“Yes, I can understand.”
They were walking side by side, step for step on the pathway. For the first time Marten saw that Cabrera walked with a slight limp. Again, uncertainty charged through him. Could Cabrera’s leg have been damaged in the shootout? The answer was yes, of course. On the other hand there was no way to know. He had not seen Raymond’s medical records because he had been in the hospital himself when everything had taken place, and of course those records no longer existed. Besides, a limp could have been a result of his hunting accident or caused by anything, a pulled muscle and twisted ankle, even something in his shoe. For all he knew Cabrera had been born with it.
Now the trail turned again. Below them Marten could see the brightly lit villa. The sight of it was comforting and made him relax and think maybe he was wrong and his emotions were playing tricks on him. How badly did he want Cabrera to be his prey? For Dan Ford, for Halliday, for Red, for all the others murdered? Did he want it badly enough to create something that was not there? And in doing so, chance sending Rebecca reeling back to the state she’d been in for all those years?
“In the course of my investigation I learned something of the adoption process,” Cabrera continued. “In the time period in which you were both adopted the adoption procedures were closed. Meaning neither the children nor their adoptive parents knew who the birth parents were.”
Marten had no idea what Cabrera was getting at. Whatever it was, he knew what he was talking about, because neither Marten nor Rebecca knew who their real parents had been. Nor had their adoptive parents known; they had discussed it with them any number of times.
“Money and persistence can open many doors, Nicholas,” Cabrera went on. “You and Rebecca were both adopted from the same organization. A now-closed home for unwed mothers called the House of Sarah in Los Angeles.” Abruptly Cabrera turned to look at him. “The city where you both grew up.”
Marten felt his heart come up in his throat.
“I learned a great deal, Nicholas, not only about Rebecca, but about you as well.” Cabrera smiled his easy, unthreatening smile. “Your real name is John Barron and not Nicholas Marten.”
Marten said nothing as they turned a bend in the trail and once again the villa disappeared from view.
“But who you are and why you changed your name and hers is not important. What is important is what was discovered on my journey into Rebecca’s past. Strangely, I was not surprised by what was found.”
Cabrera shifted the gift-wrapped package from one hand to the other, and Marten wondered what it was and why he had brought it. He wondered, too, where the pathway led. It was becoming increasingly steep, and the lights illuminating it fewer and farther between. In the darkness the only saving grace was the bright of the cloud-scattered moon lifting over the mountaintops that little by little began to reveal the vast forest around them.
Perhaps he’d been foolish to come with Cabrera at all, but even if he was Raymond, Marten doubted he would take the chance and reveal himself and especially do anything that would frighten Rebecca or change her perception of him. Except that if he was Raymond, he was capable of anything.
Cabrera was keeping a half step ahead of Marten, in effect leading him. “As I said, your sister is not who you suppose her to be, that is, a baby given up for adoption by a frightened teenager who was pregnant.” Cabrera looked at Marten directly. “Rebecca is a princess and was born to one of the noblest families in Europe.”
“What?” Marten was stunned.
“Her name at birth was Alexandra Elisabeth Gabrielle Christian. She is a direct descendant of Christian the Ninth, King of Denmark. Her great-grandparents were George the First, King of Greece, and his wife Olga, daughter of Grand Duke Constantine, the son of Nicholas the First of Russia.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You shouldn’t be expected to, it’s too outrageous. Nonetheless, it is true. There is even a DNA match that proves it beyond doubt.”
Marten was completely thrown off. Any idea that Cabrera might be Raymond was overridden by the absurdity of what he was hearing.
“I can appreciate how you must feel, but it’s all documented, Nicholas. The papers are in my office in Lausanne. You are welcome to see them at any time.”
“How—?”
“Did someone like that come up for adoption to—I don’t know quite how to say it—a middle-class American family like yours?”
“That’s good enough.”
