“Hang in there,” said Janson. “Let all this play out. Any luck with the Reaper connection?”

“No. And I’m not expecting any. It would be a personal connection—strictly one-to-one—retired officer in private work paying a ton of dough or promising a brilliant future to a serving officer.”

“That is obvious,” said Janson. “Keep poking. What do you know about GRA?”

“Rings a bell. Sort of. Can’t place it. What does it stand for?”

“Ground Resource Access.”

“That’s oil talk.”

“Yes, but could it be a company name?”

“Who knows?”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’ll get back to you on that. Where are you?”

“London. But call Quintisha. I’m probably heading out of here.”

“Talk to you.”

* * *

DOUG CASE SAID good-bye to Paul Janson and hung up smiling.

Cons Ops had trained them how to lie. Glibly. Effortlessly. There wasn’t a lie detector or voice analyzer invented they couldn’t fox. He had been one of the best. Janson, per usual, thebest. So damned good that Doug Case was half-inclined to believe that Janson really was in London—even though he knew beyond any doubt that Paul Janson was in Porto-Vecchio on the island of Corsica.

THIRTY-THREE

Jessica Kincaid stalked into Tax Free’s salon wearing six-inch spike heels and white vintage Capri pants low on her hips. The iridescent clutch in her hand was barely big enough to hold a cell phone and a knife, and it was a mystery to Janson how a silk handkerchief had been reengineered as a halter top.

“How do I look?”

“Young enough to be carded by a responsible bartender— Wait a minute! No, you don’t. Where are your muffin tops?”

Kincaid cast a wintery eye at the bared swell of her hips. “I don’t have muffin tops.”

“But teenagers do. You don’t look chubby enough to pass for my teenage girlfriend.”

“Russian girls are the main competition for rich dudes in this town. We ain’t gonna see no muffin tops at that party.”

As they started to leave, Janson’s phone rang.

“One second. This guy’s returning my call.” He said hello, listened briefly, and covered the phone.

“What’s up?” asked Kincaid.

“Did you tell me that Van Pelt was wearing shorts when you tangled with him in Cartagena?”

“He was pretending he was a boat bum.”

“Did he have a tattoo on his leg?”

“No. Why?”

“Sydney Harbour Patrol found a shark-bit leg. But it had a tattoo, a big snake wrapped around his leg.”

“Jesus H … Going up the leg? Or down?”

“You know, I didn’t ask.”

“Either way, it’s not his.”

“Then it’s possible your boy’s still in business.”

* * *

THE RECEPTION WAS held on a four-hundred-foot mega-yacht— Main Chanceof Hong Kong—moored stern-to at the marina’s outermost pier. A ballroom opened onto a vast deck, on which most of the hundred guests had gathered, since the evening was warm and the sky clear and the band inside too loud. The intense evening sun illuminated the stone and stucco houses on the surrounding hills, a startlingly pretty sight marred by the blackened remains of the burned-out hotel.

As Janson had expected, he was not the only man at the party accompanied by a young girlfriend, publicist, or personal assistant. They accepted champagne from a passing waitress wearing even less than Kincaid, pretended to sip it, and went to work. Kincaid acted as roper, catching the attention of deeply tanned middle-aged men wearing gold, Janson stepping in to introduce themselves as, “Paul Janson, Janson Associates—my colleague Ms. Kincaid.” When the men spoke only French, Janson let Kincaid translate, although he usually understood most of what they were saying.

The fire-gutted building offered an easy opening and the words “security consultant” were greeted by remarks along the lines of, “You’ll be busy here, you can see,” and, “They’ve got this overly green attitude in Corsica about the coastline.”

Janson and Kincaid heard complaints from some about the scarcity of opportunity: “Corsicans hate selling property. They think without a house they’re not a Corsican.” Others reveled in the value such scarcity produced. Nonetheless, “housing prices,” they were told repeatedly, “are still cheaper than the Riviera.”

Jessica swooped into a scrum of rich old men draped in jewelry and engaged them in conversation. Janson cruised some more and was told several times that the market was starting to take off.

“Big villas run a million to two million euros on Corsica. Double that here in Porto-Vecchio.”

“Now’s the time to swing a big deal,” a transplanted Atlanta, Georgia, developer assured him.

Jessica snagged an elderly Frenchman. Suntanned and covered in age spots, he had yellow teeth, a pound of gold around his neck, and a four-carat emerald dangling from his left ear.

“Monsieur Lebris,” she told Janson, “is under the impression that you are my father.”

Janson returned Lebris’s curt nod and told Kincaid, “Monsieur Lebris is hopingI am your father.”

“Monsieur Lebris invests in land around Vallicone.”

“Wonderful,” said Janson. “Please use your excellent French to tell him that I said that several of our clients have expressed interest in that area. Too bad the peninsula is not for sale.”

Kincaid translated.

Lebris shook his head emphatically and replied in a torrent of French too rapid for Janson to understand.

“What did he say?”

“The peninsula is not necessarily not for sale. It is currently under a short-term lease and the owners, an ‘ancient’ family in Paris, just might sell for the right price.”

“Rented?”

“Rented fits SR’s pattern,” Kincaid observed quietly to Janson. “Keep moving. They’re gypsies. No fixed base. Just like us.”

Lebris spit a sudden oath and pointed angrily at the shore. A gang of agile separatists was draping a huge sail from the roof of the burned-out hotel. Dripping letters of red paint spelled:

RESISTENZA!

CORSE POUR CORSICANS

ÉTRANGÈRE ALLER LOIN

FLNC

The party fell silent, but for the beat of the band inside the ballroom. Lebris cursed, “ Terroriste!,” rushed to the railing, and shook his fist.

“ ‘Foreigners, get lost!’ ” Jessica translated. “FLNC is the Corsican National Liberation Front.”

“I like their style. These people could be a big help.”

“For a diversion?”

“If we can find a way to do it without getting them shot.”

“They seem capable of looking out for themselves.” Three masked men were rappelling rapidly down the side of the building like professional mountaineers. Swiftly responding squads of gendarmerie and agents of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire found the narrow streets blocked by a trio of abandoned trucks. In the confusion a jet-black cigarette boat roared up to the jetty. The separatists leaped aboard and the high-speed craft raced toward the darkening east, leaving patrol boats in its wake.

Kincaid said, “A big fire would do the job. The Legion colonel told me that the brush is so flammable that his trainees are only allowed to dry-fire their rifles.”

“A French cop told me arson is Corsica’s national pastime. Any thoughts about wangling an introduction to FLNC? I doubt your friend the colonel is on friendly terms with any arsonists.”

Kincaid looked around the deck. The guests had turned their backs on the burned-out hotel and the party had resumed as if nothing had happened. “Doubt these folks know any.”

Janson glanced at the gangway up which guests were still arriving and got a surprise. “Speaking of the devil.”

“Where?”

Janson directed her attention across the deck. “The pale Frenchman.”

“The one who looks rich or the one who looks like a cop?”