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

“I’m not following you.”

“Kuprik is the chief financial adviser to Feodor Morozov, who’s Russia’s UN ambassador, and your name came up last night.”

“I’m listening,” Hammond said, the first glimmerings of concern rising in his gut.

“Morozov wanted him to find out about you. Specifically your friends. Your Russian friends.”

Hammond sat back in his chair and hesitated for a moment so that he could get himself under control. “Does he know that you work for me?”

“I didn’t think so,” Rodriguez said. “So I asked what made him think that I had any insider information on you.”

“And?”

“He said that my name had come up as someone who knew a lot of people not only at the UN but just about everywhere else in the financial world and that I probably could get some information.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I said that I’d heard of you, of course, and I’d see what I could come up with if he’d give me something specific to work on. He told me just Russians who you had financial relations with.”

“No names?” Hammond asked, the worry in his gut easing just a little. Tarasov had apparently gotten a little sloppy with someone he’d talked to.

“No.”

“Give it a couple of days and tell him you couldn’t find out much of anything beyond the Russians who show up at Monaco and Cannes and Davos and the other places on the circuit.”

“That’s the point; I can’t, and that’s why I called,” Rodriguez said. “Kuprik was found in his bed just a few hours ago. Shot to death.”

“Problem solved,” Hammond said.

“No. The police are on their way now to find out if I know something.”

“How’d they get your name?”

“I don’t know; the stupid bastard may have written it down somewhere.”

“You were seeing him professionally, and I assume that you have records to back it up.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Confidential medical records.”

“Of course, goddamnit, but what do I tell them if your name comes up? There’s supposedly no connection between us.”

“There is a connection. You briefly treated me for depression a couple of years ago when I lost friends in the pencil tower on West Fifty-Seventh that was brought down. Those records are confidential as well.”

Rodriguez was silent for a beat. “Do you have a business deal with some Russian?”

“Of course I do,” Hammond said. “Along with people in France, Germany, China, and a lot of other places.”

“I don’t know.”

“Just do your job, Arturo, and let me worry about the details.”

“I may decide to walk,” Rodriguez said.

“Your choice,” Hammond said, and he hung up.

The french doors in his office were open to the breeze off the lake. He got up and went out onto the balcony, where he leaned against the balustrade with both hands and stared at a small sailboat, its starboard rail awash as it tacked through the eye of the wind.

He wanted to escape, to run and hide, but out in the open. Among the players, his kind of people who spoke and understood the same language he did. The problem was there weren’t that many Bill Gateses and Warren Buffetts in the world, and most of them were in competition with each other, though it didn’t always show in public.

It was a serious game they all played, with money—intrinsically meaningless numbers in a bank’s electronic ledger—as the means of keeping score, big yachts and airplanes and fancy houses the only outward signs of their wealth.

In a couple of years, when Codecasa delivered the Susan P, he would be the king of the hill at Monaco and Cannes, at least for a while until someone else showed up with an even bigger, fancier yacht.

He turned away. If he lived that long, the unbidden thought came to his mind. His biggest deal ever was the one he could never tell a soul. The only people who knew besides himself and Susan were the assassins and Tarasov. Hopefully, McGarvey and his wife would never find out the truth.

Back at his desk, he took the Chinese ZTE sat phone with the Russian encryption algorithm from a drawer and put in a six-digit alphanumeric code that unlocked it and speed-dialed Tarasov.

The Russian answered on the first ring. “Good afternoon, Thomas.”

“We have a problem.”

“If you mean Kuprik, he is no longer an issue.”

“I just got off the phone with my financial adviser in New York who gave me the news.”

“If you mean Rodriguez, what does he have to do with this?”

“He and Kuprik had drinks together last night, and the cops are going over to his office to interview him.”

Tarasov was silent for a long beat. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You had Kuprik killed. Why?”

“Because he was indiscreet,” Tarasov said. “What does your adviser know about your little game?”

“Apparently, not as much as the ambassador knows or suspects about what you’re doing. He was the reason Kuprik was making inquiries.”

“How reliable is your man? Will he keep his mouth shut to the cops?”

“I think so, but he threatened to quit working for me.”

“You think or you know, Thomas? This is important for more reasons than just your little adventure.”

“I can’t guarantee him,” Hammond said without giving it a thought.

“Can you live without him?”

“No one is indispensable.”

“Me included?” Susan asked from behind him.

FORTY-FOUR

McGarvey felt a lot better after a few hours’ sleep and the breakfast of bacon and eggs Pete had fixed for them. He’d helped her clean up and then sat at the kitchen table overlooking the pool and beyond it the gazebo and the ICW as he unloaded and disassembled his Walther PPK with the well-worn handle, laying the parts and the bullets on a soft, lightly oiled rag.

Pete sat and watched him as he worked slowly and methodically. “It looks clean,” she said.

McGarvey smiled. “It is,” he said without looking up.

“I’ve seen you do this before other assignments. Are you just making sure of your equipment?”

“That, too, but it calms the nerves.”

Pete almost laughed. “You of all people don’t get nerves. It’s about the only thing about