The Secret Agent (8 page)

“Who fired the gun?”

She said it quietly, so that the others who spoke
English in the tavern would not hear. The
others—had
one of them hiked down from his perch in the hillside, after leveling his gun and firing two shots? Had the bullets been meant to kill them outright? Or merely to crack the headwall’s face?

“Anyone who carries a gun and fires it during spring ski season is a fool,” he told her. “You can be prosecuted for triggering an avalanche.”

“If you’re caught.” She pushed her brandy glass aside; she was somber and thinking, now. “I’d like to believe it was an accident. Teenagers—a prank. Or that sport nobody really does except in the Olympics—the biathlon. Skiing and firing at little targets in the snow.”

“There’s a course for that,” Max replied tersely, “and it’s not at the altitude we skied today.”

“Jeff’s right, you know. You’re a target.”

“A Thai gunman in the woods?” he mocked. “I don’t think they ski.”

“—Or one of their assigns, as Oliver Krane would put it.
Yes.
I think the firing of a gun while Max Roderick stood in the direct line of a backcountry chute will never be coincidence. That was a planned attack, Max. It very nearly succeeded.”

“But we escaped.”

“So what?” Her voice rose slightly and he saw her check her next words and regroup before continuing. “This time the hit was supposed to look like an accident. Next time, it’ll be focused and deadly. You should leave Courchevel.”

“I don’t run away from problems.”

“Why do men always consider a tactical retreat to be running away? And even if it
is
running away—what’s wrong with survival?”

“I’ve been surviving since I was eight years old. I’m not willing to settle for that anymore.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell do you mean?”

“Do you know what it’s like to be the last man standing?—The one who’s left behind when the others disappear or fall out of the sky or die without a word to the people they love? It means you can never be too safe. You can never lose control. You’ve got to beat the odds that wiped out your forebears. You’ve got to rewrite history, prove it wrong. You’ve got to be immortal.” He spat the word.

“You really believe that?”

“I’ve had it thrust upon me,” he said bitterly. “I never had a choice. It didn’t matter that my family was gone and that at the age of ten I was a free agent. The day I stood over my mother’s grave I understood what the rest of my life was for. If the Roderick clan was to have a happy ending, it was up to me to find it. I’ve spent my life testing death every day. I study the odds, I perfect my skills, I hone my strength. And then one day, Stefani, I fail.
I fail.
I fuck up the time trials for Nagano and I get sent home for good behavior. And as I look at the life I’ve made for myself—all this space, all this surviving I don’t know what to do with—I say: what is it for?”

She stared at him wordlessly.

“Have I been running from the past for thirty years? Have I avoided the truth—about Dad, about Jack—because it might just be too painful? Is it better to pretend that history means nothing?”

He glanced away, unconsciously searching the faces surrounding them for one that looked out of place, for a detail that betrayed a taste for murder. “I shouldn’t place you at risk. I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t. Oliver Krane is—with my permission.”

“Then you should understand that I’m not running anymore. I want to know the worst of what happened. I want explanations that have been too long denied me. I
want retribution and truth telling and I want somebody to pay. God damn it—
I want the house.”

“You’ve got a perfectly nice one,” she observed.

He laughed despairingly. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. To understand, you’d have to have seen the house on the khlong. You’d have to walk in your bare feet across the polished wood floors, stare up into the heart of those soaring rooms, and touch the face of the Buddha as it stares out over the garden. You’d have to feel the presence of ghosts—as I felt them last year.
He’s still there,
Stefani. Jack is there. And he belongs to me. Not to the crowds that shuffle through his palace in their dirty jeans every day.
To me.”

She nodded slowly, the expression in her dark eyes at once cool and compassionate. “So what are you going to do?”

“Fly to Bangkok on Monday. Come with me?”

To his surprise, she flushed. “Of course. Isn’t that my job?”

He couldn’t help smiling at her. “You skied your pants off today, you know.”

“You
wish,
Roderick.”

Flirting again, despite the knowledge of being watched, despite the gun. God, she had a brutal courage. And yet she looked so frail. He watched her stroke crimson lipstick over her mouth as coolly as though she were in an elevator in Manhattan.

“You saved my life,” she observed around the lipstick. “Now I owe you. So fuck the apologies, okay?”

There was just enough challenge in her eyes. He leaned in and kissed her, hard, so that the careful application of red paint was pointless, a scrawl across both their mouths, now.

