The Accident Man:A Novel

51

Carver went the long way around three sides of the block until he worked his way up to the far end of the street.
Now he was looking back down the road toward the van, the café, and the blue Opel. Malone’s pub was just in front of him. If anyone had been asking questions in the café, chances were they’d gone in there too. He might as well do the same.
Carver pushed open the door and walked into a reek of cigarettes and old Guinness. They had the usual crowd in, office workers from the UN and the local banks trying to prove they were flesh-and-blood humans beneath their gray and blue suits. Carver gave a quick wave of recognition to the hefty man in a green Ireland rugby shirt standing behind the bar, then looked casually around the room, just like any other patron, checking out the evening’s action.
It didn’t take much effort to spot the man in the coat. He was perched on a stool by the window, looking straight at Carver and jabbering into a phone. That was a giveaway to start with. He snapped the phone shut the moment he caught Carver’s eye. That was the clincher. Carver walked up to the bar, shaking his head at the idiocy of a man who didn’t even have the brains to feign a lack of interest.
“Pint, please, Stu.”
The man in the rugby shirt replied, “No worries, mate,” in a broad Aussie accent, and stood by the pump as the foaming, creamy beer slowly settled and darkened in the half-liter glass in front of him.
Carver leaned on the counter. “That bloke by the window, the ugly bugger in the black coat, he been here long?”
Stu looked across the room. “Dunno, couple of hours, maybe. Hasn’t drunk much, the tight bastard. Had a mate in earlier, but the other bloke left.”
Carver paid for his drink. He was about to carry it away when he seemed to be struck by a sudden thought.
“Tell you what, Stu, you might want to ring for a doctor. I’ve got a premonition. There might be a bit of an accident.”
“Strewth, Pablo, I don’t want any fighting in here. Take it outside if you want to have a ruckus.”
Carver patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t you worry. It won’t take a second.”
He strolled back across the pub to the seats by the window, nice and casual, exchanging smiles with pretty girls he bumped into along the way. The Russian was only a few feet away now, watching him, uncertain how to react to his target approaching him as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Between Carver and the Russian, three young office babes were clustered around a bottle of wine, swapping giggly, high-pitched gossip. One of them had left her handbag on the floor.
The women flicked glances at Carver as he walked by. He turned his head and grinned cheekily back at them, giving the prettiest of the trio a saucy wink as he went by.
He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. That’s why he tripped on the handbag and fell forward, his glass flying from his hand and sending a spray of Guinness arcing through the air toward the girls, who shrieked and leaped out of the way as the foaming black liquid splashed their clothes.
Carver’s hands flailed for something to grab onto and landed on the man in the coat, who staggered backward as Carver plowed into him.
Bodies went flying, chairs were knocked across the floor, the excited, outraged squeals of the women echoed around the room. No one noticed the way Carver’s fists tightened their grip on the fabric of the man’s coat, or the sudden jerk of the neck that sent Carver’s forehead smashing into the bridge of his nose as the two men fell helplessly to the floor.
Within a couple of seconds, the chaos had subsided. Carver pulled himself to his feet with a dazed expression on his face and looked down in anguish at the bloodstained wreck lying unconscious on the floor. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! Are you all right?” he said helplessly.
He looked around at the gawking drinkers. “Someone call an ambulance, quick!” There was a pause, then his eyes widened. “Where’s the men’s room?” he gasped. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He bent over, put his hands to his mouth and puffed out his cheeks, staggering toward the back of the pub as nervous drinkers stepped back to let him pass.
It wasn’t until he was through the swinging door, down the hallway beyond it, and into the men’s room that Carver straightened, wiped a trace of blood off his forehead, and permitted himself a smile. That was one down. But how many more still to go?
Then the door behind him opened. He looked in the mirror. And he got an answer.
Grigori Kursk had a decision to make. He’d hoped Carver and Petrova would return to the apartment. He’d planned to capture them and the computer there, but now it looked as though they’d split up. Dimitrov had spotted Carver in the pub, but he was alone. Petrova was nowhere in sight. She must still be in the café. Kursk sent his other two men down to reinforce Dimitrov. But now should he join them, or should he go after the girl?
He considered the situation. Carver was good, there was no doubt about that. But Kursk trusted his men. They might not be rocket scientists, but they were ex-Spetsnatz troopers, trained in one of the world’s toughest special forces regimes.
