The accident man sc-1

by Tom Cain

Carver nodded. "Okay. Did you also find out what they told me I was doing? Does the name Ramzi Hakim Narwaz mean anything to you?"

  A diffident smile crossed Larsson's face. "Yeah, I know about him."

  "And?"

  "And I don't blame you for what happened. You were double-crossed. So, anyway… you need to know the password. There are eight characters: T r 2 z l o t G. The first T and the last G are capital letters. This is very important. The password is case sensitive."

  "How the hell am I going to remember that?" asked Carver.

  "Simple, I have created an image for you, like in a picture book. There r 2 zebras lying on the Grass. Capital 'T,' capital 'G.' Do you get it?"

  Carver gave an impatient snort, but Larsson persisted.

  "Come on, repeat after me: There r 2 zebras lying on the Grass."

  "Jesus wept, I haven't got time. I can't afford to be late."

  "You can't afford to forget this, either. The system gives you three chances to get the password right. If you fail, a virus is released that wipes the entire hard drive clean. There'll be nothing left at all."

  Carver did as he was told-five repetitions. Larsson handed over the laptop in its case, which Carver slung across his chest, from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

  "Thanks," he said. "My chopper's across the airfield. Walk with me. We can talk on the way."

  It was just after half past six local time and the sun was just beginning to dip behind the highest of the peaks to the west, casting jagged black shadows diagonally across the valley as Carver strode across the apron to the helicopter pad. He had a little under thirty minutes to get to the Palace Hotel. The weather looked clear. Allow five minutes to take off, fifteen to get to Gstaad, and another five to get from the chopper to the rendezvous at the other end. It should just be possible.

  "How much did you manage to retrieve?" he asked Larsson.

  "Only a small proportion of what's on there, but enough to know that Max had logged every detail of that operation, and a lot more besides. It looks like he was making himself a safety net in case anything went wrong."

  "Anything about the Russians?"

  "Kursk and Alix are mentioned in a couple of e-mails. But nothing to link them to Zhukovski yet."

  "Damn!" Carver thought for a moment. "Never mind. That's not necessarily a deal breaker. Anyone with proper investigative powers would be able to find a link. The point is, Zhukovski can't afford to have those leads out in the open. You've taken a copy, right?"

  "Of course."

  "Good, that's part of my safety net. Here's the other." He reached into his briefcase and took out the video camera. "I taped my confession on the flight over. How I was recruited, how they tapped me for this job, the way the hit went down, all the names, what happened afterward. It's got everything." Carver smiled ruefully. "Well, almost everything. I kept Alix out of it."

  Larsson laughed out loud. "You old romantic!"

  Carver cleared his throat gruffly. "Yeah, well… Anyway, if I don't contact you by nine tomorrow morning, get the computer files and the confession out to every news agency and every Web site-anywhere you can think of. I want it everywhere."

  "You got it," said Larsson. "But don't worry, you'll make it. You always do, right?"

  "I don't know this time," said Carver.

  They were getting near the helicopter pad now. The machine was sitting there silently, waiting to start up and go.

  "It's crazy," Carver added. "I'm doing this all wrong, breaking every rule. I haven't planned anything, not even my way out. But for some reason I don't care. I don't know…" He looked beyond the helicopter at the mountainous horizon. "It's like I've handed myself over to fate. I'm about to be judged. I'll be found innocent or guilty. I'll make it or I won't."

  "I understand," Larsson said.

  The pilot started up his engines. Now Carver had to shout over the rhythmic whomping of the rotors. He handed Larsson his briefcase.

  "Take this. It's no use to me now. There's a bunch of money inside. If I don't make it, the money's yours. Don't argue. It's the least I owe you."

  Carver gave Larsson a slap on the shoulder.

  "Okay," he said, "Gotta go. Cheers."

  Larsson watched the helicopter rise into the sky, then curve away toward the north and the mountain passes that would take it through to the wealthy ski resort of Gstaad. By air, you could cut straight across from one valley to the next; by road, you had to go the long way-around the mountains, not over them-and it took a little over an hour. Larsson jogged toward his car, the briefcase in his hand. Carver might not have planned a way out, but he was going to do his damnedest to make up for that.

