Gambit

by David Hagberg

  “That he wasn’t involved in the attacks on me.”

  Taft nodded. “Good.”

  “The second call was from someone in the White House?” McGarvey said. “Who?”

  “President Weaver, who has it out for you.”

  McGarvey shrugged. “That’s too bad, because I have a lot of respect for anyone sitting in the Oval Office.”

  “But not Weaver.”

  “For anyone there,” McGarvey said. “What did the president say?”

  “He asked me to order you to back off,” Taft said.

  “And do what, exactly?”

  “Voluntarily go into protective custody.”

  “Which I won’t do,” McGarvey said.

  “I could have the FBI arrest you,” Taft said.

  “Yes, you could.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “What’s next?” Patterson asked.

  “I’ve pushed a little,” McGarvey said. “General Leon responded, and so did the president. So now I’m going home.”

  “With a target on your back.”

  “Exactly.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Hammond left Susan with Ned Beetle, one of her ex-husbands who’d been the first to arrive with his wife, a Manhattan society girl, the ex-wife of a player in banking, and waited at the rail with his chief steward, Kathy Bliss, as one of the fishing charter boats he’d hired came out to where they were anchored.

  At seventy-five with a light breeze, the weather for Skagway was almost balmy. Across the bay, two gigantic cruise ships were docked, and flash cameras had been popping off since the first helicopter had landed on Glory’s foredeck a couple of hours ago.

  He and Susan had put out the word that they were hosting a long weekend wilderness party aboard the yacht. But they didn’t give the name of the place—only it’s latitude and longitude: 59.27.30N 135.18.50W. It was to be a treasure hunt.

  The charter boat pulled alongside with three couples, two of whom had flown a private jet to Juneau and then a twin-engine prop job up to Skagway, whose small airport was notoriously difficult, especially for small jets flown by pilots with no local knowledge.

  First up the boarding ladder was Vitali Novikov, who owned a majority position in the Russian telecom giant MobileTele Systems with his twenty-three-year-old Italian movie-star wife, who was less than half his age.

  “Vitali, surprised to see you and Gina here,” Hammond said. He was certain that Tarasov had sent him to spy.

  “When Tommy throws a party, one can’t miss it,” Novikov said.

  Gina Bragga did not seem pleased. “You said it, wilderness. More like primitive.”

  “But here is like home. Russia used to own Alaska. Big mistake selling it.”

  “Where’s Susan?”

  “Inside,” Hammond said, and Gina and Novikov left.

  Next up were Toni Lama and her wife, Lisa, Broadway producers whose last seven plays were sold-out massive hits, four of which were still playing. Toni stood six foot three and was slender, almost the twin of Tommy Tune, while Lisa was just five feet and chubby. But she wrote the music and was a genius at it.

  They air-kissed with Hammond.

  “Glad we could get away,” Lisa said, grinning. “If there could possibly be an opposite to New York City, this place is it,” she said. “You and Susie always have the best parties.”

  “We try. Did anyone else come out with you?”

  “The Taiwanese movie couple,” Toni said. “First time we met them. Absolutely exotic.”

  “You guys have good taste,” Lisa said.

  For a brief moment, Hammond had no idea who they were talking about, but all of a sudden, it dawned on him who the Taiwanese couple were, and he managed a weak smile to hide his discomfiture.

  “That’s why we always want you and Toni with us,” he said. “The others are inside. Drinks now and a surprise for late lunch.”

  The last up the boarding ladder were Taio and Li, beautiful people, both of them, dressed casually expensive in designer leather jeans, white shirts, and matching leather jackets, bright red silk scarves around their necks, and jaunty narrow-brimmed hats.

  “Mr. Hammond, it was so nice of you to invite us,” Taio said, offering his hand. “I’m Kuang Wei, and this is my wife, Kuang Fan.”

  They shook hands around, Hammond at a loss for words. If these were the Scorpions Tarasov had sent, then their appearance and personas were perfect disguises. They looked more like poets or perhaps small-school teachers than movie people or assassins.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m sure my companion will have a million questions about the film business in Taiwan.”

  Li, who was so tiny and perfect in Hammond’s eyes that she didn’t look real, smiled diffidently and nodded. “Unfortunately, there isn’t much to tell. Even though we’re an independent nation, we still find that in some endeavors we bow to Beijing’s style.”

  Hammond couldn’t help but return her smile. “We must talk.”

  “Yes, please,” Taio said. “Unfortunately, we cannot stay for your party. We are flying back yet today. Pressing business.”

  “Take over for me, Kathy,” Hammond said. “I shouldn’t be long.”

  * * *

  Hammond brought the two Chinese contractors below to his office midships. In addition to a hand-carved teak desk and four flat-screen monitors on the walls, the room was equipped with an Italian leather couch, Lexan coffee table, and two leather chairs.

  When they were seated, Taio and Li on the chairs and Hammond on the couch, Taio began.

  “We have done our research on you. What we wish to know is your target and your reasons.”

  “First, I need to know your fee,” Hammond said, trying to be the one in charge. It was his yacht, his money, and his project.

