“We’ve found him,” Burt repeated. “Saved him at the last minute, as it happens. We were lucky, Anna. They almost had him back to Moscow.”
She walked up to him now, taller than he was by a few inches. She held the gun loosely by her side.
“Where is he?”
“He’s safe on a boat. Come with me. You too, Willy.” He nodded. “He’s close by, just out there.” Burt waved his cigar in the general direction of the sea. “There’s a yacht a mile or so out. You can’t see it, it’s blacked out. It was two women who abducted him,” he said, keen now to keep the talk flowing. “They took him almost at the same moment as we found you. They beat us to it—just. But we found them. There’s an old grass airstrip up in the Cevennes forest, just by a little ski area up there. That’s where we got to them.”
“How is he?” Anna said at last, daring for a moment to believe that she was listening to the truth.
“We’ve probably given him too much pizza and ice cream.” Burt allowed himself to grin. “But otherwise he’s fine. Well, I don’t think he’s aware of very much. But I think he’s had enough of our company now. He’s waiting for you.”
“How?” she said.
“There’s a boat to reach the yacht. Back up the beach a way. Keep the gun, by all means, but don’t point it at me too much. I have some excitable young men in the dunes.” He turned and whistled through two fingers. Larry came over from behind the dunes to the right.
“It’s all right. He looks mean,” Burt said. “But he’s a real pussycat.”
“If this is true . . . ,” Anna began.
“Come and see for yourself,” Burt said. “We shouldn’t wait too long. There are others out there in the darkness tonight. Everyone wants you. But you have my protection, if you wish, from now on. American protection.”
He approached her and rested his free hand on her shoulder, and Willy made a movement forward.
“It’s all right, Willy,” she said.
“Finn was a friend,” Burt said. “And you’ll need some better friends now than you’ve had so far. With the exception of you, of course,” he added for Willy’s benefit.
“Is it okay, sir?” Larry said, apparently eager for it not to be.
“All is perfect,” Burt said. He turned back to Anna. “The boat, and your boy, are this way,” he said.
They walked up the beach, at first in silence. Joe and Christoff appeared out of the dunes. It was Burt who broke the silence.
“You’ll have to think what you need to do,” he said to Anna at one point. “There aren’t many options, as I see it. For your safety, and of course your usefulness to us, I recommend you get as far away from Europe as you can. You won’t be safe here—either of you. I can guarantee your security. You’ll have a house, schooling for your son, citizenship of course. We’ll help you settle in America. It’s not such a bad place to be. Most of the Americans who cause real trouble in my country, we’ve sent to other countries so they can cause trouble there instead.” Burt laughed. He turned to Willy. “Haven’t you ever thought of emigrating out of Europe?” he said.
“I’m happy here,” Willy said.
“If we can find your place on the beach, others can too,” Burt replied.
Anna looked at him, questioningly.
“It was Finn,” Burt said. “Finn trusted me.”
They reached the rib, and Joe pulled the anchor out of the sand. At last, Burt’s muscle-bound company had something to do with their biceps. It was a heavy boat and, though only just grounded, hard to push away from the clinging sand.
Burt escorted Anna into the stern, and the others climbed in. The silent engines were started, and they headed into the darkness.
They reached the yacht in five minutes, and Anna saw Little Finn holding a woman’s hand and looking over the side at the water, rather than at their approach. When he looked up as they drew alongside, he didn’t seem in the least bit surprised to see her.
She felt a rush of grief and happiness that choked her. Burt sent her up the ladder first, and she took her child in her arms and held him closely. There were tears in her eyes, and she clung to him, noticing nothing else.
“Are you okay?” she said at last, and stroked the long hair away from his forehead.
“Look at that star,” he said. His head was turned away from her, up towards the night sky. A shooting star was just completing its trajectory to the southwest.
“When are we going swimming?” he said.
Part Two
Chapter 13
NOVEMBER 2008
NEW YORK’S UNION CLUB at Sixty-ninth and Park is America’s oldest gentleman’s club. It was also Burt’s idea of where to keep good company while visiting the city. In its 175 years, American presidents, newspaper magnates, railway and shipping tycoons, even the occasional writer or lyricist, have graced its three-hundred-foot dining room, played cards or backgammon in its purposefully designated salons, and fallen asleep in its sumptuous library.
For Burt, however, the historical continuum was more than simply glory by association. The club’s longevity overarched fleeting fashions and outlived breakaway clubs that disagreed with the Union’s founding principles. For Burt, the club itself was a gigantic clue to the skills of survival and prosperity.
Adrian Carew surveyed the roll call of its elite membership as Burt signed for the key to the smoking room —“with its matchless humidor,” as he’d enlightened Adrian. Burt’s name was written in gold leaf on a dark wood board. Club Secretary, Adrian read. Burt Miller, philanthropist and chairman of Cougar Intelligence Applications Corporation.
Burt’s little joke, Adrian remembered now, to name his company CIA. It was said that the agency had been moved to insist he add the word
They walked beneath the impressive domed ceiling of the entrance hall and turned right down a series of Alice in Wonderland corridors lined with portraits of the club’s alumni.
Adrian searched his mind for a suitable put-down of the whole setup.
But even as he erected these mental defences, Adrian was painfully aware that it was he who was here on Burt’s ground at Burt’s bidding, not the other way around.
“The club’s ethos,” Burt was saying, “is prosperity by inclusiveness. If you’re rich, you get in.” He laughed loudly.
Adrian dutifully smiled.
“During the Civil War, we refused to disbar our friends the Confederate members,” Burt said.
Genuine inclusiveness of a kind then, Adrian thought. And he wondered at Burt’s own legendary ability to embrace all comers, friend and enemy alike. He also wondered which of these he was this evening.
They reached the door to the smoking room; Burt waved Adrian inside and then opened an external door to a small terrace that overlooked the club’s service entrance.
“Our new smoking patio for the diehards,” Burt said with a broad grin. “That’s you and me, Adrian.”
And now Adrian sat in a cold, uncomfortable metal chair on this tiny balcony. It was the first week of November. The temperature felt like it was below freezing. An unexpectedly early snow flurry had fluffed the dark alley below them as well as the balcony’s parapets with a white dusting blown through the tunnels of Manhattan’s
