The Negotiator

While Sam was at the bank, Quinn used the last of his cash to buy her a single ticket from Paris to Málaga. She had missed the 12:45 flight but there was another at 5:35 P.M.

“Your friend has five hours to wait,” said the ticket-counter agent. “Coaches leave from Gate J every twelve minutes for Orly South terminal.”

Quinn thanked her, crossed the floor to the bank, and gave Sam her ticket. She had drawn $5,000, and Quinn took $4,000.

“I’m taking you to the bus right now,” said Quinn. “It’ll be safer at Orly than right here, just in case they’re checking flight departures. When you get there, go straight through passport control into the duty-free area. Harder to get at. Get yourself a new handbag, a suitcase, some clothes—you know what you’ll need. Then wait for the flight and don’t miss it. I’ll have people at Málaga to meet you.”

“Quinn, I don’t even speak Spanish.”

“Don’t worry. These people all speak English.”

At the steps of the bus Sam reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Quinn, I’m sorry. You’d have done better alone.”

“Not your fault, baby.” Quinn turned her face up and kissed her. A common enough scene at terminals—no one took any notice. “Besides, without you I wouldn’t have the Smith & Wesson. I think I may need that.”

“Take care of yourself,” she whispered. A chill wind blew down the Boulevard de Vaugirard. The last heavy luggage was stacked underneath the bus and the last passengers boarded. Sam shivered in his arms. He smoothed the shining blond hair.

“I’ll be okay. Trust me. I’ll be in touch by phone in a couple of days. By then, either way, we’ll be able to go home in safety.”

He watched the bus head down the boulevard, waved at the small hand in the rear window. Then it turned the corner and was gone.

Two hundred yards from the terminus and across Vaugirard is a large post office. Quinn bought sheet cardboard and wrapping paper in a stationery shop and entered the post office. With penknife and gummed tape, paper and string, he made up a stout parcel

of the diamonds and mailed it by registered post, express rate, to Ambassador Fairweather in London.

From the bank of international telephone booths he called Scotland Yard and left a message for Nigel Cramer. It consisted of an address near East Grinstead, Sussex. Finally he called a bar in Estepona. The man he spoke to was not Spanish, but a London Cockney.

“Yeah, all right, mate,” said the voice on the phone. “We’ll take care of the little lady for you.”

With his last loose ends tied up, Quinn retrieved his car, filled the tank to the brim at the nearest gasoline station, and headed through the lunchtime traffic for the orbital ring road. Sixty minutes after making his phone call to Spain he was on the A.6 autoroute heading south for Marseilles.

He broke for dinner at Beaune, then put his head back in the rear seat of the car and caught up on some missing sleep. It was three in the morning when he resumed his journey south.

While he slept a man sat quietly in the San Marco restaurant across the road from the Hôtel du Colisée and kept watch on the hotel’s front door. He had been there since midday, to the surprise and eventual annoyance of the staff. He had ordered lunch, sat through the afternoon, and then ordered dinner. To the waiters he appeared to be reading quietly in the window seat.

At eleven the restaurant wished to close. The man left and went next door to the Royal Hôtel. Explaining that he was waiting for a friend, he took a seat at the window of the lobby and continued his vigil. At two in the morning he finally gave up.

He drove to the twenty-four-hour-a-day post office in the rue du Louvre, went up to the first-floor bank of telephones, and placed a person-to-person call. He stayed in the booth until the operator rang back.

“Allô, monsieur,” she said. “I have your call. On the line. Go ahead, Castelblanc.”

Chapter 16

The Costa del Sol has long been the favored place of retirement of sought-after members of the British underworld. Several dozen such villains, having contrived to separate banks or armored cars from their contents or investors from their savings, having skipped the land of their fathers one inch ahead of the grasping fingers of Scotland Yard sought refuge in the sun of the South of Spain, there to enjoy their newfound affluence. A wit once said that on a clear day in Estepona you can see more Category A men than in Her Majesty’s Prison, Parkhurst, during roll call.

That evening four of their number were waiting at Málaga airport as a result of a phone call from Paris. There were Ronnie and Bernie and Arthur, pronounced Arfur, who were all mature men, and the youngster Terry, known as Tel. Apart from Tel they all wore pale suits and panama hats, and despite the fact that it was long after dark, sunglasses. They checked the arrivals board, noted that the Paris plane had just landed, and stood discreetly to one side of the exit door from the customs area.

Sam emerged among the first three passengers. She had no luggage but her new, Orly-bought handbag and a small leather suitcase, also new, with a collection of toiletries and overnight clothes. Otherwise she had only the two-piece outfit in which she had attended the morning’s meeting at Chez Hugo.

Ronnie had a description of her but it had failed to do her justice. Like Bernie and Arfur he was married, and like the others his old lady was a peroxide blonde, bleached even whiter by constant sun-worshipping, with the lizardlike skin that is the heritage of too much ultraviolet radiation. Ronnie appraised the pale northern skin and hourglass figure of the newcomer with approval.

“Gorblimey,” muttered Bernie.

“Tasty,” said Tel. It was his favorite, if not only, adjective. Anything that surprised or pleased him he designated “tasty.”

Ronnie moved forward.