Revenger (3 page)

Roberts gave himself a few minutes to savour the pleasure of playing the yacht that was his most treasured possession against the constantly shifting forces of wind and water. Then he turned to the man standing next to him and shouted over the breeze, ‘Damn, this feels good! Worth dragging your ass out of bed for, right? You want a turn at the wheel?’

Samuel Carver grinned back. ‘Yes, sir!’

‘You don’t have to call me “sir”, Sam. This is the weekend. And I’m not your president.’

‘True . . . but as long as this is your boat, you are my skipper.’

Roberts laughed and gave Carver a friendly pat on the back as they exchanged places. ‘I should’ve said this last night, but it’s good to see you again,’ he said. ‘It’s been too long. I feel bad about that.’

‘Don’t. You’ve had much more important things to worry about.’

‘You saved my life. That’s pretty damn important.’

‘I was just doing my job. Anyway, you send me those personally signed and dedicated Christmas cards every year. You should see people’s faces when they see one of those babies on the mantelpiece.’

‘Yeah, that presidential magic works a treat, doesn’t it? I mean, take a look at this jacket . . .’ Roberts pointed at the embroidered presidential seal decorating the right chest of his windbreaker. ‘Five years I’ve been in this job, and I still get a thrill putting it on.’

‘I heard the presidential jellybeans are pretty special, too,’ said Carver.

‘You know that’s true, they are. I’ll get someone to send you a jar.’

The two men stood in companionable silence for a while, feeling
the
sun and spray on their faces as they savoured the pleasure of being out on the water. Then the President drew a little closer to Carver and, in a lower voice, bereft of humour or bonhomie, said, ‘You happen to know what happened to all that money Malachi Zorn stole? It’s been more than two years, north of fifty billion’s still missing and I’ve got a whole posse of very angry people – and I’m talking rich, powerful, influential people who could make my life real difficult come election time – wanting to know what happened to their investment.’

‘I’ll bet they’re angry,’ said Carver. ‘They got taken in by the greatest con-man in history. So did two British prime ministers and at least one member of the royal family, come to that. He promised them the earth if they invested in him, then he took the lot. But I don’t know what happened to it all.’

‘Really? I heard you had a lot to do with taking Zorn down. Word is, you were right by him when he died.’

‘He was killed at a reception where there were more than five hundred guests. A lot of people were right by him.’

Roberts put an arm round Carver’s shoulders. It looked like an amicable gesture, but as Roberts clenched his fingers until they were digging into Carver’s skin there was an icy edge to his voice. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Sam. We both know Malachi Zorn didn’t die at that reception.’

Carver looked out towards the horizon, gathering his thoughts for a moment before he replied. ‘I didn’t kill Zorn, you have my word on that. But I was with him just before he died. I even asked him what he’d done with the money – and forget fifty billion: he said it was over a hundred. Zorn wasn’t telling. If you want my opinion, he really didn’t care about having the money himself. He just wanted the people he’d taken it from not to have it. He wanted to hurt them and he knew, with rich bastards like that, nothing hurts more than losing money.’

Roberts caught the note of contempt in Carver’s voice. ‘Sounds like you agree with him.’

‘Not enough to do the things Zorn did.’

Roberts relaxed his grip on Carver’s shoulder, apparently satisfied that he wasn’t holding any information back.

‘You know what? I know this sounds nuts but I worry about you, Sam. You must’ve made a heap of enemies along the way. Sooner or later one of ’em’s gonna come back to bite you.’

‘Hasn’t happened yet.’

‘So? You think that’ll stop it happening some other time? You’ve hurt a lot of people and you know things that could hurt a lot more. That’s a dangerous combination . . . I guess what I’m saying is, “Watch yourself.”’

‘I will, Mr President. You can count on it. So . . . you want the wheel back now, or what?’

2

DANNY CROPPER WORKED
in the hazy no-man’s-land between security and crime, where tough men who once served their country, men with shaven heads and pumped-up muscles slowly turning to fat, do dirty work for the rich and powerful who want to keep their own hands clean.

