Arriving with Alix at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome, Vermulen found a postcard waiting for him: a picture of a hill village in the South of France with the words Tourrettes-sur-Loup written over it in fancy script.
On the back there was a message. It read, I told you I’d find somewhere great! You MUST try this place: Bon Repos, Chemin du Dauphin. It needs work. For a good contractor try Kenny Wynter… A phone number followed and then a signature, Pavel.
“Novak again,” said Vermulen with a grin, when Alix asked him about it. “That man, he never stops trying to sell stuff.”
That had been two days ago. Now Alix was in the hotel steam room, letting the heat and humidity relax her muscles and sweat the toxins from her body.
There was one other woman in the room. She caught Alix’s eye.
“Just like home, enjoying a Turkish bath!”
The words were spoken in Russian.
Alix smiled. “Except in Moscow we wouldn’t have to wear bathing suits. We could be naked-so much more comfortable.”
“What do you expect? This is an American hotel.” The woman shook her head in mock sorrow. “Crazy people.”
“Careful,” said Alix. “My boyfriend is American.”
“Maybe he is an exception!”
The woman looked around, confirming that they were still alone. Then she spoke again, not so chatty anymore.
“So, your boyfriend, what has he been doing?”
“He had a meeting yesterday, with an Italian, he would not say who. But I know they met in a park, on the Aventine Hill. He said it had a magnificent view of St. Peter’s. Maybe there are cameras nearby that you can check. Also, he had a message from Novak. I do not know the significance, but it concerned a particular house, in France.”
She passed over the details. The woman did not seem impressed.
“This is not enough-a meeting, but you do not know who with; a house, but you do not know its significance. Moscow will expect more than this.”
“I’m sorry. I’m doing my best.”
“In any event, I have a message from the deputy director. She regrets to inform you that your friend in Geneva passed away. As a consequence, payments to the clinic have been stopped.”
Alix gasped. She looked wide-eyed at the other woman before bending over, her head in her hands, the sobs shallow at first, then convulsing her whole body.
The other woman made no attempt to comfort her.
“You must understand,” she said eventually, “this makes no difference to your mission. You are to continue as before. That is an order.”
She got up to go.
“Enjoy the rest of your bath.”
“What’s the matter?” asked Vermulen when Alix got back to their suite.
Now there was a good question. Alix was distraught, unable to hide the pain from her eyes. But when she asked herself why, the answer was more complicated than a simple matter of loss.
Of course, she was devastated by the news of Carver’s death. She thought of the man he had been, their time together, the time they might have had. For months she had clung to the hope that somehow he might recover, maybe not completely, but enough that they could have some kind of future together. Now that hope had been dashed forever, and the constant, dull ache of watching him eke out a half-life in the clinic was replaced by the absolute desolation of grief.
And yet, though she could barely admit it, even to herself, she felt another emotion: relief. The burden of responsibility Carver’s incapacity had created had weighed on her, and poisoned her feelings for him. Deep down, she resented him for deserting her, disappearing into his madness and leaving her to cope, forcing her to take the job with Vermulen. Then she’d felt guilty for harboring such terrible, unfair thoughts. And that had made her resent him even more.
Now he was gone, and the weight was lifted. She could remember Carver as the man he had been when they first met. And she could try to rebuild her life, free of the creature he had become. Somewhere on the edge of her consciousness, there was even a sense of excitement, the possibility of being free for something new.
“Oh, nothing, really,” she said. “I just met someone in the lobby, someone I knew from home. She told me about a friend of ours. He’d not been well for a long time and she just heard… he’s died.”
Vermulen had been sitting at a writing desk. Now he got to his feet and held out his arms. His eyes conveyed profound understanding, as though a question had been answered, a problem solved.
She went to him at last, and it wasn’t because she was doing her job, but because he was a living, breathing man and she needed the shelter of his arms. She laid her head on his chest and he stroked her hair as she cried. He lifted her head and dried the tears from her cheeks. They kissed, tentatively at first and then with rising intensity until, without another word, he took her arm and led her into the bedroom.
Three days out, one more to go. It was early evening, still a while to go before sunset, and they were traversing a southeastern slope, taking shelter from the wind that had been blowing in from the sea, away to the north and west. The mountains were no more than five or six thousand feet high, but topped by razor-sharp shark’s tooth peaks that made them seem much more imposing. Carver and Larsson were back on equal terms now as they tacked from side to side up the slope, using kick turns to change the angle of their ascent. They weren’t talking much. With the amount of effort they were expending every day, breath was too precious to waste on conversation.
There was a long, exposed ridge up ahead, a spine of rock a few yards wide, which jutted from the main body of the mountain, dropping away almost sheer on either side before it fanned out again into a less precipitous slope that fell, like one side of a pyramid, to the valley floor a thousand feet below. The two men planned to cross the ridge, then ski back down to lower, sheltered ground, where they could pitch their two-man tunnel tent, brew up some water on their gas stove, and mix it with their dried rations. Carver was looking forward to beef curry and rice for supper, a classic piece of dehydrated cuisine from the Royal Marines cookbook-a taste of the old days.
The higher they climbed, the less cover there was around them. They began to feel the wind picking up, snatching at their clothes, pushing against their backpacks, beating the hoods of their parkas against their ears. For the past hour or so, the slope that rose ahead of them and to the left had filled most of their field of vision. Carver had become aware of a gradual darkening of the heavens as the blue sky gave way to thickening gray clouds. But now, as they approached the ridge, the view opened up and they could look out toward the Atlantic.
A few strides up ahead, Larsson was jabbing his arm back and forth, pointing at the horizon, and calling out a single word, “Storm!”
Carver didn’t need telling. Away to the northwest a solid wall of charcoal-colored clouds was bearing down upon them and blocking out the waning sunlight like a giant blackout curtain drawing closed.
The wind was picking up speed with every minute that passed, and flurries of snow were whipping through the air, blowing almost horizontally into their faces. As the temperature dropped, windchill would become an ever-greater threat. Exposed skin could suffer frostbite within minutes.
Carver looked past Larsson at the ridge, then glanced back toward the onrushing weather. There was no way they could make it across the ridge before the storm hit them. If they got caught out there, with no shelter on any side, they would be blown off the mountainside like seeds from a dandelion. Even if they survived the wind, they would have to cope with a whiteout. The windblown snow and diffused, cloudy light would remove all definition from their surroundings, leaving them lost and disoriented. On flat ground a whiteout was dangerous enough. On a narrow ridge, with deadly drops on either side, it meant certain death.
Carver pointed up ahead, then gave a single, decisive shake of the head and drew a finger across his throat. Larsson nodded in response and pointed back toward the main bulk of the mountain. “Make camp-now!” he shouted, barely able to make himself heard over the battering clamor of the wind.
They turned around and skied back a dozen strides to a short, flat shelf in the lee of the mountainside that gave some meager protection from the elements. They took their skis off and jabbed them vertically into the snow along with their ski poles, then slung their packs down next to them. Both men had snow shovels strapped to the outside of their backpacks. They freed them and wordlessly began digging a rectangular hole, shaped like a section of a shallow trench, fighting the wind and snow that seemed as determined to cancel out every effort they made.
When the hole was about knee-deep, Carver stepped over to Larsson’s pack and untied the nylon bag that contained their tent. If they could just erect it inside the trench, then shovel snow back over the flaps along either side, that should provide enough shelter to enable them to ride out the storm.
Working quickly, methodically, Carver sorted out the pegs, guy-ropes, and poles: far better to spend a minute doing that now than waste five panicking if anything went missing. He and Larsson drove the pegs into the snow, ready to take the cords. The tent was brand-new, designed for easy assembly. Under normal circumstances it just took a few minutes to erect, but the storm had other ideas. The gale was rising to a murderous intensity, the snow thickening. Carver and Larsson were both strong, fit men. They knew what they were doing. Their equipment was top of the line. They threw every ounce of their strength and energy into the task of securing the ultralightweight material. Yet the two men could no more resist the might of the elements than King Canute could hold back the oncoming tide.
The blizzard now reached a new crescendo, whipping the bright-red nylon tent into the air like a kite, its flight visible for no more than a second or two before it disappeared into the all-enveloping whiteness.
Carver watched it disappear. He allowed himself a quick, sharp spasm of frustration, then turned his mind to the problem of survival. Visibility was getting worse by the second. Already he could barely see the outlines of the packs and skis just a few feet away, and Larsson was little more than a shadow, half hidden by the driving snow.
“This way!” Carver shouted.
He reached out and grabbed Larsson’s arm, then dragged him along as he fought against the buffeting wind toward their equipment, lying by the rising mountain face.
There were deep drifts of snow piled between the mountainside and the wide ledge on which they were standing. In a perfect world, they’d burrow into them to create a proper snow hole, protected from the elements like an underground igloo. But that would take two or three hours. Carver estimated they had no more than fifteen minutes before the freezing wind and snow completely overwhelmed them. Their only hope was to hack out a rudimentary cave. It would be partially open to the elements, but at least it might provide some degree of shelter.
Carver set to work, stabbing at the snow and removing it in chunks like icy white bricks. By now, he’d been on the go for the better part of nine hours. The last food he had consumed had been a midday snack of energy bars and chocolate, eaten on the march. He was cold and dehydrated, shivering and sweating at one and the same time. He was wearing several layers of specialist mountain clothing, designed to expel moisture from his skin, keeping him as dry and warm as possible. But as his energy and liquid levels dropped, the clothes became less effective. He had to complete the hole as fast as possible, but the very weakness that made rest and shelter so vital was slowing him down, making every strike of the shovel an effort.
Even through the blizzard, he could see that Larsson was faring no better. His movements were slow and ineffective. He turned and looked at Carver, and though the Norwegian’s eyes were hidden by his goggles, the way his head was lowered and his shoulders slumped told Carver that his friend was close to admitting defeat.
Carver pumped his fist and screamed, “Come on!” He had no idea whether his words could be heard but the sense of them seemed to get through to Larsson. He drew himself up for a second, then turned back to the hole, attacking the snowdrift with one last, desperate spasm of energy.
By any rational standards, Carver had gone beyond the limits of human endurance. The exhaustion of his muscles, the desperate shortage of oxygen in his lungs, the relentless battery of the wind, and the insidious tentacles of cold worming into his body had fused into one all-encompassing agony. And all he had to do to make it go away was give in to the temptation to stop: to lie down in the snow, go to sleep, and surrender his life to that ghost-white embrace. But there’s a reason Special Forces selection and training involve the infliction of pain at a level that would be considered a criminal breach of human rights, amounting in any other context to virtual torture. It’s not just a matter of physical toughening. There’s a psychological, almost spiritual, element, too: accepting agony and exhaustion and-because you can always, at any time, admit failure and drop out-choosing to make them part of your life. It’s the same talent for self-mortification, or perhaps the same madness, that makes a gold-medal marathon runner or a world-champion boxer. Carver hurt. He wanted to stop. And yet, relentlessly, he chose to keep digging.
Beside him, however, Larsson was faltering again. He had given all that any man could reasonably expect. But he could not go beyond that and make the unreasonable effort on which his survival depended. He was barely able to lift his shovel, scraping at the snow, rather than attacking it. Carver could see that Larsson was past the point where encouragement would be of any use. He would have to finish the job by himself.
