“Where did you and Olga come in, then?” Anna asked.
“Marina had to control both Barton and Kelm, neither of whom she trusted to protect her interests. She decided she needed a smart bilingual boy by her side in London. Keep in mind she thought I was nothing more than a sly bilingual Russian interpreter. Barton couldn’t tell cod Russian from the real thing, so she offered me a nice salary increase and I became her cousin—available as a driver and a bodyguard.”
“I saw him arguing with you one day,” Anna interjected. “Then you seemed to tell him to get in the car and he just obeyed you.”
“Hardly obeying me. I was probably reminding him that my cousin Marina didn’t want him going off on his own, for his own safety, that she worried about him. He never wanted to get on her bad side.” He chuckled. “You’ve met her. Would you? I never saw Komarov in the flesh, by the way—both Marina and Pierre kept meetings with him a secret from each other, and she never mentioned him to me. She just wanted me to keep an eye on her husband.”
“Andrew’s Russian is superb,” interjected Etherington. “Don’t fall for his false modesty.”
Blushing slightly, Barnes continued as a photo flashed on-screen of a middle-aged blonde standing next to Marina. “Here’s Olga, as she originally looked. Komarov insisted on someone who could be trusted for testing the safety of the industrial-strength for-your-spies-only product.”
“What safety? Is it not safe?”
“No need to worry on that score, Ms. Wallingham,” Etherington interjected. “It’s as safe as any acid peel or laser. The sole danger would be getting yourself killed, as Olga did.”
Suddenly, the meaning of her contract being “paid in full” so she could leave early sank in. Now she was sure no one had ever planned to pay her off and let her go on her merry way with her lifetime supply of YOUNGER. It was easy for “Martin Kelm” to offer her anything if he didn’t plan on her being around to collect it. Had Pierre realized that during their last meeting when she’d told him about her conversation with Kelm at the National Portrait Gallery bar?
Barnes clicked the mouse and a smiling, younger-looking Olga replaced the original Olga, followed by a shot of the two Olgas side by side.
“You played the game for them, Anna, and while they probably would have preferred someone docile, they were satisfied enough. But Olga didn’t follow their rules. And therein hangs a tale.”
“And before we have that tale, I suggest we have a break for tea,” said Dexter. He picked up the phone. “Malcolm, we’re coming down to the sitting room now.”
The reason for the break was obviously for the Englishmen to compare notes, as they quickly moved together to the far end of the room after shepherding David and Anna to wing chairs in front of the spacious, elegant room’s unlit fireplace. The woman who’d brought lunch the day before arrived almost immediately to set a small tea service on the table, along with the inevitable plate of cookies.
“Ah, we British. Nothing like a spot of tea before we get to the murderous bits, eh, eh?” David put on a Monty Pythonesque voice. “After we ’ave a nice cuppa, we’ll return to ’omicide most foul!”
“Weirdly cheerful, aren’t they? I keep thinking how Aleksei could pass for a Brit in his flannels and blazer,” Anna said, “rather than how Andrew made a believable Russian with his chilly taciturnity.”
“Was he? Chilly, I mean? He seems so easygoing.”
“A bit smug, no? I think he enjoyed fooling me. He was the strong, sullen type. Very believable and, I guess, all in a day’s work. On the other hand, Kelm, or Komarov, tried to act all pally, but with those hard Putin eyes. Still, other than the fact that he’s almost definitely a murderer, I’d call him downright warm and wonderful compared to Marina. Can you imagine luring your own husband into working for Moscow, thinking it’s for queen and country?”
“Not for nothing did the Bible say money is the root of all evil.”
“Dissatisfaction might be a close second,” she said. “I suspect that’s what lured Olga. And probably the engine behind Marina’s ambitions.” She shook her head reproachfully. “Perhaps mine as well. It’s been a steep learning curve, but this experience has put a lot of things in perspective for me.”
David was regarding her contemplatively.
