“I would, actually. But you can have this.” Gabriel handed Ingrid the HK tactical pistol. “I have to run an errand. Shoot anyone who comes within fifty meters of the villa.”
Outside, Gabriel climbed into the damaged rental car and set off down the unpaved track. Don Casabianca’s wretched goat was reclining in the shade of the three ancient olive trees. The beast remained there, vigilant but motionless, as Gabriel braked to a halt and lowered his window. He addressed his adversary in French.
“Listen, I don’t know what my friend said to you earlier, but nothing about this situation between us is my fault. In fact, this is one of the few disputes in my life where I am entirely blameless. Therefore, I am the one who is owed an apology, not you. And tell your master, the loathsome Don Casabianca, that I expect him to pay for the damage you inflicted on my automobile.”
And with that, Gabriel raised his window and rolled away in a cloud of dust. He followed the road over the hill and into the neighboring valley, and a moment later slowed to a stop at the entrance of the grand estate. The two guards regarded the front of the car with expressions of mild bemusement. They did not bother to ask for an explanation. Gabriel’s long feud with Don Casabianca’s ill-mannered caprine was now part of the island’s lore.
The guards opened the gate, and Gabriel headed up a long drive lined with Van Gogh olive trees. Don Anton Orsati’s office was located on the second floor of his fortresslike villa. As usual, he received Gabriel while seated behind the heavy oaken table he used for his desk. He wore a pair of loose-fitting trousers, dusty leather sandals, and a crisp white shirt. At his elbow was a bottle of Orsati olive oil—olive oil being the legitimate front through which the don laundered the profits of his real business, which was murder for hire. Gabriel was one of only two people who had managed to survive an Orsati family contract. The other was Anna Rolfe.
Rising, Don Orsati offered Gabriel a granite hand. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”
“Forgive me, Your Holiness. But I had to attend to an urgent matter.”
The don regarded him skeptically with a pair of black eyes. It was like being studied by a canine. “The urgent matter wasn’t that pretty blond woman, was it?”
“The man in the back seat.”
“Rumor has it you gave René Monjean a thousand euros to get him out of Marseilles.”
“What else does rumor have?”
“A worker at a vineyard north of Saint-Tropez stumbled on a body early this morning. A motorcyclist, no identification or phone. The police seem to think someone must have run him off the road.”
“Do they have a suspect?”
The don shook his head. “It’s quiet up there this time of year. Apparently, no one saw a thing.”
Gabriel wordlessly tossed the German passport onto the tabletop. Don Orsati opened it to the first page.
“A professional?”
“Quite.”
“Were you the target?”
“The man in the back seat,” replied Gabriel. “He’s a computer hacker who works for a dirty law firm in Monaco.”
“Who wanted him dead?”
“The dirty law firm.”
“What about the pretty blond woman?”
“She used to be a professional thief.”
“And now?”
“Hard to say, really. She’s still a work in progress.”
The don held up the passport between two thick fingers. “Are you keeping this for any reason?”
“Sentimental value, mainly.”
“In that case, perhaps we should get rid of it.” Don Orsati carried the passport over to the large stone fireplace and dropped it on the stack of macchia wood burning on the grate. “And how can we at the Orsati Olive Oil Company be of service to you?”
“I require protection for the computer hacker.”
“For how long?”
“Long enough for me to pull a heist at the dirty law firm.”
“And if the heist goes sideways?”
“I’m confident it won’t.”
“Why?”
“The pretty blond woman.”
* * *
Gabriel told Anton Orsati the rest of the story outside on the terrace, over a bottle of pale Corsican rosé. He omitted none of the salient details, including the fact that he was working in collusion with two European police forces and the security and intelligence service of Switzerland. The don, who made his living in part by avoiding entanglements with law enforcement, was predictably appalled.
“And when the police ask their star witness, this Philippe Lambert fellow, where he went into hiding after the attempt on his life? What happens then?”
“It is my hope, Don Orsati, that it doesn’t come to that.”
“We have a proverb here on Corsica about hope.”