He hollowed out a space about waist-high, stretching back a little over a yard or so into the drift and just wide enough for the two of them to huddle, side by side, facing the open air, with their gear piled beside them. Larsson fell to the ground before summoning up enough energy to drag himself into a sitting position against the back wall with his arms folded over his knees, which were drawn up to his chest. His head was lolling forward as if his neck no longer had the strength to support it. A spasm of shivers shook him as violently as a fit.
Carver dragged Larsson’s sleeping bag from his pack and unfurled it. “Get into this,” he ordered.
Larsson grunted incoherently and did nothing. Carver lifted up Larsson’s goggles. His eyes were bleary and unfocused. Hypothermia was setting in.
Lifting up Larsson’s boots with his left arm, Carver used his right to drag the sleeping bag over Larsson’s feet and halfway up his legs. Next he grabbed Larsson around the back and heaved him off the ground in a sort of fireman’s lift, slipping the rest of the sleeping bag under his raised backside and then, once Larsson had been lowered to the ground again, pulling it up his body. Now, at least, the sleeping bag was insulating Larsson from the chill of the shelter’s icy walls and floor. But there was still much more to be done.
It was vital to get a hot drink into Larsson’s system. Carver unpacked the gas stove, set it up, and pumped the fuel reservoir to create the pressure needed before the burner could be lit, the old-fashioned way, with a naked flame. Carver had a packet of matches, but he couldn’t hope to light them with his hands encased in thick ski gloves. He ripped off his right glove, exposing his hand to the cold. It started to shake. He tried to strike a match against the box, scrabbled feebly across the surface, overcompensated when he tried again, and snapped the end off the match, unlit.
Three more attempts followed. On each occasion, he got the match alight, only for the flame to be snuffed out by the gusts of air eddying around the snow cave.
Larsson gave another convulsive shiver.
This wasn’t going to work. They needed more shelter. Carver pulled his glove back on, crawled out of the hole, and reached out for one of the blocks of snow he’d cut from the drift. He hauled it back toward him and positioned it at the opening of the cave. It took five precious minutes to build a low wall, shin-high, across the entrance: five minutes in which Larsson’s spasms became progressively more feeble. But now, at least, there was a pocket of still air and Carver could finally ignite his stove, cram a pot full of snow, and brew up some strong tea, sweetened with sugar and condensed milk.
He poured half of it into a cup and held it to Larsson’s lips, gently pouring it into his mouth. At first, Larsson gagged, unable even to swallow. But then he relaxed and drank. A flicker of life returned to his eyes.
Carver gulped down a few mouthfuls of tea for himself. Then he opened one of the outside pockets of his backpack and pulled out a bar of Kendal mint cake, a white, creamy block of sugar, glucose, and water, flavored with mint oil. It contained virtually no protein, vitamins, essential minerals, or anything else that would please a health-conscious nutritionist. But as a means of providing an exhausted body with a shot of raw fuel, it was pretty hard to beat.
They split the bar. Larsson didn’t eat the cake so much as let it melt in his mouth and trickle down his throat. Carver took a good look at him, checking out the lower half of his face, the area that had been exposed to the wind, for any sign of white, waxy patches that would indicate frostbite.
“Looks clear,” he said. “But you could still have frostbite on the way. Is your face prickly, itchy?”
“Nuh.” Larsson shook his head. It wasn’t exactly sparkling repartee, but at least he was responding.
“I’ll get you some food,” Carver said, and went away to boil up some rice and mix hot water with the freeze-dried curry.
By the time they had eaten, darkness had fallen. Carver climbed into his own sleeping bag. Over the next few hours, he made more drinks. Larsson seemed to stabilize. The shivering subsided, and when he finally fell asleep, his breathing was shallow but reasonably even. Carver knew, though, that even though the immediate crisis had passed, the fundamental threat had not. Unless Larsson could be rescued from the mountain and given expert medical care, he had only hours to live.
Kady Jones was reading e-mails, an affectionate smile on her face. A few days ago, two of her favorite people at Los Alamos, Henry Wong and Mae Lee, had got married. They’d gone on a honeymoon to Rome and, being techies, they hadn’t sent postcards home by snail mail. They’d found an Internet café instead. Mae’s message to Kady was chatty, detailed, and intimate: one close girlfriend to another. Henry’s had consisted of a couple of lines, assuring her that Rome was pretty cool, plus a bunch of digital holiday photos, with captions attached.
His favorite was a shot of Mae posing in a park on the Aventine Hill, with a view across the Tiber to the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. She looked great, her face suffused with a happiness that seemed to light up the whole shot.
“Man, am I one lucky bomb-geek!” he’d written on the caption.
Kady was looking at the shot on her lab computer, whose screen was far larger, with much better resolution than the one in the Roman café. So she noticed what Henry hadn’t, that there were two guys talking in the background of his shot, and the perspective made them look like weird midgets growing out of Mae’s armpit. Out of idle curiosity she zoomed in on them to take a closer look.
And then she gasped. “Holy shit!”
The man on the right was only vaguely recognizable, but his companion was all too familiar. If the two of them were having anything other than a casual, social conversation, this innocent holiday photograph had suddenly acquired a whole new level of significance.
She dialed a number in Washington. FBI Special Agent Tom Mulvagh, the man who’d supervised the operation at Gull Lake, had been transferred to D.C. to work on the secret team searching for the Russian bombs. They’d built up a good working relationship. She told him to expect an e-mail and waited a few seconds.
“Do you have the picture on your screen?”
“Yeah, thanks for sending me that, though e-mailing shots of hot broads is most often a guy kind of thing.”
Kady could picture Mulvagh’s grin. He liked to kid around a little when the situation allowed. She didn’t have any problem with that.
“Very funny, Tom. That ‘broad,’ as you call her, is Mae Wong, the beautiful, sensitive, and highly intelligent wife of my associate Henry Wong. And she’s not what I want you to look at. Go in on the two guys…”
“What, the ones in her armpit?”
“Exactly… Recognize them?”
There was silence on the line while Mulvagh thought, then: “The one on the right looks familiar.”
“That’s what I thought,” agreed Kady. “I’m pretty sure I saw his picture in a magazine. He’s that general. His assistant got killed in the park in D.C.”
“Vermulen,” said Mulvagh. “Right, I remember. But what’s the significance to you or me?”
“Well, it’s not him that caught my attention. It’s the other one, with the darker hair. He’s Dr. Francesco Riva. He’s Italian, came over here in the late seventies, got a masters at MIT, and worked at Lawrence Livermore National Lab for more than a decade. That’s where I got to know him, and you can take it from me, Mulvagh, Frankie Riva is really a fantastic nuclear physicist.”
“And I should care about this because…?”
“Because, for one, Frankie’s specialty was the miniaturization of nuclear weapons; and for two, he quit the lab five years ago and disappeared right off the map. You’ve got to understand, pretty much everyone in our business knows everyone else, by reputation or in person. We know who’s doing what, and where. But for the last few years, Frankie Riva hasn’t been doing anything. Not in public, anyway.”
“And now you’re going to tell me what he’s been doing in private.” said Mulvagh.
“Well, I don’t know. Not for sure. But the thing about him was he didn’t live like a nerd. He wasn’t at home with his PC and his pizza boxes. He liked European sports cars, pretty girls, and dinners for two at the kind of place where the maître d’ had to translate the menu.”
“So he needed money.”
“Exactly,” Kady continued. “That’s why he quit Livermore. He said he wanted a private-sector salary. That’s not unusual. Plenty of guys go to commercial research labs. But Frankie’s not at any lab I know. The word on Nuke Street is he’s been selling his skills to people who want bombs, and who’ll pay whatever it takes to get them.”
“How come we’ve never heard of this guy?”
“If he’s gone back home to Italy, he’s not in your jurisdiction.”
“But no one from the Agency’s mentioned him to me at any of our briefings.”
“Well, you know, Tom, I don’t want to sound disloyal or unpatriotic, but the Agency’s not always as well informed as it could be…”
Mulvagh laughed. “I hear that!”
“Okay, so now ask yourself, What would Frankie Riva be doing with General Vermulen? I checked out the general’s clippings on Lexis. There are claims he’s a middleman in international arms deals. His old assistant gets murdered in a park where no one’s been killed in years. He takes a sabbatical from his job to travel in Europe, and a couple of the gossip columns say he’s taken his hot new assistant along for the ride. And now he’s in Rome, having a private conversation in a secluded park with a nuclear scientist who knows everything there is to know about the kinds of bombs we’re looking for. I mean, doesn’t that strike you as… I don’t know… interesting?”
“I don’t know how it strikes me, Kady,” said Mulvagh. “I don’t exactly understand what you’re telling me here.”
“I’m telling you that a man who has high-level contacts all over the world, who deals in weapons for a living, and who is supposed to be on holiday screwing his secretary, is having secret meetings with a guy who could make a basic gun-design suitcase nuke with his eyes closed, and upgrade an existing one even easier. I’m telling you that we may not be the only ones who know that Lebed was telling the truth.”
“I get that,” said Mulvagh. “But I don’t know that I buy it. And even if I did, I’d want to be damn sure of my evidence before I took this any further. Vermulen has friends, the kind that could end my career and yours if we start making false accusations-”
“We don’t have to accuse him of anything,” Kady interrupted. “Not yet… But you could check him out, you know, discreetly. I mean, if Vermulen met Frankie Riva in Rome, maybe he had other meetings in other cities. And if we knew who he talked to, that might give us a picture. Plus, and you can put this down to feminine intuition if you want to be sexist about it, I just think it’s kinda convenient that secretary number one-a woman in her fifties, by the way-gets knocked on the head, and five minutes later, in comes a hottie who just happens to be hanging on the general’s arm as he tours the romantic hotspots.”
“Maybe you’re just jealous,” suggested Mulvagh.
“Now why would I be jealous of a woman younger than me who hooks up with a great-looking, unmarried general? Seriously, Tom, this could be worth looking into. It’s not like we’ve got a million other leads to distract us. Just run a few checks through a few databases. I’ll buy you a drink next time you’re out west…”
“Well, in that case, Dr. Jones, how could I say no?”
At some point in the night, Carver must have given way to his exhaustion, because he suddenly found himself waking up and realizing that the rising sun was shining in his face. As he screwed up his eyes, adjusting to the light, he noticed something else: the silence. The storm had passed.
Now he had to get help for Larsson. Up in the mountains, cell-phone signals were patchy, at best. The only way to be sure of getting through was to get to one of the hikers’ huts the local tourist authorities had scattered around the countryside and use the emergency telephone there. Carver consulted the map. The nearest hut was about three miles back the way they had come the day before. The journey was mostly downhill. He heated up bowls of porridge for himself and Larsson, promised his friend that help would soon be on its way, and set off back down the trail.
As he skied through the fine powder of freshly fallen snow, which dazzled in the sunlight from a cloudless sky, Carver realized that he was overcome by an entirely new and unexpected sensation. He felt great. He had faced and passed a supreme physical and mental test, and that knowledge filled him with confidence. Now he was ready to set off on his quest and find the woman he loved. In the meantime, he had no fear for Larsson. When he reached the hut and contacted the rescue team, he had absolute confidence that they would get to the cave in time. It came as no surprise to Carver, when he in turn was picked up by a cheerful figure on a snowmobile, that Larsson had been admitted to the hospital in Narvik, still badly sick, but with every prospect of making a full recovery.
