The Fourth Protocol [antikvár]

The man in grey decided to take the Glen suite of diamonds at midnight. Provided they were still in the apartment safe and the occupants away. This he needed to know. So he watched and he waited. At half past seven he was rewarded. The big, wide limousine swooped up from the subterranean car park with the powerful grace implied by its name. It paused for an instant in the mouth of the cavern as its driver checked the Street for traffic, then turnéd into the road and headed towards Hyde Park Corner. Sitting across from the luxury apartment block, dressed in a hired chauffeur's uniform at the wheel of the rented Volvo estate, Jim Rawlings breathed a sigh of relief. Gazing unobserved across the Belgravia street he had seen what he had hoped for: the husband had been at the wheel with his wife beside him. He already had the engine running and the heater on to keep out the cold. Moving the automatic shift into drive, he eased out of the line of parked cars and went after the Daimler-Jaguar. It was a crisp and bright morning, with a pale wash of light over Green Park in the east and the street lights still on. Rawlings had been at the stakeout since five o'clock and although a few people had passed down the street noone had taken any notice of him. A chauffeur in a big car in Belgravia, richest of London's West End districts, attracts no attention, least of all with four suitcases and a hamper in the back, on the morning of 31 December. Many of the rich would be preparing to leave the capital to celebrate the festivities at their country homes. He was fifty yards behind the Jaguar at Hyde Park Corner, allowing a truck to move between them. Up Park Lane Rawlings had one momentary misgiving: there