Crown Jewel

by Christopher Reich

  Simon was headed west toward Villefranche and Nice. The road flattened out and began a ten-kilometer stretch hewing to the contours of the mountains, a procession of bends, straightaways, and near hairpin turns that allowed the driver to view the road far ahead. A gentle curve and the Bugatti came into view. Dragan was closer than Simon had expected, his brake lights flaring before he disappeared around a jagged escarpment.

  Simon threw caution to the wind, attacking the corners, selecting the fastest line, daring the car to lose its purchase on the wet asphalt. The course departed the Grande Corniche and shot down a dizzyingly steep feeder road onto a less used track, barely wide enough for a single vehicle. Small pitted-stone homes alternated with towering hedges, the pavement in lamentable condition: potholes, crumbling borders, depressions where the asphalt had been dug up and not properly repaired. The road dipped and rose and dipped and rose, making Simon feel as if he were riding out a rising sea. The hedges dropped away. No more houses now, just open territory, the mountainside diving vertically to his left. Only rocks and more rocks and the ocean below. Dragan’s lead had dwindled to less than a hundred meters. He disappeared again, hidden by the next curve. Simon chose his moment. He pressed the accelerator to the floor, waiting, waiting as the bend neared, then downshifting a second too late, braking, spinning the wheel, feathering the gas as he came out of the turn.

  Dragan was right there, nearly stopped after apparently losing control in the turn. Simon’s fist slammed the horn. He braked. His nose touched Dragan’s bumper. Dragan leered at him in the wing mirror. In a flash, the Bugatti sped away, so fast it seemed an illusion, as if it hadn’t been just an arm’s length away. A blink and it was fifty meters down the road.

  But Simon knew he was the better driver. He had him. It was a matter of time.

  Faster.

  Faster.

  Dov Dragan spun the wheel, keeping his foot on the accelerator, feeling the tires tear into the crumbling asphalt as he rounded the bend. He glanced into the rearview mirror. The bonnet of Riske’s Ferrari looked like the snout of a marauding shark. Closer and closer it came, no matter what he might do. The man was relentless. First interfering with the princess, and now discovering Cutter.

  Cutter.

  He’d given the name to his card-counting program because it was when the player was given the cutting card that the casino made itself vulnerable.

  Dragan had been a gambler his entire life. He’d played pinochle with his father on their farm in the Negev and poker with his barracks mates while doing his national service. In his forties he developed a taste for blackjack. He taught himself to count cards, but at his peak his skill gave him only a two percent advantage over the house. It required playing (and counting) for hour upon hour to win any real money. Even then, Lady Luck could double-cross you. Baccarat had been Toby’s suggestion, almost as a dare. After all, how can one cheat at a game of pure chance?

  It was a year ago. They’d taken to meeting for drinks at the Bar Américain every afternoon at five. Two expats in Monaco. Billionaires once. Bachelors. In his cups, Dragan had complained to Toby about his run of bad investments. To his surprise, Toby had an even longer list of his own. A far longer list, as it turned out. Dragan had seen something in Toby’s eye. Maybe Toby had seen something in his. It wasn’t long before they began discussing ways to scratch back their fortunes. By hook or by crook.

  It was on a damp December day that Toby first mentioned the von Tiefen und Tassises and how he would be better off without them. He floated the idea as a kind of wild “What if?,” almost as a joke. Only three of them left. Kill ’em all and take their money. Toby wouldn’t really inherit it all, would he? He’d separated from Stefanie ten years earlier. It couldn’t be. But of course Toby had studied the matter. He knew the law to a T. He had a plan all worked out. The killing was the easy part. The hard part was gathering money to pay the death duties.

  “You’re the smart one,” Toby had said over a glass of his favorite grappa. “I own the casino. You figure it out.”

  So Dragan had. As Riske had said, he was a mathematical genius.

