Never Dream Of Dying E-Book

Raymond Benson

• Herausgeber: Ian Fleming Publications
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: James Bond 007
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 456

Beschreibung

It begins at a movie studio in Nice where a police raid goes horribly wrong, and innocent people are killed. It continues in an English prison, where a dead man discloses an intriguing secret about the brutal criminal organization called the Union. The trail leads James Bond to Paris, where he meets the tantalizing movie star Tylyn Mignonne and embarks on a voyage of discovery.But Tylyn is in mortal danger. Her husband, a volatile film producer, has not forgiven his glamorous wife for ending their troubled marriage - and he is connected to the Union's thugs.Meanwhile Bond's friend, French agent Mathis, has disappeared while tracking down the Union's leader, Le Gerant. Bond's journey takes him to a thrilling underwater brush with death, a chase through the Corsican wilderness, a surprise encounter with an old friend - and a confrontation with a twisted criminal genius.

Leseprobe

Never Dream of Dying

By Raymond Benson

Ian Fleming Publications

IAN FLEMING PUBLICATIONS

E-book published by Ian Fleming Publications

Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, Registered Offices: 10-11 Lower John Street London

www.ianfleming.com

First published in the UK by Hodder and Stoughton 2001 First published in the USA by G.P.Putnam’s Sons 2001

Copyright © Ian Fleming Publications as Trustee, 2001 All rights reserved

James Bond and 007 are trademarks of Danjaq, LLC, used under licence by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd

The moral right of the copyright holder has been asserted

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-1-906772-50-5

JAMES BOND TITLES BY RAYMOND BENSON

NOVELS

Zero Minus Ten (1997) The Facts of Death (1998) High Time to Kill (1999) DoubleShot (2000) Never Dream of Dying (2001) The Man With the Red Tattoo (2002)

FILM NOVELIZATIONS

(based on the respective screenplays)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) The World is Not Enough (1999) Die Another Day (2002)

SHORT STORIES

Blast From the Past (1997) Midsummer Night's Doom (1999) Live at Five (1999)

ANTHOLOGIES

The Union Trilogy (2008) Choice of Weapons (2010)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Besides writing official James Bond fiction between 1996-2002, RAYMOND BENSON is also known for The James Bond Bedside Companion, which was published in 1984 and was nominated for an Edgar. His first two entries of a new series of thrillers, which Booklist called “prime escapism,” are The Black Stiletto and The Black Stiletto: Black & White. As “David Michaels” Raymond is the author of the NY Times best-sellers Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell—Operation Barracuda. He recently penned the best selling novelizations of Metal Gear Solid and its sequel Metal Gear Solid 2—Sons of Liberty, as well as Homefront: the Voice of Freedom, co-written with John Milius. Raymond’s original thrillers are Face Blind, Evil Hours, Sweetie’s Diamonds, Torment, Artifact of Evil, A Hard Day’s Death and the Shamus Award-nominated Dark Side of the Morgue. Visit him at his websites, www.raymondbenson.com and www.theblackstiletto.net.

For Max

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

1 THE NEW WAR

2 THE BLIND MAN

3 THE FILMMAKER

4 THE HYDRA

5 THE TATTOO

6 THE SAILOR

7 THE ASSIGNMENT

8 THE ALLY

9 THE MAZZERE

10 THE STUDIO

11 THE HOUSE

12 THE GIRL

13 THE FIRST VISIT

14 THE HORSES

15 THE CASINO

16 THE MOVIE

17 THE TRAWLER

18 THE GETAWAY

19 THE INFILTRATION

20 THE SECOND VISIT

21 THE PRISONERS

22 THE ORDEAL

23 THE RAT

24 THE BREAKOUT

25 THE SCREENING

26 THE RAID

27 THE SEARCH

28 THE SHOWDOWN

29 THE FINAL VISIT

30 THE END

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ONE

THE NEW WAR

A TINY BEAD OF SWEAT APPEARED AT THE COMMANDANT’S RIGHT TEMPLE and lingered there, waiting for the moment when it would drop off and trickle down the man’s high, scarred cheekbone.

James Bond knew that the French commandant was nervous. He empathized with the man, for he, too, never went into a situation such as this one without feeling some amount of anxiety. It was normal. It was healthy. It kept one sharp.

They peered around the edge of the carpenter’s shop. It was night and the studio had kept the buildings’ exterior lights on. Besides providing plenty of illumination, this created the illusion that the film studio lot was in reality another village with its own paved roads, buildings and community. The palm trees, standing like sentinels around the property, tended to further perpetuate the notion that this was a Hollywood-style studio, even though it was located in the south of France. The trees, Bond had heard, were not indigenous to the country. They had been imported from Africa by Napoleon in the nineteenth century.

Bond focused his attention on the two bungalows near the soundstage. The lights in the windows had not changed.

“Are you absolutely sure that they’re in there?” Bond asked Commandant Malherbe in French. “They might have left.”

“We have been watching them all day and never saw them leave,” Malherbe whispered, taking a moment to wipe his forehead with his sleeve. It was a mild January day, nothing unusual for the Riviera at this time of year.

Bond surveyed the scene once again. The two bungalows, used by the studio as dressing rooms, stood quietly at the dead end of a road between two soundstages. One of the soundstages was currently in use, even at 9:45 in the evening. According to the French police’s sources, a television movie was being filmed and was behind schedule. They were making up for lost time. Every once in a while, a technician or actor stepped outside the stage door for a cigarette. Signs of use were everywhere—several cars were parked nearby and a good deal of equipment had been stacked near the loading doors—crates, boxes and petrol drums. For special effects, perhaps?

