He’d drugged her. But then—as she now realized—he’d been drugging her from the beginning, initially with his eyes.
Despite her daze, Kate became aware of a looming presence in the cabin.
Police Lt. Vulcan Krasky entered, daubing his forehead with a now sweat-stained kerchief.
He saw her and smiled slowly, just as he had when he first walked into her hotel room in Kiev. Another man, much smaller, took the seat beside Krasky. Kate recognized him too: the silent interloper who’d stood at the foot of her bed the night before, then left without helping her.
Kate looked at the passing parade as if they were figures in a slow-motion movie reel.
One man had chased her and beaten Simon; another had seen her desperation and turned away; a third was trying to steal her brain as well as her inheritance—each wanted what was hers and would do anything to get it.
Furthermore, each had reasons of his own for craving her birthright. And each, she knew even in her fog, would unhesitatingly kill her or anyone else who stood in his way.
Of the three, she judged Novyck the most dangerous. Krasky was a big, brutal thug, but clumsy of foot and mind. The smaller, handsome man seemed ambivalent and inherently less violent. But Novyck was evil incarnate. The direct descendant of the mesmerizing madman Rasputin, he was cut from the same twisted clerical cloth.
Somewhere in the laudanum mist of her night at the Ratchka, Kate had a chilling thought. She recalled Imre’s passing remark. You were talking to someone, he’d said.
Had Imre gotten inside her head? Was he trying to control her through someone else—an inner self? Had he found a vulnerability, a weak point, that allowed him to enter her psyche? She’d defeated herself at Bolshoy Ustinski Bridge, partly by failing at the last instant to execute a perfect dive. Flawed spotting had been the likely culprit, but was that merely a metaphor for something she alone could control by tapping deeper into her conscious? And did that something exist in the same part of her brain where Novyck now probed? The idea was frightening, but it held a glimmer of hope, and even the prospect of power.
If she could find a way to turn Imre’s schemes against him.
Chapter 57
“You have five minutes to get to the gate,” the Aeroflot ticket agent said, covertly glancing at the five $100 bills Blake had pressed into his palm.
Blake had asked for a fifteen-minute delay of the flight and a First Class berth. The clerk shook his head and laughed out loud. “You must be yoking,” he said in a heavy East European accent. “There are only a few bags left to check, and I just sold the last two First Class tickets. I simply can’t hold the flight that long.”
Blake charged down the long corridor to the departure gate.
“Excusez-moi.”
He’d bumped into a crowd of French college students.
“Merci,” he said, jostling his way past them.
He jogged again, slowing when he saw the familiar airport security conveyor belts.
He showed his tickets and—without luggage—moved quickly to the boarding area.
“Wait!” Blake yelled. The flight attendant was about to close the aircraft door.
Boarding amidships, Blake squeezed into his aisle seat.
Was he a fool? Counting “tips,” he’d paid more than $2,000 for a one-way fare to London, and he wasn’t even certain Kate was on board.
As soon as they were airborne and the seat belt light blinked out, Blake strode to the First Class curtain. Parting it, he peered inside.
A woman with short-cropped black hair nestled against the white vinyl-covered porthole next to her window seat. Even with her face turned away, he instantly recognized Kate.
His emotions shifted from elation to fear.
Beside Kate sat Imre Novyck. And behind them two men, Novyck’s thugs, faced each other, talking quietly.
Across the aisle and two rows back sat the big man and his companion—they’d obviously gotten the last two First Class tickets. Back at the Rachka, they’d fallen for the Maserati ploy—or so it seemed. Obviously, they’d quickly deduced that the couple entering the first car were decoys.
Krasky spotted him.
Too late, Simon snatched the curtain closed. He quickly reurned to his seat.
Kate was on this plane! And there was nothing either he or his antagonists could do until the aircraft landed.
Or was there?
An international pay telephone beckoned from its crevice in the seat back next to him.
He removed the receiver, tapped a string of numbers and the ring-ring of a London telephone buzzed in his ear.
“Metropolitan Police.”
“May I speak to Detective Hudson, please.”
Brief silence. “Sorry, Sir. Detective Hudson won’t arrive on duty for an hour.”
Blake pressed the flight attendant button and moments later a stewardess, wearing Aeroflot’s signature starched white collar, stood by his seat. He asked for copies of the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times, fitfully perused both papers for the next sixty minutes, and again placed the call.
This time Hudson was in.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Blake,” the detective said, in a partially smoothed cockney accent, “we have been unable to locate Miss Gavrill on any incoming flights.”
“I know that, Detective Hudson, because she is on the plane with me. But I can’t make contact, and she appears to be drugged.”
“What’s your flight number? When is it due to arrive at Heathrow? I’ll have my men there. We can take Miss Gavrill into protective custody, so long as she requests it, or obviously appears under duress.”
“And don’t worry about Imre Novyck,” the detective said, “or the men with him. We can at least detain them for questioning. We’ll need a court order to search their luggage for the stone you describe, but Interpol has already turned up an impressive criminal dossier on Novyck. If it comes to it, we can deny them entry. Be assured, Mr. Blake, we’ll give this Novyck gent a royal welcome.”