  Dragan had no compunction about breaking the law. He had lost his soul years before. For a spell in the nineties, he’d run his government’s targeted assassination program. It was difficult to order the deaths of people day in, day out, without sacrificing a portion of one’s humanity, even if the people were the enemy. They deserved it. But did their wives deserve it, too? Their kids? And what had it accomplished, anyway? He was a murderer. Fact.

  So when Toby Stonewood offered his hand and said “Shall we give it a go?,” Dragan shook it and said “Why not?” A little theft and murder was nothing compared to the crimes that already tormented him. It wasn’t even a question. It was a challenge.

  Looking back, Dragan realized now that none of it had been Toby’s idea, or his own. It had come from Ratka, and from his daughter, Elisabeth, who was smarter than all of them. She’d been screwing Toby for a year by then, long enough to have learned that he wasn’t the rich man he claimed to be. She was the one who’d suggested that Toby kill off his family.

  Dragan was thinking about all this, along with Cutter and the princess and that maniac, Ratka, when he noticed the curve approaching much too quickly. Ahead, the strip of pavement made a sharp turn to the right. Beyond the curve was sky, ocean, and a five-hundred-foot vertical drop.

  Dragan slammed his foot on the brake. The Bugatti decelerated violently, propelling him into his safety belt, his head ricocheting off the steering wheel. For a second or two, the car held its line. Dragan realized he didn’t have enough space. He yanked the wheel hard to the right. The Bugatti’s massive V12 engine was mounted in the rear of the vehicle. By far the heaviest part of the automobile, the engine block’s forward velocity overruled the grip of the car’s sticky low-profile tires. The Bugatti entered an uncontrolled spin. The rear of the car slid out from its center of gravity, striking the flimsy guardrail. Frantic, Dragan forgot everything he’d been taught and steered against the skid. Instead of straightening out, the car continued its wild, uncontrolled slide. Dragan touched his foot to the gas, compounding his error. The car’s course was set.

  The chassis collided with the strip of metal, the force of the impact bending it into a convex curve. Bolts popped. The guardrail broke free. One section separated from another and boomeranged off the cliff. The right front wheel left the pavement and skidded across the shoulder. The car yawed left. Dragan saw blue sky, the rugged cliffside, and, far below, a stand of sharp rock rising out of the sea. All to an earsplitting chorus of metal scraping metal. He grasped the wheel with both hands. The passenger seat was suddenly above his shoulder, looking down on him. He cried out.

  The car stopped.

  Dov Dragan stared out the window.

  He was a dead man.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

  Simon stood ten paces from the Bugatti, arms crossed over his chest. He’d watched the car spin out and was amazed that it hadn’t plummeted off the mountainside. It was the first piece of luck he’d had all day.

  The passenger window was open. Dragan stared up at Simon, eyes wide, hands trembling on the wheel. “Riske, get me out of here.”

  “Where is Victoria Brandenburg?”

  “Just get me out. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “You’re safe,” said Simon. “For the moment.” He sidestepped down the escarpment and set his foot on the Bugatti’s front tire, leaning on it.

  The chassis groaned.

  “Riske!”

  “Talk.”

  “She’s in Switzerland.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Somewhere in the mountains. Her family has a chalet there.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “How should I know where? That part of the operation doesn’t concern me.”

  “Not buying it. I have you figured for a details kind of guy.” Simon gave the car a shove. Dirt shifted. The
Bugatti slid a foot farther down the slope, a foot closer to the rocks below. “Where in the mountains, Dragan?”

  “If you kill me, you won’t find her.”

  “You willing to bet your life on that?” Simon bent at the waist and placed both hands on the Bugatti’s hood and began to push. The car was heavier than he’d expected, but the loose terrain and the angled slope helped greatly. Dragan begged for him to stop. Simon continued to shove the car closer to the precipice. “Where?”

  “Pontresina. It’s called the Chesa Madrun. Five kilometers off the main highway. There’s a private road. It’s the only place within miles.”