  74

  Carver felt as though the film of his life had started to run backward. Five days ago he had flown through mountains in a helicopter and got into a jet. Now here he was, on the other side of the world, flying back through mountains in a helicopter, having just gotten off a jet. Then the sun had been rising; now it was setting. Then he'd been about to kill. Would he soon be killed?

  The pilot tapped him on the shoulder and pointed down a lush green valley to a huge white tower rising from the valley floor like a castle keep, complete with pointy-topped turrets at each corner.

  "Palace Hotel!" the pilot shouted. "Impressive, huh?"

  Carver bobbed his head in agreement. Next to the tower was a great white wall, pierced by the windows of the hotel's bedrooms and suites. Huge chalets were arrayed in a protective circle around the main building, on the fringes of grounds spotted with the dusty brownish pink of tennis courts and the piercing turquoise of an outdoor pool.

  The helicopter landed on the hotel's own pad. Carver got out. He had a standard deal with the helicopter company: The pilot would wait for an hour and take him back at no extra cost, but at minute sixty-one, he was taking off come what may.

  "See ya!" shouted the pilot.

  "Hope so!" Carver yelled back. Then he walked toward the looming castle tower. It was like an old friends' reunion. There was Kursk with his bogus Swisscom van, and next to him were his three stooges, each decorated with their personalized assortment of stitches, plasters, and bandages. They stood there glowering at Carver, burning up with thoughts of vengeance. Right now they were being restrained by their orders, but the slightest provocation could send them over the edge. He wouldn't give them any excuse. He did not react as the Smurfs surrounded him, one on either side, the third directly behind him.

  "You speak English?" he said to Kursk.

  "Little," the giant Russian grunted.

  "Okay, then. I have a meeting with your boss, Mr. Zhukovski. He said be here at seven p.m. I'm here. Let's go."

  Kursk just looked at him, his eyes as dead as the glass balls in a stuffed moose. "Fuck you," he snarled.

  Carver felt a sharp, excruciating crack at the back of his skull. He felt the computer being ripped from his hands. And then his world went black. He regained consciousness in the back of the van. His head ached and there was a sharp, throbbing pain just behind his right ear.

  Carver knew he was in the van because he could hear the sound of the engine and the road noise and feel the lurching as the van turned right or left. He couldn't see anything, though, because there was something over his head. It felt close over his face and constricting around his neck, like a drawstring bag that had been pulled over him and then tightened.

  He tried to reach up to touch it, but he couldn't. His wrists were cuffed. His ankles were imprisoned in leg irons. The cuffs and irons had been clamped as tight as possible, pinching his skin and cutting off the blood supply to his hands and feet. They were linked by a short, vertical chain, so he could not raise his hands more than a few degrees above his waist.

  There was something tight around his midriff too, like a wide belt. At the back of the belt a hard, square box dug into him when he leaned against the side of the van.

  He could feel the metal paneling, hard and cold against his thighs, buttocks, and back. His hands were g
loved with padded mittens, like soft boxing gloves, that made it impossible to feel anything, so he couldn't actually touch his bare skin. But he didn't have to. He knew perfectly well that he was stark naked.

  The van seemed to be driving uphill. But then it turned sharply, slowed down, and started to descend. Carver heard the sound of the exhaust change, echoing as the van was driven indoors before dying away completely. There was a metallic rattling in his right ear and the clatter of an opening door, then Carver felt a sharp tug on the chain by his wrists and he was desperately scrabbling for some kind of purchase as he was dragged right out of the van and dumped with a bone-cracking thump on the floor.

  There was another tug on the rope and he was pulled to his feet, the cuffs digging even deeper into his wrists. Then he was led, blind and half-crippled, shuffling across the garage, through a door and down a passage. He heard another door being opened. A few more shuffles, then he got a shove in the back that sent him skimming across the floor until finally he lost his balance and crashed helpless to the ground again. Behind him he heard the slamming of bolts.

