Gambit, David Hagberg [most life changing books .TXT] 📗

McGarvey shook his head. “We need to talk to him, Doc. Wake him up.”

Franklin nodded, a heavy look in his eyes. “This guy was just the start, is that what you’re telling me?”

“It’s one of the things we want to ask him,” McGarvey said.

“Ten minutes,” Franklin said. He turned to go, but Pete stopped him.

“What will you use?” she asked.

“Midazolam.”

“Try flunitrazepam.”

“Could cause a heart arrhythmia. Possibly fatal.”

Pete said nothing.

“Ten minutes,” McGarvey said.

Slatkin had been wheeled into the adjacent recovery room where he lay on a gurney, a blanket up to his chest. He was hooked to several monitors, including one for his heart that showed a steady but weak rhythm, plus oxygen and an IV bottle.

Helen Berliner, one of the nurses who had taken care of both Mac and Pete on more than one occasion, was there when they came in. “Doctor says I can stay with you if you need me.”

“No reason for you to get your hands dirty,” McGarvey said.

She glanced at the patient. “It was another close call for you, wasn’t it, Mr. Director?”

“He’s lying there this time, not one of us, Helen.”

“Just as well. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

“When will he come around?” Pete asked.

Helen looked at Slatkin. “He’s awake now,” she said, and she left.

“I’ll go first,” Pete said. She went to the bed and gently caressed the South African’s pale cheek with her fingertips.

Slatkin’s eyes opened.

“You’ve been shot, and you’re in a hospital now. Do you understand me?”

The lights in the room were not so bright that he couldn’t see McGarvey just behind Pete. His eyes widened slightly, but then focused again on Pete. “Yes,” he croaked, his voice very weak and ragged.

“We found your account in Guernsey; we know about the payment of $250,000. What we don’t know yet is who made the payment. Will you tell me?”

Slatkin said nothing.

“You need a new kidney, and your liver has been damaged. But the doctor believes that he can save your life.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what doctors do.”

“I mean, why bother,” Slatkin said. He looked past her at McGarvey. “I missed. And if I walked out of here, your husband would find me and kill me. It’s the way he’s always worked.”

“You read the wrong files, or you didn’t pay attention to what you were looking at. When he’s shot at, he shoots back.”

“Everyone who’s come up against him has died.”

“He’s a very good shot. Maybe you’ll be the exception. Help us and we’ll help you. You have my word.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“No reason, except you’ll die without us.”

Slatkin managed a weak smile. “I’d die anyway. My expediter would make sure of it. We only talked once, but I could hear it in her voice. She has more money than God, and she’s always gotten what she wants.”

McGarvey held his silence. It was the first decent clue they’d come up with.

“That what they taught you at the Recces?” Pete asked.

“Bitch,” Slatkin said, and he turned his head away.

“We can protect you if you’ll help us. Whoever your expediter is, she doesn’t have more money than we do.”

“When’s the last time you met her?” McGarvey asked.

“Never did.”

“Then how do you know she’s a woman? And rich?”

“My contact made a mistake.”

“Tell me about it,” Pete said.

“That’s all I know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Leonard.”

“Sampson?” Pete asked.

“Slatkin.”

“Why did you leave the Recces?”

“I fucked an officer’s daughter.”

“Why didn’t they put you in jail?”

“It wasn’t rape,” Slatkin said. “She was twenty. A bitch, like all of you.” He suddenly tore at the oxygen tube and IV and managed to raise himself up to a sitting position and reached for Pete.

She pushed his hand away and tried to ease him back on the gurney, but he fought her.

Blood suddenly began to spread on the blanket at waist level, and he began coughing up a lot of blood. He swung his fists wildly, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.

“Fuck you all,” he whispered, and he fell back, his mouth open as if he were trying to take a deep breath, but his chest fell still.

EIGHT

Thomas Bell was aboard the British Airways 747–400 to Athens thirty minutes before its departure time, a glass of Krug in hand. Eighty-two C on the upper deck was a flatbed configuration. His partner in the window seat was a vaguely familiar middle-aged American woman by the name of Carol Grace who was flying to Athens to star in an English version of the stage play Cabaret.

The thought of sleeping so close to her on the long flight across the pond was enticing, though nothing could possibly happen, but the thought was there nevertheless, and it pushed his good mood even higher.

“Thing is, I hate to fly,” she told him as the aircraft was closed up and they pushed away from the gate. “Always have.”

“You’ll sleep through most of it,” Bell said. At a bit over six feet with a movie star’s face and physique to match, he turned heads wherever he went. It’s one of the reasons he’d been hired at the Palais.

She smiled nervously. “Oh no,” she said. “I never sleep on these things. What if it crashes? They do sometimes.”

“Well, you’ll be a hell of a lot safer on this flight than you were in the cab out from the city. Pardon the language.”

She laughed, the sound music to Bell’s ears.

It seemed like ages since he’d been with a woman. The past three months had been nothing but business since the German Dottie Hauskelter had shown up at the high roller baccarat room and had bedded him that night and offered him a job that would pay one hundred times his salary, commissions, and tips.

He’d taken the job as the contact man for an assassin. He’d been taken aback at first by the nature of his job, but he had shrugged it off. The money was fabulous, and there was the promise that Dottie would return from Berlin from time to time to renew their acquaintances, as