“You’ll like him. He’s a good player. Funny. Very well connected.”
Pascal wavered.
“He invested four hundred million in alternative energy companies last year.”
Sands was in.
And finally there was the lovely Mrs. Morgan Drake. Mary Jo. The Texas widow wasn’t Pascal’s usual type. He normally went for curvy blond girls, and rarely looked at anyone older than twenty-five. Mary Jo was a grown woman, and slender to the point of boyishness. When he’d bumped into her at the Ritz bar last week, her small, apple breasts had been discreetly concealed beneath an expensive gray silk blouse and her dark hair swept up in a demure chignon. And yet there was something intensely sexually compelling about her. Perhaps it was the intoxicating green eyes? In any event, in the week since they met Pascal had found himself fantasizing more and more about taking Mrs. Morgan Drake to bed, ripping off those demure clothes and unleashing what he very much hoped would be the tigress within. When she admitted an interest in cards, he immediately extended an invitation to tonight’s game and arranged for his wife, Alissa, to pay a visit to her sister in Lyons.
He would make sure that Mary Jo won a few hands at least, and that her cocktails were double strength. After that, it should be plain sailing.
“Excuse me, Sir.” A liveried butler appeared in the doorway of Cauchin’s palatial salon. “Mrs. Morgan Drake has arrived early. Should I have her wait in the library?”
Pascal smiled broadly.
Perfect! She’s the first to arrive. She’s obviously keen.
“No, no, Pierre. That’s all right. You can show her straight up.”
JEFF SAT IN THE back of the taxi, his fists clenched. All around him drivers were leaning on their horns, a cacophony of stress that was having precisely zero effect on the crawling rush hour traffic.
“Can’t you do anything?” Jeff asked the driver, in faltering French. “Try another route?”
The man gave a nonchalant, Gallic shrug. “Friday night. Les embouteillages sont partout.”
“It’s very important I get there quickly.”
Antoine de la Court, an old friend from Jeff’s days as an art thief, had pulled some serious strings to get Jeff invited to tonight’s game. But if Hunter Drexel got there before him . . . and if Tracy tried to confront him alone . . . Jeff felt his blood pressure soaring.
“Please!” He thrust a fat wad of euro notes at the driver. “C’est très important.”
Reaching back to take the money, the driver smiled, leaned uselessly on his horn, and inched forward into the gridlock.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING?”
Jamie MacIntosh paced tensely around his London office. The Thames crawled sluggishly beneath his window, which was smeared by a steady stream of gray drizzle. It was the most inauspicious of days. Rainy. Dull. Lifeless. And yet in Paris, Jamie’s team might be just minutes away from apprehending Hunter Drexel.
“Have you got eyes on Drexel?”
“Not yet.” Major General Frank Dorrien sounded equally tense. Jeff Stevens was planning to go rogue and show up at the poker game as a player, revealing himself to Tracy and potentially blowing the whole operation out of the water. Frank was in a café directly opposite Cauchin’s apartment building. He had a man on the roof, one more in the lobby, and two on the street entrances at front and back of the building.
“What about the others?” Jamie asked.
“Tracy Whitney’s inside. So are the other three players. Stevens is a no-show so far.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get on Cauchin’s list so late in the day?” Jamie suggested hopefully.
“He’ll get in there somehow,” Frank said grimly. “He’s terrified for Tracy. I showed him Drexel’s file yesterday.”
Jamie erupted. “You what?!”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“Miscalculated! Are you out of your mind?”
Frank’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“He’s here.”