No Survivors sc-2

by Tom Cain

  Alix had been magnificent. But now look at her-a tired, bedraggled creature in laddered tights and a cheap, tawdry costume.

  For a moment, Zhukovskaya was tempted to let her go. Why waste time on someone who was already so close to the edge? But then she reconsidered. She had come a long way, after all, and gone to a great deal of trouble. There was no point in throwing away this opportunity.

  Her head was tilted slightly, giving her a quizzical expression as she asked, “What made you think you could run?”

  26

  Mary Lou Stoller lived on Edmunds Street in northwest Washington D.C., on the block between Foxhall Road and Glover-Archbold Park.

  At that point, Edmunds seems more like a country lane than a residential street just a few miles from the heart of a capital city. At the east end of the road, you can step right into the park, a rolling expanse of semirural woodland.

  Mary Lou got home that afternoon around five. Her boss was out of town, so she’d left work early. It was such a lovely winter afternoon, with the low rays of the sun cutting through the bare branches and the fallen leaves crisp with frost underfoot, she couldn’t wait to take her Norfolk terrier, Buster, for a walk.

  There weren’t too many people in the park, just the occasional mother with her children, or a jogger running in search of immortality. When Mary Lou saw the two men coming toward her, she felt a brief spasm of alarm. There wasn’t anyone else on the path. Her immediate, instinctive response, as a woman, was to see two large males as a threat.

  She told herself not to be so silly. The men didn’t look like any muggers she’d ever heard of. They were executive types in their thirties or forties, respectably dressed. Besides, they were deep in conversation, paying no attention to her: two typical Washingtonians wanting privacy while they plotted.

  As she reached the men, they politely stood to one side of the path to let her and Buster go by. One of them smiled pleasantly and touched a finger to the brim of his hat in salute. Mary Lou returned the smile with one of her own. She’d been raised a proper southern lady and liked to see a gentleman respecting proper, courtly conventions.

  Distracted for a second, she didn’t really notice the other man as he stepped in front of her. She was completely unprepared when he drove his fist, reinforced by steel knuckle, hard into her midriff, forcing the air from her body and doubling her up in pain, exposing her neck and the back of her head to the next blow. The lead-weighted, leather-covered blackjack that the courtly gentleman had concealed in his other hand crashed into her skull, just as a second punch pummeled her temple. As her legs gave way beneath her, the blackjack caught her again.

  By now the terrier was scampering around its mistress, challenging her attackers with sharp, high-pitched barks and nipping at their heels with its teeth. It was rewarded by a kick from a steel-capped shoe that sent it skittering across the path until jerked to a halt by the leash. It lay there moaning, barely conscious, while the two men aimed a swift, brutal series of kicks at its mistress’s head and torso.

  It was forty minutes before the body was found, over an hour before police investigators were on the scene. By then the two men were checking in for the early-evening Austrian Airlines flight from Dulles International to Vienna, connecting there with a flight to Moscow. And they were hundreds of miles into their journey when General Kurt Vermulen got off the plane from San Antonio, glad to be home after his meeting with Waylon McCabe, and discovered that he was going to need another secretary.

  27

  The gun remained quite still in Olga Zhukovskaya’s right hand.

  “So,” she said, “tell me how my husband died.”

  Alix stayed silent. She wondered what form the widow’s revenge would take. But Zhukovskaya took her by surprise, stretching out her left arm and resting her hand on Alix’s forearm. She gave it a gentle, soothing squeeze.

  “It’s all right. It was hardly your fault. Yuri caused his own trouble. I spoke to him that afternoon. He told me the Englishman was flying over to Switzerland, hoping to rescue you. He thought that was funny. He was looking forward to humiliating him.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Men and their stupid egos… Why didn’t he just shoot him?”

  That sounded like a rhetorical question. Certainly, Alix had no explanation.

