Gambit Read online

  “Go on the hunt myself,” Li said, and she suddenly had it. “Do you think that he would set a trap, using his new wife as bait?”

  “I think it’s a possibility that we have to consider.”

  She shrugged. “His love must not run deep if he is willing to place his wife in front of an assassin’s bullet.”

  “Unless he knows something that we don’t.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I have an idea, and you’re going to be my star player.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  * * *

  They checked into the Grand Hotel Kempinski on the south shore of Lac Leman—Lake Geneva—under British passports that identified them as Austin and Claire Stilwell, husband and wife from London. Their accents were good, but not over the top.

  In the many SOF schools they’d attended, they had been pegged almost immediately because of their looks for operations in English-speaking countries. They had been taught to speak in either an Oxford or upper-class Harvard accent. Even their French and German, though good but obviously not their native tongue, had a strong Oxford or Harvard accent depending on what passports they were carrying.

  They had booked a suite overlooking the lake for their three-day stay and presented an American Express platinum card at check-in. He was dressed casually in a soft gray Armani suit, a white silk shirt open at the high collar, Gucci loafers, and a blond wig covering his dark hair, while Li wore a short off-white skirt, spike heels, and a sheer, nearly see-through soft yellow blouse, under which she wore a skin-tone bra. Her wig was short and red. Their appearances matched their passport photos.

  They meant to call attention to themselves. In Hammond’s parlance, they were just at the edges of the players circuit, a little too flashy, but nearly there. Heads turned when they walked into a lobby or bar.

  Upstairs, they tipped the bellman well and ordered a bottle of Krug from room service. When it came, they each had a couple of sips, and then Li poured the remainder of the bottle down the bathroom sink.

  Taio took a pair of matching shoulder bags from one of their suitcases, and they packed them with jeans, a light pullover sweater and boat shoes for him, a chambray shirt, spangly jeans, and pink Sketchers for her, plus two sets of American passports and driver’s licenses for each of them in the names Frank and Judy Kane from Waltham, Massachusetts, and George and Carolyn Schilling from Minneapolis, Minnesota, that they’d hidden in the lining of the suitcase, along with a little over five thousand euros and ten thousand American dollars.

  They had not brought firearms with them, nor would they attempt to take any through customs in the U.S. Almost everywhere they’d ever operated, they armed themselves with whatever weapons they needed from local sources.

  “Time to go to work,” he told Li, and they left the hotel with only the shoulder bags. Everything else would be left behind.

  * * *

  In just about every major city in the world, there were experts of one sort or another for clandestine hire. In Amsterdam and Paris, hackers were predominant. In London and Zurich, there were financial wizards who knew everything there was to know about money laundering. In Beijing and Seattle, the best internet device designers and plunderers had set up shop. Long rifles and handguns were easy to get in New York and Chicago despite tough gun laws. Man-launched missiles were for sale in Las Vegas. Surveillance equipment, a lot of it Russian designed but pirated from Cuba, was available in Miami. And in Billings, Montana, and Fargo, North Dakota, explosives were for sale in just about every back alley. If you knew where to look and who to call, you could get just about anything for a price.

  Here in Geneva were a handful of the best plastic surgeons and disguise geniuses in the world, outside the CIA and the Chinese and Russian intelligence agencies.

  Once they were clear of the hotel but still on foot, Taio phoned Dr. Wolfhardt Buerger, a man they’d worked with once several years ago. The doctor was a seventy-two-year-old coke addict, wife beater, and child molester. But he was the best in the business.

  “Unless you have a lot of fucking money, leave me alone,” the man said in English.

  “More money than you can spend in the rest of your miserable life,” Taio answered.

  Buerger laughed. “I recognize that limey bastard accent anywhere. Whatever it’s to be this time will cost you twice as much as last.”

  “Are you at the same place?”

  “I moved last year to Vieille Ville.” It was the historic district of the city, some buildings dating back to the fourteenth century. He gave them a number not far from the Bourg-de-Four, which was a large public square filled with elegant cafés.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “He’s come up in the world,” Li said when Taio hung up.

  “In part because of us. But I think we’ll also be his last.”

  Li was troubled. “What is it?”

  “I think he is on the verge of becoming a serious problem.”

  “The cocaine?”

  “His attitude. He sounded invincible.”

  “Do you think he’s being watched?”

  It was something Taio had considered. “We’ll make sure before we go in. But when he’s finished, we’ll dispose of him.”

  Li put a hand on her husband’s arm, stopping him. “There are others in the business who can help us.”

  “None as good.”

  “We don’t need this job. Return the money, and let’s walk away.”

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  Understanding dawned in Li’s eyes. “You want this assignment. You admire McGarvey.”

  “Shi de.”

  “Careful you don’t get us killed.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  McGarvey rented a Toyota SUV with deeply tinted windows from Hertz at the airport up in Sarasota using a set of ID creds under the name of Isaac Rogers from his go-to-hell kit.

  Outside, he picked up Pete, who’d parked the restored Porsche Speedster in the short-term lot, and they headed up to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, fifty miles north.

