The Shadowmen

by David Hagberg

  Forty seconds into the bout, Kurshin made a mistake, intentional or not, by moving a little too close.

  McGarvey suddenly leaned forward to a position where he was completely off balance and just about to fall on his face when he brought his rear leg forward, and as it was just about to touch the ground, he pushed off with a powerful thrust from his front leg, the point of his épée extended to Kurshin’s sword hand.

  It was called a flying flèche, or arrow. The move was meant to be such a surprise that the opponent wouldn’t have time to react.

  Mac stumbled at the last possible instant, and Kurshin easily sidestepped the attack, planting his épée on McGarvey’s shoulder.

  Spinning away as if he were totally out of control, Mac was forced to skip off the piste before he could catch his balance.

  “Touché a gauche,” touch left for Kurshin.

  The audience did not applaud.

  McGarvey took off his mask, apologized to the maestro, and took his place on the piste.

  He took a deep breath, saluted, and then put on his mask and assumed the en garde position.

  This time, Kurshin attacked immediately, forcing Mac to retreat almost out of bounds at the end of the strip.

  Mac did a simple French coupé, taking his blade over the top of Kurshin’s and at the same time turning his hand to the right toward the sixth position, which should have moved Kurshin’s blade far enough off target that an attack to the sword hand was possible.

  But Kurshin easily disengaged, slapped Mac’s blade away, and landed a touch on the wrist.

  “Touché,” the maestro said. “Deux, zero.”

  Pete came over with the towel and water bottle as McGarvey took off his mask. He was breathing hard now.

  Neither the maestro nor Kurshin objected as he wiped his face and took a drink before he put on his mask and saluted.

  “En garde,” the maestro said. “Prêt. Allez.”

  This time, Mac moved forward first with an immediate froissement, or sharp slap to Kurshin’s blade, which would normally be followed by an instant attack.

  But Kurshin made a double derobement, a counterattack against the opponent’s blade. In effect, Kurshin went with the slap against his blade and slapped back twice, opening a line on McGarvey’s upper arm, where he scored the final touch.

  “Touché,” the maestro announced, obviously satisfied with the result.

  Again there was a light smattering of applause, after which the maestro explained what had happened, not quite blaming the win on the differences in age. Experience counted for nearly everything, but youth was sometimes even more important.

  McGarvey took the towel and water from Pete and went back to the changing room, where he got out of his fencing garb and back into his street clothes.

  Kurshin came in. “You had some good moves, Arouet.”

  “I don’t have the edge anymore,” Mac said, buttoning his shirt. “But you did well.”

  Kurshin nodded. “Would you care to have a drink at the hotel?”

  “Thanks, no,” McGarvey said, still breathing hard. “I’m going to save my energy for the tables tonight. Maybe a nap this afternoon and a light supper.”

  “For the best, I suppose,” Kurshin said with a barely concealed smirk.

  19

  McGarvey and Pete headed back to the hotel on foot, and halfway there, Pete dropped a slip of paper, and she ducked down and picked it up.

  “Are they behind us?” Mac asked.

  “No. You put on a pretty good show back there.”

  “I wanted to make a believer out of Kallinger.”

  Pete grinned. “I think he took the bait. But you also made a believer out of the poor kid you beat. The maestro will give him hell for making the club look bad.”

  “Humility is sometimes a good thing, even in fencing.”

  “How much of it was an act?”

  “Most of it, but I didn’t want to take the matter too far. As it was, I think he was starting to get suspicious by the third touch. Even an amateur should have expected the counterattack and stepped back.”

  “Was he any good?” Pete asked as they reached the hotel.

  “Not as good as he thought he was. And now he’s cocky, maybe overconfident. If he can beat me on the piste, why not at the table?”

  “And you mean to teach him a lesson. Piss him off enough so that he’ll be more likely to make a mistake.”

  * * *

  Back in their suite, McGarvey phoned Otto to tell him what had gone down at the fencing demonstration.

  “Do you think he bought it?”

  “Probably. He and the Barineau woman are staying here at the hotel. But you said she has a villa above Villefranche. Find out if there’s a staff in residence. Pete and I are going to make a visit.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “You have five. I’m going to take a quick shower.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Pete asked.

  “I want to let him know that someone has taken an interest in him.”

  “Someone?”

  “Me,” Mac said on the way into the shower.

  “I’ll get us a car,” Pete said to his back.

  * * *

  She got them a BMW 3 Series convertible. Flashy but nothing over the top. It would be waiting out front as soon as they were ready.

  Otto answered Mac’s call on the first ring. “One housekeeper/cook by the name of Marie Levy, but I didn’t find any connection between her and the DGSE, and her local footprint seems legitimate.”

  “How about neighbors?”

  “No one nearby. Louise retasked one of the spy birds and took a five-second peek. One villa to the south, fifty meters lower on the hill, and another much larger to the north, just above. But there didn’t seem to be any activity at either place.”

