Hide Me

Delgado’s lip curled. ‘This is all you have? No credit cards? No traveller’s cheques?’ He leaned forward. ‘No high-stakes chips?’

Marty shifted in his seat. As his sum of worldly goods, the pile didn’t amount to much, but if he was careful it could last out the week. Then again, careful wasn’t his style. He shrugged.

‘I don’t carry all that stuff around. Everything else is back at the Plaza.’

The plain-clothes agent snorted. Marty tugged at his threadbare cuffs, surprised to find his fingers so steady. Suddenly, a pair of hands thrust his head forward and the desk slammed up into his face.

Pain crunched through Marty’s nose. He tried to yell, but his tongue felt thick. The hands pinned him down, crushing his mouth and eyes. Then they wrenched his head back and Delgado’s face filled his vision.

‘Maybe you should look again,’ Delgado said.

Marty coughed, aware of something warm trickling from his nose. He slipped a trembling hand into his pocket, extracting the black chip he’d stolen earlier. It was worth five hundred euros.

Delgado snatched it, nodding towards the agent. ‘Luis here saw you lift it from a customer’s rack.’ He sneered, then stowed the chip in his pocket. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll see the owner gets it back.’

Luis sniggered, then released his grip. Marty’s skin felt clammy. He touched his nose and winced. Shit. All this for a lousy five hundred euros. He closed his eyes for a moment. Lousy or not, it would have paid the rent he owed and set him up for another few weeks.

He opened his eyes, backhanding the blood from his lip. Delgado picked up the red chips and rattled them idly through his fingers. Then he slipped them into his pocket. Marty’s hand froze halfway to his mouth. He watched Delgado strip the cash from his wallet and pocket that too.

‘Hey!’ Marty half-stood from the chair. ‘Those’re mine!’

Delgado raised his eyebrows. ‘You are a thief. We just proved it. I am confiscating stolen goods.’

He flipped the battered wallet onto the desk. Marty felt his fists curl.

‘You can’t prove I stole anything. It’s just your word against mine.’

‘You think so? Maybe we caught you on camera.’

‘Bullshit.’

Marty traded glares with Delgado. He guessed they ran quite a sideline, shaking down two-bit grifters. But sometimes it paid to call a bluff. The Gran Casino had hundreds of cameras, but even so, not every angle was covered. Sometimes, surveillance had to spot a move first before knowing to pan after it with the lens.

The reality was, on a floor this crowded, Marty might just have got away with it.

Delgado’s lip curled into another sneer. ‘You really think you can fool the cameras?’

‘Hey, I’m just saying, maybe your pal Luis here made a mistake.’

‘You would like to see yourself in action?’ Delgado gave a humourless laugh, then clicked his fingers at Luis. ‘¿Qué mesa?’

‘Mesa cinco.’ Table five.

Delgado snatched up the phone and barked orders to someone on the other end. Marty’s Spanish wasn’t up to much, but he was hoping this was the first time they’d bothered to check surveillance.

Delgado ended the call. Then he pointed a remote control at a TV screen on the wall, and the casino floor snapped into view. He sat back, swivelling in his chair.

‘Now we will see how a lowlife operates.’

Marty slid a finger under his collar, his gaze fixed to the screen. Without sound, the roulette floor looked static and dull; just a bunch of well-dressed dummies tossing chips onto the baize. And there he was, hovering near table five.

His blond hair looked tousled, his skin nut-brown from the sun. Marty watched himself flirt with the curvy redhead, re-living the buzz as she responded to his cheesy lines.

Then he saw the mark: short, thickset; mouth as wide as a toad’s. Luis pointed at the screen.

‘Esta es.’ That’s him.

They watched as the toady guy shoved the redhead aside, thrusting a chip down the front of her dress to keep her quiet. Even seeing it for the second time, Marty felt his temper climb. He knew what had happened next, though you couldn’t tell from the screen. He’d opened his mouth to intervene, but the girl had stopped him with a pleading look. Marty had got the message. They were some kind of couple. Step in, and maybe she’d pay for it later. So he’d bitten back his temper and taken revenge the only way he knew how.

Marty peered at himself on the screen. In a minute, he’d move closer to the toady guy, waiting for him to lean across the layout, leaving his rack of chips exposed. Easy pickings for a chip-thief with deft hands. A party of Japanese tourists drifted into view, heading towards the table. Marty spotted Luis, tree-trunk solid, watching from the other side.

