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

“Close your eyes, please,” he told her.

She looked at Taio, who nodded, and she closed her eyes.

He used a tiny aerosol sprayer to do her face, careful around her eyes and nostrils and completely avoiding her lips.

“You may open your eyes now, but do not touch your face,” Buerger said when he was finished. “Now once I’m finished with your arms and hands, I’ll have to touch certain parts of your body to make sure the spray gets to the natural folds and creases in your skin. You may be uncomfortable, but if you want a first-rate job that would stand up even to a gynecological examination, if it comes to that, you will pass.”

She nodded and closed her eyes again. “Quickly,” she said.

He was finished in fifteen minutes and had her lie there for another ten to allow the solution to completely dry before he let her up, and Taio took her place in the chair.

In the meantime, the doctor had laid out their contacts, Taio’s glasses, and the wig for Li. He changed the solution in the sprayer to lighten Taio’s already light skin a shade more, taking the same care to make certain the job was just as well done as it had been for Li.

“You’ll need to shave your head every couple of days.”

“I understand,” Taio said.

The entire process took less than two hours. When it was done, and they had examined their bodies and especially their faces in the full-length well-lit mirror, Taio turned toward the doctor.

“Very well done, and I expected it would be,” he said.

“Well enough for a bonus?” Buerger asked.

“I think so,” Taio said, and he nodded to Li, who had come up behind the doctor.

Before Buerger could turn around, Li took his head in both hands, and with a knee jammed into the base of his spine, she made a quick, very sharp twist, and the man’s neck broke.

He slumped to the floor, his eyes wide as he slowly died.

“He does nice work,” Li said.

“And so do you, my dear,” Taio told her.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Hammond and Susan flew back to Geneva, and once they had taxied across to his private hangar and the hatch had been opened to a warm early evening, he gave the flight crew the week off, transportation and all expenses anywhere in the world they wanted to go.

His pilot, John Davies, a relatively short, well-built man in his early forties with blond hair and blue eyes and the same good looks as Paul Newman had at that age, had been a fighter pilot for the air force before Hammond hired him. He was a no-nonsense man, married with two young children back in LA, and flying all over the world in just about every imaginable weather. He was a safety nut.

“I’ll take the plane back to LA—she’s ready for her annual—and spend the time with Meg and the kids, if you don’t mind. I can have it done and be back here in seven days.”

“That’s fine, but I’d like you to do one thing for me when you get home.”

“Sir?”

“Take your family somewhere exciting. Over the top, you know what I mean?”

“Maybe we’ll just stay home and soak in the pool.”

Hammond was slightly irritated, but he didn’t let it show. “Whatever you want, it’s on me. You’re a hell of a good pilot. I wouldn’t care to lose you.”

“No chance of that, sir.”

Once their bags were stowed in Susan’s Bentley, which their driver, Tommy Doyle, a Londoner in his fifties who’d been a race car driver when he was younger, had brought down from the villa, they took off from the airport.

“Would you and the miss like the top down, sir?” Doyle asked.

“No, just get us home,” Hammond said a little sharply. He was angry, but he didn’t really know why, except that he was goddamned tired of arguing with people. Antonio, who wanted to talk him out of the new yacht; Sophia, the designer who overrode Susan on just about every choice of styles; Davies not wanting to do anything on the boss’s nickel; and now Doyle, who didn’t know how to leave someone in peace.

Susan squeezed his arm, but he ignored her, delving into his own thoughts. He wanted the Chinese assassins to kill McGarvey, and yet he didn’t want it. He was afraid and yet flying high with the game he’d set in motion.

If McGarvey survived this round, it would be the next to the last. Two lone assassins had tried and failed, and if the Chinese Scorpions were taken down as well, Hammond knew he wouldn’t be able to go deep enough to survive without finishing the business. His and Susan’s public personas were just too large for either of them to hide. The only recourse, then, would be to send an overwhelming force to do the job.

Something like a SEAL Team 6 or Spetsnaz hit squad.

They wouldn’t be cheap, but this had never been about money. In his mind, it simply came down to survival—his or McGarvey’s.

Hammond’s cell buzzed, and it was Tarasov. “I’m at your house having a drink of some very good vodka—Russian, of course. I assume that you’ve spent an appreciable amount of money ordering your new yacht.”

“You’re having us watched,” Hammond said, even more irritated than just a couple of minutes ago.

“Of course I am, but I assure you that we’re only interested in your whereabouts, not your love life, nor your drinking or eating habits.”

“We?”

“Yes, my business partners in Moscow and Washington. We have a vested interest in you.”

“I thought you worked alone.”

“None of us ever do, though we like to make the world believe we do. Even you, Thomas, have your partnerships—me included.”

“I’ve set everything in motion, so now what the fuck do you want?”

“I want you to listen to a couple of recordings, and then there is a letter of intent to be signed.”

“Bullshit,” Hammond said, but Tarasov was gone.

“What is it?” Susan asked.

“Mikhail is at the