“Well, it wouldn’t go down too well in Whitehall if anyone found out who you’d been using to do your dirty work, or how we first happened to meet. As for me, I got Vermulen this list. Plus, something tells me you’ll be able to date McCabe’s religious conversion to the day he miraculously escaped an air crash in the wilds of the Yukon. That was down to me, too. We’re all in this together, like it or not, so answer the question: Yugoslavia?”
He was pushing his luck, but she seemed disinclined to object. He’d been right: The mighty deputy director was in no position to complain.
“Two,” said Zhukovskaya. “One in central Belgrade, the other near the Trepca mining complex. It is the single most valuable natural resource in Yugoslavia, producing lead, zinc, copper, gold, and silver-a natural target for economic sabotage.”
Grantham nodded to himself, as if agreeing that the locations made sense. He did not bother to ask her how the KGB knew the location of weapons that were lost to the rest of the Russian military and government establishment. He, of all people, needed no lessons in the keeping of secrets from a security service’s political masters.
“Where is this place?” asked Carver.
“Kosovo,” said Grantham, before Zhukovskaya could reply.
“Where Vermulen’s supposed Islamist terrorists are busy starting a civil war. Christ, is that mad bugger going to nuke them? That would get a war going, all right.”
“Personally, I would not do anything so obvious…” said Zhukovskaya.
Grantham looked at her inquisitively.
“A false-flag operation?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I like that better, I think. Much more effective to make the world think that the terrorists had the bomb. We think alike… but would Vermulen? He has intelligence experience… it is possible. But how to stop him? That is the problem.”
“Get me to Trepca,” said Carver. “That’s the one lead we have. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Just you?” asked Zhukovskaya.
“You got anyone else you can call?”
82
Her cover had worked too well. Alix Petrova was a trained field agent who had seduced, deceived, and even killed dangerous men. But Natalia Vermulen was an innocent personal assistant who’d just married the boss, and as far as her new husband was concerned, his duty was to keep her safe, not lead her into harm’s way. So she had no argument when, as they lay in bed-her head on his chest, her hand on his shoulder, the early-morning light, reflected from the ocean, playing on the walls of the yacht’s master bedroom-he told her, “You can’t come with us tonight.”
“I understand,” she said. “It’s just… I want to be with you. I can’t help it.”
There were tears welling in her eyes. As she blinked them away, she realized that they, at least, were genuine. She truly felt like crying, even if she was lying about why.
He felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin.
“It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and holding her tight against his body. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I have to do. I had some crazy notions, but what I’m planning is going to be a lot simpler, and a lot safer now.”
She could sense him gathering his thoughts, almost working up the courage to speak again, the way men did when they were about to say something personal, a revelation that would leave them exposed and vulnerable.
His voice was thick with emotion as he said, “Now that I’ve found you, I have something to live for again. I think I lost that for a while. It affected the way I thought, even made me a little crazy. Not now. There’s still something I have to do, something that matters. But I love you too much to take dumb risks…”
He smiled, lightening the mood, catching her eye as she looked up at his face.
“Just really smart risks, ones worth taking.”
“It makes me scared, not knowing what’s happening to you,” she said.
“That’s what you get for marrying a soldier, even an ex-soldier. It’s really tough, having to stay at home, not knowing whether the person you love is dead or alive.”
“How did Amy manage it?”
“I don’t know. When I went to ’ Nam, we were just kids. She’d only recently turned twenty-one, had the party just before I shipped out. All those years, left on her own so many times. You know, she never once complained… Oh, God, I didn’t mean… I wasn’t comparing you…”
She squeezed his shoulder in reassurance.
“Don’t worry-I was the one who mentioned Amy. I like it that you remember her with love. It proves that you are a good man.”
Vermulen shifted his weight. The arm that had been wrapped so protectively around her pulled on her shoulder, so that she was rolled off his chest and onto her back. Now he was on top of her, his mouth pressing on hers and his legs forcing her thighs apart with a strength that she could not have resisted, even had she wanted to. So she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled their bodies together.
As they began to make love, she was smiling. Her happiness was as real as her tears had been, but once again, the reason was not the one that Kurt Vermulen might imagine.
