There had to be something else.
Coluzzi poured himself another glass of wine and waited for his heart to slow. There was nothing more hidden in the case’s walls. He was sure of it. Therefore, it must be concealed in a false bottom. He pressed his fingertips around the perimeter, searching for a release. He picked up the case, studying it from each side, then from below. He decided the prince wasn’t the sort to waste time searching for a hidden release mechanism. He set the briefcase back down on the counter and studied the lock. To open the case one had to first unlock it, then slide a circular nub to the left. He tried pushing the nub up, then down. Nothing happened.
Suddenly angry, he depressed the nub with his thumb. Harder still. He felt a catch. A tray slid from the base of the satchel.
Voilà!
Coluzzi pulled the tray all the way out. He viewed the contents and his heart sunk. A letter, he thought disappointedly as he took the envelope in his hands. It was small, square rather than rectangular, and unsealed. No name, but an address on the rear flap. Coluzzi was not an educated man in the traditional sense and it took him a moment to recognize the words embossed in blue ink.
“Really?” he whispered.
With care, he removed the paper inside and read the engraved header. Beneath it, in gold leaf, was a drawing of a structure he vaguely recognized.
“Dear Colonel,” the note began.
The body of the letter was handwritten in neat, cursive script and ran to four sentences. On first reading, Coluzzi didn’t grasp what might be so important as to warrant the chief of the Saudi Arabian secret police hiding it inside a briefcase or, for that matter, to induce a shadowy operator to offer a Corsican thief six hundred thousand euros to steal it. It was a thank-you note between two men. Nothing more.
Coluzzi read the note a second time, the names of both sender and recipient slowly registering. Anxiously, he picked up the envelope and studied the address inscribed on the rear flap to make sure he was getting all this correctly. His skin turned to gooseflesh.
No man should be in possession of this note, he told himself. Not the chief of the Saudi secret police. Not an American spy who arranged meetings at luxury hotels. Most of all, not a lifelong bandit who’d been lying and stealing since he could say “Give me all of your money or else.”
Seized by a sudden and irrational fear for his safety, Coluzzi slipped the letter back inside the envelope, replaced it in its hiding place, and dumped the rest of his wine in the sink. He was out the door seconds later.
Cases in hand, he returned to his car and, in minutes, was traveling at rapid speed through the forest. He was not a man who scared easily, but he was smart enough to know when he was in over his head. Experience had taught him that fear was the better part of self-preservation.
Yet even now he did not consider giving the American the briefcase.
Only when he reached the highway and joined the anonymity of his fellow late-night travelers did he breathe easier. He followed the signs south toward Beaune and Aix-en-Provence. He would not be safe in Paris. He was going where he could take sanctuary among his own kind. Corsicans. Thieves. Brigands. He was going home.
The drive calmed him, and before long, his natural, larcenous instincts asserted themselves. Others would come looking for the letter. This he knew. He had two choices. He could wait until they found him, in which case he would be a dead man, or he could find them first and make them a proposition.
Tino Coluzzi’s fear vanished. In its place, he saw opportunity.
The letter was worth far more than six hundred thousand euros.
In the right hands, it was worth a million. Five million. Ten million euros, even.
And in the wrong hands?
Coluzzi smiled. In the wrong hands, it was invaluable.
Chapter 5
Nicosia, Cyprus
Another man was waiting to receive the letter Tino Coluzzi had found, but he was not American. He was Russian. Vassily Borodin stood like a sentry beside the landing strip, his face lifted to the sky. The plane was not due for another thirty minutes, but he preferred to stay out of doors, listening to the waves crash onto the rocky cliffs, enjoying the scent of the coastal scrub. Anything was better than remaining inside the waiting area with its wheezing air conditioner and ancient linoleum floor. The riches that his fellow Russians had brought to Cyprus had yet to make it to the northern side of the island. He allowed himself a look at his watch. It was nearly midnight. Four hours had passed since his last and only contact with the plane.
“There was a problem,” the pilot had said. “A robbery.”
“What do you mean ‘a robbery’?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Let me speak to him.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
After that, radio silence. By his own order.
A robbery. What the hell happened?
Borodin cursed his predicament, bloodless lips stretched taut across his teeth. It was unthinkable that in this day and age a man in his position could not communicate securely with whomever he pleased no matter his location. Yet such was the case. Technology had come full circle. There was no conversation he could conduct on his phone, his laptop, even his office computer in Moscow, that someone else—someone he did not know and might have reason to fear—might also be hearing. And he, Vassily Alexandrovich Borodin, director of the SVR—the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service—was as much responsible for it as anyone.
Tonight, of all nights, he could tolerate no risk.
“Sir! Come quickly! There’s something you must see!” It was Kurtz, his deputy, standing outside the control shack, waving madly for him to return.
“All right,” called Borodin, raising a hand to calm him down. Giving a look at the sky, he turned and walked toward the shack. He was a small man, barely five feet four inches tall, rail thin, with jet-black hair and a Mongol’s high cheekbones and narrow eyes. Aware of his diminutive stature, he took pains to counter any impression of weakness. His posture was that of a ceremonial guard at Lenin’s tomb. Spine rigid. Jaw raised to see over the horizon. When addressing a colleague, he looked him in the eye and gave him his complete attention, taking pains not to blink. He held his thoughts when others were eager to share their own. All these habits conspired to leave the impression of a secure, confident, and powerful man.
“The prince,” shouted Kurtz. “A report about him is on television.”
Borodin followed him inside. The control shed was small and squalid and reeked of burnt lamb. Kurtz and the others stood in a semicircle, gazing at an old television perched high on the wall while chattering incessantly. The television broadcast pictures of a line of black sedans he recognized to be somewhere in Paris.
“Silence,” said Borodin.
The room quieted. With mounting despair, he listened to the reporter’s account of the robbery targeting Prince Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. At last he knew what the pilot had been referring to.
“Well,” said Kurtz, when the report concluded. “What shall we do?”
Borodin offered his deputy an icy stare, then returned to his place alongside the runway.
In time, he spotted a pair of landing lights high in the sky. He followed them as they descended, and the prince’s jet touched down, shooting past him to the end of the runway.
Minutes later, the jet parked. Stairs were wheeled to the fuselage. The door opened and the prince descended.
Borodin held his ground, making no effort to approach.
“It’s gone,” said the prince as he drew near.
“The news reported that it was your money that was stolen.”
“They hijacked my car as well. My briefcase was inside.”
“With the letter?”
“Yes.”
Borodin considered this. For once, the prince was not wearing his sunglasses, and Borodin noted that his eyes were red-rimmed and pouchy. The man looked as if he had been crying.