The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  11:20 P.M.

  He stopped at the elevators, then pressed the button and looked around. A well-dressed elderly couple chatted nearby, but other than that he was alone.

  An elevator door opened, and three people came out. The elderly couple made no move toward it, and Raymond stepped inside. A moment later, the door closed, and he pressed the button for the fourth floor. Another moment and the elevator rose. Again he looked at his watch.

  11:24 P.M.

  He took a breath and shifted the package from one hand to the other. Rebecca would be alone, relaxing in her room, her brother safely across the Seine in the apartment on the rue Huysmans, her draining emotional activity of the day, done. Perhaps she had even changed clothes.

  Perhaps not.

  Considering what was yet to come, what she wore would make little difference.

  43

  Geoffrey Higgs and three of the dark-suited bodyguards led Peter and Michael Kitner through the Crillon’s side entrance and out onto the rue Boissy d’Anglais where Kitner’s limousine waited. One of the bodyguards opened the door and all three got in, Higgs last. Immediately the driver moved away, picking up speed and crossing the Place de la Concorde, then turning up the Champs Elysées toward Kitner’s Paris residence on the Avenue Victor Hugo.

  “I want to find out who that was and what he knows.” Kitner was looking directly at Higgs.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “From now on we will have a separate area for the media. Michael will give you an approved list. Credentials will be checked. No one else will be permitted.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Michael Kitner looked to his father. “If he was a reporter we’ll find out who he was.”

  Peter Kitner said nothing. He was visibly upset and coldly distant.

  “How could he know about Davos?”

  “I don’t know,” Kitner snapped. Briefly he let his eyes go to Higgs, then turned to stare out at the crowds that even at this hour and in the January cold lined the Champs Elysées.

  I don’t know, Kitner said to himself. I don’t know.

  Telephone to his ear, Nicholas Marten hunched over the desk in Armand’s tiny office waiting as his call rang through.

  “Come on, Rebecca,” he urged, “pick up.”

  This was the sixth time he’d called. The first three had been to Rebecca’s cell phone and he’d had no answer. Anxious and frustrated, he’d given it another ten minutes and tried again. Still there’d been no response. Finally he hung up and called the Crillon directly, giving her room number and asking to be connected. The results were the same.

  “Come on,” he breathed and glanced down at the notes scratched on the desktop pad in front of him.

  Air France flight 1542 leaves Paris Charles de Gaulle, Terminal 2F, at 7:00 A.M., arrives Geneva 8:05 A.M., Terminal M.

  “Dammit, Rebecca, pick up.”

  Marten could feel the anxiety rise with each unanswered ring. He’d already wakened Armand, getting the same information he’d received when Nadine’s brother first came home. Yes, he had seen Rebecca to her room at the Crillon. Yes, she had closed the door as he left. Yes, he heard her lock it. That was all he knew. Did Marten want him to drive him back to the hotel to double-check? No, it was alright, Marten had told him, just some mix-up, nothing to worry about. With that Armand had nodded gratefully and gone back to bed.

  Two more rings and a French-accented male voice came on:

  “I’m sorry, sir, your party is not answering.”

  “Do you know if Ms. Marten might have left her room?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Would you please check with the front desk to see if perhaps she went out and left word where she was going?”

  “I am sorry, sir, we are not permitted to give that information.”

  “I’m her brother!”

  “I apologize, sir.”

  “What time do you have?”

  “Just midnight, sir.”

  “Please try the room again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Just midnight, the same time as Armand’s desktop clock. Rebecca had arrived at the hotel at eleven, exactly an hour earlier.

  The call went through once more, ringing a dozen agonizing times before the male voice came back on.

  “I’m sorry, sir, still no answer. Would you like to leave a message?”

  “Yes, tell Ms. Marten her brother called and to please call me back as soon as she gets the message.” Marten gave the operator Armand’s phone number and hung up.

  He looked back to the clock.

