Tom Cain

by Samuel Carver 01 - The Accident Man (v5)

  Petrova came from Moscow, so this must be where Carver lived. And that meant there would be people in the neighborhood who knew him and his exact address. Papin got out his photographs and started canvassing again.

  35

  “Well now, there’s a surprise.” Carver leaned back, tilting his office chair and putting his hands behind his head. Then he looked back at the computer screen, which showed the recent transfers in and out of his Banque Wertmuller-Maier account, and sighed. “Of course those buggers weren’t going to pay. They assumed I’d be dead.” Even so, he had received faxed notification of a $1.5 million deposit from his account manager. He had a loose end. If he could find a way to give it a good pull, the whole conspiracy might just unravel.

  He thought for a moment, then got up and wandered into the kitchen, where Alix was making herself a late breakfast. The TV was on, still showing news about the crash. He wondered whether anyone in the world was watching anything else.

  “Any developments we need to know about?” he asked.

  Alix pressed the remote control, lowering the volume, then turned to look at him. “People are blaming the paparazzi for chasing the car. There are rumors it was going at almost two hundred kilometers an hour when it crashed.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit, for a start. It was one twenty, max.”

  “Also, they say that blood tests prove the driver was drunk, more than three times over the limit. And there’s a survivor, the princess’s bodyguard.”

  Carver frowned. “The guy didn’t drive like a drunk. And there’s a bodyguard? Well, no way would any self-respecting bodyguard let a driver get in a car if he was three times over. The guy would have been completely legless, reeling all over the place, stinking of booze. Christ, you wouldn’t let anyone get behind the wheel if he was that far gone.” He slammed his hand against the kitchen counter. “This is bloody amateur hour. They did a rush job and they’ve bungled the cover- up. Now every investigative journalist in the world is going to be crawling all over the place, trying to prove it was murder.”

  “Well, it was murder.” Alix’s voice was quiet, but it cut straight through Carver’s bluster. “We did it. Every time I hear about photographers hounding her to her death, all I can think is, no, that was me. I was flashing the camera, forcing them to go faster.”

  “Maybe, but if you hadn’t been, someone else would. The real photographers weren’t far behind you. And as soon as they got to the crash, did they try to help? No, they started taking photographs.”

  A coldness had descended on Carver, the passion of his lovemaking replaced by impersonal calculation. Alix’s voice rose in intensity as she tried to break through his armor.

  “How can you just stand there and talk about this as if we weren’t involved? Don’t you think at all about what you’ve done?”

  “Not if I can help it, no.”

  For a moment they fell silent; the only noises in the room were the bubbling of the coffeemaker and the muted jabber of an ad from the TV set. Then Carver’s body relaxed slightly. He held out a hand and laid it on Alix’s shoulder.

  “Look, I know how callous, how cynical that sounds. I’m not a total bastard. But one thing I’ve learned over the years is not to waste time over people who are already dead. It’s the only way to stop yourself from going crazy. Am I sorry she died? Of course I am. Do I feel bad that it was me at the end of that tunnel? Just a bit. But where does feeling guilty about that get me, or anyone else? Screw feeling guilty. We were tricked into doing something terrible, and I aim to find the people who did that.”

  Carver told Alix what he had in mind. It meant her going undercover, playing a role.

  “You’ve got a lot of experience using fake identities, right? You can fool a man into thinking you’re someone you’re not?”

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been worrying about, that I’m deceiving you?”

  “It has crossed my mind, yeah. But forget that for now. I’ve got another part that might interest you.”

