The Take

by Christopher Reich

  Simon left his house early and dipped down to the coast, taking La Gineste toward Cassis. They met at a café high on the hill with vineyards all around and a view of the sea. They had breakfast and coffee and made a toast with a shot of grappa for good luck.

  This was the big one. The one they’d practiced for. A Garda armored truck carrying payroll for the navy, whose fleet was anchored down the coast in Toulon. Five million euros.

  It was Simon’s job. He was nineteen, six feet tall, hair tied in a ponytail that touched his back, the last vestiges of his American roots burnt away by the Marseille sun. It had been seven years since his unwelcome arrival. His mother was no longer Mary Riske but Marie Ledoux, mother to three children by Pierre Ledoux and stepmother to his two teenage sons. Pierre drank. He made no secret of his displeasure at Simon’s arrival. The young American prince whose clothing was nicer than his children’s. School was a violent mix of poor French and poorer Africans. He returned home with a split lip after his first day and a swollen jaw the second. He learned to fight. He grew taller. He made himself stronger. He discovered he was every bit as vicious as his classmates. And then he discovered he was more vicious. He took refuge on the streets. His home sat in the center of the city’s worst neighborhood, an area so lawless police refused to patrol its streets. At fourteen, he became a lookout for a small-time hood who controlled a block of the tenements that grew like weeds in the wild northern suburbs. It wasn’t long before he moved up to cars. No one could hot-wire a Renault faster. And from cars to real jobs. Breaking and entering. Smash and grab. Banks. Jewelry stores. The luxury mansions around Cannes and Antibes.

  And then the big targets.

  Simon didn’t need the tumbler of grappa to get him going this morning. He’d started his day with a line of Bolivian coke and a hit of Thai stick. He was primed. Bristling. This was his sixth armored car. First time he was in charge. He was a name. The cops knew him. The other crews knew him. He was a man on the rise.

  They left the café in two cars and traded them for two others stolen the night before, new plates, full tanks of gas. Simon rode with Léon and Marcel, both a year younger, both as crazy as he was, rock solid. Theo Bonfanti, Il Padrone’s son, drove the other car, with Franco and Tino Coluzzi, a few years older, the veteran. Two years pulling jobs together and they’d never been caught. They were invincible.

  They parked near the Port de Toulon and waited. Lookouts along the route reported as the Garda truck passed by, until finally Simon spotted it in his rearview and flashed his high beams.

  Theo Bonfanti pulled into traffic ahead of the truck. Simon cut in behind it. The guns were out. AKs for every man, round chambered, safety off, two spare clips apiece. A thousand bullets between them.

  They followed the truck for ten minutes through town. Their destination was the Crédit Lyonnais. The largest bank in the city. The government’s bank.

  They hit the truck as it stopped at the last light a hundred meters out, the bank in sight. Simon gave the signal. Theo and his guys jumped out, firing before their feet hit the ground, raking the front of the truck, flaming out the engine block, blowing the tires, fragging the windscreen to leave the driver blind.

  Simon and his team took the rear, Léon keeping an eye for police who came too close. Simon emptied his clip, firing on full auto, mainlining adrenaline, juiced by the heat and the noise and the drugs. He placed a charge on the lock and blew the door, the guards jumping clear, deafened, hands raised. Simon met each with the butt of his AK, putting the two on the ground, bleeding, semiconscious. He jumped into the cargo bay and hurried to the sturdy twill bags bulging with cash.

  Except there were none. The bay was empty.

  It was then he heard the sirens. Flashing lights approached along the Avenue de la République. Not one car but three…no, four…too many to count. Simon leapt from the truck and slammed home a fresh magazine as the police cars skidded to a halt, blocking their retreat, doors opening, cops coming at them with shotguns and automatic weapons.

  For a moment, there was calm. A last vehicle braked too hard. Somewhere a church bell tolled.

  The police opened fire.