When he wasn’t working, Cropper had two main interests: getting wrecked and getting laid. It had been a long Saturday night, and he woke at half two on Sunday afternoon with a sore head, a lurching gut and a mouth that tasted like a fishmonger’s dustbin. He heaved himself out of bed, wincing at the backache that always seemed to hit him worst first thing, then sat bleary-eyed on the edge of the mattress with one hand in his well-worn underpants. As he gave his package a ruminative scratch he wondered whether to wake up the girl snoring softly on the other side of the bed. No, why bother? She hadn’t been that good a fuck last night, and she looked a lot rougher now than she’d done when he’d had his beer-goggles on.

She farted in her sleep, and that made Cropper’s mind up for sure.

There was a packet of fags on the bedside table. The tobacco companies weren’t allowed to put their colours or logos on the packs any more, only the health warning and a brand-name in plain black text. Cropper thought it just demonstrated the stupidity of politicians. The economy was in the shitter. The streets were a battleground. The electricity kept cutting out because the Greens wouldn’t let anyone build power stations that actually worked, and if the dustmen or the tube drivers weren’t on strike then it was the nurses and the cops. The whole world was falling apart, and all the twats in Westminster could worry about was lung cancer.

Cropper pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt and lit his first cig of the day, stuffing the pack into his trouser pocket as he shuffled out of the room. He made a cup of tea – so strong it was darker than coffee, with a shot of condensed milk and three sugars – then took the cup to the kitchen table where his laptop was lying. He logged in and scanned the headlines. A rocket attack on Tel Aviv had killed forty-five Israelis, including a dozen children. Barclays Bank had just been bought by a Brazilian corporation. As net immigration to the UK reached record levels – ‘Fuck knows why they want to come here,’ Cropper muttered to himself – the government was denying, for the umpteenth time, that it had lost control of Britain’s borders. With another half-dozen clubs facing financial oblivion, the football authorities were considering merging the former Premiership and Championship divisions to create a single league, with no promotion or relegation. And some royal tart had stood next to a celebrity tart Cropper had never heard of, but they’d both been wearing the same dress, so that was a big fucking deal, apparently.

He checked his emails. Amidst all the spam, promising cheap drugs and a bigger penis, there was one message that interested him. It purported to come from a girl called Veronika, and the subject line was, ‘Baby, I want to meet you.’ The message read, ‘Hi, Baby, I am looking for new friends. I am cute and I love big men who can make me feel good deep inside. I would really like to meet you, and if you really want to know how much fun we will have
together
, just open up the video I have sent you and look at my hot, wet pussy. It is waiting here for you.’

Cropper moved the video to a digital editing application, and watched four minutes of tacky Romanian porn until the image faded to black. Three seconds passed with a blank, silent screen, and there was a brief burst of static interference and white noise. Cropper cut and deleted everything apart from this burst, which was less than half a second long. Then he played it again through another app, which mimicked the function of a super high-speed tape recorder, allowing Cropper to replay the message in real time. He heard a voice, itself distorted to the point where it was un-recognizable, saying, ‘Got another job if you want it. Wednesday night, starting at eight-fifteen precisely. Three locations: Netherton Street, London SW4; Cleveway Road, Bristol BS13; Dunstone Lane, Leicester LE3. The aim is maximum devastation of property. Theft and arson would be good. Moderate levels of human collateral damage are acceptable. But we don’t want bodies everywhere. And arrange for maximum social media coverage at all locations: we want this viral across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram – the works. Signal acceptance by usual means. First payment will be transferred on receipt of acceptance.’

Cropper replied to the email: ‘Hi, Veronika . . . I want your hot, wet pussy. Let’s meet . . . Big D.’

He jotted down a note to himself, reminding him to sort out the two key personnel at each location: someone local who’d get the scum together to do the actual damage, and one of his own lads to keep a discreet eye on things and make sure everything ran to plan. Then he sat back and finished the rest of his cold, sweet tea. This was the third time he’d got one of these jobs, and the first two had been the most lucrative gigs he’d ever been given. But they’d not been so specific about timing. Usually he was given a two- or three-day window, but this was timed to the minute. What was that about?

