Khalil shook his head dreamily. He was no longer irritated. He was looking forward to the pleasure of the kill. “It won’t be necessary.”
“He doesn’t suspect that we’re onto him—”
Khalil dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “That doesn’t matter either, my friend.” He smiled again, his eyes half-closed. “You’ll see.”
Was it not said that for the man who could bend like the willow in the wind would come victory?
French Service 5 Operative François Brousseau entered his contact number on the satellite phone’s keypad with a shaking hand and waited for his call to Paris to go through. He stood on a rise behind the camp, looking down toward the Medea Highway in the distance. It was midnight, and there had been no lights on the highway for the past hour, which heightened his sense of isolation. For six weeks this place had operated as nothing more than a mujahideen training camp. Hand-to-hand combat, Stinger-missile dry-fire exercises, AK-47 live-fire practice, bomb making, infiltration and exfiltration lectures, and five times daily the prayers to Mecca.
Amar had driven away this evening, and three hours later he’d returned with Khalil himself. The second biggest prize of all behind bin Laden.
His call was answered. “Oui.”
“Ici Hasni,” he spoke softly, giving his code name. “Something new has developed. The king of spades—”
A dark presence loomed up behind him, and before Brousseau could react, something horribly sharp sliced deeply into the base of his neck where it attached to his right shoulder. His arm went instantly numb, and he dropped the phone.
Khalil pushed the French spy, stumbling nearly off-balance. “Bonsoir, Monsieur Le Traître; maintenant, il est les temps pour votre mort,” he said, and then he came at the man with the razor-sharp knife as if he were a hunter skinning the pelt from a wild animal, with no one to hear or care about the screams of the dying man.
THIRTY-SEVEN
McGarvey walked across the Place du Casino from his hotel and entered the soaring, marble-columned atrium of the Casino de Monte-Carlo a few minutes before ten on a balmy evening. The odor of money mingled in the air with cigarette smoke and expensive perfume.
He’d been in the principality since noon, but had kept a relatively low profile, waiting to see if his arrival had been noticed. But no one followed him when he took a walking tour around the harbor, nor had his room been searched while he was gone.
He found it odd that bin Laden’s warning and the president’s declaration of martial law were going all but unnoticed here. But as a waiter at a terrace café told him with a Gallic shrug, the world saw what America did after 9/11; this time, if it happens again, nothing will be different.
Nightlife was just getting into full swing, the streets packed with every style, from blue jeans and tee shirts off to play the slots; to micromini skirts and stiletto heels off to the discos; to jackets and demure cocktail dresses going to the roulette tables, international and English; and to people like McGarvey, dressed in evening clothes and heading for one-of-the-two Salles Privées, where only the well-heeled went to play mostly chemin de fer.
The newly remodeled casino had been brought back to all its Old-World magnificence, with soaring, ornately decorated ceilings from which hung massive crystal chandeliers; gold inlaid mahogany walls; rare paintings, sculptures, and other artwork, ranking the casino as an important gallery; handwoven, intricately patterned carpeting; and gilt mirrors in which patrons could admire themselves. But there were no clocks to remind them that it might be getting late.
There was no other gambling establishment like it anywhere in the world for sheer elegance. Even the best of Las Vegas or London couldn’t compare. With four main gaming rooms in two wings — the Salon de l’Europe, Salle Blanche, SalleTouzet, and the Salle Medecin — plus the two Salles Privées on a good evening when American movie stars came up from the film festival at Cannes or Arab oil sheiks were in town, tens of millions of euros would switch hands.
This evening, however, the only excitement was the presence of Prince Abdul Salman, whose 428-foot yacht MV Bedouin Wanderer had been brought by her crew up from Palma on the big island of Mallorca earlier in the day. Whenever that happened, it signaled that the prince was planning on making a miniseason on the Cote d’Azur, and this meant action, because money always attracted money and beautiful women. The combination was glittering.
McGarvey stopped at the caisse to confirm that CitiBank had followed up on his instructions to establish a line of credit with the casino under his work name of Robert Brewster in the amount of one million dollars. Rencke had suggested using CIA funds, but this was personal and McGarvey was no longer on the payroll.
The head caissier, all discreet smiles, had been expecting him. “Oui, Monsieur Brewster. Everything is in order. Do you wish to make a withdrawal?”
“Ten thousand,” McGarvey said. “I’ll be in the Salles Privées.”
The caissier passed ten one-thousand-euro plaques across. “Naturellement, Monsieur. Bonne fortune.”
McGarvey pocketed his plaques, then sauntered across the atrium and into the Salon de l’Europe, very busy with gamblers at the roulette wheels and the trente et quarante tables. This was the very end of the European vacation season, and most of the casino patrons were dressed in blue jeans and sneakers or sandals. Someone hit their number at one of the roulette wheels, and a cheer went up.
Passing through the Salle Blanche with its noisy slot machines and video poker games, into the Salle Touzet with its raucous craps tables and relatively subdued blackjack games, he came to the much more discreet Salle Médecin, which until the remodeling had been the old Salle Privée, where the big money played.
This room was in the east wing of the building, and McGarvey stopped just inside the doorway for a moment before he angled across to the entrance into the two private gaming rooms. A velvet rope blocked the opening. A security officer dressed in a tuxedo smiled as McGarvey walked up.
“Good evening, Monsieur Brewster,” he said, pleasantly, as he unhooked the rope and stood aside. “Bon fortune.”
“Merci,” McGarvey said, passing through directly into an ornately gilded and mirrored small room that could have been the interior of a jewel box.
The Salles Privées were arranged to the left and right, and they were busy this evening. A muted hum seemed to stay within the confines of the two rooms, as if the privileged class here did not want anyone outside their circle to hear what they were saying.
McGarvey caught a glimpse of Prince Salman seated at one of the chemin de fer tables in the left room. His pistol had come across in a sealed diplomatic package, which he hadn’t opened until he’d arrived at the Hotel de Paris across the Place from the casino. Now that he’d confirmed Salman was here, he fought the urge to return to his hotel, get his gun, and come back to wait until the prince left the casino to take him out.
It would be easy. It would be swift and sure and, most of all, clean.
The patrons were dressed in evening clothes, most of the women young, very beautiful, and bedecked in diamonds and haute couture. All but two of the ten players seated around the prince’s tableau were men, and there were no vacant seats.
McGarvey fixed a slight smile on his face, walked in, and took his place behind the brass rail at the fringe of the crowd. A waitress carrying a tray of champagne came by, and he took a glass as Salman said something and a murmur of approval arose from the onlookers.