He, meanwhile, could deal with Petrova alone. He knew where to find her. He’d bet money Carver had played it the same way he would have done: Keep the bitch safely out of the way, then do a man’s job by himself.
He got out of the van and stretched his back, ridding his spine of the stiffness brought on by two hours cooped up in a car, then walked down the road toward the café.
MI6 agent number D/813318, Grade 5 Officer Tom Johnsen was using his time on surveillance to get to know Jennifer Stock a little better. She hadn’t struck him as anything special at first glance. Her face was handsome rather than pretty. Her manner was friendly, but businesslike, designed to underline the fact that, during working hours at least, she was an agent first and a woman second. He respected that, and he liked the fact that she hadn’t let a desire to be taken seriously kill her sense of humor. The longer he spent in the car with Jennifer Stock, the more interested Johnsen became in the woman, rather than the agent.
He was intrigued by the way she underplayed her attraction. She wore no makeup that he could see, and her hair was cut for convenience rather than glamor. She also seemed oblivious of her figure. That might be why it had taken him longer than usual to notice that she had amazing legs and fantastic breasts—not too big, but so round and pert and generally pleased-to-see-you that it was all he could do to look her in the eye. She’d given him a bit of flak about that, but he reckoned he’d got away with it. And it had been Jennifer’s idea to act like lovebirds if anyone started looking suspiciously at two people sitting in a car. That had to be encouraging.
They were swapping horror stories about trying to find a decent home in Switzerland on a measly MI6 allowance when Johnsen saw a man get out of the Swisscom van and head toward the café.
“Hang on a minute, we’ve got company,” he said, reaching for his camera and firing off a few frames.
“I know that man,” said Jennifer. “He was hanging around this afternoon, but he was driving a black BMW then. Oh, now this could be interesting. . . .”
They watched as he went into the café.
“The other two are still in there, right?” asked Johnsen. “So, do we follow him in, try to get a closer look?”
Jennifer shook her head. “That could be tricky. It’s tiny in there. If I go in, the guy who runs it is bound to recognize me. And if there’s any trouble, we’d have a hard time staying out of the way.”
“Yeah, but we’re supposed to find out what’s going on with these clowns. And whatever’s happening, it’s happening in there. Tell you what, I’ll take a little recce. Just stand at the door, cast an eye inside. Then I’ll come back here, tell you what they’re up to, and we’ll decide our next move. Okay?”
By the time Jennifer said “Okay” back to him, Johnsen had thrown his camera carelessly into the backseat and was out of the car, walking toward the café.



52

They walked into the narrow men’s room one at a time. The first man had spiked, dyed red hair, with a straggle of punk rats’ tails flopping on the collar of his black overcoat. He must have pushed the door open with his back because he was spinning around as he came in and there was a MAC-10 submachine gun in his hands, another being held by the man behind him. The guns were fitted with Sionics noise suppressors that would make them virtually silent and far more accurate than the regular short-barreled MAC. That was the first thing Carver noticed, right about the time he was reaching into his jacket for his SIG. By the time he had his pistol out in front of him, swinging from one man to the next, he’d noticed something else: They weren’t firing at him.
If this had been a hit, they’d have come in blasting and he’d have been blown to smithereens long before he’d had a chance to draw. But they were just standing there, looking professionally mean and surly, but also pissed off, like they’d really have enjoyed the opportunity to kill him but were being prevented from doing so. That made sense. Whoever had sent them needed Carver alive. As long as Alix and the computer were out there, it wasn’t enough just to take him out. They needed the full set.
So now Carver had another piece of information to factor into his calculations. He wasn’t going to die within the next few seconds. They might be pointing guns at him, but no one was going to start shooting just yet.
The bozos didn’t seem to speak English. They just stood there, glowering. The redhead kept blinking. He had a speed freak’s dilated pupils and gray white pallor, the flesh of his face burned away till his cheekbones, brow, and Adam’s apple stood out in unnatural relief. Carver could almost hear the humming of his overstimulated nerve endings and feel the effort it was taking him to maintain even the semblance of restraint or rationality.