“Her grandparents fled the Nazis in World War Two. They first went to England and then to New York, where like many royal families around the world, my own, for instance, they changed their names and did away with titles to protect themselves. In time their daughter, whose name was Marie Gabrielle, married Jean Félix Christian, hereditary Prince of Denmark, and moved back to Europe. They had one child, a girl born in Copenhagen, who, as an infant, was kidnapped on the Spanish island of Majorca to be held for ransom. But then the people who did it became frightened and gave her to a black market organization that sold children around the world. A person there took her to a family in California, but the transaction didn’t work out and she was taken in by a home for unwed mothers. She was, of course—”
“Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“What about her birth parents? What did they do?”
“No trace of her was ever found, and in time they had her declared legally dead.”
“My God—” Marten said and looked away; then he looked back. “Does she know?”
“Not yet.”
The trail grew steeper, and somewhere Marten heard the wild rush of water. Now Cabrera was still the half step ahead of him leading the way. In the moonlight, his breath came like steam from his nostrils and, even with the cold, perspiration stood out on his forehead. Again he shifted the package in his hands.
“Why are you telling me first?”
“Out of respect. Because your adoptive parents are dead and you are head of the household. And because I wish your blessing on our marriage.” Cabrera slowed the pace and turned to look at Marten. “Do I have that blessing, Nicholas?”
Oh, God, Marten thought—to have it be brought to this.
“Do I?”
Nicholas Marten stared at Cabrera. Think of Rebecca and how much she loves him, nothing else. Nothing else at all. At least not now. Not until you know for certain who he is—or isn’t.
“Yes,” he said, finally. “Yes, you have my blessing.”
“Thank you, Nicholas. Now you see why it was so important for you and me to be alone.” Cabrera smiled. It was an inward smile, private. Of relief or satisfaction. Or both. “You understand Rebecca will not only become my wife, but Tsarina of Russia.”
“Yes.” Marten looked around. There were no more pathway lights illuminating the trail. The roar of rushing water was louder. Much louder. He looked ahead and saw they were approaching a wooden footbridge. Beneath it was wildly rushing black water, and upstream beyond it, the source of the din, a towering, thundering waterfall.
“What beautiful children we will have, Rebecca and I.” Slowly, almost absently, Cabrera began to open the package in his hands. “Beautiful, noble children who, and whose children after them, will rule Russia for the next three hundred years, as the Romanovs ruled Russia for three hundred years before the Communists tried to stop us.”
Abruptly Cabrera turned and the package wrapping fell away to the snowy trail at their feet. Marten saw a box in Cabrera’s hands where the paper had been. Now the box, too, fell away. There was a loud Click and a flash of blade in the moonlight. And in a single motion Cabrera stepped toward him.
95
Marten saw it in a microsecond. Halliday’s body on the hotel-room bed in Paris, his throat cut wide open. In the same spit of time he heard Lenard’s voice say something like Whoever it was cut him the moment he opened the door. In the next, Marten twisted away, the blade of Cabrera’s knife just nicking his cheek.
The quickness o
f Marten’s move and Cabrera’s miss momentarily threw Cabrera off balance and Marten countered, slamming his left fist into Cabrera’s kidney, then throwing a right that caught him under the jaw. Cabrera let out a grunt and reeled back against the footbridge’s wooden hand railing. Reeled back, but didn’t drop the knife. The knife was what Marten went for. He was too late. Cabrera simply shifted it to his other hand and let Marten come. Again Marten twisted away. Again Cabrera’s blade flashed in the moonlight. This time the razor-sharp knife caught Marten just above the elbow, slicing cleanly through the tuxedo jacket and the shirt beneath and drawing blood.
“Not quite!” Marten screamed at him and backed away. Marten was cut but the wound wasn’t deep enough. Cabrera had been going for the brachial artery. But to reach that he needed to get at least a half inch down into the flesh, and he hadn’t.
