It was from here that he’d called Kate. A triumphant moment and a turning point in the story he was writing. Of course he still had to speak to her face-to-face. But he’d made huge strides in Paris, and would soon be ready to go to print. Then, at last, he could come out of the shadows and face the world, friends and enemies alike.
Soon.
Right now his priority was to get out of France. He really should have left the day after Neuilly, but he’d been tempted into staying by one last poker game.
Pascal Cauchin would be there tonight. Pascal had bought and single-handedly destroyed thousands of acres of ancient Chilean forest, pumping water deep into the ground to extract hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of shale gas. Not only had he effectively robbed the Chileans, swindling them out of their land at a knockdown price, but he’d devastated the local ecosystem for hundreds of miles around. Cauchin was right up there with Henry Cranston as one of fracking’s least responsible, most obnoxious kingpins.
Not like the positively saintly Cameron Crewe.
The thought of getting to look Cauchin in the eye across a card table, whilst concealing his own identity and successfully relieving Pascal of thousands of dollars in winnings was more temptation than Hunter Drexel could resist. He would play tonight as Lex Brightman, New York theater impresario and amateur poker enthusiast.
One last game. Then I’m out of here.
JEFF STEVENS SAT AT a corner table at Café Charles, near Notre Dame Cathedral, opposite Frank Dorrien.
“Do you have any idea how English you look?” Jeff asked the general, glancing at Frank’s off-duty uniform of brogues, dark green corduroy trousers, Turnbull & Asser striped shirt and MCC tie. “Not exactly the gray man in the crowd, are you?”
“What would you prefer?” Frank quipped. “A Breton shirt, beret and a string of onions around my neck?”
Despite their profound, even seismic differences as people, Jeff and Frank had developed a productive working relationship. As Jamie MacIntosh had succinctly put it, “Frank can be a bit abrasive. But if you want to help Tracy Whitney, suck it up.”
Jeff had taken this to heart. Even though “a bit abrasive” turned out to be something akin to wearing a pair of sandpaper underpants. He could handle Frank.
“How was Hawaii?”
Jeff scowled. “Awful.”
“Any useful intelligence?”
“Not really. Tracy’s tight with Cameron Crewe of Crewe Oil. But we knew that already. It looks as if the two of them are working together, cutting Walton and Buck out of the loop.”
“Hmm.” Frank considered this. “That may be to our advantage. The less the CIA knows, the better.”
“Spoken like a true ally,” said Jeff.
Tracy working closely with Cameron definitely wasn’t to Jeff’s advantage. He didn’t trust Crewe as far as he could spit.
Frank said, “And now Tracy’s here in Paris?”
Jeff nodded, sipping his coffee. It was ridiculously strong, like tar, but it helped with the jet lag. “At the Georges V.”
“Alone?”
Jeff winced. “So far.”
“Have she and Crewe been in contact?”
Jeff shook his head. “No.”
Shadowing Tracy had been no fun. In fact it had been the dictionary definition of no fun. Nor was Jeff convinced that his presence was protecting Tracy from anything, or anyone. Not so far anyway. He was starting to feel like the worst kind of Peeping Tom. Bugging her hotel room and tapping her phone had both been relatively easy. But he dreaded having to hear her be intimate with Cameron Crewe over the phone, and he’d stopped short of installing cameras in her suite.
“Stay close to her,” Frank Dorrien instructed. “Hunter Drexel’s still in the city. We think he’s going to make a move soon. We’re close, Jeff. But we can’t let Tracy get to him first, maybe scare him off again. Or worse.”
Jeff frowned. “What do you mean ‘worse’?”
Frank pushed a classified file across the table.
Jeff read it in silence. Then he read it again.
Finally he looked up at Frank, an expression of pure horror on his face.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course we’re not sure,” Frank snapped. “That’s why we need to bring him in. But I think it’s safe to say that Hunter Drexel is not who the world believes him to be. If Tracy were to try to corner him alone . . .”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence.
Jeff drained his coffee. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her out of my sight.”