There were no vehicles in front of the bungalows. Bond was still not convinced that the Union thugs inside were planning to move the arms tonight. If there really were arms.

Bond felt compelled to speak. “As an official observer for the United Kingdom, I have to give you my recommendation not to carry out this raid. There are too many civilians about, in my opinion.”

“Noted, but I have my orders, Commander Bond,” Malherbe said. “We are not to let them leave. We are to catch them with their hands dirty. They’ve got millions of francs worth of guns in there. Do you really want them to get away with that? Surely you must have a rather personal score to settle with the Union yourself?”

Bond chose not to answer him, but merely nodded grimly and moved back around the empty building to where Mathis and the others were huddled.

Bond’s long-time French colleague and friend, René Mathis, was quite happy to observe from the sidelines and let the French RAID officers do their jobs. Mathis thought that they looked much too young for this sort of job, but then again, nearly everyone in this business was younger than he was.

Bond crouched beside him and said, “René, I have a bad feeling about this.”

Mathis hesitated a moment and then said, “Me too.”

“Call it off.”

“I can’t.”

“Your information could be wrong.”

“It often is.”

Mathis looked hard into Bond’s eyes and then grinned with a sardonic gleam in his eyes. Bond’s old friend was being stubborn.

Bond studied Mathis’ eyes. He and Mathis had a long history together. The Frenchman had even saved his life once. He owed the man a lot. Bond had to trust him and his organisation.

The logic behind the plan seemed sound enough. For some time, Mathis’ outfit, the DGSE, which had swallowed up the old Deuxième Bureau years ago, had been gathering reliable intelligence on the whereabouts of Union arms depots ever since France had been the target of a Union bombing spree. No doubt the criminal organisation had been funded by one of the country’s independently minded terrorist groups, for the Union purportedly never took political sides. They were only in it for the money.

And made money they had. In the last three years, they had grown from a small group of terrorists and mercenaries based in Morocco to an international network of criminal enterprise. The Union’s mysterious leader, Le Gérant, remained an enigma and his location was unknown. The organisation had moved its headquarters out of Morocco over a year ago; discovering its current location was the priority of several nations’ law enforcement divisions. The CIA, FBI, SIS, DGSE, and Mossad had declared the Union to be the world’s most dangerous threat.

It was true that Bond had no small reason to hate the Union. He had been involved in two of the syndicate’s more dangerous schemes and had personally been the target of one of them. The Union had been responsible for the deaths of several people Bond had been close to. He had seen the organisation stop at nothing to invest time, energy and manpower into seemingly impossible stratagems that ultimately ended in the destruction of its target and the immediate satisfaction of its current employer.

At SIS it was known as “the New War,” meaning that the conflict between the Union and the world’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies had become akin to a war with an unfriendly foreign power. As in a real war, guerrilla tactics were used to gain information and strike at the enemy. Known safe houses all over the world, for both sides, were bombed. Lives were lost. But money talked and agents were turned. Retaliations were frequent. In seven months the New War had reached a stalemate.

Finally, word had come from René Mathis. When Bond had learned in Morocco that Le Gérant might possess a Corsican surname, all investigations had focused on France and her headstrong island in the Mediterranean. Bond re-established contact with Mathis, who normally worked out of Paris. As it happened, the DGSE had placed Mathis, once the head of the Deuxième Bureau, on its own Union task force; thus the two old friends were able to share information.

One of Mathis’ agents had been following the trail of Julius Wilcox, known to be one of Le Gérant’s top lieutenants, or “commandants,” as they were called in the Union’s inner circle.

Wilcox was reportedly working with Union arms dealers operating through Western Europe. He had been sighted several times in the Côte d’Azur, mostly around Nice and Cannes, and occasionally in Monaco. When his movements were traced to the old Bisset film studios in west Nice, the DGSE convinced SIS and the CIA that the Union was storing illegal arms there.

Until quite recently, the film studios had only been in partial use. Originally constructed in 1927, they had been the home of many famous motion pictures. But after the heyday of the sixties, the studio facilities had fallen into disrepair and were now terribly outdated. Most of the buildings, long abandoned, stood rotting on the lot. Only areas essential to small films currently in production were kept functional.

A well-known French film producer and director had purchased the studio a month ago. Mathis had told Bond that although the man was a celebrity, the DGSE were keeping their eyes on him. Léon Essinger, an influential but controversial figure in French cinema, had a rather shady past. Mathis had spent some time attempting to link Essinger to the Union, but had come up empty-handed. At any rate, with Essinger’s purchase, the film studios, now re-named Côte d’Azur Studios, were scheduled to see a vast facelift within two years.

Commandant Malherbe appeared and whispered to Bond and Mathis. “I have the go-ahead. This is it, gentlemen. Are your vests secure?”

Bond tugged at his bullet-proof vest and replied, “Mine’s secure, but I’m just an observer, remember?” He smiled at the French officer.

Mathis said, “Commander Bond is concerned about the number of innocent civilians about, and I agree with him.”

“We’ll do the best we can,” Malherbe said. “But if we wait any longer, the Union may attempt a getaway. That could create chaos all over the studio grounds and that’s infinitely more dangerous. At least we can control a raid ourselves.” The commandant adjusted the microphone on his headset and spoke into it. “Lieutenant Busnel? Are you ready?”

The French officer listened and then gave a thumbs-up sign. He turned to a sergeant at his side and barked an order. Four men picked up a metal battering ram and prepared to rush forward. Malherbe directed other men to their positions, guns drawn.