  He dialed a local number. When he spoke it was with the guttural bark of an Afrikaner accent. “Could I speak to Mr. Leclerc, please? Thank you. . . . Howzit, Mr. Leclerc? The name’s Dirk Vandervart. I’m what you might call a private security consultant, and you’ve been recommended to me by contacts at the very highest levels. I have a little over two hundred million U.S. dollars, looking for a home. I’m hoping you can help me find one. . . . Excellent. Well now, I’ll be in meetings with clients all day. Why don’t we meet at my hotel, the Beau-Rivage, at six this evening, ja? We will have a drink and discuss my banking requirements. I will give you all the references you need at that time. In the meantime, my personal holding company is called Topograficas, SA, registered in Panama. You’re welcome to look it up, though I must say you won’t find a great deal if you do. . . . Ja, absolutely, that is indeed the blessing of Panama! So, are we set, then? Six o’clock, the Beau-Rivage, ask for Vandervart. Thank you. And good day to you too.”

  Carver put the phone down with a flourish.

  “You sound as though you have done some acting too,” said Alix.

  “More than I’d like,” he agreed. “This business is basically one long game of charades.”

  “And that company with the crazy name. Does it really exist?”

  “Mind your own business,” said Carver. He was smiling as he said it, but internally he was making a note to himself. Close down that shelter as soon as this is all over. And hide all the money behind another Panamanian front.

  36

  In the end, it was just a matter of blind luck. Papin was walking down Grand Rue, the street of art galleries and antique shops at the center of the Old Town, when he saw a flash of pale blue out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head in an automatic reflex and there they were, Carver and Petrova, strolling along the street hand in hand like any other couple, he in jeans and a stone-colored cotton jacket, she still wearing the same dress in which she’d left Paris the previous day. Papin pumped a fist in triumph. His gamble had paid off!

  His first instinct was to duck into a doorway for cover. Then he reminded himself that they had no idea of his identity. He looked into a gallery window, closely examining some Goya prints, while his targets walked by on the far side of the street. He let them get fifty meters down the road, then casually ambled after them.

  Papin had to smile. The woman wanted to go shopping—mais naturellement. She’d arrived from Paris without any luggage, she didn’t have a thing to wear, what else could she do? Still, he had to admire her style. She ignored three-quarters of all the shops she passed. Then something caught her eye and she went in, found what she wanted, bought it—courtesy of Carver’s credit cards, Papin noticed—and moved on. She was doing a thorough job too, starting with lingerie and working outward from there. Papin raised an appreciative eyebrow as he watched her pick out a selection of little lacy numbers. Even from across the street and through a shop window, he could tell that Carver was in for an entertaining evening.

  In the meantime, the Englishman’s lust appeared to have addled his brain. To be walking around the streets in broad daylight with a fellow suspect was madness. Either Carver was playing a game so subtle that Papin could not fathom it, or he had concluded that he had no hope of survival and might as well enjoy what little time was left to him.

  And then, without warning, Papin lost them. They ducked into a crowded department store down by the river with exits onto four different streets. Papin cursed under his breath. Perhaps Carver was not quite as careless as he had assumed.

  He tried to follow them through the busy store, then abandoned that attempt and settled for a patrol on foot around the block, hoping to catch them leaving the building or walking down one of the adjacent streets. He knew this was futile. One man had almost no chance of maintaining surveillance under those circumstances.

  No matter. He might have lost them for now, but he knew where Carver lived to within a matter of three or four blocks. All he had to do wa
s return to the Old Town and start showing his trusty ID card to all the local barkeepers, café owners, and apartment-house concierges. Some would refuse to cooperate with anyone in authority as a matter of principle. Others, though, would be equally keen to display their credentials as loyal, law-abiding citizens, eager to do their part in maintaining law and order. As any secret policeman knew, it was never hard to find people willing to inform on their neighbors. Papin was sure he would locate Carver’s apartment soon enough. But first it was time to open negotiations.

  There was a bar across the road that had a Swisscom public telephone on the wall. “Merde!” It only took phone cards, not cash. The barman saw his frustration and gestured across the road at a newspaper kiosk. Papin muttered a curse, then wasted a couple of minutes walking over to the kiosk, paying for a fifty-franc card, and returning to the bar. By the time he was standing in front of the phone again his previous good humor had been replaced by gut-tightening tension. He made a conscious effort to summon up an air of confidence, then called the man he knew as Charlie.

