered the bathroom. Lifted up the lid that covered the tank—
The gun was sealed in a freezer storage bag, held in place at the bottom of the tank by a brick so that it wouldn’t interfere with the flush valve.
“Thank you, Mario Puzo.”
An hour later I exited the hotel, dressed in a tux that couldn’t have fit better if it was custom-made. Looming before me was Annecy Castle, the streets bumper-to-bumper with limousines.
Annecy Castle dates back to the eighth century, when the fortress was erected to guard the roadway linking Geneva to Italy. The structure had been destroyed by fire in 1340 and had been rebuilt several times, eventually becoming the medieval residence of the Dukes of Genevois-Nemours. War surrendered the castle to French garrisons and eventually to the governor of Annecy. The city took charge of the property in 1953, converting it into a museum, observatory, and rental for private galas.
I followed guests along a red carpet to a grand entrance guarded by MPs carrying M16s. Invitations were collected and exchanged for nametags. Female servers dressed in alluring red satin see-through negligees circulated with silver trays of hors d’oeuvres and champagne.
Famished, I filled a plate and ate as I took in the guests, startled to recognize many of their faces.
There were foreign diplomats and heads of state… a former CIA director, at least four retired congressmen, three senators, and two members of the Joint Chiefs who were now heavily involved in the military-industrial complex. There were CEOs galore, representing major banks and tech companies, oil oligarchs, and Saudi princes… and there was a colonel. White-haired and in his seventies, the scary-looking bastard was staring at me from across the room.
I took three strides in his direction and was intercepted by an American in his sixties, his head cleanly shaven, his gray goatee specked with crumbs.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I glanced at his nametag: R. Gibbons. “I came to find you.”