Something tapped at Marty’s brain. His eyes shot back to the tourists, and he recalled how they’d blocked his exit from the table. He stared as they flocked across the floor. Soon, he’d be completely hemmed in. With that kind of coverage, the camera was going to miss his sleight of hand.

He leaned back and let out a long breath. Then his pulse jolted as he realized something else.

This was Franco’s table.

Shit.

Marty’s gut clenched. In another thirty seconds, they’d catch Franco’s move. Marty scanned the players, spotting Fat-Boy in position. There was Cowboy, placing his €500 bet.

Marty dragged a hand over his mouth. He’d been following that sonofabitch Franco for weeks and had nicknames for all his crew. Then he noticed again the pretty, dark-haired girl standing on the sidelines. He’d seen her clock Fat-Boy’s eye-rub and his swift exit signal, but she didn’t seem part of their play. Surveillance, maybe? But who’d be dumb enough to tangle with Franco?

He slid a glance at Delgado. The asshole had him cornered, but not in the way that he thought. If Marty let the tape run, he’d probably be in the clear. On the other hand, they’d hit on Franco.

He watched the roulette wheel and his breathing speeded up. Where there was gambling, there was cheating. And where there was cheating, there was money up for grabs. Marty had been down on his luck for ten years, and for a while now he’d figured that coat-tailing on Franco was his only way out.

He held up his hands. ‘Okay, forget it, you’re right.’

Delgado narrowed his eyes. Marty licked his lips and went on:

‘I stole his stupid chip. You can stop the damn tape.’

Delgado’s face turned crimson. Slowly, he got to his feet and made his way round the desk, his gaze pinned on Marty.

‘You think you can make fools of us? Waste our time?’ He snapped his fingers at Luis. ‘Maybe you should see what happens to thieves in this casino.’

Luis snatched Marty’s arms and wrenched them behind his back. Marty’s shoulder muscles screamed. Delgado strode towards him, rolling up his shirtsleeves, and Marty tensed his gut.

Somewhere on the screen, that bastard Franco was making his move and Marty was going to pay for protecting him. Sweat slid down his face.

But hey, what the hell?

After all, once upon a time they’d been friends.

Chapter 3

Harry nudged through the crowds, following the fat guy along the cobbled streets of the Old Quarter.

Glasses clinked from the tourist-filled bars, and the air was thick with the salty scent of sausage. Harry fixed her gaze on the figure ahead. He must have been a hundred pounds overweight, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.

She picked up the pace, trying to fix her bearings. Navigational challenges were never her strong point, and she hadn’t been here long enough to tag many landmarks. She scanned the medieval-looking buildings. There were plenty of signs, but most of them in Basque, with its unintelligible x’s and k’s.

Up ahead, the fat guy moved like a barge, parting the crowds in a backwash behind him. He made a sharp right, and Harry trotted after him into another lantern-lit alleyway.

She recalled how he’d smoothed a hand over his hair at the casino. If her guess was correct, it was some kind of signal, a cue for his accomplices to cut and run. Right now, he was probably headed for an emergency location, or maybe back to wherever he was staying.

Just stay in the casino. Nothing can happen in front of the cameras.

She flicked a quick glance over her shoulder. All she planned to do was pinpoint an address. At least then she’d have something to offer Riva before terminating their arrangement.

Harry winced. Backsliding out of a job made her insides squirm, but the truth was, Riva didn’t need her. Harry’s expertise was in computer security, investigating forensics and security breaches for criminal and civil litigation. At least, that was the whitewashed version. Actually, she’d been a hacker since the age of nine and that was still what she did best. But whatever her skills, she certainly wasn’t equipped to crack open a ring of casino cheaters.

She huffed out a breath, picking her way over the cobbles. The maze of laneways reminded her of Temple Bar, Dublin’s alleged Bohemian Quarter, though the cobbles here were easier on her feet. The thought of her native Dublin triggered another squirm. Ever since her return from Cape Town a few months before, she’d had trouble settling back into her hometown. All her ties were there: her parents, her sister, her friends, her business. And Hunter, of course. The detective who’d recently stirred her body chemistry, brewing up something she didn’t quite recognize. But still, Dublin left her feeling displaced. Like a jigsaw piece tidied into the wrong box.

