will cost perhaps five thousand dollars each, Yuri thinks. So, I am going to my bank, to see if I can somehow-'
Benjamin had an idea. He leaned over the seat. 'Wait,' he said to the driver. 'Do you know where the Credit Agricole bank is?'
'Yes,' said the driver.
'Take us there,' Benjamin said.
He leaned back. Natalya was looking at him questioningly.
'Remember Anton's note?' he said. 'I don't know how much this will help, but it's worth a try.'
When they reached the bank, Benjamin realized he had no idea what would happen. Perhaps Henri Vielledent no longer worked there; perhaps he would insist on some sort of notarized signature from Anton, and they'd simply be out of luck. He didn't relish the thought of looking the fool in front of Natalya.
But in fact Henri Vielledent did indeed still work at the Credit Agricole-and high up enough in their organization to rate a rather ornate office on the second floor. Benjamin and Natalya were shown in and found behind the desk a rather short man with a goatee and a manner so reserved as to be almost hostile. Benjamin's confidence dropped yet another notch.
But the moment Benjamin mentioned Anton Sikorsky's name, Henri became entirely different. Now it was all ' Monsieur Wainwright' and ' s'il vous plait ' and ' merci. ' And when Benjamin gave him the account number from Anton's note, Henri looked very impressed, indeed.
'And how much would Monsieur Wainwright wish from this account?' he asked.
'Well, all of it, I suppose,' he said.
'All of it?' Henri said, surprised.
Benjamin glanced at Natalya. 'Well, yes. Those were Mr. Sikorsky's instructions,' he lied.
'Let me think.' Henri tapped his fingers nervously on his desk. 'Do you have a valise, a briefcase?'
'A briefcase?'
'Well, yes,' Henri said. 'Or were you perhaps planning on leaving with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in your pockets?'
'Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?!' said Benjamin. Then he tried to recover his composure. 'No, of course not.'
The solution they settled on was considerably smaller than a valise. Henri had disappeared for a while, then reappeared with an envelope. He handed the envelope to Benjamin.
Benjamin looked at him, at Natalya, and back to Henri. 'And what's this?' he asked.
'A carte de solvabilite, ' said Henri. 'It will provide you access to the account from almost any bank in the world. Just use the card and enter the account number.'
'And the password?' asked Benjamin.
Henri smiled. 'For this type of account,' he said, 'a password is not required.'
They stood and Benjamin thanked Henri, shaking his hand. As they were leaving, Henri said, 'When you see Monsieur Sikorsky, give him my greetings.'
Benjamin hesitated a moment, then said, 'I will, certainly.'
Once outside and another cab hailed, Natalya turned to Benjamin.
'A quarter of a million?' she said. 'In dollars? I thought you said Anton taught at Georgetown. That seems a bit affluent for an academician.'
'I know,' said Benjamin, looking worried. 'Perhaps it was some sort of… settlement from the government. For defecting.'
'But from which government?' asked Natalya.
Benjamin looked at her. Then, oddly, he smiled. 'I see what you meant about a 'professional paranoid,' ' he said. 'But for now, let's go with the flow.'
'Excuse me?'
'Uh… let's assume the best,' he said. And then Benjamin realized he didn't know where that flow was taking them.
'Where now?' he asked. 'Where is this friend of Yuri's with the expensive passports?'
Natalya leaned over the seat. 'Reagan airport,' she said to the driver. 'The international terminal.'
Then she leaned back and turned to Benjamin.
'Have you ever been to Nice?' she asked.
Eight time zones away, an old man hung up a telephone and sat back, lighting a cigarette. But whereas Yuri's had been a Camel, this one was a Kosmos.
Had Benjamin been in the room, he would maybe have recognized the old man-from the photos in Anton's hallway. But now, rather than wearing the broad officer hat and wide military epaulets, he was dressed as so many other ex-Soviet pensioners, with no outward sign that he'd once wielded enormous power.
Across the table from him sat another old man, also from Anton's photos, also now without his military garb. They were sitting in an apartment in a huge complex near the Moscow River. In the thirties when it was built, it had been considered among the most luxurious addresses in all Moscow. Only the highest of the Party faithful were given apartments there. Of course, such largess hadn't been entirely without guile, as was everything in those days. Behind each apartment were narrow hallways where the watchers would stand, listening to every word spoken in those apartments. And by the end of the purges, nearly all the original inhabitants had… moved.
Out of nostalgia or macabre irony, the old man had appointed the apartment with relics from that time. The table at which they sat-large, rectangular, covered with green felt-was in fact from the old KGB offices in Lubyanka; even the lamp, with its octagonal green-glass shade, was a 'signature' of KGB style. He switched it on now, as it was getting dim in the apartment.
'And who was that, Vladimir,' said the old man sitting across the table from him.
'A former protege, Dmitri,' said Vladimir. 'Yuri Alexandrovich, now with FSB in Washington. He had an odd request. He asked if I could send someone to look after a friend who will be acquiring an illegal passport.'
Dmitri looked puzzled. 'That doesn't sound so important.'
'I'm afraid Andrei did not 'cure' our friend Fyodor Ivanovich quickly enough,' replied Vladimir. 'The disease has spread.'
Dmitri frowned. 'But I thought those insufferable American apparatchiks had quarantined their problem?'
'Ironic,' said Vladimir, 'their methods. The more we become like them, the more they become like us. But no, they, too, were too late.'
Dmitri sighed. 'After all these years… you would think the ghosts would be at rest.'
'That's the problem with ghosts, Dmitri,' Vladimir said, picking up the phone again. 'They never rest.'
'And now?' asked Dmitri.
'Now we send Andrei on another house call.'
'But I thought the Americanski wanted them alive, so they could-'
'Their methods are too complicated for this simple old soldier,' Vladimir said. 'And their khren is now in our kitchen.' He smiled. 'Besides, Andrei deserves this trip. Nice is so much warmer this time of year than Petersburg.'
CHAPTER 37
Benjamin couldn't quite believe the view. He was looking out on the incredibly blue Mediterranean Ocean.
It was a clear, bright, even warm morning. He was drinking coffee served in a cup the size of a cereal bowl. Natalya, sitting across the small table from him, looked beautiful and refreshed from her sleep. And perhaps one of the most inspiring panoramas in the entire Cote d'Azur was spread out before him. He could almost forget for the moment why they were here.
He'd been in France before, as he'd told Natalya; he'd even traveled around the countryside of Northern
