The accident man sc-1

by Tom Cain

  "So what's the good news?"

  "I'm going after them, which is why I'd really like to know of any names and addresses listed on this thing."

  "You mean, there are people out there, trying to kill you, and you don't even know who they are?"

  "I'm working on it."

  "No, apparently I'm working on it. So, this laptop, is it gonna be a challenge?"

  "Oh yeah. One thing I do know about these guys, they're very well-connected. They'll be using military, maybe even NSA-level encryption. Don't ask me about the details, but it's bound to be real high-end stuff."

  Larsson gave a rueful smile. "Don't say that, man. You know it only tempts me."

  Carver grinned back. "Well, if you don't think you're up to it, I understand…"

  The Norwegian shook his great shaggy head. "This is going to cost you, big-time."

  "Doesn't it always?"

  Carver handed over the case. Larsson turned to leave, but Carver stopped him. "Seriously, Thor, this could get tricky. Keep your eyes open. If you even suspect that someone's after you, grab the computer and get out. Don't hang around, you understand?"

  "Yeah."

  "And if you get anything out of that address book, contact right away. It could save both our asses."

  Larsson gave a nod of acknowledgment. They walked together, not speaking, back up the path to the bridge. When they got there, Larsson turned right, toward the more modern side of the city. Carver made his way back to the Old Town, following the familiar winding streets up the hill until he arrived at his building.

  Alix was still asleep. It was half past four. Carver got undressed and lay back down on the sofa, obeying one golden rule of military life: Never miss a chance to eat, sleep, or shit. The next thing he knew, the apartment was filled with light, a hand was gently shaking his shoulder, and a soft, slightly breathy woman's voice was saying, "I forgot. Do you take milk and sugar in your coffee, or not?"

  32

  Carver opened one eye and held up a hand to shut out the morning sun streaming in through the open window. "Uh, hi," he mumbled. "Um, I'll have it strong, just a drop of milk, two sugars, thanks." A thought struck him out of nowhere and he pulled his hand down to cover his mouth. "Christ, I haven't brushed my teeth. Hope I'm not too toxic."

  Alix laughed. "I think I'll survive."

  She stood there, outlined by a glowing halo of light. She was still wearing his old T-shirt, just that and a pair of underwear, her hair still tousled from bed, not a scrap of makeup on her face. Carver had never seen anything so beautiful.

  "Bloody hell, you're gorgeous," he said. He sounded surprised, as if he couldn't quite believe she was there.

  "Silly man," she said, and ruffled his hair. The touch of her fingers on Carver's scalp sent thrilling shock waves through his entire body. "Go and brush your teeth. I'll bring you your coffee."

  Carver didn't know how he was going to get off the couch without revealing just how pleased he was to see her. He grabbed the blanket to cover himself and scuttled from the room, both of them laughing, sharing the knowledge of what was happening.

  He dived under the shower, quickly washed with the water as hot as he could take it, then swung the thermostat back the other way and stood for twenty seconds under a blast of water as pure and cold as a waterfall. Now he was properly awake.

  He'd brushed his teeth and was dragging a razor over his chin when she walked in, holding a cup of coffee. He caught her eye in the mirror and smiled, just for the pleasure of seeing her there. She walked up to him from behind, handing him the coffee with one hand and running a finger down his spine with the other. He took the cup, placed it on the basin, then turned around and leaned toward her, but she lifted the finger up to his lips, holding him back with the barest touch of her skin against his.

  "No," she murmured, her voice much throatier now. He could see her nipples outlined against the T-shirt's flimsy, faded cotton. His skin felt electric, craving the touch of her body, but she gently turned him back to the mirror. "Finish shaving. Drink some coffee. We have time."

  She stood behind him, leaning up against the wall and watching him with forensic attention as he finished shaving, rinsed his face, and dried with a hand towel that was hanging next to the sink.

  He chucked the towel onto the floor beside him, then he turned around. Carver stood stock-still, unsmiling, just looking at the girl. Her eyes narrowed, meeting his gaze and matching it, neither one of them backing down.

