Perfect (9 page)

S  E  V  E  N  T  E  E  N

I am very seldom caught off guard. But Alma had succeeded. It took a second for me to gather myself.

“What do you mean?” I said. “I’m Margaret Romaniei.”

She shook her head and stared straight into my eyes. “No, you’re not.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are not Princess Margaret of Romania. There is no such animal.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Frederick Romaniei may or may not have been married but he was most definitely not killed in a skiing accident. So now tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My heart pounded and I was having trouble getting my breath—I couldn’t believe that all the years of research I’d put into creating Margaret Romaniei had gone out the window like a puff of Alma’s smoke. It didn’t make sense.

“You’re here for a reason and I want to know what it is.”

“I’m here because you invited me.” I was mad and I could feel the color rising in my face. I hadn’t failed at anything since I’d gotten caught in Homer Mallory’s jewelry store almost forty years ago. I stood up. All I wanted to do was get out of there. Make a graceful exit.

“Please sit down,” Alma said. Her face had turned very pale.

I remained standing.

“How did you find out?”

“Find out?”

“Please stop playing games,” she insisted. “How much do you want?”

“Excuse me?”

“How much do you want? Let’s be done with it.”

I stared at her. I’m old enough to know that when you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything.

“All these years have gone by.” She shook her head sadly and turned to look out the window. “I thought it was dead and buried. This is my worst nightmare to be caught in a blackmail scheme at this point in my life. Nothing can ever be hidden, can it?” She gazed up at me and her face was filled with anguish. “Poor George. He hates scandal and this is such a small, dirty, meaningless one.”

She and I stared at each other. “Mrs. Naxos,” I finally said. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I was with Frederick when he died. And it wasn’t in an avalanche.”

Hell. The overly warm room suddenly grew hot. I’m not sure whether or not my mouth actually fell open, but it felt as though it had, and I didn’t know what to say but I knew I’d better come up with something pretty quick. “Oh, dear,” I said. “It seems I’ve overplayed my hand.”

It wasn’t much but it was the best I could do at the moment.

“ ‘Oh, dear,’ indeed. Do you want to tell me who you are and what you want—you’ve obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to get inside our house—or should I ring my bell and summon help?”

From the tone of her voice, she may as well have said, Shall I summon the firing squad.

I felt as if I were having an out-of-body experience. My mind churned, flashing between retreat and truth like a ball on a roulette wheel. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You’re saying you aren’t here to blackmail me?” She looked as confused as I was.

“Truthfully? The thought never even entered my mind.”

Alma and I studied each other. It was a standoff.

“Well, this is very strange position to be in.”

“An understatement, to say the least. May I?” I opened her cigarette box.

“Please.”

I lit the cigarette and inhaled. “Would you like a sherry?” I asked.

“I believe I would.”

I fussed about the cigarette and pouring the sherry for a minute or two, long enough to gather myself. “Alma,” I said. “The fact that you, Frederick Romaniei, and I are joined in this conversation is pure chance, coincidence.”

“And? Surely you’re something more than a simple con artist or thief. You know there’s virtually no chance you can get out of here with anything of value. As a matter of fact, you can’t get out of here at all unless I let you. And even if you’re a member of the media, you’re wasting your time. If your lipstick is a camera, our security machines have killed your film and your story will never see the light of day. At least not on planet Earth. My husband will see to that.”

I hadn’t had a cigarette in ages. It tasted wonderful and seemed to quiet my brain, which continued to flail. There was no choice. I had to tell her the truth and take her into my confidence.

“You are still a British subject,” I said.

Alma nodded. “I am.”

“I need your help. The queen needs your help.”

“The queen?” She didn’t look in the least surprised. Actually, her expression almost said,
What does she want now?
For all I knew the queen called her on the phone and asked her for help all the time. Oh, well. So Alma calls her up to check me out. How much worse could it get? I was beyond having anything to lose at this point.

I nodded. “Alma, I am an undercover British agent and I, we, need your help to get into Mont-St.-Anges. We picked the Frederick Romaniei connection to try to attract Mr. Naxos’s attention, not yours.” I laughed. “This is unreal.”

“Why do you need to go to Mont-St.-Anges?”

“One of the club members, Robert Constantin, has a constant companion who goes by the name of Sebastian Tremaine.”

“Yes.” Her face was expressionless. I couldn’t tell if that meant she knew Mr. Tremaine or if she was just encouraging me.

“His real name is Bradford Quittle and he is the queen’s former head footman. Her most trusted valet. Mr. Quittle-Tremaine is in fact a highly skilled jewel thief.”

Alma’s eyebrows arched a millimeter.

“He has stolen many of the queen’s most famous and valuable jewels, including the Cambridge and Delhi Durbar parure.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m very serious. Furthermore, he’s probably planning to rob a number of ladies in Mont-St.-Anges. We intend to get him, and the queen’s jewelry, back to England as quickly and quietly as possible.”