Carver was also taken to the Sykehus, as the hospital was called, just to be checked for signs of frostbite or hypothermia. After he’d been cleared on both counts he visited Larsson, made sure he was doing all right, and promised to be back in the morning.
“Don’t worry-I’ll be fine,” Larsson said, summoning up an exhausted smile.
A nurse had come over to check his pulse and temperature. She was a classic Norwegian beauty: tall, blond, and blue-eyed.
“I’ll bet you will be,” Carver said.
He wandered out of the hospital, thinking he’d grab a beer and something to eat before finding a cab back to Beisfjord. Then something caught his eye.
There was a man standing a few steps away, just by the front door, reading an English newspaper. He looked up, saw Carver, and smiled.
It took a couple of seconds before Carver registered who it was.
“What are you doing here?” he said, his good mood vanishing as instantly as it had arrived.
“I got bored waiting for you to turn up on my doorstep,” said Jack Grantham. “Thought I might as well turn up on yours.”
He grinned and slapped Carver on the shoulder like a long-lost pal. “Come on. My hotel’s not far away and I’ve got a car waiting. I think you’re going to be interested when you hear what I’ve got to say.”
Grantham had one of his men waiting by the door of the car. Another was behind the wheel. They drove only a few hundred yards to a little old-fashioned hotel. There was a small lounge off the main reception area: a sofa and a couple of armchairs, ringing a fireplace; an ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling; a tapestry on the wall; a coffee table in front of the chairs.
One of Grantham’s men handed him a laptop, which he placed on the table. Then the man joined his colleague standing a few yards away, keeping an eye on their boss and, by their very presence, discouraging anyone else from coming into the room.
“Pull up a chair-make yourself comfortable,” said Grantham, beckoning Carver closer.
“So what’s your big news?” Carver asked.
Grantham opened his laptop and clicked on a PowerPoint file. The screen was filled with a formal photograph of a U.S. Army officer in full dress uniform.
“His name is Kurt Vermulen,” said Grantham. “Until a few years ago, he was a three-star general in the U.S. Army.”
He gave a quick rundown of the general’s military career.
“Captain America,” said Carver.
“Something like that.”
“So why do you want me to kill him?”
“I didn’t say we did.”
“Why else would you come all this way?”
“Depends,” said Grantham.
“On what?”
“On what he’s really up to…”
Grantham opened a new page. It showed a series of grainy color photographs of Vermulen, now dressed in civilian clothes. Some were lifted from closed-circuit TV footage, others had been shot by photographers. He was in the crowd at a fancy theater, walking by a Venetian canal, standing by a crossing on a busy city street.
Carver looked at them all with equal indifference.
“Well, good luck with that,” he said. “I’ve got other business to take care of.”
“I know,” Grantham said. “Just like old times, isn’t it? But before you go, there’s something else you should see.”
“I don’t think so.” Carver got up to leave.
Grantham remained unruffled. “I’d stay if I were you. You’ll want to see this.”
Carver looked at him. Grantham had the calm of a man who was absolutely sure of his hand. The only way to see what he had was to call him on it.
“Okay,” said Carver, still standing. “Show me.”
“Take another look at these,” said Grantham, flicking through the shots of Vermulen once again.
“I told you already-I’m not interested.”
Grantham smiled. “Now watch,” he said.
He opened a new file. Up popped the same set of photographs, but this time the frames of the pictures were wider. They revealed the figure who had been cropped from the first set, the woman who was standing next to Vermulen in a satin evening dress at the Vienna opera, who was with him, and a black couple, outside the Hotel Gritti in Venice, who was sightseeing with him in Rome. And then, in a final sequence of new pictures, they showed Vermulen and the woman on a yacht; him in white Bermudas and a polo shirt, her in a bikini, sunglasses pushed up into her blond hair. The shots were grainy, extreme long distance. The couple was standing under an awning near the stern of the boat. In the first shot they were talking. Then she put her hand on his chest. Carver couldn’t work out if she was playing, or trying to ward the man off. By the third frame his hands were on her upper arms. In the fourth he was leading-or was it dragging?-her into one of the yacht’s staterooms. And they were gone.
“You shit,” hissed Samuel Carver.
“Yes,” said Jack Grantham. “Thought that would do the trick.”
Ever since he’d started putting himself back together, Carver had been wondering what he really felt about Alix. As his recovery progressed he began to piece together images of the few short days and nights they had spent together. A woman brushed past him in a store in Beisfjord, and as he caught a waft of her perfume in the air he knew at once, without thinking, that Alix had worn the same scent, and suddenly it was as if she were lying next to him again. And of course, he and Thor Larsson had talked about her, Larsson telling stories of the months in Geneva before her disappearance, or joking about his own first sight of Alix, dressed in La Perla lingerie and a brunette wig. She’d been getting ready to seduce a Swiss bank official who was their only link to the hidden men who had bought Carver’s deadly services, betrayed him, and then tried to have him killed.
“Man, she looked good,” Larsson had said wistfully. “I was seriously jealous of you. I mean, I could tell what you’d been doing!”
Larsson had laughed out loud and Carver had laughed along with him. But though he could recall a vague image of Alix in that hotel room, and though he knew, as a historical fact, that they had made love that afternoon, the memories were fleeting and insubstantial, unreal ghosts of a time that had vanished beyond recovery.
And then he saw the picture of Alix on the yacht, being grabbed by another man’s hands, and all the emotions that had been hidden out of his reach burst through, and the pain he felt was like a branding iron on his heart.
“Sit down,” said Grantham. “I’ll get you a drink. You look like you could use it.”
He flicked a finger at one of his men, as if summoning a waiter. “Whiskey, chop-chop.”
Carver looked at Grantham’s smug features.
“You don’t give a toss, do you?”
Grantham let the anger wash over him.
“On the contrary-I certainly give a toss about the job I do, and the country I do it for. That’s why I’m here. Someone assigned Alexandra Petrova to do a honeytrap on Kurt Vermulen. And I’m sure you’ve worked out, same as I have, that she’s gone back to her roots, working for the Russians. I don’t know why. Maybe she got bored sitting around, waiting for you to wake up-”
“She was paying my bills,” said Carver.
“How admirable. Sacrificing her somewhat tarnished virtue for the man she loves.”
Carver looked at Grantham, glanced across at his men, then leaned forward.
“It’s a funny thing, the way my memory comes back. You talking like that reminds me of the last time we met. You made another one of your smart-arsed remarks, and I pointed out that I could kill you with your own pen. Do you remember that?”
“Point taken,” said Grantham. “It was a cheap shot. So let’s get down to business. Do you know how they got to Petrova, put her up to this escapade?”
“It was Yuri Zhukovski’s widow. She went to the place where Alix was working. Alix tried to escape. Obviously, she didn’t make it.”
“Ah, yes,” murmured Grantham appreciatively. “We thought this had the touch of Deputy Director Zhukovskaya-a very powerful, impressive lady, that one. Call me a cynic, but it strikes me Miss Petrova may well have been working for her all along.”
“I doubt it. Alix was screwing her husband.”
“Exactly. Zhukovskaya was controlling her husband’s mistress. That’s the kind of woman she is. Brilliant…”
For a moment Grantham seemed lost in admiration. Then he recovered himself.
“Anyway, let me tell you what Petrova has been doing since you last saw her. We think she got her hooks into Vermulen in Washington -that’s his normal base-but they’ve been in Europe the past few weeks, charging about like demented honeymooners. I can see why the Russians are curious, because Vermulen is certainly on some kind of a mission. He had a meeting in Amsterdam, though we don’t yet know who with. Next he went to Vienna to see a chap called Novak, who makes a murky living trading arms and information. His Venice contact was a former U.S. Army colleague, name of Reddin. As you can see from the picture, Mrs. Reddin came along, too, so it’s conceivable that was just a social encounter, though I doubt it. After that was Rome. We tracked him to another meet there, but the pictures were hopeless and we couldn’t identify the other party. Now they’re on a yacht that Vermulen has rented, ostensibly for a Mediterranean holiday.
“Those last shots I showed you were taken a couple of days ago, off the Corsican coast. My interpretation is that they’re having some kind of an argument. Or maybe she’s getting cozy, calming him down. Look, she’s operating alone, without backup. She has to do whatever it takes to keep him sweet. But the closer she gets, the more pissed off he’ll be if he ever discovers she’s been deceiving him. She can’t try to run for it, because then he’ll know for sure. She’s in the shit, Carver. And it’s all because of you.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Grantham opened up a new file on his laptop. This time the photographs showed a U.K. passport photo of a man in his mid-thirties, with sandy hair and a defiant, uncompromising expression.
“That,” said Grantham, “is Kenny Wynter. And two days from now, he’s due to meet Kurt Vermulen for lunch at the Hotel du Cap, on the coast between Nice and Cannes, down in the South of France.”
“Sounds very civilized.”
“I doubt it. Vermulen has a job for Wynter. We intercepted a call. It’s a blind date. The men have never met before, but evidently Wynter has been recommended.”
“What’s the job?”
“Vermulen wouldn’t tell him. Said he’d give him the details in person. But there’s only one reason you call Kenny Wynter, and that’s to steal something. The man’s spent the past fifteen years doing jobs to order: confidential documents, industrial plans and prototypes, financial papers, the occasional safe-deposit box. And he’s not fussy about his clients. He’s stolen military secrets for the Russians, the Chinese, the Iraqis, and the IRA, and we’ve lost good men and women because of it. The man is an unscrupulous shit, with blood on his hands. But he’s never once been caught. Arrested, of course, countless times, but there’s never been enough evidence to convict. Kenny Wynter has bought himself a flashy house up in Totteridge and a box at the Arsenal. He drives fast cars, screws gorgeous women-”
“Now him I could kill,” said Carver, sarcastically.
“Good,” said Grantham, dead serious. “Because you’re going to.”
“Have we heard from Petrova yet?” asked Olga Zhukovskaya.
The FSB colonel standing before her shook his head.
“Not since that meeting in Rome, Madam Deputy Director. I have ensured that the standard notice is placed in the classified advertisement section of the International Herald Tribune, but she has not responded.”
“Do we even know where she is?”
Another shake of the head, almost sorrowful this time.
“No. We have reason to believe that Vermulen might have chartered a yacht, but we have been unable to confirm that, and we would not be able to track it, even if we had. As you know, ma’am, our resources are not what they used to be. We have not launched a single reconnaissance satellite since September 1995. We have been completely blind since it ceased to function a year later.”
He sighed, somewhat theatrically.
“We used to impose our will across the globe; now the best we can hope for is to steal pictures off Western commercial satellites…”
Zhukovskaya was not in a mood for self-pity. It was not an emotion for which she’d ever seen any need.
“That may be. The fact remains: We need to find them. Vermulen is planning something. I can feel it.”
The colonel stayed silent, letting his boss think in peace. It did not take long for her to come to a decision. Olga Zhukovskaya was a woman who knew what she wanted. It was one of the qualities that made her such an effective leader.
“Whatever Vermulen is doing, it involves Pavel Novak. He will know what is happening. And very soon we will know, too.”
