“Well, good night to you.” He tried an improvised bow.
“Don’t be such a wimp.”
“Wimp? What are you talking —”
“I’m going to explore my mini-bar. Least you can do is join me for a nightcap.”
He watched as she moved to the other side of the hall and then slid her card in and unlocked her door. He shrugged and followed her inside. “What’s with the presidential suite, anyway?” he cracked. “You could fit three of my rooms in this.”
She chuckled. “Now, what do we have,” she said, her head in the mini-bar, emerging a few seconds later with a couple of miniature rums and a can of Warsteiner. He accepted the beer and waved off her offer of a glass, watching as she poured the rum, then opened the fridge again and took out a Coke.
“That’s probably a thirty-dollar rum and Coke you’re having there,” he remarked, prompting another giggle.
“Cheers.” She tapped her glass off his can and then sat heavily on the couch in the little sitting area on one side of the room. Charlie took the adjacent chair, prompting a frown from Sophie. “I don’t bite, you know,” she said, sipping her drink. He laughed and moved onto the couch, next to her.
“Unless you’re cornered.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her back had straightened, but he could tell her outrage was feigned.
“I mean you’re tough,” he said with a smile.
“Just what every girl wants to be known as.” She took another sip of her drink.
He nudged her arm with his elbow. “I mean it in a good way. You’re … tenacious, and spirited,” he added, noticing that she was looking at him as though trying to decide if he was screwing with her. “What?”
“Tenacious, spirited, and bites when cornered. You make me sound like a fucking wolverine or something.”
He burst out laughing, causing her to do the same. “Okay, then,” he said, “you’re a big softie.”
“That’s no better.”
“You see? You’re impossible.”
They shared another laugh, then she slid out of her soft shell jacket and kicked off her shoes before leaning back on the cushions. “Seriously, though. I really needed this … tonight. It was fun.”
He nodded, content to concentrate on the present, not what awaited him tomorrow. “Yes, it was.” He watched as she slid one leg under the other and leaned forward. The base of her neck was slightly flushed and a silver pendant dangled over her chest, her blouse parting a little to reveal the black lace of her bra. She seemed to sense the attention and he quickly looked down at his beer and took a swallow. “I should go,” he said, putting his beer down on the table. She set her drink next to his and edged closer. The scent of her perfume reached him and he could feel the heat of her body, though there was still a small gap between them.
“Thank you, Charlie.”
“For what?”
“For tonight. For putting yourself on the line. For being there for me.” She put her hand on his upper arm, sending shock waves down his spine, and then closed the gap between them. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“You don’t have to —”
She put a finger across his lips to silence him, and then they were face to face and he was lost in those beautiful eyes, unable to move as she came closer and he felt her full lips press against his own, her intoxicating scent in his nose. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a groan as her hands pulled at his shirt and groped for his belt, his own travelling up the silky skin of her belly to the swell of her breasts. Before he knew what he was doing, he had hoisted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, their lips fused together as they tore away at clothes and collided in a frantic melee of flesh and hands, heat and urgency that consumed them both.
Chapter 31
Charlie knew he was dreaming, but it felt real nonetheless. He was bobbing in a lifeboat in stormy seas, peering over the crest of the nearest wave, squinting to see if he could spot land or another ship. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there or why he was alone in a lifeboat made for twenty. The sky was dark and unforgiving and his prospects looked bleak, but he wasn’t afraid. In fact, he felt strangely at ease, as though he had come to the end of a very long journey and was ready for the peace that awaited him on the other side of the finish line.
He opened his eyes and a flash of white light made him slam them shut again. He was immediately struck by a throbbing in his head and a thickness in his sinuses, throat, and tongue that had him wondering whether he had ingested Drano. He tried opening his eyes again, fighting the light and the waves of dizziness that turned his stomach. He recognized the hotel furniture, but something wasn’t quite right. The room seemed … enormous. He turned his head slowly on the pillow and took a sharp intake of breath at the sight of Sophie Durant’s auburn hair spread across the pillow next to him — and it all came back to him. He reached under the covers to confirm that he was, in fact, naked under them and, as he turned to look at her, he noticed that her back was bare.
Suddenly something shrill pierced the silence of the room and he recognized the sound of Sophie’s phone. Bolting out of bed, he following the sound to the side table, grabbed the phone, and slid back under the sheet just as Sophie rolled over and opened her eyes a crack.
“It’s your phone,” he said, sensing she was coming awake in the same fog that he was still drifting through. She looked at him for a moment, then reached out for the phone.
“Hello?” she croaked. “Yes, just a minute.” She put her hand over the receiver and handed the phone back to him. “It’s your colleague in Paris.”
“Drew?” he said, taking the phone.
“Charlie, I hope I didn’t wake you,” Landon began, sounding awkward, though it was nothing compared to what Charlie was feeling.
“No problem.”
“You said you wanted to know ASAP and I have some news.”
