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

about to swivel on his heel while bringing the assault rifle to bear on anything that moved below, when he smelled a woman’s perfume and held up.

Mary came around the counter and refreshed Otto’s glass as she looked over his shoulder at the laptop screen. “What are you into?”

“I’m trying to match the dates of assassinations worldwide with before-and-after payments made to a dozen different Swiss and offshore accounts. I came up with one set of payments to a bank in Guernsey, the last one made three weeks ago, but it’s still open.”

“No second payment?”

“Right,” Otto said.

“Who’s the shooter? Mac’s South African?”

“It’s possible, but I’m not sure yet.”

“No name yet?”

“No.”

“Because you can’t gain access to the account details, only the raw income stream,” Mary said. “And in the meantime, Pete and Mac are in harm’s way right now, or on the verge of it.”

Otto looked up. “What are you thinking?”

“This guy’s got to be on someone’s radar.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been concentrating on income to that account. How about expenditures? What’s he spending his money on?”

“And how much does he have?” Otto said.

“My guess is that he’s building himself a nest egg so that he can retire. The question is where.”

“He already knows where,” Otto said, excited now.

“Right, and he’s made a down payment on his little beach hut in the sun,” Mary said. “But Mac and Pete might be able to use some help right now.”

“I’m on it.”

Pete stood next to Mac and one stair tread down, her pistol pointed past him toward the head of the stairs.

Mac leaned down to her so that he could whisper in her ear. “Start downstairs when I nod, and make some noise.”

She looked skeptically at him.

“I want to draw him out.”

Pete’s phone vibrated, and Mary came on the speakerphone.

“Your shooter is South African. The Recces. He’s the one who took out the Russian military attaché in Mutoko. The same window glass trick Mac spotted. Thing is, we have his Guernsey account, which he’s stocking to finance his retirement. And he’s already paid a hundred thousand down on a beach-front condo in Saint Martin—the Dutch side.”

McGarvey pointed a finger at his chest and shook his head, then crouched down and raised his pistol in a two-hand grip aimed at the head of the stairs.

“Do you have a name?” Pete asked.

“We’re working on it. Otto’s into the Fifth Special Forces Regiment database now. We have him narrowed down to one of three Recces operators.”

“Okay, no need for a shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. Mac’s watching from our apartment; I’m going over there now to let him know what we’ve got. Maybe we can talk this guy down. Find out who financed him this time. We might be able to make some sort of a deal.”

“Watch your back,” Otto came on. “This guy probably has no stomach for a face-to-face match. He’ll want to shoot you from behind. He’s a fucking coward. All of his stripe are.”

Slatkin was doing his best to control his rage. The bloody bastards knew! And at this point, he no longer had the backup of his contact. Everything he had worked for: the risks he had taken; the isolation from the few comrades-in-arms whom he had considered his friends; the one girl he had fallen in love with, and who he had planned on looking up once he was settled on Saint Martin, were gone. All of it.

He no longer had patience.

His only option now was to kill the woman and hunt down the man so that he could get his final payment and go to ground somewhere else.

But if they had somehow gotten to his Guernsey account, it was possible they could seize it, and everything would be gone.

He heard the woman on the stairs, and he swiveled around, bringing the assault rifle to bear when McGarvey was there.

Before he could pull the trigger, McGarvey fired and kept firing.

The first two shots hit Slatkin in his right knee and hip, sending him backward off-balance. By reflex alone, he fired a long burst, but the muzzle was pointed upward, the bullets plowing into the plaster ceiling.

The next shot hit his groin, spiraling upward into his abdomen with an incredible burst of pain, and his lights went out, his last conscious thought about Elena.

SIX

Thomas Bell, who was Slatkin’s contact for the entire project, called the Hay-Adams room service and had a bottle of Dom Pérignon and four ounces of beluga caviar delivered to his room, posthaste. He was in a mood to celebrate.

If all had gone as expected, he would be flying to Athens this evening, top shelf, of course, on his mysterious employer’s nickel to set up the second stage of THE OP, as he had come to think of it, in all-capital letters.

Until two months ago, he had been the number-two manager of the Palais d’Amour, the newest, most luxurious of all the casinos in Las Vegas. His specialty was making things happen for the high rollers. Women, of course, but also accommodations, transportation day or night to or from anyplace on the planet, private parties, food, drink, anything, even the outrageous—such as a trained female llama to room 2127 last year.

He’d never known his father, but his doting mother had been the madame of an upscale bordello in the Hamptons, and from her, he had learned the art of immediate and unquestioning service.

His champagne and caviar came. After he’d tipped the waiter, he phoned his contact, a woman with a sexy French accent. It sounded as if a party were in full swing in the background.

“Oui?”

“It’s done.”

“The outcome was as we’d hoped?”

“McGarvey entered the building first, and his wife came a few minutes later. Her being there was an unexpected bonus. Two for one. Considering the firepower Leonard had and the fact he was on high ground, they never had a chance.”

“It’s not exactly how we wanted it, but it’ll do,” the woman said.

Something about her voice was familiar, but Bell had nailed her attitude from