TRACY LOOKED AT HER watch, an exquisite, delicate 1920s antique with a white gold strap and diamond-studded face.
6:15 P.M. Exactly two hours to go.
Putting on a pair of diamond drop earrings to match the watch, Tracy winked at her reflection, ashamed of how much she was enjoying herself. She liked being Mary Jo. Tracy had always enjoyed creating new and different characters. Together she and Jeff had been the masters of it for more than a decade. But now, since Nick’s death, stepping out of her own tortured existence and into someone else’s was more than just a game. It was an escape. Tracy hadn’t realized till now quite how much she needed one.
Her old contacts in Paris had been a gold mine of information when it came to the city’s high-stakes poker scene. Which was a good thing, as so far Cameron’s had come up with precisely nothing. It was almost as if Cameron didn’t want Tracy to find Hunter Drexel. He probably thinks he’s protecting me, Tracy thought. But perhaps it was better this way anyway? She’d grown used to working on her own. Working with Cameron might put a strain on . . . whatever it was that was happening between them. Tracy still couldn’t quite bring herself to call it a relationship. That sounded far too permanent. But it was something, and she wasn’t ready to break it, not yet.
If I find Hunter—when I find him—I’ll bring Cameron in then.
As soon as Tracy heard the name Pascal Cauchin—her dear old friend, the master forger and long-term Paris resident Harry Blackstone, had mentioned Cauchin’s monthly poker parties—her hopes soared. Cauchin was huge in the fracking world, right up there with men like Cameron and Henry Cranston. It was inconceivable that Hunter Drexel hadn’t heard of him. The fact that he also hosted private poker nights at his penthouse apartment in Montmartre with a secret and closely guarded guest list was almost too good to be true. It would be reckless in the extreme for Hunter Drexel to show up at one of Cauchin’s games. But as Sally Faiers had told Tracy, Hunter was reckless. Taking big risks was his oxygen, his adrenaline, his raison d’être.
It had once been Tracy’s too.
I know you, Hunter, she thought, adjusting her earrings. I know how you operate.
I’m going to find you. And when I do, you’re going to lead me to Althea. You’re going to help me lay my son to rest.
ALEXIS ARGYROS WAS AROUSED.
The violently pornographic rape fantasy playing out on his computer screen helped a little. But Alexis had become so used to images of sexual depravity, they were no longer enough on their own.
What really turned him on was power. The power to inflict pain, to create fear. The power to end life.
Hunter Drexel believed that knowledge was power. Knowledge and truth.
Alexis knew differently. Who cared what you knew when pieces of your brain were flying out of your skull and being splattered across the walls?
Violence was power. Violence and terror and death.
Neuilly had excited Alexis. He watched the news reports endlessly, picturing the fat American rich kids screaming and running for their lives, like squealing pigs.
Tonight, at long last, it would be Hunter Drexel’s turn to squeal.
The Americans, the British, Interpol, they were all here in Paris, swarming the city like flies on shit, searching for Hunter and the three Group 99 gunmen who had wreaked such delicious havoc. But they knew nothing. He, Alexis Argyros, had outwitted them all.
The pleasure of killing Hunter Drexel would be his and his alone.
Tonight.
In his dingy caravan at the campsite, he slipped on his overalls and the thin black balaclava he would use, right up to the moment of the kill. He wanted Drexel to see him then. Not just the look in his eyes but the smile on his face as he took the American’s life, the ultimate act of domination.
The days of his humiliation were over.
I am Apollo the Great.
The God of plague and destruction.
Scourge of the boastful.
Slayer of Giants.
It would be done tonight.
JEFF STEVENS CALLED MAJOR General Frank Dorrien.
“It’s tonight. Tracy’s going to a poker game at Pascal Cauchin’s apartment.”
Frank took a sharp intake of breath. “Drexel’s going to be there?”
“Possibly. All I know for sure is that Tracy’s going to the game posing as a rich Texan widow with a hundred thousand euros in cash.”