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

Forest was clearly embarrassed. “Do you think whoever is coming after you this time will try again? Down here?”

“It’s a possibility, Jim.”

“I’ve been instructed that if you were to admit to such a thing, I was to take you into protective custody,” Spader said.

“No, thank you,” McGarvey said.

“It wasn’t a request.”

“Lou,” McGarvey said, not taking his eyes off the agent.

“Yes?”

“With my compliments, please telephone Mr. Kallek for me.”

“He’s not currently in his office.”

“Find him.”

Spader shook his head. “That won’t be necessary, sir. My brief was to ask if you wished to be placed into protective custody but not to force the issue.”

“Lou, cancel the call, please.”

“Yes, dear.”

“I’d like at least to station a couple of my people nearby.”

“Whoever might be coming my way will be a professional shooter, almost certainly at the international level. No offense intended, but your guys would stand out like lighthouses.”

“How about you, Mrs. M?” Forest asked.

“Run and hide?” Pete asked. “Not a chance in hell. And my friends call me Pete.”

“What do you think?” Pete asked after the two men had left.

“A couple of guys just trying to do their jobs, especially Jim. It has to seem to him that just about every time I come down here, a shitstorm follows me.”

Pete laughed out loud. “You do know how to show a girl a good time.”

McGarvey studied her face. He was in love with her, but it wasn’t the same as it had been with Katy. Just as intense, but different. “Sorry you married me?”

Pete gave him the same frank look. “If that were a serious question, I just might shoot you here and now and get it over with.” She smiled a little sadly. “My only complaint is that it took you so long.”

“I didn’t want anything to happen to you, like the others.”

“I’m a big girl.”

Mac looked away. “And I didn’t want you to think that I needed you to replace Katy.”

“But you did, and I did replace her. Just in a different way, I hope.”

“I wasn’t looking for a clone or her twin sister.”

Pete reached over and took his hand. “If you hadn’t already guessed, Kirk, I’m head over heels in love with you. Have been for a long time. Whatever happens to you, happens to me. To us. You and me, babe, like the song.”

“I’d hoped you would say something like that.”

“Fair enough. We started with beers, so if you fire up the grill, I’ll make burgers and beans. And afterward, we’ll go over just how we’re going to get ready for our guests.”

THIRTY-FOUR

On the flight from Hong Kong to Geneva via Doha, Qatar, Taio read the long dossier on McGarvey again, and he picked out several troublesome bits and pieces he’d missed the first time. At one point, looking up, he caught Li’s attention.

“What is it?” she asked, her little voice very soft. Even though they were flying first class and had no immediate seatmates, they’d kept their voices low.

“Perhaps we should have asked for a higher fee.”

“He’s a formidable man. Have you learned something new about him?”

“He has more kills to his credit than we do. Twice as many, actually, and that’s just the ones generally credited to him.”

“We knew this from the beginning. What is troubling you now?”

Li had picked out the fact that McGarvey was a romantic who had lost every woman who’d ever loved him, except of course for his current wife. And she had rightly assumed that a possible weakness would be the wife. If she were endangered, he would move heaven and earth to protect her. But therein lay the conundrum.

“His wife is his vulnerability.”

“Yes, we know this. But what else?”

“Two attempts have been made on his life in recent days, but by amateurs who I believe were meant to fail.”

“Our employer’s little sport. He didn’t want McGarvey to fall so easily. He wanted to play cat and mouse with the man.”

“And McGarvey has almost certainly figured out by now what’s happening, though he doesn’t know who is behind it or why.”

“He has to suspect the Russians, or maybe the Pakistanis. Their grudges run deep.”

“That’s not the point. What is relevant is that he suspects the attacks will keep coming until he is taken out,” Taio said. “And if you were in his position, what would you do?”

“Go on the hunt myself,” Li said, and she suddenly had it. “Do you think that he would set a trap, using his new wife as bait?”

“I think it’s a possibility that we have to consider.”

She shrugged. “His love must not run deep if he is willing to place his wife in front of an assassin’s bullet.”

“Unless he knows something that we don’t.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t know yet, but I have an idea, and you’re going to be my star player.”

“I’m all ears.”

They checked into the Grand Hotel Kempinski on the south shore of Lac Leman—Lake Geneva—under British passports that identified them as Austin and Claire Stilwell, husband and wife from London. Their accents were good, but not over the top.

In the many SOF schools they’d attended, they had been pegged almost immediately because of their looks for operations in English-speaking countries. They had been taught to speak in either an Oxford or upper-class Harvard accent. Even their French and German, though good but obviously not their native tongue, had a strong Oxford or Harvard accent depending on what passports they were carrying.

They had booked a suite overlooking the lake for their three-day stay and presented an American Express platinum card at check-in. He was dressed casually in a soft gray Armani suit, a white silk shirt open at the high collar, Gucci loafers, and a blond wig covering his dark hair, while Li wore a short off-white skirt, spike heels, and a sheer, nearly see-through soft yellow blouse, under which she wore a skin-tone bra. Her wig was short and red. Their appearances matched their passport photos.

They meant to call attention to themselves. In Hammond’s parlance, they were just at the edges of