promenade of shops.
I drove along the back of the promenade. There was no need to park, and it wouldn’t be wise to spend too long hanging around commercial premises at this time of night. It might attract attention, or even a couple of police cars. At least I knew where it was; I’d do the recce the night before the lift.
Turning right again after about a hundred yards, I was back on the boulevard; I turned left, back the way I had come, toward the sea and BSM. Nice’s harbor was a forest of lights and masts. As I drove around it, I noticed an Indian restaurant, the first I’d seen in France. I wondered if it was full of expats tossing back pints of Stella and shrimp cocktail appetizers while the cook added a little squirt of Algipan to the vindaloo, to give it that extra zing.
I reached the marina at BSM at just after one-thirty, and drove into the parking lot between the harbor and the beach. The world of boats was fast asleep, apart from a couple of lights that shone out of cabins rocking gently from side to side in the light breeze. Dull lighting came from tall, street-style poles following the edge of the marina. These were a bit fancier, branching out at the top into two lights per pole, though a few of the bulbs were on their last legs and flickering. Luckily for me, they’d been designed not to give out too much light, or no one would have been able to get to sleep.
My only company in the parking lot was two cars and a motorcycle chained to the two-foot-high steel tubing set into the ground to stop vehicles parking in the flower bed.
With the engine off, I opened my window and listened. Silence, save for the soft chink of the rigging. I felt under the seat for the piece of paper and put it into my fanny pack. I got out, making the Browning comfortable as I headed toward the office end of the promenade. Quickly climbing the concrete steps, I got to “I fuck girls,” jumped up onto the OP, and settled myself in for the remainder of the night, having first buried the addresses in the earth at the base of the palm tree. I needed to be detached from it, in case I’d been seen by some well-meaning member of the public and got picked up by the local police for sleeping in a public place.
It was going to be a pain in the ass staying up here for the next seven hours, but it had to be done. The car was a natural draw point if people had surveillance on me, so I didn’t want to sleep in it. Also, from here I could see anyone trying to tamper with it.
I brushed some of the stones from under me as I leaned forward against the palm, and alternately watched the car and studied the layout of the marina.
The addresses were in my head by now; I didn’t need the information anymore. That bit of paper was for George. The handwriting, the fingerprints on it, even the paper itself could be useful to him, either now or later. After all, this was going to be a long war.
It started to get quite nippy at about four o’clock. I dozed off for a few minutes now and again, having pulled the baseball cap down as far as it would go, and curled my arms around myself, trying to retain some warmth.
Chapter 22
My eyes stung more and more and my face got colder, which kept me checking my watch. It was still dark. I retrieved the addresses from their hiding place and moved along the hedge before jumping over, then walked along the road to the entrance, down to the traffic circle, and past the stores and cafes. Everything was still closed; the odd light could be seen behind the blinds of a couple of the smaller boats as they put the kettle on for the first coffee of the day.
I got my washing kit from the car; there was a freshwater shower by the beach on the other side of the parking lot. I washed my hair and gave myself a quick once-over with the toothbrush. I’d spent a third of my adult life out in the field, sleeping rough, but today I couldn’t afford to look like a bum. I wouldn’t last five minutes in Monaco if I did. Also, I couldn’t walk around in swimwear, or go bare-chested anywhere but the beach. No camper vans, either.
A comb through my hair and a brush-down of my jeans and I was ready. I went back to the Megane and hit the road, with the heater going full blast to dry my hair. Monaco was twentyish minutes away if the traffic was good.
I hit Riviera Radio just in time for the eight o’clock news. The Taliban were fleeing the bombing campaign, Brent crude was down two dollars a barrel, and the day was going to be sunny and warm. And now for a golden oldie from the Doobie Brothers…
I disappeared into a couple of mountain tunnels, the bare rock just a few feet away from me, and as I emerged into the gathering daylight I put my hat back on and made sure the brim was down low for the trip into the principality. The first people I saw were policemen in white-brimmed caps and long blue coats down to their knees, looking like they’d come straight from the set of Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang.
The road was quite congested, with a hodgepodge of license plates. There was a lot of French and Italian traffic, but just as much from the principality, with red-and-white diamond checkered shields on their plates.
As I reached the small traffic circle just a few hundred yards beyond the end of the tunnel, I had to run a gauntlet of motorcycle police parked on either side of the road. Three of them, in knee-length leather boots and dark blue riding pants, were checking cars both in and out of the principality, scrutinizing tax and insurance details on the windshields as their radios babbled off on the BMWs beside them.
The road wound downhill toward the harbor, past three or four CCTV cameras. They were everywhere, the rectangular metal boxes swiveling like robots.
Sunlight was starting to bounce off the clear water in the harbor, making the boats shimmer as I got down to sea level. Some yachts were the size of Carnival cruisers, with helicopters and Range Rovers parked on the deck so that the owners didn’t have to worry about phoning Hertz when they parked.
High on the other side of the harbor was Monte Carlo, where all the casinos, grand hotels, and fat cats’ condos were clustered. That was where I was heading. I followed the road as it skirted the port, and couldn’t help imagining myself as one of those Formula One drivers who raced along this stretch of asphalt each year, made millions, then came and lived here to make sure none of it leaked back into the tax system. Nice work if you can get it.
Monaco hadn’t struck me as a particularly attractive place. It was full of boring, nondescript apartment buildings smothering the grand buildings that had gone up in the days before people wanted to cram into the principality and save some cash. The banks held twenty-five billion dollars on deposit, which wasn’t bad for a population of thirty thousand people. The whole place could fit into New York’s Central Park and still have some grass to spare. Money even washed over into the streets, where public escalators took you up and down the steep cliffs that started less than a hundred yards from the water’s edge. There was no shortage of rich people wanting to live there, and the only way to accommodate them had been upward. On the recce a few days ago, I’d walked past a primary school housed on the second floor of an apartment complex. Its terrace had been extended, and covered over with green felt flooring to create a playing field.
There were just as many little whippety dogs in vests, and poodles with baseball caps here, but there was no need for the Cannes Shuffle. Even the sidewalks were part of the fairy tale.
The harbor fell away as I drove up the hill toward the casino. Opposite me, on the far side of it, was the palace where the Prince and all his gang lived. Flags fluttered from every tower and turret. The architect must have been Walt Disney.
I hit the perfectly manicured lawns of the casino. Even the giant rubber plants around it were protected, cocooned in some kind of wax covering in case of a freak frost. A fairy-tale policeman directed me out of the path of a Ferrari that was being reversed out of the valet parking lot, so some high-roller could drive the quarter-mile or so back to his yacht after gambling the night away.
I turned left, past the Christian Dior and Van Cleef jewelry shops and more protected rubber plants. Across an intersection in front of me was Place du Beaumarchais, a large grassed square with walkways and trees. To my right was the Palais de la Scala, an impressive six-story pile built in the old French style, with pristine cream paintwork and shuttered windows.
I followed the edge of the square, and turned right into an underground parking lot just before the de la Scala entrance, squeezing in next to a sleek, shiny Acura sports car with New Jersey plates. How it had gotten there, I