  “Our fee will depend on your target and your motive,” Li said.

  “Tell me.”

  “You can afford us.”

  “I said, tell me your fee.”

  Taio and Li exchanged a glance, then got to their feet. “I’m sorry that we could not come to an accord, Mr. Hammond,” Li said.

  “We’ll just see ourselves out,” Taio added.

  “Wait, goddamnit,” Hammond said. “I have a right to know what I’ll have to pay for your services.” He’d been in charge just about all of his life, but right now, he felt that he had jumped into something way over his head.

  Taio and Li just looked at him.

  “His name is Kirk McGarvey. He used to work for the CIA.”

  Taio smiled. “A formidable man,” he said, and he and Li sat down.

  “Just a man,” Hammond said, though he didn’t know why.

  “Why do you wish us to kill him?”

  “Personal reasons.”

  “Our time is limited, Mr. Hammond.”

  “It was a business deal that went bad.”

  Taio said nothing.

  “It involved a considerable position in bitcoins.”

  “How much did you lose?” Li asked. She was obviously the money manager in the partnership. Hammond couldn’t imagine her as an assassin.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why go to the expense?”

  “Because it’s what I want.”

  The two just waited.

  “No reason,” Hammond said at length. “Look. Maybe you’d best go.”

  “Is it merely a game to you? A rich man’s sport?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “But it’s exactly our business, Mr. Hammond,” Li said. “We will kill Mr. McGarvey, for sport as you wish.”

  “When?”

  “Soon,” Taio said.

  “How much?”

  “Twenty-five million euros in gold,” Li said.

  Hammond started to object, but Li continued.

  “We will send you instructions for deposit at a location in Switzerland. Our work is guaranteed. That means if we fail, your gold will be returned to you within twenty-fou
r hours.”

  “Is that satisfactory?” Taio asked.

  Hammond had no idea what to say. But he nodded.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  McGarvey, sitting with Pete and Mary in Otto’s office, telephoned army colonel Harry Ward at his office at the Defense Intelligence Agency around four in the afternoon and asked if they could have a chat. “No confrontation. I just need some information.”

  A few years ago, Ward was a major, still in the DIA, and had been on a periphery of a group of mid-level intelligence agents who had tried to sidetrack McGarvey from an investigation. The op had resulted in some deaths, nearly McGarvey’s.

  “Nothing more to say, Mr. Director,” Ward replied.

  “This has nothing to do with the other business. This is something else that I’d like some help with.”

  “Knowing you, I don’t think I want to get involved. Sorry.”

  “I don’t want this to turn into something ugly.”

  Ward was silent for a moment. “I won’t meet you anywhere off base.”

  “Your office will be fine. And I only need a couple of minutes of your time.”

  “How about right now on the phone?”

  “Face-to-face.”

  “0900. I’ll leave word at the gate.”

  McGarvey hung up. “At least he agreed to see me.”

  “You shook him up, that’s for sure,” Pete said. “Do you want me to tag along?”

  “If we gang up on him, he’ll clam up.”

  “Do you think you’ll get anything out of him?” Otto asked. “He isn’t one of your biggest fans.”

  “More to the point, do you think he knows something?” Pete asked.

  “I’m not sure, but he’s in a position to know if something might be going down over at the Pentagon. He started chasing his first star when he made major, and he had the rep even then of keeping his head down.”

  “He may have the rep of keeping his head down, but if he wants a star badly enough, he’ll fight back if he’s pushed,” Mary said. “You’ll be poking a stick into a hornet’s nest if he’s somehow involved.”

  “That’s the whole point,” McGarvey said. “And I’m going to keep pushing until someone pushes back.”

  “Again,” Pete said.

  * * *

  The DIA’s headquarters was one of more than a dozen different civilian and military units stationed at or adjacent to Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling in southeast D.C., across the Potomac from Reagan National. Among the others were the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, and several White House support units, including the White House Communications Agency.

  A pass was waiting for him at the main gate, and he drove over to the sprawling six- and seven-story complex of buildings that housed more than ten thousand civilian and military personnel. Fully one-fourth of all the information that was included in the president’s daily brief came from the DIA, which, unlike the CIA, concentrated on defense-military topics at the national level.

  But the DIA also provided intel for the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs, and combat commanders. The agency was practically a wing of the Pentagon.

  Ward’s job was to oversee the Russian section of the Agency’s watch center housed in the South Wing of the complex. Mac was met at the main entry by a young woman in civilian clothes, who escorted him up to the seventh floor and Ward’s office.

  “Someone will ring for me when you’re ready to leave, sir,” she said and left.

  Ward’s secretary, another civilian, but much older, looked up. “Good morning, Mr. Director. You may go right in.” Neither she nor the aide had smiled.