Kenny Wynter worked hard at being respectable. He belonged to his local Conservative Association, donated money to the church restoration fund, and had memberships at the golf and tennis clubs. A lot of women were seen coming and going from his house, which irritated his female neighbors, but also increased their interest in him. Their real annoyance, however, was reserved for their husbands’ obvious admiration and envy of Wynter’s harem, and the eagerness with which they attended his swimming-pool parties every summer, eyes on stalks at all the young things in their bikinis twittering around their host.
So it was that Kenny Wynter both obeyed the social rules and gave everyone plenty to gossip about. In this leafy north London suburb of detached houses, large gardens, and expensively filled garages, he was the perfect citizen.
Thursday evenings, Wynter headed for the tennis club. He was part of a regular men’s foursome. They’d play the best of three sets, work up a gentle sweat, then grab a drink and a bite to eat at the Orange Tree pub in Totteridge Village. By eight o’clock, his brand-new Porsche 911 Carrera S was sitting in the parking lot behind the pub. It was slate gray, with a black leather interior. Wynter was already in the pub, getting in the first round of beers.
A car pulled up next to the Porsche. It was a ten-year-old Honda Accord with faded blue paintwork. Just about any passerby with a minimal knowledge of cars would be able to identify the 911. But to any but the most dedicated Honda-lover, the old Accord was just another drab, anonymous, totally unmemorable sedan. That was why Carver had bought it for £450, cash, from a small ad in Auto Trader, just that afternoon.
He got out of the car. He was wearing a gray polyester suit and a white polyester shirt. His blue tie, with paler blue and white stripes, was made of rayon. His shoes were shiny pale-gray slip-ons, decorated with snaffles across the instep, whose gold coloring had flaked away in places to reveal the bare metal underneath. The briefcase beside him was old and scuffed. His tinted, wire-framed glasses were a drone’s pathetic attempt at individuality and cool.
Carver was unshaven. A mousy wig straggled over his ears and hung down the back of his neck. It added to the general impression of a white-collar nonentity, and it concealed his actual hair, which had been cut and dyed to match Wynter’s. In the morning, he would put in contact lenses the color of Wynter’s eyes. By the time he stepped onto the plane to France, he would be Kenny Wynter.
Now he got out of the Honda. The driver’s door was next to the passenger side of Wynter’s Porsche. Carver stepped onto the pavement, then turned back to grab his briefcase from the seat. As he pulled it out, the clasp gave way, the case fell open, and its contents-a half-eaten sandwich in a cardboard and cellophane box, a cheap pocket calculator, a heavily chewed Biro pen, and a copy of the Daily Express-fell to the ground between the two cars.
Cursing to himself, Carver got down on his haunches and started gathering up his belongings. He looked up for a second and scanned the parking lot. He was the only person in it. He ducked back down and removed a small, clear, Ziploc bag from his inside jacket pocket. From it he took a small tool, just a few inches long. At one end, a flat black plastic disc enabled the tool to be placed upright on the ground. From the disc protruded a cylindrical shaft, like that of a miniature screwdriver. The far end, however, was not flattened into a blade. Instead, a notch was cut across its circumference.
Carver unscrewed the cap of the Porsche’s front near-side tire valve and placed it on the pavement. Then he inserted the tool into the top of the valve, which nestled in the notch, and turned it counter-clockwise. The valve unscrewed from its rubber housing and slipped out, still attached to the tool. Air began to hiss out of the open tube. Carver stuck his left thumb across the tube to prevent any more escaping. The last thing he wanted was any noticeable loss of tire pressure. With his right hand, he put the tool down on the ground, the tire valve pointing upward. He removed the valve from the tool and slipped it into his trouser pocket.
Next he slipped his fingers back into the Ziploc bag and extracted what appeared to be an identical valve. He stuck it on the end of the tool, then removed his thumb and screwed the new valve back into the tire, replacing the screw-on cap when he had finished. The entire operation had taken no more than thirty seconds.
A car pulled into the lot and parked about twenty yards away. A man and a woman got out. Carver started picking up the junk that had fallen from his case. He needn’t have bothered. The couple were far too interested in each other to notice his presence. They wandered arm in arm into the pub.
Carver gave them a few seconds’ start while he put all his crap away in the briefcase. Then he went for a pint of his own.
No one paid the slightest attention to Carver as he sat nursing his lager and reading his paper. Wynter and his tennis-playing pals were sitting at the next table. Carver watched out of the corner of his eye and listened. Wynter, as always, looked the part: faded jeans, a dark-blue V-necked cashmere pullover worn over a plain white T-shirt, a top-of-the-line TAG Heuer watch. He didn’t attempt to impose himself on the conversation, but when he spoke he exuded a sense of relaxed good humor. His voice was neutral, with just a trace of his working-class London roots. Every so often he went a bit more Cockney, just for comic effect. But if he mocked something one of the other men had said, there was always a friendly smile, just to let them know that he was bantering, not seeking to cause offense. None was ever taken. It was a masterful performance.
Carver had spent the past few days studying every aspect of Kenny Wynter’s life. Grantham had given him the basic biography while they were still in Norway.
“Our Kenny was born in Kensal Rise, north London, May 15, 1961. His father, Reginald ‘Nutter’ Wynter, was a villain, robbed banks and security vans, didn’t mind who got hurt when he did it. Got sent down for twenty years soon after Kenny was born and died inside after fifteen. Kenny was brought up by his mother, Noreen. He was a bright lad, passed his eleven-plus exam, went to grammar school, and got into Oxford University. He graduated in 1982 with a first-class degree, a nice new middle-class accent, and a love of fine wines. And then he went into the family business. Our Kenny became a thief, just like his dear old dad. Except, being brainy, he did it very differently.”
Oh, yes, Wynter was a cold, calculating bastard underneath that cozy cashmere. No matter how friendly he might seem, there would always be a part of him sitting to one side, observing, emotionally detached. He would be perfectly happy using women for sex and decoration, without the slightest need for any greater emotional connection. The last thing he needed was any complication that would interfere with his working life. And when he received an assignment, he would carry it out without compunction, irrespective of its consequences, untouched by moral consideration.
Carver knew just how that felt.
FBI Special Agent Tom Mulvagh liked Kady Jones a lot. He thought she was pretty hot for a scientist, which helped. But mostly he just appreciated the way she got on with the job. She didn’t put on any airs. She’d laugh at a joke, instead of acting offended. Basically, she was cool.
That being the case, he’d been happy to put in a few hours following up her crazy theory about the general and the physicist. At first it seemed straightforward. Vermulen had made no secret of his initial movements. He and his assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, had taken scheduled flights, first class, to Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, and then Rome. They had stayed at the best hotels, but in separate rooms every time. Vermulen’s credit cards showed the kind of charges you’d expect from a man trying to get a woman into bed: restaurants, fancy stores, opera tickets. Some people would say it was pathetic, going to those lengths, but it was hardly a crime.
Next Mulvagh moved on to Vermulen’s phone logs, only to draw a blank. The general had a couple of cell phones registered in his name, but neither of them had been used for several weeks. At the hotels where he stayed, the phone charges were minimal. That made sense in one respect: Who paid hotel call charges if he could avoid it? But unless Vermulen had decided to avoid all telecommunications, he had to be using a phone of some kind.
Mulvagh tracked down all the corporations that listed him as a director, then checked all the phones registered to those corporations, then tracked their usage over the period Vermulen was in Europe. There was no correlation at all. Now Mulvagh was getting interested. He went back to the credit cards. They showed no record of any handset being purchased, nor of any call charges or time charges. That meant Vermulen had bought a prepaid phone, using either cash or a card that he didn’t want anyone to know about. He was meant to be a guy on an extended holiday, but these were the security precautions of an experienced professional on a mission.
It was time to bring in some help. Mulvagh had built up a pretty good working relationship with Ted Jaworski, over at Langley, and Bob Lassiter, the NSA’s man on the bomb team. He gave them the gist of Kady’s story, plus his own findings. They both told him he had to be out of his mind even thinking about this investigation, but he just about persuaded them to take a look, off the record. Then he went to the police.
The D.C. police were as defensive as any other cops when it came to liaising with the FBI, but once Mulvagh had persuaded the detective in charge of the Mary Lou Stoller case that he wasn’t trying to muscle in on anyone else’s investigation, they were able to have a useful conversation.
“This is just you and me talking, deep background, yeah?” asked the detective.
“Sure,” said Mulvagh. “I just need to know what you think went down. I don’t need proof. I want what your instinct is telling you.”
“Okay. Officially, this was a mugging gone bad. But what my instinct says is, That’s bullshit. Whoever killed Mrs. Stoller was a pro.”
“How come?”
“The job was too good. I mean, sure, they made it look like a mugging, but the area was clean. No trace evidence anywhere: no prints, no DNA, and the only footprints came from a new pair of standard Florsheim dress shoes, size ten. Totally untraceable-they sell thousands of those things. But it tells me something, anyhow. I mean, when did you ever know a mugger to wear Florsheims? And plus, your average street punk has less intelligence than the yucca plant my lieutenant keeps in her office-you know what I’m saying? Not forgetting that he’s most likely out of his mind on meth. So he’s going to make mistakes, leave evidence. Christ, you know what these bozos are like. But whoever did this job, trust me-they were not stupid. They knew what they were doing. And we ain’t ever going to catch them. That’s what my instinct tells me, Agent Mulvagh.”
“Thank you, Detective, I appreciate your honesty.”
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what are the Feds doing making personal calls to check up on this particular investigation? God rest her soul, but Mrs. Stoller wasn’t anyone important.”
“No,” said Mulvagh, “but her boss is.”
“Aw, shit-I shoulda seen that one coming…”
“Don’t worry, Detective. I gave you my word our conversation was private. None of this will rebound on you.”
Mulvagh hung up, deep in thought. He’d started this investigation as a favor, but it was now impossible to ignore the fact that something very strange was going on around Kurt Vermulen. The general’s trip to Europe was obviously far more than an extended vacation. But had he also planned his secretary’s death? If he wanted to get rid of her and bring in a younger model, all he had to do was fire her. So who stood to gain by Mary Lou Stoller’s death? The only candidate was the new secretary, this Morley woman. But she sure as hell didn’t beat a woman to death in Glover-Archbold Park. Had someone done it for her? And if so, why?
He put in another call to Ted Jaworski.
“I’ve got to be honest,” he said. “I still can’t be sure that this directly relates to our unit’s terms of reference. But Kady Jones thinks it might-she’s the expert on nuclear scientists-and everything I’ve found out so far has backed up her first hunch. We need to take a look at this Natalia Morley, find out everything there is on her, in this country and overseas. Someone wanted to get her that job with Vermulen. We should find out who they were.”
Kenny Wynter left home at half past five in the morning, aiming to catch the early-morning British Airways flight to Nice from Heath-row. It was forty-five minutes to the airport, maybe less-at this hour of the day the Porsche would eat it up. Drop the car off at the valet parking, check into British Airways business class, hand baggage only: no worries.
