Tom Cain - No survivors

The woman she had spotted at the bierkeller was sitting, half turned, with her legs crossed and her right shoulder leaning against the side of the car. Her arms were crossed above her lap, with her right wrist resting on her left forearm, supporting the gun she was pointing directly at Alix.

"Good evening, my dear," said Olga Zhukovskaya.

She was one of the most powerful women in Russia, the deputy director of the FSB, the intelligence agency that was the direct descendent of the Soviet KGB. Yet she spoke with an affectionate familiarity that suggested long acquaintance, even a family tie.

Zhukovskaya had indeed been a kind of mother to Alix. She was still the wife, rather than the widow, of Yuri Zhukovski when she spotted Alix at a Communist Party youth convention in Moscow a dozen years before-a gawky provincial teenager, hiding behind thick-lensed spectacles. Yet the older woman's practiced eye had spotted a natural sexuality of which the girl herself was entirely unaware. And just as years of training can turn a raw recruit into an elite fighting man, so the gauche, unsophisticated Alexandra Petrova had been transformed by diet, exercise, surgery, and education.

Zhukovskaya had observed Alix bewitch generals, politicians, and industrialists. She had watched her own late husband-once, like her, a KGB officer; then a ruthless industrialist-fall under Alix's spell, and been content to let the relationship flourish as long as it suited her own purposes.

Alix had been magnificent. But now look at her-a tired, bedraggled creature in laddered tights and a cheap, tawdry costume.

For a moment, Zhukovskaya was tempted to let her go. Why waste time on someone who was already so close to the edge? But then she reconsidered. She had come a long way, after all, and gone to a great deal of trouble. There was no point in throwing away this opportunity.

Her head was tilted slightly, giving her a quizzical expression as she asked, "What made you think you could run?"

Mary Lou Stoller lived on Edmunds Street in northwest Washington D.C., on the block between Foxhall Road and Glover-Archbold Park.

At that point, Edmunds seems more like a country lane than a residential street just a few miles from the heart of a capital city. At the east end of the road, you can step right into the park, a rolling expanse of semirural woodland.

Mary Lou got home that afternoon around five. Her boss was out of town, so she'd left work early. It was such a lovely winter afternoon, with the low rays of the sun cutting through the bare branches and the fallen leaves crisp with frost underfoot, she couldn't wait to take her Norfolk terrier, Buster, for a walk.

There weren't too many people in the park, just the occasional mother with her children, or a jogger running in search of immortality. When Mary Lou saw the two men coming toward her, she felt a brief spasm of alarm. There wasn't anyone else on the path. Her immediate, instinctive response, as a woman, was to see two large males as a threat.

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.

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.