The Accident Man

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1
31

Carver woke just after three in the morning. It took him a second to work out where he was. He was lying on the sofa, still dressed, but someone had draped a duvet over him. He pondered the significance of the gesture. It certainly seemed like a good sign. Faced with a choice between killing him as he slept or making him comfortable and tucking him in, Alix had reached for the duvet.

So where was she? There was no one in the kitchen, nor in Carver’s office. The bathroom was empty, though a pair of women’s underpants was drying on the towel rack. That left only one possibility. Carver opened his bedroom door as quietly as possible and padded across the room.

She was in his bed. He could see the outline of her body under the sheet, the shock of her pitch-black hair against the white pillow. One arm was flung out in front of her, half-covering her face. As she breathed she let out an occasional soft, barely audible snuffle.

Carver smiled then shook his head as he recognized a long-forgotten emotion: affection.

Fancying a woman was one thing. But when you heard her snore and thought she was cute, well, then you knew it was serious.

It took an effort of will to turn around and leave the room. As he walked back down the hallway, Carver thought about everything Alix had said earlier. He believed the stuff about her joining the KGB. But the very fact that she had been trained to deceive men made him doubt the rest of her story.

She’s working behind the desk at a fancy hotel when some thug comes along and says, “Do a highly dangerous, top-secret mission with me in Paris, or I will tell the world you were a hooker?” No, that just didn’t sound credible. On the other hand, it didn’t automatically make her his enemy. There were all sorts of reasons why she might want to lie about her real identity and purpose. God knows he did it enough.

He checked his phones and office computer to see if she’d tried to talk to anyone or send any messages while he was asleep. His phones were routed through a sequence of relays that made it impossible for anyone to track where he was. The system also tracked any activity. There had been none at all. He logged on to his ISP mail server – nothing there either.

That left the stolen laptop. It was conceivable that Alix had used it. The bag was still on the kitchen chair where Carver had left it when they arrived at the flat. It looked untouched. But that meant nothing. She would have been smart enough to leave everything exactly as she’d found it.

Carver opened the padded black nylon case and pulled out the laptop. It was a Hitachi, another gray plastic box just like a million others. Carver opened it, pressed the power button, and waited while the operating system booted up. A box immediately appeared, demanding a password. Carver didn’t have a clue what Max had chosen as his personal open sesame, and he’d bet his bottom dollar Alix didn’t either. So no one had sent anything from this computer since the last time Max had used it. Carver closed the Hitachi again. He certainly wasn’t any kind of techno-wizard. But the next person who opened up this laptop would be.

He was sure now that Alix had not been able to communicate with anyone since he left her mobile on the Milan train. For now, at least, their presence in Geneva was still secret.

Carver suddenly realized he was starving. He went to a cupboard and pulled out a box of cornflakes. They were at least three weeks old, but that was too bad. At least the milk was fresh and cold.

He ate the cereal sitting at the kitchen island. After a couple of spoonfuls, he reached for the TV remote control and turned on the set. They were still talking about the princess, showing the same crash-site footage, the same holiday memories. There was a picture of her in a swimsuit that made her look unusually thick around the middle. Some guy on CNN was speculating that she might have been pregnant. Other reporters were commenting on the absence of CCTV footage. Twelve cameras covered the roads between the Ritz Hotel and the Alma Tunnel, but not one of them had produced a single image of the Mercedes at any stage of its journey. He sighed. Whoever had set this up had powerful friends. But he had a few friends too.

Carver washed his bowl and put it on the draining board. He wiped the milk and cereal splatters off the counter, using these simple domestic chores as a means of clearing his mind. He stood by the phone for a second, his hand hovering over the handset. Finally he picked it up and dialed a number. It rang several times, then there was a grunt of irritation at the other end of the line.

He grinned. “Wakey-wakey. It’s Carver.”

“Uhhh… what time is it?”

“Half past three. Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. But this is urgent. We need to meet. Can you be at Jean-Jacques in twenty minutes?”

