by Tom Cain
Then the helicopter started moving and Carver realized to his horror that it was heading right for him. Fear swept the dizziness from his head and he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life as the helicopter collided with the side of the viaduct in a cacophony of roaring engines, screaming metal, and blunt stone, its rotor blades gouging into the parapet and sending projectiles of stone flying through the air in every direction. One hit Carver on the back, and once again he thanked the sheer chance that had spared him any time since he’d left the burning house in which to take off his bulletproof vest.
Behind him, the helicopter had lost its grip on the viaduct, first sliding off its stonework and then plunging down to the valley floor, where it landed with a final, metallic crunch, a moment’s silence, and an explosion of flames.
Carver walked back to where he had been standing, picked up the grenade launcher, and threw it into the inferno below. He checked to see that there was no one nearby, and then pitched the gas mask over, too. Then he looked at his watch. It was half past five. That gave him an hour and a half to drive to Cap d’Antibes, check into the Hotel du Cap, grab a shower, change into whatever clean clothes he could find, and get ready to see Alix again.
That sounded just about perfect.
74
It was half past eleven in the morning in Washington, D.C., and they were back at the White House, in the Woodshed meeting room. Leo Horabin wanted an update on the investigation. The story was told from the beginning, with Kady Jones screening Henry Wong’s photograph of Vermulen and Francesco Riva, and explaining the potential significance of their meeting. Tom Mulvagh then described his investigation into Vermulen’s movements in Europe and the death of his personal assistant Mary Lou Stoller.
“I began a detailed analysis of Mrs. Stoller’s replacement as the general’s assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, in conjunction with Ted Jaworski. Ted, perhaps you’d like to present the findings of that analysis.”
The CIA man took over.
“Certainly. The bottom line is, Natalia Morley does not exist. It’s a false identity, prepared well enough to stand up to the level of investigation an employer makes into a secretarial hiring. There was a birth certificate, marriage license, and divorce papers, references from prior employers, credit-card records, and so forth. But the moment I started looking deeper and wider, it all fell apart. I could find no trace of her supposed husband, Steve Morley. The couple’s home addresses in both Russia and Switzerland were phony. Ms. Morley had given a name and number for the human-resources department of the Swiss-based bank that had employed her, but when I called that number it had been disconnected and no one at the bank had ever heard of her.
“So if this woman isn’t Natalia Morley, who is she? Since she claimed to be Russian, that was the first place to look. I had my people secure security footage from Dulles International the day she and Vermulen left for Amsterdam, and compare it with known KGB and FSB operatives.”
He called up a picture, covering half the screen at the far end of the room.
“Okay, then, this is ‘Natalia Morley’ a month ago at Dulles. And this…”
The other half of the screen was filled by a second shot. The two faces on the screen had been taken many years apart, but they unmistakably showed the same woman.
“… is former KGB agent Alexandra Petrova. She is age thirty. She was born in the city of Perm, several hundred miles east of Moscow, and began work in Moscow about nine years ago. The KGB used her in honeytraps. Her specialty was seducing powerful, middle-aged Western males. She’s not been involved in any intelligence activity that we know of in the past five years. But it looks like she’s gone back to work.”
“You’d think a man as experienced as Kurt Vermulen might know better,” Horabin said. “Do we warn him he’s been compromised?”
“No, sir,” retorted Jaworski. “On the contrary, I propose we find out why the Russians have gone to so much trouble to compromise him. They think General Vermulen justifies their attention. We think he may be involved in some kind of project that involves miniaturized nuclear weapons. Put those two things together and what you get looks very much like Russian suitcase nukes. We’ve been tasked to find those nukes. I think this is the lead we’ve been waiting for.”
“Dear Lord,” muttered Horabin. “What’s Vermulen doing now?”
Jaworski grimaced.
“That’s the problem. We don’t know. We don’t believe he’s still in Rome. He left his rental car at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, but he hasn’t taken a commercial flight out that we know of, and there’s no record of him chartering any private aviation. There is one other possibility, though. Da Vinci’s located at a place called Fiumicino, about eighteen miles out of town. It’s right by the coast and there’s also a harbor there, with a yacht marina. It’s possible he could have departed Italy by sea.”
“What do you mean ‘it’s possible’?” rasped Horabin. “Are you telling me you don’t know?”
“ ’Fraid so,” said Jaworski. “I haven’t had the resources to uncover that information. For security reasons, and frankly for political reasons, too, our investigation of this matter has been limited to a very small number of people. General Vermulen is a decorated war hero who has never been suspected of wrongdoing, let alone arrested or indicted.”
“I’m well aware of that,” snapped Horabin.
Jaworski kept going.
“My view, and I think I speak for Tom, too, is that if we’re going to commit ourselves fully to this investigation, with the resource allocation that would entail, and the strong possibility of political fallout, we need authorization… from the top.”