  Louise had worked for the National Security Agency as a photo analyst and had come over to the CIA, where she’d practically run the Company’s interface with the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that was responsible for putting up and maintaining American spy satellites—especially the Keyhole, Jupiter, and Aurora constellations. Although she was no longer directly involved, she still maintained her passwords and standard operating procedures.

  “I’ll wear my glasses when we get there so you can take a look, as well.”

  “Find anything electronic, give me the heads-up,” Otto said.

  * * *

  Downstairs, they got the car and drove up to the Corniche Highway and headed southwest, the Med an impossibly deep blue, only a very few puffy clouds cruising slowly in from the sea.

  “Do you have your pistol with you?” McGarvey asked. He’d left the one he’d taken from the bully boys behind.

  “Of course.”

  “Take the bullet out of the breech. It’s only the housekeeper at home, and I don’t want any accidents.”

  “What if our friends show up?”

  “We’ll take our chances. But I don’t think Kallinger will want to stage a shootout in broad daylight. He’d have to kill not only us but the housekeeper and Mme Barineau. It’s me he wants. One-on-one.”

  “We still don’t know why.”

  “I’m going to find out.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Mac said.

  * * *

  McGarvey put on his glasses and rang the doorbell at the villa’s front entrance, which faced uphill, away from the sea. A full minute later, an older woman in a dark dress with a crisp white apron appeared. Her gray hair was knotted into a bun at the back, and she smiled uncertainly.

  “Bonjour, madame,” McGarvey said. “We are friends of Mme Barineau. Is she at home?”

  “No,” the woman said, and she started to close the door, but Mac pushed it open, and he and Pete stepped inside.

  “Je suis désolé,” McGarvey said. “But we mean you no harm.”

  She didn’t resist as they led her back to the kitchen, where they put her in a wa
lk-in pantry and moved the heavy butcher block center island against the door.

  Pete took the upstairs while Mac hurriedly went through the rooms on the ground floor, including the kitchen, a surprisingly modern dining room, and an expansive living room that opened through a half dozen french doors to the patio and pool and out toward the Med. A flat-screen television was placed in the middle of a wall of bookcases that contained not only leather-bound volumes, most of them in English, but photographs of Martine and people who appeared to be family. Some of the backgrounds were on beaches somewhere, others in the mountains.

  There were no telephones in the living room or in the kitchen, and there were no clocks.

  “Come up here,” Pete called from the head of the stairs.

  Mac went up, and Pete led him back to a small room that except for an open closet door appeared to be nothing more than a home office containing a plain desk—on which sat a laptop—a few books on a couple of shelves, and a number of amusing miniature paintings of clowns and court jesters.

  The closet was not large, but a table held another laptop, and mounted on the wall behind it were several closed-circuit video monitors showing various views from inside as well as outside of the house. Other pieces of electronic equipment were mounted on the wall.

  His and Pete’s image in the closet showed on one of the monitors.

  “Are you seeing this?” Mac asked.

  “Yes,” Otto’s voice came into his ear. “Stand by.”

  A couple of moments later, the monitors went blank, and a series of images flashed across the laptop.

  “I’m downloading the system’s memory and then crashing it. No one’s going to get so much as one byte out of it. But I can tell you one thing for sure—even if I don’t have an actual name, Mme Barineau is definitely MI6.”

  “Doing what here in France?”

  “People watching. All the major players—a lot of them Arabs but a number of Chinese and Russian billionaires, mostly oil and technology nouveaux riche—show up at the casino sooner or later.”

  “What about Kallinger?” Pete asked.

  “He’s not in the system,” Otto said. “And maybe she’s slumming.”

  “She’ll get herself killed if she’s not careful.”

  “There’s that possibility,” Otto said. “What about her housekeeper?”

  “We’ll let her out before we leave,” McGarvey said.

  “Do you think she’ll call the cops?”

  “I think she probably knows enough about her employer to keep her mouth shut until she’s told otherwise.”

  “What now?”

  “Baccarat,” McGarvey said. “It’s payback time.”

  20

  McGarvey and Pete walked into the casino a few minutes after midnight, he in his tuxedo and she in the black, very-low-cut Givenchy and spike heels. They made a handsome couple, and this time, Mac did not pretend to be drunk. The maître d’ welcomed them profusely.

  They turned heads in the bar, where they ordered Krug.

  “How much have you got to play with this time?” Pete asked. “I don’t think a hundred thousand will be enough.”

  “Otto’s established an unlimited line for me.”

  Pete glanced toward the doorway. “That’s why they were so happy to see you. But Marty’s going to have a hemorrhage if you lose even a nickel of the Company’s money.”

  “The money is mine, and I don’t intend on losing,” Mac said. When his parents had died, they had left a few million—mostly in municipal bonds and other securities—to their daughter, who was married and living in Utah, while Mac got the cattle ranch in western Kansas.

  He’d sold it and over the past twenty years or so had invested the money in the stock market. At last count, his estimated net worth was around $9 million.