T
hey made it back to Courchevel six minutes late for their drink at Le Bateau Ivre. Jeff Knetsch sat waiting for them at a table in the back corner, his ski jacket off and his restless fingers wrapped around a beer. He seemed engrossed in conversation with a woman slouched indolently in one of the chairs, her boots propped on the restaurant’s blazing hearth. She had waist-length orange hair drawn up high on the crown of her head; her skin was tanned; her makeup perfect. She could not possibly have skied that day, Stefani decided.

“Oh, God,” Max muttered in her ear. “Brace yourself.”

At the sight of Max, Jeff’s beer slipped from his hand and sloshed over the table.

“Darling!”
The woman’s legs dropped to the floor with a crash. She thrust herself out of the chair and hurried toward them. Brown eyes, almond shaped, with Asia in her bones. The accent, however, was pure Sloane Ranger.

“Ankana,” Max murmured, leaning down to peck her cheek. “What a pleasure to see you in Courchevel.”

“The most brilliant coincidence! Absolutely fabulous! I was standing in line for the tram—Saulire’s smashing today, darling, you
should
have been there—and suddenly I was almost
run over
by poor Jeff! I was screeching obscenities at him before I realized who he was, of course. And then I simply roared with laughter! Too bloody rich, isn’t it? Running into each other this way? And all the while I thought he was in New York!”

She seized Max’s hand and dragged him back to the table like a prize marlin.

“Ankana,” Max said, “may I introduce a very old friend? Stefani Fogg, Ankana Lee-Harris.”

“Charmed,” the woman said patly, and fixed her rich sloe eyes on Stefani’s face for a fraction of a second before dropping back into her chair. “How’re tricks, darling? How’s the divine stone house? Cleaned the hot tub since I was in it last? Got any more of your yummy Bordeaux?”

Max smiled tightly. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Two hours,” Jeff told him. “I quit early. Leg’s not what it used to be. Sit down.”

Stefani felt Max’s hand tighten on her arm. He pulled out a chair. “Just one drink, I’m afraid. We’re both pretty trashed.”

“Skied yourself to death, I suppose?” Ankana smiled. “Jeff tells me you abandoned him for the backcountry. Shabby treatment, Max—for
shame.”

“He was well out of it.” Max scanned the room for a waitress.

“Heavy powder?”

“Mix of old crud and new corn. Demanding. Are you here long?”

“Just the weekend. Bobbie—my husband—is so vicious
these days I had to flee. Desperate for a bit of fun. I’ll be back in the trenches Monday morning, worse luck.”

“How do you all know each other?” Stefani asked. Max had obviously decided to say nothing about the avalanche, and so she followed his lead.

“Oh, it’s been
years”
Ankana declared tragically. “I was a World Cup groupie in my babyhood, and knew all the boys like the back of my hand.” Bedroom eyes at Max. “But I lost touch once I moved to London. Then Jeff and I met by chance two years ago at the Met—I’m in public relations, darling, in the art world, and Jeff’s on the Metropolitan Board. I couldn’t believe it! So of course we’ve kept in touch.”

“You live in London now?”

“Hampstead Heath. I spend every waking minute plotting methods of escape. And you?”

“New York.”

“Jeff’s backyard! Know Shelley and the kids, then?”

“Only by reputation.”

“How in the
world
did you fetch up here?” The tilted eyes betrayed no suggestion of the intense interest Stefani detected in every line of the other woman’s body.

“I’m spending my ex-husband’s money,” she replied coolly. “It seemed like the best revenge.”

“How brilliant of you!” Ankana shrieked. “Then let’s stiff you for the bill!”

“Jeff, I’m too tired to fight for a drink,” Max interposed firmly. “I think I’ll head home.”

“I’ll drop by later.” The lawyer’s face was pinched and white with exhaustion; his leg must be hurting him more than he admitted. “There are some things we need to discuss.”

“Business? How
boring,”
Ankana burst out. “Can’t I snag some time in the tub while you two are nattering
on? Max, you owe me an invitation. Admit it. It’s been
years
since I’ve seen the inside of your place.”

He stared at her, then shrugged slightly. “As long as Jeff pays for the damage.”

“He always does!”

Another shriek of laughter, and they fled for the door.

“Explain,” Stefani demanded
under her breath as they picked up their skis. The frigid rush of air, smelling of new snow, was like a cleansing bath on her upturned face. “Who is she?”