  “I’m just trying to establish what happened,” said Zhukovskaya casually. “You know that for Yuri and me it was always more professional than romantic. I would not have encouraged him to take you as his mistress otherwise.”

  Alix relaxed a fraction and asked a question of her own: “Did he leave a will?”

  Zhukovskaya laughed out loud.

  “Ah, that’s my little Alix! So practical, so direct. I’ve missed you these past few months.”

  “Well…?”

  “Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. Naturally, I have inherited the bulk of his holdings, but you have not been forgotten. I will give you the details in good time. But first, I need to know: the bomb. How did Carver do it?”

  “He was carrying a laptop computer-he said it contained all the files about how Yuri had arranged the death of the princess. He was hoping to trade it for me. But the computer wasn’t booby-trapped-Yuri made the men check it. So the bomb must have been in the bag it was carried in.”

  “And you knew nothing of this?”

  “No. The last time I’d spoken to Carver had been in Geneva, two days before. We had an argument…”

  She paused as a thought struck her. “I guess that was the last time I ever spoke to Carver. Spoke properly, I mean…”

  Zhukovskaya nodded sympathetically.

  “He touched you deeply, this Carver. After all these years, finally someone got through… And now you blame yourself for his suffering?”

  Alix gave an exhausted shrug.

  “I don’t know what I think anymore.”

  While they’d been talking, the taxi had headed out of town, along the northern shore of Lake Geneva. Mansions clustered along the shoreline displayed the insignia of nations represented at the United Nations headquarters in the city. One set of gateposts bore the double-headed eagle of the Russian Federation. The gates swung open and the taxi swept into the graveled forecourt of a magnificent waterside villa.

  The driver walked around to open the two passenger doors.

  “Why don’t you go and freshen up?” said Olga Zhukovskaya. “Your room has everything you will need.”

  Upstairs, a sable-trimmed mink coat had been hung up next to dresses by Chanel, Versace, and Dolce & Gabbana: Alix’s coat, her dresses. She ran her fingers through the soft, luxuriant fur, then rippled her hand over a multicolored flutter of silk, sequins, and lace. Below the clothes, shoes were arranged in a line across the cupboard, each higher and flimsier than the last.

  Here were the trophies of a Moscow mistress, the pretty little fruits of her labors.

  Her underwear, blouses, and tops had been folded away in a mahogany chest of drawers, her makeup arranged on the dressing-table, her soap and body oil left in the bathroom that opened off the bedroom, her favorite photograph of her parents placed on the bedside table. Alix sat on the edge of her bed, still dressed in her absurd Heidi outfit, looking around at all the luxury laid out before her, contemplating this womanly power play.

  Yuri and Carver had fought each other like men, in brutal, physical conflict. Olga Zhukovskaya, however, had chosen a very different form of attack. She had entered Alix’s Moscow apartment, removed her most intimate possessions, and brought them some fifteen hundred miles to a particular room in Geneva, Switzerland, in the absolute certainty that Alix would also end up there.

  And now she was tempting her: Just give in, bend to my will, and all this can be yours once again.

  Zhukovskaya must have known that Alix would feel violated by the penetration of her home and the seizure of her property. That effect, too, would have been calculated: Resist me, and I will remove you as easily as I removed those dresses.

  Ali
x undressed and showered. Afterward, she got dressed again in her working uniform. She went barefoot. She didn’t put on any makeup.

  She left the room and walked down a great baronial staircase. A white-jacketed servant was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. “Madame Zhukovskaya is waiting,” he said, leading her into the main reception room.

  The deputy director was sitting in an armchair by a mighty, open fireplace filled with blazing logs. She was wearing reading glasses and examining the contents of a ring-bound folder. An identical chair had been arranged next to hers.

  As Alix drew closer, Zhukovskaya closed the file, took off the spectacles, and looked her up and down with a faint grimace of distaste.

  “Could you not decide what to wear?”

  Alix let her look, without reacting in any way, then sat down in the empty chair.