Nothing happened for a few seconds, no one knowing what the next move should be. Carver had no intention of making any provocative movements, not when a cranked-up crazy with a gun was standing six feet away. Then the other gunman started to move along the gap between the urinals on one wall and the sinks on the other. He eased by Carver, staying just out of reach, and took up a position beyond him, making sure Carver couldn’t cover both men with just one gun.
The man pointed at Carver’s gun and flicked his finger as if to say, “Hand it over.”
Carver looked at him dumbly. The man had a fleshy face, as smooth and stolid as a potato, with small eyes and a bully’s full, sulky lips. He gestured again, this time more forcefully, with a greater degree of irritation. “Oh,” said Carver, all wide-eyed and innocent, “you want my gun? Well, here it is. . . .”
He threw the SIG-Sauer hard at the potato-man’s feet, sending it clattering onto the tiled floor and skittering into his ankles. The piggy eyes looked down for a fraction of a second and that was long enough for Carver to swivel on his left foot and send his right crashing into the man’s fleshy jaw. He staggered backward, absorbing the blow, and Carver moved with him, grabbing the man’s right arm and using it as a lever to swing him around, like a dancer twirling his partner, sending him careering across the floor toward his pal with the red hair.
As the two men collided, Carver grabbed the suppressor of the potato-man’s MAC and ripped it from his grasp. He pivoted to face the two men. The redhead hesitated for a split second, wondering whether to fire, and that pause was all Carver needed. He took a single step forward, holding the gun barrel like a baseball bat, and swung it hard, backhanded, slamming the handle into one round head before his left elbow jerked back the other way, into the speed freak’s face.
That movement set Carver up for another backhander with the gun. He put all his strength into the swing, connecting with a crack that shattered bone and sent a spume of snot and blood flying across the room before the man with the punky red hair collapsed unconscious to the floor right next to his pal.
Carver took a moment to collect his breath. He checked his reflection in the mirror, smoothed down his hair, and straightened his clothes. Then he picked his pistol up from the floor, tucked it away, and walked back out of the men’s room.
When he got back into the pub, Stu the bartender was waiting for him.
“You all right, mate? You looked like you were about to upchuck.”
Carver smiled ruefully and wiped his hand across his mouth. “Yeah, I’m fine. But you’d better tell the customers not to go in there for a while. There’s a bit of a mess on the floor.”
“Anything to do with those two blokes who went in there right after you?”
Carver shrugged. “Two guys? No, don’t think I saw them.”
The Australian grinned. “Jeez, mate, I’m glad you never picked a fight with me. Listen, the doc’s on his way and so are the cops. A couple of the regulars insisted on calling ‘em. Law-abiding bastards, these Swiss.”
“I’ll be off, then.”
“Yeah, that might be an idea. And you’d best drink your Guinness somewhere else for a while too.”



53

Petrova had spotted Kursk coming into the café and tried to rise from the table where she’d been hunched over a cup of coffee, feeling sorry for herself. He’d seen her like that plenty of times before, filled with self pity and bemoaning her situation, like every other ungrateful whore. Before she’d even got to her feet, he’d wrapped an arm around her throat and was holding her tight enough to choke her. She struck out with her arms and heels, but the blows just bounced off Kursk. He didn’t even notice them.
There were two men in the room, an old geezer slurping soup at another table and a balding, middle-aged man wearing a white apron behind the counter. Kursk pointed his gun at him, gesturing for him to come out from behind the bar. The man started moving, never taking his eyes off Kursk. When he reached the middle of the room, Kursk gestured again, pointing at the floor. The man got down on his knees, and Kursk stepped over, dragging Alix as easily as he would a child with a cuddly toy, and stamped on the man’s back, forcing him facedown on the ground.
The old geezer hadn’t moved. Kursk figured he must be senile. There was no point trying to communicate with him, so he just swung a foot at the chair, knocking it out from under the old boy and sending him crashing to the floor. Kursk kicked him in the head, just to reinforce the message, and fired a bullet into the floor between the two men. They lay there, the older one moaning incoherently as Kursk put his gun to Alix’s head and hissed in her ear.
“You’re coming with me, you treacherous bitch. Yuri wants you alive, but just try anything clever and I’ll put a bullet through your jaw and smash your pretty face to pieces. You’ll live, all right, but you’ll wish you hadn’t. Now, move!”