“No, not quite, Nicholas.” Cabrera grinned and his eyes shone wildly. Suddenly his look was no longer that of Cabrera or even of Raymond, but that of a madman.
He came toward Marten again. Slowly. Shifting the knife from one hand to the other and back again.
“The wrist, Nicholas. The radial artery. I only need to cut a quarter inch there. In thirty seconds you will lose consciousness. Death will come in about two minutes. Or would you like it faster? The neck, the carotid artery. I’ll have to cut a little deeper. But after that it’s only about five seconds until you black out, twelve more until death comes.”
Marten moved backward across the bridge as Cabrera advanced, his shoes slipping on the icy planking beneath his feet. The thunder of the falls dominated everything, drowning Marten’s senses.
“How are you going to tell Rebecca, Tsarevich? Who are you going to say killed her brother?”
Cabrera’s grin became wider. “The demonstrators, Nicholas. The rumors that some of them had come into this part of the valley turned out to be true.”
“Why? Why?” Marten said, using anything he could to delay Cabrera and give himself time to think.
Cabrera kept coming. “Why kill you? Why did I kill the others?” The smile lessened, but the madness in his eyes remained. “For my mother.”
“Your mother is dead.”
“No, she is not. The Baroness is my mother.”
“The Baroness?”
“Yes.”
For the smallest instant Cabrera faltered. It was the opening Marten had been waiting for and he rushed. Shoving Cabrera’s knife hand aside, he picked him up bodily and slammed him into the bridge’s railing. Once. Twice. Three times. Each time he heard him grunt and felt the wind go out of him. Cabrera slumped forward, stunned, and his head went to his chest. In the same instant Marten grabbed him by the hair, lifting the head and throwing his right jab at his face.
Cabrera grinned arrogantly and simply moved his head aside, letting the force of Marten’s missed blow carry him forward against the rail. A split second later Marten felt a devastating thump as Cabrera’s blade sliced into his side. He cried out and at the same time grabbed Cabrera’s shirt by the collar, dragging him around. The shirt tore open to the waist and Cabrera tried to strike again with the switchblade. But he couldn’t. Marten jerked him close. For an instant they stared into each other’s eyes. Then Marten slammed his forehead against Cabrera’s in a vicious head butt.
There was a thundering crack and Cabrera staggered back, his head bleeding, to fall against the bridge railing. Marten started for him once more, but suddenly his legs weakened and he froze where he was. Never had he felt colder in his life. He looked down and saw his shirt soaked with blood. Then he felt himself falling, his feet slipping out from under him on the icy planking, and he realized Cabrera had hold of his leg and was tugging him forward toward him. He tried to pull free but couldn’t. Now Cabrera was on his knees, one hand tugging him forward, the other raising the knife.
“No!” Marten yelled, and with all the effort he had left he kicked up, sending the switchblade flying across the bridge. But Cabrera hadn’t let go of Marten. He still held him by one hand and was dragging him forward to the edge.
Marten heard the roar of the falls and saw the wash of black water beneath him. He tried to struggle back but it was no good. He was being pulled over the side and there was nothing he could do about it.
Then he was in the air and dropping. A second, an hour, a lifetime later he plunged into icy water. And then he was beneath the surface and gone, torn away by the raging current.
“Dasvedanya,” Cabrera had whispered as Marten slid past, his black eyes shining death in the moonlight.
“Dasvedanya.” It was what he had said on the luggage carousel in Los Angeles International Airport when he was about to kill John Barron with his own gun.
“Raymond!” a voice had suddenly jolted from nowhere. Not a voice. Red McClatchy’s voice.
Those seconds or hours or days before he hit the water, Nicholas Marten prayed for that voice again. The cry that would save his life once more. But it never came.
How could it?
Red was already dead.
