Twice a Spy

authentic rich, this duo placed comfort ahead of appearance. The key was their footwear. The younger man wore the distinctive boat-shaped Bettanin amp; Venturi loafers, handmade in Italy. And he wore them without socks, as if he didn’t care whether they fell victim to sweat, sand, or saltwater. The other man, although at least twenty years DeSoto’s senior, wore a pair of Day-Glo orange Crocs, the overpriced neoprene beach clogs that were cute on little kids. Anyone over the age of eight wearing a pair of kiddie clogs didn’t give a hoot what others thought. He was loaded, DeSoto suspected.

He decided to find out for sure. “I would love to share Ilet Ceron with you,” he said, extending his hand, rattling his eighteen-karat gold Rolex. “I am Franklin DeSoto.”

The young man’s grip was firm and his eyes never wavered. “Brad McDonough,” he said. Then he cocked his head at the older man, who hovered by the entry. “And this is Mr. Larsen.”

Larsen stepped forward, bumping his young companion without apology. He placed his hand in DeSoto’s and let the Realtor do the work. “John Larsen,” he said as though it were some sort of secret.

“Great to meet you,” DeSoto said. “This happens to be the first slow day I’ve had since Thanksgiving.” If only. “I could take you to the island this morning if you’d like.”

McDonough looked to old Larsen, who nodded his consent, though grudgingly. Maybe he would have preferred a nap first. Or a Bloody Mary.

“The agency just has a minor security requirement,” said DeSoto. “I need to have my assistant photocopy either your passports or your driver’s licenses. Then I can call down to the dock and have Marcel ready the motor launch.”

Licenses in hand, DeSoto proceeded to the copier in the back room, glancing at his BlackBerry en route. Just the usual boasts from colleagues. Bettina Ludington was showing the old Delacorte estate to a Goldman Sachs senior partner. DeSoto replied with an insincere wish of good luck and btw, i’m showing ceron to a couple of whales.

But were they really whales?

Taking a few moments longer than necessary at the photocopier, DeSoto used an array of Internet tools to search for his prospective clients’ occupations, real estate holdings, and credit histories; Realtors were as adept as private investigators at getting the lowdown, and, by necessity, they were faster. If DeSoto’s digging indicated that his men were in fact whales, he would immediately plunk down fifty euros to rent a Riva Aquarama, a vintage mahogany runabout known alternately as the maritime version of a Ferrari and the Stradivarius of the sea. Should he discover that they were plankton, getting rid of them would be a simple matter of requesting a fax from a bank stating that they had the financial wherewithal to close on such an expensive property. Plankton usually claimed that they had to return to their hotels to get their bank information. Invariably they were never seen again.

It turned out that Larsen was CEO of New England Capital Management, LLC, about which DeSoto could find no useful information. He hoped that it was one of those ultradiscreet hedge funds. Larsen’s address was 259 Cherry Valley Lane in Greenwich, Connecticut. DeSoto knew Greenwich was a Manhattan suburb where two million got you a house in the part of town that formerly quartered the servants. Cherry Valley Lane was located in Greenwich’s lushly forested “Back Country.” According to a Web site that generated instant appraisals, the eight- acre property was worth $10.5 million.

McDonough lived on the other side of Greenwich’s proverbial tracks in a $3.2 million converted barn. He popped up on DeSoto’s computer as the proprietor of the nearby McDonough Thoroughbred Farm, whose Web site offered only the most rudimentary information. Like good restaurants and colleges, successful horse breeders had no need to advertise.

It was enough to go on, DeSoto decided.

If worse came to worst, he always had his Beretta.

24

It was a bright morning with a colorful array of spinnakers in bloom on the Baie de Fort-de-France. The Riva Aquarama runabout skipped across the waves at an exhilarating forty knots, its chrome trim sparkling. Just stepping aboard the iconic craft had made Charlie feel like a movie star.

In the next seat, adding to the illusion, DeSoto steered the boat with one hand and held a thermos of espresso in the other. Sure his tan was too orange, his teeth were too white, and his hair was too fake, but when Charlie squinted against the sun’s glare off the water, the real estate agent passed for Cary Grant.

Charlie might have enjoyed the experience except for the police cutter bobbing ahead, a monstrous black thirty-caliber machine gun mounted on its foredeck. If the policemen glanced at the Riva through binoculars and recognized the fugitive Marvin Lesser-or if the forest of instruments sprouting from the cutter’s wheelhouse included a camera with facial recognition software-Charlie would wind up in a cell. Then things would get bad.

Drummond lay behind Charlie and DeSoto on the sundeck, his recently Clairol-ed black hair flapping aft; Charlie had gone “Golden Sunshine” himself. Drummond’s lethargy was genuine, the side effect of his medication. Charlie thought the attendant crankiness added a bit of plausibility to his role as a man reluctant to part with twenty-eight million of his hard-earned greenbacks.

“So what do you think of the Empress Josephine?” DeSoto asked.

Preoccupied by the policemen, Charlie struggled to find a response. “Terrific golf course, underrated empress.”

DeSoto laughed as only someone hoping to sell a $28 million property could.

Charlie watched the policeman at the machine gun crane his neck to speak to the pilot. Eyes glued to the Riva, the pilot reached for the controls. Water began lathering around the cutter’s stern and, sure enough, the craft launched onto a course to intercept the runabout.

Intolerant of gaps in conversation, DeSoto said, “I always say that golf is the only game where you strive for a subpar performance.”

Charlie faked a laugh. And asked himself why he and Drummond hadn’t simply chartered a dive boat, taken it to within a mile of Fielding’s island, then swum the rest of the way underwater. Anyone who’d seen a Saturday morning cartoon knew that was the way to go.

He reached back and nudged Drummond from his slumber. “Hey look, Mr. Larsen, a police boat with a thirty- caliber machine gun.” He hoped the reminder of the gift to the police, if not the imminent danger it posed, would spur his father’s mind.

Drummond looked up. “Oh,” he said. Getting comfortable again, he closed his eyes.

The police cutter chugged to within a hundred yards.

DeSoto cut his engines, bringing the runabout to a skidding stop. His only concern seemed to be his appearance, which he checked in the control panel. “As opposed to a lot of the other Caribbean islands, one thing you won’t have to worry about here in Martinique is crime,” he said. “The police don’t miss a trick.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Charlie. If he could grab hold of DeSoto’s thermos, he might heave its steaming contents at the policeman on deck and gain control of the machine gun.

The cutter pulled to a halt, paralleling the Riva. Both the machine gunner and the pilot were young Martinicans with muscles that swelled their dark blue uniforms.

“Ca va, Monsieur DeSoto?” asked the pilot.

“Ca va, Sergent Francois,” DeSoto said, a little New Jersey evident in his French. He dug an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it across the three-foot-wide lane to the pilot. “Ca va?”

“Ca va.” Stuffing the envelope into his own breast pocket, the cop offered a crisp salute and returned to the controls.

DeSoto then threw the throttle and the Riva was off. “The toll,” he explained to Charlie.

Charlie felt no relief. If experience was any teacher, that wasn’t the last they’d see of the police cutter.

“So what’s your first impression?” DeSoto asked.

“It depends on how much the toll is.”