True (30 page)

'Max, what do you want to show me?'

He tapped Stein's shoulder and pointed to a beach of snow and rock beneath a high overhang. The dogs pulled the sleigh off the ice and on to the ground. The sleigh stopped and Isabella was glad to be back on terra firma.

Her relief evaporated when Stein turned from the dogs and stared at her. There was a sadistic gleam in his eye and he held a curved Kukri knife in his right hand. 'I'll do it, Max.'

A hard, cold lump formed in Isabella's belly. 'Max, what the hell's going on?'

'I'll do it,' Stein said again. 'It'll be like old times. Remember Hawaii, Max?' He tapped his eyepatch and grinned. 'You were just a pup when you gave me this on the night I drowned your mother. If you haven't the stomach for it, it'll be my pleasure.'

'Put the knife away,' Max said, and pulled a pistol out of his coat. There was a silencer on the barrel. His eyes were as cold and hard as the surrounding rock.

'A bullet's too quick,' Stein said. 'Let me use the knife on her.'

Max kept his eyes locked on hers. 'I know you got into Joachim's computer, Isabella.'

Isabella's left knee was shaking as it had on that night in Antibes. Max had saved her then, but now he was going to kill her. 'Not you, Max,' she said, hating the quaver in her voice. She remembered last night's dream. 'Tell me one thing. Did you kill my father?'

'No. For what it's worth I tried to save him. My father killed him.' Max raised the pistol. 'I don't expect you to believe me, Isabella, but I'm truly sorry about this. I wish there was another way.'

She wanted to look into his face when he killed her, but she couldn't. She held her breath, squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the explosion. The gunshot, when it came, was little more than a metallic spit that barely bruised the frozen silence. Her knees buckled, and as she crumpled forward she opened her eyes to see Stein keel over with a neat red hole in his forehead. The bullet had severed the strap of his eyepatch, and the empty socket was revealed.

She turned back to Max, uncomprehending. He put the gun away. 'Give me your hand, Isabella,' he said. 'We've got a lot to do.'

AS MAX LOOKED DOWN AT ISABELLA HE MARVELLED AT HOW MUCH he could feel for another person. His chest felt tight and his heart ached, almost as if it had been crushed. The pain was so acute that part of him almost wished Joachim's drug had worked, and that he now loved Delphine Chevalier. If anything, his love for Isabella now burned even more fiercely. He couldn't understand why the drug hadn't worked on him.

He put away his gun and stepped towards Isabella, but she recoiled from his outstretched hand. He hated seeing the distrust in her eyes. He had killed for her and would gladly die for her, but he deserved her fear, even her hatred. His only consolation was that his darker side now protected her.

Isabella stared at Stein's body, watching the blood form a red halo in the icy snow around his head. T don't understand,' she muttered. "What the hell's going on?'

'You're safe with me, Isabella, and I'll explain everything, but for now you've got to trust me.'

'Trust you? After all you've done? After Antibes?The lies?My father?' She lunged forward and pounded his chest with her fists. He stood unmoving while the blows rained down on him and wished she could beat away his guilt and self-disgust. When her fury subsided, he held her in his arms.

'I hate you. I hate you,' she hissed.

'I know -- and I don't blame you. But I love you. I've loved you from the first time I saw you. From before I took the drug.' He looked down at her face and her eyes glared up at him. He had no chance of winning her love, he knew, but he could still put right what he had done. 'It doesn't matter what you feel about me, Isabella, all that matters is that we stop Project Ilium and save the others.'

'Why should I trust you now?'

'Because I haven't killed you. And because I'm all you've got.'

She paused. 'So what do we do?'

He picked up the Kukri knife from beside Stein's corpse and felt the curved blade. The edge was razor sharp. 'First of all, roll up your sleeve.'

The fear returned to her eyes. 'Why?'

'Because you've still got to die.'

AN HOUR LATER

AS HELMUT KAPPEL SAT IN THE ICE CHAPEL ALONE WITH HIS younger son, Isabella was far from his thoughts.

'Administering the Venus serum is straightforward, Vati,' Joachim said, holding a vial in one hand and tapping at his laptop with the other. 'By tomorrow morning the guests will be primed.'

