Tom Cain - The accident man

"So, do we have a deal?"

"I don't know. Half a mill sounds like a lot of money."

"In your situation? I don't think so, Charlie. You have two hours. I will call you again at one thirty p.m. Central European Time. If I don't get your guarantee of payment then, I'm going elsewhere. Good-bye."

Papin ended the call, then thought for a moment. He needed some insurance, but why wait for another two hours? He dialed a London number. He could think of more than one organization that would be happy to have his information.

The man in the white coat took off his glasses and rubbed a hand across his bearded face. He looked at Carver through squinted eyes, trying to focus.

"Okay, so we need to induce a sense of relaxation and empathy, yes?"

"Correct."

"Then we want sexual arousal."

"That's right."

"And finally, we must lower mental defenses, maybe create a sense of disorientation?"

"Exactly, Dieter. That's the plan."

Carver and Alix had concluded the first part of their shopping expedition. She had bought the clothes she needed, and a selection of wigs. He had spent ten minutes getting the Swiss version of a number-two cut at a backstreet barbershop, which left his scalp bristling with the military buzz cut a man like Dirk Vandervart might favor. Then he bought a designer suit whose shiny silken fabric went perfectly with an oversize gold watch to create the defiantly tasteless look of a man with a lot of dirty money to wash. The purchases had been packed in a couple of Gucci overnight bags. Where Carver planned to go, they would need expensive luggage.

Together, he and Alix had taken their costumes to an attic studio above a chocolate shop. It had taken a lot of persuasion and even more money to get the studio's obsessively painstaking Swiss proprietor to compromise his perfectionism and fix them two South African passports on a rush job. They'd changed into their new clothes, posed for photographs, packed their original garments, and Carver had placed two phone calls: one to the reservations department of one of Geneva's finest hotels, the other to Thor Larsson. Now he had one last errand to run, but he needed professional advice, and Dr. Dieter Schiller was the man to provide it.

"One important detail: The whole thing has got to be soluble. It's going into a drink."

Schiller smiled as he put the spectacles back on. "You know, Pablo, this is going to be some party. Can I come?"

"Sorry, Dieter, this is strictly professional. And there's one other specification. The dose has got to be packaged so that my associate…"

"Miss…?" Schiller raised his eyebrows, waiting for a name.

"Miss None-of-Your-Damn-Business," Carver replied. "It's better for everyone that way. My associate needs to be able to deliver the dose easily, without being spotted. Okay?"

Schiller shrugged, apparently unbothered by the lack of formal introductions. He was used to the concept of anonymity. In fact, he assumed that none of his clients ever supplied their true names. "That's no problem. A simple capsule will be sufficient. But what to put in it? To start with, for relaxation, I would suggest methylenedioxymethamphetamine-MDMA for short."

"Ecstasy," said Alix.

"Ah yes, the drug of choice for modern pleasure seekers. Makes you feel good, relaxed, full of love for the people around you. Of course, it may also make you psychotic in the long term, but that's not our problem right now. Immediate side effects can include feeling hot, sweaty, even a little sick. But we can take the edge off that."

Schiller was sitting at a desk, like any other practitioner taking a consultation. His office was a back room in a private house. There was no brass plaque on the door, though his remarkable, if unorthodox approach to pharmacology attracted large numbers of wealthy clients who felt the need for personal prescriptions that would never be written by more conventional doctors. Behind him stood a series of wooden cabinets and, above them, shelves of glass bottles, plastic containers, and small white cardboard boxes.

He swiveled in his chair, reached for one of the plastic pill jars, and brought it back to the table. "Soluble in water too, so that's no problem. Sadly, though, I can't say the same for Viagra, which many of my older clients like to combine with Ecstasy when entertaining their young ladies. We shall have to be more adventurous with this element of the formula. I would suggest bromocriptine."

Another pill bottle appeared on the desk. "Unlike Viagra, it acts on the brain, rather than the penis, boosting dopamine-which is a neurotransmitter, you understand-and effectively promoting sexual desire. Strangely, this effect wears off after thirty or forty doses. But again, that is not our problem. Now, this substance is not soluble in water, but it is soluble in alcohol, so please bear that in mind. And the same applies to this…"

He turned to the shelves one last time, reached inside a white box, and pulled out a rectangular piece of aluminum foil with eight clear blisters, each containing a small, diamond-shaped pill.

"Flunitrazepam," Schiller continued. "Better known as Rohypnol, or 'roofies.' As you may know, this sedative, which is a first-rate treatment for anxiety or sleeplessness, has acquired an unsavory reputation as a so-called date rape drug. It diminishes inhibition and stress while promoting a sense of euphoria. It can also affect short-term memory. We must be careful not to give too high a dose or it will simply knock the patient out. But combined with the other two chemicals it should supply, I would say, a very interesting experience. Now tell me a little about the person who will consume this cocktail."

"I've only met him once, and that was four years ago," Carver replied. "But he must be in his midforties, I'd say, medium height, quite stocky. Unless he's gone on a diet, he'll weigh the best part of two hundred pounds, ninety-odd kilos."

Schiller reached across his desk and grabbed a pestle and mortar set. "A standard dose of each drug will be fine." He popped three pills into the stone bowl and started grinding them down with the wood-handled pestle. "Just like an old-fashioned apothecary, huh?" he said, looking up at his clients. Then he opened one of the small brass-handled drawers in the chests behind him and rummaged around until he found a small, clear plastic capsule. He squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger, splitting it in two. Very carefully, he poured the powdered pills from the mortar through a plastic funnel into one half of the capsule before pressing the other half back onto it.

"There," said Schiller, handing Carver the completed capsule. "That will be fifteen hundred Swiss francs."

"That's a lot for one dose, Dieter."

Schiller smiled. "It isn't the dose you're paying for."

Outside on the street, Alix asked, "Now what?"

"Now we go and pick up those passports. Then we check into our hotel."

The four directors met around a glass table and sat on plain metal chairs. The tabletop was free of paper and writing implements: No minutes were ever taken of the board's meetings. Security was absolute. There were no phones on the table, no pictures on the wall, nowhere to hide any kind of listening device. The air-conditioning vent was plastered directly into the ceiling and could not be unscrewed. The light fixtures were sealed units, fitted with long-life bulbs. The sound- and bulletproof windows were hidden behind blackout blinds. The men had left their phones, wallets, keys, and loose change in plastic trays, then passed through a scanner before they entered the room.

The chairman got right down to business. "Gentlemen, thirty-six hours have passed since the Paris operation. In one important respect, it was a success. The mission's main objective was attained. There are, however, a number of loose ends that need to be tied up."