Younger (29 page)

He perched on the fireplace fender. “That would depend upon your definition of
real
. Mikal’s real in that he isn’t an actor. Nor is he a butler. He’s Komarov’s man, put in the house to keep an eye on you and passed off by Kelm to Barton as an old asylum seeker who defected from the USSR.”

“I hardly ever saw him.”

Barnes smiled appraisingly. “Shows how good he was, doesn’t it?”

“And Rob? He was good, too, wasn’t he?”

Barnes had the good manners to flush. “Figured that one out, did you?”

Anna’s flush was anger, not embarrassment. “Sir Charles calling Rob a ‘good lad’ started me thinking, and your being from Bristol convinced me.”

“You were an unknown quantity set loose in London. We had to keep an eye on you, for your own safety, if nothing else.”

“So who’s Rob?”

“He’s who he said he is. He just happens to be my cousin, as well. His father is my father’s younger brother. I often drove Anezka and Lorrayne to meet their BarPharm clients. We—MI6—had installed microphones, so the privacy panel was one-way only. When I heard they were taking you to Pacha, I put Rob on it. Before you get worked up, keep in mind that we used Rob to supply you with the information that kept you safe.” They saw Etherington signaling. “I think we’re moving back to the other room now.”

Once they were seated at the conference table, Barnes refreshed the photos of Olga on the screen. At first, Anna’s thoughts were elsewhere—so Andrew’s father was an earl . . . And that passionate kiss from Rob, did Barnes know about that? She felt her cheeks redden again, this time from embarrassment. Then she mentally shook herself and started to listen.

“So they needed someone to test the products—not for the retail and medical markets, which had already been done legitimately in Switzerland. They needed someone to test the so-called Formula One’s efficacy for Moscow. Enter Olga.”

“Where does Coscom come into this?”

“Coscom comes in only in its acquisition for retail sales, legitimacy, and, as it would turn out, Anna, for you. But let’s get Olga out of the way first. And gotten out of the way she was. Chips, you have that report, yes?”

“I do, my boy. Olga Pankov, age forty-seven, employed at Sybyska as an accountant.” He noted Anna’s surprise. “Yes, not in marketing at all. And her name was Novrosky as much as yours was Avery. Olga was a widow and old acquaintance of Marina’s. According to what the girls in the Sybyska office told ‘Aleksei,’ she was depressed about being middle-aged and single; she complained bitterly that rich men wouldn’t look twice at a woman over thirty. Not interested in you, Andrew?” He smiled at his own jab.

Clearing his throat, he went on. “She must have had to pinch herself when Marina offered her the position of
YOU
NGER guinea pig. Younger forever: that’s how they would have presented it to her, I believe. That, and the chance to be a patriot. And to live in exotic London! Nothing much required except to use the product, have frequent skin tests, and pretend to be working on that retinol project. The trick here was fooling Pierre into thinking she was legitimate—it was vital to Marina that her husband not suspect the Russian secret service was involved. Olga was presented as an old friend and coworker, eager to help and loyal to Marina.”

Andrew took over. “Not loyal to anyone, as it turned out.” Familiar faces filled the screen. “Enter the Rusakovs.”

“The couple that followed Anna?” David asked. “I take it they were whatsisname’s people . . . Komarov’s.”

“Yes in the first instance, no in the second,” Andrew told him. “Not all Russians involved in espionage are doing it for the supposed good of their country.”

“You mean either foreign spies or Russian mafia?” Anna was genuinely surprised. “They looked so normal.”

Barnes shrugged. “Normal for Bratva or
russkaya mafiya
. Pavel was an ex-pimp who worked his way up to a sort of two-in-one position as assassin and spy. Galina was one of his stable of prostitutes until they married, when her role became that of his assistant. They worked for a high-level boss known mainly by his nickname, the Tracker.”

“The Tracker?”

“Yes, David. His business successes are based on tracking down what the other mafiosi are working on and muscling in, as well as competing in dead earnest with the government for anything that has high monetary value.”

“Like
YOU
NGER?”

“Exactly, Anna. The Tracker mixes a great deal with the gangs and triads throughout Asia. There were rumors in Taipei of a potion that could make the user look at least a decade younger, but we’d dismissed them as unimportant, erroneously writing off the product in development as mere skincare. The Tracker saw the potential just as the Russian government did. But by the time he tracked down the local inventor, the formula had already been sold to BarPharm and the inventor, who made a great deal of money and stood to earn enormous royalties as well, had moved to Switzerland. The Tracker seems to have sniffed around and learned that he was no longer in control of the formula and that there was now a more important industrial-strength formula being fine-tuned in Barton’s lab. Just FYI, no single chemist has had full knowledge of or access to any formula since the first one passed to BarPharm. Pierre would tell one of them what he needed revved up on a formula and they just did it—quietly, due to stringent nondisclosure clauses. Only Barton had the industrial-strength written formula as it was improved and updated, and he kept it under lock and key. It was perhaps the only thing he wouldn’t give to Marina.”

“It isn’t just a stronger version of the retail
YOU
NGER?” Anna asked.

“To our knowledge, no. It’s a variation. And keep in mind, some of what I’m telling you is guesswork. Expert, but guesswork.”

“So, Galina and Pavel were sent to London?”

Andrew continued. “Right, David. They still weren’t sure there was an industrial strength, but they were interested in the product anyhow. And whom should they discover and befriend but Olga, who, now being younger looking, resented not being wealthy. She seems to have reported regularly to the Rusakovs—and might have become very wealthy once she could put the formula into their hands, though the Tracker isn’t known to be the most trustworthy businessman. Still, she didn’t live long enough to accomplish that. You see, Pierre never trusted Olga as he did you, Anna; she never was given the products. She was visited daily by the nurse, whom I would drive to her place before I handed over just enough of each product for a single application.”

