No Risk Refused

Cam turned as his boss walked into the room. Seven years ago Daryl Garnett had recruited him to work for the CIA. Cam had trained under the man at the farm and Daryl had been one of his mentors ever since, and he’d invited Cam to join the Domestic Operations section he headed up in D.C.

“I think I just got something on my old nemesis.” Daryl moved around Cam’s desk and taped two photos on the whiteboard that covered nearly one wall. “Meet Gianni Scalzo.”

Cam turned to study the photos. He’d seen one of them before because Daryl carried a smaller version in his wallet, the way a man might carry a photo of his family. But Gianni Scalzo wasn’t family. He was a con man extraordinaire who’d put a bullet in Daryl’s knee and limited his career as a covert field operative.

Since then, Daryl had been steadily working his way up in the training and management side of the Agency, but he’d made a hobby out of tracking Scalzo down.

In the photo that Cam had seen before, Scalzo had long, curly, shoulder-length hair—Mel Gibson in the first Lethal Weapon. In shorts and sunglasses, he looked very much at home on the prow of a sailboat. The man standing next to him in the picture was shorter, less athletic in build, the kind of man that you wouldn’t notice if you passed him on the street. Interpol believed he was Scalzo’s partner. Daryl agreed. Both men were masters at disguise, but the partner had always stayed in the shadows.

The man in the second photo was older. His short dark hair boasted just a sprinkle of gray and he had a well-trimmed mustache and goatee. Not Mel Gibson but he still had a sort of middle-aged movie star quality. Next to him stood a pretty young blonde.

“What do you think?” Daryl asked.

“It’s a difficult call. The more important question is what do you think? You’re the one who met him in person.”

“Allowing for the passage of time, I’m betting they’re one and the same,” Daryl said. “I felt it as soon as I saw the picture. I had one of our techs run a facial analysis of the two photos.”

Cam moved closer to study the two images more closely. “What were the results?”

“Inconclusive.” A tall lanky man in his mid-fifties, Daryl stood shoulder to shoulder with Cam at the whiteboard. “Right now, I’m having someone age the photo of Scalzo on the sailboat.”

“How long have you been looking for Scalzo now?” Cam asked.

Daryl tapped the leg that had retired him from the field. “Fifteen years, three months and nine days.”

“The age difference is about right. Who tipped you off to take a look at the guy?” Cam asked.

“Ben Slack contacted me an hour ago and I asked him to email me the photo,” Daryl said. “He was in your class at the farm.”

Cam remembered Ben, and anyone who had been trained by Daryl would know of his interest in tracking Scalzo down.

“Ben says the Securities and Exchange Commission is ‘looking at’ this guy,” Daryl said. “One problem I’ve always had in tracing Scalzo was that the man avoids getting his picture taken. But this guy is getting married, so he couldn’t very well refuse to have an engagement picture published.”

“What else have you got?” Cam asked.

“If the Securities and Exchange Commission is sniffing around him, he could be using the same M.O. as Scalzo did in Italy, and the same one that he used in Portland a few years ago. I was nearly in time to get him. He changes looks, identities and locations, but the scam he and his partner run remains the same. They target financial planners—some who handle select clients as well as others who manage pension funds. Scalzo is always the front man. He infiltrates the social strata first—buys an estate, joins the right clubs. That’s exactly what this guy has been doing in the Long Island area for the last year and a half. He promises huge returns to his investors and he delivers them. After the recent scandals, that’s enough to bring him to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

“It sounds like the same kind of scam my father tried to run, but your nemesis is much better at it.”

Daryl’s hand settled on Cam’s shoulder. He didn’t have to say a word. As the man who’d recruited Cam, Daryl had accessed all the details on his father’s background. A rich and pampered young man, Cam’s dad, David Fedderman, had relied on his parents to buy him out of scrapes all of his life. Once he’d joined Fedderman Trust, he’d spent all of his time wining and dining clients and traveling to locate new investment opportunities. When it had finally been revealed that he’d been dipping into clients’ accounts to the tune of hundreds of thousands, his parents hadn’t been able to buy Davie out of serving jail time. They had, however, tried to get custody of Cam and his brothers in a brutal lawsuit. But Beth’s lawyer had finally prevailed and she’d immediately changed their last name to hers—Sutherland. They hadn’t heard from any of the Feddermans since.

What wasn’t in all the files was the fact that his father hadn’t been any more skilled at being a father or a husband than he’d been at being a crook. Cam had been ten when it had all gone down, and what he recalled most was that after the arrest, he’d never heard his mother cry herself to sleep anymore.

Daryl looked at him then. “Any chance you could help me out with this?”

Cam smiled at him. “I thought you’d never ask. Do we have any way to connect this guy to the Portland crime?”

“That’s what I’ll start on next. Scalzo’s good.” His smile widened. “But the Portland police have a set of prints for the alias he operated under there. I’ve got a call into the P.D. there right now.”

Cam tapped the second man in the sailboat photo. “What about his partner?”

“There’s no sign of him. He stays out of sight, out of mind.”

“What’s your plan?”

“I’ve got some vacation time coming, so I’m going to take a few days to see what I can dig up on Long Island,” Daryl said. “Maybe I can get a whiff of the partner or a glimpse of Scalzo. I think I can recognize him in person.”

“Let me know what you need on this end.” Then he remembered Reid’s text. “But I may have to make a quick trip up to the Adirondacks to check out a family thing.”

Daryl grinned at him. “Luck is on my side.” He pointed to the engagement photo of the man he was sure was Scalzo. “My friend here is getting married in this little place in the Adirondacks this coming Saturday. Castle MacPherson. Ever heard of it?”

Cam stared at him. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I have. That’s my stepfather’s place.”

“So you’re familiar with it?”

“Somewhat.” Not enough to know that people were scheduling weddings there. He turned to his desk, did a quick search for Castle MacPherson on his computer and found himself looking at Adair’s smiling face. The impact of just seeing her stopped him short for a minute. The fancy wedding hairdo was gone. But the eyes were the same pale, mysterious green. He had to remind himself to take a breath.

“A wedding destination spot, huh?”

Realizing that Daryl was leaning over his shoulder reading the computer screen, Cam reined in his thoughts and scanned the web page. By the time he finished, he’d noted Vi’s photo also, along with a shot of the castle, the gardens and the stone arch. And he’d clicked on a link that led to a small feature article in the New York Times that provided a brief history of the castle as well as the story of the legend and Eleanor Campbell MacPherson’s missing sapphires.

“And here I thought that wedding destinations involved sandy beaches and drinks with little umbrellas in them,” Daryl remarked. “But I guess a stone arch with the promise of a happy-ever-after would have a definite draw. Do you know if the two women are alone up there?”

“They won’t be for long.” Turning, he glanced back up at the photos on his whiteboard. “I’m going to be an unofficial guest at the upcoming wedding.”

“Thanks.” Daryl patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll need a day to get my ducks all in a row and make sure he’s my guy. Then I’ll get in touch.”

* * *

BY THE TIME five-thirty rolled around, Cam had his own ducks lined up and he was ready to hit the road for the castle. He answered Reid’s call on the first ring and once he and his brothers had exchanged greetings, he said, “Problem solved. I’m about to give Vi a call to let her know that I’ll be leaving later tonight.” Suiting the action to words, he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to the garage.

“How did you know Mom and A.D. wanted one of us to go up there?” Reid asked.

“I called her,” Cam said. “You sent me the text an hour ago. Just because you’re the oldest and Mom always calls you doesn’t mean Duncan or I can’t take the initiative.”