by Tom Cain
“I doubt it. Alix was screwing her husband.”
“Exactly. Zhukovskaya was controlling her husband’s mistress. That’s the kind of woman she is. Brilliant…”
For a moment Grantham seemed lost in admiration. Then he recovered himself.
“Anyway, let me tell you what Petrova has been doing since you last saw her. We think she got her hooks into Vermulen in Washington -that’s his normal base-but they’ve been in Europe the past few weeks, charging about like demented honeymooners. I can see why the Russians are curious, because Vermulen is certainly on some kind of a mission. He had a meeting in Amsterdam, though we don’t yet know who with. Next he went to Vienna to see a chap called Novak, who makes a murky living trading arms and information. His Venice contact was a former U.S. Army colleague, name of Reddin. As you can see from the picture, Mrs. Reddin came along, too, so it’s conceivable that was just a social encounter, though I doubt it. After that was Rome. We tracked him to another meet there, but the pictures were hopeless and we couldn’t identify the other party. Now they’re on a yacht that Vermulen has rented, ostensibly for a Mediterranean holiday.
“Those last shots I showed you were taken a couple of days ago, off the Corsican coast. My interpretation is that they’re having some kind of an argument. Or maybe she’s getting cozy, calming him down. Look, she’s operating alone, without backup. She has to do whatever it takes to keep him sweet. But the closer she gets, the more pissed off he’ll be if he ever discovers she’s been deceiving him. She can’t try to run for it, because then he’ll know for sure. She’s in the shit, Carver. And it’s all because of you.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Grantham opened up a new file on his laptop. This time the photographs showed a U.K. passport photo of a man in his mid-thirties, with sandy hair and a defiant, uncompromising expression.
“That,” said Grantham, “is Kenny Wynter. And two days from now, he’s due to meet Kurt Vermulen for lunch at the Hotel du Cap, on the coast between Nice and Cannes, down in the South of France.”
“Sounds very civilized.”
“I doubt it. Vermulen has a job for Wynter. We intercepted a call. It’s a blind date. The men have never met before, but evidently Wynter has been recommended.”
“What’s the job?”
“Vermulen wouldn’t tell him. Said he’d give him the details in person. But there’s only one reason you call Kenny Wynter, and that’s to steal something. The man’s spent the past fifteen years doing jobs to order: confidential documents, industrial plans and prototypes, financial papers, the occasional safe-deposit box. And he’s not fussy about his clients. He’s stolen military secrets for the Russians, the Chinese, the Iraqis, and the IRA, and we’ve lost good men and women because of it. The man is an unscrupulous shit, with blood on his hands. But he’s never once been caught. Arrested, of course, countless times, but there’s never been enough evidence to convict. Kenny Wynter has bought himself a flashy house up in Totteridge and a box at the Arsenal. He drives fast cars, screws gorgeous women-”
“Now him I could kill,” said Carver, sarcastically.
“Good,” said Grantham, dead serious. “Because you’re going to.”
53
“Have we heard from Petrova yet?” asked Olga Zhukovskaya.
The FSB colonel standing before her shook his head.
“Not since that meeting in Rome, Madam Deputy Director. I have ensured that the standard notice is placed in the classified advertisement section of the International Herald Tribune, but she has not responded.”
“Do we even know where she is?”
Another shake of the head, almost sorrowful this time.
“No. We have reason to believe that Vermulen might have chartered a yacht, but we have been unable to confirm that, and we would not be able to track it, even if we had. As you know, ma’am, our resources are not what they used to be. We have not launched a single reconnaissance satellite since September 1995. We have been completely blind since it ceased to function a year later.”
He sighed, somewhat theatrically.
“We used to impose our will across the globe; now the best we can hope for is to steal pictures off Western commercial satellites…”
Zhukovskaya was not in a mood for self-pity. It was not an emotion for which she’d ever seen any need.
“That may be. The fact remains: We need to find them. Vermulen is planning something. I can feel it.”
