The Secret Agent Read Online Free PDF Page A

word, he had given her enough freedom and rope to hang herself several times over.
    “You want a secret agent,” she murmured, as he reappeared with a glass of wine. “Don’t you?”
    “I find, heart, that the cost of excellence is a certain amount of fame. I do my job too well. Any number of nasties and ghoulies can track my people coming and going. For this job, I need someone who’s clean.”
    “Because a hooker died on Max Roderick?”
    He did not reply.
    “Who hired you, Oliver? The Swiss? Or Roderick himself?”
    “Use the pen, old thing,” he said gently. “The
paper.”
    “You think I’m going to turn my back on all the security I’ve forged at FundMarket in the past four years? Walk away, just like that?” She snapped her fingers under Oliver’s nose.
    “No,” he admitted. “I think you’ll
run.”
    “You flatter yourself.”
    He was whistling again, a hiss of air between his teeth. “I notice your pet
Galileo
is sinking further into the NASDAQ swamp.”
    Galileo.
God, she was bored with
Galileo.
    Stefani uncapped the pen and scrawled her name on the contract. Boredom was the one sin she never forgave herself. “Now tell me who hired you.”
    “The Thai government, I think.” Oliver said it doubtfully. “Though with the Thais, one can never be sure. Devious little beasts, behind their smiles.”
    “Surely they’re not concerned about a prostitute murdered on a different continent.”
    “Particularly when they or their assigns might be responsible for killing her,” he added pensively.
    Her head came up at that. “Your clients? You think the Thai government may have set Roderick up? But what does an American skier resident in France have to do with Thailand?”
    “Precisely what I asked Max when he rang me two days ago. He’s also decided to hire Krane’s, you see. Or rather, he’s
hired you.”
    A jolt of feeling shot through her like an arrow. Excitement? Fear? “—I being not
precisely
Krane?”
    “Not yet,” Oliver agreed cheerfully, “and not so’s the Thais will ever notice, God willing.”
    “What am I expected to do?”
    “Recover a fortune. Max believes he’s owed one. The Thais disagree.”
    “And you’ve been hired to establish the truth of their claim?”
    “Precisely. Spot of forensic accounting. Old hat.”
    Her shrewd brown eyes swept his face. “Are you also being paid to discourage Roderick?”
    Oliver adjusted his spectacles with an air of distaste. “I am not a
thug,
my sweet, although on occasion I have employed them. At the moment, I’ve decided to employ
you.”
    “You think I can get Roderick to take his ski boots and go home to France?”
    “On the contrary! I hope you’ll follow him right down into the crevasse.”
    She allowed Oliver to consume a remarkable quantity of Indonesian curry—to talk of Venice and the art trade in Stockholm and his favorite anchorage at Bitter End-while the sky overhead blackened to navy and the first warm wind of spring stirred the dead leaves. The roar of traffic throbbed beyond the enclosed terrace like a massive bloodstream. Stefani pulled a silk sweater about her shoulders and warmed her fingers at the candle flame. Oliver poured her a third glass of wine.
    “What kind of fortune is the ski champ hunting?”
    “A priceless Southeast Asian art collection, presently housed in Bangkok’s most elegant little museum. The museum itself is at issue, I might add.”
    “And why does Roderick care?”
    “Something to do with blood, I imagine.” The cool eyes were locked on hers. “Know anything about friend Max? Beyond the ski-circuit chatter, I mean?”
    “You would hardly have hired me if I came with predispositions toward the case.”
    Oliver sighed. “Too bloody smart for your own good. Of course I knew you weren’t acquainted with the man. He’s not your type.”
    She shrugged.
    “And yet … curiously compelling. So austere and shining in his self-isolated perfection, he’s like the north face of