Tom Cain - No survivors

Last thing at night, Carver called Grantham in London.

"It's going down tomorrow," he said. "Sometime in the afternoon."

"Do you have any idea yet what you're after?"

"Not yet. All the client told me was he was hoping to retrieve some kind of document in a sealed envelope. He didn't tell me what was in the document that was so valuable. He just said, and I quote, that it was 'vital to the future peace of the world.' "

"He what…?"

Whatever Grantham was expecting, it wasn't that.

"Yeah, I know," said Carver. "I thought it sounded pretty crazy, too. And that wasn't the half of it. He's got this obsession that we're like the Romans, just as the empire was collapsing, with barbarians at the gate. Only the barbarians aren't Huns and Vandals; they're Islamic terrorists, trying to take over the world."

"You're joking." Grantham gave a short, irritable sigh.

"Well, you can argue that out with him. All I know is, I'll be aiming to make the handover sometime in the early evening. The location is the Hotel du Cap, same as our lunch. I'll give you the precise time tomorrow. Within fifteen minutes of that time, I aim to be walking out of the hotel with the woman and, if possible, the document. I told Vermulen I didn't want any of his men there when the deal went down, but I can't believe he'll keep to that. He'll want to protect his investment. So I'm going to need extraction-a car, maybe even a driver, someone good-and a safe house for the night."

Grantham gave a snort of disbelief. "Would you like me to lay on a private jet as well? You seemed to like those, as I recall."

"Or I could just give Vermulen's goons the document in exchange for Alix…"

"I'll see what I can do."

Even the powerful have bosses. And just as Olga Zhukovskaya could make her subordinates quake, so even she felt twinges of anxiety when calling her agency's director in his bed to tell him bad news. She reported everything Novak had told her, stressing the urgency of the matter. In her view, the list of nuclear weapons and their precise whereabouts had to be recovered within twenty-four hours. After that, it could be lost forever.

"We know the whereabouts of a document that is of enormous military and political significance to the Motherland," she concluded. "We should make immediate plans to seize it."

The director had not survived a life of secrecy, infighting, and continual, often deadly regime changes by being rash or lacking in calculation. His immediate response was cautious.

"Can we be sure that this list really exists, or has the significance Novak claimed? The deployment of those weapons was under KGB control, their locations are still known to us alone, and I am not aware of any documents missing from our files. I suppose, theoretically, that Defense Ministry operatives might have found a way of copying or stealing our documentation…" He paused to contemplate the disturbing possibility that another agency might have outwitted his own, however temporarily. "In any case, Novak was a traitor who became a profiteer. All good reasons to disbelieve anything he says."

"Quite so, Director. In any other circumstance I would agree with you on all counts. But I sat one meter from Novak when he was talking. I am certain that he was telling the truth."

"Feminine intuition?" sneered the director.

"No, sir-twenty-five years of experience in the conduct of interrogations."

"Very well, let us assume, hypothetically, that this list is as dangerous as you claim. Another problem arises. It is located in a foreign, sovereign nation and we do not wish to provoke a diplomatic incident by undertaking a violent action against armed criminals, who would have the advantage of a defensible position."

Zhukovskaya countered that.

"But, Director, we undertake violent actions on foreign countries all the time-"

"So you proved-with regrettable lack of success-in Geneva recently," her boss snapped. "Our coverup may have fooled local police and media, but do not suppose that our enemies were deceived. The operatives chosen were far too easily identifiable as our assets. In any case, we have a further difficulty. As you know, all government agencies are facing severe financial restrictions at the moment. We are no exception…"

"It is very sad, Director," Zhukovskaya murmured, keen to get him off his hobbyhorse and back to the matter in hand. "But I do not see the relevance here-"

"The relevance, Deputy Director, is that I have no money to pay for the operation you propose. I have already funded an undercover operation on your behalf."

"Which has led to our discovery of Novak and his document-"

"At the cost of sending men to America and Switzerland, arranging contacts across the whole of Europe, not to mention the American dollars spent on Miss Petrova's cover, which apparently involved buying clothes no good Russian woman could afford, and primping herself in beauty parlors…"

As the old man ranted, a smile slowly spread across Zhukovskaya's face. She had just seen a way in which she could carry out the operation, recover the document, save the state money, create total deniability in the event of anything going wrong, and cause maximum embarrassment to the outmoded dinosaur who stood between her and the top job she craved.

"Are your official instructions that I should not expend any agency resources on this matter?" she asked dutifully.

"Indeed they are," said the director. "And as for Miss Petrova, I must say that I am amazed that you are prepared to have anything to do with her, given her role in your husband's death. If I were in your place, I should have taken great pleasure in killing her."

"Perhaps, in due course, I will. For now, though, I am happy to use her talents to advance our interests."

For the first time the director's voice was laden with genuine admiration.

"I must say, my dear, that is admirably cold-blooded, even for you."

It was another perfect spring morning in Provence. Carver met the baker's decrepit old van on the street, half a mile from the house, and thumbed a lift. Now it was chugging and clattering up to the gate. The gang member he had christened Ringo appeared in the driveway, signaling for them to stop. Up close, where the tufts of hair on his back and chest sprouted over the neck of his T-shirt, he looked even less appealing. But he was carrying a combat shotgun, and from the way he carried it, angled across his body-the stock nestled in the crook of his right arm, right hand on the trigger, the barrel pointing down-someone had trained him to use it properly.

Ringo glared at the baker, ignoring the tradesman's polite "Bonjour, m'sieur," offering not even a grunt by way of acknowledgment that he recognized his face. He just pointed at the keys in the ignition and flicked his fingers, indicating that they should be handed over.

Once the van had been immobilized, he walked around the vehicle and opened the rear doors. With an air of infinite suspicion, he examined the rows of baguettes, round loaves, cakes, tarts, and croissants arranged in the back of the van, seemingly immune to the temptation posed by their crisp brown crusts, succulent fillings, and mouthwatering aromas. So far as he was concerned, every pain au chocolat was a potential booby trap, every quiche a hidden hand grenade. He looked inside the plastic bags filled with meat, vegetables, and booze. Finally, he satisfied himself that the contents of the van posed no danger to anything other than the arteries and brain cells of the people who consumed them.

The bull-necked gangster closed the doors, then resumed his circuit of the van. He came to a halt by the passenger door. He signaled for the window to be wound down. When it had been, he pointed the gun through the opening, bent his head, looked along the barrel, and stared Carver full in the face.