The Exile

by Allan Folsom

  What was important, more important than any of it, would be the arrival of Nicholas, invited as promised by Alexander. That Lady Clem had already told him their wedding plans didn’t matter. What did was that he and Alexander would finally meet and all the secrecy would be a thing of the past.

  The abrupt ring of the telephone startled her. In the seconds it took for her lady’s maid to answer, a thought crossed her mind—why had Alexander not told her earlier that Nicholas had called trying to reach her? She had learned of it from her maid, who had answered the phone when Gerard Rothfels had called, thinking Rebecca was in her room when in fact she was outdoors with Rothfels’s wife and children. The curious thing was that Alexander had been in the room at the time deciding on her dress for the evening. Instead of relaying the message and letting her speak to Nicholas; he had taken Nicholas’s number and gone into the library, where he had called him himself. At the time she had thought little of it, except to wonder what business was bringing Nicholas to Davos, and so had let it go, thinking that Alexander was extremely busy and had simply wanted to surprise her, which he certainly had. Now it seemed strange and disturbed her, but she didn’t quite know why.

  “Mademoiselle,” the maid said as she hung up the phone, “Monsieur Alexander désire que vous déscendiez à la bibliothèque.” Monsieur Alexander requests your presence in the library.

  Still troubled by her thoughts, Rebecca didn’t respond.

  “Mademoiselle?” The maid cocked her head as if perhaps her mistress hadn’t understood.

  Then Rebecca let it pass and smiled.

  “Merci,” she said. “Merci.”

  88

  5:10 P.M.

  The red glow of the setting sun outlined the westernmost mountain peaks as Marten slowed the ML in the twilight darkness, its headlight beams clearly illuminating a massive pyramidal rock sculpture with the name VILLA ENKRATZER chiseled into it in large, bold letters. Directly to the right of it was a driveway entrance. Ten meters inside it was a stone guardhouse. An armored car with a white equilateral cross on a red field—the flag of Switzerland—blocked the driveway entrance itself. A second armored car with the same markings was parked beneath the trees to the left.

  Slowing more, Marten eased the ML to a stop in front of the first armored car. Immediately its doors opened and two commandos in fatigues stepped out. One carried a submachine gun; the other, taller than the first, had a pistol at his waist.

  Marten lowered the window as the two approached. “My name is Nicholas Marten. I am a guest of Alexander Cabrera.”

  The tall commando looked at Marten and then to Kovalenko.

  “His name is Kovalenko,” Marten said. “He’s my traveling companion.”

  Immediately the commando stepped back and went to the guardhouse. There was a brief conversation with someone inside, a telephone call was made, and then he came back.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Marten. Drive carefully. The roadway to the villa is steep and winding and quite icy.” Stepping back, he saluted. The armored car backed up, clearing the entrance, and Marten drove forward.

  “How beautiful you look.” Alexander took Rebecca’s hand and kissed it as she came into the library. The room was dark and cozy with a high ceiling and comfortable leather furniture and lined floor to ceiling with leather-bound books. A log fire burned crisply in the marble fireplace. Across from it was a heavy oak coffee table and beyond it a leather sofa where the Baroness relaxed.

  “You are absolutely stunning, my darling,” she said as Rebecca neared, then patted a place on the sofa beside her. “Sit down beside me. We have something to tell you.”

  Rebecca looked from the Baroness to Alexander. Both were beautifully dressed, Alexander in a finely cut black tuxedo with a white ruffled shirt beneath and a smart bow tie of black velvet. The Baroness, as always, wore pale yellow and white. This time it was a long yellow oriental-style tunic with matching yellow shoes and white stockings. A small ermine stole was thrown over her shoulders and accented the ruby and diamond necklace at her throat.

  “What do you have to tell me?” Rebecca smiled girlishly as she sat down beside the Baroness and looked again to Alexander.

  “You begin, Baroness.” Alexander moved to stand by the fireplace.

  Slowly the Baroness took Rebecca’s hands in hers and looked into her eyes.

