sweat was slick against the back of the metal chair. Titov let him suffer, relishing every second of Carver's terror. Then he put the box back in his pocket and turned away.
He was leaving the room! The torment was over!
Carver saw Titov walk out of his field of vision. He saw Dimitrov pick up the black computer case and take it with him as he too departed. He heard the slamming of the door and the clicking of the bolts. For a few moments Carver just sat there, naked, cold, and immobile in the silent solitude of his gleaming cell.
Then, without warning, the white box on the wall opposite him burst into blazing light, a white-hot glare that burned into his defenseless, wide-open eyes. At the same time, the headphones burst into life and his ears were pounded with a deafening burst of white noise, like the static of an untuned radio. The noise exploded in his skull, filling his brain with a random roar that had no structure or meaning, nothing that his mind could grasp or comprehend. The light attacked him like a blowtorch. And there was absolutely nothing he could do.
The noise and the light would go on forever and he could not turn them off. He could not close his eyes. He could not block his ears. He could not move any part of his body. He could not even hear himself when he screamed.
79
Gstaad is the Saint-Tropez of ski resorts, a beautiful old home for crass new money, a place where age and cash meet youth and beauty, then make a deal that suits them both. Back in the seventies and eighties, Arabs awash with petrodollars swapped sand for snow and rushed to Gstaad. Now it was the Russians' turn.
The very smartest hoteliers, desperate to preserve at least the illusion of class and exclusivity, had tried to exclude Moscow's oligarchs and mafiosi, wringing their hands, bowing apologetically, and explaining that the best suites in high season were booked up months, even years in advance. But someone had to buy the jeroboams of vintage Cristal champagne at 7,500 Swiss francs a pop, down in the GreenGo Club beneath the Palace Hotel. Someone had to send their sable-coated lovers teetering, around the jewelers and antique shops. And no one did that quite as willingly, exuberantly, and downright flagrantly as the winners in Russia's new gangster economy.
Even the Russians, however, tended to go elsewhere in September. Many hotels closed down for a three-month break between the end of the Alpine summer and the first heavy snowfalls of winter. No one came to Gstaad to see the leaves turn red. So Zhukovski's arrival had not gone unnoticed.
His name was not in any telephone directory or on any property register. But Thor Larsson had only sat down in his second bar of the evening when a big, bearded German Swiss in an immaculately clean and well-pressed pair of workman's overalls overhead his question to the bartender and growled, 'Zhukovski? That Russian? He's got a big place in Oberport, right out on the edge of town, up there in the forest, heading out toward Turbach.'
That had been three hours ago. Now Larsson was sitting in his scruffy old Volvo, looking down at the shadowy bulk of the chalet, set on the side of a steep hill like a Heidi house on steroids. The main entrance was at the back of the property, up by the tree line. That made sense, Larsson, thought. You'd walk through the chalet to the main reception rooms at the front, with spectacular views down the mountainside, looking right across the whole valley in which Gstaad lay.
There was a large circular driveway and parking area by the door. To the left of the property, a drive made its way downhill, curled around, and then led to a garage directly underneath the ground floor. So a chauffeur could leave his employers by the main entrance, then drive on to take the cars out of sight. And that, Larsson felt sure, was the way Carver had been brought in. It didn't seem too likely that there'd been a butler waiting to greet him at front the door. Carver wouldn't be leaving by the front exit, either: he and Alix saying a polite farewell to Yuri Zhukovski, then heading on their way. When you looked at it like that, it was obvious this meeting was going to turn sour.
Even so, Larsson had great faith in Carver's powers of survival. He clung to the image of him dashing from the chalet, guns blazing and in need of a quick getaway. When that happened, he'd be waiting, engine running.
It was past midnight and he was sitting alone in the darkness, waiting for something to happen, though he didn't know what or when. The Grateful Dead were playing on the stereo. He had a stone-cold slice of pizza and an even more frigid cup of black coffee. All things considered, it was just like home.
80
Yuri Zhukovski took his time. Three hours passed before Alix heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, then striding down the corridor. She'd been listening to the men drinking downstairs, bragging to one another and singing the filthy locker-room songs they'd learned back in the old Soviet days. At one point the partying stopped, there was a tramp of feet across the flagstone hallway, and then, a little later, a muffled crackle coming from somewhere deep in the belly of the building.
Was that gunfire? Alix tried to pretend that there might be some other explanation, but she could not escape the obvious conclusion: Carver had been shot. She closed her eyes and prayed.
Please God, let him live. Don't take him from me now.
The men had returned to the living room, the brays of their boastful laughter even louder than before. Finally, the party had broken up. A few moments later, the door to the bedroom banged open and Yuri stood before her, silhouetted against the light from the corridor, one hand holding the computer case.
Alix patted the bedspread next to her. She was arrayed there for his pleasure, on top of the bed, leaning against a pile of snow white pillows in a short, satin nightdress the color of cafe au lait, trimmed with lace and cut high on the thigh. She had one knee up, the other leg stretched out in front of her, revealing a pair of tiny matching panties.
'Come here, my darling,' she purred. 'I've been missing you.'
Yuri placed the black bag on the floor, took a few steps into the room, then stood quite still in the middle of the carpet. She knew he must have been drinking with his men, but his voice betrayed no trace whatsoever of drunkenness when he replied, 'No. You come here and prove how much you've missed me. Prove it on your knees.'
Afterward, she helped him out of his clothes, nuzzling against him, dutifully arousing him as she led him to the bed. But now that Yuri's immediate physical needs had been satisfied, he seemed more interested in discussing the pain he'd inflicted on Carver.
'We let him stay there for an hour or so,' he was saying as they slipped under the covers. 'Then Kursk and his boys burst into the room and dragged him out of his chair. He was totally disoriented. It was obvious that he was completely unable to see, he'd been looking into that light for so long. He was waving his arms around in front of him like a blind beggar.'
Somehow Alix managed to give a little titter, as if amused by Carver's degradation. Yuri seemed encouraged by her appreciation.
'They led him out of the room, into the garage. Then they put him up against a wall and he stood there, cowering like a whipped dog, looking around with his pathetic staring eyes, still taped wide open. I must say, it made me feel quite nostalgic, just like the old days. And the fascinating thing was, his hands were free. He could have taken the tape off his eyes, closed them for a bit, but he just couldn't figure it out. I was glad. I wanted him to see what was happening. I wanted him to know.'
'I want him to know too,' said Alix, nibbling Yuri's ear and wrapping her thighs around his.
'Still, after a while, I ordered Titov to tear off the tape, to see what would happen. Carver blinked a few times and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he was crying, weeping quite pitifully. Kursk slapped him a few times and that seemed to wake him up. That was when he realized where he was, standing up against a wall with four men pointing guns at him. And then, then-and I must say, this was, perhaps, the most satisfying moment of all-he tried to stand up straight, die like a man… and he couldn't. He fell over. One of the men had to go over and drag him up again, just prop him against the wall…'