“A jewel thief in Mont-St.-Anges? Never.”

If she only knew, I thought.

“Yes,” I answered.

“That is simply not acceptable. Naturally, we have a huge security department there, but we’ve never even had a call for a lost dog,” she told me.

“Will you help?”

“Of course. But let me be clear, I’m very pleased if this helps the queen, but I’m doing it more for myself. Mont-St.-Anges is the only place when I am able to go out in public. If word got out there was a thief on the grounds—it would be a disaster.”

Grounds
here being a relative term since we were talking about more than five thousand hectares of private property, an entire alpine valley.

“I understand,” I said.

She and I agreed that although I was British Secret Service agent, Margaret Kistler, I would keep my alias as Princess Margaret of Romania.

“What if there’s someone else out there who knows how Frederick died?” I asked.

Alma shook her head. “No. His parents are gone and I had the death certificate fixed by a Swiss doctor for an absurd amount of money. It was a bad day in a cheap hotel and I was the only one there. No one knew I was with him and I was on a plane back to London hours before his body was even officially ‘found.’ ”

My imagination spun with the possibilities of what on earth could have brought the Royal Ballet’s prima ballerina into a cheap Zurich hotel room with a no-good, alcoholic, aristocratic deadbeat like Freddy. I couldn’t ask what she’d been doing there but it wouldn’t hurt to inquire as to how he’d died.

“None of your business,” was all she said. The subject was closed. “I’m going to have my friend, Lucy Richardson, contact you. Do you know who Lucy and Al Richardson are?”

I shook my head no. But of course, I knew who Al Richardson was—he was up there near the top of the annual list of international billionaires. I’d seen his and his wife’s pictures in a number of publications, but I thought her name was Monica.

“He’s chairman of Globe Exploration and one of George’s best friends. Lucy will be a nice contact for you to have. She’s one of my closest friends. She and Al just got married a few months ago. I’ll call her this afternoon and ask her to introduce you to a few of the members.”

“That’s very kind, thank you so much.”

“Are you ready to leave tomorrow?”

I nodded. “I’m ready to leave today.”

“Tomorrow will be plenty of time. I have to make some arrangements for you.”

I didn’t try to change her mind. One thing I’d learned about Alma—it was her way or the highway.

E  I  G  H  T  E  E  N

Early the next morning, the hotel car with the blacked-out windows sped through light morning traffic to the green expanse of Paris’s Le Bourget Airfield. On the opposite side of the A-1, traffic inbound to the city was already heavy, at a standstill in some places except for the ever-present motorcycles and motor bikes that raced like mosquitoes at sixty and seventy miles an hour between the lines of stalled cars.

I couldn’t help being a little excited. I’d never flown on a private jet before. Many of our clients at Ballantine & Company arrived on their own planes and occasionally I’d gone to the airport in the company sedan to greet them. But they’d never invited me onboard for a look-see or a little tour and I’d rather have slashed my wrists than been so gauche as to ask if I could come inside. I knew enough to have a conversation about the different models and so forth, but actually to be entering this exclusive realm as a passenger was thrilling to me.

So far, almost everything about this situation was turning out to be a first. I was operating on the inside of the law—stealing jewels for the government. Flying on a private jet. Going to a private club. And . . . I had an accomplice.

The driver turned into the airfield and continued down the long service road to an enormous, unmarked hangar where five-story-high front doors were rolled open enough to let a big car in and a small jet out. The hangar was filled with the most beautiful fleet of private aircraft I’d ever seen, or even imagined. There were two Grumman G-5s, the ultimate in corporate jets, large enough to cross oceans and continents without refueling; four big Learjets, the most elegant of corporate craft with their sleek trim lines and wraparound windscreens; and a helicopter. I don’t know much about helicopters but this looked like a good-sized one to me. They were all pure white, clean and polished and shining like stars. Other than their tail numbers, their only markings were a small Greek flag and George Naxos’s Napoleonic corporate logo, a gold N inside a gold laurel wreath.

One of the Learjets was sitting in the center of the hangar, jet steps down and its nose pointed out the door, ready to go.

The sedan stopped at the foot of the steps, where two sharp-looking young men in black uniforms with gold trim waited. For me. They were very good-looking.

“Your Highness,” said the man who was slightly older, maybe in his early forties and who had a great deal of gold braid on his shoulders and hat. “My name is Alan and I’m the captain of your flight today. This is Mark, my copilot.” Mark gave a quick little halfbow. “Are you ready to board?”

Alan sounded American.

“I am,” I answered. “Thank you.”

I followed him up into the narrow cabin while two maintenance men in blue coveralls began the Herculean task of loading all my suitcases into the cargo bin. It was a good thing I was the only one on the plane because after my shopping spree in Paris, there wouldn’t have been room for anyone else’s gear.