  “You have known Alexander for less than a year, but you know one another very well indeed. I know he has told you about the death of his mother and father in Italy when he was very young and how I raised him on my estate in Argentina. You know about his hunting accident and his long recovery. You know, too, he is Russian by birth.”

  “Yes.” Rebecca nodded.

  “What you don’t know is that he is European nobility. Not just nobility, but great nobility, which is the reason he was raised far away from its influence in South America and not Europe. It was his father’s insistence that he learn about life and not be coddled. It is also why he was not told until he was old enough to understand who his father really was and that he, unlike his mother, was still alive.”

  Rebecca looked to Alexander. “Your father is alive?”

  Alexander smiled gently. “He is Peter Kitner.”

  “Sir Peter Kitner, the man who owns the media empire?” Rebecca was genuinely surprised.

  “Yes. And all these years he has protected me from the knowledge of who he is and who I am. As the Baroness said, it was for my own good and so that I would neither be spoiled nor influenced in my youth.”

  “Peter Kitner,” the Baroness continued, “is more than a successful businessman, he is the head of the imperial Romanov family and therefore heir to the throne of Russia. As his firstborn son, Alexander is next in the line of succession.”

  Rebecca was puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “Russia is about to establish a constitutional monarchy and return the imperial family to the throne. It will be announced at the Davos conference tomorrow by the president of Russia.” The Baroness smiled. “Sir Peter Kitner is here at the villa.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes, he’s resting.”

  Again Rebecca looked to Alexander. “I still don’t—”

  “The Baroness is not finished, my love.”

  Rebecca turned back to the Baroness.

  “Tonight the first Tsar of Russia in nearly a century will be introduced to our dinner guests.”

  Rebecca swung back to Alexander. She was wide-eyed, stunned and thrilled all at once. “Your father is to become Tsar of Russia?”

  “No,” Alexander said, “I am.”

  “You?”

  “He has formally abdicated to me.”

  “Alexander.” Tears welled in Rebecca’s eyes. She understood, she didn’t understand. It was too vast, too far from everything she knew, even for the person she was now.

  “And you, my darling, upon your marriage …”—slowly the Baroness lifted Rebecca’s hands and kissed them lovingly as a mother might kiss the hands of a treasured child, and all the while looking into her eyes—“will become Tsarina.”

  89

  Seen through the trees as Marten made the final turn approaching it, Villa Enkratzer seemed, and was, massive. Brightly lit against the night sky, the vast, five-story stone and wood structure looked as much like a fortress as it did a grand residence, or, in this case, a hidden alpine embassy.

  Flags of fifty nations snapping in a brisk wind flew from flagpoles in the center of the entry drive as the ML came in. As Marten swung around he could see six black limousines backed into parking spaces to the left of the main door, and now a quick glance in the mirror revealed headlights from more coming up the drive behind them. It seemed hardly the milieu for Raymond to be operating in. But then it wasn’t Raymond, was it? The man here was Alexander Cabrera.

  On one level it was as simple as that. International businessman introduces himself to the brother of the betrothed. But on another and infinitely more dangerous level was the idea that Cabrer
a and Raymond were one and the same. If that was true, both he and Rebecca were in grave danger, because what he had done was walk into a very carefully baited trap.

  “Hosts,” a dozen men in dark tuxedos and white gloves, waited at the entry as Marten pulled up. Immediately the doors were opened and he and Kovalenko were greeted as if they were royalty themselves and shown into the villa, while behind them the ML was driven away.

  Inside, another white-gloved, tuxedo-clad host welcomed them as they entered the villa’s imposing two-story-high lobby, its floor and walls of polished black slate. Across, on the far side, huge logs crackled in a mammoth stone fireplace, while high above flags of the twenty-three Swiss cantons hung from a legion of heavy oak rafters. To the left and right Gothic arches opened onto long hallways, the entrances to which were guarded on either side by gleaming suits of ancient armor.