He wondered what Vermulen would be like. His handler, communicating, as always, via his personal message box on an Arsenal FC fansite, had given him the bare outline. Vermulen was ex-U.S. Army, a brass hat who’d gone into business on civvy street. He wanted something stolen from a house in the South of France: a small, high-value package. That could mean anything from a diamond necklace to a computer disc filled with industrial secrets. Whatever, this Vermulen character was a serious player, with impeccable connections and a deep pocket. The least Wynter could do was hear what the man had to offer. And the worst he would get was a nice trip. He planned to stay the night, treat himself to some fun on the Riviera.
He swung onto the M25, the orbital highway that described a ragged 117-mile circle around the outer edges of London. For much of the day it was little more than a gigantic traffic jam, but right now, with the road still swathed in dawn mist, there was barely a car in sight. Wynter swung over to the outside lane and settled into a steady eighty-five-mile-per-hour cruise. He was tempted to go much faster-plenty of people did. But that would be tempting fate. If there were any cops on the road, they’d ignore a car in the eighties, but once you got over ninety, you were asking to be stopped.
He looked in his rearview mirror. There was a clapped-out old heap behind him. The driver was thrashing the engine hard, coming up fast on his tail. He looked like a right idiot, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap when the sun was barely up. Wynter gave a quick squirt on the accelerator and the Porsche eased forward, opening up the gap again. But the old banger just kept coming, getting closer and closer until it was practically touching the 911’s rear bumper.
Then the other car flashed him, three long glares from the headlights.
Wynter had to laugh. This bloke was really taking the piss.
So now he had a choice. He could floor it and get the hell out, but it was Sod’s Law that there would be a cop around the next bend, and he had to be on that plane. So he pulled into the inside lane and slowed down to let the heap past.
As the cars drew level Wynter shook his head in wonderment. He was actually being overtaken by a Honda bloody Accord. He looked at the lunatic behind the wheel and gave him a gentle, condescending shake of the head, just to let him know what a sorry twat he was. Then he turned back to the road.
As he did so, he heard the sound of a revving engine and squealing tires to his right and the Accord veered across the lines into his lane and smashed into the side of his Porsche. The cars were locked together for a second, like wrestlers, sparks showering past their windows. Wynter could hear as well as feel the side panels of his car crumpling-his beautiful, brand-new car.
Wynter’s first reaction was disbelief. He’d heard all about road-rage attacks. The M25 was famous for them; its traffic problems could turn the Dalai Lama psychotic. But his incredulity soon turned to outrage. What kind of a moron attacked a Porsche with an Accord? It was the disrespect as much as the violence that shocked him. Wynter had strength, weight, and speed on his side. He was going to get away, but first he wanted to teach this numpty a lesson. He pulled the wheel hard to the right, intending to shove the other car right into the central barrier.
But the car wasn’t there anymore. The driver had anticipated Wynter’s move, braked hard, and effectively ducked under the Porsche, ending up directly behind it. The Honda’s lights came on again, full beam in Wynter’s rearview mirror. Then the Honda rammed him from behind.
Wynter’s concentration was all focused behind his car. He didn’t notice the tractor-trailer pulling into the middle lane up ahead, as it passed a cement mixer lumbering along an uphill stretch of the highway. He didn’t spot the Range Rover that had to swing into the outside lane to avoid the overtaking truck. By the time he looked up and saw that there was a line of vehicles right across the road, he was on top of them.
Wynter slammed on the brakes. The Porsche slowed instantly from more than ninety to less than sixty. The Honda hit him again, clipping the rear passenger-side corner of his car before sliding alongside him again, this time on the inside. Then he rammed him a second time, wrecking yet more panels.
Wynter had had enough. Up ahead, the Range Rover had passed the trucks and returned to the center lane. The outside lane was open again. Wynter moved into it and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“Exploding nipples.”
That’s what Jerzy Garlinski, the lunatic expatriate Pole who’d taught Carver all about sabotage, used to say. Year after year, the faces and uniforms in his audience might change, but the routine was always the same.
“Question: how to take out a moving car so we leave no trace? Answer… exploding nipples.”
Every year, the SBS trainees would laugh, even though they knew the line was coming. They’d all heard it a hundred times before, because every man who did the course felt obliged to perform his own Garlinski impersonation to any poor sod who would listen. But you couldn’t knock the guy’s teaching methods. No one ever forgot how to take out a moving car.
By “nipples” Garlinski meant tire valves. A tiny, remote-controlled explosive device, replacing the normal valve, was a discreet alternative to a conventional car bomb. It could not be spotted by a regular security sweep, nor did it leave any trace when detonated. The only problem was getting to the target vehicle ahead of the assignment-and the moment Wynter was picked up by the Government Communications Headquarters, booking his valet parking and giving the registration number of the car he’d be leaving at the airport, that problem was solved.
All Carver had to do then was find a way of provoking Wynter to drive at a speed that would prove fatal in the event of an accident. He’d been curious how he’d cope under pressure. He didn’t know for sure that he’d have the balls for it when the moment actually came. But he’d felt completely calm as he taunted Wynter and smashed into his fancy car. He remembered the satisfaction that lay in dealing retribution to men who saw themselves as above the law, putting them on the receiving end. An old soccer hooligans’ chant, no more than a childish taunt, came to his mind like a mantra.
“Come and get it,” he thought, the words going around in his head as he drove the Honda into the side of the Porsche.
“Come and get it,” watching the rage on Wynter’s face as he accelerated away.
“Come and get it,” picking up the remote detonator and pressing the button.
“If you think you’re hard enough,” as the Porsche’s front tire blew out, the blast propelling the rigged valve out of the tire like a bullet from a gun, leaving it invisible in the shoulder by the side of the road, while the Porsche spun across the highway, as helpless as a leaf in a whirlpool, smashing into the central barrier and rebounding back into the road, past the desperately swerving Range Rover, straight into the path of the tractor-trailer.
The truck driver swung left, trying to dodge the Porsche, but the tail of his trailer lost its grip on the road and started swinging around counterclockwise, into the middle of the road, colliding with the out-of-control sports car.
The Porsche hit the side of the trailer head on. There was just enough clearance for the hood to slide underneath it, but the passenger compartment was sliced from the rest of the car body like the top off a boiled egg, ripping Wynter’s head and shoulders from his body.
The trailer and the ruins of the Porsche came to a rest, lying across the highway, right in the path of the cement mixer, which braked, skidded, and slammed sideways into the wreckage.
By the time the two truck drivers had stopped shaking and clambered down from their cabs, Carver was a mile up the road. He left the highway at the next exit and pulled into a service station. A car was waiting for him, a black Rover 800. Carver parked the Honda and walked across to the Rover, passing a leather-jacketed, crew-cut man coming the other way. He got into the back of the Rover.
Grantham was waiting for him in the front passenger seat. He glanced up as Carver got in, looking at him in the mirror.
“Bit messy, weren’t you? Blood all over the carriageway, heads knocked off? Not exactly discreet.”
Carver shrugged. “I’m out of practice.”
Grantham twisted around to face him, holding out an envelope.
“Here are your tickets,” he said. “That fancy leather bag on the seat next to you is your hand luggage. Your suit is hanging up on the hook behind me. There’s a wallet in the jacket pocket, litter in the trousers. You can change at the airport. And there’ll be a gun waiting for you in Nice: your usual make and model… What’s the matter?”
“Thinking about the job just now. You’re right-it wasn’t good enough.”
“You got it done-that’s the main thing. And don’t worry-we’ll have a quiet word with the police. No one’s going to be announcing Kenny Wynter’s passing any time soon.”
“I hope not,” said Carver. “Otherwise, how’s he going to have lunch?”
Carver was met at the airport by a courier bearing a sign that read WYNTER. He was given a brown padded envelope, for which he signed. As the courier disappeared into the milling crowd, Carver worked the envelope with his fingers, feeling the outline of the SIG and the spare magazines. Reassured by the possession of a weapon, he acquired the kind of underpowered, midmarket sedan that constituted a luxury vehicle in the eyes of the airport’s car-rental companies and set off along the coast to Antibes and the legendary Hotel du Cap. The Grill was located in a waterfront pavilion known as Eden Roc. He got there ten minutes early.
The restaurant was perched on the edge of a cliff, the customers protected from the drop by a ship’s railing made of glossy white-painted metal, topped by a polished wooden handrail. The whole place had a nautical feel to it. The floors were decked in pale wood, the tables and chairs were all white and shaded by a white canvas awning, the waiters had crisply pressed trousers and polo shirts, also dazzling white, the better to set off their permanent tans.
The maître d’ led Carver to a rectangular table, set for three, right next to the railing. He had an uninterrupted view out across the bay, past Juan-les-Pins, toward Cannes. Underneath the railing, a narrow strip of vegetation, the bright blue and yellow flowers bobbing about in the breeze, clung to the rock above the clear turquoise water. After the freezing blizzards of Norway and the drab grayness of England, the bright sunlight that sparkled across the sea and warmed the air filled him with energy and good cheer.
Turning his attention back to the restaurant, Carver sipped a glass of iced mineral water and casually scanned the other tables, just like any other lone male checking out the talent. On a weekday in April, the hotel had only just reopened for the season and the Grill wasn’t too busy, just a smattering of rich, middle-aged customers taking a spring vacation. Carver looked away. He wasn’t going to stop checking, but he was pretty sure the place was clean. Now he could concentrate on the yacht, at least a hundred feet long, that was cruising slowly across the bay, moving so gently through the water that it barely left a ripple in its wake. It had a dark-blue hull and dazzling white superstructure designed like the outline of a giant paper dart raking down toward the dagger point of the bow: The cabins and staterooms massed at the stern.
As the yacht came to a halt about one hundred yards offshore, Carver could see two figures, a man and a woman, leaning against the stern rail of the open upper deck and looking toward shore. The man had his arm around the woman’s waist, holding her body close. She was going with it, leaning into him, molding her body to his.
Carver recognized Vermulen because he’d instantly matched the man and his boat to Grantham’s photo file. But he knew that the woman was Alix on a far deeper level, that animal instinct that makes one instantly aware of a lover’s presence with an intensity that burns with excitement and pain in equal measure.
She was wearing a simple summer dress. Every so often the wind would catch it, fluttering the skirt, or pressing the fabric to her body, outlining the lines of her thighs and the curves of her hips and breasts. Carver felt the stirrings of sexual desire reawaken in him, like an old friend returning after a long journey to a faraway destination. Finally, Alix was real, there in the flesh, and this mission wasn’t just a challenge thrown down to him by Grantham. It was a compulsion. He had to get her back.
Down at water level, a door slid open at the stern of the vessel and two crewmen appeared, maneuvering a speedboat, maybe fifteen feet long, that was lowered into the sea at the end of a line. Vermulen pointed this out to Alix and the two of them went back inside before reappearing a minute or so later beside the crewmen, down by the water.
The general was carrying a black leather briefcase. He was about to get into the speedboat when Alix stopped him and adjusted the collar of his pale-blue shirt, fiddling with it for a moment until it was exactly to her satisfaction. It was a very feminine, proprietorial gesture: a woman taking possession of her man before she kissed him good-bye and let him loose in the world.
Carver felt an acid stab of jealousy, then told himself, Get a grip. That’s what she does-she makes men believe that she cares. But with you it’s real.
As Alix waved him off, Vermulen jumped into the speedboat, which brought him to a jetty at the foot of the cliffs. He came ashore, then made his way up a steep set of stone steps from the jetty to the restaurant.
