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Some lights were on inside, but we seldom saw anyone at the windows past
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midnight. Security was modest on the grounds, just a couple of guards.
"Awfully quiet," said Sandy. "I don't know if I like this, Alex. Security's
light."
"It's almost two in the morning."
"You surprised that we're going in?" Sandy asked.
I smiled. "Are we going in? No, I'm not surprised. Remember, the French want
the Wolf. Maybe even more than we do."
Then the signal came to go! Sandy and I were part of the second assault team,
and we ran toward the house about forty-five seconds after the first wave. We
entered through the back black. The kitchen, to be exact.
Somebody had switched on the overheads. A guard lay on the floor, his hands
cuffed behind his head. Highly polished marble was everywhere, four stoves at
the center of the room. I noticed a large glass bowl on a table. I took a peek
at what looked like dark noses inside.
Figs,I finally realized, smiling to myself.
Then Sandy and I were running down a long hallway. No gunshots had been fired
inside the house yet. Lots of other noise, though.
We came to the formal living room of diplomatic proportions: chandeliers
dangled over our head, polished-marble floor, half a dozen dark and solemn
paintings by French and Dutch masters.
No Wolf so far. No sign of him.
"This for entertaining, or signing treaties?" Sandy asked me. "Alex, why
aren't they fighting back? What's going on?Is he here? "
We climbed a winding staircase and saw French soldiers leading men and women
out of the bedrooms. Most were in their underwear; a few were naked. Nobody
looked very sexy, but they certainly looked surprised.
I didn't see anybody who might be the Wolf, but how could I tell for certain
what the Wolf looked like? How could anybody?
The interrogations began immediately right there in the hallways.Where is the
Wolf? . . . Who is Aglionby? . . .
The entire house was searched a second time, then a third.
Marcel Aglionby wasn't at the house, we were told by several of the guests.
He was on business in New York. One of his daughters was present; this was her
party, her guests, her friends though some of them looked to be twice her age.
Her father was a respected banker, she swore to us. No way was he a criminal,
no way was he the Wolf.
So is he the Wolf's banker? And where does that lead us?
I hated to think it, but I couldn't help myself:The Wolf wins again.
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Chapter 108
We searched the placeone more time and, over the threats of the daughter,
started to take it apart, piece by piece.
I had to say the house was amazing, filled with antiques and artwork. Sandy
thought that Aglionby might be trying to emulate the nearby La Fiorentina,
which has been called the most beautiful house in the world. The banker
certainly had expensive taste, and could afford to indulge them. Hand-painted
Louis XVI pieces were everywhere, as were Louis XV chandeliers; antique
Turkish carpets; Chinese screens and panels; tapestries; paintings, classical
and modern, on nearly every wall. Works by Fragonard, Goya, Pieter
Brueghel.All of it financed by the Wolf? Why not? He has over two billion to
throw around.
We assembled the "suspects" in the billiards room, which had three billiards
tables and nearly as many plush sofas as the living room. The same tailored
formality. Did anyone here know anything about the Wolf? It didn't look that
way to me. More likely, some of them might know Paris and Nicky Hilton.
"Does anyone want to speak for the group?" the French police commander
addressed them.
No one volunteered; no one answered any questions. Either they didn't know or
they had been told not to say.
"All right, then, let's separate them. We'll begin the interviews now.Someone
will talk, " the commander warned.
Since I hadn't been asked to participate in the interrogations, I wandered
out onto the grounds and walked down toward the water. Had we been given
another false lead to follow? The Wolf's game-playing, his strategies and
counterstrategies, had been relentless from the beginning. Why should it stop
now?
There was a large actually, very long wooden boathouse at the water's edge.
It stood maybe a hundred yards from the main house. But what was this?
Somebody had transformed the old boathouse into a garage to house a collection
of more than thirty very expensive sports cars and luxury sedans. Maybe this
was finally something. Evidence that the Wolf might have used this estate. Or
was it another ruse, a tease?
I was standing between the boathouse and the water when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 109
All he hadwas his piece of the puzzle, his part in this terrible mission. But
it was more than enough. Bari Naffis knew that there had been an incursion at
the estate in Villefranche-sur-Mer and that within the hour people would die
because of it, including friends of his and one girl he'd slept with, a
fashion model from Hamburg. Eye candy to be sure, but very precious stuff.
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The French army and police had already taken over the mansion. And now it was
Bari's turn to go to work, to do his job. He didn't know why this had to
happen, only that it did.
As he turned onto the D125, it seemed to him that he was already too late.
But he had his orders. Someone had obviously foreseen that this would happen.
The Wolf had known it was coming, hadn't he? He had eyes in the back of his
head. Eyes everywhere! What a scary bastard that one was.
That was all that Bari Naffis knew and all he cared about right now. He had
been well paid in advance, even if this made little sense to him and was
highly distasteful. Why kill and maim so many?
Half an hour before, he'd received a radio signal from the main house; the
noise had awakened him from a sound sleep in his hotel room.
He jumped from bed, dressed, then hurried to a prearranged position on an
estate to the north. He tried not to think about his friends and a lover
inside the house. Maybe she would survive somehow.
No matter. He wasn't going to cross the Wolf over some girl. Bari ran through
the woods and thick brush cover. He was carrying a Man Portable Air Defense
System, about as ungainly a weapon as there was. The missile launcher was five
feet in length, a little over thirty-five pounds. Still, it was extremely well
balanced and equipped with a rifle-style pistol grip and forestock. It fired
an FIM-92A Stinger missile, and there were two other operators in the woods
besides himself. Each of them had his little bit of work to do, his piece of
the whole.
Three professional killers on the move at that very moment, maybe feeling the
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