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

quiet. He reached for his pistol at the same moment he heard her singing some country-and-western downstairs. It was something she only did when everything was right in her world, and he had to smile just a little.

No attack had come in the night, for which he was grateful, and yet he wanted it to be over with.

“Good morning, Mac,” Lou said. “Did you sleep well?”

“No,” McGarvey said. “Where’s Otto?”

“Here,” Otto said.

“How about running down the modus operandi for high-value hits over the past couple of years that are still unsolved?”

“Already on it, but other than Slatkin’s trick with the clear tape over a hole in a window, nothing pops out from the background noise. The polonium poisoning of Litvinenko in London, a couple of long-range rifle shots, and one case in which a kilo of Semtex was put under the backseat of the Chinese ambassador to North Korea’s limo—which was overkill—there’s no set patterns that we can find.”

“But if whoever is coming after you has upped their game and hired someone really good, it might be that the contractors are so good, they do it differently each time,” Mary broke in.

“Or it’s over and whoever’s targeting you has called it a day,” Otto suggested.

“I don’t think so,” McGarvey said.

Pete appeared at the door. “I don’t either,” she said. She’d brought a cup of coffee for Mac.

“It won’t hurt to keep a tight watch for at least the next day or two, but after that, I don’t know what to tell you two, except that keeping cooped up would drive anyone nuts,” Mary said.

“If nothing happens today or tonight, we’re going to take the boat out into the Gulf,” McGarvey said.

“With a big target on your backs,” Mary said.

“Same reason we’re not surrounded by SWAT teams in full gear. I want to take the bastard alive.”

“Making you even more vulnerable,” Otto said.

“But this time, I have Pete covering my six,” McGarvey said, finally accepting the inevitable.

Pete smiled but said nothing.

Purchasing the AR-15 had been ridiculously easy. After only a cursory check of Taio’s Minnesota driver’s license for any criminal activity, he and Li walked out the door with the assault rifle, three high-capacity magazines, and fifty rounds of ammunition, no questions asked.

Next, they stopped at a Walmart, where they got a bikini, a cover-up, sandals, and a floppy hat for her and a swimsuit, sandals, and a baseball cap for him. They also bought a compact beach umbrella in a small nylon bag, plus sunglasses for both of them.

Back at the hotel, Taio parked in the rear lot, well away from the front entrance with the trunk of the car facing the hotel. While Li leaned against the side of the car to act as lookout, Taio opened the trunk, pulled the umbrella out of its bag, loaded all three magazines for the AR-15, and stuffed the gun and the mags into the bag.

They entered the hotel through the back door and went up to their room, where they changed into the beachwear.

Watching his wife undress, Taio had the almost overwhelming urge to say the hell with the mission for the day and instead stay here where they could make love all afternoon. They could do the op tonight or even tomorrow.

Li caught his image in the mirror as she fixed the bra clasp, and she had to smile as she turned. “Actually, I would rather us stay here.”

“Am I that obvious?”

“You always have been.”

She went to him, and they embraced. “Let’s make this our last operation,” she said earnestly. “Go back to Hong Kong and do tai chi in the morning, and from time to time take a trip. On a cruise ship, or maybe a safari in Africa, or see Saigon, Tokyo, Australia. Be real people. Tourists.”

“Starting tomorrow,” Taio promised, and he meant it.

They left the hotel the same way they’d come in, and as soon as they were in the car and on the road, Li brought up directions to Sporty’s Boat Rentals in Venice, about twenty miles to the south, and within easy striking distance to the McGarveys’ Casey Key redoubt.

FORTY-THREE

Susan had gone into Geneva to do some shopping after a late lunch, leaving Hammond alone at the villa working his phone and computer. Life went on, and so did business.

Although he had more financial advisers and planners than he could shake a stick at—half of them at the TH Enterprises tower in Los Angeles and the other thousand or so spread over offices on Wall Street near the stock exchange and on Chicago’s Loop—his most important business was his Strategic Liaison Group, what he referred to as his firemen.

Headed by A. Ramos Rodriguez, a Cuban-born whiz who’d received his M.D. Ph.D. in psychiatry with top honors from Harvard, along with his MBA on the side from the same university, ran the small office with only a handful of assistants just down the street from the UN.

Hammond’s business interests literally spanned the globe, everything from media in Germany, mining in China and several other countries, perfume and wines in France, and of course a presence in a half dozen of the world’s top stock exchanges. Rodriguez’s specialty was meeting with and evaluating the financial advisers to the UN delegates from the countries he operated in and a few he wanted to do business with.

It was well after four in the afternoon, and Susan wasn’t back yet when Rodriguez called from Washington. He sounded stressed, something unusual for him.

“I’ve been trying to get you all day. I thought you were aboard your yacht.”

“Alaska was a bore. Is there a problem?”

“I don’t know, but something is definitely in the wind.”

“Don’t be cryptic, Arturo.”

“Last night, I had dinner and drinks with Viktor Kuprik at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central—one of his favorite eateries in New York, which he says is good for his libido. Afterward, we went to a male strip club over on Tenth, another one of his hangouts.”

“He’s gay?”

“Repressed, and I’m the only