“But never before has he had any business dealings with the Americans. So why is he making contact now? What can he offer them that they could possibly want? Novak may wish Vermulen to be some kind of middleman. Or maybe the Americans are playing another game we don’t even know about as yet. This is what you must find out.”
Alix frowned.
“Me? How?”
“By doing what you do best, my dear. Since his wife’s death, Vermulen has only had one or two casual affairs. It is time he fell in love once again.”
“Not with me. I won’t do another trap-not with him or anyone else.”
The good humor vanished without trace from Zhukovskaya’s voice, replaced by a Siberian chill.
“You will do exactly what I order you to do, and I will tell you why.”
She started flicking through the pages in the file.
“You currently owe the Montagny-Dumas Clinic a sum of, let me see…”
She found the page she was looking for. “Forty-seven thousand, seven hundred and thirty-two francs. That was the total at six o’clock this evening. It will be more by tomorrow morning, once they’ve added another night to the total.”
Alix hissed, “You bitch.”
“Come, now. Is that any way to speak to someone who is about to solve all your problems? If you agree to target Vermulen, we will arrange for payments to cover Mr. Carver’s medical bills for as long as he requires. Believe me, you will hardly notice the expense. Yuri was very appreciative of your services.”
“What if I say no?”
“Then you and your boyfriend will have to accept the consequences of killing my husband. The penalty for murder is death. Maybe you are ready to sacrifice yourself for your principles. But would you sacrifice your man as well?”
“I need to talk to Samuel, to let him know what is happening.”
“No,” snapped Zhukovskaya. “That will not be possible. You will spend the night here. Your flight to Washington, D.C., leaves at nine in the morning.”
“But…” Alix began to speak, but was instantly silenced.
“Do not argue. These are your orders. You remember orders, don’t you… Agent Petrova?”
Alix lowered her eyes submissively.
“Yes, Madam Deputy Director. May I ask how I am supposed to approach General Vermulen?”
“You will be hired as his personal assistant. Your cover, full legend, and job application have already been prepared. By Wednesday, you must be ready for your job interview. You will have excellent references. There are still many powerful men who know that it is in their interest to help us.”
“As ever, you have thought of every detail,” said Alix. “But there is one thing I do not understand. How do you know that Vermulen needs a new assistant?”
“That is being dealt with…”
Zhukovskaya consulted her watch.
“Correction. It has just been dealt with.”
MARCH
28
Ten minutes on the treadmill and already Carver was exhausted. Dr. Geisel was sympathetic, too, which made it even worse.
“Don’t worry-this is normal,” he said, standing beside the apparatus, as calm and immaculate as ever. “You have been sick for many months. You cannot expect to be fit right away. The main thing is, you are making great progress.”
Carver just about managed to speak between gasps for breath.
“How much longer before I’m ready to be discharged? I’ve got to find out what happened to her.”
“I understand, Mr. Carver, but you must appreciate that you are a long way from being cured. When you were admitted, you had suffered a very serious psychological trauma, a rift cutting you off from your own identity. Normally, in a case such as this, I would expect an additional trauma, such as Miss Petrova’s departure, to have set you back, maybe worse than ever. And yet now, Mr. Carver, it is as if the shock has dislodged some kind of obstacle. The boulder has rolled away, the cave is open, your consciousness is free. Really, it is a kind of psychic resurrection.”
“Well, if I’m so much better,” Carver wheezed, “why won’t you let me out?”
“Because nothing in psychology is ever that simple. Yes, you are recovering your long-term memory, but chaotically, randomly, and traumatically. Your prognosis is still unclear. You might, indeed, continue this remarkable progress. But, equally likely, the shock of these recovered memories could push you back over the edge, even deeper than ever before.”
“So when is it safe for me to leave?”
“When the odds are not so equal. Now enjoy the rest of your work-out. I strongly recommend physical fitness as an aid to your mental recovery.”
When Geisel had gone, Carver stepped off the treadmill. His thighs were quivering, his legs barely able to support him as he walked across to the weight machines. He managed forty pounds on the lat pull-down and sixty on the bench press, low reps and feeble weights on the leg extensions and curls, sit-ups in sets of six.
Carver could now remember when he possessed the extreme levels of fitness required of an officer in the Special Boat Service. For him to be struggling with a routine like this was like a professional soccer player getting beaten in a kids’ scrimmage. But just to sweat, to feel the burn, and to keep driving himself onward, made him feel alive again.
He accepted that his mind was still balanced on a knife edge between recovery and relapse, just as Geisel had warned. He had a feeling some of his mental doors would stay firmly locked for a while yet. But after the terrible nonexistence of the past few months, he refused to countenance the prospect of failure.
“Come on,” he panted, stepping back onto the treadmill. “Go faster.”
And so he ran, and the memory came to him of another time he had run, a dash down a street in Geneva, late one night. In his mind’s eye he saw a white van, painted with the logo of the Swisscom telephone company. He could not see the man at the wheel, but he knew who he was: Kursk, one of the Russians. Carver felt his stomach tighten with tension at the memory of that name. He knew, too, who had been in the back of that van. Alix had been Kursk ’s prisoner. The Russian had driven her away. But Carver had gone after her, though he still could not recall precisely what had happened.
He knew one thing, though. He’d got her back. How else could she have been sitting by his bedside for all those months?
With his awakening had come a profound conviction of his love for her, and hers for him. Carver was certain that Alix would never willingly have left him without even saying good-bye. Wherever she had gone, it had not been her choice. He would not rest until he had found her and made her his again.
One of the gymnasium staff was walking toward the treadmill, a look of concern on his face as he ran his eyes over Carver’s scarlet face, his heaving chest, and his pale-gray T-shirt, darkened with puddles of sweat under his armpits and down the small of his back.
“Maybe you should stop now,” he said.
“No,” said Carver. “I want to keep running.”
Across town a man was steeling himself to make a difficult call. He was way over six feet tall and beanpole-thin. His milk-skinned, freckled face, illuminated by gentle blue eyes, was topped by a starburst of red-blond dreadlocks.
Thor Larsson took a deep breath and started pressing the buttons. He waited a few moments until the clinic’s switchboard had answered and then said, “Monsieur Marchand’s office, please.”
He paced up and down, waiting to be put through to the finance director.