Read Sidney Sheldon's Reckless Online
Authors: Sidney Sheldon
Cameron exploded. “My God, Greg. You're the CIA! You're supposed to be watching her.”
“We'll find her,” Greg Walton said. But all the confidence was gone now, like air from a pricked balloon. “I'll get my best team on it. Agent Buck . . .”
“Agent Buck is a goddamned moron,” Cameron said furiously. “Forget it, Greg. You had your chance. I'll find her myself.”
PRESIDENT JIM HAVERS SPOKE
unnaturally slowly. As if by lingering over each word of the question, he could somehow postpone the answer.
“So you're telling me they're both gone?”
Prime Minister Julia Cabot replied tersely, “That's what my intelligence team is telling me.”
“Whitney
and
Stevens.”
“Yes.”
“Together?”
“Apparently so.”
“Shit.”
A heavy silence descended between the two leaders. Julia Cabot broke it first.
“I don't suppose you feel like telling me what's going on, Jim?”
The president sounded angry. “What do you mean?”
“I mean who
is
Hunter Drexel?” The British Prime Minister spelled it out. “Who is he really?”
Jim Havers sighed heavily. “It's complicated, Julia.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
Another sigh.
“I can't.”
“Well, that's a shame. Because I'd be prepared to wager good money that that's
exactly
what Whitney and Stevens are out there doing right now. And if they succeed, we'll
both
be hung out to dry.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, GREG
Walton of the CIA and James MacIntosh of MI6 both received phone calls from their respective political masters.
The language each used was different.
But the message was the same.
Find them. Find them now. Or being fired will be the least of your worries.
W
E WILL SOON BEGIN
our descent into Geneva. Please fasten your seat belts and ensure any bags are stowed . . .”
Tracy zoned out as the chief flight attendant ran through the usual spiel. Sitting beside her in business class, Jeff was fast asleep. And by fast Tracy really meant fastâhead thrown back, mouth open, snoring loudly as his chest rose and fell in the same steady rhythm it had been in since takeoff.
Tracy had taken countless flights with Jeff. Some were luxurious, sprawled out in sumptuous private jets. Others were markedly less so. But on every flight, without exception, Jeff had managed to fall asleep.
One memorable journey involved Tracy and Jeff having their limbs folded painfully into pallets of diamonds, like two double-jointed dolls. The pallets were then sealed with a small gap for air and wedged into a freezing cargo hold. For the next eight hours, neither of them could move a muscle. Simply breathing was difficult. And yet even on this flight from hell Jeff had somehow fallen asleep. His ability to switch himself off at will, like an electric toy, and slip into unconsciousness, was as impressive as it was infuriating.
Watching him now took Tracy straight back to the old days. Before all this madness. Before Nicholas. Before everything. With an effort she forced the memories out of her mind. She must stay in the present if she was to survive.
Today's flight was a point of no return. Tracy and Jeff were officially on their own now. They had boarded the Air France jet as Mr. and Mrs. Brian Crick, en route to their vacation in the pretty ski town of Megève. Annie Crick was a keen skier. Brian liked the mountains too. But he was there for the poker.
It was Jeff who came up with the theory. But with every day, Tracy liked it more.
Bursting into her hotel room in Paris, less than a day after their meeting at Les Invalides, he suddenly blurted out, “What if it isn't about the money?”
Tracy looked up wearily from her computer. For the last six hours she'd been painstakingly cross-referencing every Kate, Catherine or Kathleen who'd ever worked or slept with Hunter Drexel against databases from the CIA, MI6 and Interpol. Her eyes were crossing.
“What if what isn't about the money?”
“Poker. What if it's a cover for something else? What if the poker games are where he's meeting his conspirators? Where he's planning the next attacks?”
It was such an obvious question, Tracy couldn't quite believe she hadn't thought of it herself. That none of them had.
“All this time we've been assuming he's playing to win. So he could live off the cash, stay under the radar. But what if money has nothing to do with it?”
Tracy agreed to take a break from her fruitless hunt for Kate/Althea and to look into the other known players at Hunter Drexel's various games, in Romania, Latvia, France and Belgium.