  The colonel in full uniform, his blouse buttoned, did not get up from behind his desk when McGarvey walked in, nor did he offer his hand, merely gesturing for Mac to take a seat. He was a nondescript man of medium build, balding on top with a gray fringe, narrow, pale blue eyes, and a mottled complexion that made him seem much older than his thirty-eight years. A West Pointer, he’d graduated in the middle of his class. According to the dossier Lou had provided, he’d worked in military intelligence his entire career, and his nickname was Don’t Rock the Boat Ward.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see me,” McGarvey said. “I won’t take much of your time.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Someone has put a contract on me.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “In the past few days, two assassins have tried and failed. You may have heard something.”

  Ward pursed his lips and shook his head. “No.”

  Mac was sure the man was lying. “I’m pretty sure that there’ll be more to come, and there’s a possibility that the Russians, though maybe not officially, are somehow involved. It’s why I came to you.”

  “Otto Rencke is your friend; I’m sure that he could help. Ask him.”

  “I did, and he mentioned you and your connections at the Pentagon. Past and present.”

  Ward visibly colored. “Look, you son of a bitch, I wasn’t involved in the business you got yourself into the last time, and I’m sure as hell not in league with some Russian who might think the same as I do that it might be a better world without you.”

  Mac let it lie for a long moment or two. “What Russian might that be?” he asked at length.

  “Any Russian, take your pick. There’s an entire country of them who’d like to see you go down.”

  “Curious stance for a man in your position to take, wouldn’t you say?”

  Ward grabbed his phone and called his secretary. “Mr. McGarvey is leaving now,” he said, and he was obviously careful not to crash the phone down.

  “I’m sure there still are people across the river who feel the same as you,” McGarvey said.

  “Get the fuck out of here, or I’ll call the SPs.”

  McGarvey got languidly to his feet. “Don’t let me find out that you or some of your pals are involved in this thing.”

  Ward was barely in control. “Is that a threat?”

  “Yes,” McGarvey said, and he left Ward’s office.

  * * *

  McGarvey crossed the river on the Douglass Bridge and made his way through town on Independence Avenue, traffic heavy as usual at this time of a weekday. He delayed calling Otto and Mary and especially Pete while he worked a few things out in his mind.

  Ward had been lying, something he’d expected. But he didn’t think that the man was involved. Nor did he now suspect that someone in the Pentagon was involved. If they had been, Ward would have known about it, and he wasn’t a good enough liar to keep it off his face.

  But the main point of this morning was to make sure that word did get back at least to the DIA’s office in the Pentagon. And if someone over there was involved, they would make their move soon.

  The other point was to wonder how he would deal with the situation if it was someone in the Pentagon gunning for him again. It made him think that maybe all these years inside and outside the CIA, everything he had done, was a colossal waste of time.

  Back more years than he wanted to count, John Lyman Trotter, a man who he thought was his friend, told him once, “In this business, self-doubt is a cancer that will kill you as surely as the real thing.”

  But then John had turned out to be a traitor.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Hammond woke up a little after seven in the morning, and after a night of bad dreams, he was disoriented at first. He could not get the faces of the Chinese assassins, who in the night had morphed into scorpions and were coming after him, out of his head.

  He reached over for Susan, but her side of the bed was empty, and then he heard the shower shut off.

  Yesterday, after the man and woman had left, everything had become surreal for him. His guests seemed like they were never closer than arm’s length, their talk and laughter out of focus, unreal. Yet he had gone through the motions of being an engaging host.

  Susan had cornered him a couple of times demanding to know what was going on, but
both times he’d held her off.

  “Later. We need to talk about it, but not now.”

  They were out on the aft deck, and Susan had looked over her shoulder at the people in the crowded saloon. “They’re here?” she asked.

  “They were, but they’re gone now.”

  “Did you hire them?”

  He nodded.

  “How much?”

  “Twenty-five million. In gold.”

  “Jesus,” Susan said softly. “Do you think they’re worth it?”

  He had asked himself the same thing all the rest of the day and through the night each time he’d awakened from his nightmare. But he hadn’t come up with an answer that made any sense to him. For the first time in his life, he was truly frightened. Even more frightened than he had been of his stepfather who used to beat him just about every time the old man had come home drunk after working in the steel plant.

  Susan hadn’t pressed him for anything more when they finally came down to the master suite around two in the morning. Nor had they made love. She had just come to bed, rolled away with her back to him, and had gone to sleep. Which was just as well, he’d thought at the time, because he didn’t think he would have been capable.

  He started to drift off again, when he heard her briefly on the phone in the bathroom. She came in a minute later wearing a white robe, a towel wrapped around her head.

  “I ordered coffee,” she said. “And then we need to talk.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you send the gold yet?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good, because we definitely need to talk, and it’s not about the money.”

  Kathy Bliss knocked once at the door, then came in with a coffee service on a tray, which she put on the breakfast table across from the bed. “Good morning, guys. Shall I pour?”

  “No, thanks, we’ll manage,” Susan said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are any of the others up yet?” Hammond asked.

  “Only Mr. Novikov. He’s been up for an hour now and went for a swim.”

  “In the Jacuzzi?”

  “In the bay. It was a very short swim, and he went immediately into the Jacuzzi, where he’s on his third vodka.”