Jones paused the film. ‘Now what?’
‘I’ll be damned. Will you look at that?’
‘What?’
‘That!’
Jones crouched next to the screen and studied the image. He searched the crowd of bellboys and valets for faces that didn’t belong. He looked for guns. He looked for nudity. He looked for anything that might have piqued his best friend’s interest, but he came up empty. ‘Come on! You know I hate it when you do this.’
‘I know. That’s why I do it.’
Jones glanced back at the screen. ‘Aha! I see it. Right there!’
Payne smiled. ‘You’re lying.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are.’
Jones growled at him. ‘You’re right. I’m lying. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now stop being a dick and tell m—’
‘Look at the van.’
‘What van?’
Payne pointed to the background of the video. A van was parked 20 feet behind the Town Car. Two men were sitting in the front seat of the van, surveying the scene in front of them. They were Latin men with short black hair and stocky builds. They were dressed in casual clothes and designer sunglasses — the same outfits they had been wearing when they broke into Maria’s suite. ‘Recognize them?’
‘Not really.’
‘Those are the bastards that trashed this place. I showed you their picture.’
Jones squinted. ‘Are you sure? All Mexicans look alike to me.’
Payne winced. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’
‘Why? I’m black. I’m allowed to be racist.’
‘Towards other blacks, maybe. But not towards other races.’
Jones grimaced. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘No wonder I have no ethnic friends. I mean, other than you. Of course, you’re a Polack, so you don’t know any better.’
Payne glared at him. ‘Are you done?’
‘I don’t know. All that sugar and caffeine is kicking in.’
‘Well, try to focus. We’re talking about Maria’s safety.’
‘How do you figure?’
He pointed at the screen. ‘Those guys pulled in after the Town Car. That means there’s a damn good chance they followed her from the airport. All this time, we thought this was about Hamilton. Maybe this is actually about Maria.’
Jones considered the possibility. ‘I doubt it. If they wanted Maria, why didn’t they just grab her? They had plenty of chances before we showed up. They could have nabbed her at the airport. They could have nabbed her at the bistro. Hell, they could have run the Town Car off the road on its way to the hotel. What would the driver have done to protect her? The tango?’
Payne nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right. They had plenty of chances. In that case, why follow her from the airport? What were they hoping to achieve?’
‘Maybe they lost track of Hamilton and followed her to find him.’
‘How did they know about her to begin with?’
‘Beats the hell out of me.’
‘And why trash her room?’
Jones shrugged. ‘I thought we decided it was to scare her.’
‘But scare her from what?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe to scare her from Hamilton. Maybe it was their way of saying their problem was with him, not with her. Maybe it was their way of telling her to back off.’
‘If that’s the case, she really misread the sign.’
Jones leaned back in his chair and smiled. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time she had misread a sign.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Whatever you do, do not get in a car if she’s driving. I made that mistake once, and I’ll never do it again. Seriously, I’d rather play Russian roulette.’
‘She’s that bad?’
He cringed at the memory. ‘You and me, we’ve been through some serious shit in our lifetimes. Iraq. Afghanistan. That weekend in Bangkok. But nothing — and I mean nothing — was as frightening as that car ride in Switzerland. In a period of thirty minutes, I thought I was going to die fifty times. No exaggeration. Fifty times. That’s almost two times a minute.’
Payne waved off the claim. ‘Come on! She can’t be that bad.’
‘Here’s the thing: she isn’t that bad a driver. In fact, she’s pretty good. She knows how to steer and brake and parallel park. She even indicates, unlike most people in the world. If we put her on a racetrack, I’m sure she’d do pretty well.’
‘Then what’s her problem?’
Jones glanced inside the suite to make sure she was still sleeping. ‘She tends to forget what country she’s in.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean, she grew up in Italy, where they drive on the right, but she learned how to drive in England, where they drive on the left. For some reason, she has a mental block when she’s behind the wheel. She simply can’t remember which side to drive on.’
‘You’re shitting me.’
‘I wish I was, but I swear I’m not.’
‘I can’t believe you never told me this. Give me details.’
Jones leaned forwards to explain. ‘This happened right after the incident at the Archives. She was there doing research with Petr, and I was there helping with security after the fire.’
‘Where was I?’
‘You were with Nick Dial at Interpol, cleaning up our mess.’
Payne nodded. ‘That’s right. I forgot about the bodies.’
‘Anyway, I asked Maria out to dinner, and she said hell yes because I’m attractive, funny and hung like a donkey. I borrowed one of Petr’s cars — a tiny convertible — and we drove halfway down the mountain to this restaurant with a spectacular view. I ended up having a few drinks at dinner, so I gladly surrendered the keys to Maria. At the time, I thought it was the smart thing to do. Now I realize a Ku Klux Klan meeting would have been safer.’
Payne laughed. ‘Go on.’
‘She started off perfectly fine because all she had to do was follow the flow of cars in front of her as we left town. It wasn’t until we hit the rural road — the one that weaves up the mountain to Küsendorf — that I detected a problem. I knew we were in deep shit when she pointed at a road sign and said, “Look, the sign is backwards.” ’
‘Wait! You mean she was looking on the wrong side of the road?’
Jones nodded. ‘I thought she was joking until she took the next blind curve on the left side. A truck was headed directly towards us, and she was beeping at him like it was his fault. At the last minute she must have realized her mistake, because she swerved into the right-hand lane — and by “right”, I mean the right-hand lane and the correct lane. Same lane in this case.’
‘What did you do?’
‘You mean, after I shit myself? I asked her if she was OK. She assured me that she was fine — she had a single glass of wine at dinner — so I figured it was just some bad steering on her part. Could’ve happened to anyone. You know those Alpine roads. They’re death traps. No cops. No crash barriers. No yellow lines. I assumed it was a one-time thing that wouldn’t happen again. Boy, was I wrong. Every time we went through a tight curve, she ended up on the wrong side of the road. Not once. Not twice. Fifty fucking times. My adrenaline was pumping so hard, I felt sober by turn six. By turn fifteen, my blood-alcohol level was probably a negative number. And yes, I know that isn’t possible, but I’m telling you I was fine — except for my face. My face was so white I looked like you.’
‘In other words, you got better-looking during the trip.’
‘No, but I aged fifty years. That’s probably why we looked alike.’