There were some common threads. Most of the games were arranged by super-rich hosts like Pascal Cauchin or Luc Charles. Men who were absolutely on Group 99s target list. The energy sector, and in particular fracking, was well represented. So was fine art. Antoine de la Court, the dealer, had introduced Hunter to Cauchin as Lex Brightman. Luc Charles was a legend in the fine-art world.
“Drexel could be using paintings to channel funds to or from Group 99,” Jeff suggested. “We both know half the top dealers in Europe act as fences or money launderers.”
“Look at this!” Tracy said excitedly.
A quick delve into Johnny Cray's background, the young American trustafarian who'd brought Hunter into the Bruges game, revealed a lengthy flirtation with radical leftwing causes. “Arrested at two antiglobalization rallies in the States.
Charged
over an alleged attempted bombing at Davos last year, at the economic forum!”
“What happened?” Jeff asked.
Tracy tapped away. “His parents got him off of that one. They donated like, thirty million dollars to some Swiss International Development slush fund.”
She showed Jeff the numbers. Minimal further searching linked Johnny Cray's name to a slew of known Group 99 members and/or donors.
When Jeff learned a few days later that Cray was currently in Megève; and that he would be attending a high stakes poker game there at the chalet of Gustav Arendt, a local multimillionaire who'd made his fortune investing in African fracking ventures, he and Tracy booked their tickets.
“Wake up.” Tracy tapped Jeff on the shoulder. “We're landing.”
Jeff sat bolt upright, rubbed his eyes and smiled broadly.
“You look as lovely as ever, Mrs. Crick. Ready to hit the slopes?”
Tracy rolled her eyes. Jeff could make a game out of anything. But this was serious. The CIA or MI6 might catch up with them at any time. They'd risked everything on a hunch that Hunter Drexel would be at tomorrow night's game in Megève;
and
that somehow, between them, they could extract him from Arendt's chalet without bloodshed;
and
that when they did, Hunter would tell them the truth.
That was three very big ifs.
And it wasn't only Tracy's relationship with her CIA handlers that was on the line. She'd run out on Cameron Crewe too, checking out of the Georges V without leaving any message for him and destroying her old phone before she left Paris. She couldn't explain why, even to herself. Cameron had tried hard to take care of her. He'd even convinced her to take off with him to Hawaii, which was hugely out of character for Tracy. She'd wanted that at the time. Needed it, even. The idea of leaning on somebody else had been intoxicating. But that time had passed. Tracy was stronger now, and in any case she couldn't talk to Cameron while she was with Jeff. She just couldn't. Perhaps, once this was all over, there might be a way? A future for the two of them? But until then . . .
The plane's wheels hit the tarmac with a gentle bump.
“Welcome to Geneva.”
WITH JEFF'S INSANELY FAST
driving, it took them less than an hour on the Albertville-Chamonix motorway to cross the border back into France and arrive at Megève, an idyllic town in the French Alps, in the shadow of Mont Blanc.
Megève really comes to life in winter, when reliable snowfalls and a smattering of über luxurious boutique hotels make it the ski resort du choix for Parisians in the know. But it's breathtakingly beautiful in the spring too. Thanks to the glacier, late skiing is possible right into May.
Tracy was instantly charmed.
“Look at this place,” she said to Jeff. “It's like a fairy tale.”
Adorable, rustic wooden chalets and old stone buildings clustered around cobbled squares, their window boxes bursting with flowers. Surrounding the town, the green slopes of the Alps basked beneath blue skies, their tips still white and sparkling with a permanent cap of snow. Cafés spilled out onto pavements where dinersâalmost all of them Frenchâate warm, freshly baked bread and langoustines and sipped ice-cold Chablis in the sunshine.
The CricksâBrian and Annieâwere staying at Les Fermes de Mairie, a gorgeous, log-built mountain paradise and easily the smartest hotel in town.
“Look honey. They have an awesome spa. You want me to book us in for some treatments?”
Jeff was enjoying himself immensely as Brian Crick, the sort of loud, brash, vulgar American that set every French person's teeth on edge.
“That's OK.” Tracy's Annie Crick was considerably more low-key. Her job was to be forgettable, a pale shadow of her larger-than-life, flamboyant husband. “I'm here to ski.”
