Deception (11 page)

But Keyes himself wouldn't be around long enough to suffer the consequences. When the Project came tumbling down, whose shoulders would the ruins come to rest on? On his shoulders, of course. He had not gone to the DIA, when it had become necessary, looking for help. He had run cover for Greenwich. And now he would be the one to pay the price.

It was all finished.

“Who is she?” he asked, still rubbing at his temple.

“That's a good question.” Dietz sounded faintly amused. The man's voice, Keyes thought, possessed a rather disturbing ironic distance. “Perhaps I could ask her myself. Somehow they cut a deal with the local authorities; the ship's heading straight to Istanbul. We could meet it there and take her off.”

“Istanbul,” Keyes repeated.

“Right. Day after tomorrow …”

“What hotel?” Keyes asked. “I'm coming out.”

NINE

1.

Henri Jansen reached across Madeleine's body, found his pack of Gauloises on the nightstand, and lit two.

“I need to go,” Madeleine said.

But she accepted a cigarette anyway. She smoked with her eyes shut, a faint smile playing around her lips.

“I've got a big day tomorrow,” she went on. “My husband has organized a hiking trip from les Cabassols. Tony Blair's best friend from childhood is going to be there. And a Saudi prince. And a famous American, a white-collar criminal. Why is it that Americans get famous for being criminals?”

Henri looked off into the gloom, and didn't answer.

“Oh, I guess it's not just Americans,” Madeleine said airily. She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties—careless and flirty, on the surface, although from time to time Henri had seen something sweetly sad beneath the careless veneer. “Anyway. Can you imagination how the conversation will go? All about horse racing, I bet. They all own thoroughbreds, you know. They race them, like boys with toy cars.”

Henri smoked, and made no comment.

“Well,” she said, and handed the Gauloise back to him. “I've really got to go.”

As she showered, he stayed in bed, alternating drags from each cigarette. Depression was nipping at him, stealthy and insistent. But there was no need to feel depressed, Henri thought. Why, this was what he had always dreamed of. Look how far he had come from the days when he hadn't been able to afford even a single cigarette—the days when, as a child in Paris, he had been forced to forage butts off the street.

But now: a cigarette for each hand. A different woman for each part of the day. A beautiful house, rent-free. Who could have asked for more?

When the shower was finished, he watched Madeleine dress. Then he left the bed, kissed the back of her neck, and walked her to her car, naked. He kissed her again and watched as the Audi rolled away down the long driveway.

He stood alone in the cool twilight, trying to keep the nipping depression at bay.

The mistral, he noticed, was gaining force.

This surprised him. During summers, the cool north wind was usually manageable. It was during the winters that it escorted ice-cold air down from the Rhône, blasting across southern France with a vengeance. But in the winters, of course, Henri was not here to see it. In the winters he went to Aspen, or the Ivory Coast, or South Beach. He had never owned a house in his life—but he had many friends who owned houses in the best locations, who were always eager to offer them for Henri Jansen's use.

Patrons
, he thought. By making their fancy houses available to him, the friends were supporting his career as a photographer … although nearly a full year had passed since he had last put film in his camera, let alone snapped a picture. Yes; in the old days, they would have been called patrons.

The depression stirred again.

Before going back inside, he took a short stroll around the grounds. The sun was purpling, sinking toward the horizon. The vineyards were never more lovely than at sunset, Henri thought. He took his time on the walk, waiting for his mood to lighten. At one point the neighbor's dog—a terrier mutt named Sylvie—fell into step beside him. For about ten minutes, they walked together. Then Sylvie caught sight of a butterfly and charged off into the fields, leaving Henri alone.

By the time he returned to the house, full dark was falling.

He showered. Madeleine's scent was still on him, in his hair and on his fingers, giving him a pleasurable tingle. They had been getting along well lately, he and Madeleine. Perhaps they had been getting along a bit too well.