PART 3
RUSSIA
1
The rumors were true. Black Bloc anarchist demonstrators had come into the valley. Cabrera and Nicholas Marten had encountered them on a trail bridge above the villa. Their faces hidden behind balaclavas, heavy scarves, and ski masks, they’d said nothing, simply attacked. Both Cabrera and Marten had been punched and kicked. Cabrera’s shirt had been nearly ripped from him. Both men had fought back furiously. Marten went after one who had pulled a knife. As he did, another grabbed Marten and held him. Cabrera tried to go to his aid but he was hit and thrown to the ground. At the same time, the one with the knife cut Marten savagely, and the one holding him pushed Marten off the bridge. He fell into the fast-flowing mountain river and disappeared. It was then that Cabrera made his break. Fighting off a ski-masked attacker, he rushed back down the trail yelling for help.
Murzin and a dozen FSO agents had come running. But by then clouds had covered the moon and it was beginning to snow, and the demonstrators had retreated back up the trail in the dark and disappeared into the forest. Murzin’s men found their tracks, but Cabrera called them back to help search for Marten.
Led by Cabrera himself, in snow boots with only a parka pulled over his tuxedo, it was a search that lasted into the next day and was hampered by high winds and blowing and drifting snow. Kantonspolizei and Swiss army commandos joined in almost immediately, and mountain search and rescue teams arrived within the hour. Together they combed the treacherous corridor of the river that crisscrossed the mountain and rushed downhill through a series of waterfalls, some as much as sixty feet high, for seventeen miles. For a time they had even used the helicopter President Gitinov had arrived in only moments before Cabrera raised the alarm, but the ferocity of the storm and the rough terrain made flying exceedingly dangerous and the search had been left to men on foot. And in the end they had come up with nothing. Whatever had happened to Marten—whether he had been caught between rocks under the water, or had been washed into some subterranean cave, or had crawled out somewhere and was buried so deeply in the snow that even the search and rescue teams’ avalanche dogs could not find him—one thing was certain. No one who had been brutally cut with a knife and was dressed in nothing more than a tuxedo could have survived the night in that kind of environment. If the knife wounds or the violent wash of water sweeping him over rocks and waterfalls had not killed him, hypothermia would have. Finally, there was nothing to do but call off the search.
2
Whether it was Rebecca’s growing maturity or the presence of Cabrera, Lady Clem, and the Baroness, she took the news of the attack on her brother and his subsequent disappearance with surprising calm. Her main concern was the well-being of Alexander and the safety of the people looking for Nicholas. Several times she had gone down to the stream dressed in winter mountain gear to encourage them and help in the search. Her strength, they would realize, came from what she had said from the begin
ning, and what she seemed to truly believe—that somehow Nicholas had survived and was somewhere still alive. How, or where that somewhere might be, did not enter the equation.
The fact that daylight came and there was still no trace of him only strengthened her resolve. He might not be found today or tomorrow or in a week, she said, but he was alive and at some point would be found, of that there was no question whatsoever. Nothing any of them could say or do would make her think otherwise.
Lady Clem was a different story altogether.
That her father was present, waiting like the others for word during the long rescue attempt, was irrelevant. Lady Clem refused to acknowledge the personal horror and dread she felt, or admit, even to herself, the closeness of her relationship with Marten. Instead, her emotions were directed at the demonstrators who had perpetrated this monstrous act.
And when Swiss army commandos and Kantonskrimi-nalpolizei tracked the demonstrators down, rousting them from their mountain tents in the hills high above the villa just before dawn, and brought them down to the villa to be loaded into vans for transport to the Davos Kantonspolizei compound, Lady Clem went straight to where they were. There were nine of them, six men and three women. Hearing them protest and deny everything, she went ballistic, threatening to have each prosecuted under every law imaginable. Even as cooler heads intervened and a police commander tried to lead her away and back to the villa, she suddenly pulled free and gave them one final salvo. “You have not only murdered Mr. Marten, you have left his sister wholly alone in the world. It is an act, I promise you, that will not go unpunished!”