  So, judgment had been passed down. He had been found guilty. Now it was just a matter of hearing the sentence.

  75

  Carver did not know how long he was kept alone in the darkness. He tried to get some idea of the dimensions of his cell by getting to his feet and stumbling in one direction until he hit the nearest wall. Then he made his way around the perimeter of the room. It felt square, maybe twenty of his chained, restricted paces on each side. He ended up huddled in a corner, shivering as the chill from the concrete floor seeped into his bones and stiffened his muscles.

  It was pretty uncomfortable, but nothing out of the ordinary. The techniques they'd used so far had been pretty crude: basic sensory deprivation-the room was dead silent, it must have been fully soundproofed-mixed with the physical and sexual degradation of enforced nudity. If this was the best they could do, he could handle it. But given Zhukovski's KGB training, he suspected it was only the start. They were giving him plenty of time alone to sit and imagine what might be next. His fear would only make their job easier.

  Carver told himself to clear his mind of apprehension. Stay positive. Focus on his own agenda.

  An age seemed to pass before he heard the bolts being drawn back and the sound of footsteps and harsh Russian voices. He was dragged back to his feet and led by the chain again. They left the room and made their way back down the corridor. Then he felt hands on his shoulders turning him around 180 degrees and he was pulled forward again.

  His toes stubbed against something hard, making him cry out in pain and surprise. There was laughter around him. Then Carver received a sharp kick in the backside and he felt his arms being pulled upward. He heard just one word in English: "Stairs."

  He lifted his right foot as high as the leg-irons would allow and was just able to get a grip on the rough concrete corner of the first step. He brought his left leg up to meet it. It was a slow, degrading process, and Carver was sent on his way by regular slaps and kicks, each accompanied by his jailers' raucous laughs.

  Finally he reached the top. Soon the floor was smooth, first with cool stone tiles, then with warmer planking, before he felt the softness of carpeting underfoot. He went down a series of shallow steps, stumbling and almost falling at the bottom before a tug on the chain brought him upright again.

  There was another one-word command: "Stop!"

  Carver stood still. Someone grabbed his wrists and removed the mitts from his hands. Next came fingers at his throat, a sharp tug, and suddenly the hood was pulled from his head and he was blinking against the light. Gradually his vision cleared.

  He was standing in the den area at one end of an openplan living space. He could feel the warmth of flames against his bare back. There was a fire behind him, open on all four sides. The steps down which he had tripped were set beside the stone fireplace. In front of him a rich Persian rug covered the floor. To his left a long chocolate leather settee in the shape of a shallow U was set against the wall, facing a massive wide screen TV on the other wall. Kursk's stooges were sitting on the couch. One of them, the redhead, held what looked like a basic old-fashioned TV remote control. Kursk himself was standing next to Carver, saying nothing, just watching.

  Carver's eyes were fixed on the figure in the matching leather armchair, sitting directly in his line of sight, wearing a drab formal suit. The man looked him up and down with the detached objectivity of a coroner inspecting a corpse on the mortuary slab. There was something profoundly disturbing about this studied examination. For the first time Carver felt shamed by his nakedness and his captive status. He had to force himself to keep his head up and his gaze steady.

  "Good evening," the man said. "I am Yuri Zhukovski. Let me explain your situation. The first thing you must understand is that you have no hope of escape. Even assuming that you could somehow free yourself like Houdini from your shackles, you can be disabled in an instant.

  "You will notice that there is a black nylon belt around your waist. This is a REACT belt, short for Remote Electronically Activated Control Technology. It has a power pack secured at the back, out of your reach, which is capable of sending a fifty-thousand-volt charge through your body-activated, as its name suggests, by a remote-control unit."

  Now Carver knew what the man on the couch was holding.

