of Perm. In those days she’d been anything but a beauty. She wore shapeless clothes and thick spectacles that failed to disguise the squint for which she had been mocked throughout her childhood and adolescence. Yet one woman, a KGB officer called Olga Zhukovskaya, had spotted Alix’s potential. Thanks to her, she had been transformed by a combination of surgery, diet and arduous training into a professional seductress. By the age of twenty-two she’d been able to converse in English as easily as in Russian; to charm a man into bed; to give him the erotic experience of a lifetime once he was there — and to extract whatever information her masters required from her pathetically grateful target.
Orwell, Alix concluded, was little different from the diplomats, politicians, military attaches and businessmen who had been the victims of the honeytrap operations on which she’d once been sent. For all his stellar political reputation, all his familiarity with the most elevated corridors of global power politics, he was now essentially a salesman. Over dinner he had come out with slick, persuasive patter about the genius of Malachi Zorn and the huge returns to be had from his fund, being careful never actually to say that profits were guaranteed, but making sure that vast returns were clearly implied. He had been well-briefed for the meeting, and displayed his knowledge well. He showed a keen, flattering interest in Azarov’s commercial prowess and took care to compliment Alix not just on her beauty, but also on the success of the Washington DC military and political consulting business she had inherited from her late husband, General Kurt Vermulen, and subsequently run herself.
‘This Nicholas Orwell is a fine man,’ Azarov had reflected, as the chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce took them back to his red-brick Queen-Anne-style mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, or, as London estate agents liked to call it, ‘Billionaires’ Row’. ‘He understands how the world works. For a socialist, he appreciates the value and power of money.’
‘His was not the kind of socialism that you and I learned when we were growing up,’ Alix remarked.
‘No, but it was the kind our masters practised. Make all the money you can, and let the masses fend for themselves. In any case, he is right about Zorn. That man is a magician. You know they say he cleared over ten billion in a single play against Lehman Brothers?’
Alix had placed her hand on Azarov’s forearm in a gentle gesture of restraint. ‘Are you sure that Zorn will work his magic on your behalf?’
‘Why would he not? The more money I make, the more he makes. Of course, there is bound to be some risk. We are playing for the highest possible stakes and a man should not pick up the dice if he has not got the balls to lose everything on a single roll. But I am confident that Zorn’s scheme will make us all big, big profits. I can feel it in my guts.’
Alix was not so sure about that. So far as she was concerned, Azarov’s guts were filled to the brim with the Connaught’s legendarily fine food and wine. If he was feeling anything, it was mostly likely to be indigestion. As for his brains, Azarov had a Russian’s head for alcohol, but even so, his judgement seemed less piercing than usual. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more Alix concluded that Orwell had not resembled her former targets so much as herself. He had been engaged on a mission of seduction. And it appeared to have been a success.
The following morning she called the Connaught and discovered that the hotel charged one thousand two hundred pounds for the Sommelier’s Table, exclusive of the wines, which must surely have cost far more than usual. Of course, such expenses were minuscule next to the sums Orwell was hoping to secure on Zorn’s behalf. But Alix had never known a rich man who did not keep a very close eye indeed on his spending. Malachi Zorn was not known for being unduly extravagant in his own lifestyle. If he was willing to fund such extravagance for others, then he must have a reason for doing so. And Alix was by no means certain that the reason was as straightforward as Azarov assumed.
Her feelings had only intensified when she and Azarov had met Zorn himself at his Italian villa. All the guests owned their own private planes, yet jets had been laid on to spare them the cost of flying on their own account. The champagne had been served from magnums of 1982 Krug Collection, which retailed for around two thousand dollars each. The quantity of food provided had been far in excess of what could ever have been needed. Zorn’s reputation was surely enough to guarantee his fund all the money it could possibly need. So why was he going to such unnecessary lengths to impress?
When she had got back to London, where Azarov was spending the early summer before departing for the Mediterranean, Alix called her office and put two of her best researchers on to the task of compiling a dossier on Malachi Zorn’s new fund. The results were skimpy. There had been some coverage of Zorn’s plans in the media, especially from publications and websites aimed at financial professionals and wealthy individuals. Yet amidst all the promotional puffery and awestruck descriptions of both Zorn’s financial prowess and his investors’ vast wealth there was very little hard detail about precisely what he planned. She emailed back a terse message. ‘I need more. Want to know about his set-up: offices, staff, overheads, etc. What’s he paying Orwell? Where’s the investors’ money going? More! AV’
Again, the response was disappointing. For all the hype, there was little to be seen of the fund itself. Perhaps that was no surprise. Zorn had spent his entire working life as a one-man band, working his magic from a single desk. Why would it be so different, just because the money he was risking came from a new source? And then one detail caught her eye. Zorn had leased office-space in London and Manhattan. In both cases he had chosen prime properties in exclusive locations. But when Alix looked closely, the offices had something else in common: Zorn had only signed three-month leases, of which more than two months had already expired. She had produced this fact as a trump card earlier in the evening, as she had pleaded with Azarov to reconsider his decision.
‘If this is intended to be such a great new business, why will the leases run out so soon?’ she asked. ‘That does not sound to me like a man who is planning for the long term.’
‘Maybe it is a man who thinks he will need more space by then,’ Azarov had countered. ‘Maybe he looks at the way the real estate market is going, and knows that he will soon be able to get a better deal. Or maybe he is just smarter than you, my darling, and is making decisions that you cannot understand.’
‘Maybe he is being too smart for you too, Dmytryk. Have you considered that? Have you asked yourself why this man who already makes billions without a single penny of anyone else’s money suddenly runs to men like you for help?’
‘Because he wants to make even more billions for himself.’
‘Why? How much more does he need?’
Azarov laughed. ‘How much does anyone need? It is not about need. It is about winning. It is about being the best. It’s that way for all of us. The money is just the way we keep score.’
‘Well, I hope you know what you are doing. I think you are making a terrible mistake, and you will live to regret it.’
‘Oh, really?’ sneered Azarov. ‘And how would you prefer that I spend it? On more jewels and pretty dresses for you, my pampered darling? I suppose that’s what you expect, after all. Your services have always come at a price.’
Her slap hit his face like a full stop at the end of the sentence.
‘How dare you?’ Alix hissed. ‘I have never asked you for a penny. I earn my own money and pay my own bills. And what right have you, a petty thief from the gutters of Kiev, to look down on what I have had to do to survive?’
Azarov stepped towards her, raising his fist. The red mark left by her hand was clearly visible on his cheek.
Alix stood her ground. ‘Go on, then,’ she said raising her chin defiantly, presenting it as a target. ‘Hit me. Show me what kind of a man you really are.’
Azarov stood for a moment with his arm raised, then took a step back, his breathing heavy and his lips white with a fury it was taking all his self-control to contain. They seemed to stare at one another for an age before he turned on his heel and strode to a console table on which was a telephone. He picked it up.
‘Tell Connors to pack me an overnight bag. Now,’ he commanded. ‘I want my Ferrari brought to the front door immediately. And book me a suite at the Ritz… Yes, for tonight. Mrs Vermulen will be staying here.’
Azarov slammed the phone down, then turned to face Alix again.
‘Satisfied?’ he said.
Burlington, Ontario, Canada: six months earlier
The shoes were a statement of defiance. Classic black brogues by Luca del Forte, reduced from three hundred and fifty bucks to one-eighty at the Browns store in Mapleview Mall, right off the Queen Elizabeth Way.