The colonel stayed silent, letting his boss think in peace. It did not take long for her to come to a decision. Olga Zhukovskaya was a woman who knew what she wanted. It was one of the qualities that made her such an effective leader.
“Whatever Vermulen is doing, it involves Pavel Novak. He will know what is happening. And very soon we will know, too.”
54
Kenny Wynter worked hard at being respectable. He belonged to his local Conservative Association, donated money to the church restoration fund, and had memberships at the golf and tennis clubs. A lot of women were seen coming and going from his house, which irritated his female neighbors, but also increased their interest in him. Their real annoyance, however, was reserved for their husbands’ obvious admiration and envy of Wynter’s harem, and the eagerness with which they attended his swimming-pool parties every summer, eyes on stalks at all the young things in their bikinis twittering around their host.
So it was that Kenny Wynter both obeyed the social rules and gave everyone plenty to gossip about. In this leafy north London suburb of detached houses, large gardens, and expensively filled garages, he was the perfect citizen.
Thursday evenings, Wynter headed for the tennis club. He was part of a regular men’s foursome. They’d play the best of three sets, work up a gentle sweat, then grab a drink and a bite to eat at the Orange Tree pub in Totteridge Village. By eight o’clock, his brand-new Porsche 911 Carrera S was sitting in the parking lot behind the pub. It was slate gray, with a black leather interior. Wynter was already in the pub, getting in the first round of beers.
A car pulled up next to the Porsche. It was a ten-year-old Honda Accord with faded blue paintwork. Just about any passerby with a minimal knowledge of cars would be able to identify the 911. But to any but the most dedicated Honda-lover, the old Accord was just another drab, anonymous, totally unmemorable sedan. That was why Carver had bought it for £450, cash, from a small ad in Auto Trader, just that afternoon.
He got out of the car. He was wearing a gray polyester suit and a white polyester shirt. His blue tie, with paler blue and white stripes, was made of rayon. His shoes were shiny pale-gray slip-ons, decorated with snaffles across the instep, whose gold coloring had flaked away in places to reveal the bare metal underneath. The briefcase beside him was old and scuffed. His tinted, wire-framed glasses were a drone’s pathetic attempt at individuality and cool.
Carver was unshaven. A mousy wig straggled over his ears and hung down the back of his neck. It added to the general impression of a white-collar nonentity, and it concealed his actual hair, which had been cut and dyed to match Wynter’s. In the morning, he would put in contact lenses the color of Wynter’s eyes. By the time he stepped onto the plane to France, he would be Kenny Wynter.
Now he got out of the Honda. The driver’s door was next to the passenger side of Wynter’s Porsche. Carver stepped onto the pavement, then turned back to grab his briefcase from the seat. As he pulled it out, the clasp gave way, the case fell open, and its contents-a half-eaten sandwich in a cardboard and cellophane box, a cheap pocket calculator, a heavily chewed Biro pen, and a copy of the Daily Express-fell to the ground between the two cars.
Cursing to himself, Carver got down on his haunches and started gathering up his belongings. He looked up for a second and scanned the parking lot. He was the only person in it. He ducked back down and removed a small, clear, Ziploc bag from his inside jacket pocket. From it he took a small tool, just a few inches long. At
one end, a flat black plastic disc enabled the tool to be placed upright on the ground. From the disc protruded a cylindrical shaft, like that of a miniature screwdriver. The far end, however, was not flattened into a blade. Instead, a notch was cut across its circumference.
Carver unscrewed the cap of the Porsche’s front near-side tire valve and placed it on the pavement. Then he inserted the tool into the top of the valve, which nestled in the notch, and turned it counter-clockwise. The valve unscrewed from its rubber housing and slipped out, still attached to the tool. Air began to hiss out of the open tube. Carver stuck his left thumb across the tube to prevent any more escaping. The last thing he wanted was any noticeable loss of tire pressure. With his right hand, he put the tool down on the ground, the tire valve pointing upward. He removed the valve from the tool and slipped it into his trouser pocket.