  Zhukovskaya watched her for a few more seconds, then nodded to herself.

  “I see. Well, then, let us get down to business.”

  She reopened the file and put her glasses back on. There was a photograph paper-clipped to the inside cover of the file, a color portrait of a U.S. Army officer in full dress uniform. He looked strong, determined, golden-haired, and square-jawed. She passed the photo to Alix, who looked at it for a few moments, then handed it back.

  “A handsome man,” she said, without any hint of enthusiasm.

  “His name is Lieutenant General Kurt Vermulen,” said Zhukovskaya. “This picture was taken three years ago. At the time, he was leading the U.S. Special Forces Operations Command at Fort Bragg, having previously commanded the First Battalion of the seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment and served a tour of duty at the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

  “An American hero,” murmured Alix dryly.

  “Oh, yes,” Zhukovskaya continued, “he is a true soldier. He began his career as part of the Americans’ imperialist adventure in Vietnam. He won a Distinguished Service Cross there, one of the very highest awards for gallantry the American army can bestow. One should respect a man, even an enemy, who possesses such a decoration.”

  Alix pursued her lips dismissively. Zhukovskaya continued, regardless.

  “Vermulen retired from the army in May 1995, age fifty, soon after that picture was taken. His wife was dying of cancer and he wanted to be with her in the final months. After that, like a good American, he began to make himself rich.”

  “So why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because of this.”

  Zhukovskaya removed another photograph from her file. It was a grainy, long-range shot of Vermulen, now dressed in civilian clothes, talking to a middle-aged man with a mustache.

  “That is Pavel Novak, a former officer in Czech military intelligence.”

  “What is he doing with Vermulen?”

  “That is precisely what we want to know. Twenty-five years ago, Novak became a double agent, passing secrets to the Americans. He did not know that we were aware of his treachery, so we used him as a means of passing false, misleading information. He was, in effect, working for us all the time. For part of that period Novak’s American handler was this Vermulen. In recent years, Novak, like Vermulen, has become a businessman, but perhaps a less respectable one. Today, he trades our secrets to Arabs, Asians, and Third World countries. And of course, we still know and monitor what he does.

  “But never before has he had any business dealings with the Americans. So why is he making contact now? What can he offer them that they could possibly want? Novak may wish Vermulen to be some kind of middleman. Or maybe the Americans are playing another game we don’t even know about as yet. This is what you must find out.”

  Alix frowned.

  “Me? How?”

  “By doing what you do best, my dear. Since his wife’s death, Vermulen has only had one or two casual affairs. It is time he fell in love once again.”

  “Not with me. I won’t do another trap-not with him or anyone else.”

  The good humor vanished without trace from Zhukovskaya’s voice, replaced by a Siberian chill.

  “You will do exactly what I order you to do, and I will tell you why.”

  She started flicking through the pages in the file.

  “You currently owe the Montagny-Dumas Clinic a sum of, let me see…”

  She found the page she was looking for. “Forty-seven thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two francs. That was the total at six o’clock this evening. It will be more by tomorrow morning, once they’ve added another night to the total.”

  Alix hissed, “You bitch.”

  “Come, now. Is that any way to speak to someone who is about to solve all your problems? If you agree to target Vermulen, we will arrange for payments to cover Mr. Carver’s medical bills for as long as he requires. Believe me, you will hardly notice the expense. Yuri was very appreciative of your services.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Then you and your boyfriend will have to accept the consequences of killing my husband. The penalty for murder is death. Maybe you are ready to sacrifice yourself for your principles. But would you sacrifice your man as well?”

  “I need to talk to Samuel, to let him know what is happening.”

  “No,” snapped Zhukovskaya. “That will not be possible. You will spend the night here. Your flight to Washington, D.C., leaves at nine in the morning.”

  “But…” Alix began to speak, but was instantly silenced.