Helmut leaned back on the fur-covered seat, watching the smoke from his cigar loop up into the rainbow shafts of refracted sunlight, which danced round the prism of the ice-chapel vault. 'I understand how it's to be administered. I just want to be sure it works.'

Joachim turned the screen so it faced his father. 'In simple terms I've combined two tried and tested elements. We know that Bacci's NiL Forty-two genes induce an obsessive devotion to whoever's facial blueprint is encoded within them when neutralizing all other feelings of love. And I know exactly how the Tag Vector will deliver them, because I developed it. It'll work. The only issue is timing.'

'Timing?'

'Because my vector has an airborne component based on a virulent influenza retrovirus, I had to build in certain safety features when seeking approval from the European and American authorities. If you remember, the Tag Vector was originally developed to spread cures -- specifically for Aids. It works in two stages. It's initially given to the patient orally, and once in the bloodstream it targets specific cells. If it detects a certain chemical signal - in the case of Aids it's the presence of HIV - it mutates and its airborne influenza component becomes active, triggering a mild irritation in the patient's respiratory tract. The Tag Vector and its therapeutic contents cure the patient of Aids and spread, through coughing, to the next patient, where the process starts again. However, if it detects nothing within forty-eight hours the Tag Vector dies and leaves the host. This safety feature was designed to ensure that the virus only survives and spreads if it can do some good.'

'What does this mean for Venus?'

'Obviously the Tag Vector here is delivering the NiL Forty-two genes and not an Aids cure, but the principle still applies. In this case, however, instead of HIV acting as the trigger, it's facial recognition. Basically the guests take Venus imprinted with your facial genetic code and the next morning they awake primed. Then as long as they see your face within forty-eight hours -- or a picure of your face -- the second airborne stage of the Tag Vector will be triggered, and Venus's effect will not only be permanent, it will spread.'

'If they don't see me in that period?'

'The drug fades from their systems and their brains correct themselves. But that's not going to happen, Vati. You're getting married tomorrow. You'll be the centre of attention. Everyone's going to see your face and nothing will go wrong. Just as you asked me, Vati, I've ensured that Venus is essentially an airborne, nature-identical love virus, from which there is no escape and for which there is no cure.'

Despite the chill in the chapel Helmut felt warm with anticipation. 'Excellent, Joachim.'

His son beamed with pride. 'But that's not all, Vati. The best bit is--'

Helmut heard raised voices outside the main door of the chapel. The two guards had been instructed to allow no one entry. Not even Klaus or Max. 'Put everything away, Joachim.'

Joachim hid the vial and closed the laptop as the door opened and Max strode into the chapel with a leather bag. A guard followed him, protesting, but Helmut raised his hand.

'Max?'

Max waited for the guard to leave, then placed the bag on the floor before them. His face was pale and expressionless. 'What is it, Max?'

Max reached for Joachim's laptop and opened it. Joachim made to stop him, but Helmut shook his head. Max switched it on and waited for the access screen to appear. Then he returned to the bag and opened it. 'You feared I'd given my heart to Isabella and betrayed you. But that's impossible. I'm a Kappel and have no heart.' Max pulled out a sealed plastic freezer bag and opened it to reveal another plastic bag, which contined what looked like meat. Both bags were wet with blood. 'Isabella had a heart, though,' Max said, and let a drop of blood fall on to the laptop's DNA sensor. Within seconds Isabella's face appeared on the screen, along with the words: 'Access Denied'.

Max reached into the inner bag and presented the bloody mass to Helmut. 'I said I'd prove my loyalty, Vater.' His father recoiled and his brother retched. 'Isabella had a large heart,' Max said, and pushed the bag into Helmut's face. 'Go on! Touch it! Smell it! Taste it! You once told me that a pure Kappel feels no emotion, has no conscience and shows no pain. Is this enough proof that I'm a pure, loyal Kappel?'

Helmut was stunned. Years ago he had ruthlessly killed a woman he had thought he loved because she threatened the family. Now their son had outstripped even his brutality.