Horabin was about to speak, but was interrupted by a cough from halfway down the table. It came from the uniformed colonel representing the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Excuse me, sir… but before anyone makes that determination, there’s something else you should know. It’s a matter whose relevance only became apparent once I’d heard today’s briefing.”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you. It concerns a former Czech military intelligence officer named Pavel Novak. Back in the day, Novak was a double, worked as an agent for us. Late last night, Novak fell to his death from the roof of his apartment building in Vienna. Now, Tom mentioned General Vermulen had been in Vienna recently. I don’t know-maybe it’s just coincidence. But when the general was attached to the DIA, he was Novak’s handler.”
Tom Mulvagh muttered, “Holy shit,” under his breath. There were similar murmurings right around the table. Leo Horabin brought the meeting back to order.
“Thank you, Colonel,” he said. “I will take all this under advisement. And yes, Ted, it will go right to the top.”
75
Samuel Carver got out of Le Bar-sur-Loup and drove the car down a zigzag succession of country lanes to the southeast of town before finding a field where he could park without being observed. A quick change of clothes-ironically, back into the suit he’d worn for Kenny Wynter’s lunch with Vermulen-a pair of shades, and suddenly he looked a lot less like the madman who’d just shot down a helicopter from the old viaduct.
He took the bag with Wynter’s remaining clothes and toilet kit out of the trunk of the car. That, and the jerry can that held all the acetone that had been left over after he’d finished his homemade bomb. He left the can open on the driver’s seat. On top of it, he placed the car’s red-hot cigarette lighter. Then he closed the door and started running. He got about two hundred yards down the road when the can exploded, followed, shortly afterward, by the gas tank, still three quarters full. There was no one else on the lane to watch as he dusted himself off, wiped a trace of sweat from his brow, then strolled about half a mile back up to the main road. Not long after that, he found a Bar Tabac, where he ordered a well-earned glass of ice-cold beer and called for a cab. He took his time over his drink, finishing it just as the cab pulled up. Half an hour later, he was standing in the shower of his junior suit
e at the Hotel du Cap.
It was only after he’d washed that he finally prized open Bagrat Baladze’s briefcase to discover what he’d gone to so much trouble to steal. There it was, a brown file folder, just like countless others. It had the tired, flimsy look that comes with passing time, and the Russian script written across it had faded. The seal was still intact. Vermulen would be happy with that. Though what it was that he hoped to find inside this sad bureaucratic relic, Carver couldn’t imagine.
Not that he gave a damn at this point. His mind had turned to Alix. He examined himself in the mirror. Considering what he’d just been through, he didn’t look too bad. A hell of a lot better than the last time she’d seen him-that was for sure. As he put on his jacket and straightened his shirt collar, he felt as excited as a kid on Christmas morning, and he couldn’t wait to open his present.
He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock precisely.
Showtime.
76
The bar opened right off the hotel lobby, in one continuous, airy, white-painted space. Carver spotted two men sitting in the lobby, another leaning oh-so-casually against the paneled-wood bar counter, a black dude the size of a wardrobe. He realized it was Reddin, the man from the Venice photograph. Vermulen had ignored Carver’s instructions and sent some muscle to watch over his courier and the package she was collecting, just as Carver had anticipated.
And then there was Alix, sitting in a soft white armchair at a table for two, a posy of yellow flowers in a small glass vase in front of her, waiting for him.
He had a couple of seconds to pause in the doorway and look at her before she spotted him. She looked fantastic: not wearing anything fancy, just being the woman he loved.
There was something that nagged at him, something out of place. But the thought vanished as she heard him coming across the marble floor, looked up, and for a fraction of a second the expression on her face was… absolute horror. Shock. As if she’d seen a ghost. As if she weren’t just surprised to see him, but appalled.
She forced a smile across her face.
Carver had seen Alix play a part before. He’d seen her pretend and dissimulate. But he’d never seen anything as phony as that smile.
He didn’t have any time to think about it, because she’d got to her feet and put her arms around him, like one old friend meeting another, air-kissing either side of his face and whispering two words. “I’m wired.”
They sat down. Carver hadn’t been sure how it would be when the two of them finally met, but he hadn’t expected this terrible discomfort, almost embarrassment, a tension filling the air between them.
“So… Natalia.” He put a heavy emphasis on the name, thinking himself back into the part of Kenny Wynter, remembering Vermulen would be listening somewhere. “How’s life with the general? Hope he doesn’t work you too hard…”
“No, he doesn’t… In fact, I don’t really work for Kurt at all anymore.”
“Really? Has he fired you?”
He didn’t have to fake the sly grin on his face as he said the words, or the gently teasing note in his voice.
“No,” she said, and the next words were so quiet that Carver thought for a second that he hadn’t heard them properly. “He’s married me.”
“I’m sorry…?”
“My name is now Natalia Vermulen,” she said, in a voice whose cheerful intonation was utterly contradicted by the devastation in her eyes. “We were married this afternoon… by the mayor of Antibes.”
Carver wanted to be sick. He felt as though someone had stuck a fork in his guts and was twisting his intestines like strands of pasta. Still, he had to be Kenny Wynter, the callous thief who couldn’t care less if a Yank general was daft enough to marry his sexy secretary just to get into her knickers.