“Already?” Charlie glanced at the clock radio and realized it was after ten on Sunday morning. “But I thought you weren’t going to even get a chance to look into this until Monday.”
“I was out for drinks with one of my Aussie counterparts last night. Turns out he’s dating someone at the French embassy who was able to get what you needed.”
Charlie grinned. He remembered that Landon had a lot of friends among the Australian contingent in Havana, as well, not least because they knew how to party. “I see you’re as resourceful as ever, Drew.”
“It turns out your guy’s passport was logged coming into Charles de Gaulle September third. No exit, though.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, unless it was another Russian national named Mikhail Krasnikov,” Landon said. “I suppose it’s possible — the Côte d’Azur is crawling with Russians.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“The ones with money, anyway. And there seems to be no shortage of them.”
“And it was just the one entry in Paris, then?” Charlie frowned and rubbed his eyes.
“Yeah, so I assume it means your guy is still in France.”
Or dead, Charlie thought.
“Listen, I’ve got to get going,” Landon said. “We should keep in touch, though, and make sure you let me know if you’re going to be in my neck of the woods.”
“You bet. Thanks again, Drew.” Charlie hung up the phone and set it gingerly on the night table, as though doing so might extricate him from what came next. He turned back toward Sophie, expecting to see her buried in the covers, waiting for him to slink off and never return. Instead she was propped up on one elbow, her hair tousled and her eyes a little bloodshot — neither detracting from her beauty.
“So?” she said.
“He confirmed that Krasnikov’s passport was logged at the airport in Paris about a week before Steve’s trip. There’s no way to tell where he went from t
here, but there was no record of an exit.”
“So your hunch was right,” she said, pulling herself up and leaning back against the padded headboard, the sheet clinging to the tops of her breasts.
“Except we still don’t know where … Wait a second.” Charlie grabbed her laptop off the floor by the bed and opened it, clicking the browser into action and bringing up a map of the south of France, then zooming in on the stretch between Monaco to the east and Marseille to the west. “Where’s Villefranche?” he asked, then spotted it — a little dot near Nice.
“That’s the place on the brochure,” Sophie said as Charlie opened a new search window and typed in accident and Villefranche. He scanned the results and, seeing nothing of interest, he revised the search to include Krasnikov, again without success.
“Try taking out Villefranche and putting in the French word for Russian,” Sophie suggested. Charlie added Russe and they both scanned the results. Charlie went to close the browser and return to the map, but Sophie grabbed his hand.
“Wait!” She was pointing to the last in the series of search results. Charlie moved the cursor down and clicked on it. A few seconds later they were looking at an article from a paper called Journal de Nice. Charlie scanned the French text and realized it was describing an accident that had happened on the winding highway between Nice and Monaco. A sports car had gone through a roadside barrier and plummeted onto the rocks in the Mediterranean below. The sole occupant of the vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene and was later determined to be a vacationing Russian national, though no name was mentioned.
“That’s got to be it,” he said excitedly, translating the text as Sophie leaned in closer.
“Maybe Steve found something out down there that got him into trouble.”
“Like, maybe Mikhail Krasnikov’s death wasn’t an accident?”
She pointed to the screen. “Does it say anything in there about foul play?”
Charlie shook his head. “No, just that speed was the main reason for the accident, and that there was alcohol in the victim’s system.”
Sophie leaned back onto the pillows as Charlie finished reading the rest of the article, which included a request for anyone with any knowledge of the incident to come forward. He was in the process of closing the browser when his BlackBerry went off. He fumbled to get it out of its holder on the nightstand before hitting the button to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Charlie?” He recognized Tom Edwards’s voice on the other end of the line, though his own still sounded groggy, even to him.
“Sorry if I woke you.”
“No, I was just coming back from breakfast,” he lied.
“I was wondering if you could come back in later for a supplementary to your statement. I got some preliminary feedback on your interview from Legal, and they had a couple of follow-up questions.”
“Sure, what time?”
“No rush. How about after lunch — two-ish?”
“I’ll see you then,” Charlie said and closed the phone.
“Was that the embassy security guy?”
He looked at Sophie and nodded. “He wants me to come back in for a supplementary interview this afternoon.”
“Are you gonna go?”
He sighed. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.”
“Well, I know where my next stop is going to be,” she said, glancing at the brochure from the French school in Villefranche. “But I understand if you can’t come with me.” They sat in silence for a moment, Charlie’s thoughts divided between whether he should go with her and how to actually address the fact that they were sitting in bed together.
“So,” she said, rolling onto her back and flicking the hair back from her face. “Last night was fun.” A tease of a smile appeared at the corners of her mouth that, along with her dishevelled hair and the fact that she was naked under the thin bedsheets, made her more alluring than ever.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t know you were such an expert bird-dancer.”
“I have hidden talents, but I was talking about later, back here.”