Madeleine's husband, Vladimir, was a high-ranking Russian politician who once had been intimately involved with the KGB and now was intimately involved with the ongoing reform of the Russian court system. The Russian court system, Madeleine reported, was rife with corruption. And her husband, she reported, was growing filthy rich off said corruption. Lately, they spent more and more time here in Provence, squandering his ever-increasing fortune with the elite club that populated southern France during the dog days of summer: wealthy industrialists, movie stars, royalty, politicians, and socialites.

Henri was glad to have Madeleine around more often. They enjoyed each other; they had fun together. And yet her husband would not be a good man to have as an enemy. He was known in certain circles as the vulture—only in part because of his hawklike mien. The nickname also came from the man's predatory habits, and his lack of hesitancy in pursuing them. If Henri and Madeleine grew too close, Ismayalov might take notice. And that could become a problem.

But no: It was just a fling. A summer thing. Henri knew it, and he was fairly sure that Madeleine knew it, too.

After the shower, he made a quick circuit through the house, shuttering windows in case a storm came while he was out for dinner. In the sunken living room, he knelt before the fireplace to make certain the flue was closed. When he stood, he found himself looking at the room's tremendous picture windows. A lot of good shuttering the small panes all through the house would do, with these sheets of glass still open to the elements. Yet he was only following orders.

Officially, Henri was here as a house-sitter. It was his responsibility to make sure the pipes didn't burst, the scorpions didn't run wild, the refrigerator and the wine cellar didn't become empty. In reality, of course, he was here to be available to the lady of the house—an American whom he jokingly called Princess—whenever the mood took her. But Princess was in Rome, at least through the end of the month, with her husband.

At some point in the near future, Princess had hinted, she might even make a gift of this house to Henri. That would have been a blessing. Two rambling stories near Aix-en-Provence, with ten acres and three guest bungalows and a swimming pool and proximity to all the best summering celebrities, would have been a very nice blessing indeed. If he owned this house, he wouldn't need to worry so much about the constant upkeep of his body and his tan. He could allow himself to age gracefully. Perhaps he could even find the time to concentrate again on his photography.

But he didn't own the house, not for the time being. And he did not believe that Princess really intended to make a gift of it, ever. It was simply a lure that she dangled in front of him, to keep him interested.

So it was time to go to work.

Work, tonight, involved an Italian named Isabella DiMeglio, whose husband spent too much time in the office and not enough time focusing on his wife. The husband owned a house in the Bahamas. Henri had his eye on that house.

He finished his check of the windows, returned to the bedroom, splashed on cologne, and checked himself in the mirror. He flashed a grin, fixed his cuffs, and then went to keep his dinner date.

PART TWO

TEN

1.

Keyes closed the suitcase and then glanced at the clock radio by the bedside. In twenty minutes, the car would arrive. He went through a final mental checklist—toothbrush, laptop, latest Grisham paperback, cell phone. All in order.

He tried to think of other things, things he would inevitably remember as soon as he was on his way. Visit the bathroom before leaving, of course, as his mother had drilled into him before every trip they had ever taken as a family. He stepped into the bathroom and unzipped. Grab a fresh battery for the cell, he thought. And—

The doorbell rang.

He zipped up quickly, left the bathroom, and trotted down the stairs, his footsteps echoing tremendously. The thought that they had once been concerned about having enough room, in this cavernous house, now seemed laughable. Back then there had been Rachel and Jeremy and Margot, in addition to Keyes himself, to fill the empty space. What would they do when grandchildren came? They had seriously considered building an addition. Now Jeremy was gone, Margot was gone, and Rachel was gone—moved in with her mother in Belmont. Even Keyes himself felt half gone. Once four people had lived in this house. Now, he thought, there was but a half a person, half a man.

Ah, but he knew that maudlin voice. His shrink had warned him about listening to that voice. He moved to the front door, forcing his mind back to the present. One thing he had learned never to expect was an early car—but life was full of surprises.

He opened the door and found himself facing Henry Chen.

2.

They carried diet lemonade to the patio around back.

