73
Standing on the viaduct, Carver saw the helicopter turn toward him and smiled. He stood tall as it approached, knowing that he was not in any danger until it turned its side to face him.
He was counting on that.
He also reasoned that the helicopter was a lot bigger target than he was. And he was the one standing on the solid surface of an earthbound structure, while his enemies were being jerked around in an airborne craft that was never perfectly still, even when hovering.
He hoped that would count for something. If it didn’t, he was screwed. At best, he’d get only one shot.
So he stood, and he waited, as still and straight as a prisoner in front of a firing quad. The helicopter was barely a hundred yards away now and still nosing toward him. As it came ever closer, the sound of the rotors slicing through the air was deafening and the downdraft beat on him like a man-made gale.
They thought they had him-that was obvious.
Finally, the chopper’s forward movement ceased. In the moment of stillness that followed, Carver thought he recognized the man in the copilot’s seat, but then the thought vanished from his mind as the tail of the predator swung around, bringing the guns in the open doors to bear on him.
And as it did so, he picked up the grenade launcher that was lying at his feet and, in the same movement, brought it to bear on the helicopter. Then, with the ice-cold patience of the well-trained soldier, he waited the extra fraction of a second needed to present the biggest possible target. The helicopter finished its rotation and, just as the first bullets shot past him, with that terrible, insect whine, the full width of the door was opened to him and he pulled the trigger.
The very instant that the grenade left the barrel, Carver was hit in the chest by two rounds, knocked off his feet, and thrown across the full width of the viaduct, crashing into the opposite parapet. The impact of the stone against the back of his head dazed him for a couple of seconds, so that by the time he was able to focus on his target, the gas had already formed an impenetrable cloud inside the Dauphin’s cabin and the machine was lurching and pitching in the air as the pilot was overcome.
Carver saw one of the men who had been firing at him emerge from the billowing smoke, blindly walking right out of the open door and tumbling to his death, his throat too scarred by gas to scream as he fell.
Then the helicopter started moving and Carver realized to his horror that it was heading right for him. Fear swept the dizziness from his head and he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life as the helicopter collided with the side of the viaduct in a cacophony of roaring engines, screaming metal, and blunt stone, its rotor blades gouging into the parapet and sending projectiles of stone flying through the air in every direction. One hit Carver on the back, and once again he thanked the sheer chance that had spared him any time since he’d left the burning house in which to take off his bulletproof vest.
Behind him, the helicopter had lost its grip on the viaduct, first sliding off its stonework and then plunging down to the valley floor, where it landed with a final, metallic crunch, a moment’s silence, and an explosion of flames.
Carver walked back to where he had been standing, picked up the grenade launcher, and threw it into the inferno below. He checked to see that there was no one nearby, and then pitched the gas mask over, too. Then he looked at his watch. It was half past five. That gave him an hour and a half to drive to Cap d’Antibes, check into the Hotel du Cap, grab a shower, change into whatever clean clothes he could find, and get ready to see Alix again.
That sounded just about perfect.
74
It was half past eleven in the morning in Washington, D.C., and they were back at the White House, in the Woodshed meeting room. Leo Horabin wanted an update on the investigation. The story was told from the beginning, with Kady Jones screening Henry Wong’s photograph of Vermulen and Francesco Riva, and explaining the potential significance of their meeting. Tom Mulvagh then described his investigation into Vermulen’s movements in Europe and the death of his personal assistant Mary Lou Stoller.
“I began a detailed analysis of Mrs. Stoller’s replacement as the general’s assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, in conjunction with Ted Jaworski. Ted, perhaps you’d like to present the findings of that analysis.”
The CIA man took over.
“Certainly. The bottom line is, Natalia Morley does not exist. It’s a false identity, prepared well enough to stand up to the level of investigation an employer makes into a secretarial hiring. There was a birth certificate, marriage license, and divorce papers, references from prior employers, credit-card records, and so forth. But the moment I started looking deeper and wider, it all fell apart. I could find no trace of her supposed husband, Steve Morley. The couple’s home addresses in both Russia and Switzerland were phony. Ms. Morley had given a name and number for the human-resources department of the Swiss-based bank that had employed her, but when I called that number it had been disconnected and no one at the bank had ever heard of her.
“So if this woman isn’t Natalia Morley, who is she? Since she claimed to be Russian, that was the first place to look. I had my people secure security footage from Dulles International the day she and Vermulen left for Amsterdam, and compare it with known KGB and FSB operatives.”
He called up a picture, covering half the screen at the far end of the room.
“Okay, then, this is ‘Natalia Morley’ a month ago at Dulles. And this…”
The other half of the screen was filled by a second shot. The two faces on the screen had been taken many years apart, but they unmistakably showed the same woman.
“… is former KGB agent Alexandra Petrova. She is age thirty. She was born in the city of Perm, several hundred miles east of Moscow, and began work in Moscow about nine years ago. The KGB used her in honeytraps. Her specialty was seducing powerful, middle-aged Western males. She’s not been involved in any intelligence activity that we know of in the past five years. But it looks like she’s gone back to work.”
