The Shadowmen (7 page)

“I'm an old man, Ms. Graves. And even if I did think about revenge, I don't have the resources.”

“There must be an old-boy network. Someone you could call.”

Didenko drank his wine. “Are you a sensationalist? Are you writing a serious book, or will it be a story for the tabloids?”

“I'm extremely serious, General.”

“I can't open the archives at Lubyanka Square for you, nor would I if I had the power, if that's what you're asking.”

“I'm only asking for your memories.”

“I think more than that,” Didenko said. “But I give you my assurances that I have no feelings of anger or regret that would lead me to take revenge.”

“But there must be those who would,” Pete pressed.

Didenko threw his head back and laughed. “A great many of them, I suspect,” he said at length.

10

McGarvey, dressed for the casino in black tie and patent leather shoes, presented himself to the maître d' at the Hôtel de Paris's Michelin three-star Le Louis XV.

“Will monsieur be dining alone this evening?” the haughty Frenchman asked.

“Unfortunately, yes, but perhaps my luck will change for the better at the casino.”

The maître d' led him to a table in a corner next to a tall, ornately draped window that rose to arches just below the ceiling adorned in gold leaf like nearly every other surface. It had been years since he had been here last, but nothing had changed; the large room half-filled with well-dressed diners was a fantasy from the Grand Siècle at Versailles. All the clocks were stopped at twelve, because in this restaurant, time was of no importance.

A waiter in a white shirt and a spotlessly white apron well below his knees came to take McGarvey's drink order, while another brought a bottle of still water and poured a glass, and a third brought a small, crusty baguette and butter.

McGarvey ordered a Hermitage Réaux 65, which was an expensive vintage cognac, and when the first waiter was a gone, a fourth brought a menu that McGarvey declined.

“May I offer monsieur a few suggestions?”

“No, nor will I be rushed,” Mac said, not bothering to keep his voice low. “First, I will have a drink or two. Then, caviar, a shrimp ceviche as long as it isn't drowned, Mediterranean sea bass with fennel, radicchio, and citrus fruit.” The fish was an Alain Ducasse specialty. “If the bass is overcooked, I will send it back.”

The waiter was a professional; he didn't miss a beat, but word would get out about the crude American. “Very good, monsieur. Shall I send a sommelier?”

“Krug. Tell your man to be sharp with the vintage. I won't drink vinegar.”

“I understand,” the waiter said, and he left.

“They'll remember you,” Otto said softly in his ear.

“That's the point,” Mac mumbled as if he were talking to himself. No one paid any attention to him.

His cognac came, and he drained the snifter before the waiter had a chance to get five feet away. “Another,” he called out.

The waiter nodded. “Yes, sir.” “Is anyone nearby?” Otto asked.

“I'm by myself in a corner. They had a hunch I was going to be trouble.”

“Pete is on her way to Paris already.”

“How'd it go?”

“She didn't get much except that Didenko agreed that there were a great many who'd like to take a go at you. He wasn't one of them.”

“What was the upshot?”

“Didenko is an old man, definitely out to pasture. If it was anyone from Kurshin's camp who came for help, he probably didn't get much.”

“He can't be that old. He was playing a head game with her.”

“She thought as much. But Didenko will get back to whoever is stalking you, no doubt with her photograph. He'll know that you're onto him already. Might give him pause.”

The waiter was coming with his cognac. “I'll be throwing money around at the casino in about an hour. Drunk.”

“You're not armed.”

“No,” McGarvey said. The casino's security systems at the entries were capable of detecting weapons.

“Watch yourself, Mac,” Otto said.

The waiter set the snifter down, and this time, he hesitated before leaving. McGarvey tossed the drink back.

“Would monsieur care for another?”

“No. I want my wine now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Salopard,”
Mac said under his breath as the waiter walked away. It was gutter French for
bastard
.

