59

On the way to Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Carver made a detour to Cannes. He dumped the piece of junk he’d hired at the airport and went to one of the specialist luxury car-rental companies that cater to the assorted stars, producers, and account-toting executives from the entertainment industry who flock to the town’s festivals and sales conventions. There he hired an Audi S6 sedan, his personal transport of choice. He loved it for looking as dull as a Ford Mondeo but driving as fast as a Ferrari-faster, in fact, on many roads, thanks to the grip produced by its four-wheel drive: the perfect getaway vehicle.

He stopped at a Géant big-box store outside town to buy basic provisions, outdoor clothing, and camping gear, including binoculars and some heavy-duty hiking boots. Then he drove up into the hills. These Georgian gangsters had certainly picked a spectacular location for their hideout in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, a landscape of jagged slopes scattered with pines and oaks, and scoured by spectacular gorges, where switchback roads and absurdly picturesque villages clung to the sides of precipitous cliffs.

The most direct way to the house was off the main road between Vence and Grasse, and up through the village of Tourrettes itself. But Carver went the scenic route, skirting the side of the Puy de Tourrettes, until the pavement gave way to a dirt road, and then a track impassable even by a car with four-wheel-drive. He parked the Audi, put on his knapsack, and started hiking toward a point on the mountain directly above the house, making the final approach on his belly until he found the ideal spot for his observation post.

Down below him, he could see the people he had come to rob. Their voices drifted up to him on the breeze, along with the barking of their dogs. They had not spotted him.

Carver got out his binoculars. Now all he had to do was watch, and wait.

That, and work out how the hell he was going to steal Kurt Vermulen’s precious document.

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