“Sure you are, sweetheart. Sure you are. And I'm here to make money! Ha ha ha!” Brian Crick laughed loudly enough for the entire lobby to hear him. “I'm in town to play poker up at Gustav Arendt's place,” he told the receptionist. “I'll bet you know Gustav. Must be the richest guy in town, right?”
While the mortified receptionist checked them in, Tracy took a seat at the lobby bar. It was an old-fashioned affair, all brass and polished wood, behind which a vast picture window offered patrons a breathtaking view of the Alpine scenery. The mountains made Tracy think of Colorado, and of Nick, and Blake Carter. She realized with a pang of guilt that she almost never thought about Blake. Nick's death had used up every ounce of sorrow she had in her. But Blake had been a dear friend. Family really. Very few people had filled that role in Tracy's life.
Gunther Hartog.
Ernestine Littlechap, back at the penitentiary.
“You're friends of Monsieur Arendt?”
An Englishman had sat down beside Tracy and started talking. It took her a moment to remember whereâand whoâshe was:
Annie Crick, loyally devoted wife of Brian Crick. A rich housewife from Ohio.
“Not friends exactly. My husband knows him,” she answered shyly. “He's come for the cards.”
“Well, he's come to the wrong place if he wants to make money,” the Englishman said, eyeing Tracy's enviable figure appreciatively. Even dressed down as Annie in a pair of wide-leg trousers and a taupe, high-necked blouse, she was easily the most attractive woman in the room. “Gustav Arendt's the richest man in Megève for a reason. He never loses.”
Annie Crick laughed. “Everyone loses sometimes, Mr. . . . ?”
“Davies. Peter Davies.”
They shook hands.
“Arendt doesn't. If your husband's smart he'll stay well away from that chalet tomorrow night.”
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED
bright and clear. Tracy spent the morning hiring skis and poles and organizing her lift pass. Jeff flitted around town as Brian Crick, buying watches and overpriced jewelry, flashing his money around, and generally having as many loud and obnoxious conversations as he could about poker, Gustav Arendt and his plans for the evening.
He met Tracy for lunch at a fondue restaurant up the mountain. It was deserted enough for Jeff to lower his voice and slip out of character for a moment.
“I'm exhausted,” he grumbled.
“Shopped till you dropped, eh?” Tracy teased.
“I'm serious. Making yourself a target for Group 99's not as much fun as it sounds. I've spent half the morning shouting and the other half spending a fortune on crap I don't want.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“Plus I slept badly,” Jeff added pointedly. Annie Crick had spent a very comfortable night in the couple's king-size bed. Brian had fared less well on the sofa. Not that it wasn't comfortableâJeff had slept soundly on far worseâbut lying so close to Tracy, unable to touch her or put his arms around her, was pure torture. He'd barely closed his eyes all night.
“Did you find out anything more?” Tracy asked.
Jeff nodded, taking a long sip of the cold beer he'd ordered.
“Firstly, your friend Peter was right. Gustav Arendt wins big, and often. So much so he rarely gets the same players up at the chalet twice. It's a case of once bitten twice shy. Rumor has it he has cameras hidden up there someplace, to spy on his opponents' hands.”
“He cheats?”
Jeff shrugged. “Who knows? That's what they say. Secondly, I'm not sure if Drexel's gonna show tonight.”
Tracy's face fell. “Why not?”
“I didn't say he isn't. I said I'm not sure. From what I hear, none of tonight's victims sound like our man. The players are supposed to be me; another rich energy guy, from Rome; our friend Johnny; and three others.”
“Go on.”
Jeff took another sip of beer. “One's a fine-art dealer from Geneva. Lars Berensen. Do you know him?”
Tracy shook her head. But it was interesting. Another art dealer couldn't be coincidence. Unless . . .
“Couldn't that be Drexel?”
“I don't think so,” Jeff said. “Berensen's in his sixties, apparently. That's a stretch.”
Tracy agreed. “What about the other two players?”
“A businessman named Ali Lassferly's expected. He's a possibleâhe doesn't exist on Googleâalthough the guy I spoke to said he was French-Arabic.”