  He crossed the room in two strides and lifted her bodily off the floor, pressing her up against the wall as he kissed her with a passion that had been caged inside him for too long. She answered his intensity with her own, pushing her mouth against his, wrapping her arms around his neck, and gripping his waist with her thighs.

  Carver brought his arms around under her and held her up to him, never breaking away from their kiss as he carried her through the door into the bedroom. He put her down on the floor beside the bed, breaking away for just long enough to slide the T-shirt over her head as she stood with her arms up, arching her back and bringing her breasts up toward him. Then he was running his tongue around a nipple and she was ripping the towel from his waist and they were rolling onto the bed and at last their hunger could be satisfied.

  The second time around, the frenzy was replaced by tenderness, the urgency by a lazy, indulgent, mutual exploration; getting to know the taste, the smell, the feel of each other; each beginning to learn what the other needed most.

  Later, as they were lying together, her head nestled against his shoulder, he felt her body turning. She looked up at him, her chin resting on his chest.

  "I had forgotten it could be like that," she whispered.

  He stroked her hair, gently circling a thumb around her temple. "It's been a long time for me too."

  "Who is she? The girl in the picture."

  "Her name was Kate. We were supposed to get married."

  "Did she leave?"

  "She died," he said softly

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

  "No, it's time I talked about her. I've spent the past five years trying not to. That hasn't got me very far."

  She nodded. "Fine, then tell me about Kate. In fact, tell me everything. You promised yesterday, remember?"

  "I was hoping you'd forgotten."

  "I am a woman. I never forget."

  Carver laughed. "This KGB training you did, was interrogation part of the curriculum?"

  "No, it comes naturally."

  He grinned. "You're great, you know? Just great." He ran a hand along her body, relishing every contour. "And I'm not just saying that because you've got a perfect ass."

  She slapped his hand away in mock annoyance. "Kate!" she said.

  "Okay, Kate… well, I'd been a marine for, I dunno, ten years or so. Typical soldier boy-you know, love 'em and leave 'em, nothing serious. But with Kate, I don't know why, it was much more serious, right from the get-go. I met her at a party. We started talking and we didn't stop till it was morning. We just cuddled up in this big old armchair and told each other pretty much everything about ourselves. By the end of the night, I knew she was the woman I was going to marry."

  He looked up at Alix. The light had gone from her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have said so much."

  "No, I asked."

  "I'll stop."

  "No, don't. Tell me everything."

  "There isn't that much more," he said, as she laid her head on his chest again and he stared up at the ceiling. "I mean, there is, obviously, but what it all boils down to is that we got engaged. I left the service, planning to start a new life. Her dad ran a charter yacht business and I was going to work with him for a few years before taking it over when he retired. Then… then… well, then we went out to lunch, and I stayed behind for a minute, just a minute, and she walked across the street alone, and some bastard in a stolen car ran a red light… and I wasn't there…" He screwed up his eyes for a
moment, trying to hold the feelings back.

  He could see the room where they'd had that last meal: him, Kate, and Bobby Faulkner, his closest friend since the day they'd both turned up as marine officer candidates on the same admiralty selection board test. He could hear Bobby telling insulting stories about his past misdeeds, hiding his affection under a smokescreen of mockery.

  Then Carver saw the jerks by the bar as they were all walking out, felt the jolt against his shoulder as one of them deliberately bumped into him and accused him of spilling his pint, looking to pick a fight. He watched Kate walking out the door as he said, "Get the car, this won't take long."

  Then he opened his eyes and said, "She never stood a chance. Killed instantly. That was a blessing, at least. She never suffered, never even knew what hit her."

  Alix brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. "But you suffered."

  "No, I got drunk. I cultivated my rage. Then I made everyone else suffer instead. That's how I got into this business."

  He told her how much his old commanding officer, Quentin Trench, had meant to him, how he'd pulled him out of that police cell and given him the telephone number that had changed his life.

