Harvath heard the soft click of his door being opened and tightened his grip around Leveque’s throat. Quietly, he pulled the concierge to his feet. He then got behind him and, placing his pistol in the small of the man’s back, clamped his left hand down around Leveque’s mouth.
If the luxurious lobby was an indication of the “money is no object” approach of the hotel’s billionaire owner, Harvath had to assume his security team was going to be top-notch as well. Any hope that they might be nothing more than sides of beef in dark suits was dashed when they chose to enter his room quietly instead of breaking down the door.
Harvath assumed the men now entering his room were very well trained, either former FSB operatives, or Spetsnaz-Russian special operations soldiers.
He had his answer the minute they stepped all the way into his room. Their weapons were drawn, but they weren’t in any tactical formation. At worst, these were FSB. At best, they actually were slabs of beef in dark suits. In the end, it didn’t matter. Harvath was the only person with any cover. Whether he’d agree or not, the concierge was earning his $1,000 tip.
The only weapon Harvath had was his Glock. The three security operatives facing him all had ear pieces and he assumed they were getting a play-by-play from someone somewhere in the hotel who was watching via their hidden-camera system.
“Put the gun down,” said the lead security agent in heavily accented English. “Now.”
Harvath kept Leveque between him and the three Russians at all times as he shuffled toward his backpack. If he could get to it, he might have a chance of getting out of this.
“Stop moving and put gun down!,” the same man yelled.
Harvath talked as he moved, careful to remain hidden behind Leveque. He doubted any of these apes could get him with a headshot, but he didn’t want today to be the day one of them got lucky. “Listen, I don’t want any trouble.”
“Stop and put gun down now or we shoot.”
That made three warnings. Harvath doubted there would be a fourth. Tucking his Glock in the back of Leveque’s waistband, he removed his cell phone, flipped it open, and held it up so the security men could see it. “I have a bomb.”
The lead security man laughed. “There is no bomb.”
Lowering the phone, Harvath slid it back into his pocket. As he drew his Glock he shoved Leveque at the security team and said, “You’re right.”
His first two shots kneecapped the lead security agent. Hitting the floor, he rolled to the right and drilled the second agent in the hand and the third in the shoulder. With Leveque in their way, none of the Russians were able to fire. Harvath gave a small prayer of thanks that they were professional. Had they been strictly gangster muscle, they would have filled the room with lead and sorted out the dead once the smoke cleared.
Grabbing his pack, Harvath charged for the door. He fished a Guardian Protective Devices pop-and-drop pepper fog canister and activated it in the hallway before running to the stairs.
He knew that his every move was being watched and that the rest of the security team was being activated. They would know exactly where he was and, because this was their home turf, exactly how to get to him. The only thing he could do was put as many obstacles in their path as possible. And the best way to do that was to activate the fire alarm.
As it began blaring, he charged for the lobby. He encountered a security team of two. He fired close enough to scare the hell out of them, but not anywhere near enough to hurt them. They retreated momentarily back in the direction they had come.
The next team was waiting just beyond the chaos of the lobby. With the fire alarm and shots fired, guests ran in every direction. There were four security men between Harvath and the cars outside.
He saw a young woman hiding behind one of the couches in the lobby and he grabbed her. She screamed as he pushed her forward and tried to lash out at him. As soon as he had his pistol up underneath her chin she stopped.
“I promise I won’t hurt you, but you’ve got to cut that out and cooperate.”
He had no idea if she spoke English or not, but she seemed to understand. Shoving her toward the door, he encountered no resistance.
Harvath hoped that the security men outside were as professional as the ones upstairs had been. As he stepped through the doors with his hostage, the men exchanged quick remarks and lowered their weapons as they backed away.
Looking for his car, Harvath saw that it was blocked in by two large Bentleys. Idling in the drive was a Saleen S7. While the paint job was a little flashy for his taste, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Pushing his hostage through the driver’s side into the cramped cockpit, he pulled down the gull wing door and took off.
