The Accident Man (38 page)

“Not yet,” said Grantham. “There’s something else. I lost two of my agents in Geneva.”

“I’m sorry about that. But I had nothing to do with their deaths.”

“I know,” said Grantham.

“So you’ll also know that the man who killed them was a Russian named Grigori Kursk. He was working for another Russian, Yuri Zhukovski. And on Zhukovski’s orders, he abducted what you called ‘the KGB tart.’ Her name is Alexandra Petrova. And yes, she’s the reason I’m flying to Switzerland.”

“How do you plan to get her back?” asked Dame Agatha.

“An exchange: her life for my computer.” He smiled. “My hypothetical computer.”

“And you trust this man?” Grantham did not bother to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

“Of course not,” said Carver. “But I trust myself. I can cope.”

“That’s not all, though, is it?” said Dame Agatha, thoughtfully. “You took a woman’s life, whether you intended to or not. Let’s not pretend otherwise. Now you want to save another woman’s life, even if you lose yours in the process. Some sort of redemption, isn’t that it?”

“If you say so. I’d rather think of it as a standard recovery mission. But I can’t complete it unless I catch my plane.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Dame Agatha. “It can always develop engine problems and leave a little bit late. Happens all the time.”

Carver looked from one spy to the other. “So you’re letting me go. Why?”

Dame Agatha spoke first. “As you said, MI5 operates by the laws of the land. And you’re quite right, no one wants a trial. We could kill you, of course, outside the law. But that would be problematic. These things are hard to keep under wraps. Sooner or later, someone always talks. So we’re prepared to be accommodating… if you do a favor in return.”

“Such as?”

“Tell us what you know about the people who planned the assassination.”

“Were you watching Percy Wake’s house?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, you saw me go in there with Lord Malgrave. Start with them. Ask yourself how a former KGB agent like Zhukovski ever knew a British intelligence asset like Wake, how he had enough power over him to order a job like this. And call the coast guard. Check if they’ve found a body floating in the Channel — a bloke with a great big, smoking hole in his face. He used to be Lieutenant-Colonel Quentin Trench, once of the royal marines. He ran the operational side of the group.”

Dame Agatha jotted down a couple of notes on a leather-bound pad. Then she asked, “So what was the reason for Paris?”

“Wake told his people it was vital to preserve the monarchy.”

“Yes, he said the same to me, at length,” said Grantham. His manner was calmer now, his self-control restored. But there was still an edge of hostility in his voice.

“That’s not why he ordered the hit, though,” Carver continued. “The whole thing was bought and paid for by Zhukovski. Does he give a toss about the fate of the British monarchy? I don’t think so.”

Grantham frowned. “So what was his motive?”

“Well, I reckon Zhukovski paid the consortium several million pounds. He’s a businessman. He must have thought he could turn a profit.”

“How?”

“Look at the guy’s interests. Zhukovski’s a player in the Russian arms trade. Well, I’m not big on the royals. But even I saw the princess on TV, talking to all those kids with their arms and legs blown off.”

Grantham frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“Land mines. Russia’s one of the world’s major producers of land mines, and mines are one of the world’s most tradable commodities. They’re tiny, weigh nothing, and they’re made of plastic. You can shift them as easily as cigarettes, and everybody wants them. Governments, terrorists, good guys, bad guys — everyone needs land mines. And what do they cost to produce — fifty quid each?”

“More like twenty-five,” said Grantham.

“And what do they sell for?”

“On the black market, around two hundred pounds.”

“Well then,” said Carver, “there’s your motive. Land mines are a billion-dollar business. But they’re also evil little buggers. So plenty of people want the business shut down. They start antimine campaigns…”

“I know. I’ve got the files on them,” murmured Dame Agatha, wryly.

“But those campaigns never got anywhere because politicians don’t care about mutilated kids in Africa or Kosovo,” Carver went on. “Not until the world’s most photogenic female turns up and starts cuddling babies. Then they take one look at the opinion polls and suddenly everyone’s drafting international treaties against land mines. That’s very bad for a man who makes the bloody things. Suddenly people don’t want to buy his products. All those billions are disappearing right in front of his eyes. So what does Zhukovski do? We know he has no problem with taking human lives. He wouldn’t make land mines if he did. So he spends a few million to make the problem go away. You could call it a motive. To him, it’s just a sensible investment.”

