Gambit Page 13

  Susan laughed, and it sounded good to Hammond, like the old days, exciting and comforting at the same time. “All Russians are crazy bastards,” she said.

  Kathy inclined her head but said nothing as she left.

  When she was gone, Susan poured them coffee and sat on the bed, pillows propped up at her back. “What were they like?” she asked.

  “Dangerous,” Hammond said without even thinking about it.

  “Scorpions.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then you need to think this out, Tom. We both do, but I’m just as much a part of it as you are. I got blood on my hands in Greece.”

  “I know, and it’s only going to get worse,” Hammond said. It was the other thing he thought about all evening before bed.

  “This is not a movie. It’s real. And if McGarvey ever gets even a hint who’s after him, he’ll come after us, and there’s no power on earth that would be able to stop him. All our money combined wouldn’t keep us safe.”

  Hammond held his silence.

  “You’re frightened, Tommy boy, I can see it in your eyes. So let’s quit right now while we can.”

  “If we can,” Hammond said, and for just an instant he had no idea why he’d said such a thing.

  “This isn’t one of your business deals where you screw somebody out of a few bucks, and they get pissed off and promise that they’ll get even. We’re dealing with real-life killers now.”

  “Who work for money.”

  Susan looked at him and shook her head. “What the fuck are you telling me?”

  “This started out as a chess game. And we’ve sacrificed a couple of pieces.”

  “And money.”

  “Chump change,” Hammond said, and one part of him couldn’t believe what he was saying, and the fact that he meant it.

  “This time, you’re talking twenty-five mil, and that’s not chump change.”

  “I can do one trade and make ten times that before lunch. But that’s just a game now, too, and I’m getting tired of it. Bored.”

  “Making money’s not enough?”

  “No,” Hammond said, though a hell of a lot more than ten times the Chinese killers’ fee was at stake on the pipeline deal, something he’d not yet shared with Susan.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind, and I don’t know if I want to be a part of it any longer.”

  Hammond forced a smile, even less sure of himself now than after he’d hired the first contract killer, and yet more determined. In for a penny, his mother used to say, in for a pound. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s you with blood on your hands. And you loved it.”

  Susan turned away. “It scared me. This whole thing scares me.”

  “After Athens when you got back to the lake house, we made love like never before,” Hammond said. “Might sound trite, but for once in your life, you weren’t acting.”

  She flared, a little color coming to her cheeks. “Fuck you.”

  “Look, if you want to back out, go ahead. As soon as I get rid of our guests, I’m going to the yard in Italy.”

  “Yard?”

  “Codecasa.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Legend has it that when Rome burned, Nero fiddled. He played around, because he could. I’m going to do the same.”

  “Codecasa, where this ship was built,” Susan said, suddenly getting it. “You’ve ordered a new yacht?”

  “Not yet, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Newer, bigger, faster, better. And I’m going to need your help with design, inside and out. And with a new name. Maybe the Susan P.”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” Susan said, but she laughed.

  “If you don’t like it, I’ll leave the naming to you,” Hammond said, energized again. Alive. Aware. Happy.

  He got his iPhone and opened his email. A sixteen-digit number had been sent to him from an anonymous source.

  Susan watched him.

  He phoned his chief financial officer Charles Flickenger’s direct number in Los Angeles and got him on the second ring. They went back to the day Hammond had made his first half billion.

  “Good morning, Tom. How’s Alaska?”

  “Full of ice.”

  Flickenger chuckled. “You’ve cooked up a new deal. What’ll be this time?”

  Hammond read the number on his iPhone. “Recognize it?”

  “It’s an account number at the International Bank of Geneva. Do you want to raid it?”

  “I want you to send twelve point five million in gold.”

  “Dollars or euros?”

  “Euros.”

  “When?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Okay. So when do you think you’ll get tired of the cold weather?”

  “Susan and I are going back to Italy. We’re designing a new yacht.”

  “Sounds like you’re in another one of your spending moods,” Flickenger said. “Well, you can afford it.”

  “I know.”

  Susan put down her coffee, got out of bed, took off her robe, and lay back down, her nipples hard.

  “Gotta go,” Hammond told his financial officer.

  THIRTY

  McGarvey got a one o’clock appointment at the White House with the president’s chief of staff, Owen Sherman. He left Pete on campus with Otto and Mary and took a cab where he was admitted through the west gate and met by a staffer one minute early at the entrance to the West Wing.

  “If you’ll just come with me, Mr. Director,” the young, earnest man said.

  Mac followed him inside to a large corner office down the hall from the Oval Office, where Sherman was seated in front of an ornate coffee table. Harold Kallek, the director of the FBI, sat next to him, one empty chair across from the two men.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Director,” Sherman said as Mac sat down.

  Where Kallek was tall, all bony angles, with a long, narrow face and deep-set eyes, the president’s chief of staff was a short man, everything about him round—his frame, his bald head, even his nose. His nickname since high school had been Charlie Brown, and if he’d ever resented it, he’d never let on. In fact, he was anything but wishy-washy. He was a sharp, decisive man, very hard around the edges, never soft and round.