Chapter 58
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot began in stilted, Russian-tinged English, “I regret to inform you that, due to an emergency at Heathrow, we will be landing at Gatwick Airport.”
Blake yanked the in-seat telephone out of its niche almost as quickly as he heard the news. While Aeroflot flew regularly scheduled flights from St. Petersburg into Gatwick, most flights from Moscow went into Heathrow’s Terminal Two. He had to get word to Hudson that they’d been diverted.
From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a dark sleeve. It belonged to the same Aeroflot stewardess who’d earlier brought him newspapers.
“I’m sorry sir,” she said, “you can’t use the telephone during this phase of flight.”
“But this is an urgent matter. I’m trying to reach Scotland Yard.”
The flight attendant’s brusque manner, thought Blake, would have fit in perfectly with the Aeroflot of the eighties and nineties.
For years, jokes about “Aeroflop” had been a staple among air passengers. Tupolev jets with hand-painted interiors, service-with-a-snarl stewardesses and engines that vibrated like washing machines became the stuff of Aeroflot legend.
“I’m sorry, sir, we can’t allow exceptions. International terrorism regulations, you know.”
“I’m going to use this phone, or I am going to the captain.” Replacing the phone in its receiver, Blake unlatched his safety belt and started to rise.
The attendant put a firm hand on his shoulder. “And if you approach the pilot area, sir, you will be restrained. Please sit down.”
Biting his lip in anger, he complied. He had to remember there were two other thugs on board besides Imre and his crew—and all of them were desperate. Disrupting the flight could trigger violence and put Kate in even greater danger.
As part of training Aero
flot personnel to US/UK standards—and upgrading its fleet to include new Boeings and Airbuses—a new color scheme had been chosen to reflect “professionalism, technology and warmth.” Aeroflot’s staff had supposedly morphed into “people-focused ambassadors” who purveyed Russian hospitality.
Blake looked a few rows up, at the navy, silver and orange “iron curtain” separating coach from First Class—and his seat from Kate’s. No amount of professionalism, technology or warmth could inform Scotland Yard’s finest that there’d been a last-minute change in their destination. The switch in airports would be announced at Heathrow, but the possibilities were slim that police on the other side of London could reach Gatwick before touchdown. Once in country, Imre Novyck and the others would have, temporarily at least, a clear path. Physically, they could be intercepted at the Bank of England, but, Blake knew, lacking additional evidence, there was little chance a magistrate would intervene with Bank officials. In the meantime, there’d be no way of knowing where Novyck and Kate actually were.
* * *
Kate heard the pilot’s announcement clearly, as if someone had turned off a fuzzy filter that for days muffled every human voice in her ears. She was still groggy, but during the long flight some of the effects of Imre’s opiates must have worn off.
The big jet bounced hard, then settled down on the runway.
Kate’s hopes rose in direct counterpoint to the speed of the aircraft: as it slowed, her spirits lifted. She was, after all, back in familiar, freedom-loving western Europe, and at one of the most security-conscious airports in the world. They still had nearly 40 hours before the deadline—it was at least a fighting chance.
Despite a frown from their flight attendant, Novyck and his “colleagues” sprang from their seats and started pulling their luggage from the overhead compartments.
As First Class passengers, they were off the plane minutes after it landed.
In Moscow, Novyck had ordered a wheelchair to take her to the plane, and now he did so again to disembark, draping her with a shawl and pushing the device himself. She wasn’t feeling well, he’d told airport authorities. Beneath the shawl, with coolness and efficiency, he lashed her forearms to the chair with plastic ties.
Though smaller than Heathrow, Gatwick had been one of the first airports to test technology—Iris-reading detectors and the like—as a means of increasing security. After the 9-11 tragedy, the airfield had confiscated as many as two thousand pairs of scissors a day. Kate wondered: Couldn’t its immigration officers and security guards round up a few middle-aged thugs and thieves?
She felt Novyck’s controlling palm on her shoulder. It had been there since they’d left the plane. Now, as they entered the baggage area, his hand tensed; Kate glanced up and watched his head turn. She followed the direction of his chin to a man standing on the other side of the room, nearly thirty yards away.
Simon Blake!
Novyck bent to whisper in her ear. “One sound,” he said, “and your friend is a dead man.” He’d obviously recognized Simon, Kate surmised, unaware the two had previously met.
Friend? The word seemed wholly inadequate. As much as they’d quarreled, no one could have been more steadfast. It was the first time in days she’d seen someone she could count as an ally.
Simon, look at me! Help me!
Kate thought the words, imagined screaming the words, but didn’t utter the words. Not a sound, Imre said. She wasn’t about to put Simon in further jeopardy.
His eyes met hers. Her heart pounded like a base drum. For one fleeting moment, the gray airport was transformed into a shimmering temple.
The wheelchair picked up speed.
“Leave the bags, leave everything,” Novyck ordered his men, waving his hand dismissively over their luggage. “We’ll get them later.”
