The Accident Man (45 page)

The bomb was a small one. The explosion did little structural damage outside the confines of the master bedroom suite. But the fire it started was soon raging through the house.

In the basement, Carver stopped at the sound of the explosion and a grin of pure, inhuman triumph spread across his face.

Alix was staring at him as if uncertain what or who she was looking at.

“Bomb,” he announced. “Nasty accident. Serve him righ’.” He looked up, cocking an ear for any sound of further explosions. “Godda geddout,” he repeated. “Now!”

They hurtled down the corridor and into the garage. Carver looked around for the control that would open the door.

“It’s okay,” shouted Alix. “I know how to do it.”

She pressed a button on the wall and the great metal door swung up and then back, coming to rest under the ceiling.

Outside, they looked back at the chalet. Flames were already reaching out of the gaping holes where the master bedroom’s windows had been as the fire grabbed at the night sky. Smoke was billowing across the hillside, and the ground beneath them was covered in glass.

Carver started running up the tarmac drive that curved around to the chalet’s main entrance.

Alix hesitated for a moment, then followed him. As bizarre as Carver’s behavior had become, he was still her best chance of safety.

As he came around the side of the house, Carver left the drive and melted into the undergrowth. Alix almost fell over him as he crouched behind a large bush. He waved a hand angrily at her, ordering her to get back. Carver turned his head and scowled at Alix, holding a finger to his mouth and shushing her before returning to his position. He was watching the front door, waiting for the remaining inhabitants of the house to appear.

Kursk was first. He emerged from the chalet, gave three or four hacking coughs, expelling the smoke from his lungs, then stood up and looked around him. He was unarmed, Carver noticed, baring his teeth like a predator spotting prey.

A few seconds later, Titov came out. He had rescued his submachine gun from the fire, but the smoke had affected him more than Kursk. Titov was bent double, his hands on his knees, hacking and wheezing. Kursk gestured at him angrily, wanting him to hand over the gun. Titov seemed unwilling to obey.

Carver rose to his feet and made his way stealthily through the undergrowth. He emerged at the edge of the circular driveway in front of the house and walked toward the two men, the left half of his body painted in tones of red and orange by the conflagration raging beside him.

The two Russians were too involved in their own arguments and discomfort to notice Carver until he was no more than five meters away. He was standing quite still, and he waited until Grigori Kursk saw him, recognized him, and acknowledged the gun in his hand before he put two bullets into him, stomach and crotch. Carver didn’t want a quick, efficient killing. He was shooting to cause pain.

Kursk shrieked, a high-pitched wail that seemed utterly incongruous coming from his massive frame. He was curled up on the ground, his hands grabbing at his torn entrails.

Titov had looked up at the sound of Carver’s gun. The third shot blew the MAC–10 from his hands; the fourth shattered his left knee. Now he was down and howling.

Alix looked on, appalled by a sadism she’d never seen in Carver before. He was repeating the torture he himself had suffered.

He stood over Titov and put another bullet into his thigh, sending a fatal fountain of blood spurting into the air from the femoral artery, black against the brilliance of the roaring flames. Then he turned back to Kursk and kicked him so that for a moment his body unfurled, exposing his chest. Carver shot him in the left lung.

Kursk was still alive, though the screams were just whispers now.

Carver fired twice more.

“Stop!” Alix shouted. “For God’s sake, stop!”’

The sound of her voice made Carver stand up straight and look around, a puzzled expression on his face. The storm that had raged in him blew itself out as suddenly as it had appeared. The hand that held the gun dropped to his side. He looked back down at the men at his feet as if he didn’t know who they were or how they had got there.

Alix walked across the tarmac and took the gun from Carver’s hand.

“Come on,” she said gently. “Please. It’s over.”

He nodded mutely and let her lead him up the path to the front gate. Alix pressed a button on a nearby keypad, and the big metal gates swung open. They stepped out onto the road outside, and just as they did so, a car engine started up and two headlights flared, shining right at them.