Next he slipped his fingers back into the Ziploc bag and extracted what appeared to be an identical valve. He stuck it on the end of the tool, then removed his thumb and screwed the new valve back into the tire, replacing the screw-on cap when he had finished. The entire operation had taken no more than thirty seconds.
A car pulled into the lot and parked about twenty yards away. A man and a woman got out. Carver started picking up the junk that had fallen from his case. He needn’t have bothered. The couple were far too interested in each other to notice his presence. They wandered arm in arm into the pub.
Carver gave them a few seconds’ start while he put all his crap away in the briefcase. Then he went for a pint of his own.
No one paid the slightest attention to Carver as he sat nursing his lager and reading his paper. Wynter and his tennis-playing pals were sitting at the next table. Carver watched out of the corner of his eye and listened. Wynter, as always, looked the part: faded jeans, a dark-blue V-necked cashmere pullover worn over a plain white T-shirt, a top-of-the-line TAG Heuer watch. He didn’t attempt to impose himself on the conversation, but when he spoke he exuded a sense of relaxed good humor. His voice was neutral, with just a trace of his working-class London roots. Every so often he went a bit more Cockney, just for comic effect. But if he mocked something one of the other men had said, there was always a friendly smile, just to let them know that he was bantering, not seeking to cause offense. None was ever taken. It was a masterful performance.
Carver had spent the past few days studying every aspect of Kenny Wynter’s life. Grantham had given him the basic biography while they were still in Norway.
“Our Kenny was born in Kensal Rise, north London, May 15, 1961. His father, Reginald ‘Nutter’ Wynter, was a villain, robbed banks and security vans, didn’t mind who got hurt when he did it. Got sent down for twenty years soon after Kenny was born and died inside after fifteen. Kenny was brought up by his mother, Noreen. He was a bright lad, passed his eleven-plus exam, went to grammar school, and got into Oxford University. He graduated in 1982 with a first-class degree, a nice new middle-class accent, and a love of fine wines. And then he went into the family business. Our Kenny became a thief, just like his dear old dad. Except, being brainy, he did it very differently.”
Oh, yes, Wynter was a cold, calculating bastard underneath that cozy cashmere. No matter how friendly he might seem, there would always be a part of him sitting to one side, observing, emotionally detached. He would be perfectly happy using women for sex and decoration, without the slightest need for any greater emotional connection. The last thing he needed was any complication that would interfere with his working life. And when he received an assignment, he would carry it out without compunction, irrespective of its consequences, untouched by moral consideration.
Carver knew just how that felt.
55
FBI Special Agent Tom Mulvagh liked Kady Jones a lot. He thought she was pretty hot for a scientist, which helped. But mostly he just appreciated the way she got on with the job. She didn’t put on any airs. She’d laugh at a joke, instead of acting offended. Basically, she was cool.
That being the case, he’d been happy to put in a few hours following up her crazy theory about the general and the physicist. At first it seemed straightforward. Vermulen had made no secret of his initial movements. He and his assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, had taken scheduled flights, first class, to Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, and then Rome. They had stayed at the best hotels, but in separate rooms every time. Vermulen’s credit cards showed the kind of charges you’d expect from a man trying to get a woman into bed: restaurants, fancy stores, opera tickets. Some people would say it was pathetic, going to those lengths, but it was hardly a crime.
Next Mulvagh moved on to Vermulen’s phone logs, only to draw a blank. The general had a couple of cell phones registered in his name, but neither of them had been used for several weeks. At the hotels where he stayed, the phone charges were minimal. That made sense in one respect: Who paid hotel call charges if he could avoid it? But unless Vermulen had decided to avoid all telecommunications, he had to be using a phone of some kind.
Mulvagh tracked down all the corporations that listed him as a director, then checked all the phones registered to those corporations, then tracked their usage over the period Vermulen was in Europe. There was no correlation at all. Now Mulvagh was getting interested. He went back to the credit cards. They showed no record of any handset being purchased, nor of any call charges or time charges. That meant Vermulen had bought a prepaid phone, using either cash or a card that he didn’t want anyone to know about. He was meant to be a guy on an extended holiday, but these were the security precautions of an experienced professional on a mission.