  “Good news, mon ami. I have found your lost property.”

  “Really?” replied the operations director. “That’s great news. Where?”

  Papin chuckled. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to tell you that right now. But such information is valuable and I have had to work very hard, at great personal expense, to obtain it. I will require compensation.”

  “How much?”

  “Five hundred thousand, U.S., payable in bearer bonds, endorsed to me, and given to me in person. I will take you to the property. And just you, Charlie. Don’t try any ambush.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, old chap.”

  “So, do we have a deal?”

  “I don’t know. Half a mill sounds like a lot of money.”

  “In your situation? I don’t think so, Charlie. You have two hours. I will call you again at one thirty p.m. Central European Time. If I don’t get your guarantee of payment then, I’m going elsewhere. Good-bye.”

  Papin ended the call, then thought for a moment. He needed some insurance, but why wait for another two hours? He dialed a London number. He could think of more than one organization that would be happy to have his information.

  37

  The man in the white coat took off his glasses and rubbed a hand across his bearded face. He looked at Carver through squinted eyes, trying to focus.

  “Okay, so we need to induce a sense of relaxation and empathy, yes?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then we want sexual arousal.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And finally, we must lower mental defenses, maybe create a sense of disorientation?”

  “Exactly, Dieter. That’s the plan.”

  Carver and Alix had concluded the first part of their shopping expedition. She had bought the clothes she needed, and a selection of wigs. He had spent ten minutes getting the Swiss version of a number-two cut at a backstreet barbershop, which left his scalp bristling with the military buzz cut a man like Dirk Vandervart might favor. Then he bought a designer suit whose shiny silken fabric went perfectly with an oversize gold watch to create the defiantly tasteless look of a man with a lot of dirty money to wash. The purchases had been packed in a couple of Gucci overnight bags. Where Carver planned to go, they would need expensive luggage.

  Together, he and Alix had taken their costumes to an attic studio above a chocolate shop. It had taken a lot of persuasion and even more money to get the studio’s obsessively painstaking Swiss proprietor to compromise his perfectionism and fix them two South African passports on a rush job. They’d changed into their new clothes, posed for photographs, packed their original garments, and Carver had placed two phone calls: one to the reservations department of one of Geneva’s finest hotels, the other to Thor Larsson. Now he had one last errand to run, but he needed professional advice, and Dr. Dieter Schiller was the man to provide it.

  “One important detail: The whole thing has got to be soluble. It’s going into a drink.”

  Schiller smiled as he put the spectacles back on. “You know, Pablo, this is going to be some party. Can I come?”

  “Sorry, Dieter, this is strictly professional. And there’s one other specification. The dose has got to be packaged so that my associate . . .”

  “Miss . . . ?” Schiller raised his eyebrows, waiting for a name.

  “Miss None-of-Your-Damn-Business,” Carver replied. “It’s better for everyone that way. My associate needs to be able to deliver the dose easily, without being spotted. Okay?”

  Schiller shrugged, apparently unbothered by the lack of formal introductions. He was used to the concept of anonymity. In fact, he assumed that none of his clients ever supplied their true names. “That’s no problem. A simple capsule will be sufficient. But what to put in it? To start with, for relaxation, I would suggest methylenedioxymethamphetamine—MDMA for short.”

  “Ecstasy,” said Alix.

  “Ah yes, the drug of choice for modern pleasure seekers. Makes you feel good, relaxed, full of love for the people around you. Of course, it may also make you psychotic in the long term, but that’s not our problem right now. Immediate side effects can include feeling hot, sweaty, even a little sick. But we can take the edge off that.”

  Schiller was sitting at a desk, like any other practitioner taking a consultation. His office was a back room in a private house. There was no brass plaque on the door, though his remarkable, if unorthodox approach to pharmacology attracted large numbers of wealthy clients who felt the need for personal prescriptions that would never be written by more conventional doctors. Behind him stood a series of wooden cabinets and, above them, shelves of glass bottles, plastic containers, and small white cardboard boxes.