The truth had crystallized during a rare phone call with her mother.

‘A vagrant, just like your father,’ her mother had said. ‘You’ve moved three times in the last twelve months. Different homes, different countries, different jobs. Are you the same with men? Hopping from one bed to the other?’

Harry’s cheeks stung at the memory. Jesus, weren’t mothers supposed to be on your side? But at least the woman’s hostility had made her face facts. Harry’s sense of dislocation wasn’t new. Nothing like having a frosty mother all your life for making you an outsider in your own home.

Glass shattered on the cobbles behind her. Harry squeezed through a scrum of tourists, still keeping tabs on the fat guy. Her feet ached, and it occurred to her she was wasting her time. Maybe he was just a regular punter who had nothing to do with Franco Chavez.

She squinted through the alleyway. The fat guy shot a glance over his shoulder. Then he dipped his head, switched gears and put more distance between them. Harry frowned. Had he spotted her?

She hung back, her eyes roaming the busy tangle of streets. Tiers of wrought-iron balconies loomed above her, and every alley seemed to converge on a Gothic church spire. Her back tingled. She was worryingly far from her navigational comfort zone.

Something tugged at her gut, willing her to turn back. Was there really any point in following a guy who knew she was there? She slowed her pace, giving in to the notion. Then suddenly the fat guy stopped and spun around.

Harry jerked to a halt. Goosebumps erupted along her arms. He was staring right at her. His gaze drifted over her shoulder, his eyes widening. Then he whirled away and barrelled down the laneway.

Harry whipped her head around. What had he seen? She scoured the narrow backstreet, searching for false notes. She peered at the tourists, at the local Basque vendors, but nothing seemed out of place.

Was someone else following him?

She snapped her eyes back. He’d almost disappeared, and she took off after him at a jog, not sure of her intentions. She followed him to the end of the laneway and found herself on the edge of a large, open square. Sandstone buildings enclosed it on all sides, with rows of balconies rising up like seats in an amphitheatre. At ground level, the square was bordered by a colonnade of shadowy archways.

Harry felt her limbs relax. Finally, a place she recognized: the city’s old bullring, Plaza de la Constitución.

She slowed to a walk, scanning the area. It was less crowded in here, and the place scattered echoes like an empty church. You could still see the numbers over the shuttered windows from a time when the balconies were rented out as seats.

Harry spotted the fat guy scurrying for cover under the walkway of arched porticos. She hesitated. The porches looked gloomy, in spite of the lanterns dotting the colonnades. Better to stick to the safety of open country. Besides, he had to emerge sooner or later to exit back onto the streets.

She struck out across the plaza in line with the archways, trailing his ample silhouette as he blundered in and out of the shadows. Voices echoed in the hollow acoustics, and for an instant, Harry heard the roar of crowds lusting for blood at the bullfights. An image thrust itself into her head: a quivering animal, slashed and butchered, who could do nothing but stand and bleed. She shuddered, shaking the memory off. Her father had taken her to a bullfight as a child. It was the first time she’d seen violent death.

She blinked and focused back on the porticos, waiting for the fat guy to reappear. She slowed to a halt. Flicked her gaze across the arches.

There was no sign of him.

Shit. Had he doubled back? She whirled around, scouring the square. Nothing.

Dammit.

Harry peered at the gloomy archways. The notion of going in there made her spine hum. She dug her nails into her palms, then edged across the plaza and stepped under the portico, retracing the fat guy’s steps. By now, the square was almost empty. Her shoes slapped chapel-like echoes off the walls, and a chill skittered through her. Then something behind her made a bubbling sound, and she turned.

The fat guy was sitting on the ground, leaning against one of the columns. He was staring up at her, his eyes wide. He looked as though he was about to accuse her of something. Then she saw the bloody gash that had ripped his throat open, and she screamed.

Chapter 4

‘You’re a long way from home, Miss Martinez.’

Harry eyed the detective perched against the desk in front of her. He was leafing through her passport, his nostrils flared as though he’d found a dead bug between the pages.

‘I told you,’ she said. ‘I’m working for a client.’