“At my apartment?”

“No, Olga rated just a tiny bedsit in Bayswater. She had nothing to offer BarPharm other than her skin and her secrecy, you see. Her working on the retinol line was just a cover; it had already been dropped, with some lame excuse given to Clive Madden and the sales VP
.
”

“So she was a guinea pig for the Russian government while also working for their criminals?”

“Precisely. We slipped up by not seeing the potential of the product. Komarov and the Bartons all slipped up by thinking they could get away without paying Olga her due.”

“It’s like
Mad
magazine’s
Spy vs. Spy
,” Anna murmured. “That’s a comic strip,” she added in response to the blank looks. “But where do I come in? Obviously, you—and they—want something from me, or you would have patted David and me on our heads, told us not to worry, and shown us the door. Yes?”

The pause that followed indicated this wasn’t how briefings were properly conducted, but Anna didn’t care. She was exhausted, she had been lied to and endangered by the good guys as well as the bad guys, and she didn’t feel like wasting any more time on
Masterpiece Theatre
show-and-tell. “What do you want me to do?”

Barnes and Dexter both looked to Sir Charles, who smiled graciously and said benignly, “For better or for worse, you are now an integral player in this game, Ms. Wallingham. In the days before he showed up at your door in London, Pierre Barton came to the realization that his miraculous
YOU
NGER was his personal deal with the devil. How and why, we don’t know. But he must have realized people had died because of the product. We do know now he went first to Switzerland, then to BarPharm’s facility in Gloucestershire. At both places, he destroyed everything to do with
YOU
NGER: formulas, files, all traces of products,
everything
. So it isn’t at all surprising that some people want what only you have: the last remaining traces of
YOU
NGER in the world. That’s what someone is after: the key to the formula. What we’re after is a murderer.”

“And the chance to put bloody Komarov away for a long time,” Andrew added with such force Anna wondered if this game of Spy vs. Spy was personal for him. Did he consider the Russian agent he’d never met his most formidable adversary?

“Bait.”
She looked from Barnes to Etherington to Dexter. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

Etherington leaned forward and peered at her from under his shock of white hair. “Yes, Anna, we want you to be the bait.”

They broke for lunch at two o’clock. Anna was amazed at how these men managed to switch to inconsequential topics as they ate their
vitello tonnato
, then she realized it was a skill that she herself had learned passably in just weeks. She grew to stop thinking of Andrew Barnes as Aleksei and she found him likable, though without particularly liking him. He was the type who had everything figured out. When the meeting resumed after lunch and she pointed out, “I don’t have any
YOU
NGER. You know I dumped everything down the toilet,” he just chuckled.

“No one outside this room knows that, including Marina and Komarov, right? As far as they’re concerned, you’ve got the keys to heaven, Anna.”

The meeting went on until six, by which point it was clear to Anna that she and David weren’t really there to get any information, just to give it. “We’re going to take a break until Friday morning,” Sir Charles announced as Malcolm entered with Anna and David’s panoply of electronics. “In the meantime we’ll be sending Marina a text message from you, Anna.” Before she could open her mouth to speak, he added firmly, “No reason to go into detail until we’re sure the plan’s working. Just trust us.”

Back in the suite, David went straight to the refrigerator and removed a bottle of white wine. When he waved it at Anna inquiringly, she nodded vehemently before sinking onto the couch.
“
‘Just trust us!
’”
she said acidly. “Right. Andrew must have known what was going on since before the first time I met him in Paris. He knew when he was chauffeuring me to treatments—and when he put his little cousin to work hitting on me. I could be dead by now, and they say to
trust
them? I thought it was going to be over today. Now we’re
stuck
here, and I feel as if it never will end.”

He handed her a glass of wine, then sat on the chair across from her and toasted. “This too shall pass.”

She took a sip, then set the glass on the table. “I’m sure they can work the Master Plan, whatever it is, without you. You probably don’t need to stay.”

He snorted. “You think I can just call downstairs and tell Malcolm I’ll be checking out? I doubt it’s that easy. Look, I have my computer back, and I have work that needs doing. I’d hardly leave now anyhow. I mean, I’m the idiot who used my home phone when you told me not to. I won’t rest, or stop worrying about my son, until this is resolved.”

“You must be eager to get back to him.”

“I am, but Nick jumped at the chance to stay at his friend’s. That’s how teenagers are. So I’d just be working on the computer or puttering around the house on my own, as we old men do.”

“Hardly an old man. When I bumped into you that first time, I thought you hadn’t changed at all. A little gray hair, glasses. But still you, very much the same you.”

“You’re the one who hadn’t changed, except for that Day-Glo mop of hair! I like it better like this.”

“In London, only rich Russians have hair like this—at least, that’s what one of my coaches told me.”

“Women like Marina,” he said.

“Marina.” She snorted. “If she weren’t such a bitch, I’d feel sorry for her: her husband dead, the company in limbo, the means to unfathomable riches gone forever.”

“Not that she knows it’s gone.”

“She’ll go crazy when she finds out. A cruel trick to play on her so they can get Grigoriy for Pierre’s murder. I take it that’s the goal of the little
mise en scène
I’ll be starring in.”

“Cruel?” He shrugged. “I wouldn’t waste any tears on her. Anyhow, enough of these crazy spies. Tell me about you. Do you miss LA?”

“Now, yes. But for the future? I don’t know. Maybe I’d be happier somewhere else, somewhere more
real
. Funny, huh? I did all this to save my business and my house in LA, and now I’m not sure I want it all back. I might just walk away.”

“Well, you’re good at that, aren’t you?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “This might be as good a time as any to tell me why you just walked out.”