  Léon went down right away. Marcel stood tall, rifle to his shoulder, blowing the hood off one of the cars, the windows out of another. And then he collapsed, knees buckling, falling to the ground like a rag doll.

  Simon fired in disciplined bursts, adrenaline pumping, but something new with it. Fear. Over his shoulder, he saw Theo on the ground, dead. A head shot. Franco had dropped his AK and stood with his hands raised above his head. And Tino, already cuffed and standing out of the line of fire, the cops pretty much leaving him alone.

  Simon gave no thought to giving up. He continued firing, spraying the police wildly, the bullets deafening him to his own war cry.

  The first bullet hit his thigh and he dropped to a knee. Another struck his forearm. Another grazed his shoulder. Blood spurted from his leg like a blown well. He felt dizzy, spent. The machine gun fell from his hands. He propped himself against the rear tire as the police surrounded him.

  Graziano, the city’s commandant de police, kneeled beside him. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Ledoux,” he said in English. “Our American.”

  “Who told you?” He desperately needed to know, but the words crumbled in his mouth.

  The police formed a cordon around him, and when the ambulance arrived, they refused to let the attendant pass. They stared down at him, hating him. Through their ranks, he spotted Tino Coluzzi being led to a patrol car. He was smoking a cigarette.

  It was Coluzzi, thought Simon as the world grew hazy.

  Light faded.

  The sirocco gusted.

  Chapter 11

  Tino Coluzzi walked down La Canebière toward the Vieux-Port de Marseille. It was a humid, windless afternoon, the sun relentless. He navigated his way through the sea of pedestrians, muttering about the endless parade of North African faces. If he had ten euros for every Algerian, Tunisian, or Libyan walking past, he’d never have to pull another job in his life. The pieds-noir were bad enough. But this…this was an outright invasion. There wasn’t a real Frenchman to be seen.

  Flushed, sweating, and anything but relaxed, Coluzzi looked nothing like the man watching the Hotel George V the day before. He’d cut his hair as short as a recruit in the Légion Étrangère. He’d traded his blazer and slacks for a T-shirt and jeans. A pair of scuffed-up sneakers completed the trick. Hands stuffed in his pockets, wraparound sunglasses shielding his eyes, he was indistinguishable from the other jobless wretches crowding the sidewalks of his country’s poorest city. A day or two in the sun and he’d be as brown as a Somali.

  He passed beneath a stand of Mediterranean pines and slowed to take advantage of the shade. There were others around him doing the same, and over the course of several minutes he picked up a gaggle of languages. Spanish, English, Arabic, Italian. A regular United Nations. The only language he was interested in, however, was Russian.

  Coluzzi wiped the sweat from his forehead and continued down the hill. The problem of Russians—or, more precisely, how to contact one—had been first and foremost on his mind since opening the prince’s briefcase. On the surface, it shouldn’t present a challenge. The South of France was crawling with them, but most were thieves of one stripe or another. Even those he counted as friends he couldn’t trust. What he needed was an honest Russian, if there were such a thing. And not just an honest Russian, but one with contacts at the highest levels of his country’s government.

  It was a tall order.

  He’d come to the conclusion that there was only one place to start.

  Jojo’s.

  That’s where things got tough.

  Reaching the bottom of the hill, he skirted the old opera house and cut down an alley toward the port. Ten years ago, the four square blocks adjacent to the waterfront had been the city’s toughest. Even at four in the afternoon, he would’ve been watching his back. Times had changed. The only thing to
be afraid of today was choking to death on the perfume drifting out of all the froufrou boutiques and clothing stores. At least there weren’t so many Africans near the water.

  He rounded the corner and saw the sign for Jojo’s. Officially it was called Le Nightclub, and it was the last of the old clubs standing. He ducked into a doorway, checking the knife strapped to his calf and adjusting the pistol in his waistband. It wasn’t his practice to carry when not working. Which brought him once again to Jojo.