She shifted in her chair. Riva was certainly one of the reasons she was here, anyway. The detective regarded her down the length of his nose. It was slightly hooked and, with his close-set eyes, it gave him the look of an eagle.

His name was Vasco. He was an inspector with the Ertzaintza, the police force of the Basque country, and so far he was the fourth guy to interview her about the events of last night.

He turned his attention to a stapled report, probably her signed statement. Fatigue shuddered through her. The police had grilled her till three in the morning, and had started again soon after breakfast. By now, it was early evening and what little sleep she’d got had been slashed by images of blood-soaked, slaughtered bulls.

‘You have been in San Sebastián before.’

Harry frowned. He made it sound like an accusation. And besides, how did he know?

‘That was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘My father brought me on visits as a child. He was born here.’

‘You have family in the city?’

She brushed at an imaginary speck of dust on her skirt. ‘I’m not sure.’

Her memories of those childhood trips were flimsy as cobwebs. Her older sister, Amaranta, had been there with her, but for reasons Harry had never understood, their mother had refused to come. Harry fiddled with the strap of her bag. Her personal link with San Sebastián was another reason she’d taken the job, but so far, she’d been too busy for cosy family reunions.

Her stomach dipped with an odd emptiness. The alienation she’d felt in Dublin had left a void like a doughnut hole inside her. She’d found herself re-examining her past, as if that would somehow plug the cavity: her nomadic Dublin childhood, where her father’s gambling had kept their finances on a pendulum swing; the upheavals from house to house, in line with his cashflow; the upmarket mansions, the low-rent bedsits, the ever-changing schools. She realized she had few treasured memories of ‘home’, the kind that others called nostalgia and that tied your heart to a place.

Harry swallowed against a pesky fullness in her throat. The job in San Sebastián had come at the right moment. She’d never fully explored the Spanish side of her identity, and it was probably time that she did.

Vasco tossed her passport into her lap, then strutted back around the desk. She took in his tall, elegant frame; the expensive suit and the slicked-back hair. The first ertzaina she’d talked to had been a uniformed guard, dishevelled from overwork. This guy looked more like a politician than a cop.

He sat down behind the desk, flipping up his coat-tails like a concert pianist taking position. ‘Tell me again why you followed him.’

His English was precise, his accent almost Etonian. The other cops had been relieved to revert to Spanish with Harry, but not Vasco. She pegged it as vanity, but to be fair, his fluency was impressive. Harry sighed.

‘I’ve already explained, I saw him—’

‘I know what you saw. Please answer my question. Why did you follow him? Why not follow the man you say collected the winnings?’

Harry pictured the American with his thatch of greying hair, queuing up at the cage. ‘He’d won a large amount of money. Assuming the casino was following regulations, he’d need to fill out forms with proven ID before cashing in that amount.’

‘So?’

Harry shrugged. ‘So I figured the casino already had a line on him. The other guy was the unknown quantity.’ For an instant, her breeziness deserted her and she was back in the old bullring: wide, staring eyes; butchered gullet. She swallowed. ‘Do you know who he was?’

Vasco stared at her, hawk-like, and didn’t answer. Then he said, ‘What is your connection with Riva Mills?’

‘I told you, she’s my client.’

‘And that’s all?’

Harry frowned. ‘What else would there be?’

‘So she contacts you out of the blue. An American businesswoman based in San Sebastián decides to hire a technology expert from Dublin.’ He leaned forward. ‘Who just happens to be you.’

‘It didn’t happen out of the blue. I was recommended to her by a mutual friend.’

‘What friend?’

‘Her name’s Roslyn Bloomberg.’ Harry watched him write it down. ‘She’s a diamantaire based in New York. My father’s known her for years, and it turns out Riva’s a client of hers.’

Harry had been surprised when she’d heard that Ros had recommended her. They’d parted on bad terms in Cape Town a few months before. For reasons too complex to sort through at the time, Ros had believed that Harry was a thief. Other people’s opinions didn’t usually count with Harry, but Ros had come close to being a substitute mother for a while. It hurt to be rejected by two mothers in a row, whatever way you looked at it.

Vasco slapped an eight-by-ten photograph on the desk. ‘Take a good look. He was a countryman of yours.’

Harry’s skin turned cold. The fat guy’s face shone back at her like a moon. His eyes were pale, his skin doughy and bloated. She couldn’t see his throat, but guessed that when he posed for the shot, he was already dead. Her insides shrivelled.

