Sidney Sheldon - If Tomorrow Comes

And there, Tracy had decided, was the weakness in the system. She had needed to devise a way to keep the alarm silent until after the safe was opened. At 6:30 in the morning she had found the solution. The burglary was possible, and Tracy had felt that familiar feeling of excitement begin to build within her.

Now, she slipped the infrared goggles on, and instantly everything in the room took on an eerie red glow. In front of the attic door Tracy saw a beam of light that would have been invisible without the glasses.

“Slip under it,” she warned Jean Louis. “Careful.”

They crawled under the beam and found themselves in a dark hallway leading to Count de Matigny's bedroom. Tracy flicked on the flashlight and led the way. Through the infrared goggles, Tracy saw another light beam, this one low across the threshold of the bedroom door. Gingerly, she jumped over it. Jean Louis was right behind her.

Tracy played her flashlight around the walls, and there were the paintings, impressive, awesome.

Promise to bring me the Leonardo, Gunther had said. And of course the jewelry.

Tracy took down the picture, turned it over, and laid it on the floor. She carefully removed it from its frame, rolled up the vellum, and stored it in her shoulder bag. All that remained now was to get into the safe, which stood in a curtained alcove at the far end of the bedroom.

Tracy opened the curtains. Four infrared lights transversed the alcove, from the floor to the ceiling, crisscrossing one another. It was impossible to reach the safe without breaking one of the beams.

Jean Louis stared at the beams with dismay. “Bon Dieu de merde! We can't get through those. They're too low to crawl under and too high to jump over.”

“I want you to do just as I tell you,” Tracy said. She stepped in back of him and put her arms tightly around his waist. “Now, walk with me. Left foot first.”

Together, they took a step toward the beams, then another.

Jean Louis breathed, “Alors! We're going into them!”

“Right.”

They moved directly into the center of the beams, where they converged, and Tracy stopped.

“Now, listen carefully,” she said. “I want you to walk over to the safe.”

“But the beams —”

“Don't worry. It will be all right.” She fervently hoped she was right.

Hesitantly, Jean Louis stepped out of the infrared beams. All was quiet. He looked back at Tracy with large, frightened eyes. She was standing in the middle of the beams, her body heat keeping the sensors from sounding the alarm. Jean Louis hurried over to the safe. Tracy stood stock-still, aware that the instant she moved, the alarm would sound.

Out of the corner of one eye, Tracy could see Jean Louis as he removed some tools from his pack and began to work on the dial of the safe. Tracy stood motionless, taking slow, deep breaths. Time stopped. Jean Louis seemed to be taking forever. The calf of Tracy's right leg began to ache, then went into spasm. Tracy gritted her teeth. She dared not move.

“How long?” she whispered.

“Ten, fifteen minutes.”

It seemed to Tracy she had been standing there a lifetime. The leg muscles in her left leg were beginning to cramp. She felt like screaming from the pain. She was pinned in the beams, frozen. She heard a click. The safe was open.

“Magnifique! C'est la banque! Do you wish everything?” Jean Louis asked.

“No papers. Only the jewels. Whatever cash is there is yours.”

“Merci.”

Tracy heard Jean Louis riffling through the safe, and a few moments later he was walking toward her.

“Formidable!” he said. “But how do we get out of here without breaking the beam?”

“We don't,” Tracy informed him.

He stared at her. “What?”

“Stand in front of me.”

“But —”

“Do as I say.”

Panicky, Jean Louis stepped into the beam.

Tracy held her breath. Nothing happened. “All right. Now, very slowly, we're going to back out of the room.”

“And then?” Jean Louis's eyes looked enormous behind the goggles.

“Then, my friend, we run for it.”

Inch by inch, they backed through the beams toward the curtains, where the beams began. When they reached them, Tracy took a deep breath. “Right. When I say now, we go out the same way we came in.”

Jean Louis swallowed and nodded. Tracy could feel his small body tremble.

“Now!”

Tracy spun around and raced toward the door, Jean Louis after her. The instant they stepped out of the beams, the alarm sounded. The noise was deafening, shattering.

Tracy streaked to the attic and scurried up the hook ladder, Jean Louis close behind. They raced across the roof and clambered down the ivy, and the two of them sped across the grounds toward the wall where the second ladder was waiting. Moments later they reached the roof of the van and scurried down. Tracy leapt into the driver's seat, Jean Louis at her side.

As the van raced down the side road, Tracy saw a dark sedan parked under a grove of trees. For an instant the headlights of the van lit the interior of the car. Behind the wheel sat Jeff Stevens. At his side was a large Doberman. Tracy laughed aloud and blew a kiss to Jeff as the van sped away.

From the distance came the wail of approaching police sirens.

Biarritz, on the southwestern coast of France, has lost much of its turn-of-the-century glamour. The once-famed Casino Bellevue is closed for badly needed repairs, while the Casino Municipal on Rue Mazagran is now a run-down building housing small shops and a dancing school. The old villas on the hills have taken on a look of shabby gentility.

Still, in high season, from July to September, the wealthy and titled of Europe continue to flock to Biarritz to enjoy the gambling and the sun and their memories. Those who do not have their own chвteaus stay at the luxurious Hфtel du Palais, at 1 Avenue Impйratrice. The former summer residence of Napoleon III, the hotel is situated on a promontory over the Atlantic Ocean, in one of nature's most spectacular settings: a lighthouse on one side, flanked by huge jagged rocks looming out of the gray ocean like prehistoric monsters, and the boardwalk on the other side.

On an afternoon in late August the French Baroness Marguerite de Chantilly swept into the lobby of the Hфtel du Palais. The baroness was an elegant young woman with a sleek cap of ash-blond hair. She wore a green-and-white silk Givency dress that set off a figure that made the women turn and watch her enviously, and the men gape.

The baroness walked up to the concierge. “Ma clй, s'il vous plaоt,” she said. She had a charming French accent.

“Certainly, Baroness.” He handed Tracy her key and several telephone messages.

As Tracy walked toward the elevator, a bespectacled, rumpled-looking man turned abruptly away from the vitrine displaying Hermes scarves and crashed into her, knocking the purse from her hand.

“Oh, dear,” he said. “I'm terribly sorry.” He picked up her purse and handed it to her. “Please forgive me.” He spoke with a Middle European accent.

The Baroness Marguerite de Chantilly gave him an imperious nod and moved on.

An attendant ushered her into the elevator and let her off at the third floor. Tracy had chosen Suite 312, having learned that often the selection of the hotel accommodations was as important as the hotel itself. In Capri, it was Bungalow 522 in the Quisisana. In Majorca, it was the Royal Suite of Son Vida, overlooking the mountains and the distant bay. In New York, it was Tower Suite 4717 at The Helmsley Palace Hotel, and in Amsterdam, Room 325 at the Amstel, where one was lulled to sleep by the soothing lapping of the canal waters.

Suite 312 at the Hфtel du Palais had a panoramic view of both the ocean and the city. From every window Tracy could watch the waves crashing against the timeless rocks protruding from the sea like drowning figures. Directly below her window was an enormous kidney-shaped swimming pool, its bright blue water clashing with the gray of the ocean, and next to it a large terrace with umbrellas to ward off the summer sun. The walls of the suite were upholstered in blue-and-white silk damask, with marble baseboards, and the rugs and curtains were the color of faded sweetheart roses. The wood of the doors and shutters was stained with the soft patina of time.