  12:03 A.M.

  It was now Thursday, January 16.

  Where the hell was she?

  44

  HÔTEL CRILLON, THE LEONARD BERNSTEIN SUITE. SAME TIME.

  Rebecca sat in a red velvet chair, her mouth open, barely able to breathe. All around her was elegant eighteenth-century rococo decor—chairs and couches covered with red silk fabric, polished wood-paneled walls, floor-to-ceiling windows outlined by rich floral draperies. In the far corner was a Steinway grand piano, its top open, ready to be played, and everything was gently lighted by a mixture of extraordinarily tasteful and ornate table lamps and wall sconces.

  Through the doorway to her left was a private dining room, and past it, glass doors opening onto a broad terrace, and beyond that, nighttime Paris. The doors a way to escape, if she had the courage. But she knew she didn’t and wouldn’t, not now or ever.

  “Take a long and deep breath and everything will be alright.”

  Raymond stood an arm’s length away, his eyes glistening as he looked down at her. He had surprised her in her room and brought her quickly down a flight of fire stairs and into one of the Crillon’s most expensive suites. Other than Adolf Sibony, the night concierge, no one knew he was there. Nor had anyone seen them come, nor had word been left where she might have gone. On top of it all were his orders to Sibony that he was not to be disturbed.

  “Is it so very difficult for you to say something?”

  “I—” Rebecca was trembling, her eyes filled with tears.

  Raymond came closer. He hesitated and then touched her. Felt her quiver as he ran the back of his hand along her cheek and down the nape of her neck to her throat.

  “You began to speak,” he whispered. “What were you going to say?”

  “I—” Suddenly she pulled away from him and straightened up in the chair. As quickly her eyes went to his.

  “Yes,” she said definitively through her tears. Then a glorious smile escaped her and she stood. “Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes. I love you, I always have and always will. Yes, I will marry you, my wonderful señor—my wonderful Alexander Luis Cabrera.”

  Raymond looked at her in silence. This was the grandest moment of his life and one he’d known would come, from the first time he’d seen her asleep in front of the television the night he had invaded John Barron’s house in Los Angeles. This was God’s doing. It was his sudba, his destiny, and why he was certain he had been forced into John Barron’s life. Not an hour or a day had passed without his thinking of her. It had been the thought, the visualization, and the fantasies of her that had seen him through the surgeries and the months of recovery.

  With her long dark hair and piercing eyes, the regal stretch of her neck and high, delicate cheekbones, just the idea of her haunted him. Rebecca was the living image of Princess Isabella Maria Josepha Zenaide, grandniece of King Ludwig III of Bavaria, who, at age twenty-four, had been murdered by Communist revolutionaries in Munich in November of 1918. Her portrait hung, among others, in the private library of the Baroness’s seventeenth-century country manor in the Massif Central of France, and Raymond had been captivated by it since he was a child, the fascination becoming only stronger as he grew into manhood. Regal, beautiful, unforgettable, she had been Rebecca’s age when she died. And now, in his mind and fantasy, she lived again, reborn as John Barron’s sister.

  He’d breathlessly described her to the Baroness when s
he joined him at his bedside at his ranch in Argentina after his first surgeries. Rebecca was truly his sudba, his destiny, he told her. The woman he had to make his wife.

  It was the manner in which he talked about her—over and over for months as the Baroness supervised his long recovery and laborious rehabilitation from his physical and cosmetic surgeries—that made her realize the effect Rebecca had had on this man to whom she was legal guardian. There was a light in his eyes she had never before seen, and she knew that if Rebecca was truly as he described, and, depending on her mental state, if she could be made healthy and then molded in the right way, she could supply a critical part missing from both their futures.

