I passed the swings and jungle gym, using the huge piles of sand as cover but walking normally, as if I were taking a shortcut back to my boat. It was pointless getting tactical and running, crawling, ducking, all that sort of stuff. I was out in the open and, no matter what I did, I would be seen when I crossed the flat, open expanse of parking lot, if not before.
My Timberlands slipped and slid as I negotiated the sixty-odd yards of beach; then I hit the heat-cracked asphalt of the parking lot. I checked inside the cars as best I could, to see if any heads were pulled back in their seats, with their car windows open just an inch to prevent that ever-compromising condensation. The odd vehicle still moved to and fro along the main road, and I heard laughter from the far side of the marina. As I got closer to the parking lot I could see the silhouette of a couple kissing in a sedan to my right, near the garbage area, but that was all. It was probably the vehicle that had come in while I was moving down here. I didn’t think I’d seen it there before. I sauntered along until I got between the two vans. Once there, I stopped and listened, standing as if I were taking a piss. If there was surveillance, it would probably be in the unmarked one. The other was too easy to spot with such a VDM — visual distinguishing mark.
There was nothing I could do but stand there and listen. I put my ear gently against the side and opened my mouth to cut off any cavity noise, but heard nothing. I did the same with the other one, but again, nothing. It would look highly suspicious to anyone watching, a guy putting his head against a couple of vans, but I didn’t have any other options.
I must have been there for about three minutes, hearing nothing but the gentle lapping of water against boats, and the odd clanking of the rigging.
A vehicle screamed along the main road toward Monaco as I stepped out onto the pier. I wasn’t concerned about the kissers: they had other things on their minds, and might be there all night. The Germans weren’t dreaming of life on the big blue sea along with everyone else around here. Their TV was still going full blare as I passed, but it was the last thing on my mind by then. I had a horrible, empty feeling in my gut. I took a few more steps and stood, looking foolishly at the laundry that hung along the back of a boat called the Sand Piper, which was parked where the Ninth of May should have been. I stood there like an idiot, willing my boat to materialize, hoping I was about to discover I was on the wrong pier. But it wasn’t to be.
Fuck — now what?
Spinning on my heel, and quickening my pace, I checked farther down the pier, just in case it had been shifted a few spaces. I went back and checked the first pier. No luck. I was going to have to search the whole fucking place: I didn’t know how the system worked, maybe they’d been moved to another parking place, or they had a technical problem and were parked alongside the workshop on the other side of the marina. I wanted to cover as much of the area as I could, in as short a space of time as possible, but I couldn’t run. There was still third-party awareness to think about.
As I made my way back toward the stores I delved into my fanny pack for the phone card and started to recite the pager number to myself. 04…93–45…Fuck, what if they’d left for Algeria already? What if Greaseball had been wrong, and there was only ever going to be one pickup? My mind raced. The tennis bags had been big enough to hold at least a million and a half dollars between them, more than enough to pay off a busload of relations.
Shit, shit, shit.
Clenching the phone card in my fist and reciting the number like a madman, my eyes darted everywhere, still in hope of spotting the boat. My plan now was to work my way methodically around the whole marina. There was no other way to confirm whether the boat was there or not. I walked past the cars that were parked to my right, but kept on looking out to my left, at the boats.
Two bodies stepped out from the kissing car. There was a challenge from the driver. “Arrêtez! Arrêtez! Arrêtez!”
I carried on walking, my hands in my pockets, eyes down at the concrete. I wasn’t going to stop, but I didn’t know what I was going to do. Water was behind me: the only escape was forward, past them and up to the main road.
The driver, a man, was about six yards away and came out past his car, blocking my path, his door left open. “Police! Arrêtez!”
Now the other body, a woman, emerged, leaving her door open as well. She ran behind and past him, and continued down to the quay, maybe to make sure I didn’t jump in. Her black leather jacket glinted dully under the lights.
Chapter 39
The man’s voice was very calm. As he moved forward I could see his ponytail. “Arrêtez, police.”
I kept walking, head down, and did my best to look confused. I didn’t want to open my mouth unless I had to.
The woman moved in step with him, following the waterline no more than two yards behind. She kept at an angle to her partner so she had a clear field of fire. The man kept jabbering in French as he got closer to me, moving slowly, like a stalking cat, bending his legs and hunkered down a bit, treating me as if I were an unexploded bomb with a tremor switch. The woman sensed this was wrong: I hadn’t stopped. Never taking her eyes off me, she moved her right arm, pulling back the jacket to get to the pistol somewhere on her hip.
No more than three yards separated us now. I stopped as I heard the squeak of leather as the woman’s pistol came up. I hadn’t exactly helped calm the situation down by not talking to them or looking as if this had never happened before. Her hair flicked up as she jerked her head around, checking everywhere to make sure I was alone, before getting eyes quickly back on me.
Ponytail moved forward while she stood her ground, covering him. He had a couple of days’ stubble to go with his hair. He thrust his ID at me with his left hand. A National Police badge, looking very much like a sheriff’s star with the word Police set in a blue center.
“Police,” he said, in case I had trouble reading.
He flicked the fingers of his right hand upward, but at first I didn’t understand the gesture. Then I got it; he wanted my hands out of my pockets and up where he could see them. His eyes never left mine, looking for signs that I was going to try something. This guy was really experienced; he knew that eyes give away an action a second before it happens.
He gestured upward again with his right hand. “Allez, allez.” He wanted my hands in the air, or on my head, I wasn’t sure which.
What the fuck was I going to do? Jump into the water and swim for it? To where?
He was just a pace away as my hands went up onto my head. He was pleased with that and continued to talk to me in confident, subdued tones as he closed his ID and shoved it between his teeth.
She was still static at the water’s edge, behind him and to my left.
Ponytail closed in and ran his left hand over the front of my jacket. His right hand was still free to draw down if necessary. Encountering the Sony, his eyes narrowed. He breathed through his nose, kept the ID in his mouth, and gave a muffled but calm, “Pistolet.”
Even I knew what that meant, and the woman moved in closer until she was at right angles to me. I could almost feel her tongue in my ear as she whispered something along the lines of “Move and I’ll kill you.”
She was too close. You should never be within arm’s reach. I had to do something, anything, before he got down to the Browning.
He started to pull on the zipper of my jacket, yanking it with such force that it snagged about a third of the way down and I got tipped forward.
It was time to act.
His eyes were still staring into mine. My hands were still on my head and my left elbow was level with her pistol. Taking a slow, deep breath, I counted to three, then forced my arms forward to push the muzzle away from me. She shouted out, as if Ponytail didn’t know what was happening. I made a lunge to the left and body-checked her, toppling her into the water.