It was time to bring in some help. Mulvagh had built up a pretty good working relationship with Ted Jaworski, over at Langley, and Bob Lassiter, the NSA’s man on the bomb team. He gave them the gist of Kady’s story, plus his own findings. They both told him he had to be out of his mind even thinking about this investigation, but he just about persuaded them to take a look, off the record. Then he went to the police.
The D.C. police were as defensive as any other cops when it came to liaising with the FBI, but once Mulvagh had persuaded the detective in charge of the Mary Lou Stoller case that he wasn’t trying to muscle in on anyone else’s investigation, they were able to have a useful conversation.
“This is just you and me talking, deep background, yeah?” asked the detective.
“Sure,” said Mulvagh. “I just need to know what you think went down. I don’t need proof. I want what your instinct is telling you.”
“Okay. Officially, this was a mugging gone bad. But what my instinct says is, That’s bullshit. Whoever killed Mrs. Stoller was a pro.”
“How come?”
“The job was too good. I mean, sure, they made it look like a mugging, but the area was clean. No trace evidence anywhere: no prints, no DNA, and the only footprints came from a new pair of standard Florsheim dress shoes, size ten. Totally untraceable-they sell thousands of those things. But it tells me something, anyhow. I mean, when did you ever know a mugger to wear Florsheims? And plus, your average street punk has less intelligence than the yucca plant my lieutenant keeps in her office-you know what I’m saying? Not forgetting that he’s most likely out of his mind on meth. So he’s going to make mistakes, leave evidence. Christ, you know what these bozos are like. But whoever did this job, trust me-they were not stupid. They knew what they were doing. And we ain’t ever going to catch them. That’s what my instinct tells me, Agent Mulvagh.”
“Thank you, Detective, I appreciate your honesty.”
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what are the Feds doing making personal calls to check up on this particular investigation? God rest her soul, but Mrs. Stoller wasn’t anyone important.”
“No,” said Mulvagh, “but her boss is.”
“Aw, shit-I shoulda seen that one coming…”
“Don’t worry, Detective. I gave you my word our conversation was private. None of this will rebound on you.”
Mulvagh hung up, deep in thought.
He’d started this investigation as a favor, but it was now impossible to ignore the fact that something very strange was going on around Kurt Vermulen. The general’s trip to Europe was obviously far more than an extended vacation. But had he also planned his secretary’s death? If he wanted to get rid of her and bring in a younger model, all he had to do was fire her. So who stood to gain by Mary Lou Stoller’s death? The only candidate was the new secretary, this Morley woman. But she sure as hell didn’t beat a woman to death in Glover-Archbold Park. Had someone done it for her? And if so, why?
He put in another call to Ted Jaworski.
“I’ve got to be honest,” he said. “I still can’t be sure that this directly relates to our unit’s terms of reference. But Kady Jones thinks it might-she’s the expert on nuclear scientists-and everything I’ve found out so far has backed up her first hunch. We need to take a look at this Natalia Morley, find out everything there is on her, in this country and overseas. Someone wanted to get her that job with Vermulen. We should find out who they were.”
56
Kenny Wynter left home at half past five in the morning, aiming to catch the early-morning British Airways flight to Nice from Heath-row. It was forty-five minutes to the airport, maybe less-at this hour of the day the Porsche would eat it up. Drop the car off at the valet parking, check into British Airways business class, hand baggage only: no worries.
He wondered what Vermulen would be like. His handler, communicating, as always, via his personal message box on an Arsenal FC fansite, had given him the bare outline. Vermulen was ex-U.S. Army, a brass hat who’d gone into business on civvy street. He wanted something stolen from a house in the South of France: a small, high-value package. That could mean anything from a diamond necklace to a computer disc filled with industrial secrets. Whatever, this Vermulen character was a serious player, with impeccable connections and a deep pocket. The least Wynter could do was hear what the man had to offer. And the worst he would get was a nice trip. He planned to stay the night, treat himself to some fun on the Riviera.