by Tom Cain
“Ten thousand,” he said.
“Don’t waste my time, old man,” said Bagrat, getting to his feet. “You asked what I would pay. I told you. Go screw yourself if you’re not interested.”
“All right, all right!” yelped Yusov, watching his jackpot leave the table. “Five thousand.”
Bagrat turned to one of his henchmen. “You see? He has the wisdom of the old.” He sat back down and pulled a wad of cash from his jacket. He placed it on the table between them.
“Here is the money. Now where is the list?”
Yusov reached a hand behind his back and pulled the envelope out of his trousers. He opened it and took out the list.
“Look,” he said. “First the latitude, then longitude, then arming code. You could fight a world war with the weapons on this paper.”
Bagrat considered this proposition, then nodded. “Okay, we have a deal. Take your money.”
He pushed the wad of cash toward Yusov, who grabbed at it with an eagerness that betrayed his desperation. He looked as if he wanted to make a run for it before the gangster could change his mind. But Bagrat put a hand on his shoulder.
“No need to rush,” he said. “I have more business to do, but you should stay and celebrate. Enjoy yourself . . . on the house.”
Bagrat picked up the envelope and left. On his way from the table, he shouted at the barman. “Bring vodka for my friend . . . the special vodka, got that? The best!”
Moonshine vodka, or samogon, is a noxious spirit, brewed in illegal stills all across Russia. Its ingredients include (but are not limited to) medical disinfectant, brake fluid, lighter fuel, cheap aftershave, and even sulfuric acid. Thousands of Russians have died over the years from drinking it, and many more have suffered blindness and chronic liver disease, so that doctors and coroners are not in the least surprised when they come across another case.
Bagrat Baladze had therefore thought twice before throwing away a particularly evil batch of samogon, acquired from a local bootlegger, even though its excessive toxicity had made it unsalable, even to the most desperate drunk. It occurred to him that he had stumbled on an ideal murder weapon.
When Yusov collapsed, an empty bottle at his side, he was carried to a waiting car, which drove to a quiet back street near his block of flats. The American currency was recovered, then he was dragged from the car and deposited on the pavement. The following morning, when his dead body was reported to the police, Yusov was carted off to the morgue. The postmortem was barely even cursory. No police investigation was made. The death of another insignificant drunk was not exactly a priority.
At the 12th GUMO offices, Yusov’s passing was celebrated, rather than mourned. A new, younger, more cooperative clerk took over his duties.
The clerk had no idea that the missing file had ever existed, let alone been sold to an ambitious gangster who was, even now, trying to work out how he could use it to leapfrog several rungs up the criminal ladder. There were, Bagrat knew, middlemen who specialized in setting up deals between Russians in possession of weapons—conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear—and the wealthy customers who craved them. It was his task now to find one of these traders without alerting other, more powerful criminals to the item he was trying to sell. If the word got out, they would dispose of him as swiftly as he had dealt with Yusov.
So Bagrat Baladze began making inquiries. And the world took a first, blind step on the road to Armageddon.
10
Alix took the bus back into Geneva after another long day at the clinic, then walked across the Rhone River and uphill, through the narrow, cobbled streets of the Old Town, lined with centuries-old houses as tall and thin as books on a shelf. The windows of the chocolate shops were filled with heart-shaped boxes. The boutiques and designer stores were given over to lingerie and seductive dresses. The banks watched over them all, knowing, as always, that everything, including love, had its price.
She stopped for a moment to look at a mannequin in a short black party frock and shoes that were little more than a pair of teetering heels and a couple of slim leather straps.
She had once dressed like that, choosing her clothes with the confidence that came from being sure of their effect. She wanted to be that woman again, with a drink in one hand and her handsome man in the other. But the reflection in the shop window showed a sorry creature, wearing a charity-shop coat and cheap, unflattering denims. Somehow, in the next hour or so, she had to paint on a facsimile of what had been her natural beauty, a fake that would be good enough to fool the bierkeller customers, drunken men with groping fingers who expected a visual treat to accompany their overpriced drinks.
She got back to Carver’s flat. The rooms were emptying fast as the furniture was sold to meet the sanatorium’s endless demands. She missed the huge Chesterfield sofa and the antique leather armchairs that had been all the more inviting for being softened and worn by decades of use. His beloved widescreen TV and hi-fi system were gone, too, along with all the paintings, save one. It hung above the fireplace in the living room, a bright, impressionistic depiction of a Victorian day out at the beach, the women lifting their skirts and the men rolling up their trousers, a tableau of innocent pleasures.
Alix only had to look at the picture to remember the afternoon when she had first seen it. She’d been wearing one of his old T-shirts and had curled up in an armchair as cozily as a sleepy cat, watching Carver as he walked through the dusty beams of afternoon light that angled in through the windows of his top-floor flat. He’d walked with an easy, animal grace, then leaned across her chair. She’d felt his eyes skimming over her before he handed over one of the cups of coffee he’d been holding. He’d seen her looking at the picture.
“It’s Lulworth Cove,” he said, “on the Dorset coast, west of my old base.”
“It’s very beautiful. What was this base?”