“Right,” he said, searching her face for some sign that she was toying with him, but saw none. “Are you okay with —”
“When do you have to go to the embassy?” she asked, craning her neck to see the clock on the night table.
“After lunch.”
She leaned closer to him, and he could feel the warmth of her flesh on his as she moved over him.
“I was thinking, you’re not in a rush and we’re already in bed….”
Charlie was crossing Ebertstrasse on his way to his meeting at the embassy when his phone went off. His first instinct was to let it ring, but he pulled it out as he reached the opposite curb. Seeing the incoming caller ID, his heart caught in his throat.
“Ambassador?”
“I told you to call me Brigitte.”
“Sorry. Brigitte.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to the embassy. I’m just a few steps a —”
“Don’t bother.”
“What do you mean?” Charlie’s mind was processing the possible reasons for this instruction, none of which were good.
“Take a few days off while we get this figured out.”
“But I’m supposed to be meeting with the Berlin RCMP liaison.”
“I know. I’ve spoken to his boss. It’s all right. We all agree there’s no need for another interview, but I can’t have you coming back here until I can be assured of your safety, so take advantage of a few days off. Go visit the Reichstag or Museum Island.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You told me you had nothing to hide. Has something changed?” Martineau paused before adding, “Because if there’s anything else you want to tell me, now’s the time, Charlie.”
“No,” he said quickly. “I did nothing wrong, I can assure you.”
“Then we’ll let this play itself out and see where we are in a couple of days.”
Charlie stood there on the sidewalk, wondering if he should say something else or just think himself lucky he wasn’t being fired for going AWOL. “Thank you,” he said, but Martineau had already hung up. He continued to stare at the phone for a few seconds, then made up his mind.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, crossing back and hurrying to the hotel. Sophie was just coming out of the shower when he knocked on her door.
“Did you forget something?” she said, towelling her hair as she stood aside to let him in.
“Pack your stuff — we’re catching the first flight to Nice.”
Chapter 32
It was early evening by the time they landed in Nice, after a short flight.
“Any preference for hotels?” Sophie asked as they made their way through the arrivals area toward the stand of waiting taxis.
Charlie shook his head. “I’ve never been here. You?”
“I was here once with my ex,” she said as Charlie waved one of the cabs over. “Not good memories,” she added. “But the hotel was great. It’s right on the boardwalk.”
Half an hour later, they checked into the Hotel Negresco.
“I’m just trying to be efficient,” she said with a grin, after requesting a single room with a king-size bed.
“Can you tell us where we can find the main police station?” she asked the clerk as he swiped a room card. He cast her a strange look before referring them to the concierge. Charlie went over and got directions while Sophie finished up at the desk.
“It’s probably too late to accomplish anything tonight,” he said as they crossed to the elevators, then rode up to the fourth floor.
“We’ll hit the police station first thing tomorrow morning,” she replied, stepping off the elevator. Arriving at their room and swiping the key, she opened the door on
to a spacious room with a large bed, a workstation, and a set of armchairs. Beyond the sheers was a view of the Promenade des Anglais and the reflection of light off the Mediterranean beyond.
“You want to go out for dinner or just get room service?” she asked, setting her small suitcase on the bed.
“I’m not that hungry.” Charlie sat in one of the armchairs.
“Everything okay?” Sophie said, unzipping her bag, pulling out her brother’s duffel, and setting it on the bed.
“Yeah, sure,” Charlie lied. He had been in a state of inner turmoil ever since deciding to join her when she left Moscow. He was also pretty sure that he was violating the implicit understanding that laying low for a few days meant staying in Berlin.
“I’ll order us something,” Sophie said, perusing the room-service menu. After she had called it in, she pulled out the books from her brother’s bag, leaned back against the headboard, and started flipping through the one on biker gangs.
“Pass me one,” Charlie said, and she flipped him the next in the pile — a paperback on the international drug trade.
“I just can’t see Steve as an investigative journalist,” she said, shaking her head. “It seems far too serious for him.” She was looking at the back cover of the book, which featured a picture of a professorial-looking journalist above the author bio. A moment of silence extended until Sophie broke it. “Earth to Charlie.”
“Hmm?” He looked up from the chapter he had stumbled onto about the Asian and East European heroin trade. “I’m just looking at these passages that someone — I assume Steve — highlighted, about the value of confidential informants in dismantling drug-smuggling operations.”
“Let me see?” Sophie pulled up the other chair and looked over his shoulder. “That’s definitely Steve’s writing,” she said, pointing to something scribbled in the margin.
“It looks like Zhibek. It must be in central Asia — that’s what this section of the book is on.” He tapped the page. “It’s talking about the heroin trade there. I saw a reference to Afghanistan earlier.” He flipped back a page to confirm and to scan the contents of the chapter. Indeed, it covered the trade in heroin, beginning with production in Afghanistan and its distribution worldwide, following the old Silk Route into Asia and its transportation to major European centres beyond.
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