London Bridges

too well. No, probably not at all.
    I stayed with the powerful CL55 out of Cap-Ferrat, all the way to the Basse Corniche. I nearly killed myself, and maybe a few others, on the twisty road, but I didn’t lose whoever was speeding in front of me.
    Who the hell was in the car? Why was somebody running? Could it be the Wolf?
    Traffic toward Monaco was moving, but it was heavy. The lights from a tow truck up ahead indicated that some poor driver had jackknifed on this winding road. That was my one long-shot hope. The traffic was slowing down the Benz. But suddenly the Mercedes swung around and headed west.
    The sports sedan was moving very fast past an endless array of billboards and restaurant signs. And so was I.
    I rounded a curve, and the whole of the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer appeared in all its inimitable beauty and splendor, the moon large and full in the sky. The city rose above the bay, which was filled with sailboats and yachts, like a rich kid’s bathtub. The Mercedes spun down a slick, sloping hill, sometimes at a speed of a hundred miles per hour. I thought I remembered from somewhere that the car had close to five hundred horsepower. It sure seemed like it.
    Then we were entering the old port of Nice, and I began to close the gap behind the sedan. The narrow streets were surprisingly crowded, especially around the bars and nightclubs, which seemed everywhere now, thank God.
    The Mercedes barely avoided a drunken group coming out of the Etoile Filante nightclub.
    And then, horn blaring, I roared through the same crowd, the pedestrians cursing and shaking fists at me.
    The Mercedes made a sharp right—onto the N7, the Moyenne Corniche, a higher road.
    I followed as best I could, knowing that I would probably lose him now. Lose who, though? Who was in the blue Mercedes?
    The way up was incredibly steep and winding. We were headed back toward Monaco, but the traffic was light this way, and the Mercedes was effortlessly picking up speed. The driver had known to go backward in order to go forward—much faster—at a speed the police sedan couldn’t possibly match.
    After about two kilometers I was pretty sure I would lose him. We were back in Villefranche, but the highest part of town. The view down onto Cap-Ferrat and Beaulieu was breathtaking, and I couldn’t avoid looking; even at this speed it filled my eyes like a painting.
    I couldn’t let him get away, and I pushed the police car up close to a hundred again. How long could I possibly keep up?
    There was a tunnel, dimness, then almost total darkness—and at the end of the tunnel the astonishing sight of a medieval village perched high on a hillside.
    EZE read a sign, and I wished I
could
go easy.
    Just past the village, the road became even more dangerous. It was as if the Moyenne Corniche were taped onto the side of the cliffs. Down below, the color of the sea seemed to be changing from azure to opal to silver-gray.
    I could smell oranges and lemons in the air. My senses were sharp. Fear can do that.
    I was losing the Mercedes, though, so I made the only move I could. Instead of slowing around the next curve, I accelerated.

Chapter 111
    I BEGAN TO GAIN on the Mercedes and I kept my foot pressed to the floor.
Are you suicidal?
I wondered about myself.
    Suddenly the Mercedes skidded all the way across the opposite lane. It struck the side of the mountain, a glancing blow, but very damaging to the car at that speed. Then it swerved back and forth on the road, across both lanes. It caromed off the rocks again. The blue sedan suddenly took off into the sky.
    It was airborne, falling toward the sea.
    I braked to the side of the road and jumped from my car. I saw the Mercedes hit the side of the cliff twice, then roll onto the lower highway far below. I couldn’t get down there from where I was. Couldn’t
climb
down, anyway.
    I didn’t see any movement from the wreck. Whoever was inside the Mercedes had to be dead.
But who is it?
    I got back in the police car I had commandeered at the estate. It took me close to ten minutes to make my way to the lower highway and the scene of the wreck. French police and an ambulance had already arrived and so had many early-morning onlookers.
    As I climbed from my car, I could see that the body hadn’t been removed from the wreckage. Medical workers were leaning inside the car and seemed to be working frantically. They were talking to whoever had been driving. Who was it?
    One of them shouted, “He’s still