The cabin, which in a business configuration could carry fourteen passengers, was arranged for six. Four chairs, two on either side of the aisle, facing each other across long, rectangular tables, with a sofa and two more seats behind. It was done in the same colors as the Naxos’s apartment: creamy caramel-colored leather seats and carpeting. The tables and fittings were blond wood. There was nothing to jar the eye—it was soothing and comfortable.

“Please sit wherever you like except for that seat,” he indicated the well-used, forward-facing armchair on the right side of the cabin. “That is reserved for Mr. Naxos.”

“I didn’t realize he was coming with us.”

“He’s not. It’s reserved for him at all times.”

“I understand.” I smiled.

“Yes, ma’am.” Alan returned my smile. “He’s the boss.”

I chose the seat opposite that which I assumed would be Alma’s if she were along. Morning papers in three languages were arranged on the table. Outside the window I saw the copilot conducting his pre-flight check. He stooped and shone his flashlight under the belly of the plane and then stood at the end of the wing and tried to wiggle it around. The car was already gone.

“Allow me to show you some of the amenities of our aircraft. As I’m sure you know”—Alan indicated toward the back of the cabin—“the restroom is aft. Each seat is equipped with full communications capability.” He flipped open a panel to reveal a telephone, an Internet hookup, headset jacks, and a pair of high-tech earmuffs with a little boom microphone. “Your CD/ DVD player is here.” He flipped open another panel. “And the video library is in that cabinet if you want to watch a movie.” He pointed to closed cabinet doors near the small forward galley. “There are fresh juice, coffee, and croissants in the galley in case you didn’t have time to have breakfast. Or if you’d like a glass of Champagne, a Bloody Mary, or a chicken sandwich and potato chips, we also have that.” He grinned. He had calm, intelligent eyes and a slightly crooked smile. He sounded like a Texan. “May I offer you something before we take off? Once we’re in the air I’m afraid you’ll have to fend for yourself.”

“Café au lait would be wonderful, thank you. I’ll get myself something to eat after we take off.” I wanted a glass of Champagne to celebrate this momentous occasion—momentous to me at any rate, a career benchmark of some sort—but I had a long day ahead and needed to keep my wits about me. Starting with a Champagne breakfast would not be productive. Unfortunately.

“With pleasure, Your Highness. Sugar?” He had a wonderful way about him, so American. He was polite and deferential but with a sense of ease and camaraderie.

“Please. Two.”

I watched him measure two teaspoons of sugar into a butter-colored mug with a white inside and then pour the hot coffee and steaming milk together expertly. He placed the mug in a recess in the table and laid a white linen napkin and spoon beside it. “Just to reconfirm our itinerary, because I’d hate to take you to the wrong town. Our first stop is in Zurich and then we’ll fly on to Sion where the helicopter will take you into Mont-St.-Anges.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. Enjoy your flight—let us know if you need anything. We’ll be right up here. Would you like the cockpit door open or closed?”

“Closed, please.”

And then he left me and took off his hat and jacket and hung them somewhere inside the cockpit, climbed over the edge of his captain’s seat, and that was that. The cargo door locked with a thump behind me and then the copilot boarded, pulling the air stairs and door closed behind him. I watched him and the captain fiddle with switches and talk on the radio as a tug pulled the plane from the hangar. Once we were well outside, the copilot reached around his seat and shut the cockpit door, then the engines started up and off we went. As we turned for the runway, I saw that the hangar doors were already closed. Mr. Naxos ran a very efficient operation.

I fastened my seat belt as the little craft taxied into position at the end of the runway. We paused there for a moment while the pilots turned the engines up to high and then they took their feet off the brakes and we shot forward as though we’d been launched from a catapult and were hurled into the sky like a javelin. And we just kept climbing. Higher and higher. Minutes later they slowed down the engines—actually, for a heart-stopping moment or two, I thought they’d turned them off altogether, it got so quiet—and we leveled off at our cruising altitude. Forty-four thousand feet it said on the altimeter gauge in the wall.

The sheer exclusivity and luxury of it all were really unparalleled. I wished Thomas were there. He would have loved this. I wanted to call him up and tell him everything, tell him about the last twenty-four hours and Alma Naxos’s offer to do whatever she could to help. But that was missing the point, wasn’t it? I was trying to stay out of Thomas’s sights, not share my adventures with him.

As it was, I was running a risk by going into the heart of Zurich. Zurich was where Thomas was by now, unless he’d gone to St. Moritz after all in the hopes of spotting me there. But I’d assessed the downside and decided there was little chance of our running into each other. First of all, he wasn’t looking for me in Zurich or expecting to see me, so I held the element of surprise in my hand. Plus, I’d changed my appearance completely. And finally, I didn’t have any choice—that was where my connections were.

I got up and helped myself to more coffee, a brioche, butter and orange marmalade, and then I just looked out the windows and enjoyed the incredible spectacle of the snow-covered Alps passing below.