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

robe, a towel wrapped around her head.

“I ordered coffee,” she said. “And then we need to talk.”

“Yes.”

“Did you send the gold yet?”

“No.”

“That’s good, because we definitely need to talk, and it’s not about the money.”

Kathy Bliss knocked once at the door, then came in with a coffee service on a tray, which she put on the breakfast table across from the bed. “Good morning, guys. Shall I pour?”

“No, thanks, we’ll manage,” Susan said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are any of the others up yet?” Hammond asked.

“Only Mr. Novikov. He’s been up for an hour now and went for a swim.”

“In the Jacuzzi?”

“In the bay. It was a very short swim, and he went immediately into the Jacuzzi, where he’s on his third vodka.”

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,”