The Accident Man

44

Carver had been impressed by the way Alix had shopped. On the rare, very rare occasions he’d allowed himself to be dragged along behind a woman on a retail expedition, he’d been bored, exhausted, and massively irritated by the endless trail from one crowded, overheated rip-off joint to the next; the constant riffling through rack after rack of clothes that looked identical to him; the relentless questions – “Does this make me look fat?” “Which do you prefer?” “Will this go with those boots we saw?” – to which he could only silently contemplate the same, unchanging answer: “How the hell would I know?”

But Alix was different. She bought clothes the way he bought munitions. She had a purpose in mind. She knew the effect she wanted to create, and she supplied herself accordingly.

Now she was preparing for her mission with the same professionalism. She showered. She toweled herself off, blow-dried her hair, and came back into the bedroom, where Carver was still lying on the bed, draped in a thick terry-cloth hotel robe, waiting for his turn in the bathroom.

Alix got out her underwear and took off her towel. Carver was intoxicated by the intimacy of watching her as she slipped into her panties and bra. He relished all the sights and sounds that are so normal, even banal, to a woman, yet so fascinating to a man: the slither of fabric over skin, the snap of elastic, the little twists and adjustments of her body, the self-absorption as she examined her appearance in a full-length mirror inside the wardrobe door. Yet there was nothing showy about her actions. She seemed indifferent to Carver’s eyes washing over her, as if, like a dancer or model, she were so used to being naked in the presence of other people that any modesty or coyness about her body had long since evaporated. Nor was there any vanity in the way she looked herself up and down. Her expression was serious, her self-examination meticulous. She was getting ready for work.

As she stepped away from the mirror, she finally glanced at Carver.

“What do you think?”

“I think you’d better get dressed fast before I lose all self-control.”

“No,” she said. “Fun is over. Time for business.”

She walked across to the dressing table, which was already dotted with bags of makeup, pots of skin cream, a can of hairspray, brushes, combs, and a couple of paper shopping bags. One contained a skullcap made of some kind of nylon that looked like thick pantyhose. She put it on, pushing her hair beneath it until every strand had disappeared. As she worked, she caught Carver’s eye in the dressing-table mirror.

“So, were you always rich?” she asked.

He looked at her with eyebrows raised, taken by surprise by her question. “Rich? Me? Christ, no! Far from it.”

“But you were an officer. I thought in England only the upper classes became officers.”

Now he smiled. “Is that what they told you in KGB school?”

“You can tease me, but it’s true. The rich lead the poor. It’s like that everywhere.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t become an officer because I was rich. I became an officer because I was adopted.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. She stopped her handiwork and turned her body to face him.

“How do you mean?”

“My mum gave me away. She was just a kid who got pregnant. She came from the kind of family where abortion wasn’t an option, but they weren’t going to have a teenage daughter pushing a pram around, either. So they sent her to a home for unwed mothers, told everyone she was visiting relatives abroad, and then got rid of the baby as soon as they could.”

Alix had turned back to the table and was rummaging through her makeup as she listened to Carver’s story. Now she looked into the mirror again, frowning this time.

“Who raised you, then?”

“A middle-aged couple. They’d never had children of their own. They were nice enough and they meant well, but they couldn’t cope. In time they realized that they wanted a quiet life more than a scrappy little rascal running around the place, making a racket all day. So they sent me off to boarding school. They felt it was the best thing for me.”

“Did they love you?” She was powdering her face.

“I don’t know. They never said so, not out loud. But I think they cared for me. You know, in their own way.”

“And what about you? Did you love them?”

Carver sighed. He got up off the bed and walked over to a chair, near to the dressing table. “Well, I didn’t dislike them,” he said as he sat down. “And I was grateful to them. I knew they were making sacrifices for me; I appreciated that. But I don’t think I really knew how to love, not from the heart. I mean, why would I? If you don’t get that from your mother, you never find out about love until much, much later and then, suddenly, it’s like, oh… right… so that’s what they were talking about. Comes as quite a shock.”

“And then you lost her too.”

“Yeah. Not so good, that.”

Alix twirled her mascara brush through her eyelashes.

“So, how old were you when you went away to school?”

“Eight.”

“Bozhe moi!… And the English think they are civilized!”

“You don’t know the half of it. The school was in this ancient country house, miles from anywhere. The first morning, we all got woken up at seven o’clock. We got dressed and the dormitory captain led us downstairs to the lawn at the back of the school. And we did drills, proper military drills. Quick march! Left turn, right turn, stand to attention, stand a-a-a-t… h’ease! It makes me laugh now, it was so bloody mad.”

“Yet you became a soldier?”

