Dame Agatha cut the conversation short with her field agents. She was thinking about the military man standing at Wake's front door. Was this the killer Grantham had mentioned, coming back to England on the trail of his lost girl? It was a very long shot indeed, but if Wake really was involved, then the killer would certainly want to talk to him. But where did Lord Malgrave fit in? Dame Agatha decided to wait awhile and see if she could get to the mystery man without offending too many senior members of the British establishment.
She turned back to Pearson Chalmers. 'You'd better call Jack Grantham at SIS. Tell him we may have something for him. If there's an interrogation, he'll want to sit in.'
Chalmers raised an eyebrow. 'I'm all for interservice cooperation, but isn't that taking it a bit far?'
Dame Agatha smiled. 'No. We've both got our necks on the line. This time, for once, we'd better stick together.'
She pressed the button again and spoke to her agents in the field. 'When Sir Perceval Wake's visitors leave, I want a tail put on Lord Malgrave. But make it discreet. As for the other man, lift him and bring him back here. I'd like a word with our mystery guest.'
70
The first things Carver noticed were the photographs. On the bookshelves, on the mantelpiece, a couple on the desk itself-everywhere pictures of the man whose room this was. He was sharing a joke with Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, standing in a dinner jacket next to an evening-gowned Margaret Thatcher; he was drinking cocktails with JFK and Jackie by the pool at Hyannis Port, admiring the steaks on the Bush barbecue at Kennebunkport. There were dedications to 'My good friend Percy' from Richard Nixon and, 'Mon cher Perceval' from General Charles de Gaulle. There was even a greeting in Cyrillic script on a picture of the old Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
This man didn't name-drop. He name-bombed.
Then Carver spotted a picture on a cabinet behind the desk. It must have been taken at a royal gala. The old man was standing in a reception line. He was talking to the guest of honor. She was wearing a long blue dress, and a diamond tiara was pinned in her feathered blond hair. The inscription at the bottom, written in a rounded, girlish hand, read: 'Thank you so much for those wise words of advice!' The 'so' had been underlined. Twice.
Unbelievable. The old boy had just had the princess killed, but he still wanted the world to know that they'd been pals.
Perhaps he thought they still were. Sir Perceval Wake struck Carver as the kind of man who believes that reality is whatever he says it is, whose lies are convincing because he genuinely believes them to be true. He still believed, for example, that he could call the shots. His tame commander was bobbing about in the Channel with his head blown away. His troops were filling up the morgues of Paris. The Russians clearly reckoned they had him under control. But in Wake's mind, he was the chairman, and he was still the boss.
It still worked, for some people. When they'd arrived, a secretary had told Malgrave that the chairman wanted to see Carver alone. He'd been asked to wait outside the office. Malgrave had obeyed at once. If anything, he'd looked relieved.
Carver was asked to leave his case and gun with the secretary. He complied, then went into the office.
'You've got nerve coming here, Carver,' Wake said, as if his arrogance alone were enough to keep a killer at bay.
'Who's the Russian?' asked Carver.
'Which particular Russian did you have in mind? As you can see'-Wake waved an arm airily at the walls-'I've known quite a few.'
'Really?' said Carver, walking up to a bookshelf and peering at the pictures in the silver, wood, and leather frames. 'Which ones are the Russians, then?'
'Well,' said Wake, 'let's see now.' He rose from behind the desk and came over to where Carver was standing. He searched among the rows of happy snapshots. 'Ah yes, that's Nikita Khrush-'
Carver swung around to face Wake and jabbed the first and middle fingers of his right hand into the old man's eyes, as hard and fast as the fangs of a snake. The old man yelped and bent double, his head in his hands. Carver grabbed Wake's jaw and pulled it upward till their eyes met. He kept his grip tight and repeated, 'Who's the Russian?'
Wake looked up at him, blinking back tears. 'Can't tell you,' he said. 'Just can't…'
Carver didn't have time to waste. He wrapped his right arm around Wake's neck, standing behind him, his mouth by Wake's right ear, the two men clasped in a warped intimacy. Then he started tightening.
'Who's… the… Russian?' he hissed.
Wake's hands flapped helplessly. His head rocked back and forth and his chest heaved as he fought for air. It occurred to Carver that he might be going too far. The old man's heart might give out before he could talk. When he heard a croaking sound in Wake's throat, he eased his arm a fraction. Wake took a ragged breath.
'Zhukovski,' he gasped. 'Yuri Zhukovksi.'
'Who's he?'
'One of the oligarchs, the men who own Russia. He's got paper mills, aluminum smelters, armaments factories, assets everywhere.'
Carver frowned, 'I thought the state still controlled all weapons manufacturing.'
'It does. But Zhukovski is a middleman. He finds buyers, collects payments in dollars, and passes it on to the Kremlin in rubles, taking a cut along the way.'
'Nice business.'
'That's not all,' said Wake, relishing the small sense of control that his knowledge provided. 'Back in Soviet times, many factories had parallel, black-market production lines, controlled by local party chiefs and gangsters. Those lines still exist. The armaments industry is no exception.'
'And oligarchs like Zhukovski have taken over from the gangsters?'
Wake attempted a superior, if somewhat battered smile. 'Do you seriously think there's a difference?'
'But what's his interest in the princess?'
'You're a bright young man, you work that out. He was prepared to pay millions to get rid of her. It was his idea.'
'And you agreed. Why?'
'Long story, goes right back to the old days… I had no choice…'
Carver pulled his arm away from Wake's throat, then shoved him back against the bookcase, pinning him there. 'What exactly did Zhukovski do in the old days, then?' he asked.
'He worked for the State.'
'Everyone worked for the State. That's what communism meant. What part of the State?'
Wake grimaced. 'Dzerzhinsky Square.'
Carver understood. Dzerzhinsky Square was the headquarters of the KGB. So Zhukovski's power over Wake went all the way back to the cold war days. The old bastard had probably been playing for the other side, just another one of Britain's band of upper-class traitors. Zhukovski would have known and used the information as leverage. But that was ancient history. Carver had more important issues to deal with in the here and now.
'Has he got the girl?'
'I believe so.'
'Well, get on the phone and call him for me, then.'
Carver stepped back. Wake pushed himself away from the bookcase. It took him a second or two to find his balance, then he staggered back to his desk. He collapsed into his chair.
'You don't believe in social niceties, do you?'
'Not when I'm working. Not when there are lives at stake.'
'You think you can actually save that girl? Ha!' The laugh came out as a bitter croak. 'You don't know who you're dealing with.'
'Nor does he. Start dialing.'
Wake picked up his telephone and spoke to his secretary, trying to keep his breathing even and the pain out of