“Yes?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Just thinking that it’s made me reexamine my life as well. I don’t—”
“I hope I’m not interrupting, Ms. Wallingham, Mr. Wainwright.”
Anna could have slugged the former Aleksei. What had David been about to say? What? She smiled thinly. “Call me Anna, please. I was just telling David how credible you were as Aleksei.”
“I had quite a few years’ experience in that role. Unlike your ‘trainers,’ by the way. I saw in your notes that you ran into your fashion coach in a Prague mall. Small world.”
“And you, were you in Prague? Was it you Fleur or Chloe or whoever saw?” She was almost disappointed when he shook his head. “So, not as small a world or as well-spun a web as I’d thought. The coaches were all very believable. What’s amazing is that they thought I was playing a part as well—I mean, I was, but they thought I was an actress pretending to be an actress who was pretending to learn how to be someone else. Like an Escher drawing. Were none of them real?”
He perched on the fireplace fender. “That would depend upon your definition of real. Mikal’s real in that he isn’t an actor. Nor is he a butler. He’s Komarov’s man, put in the house to keep an eye on you and passed off by Kelm to Barton as an old asylum seeker who defected from the USSR.”
“I hardly ever saw him.”
Barnes smiled appraisingly. “Shows how good he was, doesn’t it?”
“And Rob? He was good, too, wasn’t he?”
Barnes had the good manners to flush. “Figured that one out, did you?”
Anna’s flush was anger, not embarrassment. “Sir Charles calling Rob a ‘good lad’ started me thinking, and your being from Bristol convinced me.”
“You were an unknown quantity set loose in London. We had to keep an eye on you, for your own safety, if nothing else.”
“So who’s Rob?”
“He’s who he said he is. He just happens to be my cousin, as well. His father is my father’s younger brother. I often drove Anezka and Lorrayne to meet their BarPharm clients. We—MI6—had installed microphones, so the privacy panel was one-way only. When I heard they were taking you to Pacha, I put Rob on it. Before you get worked up, keep in mind that we used Rob to supply you with the information that kept you safe.” They saw Etherington signaling. “I think we’re moving back to the other room now.”
Once they were seated at the conference table, Barnes refreshed the photos of Olga on the screen. At first, Anna’s thoughts were elsewhere—so Andrew’s father was an earl . . . And that passionate kiss from Rob, did Barnes know about that? She felt her cheeks redden again, this time from embarrassment. Then she mentally shook herself and started to listen.
“So they needed someone to test the products—not for the retail and medical markets, which had already been done legitimately in Switzerland. They needed someone to test the so-called Formula One’s efficacy for Moscow. Enter Olga.”
“Where does Coscom come into this?”
“Coscom comes in only in its acquisition for retail sales, legitimacy, and, as it would turn out, Anna, for you. But let’s get Olga out of the way first. And gotten out of the way she was. Chips, you have that report, yes?”
“I do, my boy. Olga Pankov, age forty-seven, employed at Sybyska as an accountant.” He noted Anna’s surprise. “Yes, not in marketing at all. And her name was Novrosky as much as yours was Avery. Olga was a widow and old acquaintance of Marina’s. According to what the girls in the Sybyska office told ‘Aleksei,’ she was depressed about being middle-aged and single; she complained bitterly that ri
ch men wouldn’t look twice at a woman over thirty. Not interested in you, Andrew?” He smiled at his own jab.
Clearing his throat, he went on. “She must have had to pinch herself when Marina offered her the position of YOUNGER guinea pig. Younger forever: that’s how they would have presented it to her, I believe. That, and the chance to be a patriot. And to live in exotic London! Nothing much required except to use the product, have frequent skin tests, and pretend to be working on that retinol project. The trick here was fooling Pierre into thinking she was legitimate—it was vital to Marina that her husband not suspect the Russian secret service was involved. Olga was presented as an old friend and coworker, eager to help and loyal to Marina.”
Andrew took over. “Not loyal to anyone, as it turned out.” Familiar faces filled the screen. “Enter the Rusakovs.”
