Maybe she had hidden a whole secret life from me, but I still knew her better than anyone. She had acted like she was carrying an awful burden, not seeking ultimate supremacy.
I shook my head as if that might clear it. I wanted to go for a long hard run until I was gasping and unable to think at all.
“Never mind all that,” I said curtly. “Let’s try and focus on now. The G8. What kind of good do you really think we can do?”
He already had something in mind. I could see it in his face.
“What?” I demanded.
“London,” he said thoughtfully. “Anywhere else, maybe we couldn’t do much, but they’re coming to London. That just might be Ortega’s big mistake.”
“Why? How?”
“Argus.”
The name meant nothing to me. “What’s that?”
He said, “You’ll see.”
Chapter 55
The Bahamas were a string of green-and-gold jewels set in the blue Atlantic. We landed and refuelled at a small airport on an island whose name I never learned. It was a nervous stop; I feared extraordinary rendition until we were safely airborne again.
Green and pleasant England was steeped in a thin mist pink with dawn. We touched down not at Heathrow or Gatwick, but on a strip of lawn surrounded by a rickety fence. I had never landed on grass before. The Gulfstream’s door unfolded out into a staircase, and I stepped down onto a new continent, where Anya Azaryeva waited beside a sleek black BMW.
It was barely dawn, but as always she was runway-ready; clinging jeans, a midriff-baring shirt, high-heeled boots and a thigh-length fur coat. As usual I had to look away from her, and her unexpectedly warm hug hello made me shiver a little. She and Jesse exchanged strained looks, awkward and uncomfortable.
“When you said immigration wouldn’t be a problem, I thought you’d get me fake ID,” I said to break the ice.
Anya said, “Not necessary. This is a private airstrip.”
“But they must track flights on radar, right? Don’t they ask -“
“International passengers on private jets must present themselves to immigration within 24 hours. One of my uncle’s associates will do so later today, in your place.”
“Huh. The rich really are different from you and me.”
Anya gave me a strangely wounded look.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “Just a quote.”
“I know,” she said curtly.
We climbed into the BMW. The driver, a man with a scarred bald head, guided us onto a country road and then a motorway. The we-just-broke-up tension between Anya and Jesse was palpable.
“We’re going straight to London?” I asked. “To your uncle?”
Anya nodded.
“Lot of Russians there nowadays, I guess,” I said banally, hoping that speech would be less awkward than the silence.
Jesse muttered, “I call it Moscow on the Thames.”
Anya said tersely, “You can call it whatever you like.”
“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”
She turned to me. “London has always welcomed exiles. My uncle is only the most recent in a proud history. De Gaulle in World War II. Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital there. The Jews, the Huguenots, refugees from the Inquisition. Even Julius Caesar was an exile, in a way, when he crossed the Thames at what is now Brentford, just west of London.”
“My, aren’t we the scholar,” Jesse said.
“I received a proper classical education. All you ever studied was money and engineering. You’ve never shown the slightest appreciation for the finer things in life.”
It was a snooty and dismissive accusation but, I had to admit, not inaccurate. Jesse had never been much interested in art or literature or music.
“Other than you, of course,” Jesse said ironically.
“If you ever showed me any refined appreciation you hid it well. As far as I’ve been able to tell, you never even learned any manners.”
He burped loudly.
She made a disgusted noise. “Teaching you was like trying to teach a pig.”
“You know, that’s actually true.” He sounded thoughtful but I could tell he was furious. “Because a pig really doesn’t give a shit which dessert spoon you use for the creme brulee, and you know what, neither do I. Only crass new-money arrivistes like you care about that crap, because you’re terrified you’ll be mistaken for the even crasser ones who put gold leaf on everything. Here’s a hint, honey. You’re fundamentally no different. The top rung of the class heirarchy isn’t on it, it’s outside of it, and anyone can get there, much as that may stick in your craw.”
“Ah, yes. The rationalization of the gutter.”
“We are all in the gutter, my dear, but some of us -“
“Do you even know who said that first?”
“Guys,” I interrupted. “I hate to ruin your fun, but maybe you could have your domestic dispute later, when there are fewer innocent bystanders around?”
They glared at me in unison; both loved to argue, and had just been starting to warm to their vitriol. I felt like an unwanted UN peacekeeper. We rode on in poisoned silence.
London was vast and sprawling. We drove down past endless alabaster Victorians before turning onto a gated side road. Its wrought-iron entrance swung open, and we passed into a street lined by buildings the size of embassies, separated by high hedges topped with barbed wire and security cameras. The BMW turned onto an elliptical driveway from which stairs led up to an ivy-wreathed monstrosity that had to encompass at least a dozen bedrooms. Several marquee cars glittered on its driveway.
A liveried servant met us at the door, took Anya’s fur coat, gave us steaming cups of coffee prepared to our personal specifications, and whisked us through chambers and passageways with ludicrously high ceilings and frighteningly expensive furnishings. The thick walls and carpets seemed to devour all noise. We ascended an elevator gated with lacy iron, and traversed another cavernous corridor before finally stopping at one of the massive mahogany doors.
“This is your room,” Jesse said. “We’ve stocked it with clothes and stuff. Use the intercom if you need anything. Don’t feel bad about asking the servants for stuff, that’s why they’re there. Chill out, have a nap, order some room service. I’ll come grab you in a bit.”
“Sure.” I looked at Anya. “Thank you.”
She made a dismissive motion. “You saved our lives.”
My room featured, among other amenities, a four-poster bed, a Bose sound system connected to a iPod Touch loaded with Jesse’s favourite music, the largest flat-screen TV I had ever seen, and a closet full of designer clothes and Fluevog shoes in my size. I showered, cleaned myself with fifty-dollar soap, donned Armani jeans and a Versace T-shirt, collapsed on the bed and closed my eyes, more mentally than physically drained.
I was finally beginning to understand that I should have been more careful about what I wished for on that long-ago day when I had decided to sacrifice everything in order to aspire to an extraordinary life. Extraordinary did not mean good, and now I was drinking from extraordinary’s firehose, drowning in its deep end. The old me would have laughed contemptuously at the notion that it was better to live in Pasadena and work at a quiet job than to ricochet from Colombian jungle to Caribbean yacht to drug lord’s dungeon to billionaire’s mansion. But all I wanted was to somehow turn back the clock.