  “This way, messieurs,” their host said and led them down the left hallway. Partway down, he turned them right and down still another corridor and then another and past a series of what appeared to be guestroom doors. Halfway down, he stopped at one of the doors and opened it with an electronic key.

  “Your room, messieurs. Evening clothes have been laid out. There is a bath with a steam shower, and toiletries have been provided. There is a full bar in the cabinet. Dinner is at eight. Should you be in need of anything”—he nodded toward a multiline telephone on an antique desk—“simply dial the operator.” With that he bowed and left, closing the door behind him. It was five-forty-two exactly.

  “Evening clothes?” Kovalenko crossed to the large double beds, where tuxedos, dress shirts, shoes, and ties had been laid out.

  “Cabrera might have known you were coming,” Kovalenko said. “He knew nothing about me. Yet dress clothes, seemingly correctly sized, have been laid out for two.”

  “The information could have been passed from the Swiss army commando who let us in.”

  “Perhaps.” Kovalenko went to the door and locked it, then slipped the Makarov automatic from his waistband, checked the magazine, and put the gun away.

  “You should know that while we were in Zurich I put Detective Halliday’s computer disk and airline ticket into an envelope addressed to my wife in Moscow. I told Inspector Beelr that in the press of our ongoing investigation I had neglected to send an anniversary note and asked him to mail it for me. They are safer there than they would be with us now.”

  Marten stared at him. “What you really mean, Yuri, is now you have all the cards.”

  “Mr. Marten, we have to trust each other.” Kovalenko glanced at the laid-out dinner clothes. “I suggest we prepare for the evening and in the process decide what to do about Cabrera and how to—”

  A sudden knock at the door cut Kovalenko off, and both men looked up.

  “Cabrera?” Kovalenko mouthed.

  “Just a minute,” Marten called out, then looked to Kovalenko and dropped his voice. “I need to find my sister and make sure she’s alright. What I want you to do is get Cabrera’s fingerprints on a hard surface, a glass, a pen, even a postcard, anything small we can take with us without its being seen and where the prints will be clear and not smudged.”

  “Perhaps a dinner menu.” Kovalenko half smiled.

  The knock came again and Marten crossed to the door and opened it.

  A trim, extremely fit man with his hair shaved to the scalp stood in the doorway. He was formally dressed, like the other hosts, but that was where the comparison stopped. The way in which he held himself and the intensity of his presence was stamped with one label—authority.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said with a Russian accent. “I am Colonel Murzin of the Federalnaya Slujba Ohrani. I am in charge of security.”

  90

  6:20 P.M.

  Where Kovalenko had gone, Nicholas Marten didn’t know. Murzin had simply said that he wanted to confer with Kovalenko alone and that Marten should prepare for the evening as he normally would. The moment had been delicate and uncomfortable, but then Kovalenko had nodded his approval and gone off with Murzin, and Marten had done as he had been directed.

  Shower. Shave. Look in the mirror. And hear Kovalenko’s words, Decide what to do about Cabrera. And how to—he added the “go about it.” The rest of Kovalenko’s sentence that had been lost at Murzin’s knock.

  Rebecca was somewhere in this building. Where, exactly, would be difficult to ascertain without Cabrera’s cooperation. Suddenly Marten realized he had never spoken to her, only been told by Cabrera that she was here. Perhaps she wasn’t here at all.

  Bath towel around him, Marten went into the bedroom and picked up the telephone.

  “Oui, monsieur,” a male voice answered.

  “This is Nicholas Marten.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My sister, Rebecca, is here with the Rothfels. Would you please connect me to her room?”

  “One moment, please.”

  Marten waited, expecting to be patched through, hoping the phone wouldn’t ring and ring as it had at the Crillon in Paris when he’d finally had to go there and convince the concierge who he was and then be taken to her room. Suddenly it occurred to him that that was why the delay, why Rebecca had been dressed in a robe with her hair up and a little bit drunk. She hadn’t been in the bath at all—she’d been with Cabrera. He might have a suite at the Ritz, but he’d been there in the Crillon all the time.

