BERN, SWITZERLAND
Hans Brinkman was in a foul mood.
To begin with, he was playing hooky, and the fact that he couldn’t manage to forget it enraged him. A man of his stature-he ought to be able to take a morning off now and then, go a few rounds at the club without suffering pangs of anxiety about how many people would be screwing up during his absence. And they will screw up, he thought.
He climbed into the ring, ignoring the attention he was attracting. The Sportklub was one of the most expensive in Switzerland, as well as one of the most exclusive-without proper sponsorship (in Hans’s case, his father-inlaw), you stood a better chance of winning the lottery. The downside to exclusivity, of course, was a certain inbred organic weakness, a tendency toward paunchiness and the early triple bypass-among these tired aging buffalos, Hans Brinkman stood out like a fierce young lion. A tormented lion, however. He couldn’t get Elizabeth out of his head. Or the equally disquieting sense that had been haunting him for the last forty-eight hours, an almost palpable feeling that he had taken a colossal wrong turn, and was destined to pay for this mistake with his life. It was the craziest of thoughts, he knew, but the amount of credibility he was giving it nonetheless infuriated him. Not that he Was afraid of death, but he was terrified of losing control. He didn’t like things he couldn’t control, including himself. And feeling less than in control of his emotions was entirely unacceptable. Then there was the sense that people were watching him, not just these bloated idiots in the gym, praying for his sparring partner to cream him with a sucker punch. But people on the street, in cafe’s, in cars, even outside his chalet this morning. He was convinced someone was studying him, and that meant one of two things: either his wife, Yvette, was having him shadowed, as he lightly suggested to Elizabeth, or he was now entering the crooked corridors of paranoia. projecting his own self-doubts on randomly chosen strangers. He tried to put it all out of his mind. He watched the man across the ring, a banking executive five years his junior. “Set?”
“Sure.”
He circled catlike, jabbing and dodging, feinting once, twice, then following up with a wicked left hook that stopped the poor bastard in his tracks. As his opponent staggered sideways, Hans brought up his right and punched the man into the ropes. He danced forward-the man threw up his gloves in terror. “Okay!” he cried sharply. “You win-Jesus!” Hans danced away slashing the air with furious rights and lefts, his feet a blur. He was barely sweating; the other man was drenched and shaking. “Maybe golf next time?” Hans said casually. “Maybe not,” said the banker. “You’ll have a club in your hands then and you’ll be twice as dangerous.” Hans shrugged, and then his cell phone began ringing. Vaulting the ropes, he had it on the second ring. Almost immediately he swore in rage, tearing off his gloves and flinging them down. “What are you, a trainee?” he barked into the phone. “Sell it all. I told you The Hague wouldn’t enforce it!” Whoever was on the other end became the recipient of a stream of invective that brought the gym to a standstill. Then Hans Brinkman was gone, leaving a knowing silence in his wake. The unfortunate caller was going to have a new asshole reamed for him, and Hans Brinkman was so mad he was going to do it in person. From his Porsche Carrera, en route to the chalet in Monthey, he called the airport and alerted his flight crew to ready the Learjet. But as soon as he hung up, he was swept anew by the feeling of death stalking him. It felt like nonsense when he parsed it sensibly, but it was so overwhelming a feeling, he rationalized that it wouldn’t do to fly when he was this angry or this distracted. Having flown his own jet for more than five years he had his share of near-misses when in a mood this black. He called back and canceled the plane. A good long drive through the mountains, maybe that would flush all this out of his system. As he pulled into the driveway of the chalet he saw the cream Bentley parked in one of the four garages. Yvette, the last person he wanted to see at the moment, was home from one of her interminable lunches. At the terrace he paused, still reluctant to encounter her, and gazed over the railing as if for the first time. At 2,500 meters, the view was unobstructed all the way down to Lake Geneva, twenty kilometers to the northwest. The rugged peaks of the Alps, sprinkled with hamlets, spires and cascading streams, cut sharply into the sky. Hans realized that usually he witnessed this immense beauty while he was fuming into a cell phone; he could have been in a lead cubicle for all the view was worth. Now he realized its majesty He realized, too, he’d miss it if he didn’t have it. He crossed past the Olympic-sized pool and into the bedroom, tossing an order out to a maid who was cleaning the mirrors, She scurried to the closet, hauled down a suitcase and began to pack for him. He pulled off his sport clothes and threw on a suit and tie, selecting a dove-gray Schiaparelli double-breasted suit he’d had custom-made in Paris, and matching it with hand-crafted loafers from Cleverly in Royal Arcade, London. Give all this up? Who was he kidding?
By the time he was dressed, the maid had shut the suitcase. He was turning to leave when Yvette rushed into the room and stopped dead in her tracks. “Pas encore?” she said, with gentle irritation. She had lustrous dark collagened lips, and wore enough gold jewelry to finance a revolution. “Who screwed up this time, darling?” “The Zurich branch. I’m going to fire the lot of them.” “What about the Taverniers’ party?”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “They’re more your friends than mine.” She gave a tight laugh. “Small wonder-you’re never here. When can we expect you back?” I loved her once, he thought. And now she’s got private detectives. “Sunday, late.” And then he thought, Sunday, oh Jesus. Elizabeth. He had planned to call her back, apologize for standing her up, even reshuffle his schedule if need be. Her last goodbye had been so abrupt, so final. I’ll call her from the road, Hans thought, avoiding Yvette, who scrutinized him sadly from the other side of the bed. “Lose something?” she asked.
My goddamn sanity, Hans thought, visions of Elizabeth racing through his brain-every particular precious detail-her body in all its mystery, her sweet face and silky hair, the heartbreaking sound she gave each time he entered her, her secret gravity, the soft pale down on her belly, her flashes of sardonic humor, her clear gray eyes- He forced himself to stop thinking about her. Thought about the details of getting the hell out of there. Okay, so where was his wallet- in his other pants, where else would it be? Now came the question of the car. He debated taking his 37 Lagonda Rapide, an automotive jewel he had recently purchased from Coys, in Kensington, but took the keys to the BMW 750i1 instead-he needed speed and reliability for this run. Besides, in his agitated state, if the Rapide broke down during this particular trip, as it was wont to do, he just might torch it on the spot, which would be a shame, since it had cost $500,000. Face it, he thought, as the BMW took the first curve outside the chalet gate and Yvette’s face vanished from the bedroom window above, you need Elizabeth. You crave her like a junkie craves his fix. You’ve been trying to kick her for months, but you know in your heart you’re scared shitless of losing her. Call her from Zurich, in the middle of a board meeting, and if you have to, tell her some goddamn lie she might appreciate. Or tell her the truth, he thought abruptly. Tell her you’ve decided to change your life.
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL, MARYLAND
Something deep inside Peter shook him, a white-hot rage and fear and urgency. Waking with a start, he found his wife leaning over him. Next he became aware of the tubes in his arms, the monitoring sensors pasted to his chest. And the terrible ache in his belly. “Peter?” said Beatrice.
He struggled to sit up, and found he had no strength at all. He fell back and stared at her. “Where the hell am I?”
“Bethesda,” Beatrice said, scowling at him as if she had caught him smoking in bed. “What?” he croaked. “What’s the matter?” “We’ve got to talk.”
Peter looked slowly around, as though expecting to see the walls of the bunker, everyone walking out after the blast. “Is the team all right?” “Everyone’s fine,” she said, in a small voice. “But what? We lose our funding? Henderson say I told you so’?” She shook her head, fighting back tears, and took his hand. For a moment she seemed unable to speak. “Tell me,” he said. “I can take it.”