From my forward-facing seat, I could see the backs of the Romeos’ heads and the Slazenger bag on the rack above them through the interconnecting car doors. I sat and waited, ready to jump off again if they did. The doors closed and with a slight jerk the train started to pull out.
Hubba-Hubba came on the net. “Are the Romeos on the train?”
Click, click.
“Are you on the train?”
Click, click.
“H is mobile.”
His foot was probably flat to the boards as the Scudo screamed toward Monaco.
The railroad line followed the coast road, but there was no sign of Hubba-Hubba. It was going to be a nightmare for him to catch up; he’d just have to do the best he could.
There was no way I was going to walk into their car, in case we met in the aisle. One of them might be heading for the toilet, or simply moving away from where they’d gotten on, as I would in their position, to try to avoid surveillance.
I sat and watched the sea, and kept an eye on the vehicles we were overtaking on the road. With luck, Lotfi would be approaching the tunnels just short of Monaco.
As we neared Monaco, gracious old buildings with wooden shutters and ugly new ones blocked my view of the sea. Then we entered the tunnel that took us deep into the mountains. The train rattled on for a few minutes in darkness before emerging into the brilliant light of an immense underground station. The place looked like something out of a James Bond film, a huge stainless-steel and marble cavern.
The train slowed and a few people got up from their seats and gathered their bags and briefcases. I stayed put, looking out at the station. The platforms were clean and the marble highly polished; even the light fixtures looked like they came from Ikea.
Train doors opened, and people dressed for work rubbed shoulders with Japanese tourists sporting their Monaco Grand Prix sweatshirts and Cannes baseball caps as they got out onto the platform and headed toward the front of the train. I, too, stepped out and followed the herd, the brim of my cap well down as I checked around me.
I spotted them up ahead. Romeo Two still had his sunglasses on, and One had the bag over his shoulder. I got my shades out and put them on my nose as well. Maybe sixty or seventy yards ahead of me were sets of escalators that led up to a bridge. The herd was moving up them and left, across the tracks, to the ticketing hall. I caught another glimpse of the Romeos doing the same. Romeo Two took off his glasses as they crossed, looking at everything but hopefully seeing nothing, as smooth announcements floated over the loudspeaker system, and giant flat-screen TVs flashed train information.
We came into the ticketing halclass="underline" more acres of stainless steel and polished marble, still underground. All around me shoes squeaked and high heels clicked, to the accompaniment of coffee machines hissing and people jabbering to each other over espressos. The crowd was waiting for one of the many elevators to take them up to ground level. I didn’t want to join them, no matter how big a crowd the elevators could accommodate.
With my left hand holding down the fanny pack and the pistol grip of the Browning, I pounded up the steel stairs, turning back on myself every tenth step or so. It was farther than I’d expected, and I was starting to get out of breath. It hit me that I’d made a mistake: my chances of getting up there before the two collectors were slim. I could have gone faster if I’d held the handrail, but I didn’t want to leave any sign. I pumped my arms back and forth, and kept going for it.
At last I saw daylight above me. Three more flights and I was at ground level. I saw the four silver doors for the elevators and a small group of people waiting. I walked into the entrance hall gulping in air, trying to calm myself down as the back of my neck started to sweat. The glass and steel frontage of the small hallway looked out on a bus shelter on my side of a busy road. I could see we were high above the principality, as I was looking out onto the Mediterranean, but there was no port. It must have been below somewhere.
The breeze blew in from the sea as I headed for the bus stop. My eyes darted about, looking for the Romeos. They should be going left, to the de la Scala.
I saw them then, at a corner about fifteen yards away to my left. Romeo Two was checking a small map as One looked about nervously and got involved in a pack of Marlboros. I kept my back to them now, and walked directly to the bus stop, hitting my pressle. “Hello, hello, is anyone there? This is N, anyone there?”
There was nothing. I gave it just under a minute, then spun around to face the road, hoping to see them in my peripheral vision. They were walking down the hill toward the casino and the general area of the Palais. I set off behind them, and immediately spotted two CCTV cameras. I hated this place: it was like an extra-large, extra-rich version of the the Osbournes’ house.
I crossed to the right-hand side of the road, hoping to avoid them; the port was about three hundred feet below me. Huge gray clouds hung above us, cutting the tops off the mountains.
Hordes of trucks and motorbikes screamed up and down a road that had probably been built in the early 1900s for the odd Bentley or two.
The more we descended to the middle ground of the casino area, the taller the bank buildings became around us. Houses that had once been grand private residences were now plastered with brass plates. I could almost smell the big money deals going down behind their heavily blinded windows.
The Romeos consulted the map again before continuing on past the shiny Rolls-Royces, Jags, and Minis lined up in the British Motor Showrooms, as One dragged on his Marlboro, sending smoke up above him before it got taken by the wind. If they were heading for the de la Scala, they’d have to cross over soon and turn off to the right. I stopped, stepped into the doorway of a bookshop, and got very interested in a French cookbook with a picture of a big pastry on its cover.
They crossed. I hit my pressle again, smiling away like an idiot chatting on his cell phone. “Hello, hello, anybody there?”
They must be heading for the de la Scala. They were now on my side of the road and walking down Avenue Saint-Michel. I knew that because it was engraved expensively on a slab of stone just above my head, like all the street names here.
They committed to the right-hand bend of the avenue just fifty yards down the hill and became unsighted to me. Dead ahead of them now, about two hundred yards away, beyond manicured lawns, fountains, and frost-protected rubber plant things, was the casino and its Legoland policemen. But they still had about another fifty yards until the end of Avenue Saint-Michel, where once more they had a choice of direction.
I got on the net again as I started to follow. “Hello, hello, hello. Anyone there?” Still nothing.
Chapter 33
I didn’t want to stay behind them because I wasn’t being proactive. If I was going to be the only member of the team on the ground with the Romeos, I really needed to be doing Lotfi’s job now, waiting for them in the de la Scala for the meet with the hawallada. But that meant jumping ahead, and if they went somewhere else once they got to the end of the avenue I’d be in the shit.
I carried on down Saint-Michel and talked to my imaginary girlfriend with a big smiley voice. “Hello, hello, this is N.” Still nothing. Maybe they were caught in the traffic; maybe Lotfi was here but down in the parking garage. Whatever was going on, I had to make a decision.
I turned onto some steps that went directly downhill, to cut off the bend that they’d followed toward the casino. The steps led to an apartment building on the steep side of the road, and were well worn, which I hoped was going to prove it was a short cut.