Bond felt helpless as he crouched beside Mathis. He had his Walther on him, but technically he was prohibited from using it here. This was a French government operation. To hell with that, he thought. He would damn well use it if he had to.

The commandant gave the order and the four men with the battering ram rushed toward the door of the bungalow on the right.

Later, survivors would swear that the four men were instantly vaporized by the fireball that suddenly engulfed the area. It was a tremendous explosion, one that rocked the ground and shook the buildings. The noise was deafening.

Bond pulled Mathis to the tarmac as waves of searing heat passed over his head. He could hear shouts of pain and terror from the men near him. Then came the gunfire. Bond looked around the corner. Through the smoke, he could vaguely see men on the roof of the soundstage. They were firing at the RAID officers.

It had been a trap. A typical Union trap.

“Roll over to the edge of the building!” Bond shouted at Mathis. The Frenchman was cursing and drawing his own gun, a 9mm Smith &Wesson, but he managed to do as he was told. Bond rolled with him, ultimately pushing himself against the side of the building. He crawled slowly on his belly so that he could get a better view around the edge of the building at the mayhemin the street between soundstages.

There was nothing left of the first bungalow and the other bungalow was on fire. Both had obviously been empty. Several RAID men were lying face down on the street. The others were scrambling for cover as bullets sprayed the area from above. RAID men were falling left and right. The assault was a disaster.

Bond rotated his body so that he could get a clearer view of the soundstage roof. There were three men with machine guns, blasting at anything that moved on the ground. Bond drew the Walther, took a bead on one of the killers, and squeezed the trigger. The man’s head jerked and then his body rolled forward and sailed smoothly off the roof. The other two men looked around, trying to determine where the shot had come from. One of them spotted Bond and pointed. Bond jack-knifed to his feet, scrambled across the road so that he was beneath the shooters and hugged the wall. Unfortunately, there were three more men with machine guns on the roof of the building he had just left. They began to fire at him. Bond leaped for cover behind a large crate, but a bullet seared the top of his thigh and sent a burning shot of pain down his leg. Once under cover, he examined the wound and saw that it was superficial, but it hurt like hell.

The noise and chaos had attracted the attention of the production people inside the soundstage. A stage manager stuck his head out the door, saw the horror and immediately slammed the door shut. Alarms sounded.

Bond noticed two RAID men pinned down behind crates twenty feet along the wall to his left, unable to move away from the gunfire. He aimed at the men on the roof and fired. Both of them spun around and fell. The two RAID men waved at him and emerged from behind the crates, firing their guns.

A white van tore around the corner and sped down the street toward the burning bungalow. As it screeched to a stop, the back doors opened. Two more men with sub-machine-guns jumped out and sprayed the area with bullets. The remaining Union men on the roofs jumped onto the crates, then slipped off to their feet—obviously professionally trained for such stunts. They ran and climbed inside the back of the van as the two shooters continued to spray the road.

Bond looked around frantically for a better weapon. One of the RAID men lay dead in the road about ten feet away from him. An MPL sub-machine-gun was by his feet. Bond tempted fate and simply bolted out into the rain of gunfire. He hit the tarmac hard and rolled like a log toward the body. He grabbed the MPL and, on his belly, aimed it at the men by the van. The machine gun vibrated hard in his arms as the bullets found their targets. The men slammed back against the van and fell to the ground. The others inside the vehicle attempted to close the doors, but some of Bond’s bullets penetrated the metal. One of the men fell out as the van began to move backward. The vehicle turned and backed up against the soundstage, near the barrels of petrol. The driver was attempting to turn around so that they could speed out of the studio lot.

Thinking quickly, Bond aimed his gun at the petrol drums and fired. The bullets pierced the metal and ignited the petrol. The van was sent flying in the ensuing explosion. It rolled twice and settled on its side as the passengers scrambled to get out. But they were too late … the van’s petrol tank exploded, killing them all.

Bond got to his feet as three RAID men ran toward the soundstage. The exploding petrol barrels had set the building on fire. Mathis, out of breath, ran to Bond and said, “We have to get those people out of there!”

The wooden building was very old and the fire spread quickly. Burning support beams collapsed and covered the door, trapping the people inside. The burning van was pushed up against the loading doors, eliminating that as a possible exit.

“Is there another way out?” Bond shouted.

“God, I hope so,” Mathis said.

Bond ran down the road to circle the soundstage. On another side of the building, black smoke was pouring out of a broken first floor window. He could see a woman there, her face frozen in terror. He called to her in French to jump, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

He had never seen a fire spread so quickly. These studio buildings were firetraps waiting to happen. They probably should have been condemned and flattened years ago, he thought.

More frightened faces appeared at the broken window. One man did jump, landing hard on his ankle. He cried out in pain, but he was alive. Bond ran and helped him away just as the RAID men ran forward with a steel ladder. They propped it near the window and beckoned for the people to descend. The first woman finally found the courage to step through the broken glass and climb onto the ladder. She was followed by another woman who nearly slipped off the first rung, then managed to regain her balance after several tense seconds. At this rate, evacuating the victims would take forever.

Bond continued his survey of the other sides of the soundstage. The fire must have spread rapidly inside, probably igniting the flammable paints and canvas used to make scenery flats. Curtains on stages were notorious fire hazards. Old ones might not have had the asbestos treatment used in later structures.

He heard glass breaking above him. A man and a woman were at another high window, crying for help. The black smoke billowed out around them. Bond looked around him and noticed a pile of metal piping with pieces of varying lengths and a stack of bricks lying next to them. He quickly rummaged through the piping and found a piece that might just be long enough to reach the window. It wasn’t terribly heavy, so he took it along with two bricks and ran with them back to the side of the building.