They started toward the exit, and that was when Tom Johnsen walked up to the doorway. He stopped there for a moment, trying to make sense of what he could see, the two men lying on the floor, a third man holding a woman he was threatening with a gun. A coward would have done the smart thing and got the hell out of there. But Johnsen was not a coward. He was a trained agent. He was also a brave man faced with a felon abducting a woman. So he reached for his weapon.
Kursk put two rounds into Johnsen’s upper body before he’d even got a hand on his gun, the impact sending him sprawling backward into the street. Then the Russian turned back to the men on the floor, men who had just become eye witnesses to a homicide, and shot them point-blank in the back of their skulls, the bullets ripping half their faces off as they exited into the floor.
Alix turned her head and spat in Kursk’s face. “You bastard,” she croaked, gasping for the air to force her words out. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He pounded the pistol into her head, leaving her dazed and barely conscious as he pulled her out of the café. He didn’t have to do that, either. But it felt good.
As she watched Tom Johnsen walk up to the café, Jennifer Stock had been thinking about the weird ways life threw men and women together. When she got up that morning, she’d had no more expectation of meeting someone new than she had of spending the day cooped up in cars doing surveillance. But that was how the day had gone and that was how she’d found this man.
She liked him, that much was certain. She liked the way he’d smiled when he first opened his car door and let her in. She liked the way the sun had caught the golden hairs on his strong, muscular forearms when he held the steering wheel, his sleeves rolled up as he drove. She liked the way he’d tried and failed not to stare at her breasts, and his guilty-schoolboy look when she’d caught him at it. “Sorry”, he’d said, shamefacedly. Then he’d perked up and added, “Still, you look so great it would be rude not to.” She’d tried to be cross, but she’d actually felt ridiculously pleased.
She sighed to herself, knowing where all this would lead and wondering whether the pleasures would be worth the inevitable complications that arose from a relationship with someone else in the Service. Then she told herself to stop acting like a silly schoolgirl and start paying attention to her job. And that was when she saw the look of surprise on Tom’s face and the two steps he took as he staggered backward, as if hit by some invisible blow to his body, collapsed, and just lay there motionless in the middle of the street.
What she’d just seen was so far removed from what she’d been thinking that it took Jennifer a couple of seconds to make sense of it all. Then, understanding and horror collided in her brain and she was throwing open the car door, pulling out her gun, and racing up the street, crying out the name of the lover she’d never have, concentrating so hard on his dead body that she did not at first register the presence of the other, far bigger man, nor the woman in his grasp.
Then they were standing opposite each other, Jennifer and the killer, and immediately she knew that even though they were both armed, it really made no difference. During her small-arms training, Jennifer had been told that during the Second World War, 85 percent of soldiers in battle never fired their weapons in anger, even when their own lives were threatened. Normal, nonpsychotic human beings are overwhelmingly inclined not to kill one another. So the most important psychological element in military training is to overcome that inclination and turn decent people into killers. But in the case of Jennifer Stock, that training hadn’t worked. She knew she had to shoot the man in front of her or she herself would be shot, but she just couldn’t do it.
He knew it too. She could see it in his eyes, in the tiny twitch of a smile at one corner of his mouth.
Their whole encounter could be counted in seconds on the fingers of one hand, yet it seemed to stretch for hours as the smile spread and his finger tightened on the trigger and the muzzle of his gun flashed and then Jennifer felt herself being picked up by a force stronger than gravity and thrown through the air just like Tom had been. And then she felt nothing at all.
Kursk paused for a moment to be sure that the woman was dead, then continued on his way. When he got to the van, he yanked the rear cargo doors open, picked up Alix, and threw her in, locking the doors behind her.
As he walked around to the driver’s door, a flash of movement caught Kursk’s eye. He looked across to the far side of the street, up at the end of the road, and saw a man leave the Irish pub. It was Carver.
Carver spotted Kursk at the same time, and started to run down the street toward him, keeping his head down, his body covered by the line of parked cars as Kursk fired in his direction.
Kursk hunkered down behind the van door for a second, waiting to see if any of his men would follow Carver out of the pub. But there was no sign of them. Carver must have taken them out. Now they were one-on-one again, just like they had been in those Parisian sewers. Kursk didn’t like those odds. But he could see another way of getting at the Englishman: the woman lying helpless in his cargo bay.
