“Yes, it was,” she said, without thinking. All she’d really heard was the name “Mrs V.,” and it came as such a shock, the reality of it, that the rest of his words had been little more than an indistinct blur.

She forced a smile and added, “I’m all right now, thank you.”

“Don’t you worry, ma’am. We’ll get you back to the general safe and sound, so you can enjoy the rest of your wedding night. You know what I’m saying?”

The driver’s name was Maroni. He’d given her a saucy smile and a wink with that last remark. Then he looked more serious, almost embarrassed by what he was about to say.

“Just want you to know, I served under the general, and it’s great to see him looking good again, y’know, like the old days. That’s because of you, ma’am. All of us guys, we appreciate what you’ve done for him. Anything you need, you name it-you only have to ask.”

“Thank you, Mr. Maroni,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

He gave her a little nod of the head, as if it were nothing, but she could see he was delighted by the fact that she’d acknowledged him, remembered his name. She was suddenly struck by the bitter irony that her new husband did not even know her real name. He had fallen in love with a woman named Natalia, and so, for the time being, she would have to become Natalia Vermulen for him.

In a way that made it easier. Natalia didn’t know Samuel Carver.

The MI6 agent in the car behind Alix had finally got through to headquarters. His boss didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Have you got the document?” Grantham asked.

“ ’Fraid not. Carver never left the hotel. The woman, Petrova, came out with a group of men. She didn’t appear to be under any duress. She was holding a sealed file. I presume that was what we were after.”

“Sod it… where are you now?”

“Trailing Petrova. She’s in a car with one of Vermulen’s men. The rest are in a van, immediately ahead of her. Hang on… they’re turning off the road, entering Cannes Mandelieu Airport. Most of the traffic here is private, or charter aviation. Do you want me to follow them in?”

“Absolutely. If she’s flying out, I want the registration number of the plane. We’ll track it from here.”

The agent ended the call and drove into the airport complex.

In London, Grantham put a call through to the assistant cultural attaché at the Russian Federation Embassy. Regular diplomatic and consular business ended at 4:30 p.M. on weekdays, but the assistant attaché wasn’t a regular diplomat. As the FSB resident in London, his country’s most senior agent in the United Kingdom, he was open all hours.

“Koyla,” said Grantham, “I need you to do me a favor. Get me a number for Deputy Director Zhukovskaya. Tell her we need to speak personally. It’s a matter of extreme importance for our two services. And it requires immediate action.”

Vermulen’s yacht had left Antibes thirty-six hours before, bound for southern Italy, but he was waiting for her by the plane that would take them to meet it. Alix ran to him, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled their bodies tight, crushing her breasts against his chest, feeling him hard against her. She looked up at him, eyes half closed, lips fractionally parted, and he kissed her with a fierceness that filled her senses with the smell, the taste, the feel of him.

Vermulen let go of her, and looked for the nearest one of his men.

“ Maroni.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Tell Mr. Reddin that the men can stand easy for the next fifteen minutes. Then come back here and assume sentry duty at the foot of these steps. No one gets in the plane till I say so. You got that?”

Maroni grinned. “Yes, sir!”

Vermulen led Alix up into the plane. In the cramped cabin, he gave a crooked, apologetic smile.

“Not very romantic, I’m afraid. I’ve got champagne and flowers waiting on the yacht.”

She leaned forward, brushed his cheek with her lips, and whispered in his ear, “I don’t care.”

He had no idea she was faking.

The first sensation that hit Carver once Alix had left the hotel was one of vast, aching emptiness, an absolute loneliness, a chasm in his life where her love for him had been. The second was a sharp spasm of fear. He thought of Dr. Geisel’s warning that a traumatic event could send him back to the hellish limbo of madness. The shock of losing Alix once had jolted him into recovery. If he now had lost her again, would that reverse the effect?

Carver was a brave man. He had faced death more times than he could count. But the prospect of insanity, a lifetime trapped in an unending cycle of forgetting, was far, far worse.

Screw that. He needed a drink.

He headed up to the bar and ordered a double Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Then he remembered the last time he’d drunk it, with Alix, the night of the killing. Christ, why did everything have to remind him of her?

“So it didn’t work out, huh?”

It was a woman’s voice, American. She was sitting a few feet down the bar. Her long, glossy hair, as rich and dark as bitter chocolate, fell to her shoulders and swept across her forehead, almost covering one of her pure brown eyes. She had high cheekbones and her lips were painted with a sparkling pink gloss that made them look as though she’d just licked them. Her dress was draped over one shoulder and then swooped low enough to show off a spectacular pair of breasts. The skirt was slit up the thigh, and she was perched on a bar stool with her legs crossed, leaving plenty on display.

His look was a frank appraisal, the calculation every man makes, balancing the desirability of what’s on offer against the chances of success. As if reading his mind, she held up her left hand to display the diamond on her fourth finger. Then she shrugged in a what-the-hell way.

Carver had to laugh. Every woman he met tonight seemed to be showing off a ring. This one didn’t seem quite so married as the last one, though. He took his drink over to her, absorbing every detail of the way she looked. She smelled pretty good, too, a rich, spicy, super-female scent that made him realize just how long it had been since he’d been laid. Maybe he should remedy that. They could have a few drinks, take dinner in the restaurant down by the sea, and screw each other’s brains out all night-see if that made his pain go away. It wasn’t the most mature response to a broken heart, but it certainly beat going crazy.

“Hi,” he said. “My name’s Samuel Carver.”

She held out a slender hand with long scarlet nails.

“Madeleine Cross-pleased to meet you.”

“And you, Madeleine. So, are you going to introduce me to Mr. Cross?”

“I sure as hell hope not.”

“Don’t tell me he’s left you all alone, in a strange hotel, in a foreign country. That sounds risky.”

She laughed. “Who for?”

“All three of us, quite possibly.”

She looked Carver up and down. “No, I reckon you could handle him.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he said. “But can I handle you? That’s the question.”

It was bullshit; he knew it, and so did she. But it was what he needed, and maybe she did, too. She was a big girl; she could make her own decisions.

He ordered them both another drink and Madeleine told him her story.

Her husband made a fortune selling medical supplies. She’d been a clerk at a hospital that was one of his biggest clients, a girl from Boise, Idaho, ten years in Chicago, still single, struggling to make ends meet. He took her away from all that and stuck her in a fancy house in Winnetka to shop, decorate, and bitch with other bored suburban women. Now here they were on this fancy European vacation and he’d gone off to the casino in Cannes, leaving her behind, all dressed up with nothing to do but get drunk.