Cropper went back online. He looked for anything else that would be happening at the same time as the riots. And then he saw
the
same name popping up again in countless different news stories, previews and links. And suddenly it all made perfect sense.

3

A LITTLE FURTHER
forward in the boat two women were sitting on padded vinyl banquettes. One was Rosalie Roberts, the President’s wife, after whom his boat had been named, and whose willowy figure and beautifully sculptured features made her a suitably regal-looking consort for her man. With her was Alexandra Petrova Vermulen, otherwise known as Alix, the love of Sam Carver’s life. She had blonde hair, a wide mouth, full lips and cool blue eyes. One lid was slightly heavier than the other, one pupil fractionally out of line, and that barely perceptible imperfection was the difference between banal prettiness and intriguing, mesmerizing beauty. The two women were sitting close together, their knees almost touching, watching one another with a searching, very feminine intimacy.

They’d been chatting for half an hour or so, swapping titbits of Washington gossip, laughing as they exchanged the stories Rosalie Roberts had heard in the White House for the ones that Alix had picked up in her job as the head of a political lobbying firm. Then Roberts said. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

‘How can I say no to my First Lady?’ Alix replied, with a polite little giggle.

‘Trust me, sweetie, people say no to me all the time. They do it real politely and there’s always a long explanation, but it’s still no.’

‘Oh, I know that feeling. Years ago, in Russia, I used to know a very powerful man. Nobody wanted to upset me, in case I told him and got them into trouble. But I was still just his mistress, so I had no real power . . . In the end, I could not stop them saying no to me, too. So, what was your question?’

‘It was about Russia, actually. Is it true that . . .’ Rosalie paused, trying to find the right way to phrase what she wanted to ask.

‘That I was recruited by the KGB?’ said Alix, helping her out.

‘Yes,’ said the First Lady, a little uncertainly, not sure if she might have offended her guest.

‘And is there any truth to all those rumours that I used to be a honeytrap spy, trained to seduce Western men and extract their most intimate secrets?’

‘Yes . . .’

Alix had known from the start that this was what the question would be about. She’d been debating what to say in reply, but Rosalie Roberts was obviously a good, kind, compassionate woman, and so Alix decided to trust her with a full, honest answer.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m a US citizen, I’ve sworn the oath of allegiance and I can absolutely promise you that I don’t have any relationship whatever with any arm of Russian intelligence. Not any more. But those rumours are true.’

‘But how—’

‘How could I do it? I was an eighteen-year-old girl, recruited to serve my country – how could I not? All my life I’d been taught that my duty was to serve and obey the Soviet state. And there was a woman called Olga Zhukovskaya. She spotted me and trained me. She was like a second mother to all us girls. She told us that we would be doing work that was vital for the security of the state. And we shouldn’t worry if it seemed like we were having to do dirty,
wicked
things – you know, the things that bad girls did – because we were doing them for the Motherland, and that made everything different.’

‘Did that really help?’

‘For a time, yes, it did. And in some ways our lives were fantastic. I was wearing Paris fashions, shopping for Western cosmetics at the party stores, dining at the best restaurants. Compared to what I’d known before it was paradise. Then I found out that all the male officers used the videotapes of my assignments as pornography. To them, I was just a whore . . . and when I realized that, it was . . .’ Alix broke eye-contact with Rosalie Roberts and lowered her head, peering intently at the wooden deck before she took a deep breath, sighed, and looked up. ‘Well, it was hard for me not to think that I was a whore, too.’

‘Aw, sweetie, come here,’ said Rosalie Roberts, holding out her arms and grasping Alix in a hug. And just like her husband, it was when she had her friend in her arms that Rosalie Roberts asked the most telling question of all: ‘Does Sam know yet?’

‘Does he know what?’ asked Alix coyly, pulling away from the First Lady’s grasp.

‘You know exactly what I mean.’

‘How could you tell? Don’t say I’m looking fat!’

Rosalie Roberts laughed. ‘You? Fat? Never! No . . . It was the way you said no to coffee this morning . . . The way you hid the fact that you were feeling sick, even though you were obviously at home on a yacht and we’d hardly even left shore . . . Little things that kind of added together. Don’t worry, though, I won’t say a word to anyone.’