“Our Kenny was born in Kensal Rise, north London, May 15, 1961. His father, Reginald ‘Nutter’ Wynter, was a villain, robbed banks and security vans, didn’t mind who got hurt when he did it. Got sent down for twenty years soon after Kenny was born and died inside after fifteen. Kenny was brought up by his mother, Noreen. He was a bright lad, passed his eleven-plus exam, went to grammar school, and got into Oxford University. He graduated in 1982 with a first-class degree, a nice new middle-class accent, and a love of fine wines. And then he went into the family business. Our Kenny became a thief, just like his dear old dad. Except, being brainy, he did it very differently.”
Oh, yes, Wynter was a cold, calculating bastard underneath that cozy cashmere. No matter how friendly he might seem, there would always be a part of him sitting to one side, observing, emotionally detached. He would be perfectly happy using women for sex and decoration, without the slightest need for any greater emotional connection. The last thing he needed was any complication that would interfere with his working life. And when he received an assignment, he would carry it out without compunction, irrespective of its consequences, untouched by moral consideration.
Carver knew just how that felt.
55
F
BI Special Agent Tom Mulvagh liked Kady Jones a lot. He thought she was pretty hot for a scientist, which helped. But mostly he just appreciated the way she got on with the job. She didn’t put on any airs. She’d laugh at a joke, instead of acting offended. Basically, she was cool.
That being the case, he’d been happy to put in a few hours following up her crazy theory about the general and the physicist. At first it seemed straightforward. Vermulen had made no secret of his initial movements. He and his assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, had taken scheduled flights, first class, to Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, and then Rome. They had stayed at the best hotels, but in separate rooms every time. Vermulen’s credit cards showed the kind of charges you’d expect from a man trying to get a woman into bed: restaurants, fancy stores, opera tickets. Some people would say it was pathetic, going to those lengths, but it was hardly a crime.
Next Mulvagh moved on to Vermulen’s phone logs, only to draw a blank. The general had a couple of cell phones registered in his name, but neither of them had been used for several weeks. At the hotels where he stayed, the phone charges were minimal. That made sense in one respect: Who paid hotel call charges if he could avoid it? But unless Vermulen had decided to avoid all telecommunications, he had to be using a phone of some kind.
Mulvagh tracked down all the corporations that listed him as a director, then checked all the phones registered to those corporations, then tracked their usage over the period Vermulen was in Europe. There was no correlation at all. Now Mulvagh was getting interested. He went back to the credit cards. They showed no record of any handset being purchased, nor of any call charges or time charges. That meant Vermulen had bought a prepaid phone, using either cash or a card that he didn’t want anyone to know about. He was meant to be a guy on an extended holiday, but these were the security precautions of an experienced professional on a mission.
It was time to bring in some help. Mulvagh had built up a pretty good working relationship with Ted Jaworski, over at Langley, and Bob Lassiter, the NSA’s man on the bomb team. He gave them the gist of Kady’s story, plus his own findings. They both told him he had to be out of his mind even thinking about this investigation, but he just about persuaded them to take a look, off the record. Then he went to the police.
The D.C. police were as defensive as any other cops when it came to liaising with the FBI, but once Mulvagh had persuaded the detective in charge of the Mary Lou Stoller case that he wasn’t trying to muscle in on anyone else’s investigation, they were able to have a useful conversation.
“This is just you and me talking, deep background, yeah?” asked the detective.
“Sure,” said Mulvagh. “I just need to know what you think went down. I don’t need proof. I want what your instinct is telling you.”
“Okay. Officially, this was a mugging gone bad. But what my instinct says is, That’s bullshit. Whoever killed Mrs. Stoller was a pro.”
“How come?”
