“I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you coming in?”
“No,” McGarvey said.
“Watch yourself in Monaco. He might have been playing with you at Arlington, but sooner or later, he’ll get tired of the game.”
“Me too,” McGarvey said.
He explained the problem to Pete and then called Bambridge, whose secretary put him through immediately. He switched to speaker mode.
“Tell me that you two are on your way in,” DDO said. He was a good deputy director, but he and McGarvey had never gotten along. Bambridge was a by-the-book man, exactly the opposite of Mac.
“Pete’s with me, and we’re going to lie low for a few days.”
“Not until we talk.”
“Later.”
“The shooter was armed with an automatic weapon. Shell casings were all over the place. And you and Ms. Boylan returned fire. The bureau wants to know what the hell happened. There were innocent bystanders who could have been hurt, and if you mean to tell me the same thing you told the agents — that it was a random act — we both know that you’re lying. Someone out of your past has come gunning for you. I want to know who it is and why.”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“The bureau wants to talk to you, but I convinced Ted that we’d have to vet your story first. It’s most likely going to involve national security issues.”
“At this point, I don’t think so. But when I run it down, which I will, I’ll stop by and let you know what happened.”
“Goddamn it, mister, I want you in my office now!”
“Don’t push it, Marty.”
“Is Ms. Boylan with you? She doesn’t answer at her apartment.”
“I’m here,” Pete said.
“I don’t hear any road noise, so it means you’re either at McGarvey’s apartment or you’re shacked up with him at some motel.”
Pete grinned. “With all due respect, Mr. Bambridge, go fuck yourself. I’m going to be gone for a few days or maybe a little longer, but when I get back, the first person I’ll speak to will be Melissa Danberg.” Danberg was head of the CIA’s Human Resources office.
“That’s your prerogative, but I want you here.”
“I believe you accused me of being shacked up,” Pete said. “That’s sexual harassment, Marty, and I’m going to make a very large deal out of it.” She hit the End button. “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the bastard.”
“He’s just trying to do his job. Maybe it would be best if you went in and talked to him.”
“The shooter was aiming at me too, so I’m in this just as deeply as you are, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let myself be stuck here until it’s too late.”
“Even if Didenko knows anything, the chances that he’ll help you are slim.”
“It’ll put the shooter on notice,” Pete said. “Maybe we should pack up and get out of here before Marty sends someone to look for us.”
McGarvey phoned Louise and told her the situation. She agreed to keep the rental Ford in their garage and drive them out to Dulles in time for their flights.
On the way over, Pete took a standard surveillance-detection route, first heading out toward CIA headquarters and then turning off at various points to see if they were being followed before taking up the route again.
“Would have been better if we had ditched the car somewhere else and checked into a motel near the airport,” she said. “I was looking forward to shacking up with you.”
8
Martine Barineau’s place in Nice was actually a villa in the hills above the small town of Villefranche-sur-Mer just a few kilometers up the Basse Corniche toward Monte-Carlo, and the afternoon was lovely when she arrived by cab with Kurshin. He paid, and she led him inside, where they left their bags in the hall and then went around the back to a long pool area overlooking the town and the Mediterranean.
A very large cat came through open french doors, rubbed up against Martine’s leg, and walked back inside.
“This is very nice,” Kurshin said. He was impressed.
She smiled. “A very bad marriage but a marvelous divorce. Would you like something to eat, or would you prefer that I drive you down to the casino?”
“I think that the casino can wait until tomorrow.”
“Give me a minute to get Marie organized, and I’ll fetch us a drink. More champagne?”
“I think a pink gin, easy on the ice.”
“Leave it to the Brits to invent something so disgusting,” she said, and she went inside.
Kurshin walked to the balustrade and watched as a very large motor yacht — he guessed at least one hundred meters at the waterline — heading east turned toward shore. Probably going to Monte-Carlo. The day was dazzling, puffy white clouds, a pleasant breeze. After a bleak winter in England, this was fabulous.
He’d never actually lived the good life, but he’d been trained by his handlers how to blend in with the high rollers, a lot of whom were so into themselves that they wouldn’t notice if a puddler from a steel mill sat across the table as long as the man was dressed properly.
“Drink Dom or Krug or Cristal with your caviar when the occasion arises, but don’t be shy about having a beer and fish and chips,” one of his instructors had taught. “Marks you as a man of self-confidence who does whatever he wants to do. Sometimes you can blend in by sticking out.”
He and Martine had aged New York strip steaks for dinner along with a fine red wine on the flight across the Atlantic, and at one point as they were getting to know each other, she’d asked what his favorite things were in America.
“A quarter pounder with cheese and a large fries,” he’d told her.
She’d given him a blank look.
“The best meal at McDonald’s.”
She’d laughed. “You’re a common man.”
“Whenever the need arises.”
The big yacht gradually disappeared behind the Golfe de Saint-Hospice, beyond which was Monte-Carlo as Martine came out with their drinks, his gin and bitters and her white wine.
“Lobster salad in a half hour, and afterward, I thought we might have a swim and get around our jet lag by the pool,” she said.
“Lunch sounds fine,” Kurshin said, raising his glass to her. “But I have a better cure.”
“Which is?”
“Making love, of course.”
“Of course,” she said, smiling over the rim of her wine glass.
After lunch, they retired to her master suite, the french doors open to the warm breeze from the Med. It was late afternoon, but their body clocks felt that it was the middle of the night, and they were jet lagged.
In the shower, they washed each other’s backs and, still damp, went to bed where they made long, slow love. She was at least fifteen years older than he was, but her body was wonderfully tight, her skin unblemished, her breasts small, her waist narrow, and her legs long and graceful, those of a dancer.
At one point, she rolled on top of him, her eyes open and bright. “When we started, I thought I might fall asleep,” she said.
“But?”
“My God, if all Brits are as good in bed as you are, I might consider moving to London.”
“It’s the pink gin.”
She laughed. “I was thinking of coming to Monte-Carlo with you, unless you’re meeting someone.”
“I was hoping you’d want to.”
“Wild horses couldn’t hold me back,” she said.
Something about the expression sounded odd in Kurshin’s ears. Their lingua franca was English, of course — hers with a French accent, his northern England. But he got the impression that if she were French, she’d lived elsewhere, probably as a child.