  “Do not argue. These are your orders. You remember orders, don’t you… Agent Petrova?”

  Alix lowered her eyes submissively.

  “Yes, Madam Deputy Director. May I ask how I am supposed to approach General Vermulen?”

  “You will be hired as his personal assistant. Your cover, full legend, and job application have already been prepared. By Wednesday, you must be ready for your job interview. You will have excellent references. There are still many powerful men who know that it is in their interest to help us.”

  “As ever, you have thought of every detail,” said Alix. “But there is one thing I do not understand. How do you know that Vermulen needs a new assistant?”

  “That is being dealt with…”

  Zhukovskaya consulted her watch.

  “Correction. It has just been dealt with.”

  MARCH

  28

  Ten minutes on the treadmill and already Carver was exhausted. Dr. Geisel was sympathetic, too, which made it even worse.

  “Don’t worry-this is normal,” he said, standing beside the apparatus, as calm and immaculate as ever. “You have been sick for many months. You cannot expect to be fit right away. The main thing is, you are making great progress.”

  Carver just about managed to speak between gasps for breath.

  “How much longer before I’m ready to be discharged? I’ve got to find out what happened to her.”

  “I understand, Mr. Carver, but you must appreciate that you are a long way from being cured. When you were admitted, you had suffered a very serious psychological trauma, a rift cutting you off from your own identity. Normally, in a case such as this, I would expect an additional trauma, such as Miss Petrova’s departure, to have set you back, maybe worse than ever. And yet now, Mr. Carver, it is as if the shock has dislodged some kind of obstacle. The boulder has rolled away, the cave is open, your consciousness is free. Really, it is a kind of psychic resurrection.”

  “Well, if I’m so much better,” Carver wheezed, “why won’t you let me out?”

  “Because nothing in psychology is ever that simple. Yes, you are recovering your long-term memory, but chaotically, randomly, and traumatically. Your prognosis is still unclear. You might, indeed, continue this remarkable progress. But, equally likely, the shock of these recovered memories could push you back over the edge, even deeper than ever before.”

  “So when is it safe for me to leave?”

  “When the odds are not so equal. Now enjoy the rest of your work-out. I strongly recommend physical fitness as an aid to your mental re
covery.”

  When Geisel had gone, Carver stepped off the treadmill. His thighs were quivering, his legs barely able to support him as he walked across to the weight machines. He managed forty pounds on the lat pull-down and sixty on the bench press, low reps and feeble weights on the leg extensions and curls, sit-ups in sets of six.

  Carver could now remember when he possessed the extreme levels of fitness required of an officer in the Special Boat Service. For him to be struggling with a routine like this was like a professional soccer player getting beaten in a kids’ scrimmage. But just to sweat, to feel the burn, and to keep driving himself onward, made him feel alive again.

  He accepted that his mind was still balanced on a knife edge between recovery and relapse, just as Geisel had warned. He had a feeling some of his mental doors would stay firmly locked for a while yet. But after the terrible nonexistence of the past few months, he refused to countenance the prospect of failure.

  “Come on,” he panted, stepping back onto the treadmill. “Go faster.”

  And so he ran, and the memory came to him of another time he had run, a dash down a street in Geneva, late one night. In his mind’s eye he saw a white van, painted with the logo of the Swisscom telephone company. He could not see the man at the wheel, but he knew who he was: Kursk, one of the Russians. Carver felt his stomach tighten with tension at the memory of that name. He knew, too, who had been in the back of that van. Alix had been Kursk ’s prisoner. The Russian had driven her away. But Carver had gone after her, though he still could not recall precisely what had happened.

  He knew one thing, though. He’d got her back. How else could she have been sitting by his bedside for all those months?

  With his awakening had come a profound conviction of his love for her, and hers for him. Carver was certain that Alix would never willingly have left him without even saying good-bye. Wherever she had gone, it had not been her choice. He would not rest until he had found her and made her his again.