The Shadowmen

by David Hagberg

  No one made a sound except for Kurshin.

  “Banco,” he said, his voice still strong, but his complexion had turned slightly pale.

  A man, presumably the casino manager, came in, said something to the croupier, and then left, but only as far as the doorway.

  The shoe was passed to McGarvey, who dealt four cards, the croupier passing two of them to Kurshin.

  A hush spread throughout the entire casino. Even the clamorous noise from the slot machines stopped.

  McGarvey turned up his two cards. A five and four, a natural nine.

  Kurshin was shaky. He called for a card, which was a two, and he turned over his down cards, a three and an ace, for a total of six and the loss.

  “Vingt million,” McGarvey said, never taking his eyes from Kurshin’s.

  After a few moments, the croupier prompted, “Monsieur?”

  Kurshin finally shook his head, the movement barely perceptible.

  “Messieurs et mesdames,” the croupier called for anyone else to cover the massive wager of twenty million euros, but no one accepted.

  Kurshin pushed away from the table and got to his feet, hate in his posture and deep in his eyes.

  McGarvey smiled at the Russian. “Champagne for everyone in the casino,” he said. “How about them apples?”

  21

  On the way back to their hotel on foot, Kurshin was in a deep, almost mind-numbing rage, some of it directed at himself for his gross stupidity. That he’d lost eleven million euros to McGarvey wasn’t the point; he wasn’t going to pay it in any event. The casino would find out within a few hours that the line of credit he’d established was no good. By then, of course, he would be long gone.

  What really galled him was McGarvey’s attitude. The man knew who lured him to Arlington and here to Monte-Carlo. It was why McGarvey had sent the woman to talk to Didenko and why he had deliberately lost at épée. All of it was focused on the baccarat table.

  And Kurshin had fallen for one of the oldest plays in tradecraft—fill your opponent with a false sense of security and an overinflated sense of superiority, and then hit him hard.

  “M. Arouet is a very shrewd man,” Martine said.

  Kurshin didn’t answer her. He was done playing the game. It was time to finish it once and for all. Payback time. Revenge for his brother’s death and how and where it had happened.

  “He was probably playacting at the fencing competition. Made us all think that he was an old man more filled with bravado than intelligence and strength.”

  Something of what she was saying penetrated. “What are you talking about?”

  “He has something against you, and he rubbed your nose in it at the table. You must know him from somewhere.”

  “Never met the man in my life.”

  “Well, he knows you. It might be a good idea if you found out what grudge he’s carrying against you, because I think he could be a very dangerous man.”

  “I’ve already lost eleven million to him.”

  “I meant physically, mon cher,” Martine said.

  Kurshin chuckled. “I doubt it.”

  Martine shrugged. “How about a nightcap before we go up? I’m wide awake.”

  “I’d like to drive back to your place, if you don’t mind. I’ve had my fill of Monte-Carlo.”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “Now. Let’s not wait.”

  Martine glanced over her shoulder. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “Would you like me to settle the bill?”

  Kurshin’s rage spiked, and he almost smashed his fist into her face. But he smiled instead. “Thanks, but it’s not necessary. What’s a few thousand euros against eleven million?”

  * * *

  In the villa’s front entry hall, Martine was just closing and locking the door when Marie, in her nightclothes, came from the rear of the house. She seemed agitated.

  “Madame,” she said.

  “Poor dear probably didn’t expect us back in the middle of the night,” Martine told Kurshin.

  “Is there a beer in the fridge?” he asked.

  “Of course. Do you want me to get one for you?”

  “Take care of your servant. I’ll get my own beer, and I need to make a phone call.”

  Martine went to Marie, and they disappeared down the hall.

  Kurshin got a cold Heineken from one of the fridges in the big kitchen and went out to the patio to phone Didenko.

  It was very late in Petushki, and it rang a half dozen times before the general picked up. He sounded very tired. “Da.”

  “It’s me, and I need your help one last time.”

  “What has happened?”

  Kurshin told him everything, starting with his first encounter with McGarvey in the hotel and then the fencing demonstration and finally the debacle at the casino.

  “I warned you not to take the man for granted. Obviously, he was playing with you on the piste, setting you up to make a fool of yourself.”

  “I’m done playing games with him,” Kurshin said, but Didenko interrupted him.

  “Tell me about this woman you’re with. What do you know about her?”

  “A Frenchwoman who was married to a wealthy man in Paris. The divorce left her well off.”

  “You say that you picked her up at the airport in Washington? Or was it the other way around?”

  Kurshin turned and looked into the dining room and kitchen beyond through the open french doors. “She was traveling alone, and by chance, we were sitting next to each other, but it was she who introduced herself.”

  “You bought her a drink, you flew together, and when you reached Paris, she had invited you to her villa. Convenient, don’t you think?”

  It was. “Yes,” Kurshin said.

  “You have more contacts in the service than I do. Find out who she is. Who knows? Maybe she’s working for McGarvey. Stranger things have happened.”

  He phoned Lestov in Moscow. “Vadim, it’s me, and I’m sorry for the hour, but I need some information right now.”

  “You’re becoming a bore, darling,” Lestov said. A man said something in the background.