There was another grunt, of assent this time. Carver grabbed the computer, pulled a leather jacket from a peg in the hall and headed out the door. He walked downhill towards the lake, through the commercial district by the shoreline and onto the Pont des Bergues, a V-shaped bridge whose two arms met by a small island jutting out toward the lake. A walkway linked the bridge and the island, which was planted with trees and illuminated by spotlights. At the far end there was a statue of a man in Roman robes seated on a chair, looking out across the lake with a frowning, thoughtful expression. This was Geneva’s most famous son, the eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

As Carver reached the statue, he heard a voice from the shadows. “‘Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.’ Well, Monsieur Rousseau, you got that right.”

Carver laughed. “Now, now, Thor, stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

An extraordinary figure walked into the light. He was well over six feet tall, rake-thin, pale-skinned, blue-eyed, and topped with an explosion of blond dreadlocks. He rubbed his face with his hand to emphasize his exhaustion. “Aww, come on, man,” he said, in a singsong Scandinavian accent. “You wake me up in the middle of the night and make me come running like a poodle. How do you expect me to feel?”

“Come and rest your weary bones on this park bench,” said Carver. “See if I can make it worth your while getting out of bed.”

He’d met Thor Larsson four years back, at a bar where they’d both gone to hear a visiting American blues guitarist. They’d got to talking over a couple of beers. By the fifth or sixth round, Carver had discovered that this golden-haired Rasta was both a professional software engineer and a former lieutenant in the Norwegian army’s intelligence corps. “National service,” he’d said, apologetically. “I didn’t have any choice.”

“That’s nothing,” Carver had replied. “I did a dozen years in Her Majesty’s royal marines. And I bloody volunteered.”

They’d listened to the blues, talked, drank many more beers. Larsson became his tech-man. He never asked precisely why Carver needed untraceable e-mail and telephone accounts, computers that were at least eighteen months ahead of anything available on the open market, and guaranteed penetration of any network, anywhere. He just did the work and accepted the extravagant amounts of cash Carver paid him for his skill and his discretion.

“What’s the big deal, then?” the Norwegian asked.

“This,” said Carver, holding up the computer case. “There’s a laptop in here that I need to get into, past all the encryption and password protection. But here’s the problem: There are people who want this computer and the information on it. And they want it badly. If they ever discover you’ve got it, or even that you had it and you know what was on it, they won’t piss around. They’ll come after you.”

“So what’s the good news?”

“I’m going after them, which is why I’d really like to know of any names and addresses listed on this thing.”

“You mean, there are people out there, trying to kill you, and you don’t even know who they are?”

“I’m working on it.”

“No, apparently I’m working on it. So, this laptop, is it gonna be a challenge?”

“Oh yeah. One thing I do know about these guys, they’re very well-connected. They’ll be using military, maybe even NSA-level encryption. Don’t ask me about the details, but it’s bound to be real high-end stuff.”

Larsson gave a rueful smile. “Don’t say that, man. You know it only tempts me.”

Carver grinned back. “Well, if you don’t think you’re up to it, I understand…”

The Norwegian shook his great shaggy head. “This is going to cost you, big-time.”

“Doesn’t it always?”

Carver handed over the case. Larsson turned to leave, but Carver stopped him. “Seriously, Thor, this could get tricky. Keep your eyes open. If you even suspect that someone’s after you, grab the computer and get out. Don’t hang around, you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“And if you get anything out of that address book, contact right away. It could save both our asses.”

Larsson gave a nod of acknowledgment. They walked together, not speaking, back up the path to the bridge. When they got there, Larsson turned right, toward the more modern side of the city. Carver made his way back to the Old Town, following the familiar winding streets up the hill until he arrived at his building.

Alix was still asleep. It was half past four. Carver got undressed and lay back down on the sofa, obeying one golden rule of military life: Never miss a chance to eat, sleep, or shit. The next thing he knew, the apartment was filled with light, a hand was gently shaking his shoulder, and a soft, slightly breathy woman’s voice was saying, “I forgot. Do you take milk and sugar in your coffee, or not?”