Kursk fired two more shots in Carver’s direction, just to keep his head down, then leaped into his cab and fired up the engine, flooring the accelerator as he engaged the transmission. He could see Carver ahead of him, running into the street and standing there in the firing position, legs apart, arms outstretched in front of him. But Kursk ignored the bullets as they shattered the windshield in front of him and ripped into the bodywork at his side. He aimed the van straight at Carver, forcing him to dive out of the way and sideswiping a row of parked cars. The van careered back across the road, but then Kursk regained control of the wheel, sat up in his seat, and drove off into the night.
Carver couldn’t catch him now. If he wanted the woman back, he was going to have to beg.




54

The moment he’d seen the tall, massively built figure standing by the Swisscom van, Carver had known it was Grigori Kursk and realized that he’d made a terrible mistake. He should never have left Alix. Her place of safety had turned out to be a trap.
Now he could do nothing to help her. He dared not fire on the van as it hurtled away. Any shot through the side paneling or rear door could easily hit Alix. He couldn’t even aim to blow out the tires. She was unprotected and unsecured. At the speed Kursk was now driving, her body would be battered like a pinball around the vehicle’s interior. Carver, of all people, did not need telling that sudden deceleration could be fatal to a passenger.
So what had happened at the café? Carver ran back down the sidewalk, forcing his way through the knots of people who were already emerging onto the street. Their faces were filled with an anxiety that was rapidly giving way to a greater curiosity, that insatiable desire of human survivors to cast eyes on those who have died. The respectable citizens that Carver shoved out of his path looked like spectators who’d turned up late for a public hanging and felt cheated to have missed out on the big moment.
A dozen or so rubberneckers stood in a circle around two bodies in the street, a man and a woman. Carver recognized them as the couple he’d seen in the blue Vectra. Christ, what had happened here?
Then he heard a single word cried out in a child’s high, keening voice: “Papa-a-a!” Carver forced his way into the café and saw Jean-Louis on his knees, his father’s blood splashed all over his Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas, shaking Freddy’s dead body and crying, “Wake up, Papa, wake up!”
Carver stepped over to the little boy and picked him up, hugging him to his chest. Suddenly it was all too much. He felt surrounded by death, overwhelmed by loss, and racked with guilt for the destruction that seemed to surround him like a virus, afflicting anyone he touched. He felt his chest heave, his breath catch, and then he was staggering to a wall, leaning his back against it and sliding to the floor, the boy still in his arms.
He did not know how long he stayed like that, but the next thing Carver knew, Jean-Louis was being pulled from his grasp. He felt a sharp pain in the side of his leg and dimly realized someone was kicking him and a female voice was screaming, “Your fault! It’s all your fault! How dare you hold my son? His father is dead because of you!”
Carver opened his eyes and saw Freddy’s wife, now his widow, Marianne. He caught a glimpse of a face battered by loss, but eyes within it burning with rage. She bent down and slapped him hard across the face. “Get up! Get up, you pathetic, useless excuse for a man. My man is dead. Your woman has been taken. Why don’t you get up and do something?”
Carver looked up at Marianne, unable to find words to apologize for what he had caused. Then he got to his feet and looked down at the blood that covered Dirk Vandervart’s shiny suit and his flashy designer shirt. He walked across the room and picked up the bag he’d left there less than fifteen minutes earlier, when Freddy had had nothing to fear, when Jean-Louis still thought his daddy was immortal.
“Anywhere I can get changed? The cops’ll be here any moment.”
Marianne opened the door to the stairway, no trace of forgiveness in her face, her voice still harsh and unrelenting. “Up there,” she said. “Leave the dirty clothes. I’ll get rid of them.”
As Carver walked by her, she grabbed his arm. “You want me to think about forgiving you? Well, find the people who did this and kill them. Kill them all!”
By the time he’d washed the blood from his hands and face and got back into his regular clothes, the police had arrived downstairs and were questioning Marianne and Jean-Louis. Carver wanted to get out, but he needed a hat, something to cover his hair and shade his face. He ransacked Freddy and Marianne’s bedroom, searching through chests of drawers and closets until he found an old blue cap emblazoned with the dark red badge of Ser vette, Geneva’s football club, abandoned on a closet floor. He beat it against his thigh to knock out the dust, shoved it on his head, then climbed out of a bedroom window, down a drainpipe, and into the yard at the rear of the building. Now it was just a matter of acting nice and casual.
