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have an answer.
     
    ~ * ~
     
     
     
     
    4
     
     
     
     
    ‘Two point three million dollars. Milllion .’ Marcellus Jaspernik stares out the window of his large office at the lush, French countryside beyond. ‘ Milllion . Such a great word. It really gets the point across. So that brings the total they’ve stolen to . . .’ The rotund sixty-five-year-old German clicks his fingers as he tries to remember: ‘Do we know how much they’ve stolen, in total?’
     
    Claude Michelle rises from his desk outside and enters the sprawling office. ‘Christ, can’t you remember anything ?’
     
    ‘That is why I have you.’
     
    ‘Just under eight million, sir. That’s the retail value of all the robberies so far.’ Claude’s French accent is as thick as hollandaise.
     
    ‘Right. Eight milllion.’ Marcellus is impressed by the number. ‘That’s really quite a lot.’ Then he thinks about it. ‘Of course it would have been divided by three so that’s—well, that’s not much after all.’
     
    ‘It’s more than my Grandpa earned his entire life.’
     
    ‘Then clearly Grandpa wasn’t trying hard enough.’
     
    ‘Ha ha, sir.’ The forty-six-year-old Claude feigns laughter. ‘Har-dee-ha.’
     
    ‘So, do we have anything on them or is it the same old same old?’
     
    The stocky Frenchman had worked as the executive assistant to Marcellus, the head of Interpol’s Criminal Investigation Department, for five years so he knows what his German overlord means when he says ‘same old same old’. The Melbourne job was the fifth robbery this crew had pulled in the last eight months and, so far, they had not left one single clue. Not a fingerprint or a strand of hair or scuff mark that could be used to uncover who they were, where they’d been or where they might be going next. Marcellus didn’t expect there’d be anything from the heist in Melbourne either—but he was wrong. ‘Actually there is one thing I thought you should see.’
     
    ‘And what, pray tell, might it be?’
     
    ‘It’s not an “if” so much as a “‘who”.’ Claude moves to Marcellus’s desk and works the iMac’s mouse. The screen fills with a video frame.
     
    Marcellus turns and studies it. ‘What am I looking at?’
     
    ‘His name is Billy Hotchkiss. This is raw footage from the heist in Melbourne.’
     
    ‘Where’d you get it?’
     
    ‘It was collated by the Victorian PD from the security cameras in the area surrounding the getaway route. It just arrived.’ Claude hits play on the video file.
     
    The film begins with a low-quality, wide-angle, black-and-white image that could only be from a security camera. Within it a truck drags an armoured car, which is on its side, along the roadway. Marcellus takes it in. ‘It’s like that Brazilian job they did late last year.’
     
    Claude nods, winces as the armoured car clips a vehicle and sends it careering across the roadway. ‘It’s amazing there were no fatalities.’
     
    ‘So they dragged it how far?’
     
    ‘Five kilometres. Through the city to a disused railway yard where they used C-4 to blow open the rear door and gain access before they torched it.’
     
    The image cuts to another low-quality, black-and-white security camera shot. Marcellus notices something and leans forward. ‘What is that?’
     
    ‘That’s Billy Hotchkiss.’
     
    ‘He’s, what—following them on a Vespa?’ The bike wobbles into an epic tank-slapper. ‘Oops—owww, he held on to it!’ Marcellus is delighted. ‘That was excellent.’
     
    ‘If you think that’s good, wait for the next part.’
     
    Marcellus studies the screen, then leans in closer. ‘He’s—what’s he doing? He’s not going to, oh—he’s getting that guy off the armoured car!’ The German is both amazed and enthralled. ‘He’s getting him off the armoured car!’
     
    ‘He’s getting him off the armoured car.’
     
    ‘Does he know him? I mean, are they friends? Family?’
     
    ‘I