  “Considering your past service to the country and the recent happenings, the president is offering any help he can,” Sherman started. “I thought it would be appropriate to ask Harold to join us, if you have no objections.”

  “None whatsoever,” Mac said. “The more heads we can put together, the quicker we’ll get this resolved.”

  Kallek nodded. “Two attempts have been made on your life. We have a pretty good idea why, but not who.”

  “I’ve made a few enemies,” McGarvey said, not going any further for the moment. First he wanted to see how both men would handle his presence, because he was sure that Sherman as well as the president had an idea where Mac had already taken it.

  “A host of them,” Kallek said. “But this time, a South African and, of all people, a Canadian. Both men ex–Special Forces operators who apparently were working as contractors. But again, we come up against the same question—hired by whom?”

  “The Russians?” Sherman suggested.

  “It’s possible. But I don’t think it’ll turn out to be an intelligence agency–directed business. There’d be too much blowback if it turned out that Putin ordered me killed.”

  Sherman spread his hands. “But you have some ideas.”

  “A couple that the president will not like.”

  “We’ve gathered as much.”

  “Not too long ago, I had a run-in with a number of people in the Pentagon who wanted to bring President Weaver down.”

  “Yes, and the president continues to be grateful for your help.”

  A group of mid-level military intelligence officers had worked out a plot to create a series of false but realistic reports of incidents around the world at places that were considered possible nuclear flash p
oints. India-Pakistan the most critical. The idea was to dump so many major issues all at once on the president’s lap that he couldn’t possibly make the right decision.

  Weaver would have come out looking so totally incompetent, such a danger to the U.S. that he would have to be removed from office.

  “Are you thinking that someone still inside the Pentagon may be holding a grudge against you?” Kallek asked.

  “It’s possible.”

  “We don’t agree,” Sherman said. He got up, went to his desk, brought a thick file folder back, handed it to McGarvey, and sat down. “That’s an outline of a classified after-action report of the incident. It was spearheaded by the Bureau with the cooperation of the DIA and every other intelligence organization within the military. The insane plot was broken up thanks to you, and everyone involved was dealt with.”

  McGarvey put the folder on the table. “I know.”

  The FBI chief started to object, but Sherman held him off. “Mr. McGarvey, as all current and former CIA directors, has his sources. So far as we’re concerned, the business with anyone in the Pentagon holding grudges has been resolved.”

  “I thought that it might be, but there have been two attempts on my life, and I suspect that there will be more. I’m just checking all the boxes.”

  “Which is why you spoke with Colonel Ward,” Kallek said.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kallek said.

  “I’ll answer that,” Sherman said. “It’s about Marty Bambridge and Bill Rodak. Marty was a traitor inside the CIA, and Bill worked here as a senior adviser to the president. They were both involved in another plot. And Mr. McGarvey might suspect that one of their friends might be behind the attempts on his life. Is that about right?”

  “It’s a start,” Mac said, the meeting going exactly where he’d wanted it to go. Poke a stick into a hornet’s nest, Pete had said.

  “Are you sure that the CIA is clean?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “And now the White House,” Sherman said. “I suspect that you want to talk to the president, but I’d strongly advise against it. He’s grateful for your help, but presidents when pushed have a nasty habit of sometimes pushing back.”

  “In any event, you’re not here in any official capacity, Mr. McGarvey,” the FBI director said. “You’re here as a private citizen who is unfortunately—though not surprisingly—the target of two assassination attempts. It’s a problem for the Bureau, not the White House.”

  “I agree,” Mac said.

  Sherman was surprised. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “As I said, just covering my bases.” McGarvey got up. “I’ll take your advice and not bother the president this time.”

  “Trust me, Mr. Director, the Bureau is working the case,” Kallek said.

  “I know, and I appreciate your help.”

  “I’ve assigned people to cover your back.”

  “Thank you, I’ve spotted them, and so will the opposition if and when they show up again.”

  Sherman was skeptical. “What now?” he asked.

  “My wife and I are getting out of Washington. For now, we’re going back to Florida. Later, we might head to Serifos.”

  Sherman nodded. “It’s a little hot here right now,” he said. “In the meantime, you might want to take the after-action report with you. Though I’d like it back.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. “But I’ve already read it.”

  * * *

  The aide escorted Mac out and asked if he needed a cab to take him back.

  “It’s a nice day, thanks. Think I’ll walk.”

  Pete was waiting in her BMW around the corner on Madison Place next to Lafayette Park. He hurried across Pennsylvania Avenue and got in the passenger seat.

  “How’d it go?” she asked, pulling away from the curb.

  “The seeds have been planted.”

  “The DIA, which means the Pentagon, and now the White House,” Pete said. “What about the Bureau?”

  “Kallek was there in Sherman’s office.”

  “Did you get to see the president?”