He called in French to the man in the window, “Secure the end if you can!” Bond used his foot to hold one end of the pipe on the ground and then levered it up until the other end was near the window. The man grabbed the pipe, tore off his shirt, and used it to tie the pipe to the window sash. Bond placed the bricks such that they would prevent the pipe from slipping on the tarmac. He signaled to the man that he was ready and held on to the pipe. The man pushed the frightened woman out of the window first. She tentatively climbed out onto the pipe, held on to it like a fire fighter, then slid down the pole. Bond caught her as she landed.

“Merci!” she cried.

The man was next. He climbed out onto the pole and slid to the ground after calling to others behind him.

Bond could see a procession of other panicked people in the window, waiting their turn. He turned the job of holding the pole over to the man, said, “Good luck,” and ran back around to the other side of the soundstage to find Mathis.

Sirens grew louder. At least the fire-fighters were on the way. They would know what to do.

Mathis was bending next to Commandant Malherbe, who was lying against a crate with a bloody wound to his head. The blaze on the soundstage was reaching inferno proportions.

“We have to get these men out of here!” Bond shouted, waving his arm at a couple of other wounded RAID men lying on the road.

Mathis said, “Help me!”

Together they dragged Malherbe away and down the road to a place of safety. He had been hit at least three times and was bleeding profusely. They went back for the other men just as two fire engines roared onto the scene, followed quickly by an ambulance.

“Better tell them they’ll need a few more ambulances,” Bond said to Mathis. Mathis sprinted toward the emergency vehicles, ready to take charge.

Bond, covered in grime and sweat, backed away from the smoke and heat as the roof of the soundstage completely collapsed. He moved to a safe distance, sat on the ground, and watched the catastrophe unfold. He knew that there was nothing else he could do. People were dying inside the burning hellhole. Had it been his fault? If he hadn’t shot the petrol barrels, this wouldn’t have happened. But then, the van full of Union killers would have escaped.

As a result of the failed raid, nineteen people died inside the destroyed soundstage, including two women and an eight-year-old child actress. At least twenty others were injured, some seriously. They were all innocent professionals working on the television film: actors, technicians, stagehands, designers, grips … The building itself was completely ruined and had to be leveled after the city had made its investigation into the fire. The media had a field day, blaming the tragedy on the French police, the DGSE, and “unknown foreign intelligence officers” who had been present.

Léon Essinger, the new owner of the studios, was outraged. A flamboyant character, he appeared on national French television and expressed his anger at the authorities. He was mortified that accusations had been made claiming that a criminal organisation was using the studio as a storehouse for illegal arms. “The notion is ridiculous,” he said. “All these allegations turned out to be completely false.” When asked who the men were that attacked the assault team, Essinger started to bluster. “It has not been proven that there was a group of attackers. I think the government made them up to justify its actions!” He vowed to get to the bottom of the incident and make sure that “those responsible would pay.”

The raid did not go down well with the French government, either. Fingers were pointed in every direction. The French police blamed the DGSE and vice versa. René Mathis was given two months’ suspension from duty, even though it wasn’t his fault that the intelligence he had been given was incorrect. Nevertheless, Mathis vowed to continue his pursuit of the Union on his own, pay or no pay. Bond told Mathis to keep him informed and promised to help if needed. They put together an informal method for communicating with each other about the case and bid each other au revoir and bonne chance.

James Bond was recalled to London. SIS was formally ordered by the DGSE to back off. They would handle the case and keep other agencies informed from then on. Bond not only understood the firm’s embarrassment, but he shared much of the guilt. Over the next few nights, he relived his shooting at the petrol barrels in his dreams. Each time he lifted the gun and aimed at those barrels, an inner voice warned him that lives would be lost. And each time, Bond ignored the warning and squeezed the trigger. The noise of the explosion was always overshadowed by the screams of the people inside the soundstage. The cacophony of horror and death never failed to wake him with a jolt.

Bond was quite accustomed to guilt. It was part of his profession. In his business people lived or they died. It was that simple. His actions always had consequences, and bearing the weight of those repercussions was just another part of the job.

The trick was learning to live with it.

TWO

THE BLIND MAN

APPROXIMATELY FOUR MONTHS LATER, RENÉ MATHIS FINISHED HIS CUP OFcafé au lait in The Louis XV restaurant, which adjoined the opulent Hotel de Paris in the proud, tiny principality of Monaco.

Mathis had always found Monaco an anomaly. Located on a beautiful piece of shoreline on the Côte d’Azur covering just under two square kilometers, it is surrounded and protected by France, yet it remains fiercely independent. Its roughly 5000 citizens never pay taxes, and they have their own flag and traditional dialect. Monaco even looks different from France. The buildings, when seen from a distance, look an ochre color immediately distinguishing them from the structures in, say, Nice. Mathis likened the architecture to Lego blocks, as if a child had assembled the buildings with pre-existing pieces so that they appeared jagged and irregular. Since there was no room to expand the principality by land, buildings were built high and even below ground. Despite the seemingly haphazard construction of the community, it was beautiful to look at. Mathis enjoyed coming to Monaco every once in a while to gamble in its famous casino. Tonight, however, he was in the principality on important business.

Mathis raised his hand at the waiter and said, “L’addition, s’il vous plaît.” He paid the bill and walked out of the restaurant into the Place du Casino. The magnificent casino was brightly lit. It was still early: the place wouldn’t be buzzing until after midnight.