He made his way back to the street. There were three police cars and a couple of ambulances jamming the road outside the café. A forensics man was taking pictures of the two bodies on the sidewalk. A few feet away there were two other men, having some sort of an argument. They were speaking in French, but as Carver walked by, he realized one of them had a pronounced English accent.
“I must insist on being allowed to inspect the bodies,” the man was saying. “I represent Her Majesty’s government. These were my colleagues. They may be carrying official documents, which I must retrieve.”
“I bet you must,” thought Carver. The only government officials who went on stakeouts in foreign countries were MI6 agents. They’d moved faster than he’d expected. Now he’d have to move faster still.
At the end of the road, he stopped by his own car, an Audi RS6. It looked like a perfectly normal example of Audi’s solid, ultrareliable midrange model, but appearances were deceptive. Beneath its bland steel gray exterior lay a 4.2-liter V8 engine that would rocket it up to sixty miles per hour in a hair over four seconds. It had four-wheel drive that clung to the road like iron filings on a magnet. There wasn’t a police vehicle in Europe whose driver would give it a second glance. But if any cop ever tried to chase it, he’d discover he couldn’t get within glancing distance anyway.
Carver slipped behind the wheel and got the hell out of town.



55

Yuri Sergeyevich Zhukovski was not an impressive physical specimen: no more than medium height with a narrow face, his short, graying hair starting to thin on top. His charcoal suit, white shirt, and nondescript patterned tie suggested a man who had no interest whatsoever in looking fashionable or making a show of his wealth. He could easily be taken for an intellectual of some kind, an academic, perhaps, or a scientist. His voice was quiet and unassuming. But the steely chill of his eyes and the directness of his gaze revealed the truth about his ruthlessness, his ambition, and his desire for power. If the former colonel Yuri Zhukovski of the KGB spoke quietly, it was not because he was too meek to shout. It was because he had absolute confidence that his merest whisper would instantly be obeyed.
His day had begun with an eight a.m. meeting in Moscow, discussing the purchase of the last aluminium smelter in Russia that was not yet in his hands. His negotiating tactics were very simple: He named a purchase price, then informed the vendors that if they did not accept it, they would be dead within the week. That was the way business worked in the frontier economy of the new Wild East, and it suited Zhukovski very well. Not all his business interests, however, were proceeding quite so smoothly. Not all his partners were quite so open to intimidation.
In the Challenger jet that had flown him to Switzerland that afternoon, Zhukovski had taken a call from an African president. He was an old comrade from Communist days, who’d been KGB-tutored in Kiev like so many members of Africa’s late-twentieth-century ruling class. But there was nothing comradely about him now. He was trying to renege on a hundred-dollar million order. And it wasn’t for aluminium.
“My dear Yuri,” intoned the raddled despot, whose holdings in Zurich precisely matched the aid that had poured into his country over the past three decades, down to the last billion, “as I have explained to you many times in recent weeks, this isn’t personal. This is politics. We just can’t be seen to be purchasing the type of product you are proposing to sell us.”
He spoke English in a voice that combined the sonorous musicality of African speech with the languid self-confidence of an English gentleman. After Kiev, he had completed his studies at the London School of Economics. This too was typical of his caste.
“I am not proposing anything, Mr. President. I am honoring the contract we both signed,” Zhukovski said patiently.
“A contract signed under very different circumstances, when a very different mood prevailed in Western governments. The simple fact is, we have been under intense pressure to alter certain aspects of our defense procurement and strategy. People have even threatened to withhold the aid my people need so desperately.”
Zhukovski’s eyes closed in mute frustration as he made his reply. “Please, Mr. President, spare me the heartfelt speeches. We made a deal. I’d be obliged if your nation would stick to it.”
“I’m afraid that will be impossible,” said the president. “But don’t blame me. Blame that damn woman, parading herself in front of all those television cameras.”
“That damn woman is now dead. She won’t be in any position to influence anyone anymore, and the only cameras she’ll be parading in front of will be the ones at her funeral. Everything will soon go back to normal.”
“Well, I hope it does. And if it does, I’ll be only too happy to buy your products again, Yuri. But until then, our deal must be postponed. And don’t act so outraged. I doubt I’m the only one of your clients who’s decided to rethink his plans.”