Carver had laughed. “I can’t tell you that. You might be a dangerous Russian spy.”
She’d smiled and said, “Oh, no, I’m not a spy. Not anymore.” She was telling the truth. That afternoon in Carver’s flat, for once in her life, she’d been a normal woman, surrendering to the blissful indulgence of falling in love.
That dream had been torn away from her. There was no point in clinging to some pathetic, girlish illusion of romance. In the real world there was no such thing, just an endless fight for survival, a fight that had no concern for scruples or principles. When everything else was stripped away, there were only two issues to consider: how badly she wanted to survive, and what she was prepared to do in pursuit of that survival.
11
Kurt Vermulen’s cell phone started buzzing right in the middle of dinner. He flipped it open and took a look at the name on the screen. Then he turned to the three other people sharing the table at an Italian restaurant in the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C., a rueful half-smile on his face, and said, “I’m really sorry—got to take this one.”
Yet, as he said, “Hang on,” into the phone and got up from his place, making his way to the door, the truth was he felt relieved.
Bob and Terri had meant well, setting him up at a dinner for four with Megan, a single, thirty-nine-year-old lawyer. She was a hot date: attractive, smart, and happy to leave her litigator’s aggression in the court-room. He was pretty sure she liked him, too. That was the problem.
Eighteen months had passed since Amy died, and he still couldn’t get his head around the whole dating game. They’d met the summer before they went to college, 1964; two kids who’d bumped into each other in a Pittsburgh music store, both trying to buy the last copy of A Hard Day’s Night. And that was that—the start of thirty-two years together, their one regret that they hadn’t had children, till Amy got breast cancer and suddenly, the one thing he’d never expected, he was the one left alive and alone.
All that time, her presence in his life had been one of the things that defined him, as much a part of his identity as his blue eyes or his sandy hair. Now th
at she was gone, he felt incomplete. But even worse than that, he couldn’t figure out how to make himself whole again. With Amy, everything had been natural. So much was understood, unspoken. But now it all had to be explained from scratch, and he wasn’t sure he was up to that just yet. Sure, he’d been with a couple of women. He wasn’t a monk. But someone like Megan deserved better than a casual fling. And Kurt Vermulen didn’t know that he could give it.
Not when he had the fate of the world on his mind.
He was outside the restaurant now, stepping onto Wisconsin Avenue, feeling the quick chill of a January night. “Okay, Frank, I can talk now—what’s the news?”
“Not good, Kurt. I raised your concerns with the Secretary of State, but the feeling, right around the department, is that they just flat-out disagree with your assessment. Don’t get me wrong—everyone really respects what you’ve accomplished, but they just don’t see the situation the way you do.”
“What? Don’t they believe what I’m saying?”
“Not really. But even if they did, no one wants to know. I mean, we’ve made our position clear, as an administration. We’ve picked the horse we’re going to ride and it’s too late to change it now.”
“Well, you picked the wrong one.”
“Maybe, Kurt, but everyone’s happy with the decision—State, the Pentagon, Langley—you’re the odd one out on this. Look . . . we all know you’ve had a rough time the past couple of years, so why beat your head against the wall on this one issue? No one sees it as a priority going forward. Don’t throw away a reputation you’ve spent decades building up over a bunch of crazies. Trust me, man, they’re not worth it.”
“Thanks for the advice, Frank,” said Vermulen. “Give my regards to Martha.”
He snapped the phone shut, as if that physical act of closure could contain the frustration burning inside him. All his career he’d been an insider, a man whose analysis was respected, whose judgment was trusted. Now he was out in the cold, saying things that no one wanted to hear. Sometimes he felt like one of those movie characters who get shut away in an asylum, even though they’re sane. The more he shouted he wasn’t crazy, the more everyone thought he was. Was this how Winston Churchill had felt, telling his people that the Nazis were a deadly menace when all anyone wanted was peace at any cost?
He shook his head at his own presumption. Comparing himself to Churchill: Maybe he was going nuts. Meanwhile, there was a good-looking lawyer waiting inside the restaurant, expecting him to make some kind of sophisticated, grown-up pass at her. Screw global security—that was the first problem he had to solve.
Vermulen was about to step back inside when a man caught his eye across the far side of the road. He was medium height, skinny build, wearing a brown leather jacket, the gray hoodie underneath it hiding his face. There was nothing unusual about that, not in January. Nothing unreasonable about him walking fast, either, keeping the blood circulating. There was just something about the way he was doing it, pushing past people on the sidewalk. He didn’t look like he had anything good on his mind.
Vermulen saw the glint of steel in the streetlight as the man pulled a knife from his pants. He saw the woman looking at some shoes in a store-window display. He knew at once, with absolute certainty, that she was the reason the man had drawn his knife.
And then he was running across the road, dodging the traffic, praying he could get there in time.
The man had come up to the woman and grabbed her arm and was snarling threats and obscenities in her ear. Vermulen saw the shock take hold, leaving her wide-eyed and paralyzed, unable to obey the mugger’s instructions, her mouth open but no sound emerging.
He shouted out, “Hey!” Just a noise to distract the guy.
The cowled head turned and Vermulen felt the raw, drug-fueled rage in the man’s eyes, then the jittery panic that filled them as the mugger realized he was under threat.
