Gambit by David Hagberg (manga ereader .txt) 📗

else don’t you know, Mikhail?” Hammond demanded. The assassin was too close for comfort; any number of things could go wrong—things that his money might not be able to insulate him from.

He had told Susan that he admired what she had done in Athens and admitted that he would have hired someone to take Bell down rather than take the chance himself.

She had smiled and shrugged it off. “Just another bit part in an action movie. ‘Lights, cameras, sound, action.’ Bang!”

Hammond took his iPad from his shoulder bag and set it up on the dining table, then got the champagne and his flute and brought them over. “Do we know his room number?”

“Yes, and he’s waiting for our call.”

“Does he know that he won’t be able to see us or hear our actual voices?”

“His type very seldom meets their principals,” Tarasov said. “It’s considered bad form.”

“You’ve not had a face-to-face?”

“No,” Tarasov said. He came over, sat down, and gave Hammond the number.

Once, when Hammond was a shy, skinny little boy of five, his parents took him to the aquarium exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. He remembered standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass window looking into one of the exhibits. He’d just stepped forward and put a hand out to touch the glass when a gigantic polar bear appeared out of nowhere, a massive paw hitting the glass with a thump directly in front of the boy’s face.

He’d stepped back, his heart nearly stopping, never so afraid for his safety until this moment as he stared at the image of Donald Hicks, the former Canadian Special Ops sniper who never missed and had also never learned to take orders from a superior, all of whom he thought were idiots.

The man stood in front of what might have been a laptop set up on top of a chest of drawers or desk. His massive, round head was completely free of hair, and that—combined with a narrow nose, high, delicate cheekbones, and wide, dark eyes—made him look exotic, almost movie-star handsome.

Hammond instantly had the thought that if Susan were here, she would insist they go over to the Rosewood to meet him in person. She would definitely want to fuck him.

“Mr. Hicks, can you hear me?” Hammond asked.

“Yes,” he said. “You have a job for me that I’m told is urgent, heh? Let’s get on with it.” His voice was soft, his Canadian accent strong.

Hammond figured him for a man who’d been born and raised out in the sticks. An inbred bumpkin. “I want you to kill someone.”

Hicks laughed. “Well, that’s what I do. Who is it?”

“I’ll send you his file when we’re finished here. But I’ll warn you that he is a well-experienced former CIA officer with a lot of field time.”

“Name?”

“Kirk McGarvey.”

Hicks’s expression suddenly became animated. “Finally,” he muttered.

“What?” Hammond asked, not quite sure he’d caught what the man had said.

“Finally someone worth the effort. I know this man.”

Hammond was alarmed. “Personally?”

“By reputation. He was the director of the CIA at one time. I’d say you aim high; he’s a hell of a lot more than just well experienced. He’s considered to be one of the very best shooters anywhere in the world. Christ on a cross.”

“I’ll send you his dossier.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Will you take the job?”

“Of course I will.”

“One million dollars,” Hammond said.

“Five million,” Hicks responded. “Half now, and if I’m not taken away in a body bag, the remainder within twenty-four hours after the kill.”

“No.”

Hicks shrugged. “I could just as well hunt you for free.”

Tarasov leaned forward. “You don’t know who we are.”

“I know you, Comrade Tarasov. I’m sure I could find your friend.”

Hammond’s heart skipped a beat. Looking into the Canadian’s eyes, he could see the same expression—or lack of—that he’d seen in McGarvey’s eyes on the boat at Monaco.

He reached forward to hit the Escape key, but Tarasov stayed his hand. “We agree to your terms, Mr. Hicks. But only if the mission is accomplished within the next twenty-four hours.”

“That could be a problem depending on the man’s location and his situation.”

“He’s at a small hospital just a few blocks from your present position,” Tarasov said. “The real problem, however, which is the reason you will get your five million if you succeed, is that he knows that you, or someone like you, is coming.”

“I accept,” Hicks said. “Send me what intel you have on this place. The moment I’m notified of the deposit, I will go to work.” He reached forward, and the screen went blank.

Hammond sat back, and for what seemed like a very long time to him, he gathered his thoughts. He looked up at length. “You’re free with my money.”

Tarasov shrugged.

“Can he do it?”

“Pay him and you’ll find out. But in the end, it’s nothing more than a rich man’s game.”

“Plus our deal.”

“The ball is in your court, as they say at Wimbledon.”

Hammond brought up one of his slush fund accounts in a small bank in Bahrain. Tarasov gave him the Canadian’s account information from memory, and Hammond looked up.

“You’ve worked with him before?”

“Twice.”

“He’s good?”

“The best.”

Hammond entered the information for the bank on Grand Cayman and hit the Send key, transferring the funds.

FIFTEEN

McGarvey left Starrs at his post at the rear entrance to the hospital and made the rounds of the entire building, starting downstairs and working his way up to the third floor and then the roof.

Besides the security detail, plus the doctor and the nurses, only two intelligence officers were in adjoining rooms on the second floor. One of them had returned from an op in Afghanistan with severe burns to his legs and back after a mortar round had gone off five feet from where he stood. By all accounts, he was a very lucky man.

The other patient was Dottie Valdez, who’d been the assistant chief of the CIA’s station in Havana, who’d been arrested on her way home and charged with prostitution. In jail, she’d been beaten and gang-raped over a thirty-six-hour period until