BARBOUZE
Charles Pol Espionage Thrillers
Book One
Alan Williams
To my parents
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE: ROOM 274
PART 1: ON THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
PART 2: THE FAT MAN
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
PART 3: REVOLT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
PART 4: THE KILLERS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
PART 5: THE PEACEMAKER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
PART 6: THE FUGITIVE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
PROLOGUE: ROOM 274
The girl sat on the bed behind closed shutters, waiting. The only light came through a chink in the folding doors leading to the salon. Here two men sat round a polished table playing backgammon.
The apartment was high in a tall street that trapped the salt smells of the port. It was a black night, and a hot wind boomed against the shutters with a sound like the sea. When it dropped the girl could hear the rustle of dice from the salon and the thud of dance-music from a radio behind the apartment wall. The fan above her bed had shorted. She sat dressed only in a pair of pants, and her skin felt dry, and the wind and the dance-music made her head ache.
From somewhere across the city came the braying of an ambulance siren, dying into a distant suburb. She lifted her hands and scooped her black hair up from the nape of her neck; then, without lowering her hands, she stood up and stared at the spear of light between the doors into the salon. She had a bold dark face, and her body was strong and beautifully made.
The two men in the next room sat over their game in silence. Presently one of them nodded towards the bedroom: ‘Shouldn’t she be getting ready?’
The other glanced at his watch: ‘She’s got another ten minutes. Better give her a drink.’ He was a bony man with a greying crewcut and a cruel sunken face. He spoke almost in a whisper, trembling slightly, staring at the red and white backgammon counters. His companion pushed back his chair and fetched a can of beer from the side-table.
‘No, give her some brandy, Serge,’ said the bony man, nodding towards the bedroom.
The man called Serge went over to the cocktail cabinet and took out an unopened bottle of cognac fine champagne. He was big and black-haired with a bandit moustache, dressed in a chocolate-brown suit with a white handkerchief sprouting from the breast-pocket. He walked over and rapped on the folding doors: ‘Do you want a drink, Anne-Marie?’
The girl put a hand through, took the bottle and closed the doors again. Serge came back to the table where the bony man sat frowning at his hands. From the bedroom a shower hissed like rain in the tropics, making the apartment seem even hotter — cramped and stifling.
‘It’s your throw,’ said the bony man.
Serge took the dice. ‘Somebody else should do it,’ he said, shaking the wooden cup, ‘she’s too young.’
‘I have decided that Anne-Marie does it. There will be no more discussion on the matter. It is finished!’
‘Finished for us,’ murmured Serge, ‘but not for her.’
The bony man lifted his head and his lips parted as though to yell at Serge; but he controlled himself, drew in his breath and was silent. His fingers lay clasped on the table, the nails working into the palms. Serge threw the dice: a three and a two. He was losing the fourth game that evening.
At the end of the bedroom, behind the shower curtains, Anne-Marie stood smoothing her hands along her wet thighs, seizing the bellies of her breasts and pressing them upwards, throwing her head back and letting the tepid water flow across her eyelids, down her long body.
She walked back into the bedroom, dripping on the linoleum, opened the bottle of fine champagne and poured herself half a tumbler which she drank slowly, letting her skin dry in the close night air. The shutters groaned; her head throbbed with a dull pain. She put the glass down and began to dress.
In the salon the bony man won the fourth game and began rearranging the counters. Anne-Marie came out of the bedroom, her hair scraped back under a blue scarf, wearing a sea-green dress patterned with fishes. A heavy handbag was slung over her shoulder like a satchel.
Serge began to stand up.
The bony man said to her, ‘You have everything? It’s now a quarter past eleven. You must be out of there by midnight at the latest. The car will be waiting outside.’
Serge grinned at her and said, ‘Merde!’
She walked past them to the door.
‘Remember,’ said the bony man, ‘check with the receptionist first, then both bars.’
She nodded and went out, followed by Serge. When they had gone the bony man got up and bolted the outer door.
Down in the street the black Citroën DS crouched on its hydraulic springs like a long toad. Anne-Marie climbed in next to Serge who drove fast and quietly, down towards the sea. There were few sounds in the city. Most of the cafés and restaurants were closed behind wire cages. Occasional cars sped across the intersections, with lights doused, whining into the darkness. It was very hot inside the Citroën, even with the windows down and the dust blowing in their faces. They hardly spoke.
The car turned into a boulevard that ran down to the Front de Mer. Arcaded shops swept past like empty eye-sockets. Most of the street