“A leech,” he said flatly. “A nightmare. No morals, no money and no mercy. Jeff’s up to his neck for the rest of his stay.”

“Is he having an affair with her?”

“I suppose they could have arranged to meet in Courchevel. But I doubt it. Jeff’s family means a lot to him. Ankana’s vice is usually more casual.”

“You despise her.”

“I don’t trust her. She’s changed her skin so many times in the past, I don’t know who she really is.”

“Asian?”

“By way of Heathrow. She’s native Thai, married to an English peer with more money than sense.”

“The public relations bit is bogus?”

“Oh, she has a job. At a museum in London—the Hughes Museum of Asian Art—but nobody’s quite sure how she stays employed.”

“Max”—Stefani stopped short at the parting of their ways, her
piste
leading down to Le Praz, his toward the house—“be careful tonight. A Thai woman appears two hours after you’re nearly killed. I don’t like the coincidence.”

“Come with me and watch her yourself.”

“I’ve got a phone call to make.”

“Mr. Krane?”

She nodded. “I want his opinion on avalanches.”

There was a
phone booth in Jacques Renaudie’s pub in Le Praz that looked primitive enough to be untraceable. Stefani had noted the spot during a pre-ski coffee run two days previous. At four o’clock that afternoon—nine
A.M.
in New York—she pulled the booth’s door shut, fed a token into the ancient machine and requested an international operator. “Collect call from Hazel,” she said, and pronounced one of the numbers that Oliver had given her.

As the call went through, she kept her eyes trained on the front of Renaudie’s place. Local skiers thronged around the bar, ordering beer and hot toddies while insults flew back and forth in rapid French. Le Praz was a quieter village than Courchevel 1850, where Max lived; it drew few of the international jet set and more families with children. She had chosen the villa in Le Praz because it was less obvious than one of the four-star hotels near Max’s home; but she was an oddity here, in her fawn-colored doeskin and her mink headband.

“Carlton Gardens,” said a quiet voice in her ear. She jumped. How like Oliver to name his transfer service after a Monopoly card. The operator gave her name; the call was accepted. And there was Oliver at the speed of light—from his current undisclosed location. Stefani was fairly certain he was nowhere near New York.

“Hazel, darling,” he cooed. “Drinking buttered rum and pining for your dear old uncle? How are tricks on the World Cup Circuit? Tell me everything. We’re completely secure.”

“Max and I were nearly buried alive this morning,” she replied, “in an avalanche someone triggered by gunfire.”

“Good lord. You
do
intend to go out with style. Any casualties?”

“None. We were alone—skiing one of Max’s private spots. Whoever fired the gun knew we would be there. The attack was deliberate and targeted very narrowly.”

“Then the field of suspects is similarly narrow, I presume?”

“I chose not to point that out to Max. But I want to know more about his lawyer, a man named Jeff Knetsch He appeared out of nowhere last night, looked me over and hated what he saw. He had an idea where we’d be skiing. You’ll find him in the dossier you gave me—but only as background. I need present-day stuff. His loyalties, his weaknesses. How much Max is worth in legal fees.”

“Then you shall have it,” Oliver promised briskly. “I think it only fair to warn you that Mr. Knetsch has been making inquiries of his own.”

“Regarding …?”

“You,
love, naturally. He’s gathered quite a bit of dirt.”

Stefani digested this information in silence. “On Max’s orders?”

“One would assume.”

He takes nothing on faith. He trusts no one. Or is Knetsch acting alone, trying to undermine my job?

“Shall I finger anyone else’s knickers?” Oliver asked mildly.

“It’s a long shot, but there’s a woman. Name of Ankana Lee-Harris. Born Thai, married to a Brit named Bobbie Lee-Harris. She surfaced with Knetsch today. Max didn’t like it.”

“Address? Maiden name?”

“She lives in Hampstead Heath and works for the Hughes Museum of Asian Art. That’s in London.”

“I
know.”
For the first time since she’d met him, he sounded faintly annoyed. “Age? Coloring? Bank accounts?”

“I only had a drink with her, Oliver. She’s about my age. Asian hair that’s bleached orange.”

“Right-o. Hazel—”

“Yes?”

“Enjoying yourself?”

He trusts no one—

For an instant, the memory of Max’s mouth on hers forced her to close her eyes.

“Immensely,” she replied.