“The couple that followed Anna?” David asked. “I take it they were whatsisname’s people . . . Komarov’s.”
“Yes in the first instance, no in the second,” Andrew told him. “Not all Russians involved in espionage are doing it for the supposed good of their country.”
“You mean either foreign spies or Russian mafia?” Anna was genuinely surprised. “They looked so normal.”
Barnes shrugged. “Normal for Bratva or russkaya mafiya. Pavel was an ex-pimp who worked his way up to a sort of two-in-one position as assassin and spy. Galina was one of his stable of prostitutes until they married, when her role became that of his assistant. They worked for a high-level boss known mainly by his nickname, the Tracker.”
“The Tracker?”
“Yes, David. His business successes are based on tracking down what the other mafiosi are working on and muscling in, as well as competing in dead earnest with the government for anything that has high monetary value.”
“Like YOUNGER?”
“Exactly, Anna. The Tracker mixes a great deal with the gangs and triads throughout Asia. There were rumors in Taipei of a potion that could make the user look at least a decade younger, but we’d dismissed them as unimportant, erroneously writing off the product in development as mere skincare. The Tracker saw the potential just as the Russian government did. But by the time he tracked down the local inventor, the formula had already been sold to BarPharm and the inventor, who made a great deal of money and stood to earn enormous royalties as well, had moved to Switzerland. The Tracker seems to have sniffed around and learned that he was no longer in control of the formula and that there was now a more important industrial-strength formula being fine-tuned in Barton’s lab. Just FYI, no single chemist has had full knowledge of or access to any formula since the first one passed to BarPharm. Pierre would tell one of them what he needed revved up on a formula and they just did it—quietly, due to stringent nondisclosure clauses. Only Barton had the industrial-strength written formula as it was improved and updated, and he kept it under lock and key. It was perhaps the only thing he wouldn’t give to Marina.”
“It isn’t just a stronger version of the retail YOUNGER?” Anna asked.
“To our knowledge, no. It’s a variation. And keep in mind, some of what I’m telling you is guesswork. Expert, but guesswork.”
“So, Galina and Pavel were sent to London?”
Andrew continued. “Right, David. They still weren’t sure there was an industrial strength, but they were interested in the product anyhow. And whom should they discover and befriend but Olga, who, now being younger looking, resented not being wealthy. She seems to have reported regularly to the Rusakovs—and might have become very wealthy once she could put the formula into their hands, though the Tracker isn’t known to be the most trustworthy businessman. Still, she didn’t live long enough to accomplish that. You see, Pierre never trusted Olga as he did you, Anna; she never was given the products. She was visited daily by the nurse, whom I would drive to her place before I handed over just enough of each product for a single application.”
“At my apartment?”
“No, Olga rated just a tiny bedsit in Bayswater. She had nothing to offer BarPharm other than her skin and her secrecy, you see. Her working on the retinol line was just a cover; it had already been dropped, with some lame excuse given to Clive Madden and the sales VP.”
“So she was a guinea pig for the Russian government while also working for their criminals?”
“Precisely. We slipped up by not seeing the potential of the product. Komarov and the Bartons all slipped up by thinking they could get away without paying Olga her due.”
“It’s like Mad magazine’s Spy vs. Spy,” Anna murmured. “That’s a comic strip,” she added in response to the blank looks. “But where do I come in? Obviously, you—and they—want something from me, or you would have patted David and me on our heads, told us not to worry, and shown us the door. Yes?”
The pause that followed indicated this wasn’t how briefings were properly conducted, but Anna didn’t care. She was exhausted, she had been lied to and endangered by the good guys as well as the bad guys, and she didn’t feel like wasting any more time on Masterpiece Theatre show-and-tell. “What do you want me to do?”