  In little time she had Rebecca traced to St. Francis sanctuary in Los Angeles and learned of her care under Dr. Flannery. Within hours Dr. Flannery’s personal computer had been hacked into and Rebecca’s files accessed. As a result, the Baroness had learned where Rebecca had gone and the name of the therapist she had been transferred to. In no time Dr. Maxwell-Scot’s computer files at the Balmore had been compromised, and the Baroness learned of Rebecca’s condition and her very promising prognosis. She also learned the name of the guarantor of Rebecca’s fees: her brother, Nicholas Marten, living first in London at the Hampstead Holiday Inn and then, later, at 221 Water Street, Manchester, England.

  That Rebecca was already in Europe simplified things greatly. Lausanne, Switzerland, was the European headquarters of Alexander’s corporation, and Switzerland was an ideal location for him to be introduced to Rebecca and to begin to develop a relationship.

  Immediately the expertise of Maître Jacques Bertrand, the Baroness’s Zurich-based attorney, came into play. Within the month realtors found an elegant and private health spa in Neuchâtel, a short drive from Lausanne. An offer was made to buy it. The owners said it was not for sale. A second offer was made, also rejected. A third was not. The price was outrageous.

  Forty-eight hours after the sale closed, Joseph Cumberland, Esq., a prominent London lawyer, arranged a meeting with Eugenia Applegate, head of the Balmore Foundation. At the meeting, he told her of a client who was a great admirer of the clinic’s work who had recently purchased a spa on the shore of Lake Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The client, who wished to remain anonymous, was prepared to donate the building and grounds to the foundation. Additionally, a private grant would be made available for the operation of the institution and to cover patient fees. The hope was that the setting, away from the bustle and noise and distractions of London, would enable therapists to develop a concentrated program that, with immediate access to the outdoors and therefore physical activities like boating and hiking, might help accelerate their patients’ healing process and thereby considerably shorten the therapy period.

  The number of patients was to be limited to the number of private rooms available, twenty, and they would be overseen by a staff chosen by the foundation. Further, as the donor had done due diligence and carefully monitored the clinic’s operation over the past several months, it was strongly suggested that the staff initially include some of the present Balmore psychotherapists, Doctors Alistair James, Marcella Turnbull, and Anne Maxwell-Scot, taking with them, of course, their most current patients.

  And then came the last. Because of the donor’s tax situation, the transfer of title and beginning of operation of the facility had to be done within thirty days. Whether that was feasible was, of course, something for the foundation to decide.

  For the Balmore, for the foundation, the gift was enormous. Thirty-six hours later, the buildings and grounds had been toured by foundation board members, Balmore attorneys consulted, and the proposition accepted. Two days after that, the papers were exchanged. On Sunday, May 19, beating the deadline by two days, the facility was staffed, repainted, given the name “Jura,” for the nearby Jura mountains, and opened. On Tuesday, May 21, it was fully operational with Doctors James, Turnbull, and Maxwell-Scot and their primary patients ensconced there, Rebecca foremost among them.

  It was a feat made possible only by extraordinary wealth and outrageous chutzpah, both of which the Baroness possessed in abundance. Still, she was not quite done. In the next month, and at Alexander’s request, Gerard Rothfels and his family relocated from Lausanne to Neuchâtel, and soon after, Alexander Cabrera was introduced into Rebecca’s life.

  And little more than seven months after they had first seen each other at Jura, and from her own heart, she had agreed to become his wife.

  “What beautiful children we will have,” he whispered, and pulled her to him. “What beautiful, beautiful children.”

  “Yes.” Rebecca laughed and cried and tried to brush away tears all at the same time. “What beautiful, beautiful children.”

  The whole thing was astounding. And Alexander knew it.

  45

  12:30 A.M.

  Rebecca watched Alexander get up from the couch and cross the room to answer the ring of his cell phone.