  Money had always been of little interest to him, though his sister had stopped talking to him after he’d sold the ranch, because she figured a part of it should have gone to her. When his granddaughter, Audie, was old enough to appreciate money, all of it would go to her. He wasn’t about to lose her inheritance.

  Pete was impressed. Very few people other than Otto and Louise knew about his wealth. “You’re making this personal,” she said.

  “He did when he took a hammer and chisel to Katy’s headstone.”

  Pete looked toward the door again. “Speaking of the devil.”

  Kurshin in black tie, and Martine in another stunning evening outfit—this time a light-beige, flowing, diaphanous pantsuit that was sheer enough to be titillating—with golden sandals on her tiny feet.

  “The girl dresses well for MI6,” Pete added under her breath as they approached.

  “M. Arouet and Mme Graves,” Kurshin said. He kissed Pete’s hand. “You look lovely.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I hope that you’ve recovered from your exertions this afternoon,” Martine said to Mac.

  Mac shrugged. “It’s a young person’s sport, after all.”

  “Agreed,” Kurshin said. “Even I was a little winded.”

  “Baccarat is a different business.”

  “Money and luck,” Kurshin said.

  “At chemin de fer, it’s experience.”

  * * *

  The chef de salle unhooked the velvet rope barrier and let the four of them into the baccarat salon. He obviously remembered McGarvey from last night, but he just as obviously knew about the American’s unlimited line of credit.

  The room was less than half-full at the moment. Play had been going on since ten, and an intermission was in progress. McGarvey and Kurshin took seats at opposite ends of the table; Pete and Martine stood together in the middle.

  The croupier and other players came back almost immediately. Word had spread throughout the casino that a pair of very high rollers—who were not Russian, Arab, or Chinese —had arrived. The night was turning out to be interesting, after all.

  “Gentlemen,” the croupier began when all the chairs were filled, and he reviewed the rules of play for the newcomers.

  When he was finished, he passed the six decks to all the players for them to shuffle the cards, beginning with the one on his right, and when the stack came back to him, he shuffled it again and passed it to the player on his left, who cut the deck. The croupier loaded it into the shoe.

  An older German man, the first counterclockwise from the croupier, accepted the role as banker for fifty thousand euros. One of the bettors, known as punters, put up thirty thousand, and a second agreed to cover the remaining twenty thousand.

  The shoe went to the German, who slid out four cards facedown. The croupier passed two of them to the highest punter.

  “Carte,” the punter said after looking at his down cards.

  The banker slid out another card facedown that the croupier passed to the punter faceup. It was a four.

  The banker immediately turned his two cards over, totaling seven.

  The punter turned his over, a four and a king. With the up card, his total was eight, and he and the other punter and won the bank and split it with the casino.

  Three other players in turn took the role of banker, gradually raising the stakes to one hundred thousand euros. One tied before he lost on the second round.

  The bank next came to McGarvey. “One million,” he said, looking directly at Kurshin, whose expression was unreadable.

  A low sigh went around the table and through the salon.

  “Banco,” Kurshin announced. He was covering the entire amount.

  The evening had finally begun, and within seconds, word had spread through the casino, and by the time the shoe had been passed to McGarvey, the salon was full, and people were standing in the doorway just behind the velvet rope.

  McGarvey slid four cards from the shoe, never looking away from Kurshin.

  The croupier passed the cards, and Kurshin looked at them and immediately turned them over. A pair of fours. “Huit.”

  Mac flipped his cards over without looking. A five
and three. Also eight.

  It was a tie, and the one million–euro bet remained.

  Ths time Kurshin dealt the cards, again turning his over at once. A six and two. Eight again.

  McGarvey called for a card, which Kurshin dealt, but it was a jack with no value. Mac turned his cards over, a three and an ace for a four.

  “Two million,” Kurshin said.

  “Banco,” McGarvey immediately replied.

  The cards were drawn, McGarvey’s pair delivered by the croupier to him. He had drawn a two and nine for a total of eleven, which counted as one. His faceup third card was a six, for a respectful total of seven.

  “Carte,” Kurshin said, and he drew one card to himself, flipping it faceup. A three. He turned over his down cards, a two and three for eight and the win.

  Kurshin bet four million. No one said a word or made a noise.

  “Banco,” McGarvey said.

  Several people standing began talking at once, and the croupier had to demand order.

  Kurshin slid four cards down, the croupier passing two to McGarvey.

  A five and two. McGarvey declined a third card.

  Kurshin studied his two cards for a long time, finally calling for a third, up. It was a queen.

  McGarvey turned his cards up, and Kurshin reluctantly did the same. A two and four. Six, for the loss.

  The minor furor took several seconds to fade. The younger gentleman had just bet and lost four million on one draw.

  “Would the gentlemen like a break?”

  “No,” Kurshin and Mac said almost simultaneously.

  The bank was offered and declined around the table until it reached McGarvey.

  “Ten million,” he said.