look a bit shook up. Don’t blame you, doing a pickup like that. Must be kinda stressful if you’re not used to it.”
“Yes, it was,” she said, without thinking. All she’d really heard was the name “Mrs V.,” and it came as such a shock, the reality of it, that the rest of his words had been little more than an indistinct blur.
She forced a smile and added, “I’m all right now, thank you.”
“Don’t you worry, ma’am. We’ll get you back to the general safe and sound, so you can enjoy the rest of your wedding night. You know what I’m saying?”
The driver’s name was Maroni. He’d given her a saucy smile and a wink with that last remark. Then he looked more serious, almost embarrassed by what he was about to say.
“Just want you to know, I served under the general, and it’s great to see him looking good again, y’know, like the old days. That’s because of you, ma’am. All of us guys, we appreciate what you’ve done for him. Anything you need, you name it-you only have to ask.”
“Thank you, Mr. Maroni,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”
He gave her a little nod of the head, as if it were nothing, but she could see he was delighted by the fact that she’d acknowledged him, remembered his name. She was suddenly struck by the bitter irony that her new husband did not even know her real name. He had fallen in love with a woman named Natalia, and so, for the time being, she would have to become Natalia Vermulen for him.
In a way that made it easier. Natalia didn’t know Samuel Carver.
78
The MI6 agent in the car behind Alix had finally got through to headquarters. His boss didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Have you got the document?” Grantham asked.
“ ’Fraid not. Carver never left the hotel. The woman, Petrova, came out with a group of men. She didn’t appear to be under any duress. She was holding a sealed file. I presume that was what we were after.”
“Sod it… where are you now?”
“Trailing Petrova. She’s in a car with one of Vermulen’s men. The rest are in a van, immediately ahead of her. Hang on… they’re turning off the road, entering Cannes Mandelieu Airport. Most of the traffic here is private, or charter aviation. Do you want me to follow them in?”
“Absolutely. If she’s flying out, I want the registration number of the plane. We’ll track it from here.”
The agent ended the call and drove into the airport complex.
In London, Grantham put a call through to the assistant cultural attache at the Russian Federation Embassy. Regular diplomatic and consular business ended at 4:30 p.M. on weekdays, but the assistant attache wasn’t a regular diplomat. As the FSB resident in London, his country’s most senior agent in the United Kingdom, he was open all hours.
“Koyla,” said Grantham, “I need you to do me a favor. Get me a number for Deputy Director Zhukovskaya. Tell her we need to speak personally. It’s a matter of extreme importance for our two services. And it requires immediate action.”
79
Vermulen’s yacht had left Antibes thirty-six hours before, bound for southern Italy, but he was waiting for her by the plane that would take them to meet it. Alix ran to him, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled their bodies tight, crushing her breasts against his chest, feeling him hard against her. She looked up at him, eyes half closed, lips fractionally parted, and he kissed her with a fierceness that filled her senses with the smell, the taste, the feel of him.
Vermulen let go of her, and looked for the nearest one of his men.
“ Maroni.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Tell Mr. Reddin that the men can stand easy for the next fifteen minutes. Then come back here and assume sentry duty at the foot of these steps. No one gets in the plane till I say so. You got that?”
Maroni grinned. “Yes, sir!”
Vermulen led Alix up into the plane. In the cramped cabin, he gave a crooked, apologetic smile.
“Not very romantic, I’m afraid. I’ve got champagne and flowers waiting on the yacht.”
She leaned forward, brushed his cheek with her lips, and whispered in his ear, “I don’t care.”
He had no idea she was faking.
80
The first sensation that hit Carver once Alix had left the hotel was one of vast, aching emptiness, an absolute loneliness, a chasm in his life where her love for him had been. The second was a sharp spasm of fear. He thought of Dr. Geisel’s warning that a traumatic event could send him back to the hellish limbo of madness. The shock of losing Alix once had jolted him into recovery. If he now had lost her again, would that reverse the effect?