Carver got to his feet to greet him. He wanted to be eye to eye with the man who had been sleeping with his woman, the man he might soon have to kill. He wanted to know exactly what kind of competition he faced.
Close up, Vermulen’s face was a little fuller than it was in his army photograph, the jawline less cleanly defined. His full head of hair, swept back from his forehead, was as much silver as gold, and he was carrying a very slight paunch. But none of these flaws detracted from the aura of purpose and energy that seemed to charge the atmosphere around him. In fact, they added to the effect, giving him the imperious air of a man who was living life to the utmost, taking everything the world had to offer, certain of his ability to master any circumstance or individual he might encounter.
The general stuck out a tanned forearm and gave Carver a crushing handshake. “Hi. Kurt Vermulen,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Kenny Wynter,” said Carver. “Likewise.”
Vermulen gave Carver his own once-over, looking him up and down as if he were a soldier at a parade-ground inspection. The two men sat down, the briefcase on the floor between them. The general summoned a waiter.
“Just get us a nice selection of seafood-lobster, oysters, whatever’s fresh and good today. We’ll take some green salad with that, some bread and butter.” He looked around the table. “You okay with that?”
It was strictly a rhetorical question. The officer was taking command. Carver shrugged his assent.
“Good,” said Vermulen. “I don’t consume alcohol at lunchtime. We’ll take a large bottle of still water, please. Unless you want some wine, Mr. Wynter…”
“No worries,” Carver replied, thinking his way into the character: the north London street kid whose brains had got him into Oxbridge, and whose criminal instincts had bought him a life of confident, class-less wealth. “I’m here for business, not booze.”
“And your business is taking things that are not your own?”
Wynter wouldn’t have let that one go, so Carver didn’t, either.
“I thought the U.S. Army was in that business, too.”
Vermulen laughed. “Touché, Mr. Wynter.”
They talked some more, sparring, each seeing what the other was made of. Then the food arrived, a great plate heaped with half-lobsters, langoustines, oysters, squid, and fillets of the Mediterranean sea bass the French call loup de mer, the wolf of the sea. Once plates were filled and glasses of iced water poured, Vermulen became more serious.
“You are an educated man, Mr. Wynter, so you will appreciate my meaning when I say that I feel that we are living in a time akin to Ancient Rome at the end of the fourth century A.D. Our civilization is still intact. Our comforts are greater than ever. But our will is crumbling. We lack the guts and determination to defend ourselves. And all around us, a dark age is drawing on. Enemies are prowling; populations are on the move. They sense our weakness and they await the moment to strike.”
The rhetoric sounded grand enough, but to Carver it seemed hypocritical, coming from a man in a luxury restaurant, not a warrior on the front line.
“You’re the one who left a military career,” he retorted. “You stopped fighting. How can you blame the rest of us for not doing our bit?”
For a second, Carver could sense Vermulen prickling at this assault on his self-regard. But then he recovered his composure.
“On the contrary, I left the U.S. Army precisely because our defense and foreign-policy establishment was not prepared to fight the necessary battle, the one that I believe will determine the fate of the West: the battle against radical Islam.”
That took Carver by surprise.
“What are you, some kind of Crusader?”
“Absolutely not: I don’t want any war at all. But I fear it’s coming anyway. It began in Afghanistan. It’s being fought in Chechnya right now, and in the former Yugoslavia. Islamic terrorists are aiming to create a radical Muslim state in Kosovo, able to stab a knife right into Europe ’s guts. And the States will be next.”
“You reckon?” said Carver. “What’s that got to do with why I’m here?”
“Because you are going to acquire something I need very badly for our struggle. And by getting it, you’re also going to deny it to our enemy. Now, you come to me highly recommended, so let me make you a serious offer. You bring me what I want, in pristine condition, and I will pay you five hundred thousand dollars, half in advance, in any form you want, into any account you name.”
“What is it you want?”
“A document. Don’t ask me about its contents, because I will not reveal them. All I can say is that they could be vital to the future peace of the world.”
Carver looked as indifferent as Wynter would have.
“You say that as if I should care. So where is this document?”
Vermulen leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“Sitting in a plain brown file, secured by a wax seal. This seal must be intact when you return it to me, or I will refuse to pay the rest of your money. The file is currently being kept inside a safe, located in a house about a dozen miles from here, in the hills above a village called Tourrettes-sur-Loup, due west of the town of Vence. It is guarded by armed men and trained attack dogs, as well as motion detectors, inside and out. There are alarms on the ground-level doors and windows. I have no information as to the model of the safe, or the exact nature of its lock. The combination, if there is one, is also unknown. You’d better assume, though, that it is protected by palm- or eye-scanners, in addition to that combination.
“The occupants of the house are ethnic Georgian gang members, based in Russia. Their leader is a man named Bagrat Baladze. He doesn’t like to stay too long anywhere, so his people and his document will only be at this location for the next ninety-six hours maximum, maybe less. I do not know where they plan to go next and cannot be certain of tracking them. That means it has to be done now. Are you interested?”
Carver didn’t look too impressed. “I’m not sure about that. See, I like to plan my work thoroughly. It can take weeks, even months. But thorough planning prevents stupid mistakes. That’s why I’m sitting here with you, not rotting in a cell.”
“The exact same principle applies in the military,” Vermulen agreed, speaking normally again. “But equally, there are times when speed is of the essence. This is one of them. So can you do it, or do I need to consider other options?”
“Depends. Tell me about the building where these muppets are staying.”
“There are detailed plans in the case.”
“Maybe, but give me the gist of it, all the same.”
“The layout is typical of vacation properties in this area. It’s an old farmhouse, newly renovated. It hasn’t even gone on the rental market yet, not officially anyway.”
“So the builders have only just moved out?”
“I imagine so.”
“Okay, that could be useful. Now tell me about the setting-what’s the size of the grounds? Are there a lot of other properties close by? How about topography and cover-trees, bushes, rocks, that kind of thing.”
“The property is right at the northern edge of the village. It has been chosen for its seclusion and privacy. There are no other houses within five hundred feet in any direction. The lot covers about two and a half acres. It’s on the lower slopes of a four-thousand-foot hill-”
“In Britain, four thousand feet is a mountain,” Carver interrupted.
“Well, it’s just a damn hill to me,” Vermulen replied. “Called the Puy de Tourrettes, faces south, toward the sea. The house is at the highest point of the property, to maximize the views, with a pool directly below the house and an access road that leads downhill to the nearest road. There are trees in front of the house and around the pool; otherwise the ground is virtually bare, denying cover to intruders and providing clear fields of fire. But above the house, on the hillside, you’ve got light woodland and undergrowth. That’s where I’d put my observation post, if I were you.”
That’s where Carver was planning to put it, too.
“Sounds about right,” he said.
Carver’s plate was empty. He pushed it away from him. Then, to Vermulen’s evident surprise, he got to his feet.
“Okay, give me ten minutes,” he said. “I’m going for a walk-helps me think. When I come back, I’ll tell you if I can do the job, what I’ll need, and how much it’ll cost.”
“I already named the fee.”
“But I didn’t agree to it. See you in ten.”
Carver had walked past the swimming pool, ringed by deserted lounge chairs, and up through the hotel’s wooded grounds. He was gone a shade over eleven minutes.
“Well?” said Vermulen, as Carver returned to his seat.
“You’re on. But the price is a million, sterling, same half-and-half split, now and on delivery of the item. Take it or leave it.”
Before Vermulen could answer, Carver went on. “And there’s one other thing. I came out here on a commercial flight, expecting to take a meeting. So I wasn’t carrying the gear for the job. Some I can get myself. But some you’re going to have to supply.”
Vermulen looked to either side, to check that he could not be overheard.
“What are we talking about: weapons, specialist equipment?”
“That kind of thing,” agreed Carver. “I need nonfatal weapons, specifically a multiple-shot forty-millimeter grenade launcher, preferably an MGL Mark One. I want six rounds of CS gas for the launcher plus three M-eighty-four stun grenades, a collapsible twenty-one-inch baton, a lightweight ballistic-grade protective vest, a combat-level gas mask, and twenty-five-milligram Valium tablets…”
“You don’t look like the nervous kind,” Vermulen observed.
“Yeah, well, looks can be deceptive. Now, I want every item within forty-eight hours. Leave it as poste restante in the post office at Vence. And, finally, I’m going to be spending a lot of time over the next few days keeping out of people’s way, nice and quiet. So all communications will be via text-messaging-no calls unless I decide otherwise. I’ll give you a number to use, and I’ll need you to give me one, too.”
Vermulen’s jaw tightened. His face darkened with anger, like the shadow of a cloud scudding across the ground.
“You know, Mr. Wynter, you have quite an attitude for a hired hand. I don’t know that I like being given orders by a man who’s working on my dollar.”
“I’m not giving you orders, General. I’m explaining the way things have to be if you’re going to get the item you’ve ordered, and I’m going to walk away unscathed.”
“I could determine another way of doing the job. I have men of my own.”
“The matelots on your boat? Bunch of sailor boys in shorts? I don’t think so.”
“That wasn’t who I was thinking of,” said Vermulen. He looked at Carver, his eyes narrowed. “You know, that’s an interesting word, ‘matelot.’ ”
“It’s French,” said Carver, knowing he’d just made a stupid, careless, amateur mistake, still a few percent off his best.
“That it is. Also happens to be the slang that British marines use for regular naval personnel. I’ve heard them say it myself. So I’m wondering how come you know that word, and also seem to be so familiar with the designations for military ordnance: MGL grenade launchers, M-eighty-four grenades. If I recall correctly, you have no military experience. So perhaps you could tell me how a civilian came to be so familiar with all that soldier talk?”
Carver shrugged. “I get around.”
Vermulen said nothing. He wasn’t convinced. Carver went all out.
“All these years, doing what I do, you think I don’t know the tools of my trade? And ‘matelots’-that’s what my dad always used to call sailors. Dunno where he got it from. National Service, maybe? Or more likely down the nick, doing porridge with some old bootneck. See, that’s more slang. I can do some Cockney rhyming for you, if you like.”
A wry smile crossed Vermulen face. “Okay, you win. So, assuming you get the goods, when and where will you make the delivery?”
“It’ll be right here, at the hotel bar, just off the front hall, either three or four nights from now-I’ll text the exact time once the mission has been accomplished. There was a bird on your boat-sorry, a woman…”
“Yes, my secretary.” There was a hint of suspicion in Vermulen’s voice.
“You trust her?” asked Carver.
“Of course.”
“Good-then she can do the pickup. You and I can’t meet again-we’ve taken enough of a risk as it is. So what’s going to happen is a nice, respectable woman is going to meet an old friend in the bar of a hotel. What’s her name, by the way?”
“Natalia Morley.”
“Natalia… very nice. Anyway, Natalia and Kenneth will say hello, how are you, all that stuff. They’ll have a nice little drink. She’ll ask him what he’s been up to, he’ll take out the file, and she’ll cast an eye over it politely. At some point, she’ll take a call from her ‘husband’-that’s you, obviously-and she’ll tell him that she’s just bumped into good old Kenny. Then, when you’ve asked her if I’ve got the goods, she’ll hand the phone over to me, like you’re just dying to have a word with your old mate. You’ll tell me that you’ve wired the outstanding payment into my account. When I’ve got confirmation from my bank, I’ll pass Natalia the document, nice and discreet, and she’ll put it in her handbag. Then we finish our drinkies, say good night, and go our separate ways. All right?”
