Gustav smiled. Mr. Crick would be a good deal quieter by the time he left tonight. And a good deal poorer.
Tapping the implant in his ear twice, Gustav waited for the familiar voice. Two floors above them, a technician sat in the eaves of the house, watching six separate camera feeds on a state-of-the-art screen.
“Testing.”
Arendt nodded imperceptibly towards camera four.
Clear as a bell.
TRACY TOOK A SEAT at the bar. The barman was arranging crystal glasses on a shelf.
She looked around for Peter Davies, but the Englishman wasn’t here tonight. In fact the entire hotel was eerily quiet.
The barman turned around.
“What can I get you, Mrs. Crick?”
“I’ll have a gin and tonic please. Gordon’s if you have it, ice but no lemon.”
“Coming right up.”
Tracy glanced anxiously at her phone, then at the clock on the wall. It was st
ill only seven o’clock. She thought about Jeff arriving at the game, waiting for Hunter Drexel, or Althea, to show up. She knew exactly how he’d be feeling right now, adrenaline pumping, nerves taut as a wire. Just like the old days.
For a moment she felt a flicker of guilt for what she was about to do.
But only for a moment.
This isn’t a game, she reminded herself. And these aren’t the old days. However much Jeff wants them to be.
I have a job to do.
JEFF SAT AT THE card table twitching like a rabbit.
“I believe that’s mine.”
Gustav Arendt smiled smugly, spreading his second straight flush of the night across the soft green baize and reaching towards the pile of chips like a kid grabbing at candy. Jeff had seen some cheats in his time. But this guy was utterly shameless.
Not that Jeff cared about the cards.
Something had gone wrong. Very wrong.
Neither Catherine Clarke nor Ali Lassferly had shown up to the game. Nor, for that matter, had Johnny Cray. One down might have been coincidence, but three? Something was up.
Jeff wasn’t the only one disappointed by the players’ absences. Gustav Arendt was clearly pissed not to have three more fat wallets to plunder. But Berensen, the art dealer, looked close to tears. He kept glancing at the door, as if hoping against hope they would walk in, then back to the painting he’d brought with him, a carefully wrapped rectangle propped forlornly against the chalet wall.
Someone tipped the others off. But nobody told Berensen.
The situation was bad for multiple reasons. The first was that tonight’s plan would have to be scrapped. Once again, their quarry had slipped through the net.
The second reason was far worse.
Drexel and his Group 99 friends know we’re here.
They know who we are.
Do they know where we’re staying?