Vasco tapped the photo with a pen. ‘His name was Stephen McArdle. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘We’ve built quite a profile on him. Thirty-four years old, born in Belfast. Started off doing work for IRA splinter groups, then later for Colombian revolutionaries, the PLO, even our own Basque separatists.’

Harry frowned, picturing the clumsy figure who’d barged ahead of her through the backstreets. ‘He was a terrorist?’

‘He was a hacker, Miss Martinez.’ Vasco’s gaze drilled into hers. ‘Just like you.’

Harry’s eyebrows shot up. She was about to reply when the door swung open. A short, stocky man shambled into the room and dropped a folder onto the desk. He stared at Harry. His unshaven face drooped with middle age, and his head looked too large for his body, though maybe that was down to his mess of dark, woolly curls. He took a seat by the wall, his eyes never leaving her face. Vasco went on, ignoring the interruption.

‘McArdle hired himself out to anyone who paid him well enough.’

Harry hesitated. The newcomer’s stare was unnerving. She cleared her throat.

‘Paid him well enough to do what?’

‘Help them fund their operations.’

‘By hacking?’

Vasco shrugged. ‘Terrorists raise funding in all sorts of ways. Drugs, smuggling, kidnapping, prostitution. Now they add cybercrime to the list.’

He picked up the folder and browsed through it. It looked like another set of photographs. He slotted one out for a closer look, and kept talking.

‘McArdle had quite the hacker’s pedigree. Credit-card company penetration, ATM heists, cyber protection rackets.’ He peered at her over the glossy eight-by-ten, his look predatory. ‘But then, you know more about this kind of thing than me.’

Harry narrowed her eyes. ‘Look, I don’t appreciate—’

Vasco smacked the photo onto the desk. ‘This man, who is he?’

Harry blinked. She recognized the florid face of the American from the casino.

‘He’s the one who collected the winnings. I don’t know his name.’

‘And this one?’

He tossed down another photo, a headshot of a woman. She looked thirty-something, a brunette with good bones, though the layers of make-up masked her features like a veil. Harry shook her head.

‘I’ve never seen her before.’

‘And him?’

Another headshot: a man in his late forties, pale crew cut, eyebrows bleached by the sun. His complexion looked mud-stained with freckles.

Harry shook her head again. ‘No. Is that Franco Chavez?’

Vasco broke eye contact. Over by the wall, his shaggy-haired colleague stirred in his chair. Eventually, Vasco said,

‘We don’t have an ID on Franco Chavez.’

‘I see.’ Harry looked from one to the other, trying to read their discomfort. ‘But these others, they’re all part of the casino-cheating crew?’

‘We believe so.’

‘Why do they need a hacker? Are they really using computers to cheat?’

‘Maybe.’ Vasco tilted his head, as though assessing her. ‘Or maybe they need a hacker for something else.’

Harry squinted. What was he getting at? He leaned forward, his eyes probing hers.

‘We know a lot about you, Miss Martinez.’

She lifted her chin. ‘Such as?’

‘We’ve been in touch with your police force in Dublin. They were very helpful.’ Vasco peered at her like a raptor bird, and Harry tried not to squirm. ‘You started young. I understand you hacked into the Stock Exchange when you were just thirteen.’

Harry’s eyes widened. How the hell did he know about that? No charges were ever filed. A childish misdemeanour, nothing more. Vasco was still talking.

‘Then more recently, there was the question of several million euros that went missing in the Bahamas. And later, some diamonds in Cape Town. Also missing.’

Harry’s brain raced. She’d sailed close to the winds of larceny more than once, but she’d had her reasons, all of them good ones. Trouble was, she couldn’t prove it. Then again, neither could they. She clenched her fists.

‘I’ve never been arrested for anything.’

‘Your father has. He served six years in prison for insider trading, didn’t he?’

Harry gaped. What was he doing, trying to build some kind of case against her? And for what?

‘Geldi!’

Harry snapped her gaze to the stranger by the wall. He’d shot to his feet, his expression stony, and was firing out what sounded like orders in rapid Basque. Vasco made a chopping motion with his hand, cutting him off. Then he turned back to Harry.

‘Have you talked to Riva Mills since McArdle was killed?’