The champagne came a couple of minutes later, and McGarvey feigned impatience as the sommelier opened it and poured a glass. As with the cognac, Mac drank the wine in one piece and held his glass out for more. The wine master obliged and then bucketed the bottle and walked off.

Two couples at the nearest table noticed what was happening and glanced over at him. McGarvey glared at them, and they turned away. The maître d' was on the phone at his station, but when Mac looked at him, he didn't turn away.

“Careful they don't kick you out of there,” Otto said.

“I'll tone it down a notch, but I've made my impression.”

“That you have. The maître d' has phoned a man he calls Monsieur Germain, probably the manager, about you causing a disturbance. You're to be escorted out if you become intoxicated and loud.”

McGarvey smiled and raised a glass to the maître d', who finally turned away.

“You've made your point,” Louise said. “Behave yourself.”

“For now,” McGarvey said. A waiter came with his caviar. “Dinner is coming.”

“That was fast,” Otto said.

“They want to get rid of him ASAP,” Louise said.

McGarvey took his time with his caviar and toasts, but the instant he was done, his plates and utensils were taken away, and his ceviche was served, followed, when he was finished, with his sea bass.

“Was everything satisfactory, monsieur?” the head waiter asked at the end.

Mac drank the last of the champagne. “I've had better,” he said. “No dessert. Bring me
l'addition
.”

The waiter produced it immediately.

McGarvey signed it, adding an outrageously large tip on top of the ordinary 15 percent already included. It was a final mark of his being a wealthy but boorish American.

He staggered slightly as he crossed the dining room, where he stopped at the maître d's station and laid a hundred-euro note on the stand. “For your trouble, monsieur,” he said in French, and he left the hotel.

The night was soft, but the traffic was fairly heavy even though it was not ten yet. By midnight, the Place du Casino would be fully alive.

“Are you okay?” Otto asked.

“After the first glass, I poured my own wine, and most of it went into the bucket.”

The casino was on the other side of the Place, not far away. The tree- and flower-lined walks were extremely pleasant, and there were the odd moments like these when he could forget for just an instant the danger he was walking into and thinking that Katy could be with him. She would have loved this place, and he was sorry that he'd never taken her here.

The only disturbing note was that he was having trouble visualizing her face in any kind of sharp focus. He could hear her laugh, smell her perfume, feel the texture of her hair and her cheek, but he could only see her wide eyes. He'd been having the same trouble for the past couple of years.

Sometimes glancing at one of the photographs of her, it took just a split instant before he recognized her. At that moment, he felt an almost overwhelming sense of guilt not only for the reasons she was been killed but for how fast he had let the details of her slip away.

For now, he was relieved that Pete and gotten in and out of Russia apparently without trouble, and he found that he was looking forward to seeing her.

He crossed to the casino entrance where a man in livery opened the door for him. He had to show his passport, because locals were forbidden to enter. Crossing to the cashier's position, he arranged for a credit of one hundred thousand euros, and once it was established, he took five thousand in cash and made his way to one of the bars, where he got a Campari and soda.

The salon with slot machines was filled, many of the people dressed in shorts, T-shirts, and even flip-flops, with ball caps backward on their heads. And they weren't just Americans; some were Italians, Germans, even French.

Twenty years ago, such a thing would have been unthinkable.

Mac put on the dark-rimmed glasses that Otto had made especially for him and headed toward the baccarat salon.

11

Kurshin, dressed in an impeccably tailored Armani tuxedo, with Martine, who was dressed in a simple off-the-shoulder white silk evening dress and a platinum choker with a six-carat diamond around her long neck, entered the casino, showing their passports—hers from Paris— a few minutes before eleven in the evening.

Her hair was up in the back, and the dress was cut low enough that her practically bare breasts attracted the attention of every male in the place, including the doorman's.

“Good evening, sir, madam,” he said.

“Mademoiselle,” Martine corrected.