  “I declined,” McGarvey said.

  Pete smiled. “Good thinking, but of course your meddling will get back to him as fast as Sherman’s chubby little legs will carry him down the hall.”

  “Yeah. And it’s about all we can do here in D.C. Time to go home.”

  “Casey Key or Serifos?”

  “Florida for now.”

  “And wait for the next shoe to drop,” Pete said, glancing at him. “Which it will.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  By the time they got back to their duplex on Repulse Bay, the twelve and a half million euros in gold had been deposited in their Swiss account as Li had predicted it would be. They had talked about it in roundabout terms on the long flight from Dulles, and Taio had expressed his doubt.

  Now in midafternoon, standing on the broad balcony, he turned as Li brought out a bottle of Cristal and two flutes. It was something they always did at the very beginning of each operation. After the wine this afternoon, neither of them would touch a drop of alcohol until they were finished and the final payment made.

  “I could see it in his eyes,” Li said, pouring for them. She handed Taio his.

  “All I could see was fear.”

  “He would be a fool not to be afraid. We know about Mr. McGarvey, and I’m sure that Hammond has his resources.”

  They touched glasses. The wine was very good and very cold, and Taio savored it. “That is one of my main concerns,” he said.

  “Hammond or his sources?”

  “His sources. I’d like to know who they are.”

  “Because?”

  “Because we may be forced to deal with them in the end,” Taio said.

  Li started to say something but then checked it for just a moment, until something suddenly dawned on her and she nodded. “Hammond may have used his sources to find us, and of course he’ll report hiring us.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I see your point. We don’t need to keep looking over our shoulders to see who is watching us. The question is, how do we find out, short of going back to Hammond?”

  “We don’t want to do that. He could withdraw his payment.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “We start by sanitizing our appearance, as usual, and then going deep, but leaving a back door open just a crack. If his source is any good, they’ll find us, and we’ll be waiting. If not, it won’t matter.”

  Li’s highly modified iPhone lying on the table triple chimed, which meant the incoming call was encrypted. Only her friend Phenix Zhe, who worked in the Technical Surveillance Department of the People’s Liberation Army general staff in Beijing, knew the number and had access to the sophisticated encryption algorithm. They’d known each other since childhood in primary school.

  Li answered the call, switching to speaker mode. “Hello, friend.”

  “You two are off on another operation, and I just thought that you should be warned about your client Thomas Hammond.”

  It was no secret between them that Zhe had access to their Swiss account from which she was paid small sums from time to time for intel that was generally only available to agencies at the governmental level.

  “Hello, Zhe, I’m listening as well,” Taio said.

  “Your target is a man by the name of Kirk McGarvey, who once served as the director of the American CIA.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We happen to have a friendly set of ears on his yacht in Alaska, who spotted you two coming aboard, but staying only briefly.”

  “Can we have his name, perhaps to reward him?” Taio asked.

  “No need at this time. But I called to tell you that Hammond and his lady friend, Susan Patterson, who is a Hollywood celebrity, are not as they seem to be.”

  “Shi de.” Yes. “We’ve already gathered that from meeting him.”

 
“Did he tell you that he wants Mr. McGarvey dead mostly for the sport of it?”

  “And for money he didn’t lose, but didn’t gain having to do with a cryptocurrency.”

  “Did he also tell you that he hired two other assassins who both failed?”

  “No,” Li said, exchanging glances with her husband. “Were either of these operators known to us?”

  “They were mostly local players in a very small pond—much smaller than your milieu. Both of them ex-military disgraced by minor infractions.”

  “Should we decline the operation?” Li asked.

  “That’s up to you two, but I would say that eliminating such a man as McGarvey would propel your reputations in the business to stellar levels.”

  “If we don’t fail,” Taio said.

  “Do you have his file?” Zhe asked.

  “We have a file.”

  “I’ll send you ours. And if you decide to proceed, I wish you very much luck.”

  * * *

  McGarvey’s file was extensive, running to more than two hundred pages, covering his life as a boy on a ranch in western Kansas, through his service in the air force’s Office of Special Investigation, then his recruitment and training by the CIA as a black ops player.

  His first assignments had been merely as a financial bagman into places such as Moscow, and even once into Beijing, though Chinese intelligence never knew about it until several years after the fact.

  His first wet assignment had been to take out a general in Chile who’d been responsible for the torture and executions of more than one thousand dissidents. In that assignment, McGarvey had also eliminated the general’s wife.

  Li had transferred the massive file to both their laptops, which they studied for the rest of the day, through dinner, and into the evening and bed, finally finishing around the same time just after three in the morning.

  Taio made a pot of tea just as Li was stirring, then went out to the patio to watch the lights of the city and to think about what he had learned. The fact that McGarvey was a formidable opponent had come as no surprise, though what was striking was the man’s apparent soft underbelly. He was a scholar of Voltaire, taught at a small, prestigious liberal arts college in Florida, and had even written a book about the French philosopher.