  He swiveled in his chair, reached for one of the plastic pill jars, and brought it back to the table. “Soluble in water too, so that’s no problem. Sadly, though, I can’t say the same for Viagra, which many of my older clients like to combine with Ecstasy when entertaining their young ladies. We shall have to be more adventurous with this element of the formula. I would suggest bromocriptine.”

  Another pill bottle appeared on the desk. “Unlike Viagra, it acts on the brain, rather than the penis, boosting dopamine—which is a neurotransmitter, you understand—and effectively promoting sexual desire. Strangely, this effect wears off after thirty or forty doses. But again, that is not our problem. Now, this substance is not soluble in water, but it is soluble in alcohol, so please bear that in mind. And the same applies to this. . . .”

  He turned to the shelves one last time, reached inside a white box, and pulled out a rectangular piece of aluminum foil with eight clear blisters, each containing a small, diamond-shaped pill.

  “Flunitrazepam,” Schiller continued. “Better known as Rohypnol, or ‘roofies.’ As you may know, this sedative, which is a first-rate treatment for anxiety or sleeplessness, has acquired an unsavory reputation as a so-called date rape drug. It diminishes inhibition and stress while promoting a sense of euphoria. It can also affect short-term memory. We must be careful not to give too high a dose or it will simply knock the patient out. But combined with the other two chemicals it should supply, I would say, a very interesting experience. Now tell me a little about the person who will consume this cocktail.”

  “I’ve only met him once, and that was four years ago,” Carver replied. “But he must be in his midforties, I’d say, medium height, quite stocky. Unless he’s gone on a diet, he’ll weigh the best part of two hundred pounds, ninety-odd kilos.”

  Schiller reached across his desk and grabbed a pestle and mortar set. “A standard dose of each drug will be fine.” He popped three pills into the stone bowl and started grinding them down with the wood-handled pestle. “Just like an old-fashioned apothecary, huh?” he said, looking up at his clients. Then he opened one of the small brass-handled drawers in the chests behind him and rummaged around until he found a small, clear plastic capsule. He squeezed it
between his thumb and forefinger, splitting it in two. Very carefully, he poured the powdered pills from the mortar through a plastic funnel into one half of the capsule before pressing the other half back onto it.

  “There,” said Schiller, handing Carver the completed capsule. “That will be fifteen hundred Swiss francs.”

  “That’s a lot for one dose, Dieter.”

  Schiller smiled. “It isn’t the dose you’re paying for.”

  Outside on the street, Alix asked, “Now what?”

  “Now we go and pick up those passports. Then we check into our hotel.”

  38

  The four directors met around a glass table and sat on plain metal chairs. The tabletop was free of paper and writing implements: No minutes were ever taken of the board’s meetings. Security was absolute. There were no phones on the table, no pictures on the wall, nowhere to hide any kind of listening device. The air-conditioning vent was plastered directly into the ceiling and could not be unscrewed. The light fixtures were sealed units, fitted with long-life bulbs. The sound- and bulletproof windows were hidden behind blackout blinds. The men had left their phones, wallets, keys, and loose change in plastic trays, then passed through a scanner before they entered the room.

  The chairman got right down to business. “Gentlemen, thirty-six hours have passed since the Paris operation. In one important respect, it was a success. The mission’s main objective was attained. There are, however, a number of loose ends that need to be tied up.”

  “It’s a little worse than that, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sorry, Finance, is there something you’d like to say?”

  “Yes there is, actually.” The man’s appearance was impeccably tailored, but his voice was tense, teetering on the edge of panic. “The whole thing’s turning into a bloody nightmare. The country’s gone mad with grief, the republicans are having a field day, and the monarchy’s facing the biggest crisis since the abdication. Meanwhile, we’ve got an assassin on the loose. He could be anywhere in the world by now. And if he talks, we’re done for.”