“I don’t want Miss Morley placed in any danger.”
“Nor do I, General. If she’s in danger, so am I.”
“Okay, but I need to make sure she’s comfortable with this. Let me speak with her.”
Over the past half-minute, Carver had taken out a black Moleskine notebook from his jacket pocket and written something on one of its pages.
“You do that,” he said, tearing the page out of the book and handing it to Vermulen. “But before you do, this is the sort code for my bank and the number of my account. I’d appreciate it if you transferred the first installment now. Neither of us is leaving this table till I’ve got my half-million.”
Vermulen did not even glance at the torn page.
“Once again, Mr. Wynter, your attitude won’t make you any friends.”
“It’s not personal, General. I’ve just learned the hard way not to deliver my side of a deal until I know for certain that the other side is delivering his.”
Vermulen made the call. Carver got his confirmation. He immediately transferred the money to another account before Vermulen could attempt to cancel the transaction: That was another lesson that had cost him millions.
There wasn’t much left to do. Vermulen handed Carver an envelope containing plans to the house and a detailed map of the surrounding area. He called “Miss Morley” and obtained her agreement to pick up the document. Carver could just make out Alix’s voice on the other end of the line. The sound of her tore at his heart. When he heard her call Vermulen “darling,” he had to grab a glass of water and look out to sea, so as not to give himself away.
When everything had been sorted out, Carver got up from the table. He reckoned this was about the time that Wynter, having got what he wanted, would turn the charm back on. So he held out his hand with a smarmy smile.
“Thank you, General-that was an excellent meal. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
Vermulen got up and shook hands, but he wasn’t going to get carried away.
“Good-bye to you, Mr. Wynter. If you don’t mind, I’d rather reserve my judgment until our business is complete.”
“You do that, General. And send my regards to Miss Morley…”
On the way to Tourrettes-sur-Loup, Carver made a detour to Cannes. He dumped the piece of junk he’d hired at the airport and went to one of the specialist luxury car-rental companies that cater to the assorted stars, producers, and account-toting executives from the entertainment industry who flock to the town’s festivals and sales conventions. There he hired an Audi S6 sedan, his personal transport of choice. He loved it for looking as dull as a Ford Mondeo but driving as fast as a Ferrari-faster, in fact, on many roads, thanks to the grip produced by its four-wheel drive: the perfect getaway vehicle.
He stopped at a Géant big-box store outside town to buy basic provisions, outdoor clothing, and camping gear, including binoculars and some heavy-duty hiking boots. Then he drove up into the hills. These Georgian gangsters had certainly picked a spectacular location for their hideout in the foothills of the Maritime Alps, a landscape of jagged slopes scattered with pines and oaks, and scoured by spectacular gorges, where switchback roads and absurdly picturesque villages clung to the sides of precipitous cliffs.
The most direct way to the house was off the main road between Vence and Grasse, and up through the village of Tourrettes itself. But Carver went the scenic route, skirting the side of the Puy de Tourrettes, until the pavement gave way to a dirt road, and then a track impassable even by a car with four-wheel-drive. He parked the Audi, put on his knapsack, and started hiking toward a point on the mountain directly above the house, making the final approach on his belly until he found the ideal spot for his observation post.
Down below him, he could see the people he had come to rob. Their voices drifted up to him on the breeze, along with the barking of their dogs. They had not spotted him.
Carver got out his binoculars. Now all he had to do was watch, and wait.
That, and work out how the hell he was going to steal Kurt Vermulen’s precious document.
“Man, that’s a sight to behold now, ain’t it?”
Early morning, East River Park, and a steady stream of joggers was taking the path down from Twenty-third Street to the South Street Seaport and back, under the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges, past the Fulton Fish Market. This was New York City and people were too bound up in themselves to spare a glance for the three men standing by the railings, ignoring the views across the river, watching the girls go by.
“Makes me wish I were thirty years younger,” Waylon McCabe went on as a hot young blonde trotted by, her taut thighs and peachy backside sheathed in black running tights. “Hell, even ten years’d do me.”
He turned to one of the other men, who was balding, his overdeveloped muscles now melting into fat, a brown leather jacket open to reveal a spreading paunch. His name was Clinton Tulane and he had been a military instructor back in the days when McCabe was providing assistance to West African guerrillas. Tulane had helped him out then, just as he’d helped out a whole lot of other people, from Sarajevo to El Salvador. That was how he knew Dusan Darko, though that was not the name under which the man in the black overcoat with the lank, greasy hair had entered the United States. When you were a Serbian warlord, wanted across the Western world for crimes against humanity, it paid to travel incognito.
“You can leave us now, Clint,” said McCabe. “It’s been real good of you to make this introduction. But me ’n’ Mr. Darko here gotta talk business, and it’s kinda private.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tulane, any resentment at his exclusion more than covered by the wad of hundred-dollar bills now nestled in his jacket pocket.
McCabe waited long enough to let Tulane get out of earshot, then fixed his attention on the other man.
“So, Mr. Darko, Clint tells me you’re a man of some influence in your country-is that so?”
Darko shrugged as if to suggest that he was, indeed, influential, but too modest to say so out loud.
“So supposing I wanted to enter your country by air, find a place to land and refuel, pick up a package, and leave without anyone hasslin’ me-you could make that happen?”
“But of course… for a price. You understand, people would need to be paid. But it is possible, certainly.”
“Uh-huh, I get it. And you got men under your command, fightin’ men?”
Darko stood a little straighter.
“My men have fought alongside me for seven years. Against Croats. Against Bosnians. Now against Albanian scum. These men are lions-like the partisans who fought against the Nazis, they cannot be defeated.”
McCabe did his best to keep a straight face. He didn’t need any lessons on fighting from some greasy wop who was second cousin to a Gypsy.
“Well, that’s just fine, Mr. Darko. Let me tell you what I have in mind…”
Carver didn’t know what any of the wildflowers covering the hillside were, but he was glad of their rich, herbal scent. He’d been watching the house for forty-eight hours. During that time he’d drunk water, eaten chocolate, nuts, and dried fruit, and crapped into a sandwich bag before burying it in the earth behind his hideout. He’d also refined his plans for getting the document out of the house.
The property was arranged so that all the social areas were on the southern, downhill side, to maximize the views across the hazy, gray-green hills of Provence to the glittering waters of the Riviera. Everything practical was hidden away out of sight. So the driveway up to the house was over by the right-hand perimeter of the grounds, from Carver’s perspective, looking down from above. There was a small drop-off area by the front door to the house, but the actual parking was to the rear, so that cars would be kept out of sight. There was no garage, but a massive seven-seater Mitsubishi Shogun was sitting under a metal-framed, plastic-roofed awning.
Up against the back wall of the house, a lean-to was filled with logs for the fireplace, which was, according to the architect’s plans, the dominant feature of the main living room. Farther along, on the far side of a rear door that led into the kitchen, two red one-hundred-pound canisters of propane, as high as a man’s shoulder, supplied gas for the stove.
There was still work to do on the area between the house and the rear perimeter. The low brick wall enclosing the parking area was unfinished and much of the ground was still covered with builders’ debris: rubble, discarded bits of woodwork, empty cans, even a small cement mixer. Someone, however, had cleared a space for the high chain-link fences that kept the two dogs caged until they were let loose for the night.
The place had six human inhabitants: four male and two female. The weather had stayed warm, and around about midday the men had staggered outside for a busy day of drinking, smoking, and leering at the bimbos lying by the pool, trying to turn their fake tans into the real thing. It hadn’t taken Carver long to work out which one was Baladze. The cock-of-the-walk way he carried himself, the fawning obedience of the men, and the shrieks of female laughter made it obvious who was the alpha male.
Carver had passed the time working out names for the people who would soon come under his attack. He toyed with soap-opera characters, historical figures, even Jesus and his apostles. In the end he went with Beatles. Baladze he code-named John, the original leader of the band. The man who looked like his second-in-command, a pot-bellied greaser with dirty-blond hair, was therefore Paul. A younger, skinny underling with long dark hair was a natural for George. That left Ringo for the fourth gang member. He had the grossly overdeveloped muscles, the furious expression, and the Pizza Hut complexion of a man who sprinkles steroids on his breakfast cereal and spends too much time alone with his dumbbells. The pelt of wiry black hair across his shoulders wasn’t too pleasant, either.
The women were easy. One was a brunette, the other a blonde, Yoko and Linda, all the way.
During daylight hours, either George or Ringo was on duty as a guard down by the gate to the property. Whoever had the first morning shift had to get up early and put the dogs back in their cage before he went down to his post. The only visitor seemed to be the local baker, whose van turned up midmorning. Judging by the quantities of food and drink that the driver carried in through the back door to the kitchen, along with his loaves of breads, pizzas, cakes, and pies, he’d got some kind of deal to keep the place fully provisioned.
There was a barbecue on the terrace and Paul had been given the job of grilling steaks and kebabs every evening. Aside from that, the domestic chores were left for the women, who were multitasking as the men’s housemaids, cooks, eye candy, and sex toys. Carver could imagine describing the scene to Alix. He didn’t know exactly how she’d respond, but whatever she said, it would be knowing, cynical, and spiked with bone-dry black humor. He wondered how often she’d been treated like one of those women, but didn’t dwell on that, preferring to concentrate on the future. Not long now, and he’d see her again. Just kiss Vermulen good-bye and they could both give the life up for good.
On the afternoon of the second day, Carver decided he’d seen enough. He’d do the job tomorrow. Tonight he’d find a hotel room and get a decent night’s sleep, a hot shower, and a square meal. But before that he had to pick up Vermulen’s package from the poste restante in Vence, then go shopping. He’d written another list of what he needed: sugar, linseed oil, food coloring, wax earplugs, and a bunch of other stuff, from paint brushes to meat pâté. It would mean visiting a few different shops.
And there was one final item: fish-tank oxygenating tablets. He made a mental note to himself: Don’t forget the pet shop.
“Please, Mr. Novak, have as much as you want. I am a woman, I must watch my figure. But I like to see a man enjoying his food.”
Olga Zhukovskaya looked encouragingly at the legendary hors d’oeuvres trolley of Vienna ’s Drei Husaren restaurant. The trolley held more than thirty seasonal dishes, from calves’ brains to caviar.
Sadly for the waiter in his striped waistcoat, standing attentively beside the trolley, Pavel Novak did not have much of an appetite. Nor was he in any mood to appreciate the homely luxury of the Library, the smaller of the sixty-five-year-old restaurant’s two dining rooms. Under normal circumstances, he would have felt soothed and contented among its shelves filled with ancient hardbacks, its baskets of spring daffodils, the stone statues in niches on the wall, and the restful tones of the wooden paneling and dark-green dining chairs. But not when his worst nightmares were coming to life before him.
The very fact that he and Zhukovskaya were speaking Russian was enough to bring back his darkest memories. For almost fifteen years he had worked to overthrow the rule of the Soviet Union, passing secret information to the West. In all that time, he felt sure he had escaped detection. And now, more than eight years after the Velvet Revolution that had brought freedom to his Czech homeland, the Russians had finally caught up with him.
