Revenger

3

A little further forward in the boat two women were sitting on padded vinyl banquettes. One was Rosalie Roberts, the President’s wife, after whom his boat had been named, and whose willowy figure and beautifully sculptured features made her a suitably regal-looking consort for her man. With her was Alexandra Petrova Vermulen, otherwise known as Alix, the love of Sam Carver’s life. She had blonde hair, a wide mouth, full lips and cool blue eyes. One lid was slightly heavier than the other, one pupil fractionally out of line, and that barely perceptible imperfection was the difference between banal prettiness and intriguing, mesmerizing beauty. The two women were sitting close together, their knees almost touching, watching one another with a searching, very feminine intimacy.

They’d been chatting for half an hour or so, swapping titbits of Washington gossip, laughing as they exchanged the stories Rosalie Roberts had heard in the White House for the ones that Alix had picked up in her job as the head of a political lobbying firm. Then Roberts said. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

‘How can I say no to my First Lady?’ Alix replied, with a polite little giggle.

‘Trust me, sweetie, people say no to me all the time. They do it real politely and there’s always a long explanation, but it’s still no.’

‘Oh, I know that feeling. Years ago, in Russia, I used to know a very powerful man. Nobody wanted to upset me, in case I told him and got them into trouble. But I was still just his mistress, so I had no real power… In the end, I could not stop them saying no to me, too. So, what was your question?’

‘It was about Russia, actually. Is it true that…’ Rosalie paused, trying to find the right way to phrase what she wanted to ask.

‘That I was recruited by the KGB?’ said Alix, helping her out.

‘Yes,’ said the First Lady, a little uncertainly, not sure if she might have offended her guest.

‘And is there any truth to all those rumours that I used to be a honeytrap spy, trained to seduce Western men and extract their most intimate secrets?’

‘Yes…’

Alix had known from the start that this was what the question would be about. She’d been debating what to say in reply, but Rosalie Roberts was obviously a good, kind, compassionate woman, and so Alix decided to trust her with a full, honest answer.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m a US citizen, I’ve sworn the oath of allegiance and I can absolutely promise you that I don’t have any relationship whatever with any arm of Russian intelligence. Not any more. But those rumours are true.’

‘But how—’

‘How could I do it? I was an eighteen-year-old girl, recruited to serve my country — how could I not? All my life I’d been taught that my duty was to serve and obey the Soviet state. And there was a woman called Olga Zhukovskaya. She spotted me and trained me. She was like a second mother to all us girls. She told us that we would be doing work that was vital for the security of the state. And we shouldn’t worry if it seemed like we were having to do dirty, wicked things — you know, the things that bad girls did — because we were doing them for the Motherland, and that made everything different.’

‘Did that really help?’

‘For a time, yes, it did. And in some ways our lives were fantastic. I was wearing Paris fashions, shopping for Western cosmetics at the party stores, dining at the best restaurants. Compared to what I’d known before it was paradise. Then I found out that all the male officers used the videotapes of my assignments as pornography. To them, I was just a whore… and when I realized that, it was…’ Alix broke eye-contact with Rosalie Roberts and lowered her head, peering intently at the wooden deck before she took a deep breath, sighed, and looked up. ‘Well, it was hard for me not to think that I was a whore, too.’

‘Aw, sweetie, come here,’ said Rosalie Roberts, holding out her arms and grasping Alix in a hug. And just like her husband, it was when she had her friend in her arms that Rosalie Roberts asked the most telling question of all: ‘Does Sam know yet?’

‘Does he know what?’ asked Alix coyly, pulling away from the First Lady’s grasp.

‘You know exactly what I mean.’

‘How could you tell? Don’t say I’m looking fat!’

Rosalie Roberts laughed. ‘You? Fat? Never! No… It was the way you said no to coffee this morning… The way you hid the fact that you were feeling sick, even though you were obviously at home on a yacht and we’d hardly even left shore… Little things that kind of added together. Don’t worry, though, I won’t say a word to anyone.’

‘Thank you… It’s just that I only found out last week, and my doctor wants me to take a few tests… I just want to be a little more sure that it’s going to be OK before I tell Sam.’

‘Well, don’t wait too long. He may be a guy, but he’s not stupid. He’ll pick up the signs, and if you haven’t told him he’ll start wondering why.’

‘You’re right… As soon as I know the test results I’ll tell him.’