  Home to a number of units, MacDill also hosted the U.S. Central Command, USCENTCOM, that planned the wars in Iraq. Real-time intelligence was of vital importance to the unit; thus from the beginning, there’d been a very close bond with the CIA.

  Yesterday, McGarvey had called Otto and outlined the plan for bunkering in on Casey Key, with the alternate of the Whitby out in the Gulf. Aside from a Glock 20 and two Walther PPKs in the rare 9mm version, plus Pete’s subcompact Glock 29 Gen4 and the Very pistol aboard the boat, they had no other weapons.

  “I know what you need, and I can get the hardware from MacDill,” Otto had said. “But do you want anything heavy? Semtex, maybe, or even a man-held missile launcher?”

  “No. First of all, I don’t want to make a major splash, unless they come after us by air when we’re out on the boat, in which case, a long gun will do. And if at all feasible, I want to take whoever they send us as undamaged as possible.”

  “You’ll need pistols for several locations in the house, by the pool and in the gazebo, the standard Beretta 9mm, plus plenty of ammunition for each. Nothing fancy, but reliable with decent stopping power at short range.”

  “One for the boat as well.”

  “Hang on; I’m looking at the armory inventory,” Otto said.

  They were in the gazebo, Mac’s phone on speaker mode, the volume down. Otto had beefed up security in and outside the house out to a radius of two hundred meters, which included out into the Gulf and across the Intracoastal Waterway.

  Otto was back. “Okay, I’m getting you a couple of Heckler & Koch MP7A1 submachine guns, one for each of you to carry around. These will be the 4.6mm×30 iterations, with a lot more stopping power than the standard 9×19. Plus plenty of ammunition so that if it comes to a down-and-dirty gunfight, you’ll have serious muscle on your side.”

  Pete nodded. “I’ve fired it on the Farm. I wouldn’t want to f
ace it.”

  “If you head out on the boat, whatever will be coming at you will either present a relatively slow-moving surface target or something faster in the air. One of you will be driving the boat while the other will be shooting back. We’ll stick with Heckler & Koch. The HK323 assault rifle.”

  “We want the heavier round,” McGarvey said.

  “I’m seeing the model SG1 with the Trijicon optical sight. Is that what you want?” Otto asked. “It’s chambered for the 7.62×51mm round.”

  “That’d damn near stop a tank,” Pete said.

  “Get us two plus plenty of ammunition,” McGarvey said.

  “Done. Flash-bang grenades?”

  “They leave too much residue to clean up. But get us a couple of tactical lights, something bright enough to momentarily blind someone.”

  “Are you expecting more than one shooter?” Otto asked after a slight pause.

  “It could be an entire assault team. But whoever it is will be better than the first two, I’m sure of at least that much.”

  “Whoever the expediter is will have to have access to a decent amount of untraceable money,” Otto said. “I’ll put Lou to work on it again.”

  “But don’t rule out foreign sources,” Pete said. “Maybe we’ve put too much emphasis on someone homegrown.”

  “Nothing domestic or foreign has shown up on my radar.”

  “Nothing with connections to a governmental agency,” McGarvey interjected.

  “Yeah,” Otto said dejectedly. “But that leaves the rest of the eight billion plus people on the planet to check out.”

  “How about the movie star broad and her billionaire boyfriend?” Pete asked. “We crossed them last year in Cannes and Monaco; maybe they’re holding a grudge.”

  “They’re players—not someone likely to hire a killer. Anyway, to this point, they come up clean.”

  * * *

  Otto had called ahead so that when they arrived at the gate, an escort wearing BDUs with captain’s bars was waiting for them in a dark blue Ford Explorer with air force markings. He was well over six feet and very lean, with dark hair and narrow dark eyes. His name tag read MILLER, and he was all business.

  Mac pulled over, and the captain came back. “May I see some IDs?”

  They handed out their real driver’s licenses, which the officer studied intently, checking their faces against the photos before he handed them back.

  “Could you tell me the name of the gentleman who made the reservations?”

  “Otto Rencke.”

  “Yes, sir,” Miller said. “If you’ll just follow me, we’ll head over to pick up your package. Do not deviate from my tail, or you will be subject to arrest. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Mac said.

  The captain got back in his SUV and was saluted through the gate by one of the APs on duty, who then turned away without acknowledging McGarvey.

  The sprawling base that bordered on Tampa Bay was huge, and it took nearly ten minutes to reach an aircraft hangar just off the active runway as a KC-135 Stratotanker was lifting off.

  Miller drove inside and pulled up in the far corner where a pair of airmen in work uniforms and hard hats were waiting next to a package about the size of a four-drawer file cabinet that was shrink-wrapped in dark brown opaque plastic and lying on its side on a pallet.

  McGarvey pulled up next to it and popped the rear hatch, and he and Pete stowed the rear seats in their wells.

  The airmen, both of them the size of football linebackers, hefted the package with some difficulty and loaded it into the back of the Toyota, which sank a little on its shocks. One of them closed the hatch, and both of them saluted the captain and left by a rear service door.