  A year back they’d pulled a job together in Cannes, a smash and grab at Harry Winston around the corner from the Carlton Hotel. The job went off like clockwork. Coluzzi drove a stolen van through the jewelry store’s front window. Jojo and his boys piled in, smashed the displays with hammers, filled their bags with loot, and were gone before anyone knew what was happening. Coluzzi fenced the jewels in Monaco. Everyone made out like bandits. It was months later, when he was back in Paris, that he heard rumblings that Jojo was unhappy, carping about how Coluzzi had shorted him and his crew, vowing to get even. Nothing more had come of it and Coluzzi had forgotten the whole thing.

  Until now.

  The weapons were a precaution…just in case.

  Steeling himself, Coluzzi crossed the street to the nightclub. The front door was locked and he remembered the place didn’t open until six. He walked past the photos of the girls working, lowering his sunglasses to take a better look. No doubt about it. They’d gone upmarket along with everything else.

  The alley door was unlocked. He stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Music was blaring from the bar. He made his way down the corridor, past the kitchen, and entered the main room. Jojo was sitting at the bar, smoking, head buried in the sports pages. On stage, a statuesque brunette was trying out some moves on the pole, throwing her head back while kicking up a leg. Beneath all her war paint, she was eighteen tops.

  “You got teenagers working here now?” Coluzzi sat down on a stool and slapped his hands on the bar. “What next?”

  Giovanni “Jojo” Matta looked up from his paper. He was sixty, deeply tanned, with wavy white hair and a gold chain hanging around his neck. “Thought we’d gotten rid of you for good,” he said sternly. “Mr. Big Time.”

  Coluzzi felt the pistol digging into his back. He looked around the room. Apart from the dancer, there was only a busboy setting the tables. Even so, there was no way he wanted to shoot Jojo in front of a witness. “Me? Gone for good? Never. This is home.”

  Jojo looked at him a second longer, then a smile cracked his face and he stood, arms stretched wide. “Of course it’s home. Good to see you,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “What’s it been? A year? Longer? Come here.”

  Coluzzi accepted the hug, putting his arms around the older man. Jojo had owned Le Nightclub for as long as Coluzzi could remember. He was a pimp, a drug dealer, a fence, and a decent chef. Nothing went on in the city without his knowing. “Good to see you again, too. Get any tanner and people are going to think you’re one of them.”

  “Stop it,” said Jojo. “How you been? We haven’t heard from you in forever.”

  “I’m doing good. Real good.”

  “You look different.”

  “It’s the hair.”

  “You’re dressed like a kid.”

  The music stopped. Jojo clapped a few times and the girl left the stage. “Be back at eight,” he called to her. His smile disappeared the moment she left the room. He looked at Coluzzi. “When did you get back?”

  “This morning.”

  “How are things up north?”

  “Okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  Coluzzi walked behind the bar and poured himself a Kronenbourg from the tap. “What do you mean?”

  Jojo studied him out of the corner of his eye. “That you on the television?”

  “On television? Where?”

  “You’re still a shitty liar.”

  “You talking about Paris?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Coluzzi took a long pull and wiped his mouth. “You think I’d be back here if I pulled off a job like that? I’ll tell you where I’d be. Out of the country. Some place like Ibiza. Get myself a casita in the hills. Go down to town every night for some sangria, a good piece of fish. Get laid.”

  Jojo shrugged. “Thought the M.O. looked familiar. Brought back memories.”

  “That was a long time ago. I gave up armored cars after I got out.”

  “That wasn’t an armored car.”

  “Give it a rest. It wasn’t me.”

  “Okay, okay. Just curious.”

  “You…you all right?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Heard some things. I want everything to be good between us. We’re family. I want to keep it that way.”

  “We’re family, Tino. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Forget I brought it up.” Coluzzi returned to his stool and took his time drinking his beer. After a while, he said, “I need your help on something.”

  “Oh?”

  “Any Russians in here lately?”

  “Russians?” said Jojo, as if he’d asked about aliens. “You mean, besides Svetlana and Olga?”

