Liberation Day

Chapter 14

A one-story, flat-roofed building housed a promenade of stores and cafés that ran for maybe a hundred yards on each side of the mini traffic circle. I drove slowly over a succession of speed bumps, past fancy restaurants with glinting glasses and dazzlingly white linen tablecloths, all laid out for lunch. It was just after midday, so they’d be full pretty soon, once the boaters had emerged from the clothing stores, shopping bags bulging with Lacoste polo shirts and sweaters.

Coffee drinkers sat at café tables just a few yards from the water’s edge, probably wishing they were sitting aboard the sleek and beautiful boats just out of reach to my right instead. The craft all seemed to have English names like Suntreader or Kathy’s Dreams, and it was obviously the time of day for their owners to be out on deck, to take an aperitif, and enjoy being envied.

I reached the point where the promenade merged with a series of administration buildings that bordered the parking lot. I pulled up next to the deserted beach, by a sign saying “Petite Afrique,” probably because that was where the sand came from. I was alongside a little playground area, which was halfway through being given a facelift.

Thanks to the postcards and what I’d seen so far, I now had a pretty good sense of how the boats were arranged. From the mini traffic circle, a central pier ran straight out into the middle of an open square, with four smaller piers branching off on each side at right angles. Another three piers jutted out from the quay by the stores, and three more from the opposite side. The place was jammed with row after row of boats, their masts, with whatever bits and pieces they had hanging off them, towering up to the sky. I had no idea where the Ninth of May was going to find room to park; it didn’t look like there was a space to be had.

My first priority was to find a single OP (observation point) that would cover the whole area, so no matter where this boat parked, I’d be able to set eyes on and trigger the collectors as they left to pick up the cash. If that couldn’t be done, I’d have to find a number of different ones.

I could already see two routes out of this place, apart from the sea. There was the access road I’d come in on, and a footpath to the right of the stores, which led up to a terraced garden.

I left the Mégane, hitting the key fob before walking back past the stores toward the traffic circle and the central pier. Ambling around with my camera in hand, I particularly admired the terraced garden. It was nearly as long as the promenade, and was packed with small palm trees and exotic, semitropical plants set in light, dry soil — well worth a couple of photos. A shiny green hedge ran along the back of it, hiding the road, but I could now see there was a way through, because a man walking his dog along the path had just headed up some steps and disappeared.

The majority of the boats seemed to have red flags hanging off the back. A lot were registered in the Cayman Islands. I heard a group of Brits sitting on the back end of a huge motorboat, enjoying a beer and listening to Riviera Radio. There was quite a lot of activity aboard, and not just the clinking of glasses. Decking was being pulled up, cleaned, and varnished, and chrome was being polished until you could see your Gucci sunglasses in it.

There was an incessant ching ching ching of steel rigging and the one thing I did know that hung off boats, radar reflective balls, as I wandered along, snapping away, playing the tourist. When I got to the mini traffic circle I could see the rest of the stores. There was a tire replacement center, several boat chandlers, and a high-tech yard with yachts up on blocks and shrink-wrapped in white plastic as if they’d just come off the supermarket shelf. There was also another set of stone steps that led directly to the road.

I turned left at the mini traffic circle onto the main pier, which was built of gray concrete slabs. As I got to the first set of branches, I looked down the line of boats. Every two or three parking spaces there was a shared utilities station, with pipes and cables feeding the rear of each vessel with power, water, and a TV antenna. I saw the occasional satellite dish too, weighted down by sandbags and cinder blocks so the boat owners could get Bloomberg to check if the markets were performing strongly enough for them to buy the next size up.

The yachts nearest the promenade were large enough to keep most America’s Cup teams happy, but the farther I walked along the pier, the closer I got to the really big guys, until I was among the kind of vessels that had radar domes the size of nuclear warheads on the back and only needed a splash of gray paint to be confused with battleships. One even had its own two-seater helicopter. No doubt about it, I was in the wrong job and had been fostered by the wrong family. I’d always said to myself I should find out who my real parents were, and I realized that now was the time I should start trying.

From the end of the main pier I looked back once more to the garden, working on the theory that if I could see a possible hiding place from where I was now, I could probably see down here from up there. I took more pictures. The only place that looked possible as a one-size-fits-all OP was to the far right of the marina, above the flat roof of the administration building, and among the bushes that were about level with the parking lot. I wandered back, feigning interest in the boats but really looking under the piers to check how they were constructed. Huge concrete pillars rose out of the water, topped with T flanges, on which sat the concrete sections.

A thin film of oil coated the water at the rear of the boats, a hundred different shades of blue and orange swirling in the sunlight. I could see shoals of tiny fish fussing around the pillars quite easily through the clear water. I didn’t know how yet, but I had to get on board the Ninth of May and plant the device that was going to stop it reaching Algeria with the cash. Getting wet might be the only way to do it.

As I walked back toward the parking lot I could hear British, French, and American voices settling down for lunch. Waiters and waitresses hovered with expensive-looking bottles of water and wine, and baskets of freshly cut baguette. I was beginning to feel quite hungry.

I stopped at a tabac and inspected another carousel of postcards as I devoured a jumbo-size Snickers bar. I listened to a group of twenty-something Americans drinking beer at one of the tables outside. It had been a lot of beer, judging by the number of empty glasses and the content of their conversation. And, judging by their severe haircuts, tattoos, and tight polo shirts, they had to be on shore leave from the warship at Villefranche.

“No way, man, we should fucking nuke ’em, man, tonight!”