Mathis went inside, presented his identification for entry, and stepped into the luxurious palace that was designed by Charles Garnier, the same man who had created the Paris Opera House. The gold inlay and marble pillars gave the impression that this was indeed a royal castle from the nineteenth century. The beauty of the interior, the high-class ambience, and the sight of beautiful women in designer evening gowns always impressed Mathis.

He made his way into the Salon Privé, which was separate from the main center of the casino where most of the tourists gambled. Only those well known by the casino staff or players who have given proof of a serious intention to play for high stakes were allowed inside. Luckily, Mathis had an informant at the casino, and Dominic was at his usual place by the door.

“Bonjour, Dominic,” Mathis said.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Mathis,” the young man said.

“Is our party here as scheduled?”

“Monsieur Rodiac arrived ten minutes ago. I’m sure he’s at the table now.”

“Merci.” Mathis went past Dominic and made his way to the little crowd around the chemin de fer table where the blindman liked to play.

He was an interesting-looking man, and it was very difficult to tell what nationality he might be. There were definitely swarthy Arabic features, perhaps Berber, but there was also a European softness about him. He wore a fashionable dinner jacket and dark sunglasses, and he smoked what appeared to be an American brand of cigarette that he kept in a case inlaid with ivory. The usual goons were around him… his helper was sitting to his right, and two bodyguards who looked like professional wrestlers stood behind him. As the man was blind, his helper would whisper into the man’s ear and tell him what was on the cards. The man would then make the appropriate bets, ask for a card, or whatever.

He always seemed to win.

“Ten minutes. He is already doing well,” Dominic said as he slipped in beside Mathis.

Mathis grunted affirmatively as he watched the blind man, who went by the name of Pierre Rodiac, play various challengers around the chemin de fer table.

It was a relatively simple game, a cousin to baccarat, except that the house served as “referee” instead of as banker. The casino supplied the room, the equipment and personnel, for which it charged a five percent commission on the winnings of the bank hands. The banker-dealer was whoever could put up the highest amount of money. He had to relinquish the deal to the player on his right if he lost a hand; otherwise he could quit at any time. All other players at the table bet against the bank. One hand was dealt to the “player,” the cards usually controlled by whichever player had put up the highest bet against the bank. If the banker won the hand, the amount of money in the bank could be doubled, creating a good deal of suspense for the players who wanted to continue the game.

Pierre Rodiac was the banker after having initially secured the position by putting up 250,000 francs as the opening bank. After winning five hands, the bank now totaled eight million francs. The other players were a little more hesitant to cry, “Banco,” which meant that one of them would cover the entire bank. Instead, the players might be more willing to bet against a portion of the bank—one might bet against 100,000 francs, another might bet against 500,000, and so on, until the entire bank was covered, or not. Only the amount of the bank that was bet against would be at risk.

Mathis watched carefully as an Englishman, after consulting with the woman sitting next to him, presumably his wife, called “Banco.” Rodiac didn’t flinch. The croupier repeated the amount of the bank as the Englishman slid chips totaling eight million francs on to the “Player” space on the table. Rodiac slipped a card out of the sabot. The croupier used the paddle to scoop it up and swing it over to the Englishman. The blind man then dealt a card for himself, then another for his opponent. Once the two cards were in front of him, the Englishman peeked under the corners to see what he had. He needed to get as close to nine as possible. Court cards were valueless and an ace counted as one. Rodiac’s helper glanced at the faces of the banker’s two cards and whispered in the blind man’s ear. The Englishman indicated that he would take a card. Rodiac dealt it and the croupier turned it face up—a nine. According to the official rules, the banker had the option of drawing a third card if his total was three and he had just dealt a nine to the player. Rodiac hesitated, then dealt himself a card—an ace. Both hands were revealed. The Player’s total was three. Rodiac’s total was four.

Everyone at the table gasped and murmured. As for the blind man, he registered no emotion. He simply kept his head straight, as if he were staring through the croupier at the wall.

Mathis wondered the same thing that they all did. Had the blind man simply made a good guess in choosing to draw a card? Was it a lucky gamble? Or had it been some sort of trick? Had he known that the next card would be an ace? Mathis had indeed detected something before Rodiac had drawn the card. There had been something in the man’s body language. He had known the card was good. But how?

Mathis carefully reached down to his belt buckle and activated a miniature camera that he kept there. He flicked the shutter twice in Rodiac’s direction. With any luck, he would get a couple of good shots of the man.

“He seems to have a sixth sense about this game,” Dominic said, shaking his head.

“I’m going to have a drink,” Mathis said. They left the room and found the bar. Mathis got a Scotch and soda and went into the buffet room, which was relatively empty. The buffet room amused him because there was a painting on the ceiling that depicted a heavenly scene in which naked cherubs and angels were all smoking cigars. The room had once been the smoking area.

Dominic sat down with him and said, “I can’t stay long, I must get back to my post.”

“I understand.”

“Monsieur Rodiac hasn’t missed a Thursday night. He apparently comes in on his yacht and leaves it at the harbor. According to his identity papers, he lives in Corsica. His business address is in the town of Sartène. I haven’t been able to find out exactly where he lives.”

“Sartène?” Mathis asked. “Why, there’s nothing there but devout Catholics and fervid penitents!”

“There are some vineyards in the area, sir.”

Mathis raised his eyebrows, indicating skepticism. “Why would he want to live in such a remote area? He’s obviously got a lot of money. If he wanted to be in Corsica, why not Bonifacio, Ajaccio, Porto Vecchio—one of the nice places?”

“I can’t say, sir,” Dominic replied. “I must get back.”

“Very well.” Mathis dismissed him with a wave of his hand and sipped his drink.