  Simon saw himself standing at Vika’s back as she searched her keys to open her mother’s apartment. One color for each of her homes. Paris, Manhattan, Pontresina.

  And later, inside her mother’s apartment, the picture of a boy, thin and pale, wearing a rugby jersey, with Vika’s straight nose, a thatch of curly blond hair, and blue eyes that looked right through you.

  “Fritz?”

  “Well, that’s what we call him. His full name is Robert Frederick Maximillian. He’s away at school in Switzerland.”

  Zuoz.

  The name came to Simon in a flash. He had a few clients at the bank who either had graduated or had a child in school there. Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz. Located a stone’s throw from Pontresina.

  “And the boy?”

  “They’ve got him, too. He’s already there.”

  “Who’s got him?”

  “Ratka’s men. Toby Stonewood.”

  “He’s a kid.”

  “It wouldn’t work without him. Toby’s the surviving heir by marriage. The estate goes to him.”

  “Why two hundred million?”

  “To pay the death duties,” said Dragan. “The taxes owed to the German government due on transfer of the estate. Otherwise, it all ends up in probate for years. The judge decides which assets to sell off to pay the taxes.”

  “So you decided to kill them all?”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “What are you going to do to them?”

  “Explosion. A gas leak. It has to look like an accident. There can’t appear to be any foul play or the court will get involved. That means a delay. Toby’s not getting any younger. Neither am I. We can get our hands on the estate in ninety days.” Dragan gazed at Simon, eyes wide, confident. “We can cut you in…a hundred million…That’s real money, Riske…Just get me out. A hundred million.”

  “Cut me in?” Simon saw red. He leaned against the hood, pushing with all his might. The car slid and slid some more. Simon could nearly see its underside. A back tire dropped over the edge. The car teetered dangerously. Dragan screamed for him to stop.

  Simon lifted his hands off the car. Dragan said “Thank you” over and over, hyperventilating.

  “What were you looking for in the apartment?”

  “A ring,” said Dragan. “A family heirloom. We had to have it.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason. To keep the administration of the estate out of the hands of a judge. All part of the ancient protocol from God knows when. The ring signifies a lawful succession. No questions asked. A load of horseshit, but that’s the way it is.”

  “So you killed Stefanie.”

  “Ratka killed her. He brained her with an old glass vase. Thing shattered and made a mess of the bathroom. I got her drunk before. She didn’t know what was going on.”

  “You brought her the grappa?”

  Dragan nodded. “Toby arranged for me to meet her one day at that Italian place she always went to. She was a lush. I took her out a few times after.”

  “But you scared her. You didn’t know she was borderline paranoid. She guessed what you were after and hid the ring.”

  “That’s enough of this,” said Dragan. He’d gone white with terror. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Help me, Riske.” Timidly, he removed a hand from the wheel and extended it toward Simon. “Get me out. Please.”

  Simon looked at the Israeli spymaster in his blue racing suit and silver helmet. He’d never seen anyone so frightened.

  “Get yourself out.”

  Chapter 70

  Simon walked away from the car. He checked his watch. It was 9:45. Switzerland was a five-hour drive. He gazed up at the sky. An armada of black clouds approached from the north. The rain was falling harder by the minute. If it was raining here, it was snowing in the Alps. A sturdy helicopter with a very good pilot might be able to make it, but that wasn’t going to happen. Simon couldn’t show his face at the heliport. He was a wanted man.

  He considered calling the Swiss police…and saying what? Victoria and her son had been kidnapped and were being held captive in their chalet…or that a team of Serbian criminals along with Victoria’s stepfather planned on killing them to get their hands on the family’s twelve-billion-dollar fortune? The first piece of information the police would require was Simon’s name. Who was he to make such an accusation? It would end there. Simon had no doubt that Toby and his man, Le Juste, had seen to it that the name Simon Riske, escaped murderer, was on every police blotter across the European continent.