Another guy started chanting, “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.,” getting very worked up. The others chorused their agreement and swigged some more Kronenbourg. It must have been hell being stuck in the Mediterranean instead of bobbing up and down on the Indian Ocean, waiting to hose down the Afghan mountains with cruise missiles.

I rotated the carousel. These cards weren’t as good as the ones at the station, but then I caught sight of something in a display case that I knew would make Lotfi’s day — a baseball hat with an arm sticking out of the top of it, holding a hammer. When you pulled a piece of string the hammer swung down onto the peak. I couldn’t resist it: it would send him ballistic. I went inside and handed over a hundred francs to the salesgirl. It was pretty outrageous, but as she was selling Hermès scarves for those windy days on the waves for a couple of thousand, I guessed I got off pretty lightly. No wonder all the stores had alarm boxes with yellow strobe lights above their front doors.

The sailors were still honking as I came out. “We shouldn’t be kicking back here, man, we should be kicking some Bin Laden ass right now.”

I looked beyond them to the central pier, and stepped back rapidly into the doorway. Two white vans with blue light bars and riot grilles over the windows had pulled up, and were spilling out heavily armed men in navy blue uniforms onto the quay.

I suddenly got very interested in the latest issue of Paris-Match as a station wagon, also with a blue light bar, stopped next to the vans. The word “Gendarmerie” was emblazoned along the door panels.

Not worrying just yet, and still engrossed in the contents of the magazine rack, I checked chamber. If they were here for me, they didn’t yet know where I was: otherwise why get together for a briefing at the rear of the vehicles?

I watched as the Americans continued to develop the Kronenbourg plan of attack on Bin Laden, unaware of what was happening just past the traffic circle.

It couldn’t have anything to do with me. But, just in case, I moved out onto the sidewalk and turned left, away from them, heading for the staircase that would take me up to the terraced gardens.

The American table-thumping slowly faded out of earshot. They’d probably never know how much Bin Laden ass they were about to kick, if George’s plan hit the target.

I found the concrete steps at the end of the block that led up to the higher ground. They were well worn and there was no notice to say they were private. If I did get challenged I’d just play the dickhead tourist.

The steps took me up onto the roof, which was covered in red asphalt and formed a balcony. There was even a set of railings to stop you falling into someone’s soup on a windy day. The traffic circle was in dead ground from here, which was good; I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. A stone wall, about three feet high, ran the length of the path, against which concrete benches had been installed at ten-yard intervals, facing in the direction of the marina for a nice relaxing view. Nearer the road, an old man with a wheelbarrow was giving some weeds the good news with a spade.

The dirty white top of a truck zoomed past above me and beyond the hedge, heading for Nice. This looked good so far: not only should I be able to see the entire marina, once I’d gotten into the bushes a few yards above me, but I could be over the hedge and onto the main drag in no time.

A bench stood directly in front of the bushes where I would probably try to establish the OP. Someone had sprayed “I fuck girls!” in English across the back of it in blue paint. After my morning with Greaseball, it was a breath of fresh air.

I glanced up toward the gardener, and down in the direction of the gendarmerie, but both were out of sight. I slipped over the bench and onto stony ground above it.

Moving into a possible OP site from the front was something that I would never normally do: it leaves sign in the very place you are trying not to draw people’s attention to. But it didn’t matter here; there was enough human and dog sign about already.

I scrabbled up the bank and into the bushes, settling behind a large palm bush that branched into a perfect V at about head height. The field of view wasn’t bad; I could see the whole of the marina, and the binos (binoculars) would get me right onto the Ninth of May, wherever it parked. I could also see all three exit points.

The vehicles by the traffic circle were now deserted and the uniforms had split into two groups, each with a hyperactive spaniel on a lead. I watched as the dogs scurried about the piers as if they were demented, darting, stopping, pointing their noses toward the backs of the boats. It had to be drugs; they were carrying out spot checks or looking for some stuff that had been smuggled in. I sat and thought about the three million U.S. dollars that was headed toward the Ninth of May, a vast amount of U.S. bills that would be contaminated with drug residue, as most U.S. cash is. Tens of thousands of them bundled together would send even a half-bored sniffer dog crazy.

Was that what they were aiming for now? Were they checking for the cash? No, they couldn’t be. They would be more proactive; there would be a lot more support. This looked like a routine operation.

I let them get on with it, and stood up to take a look over the four-foot-high hedge. There was an asphalt sidewalk, and beyond that a narrow strip of garden on the level ground before the road, and, maybe fifteen yards downhill, about ten nose-in parking spaces. Just over a hundred yards farther was the marina’s main entrance.

I took off my shades and sat back in the OP, taking a few pictures of the target area before checking traser. There was plenty of time before the safe house meet to stay static and tune in to the place. Could I be seen, for example, from the sidewalk above or the path in front if somebody walked past?

I listened to the traffic, which was constant but not heavy, and started to visualize what I wanted the other two to do when I triggered the collectors off the boat.

I looked down at the uniforms and dogs as they worked their way around the marina, and wondered if French intelligence were on to the collectors as well. Their External Security Service hadn’t messed about in the mid-eighties when Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior had parked for the night in Auckland, New Zealand, as it campaigned against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. DGSE’s (La Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure — the French equivalent of the C.I.A.) Operations Division, using divers from their Swimmer Combat Command, just blew up the boat, no messing around. I was glad these people weren’t allowed to operate on French soil — but then again, we weren’t either, and these were strange times.