Neither the maestro nor Kurshin objected as he wiped his face and took a drink before he put on his mask and saluted.
“En garde,” the maestro said. “Prêt. Allez.”
This time, Mac moved forward first with an immediate froissement, or sharp slap to Kurshin’s blade, which would normally be followed by an instant attack.
But Kurshin made a double derobement, a counterattack against the opponent’s blade. In effect, Kurshin went with the slap against his blade and slapped back twice, opening a line on McGarvey’s upper arm, where he scored the final touch.
“Touché,” the maestro announced, obviously satisfied with the result.
Again there was a light smattering of applause, after which the maestro explained what had happened, not quite blaming the win on the differences in age. Experience counted for nearly everything, but youth was sometimes even more important.
McGarvey took the towel and water from Pete and went back to the changing room, where he got out of his fencing garb and back into his street clothes.
Kurshin came in. “You had some good moves, Arouet.”
“I don’t have the edge anymore,” Mac said, buttoning his shirt. “But you did well.”
Kurshin nodded. “Would you care to have a drink at the hotel?”
“Thanks, no,” McGarvey said, still breathing hard. “I’m going to save my energy for the tables tonight. Maybe a nap this afternoon and a light supper.”
“For the best, I suppose,” Kurshin said with a barely concealed smirk.
19
McGarvey and Pete headed back to the hotel on foot, and halfway there, Pete dropped a slip of paper, and she ducked down and picked it up.
“Are they behind us?” Mac asked.
“No. You put on a pretty good show back there.”
“I wanted to make a believer out of Kallinger.”
Pete grinned. “I think he took the bait. But you also made a believer out of the poor kid you beat. The maestro will give him hell for making the club look bad.”
“Humility is sometimes a good thing, even in fencing.”
“How much of it was an act?”
“Most of it, but I didn’t want to take the matter too far. As it was, I think he was starting to get suspicious by the third touch. Even an amateur should have expected the counterattack and stepped back.”
“Was he any good?” Pete asked as they reached the hotel.
“Not as good as he thought he was. And now he’s cocky, maybe overconfident. If he can beat me on the piste, why not at the table?”
“And you mean to teach him a lesson. Piss him off enough so that he’ll be more likely to make a mistake.”
Back in their suite, McGarvey phoned Otto to tell him what had gone down at the fencing demonstration.
“Do you think he bought it?”
“Probably. He and the Barineau woman are staying here at the hotel. But you said she has a villa above Villefranche. Find out if there’s a staff in residence. Pete and I are going to make a visit.”
“Give me a minute.”
“You have five. I’m going to take a quick shower.”
“What do you have in mind?” Pete asked.
“I want to let him know that someone has taken an interest in him.”
“Someone?”
“Me,” Mac said on the way into the shower.
“I’ll get us a car,” Pete said to his back.
She got them a BMW 3 Series convertible. Flashy but nothing over the top. It would be waiting out front as soon as they were ready.
Otto answered Mac’s call on the first ring. “One housekeeper/cook by the name of Marie Levy, but I didn’t find any connection between her and the DGSE, and her local footprint seems legitimate.”
“How about neighbors?”
“No one nearby. Louise retasked one of the spy birds and took a five-second peek. One villa to the south, fifty meters lower on the hill, and another much larger to the north, just above. But there didn’t seem to be any activity at either place.”
Louise had worked for the National Security Agency as a photo analyst and had come over to the CIA, where she’d practically run the Company’s interface with the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that was responsible for putting up and maintaining American spy satellites — especially the Keyhole, Jupiter, and Aurora constellations. Although she was no longer directly involved, she still maintained her passwords and standard operating procedures.
“I’ll wear my glasses when we get there so you can take a look, as well.”
“Find anything electronic, give me the heads-up,” Otto said.
Downstairs, they got the car and drove up to the Corniche Highway and headed southwest, the Med an impossibly deep blue, only a very few puffy clouds cruising slowly in from the sea.
“Do you have your pistol with you?” McGarvey asked. He’d left the one he’d taken from the bully boys behind.
“Of course.”
“Take the bullet out of the breech. It’s only the housekeeper at home, and I don’t want any accidents.”
“What if our friends show up?”
“We’ll take our chances. But I don’t think Kallinger will want to stage a shootout in broad daylight. He’d have to kill not only us but the housekeeper and Mme Barineau. It’s me he wants. One-on-one.”
“We still don’t know why.”
“I’m going to find out.”
“And then what?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Mac said.
McGarvey put on his glasses and rang the doorbell at the villa’s front entrance, which faced uphill, away from the sea. A full minute later, an older woman in a dark dress with a crisp white apron appeared. Her gray hair was knotted into a bun at the back, and she smiled uncertainly.
“Bonjour, madame,” McGarvey said. “We are friends of Mme Barineau. Is she at home?”
“No,” the woman said, and she started to close the door, but Mac pushed it open, and he and Pete stepped inside.
“Je suis désolé,” McGarvey said. “But we mean you no harm.”
She didn’t resist as they led her back to the kitchen, where they put her in a walk-in pantry and moved the heavy butcher block center island against the door.
Pete took the upstairs while Mac hurriedly went through the rooms on the ground floor, including the kitchen, a surprisingly modern dining room, and an expansive living room that opened through a half dozen french doors to the patio and pool and out toward the Med. A flat-screen television was placed in the middle of a wall of bookcases that contained not only leather-bound volumes, most of them in English, but photographs of Martine and people who appeared to be family. Some of the backgrounds were on beaches somewhere, others in the mountains.
There were no telephones in the living room or in the kitchen, and there were no clocks.
“Come up here,” Pete called from the head of the stairs.
Mac went up, and Pete led him back to a small room that except for an open closet door appeared to be nothing more than a home office containing a plain desk — on which sat a laptop — a few books on a couple of shelves, and a number of amusing miniature paintings of clowns and court jesters.
The closet was not large, but a table held another laptop, and mounted on the wall behind it were several closed-circuit video monitors showing various views from inside as well as outside of the house. Other pieces of electronic equipment were mounted on the wall.
His and Pete’s image in the closet showed on one of the monitors.
“Are you seeing this?” Mac asked.