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To Kimberly with love

Contents

Morning

Noon

Night

Allow the morning sun to warm

Your heart when you are young

And let the soft winds of noon

Cool your passion,

But beware the night

For death lurks there,

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

ARTHUR RIMBAUD

Dmitri asked, ‘Do you know we’re being followed, Mr Stanford?’

‘Yes. ’ He had been aware of them for the past twenty-four hours.

The two men and the woman were dressed casually, attempting to blend in with the summer tourists strolling along the cobbled streets in the early morning, but it was difficult to remain inconspicuous in a place as small as the fortified village of St-Paul-de-Vence.

Harry Stanford had first noticed them because they were too casual, trying too hard not to look at him. Wherever he turned, one of them was in the background.

Harry Stanford was an easy target to follow. He was six feet tall, with white hair lapping over his collar and an aristocratic, almost imperious face. He was accompanied by a strikingly lovely young brunette, a pure-white German shepherd, and Dmitri Kaminsky, a six-foot four-inch bodyguard with a bulging neck and sloping forehead.

He knew who had sent them and why, and he was filled with a sense of imminent danger. He had learned long ago to trust his instincts. Instinct and intuition had helped make him one of the wealthiest men in the world. Forbes magazine estimated the value of Stanford Enterprises at six billion dollars, while the Fortune 500 appraised it at seven billion. The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and the Financial Times had all done profiles on Harry Stanford, trying to explain his mystique, his amazing sense of timing, the ineffable acumen that had created the giant Stanford Enterprises. None had fully succeeded.