It had been a difficult four months. After his suspension he had been reinstated at the DGSE, and during the interim he had learned a thing or two.

To start with, the arms that had supposedly been stored at the Côte d’Azur Studios in Nice had actually been there. They had been moved out a day before the disastrous raid. Mathis hadn’t been able to prove this to his superiors, but he knew it to be true. Secondly, he was becoming more and more suspicious of the studios’ new owner, Léon Essinger. The man had made a lot of money from the fire insurance. He had to have ties with the Union.

More importantly, Mathis had discovered evidence suggesting that the Union was operating on a large scale in the south of France and in Corsica. Perhaps this meant that the current Union headquarters was somewhere in the area. Could it be on that mysterious little island in the Mediterranean that had more ties with Italy than with France? Corsica—the birthplace of Napoleon and the source of the concept of “vendetta”—it wouldn’t surprise him if the Union had a base down there.

After Mathis went back to work in Paris, he had immediately been put on a new assignment that he believed to be Union-related.

The Americans had been experimenting with a new explosive material called CL-20. Supposedly, it was the most powerful nonnuclear explosive ever made. Described as a high-energy, high-density ingredient for both propellants and explosives, CL-20 looked like granulated sugar. When ignited by a detonator, it produced a massive explosion capable of leveling a building using a single warhead the size of a household fire extinguisher.

The US Air Force had loaned a supply of CL-20 to the French on a trial basis. It was being stored at the air force base in Solenzara, on the east coast of Corsica. A major strategic center for the French, Solenzara was a staging point during the Kosovo conflict.

The CL-20 had mysteriously disappeared under the very noses of the base commanders. It had somehow been smuggled off the base with the help of an insider, a lieutenant who had been in charge of the stockpile. When investigators arrived at the base to question him, the lieutenant was found dead in the barracks. His throat had been slashed, ear to ear, in the style of the Union. Working with the French military police, Mathis pieced together a possible scenario: the lieutenant had probably been bribed to pack the CL-20 in something innocuous, like laundry vehicles, or food vending lorries, then they were transported off the base to points unknown. Afterward, he had been killed simply to silence him.

Mathis followed the trail of money, but it led back to unidentified sources in Switzerland. The job had obviously been instigated by a superior organisation. Mathis would have bet his life that the Union was behind it.

Where did the CL-20 go? He had spent the last two months pursuing every lead. He turned Corsica upside down and found nothing. If anyone knew anything, they weren’t talking. It was a strange country. Corsicans were rarely forthcoming when it came to secrets. Although the island was French, Corsicans firmly believed in their independence and considered themselves “separate” from the mainland. Being French, and an intelligence officer, Mathis was naturally treated with suspicion. It was difficult to get anything out of those people.

Mathis continued the investigation in the south of France. He thought that he might be on the verge of uncovering something when he got word from his man in Monaco. The report stated that a mysterious blind man from Corsica had begun appearing at the casino on Thursday nights and was making a killing. Casino authorities were perplexed by the man’s good fortune. They couldn’t spot any way that he was possibly cheating. Some people who had observed the blind man claimed that he had some kind of psychic ability. This was demonstrated when, one evening, the man held a total of three in his hand. He was expected to draw a third card and was about to when he stopped suddenly. “No,” he said, waving away the third card. It was as if he had received some divine message in his head. Sure enough, he won the hand—his three against his opponent’s two. The next card was revealed to be an eight, which would have given the blind man a total of one, and he would have lost.

Once Mathis learned about this blind man, this “Pierre Rodiac,” he put the investigation of the CL-20 theft on the back burner and proceeded to unearth what he could about the stranger. His yacht, a superb Princess 20M, made the trip to Monaco every Thursday night, and back to Calvi, a port on Corsica’s northwest shore. A black Rolls-Royce would then take Rodiac south, into the mountains. Where he went from there was still a mystery.

But when he reported all of this to his superiors at the DGSE, they admonished him and warned him not to pursue it any further. After the tragedy in Nice, they wanted no part of any “speculations about Union schemes.” Mathis became angry and walked away, taking an indefinite leave of absence from his job. He decided to look into the matter on his own.

Mathis finished his drink and strolled back into the Salon Privé. Rodiac was still playing, and his pile of chips had tripled in size. Mathis shook his head, said goodbye to Dominic, then left the casino. He walked to the gardens behind the building and followed the path to the lift that would take him down to the harbor.

The smell of the sea was strong at this time of night. Seagulls were still out in force, crying loudly, looking for food in the water.

Rodiac’s Princess 20M, a sleek, white modern motor yacht built by a British company, Marine Projects, looked to be about 70 feet long and probably came with all the modern amenities.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” came a voice behind Mathis. It was the harbor manager, a salty Monégasque in his fifties with sea-brine white hair.

“Oui,” Mathis replied. “Who owns her?”

“A blind man, he comes here every Thursday. He’s up at the casino now,” the man said. “He must be a wealthy bastard.”

“May I ask where the boat is registered?”

The man frowned. “I’m not allowed to give away that kind of information, you know.”

Mathis pulled out a 500-franc bill. “I’ll pay for it.”

The man scratched his chin. “Make it a thousand?”

Mathis slipped out another bill and handed it over. The man gestured for Mathis to follow him into the little office on the dock. He found and opened his notebook, then began to look through the pages.

“Here it is,” he said. “It’s registered in Calvi. Owned by a man named Cirendini.”

“May I see?” Mathis asked, feeling his heart skip a beat when he heard the name. The man turned the book toward him. Sure enough, there it was. The yacht was registered to Emile Cirendini.

“Merci,” Mathis said. He left the office and walked back across the dock to the steps leading back up to the lift.