Carver was looking straight into the lights when they suddenly went on. He stopped dead in his tracks, then bent over with his head in his hands, moaning softly.

The car door opened and a tall figure emerged. Alix held out the gun in her right hand, shading her eyes with her left.

“Don’t move!” she shouted.

“Whoa, take it easy.”

Alix relaxed as she recognized Larsson’s voice.

The gangly Norwegian strolled over to where Alix was standing, trying to reassure Carver, who seemed to have reverted to the isolated, unknowing state he’d been in when she first set him free from the torture chair.

“I was beginning to get worried about you guys,” Larsson said.

He looked down at Carver.

“What the hell’s happened to him?”

The late-summer sunshine dappled the waters of Lake Geneva, sending dancing waves of light across the ceiling of the sanatorium’s dayroom. It was a large, light, open space, but on this pleasant Saturday lunchtime it was occupied by a solitary patient.

He was sitting in a wheelchair, a few feet away from a television set. The patient seemed lost in a world of his own. He was muttering to himself while his body carried on its own unconscious yet compulsive ritual of tics and twitches. He was not paying any attention to the pictures on the TV screen.

Eight young soldiers in bright scarlet tunics were carrying a coffin draped in a glorious heraldic banner and covered in wreaths of white flowers down the aisle of a vast and ancient church. The coffin processed toward the altar and the congregation began to sing the slow, dirgelike opening of the British national anthem. As the tune rose to its climax in the middle of the verse, with a triumphant cry of “Send her victorious!” the patient suddenly grew quiet, sat up straight, and fixed his eyes on the screen.

He frowned. He gazed at the picture, which was now focusing on an elderly couple, a middle-aged man, and two teenage boys wearing formal black suits and ties. Then he screwed his eyes shut and started to scratch his head with both hands. There was something manic about his movements, and also the suddenness with which they stopped as his attention reverted to the screen, then started up again as he retreated back into himself.

He was a relatively young man, showing no signs of physical disease or malnourishment. He was dressed in a pair of cotton pajama trousers and a white T-shirt and it was readily apparent that his body was lean, well-muscled, and fit. Yet there were red marks around his wrists and ankles — scratches, chafing, and bruising that suggested he had been tied up or restrained in some way. He had the swollen, discolored face of a mugging victim.

This, however, was all just cosmetic damage. More worrying were his eyes. There was a numb blankness in his stare, as though he found it hard to focus on the world around him, and harder still to make sense of what he saw.

The nurses called him Samuel.

Alix Petrova had to stop for a moment outside the sanatorium entrance. She had visited Carver morning and night since she and Thor Larsson had brought him to this very private, exceptionally discreet, and even more expensive facility, two days earlier. But still she had to steel herself for what awaited her within.

The receptionist directed her to the dayroom. A nurse met her as she stepped through the glass-paneled door into the airy room. A name tag on the nurse’s crisp, white uniform read, “Corinne Juneau.”

“How is Samuel today?” asked Alix.

“A little better today,” Nurse Juneau replied. “We’ve got him out of bed, but he’s still terribly confused, the poor man. Look at him, watching the funeral. I don’t think he knows what’s happening at all, bless him.”

She watched her patient for a moment, then added, “he’s so full of fear….” A cloud passed over her kind, caring face. “How could anyone do this to another human being?”

The nurse led the way across the room to the wheelchair. “Wait here,” she said, when they were still a few feet away.

She walked on alone. The TV set was mounted on the wall and controlled by a handset that sat on a console just below. Nurse Juneau picked up the remote control and used it to turn down the volume. When talking to Samuel it was important to keep ones voice as low and calm as possible. Even the slightest loud noise seemed to scare him.

Once the sound of the church music had faded away, Nurse Juneau turned to face Samuel. She was still holding the remote control.

“Hello,” she said, with her sweetest smile. “Your friend has….”

She got no further. Samuel was looking at her, eyes wide, mouth gaping. He was pointing at her and pleading, “No! No!” She took a step toward him and he flinched, curling up in his wheelchair. “Don’t hurt me! I’ll talk!”