  Zhukovski continued, "This belt is used by American authorities to restrain violent prisoners but has recently been condemned as a torture device by those feeble-minded liberals at Amnesty International. They object to the total physical incapacity induced by such a massive shock, along with agonizing pain, brain trauma, and even incontinence. For my purposes, those all seem like recommendations."

  Carver looked down at the black band that encircled him. "Ouch," he said, drily. "I'm sure it hurts. But here's something you should know. I have taken a copy of the computer hard drive, just as you anticipated. I have also recorded a full video confession, admitting to my part in the death of the Princess of Wales. You have a starring role. And if I'm not safe and sound tomorrow morning, every major media outlet in the Western world is going to get copies of both."

  Zhukovski frowned, as if genuinely puzzled by such misguided threats. "And this, you think, will protect you? Please, use your intelligence. How many fake confessions do you suppose have flooded into TV stations and newspapers over the past few days? Every crank in the world wants his moment of glory. As for computer disks and conspiracy theories, there are already hundreds of those. No one will pay any attention. They will simply throw your disk and your video confession into the trash, along with all the rest.

  "Okay, we have dealt with that, I think. Now let me introduce you to my staff. They will, I hope, be making your short stay here as uncomfortable as possible. Mr. Kursk, of course, you have met. So now…" Like a lead singer introducing his less-important bandmates, Zhukovski pointed to the emaciated figure with the punky red hair. "That is Mr. Titov. I must say, you made a very great mess of his face. He has the control for your belt, as you may have noticed."

  The round-faced man with the sullen lips, his nose now hidden behind bandages, came next. "Mr. Rutsev," said Zhukovski. "And finally"-he gestured toward a tough looking, short-cropped man whose crude features had not been improved by being head-butted in a Geneva bar-"Mr. Dimitrov."

  The man gave an ironic bow. Carver nodded back.

  "Of course," Zhukovski continued, "I have saved the best till last."

  He looked up at the one person Carver had been trying to will away, the lovely figure perched against the arm of Zhukovski's chair, running her shiny crimson fingernails through his hair and sighing with satisfaction as he ran his hand down her bare thigh.

  Yuri Zhukovski smiled at Samuel Carver and said, "I believe you've met my mistress."

  76

  He should have been angry. He wished he could be.

  Alix looked as though she had been sprayed with money. Her hair had been mir
aculously restored to a honey blond mane that tumbled around her bare shoulders. Her skin seemed to glow golden brown. Her lips were a liquid red. There were diamonds glittering on her earlobes and in the bangles around her wrists. Her high-heeled black boots clung to her calves as tightly and smoothly as stockings.

  The dress she was wearing was little more than a sliver of glittering, semitransparent material, like featherlight chain mail, that hung from her neck and fell to a point between her upper thighs. The firelight sparkled off the shimmering fabric as it stroked her breasts and stomach. It was clear that she had nothing on underneath. When she half-turned to whisper and giggle in Zhukovski's ear, giving a quick, mocking glance in Carver's direction as she bent down, her eyes flicking up and down his body like a lion tamer's whip, he could see that the dress left her back completely bare before flirting with her naked buttocks in a whisper of silver.

  So this, at last, was the true Alexandra Petrova, a courtesan, a professional, a valuable possession to be pampered, petted, and then used by her owner exactly as he desired. Carver's throat tightened as he choked on his humiliation. The last pillar of his faith had been kicked away. There was nothing left now. The love that was supposed to redeem him had been revealed to be nothing at all.

  Yes, he should have been angry. Fury would at least give him energy. But as he stood before her, stripped of all dignity, the emotion that filled him was forgiveness. Some last vestige of self-delusion forbade him from blaming Alix. It told him that this was not her fault, that the haughty prostitute who stood before him was not the real woman he had loved, but a false identity. He tried to give himself reasons not to believe the evidence of his own eyes and ears. And as he did so, he understood, for the first time in his life, what it meant to give oneself utterly to another human being, to lose one's own identity in theirs.

  Be that as it may, he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of seeing him grovel. He pulled back his shoulders, lifted his head, and asked Zhukovski, "How's the land mine trade? Any more business since Sunday?"