Zhukovski remained outwardly calm, his voice betraying none of his frustration, let alone his anger. “As you know, Mr. President, my dealings with my clients are always completely confidential.”
“Quite so. Well, send my regards to Irina.”
“And mine to Thandie. Good-bye, Mr. President.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Zhukovski.”
Yuri Zhukovski closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, calming his mind. He had two more calls to make. One was to a government minister in Moscow, assuring him that his monthly payment would arrive in full and on time. The other was to the senior partner of a Monte Carlo law firm, who represented the family whose patronage had been responsible for Zhukovski’s rise from a midranking officer to a multibillionaire; the family who had bankrolled his purchase of state assets at knockdown prices; the family who were his secret masters. They would need to be reassured that their assets were still secure. They would not hesitate to find another front man if such assurance was not forthcoming.
Zhukovski’s Bentley met him at the private airport east of Lake Geneva and whisked him off to the mountain estate just outside Gstaad. He’d been there for almost four hours when he got the message from Kursk. Carver had escaped again, but then Kursk revealed, scarcely able to keep the sadistic glee from his voice, that he’d captured Alexandra Petrova.
Zhukovski could imagine what Kursk would do to Petrova if he were ever given the chance. That time might yet come. But when Kursk pulled up outside the palatial chalet - the Swisscom van absurdly out of place on a driveway intended for supercars and limousines - Yuri Zhukovski had not yet decided what to do with his lovely runaway.
“Alexandra, what a pleasure to see you,” he said as she was led into his study, looking bedraggled and exhausted, barely able to stand. “I was wondering when we’d meet again. You look tired. Sit down.” He glanced at a butler hovering at the far side of the room. “Get her something to eat and drink.” Then he focused his attention back on the woman in the dirty blouse and torn blue skirt, her head bowed, a hand rubbing the bruise at the back of her scalp. “Now, Alexandra, tell me what you’ve been up to. Tell me . . . everything.”
Zhukovski’s tone could not have been more charming, nor could his concern have sounded more genuine. But the menace behind the sweetly spoken words was as sharp as a naked blade.



56

Carver spent what was left of the night in a Novotel outside Macon, eighty-odd miles inside the French border. He’d driven all the way on side roads, staying away from expressways, tollbooths, and prying official eyes. Along the way, he’d considered what to do next. Every minute that passed put Alix in greater danger. So far as Kursk was concerned, she had betrayed him. His boss would certainly feel the same way. The longer she stayed in their hands, the farther away they could take her and the more harm they could do.
Yet he could not afford to take stupid risks. If he wanted to get to Alix, he first had to reach London in one piece, confront Lord Crispin Malgrave, and uncover the men behind the Paris conspiracy. But it looked like the Russian mafia and British intelligence were onto him. By now his description would have been posted at airports, docks, and train stations. If he was caught along the way, he’d never get to her at all.
He woke at half past seven and put in a call to Bobby Faulkner. It was an hour earlier in London, but he’d never yet met anyone with small children who slept much beyond dawn. His friend picked up the phone with a sleepy, “Uhhh, hello?”
Carver got straight to the point, “Is your line secure?”
Faulkner let out a tired chuckle. “Morning, Pablo. Two calls in three days, that is an honor. What do you mean, is my line secure?”
“Are you bugged, tapped, under any kind of surveillance?”
“I’m a real estate agent these days, Pablo. You’d know that if you’d bothered to stay in touch. So unless the competition is trying to find out if any tasteful three-bedroom properties in need of minor refurbishing are coming onto the market, no, I’m not bloody bugged. Why do you ask?”
“I need a favor, a big favor. You know, brother-officer kind of thing.”
“The sort I have to do for you on account of all those years we spent fighting side by side, saving each others’ asses, getting pissed. . . .”
“Yeah, that kind.”
“You’ve got a nerve, haven’t you? But then, you always did. So tell me about this favor. I’ll make a cup of very strong coffee and try to wake up.”
“Okay,” Carver said. “Do you still have that boat?”
“Ye-e-s,” said Faulkner, cautiously.
“Where do you keep it?”
“Poole, just like the old days. And it’s ‘her’ not ‘it,’ you should know that. Come on, Pablo, what’s this all about?”