Well, well! he thought. Emile Cirendini … one of the most senior members of the old Corsican mafia—the legendary Union Corse! While the name “Union Corse” was no longer fashionable, the Corsican mafia was still very much alive, operating mostly in France and the Mediterranean. In the old days of the Deuxième, the Union Corse was the equivalent of the Sicilian Mafia, specializing in drug smuggling, prostitution, racketeering, arms sales and gambling.

Cirendini had been in and out of prison on various racketeering charges but always managed to produce sharp lawyers and a lot of money. He never stayed in jail long. Now he ran a supposedly legitimate shipping business out of Corsica.

So … the blind man Pierre Rodiac was using a yacht owned by Emile Cirendini! This was very interesting indeed.

Mathis decided there and then that he would make arrangements to follow the Princess 20Mto Corsica—if not tonight, then next Thursday. From there, he would do his best to track Rodiac to his home and find out for certain if the man was whoMathis thought he was.

If it was true then Pierre Rodiac was in fact none other than Olivier Cesari, the man at the top of the Union, the man they called Le Gérant.

THREE

THE FILMMAKER

THE COCAINE BURNED THE INSIDE OF HIS NOSTRILS AS LÉON ESSINGER snorted and jerked his head back to savor the full effects of the drug.

He looked in the bathroom mirror at his shiny white teeth to make sure that none of his lunch was caught between them. As his heartbeat accelerated, he stared at his reflection. Not bad, he thought. His wavy brown hair, high forehead, dark eyes and full lips gave him a ruddy, Mediterranean look; he had been told that he resembled a famous rock star. At fifty-two, he was still considered good-looking. Women still came on to him, especially after his separation from Tylyn. He had everything going for him now.

Then why the hell was he so unhappy? Why did everything seem like a disaster waiting to happen?

Essingerwas sure thatWilcox waswonderingwhat could be keeping him. He said quietly, to himself, “You can wait, you American bastard.”

He straightened his tie, stepped out of the bathroom and walked back through the corridor and out onto the bright terrace of the sumptuous Palais Maeterlinck restaurant in Nice. Most of the lunch crowd was still there. Sure enough, Wilcox was impatiently looking at his watch.

Essinger sat at the table. The lunch plates had not yet been removed.

“The reason you don’t have any money is you spend it all on that crap,” Wilcox said pointing to his nose.

Essinger didn’t like Julius Wilcox. The man gave him the creeps. He was terribly ugly, what with that awful scar over the right eye, the hawk nose and greasy, slicked-back gray hair. He always appeared in a suit, but over that he wore a long duster, the kind of coat worn by outlaws in the American Wild West. It was an odd combination, thought Essinger, but it worked. The man oozed menace, and Essinger could tell that Wilcox had little regard for him. Wilcox was being cordial because he was following orders.

Essinger decided to ignore him and gaze at the Mediterranean. It was always a pleasure to come to the Maeterlinck when he was in Nice. It had a most interesting history. Originally conceived as a casino in the 1920s, the project was abandoned and later purchased by the author Maurice Maeterlinck. Recently restored and fashioned into a luxury hotel and restaurant, the Maeterlinck was the chic place to be in Nice, where Hollywood stars stayed when they were in town, where scenes from movies have been shot, and where they served the best truffles stuffed with lobster. Essinger felt important dining there. “We should be hearing from our man in LA any minute now,”Wilcox said.

Essinger nodded. They had been there for nearly two hours. He had met Wilcox for lunch and they had completed the meal half an hour ago. At any rate, if the call came through there would be some consolation, Essinger thought. Perrin and Weil were thorns in his side that had to be extracted as soon as possible. The two rival producers had slapped a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on him recently for breach of contract. The litigation was holding up funding from an American studio for Essinger’s latest picture. They had told him that the money would not be forthcoming until the suit was settled.

Sometimes Essinger wished that he were in another business. The motion picture industry had certainly made him what he was today but it had also corrupted him, turned him into a less-than-moral person. He admitted it, but he had few regrets. His successes were sweet enough to combat his failures. Unfortunately, lately he had experienced more failures and setbacks than successes.

As he took another sip of the vin de table, Essinger pondered the last ten years of his life. It had been a rapid rise to stardom. His early French films as a producer/director had established him as an auteur to be reckoned with, and he had spent nearly twenty years of his life making small films in Europe. Receiving the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of twenty-eight had boosted his career considerably. As an experiment, he tried doing an action film when he turned forty and it was a major international success—one of those small-budget, big-business anomalies that are legendary in the motion picture industry. It wasn’t long before Hollywood came calling, so Essinger packed his bags and left Europe. After moving to California and making two big-budget blockbusters for major studios there, Léon Essinger’s fortune was secured. The first film featured a popular American actor in an action role that the public simply couldn’t get enough of. Essinger quickly found that more money was to be made with that kind of pulp fiction than with art films. Some of the critics said that he had “sold his soul to Hollywood,” but he didn’t care. He was laughing all the way to the bank.

The second film built upon the success of the first one, and it nearly doubled the former’s business worldwide. This film was even more significant in that it featured Essinger’s wife, model Tylyn Mignonne in her first starring role. She had caused a minor sensation and, in the process, created a new career for herself.

The credit “A Léon Essinger Film” above the title began to mean something. He formed his own production company and produced other pictures under his banner. Some were profitable, others were very profitable. For ten years he lived the life of a Hollywood mogul, but it had cost him.

For Léon Essinger had a dark side. There was the cocaine bust that didn’t help his standing in the Hollywood community. He also had a reputation for losing his temper in public, of throwing bottlebreaking fits in restaurants, exhibiting road rage, getting into scuffles, and beating his beautiful wife.