  She balled her fist and tapped his shoulder. "So now you are here and now I am with you. Enough talking. What are we going to do?"

  Carver propped himself up on an elbow. "Follow the money," he said.

  33

  Sir Perceval Wake pressed the button on the antiquated intercom that linked his study with his secretary's desk outside. "Send him in."

  The apartment in Eaton Square where he lived and worked occupied two floors of a tall, white house. It stood in a terrace of identical buildings lining a broad boulevard running from the aristocratic playground of Sloane Square to the walls of Buckingham Palace. The government departments of Whitehall were just a five-minute cab ride away. This was one of the world's most expensive neighborhoods. Wake's hunger for money and influence had always been as great as his thirst for knowledge.

  For decades, Her Majesty's government had come to Sir Perceval Wake for advice and paid handsomely for the privilege, as had the chief executives of city institutions and multinational corporations. He'd begun his career as a political history lecturer at Oxford University, but he did not linger long among the city's brilliant but impoverished academics. In 1954 he published a book based on his postgraduate thesis. It was provocatively entitled, Useful Idiots: The Role of Western Intellectuals in the Spread of Communist Dictatorship. At a time when most supposedly progressive, liberal thinkers still believed that the Soviet Union was a force for good in the world, Wake's ideas exploded like a hand grenade in a barrel of fish. He became a hate figure on the left and an icon on the right.

  Within weeks of publication, he was invited to attend a private conference of politicians, financiers, and thinkers from Europe and the United States that met at the Hotel Bilderberg in Arnhem, Holland. The organizers aimed to protect Western democracy and free markets against the Communist tide. That original meeting evolved into an annual event, an institution in its own right. For over forty years, Wake had been an active member of the Bilderberg Group, whose secret meetings, attended by some of the richest and most powerful men on earth, had become the focus of countless conspiracy theories. He regularly attended the World Economic Forum in Davos. He traveled to the 2,700-acre estate of Bohemian Grove in Sonoma County, California, to join the cast of rich, powerful, male Americans parading in torchlight before a giant, fake stone owl and-the conspiracy theorists insisted-hatching plots for global domination.

  To Wake, the accumulation of power and influence was a matter of duty as well as a personal pleasure. He believed that people like him, the ones who truly understood the world, were obliged to save its people from the consequences of their own stupidity. Left to their own devices, the masses made distressingly poor decisions. They elected genocidal maniacs like Hitler. They swore allegiance to tyrannical despots like Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. It was really best for everyone if running the planet was left to the experts.

  He rose from his desk to greet his visitor. Wake had taken great care to cultivate his appearance, from the artfully unkempt mane of silver hair that he swept back over his ears to the custom-made tweed jackets, soft cotton shirts, and corduroy trousers that signified both his affluence and his status as a free thinker. By contrast, Jack Grantham's drab suit demonstrated that even as a senior officer of MI6 he was, in the end, just another civil servant. Still, it would be unwise to underestimate him. Grantham did not possess the usual flabby pallor of a desk-bound bureaucrat, and there was a look of measured, skeptical assessment in his gray eyes.

  He had the air, Wake decided, of a man who had come a long way, but still had farther to go. His energies had not yet been depleted by the unrelenting grind of the Whitehall machine, and there was a toughness about him that was as much mental as physical. He would not be fobbed off by easy options or the countless excuses that officialdom found for inaction. Wake had been keeping an eye on Grantham's career for some time. He was curious to see whether his abilities matched his growing reputation.

  They exchanged a cordial handshake.

  "Jack, my boy, how very good to see you."

  Grantham responded with a single sharp nod of acknowledgment.

  "So, how are things down at Vauxhall Cross?" Wake asked, settling back down behind his desk and waving in the direction of a chair to let his guest know that he could sit too.

  "Things could be better," Grantham replied. "That crash in Paris has stirred things up."