Nurse Juneau’s professional composure fractured for a moment. She was fixed to the spot, looking around her, trying to find the source of his distress. Alix hurried to the nurse’s side and took the remote control from her hand. She replaced it on the console, then put a reassuring hand on Nurse Juneau’s shoulder, as if she were the professional and the nurse the visitor.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It wasn’t you. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him now.”

Nurse Juneau hurried to the far side of the room, casting a couple of nervous glances over her shoulder as she went.

Samuel was watching the women through his fingers. His eyes were still wide and staring, but he seemed slightly less afraid now.

Alix crouched down by the wheelchair, not wanting to stand over him. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “You’re safe here. No one can hurt you. I will look after you.”

As she spoke, she gently stroked one of Samuel’s arms. He gave no sign of understanding what she had said. But her soothing tone and the soft touch of her fingers against his skin seemed to relax him. Gradually he uncurled. Alix kept talking to him, keeping her voice low, using simple phrases.

“Everything’s going to be fine, I’m here….”

Samuel seemed more content now. His attention shifted back to the TV screen. He watched in silence for a while, still frowning and scratching and twitching, lost in his own, bleak universe.

Then he pointed up at the picture. “What’s that?” he mumbled through his battered mouth. His voice sounded blank and uncomprehending. “What’s happening?” And then, quite clearly, in a voice that could have been mistaken for that of a normal, healthy man, “Who died?”’

Samuel’s brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “Did someone die?” he asked, though now the anxiety had returned to his voice.

Alix bit her lip and pressed her eye tightly closed. Then she whispered, “Yes. She was a princess. She had an accident.”

Samuel thought about what she had said, then turned his attention back to the TV. Alix pulled up a chair next to the wheelchair, and they sat there together in silence.

Samuel Carver was watching a line of black cars driving down an empty road. People were standing on bridges across the road. Whenever the cars went under a bridge, all the people threw flowers down onto them. Some of the flowers landed on the cars, but many more fluttered down onto the road, leaving lovely bright colors against the dirty gray tarmac.

He reached out for Alix’s hand. She squeezed it gently, letting him know that she loved him. Then Samuel Carver looked at her, a flicker of recognition danced in his eyes, and he smiled.

My sincere and heartfelt thanks go out to the many people without whom this book could never have been written or published.

Charlie Brocket, whose fascination with the events of August 31, 1997, and wonderful skill as a raconteur, first sparked my interest and set me on the path to writing this novel.

The team at my literary agency in London, Lucas Alexander Whitley, notably Julian Alexander, without whose faith, perseverance, and creativity over more than two years nothing would ever have happened; Mark Lucas, whose response to my first feeble attempts epitomized the phrase “creative destruction” (brutal, but dramatically effective!); and Peta Nightingale, whose line-by-line analysis of the early drafts made such a massive difference.

At Transworld Publishers in London, Sally Gaminara and Simon Thorogood had the faith to plunge into this project with incredible speed and absolute commitment, as did Clare Ferraro and Joshua Kendall at Viking in New York. They gave me the kind of encouragement that authors can only dream of.

Nigel Parker provided his usual wise counsel, and Mitchell Symons was not only a patient and long-suffering sounding board, he also supplied one all-important suggestion at a crucial moment.

The management and pilots of Elite Helicopters, Goodwood, West Sussex, gave invaluable advice on the construction of helicopters; Dr. Michael Perring of Optimal Health devised Magnus Leclerc’s medication; Gisela Gruber at Gold Air International drew up the flight plan and likely bill for a journey by private jet from Biggin Hill to Sion and then on by chopper to Gstaad; Trevor Clifton worked out how to sail a Rustler 36 across the Channel and avoid a container ship along the way; and John Smythe took me out on the water in his own 36-footer.

Finally, but most important, I owe everything, as always, to my family: to Fred, without whom I might be tempted to take things easy; to Holly and Lucy, whose criticism of their father was (this time!) both asked for and much appreciated; and, of course, to Clare. You are, as always, the beginning and the end of everything I do.