“But our suitcases are right there—on the carousel,” the taller man protested.
“Forget it,” Novyck barked. “I’ll buy you batches of new suits on Saville Row. For now, let’s just head straight to Immigration.”
Simon was moving away from her now, talking into his mobile near a bank of telephones opposite the immigration checkpoint. He was calling for help! But an instant after he opened the cell Novyck’s goon Andre confronted him.
From her vantage point, Kate saw the man’s back. He faced Simon, who half-turned as he opened the receiver. The other man’s flattened hand shot toward his windpipe.
Blake crumpled to the ground. Kate heard him groan.
“Heart attack!” Novyck’s goon yelled. “Heart attack!”
Kate tried to stand up in her wheel chair. “It’s not a heart attack,” she yelled. “They’re trying to kill him.”
Novyck shoved her back down. “I meant what I said,” he growled, bending closer to her ear. Novyck’s hands moved from her shoulders to the grips of the wheel chair and he pushed hard toward the Immigration desk. As he picked up speed, Kate saw Krasky and the man who had been in her hotel room turn away from the Customs officer as he checked them through.
Novyck kept pushing. Clasping both their passports, he nodded perfunctorily as the Immigration Officer waved them on. No Iris-detectors here, thought Kate, of course these passengers are leaving the airport, not entering it. Her hopes of being saved by technology dissolved.
As they passed, she saw Simon getting to his feet. “I did not have a heart attack,” she heard him insist to the small crowd that shuffled into a silent circle. “That man judo-chopped me! Stop him. Stop the others!”
Kate’s entourage rushed toward the elevators that would take them to the trains below and from there to Victoria Station. By delaying Simon at the airport, she realized, Novyck had made it highly unlikely that the authorities—or anyone else—would find her. If she ever hoped to be free, she’d have to defeat Imre Novyck on her own.
Chapter 59
That realization nagged at Kate all during the cab ride to their hotel.
Since her escape attempt, the attitude of the man who sat next to her had shifted from a veneer of saccharine solicitousness to unmasked control. He barely spoke to her. He or his goons were always watching her. Her only time alone was in a locked room.
Yet there had to be something she could do.
A century ago, assassins felled Novyck’s progenitor, Grigori Rasputin. They succeeded despite his power and influence, and even though he knew he was going to be killed.
In December, 1916, Rasputin had written a “prophecy” letter to Czar Nicholas. It contained a deadly curse. “I feel that I shall leave life before January 1,” the monk wrote, then continued:
Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Gregory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations, will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people. I am no longer among the living.
Days later he was dead, slain by assassins led by Prince Felix Yussoupov, the tsar’s cousin, who poisoned, shot and clubbed Rasputin, then finally pushed him through a hole in the ice. The starets had been difficult to kill. When the bullet-riddled body was found, it was determined he had actually died by drowning.
Kate gazed out of the taxi at the early morning traffic, dredging her memory of Russian history. Given such a strong premonition—so strong that he’d stopped going outside his house—why had Rasputin accepted Yussoupov’s invitation to spend an evening with him? After all, rumors that he would be done away with were even circulating in the Duma. And Yussoupov was a member of the nobility, the very class Rasputin had warned Nicholas against.
Then she remembered. She could almost hear Anya’s voice telling the story. Yussoupov lured Rasputin by playing to his weakness, by offering the one thing that would draw him out of his well-protected shell: the promise of meeting a beautiful
woman. In fact, she was, by most accounts, Moscow’s greatest beauty, none other than Yussoupov’s dazzling brunette wife, Princess Irina, for whom Kate’s own mother had been named.
And suddenly Kate knew. Her best—her only—chance of breaking free of Rasputin’s descendant would be to overcome him mentally as well as physically, using his ego and her own femaleness to lower his defenses.
Intellectually, the idea went against her every instinct. Kate had been anything but romantically precocious as a girl. As a young woman, her sense of sexuality emerged painfully, hesitatingly, and as part of an intricate architecture of ethics. Sex was not a tool to be used; it was a profoundly intimate gift, one that left her soul naked. To deliberately offer herself to another would betray those feelings. Could she pull it off?
If she were successful, sex would only serve as bait for a fish Imre would never land. After all, on the fatal night Grigori Rasputin came to call, Princess Irina wasn’t even home.
Their cab wound through London’s oldest section, its financial hub, known as The City, home to the Stock Exchange and Lloyds. From Monday to Friday, a million commuting workers would crowd into this single-square-mile.
Hundreds of them worked at the Bank of England where, tomorrow, Novyck would attempt to falsely claim her inheritance. “Just what is your plan?” she asked Novyck.
She spoke the words slowly and in a low voice. She hoped to disguise the fact that the drugs she’d been given prior to their airport arrival had largely worn off.
Novyck turned and smiled. For a moment the sugary veneer returned. “I’m glad you are interested in our little family enterprise, my dear. First, I’ll show them copies of the papers. We’ll unveil the originals in a second meeting, and, of course, yourself.”
The Romanov Stone Page 24
