Vermulen made the call. Carver got his confirmation. He immediately transferred the money to another account before Vermulen could attempt to cancel the transaction: That was another lesson that had cost him millions.
There wasn’t much left to do. Vermulen handed Carver an envelope containing plans to the house and a detailed map of the surrounding area. He called “Miss Morley” and obtained her agreement to pick up the document. Carver could just make out Alix’s voice on the other end of the line. The sound of her tore at his heart. When he heard her call Vermulen “darling,” he had to grab a glass of water and look out to sea, so as not to give himself away.
When everything had been sorted out, Carver got up from the table. He reckoned this was about the time that Wynter, having got what he wanted, would turn the charm back on. So he held out his hand with a smarmy smile.
“Thank you, General-that was an excellent meal. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Vermulen got up and shook hands, but he wasn’t going to get carried away.
“Good-bye to you, Mr. Wynter. If you don’t mind, I’d rather reserve my judgment until our business is complete.”
“You do that, General. And send my regards to Miss Morley…”
59
On the way to Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Carver made a detour to Cannes. He dumped the piece of junk he’d hired at the airport and went to one of the specialist luxury car-rental companies that cater to the assorted stars, producers, and account-toting executives from the entertainment industry who flock to the town’s festivals and sales conventions. There he hired an Audi S6 sedan, his personal transport of choice. He loved it for looking as dull as a Ford Mondeo but driving as fast as a Ferrari-faster, in fact, on many roads, thanks to the grip produced by its four- wheel drive: the perfect getaway vehicle.
He stopped at a Geant big-box store outside town to buy basic provisions, outdoor clothing, and camping gear, including binoculars and some heavy-duty hiking boots. Then he drove up into the hills. These Georgian gangsters had certainly picked a spectacular location for their hideout in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, a landscape of jagged slopes scattered with pines and oaks, and scoured by spectacular gorges, where switchback roads and absurdly picturesque villages clung to the sides of precipitous cliffs.
The most direct way to the house was off the main road between Vence and Grasse, and up through the village of Tourrettes itself. But Carver went the scenic route, skirting the side of the Puy de Tourrettes, until the pavement gave way to a dirt road, and then a track impassable even by a car with four-wheel-drive. He parked the Audi, put on his knapsack, and started hiking toward a point on the mountain directly above the house, making the final approach on his belly until he found the ideal spot for his observation post.
Down below him, he could see the people he had come to rob. Their voices drifted up to him on the breeze, along with the barking of their dogs. They had not spotted him.
Carver got out his binoculars. Now all he had to do was watch, and wait.
That, and work out how the hell he was going to steal Kurt Vermulen’s precious document.
60
“Man, that’s a sight to behold now, ain’t it?”
Early morning, East River Park, and a steady stream of joggers was taking the path down from Twenty-third Street to the South Street Seaport and back, under the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges, past the Fulton Fish Market. This was New York City and people were too bound up in themselves to spare a glance for the three men standing by the railings, ignoring the views across the river, watching the girls go by.
“Makes me wish I were thirty years younger,” Waylon McCabe went on as a hot young blonde trotted by, her taut thighs and peachy backside sheathed in black running tights. “Hell, even ten years’d do me.”
He turned to one of the other men, who was balding, his overdeveloped muscles now melting into fat, a brown leather jacket open to reveal a spreading paunch. His name was Clinton Tulane and he had been a military instructor back in the days when McCabe was providing assistance to West African guerrillas. Tulane had helped him out then, just as he’d helped out a whole lot of other people, from Sarajevo to El Salvador. That was how he knew Dusan Darko, though that was not the name under which the man in the black overcoat with the lank, greasy hair had entered the United States. When you were a Serbian warlord, wanted across the Western world for crimes against humanity, it paid to travel incognito.
“You can leave us now, Clint,” said McCabe. “It’s been real good of you to make this introduction. But me ’n’ Mr. Darko here gotta talk business, and it’s kinda private.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tulane, any resentment at his exclusion more than covered by the wad of hundred-dollar bills now nestled in his jacket pocket.
McCabe waited long enough to let Tulane get out of earshot, then fixed his attention on the other man.
“So, Mr. Darko, Clint tells me you’re a man of some influence in your country-is that so?”
Darko shrugged as if to suggest that he was, indeed, influential, but too modest to say so out loud.
“So supposing I wanted to enter your country by air, find a place to land and refuel, pick up a package, and leave without anyone hasslin’ me-you could make that happen?”
“But of course… for a price. You understand, people would need to be paid. But it is possible, certainly.”
“Uh-huh, I get it. And you got men under your command, fightin’ men?”
Darko stood a little straighter.