  “Men. Clients. Maybe from the consulate. Remember, way back when, a few of them would come in here Saturday nights. We called them the Ivans. Joked around that they might be spies. Those shitty suits, smoking those lousy cigarettes. Seen anyone like that lately?”

  “Couldn’t tell you,” said Jojo. “I’m in the kitchen.”

  “You mind if I check receipts?”

  “Credit cards?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Any Russians in here pay cash?”

  “Not the ones I’m looking for.”

  Jojo considered this. “You’re serious?”

  Coluzzi nodded.

  “And you’re not going to tell me what for?”

  “First I need to find ’em.”

  Jojo looked at him for another second, then folded the newspaper and led the way to his office. “We have a program that keeps track of all charges. You can check by date, name, transaction amount.”

  Coluzzi sat down in Jojo’s chair and scooted close to the keyboard. “I’m good.”

  “All yours.”

  Jojo left the room and Coluzzi brought up all charges for the past six months, then looked at them by name, A to Z. There were quite a few customers with Russian last names. He concentrated on those who spent less than five hundred euros. Russian diplomats weren’t any better paid than any other state employee.

  In five minutes, he had two names. Andrei Gromov and Boris Stevcek. Both men often came together. Usually Fridays. Gromov consistently spent more, but not much. Neither charged more than two hundred euros, which meant they never took a girl to the VIP room for a blow job or bought them out for the night. Lookers, not touchers.

  Still, Coluzzi had no proof either worked for the Russian government. They might as easily be with one of the tech companies sprouting up these days like mushrooms or a foreign airline or just about anyone. In fact, he didn’t even know if they were really Russians and not just French citizens with Russian names.

  He exited the program and logged on to the net. Earlier he’d looked at the website for the Russian Consulate. Names of employees weren’t listed, not even the consul general. The question was who best to approach with the letter. He had no friends in the Russian spy service. Even if he had, he wasn’t sure how to present the letter. Coluzzi assumed that the Saudi prince had planned on delivering it to someone at or above his own level. The printout of the email he’d found in the prince’s briefcase had indicated there was to be a rendezvous on the island of Cyprus with a man named V. Borodin. A check on the Internet indicated that the current chief of the Russian spy service was a man named Vassily Borodin.

  But how does one reach the head of the SVR? You might as well try to reach God.

  Coluzzi typed each of the men�
�s names into the search bar. Stevcek had a Facebook page and Coluzzi looked through the photos he’d posted. He could tell Stevcek was Russian just by looking at him. Pale skin, high cheekbones, bony nose, and the real giveaway, those Asiatic eyes.

  He was also a prolific uploader of pictures. Coluzzi made it through fifty before giving up. He saw nothing that indicated what Stevcek did for a living, or if he worked for the Russian Consulate.

  He started reviewing the man’s posts. All were written in Cyrillic, and thus incomprehensible. Still, he scanned down page after page. Gibberish and more gibberish.

  And then he saw it. An anniversary page that denoted a special event. This was written in French. March 20—Started work at the Consulate in Marseille.

  Immediately, Coluzzi looked up the number of the Russian consulate. “May I speak with Mr. Stevcek?”

  “No one by that name works here.”

  “Of course he does. I met him last week and he asked that I call him here.”

  “There is no one here by that name. Is this in reference to a visa?”

  Coluzzi cursed under his breath. Stevcek had probably been transferred to another posting. “It’s a different matter.” He took a breath and dove in. “I am in possession of information that may benefit your country.”

  “What kind of information?” The reply came matter-of-factly, as if they received offers of this kind on a daily basis.

  Coluzzi fumbled for the right words. “Technical. Sophisticated industrial plans. I’m an engineer. I wish to help Russia.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We cannot help.”

  “Very secret. Confidential, understand? Top secret.”

  The line went dead. Embarrassed by his amateurish performance, he put down the phone, erased his browsing history, and returned to the bar.

  “Any luck?” asked Jojo. He’d changed into his chef’s whites for the evening, but the cigarette was still dangling from his mouth.