  “Good evening, Nicholas.” Alexander Cabrera’s soft, French-accented voice came through the phone. “How happy I am that you have joined us. Would you please come up to the library? I will send someone to escort you.”

  “Where is Rebecca?”

  “She will be here when you arrive.”

  “I’m not quite dressed.”

  “Should we say ten minutes, then?”

  “Yes, ten minutes.”

  “Good.”

  Cabrera hung up and the line went dead.

  Everything he’d said had been as it had before, calm, extremely polite and accommodating, and spoken with the same gentle tone and accent. What was going on? Was Alexander Cabrera Raymond Oliver Thorne, or wasn’t he?

  91

  6:30 P.M.

  Kovalenko took a sip of vodka and set the glass down. He was in a room similar to the room he’d been in with Marten, the only difference being that before he’d been on the first floor and now he was on the second. Murzin had said little, simply asked him his name and where he lived and walked him to the room. Afterward he’d poured him a glass of vodka and asked him to wait. Then he’d left, and that had been more than ten minutes ago.

  Clearly Murzin was FSO. How many more were here he had no way of knowing, but he suspected the black-tied “hosts” were agents and more of them would be among the serving staff, perhaps even among the guests, though he doubted few, if any, were of Murzin’s rank or shared his trait of character. Murzin was old-school Spetsnaz, and that troubled Kovalenko because it meant Murzin was not only a first-rate commando but a professional killer whose first and only job was to follow orders. If he was here, something extremely noteworthy was about to happen.

  Though Kovalenko had said nothing to Marten, he had seen one presidential limousine parked to the side as they’d arrived. President Gitinov was to make the public announcement regarding Peter Kitner tomorrow at the forum. So, considering the setting, the armored cars at the entrance, the limousines, and the hosts, to say nothing of Murzin, there was every reason to believe Gitinov would be among the guests here tonight. That being the case, he could have arrived and the presidential limousine was his. But it was highly unlikely he would have come in one car alone. It was Gitinov’s method to travel in a caravan of three or four limousines, all the same make and with the same markings, so a sharpshooter or terrorist would not know in which car he rode. A more likely scenario would be for him to simply arrive by helicopter. It was safer and far more dramatic.

  That left the question of who had come in the limousine. The answer to that, especially
with the presence of a man like Murzin, was that it had been used by a Russian statesman, or statesmen, of equal power. Currently there was no single man who equaled Gitinov’s influence. Instead there was a triumvirate, and he knew them by heart: Nikolai Nemov, the mayor of Moscow; Marshal Igor Golovkin, Russian Federation minister of defense; and Gregor II, the Most Holy Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. And if they were here and Gitinov was coming—

  Suddenly the door opened and Murzin came in. With him were two others, dressed in evening clothes but with the same scalp-short hair. One of them closed the door.

  “You are Yuri Ryleev Kovalenko of the Russian Ministry of Justice,” Murzin said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “You were to have returned to Moscow earlier today.”

  “Yes.”

  “You did not go.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I was traveling with Mr. Marten. His sister is engaged to Alexander Cabrera. He asked me to continue with him. It would have been rude not to.”

  Murzin studied him carefully. “It would have been more prudent to follow orders, Inspector.” Abruptly Murzin looked to the men who had come in with him. One of them opened the door, and Murzin looked back to Kovalenko.

  “Come with us, please.”

  92

  6:50 P.M.

  Nicholas Marten’s host was a step ahead of him as they turned a corner and started down a stone-walled corridor toward a closed, intricately carved, antique door at the far end. The walkway was carpeted and the walls washed with light from lamps recessed into the ceiling at regular intervals. It was ancient and designer-modern at the same time, but to Marten it felt as if he were being willingly led toward some medieval dungeon. He couldn’t help but wish Kovalenko were with him and at the same time wondered where he was and why he hadn’t returned to the room.