As soon as they’d passed, I popped my head up and watched them turn left, down toward the bay. I didn’t envy Gumaa what was going to happen next.
I jumped out of the Mégane and crossed the road, watching the van’s headlights bounce off the houses along the narrow streets, sometimes losing them altogether as the van continued downhill. Eventually it reached sea level, and disappeared into one of the buildings by the water’s edge.
Today had been a success. We’d achieved the mission. But we hadn’t had much choice. I couldn’t see George being too understanding if we hadn’t brought him Gumaa. “But, George, we really had a good trigger and the follow was, frankly, excellent. It was the French getting in the way that messed things up for us. Never mind, I think we’ve learned a great deal today and we can do a lot better next time….”
I walked back to the car, feeling a sense of satisfaction. The other thing I was feeling, as I pulled the seat up into the driving position, was a nagging sensation in my bowels. Turning the ignition key might have disguised the noise, but it hadn’t hidden the smell. I powered down the window and made my way to the picnic area to see if there was anything for me from George, having learned one big lesson. No more iffy egg salad baguettes.
I turned into the intersection and headed uphill, reasoning I might as well check the recycling bins now to see if anything had been left for me, and save time and messing around later. I was going to the same place that I’d collected the insulin packs and explosives from. The marker was the same Coke can. It would be left in position if something was there for me, and I would remove it once I had picked up.
I drove past Hubba-Hubba’s cover position, then the drop-off, and on to the picnic area. My headlights hit the recycling bins and two huge green plastic bottle banks, each with a large steel ring poking out of the top. The Coke Light can was still in position just under the forward right-hand corner of the nearer one.
There were no other vehicles in sight, so I parked up on the mud and gravel just past the bins, and turned off my lights. I pushed my hand underneath the one to the left of the Coke can, and felt for the broken brick that would be there if I had a message. Bingo. I dragged it out, a lot lighter than an ordinary brick, then took the can as well.
I turned the car around and headed back the way I’d come, wanting to be clear of the area as fast as I could. Once back on the main road I turned left, toward BSM, leaving the warship lighting up the bay behind me. At the turnout behind the OP, I closed down the Mégane, then got out my Leatherman and started to dig into the brick with the pliers.
The center had been hollowed out, then its contents plastered over. I pulled out the Saran-wrapped package and unraveled it, at the same time brushing the plaster dust off my clothes. Inside was a sheet of lined paper, covered in tight print. I opened the glove compartment and laid it on the drinks tray. There was no introduction, just the message.
George did know about the connection between Curly and Greaseball. It also seemed the Ninth of May was well known to the French police. They suspected it had been used more than once to ferry heroin from here to the Channel Islands.
Curly’s actual name was Jonathan Tynan-Ramsay, and he originated from Guernsey. I didn’t give a fuck: he was going to stay Curly for me. He had a list of minor drug offenses, and had been on court-imposed drug rehab programs, which he’d failed to complete. He’d eventually served five years in jail in England for his part in a pedophile ring, and left the U.K. after being put on the sex offenders list. He had lived in France for the past four years. He and Greaseball were members of all the same clubs. The sort of clubs Hubba-Hubba wanted to put a bomb under.
George finished with a warning. The local police were taking an interest now that the Ninth of May was on the move; it had last been seen in Marseille three days ago. The police didn’t know what had happened in Marseille, but George reckoned it had picked up the Romeos from the Algiers ferry, and now the police were waiting to see where it popped up again. It was just routine, he said, but be careful.
I tore the message into bite-size pieces and started chewing. As I headed back down the mountainside, I wondered why the hell George hadn’t told me all this in the first place. There’d been enough opportunity.
Chapter 38
I passed Lotfi’s vehicle position in the hotel parking lot and could see nothing out of the ordinary. Below and ahead of me was the marina, and quite a few of the boats were still lit up. Driving down to the entrance, I saw nothing to get me worried, nothing parked near the bus stops, no bodies sneaking around. I continued on up to the turnout behind the OP. It was empty, no sign of Hubba-Hubba’s vehicle. Good man: he had thought about the third party, parked elsewhere, and walked over to pick up my Mégane.
So far everything looked normal — which didn’t mean a thing.
A vehicle approached from the other direction, passed me, forgetting to dip its lights, and continued. I followed the line of the mountains toward Monaco, not wanting to park behind the OP now in case the van was back: it’d make too much noise this time of the morning. The marina lights in my rearview mirror disappeared as I completed the corner and drove into the darkness. Eight or nine vehicles were parallel-parked in a turnout ahead. They probably belonged to the cluster of houses above me on the steeper ground — apart from Hubba-Hubba’s Scudo. I pulled in at the end of the line.
I got out, checked my fanny pack, and moved the Browning hammer away from the sore on my stomach, which had started to bleed. From the back of my Mégane, I retrieved the towel, left in the Saran-wrapped dump and urine-filled water bottle, and replaced them with my fresh supply of water and Snickers bars.
I locked the Mégane, slung the towel and its contents over my left shoulder, and started back down to the OP with my cap firmly on my head to keep me warm later on.
There were just one or two lights on in the houses way up the hill; other than that the mountain was asleep.
An animal scurried away from me as I approached the entry point in the hedge. I had a quick look around before climbing over and following the hedge line on my hands and knees until I reached the V-shaped palm shrub.
I sat there for a while and tuned in, then got the binos out of the towel. They worked well as a night-viewing aid with a little help from the dull lighting around the marina. I started with pier nine, but couldn’t be sure that the Ninth of May was still there. A boat was parked in its position, but it didn’t seem to have the same silhouette. The binos were inconclusive; they were good, but not that good.
I’d have to go down to the pier to confirm physically, and do it right away. There was no point sitting waiting for first light, only to find that the thing wasn’t there.
I scanned the general area through the binos for the van. There were about a dozen vehicles in the parking lot, only two of them vans. These were right next to each other, and parked facing the boats. The one nearest to me had some signwriting on that I couldn’t make out from here. Worryingly, both had a good view of pier nine.
Leaving the towel and its contents behind, I crawled to the exit in the hedge but, instead of going through it, continued on for another twenty-five or thirty yards as a vehicle moved into the marina. I turned downhill toward the Petite Afrique beach. There was no pathway, just scrub and dry earth all the way down to the sand.
Once I hit the sand I got up and walked to the parking lot. My detour meant I was approaching the vans from the rear, on the assumption that if anyone was inside them they’d be concentrating on the target.