“Congratulations, love,” he said, and then glanced at the ring-the one he’d refused to acknowledge when he first set eyes on her. “Nice rock.”
“Thank you… Kenny.”
“Don’t thank me, darling. Keep flashing that around much longer, I might be tempted to nick it.”
She giggled politely.
“I’m sure you’re not really like that.”
Her voice had the sound of casual conversation, but her eyes were pleading. For what? Understanding? Forgiveness? As if Carver should be considering her problems, putting himself in her position.
She was still talking.
“We only decided to get married on the spur of the moment.”
“Good of you to waste your wedding day on me.”
“Well, I’d promised Kurt…”
“And you didn’t want to let him down. He’s an impressive bloke, your general, got a bit about him. Special, right?”
“Yes he is, very special.”
Carver assumed that was for Vermulen’s benefit, and now she was trying to explain what had happened.
“Spending so much time together, over the past few weeks, I’ve got to know Kurt very deeply. He’s a remarkable man, and he was so kind to me. You see, I was told that someone close to me, someone I loved, had died. Kurt was there for me. He made me feel life was worth living.”
Suddenly Carver realized that he’d only half understood. She was trying to explain, all right. But she wasn’t explaining a terrible mistake they could find a way to put right. What he heard now was: You’re history.
He felt humiliated, stripped of all pride. The anger and hurt were filling his skull, building up pressure that must surely crack him open, till he just lashed out at something, anything-smashed the glasses from the table and threw the bottles at the bar; took out his gun and started firing at everyone around him, going for body shots, so they’d all hurt as much as he did. He wanted to kill Alix. He wanted her back. He didn’t know what he wanted… Somehow he summoned up a faint trace of professionalism.
“Yeah, that must mean a lot, a bloke doing that for you…” he said, responding the way he always did to emotional pain, by forcing himself to detach, shutting down his emotions.
“Tell you what-why don’t I tell you what I’ve been up to while you’ve been busy getting married. I’ve found a property that’s well worth investing in. I reckon your old man’d be interested.”
She could play that game just as well as him. In an instant she was Natalia Vermulen, the untroubled new wife of a wealthy, powerful man.
“Really? That sounds fascinating. Do you have anything you could show me?”
“Here, check it out…”
He handed over the file and she examined the Russian script on the cover and the seal keeping it closed, the design a simple cross of Saint George: the symbol and the saint shared by Georgia and England alike.
“That certainly looks like something that Kurt would want to get involved in,” she said. “Let me call him.”
She took out her phone and pressed the speed dial. “Hello, darling…”
She smiled, and stifled a giggle at something Vermulen said.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to that, too, darling… Anyway, Mr. Wynter is right here. He has something to show me that I think you’d like to see. Why don’t I hand you over to him?”
“Evening, Wynter.”
It was obvious from Vermulen’s tone that he’d not picked up the undertones of Alix and Carver’s conversation. He gave no sign of the arrogance of a man talking to his defeated rival, nor the insecurity of a lover under challenge. He was just doing business.
“Good evening, General,” Carver replied. “And congratulations-your new missus is certainly an extraordinary woman… full of surprises.”
Now it helped to be Wynter. He’d not bother to be polite for long.
“You got the money? Let’s just get it done so we can all get out of here.”
The money was transferred. Carver’s bank confirmed receipt of half a million pounds sterling, then immediately moved the money to another account. Carver had made a million pounds in less than a week. He’d have happily lost it all, and every penny deposited in every one
of his accounts around the world, just to have arrived back at the hotel a couple of hours earlier, before Alix had walked into that mayor’s office, when there was still a chance to change her mind.
Maybe even now it wasn’t too late? He took her face in his hands, gazed longingly into those intoxicating blue eyes, and put his lips to her ear.
“Come with me-please, I’m begging you…”
She pulled her face away from his, and when she looked at him again it was as though a transparent barrier had descended between them, as if he were a prisoner and she his visitor, separated by bulletproof glass.
“It’s been a pleasure seeing you, Kenny,” she said.
The worst moment of his life, his heart being broken, and he couldn’t even be himself.
She was looking him right in the eye, without a trace of emotion.
“I must go now. Good-bye…”
At some point in their conversation, more of Vermulen’s men must have slipped into the bar, because now they were forming a protective group around her as she walked from the room. When Carver tried to follow her, Reddin blocked the door and prevented his getting out.
“Wherever you think you’re going, man, you ain’t,” he said.
Reddin was big, he had a voice like Barry White, and he looked as if he could handle himself. Even so, Carver felt sure he could take him down, and chase after Alix as she left the hotel. But what was the point? He could beat up as many bodyguards as he liked, shoot them if he had to, but they weren’t the problem. She was. And she was gone for good.
As he sat down, Carver thought of the car that was waiting for him and Alix outside. His mission for MI6 had failed; the document had not been secured. Jack Grantham would not be a happy camper. Right now, that was the least of his worries.
77
Many months ago, overwhelmed by guilt at her part in a murder, and shocked by Carver’s apparently callous indifference to what he had done, Alix had cried out, “Don’t you think at all about what you’ve just done?”