  Going to the Swiss police was out.

  Before Simon had a chance to think of anything else, a late-model Audi rounded the curve and accelerated straight at him. It was déjà vu all over again. He backed up a step before the car braked hard and came to a halt. The doors opened. Two men climbed out and came at him. One held a pistol and it was aimed at Simon’s face. Simon recognized him. It was Goran, one of the Croats who’d been following him the other day. The second man, recognizable by the flexicast on his left wrist, had to be Ivan.

  “What are you doing?” said Goran. “You’re not supposed to leave until five minutes after the Bugatti. The starting times were posted online. We waited all night and you ruin it.”

  “What is this all about?” demanded Simon. “We’ve never crossed paths. I’m not in your line of work. What exactly do you want?”

  “We’re here for the car,” said Ivan. Then he hit Simon hard across the face, staggering him. “I owe you,” he said. “For breaking my hand.”

  Ivan walked past Simon and looked at the Bugatti, perched precariously on the mountainside. He looked over his shoulder at Simon. “You run him off the road, too?”

  “He did it himself,” replied Simon, confused.

  “Why don’t you help him?”

  “I’m busy.”

  Ivan looked at Goran, who barked out instructions in a language Simon didn’t understand. Ivan sidestepped down the slope to the Bugatti. Dragan was shouting for help. Ivan told him to unbuckle his safety belt, then reached into the cockpit and pulled Dragan out through the passenger window. It helped that Dragan weighed 140 pounds sopping wet.

  Dragan scrambled up the hillside. He saw Goran and the gun and was quick to appraise the situation. “Look who’s in the shit now,” he said to Simon. “You should have taken my offer.” He turned to Goran. “You…What’s your name?”

  “What’s your name?” retorted Goran.

  “He’s Dragan,” said Ivan. “I remember him from the starting list.”

  “I’m a friend.” Dragan took off his helmet. “A friend who is going to offer you a lot of money.”

  “Really? What for?”

  “Shoot him. Shoot Riske. I’ll pay you.”

  “You are serious?” said Goran. He added, “You two really don’t like each other.”

  “How much?” asked Ivan.

  “Take my car,” said Dragan. “It’s the finest sports car in the world. A Bugatti Veyron. A V12 engine. Zero to sixty in two point three seconds. Alcantara leather seats. Only fifty in the whole world. It’s worth two million dollars.”

  “I’d say it’s worth more,” said Simon. “Two million five, easy. But he doesn’t own it. The bank does. For that kind of money, they’ll come looking. Like Mr. Dragan said, only fifty of them in the world. Hard enough to drive without being noticed. Forget about se
lling it.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s a thief. He used to be a gangster. A criminal.” Dragan approached Simon, breaching his personal space. “I don’t care what you think you have: no one will believe you. You’re a murderer. You killed all the men in the drop house. Le Juste is with us. Anyway, Ratka will take care of you. I’ll see to it. We know where to find you, Riske. I’m not the one in trouble. You are.”

  At the mention of Ratka, Goran stepped closer. “What did you say about Ratka?”

  “He’s my partner,” said Dragan. “A close friend. He’s from your part of the world. Know him?”

  “We’re talking about same Ratka…Zoltan Mikhailovic from Belgrade?”

  “The very same,” said Dragan. “A very good businessman. You have my word I will speak highly of you to him. Maybe you two can work for him one day.”

  “Me?” said Goran. “Work for Ratka?”

  “Why not? I can see you are intelligent. You and your friend can become two of his lieutenants. I assume that is your line of work?”

  Simon noticed that Ivan was no longer interested in him. Instead, his attention had shifted to Dov Dragan. Ivan was staring at the Israeli in a way that Simon hoped no one would ever stare at him.

  Goran noticed this, too. “See my friend Ivan?” he said to Dragan. “He knows Ratka.”

  “You do?” said Dragan. “Perfect. I’m still happy to reintroduce you.”