  "I daresay it has. No doubt there will be claims that it could have been prevented, but I can't see that you have any need to be concerned. After all, it was simply an accident. A ghastly, tragic accident, of course, but nothing to worry the secret intelligence service."

  "That depends. We think this might have been a hit. So we're wondering who might have wanted to kill the princess, or her companion, and why?"

  "What does that have to do with me?" Wake leaned forward a fraction. His interest had been piqued.

  "Well, you've studied every threat to our national security for the past forty years. You've known our leaders and half our enemies' leaders too. You've been in the room when people have discussed and even planned operations off the books. So you tell me. Why would anyone want to kill the Princess of Wales?"

  "Well, now, that's an intriguing question," said Wake, relaxing back into his chair. "I imagine you're not the only one asking it. Has the media raised the prospect of foul play?"

  The MI6 man shook his head. "Not yet, but it's only a matter of time. Some of the wilder conspiracy-theory Web sites are claiming the princess was pregnant. The boyfriend's father swears that the Duke of Edinburgh has been plotting against him. And the princess herself apparently believed the Prince of Wales would have her killed in a car crash. We think she put it all down on tape. God help us if that ever sees the light of day."

  Wake sighed. "The poor girl, she always had such a desperate need for love, such a strong sense of persecution. Not surprising, I suppose. The parents' divorce was particularly messy. So, was she pregnant?"

  "We don't know. We don't think so."

  "Never mind. It's not important. The princess was no longer a member of the royal family, so even if she had given birth, her future children would have had no constitutional significance. Nor do I believe for one second that any member of the royal family would have anything whatever to do with an assassination, under any circumstances. The very idea is absurd."

  Grantham paused for a second before he spoke again. When he did, his words were impeccably polite, his voice was quiet, yet with a steely tone. "I'm not suggesting that the palace had any direct involvement, but there may have been others who believed they were acting in the monarchy's or the country's best interests. Let's just suppose-hypothetically-that such people existed. What would be their motive for committing such a crime?"

  Wake picked up a pen from the desk in front of him a
nd tapped it a couple of times on the walnut surface, gathering his thoughts. Then he began to speak.

  "I went for a walk yesterday evening, up to the palace. It was quite extraordinary. Huge crowds were gathered in front of the gates, and there was an anger about them, a feverish intensity quite unlike anything I have ever known in this country. They were hurt, bereft, and they wanted someone to blame. It would only have taken one man on a soapbox to whip them into a frenzy, and I swear they would have stormed the gates."

  Grantham seemed about to interrupt, but Wake held up a hand. "Let me continue. I walked down Constitution Hill, through Hyde Park, and into Kensington Gardens. On the grass in front of Kensington Palace, below the princess's apartment, there is a mass, a veritable sea of flowers. Some are magnificent bouquets, some just pathetic little bunches of wilting blooms, but all of them are laid there in tribute. And every minute that passes, more people are bringing more flowers, more messages, more candles. They are talking to one another, weeping, complete strangers collapsing into one another's arms.

  "This is something entirely new. All the reserve that has long characterized our nation, all that stiff upper lip and muddling through, has been replaced by an almost wanton hysteria. And yet at the same time it's actually quite primitive, a return to the cult of the goddess, the mother. Clearly the princess symbolized something extraordinarily powerful. So I can't help but ask myself: If this is the influence she could exert after death, what might have happened had she lived?

  "Yesterday the prime minister called her the People's Princess. It was a trite little phrase, but telling all the same. She did indeed have a remarkable hold over the people, and every interview she gave, every picture for which she posed merely underlined how much more affection and sympathy she commanded than her former husband.

  "Of course, that's natural. People will always sympathize with a wronged wife, particularly if she is beautiful and vulnerable. In normal circumstances, that really doesn't matter. But these are far from normal circumstances. The former husband is also the future king of England, and it would be impossible for him to rule effectively, perhaps even to ascend the throne at all, if there was another, competing court surrounding his former wife. Everything he did would be judged by the degree to which she was seen to approve or disapprove. It would be intolerable.