The Take by Christopher Reich
To my mother, Babs Reich
With love
Chapter 1
Fifty-nine seconds.
From the time the first car entered the Avenue du Général Leclerc and blocked the prince’s route to the moment the assault squad regained their vehicles, hijacked the two BMW touring sedans, and departed the scene, no more than one minute had passed.
No one screamed. No shots were fired. The robbery was carried out with precision and discipline, relying on surprise, speed, and brute force, and never resorting to violence…apart from clubbing one of the prince’s bodyguards.
Staring down the barrel of an AK-47, Tino Coluzzi had learned, was ample motivation to do as you are told.
Now, forty-five minutes later, standing in a wheat field thirty kilometers south of Paris, watching flames engulf the stolen vehicles, Coluzzi could finally relax. The American had been right all along.
The prince really did travel with a million euros in cash.
The convoy of sixteen BMWs had arrived punctually at six p.m. The line of black touring sedans had drawn up in single file before the entrance of the Hotel George V, the last stopping halfway up the block.
Seated at Le Fouquet’s, Tino Coluzzi finished his espresso, slipped a ten-euro note beneath the saucer, and rose, taking a moment to dab the corners of his mouth. He was slim, of medium height, and elegantly dressed in a tan poplin blazer, dark slacks, and Italian driving shoes. Sunglasses shielded his eyes from the evening rays. A gambler’s mustache decorated his lip. His black hair had recently been cut and was combed neatly to one side, shiny with brilliantine.
It was impossible to detect the pistol cradled beneath his left arm or the stiletto he habitually wore at his ankle. The pistol was small—a .22 but loaded with hollow-point bullets. He used it rarely and only at close distances. He preferred the stiletto. Over the years, he’d gained an expert’s dexterity with it and could insert the blade, nick the heart, and be ten paces away before his victim had the slightest inkling he’d been mortally wounded.
“The prince is paying his bill,” said a voice in his earpiece. His contact in the hotel.
“Cash?”
“Of course.”
“How much?”
“Hold on.”
Coluzzi turned down the street toward the hotel. To look at, he appeared entirely at ease, one of Paris’s perennial bachelors with too much time on his hands. The sun was shining. The smell of the River Seine, a few blocks to the south, freshened the air. A calm breeze rustled the mature linden trees planted every ten meters. No one would ever suspect he was about to steal an enormous amount of money.
Coluzzi walked slowly, pretending to admire the goods on display in the numerous luxury boutiques. Jewelry. Dresses. Handbags. Nothing less than ten thousand euros. As if exhausted by the sheer variety of choices, he came to a halt in front of the store across the street from the hotel. Staring into the window, he caught a perfect reflection of the revolving glass doors that led into the lobby.
The Hotel George V—or the Four Seasons Hotel George V, as it was officially known these days—was one of Paris’s oldest and most prestigious hotels. Located in the famed Golden Triangle of the 8th arrondissement, it was a stone’s throw from the Champs-élysées and a five-minute walk from the Arc de Triomphe. The price for a room began at eight hundred euros a night.
“Well?” asked Coluzzi. “How much?”
“One hundred twenty-two thousand euros and change.”
Approximately one hundred fifty thousand dollars. Coluzzi still valued his take in American currency.
“The prince never travels with less than a million euros in cash,” the American had informed him when he offered Coluzzi the job. “He likes to drop a few hundred thousand shopping while he’s in town. The rest is yours.”
They’d met in the bar of the H?tel Costes a week earlier. The American was a sallow, fatigued-looking man with dark eyes and a nervous smile, out of place in the swank lounge. His French was nearly fluent but uneven, and he apologized incessantly for being rusty.
The target was Prince Abdul Aziz bin Saud, a fifty-year-old Saudi Arabian playboy who traveled the world with his wives and kids as cover for his philandering. He never went anywhere without at least five bodyguards, and he moved around the city in convoys of black BMW sedans. Coluzzi was to hijack the convoy as the prince drove to Orly Airport in the southern outskirts of Paris.
“And for you?” Coluzzi had asked. “How much?”
“None.”
“None?”
“It’s not the money I’m interested in.”
The American had never said where he’d gotten Coluzzi’s name or, for that matter, his phone number. Coluzzi had needed one look to know he came from the shadows. All the better. He didn’t trust an honest man.
A bodyguard emerged from the hotel, then another, and Coluzzi’s heart picked up a beat. A moment later, both retreated inside.
False alarm.
“Where the hell is he?”
“Hold your horses. The family’s all here. Just another minute.”
For the past three days Coluzzi and his crew had been following the prince, his three wives, and their ten children as they spent their way across Paris. Ten thousand euros for a handbag at Hermès. Twenty thousand for a dress at Chanel. Thirty thousand for a diamond-encrusted watch at Cartier. (A gift for the prince’s oldest son, age twelve.) There were stops at the city’s finest restaurants. Lunch at Epicure. Cocktails at the Plaza Athénée. Dinner at Le Jules Verne. The prince had left the tenets of Islam in Saudi Arabia, along with his prayer rug.
And now the hotel bill totaling one hundred twenty-two thousand euros.
Which left approximately six hundred thousand for the taking.
“They’re headed your way,” said his contact.
Coluzzi came to attention. In the window’s reflection, he watched as bellmen streamed from the lobby, ferrying mountains of luggage to the automobiles. The bodyguards returned. Four formed a loose cordon to block pedestrian traffic. A fifth—who Coluzzi recognized as their leader—walked between them, eyes sweeping the street for threats. Seeing nothing, he retreated to the door and motioned that all was clear.
By now, passersby on both sides of the street had stopped to pay attention to the spectacle. The line of black sedans. The mountain of luggage. The bodyguards in their black suits. Turning around, Coluzzi allowed himself to gaze openly. It would be odd not to look.
The women and children filed from the hotel like prisoners on their way to jail, heads bowed, not a smile among them. For their return home, the mothers wore traditional black burkas, even their faces shielded from view. The younger girls pulled Hermès scarves over their heads. The boys slouched in ripped jeans and untucked shirts. Not one acknowledged the chauffeurs holding their doors.
The princess passed through the revolving doors and paused as the chief bodyguard ran ahead, looking this way and that. Finally, he waved her forward. The princess was not dressed in a burka like the others but in a navy blazer and tan pants, a large white purse slung over one arm.
“The prince and princess travel in the fifth car,” the American had said, after Coluzzi had agreed to take the job. “It’s his lucky number. The money goes in the sixth, all by itself.”
The princess walked to the fourth car and spoke to the driver. Coluzzi felt a twinge of unease. Not the fourth car, he admonished her. The fifth.
She paid him no heed. She placed a foot inside the back and lowered her head. From the hotel, a man shouted a rebuke. The princess turned her head. Coluzzi saw the prince gesturing unhappily to his wife. Immediately, she retraced her steps and climbed into the fifth car.