Dame Agatha tapped her pen against the tabletop. “Yes, that’s a theory.”

“Can you think of a better one?” asked Carver.

“No,” said Dame Agatha. “But I don’t have to. I can say it was an accident.”

“Okay then, anything else? I need to be on my way.”

“Yes,” said Grantham. “If we let you walk out of this building, don’t think you’ve got away with anything. Dame Agatha may have her scruples, but I’m not so bothered by the idea of an execution. I’d shoot you right now and not think twice about it.”

“Why don’t you, then?”

“Because I’d rather own you. You have a debt against your name. A debt that can never be repaid. What you did cannot be undone. But you can make… let’s call them reparations. You can do things for me, for your country. If you get killed along the way, tough luck, I couldn’t care less. If you succeed, well, you’ve done some good to set against the harm. So there it is. I have you taken out to some landfill site, shot in the back of the head, and buried under several thousand tons of garbage, or you go to work….”

Grantham paused and looked Carver in the eye. Then, quite quietly, with just a twist of irony in his voice, he added, “Now who’s the chimp?”

Carver nodded, taking the shot. He’d started the pissing contest, Grantham was entitled to piss back. And he seemed like a decent bloke, underneath. Carver wondered what their professional relationship might have been if he’d stayed in the SBS: the soldier and the spook, both on the same side, both roughly the same age and with comparable ranks. They’d have worked pretty well together. It would be very different now.

“Okay,” he said. “Suppose I accept these terms. What’s the first job?”

“Zhukovski, obviously, but not because I care about you rushing off to rescue Moscow’s very own Mata Hari. You don’t strike me as a knight in shining armor. All you really care about is getting the Russian before he gets you. So get him. And get his sidekick Kursk. You’ll be doing us a favor.”

“Don’t suppose I get any backup,” said Carver.

“You must be joking.”

“Didn’t think so. What if I succeed?”

“Then you live to fight another day. Under the same terms as before. There’s no shortage of landfills.”

There was silence in the room. Then Grantham spoke again, a new note of conciliation in his voice. “Look, you used to be a good man, Carver. You did good work. This is your chance to do good work again. It won’t be public. There won’t be any medals. But you’ll know….”

Carver weighed Grantham’s words. He was offering him a chance at redemption, just as Dame Agatha had done. Looked like there’d be a lot of redeeming going on. That was probably just as well, all things considered.

“Don’t bother calling the airport,” he told Dame Agatha. “That plane can leave without me.”

She looked surprised. “Are you declining our offer?”

“No, but I need a flight that gets me there faster. So, if it doesn’t sound too much like backup, I need the use of your phone.”

Dame Agatha pushed it across the table. Carver dialed the operator.

“Get me Platinum Private Aviation. They’re at Biggin Hill….” He held a hand over the mouthpiece and said to Dame Agatha, “Also, I need my case back and everything in it: the gun, the passports, the video camera, and the money. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot.”

Grantham drew a gun from his own shoulder holster and pointed it at Carver. “Just in case you change your mind.”

Dame Agatha stepped outside the office. A moment later the door opened and she returned, accompanied by a secretary carrying the case. Carver gestured at her to bring it over. He was already talking to the charter jet company.

“You’re in luck,” said a friendly, efficient voice on the other end of the line. In British aviation, as in British medicine, it was amazing how much more helpful people became the moment you decided to go private. “We’ve got a Learjet 45 inbound from Nice. The crew overnighted in France, so they can still get you to Switzerland and back within their time limit for the day. I’d suggest flying into Sion. It’s a much smaller field than Geneva or Zurich, but closer to Gstaad: just a fifteen-minute helicopter ride across the mountains. Don’t worry, we’ll sort that out for you. Meanwhile, we’ll get the plane refueled, flight-planned, and ready to leave as soon as we can. Should have you on the ground at Sion in a little under three hours.”

“Great,” said Carver.

“Happy to help,” said the voice. “That will be 5,546 pounds, inclusive of all taxes and the helicopter charter at Sion. Can you give me a credit card?”