“The job was too good. I mean, sure, they made it look like a mugging, but the area was clean. No trace evidence anywhere: no prints, no DNA, and the only footprints came from a new pair of standard Florsheim dress shoes, size ten. Totally untraceable—they sell thousands of those things. But it tells me something, anyhow. I mean, when did you ever know a mugger to wear Florsheims? And plus, your average street punk has less intelligence than the yucca plant my lieutenant keeps in her office—you know what I’m saying? Not forgetting that he’s most likely out of his mind on meth. So he’s going to make mistakes, leave evidence. Christ, you know what these bozos are like. But whoever did this job, trust me—they were not stupid. They knew what they were doing. And we ain’t ever going to catch them. That’s what my instinct tells me, Agent Mulvagh.”
“Thank you, Detective, I appreciate your honesty.”
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what are the Feds doing making personal calls to check up on this particular investigation? God rest her soul, but Mrs. Stoller wasn’t anyone important.”
“No,” said Mulvagh, “but her boss is.”
“Aw, shit—I shoulda seen that one coming . . .”
“Don’t worry, Detective. I gave you my word our conversation was private. None of this will rebound on you.”
Mulvagh hung up, deep in thought. He’d started this investigation as a favor, but it was now impossible to ignore the fact that something very strange was going on around Kurt Vermulen. The general’s trip to Europe was obviously far more than an extended vacation. But had he also planned his secretary’s death? If he wanted to get rid of her and bring in a younger model, all he had to do was fire her. So who stood to gain by Mary Lou Stoller’s death? The only candidate was the new secretary, this Morley woman. But she sure as hell didn’t beat a woman to death in Glover-Archbold Park. Had someone done it for her? And if so, why?
He put in another call to Ted Jaworski.
“I’ve got to be honest,” he said. “I still can’t be sure that this directly relates to our unit’s terms of reference. But Kady Jones thinks it might—she’s the expert on nuclear scientists—and everything I’ve found out so far has backed up her first hunch. We need to take a look at this Natalia Morley, find out everything there is on her, in this country and overseas. Someone wanted to get her that job with Vermulen. We should find out who they were.”
56
K
enny Wynter left home at half past five in the morning, aiming to catch the early-morning British Airways flight to Nice from Heath-row. It was forty-five minutes to the airport, maybe less—at this hour of the day the Porsche would eat it up. Drop the car off at the valet parking, check into British Airways business class, hand baggage only: no worries.
He wondered what Vermulen would be like. His handler, communicating, as always, via his personal message box on an Arsenal FC fansite, had given him the bare outline. Vermulen was ex-U.S. Army, a brass hat who’d gone into business on civvy street. He wanted something stolen from a house in the South of France: a small, high-value package. That could mean anything from a diamond necklace to a computer disc filled with industrial secrets. Whatever, this Vermulen character was a serious player, with impeccable connections and a deep pocket. The least Wynter could do was hear what the man had to offer. And the worst he would get was a nice trip. He planned to stay the night, treat himself to some fun on the Riviera.
He swung onto the M25, the orbital highway that described a ragged 117-mile circle around the outer edges of London. For much of the day it was little more than a gigantic traffic jam, but right now, with the road still swathed in dawn mist, there was barely a car in sight. Wynter swung over to the outside lane and settled into a steady eighty-five-mile-per-hour cruise. He was tempted to go much faster—plenty of people did. But that would be tempting fate. If there were any cops on the road, they’d ignore a car in the eighties, but once you got over ninety, you were asking to be stopped.
He looked in his rearview mirror. There was a clapped-out old heap behind him. The driver was thrashing the engine hard, coming up fast on his tail. He looked like a right idiot, wearing dark glasses and a baseball cap when the sun was barely up. Wynter gave a quick squirt on the accelerator and the Porsche eased forward, opening up the gap again. But the old banger just kept coming, getting closer and closer until it was practically touching the 911’s rear bumper.
Then the other car flashed him, three long glares from the headlights.
Wynter had to laugh. This bloke was really taking the piss.
So now he had a choice. He could floor it and get the hell out, but it was Sod’s Law that there would be a cop around the next bend, and he had to be on that plane. So he pulled into the inside lane and slowed down to let the heap past.
As the cars drew level Wynter shook his head in wonderment. He was actually being overtaken by a Honda bloody Accord. He looked at the lunatic behind the wheel and gave him a gentle, condescending shake of the head, just to let him know what a sorry twat he was. Then he turned back to the road.