The man slashed with his knife, slicing through the strap of the woman’s handbag and the sleeve of her coat. He grabbed the bag and started running.
There were people all around. They were looking at what was happening, shying away, not wanting to get involved, some scattering as Vermulen burst through them, carried on past the woman, and pursued the man up the street.
He took maybe twenty quick strides down the sidewalk, then pulled up. It would make him feel good to catch the dirtbag and teach him a lesson. But there was a woman standing frightened, alone, and quite possibly wounded. She was the priority now.
He turned back to her, walking slowly, trying not to add to her fear and distress.
“Are you okay? Here, let me look at your arm,” he said, when he reached her.
And that’s when she burst into tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said between sobs, as though it were she who had done something wrong.
Gently, he helped her ease her arm from the sleeve of her coat. Her blouse had been cut right through and there was a little blood on her arm, but it didn’t look too serious.
“You’re lucky—just a scratch,” Vermulen said. “We can get you to an emergency room, to be on the safe side. Or would you rather go straight home?”
“I just want to get back to my hotel,” she said, and started crying again. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“Don’t be. You’ve had a shock. It’s natural. Where are you staying?”
“The Georgetown Inn,” she said. “It’s only a couple of blocks. That’s why I thought it would be okay to take a walk, you know? I mean, just around the corner, get some fresh air . . . Oh, God . . . My bag, I had everything in there. . . .”
“Here, I’ll walk you back,” he said, taking her good arm.
It took only a couple of minutes. Along the way they exchanged names. The woman was Sandra Marcotti, in town for a meeting with a firm of lobbyists. At the hotel, Vermulen spoke to the front desk, explained what had happened, and left his contact details. Then he gave the woman his business card, and shook her hand, quite formally.
“Good night. You take care now, ma’am. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just call.”
As he left, Sandra Marcotti looked at his card for the first time. At the top it said, VERMULEN STRATEGIC CONSULTANCY and then, below that, LT. GEN. KURT VERMULEN Dsc, PRESIDENT.
My God, she said to herself. He’s a general.
Back on the street, Vermulen got out his phone, intending to call his friends and explain his absence. Before he could dial, he noticed a flashing icon, telling him he had a message waiting.
It was a woman’s voice, a southern accent: “Hello, Lieutenant General Vermulen? This is Briana, from the president’s office at the Commission for National Values, here in Dallas. I know you expressed an interest in addressing our organization. Well, we have a meeting of our charter members coming up in Fairfax, Virginia, day after tomorrow, and one of our speakers has dropped out. I appreciate it’s awful short notice, sir, but if you could take his place, we sure would be grateful.”
Vermulen listened to the rest of the message, which gave contact details for confirming his appearance. As he walked back toward the restaurant, he looked a whole lot happier than he had walking out.
12
Finally Carver was making progress. The last few mornings he’d managed a short stroll around the gardens that surrounded the clinic. Alix went with him, patiently telling him the names of all the people they met, the same names she’d told him just the day before. They played little games to see if he could find his way back to the main entrance from different parts of the grounds. On the rare occasions he succeeded, or recognized a passing face, Carver lit up with boyish glee at his own achievement. But just as often, something or someone spooked him. All that was needed was a sudden loud voice, a car backfiring, even the low winter sun dazzling his eyes, and he was plunged into a cowering, weeping anxiety that had nurses dashing over to administer sedatives and return him to his room in a wheelchair.
There came a point, as she watched hi
s slumped body being wheeled away after another panic attack, when Alix realized she couldn’t go on like this, doing nothing. It wasn’t just the need for money, however acute; it was a matter of self-preservation. She had to find a way to make him better, not just for him, but for her, too: for them. With every day that went by, she could feel herself falling a little more out of love, and she hated it. Her feeling for Carver was the one true emotion in her life. To lose that would be to lose everything.
She left Carver unconscious in his bed and went back to the apartment, determined to take charge of her destiny and maybe to take charge of his. As she washed the smell and depression of the clinic from her body and hair, she reminded herself of the well-trained, resourceful agent she had once been. What would that woman do? Simple: She would steel herself, and get on with her job.
By the time she’d made lunch, she’d decided.
She dressed in the cleanest, least shapeless pair of jeans she could find, a plain white T-shirt, and her winter coat, with a scarf around her neck and a beret over her hair. She slipped her only pair of shades alongside her purse in her shoulder bag. She took a small pair of wire cutters from the household tools Carver had left in a kitchen drawer. She was ready for action, she had a plan, and just having that sense of focus, the spur of determination, made her feel better than she had in months.
Her first KGB operations had taken place in smart hotels, whether in Moscow or Leningrad. She knew how those places worked, and felt at home amid the flow of workers and guests. That’s where she’d go to work now.
Her first choice was the Impérial, one of the city’s classiest establishments. It attracted wealthy foreign tourists and businessmen to its rooms, and the bankers and diplomats of Geneva to its bars and restaurants. It was the perfect environment for Alix to rediscover her old magic. First, however, she had to dress for the performance, and since she lacked the means to buy the right clothes, she would have to find another way of acquiring them.