  Champagne glass in hand, and a little bit drunk for the first time in her life, she wondered how many times she’d seen him do that. They were deeply in love and had just become engaged to be married. This should have been a quiet and very personal interlude in their lives, but still he’d answered his phone. He was always busy, always working. Calls came in from around the world at almost any hour and he took them all. Everything done quickly and with intensity—yet at the same time he displayed an extreme gentleness, especially toward her. They were traits very similar to those of her brother, and for a moment she thought how remarkably alike they were and wondered if, once they met, they might not become lifelong friends. The thought made her realize she had no choice but to tell Alexander of her past, especially now when she had agreed to become his wife.

  “I will be down in five minutes.” Alexander clicked off the phone and turned to face her.

  “That was Jean-Pierre waiting in the car outside. It seems your brother has come to the hotel looking for you.”

  “My brother?”

  “No doubt he tried to reach you and couldn’t. He will have the front desk try your room. If you aren’t there he will cause a fuss and they will send someone to look for you.”

  The same feeling rose in Alexander as had nearly two hours earlier when he’d seen Marten outside the apartment on rue Huysmans. This was why he had to be killed. To let him live even a day longer was courting the time when he would no longer be that half step behind but right on top of him and at his throat. But, even with the increasing risk, he couldn’t kill Marten now. Davos was quickly approaching, and moreover, the death of her beloved brother now would send Rebecca reeling, most likely to the point of collapse. That was something he would not let happen.

  “Will you meet him?” Rebecca was suddenly on her feet and coming toward him, joyous and smiling. “Now, tonight, so that we can tell him.”

  “No, not tonight.”

  “Why?” She stopped, her head cocked to one side, hurt.

  Alexander stared at her in silence. There would be no meeting with Marten, no taking the chance that somehow Marten might recognize him, until it was time to kill him.

  “Rebecca.” Alexander went to her and gently took her hands in his. “Only you and I know what has happened between us tonight. For any number of reasons it is essential we keep our joy to ourselves for a few days more. Then we shall make an announcement and have a grand celebration in Switzerland, to which we will most certainly invite your brother. And when we meet, I will embrace him fully and with deepest affection and love and goodwill.

  “But for tonight, my darling, go to your room. When your brother calls, tell him you were exhausted and fell asleep in the bath and did not hear the phone. Invite him to come up, and in the meantime pull on a robe and put your hair up in a towel as if you had just come from the bath.”

  “You want me to lie to him even now?”

  Alexander smiled. “No more than you’ve done all along. It was always a game, was it not? And one you played very well.”
>
  “Yes, but—”

  “Then let it still be a game, at least for a short while longer. You have trusted me so far, trust me now. Soon you will understand why. What the future holds for us both, my darling, you could never, in your wildest fantasy, begin to imagine.”

  46

  THE APARTMENT AT 27 RUE HUYSMANS. SAME DAY, THURSDAY,

  JANUARY 16. 3:05 A.M.

  Nicholas Marten rolled over on the sofa in Armand’s study. Still wired and on edge, he replayed once more what had happened in the last hours.

  Intensely concerned for Rebecca’s safety but not wanting to wake an exhausted Armand or Nadine or frighten an already emotionally spent household, he’d simply left the apartment on his own, gone out onto the street, and hailed a taxi.

  At twelve-thirty he’d reached the Crillon. Unshaven, and dressed in jeans, old running shoes, and a sweatshirt, he’d entered the lobby and gone directly to the front desk, where his single-minded demands to the clerk brought him the swift attention of hotel security and then the night concierge. At length, and having finally reached Rebecca by phone, he’d gone to her room in the company of security personnel. At their knock, she’d opened the door wearing a stylish Crillon bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a rich Crillon terry towel. Embarrassed, she’d kissed him and told him the same thing she had when he’d called from the lobby—she’d taken a hot bath and fallen asleep in it. When he’d said that was unlike her, and asked about the smell of liquor on her breath, she’d simply said the day had been long and very emotional, and the hotel had provided a complimentary bottle of Tattinger champagne, some of which she’d drunk before taking her bath, which was probably the reason she’d fallen asleep.