Chen was on the short side, with a prematurely graying beard, wire-rimmed spectacles, and narrow shoulders shaped like a coat hanger. Unlike many of the scientists with whom Keyes dealt, Chen took the trouble to groom himself. This morning he was wearing a blue oxford shirt open at the collar, khakis, and loafers. Yet he was eccentric, as all the geniuses of the world seemed to be. A perpetual grin was plastered on his face, as if he understood the importance of this social convention; but the grin bore no relation to anything. Chen wore it as a mask, and the disconnect between his words and his expression was sometimes eerie.

After they had stepped onto the patio, Chen spent a moment looking out at the back lawn, grinning. The lawn was stippled with red, white, and blue pinwheels left over from the Fourth of July. Keyes noted this with mild surprise. The holiday was nearly a month in the past. If Rachel had still lived here, she would have cleared away the pinwheels long ago.

Presently, Chen turned from the yard. “I'm sorry to stop by so early,” he said. “I hoped to catch you before you hit the office.”

Keyes waved a dismissive hand, as if he was accustomed to having employees drop by at all hours unannounced. He took a seat in a gingham-pillowed lawn chair, as if time was of no matter and he was not expecting a car at any minute. If he could get rid of Chen before the car arrived, he would be spared making any explanations. He sipped at the lemonade—cool and clean, cutting through the humidity like a blade through water.

Chen moved to a second piece of lawn furniture, and seemed on the verge of sitting. Then he turned to look at the unlit floodlights hanging in the backyard. “Put those in recently?” he asked.

Keyes tried and failed to recall when Chen had been at his house before. “About a year ago,” he said. “You should see it in the winter—the way the light hits the snow.”

“Oh, I bet. Must be beautiful.”

An awkward silence ensued. Chen tilted his head back farther, to drink in the buttery dawn.

“Do you know,” he asked conversationally, “that Eratosthenes was able to figure out the approximate circumference of the earth, using only the sun to guide him? He compared the angles the sun made at Syene and Alexandria. He wasn't exactly right, but he was fairly close—considering.”

“Smart guy,” Keyes said.

“Amazing accomplishment,” Chen agreed. “But you've got some guys working for you that are nearly as impressive, you know. Ed Greenwich, for instance. The man's a flat-out genius. And Steve Epstein … wow. I'll tell you something, Jim. These guys are way out of my league.”

Keyes waited to see where the false modesty was leading. He thought he had a pretty good idea of where that might be.

“Speaking of Steve,” Chen said casually. “I've been wondering …”

He looked away from the sky. His eyes, in the faint light, looked large and exceptionally soft.

“Where
is
Steve?”

Keyes said nothing; a quiet wind stirred the pinwheels into motion.

For a few moments, they looked at each other in silence. Then—amazingly—for the first time in Keyes's experience—Chen's grin slipped away.

“He disappeared last week,” Chen said. “No good-byes, nothing. So I did a little poking around. All records of his work are gone. But you know that already, don't you?”

Keyes nodded soberly.

“Where is he?”

“On vacation. With his wife.”

“Just like that?”

Keyes shrugged.

“And his work?”

“Evidently he felt the need to erase it.”

“Because he'd found something. Something that scared him.”

Again, Keyes said nothing.

“How are you going to handle this?” Chen asked.

“I'm not sure I know what …”

“His results concerned him—enough for him to take them away. Because he didn't think you'd listen, I guess, if he tried to put the brakes on. You, or those above you. Are you going to respect his decision?”

Keyes pretended the question had been rhetorical.

“I'd like to think he was wrong,” Chen continued after a moment. “I'd like to think that you are willing to listen to reason. That's why I'm here, Jim. To try to talk some sense into you.”

Keyes felt a flash of anger at Chen's condescension. He pushed it down. “Talk away,” he said. “I'm listening.”

“There's always a danger, when concerns of science get wrapped up with industry or politics. That's why we're lucky to have men like you at the top. Men who understand the possible repercussions of what we do. Your own background in differential geometry may not be strong, Jim, but you're smart enough to trust the opinions of those who do know.”