Gambit by David Hagberg (fantasy novels to read txt) 📕

“Will you want to fly over there?” Pete asked.

“Whatever it takes,” McGarvey said.

“You don’t think this is going away,” Otto said.

“No.”

Canada’s Special Operations Regiment was based at Garrison Petawawa on the west bank of the Ottawa River in the Laurentian hills, 110 miles northwest of the capital. The sprawling base of more than five thousand military personnel, one thousand civilian employees, and nearly six thousand dependents had been in existence as a military training base since 1905.

McGarvey’s ride touched down a few minutes before one in the afternoon, only puffy white summer clouds overhead, and a light breeze directly down runway 27. A jeep was waiting for him.

“I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours,” he told the captain.

“Direct back to Andrews, Mr. Director?”

“I think so.”

Colonel Vickery, in camouflage ODUs, was waiting in his office with another man also dressed in battle camos at base headquarters when McGarvey arrived.

They both got to their feet and shook hands. Vickery, who was a solidly built man in his midforties with a large head, square face, and a drooping jawline that made him look like a bulldog, introduced the other much shorter, more compactly built man as Captain Roger Confrey.

“Roger and Don went through training together and were deployed three times to Afghanistan,” Vickery said when they were seated.

“You say that he tried to take you out, sir?” Confrey asked. He sounded and acted like a smart-ass.

“Yes.”

“At what range?”

“Less than five feet.”

Confrey shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like the Don I knew. He was a long-range shooter. Nevertheless, I’m surprised he didn’t succeed. No disrespect intended.”

“None taken, Captain,” McGarvey said. “Maybe he should have stuck with his sniper act.”

Before Confrey could respond, Mac turned to Colonel Vickery. “We think he might have been working as a contractor for the SVR or GRU. Would that have fit with his profile? I understand he was given a OTH discharge.”

Confrey started to say something, but Vickery held him off. “I was the exec here at the time. Don opted not to go through with a court-martial, taking his other than honorable instead. We had some pretty good evidence than he’d been a walk-in at the Russian embassy down in Ottawa. The RCMP gave us the heads-up, including some photographs.”

“He didn’t deny it?” McGarvey asked.

“No.”

“Was he being accused of spying for the Russians?”

“No. He explained that he was applying for a visa. He wanted to go hunting in Siberia.”

“Why was he threatened with a court-martial?”

“He held a top secret clearance, which meant he wasn’t to have contact with any foreign government for any reason without authorization.”

“So he quit, and you just let him walk out the door?”

“He actually had applied for and received a visa, and he’d signed up and paid for the guided hunting tour with a legitimate company.”

“So he would have been given a disciplinary notice in his jacket and that would have been it?”

“Probably.”

“Then why did he accept the OTH discharge?”

“Because he was hardheaded,” Confrey said.

“But he did try to kill me, and now it seems more than likely he was working for the SVR, Captain. Makes him more than hardheaded. In fact, the price tag on me was $5 million, half of which had already been deposited in his offshore account.”

TWENTY-ONE

The flight out to Seattle’s Boeing Field went smoothly, though Susan complained most of the way that she was bored out of her skull. For all of her adult life, she’d surrounded herself with people.

On movie sets with camera operators, soundmen, makeup and costume people, set dressers, directors, and the occasional VIP fans and sometimes more than one boyfriend or husband at a time.

On-location shoots with the same numbers of moviemakers along with sometimes big crowds of extras, plus the onlookers at the fringes.

And although Hammond did enjoy her company in and out of bed, sometimes she was a royal pain in the ass, and he told her so.

An hour or so out of D.C., she had gone into the private sleeping compartment at the back of the plane and took a couple of lines of coke. To calm her nerves, she explained, and when she came forward again and sat down across from Hammond, she was animated but reasonably pleasant.

“I don’t like being cooped up,” she said.

Hammond poured her a glass of Krug. “I’m not going to put up with your bullshit much longer.”

“I know that I can be a super bitch if I think shit’s not going my way. But you’re right about one thing.” She looked out the window.

“What’s that?”

When she turned back, she managed a weak smile. “We haven’t heard from your number two, which means he’s probably failed.”

Hammond had realized the same thing last night. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to back off for a bit.”

“Why don’t you just forget about it altogether?”

“It’s too late. McGarvey won’t let it go.”

“I know. And that’s what worries me the most. We’re not going up against an amateur. This guy is good.”

“It’s me, not we.”

She smiled. “That’s very noble of you, Tom. But not normal. What gives, or is it that worriers want to hide under a porch alone so that they can lick their wounds in private?”

Hammond had thought about the advice Tarasov had given him at the beginning. “If you want the deal, there’ll have to be a quid pro quo. But if you go ahead, don’t change your outward lifestyle. Don’t go into hiding somewhere. Stay out in the open with your circle of friends and lovers in full view. Make it a game if you like, but understand that once you start, you won’t be able to go back. You’ll have to make sure that he dies.”

And it had become a game in his mind before he’d hired Slatkin, a man he was sure would fail.

But now that they were in the middle of it, he was beginning to get a case of cold feet. And yet he had