‘Good plan…’ Rosalie Roberts got to her feet. ‘Now, let’s see if those men of ours want some coffee. I may be the First Lady everywhere else in the world, but on this boat I’m just the cabin-girl…’

Ten minutes later, all four of them were standing by the wheel. Alix was leaning back, her head on Carver’s shoulder, his arms wrapped around her. Rosalie Roberts was at the wheel, belying her cabin-girl status, and Alix saw the loving pride in her husband’s eyes as he watched the skill and confidence with which she handled the boat. Alix hated to break the mood, but there was something she needed to mention. ‘Excuse me, Mr President, but may I talk business for a moment?’

He frowned. ‘This is meant to be my day off, but I asked Sam a couple of business questions, so I guess it’s only fair. You got two minutes, starting now.’

‘Thank you, sir… I’ll cut straight to the chase. I’ve been asked to go to London to meet Mark Adams. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him…’

‘Sure I have. He was a minister in the last Labour administration. Now he’s setting up his own party, running as a kind of populist alternative to the establishment.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Interesting guy. Last time I spoke to the Prime Minister he mentioned Adams. Dismissed him as a racist, neo-fascist rabble-rouser, but I got the sense he was plenty worried about his popular appeal. So what’s your connection to this guy, Alix?’

‘He wants to establish himself as a credible international statesman, someone the electorate can trust to represent them abroad. And…’ Alix began, almost wincing as she thought of what was coming next.

‘And more than anything else he wants his picture taken with the President.’

‘Yes, sir, that’s exactly it.’

‘You’ve not told him that we know each other socially, I hope.’

‘No, sir, I’d never do that.’

Roberts nodded, accepting her word. ‘Good, because I don’t want to be within a million miles of some guy who bases his politics on racism. I might just find myself beating the crap out of him, and that wouldn’t exactly befit the dignity of my office.’

‘We don’t know for sure that he is a racist,’ Alix pointed out. ‘Adams strongly denies it. His people told me that’s just propaganda put out by his opponents. They said he’s spent years doing voluntary work for a housing association, finding homes for low-income, minority families. It’s really hard to get a take on him, to be honest. Depending on who you talk to, he’s the saviour of Britain or a Nazi dictator-in-waiting.’

‘He could be Winston, or he could be Adolf,’ mused Roberts. ‘Look, I can’t give Adams a one-to-one meeting. But there’s no reason why I can’t meet a senior British politician at some kind of event, and if there’s a photographer present, well, I can’t stop them doing their job. But before that happens I have to know that this guy is for real. I don’t want that picture coming back to haunt me if he ends up wearing jackboots and sticking people in camps for having the wrong colour skin or worshipping the wrong god.’

‘I don’t want that either, Mr President. I grew up in one totalitarian system. I have no desire to help someone start another.’

‘Good. Then here’s what we’ll do: I’ll get our people doing some due diligence on Adams. We’ve got to do that anyway if there’s even an outside chance of him becoming the British Prime Minister. Meantime, you get close to him. Keep your eyes and ears open. Use your brain, but use your gut, too. Trust your instincts. Then let me know if he’s a man that you want to work with and I want to meet.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr President.’

‘You’re welcome… and now, can I get back to sailing my boat?’

The Lady Rosalie was tied up in the dock at Lusterleaf, the Roberts family compound on Knotts Island, North Carolina. Carver and Alix had sat down for a quick brunch with Lincoln and Rosalie Roberts. Now the President needed to get back to work, and Carver and Alix were settled in the back seat of the black Cadillac Escalade that was taking them up to Norfolk for the one-hour flight to Washington. Their hosts were just about to wave them off when Roberts held up a hand and said, ‘Wait a second.’ He walked across to the limo and tapped on the Escalade’s passenger window, on Carver’s side of the car.

Carver lowered the window and the President leaned into the car. ‘I meant what I said. Keep your eyes open and stay out of trouble. Y’hear?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Good…’ Roberts looked up at Alix, relaxing his face into a smile. ‘And you be sure to tell me what you think of Adams.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK… so it was great seeing you both. We’ll do it again sometime soon.’

Roberts straightened up, tapped his hand twice against the body of the car, and it rolled away down the drive.

‘What was that about?’ Alix asked as they drove towards the compound gates. ‘The President looked worried when he was talking to you.’

‘He’s concerned I’ve made too many enemies over the years. He thinks they might come after me, or something.’

‘God… that’s a little scary.’

‘Well, there was something I couldn’t really tell him about my enemies.’

‘Which was?’

‘They’re dead. And if I didn’t kill them personally then I damn sure saw the corpse.’

Alix gave an involuntary shudder. ‘I’m not sure I wanted to hear that. Tell me that those days are over.’

‘Come here,’ he said. Alix wriggled across the seat and nestled next to him. ‘Yes, I promise,’ he murmured, soothing her with the deep, calm tone of his voice. ‘Those days are over and I never want to go back.’