Tom Cain - No Survivors aka The Survivor

“So he needed money.”

“Exactly,” Kady continued. “That’s why he quit Livermore. He said he wanted a private-sector salary. That’s not unusual. Plenty of guys go to commercial research labs. But Frankie’s not at any lab I know. The word on Nuke Street is he’s been selling his skills to people who want bombs, and who’ll pay whatever it takes to get them.”

“How come we’ve never heard of this guy?”

“If he’s gone back home to Italy, he’s not in your jurisdiction.”

“But no one from the Agency’s mentioned him to me at any of our briefings.”

“Well, you know, Tom, I don’t want to sound disloyal or unpatriotic, but the Agency’s not always as well informed as it could be…”

Mulvagh laughed. “I hear that!”

“Okay, so now ask yourself, What would Frankie Riva be doing with General Vermulen? I checked out the general’s clippings on Lexis. There are claims he’s a middleman in international arms deals. His old assistant gets murdered in a park where no one’s been killed in years. He takes a sabbatical from his job to travel in Europe, and a couple of the gossip columns say he’s taken his hot new assistant along for the ride. And now he’s in Rome, having a private conversation in a secluded park with a nuclear scientist who knows everything there is to know about the kinds of bombs we’re looking for. I mean, doesn’t that strike you as… I don’t know… interesting?”

“I don’t know how it strikes me, Kady,” said Mulvagh. “I don’t exactly understand what you’re telling me here.”

“I’m telling you that a man who has high-level contacts all over the world, who deals in weapons for a living, and who is supposed to be on holiday screwing his secretary, is having secret meetings with a guy who could make a basic gun-design suitcase nuke with his eyes closed, and upgrade an existing one even easier. I’m telling you that we may not be the only ones who know that Lebed was telling the truth.”

“I get that,” said Mulvagh. “But I don’t know that I buy it. And even if I did, I’d want to be damn sure of my evidence before I took this any further. Vermulen has friends, the kind that could end my career and yours if we start making false accusations-”

“We don’t have to accuse him of anything,” Kady interrupted. “Not yet… But you could check him out, you know, discreetly. I mean, if Vermulen met Frankie Riva in Rome, maybe he had other meetings in other cities. And if we knew who he talked to, that might give us a picture. Plus, and you can put this down to feminine intuition if you want to be sexist about it, I just think it’s kinda convenient that secretary number one-a woman in her fifties, by the way-gets knocked on the head, and five minutes later, in comes a hottie who just happens to be hanging on the general’s arm as he tours the romantic hotspots.”

“Maybe you’re just jealous,” suggested Mulvagh.

“Now why would I be jealous of a woman younger than me who hooks up with a great-looking, unmarried general? Seriously, Tom, this could be worth looking into. It’s not like we’ve got a million other leads to distract us. Just run a few checks through a few databases. I’ll buy you a drink next time you’re out west…”

“Well, in that case, Dr. Jones, how could I say no?”

At some point in the night, Carver must have given way to his exhaustion, because he suddenly found himself waking up and realizing that the rising sun was shining in his face. As he screwed up his eyes, adjusting to the light, he noticed something else: the silence. The storm had passed.

Now he had to get help for Larsson. Up in the mountains, cell-phone signals were patchy, at best. The only way to be sure of getting through was to get to one of the hikers’ huts the local tourist authorities had scattered around the countryside and use the emergency telephone there. Carver consulted the map. The nearest hut was about three miles back the way they had come the day before. The journey was mostly downhill. He heated up bowls of porridge for himself and Larsson, promised his friend that help would soon be on its way, and set off back down the trail.

As he skied through the fine powder of freshly fallen snow, which dazzled in the sunlight from a cloudless sky, Carver realized that he was overcome by an entirely new and unexpected sensation. He felt great. He had faced and passed a supreme physical and mental test, and that knowledge filled him with confidence. Now he was ready to set off on his quest and find the woman he loved. In the meantime, he had no fear for Larsson. When he reached the hut and contacted the rescue team, he had absolute confidence that they would get to the cave in time. It came as no surprise to Carver, when he in turn was picked up by a cheerful figure on a snowmobile, that Larsson had been admitted to the hospital in Narvik, still badly sick, but with every prospect of making a full recovery.

Carver was also taken to the Sykehus, as the hospital was called, just to be checked for signs of frostbite or hypothermia. After he’d been cleared on both counts he visited Larsson, made sure he was doing all right, and promised to be back in the morning.

“Don’t worry-I’ll be fine,” Larsson said, summoning up an exhausted smile.

A nurse had come over to check his pulse and temperature. She was a classic Norwegian beauty: tall, blond, and blue-eyed.

“I’ll bet you will be,” Carver said.

He wandered out of the hospital, thinking he’d grab a beer and something to eat before finding a cab back to Beisfjord. Then something caught his eye.

There was a man standing a few steps away, just by the front door, reading an English newspaper. He looked up, saw Carver, and smiled.

It took a couple of seconds before Carver registered who it was.

“What are you doing here?” he said, his good mood vanishing as instantly as it had arrived.

“I got bored waiting for you to turn up on my doorstep,” said Jack Grantham. “Thought I might as well turn up on yours.”

He grinned and slapped Carver on the shoulder like a long-lost pal. “Come on. My hotel’s not far away and I’ve got a car waiting. I think you’re going to be interested when you hear what I’ve got to say.”

Grantham had one of his men waiting by the door of the car. Another was behind the wheel. They drove only a few hundred yards to a little old-fashioned hotel. There was a small lounge off the main reception area: a sofa and a couple of armchairs, ringing a fireplace; an ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling; a tapestry on the wall; a coffee table in front of the chairs.

One of Grantham’s men handed him a laptop, which he placed on the table. Then the man joined his colleague standing a few yards away, keeping an eye on their boss and, by their very presence, discouraging anyone else from coming into the room.

“Pull up a chair-make yourself comfortable,” said Grantham, beckoning Carver closer.

“So what’s your big news?” Carver asked.

Grantham opened his laptop and clicked on a PowerPoint file. The screen was filled with a formal photograph of a U.S. Army officer in full dress uniform.

“His name is Kurt Vermulen,” said Grantham. “Until a few years ago, he was a three-star general in the U.S. Army.”

He gave a quick rundown of the general’s military career.

“Captain America,” said Carver.

“Something like that.”

“So why do you want me to kill him?”

“I didn’t say we did.”

“Why else would you come all this way?”

“Depends,” said Grantham.

“On what?”

“On what he’s really up to…”

Grantham opened a new page. It showed a series of grainy color photographs of Vermulen, now dressed in civilian clothes. Some were lifted from closed-circuit TV footage, others had been shot by photographers. He was in the crowd at a fancy theater, walking by a Venetian canal, standing by a crossing on a busy city street.