Gambit by David Hagberg (manga ereader .txt) 📗

Li came out with a cup of tea and joined him. For a longish time, neither of them spoke, staring across the bay at the lights and to sea as dozens of fishing boats headed out.

“He is a romantic, lost in a terrible destiny,” Li said.

“Voltaire?”

“That, too. But his assignment to Chile where he was sent to kill a general and ended up killing the man and his wife has apparently haunted him for years.”

“She was a monster as well.”

“Yes, but he didn’t know it at the time when he pulled the trigger. And even afterward when he’d learned the truth, he still made mention of it as a low point of his career.”

“I read it, but what do you mean about his terrible destiny?”

Li looked at him, her pretty mouth downturned. “Since that time, his wife and daughter were killed by a car bomb meant for him.”

“Yes, I saw that in the file.”

“Then his girlfriend in Switzerland was killed, chasing after him. Another was killed at a restaurant in Georgetown. His best friend’s wife was gunned down. And the woman he recently married was at least twice wounded, both times seriously.”

“It’s the business,” Taio said.

“Yes, but don’t you see my point? I’m certain that he looks on the deaths of every woman he’s ever been involved with as retribution for his assassinating the general’s wife in Chile.”

Taio saw what his wife was getting at. “The key to McGarvey is his wife.”

“Threaten her and he’ll come running right into our arms,” Li said.

THIRTY-TWO

Hammond and Susan arrived at the Pisa Airport aboard his Bombardier jet shortly before noon. They’d taken a twin-engine Otter from Skagway down to Juneau, where the crew brought the jet to pick them up. And then it was a grueling three-leg flight, first to LA to repack their bags, then cross country to Washington, where they stayed the night at the Hay-Adams, and then across the Atlantic.

Susan hadn’t been happy about Washington. “Like pissing into the wind,” she’d said at one point.

“McGarvey and his wife are in Florida,” Hammond said.

“But the CIA is just upriver, and so far as we know, the computer geek and his wife are still there.”

“Don’t get your ass in a bundle, sweetheart. You’re a movie star, and I’m an entrepreneur. We’re players.”

She’d managed a smile. “But this time we’re playing in a different ballpark. McGarvey’s.”

“We’ve hired the best; now let’s go spend some money.”

The shipyard sent a Cadillac limousine to take them to the Principe di Piemonte Hotel with its views of the sea on one side and the Viareggio Promenade with its collection of art nouveau buildings on the other.

At Hammond’s request, they were booked into the Seaview Suite, which was the best in the upscale but not fabulous hotel, where lunch settings for four had been laid out. A bottle of Krug was already chilling when they arrived.

“Your guests have been notified,” the head bellman of the three who’d carried their bags up and unpacked said. “If there’s anything else, please don’t hesitate to call me personally.”

Hammond pulled out three one-hundred-euro notes, but the bellman shook his head.

“Thank you, sir, but your stay with us has been taken care of by the Codecasas,” the bellman said. He shooed the other two ahead of him and closed the door softly when he left.

“With what you’re planning on spending, they could have done better than this,” Susan said cattily.

“I don’t think they’re going to be very happy when I tell them what I want them to build for us,” Hammond said.

“Us?”

“Like you said, in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Are you getting cold feet? Misery loves company, something like that?”

“On the contrary, I’m getting my second wind, and I’m starting to enjoy the hunt even more than I’d hoped I would.”

Susan gave him an appraising look. “You’re certifiable.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Along for the ride.”

“Even if it takes us to hell?”

Susan nodded.

“Then to tell you the truth, I hope McGarvey kills the Scorpions.”

“Jesus.”

“I don’t want it to end so quickly.”

“Foreplay.”

Hammond smiled. “Exactly. And I don’t like losing, never have.”

Ten minutes later, Antonio Codecasa—a distant relative of Giovanni Codecasa the shipwright, who’d founded the company in the early 1800s—showed up with a tall, slender, beautiful woman he introduced as Sophia Vargas, the company’s chief interior designer.

Antonio had been the chief yacht coordinating designer when Hammond had ordered Glory built, and over the nearly two years it had taken from when the keel was laid down until the yacht was turned over as ready for sea in all respects, they had built a mutual respect.

“Antonio,” Hammond said, the two men embracing.

“My old friend, I am very happy to see you again,” Antonio said. He and Susan exchanged a kiss, and then he introduced Sophia, whose English was Oxford perfect.

“I did my apprentice at Seagrams,” she explained. It was one of the major interior design studios in London.

“I can’t imagine the Brits teaching an Italian anything about design,” Hammond said.

“Sophia, who is a cousin to the family, taught them more than they taught her,” Antonio said. “But then you’re here because you want a retrofit so soon?”

“I want a new ship, and you’re not going to like it.”

“A smaller yacht?”

“Bigger.”

Antonio was suddenly wary. “How big?”

“Five hundred feet.”

“One hundred fifty meters,” Antonio said. “Impossible. Our yard was strained beyond the limit when we built Glory at only one hundred fifteen meters.”

“I don’t want to take my business elsewhere,” Hammond said. “Money is no object, you know this.”

Antonio was shaking his head.

“I’ll go into a partnership with you to build a new yard. Once the Susan P shows up on the circuit, especially Cannes and Monaco, our new yard will turn a fantastic profit.”

Susan stepped back and almost dropped her flute. Hammond looked at her and grinned. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Jesus, you were serious,” was all she could say, but she was impressed.

“I’ll want it in two years.”

“No,” Antonio said.

“I’ll write you a check this instant for whatever sum you