  “Don’t hang up; this is important.”

  Lestov hesitated for just a second. “What is it?”

  Kurshin gave him Martine’s name and the setup in Villefranche. “I need to know if she works for the CIA.”

  “I’ll call back in a few minutes.”

  “I may not have a few minutes,” Kurshin said, but Lestov had already hung up.

  “A few minutes for what?” Martine asked at the doorway.

  Kurshin turned and smiled. “I asked an old friend to check on Arouet for me.”

  “That’s good, because I want to know. He and Donna Graves were here this afternoon and terrorized Marie. They locked her in the pantry and apparently searched the house. They were in my bedroom at least.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  “Obviously something having to do with you. So just who the hell are you?”

  Kurshin’s phone buzzed. It was Lestov.

  “What have you found?”

  “Not much yet, but the French believe she’s MI6.”

  “Thank you; now go back to your lover.”

  “Fuck you,” Lestov said, and he hung up.

  “What’d your friend say?”

  “Arouet works on Wall Street, just like he said. But he’s damned good at baccarat, and he was probably faking it at the fencing demonstration.”

  “What was he doing here?”

  “Like you said, looking for something about me,” Kurshin said. “Let’s go to bed; I’m tired. And in the morning, I’ll tell you what I have in mind to get my eleven million back.”

  Martine smiled. “Will you give me a hint?”

  “I’m going to ask for a rematch, and in the meantime, you’re going to take Mme Graves shopping.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, in bed together in the middle of lovemaking, Kurshin put his h
ands around Martine’s neck and strangled her to death. She fought hard for a full minute before her strength faded.

  Down the hall, he entered the housemaid’s bedroom, and as she was rising up from sleep, he strangled her, as well.

  Back out on the patio, he took a drink of his beer still on the table and phoned Didenko again.

  “Do you have the telephone number for Donna Graves?”

  “Da.”

  “Call her, and say that you’ve heard I’m on the way to Portugal. McGarvey will know where and why.”

  “First let me tell you something about your brother.”

  “Just do as I ask, General, and I’ll never bother you again.”

  “No, I don’t think you will,” Didenko said.

  22

  McGarvey sat just inside the open balcony door of their suite watching the sky to the east behind the foothills as it started to lighten with the dawn. His pistol was on a low table next to him.

  Pete had insisted that they get a couple of hours of sleep, because she suspected that Kallinger’s next and perhaps final move would come sometime today. “With this guy, we’ll have to be sharp.”

  They’d lingered for a half hour at the casino before coming back to the hotel, and just as they were leaving, the manager called them into his office.

  “There may be an irregularity with M. Kallinger’s line of credit,” he’d told them. “Possibly just a problem with the électroniques; such things have happened in the past. We will contact his bank first thing Monday morning. In the meantime, I am sorry, monsieur, but we cannot settle your account.”

  “I think that you’ll find M. Kallinger has no account at that bank,” McGarvey told the manager.

  “The man is a thief?”

  “It looks like it.”

  “You almost look relieved,” Pete told him as they walked back to their hotel.

  “Had his credit been good, it would have meant he had some serious backing.”

  “The FSB?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Same question: What does this guy want with you?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s serious about whatever it is.”

  His phone vibrated softly. It was Otto.

  “The casino manager was right; there is no such account any longer, but it was in existence for about twelve hours—just long enough for him to establish his line of credit. But when it came time to collect, the account had disappeared.”

  “On a London bank?”

  “Alta-Bank of Moscow.”

  “He made a mistake,” McGarvey said.

  “Indeed he did, but it nails him as a Russian sleeper agent posted to London. It also means that he’s almost certainly Spetsnaz, and very well trained.”

  “Can we put some pressure on the bank to find out who opened the account and then closed it so suddenly?”

  “I could hack their mainframe, but it could screw up their legitimate account holders, and whatever name it was opened with would be false.”

  “Then I’ll have to take the fight to him,” McGarvey said. “Right away this morning.”

  “With care, Mac. Whoever this guy really is, he’ll expect you to come knocking. You could let it rest until Monday when the casino figures out that he swindled them. They’ll get the cops involved.”

  “He won’t let it rest that long.”

  Pete came out of the bedroom with her phone. “General Didenko wants to talk to you,” she said.

  “Stand by,” he told Otto.

  “Give me five seconds, and my darlings will have her phone.”

  McGarvey laid his phone aside and took Pete’s from her. “Good morning, General. You’re something of a surprise.”

  “I heard about your good luck. By now, I’m certain that the casino has discovered his account does not exist.”

  “Did you set it up for him at the Alta-Bank?” “I’m not involved. He has more friends in Moscow than I do.”

  “What the hell does he want with me?”

  “Revenge for something he thinks you did a number of years ago.”

  “If you’re not involved, why this conversation?”

  “He came to see me a few weeks ago, to ask for my help.”

  “With what?”

  “You.”

  “What did you tell him?” McGarvey asked.

  “To forget about you. To get on with his life before he got himself too deep. But of course, he refused to listen. And that is all he got from me, you have my word on it.”

  “You were an agent runner, Baranov’s handpicked successor. Why should I trust you?”