As he did so, he heard the sound of a revving engine and squealing tires to his right and the Accord veered across the lines into his lane and smashed into the side of his Porsche. The cars were locked together for a second, like wrestlers, sparks showering past their windows. Wynter could hear as well as feel the side panels of his car crumpling—his beautiful, brand-new car.
Wynter’s first reaction was disbelief. He’d heard all about road-rage attacks. The M25 was famous for them; its traffic problems could turn the Dalai Lama psychotic. But his incredulity soon turned to outrage. What kind of a moron attacked a Porsche with an Accord? It was the disrespect as much as the violence that shocked him. Wynter had strength, weight, and speed on his side. He was going to get away, but first he wanted to teach this numpty a lesson. He pulled the wheel hard to the right, intending to shove the other car right into the central barrier.
But the car wasn’t there anymore. The driver had anticipated Wynter’s move, braked hard, and effectively ducked under the Porsche, ending up directly behind it. The Honda’s lights came on again, full beam in Wynter’s rearview mirror. Then the Honda rammed him from behind.
Wynter’s concentration was all focused behind his car. He didn’t notice the tractor-trailer pulling into the middle lane up ahead, as it passed a cement mixer lumbering along an uphill stretch of the highway. He didn’t spot the Range Rover that had to swing into the outside lane to avoid the overtaking truck. By the time he looked up and saw that there was a line of vehicles right across the road, he was on top of them.
Wynter slammed on the brakes. The Porsche slowed instantly from more than ninety to less than sixty. The Honda hit him again, clipping the rear passenger-side corner of his car before sliding alongside him again, this time on the inside. Then he rammed him a second time, wrecking yet more panels.
Wynter had had enough. Up ahead, the Range Rover had passed the trucks and returned to the center lane. The outside lane was open again. Wynter moved into it and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
“Exploding nipples.”
That’s what Jerzy Garlinski, the lunatic expatriate Pole who’d taught Carver all about sabotage, used to say. Year after year, the faces and uniforms in his audience might change, but the routine was always the same.
“Question: how to take out a moving car so we leave no trace? Answer . . . exploding nipples.”
Every year, the SBS trainees would laugh, even though they knew the line was coming. They’d all heard it a hundred times before, because every man who did the course felt obliged to perform his own Garlinski impersonation to any poor sod who would listen. But you couldn’t knock the guy’s teaching methods. No one ever forgot how to take out a moving car.
By “nipples” Garlinski meant tire valves. A tiny, remote-controlled explosive device, replacing the normal valve, was a discreet alternative to a conventional car bomb. It could not be spotted by a regular security sweep, nor did it leave any trace when detonated. The only problem was getting to the target vehicle ahead of the assignment—and the moment Wynter was picked up by the Government Communications Headquarters, booking his valet parking and giving the registration number of the car he’d be leaving at the airport, that problem was solved.
All Carver had to do then was find a way of provoking Wynter to drive at a speed that would prove fatal in the event of an accident. He’d been curious how he’d cope under pressure. He didn’t know for sure that he’d have the balls for it when the moment actually came. But he’d felt completely calm as he taunted Wynter and smashed into his fancy car. He remembered the satisfaction that lay in dealing retribution to men who saw themselves as above the law, putting them on the receiving end. An old soccer hooligans’ chant, no more than a childish taunt, came to his mind like a mantra.
“Come and get it,” he thought, the words going around in his head as he drove the Honda into the side of the Porsche.
“Come and get it,” watching the rage on Wynter’s face as he accelerated away.
“Come and get it,” picking up the remote detonator and pressing the button.
“If you think you’re hard enough,” as the Porsche’s front tire blew out, the blast propelling the rigged valve out of the tire like a bullet from a gun, leaving it invisible in the shoulder by the side of the road, while the Porsche spun across the highway, as helpless as a leaf in a whirlpool, smashing into the central barrier and rebounding back into the road, past the desperately swerving Range Rover, straight into the path of the tractor-trailer.