Barnes and Dexter both looked to Sir Charles, who smiled graciously and said benignly, “For better or for worse, you are now an integral player in this game, Ms. Wallingham. In the days before he showed up at your door in London, Pierre Barton came to the realization that his miraculous YOUNGER was his personal deal with the devil. How and why, we don’t know. But he must have realized people had died because of the product. We do know now he went first to Switzerland, then to BarPharm’s facility in Gloucestershire. At both places, he destroyed everything to do with YOUNGER: formulas, files, all traces of products, everything. So it isn’t at all surprising that some people want what only you have: the last remaining traces of YOUNGER in the world. That’s what someone is after: the key to the formula. What we’re after is a murderer.”
“And the chance to put bloody Komarov away for a long time,” Andrew added with such force Anna wondered if this game of Spy vs. Spy was personal for him. Did he consider the Russian agent he’d never met his most formidable adversary?
“Bait.” She looked from Barnes to Etherington to Dexter. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
Etherington leaned forward and peered at her from under his shock of white hair. “Yes, Anna, we want you to be the bait.”
They broke for lunch at two o’clock. Anna was amazed at how these men managed to switch to inconsequential topics as they ate their vitello tonnato, then she realized it was a skill that she herself had learned passably in just weeks. She grew to stop thinking of Andrew Barnes as Aleksei and she found him likable, though without particularly liking him. He was the type who had everything figured out. When the meeting resumed after lunch and she pointed out, “I don’t have any YOUNGER. You know I dumped everything down the toilet,” he just chuckled.
“No one outside this room knows that, including Marina and Komarov, right? As far as they’re concerned, you’ve got the keys to heaven, Anna.”
The meeting went on until six, by which point it was clear to Anna that she and David weren’t really there to get any information, just to give it. “We’re going to take a break until Friday morning,” Sir Charles announced as Malcolm entered with Anna and David’s panoply of electronics. “In the meantime we’ll be sending Marina a text message from you, Anna.” Before she could open her mouth to speak, he added firmly, “No reason to go into detail until we’re sure the plan’s working. Just trust us.”
Back in the suite, David went straight to the refrigerator and removed a bottle of white wine. When he waved it at Anna inquiringly, she nodded vehemently before sinking onto the couch. “‘Just trust us!’” she said acidly. “Right. Andrew must have known what was going on since before the first time I met him in Paris. He knew when he was chauffeuring me to treatments—and when he put his little cousin to work hitting on me. I could be de
ad by now, and they say to trust them? I thought it was going to be over today. Now we’re stuck here, and I feel as if it never will end.”
He handed her a glass of wine, then sat on the chair across from her and toasted. “This too shall pass.”
She took a sip, then set the glass on the table. “I’m sure they can work the Master Plan, whatever it is, without you. You probably don’t need to stay.”
He snorted. “You think I can just call downstairs and tell Malcolm I’ll be checking out? I doubt it’s that easy. Look, I have my computer back, and I have work that needs doing. I’d hardly leave now anyhow. I mean, I’m the idiot who used my home phone when you told me not to. I won’t rest, or stop worrying about my son, until this is resolved.”
“You must be eager to get back to him.”
“I am, but Nick jumped at the chance to stay at his friend’s. That’s how teenagers are. So I’d just be working on the computer or puttering around the house on my own, as we old men do.”
“Hardly an old man. When I bumped into you that first time, I thought you hadn’t changed at all. A little gray hair, glasses. But still you, very much the same you.”
“You’re the one who hadn’t changed, except for that Day-Glo mop of hair! I like it better like this.”
“In London, only rich Russians have hair like this—at least, that’s what one of my coaches told me.”
“Women like Marina,” he said.
“Marina.” She snorted. “If she weren’t such a bitch, I’d feel sorry for her: her husband dead, the company in limbo, the means to unfathomable riches gone forever.”
“Not that she knows it’s gone.”
“She’ll go crazy when she finds out. A cruel trick to play on her so they can get Grigoriy for Pierre’s murder. I take it that’s the goal of the little mise en scène I’ll be starring in.”
Younger Page 27