  “I’m an old man, and I’ve been out of the business for a long time. I was sent to count the birches for a couple of years before I was allowed to come home, but only if I promised to stay completely below the radar. Which I have.” Being sent to count the birches was an old Soviet euphemism for being sent to a gulag in Siberia.

  “The question is still on the table, General. Why did you call me?”

  “To tell you that he’s on his way to Portugal. That and nothing more.”

  It came to McGarvey immediately. “But your star operator, Arkady Kurshin, was no relationship to Kallinger, or whatever the hell his real name is.”

  “He was an orphan. His trainers just seized the opportunity to make him think that Arkasha was his older brother.”

  “Why tell me all this?”

  “Because I want him to kill you, finish the job that Arkasha could not in that tunnel.”

  “I’ll call for reinforcements.”

  “No, you won’t,” Didenko said, and he hung up.

  Otto was there on Pete’s phone. “You’re going to have to call for help, Mac, I shit you not.”

  “If he’s going back to where I killed Kurshin, that’d be in the jurisdiction of the rural cops. He’d eat them alive. I’m talking about the SIM.” It was Portugal’s military intelligence service—Serviço de Informações Militares.

  “First I need to find out what he wants.”

  “It has nothing to do with the guy he thinks was his brother. He’s tired of doing nothing in England. He wants to graduate to their covert action service. In order to do that, he needs to make his chops. And if he can bag you, mano a mano, just like escaping across the desert with a prisoner, he’ll be over the top.”

  McGarvey sat back in his chair and looked up at Pete. “It’s starting again because of Putin. The new Cold War.”

  “The Ukraine and Poland are on a bigger scale,” Otto said. “But if they can start eliminating the old hands, the people who have the deep background and experience to understand what’s going on, they’ll be winning not only strategic victories but—to their way of thinking—taking the high moral ground. The old Soviet system was supposedly the most powerful in the world; Putin wants it for real this time.”

  “All the more reason for me to face him alone,” McGarvey said.

  “But he’ll be waiting for you. It’ll be a setup to his advantage.”

  “Except these aren’t the old days for any of us. Le Carré’s George Smiley was the man for his day—intelligent, patient, and sure that he was going to win in the end. But we’re in more ruthless times now—murder has become vastly more important than counterintel.”

  Pete had called down to the front desk on the house phone. “They checked out several hours ago—right after they left the casino.”

  McGarvey knew exactly what had already happened, and Otto had overheard what she’d said.

  “I’m trying her cell phone and house phone,” he said.

  McGarvey waited.

  “Do you think he killed her?” Pete asked.

  “Yes. And the maid.”

  Otto came back. “No answer.”

  “Call MI6, but don’t mention Portugal; they’ll have their hands full with the DGSE,” McGarvey said. “In the meantime, Pete and I can be at the airport in Nice within the hour. Get us a private jet direct to Lisbon.”

  “I’m on it,” Otto said. “L
uck.”

  Thirty-six Hours Later

  McGarvey, the Beretta he’d taken off the men who had tried to mug him in Monte-Carlo in hand, stood at the open door of the caretaker’s apartment outside the Castelo de Oro. Pete, her subcompact Glock semiautomatic also out, was two steps behind him, making sure Kallinger wasn’t somewhere in the darkness at their six.

  The old man lay on his side in his sitting room, his head at a loose angle to the left. His neck had been broken.

  McGarvey stepped inside, bent down over the body, and felt for a pulse in the carotid artery. There was none, but the old man’s skin was still pliable and warm.

  “How long?” Pete asked.

  “Maybe a few minutes, but less than an hour.”

  “He was waiting until we showed up at the bottom of the hill.”

  They had arrived in Lisbon early yesterday afternoon when Pete phoned Didenko to tell him where they were, and they’d holed up in a suite at the Hotel Avenida Palace to wait for Kallinger to show up.

  Martine’s car had been found abandoned in Marseille, but Otto had been unable to find any trace of Kallinger after that—no last-minute bookings that matched his profile on any train or airline that day. The only reasonable assumption was that he’d rented a car—stealing another one would have been too risky—and had driven the thousand miles or so to Ponte de Sor northeast of Lisbon.

  “What if he doesn’t come to you?” Pete asked, and Otto had asked the same thing.

  “He probably won’t,” McGarvey said. “But he had the general tell me that he was heading to Portugal, and I told him, ‘Here I am. Come get me.’”

  “But he wants you to go to the castle where you killed the man he thought was his brother,” Pete had pressed.

  They were seated at a sidewalk café overlooking the busy Tagus River, the day pleasantly bright and breezy.

  “He wanted me to come to Arlington to see his handiwork, and he wanted me to come to Monte-Carlo. Now I want him to come to me.”

  Pete watched a large, two-masted sailboat work its way past. “What was so important about the castle?”

  “The Nazis had hidden gold they’d taken from Jews in the crypts underground. It’s a long story, but we ended up together there, and he drowned when he set off a gas explosion and the tunnels flooded. They didn’t find his body until they recovered the gold when the water was finally pumped out and the crypts were repaired. That was fifteen years ago.”