Chapter 560: The Gamble
Montenegro—"the Black Mountain." By the name alone you might take it for something much like the Lonely Mountain, but in truth the two were nothing alike.
For now Montenegro was still merely a region, part of the country of Serbia and Montenegro, though the rising tide of independence had left the social order here somewhat chaotic.
The whole of Montenegro spanned just over 10,000 square kilometers (about 3,900 square miles), with a population of 600,000—a textbook pocket-sized statelet.
With the social order out of control, the place had become a breeding ground for crime. No small number of criminals came to Montenegro to seek out, or to manufacture, conflict, and to turn a profit off it.
The seaside resort town of Sveti Stefan was exactly such a spot: glossy on the surface, yet concealing a great deal of crime and illicit dealing beneath.
Capitalists controlled the place, and every day people from every corner of the earth arrived in Sveti Stefan with all manner of purposes.
Bella's current short-haired look was a world apart from her earlier long-haired style; her air, her accessories, her shoes and bag were all different. She hadn't bothered to disguise herself and had simply come straight over.
She strode into the Casino de Monte-Carlo. This grand casino, established in Monaco, was doing a roaring trade thanks to the endless natural and man-made disasters plaguing the world's nations, and by now it had opened branches in both Montenegro and Serbia.
Bella had come here for one reason: to see Kaecilius. She meant to have a good, long talk with this master of the mystic arts.
No sooner had she walked into the hotel attached to the casino, the one where guests went to rest, than a square-faced, big-eared middle-aged man stepped out of the elevator to one side. The two of them stood less than three meters (about ten feet) apart, and Bella recognized him at a glance. Why, if it isn't old comrade 006!
006 visibly froze at the sight of Bella, and Bella was a little taken aback herself. The Earth had a surface of 510 million square kilometers and seven billion people; with no arrangement whatsoever between them, what were the odds she'd run into 006 right in front of a hotel elevator?
Each of them muttered a curse at their rotten luck, both convinced the other would bring them nothing but misfortune.
Should she pretend she didn't know him? Bella quickly abandoned the idea. No point.
"What are you doing here?"
"Weren't you off in Switzerland working on that plasma engine with them? Why are you here?"
They spoke up at the same instant.
Under Bella's faintly domineering gaze, it was 006 who answered first.
"The 007 from my era has retired—you've met him. I heard MI6 has already trained up a new 007, so I came to take a look."
After four or five years knocking around with Bella, 006's horizons had broadened enormously; he was no longer stuck on the old-fashioned notion of blowing up the Queen with a missile.
His attitude toward the old 007 had shifted right along with it. The hatred was still there, but it had faded, dwindled into something inconsequential.
The old 007 was a sharp one, and there was a faint suspicion he was deliberately playing up his misery, too. Far from quitting that job training summer-camp children in Central Park, he threw himself into it with real gusto. More than once, passing through Central Park and seeing his old rival struggling along as he gripped a wheelchair, 006 felt a rather complicated tangle of emotions.
Coming to see the new 007 now was purely a matter of being in the neighborhood, plus a touch of curiosity.
"All right, this is a private matter for me as well. I'm here to find someone, a man named Kaecilius. Around here he goes by the alias Le Chiffre. There's a question I need to put to him face to face."
After a brief exchange, having learned they were both here on private business, the two parted at once—each off to see to their own affairs.
At eight in the evening, the casino officially opened for business.
Bella moved as though through an empty room, walking straight up to a middle-aged man whose hair had gone somewhat gray.
The man's hair was groomed without a single strand out of place, and his suit fit him closely, but a cold, mocking sneer that scorned the whole world always tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Bella casually ordered a whiskey before speaking. "Master Kaecilius, why have you turned up in a place like this? I'd have thought you were so obsessed with magic you wouldn't waste a single second of your time."
Kaecilius let out a cold laugh. "Waste? I've wasted a great deal of time. What of it—care to hear about it? Or is it that my very existence tarnishes the glorious image of the new Sorcerer Supreme?"
His tone was barbed, brimming with sarcasm.
Bella answered honestly. "I have no interest in the position of Sorcerer Supreme."
"Have you heard that old Eastern tale of the yellow robe being draped over a man's shoulders, of one forced onto the throne whether he willed it or not? Very often it isn't a matter of what you want or don't want." The look in Kaecilius's eyes as he regarded Bella carried open contempt, as if to say: how can your understanding be so shallow?
Bella turned her head aside, momentarily at a loss for a reply. The cheek of it—a Dane, lecturing her about yellow robes and thrones? Was that even how the idiom was meant to be used?! Did it remotely fit here?
She couldn't be bothered with more talk and laid down her ultimatum straight out. "Debating any of this with you is pointless. My power is greater than yours, I command more spells than you, and my word is reason enough here. Come back to Kamar-Taj with me. I'd rather not raise a hand against you in front of all these people."
Kaecilius smiled without a sound. "How imposing! How very fearsome!"
He pointed at the card table. "I've still got a game to play here today. Sit in on this game with me. Win or lose, I'll go back with you. How does that sound?"
Bella looked the table over. "Just the one game? Win or lose?"
"That's right. Win or lose."
"Fine. Let me go change my outfit…"
Merely passing through a casino to find someone was nothing worth mentioning, but actually sitting down at the table called for a bit of cover. Bella cared a great deal about her image; it was the wellspring of all the praise she received, and not a thing to be slack about!
Fifty minutes later she'd done her hair anew, put on an off-the-shoulder gown, taken up a Hermès bag, and stepped back into the casino with elegant poise.
Kaecilius's game ran high—Texas hold'em, with a ten-million-euro buy-in just to sit down. Bella signed a check and casually dropped into whatever seat was open.
The new 007 had come precisely to track down Kaecilius.
Of course, in the records of British intelligence, he currently went by Le Chiffre, an international banker who moved among the various powers.
British intelligence could dig up next to nothing on Kaecilius, so they had sent out their new ace agent, 007.
007 certainly didn't have ten million, so his superiors dispatched a ravishing woman to assist him.
The whites of this woman's eyes were a touch too large, the outer corners of her eyes drooped, the corners of her mouth turned down, and her nasolabial folds ran rather deep. Yet all these facial flaws taken together lent her a wickedly bewitching, lethal charm, a languid and mysterious allure that made even Bella—a woman with a wife and child—unable to resist stealing a couple of extra glances.
The woman wasn't exactly beautiful; she was simply immensely seductive to men.
Taken feature by feature they were all rather ordinary, but combined they produced a marvelous effect, different from Bella's exquisite refinement or Natasha's sultry charm. Evil, shadowy, mysterious: any of these words could be used to describe this woman.
The alluring woman was the new 007's financial backer, and behind her stood HM Treasury. This whole affair was, quite simply, a matter of using public funds to get 007 close to Kaecilius.
006 came along too. He and Bella nodded to each other from across the room, both acting as though they were acquainted, though not close.
Bella, Kaecilius, 006, 007, plus six players who had arranged to attend in advance—ten people in all—began, as the croupier dealt the cards, this game with total stakes running as high as one hundred million euros.