What nonsense, he thought. After Tylyn had left him, a ridiculous story came out that he had hit her!

But it was the special-effects accident that had really turned his life upside down.

He was in the middle of filming his third action picture in Hollywood and had decided to cut costs by using a less-than-adequate scenic material to absorb the heat of explosions on a set. The ensuing accident caused the death of a major Hollywood star and three young extras. The SFX man had been fired but that didn’t keep him from telling the press that he had warned Essinger about the poor protection. A month later, Essinger faced criminal prosecution. In response he did probably the worst thing possible—he fled the States and returned to France. As long as he remained in his native country and continued to work there, he would be fine. But he could never return to America, which was unfortunate.

However, it wasn’t long before he perceived that Hollywood had more or less turned its back on him. He found it more difficult to obtain studio funding. The calls stopped. He had been all but blacklisted by most of the major studios. Essinger had to rely on a small, independent art house, EuroClassics, to finance his last picture and the upcoming one. Unfortunately, he had made a mistake the night he had returned to Paris. Totally drunk and high on cocaine while dining at Maxim’s, he made a deal with Joe Perrin and Craig Weil, two Hollywood fast-talkers who owned a company that made Bmovies and teen horror and sexploitation comedies. They talked him into a contract that basically kept him prisoner to their company for life. He was forbidden to make any other deals.

When Essinger got funding for Tsunami Rising from EuroClassics, Perrin and Weil sued. EuroClassics withheld the money for his next proposed blockbuster, another action film starring international star Stuart Laurence. It was dead in the water until the lawsuit could be settled. Essinger had high hopes for the new picture, for Tsunami Rising, also starring Laurence, was scheduled to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Shooting on the new film, a sea epic called Pirate Island, was supposed to begin shortly in Corsica and on the Mediterranean. If production didn’t begin on time, he could stand to lose what little money he had left.

When his wife left him things really began to turn sour. And to think that he had already cast her in Pirate Island! he thought grimly. He wished that he could fire her, but he couldn’t. She was good for the box office.

The waiter asked if there might be anything else. Wilcox ordered a café au lait. Essinger waved the man away.

Essinger hated waiting.

Nine time zones to the west, the sun was not quite shining on Los Angeles. It was a kind of witching hour in the city—when it wasn’t quite dark and wasn’t quite light. It was the time of night when people are at their most vulnerable and unprepared.

The killer from the Bronx known only as Schenkman emerged from his discreet Volkswagen bug at the bottom of the hill where Maltman Street emptied into Sunset Boulevard. Traffic on the streets was light. Practically no one was about this early. Silverlake was unusually quiet.

He walked up the steep pavement, following the street as it curved up and around and met another hilly road called Larissa. Schenkman turned left and walked to the edge of a brown, stucco house that had been built in the thirties. He checked to make sure the two BMWs were parked in the drive, then paused to pull a 9mm Browning High Power from underneath his black leather jacket. Another hand brought out a suppresser seemingly from nowhere and attached it to the semi-automatic.

Light shone through two bedroom windows. Schenkman could hear music through the walls. The party was still going on.

Although they were based in New York, Joe Perrin and Craig Weil were native Hollywood players who kept a two-bedroom hideaway in Silverlake for business purposes. It was nothing fancy, but it was quiet and discreet. They also had flats in London and Paris. The apartments were the perfect havens for script meetings, deal making and orgies. They liked to travel often to get away from their wives.

They had arrived late the night before, immediately called their favorite escort agency, and proceeded to indulge in some serious partying. The festivities had begun around 1:00 in the morning and showed no signs of stopping.

When the buzzer rang, Joe Perrin had just turned over on his back so that the nineteen-year-old hooker could straddle his potbelly and get more leverage to move.

“Who the hell could that be?” he muttered. He called into the other room. “Craig? Are you expecting someone?”

Craig Weil was also in a compromising position. The girl with him was older, probably thirty, not as pretty, but she was definitely more experienced.

What the hell, this isn’t supposed to happen, Weil thought.

“I’m not expectin’ anyone,” Weil shouted back.

“I dunno,” Perrin said.

“Well, go answer it!” Weil shouted.

“You answer it!”

“Like hell I will!”

Perrin cursed and said to the girl, “Sorry, honey, you gotta get off,” and pushed her roughly over on the bed. She said, “Hey!” as he got up, naked, and staggered to the bedroom door. He was quite drunk.

The buzzer sounded again.

“All right, damn it,” Perrin called as he walked through the living room. “Who the hell is it?”

“Urgent legal papers from Europe, sir,” Schenkman called from outside.

“It’s kinda early, ain’t it?” Perrin asked.

“I must have your signature, sir.”

Perrin forgot that he was naked. He cursed again, unlocked the door and threw it open.

Phht!

The bullet caught Perrin in the head, throwing him back into the room.

Schenkman stepped inside.

“Joe?” called Weil from his bedroom. “Who is it?”

Schenkman began moving toward the sound when Perrin’s hooker made an appearance. She took one look at the body on the floor and one at the man with the gun, then began to scream.

Phht! The Browning jerked again and the girl crashed into a glass table covered with half-empty drinks.

Schenkman kept moving toward the other bedroom.

“Joe?”

Schenkman threw open the door in time to catch Craig Weil slipping on a robe. His girl was standing by the bed, lighting a cigarette. When they saw Schenkman, they both opened their mouths in surprise.

Phht! Phht!

The girl slammed against the wall and fell to the floor. Weil spun around and collapsed onto the bed.