  “Would you like me to sign something?” McGarvey asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I may need it for a few days.”

  “This afternoon, the items will be reported captured in action by Taliban forces. When you have no further need, have them destroyed.”

  “I think we can manage,” McGarvey said.

  The captain cracked the slightest of smiles. “I’m sure Housekeeping would be happy to accommodate you. And good hunting, Mr. Director.”

  * * *

  They were escorted off the base and made the run to the airport in Sarasota, where Pete got into the Porsche and followed Mac down to Casey Key. He backed the Toyota into the garage and shut the door as soon as Pete parked the Speedster and joined him.

  “It’s a safe bet the two of us aren’t going to lift that thing, let alone carry it into the house,” Pete said.

  She got a box cutter from the workbench as Mac opened the rear hatch and manhandled the weapons package to the tipping point, easing it onto the floor and then over on its side.

  Pete used the cutter as Mac peeled the several layers of heavy plastic away, revealing the cache of weapons that were cushioned by a thick layer of foam rubber atop a half-dozen ammunition boxes.

  Pete was impressed. “We could start World War III right here,” she said. “But I’m glad this stuff is in our garage, not in the hands of some Taliban fighters out there.”

  The sheer firepower in front of them was impressive even to McGarvey.

  He took Pete in his arms. “I want you to listen to me for once in your life.”

  She looked up at him. “Don’t even say it, Kirk, because there’s not one chance in hell I’m leaving here until we get this shit resolved.”

  “I could order you to go.”

  She laughed. “Do you suppose that would work, darling? Really?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Dr. Buerger had changed radically since the last time Taio and Li had been to see him for some cosmetic work about three years ago. In that time, he had deteriorated; the pallor of his sagging skin almost made it look as if he had been dead for twenty-four hours or more. His eyes had become pale as well, and he had a bad body odor as if he hadn’t bathed in a week or more. Even his hair had turned gray and had thinned. And although he’d never been a large man, now he was practically a skeleton.

  Li was visibly shaken. “Maybe we’ll come back next week,” she said.

  Taio wanted to agree with her, and he was about to say so when Buerger stuck out his hands at arm’s length, both of them as steady as a rock.

  “You’re right, I do look like shit, but my hands still work, and so does my brain. So if you want something from me, I’ll require your respect as well as your money, you Chink bastards.”

  Buerger had answered the bell and let them into the front stair hall of his three-story house, which was all dark wood and pale plaster walls, on which were hung fine paintings—many, if not all of them, Taio thought, were originals. And although the doctor looked like a wreck, the house was immaculate, especially the parlor on the second floor and even more so his work space on the third, looking down on a mews in the rear.

  His laboratory, as he called it, using the British pronunciation, was a miniature but very well-equipped scientific station with a binocular microscope and other equipment, including a compact electron microscope in one corner. In another was a first-rate photo studio and worktable with the tools to produce perfect IDs, including driving licenses, social security cards, and passports for any country in the world. In another was a dentist’s chair in which minor plastic surgeries could be performed, along with hair implants, various colors of contact lenses, and makeup that was so waterproof it could last for weeks even though the operator took showers daily.

  The entire operation was state of the art, to match the man’s expertise, which was rumored had been perfected in the Bundesnachrichtendienst—the BND—which was the German secret intelligence service, among the very best in the world.

  “You have housekeepers,” Li said.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Will we be disturbed anytime soon?” Taio asked.

  “Not for six days, and I could hold them off longer than that, depending on what you want me to do. In any event, they nev
er come to this floor.”

  Li looked at her husband and shrugged. It was his call.

  Taio took out his Frank Kane passport, Li gave him hers, and he handed both of them to the doctor, who took them over to his credentials workstation, flipped on a strong magnifying light, and examined them for just a few moments each.

  “Nice work,” he said, looking up.

  “It’s yours,” Taio said.

  “I know. But you’ve never used them, or the other set I made for you until now?”

  “Once just after you altered our appearances.”

  “Then wouldn’t you consider it dangerous to use the same identities again?”

  “These identifications are on no database anywhere. We made sure of it before deciding to use them again.”

  The differences in their present appearances now and what they looked like in both sets of passports were small. Taio’s head was bald then, he had a mustache and wore blue contacts, over which he wore glasses with thick dark frames. Li had long blond hair and green contacts. But the biggest change was the pigment of their skin. Taio was pale, while Li was tanned. And the changes had been made to their entire bodies, so if for some reason they were ever subjected to a strip search, the coloring would look perfectly natural.

  The last time they’d gone through the changes, Buerger had lingered over the nipples of Li’s small breasts and the area on either side of her pudenda. Taio hadn’t liked it at all, and she had seen that he was on the verge of breaking the man’s neck then and there. But she had signaled to him that it was okay, she would bear it.

  They had discussed it on the way over, and Taio had promised that this time the doctor would die.

  “Good, because if you don’t kill the bastard when he’s done with us, I’ll do it myself. With a great deal of pleasure.”

  “Did you think to bring the glasses and contacts with you?” Buerger asked.

  “We destroyed them when we finished our operation,” Taio said.