Category:

CHAPTER ONE

THURSDAY EVENING, SUMMER 1953

John Robie glanced over his shoulder, seeing the wind- whipped peaks of the Mediterranean glimmer like a thousand diamonds as the sun peacefully set. He then looked sixty feet straight down at the sidewalk in front of the Hotel Carlton in Cannes. Nothing between him and the concrete. A long way to fall.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself, checking his grip on the drainpipe. It ran the full height of the hotel, from the ground to the roof. It was cast iron and secured to the left side of the building. A minute ago, he'd slid his hands in behind the pipe, set one foot on each side, and marched up.

He almost smiled. This was familiar ground. He knew every bit of the hotel from his days as a cat burglar. He'd studied the building for months and knew every floor, every room, and every inch of the roof. In fact, John had climbed this same pipe before, and more than once. The last time was years ago; only then, he'd been going down with a leather pouch filled with jewels, not climbing up as a favor for a friend.

The balcony to the first room on the top floor was a few feet away. John stretched out his right leg and probed for a foothold. He found it, as he knew he would.

He shook his head in disbelief. This wasn't what he'd planned on doing. He'd reached out to his friend Paul Du Pre for help connecting with Francie Stevens. They'd had something special; at least John thought so until he got her letter calling things off.

Whatever her reason, John knew if he could just speak with her, he'd get things back on track. But they never got to his favor. As luck would have it, Paul needed help and suggested they meet for drinks at the Hotel Carlton.

The pipe jerked, pulling half an inch away from the building. John raised his eyebrows. It was time to move. With his new foothold secure, he released his right hand from the pipe and quickly shot it over to the balcony railing.

He wrapped his thick hand around the lowest bar of the railing and squeezed like a python. With his grip secure, he let go of the drainpipe, his body swinging under the balcony. He grabbed the same rail with his free hand, then muscled himself onto the terrace. His dinner jacket was tight across his back, restricting his range of motion, so he took it off.

Paul's request had surprised him. They'd met in the lobby; Paul explained his ask after some small talk over two Pépas, notoriously potent Parisian cocktails of cognac and vodka. In his new role as director in the SDECE, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre- Espionnage, Paul followed a mysterious man from Paris to the French Riviera. His colleagues were due to arrive in a few days, and he simply needed another set of eyes on the man for a few hours, nothing more.

As Paul walked John out to the front of the hotel and pointed to the mystery man's room on the top story, the man walked out of the hotel entrance and looked directly at them. They instinctively looked back. John saw the man trace Paul's pointed finger; he knew something was wrong. John watched the man's head dart around like a bird as it all registered before he bolted back inside.

Paul shouted, "I need to talk to him," and gave chase.

John knew the man was headed up to his room. He did some quick arithmetic and knew he could climb the drainpipe at about ten feet every ten seconds. So about one minute to the top floor, then another thirty seconds to get over to the man's room. A minute and a half and he would be on the man's balcony. That decided it. He had leaped onto the pipe, dashed up, and now here he was on the sixth story.

He felt a rush of excitement as he moved from balcony to balcony. All his senses were on high alert, and his mind was focused. He hadn't done something like this in a long time, and it was thrilling. Finally, he reached the mystery man's room. He swung both legs over the rail and headed inside when the hotel room door flew open, the man surging in, a flurry of angled, desperate limbs and disheveled clothes. He saw the man's eyes search the floor of his hotel room, stopping on the handle of a bag peeking out from under the bed. Just then, the man looked up and saw him. John pushed through the balcony doors and into the room. The man lunged forward and grabbed the handle of his duffel bag, then pulled it out from under the bed.

John picked up speed, closing the space between them. The man stayed at the foot of the bed and spun like a discus thrower. He heaved the bag in John's direction. He raised an arm to block it. The bag twisted around his arm, and then one end, heavy and very hard, caught John square in the face. It knocked him back a few steps. He shook it off and regained his balance to see the man run back into the hallway and turn right. John kneaded the bag with one hand, finding what felt like stacks of bound cash and another familiar shape. A long barrel, a square magazine sitting in front of the trigger, and the round broom-handle grip: a vintage Mauser pistol. The man had gone back for his gun. He hadn't had time to pull it out, so he used it as a club instead. John brushed his hand on his pants as if to remove the memory of the pistol. He didn't like weapons of any sort.