She told herself not to be so silly. The men didn’t look like any muggers she’d ever heard of. They were executive types in their thirties or forties, respectably dressed. Besides, they were deep in conversation, paying no attention to her: two typical Washingtonians wanting privacy while they plotted.
As she reached the men, they politely stood to one side of the path to let her and Buster go by. One of them smiled pleasantly and touched a finger to the brim of his hat in salute. Mary Lou returned the smile with one of her own. She’d been raised a proper southern lady and liked to see a gentleman respecting proper, courtly conventions.
Distracted for a second, she didn’t really notice the other man as he stepped in front of her. She was completely unprepared when he drove his fist, reinforced by steel knuckle, hard into her midriff, forcing the air from her body and doubling her up in pain, exposing her neck and the back of her head to the next blow. The lead-weighted, leather-covered blackjack that the courtly gentleman had concealed in his other hand crashed into her skull, just as a second punch pummeled her temple. As her legs gave way beneath her, the blackjack caught her again.
By now the terrier was scampering around its mistress, challenging her attackers with sharp, high-pitched barks and nipping at their heels with its teeth. It was rewarded by a kick from a steel-capped shoe that sent it skittering across the path until jerked to a halt by the leash. It lay there moaning, barely conscious, while the two men aimed a swift, brutal series of kicks at its mistress’s head and torso.
It was forty minutes before the body was found, over an hour before police investigators were on the scene. By then the two men were checking in for the early-evening Austrian Airlines flight from Dulles International to Vienna, connecting there with a flight to Moscow. And they were hundreds of miles into their journey when General Kurt Vermulen got off the plane from San Antonio, glad to be home after his meeting with Waylon McCabe, and discovered that he was going to need another secretary.
27
The gun remained quite still in Olga Zhukovskaya’s right hand.
“So,” she said, “tell me how my husband died.”
Alix stayed silent. She wondered what form the widow’s revenge would take. But Zhukovskaya took her by surprise, stretching out her left arm and resting her hand on Alix’s forearm. She gave it a gentle, soothing squeeze.
“It’s all right. It was hardly your fault. Yuri caused his own trouble. I spoke to him that afternoon. He told me the Englishman was flying over to Switzerland, hoping to rescue you. He thought that was funny. He was looking forward to humiliating him.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Men and their stupid egos… Why didn’t he just shoot him?”
That sounded like a rhetorical question. Certainly, Alix had no explanation.
“I’m just trying to establish what happened,” said Zhukovskaya casually. “You know that for Yuri and me it was always more professional than romantic. I would not have encouraged him to take you as his mistress otherwise.”
Alix relaxed a fraction and asked a question of her own: “Did he leave a will?”
Zhukovskaya laughed out loud.
“Ah, that’s my little Alix! So practical, so direct. I’ve missed you these past few months.”
“Well…?”
“Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. Naturally, I have inherited the bulk of his holdings, but you have not been forgotten. I will give you the details in good time. But first, I need to know: the bomb. How did Carver do it?”
“He was carrying a laptop computer-he said it contained all the files about how Yuri had arranged the death of the princess. He was hoping to trade it for me. But the computer wasn’t booby-trapped-Yuri made the men check it. So the bomb must have been in the bag it was carried in.”
“And you knew nothing of this?”
“No. The last time I’d spoken to Carver had been in Geneva, two days before. We had an argument…”
She paused as a thought struck her. “I guess that was the last time I ever spoke to Carver. Spoke properly, I mean…”
Zhukovskaya nodded sympathetically.
“He touched you deeply, this Carver. After all these years, finally someone got through… And now you blame yourself for his suffering?”
Alix gave an exhausted shrug.
“I don’t know what I think anymore.”
While they’d been talking, the taxi had headed out of town, along the northern shore of Lake Geneva. Mansions clustered along the shoreline displayed the insignia of nations represented at the United Nations headquarters in the city. One set of gateposts bore the double-headed eagle of the Russian Federation. The gates swung open and the taxi swept into the graveled forecourt of a magnificent waterside villa.
The driver walked around to open the two passenger doors.
“Why don’t you go and freshen up?” said Olga Zhukovskaya. “Your room has everything you will need.”
Upstairs, a sable-trimmed mink coat had been hung up next to dresses by Chanel, Versace, and Dolce & Gabbana: Alix’s coat, her dresses. She ran her fingers through the soft, luxuriant fur, then rippled her hand over a multicolored flutter of silk, sequins, and lace. Below the clothes, shoes were arranged in a line across the cupboard, each higher and flimsier than the last.
Here were the trophies of a Moscow mistress, the pretty little fruits of her labors.
Her underwear, blouses, and tops had been folded away in a mahogany chest of drawers, her makeup arranged on the dressing-table, her soap and body oil left in the bathroom that opened off the bedroom, her favorite photograph of her parents placed on the bedside table. Alix sat on the edge of her bed, still dressed in her absurd Heidi outfit, looking around at all the luxury laid out before her, contemplating this womanly power play.
Yuri and Carver had fought each other like men, in brutal, physical conflict. Olga Zhukovskaya, however, had chosen a very different form of attack. She had entered Alix’s Moscow apartment, removed her most intimate possessions, and brought them some fifteen hundred miles to a particular room in Geneva, Switzerland, in the absolute certainty that Alix would also end up there.
And now she was tempting her: Just give in, bend to my will, and all this can be yours once again.
Zhukovskaya must have known that Alix would feel violated by the penetration of her home and the seizure of her property. That effect, too, would have been calculated: Resist me, and I will remove you as easily as I removed those dresses.
Alix undressed and showered. Afterward, she got dressed again in her working uniform. She went barefoot. She didn’t put on any makeup.
She left the room and walked down a great baronial staircase. A white-jacketed servant was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. “Madame Zhukovskaya is waiting,” he said, leading her into the main reception room.
The deputy director was sitting in an armchair by a mighty, open fireplace filled with blazing logs. She was wearing reading glasses and examining the contents of a ring-bound folder. An identical chair had been arranged next to hers.
As Alix drew closer, Zhukovskaya closed the file, took off the spectacles, and looked her up and down with a faint grimace of distaste.
“Could you not decide what to wear?”
Alix let her look, without reacting in any way, then sat down in the empty chair.
Zhukovskaya watched her for a few more seconds, then nodded to herself.
“I see. Well, then, let us get down to business.”
She reopened the file and put her glasses back on. There was a photograph paper-clipped to the inside cover of the file, a color portrait of a U.S. Army officer in full dress uniform. He looked strong, determined, golden-haired, and square-jawed. She passed the photo to Alix, who looked at it for a few moments, then handed it back.