“Well, schools like that have been churning out upmarket cannon fodder for centuries. They were specifically designed to produce reasonably intelligent, physically fit, emotionally screwed-up young men who’d travel to the world’s hottest, nastiest places, do their duty, and lay down their lives when required.”

“And you are one of these people?”

“When I’m working.”

“And when you’re not working?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to sort out.”

For a few moments they were silent. Alix concentrated on her lipstick. With her newly painted face, done in a style unlike anything Carver had seen on her before, her bald head, and her half-naked body, she looked oddly impersonal, like a showroom dummy waiting for its costume. Then she reached for the other bag and took out her wig. She pulled it over the skullcap, brushed it and sprayed it, and suddenly Carver was looking at a completely different woman.

He expected her to get straight up and cross the room to the closet where her clothes were hanging. Instead she sat there hesitantly, her eyes vague and unfocused, as if her concentration had been broken by some inner uncertainty.

“There was something I didn’t tell you yesterday, about my past,” she said.

Carver sat back in his chair, caught her eye in the mirror.

“I said that everything about it was bad. But that’s not true. I had special privileges because of what I did for the State. At home in Perm, women wore horrible, shapeless sacks. They ate stale food that tasted of nothing. They worked so hard. When my mother was only forty, she was already old, like a woman of sixty in the West. But in Moscow I was dressing in Armani, Versace, Chanel. I had never before owned more than two pairs of shoes, always made of plastic. Now I had a closet filled with shoes from Paris and Milan.

“Sometimes I would take men back to my apartment. There were beautiful Italian sheets on my bed. There was Scotch whisky in the drinks cabinet. You cannot imagine. No one in Russia lived like that – no one outside the highest levels of the Party. I loved those things. It did not matter what I had to do, I would never have given them up. I sold my soul.”

Carver leaned forward. “Did you like my flat?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Did you like my flat? I mean, it’s nice, isn’t it? You haven’t seen my car, but that’s pretty nice too. So’s the boat I keep on the lake. And I think you know how I paid for them.”

“So what are you saying, that you are as bad as me?”

“I guess. But who’s to say what’s good or bad? People get on their high horses. They sit in their comfortable, safe little lives and they talk about moral standards. But any idiot can come out with this week’s socially acceptable bullshit when they don’t have to face any consequences or get their hands dirty. I spent years watching good friends get blown to pieces, their guts torn apart for politicians who lied through their teeth. I know there are bad guys out there and I know what they can do. That changes your perspective, big-time.

“Sorry, got a bit carried away,” Carver offered, grimacing.

“No,” she said, “I understand. And I like it when you get passionate. I like seeing who you really are.”

“Christ, do you think that’s the real me?”

She was about to reply when there was a knock on the door. Carver went to answer it, picking up his gun from the bedside table along the way. He opened the door a couple of inches and then relaxed when he recognized who was on the other side.

“Thor! Good to see you. Come in.”

Larsson’s tall, gangly figure – all arms, legs, and hair – ambled into the room. He was carrying two large nylon bags, suspended from his shoulders. He saw Alix getting up from her makeup table and stopped.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea.” A shy smile spread across his face and his blue eyes creased in private amusement. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” said Carver, “We were just getting ready. So, Thor Larsson, this is Alexandra Petrova.”

“Call me Alix,” she said, standing on tiptoe to give Larsson a peck on the cheek.

“Uhh, yeah… call me Thor,” he answered, as his face flushed beneath his freckles.

Her smile gently teased Larsson for his embarrassment yet welcomed him as a friend. “Okay, Thor, please excuse me. I think I should get dressed.”

The two men stood watching her for a second as she flitted across to her clothes. It took an effort of will for Carver to drag his eyes and his thoughts away from Alix and force himself to concentrate on the gear Larsson had brought in his bags.

“Right,” Carver said. “Assume that this room is the command center. I’ll be here – in the first phase, at least – monitoring communications. Then we need a wire on Alix, handheld remote video that you’ll have to control, and a complete sound-and-vision setup for the other room, the one where Alix will take the guy we’re going for.”

“No problem,” said Larsson. “I’ve got everything you’ll need.” He rummaged in one of the bags and pulled out a couple of cigarette packs. “These should do the trick.”

Carver looked unconvinced. “Are you sure? I can’t afford for this to go wrong. It’s the only chance I’ve got.”

“Relax,” said Larsson, patting Carver’s shoulder. “Have faith. I know what I’m doing. And by the way…” He bent down till his face was right in front of Carver’s, and murmured, “I want to talk about that other job you asked me to do, the decryption. Call me later tonight. We need to speak… alone.”