“Yes,” said Carver. “It’s an Amex, name of James C. Murray….”

After completed the booking, Carver told the two spies, “Right, I’ll be on my way.”

Dame Agatha watched him leave the room, then turned to her colleague from MI6. “You didn’t tell him about the girl.”

Grantham put his gun away. “No.”

“I think you’re wrong about his feelings for her, you know.”

“Well in that case, he’s wasting his time.”

“But we win, whatever happens,” said Dame Agatha.

“Yes,” said Grantham matter-of-factly. “That’s the general idea.”

It was now 2:40 p.m. in London, an hour later in Switzerland. There were just under five hundred miles between London and Gstaad, and Carver had two hundred minutes in which to complete them. Up on the wall, the clock continued its measured, relentless progress.

Sion airport was laid out lengthways along a valley between two lines of mountains. The valley was narrow and the runway shared the space with a freeway, the two strips of tarmac running dead straight, side by side, barely two hundred meters apart. As he watched Carver’s Learjet land, Thor Larsson wondered how many times pilots got the two surfaces confused and landed on the A9 expressway.

When Carver got off the plane, Larsson was waiting for him with the computer.

“Here it is,” he said. “The, er, special adaptation has been made as you requested. And, aah…”

Larsson looked away, his eyes fixed on the distant mountaintops.

“What is it?” Carver asked.

“I finally managed to open some of the files. I know what all this is about, what you did.”

Carver nodded. “Okay. Did you also find out what they told me I was doing? Does the name Ramzi Hakim Narwaz mean anything to you?”

A diffident smile crossed Larsson’s face. “Yeah, I know about him.”

“And?”

“And I don’t blame you for what happened. You were double-crossed. So, anyway… you need to know the password. There are eight characters: T r 2 z l o t G. The first
T
and the last
G
are capital letters. This is very important. The password is case sensitive.”

“How the hell am I going to remember that?” asked Carver.

“Simple, I have created an image for you, like in a picture book. There r 2 zebras lying on the Grass. Capital ‘T,’ capital ‘G.’ Do you get it?”

Carver gave an impatient snort, but Larsson persisted.

“Come on, repeat after me: There r 2 zebras lying on the Grass.”

“Jesus wept, I haven’t got time. I can’t afford to be late.”

“You can’t afford to forget this, either. The system gives you three chances to get the password right. If you fail, a virus is released that wipes the entire hard drive clean. There’ll be nothing left at all.”

Carver did as he was told — five repetitions. Larsson handed over the laptop in its case, which Carver slung across his chest, from one shoulder to the opposite hip.

“Thanks,” he said. “My chopper’s across the airfield. Walk with me. We can talk on the way.”

It was just after half past six local time and the sun was just beginning to dip behind the highest of the peaks to the west, casting jagged black shadows diagonally across the valley as Carver strode across the apron to the helicopter pad. He had a little under thirty minutes to get to the Palace Hotel. The weather looked clear. Allow five minutes to take off, fifteen to get to Gstaad, and another five to get from the chopper to the rendezvous at the other end. It should just be possible.

“How much did you manage to retrieve?” he asked Larsson.

“Only a small proportion of what’s on there, but enough to know that Max had logged every detail of that operation, and a lot more besides. It looks like he was making himself a safety net in case anything went wrong.”

“Anything about the Russians?”

“Kursk and Alix are mentioned in a couple of e-mails. But nothing to link them to Zhukovski yet.”

“Damn!” Carver thought for a moment. “Never mind. That’s not necessarily a deal breaker. Anyone with proper investigative powers would be able to find a link. The point is, Zhukovski can’t afford to have those leads out in the open. You’ve taken a copy, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good, that’s part of my safety net. Here’s the other.” He reached into his briefcase and took out the video camera. “I taped my confession on the flight over. How I was recruited, how they tapped me for this job, the way the hit went down, all the names, what happened afterward. It’s got everything.” Carver smiled ruefully. “Well, almost everything. I kept Alix out of it.”

Larsson laughed out loud. “You old romantic!”

Carver cleared his throat gruffly. “Yeah, well… Anyway, if I don’t contact you by nine tomorrow morning, get the computer files and the confession out to every news agency and every Web site — anywhere you can think of. I want it everywhere.”