'Do you trust me now, Vater?' Max demanded. 'Are you proud of me?'

Beneath his shock Helmut felt a surge of satisfaction. He had purged all trace of his first wife's nature from their son and shaped Max in his own image. 'Yes,' he whispered. 'I'm proud of you.'

'Good,' Max said. He repacked the plastic bags, replaced the bundle in the leather tote and strode out.

MAXWAS SHAKING AS HE LEFT THE CHAPEL, BUT HE DIDN'T FEEL cold. He headed straight for the deserted boiler-house. Inside there were two rooms. One contained steel hawsers, flares, drums of oil and emergency winter supplies. The second housed a back-up generator and two cast-iron boilers -- one was oil-powered, and the auxiliary burned solid fuel. Both were in operation. He went to the smaller boiler, opened the feeder door and threw in the leather bag.

Outside, he saw two of the five ex-Stasi guards his father had brought to Valhalla to handle security. He had always taken them for granted, but now he saw them as a threat. They hailed him: 'Herr Kappel, have you seen Herr Stein?'

He could have told an eleborate lie, but in his experience the truth was always more credible. 'Not since I got back.'

He avoided die main glass doors and crunched through the snow to the steps that led to the summer terrace on die second tier of the crystal palace. Apart from two sets of fresh footprints- -- one large, the other small -- the snow-encrusted steps were unused. When he reached the terrace he walked to the first set of tinted sliding doors. The reflective glass made it impossible to see inside the suite. He took off his glove, blew on his hand, then placed his palm on the DNA sensor. There was a delay because of the cold, then his face appeared on the monitor and the doors slid open.

He stepped on to the mat and, as the doors closed behind him, glanced around the lounge area of his suite. He kicked off his snowy boots walked into the bedroom and opened the bathroom door. He glimpsed Isabella leaning over the bath, dressing the cut on her left arm, before she jerked round, eyes huge with panic. The fright dimmed when she saw it was him. She still looked as pale as she had when he had forced himself to cut out Stein's heart. Every cell in his body had resisted performing the butchery, but it had been effective: no Kappel could doubt him now -- and, more importantly, he had bought himself and Isabella some time.

'You're safe for now,' he said, as gently as he could. 'They think you're dead.'

He led her into the lounge, poured two glasses of malt whisky and gave her one. She drank it and coughed. He refilled her glass. This time she held it in both hands and sipped. 'What do you know about Ilium?' he asked.

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a firewire portable hard drive. 'Not much. The files are in German.' 'In that case,' he said, 'I'll tell you all I know.' For the next half-hour, Max told her everything, keeping nothing from her. He told her how his mother had taken him from Zurich as a boy, given him a US passport and a new identity. And how his father had found them in Hawaii and killed her. He explained the Kappel family business and that he was its heir. He told her how he had murdered to help clients and the business. He told her how Trapani had recommended Kappel Privatbank and its Comvec offshoot to her father. He recounted the night of Bacci's death. Finally he told her about Project Ilium, explaining that after the wedding, assuming the respective target clients had paid their dues, each bridesmaid would be given a permanent version of the NiL drug, modified to kill them in six months.

'So, we have all received the harmless temporary NiL drug?' Isabelle asked.

'Yes. The others won't get the permanent lethal version until they leave tomorrow:'

'But you're sure we all got the temporary version? Including me?'

'Joachim and Stein injected you all on the way here.' Then it dawned on him. 'It hasn't worked on you, has it? You feel nothing for Hudsucker.'

'No.'

'The permanent version didn't work on me. But the drug worked on both of us in Antibes. Why not this time?'

Something flashed in her eyes, but she shook her head as though to dismiss the thought.

'What?' he said.

She sipped her whisky. 'Nothing.'

She looked so vulnerable and alone that he wanted to reassure her. 'I won't stand by and let my family kill you. I tried to warn you the night before you flew out here, but my father injected me with the drug then sedated me. I watched you leave your apartment as I lost consciousness.' He relived the moment. 'I've only ever felt so helpless and desolate once before. I was sure that when I awoke I'd forget I loved you. But I didn't.' He waited for her to say something.