When he had received the phone call inviting him to dinner, he had known exactly who Zhukovskaya was, and what she represented. He had accepted because there seemed no point in refusing or trying to escape. If they were after him, they would catch him. If they were not, he had nothing to lose from meeting one of the legends of the Soviet spy trade. His fatalism, however, did not make him any less nervous.
Zhukovskaya, of course, was fully aware of Novak’s unease. She had enjoyed it, even toyed with it for a while, before deciding to put him out of his misery. She, too, would lose her appetite if she had to watch this miserable weasel with his pathetically drooping mustache sweating with fear before her eyes. There was no point coming to one of the finest restaurants in Vienna, where food is taken as seriously as in any French or Italian city, and then being unable to enjoy the menu.
“Are you worried, or fearful of what might happen to you? Please, these are not the old days. We are not Stalinists anymore.”
Novak relaxed a fraction. He managed to order some chicken in jelly.
“Good,” said Zhukovskaya, “and for the main course I recommend the tafelspitz-boiled beef, hashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and apple sauce-they say it is the best in Vienna. But of course, you know that, being a local. So, let us not talk business while we eat. Let’s tell stories about the good old days… when you worked for the Americans.”
It was all Novak could do not to spit his mouthful of chicken all over the table. He chewed and swallowed his food, trying all the while to think of a reply.
Zhukovskaya continued.
“Come on-how incompetent did you think we were? Of course we knew. But it suited our purposes to let you live. You were a trusted source because you truly believed that the information you were passing on was genuine. But I’m afraid that much of it was not. We made sure of that. So, far from harming us, as you must have hoped, you were actually doing the Soviet Union a great service by misleading our enemies… Oh, look, your wineglass is empty. Perhaps the sommelier will get you some more.”
Finally, Novak was able to speak.
“When did you know?”
“Well, I was just a junior officer back then, so I was not informed until much later. But my superiors were aware of your treachery from the moment you made your first, nervous approach to the Americans.”
“My God… how deeply did you penetrate the DIA?”
“We were able to blackmail a few officers; we paid others. One or two worked for us for ideological reasons. But the total was not great, fewer than a dozen. Your handler, Vermulen, was always completely loyal to his country. Both you and he were absolutely sincere in what you were doing. That was important to us.”
“So why do you want to see me now?”
Zhukovskaya pushed away her half-eaten portion of caviar.
“All right, then, if you prefer, we can do business and then eat. Perhaps that is better, after all. So… what were you discussing with Vermulen at the opera?”
“Nothing. I have not seen Vermulen in years. And I do not particularly like opera.”
A pained expression crossed Zhukovskaya’s face.
“Once again, Mr. Novak, I must make the same request: Please do not underestimate us. You attended a performance of Don Giovanni at the opera house here in Vienna. You spoke to Vermulen in the bar before the performance. So I will ask you now, why did you meet? What did you discuss? What communication have you had since? And I will repeat, if you are open with me, we can all behave like civilized people. If you are not… well, let’s not spoil our dinner thinking about that.”
Novak was indifferent to her threat. So far as he was concerned, he was already a dead man. The one noble act he had undertaken in his life, his personal campaign against the Communist occupation of his country, had been exposed as a sham. Far from helping the cause of freedom, he had probably harmed it. Now his feeble attempt to prevent the list of bombs from falling into the wrong hands was unraveling in front of his eyes.
He supposed he could make a grand, sacrificial gesture. He could refuse to say anything, and let this Russian witch try to beat the truth out of him. Perhaps he could hold out for long enough to enable Vermulen to do what he had to. But that resistance would require effort and mental energy to sustain and he was suddenly and painfully aware that he had no further capacity for that kind of effort. Why bother to maintain the pretense any longer?
Novak summoned the sommelier.
“I would like a bottle of red Bordeaux, something to remember for a lifetime. The price is irrelevant.”
The sommelier, well aware who was paying for this meal, glanced at Zhukovskaya. She gave a fractional nod of assent before he answered Novak’s request.
“In that case, mein herr, I would suggest the 1982 La Mission Haut-Brion. A magnificent vintage from one of the great châteaus. I think you will find it an almost spiritual experience.”
A tired smile played briefly over Novak’s face.
“Spiritual, eh? Then the Haut-Brion will be perfect.”
Zhukovskaya did not hurry him as he tasted the wine, signaled his approval, savored the intensity and complexity of its aroma, then took his first few sips. She understood as well as he did what was happening.
When he had finished his first glass, Novak began to talk. He described how he had been approached by Bagrat Baladze, who was trying to sell the list of missing bombs; how he had gone in turn to Vermulen, hoping to get the list to the Americans; how he had provided him with the location of the list and the means to obtain it.
When he had finished, Zhukovskaya reached across the table and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
“Thank you,” she said with quiet sincerity. “Now enjoy the rest of your meal.”
Her smile was unexpectedly charming, so feminine, almost flirtatious as she added, “And your spiritual wine!”
Somehow, perhaps because the burden of his secret had been lifted, or simply because the Bordeaux was a magical elixir, Novak was able to enjoy his dinner. He and Zhukovskaya made the conversation of two middle-aged people who had shared similar experiences over many years and observed the same absurdities. He was a man with a gift for a funny anecdote; she was a woman who was happy to laugh at his humor.
At the end of the meal, Zhukovskaya was as civilized, as kulturny, to use the Russian phrase, as she had promised. With great politeness, she asked him to hand over his cell phone. She also told him that there was about to be a problem with the telephone lines running in and out of his apartment building. He could not, in other words, alert anyone to what he had just told her. She informed him that he would be given a lift back to his home, and his wife.
“Please,” she said, “make this easy for both of us.”
Fifteen minutes later, Pavel Novak let himself in through his front door, crossed the hall, and stepped into the elevator, an ornate metal cage that had run up through the middle of the building’s spiral staircase for the better part of a century. He stopped on the fifth floor and went into his apartment. His wife was asleep in their bedroom. He kissed her face and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear.
She gave a sleepy little murmur of reply.
Novak looked at her with the love that a man has for a woman who has shared his life for almost three decades, a love in which youthful passion has given way to a far deeper blend of affection, knowledge, and mutual forgiveness. He laid his hand briefly on her shoulder, then he left the room.
He walked up to the top of the building and out through the door that led to the roof. He walked to the edge, looked around him at the lights and rooftops of Vienna, took one last, deep breath, and stepped out into the void.
Last thing at night, Carver called Grantham in London.
“It’s going down tomorrow,” he said. “Sometime in the afternoon.”
“Do you have any idea yet what you’re after?”
“Not yet. All the client told me was he was hoping to retrieve some kind of document in a sealed envelope. He didn’t tell me what was in the document that was so valuable. He just said, and I quote, that it was ‘vital to the future peace of the world.’ ”
“He what…?”
Whatever Grantham was expecting, it wasn’t that.
“Yeah, I know,” said Carver. “I thought it sounded pretty crazy, too. And that wasn’t the half of it. He’s got this obsession that we’re like the Romans, just as the empire was collapsing, with barbarians at the gate. Only the barbarians aren’t Huns and Vandals; they’re Islamic terrorists, trying to take over the world.”
“You’re joking.” Grantham gave a short, irritable sigh.
“Well, you can argue that out with him. All I know is, I’ll be aiming to make the handover sometime in the early evening. The location is the Hotel du Cap, same as our lunch. I’ll give you the precise time tomorrow. Within fifteen minutes of that time, I aim to be walking out of the hotel with the woman and, if possible, the document. I told Vermulen I didn’t want any of his men there when the deal went down, but I can’t believe he’ll keep to that. He’ll want to protect his investment. So I’m going to need extraction-a car, maybe even a driver, someone good-and a safe house for the night.”
Grantham gave a snort of disbelief. “Would you like me to lay on a private jet as well? You seemed to like those, as I recall.”
“Or I could just give Vermulen’s goons the document in exchange for Alix…”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Even the powerful have bosses. And just as Olga Zhukovskaya could make her subordinates quake, so even she felt twinges of anxiety when calling her agency’s director in his bed to tell him bad news. She reported everything Novak had told her, stressing the urgency of the matter. In her view, the list of nuclear weapons and their precise whereabouts had to be recovered within twenty-four hours. After that, it could be lost forever.
“We know the whereabouts of a document that is of enormous military and political significance to the Motherland,” she concluded. “We should make immediate plans to seize it.”
The director had not survived a life of secrecy, infighting, and continual, often deadly regime changes by being rash or lacking in calculation. His immediate response was cautious.
“Can we be sure that this list really exists, or has the significance Novak claimed? The deployment of those weapons was under KGB control, their locations are still known to us alone, and I am not aware of any documents missing from our files. I suppose, theoretically, that Defense Ministry operatives might have found a way of copying or stealing our documentation…” He paused to contemplate the disturbing possibility that another agency might have outwitted his own, however temporarily. “In any case, Novak was a traitor who became a profiteer. All good reasons to disbelieve anything he says.”
“Quite so, Director. In any other circumstance I would agree with you on all counts. But I sat one meter from Novak when he was talking. I am certain that he was telling the truth.”
“Feminine intuition?” sneered the director.
“No, sir-twenty-five years of experience in the conduct of interrogations.”
“Very well, let us assume, hypothetically, that this list is as dangerous as you claim. Another problem arises. It is located in a foreign, sovereign nation and we do not wish to provoke a diplomatic incident by undertaking a violent action against armed criminals, who would have the advantage of a defensible position.”
Zhukovskaya countered that.
“But, Director, we undertake violent actions on foreign countries all the time-”
“So you proved-with regrettable lack of success-in Geneva recently,” her boss snapped. “Our coverup may have fooled local police and media, but do not suppose that our enemies were deceived. The operatives chosen were far too easily identifiable as our assets. In any case, we have a further difficulty. As you know, all government agencies are facing severe financial restrictions at the moment. We are no exception…”
“It is very sad, Director,” Zhukovskaya murmured, keen to get him off his hobbyhorse and back to the matter in hand. “But I do not see the relevance here-”
“The relevance, Deputy Director, is that I have no money to pay for the operation you propose. I have already funded an undercover operation on your behalf.”
“Which has led to our discovery of Novak and his document-”
“At the cost of sending men to America and Switzerland, arranging contacts across the whole of Europe, not to mention the American dollars spent on Miss Petrova’s cover, which apparently involved buying clothes no good Russian woman could afford, and primping herself in beauty parlors…”
As the old man ranted, a smile slowly spread across Zhukovskaya’s face. She had just seen a way in which she could carry out the operation, recover the document, save the state money, create total deniability in the event of anything going wrong, and cause maximum embarrassment to the outmoded dinosaur who stood between her and the top job she craved.
“Are your official instructions that I should not expend any agency resources on this matter?” she asked dutifully.
“Indeed they are,” said the director. “And as for Miss Petrova, I must say that I am amazed that you are prepared to have anything to do with her, given her role in your husband’s death. If I were in your place, I should have taken great pleasure in killing her.”
“Perhaps, in due course, I will. For now, though, I am happy to use her talents to advance our interests.”
For the first time the director’s voice was laden with genuine admiration.
“I must say, my dear, that is admirably cold-blooded, even for you.”