Even though he didn’t need to look in his rearview mirror to see what was going on, he did so anyway. Commands were being shouted as the security team scrambled for their vehicles.
“You’ve made a big mistake,” said the woman sitting next to him. She had a thick accent.
“It probably won’t be my last.”
“Don’t be so sure. You’ve stolen something very valuable.”
Harvath gripped the steering wheel and turned hard onto the street at the end of the drive. “At $400,000, you’d think this car would corner a bit better.”
“I’m not talking about the car,” said the attractive blonde as she buckled her seatbelt. “I’m talking about me.”
“And who are you?”
“My name is Eva, but it’s my husband’s name you should be concerned with.”
Downshifting, Harvath took another tight turn and accelerated. Knowing the Russians, they wouldn’t call the police. Just like the thieves infamously dropped from the helicopter out in the ocean, they’d want to handle him personally. The thing was, Harvath was in no mood to go swimming.
The security men were going to come after him hard. But fast was going to be a little tough for them. They were creatures of habit, trained to follow orders. It wouldn’t occur to them to grab several of the guests’ sports cars. Instead, they’d pile into their heavily armored SUVs and wend through the narrow streets of Antibes as fast as their enormous tanks would allow.
Hitting the Boulevard du Littoral south toward Cannes, Harvath tried to focus on the traffic and not the tanned, toned legs projecting from the woman’s exceptionally short skirt next to him. “I don’t even want to know your husband’s name,” he said as he overtook the car in front of them. “As soon as we’ve put enough distance between us and the men from the hotel, I’ll let you out.”
“That’s going to be difficult,” said Eva as she produced what looked like an iPod Nano.
“Your husband monitors you with a tracking device?”
“He’s very jealous,” she said. “And very insecure.”
“Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Who’s your husband?”
“Nikolai Nekrasov.”
“Never heard of him.”
“The Russian billionaire? Owner of the Hotel du Cap.”
Now he knew why the guards had been so quick to lower their weapons. “Sorry,” he replied. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but in all fairness to your husband, I’ve fallen behind on my Forbes lately.”
Eva smiled. “So this isn’t a kidnapping?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad.” Rolling down the window, she tossed out the device. “That should buy us a little time. If you’re hungry, I have a friend who runs a wonderful restaurant in Cavalaire-sur-Mer.”
Either this woman was extremely unhappy with her husband or this was the world’s quickest case of Stockholm Syndrome on record. “Maybe I can take a rain check,” he said, looking into his rearview mirror. He could see the Russian security team weaving in and out of traffic behind him. They had to be insane to be driving like that in those kinds of trucks. They were going to get people killed.
“That’s too bad,” the woman said. “Nikolai hates Cavalaire-sur-Mer, but I think it’s very romantic. Something tells me you would enjoy it.”
Harvath didn’t doubt it. “Maybe another time,” he said as he pulled into the oncoming lane and accelerated. The closer they got to Cannes, the heavier the Saturday-evening traffic became.
Drivers honked and flashed their brights, but he kept going before a truck forced him back onto his side.
He glanced in the rearview mirror again and couldn’t see the security men. Not yet, at least. The momentary satisfaction he felt evaporated when his passenger said, “It looks like Nikolai is taking you very seriously.”
Harvath looked to his left and saw a red EC135 Eurocopter tracking parallel with them over the water.
“Your husband is very persistent, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t like sharing his things,” she said, placing her hand on the inside of his thigh.
She quickly pulled it back and gripped the edges of her seat as Harvath slid between two cars with just inches to spare.
Now that there was a helicopter involved, there was only one way he could disappear and to do it, he’d need cover.
Turning to Eva, he said, “I need a favor.”
“That depends,” she replied.
When Nikolai Nekrasov’s armored Denalis thundered into Cannes, they came to a screeching halt at a café on the Avenue du Petit Juas. As the hotel helicopter hovered above, Mrs. Nekrasov recovered from her ordeal over a glass of Montrachet. The American who had tortured the hotel’s concierge and shot three of its security staff was nowhere to be seen.