“I need to get across the Channel and I don’t want to go through any checkpoints, customs, or passport controls. So that leaves sailing across. And you’re the only bloke I know with a thirty-six-foot yacht. So I need you to come and get me. If you’re in Poole, I reckon Cherbourg would be the best bet.”
There was a sigh on the other end of the line, then the clatter of a china mug on a marble countertop. “Let me get this straight. You want me to sail solo a minimum of nine hours, assuming the wind and tide are feeling kind, pick you up at Cherbourg, and then spend another nine hours bringing you back? Christ, Pablo, if you’re going to be in Cherbourg, anyway, take the ferry like any normal human being.”
“No, Bobby, I really can’t. And you won’t be sailing solo on the way back. I’ll be crewing for you.”
“God almighty. . . . When’s this crossing supposed to take place?”
“Tonight. You’d have to get over there today and I need to get back under cover of darkness.”
Another long pause: Carver heard water being poured into a cup, the rattle of a spoon, then the slurp of a man taking that first hot sip of morning coffee. Finally Faulkner spoke.
“Okay, Pablo, what’s the story? What kind of trouble are you in?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, you’re going to have to. Listen, I’m a married man. I’ve got a family to think about. I can’t go risking my neck just because you call up and ask me a favor. I have the right to know just how much trouble I’m getting into.”
“Yes,” agreed Carver, “you have that right. But you really don’t want to know what’s going on here. If you take me across, I’ll say good-bye the moment we get to dry land and I won’t get back in touch until this is all over.”
“Until what is all over?”
“Until I’ve sorted out a little personal problem.” Carver thought for a moment, trying to work out how much he could say. “Listen, Bobby, I’ve met a girl, the first since Kate who’s meant anything to me. I think she might be someone really important in my life.”’
Faulkner laughed. “And you need to get into the country without her husband finding out?”
“I wish. No, she’s been kidnapped. Someone grabbed her last night, a Russian. But I don’t know where he’s taken her, and I don’t know who he’s working for.”
“Where was she when this Russian took her?”
“Geneva.”
Another sip of coffee, then, “I don’t get it. Why do you need to come here?”
“Because the people who gave this bloke his orders, or know who did, are in London. But I don’t want them to know I’m on the way. So no credit cards, no customs, no passports.”
There was silence at the far end of the line. “Well, you in?” asked Carver.
“I think I feel a touch of flu coming on,” said Faulkner.
“Are you saying you’re not well enough to help?”
“No, I’m saying I’ll call in sick at work. Can you get to the yacht basin at Cherbourg by nine this evening, local time?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. See you there, then.”
“Thanks, Bobby, I owe you.”
“Oh yeah, you do.”
Bobby Faulkner didn’t enjoy telling his wife he was disappearing for the next twenty-four hours, minimum, leaving her to cope with the baby while he did a favor for a man neither of them had seen for three years. Wives did not, by and large, believe that their husband’s loyalty to the men he’d served with should exceed his loyalty to his woman and children. Bobby could see that Carrie had a point, a bloody big point, but he also knew that the honor codes that bound brother-officers were unbreakable.
It was perfectly obvious that Pablo Jackson was in serious, possibly criminal trouble, but that made no difference. Faulkner had known old Booties who’d ended up in jail before now. You turned up at court to give them moral support, kept an eye on their families while they were inside, and threw a bloody great party when they got out. And you did it because you knew that if the positions were ever reversed, they’d do the same for you.
That was why he made another call of his own.
“Hello, Quentin,” he said, when he was put through.
“Bobby, dear boy, what can I do for you?”
“I just had a call from Pablo Jackson. Did he get through to you the other day? I gave him your number.”
“No. Pamela said he’d rung the house, but I never heard from him.”
“I think he’s in a bit of bother.”
Faulkner explained the situation, ending with a request for help. “I’d be bloody grateful for a hand on the boat. It would make the crossing a lot easier.”
Trench laughed. “So we’d reverse our old positions, eh? You’ll be my skipper and I your humble crew.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that, QT.”
“Don’t worry, just pulling your leg. I’ve got a couple of meetings today, but nothing my secretary can’t reschedule. Where do you need me?”
“Poole Yacht Club, ten o’clock. My boat’s the Tamarisk, a Rustler 36. I’ll be onboard. Just step on deck and we’ll be off.”
“Well, then, no time to waste talking. See you there.”