They arranged for a credit of 250,000 euros and then went into the nearly full lounge, where they found seats at the bar. He ordered a vodka martini for himself and a glass of champagne for her.

She took a cigarette from her cocktail purse, and he lit it for her. “I feel almost as if we were in an early James Bond movie,” she said teasingly.

They had gotten out of bed very late and had a light breakfast on the terrace before going down to a small private marina. She had a fifty-foot crewed Pacific Seacraft cutter and a twenty-foot Chris-Craft ski boat. They took the ski boat, her at the wheel, and headed out into the bay to a narrow cove with a small sand beach.

“I'm still a little jet lagged,” she said. They lay on beach towels.

“The sun will help.”

Marie had fixed them a light lunch with champagne, but they weren't hungry at that moment.

“Are you going to tell me about your dark quest?” she asked.

“What, are you a spy?”

“Yes, especially when it comes to my new lovers.”

“Do you have many?”

“You're intriguing enough for the moment. Are you rich?”

“If you mean am I a gigolo after your money, I'm not, though I'm sure that your ex left you better off than I could have.”

She'd looked away through the cut in the low cliffs toward the open sea. The morning was perfect. “You're English, but you weren't born there, I think.”

“Actually, my father worked as a journalist in the Czech Republic, where he met my mum. I was seven by the time we got back to London.”

“Eastern Europe, I thought so. Are you still close with your mother and father?”

“I was until they were killed in a rocket attack outside Tel Aviv.”

She thought about it for a moment or two. “Are you after revenge? A lot of well-to-do Arabs come here to play baccarat, but their wagers are sometimes ridiculously obscene.”

“I wouldn't try to keep up with them.”

“So it's not an Arab you're after.”

Again, he got an odd between-the-shoulders feeling about her. It was almost as if a sniper was lining up to take a shot at the back of his head from a long ways off. The pickup in Washington had been too easy, some of her expressions had been slightly off, and the mild interrogation seemed a bit more than curiosity about a new lover.

“Maybe it's an overly aggressive Frenchwoman,” he said.

They were about to make love when two other small boats showed up, and the picnickers set up on the beach with their music and games. A sailboat with a dozen tourists came into the cove and dropped anchor.

Back at Martine's villa, they washed off the sand, made love, and napped again.

Marie served them a late dinner at poolside.

*   *   *

At the bar, Kurshin sipped his martini. “I'm probably the only Englishman alive who's never seen a James Bond movie.”

She laughed. “I have all of them,” she said. “We can spend the day in bed tomorrow watching them. You'll love him.”

“Are you so sure?”

“All spies love double oh seven.”

“One spy to another?”

“Mais oui!”

They finished their drinks and went past the noisy slot machines and video poker games to the hushed atmosphere of the high-stakes baccarat salon. An attendant in a tuxedo opened the rope barrier for them, and they stood behind the players on the opposite side of the table from the croupier. This version of the game, popular mostly in France, was chemin de fer. In ordinary baccarat, the house was the banker against which the players wagered. In chemin, each player had a chance to become the banker, wagering whatever he or she could afford. One of the other players around the table could take on the entire bet, or it could be shared. In any event, the banker and the player with the highest wager were the only ones who got cards—two at first, facedown. Nine automatically won, while the banker or player by convention was supposed to stand pat on an eight. For any other total, either could ask for a third card, faceup. Tens and face cards counted as zeros, aces as ones.

The banker drew four cards from the shoe facedown. The croupier used his pallet to scoop up the players' cards and pass them down the table.

The banker immediately turned his cards over—a five and a three. An eight. The player was next with a pair of fours.

“Égalité
,
”
the croupier announced, and he deftly scooped up all four cards. No one had won, and the banker's and player's bets remained unchanged.

The current banker and six players sat around the table, twice as many watchers standing behind them.

From where Kurshin was positioned beside Martine, he could not see the face of every player, although two of them were obviously Arabs—probably Saudis—young, well dressed, and extremely arrogant.