Power Games (20 page)

On the balustrade, a crow cawed, black as night. Voldan manoeuvred his chair so he could look at it. Its liquid feathers gleamed ominously, its orange beak sharp and its eyes twitching. With a heavy flap of wings, it plummeted out of sight.

Voldan breathed the new dawn. In lands far from here his wicked plan was in action. It was sweet to picture the missives arriving at their destinations, the words he had considered with such care, for each recipient a different text that resounded with them directly. Be it conscience, image recovery, career advancement or sheer goodwill, Voldan felt certain that of the seven invitations sent, seven would accept.

Seven of the planet’s most powerful people, eradicated overnight.

Would they repent? Would they beg for forgiveness? It would make no difference. Seven icons, missing presumed dead, in the worst private jet disaster in the history of aviation. Voldan turned to the surfeit of news screens, erected across a wall, a flashing hive from around the globe. He couldn’t wait to see them spring to life.

His first step had been to trace a way in—how to plot the crash, to make it appear an accident, and to vouch it could never be traced back to Szolsvár. Tawny Lascelles had bitten like a worm on a hook. The model’s latest lover, on the face of it a Vegas croupier, was in fact one of the city’s deadlier thugs. He belonged to Voldan, had been paid to find Tawny and seduce her. Voldan’s fortune could buy things people hadn’t dreamed up yet: it acquired contacts beyond the realm of the ordinary.

‘Mr Cane?’ Janika appeared in the doorway.

‘Come!’ he instructed in his reedy monotone. ‘So I can see you.’

The maid obeyed. Her mousy hair was plastered to her forehead, the quibble of loose flesh that hung from her chin shivering with exertion. She had spent all morning scrubbing the Great Hall floor. Voldan had commanded it be done.

‘I am finished,’ Janika said.

‘Can you see your face in it?’ came the robotic, mechanised response.

‘Yes, Mr Cane.’

‘You are lying to me.’

‘No, no, I’m not—’

‘You lie!’

The wheelchair lurched forward, ramming into Janika’s
legs. She cried out, clutching her shin. Last time, Janika had fibbed on the matter, believing her boss to be incapable of checking, but by angling the mirror on his armrest Voldan had been able to prove her wrong. She had deceived him—and worse, she had underestimated him.

Although Voldan had inflicted no physical punishment, the weight of his disapproval hung heavy as a cross. Even in his withered state, Janika loved him as a husband. She took care of him, she bathed him, she dressed him and she fed him. It was impossible not to grow close. Not that she could ever confess her true feelings …

Sometimes, when Voldan fell prey to one of his fleshly urges, Janika could expel just a fraction of her passion. But that hadn’t happened in weeks.

‘I will do it again, Mr Cane,’ she begged. ‘Please! Let me clean it again!’

She scuttled off indoors.

Alone, Voldan calmed himself. So restricted was his movement that he was occasionally forced to lash out. Right now he wanted nothing more than to leap from the chair and stretch his legs—athletic as they used to be, not the crumpled sticks that brought him such despair—and run, run, run like the wind, across the lawns, through the bracken, down to the river and into the woods. He wanted to fling his arms wide and embrace the trees, the sky, to shout out his joy with the voice he used to own …

But here he was, still trapped in this device: a sitting, squatting corpse.

As soon as this project was completed, he would be demanding of Janika the ultimate sacrifice: to do away with this useless, broken shell once and for all.

Grigori …

Would his son be watching when the plane went down?
Would he be watching as they gasped their last breaths, as they drowned in a dark and freezing ocean?

Angela Silvers, bitch heiress. Kevin Chase, child star, pop prince, thief. Eve Harley, devil-sent hack with a soul of steel. Tawny Lascelles: supermodel, seductress, slut. Mitch Corrigan, coward, dictator, ultimate fake. Jacob Lyle, cutthroat capitalist. And Celeste Cavalieri: the heartless, coldblooded killer.

All had shown their cards. All marked tombstones in the path of Grigori’s torment. Once they were removed, at last his son could be free.

‘Mr Cane?’

Voldan’s thumb activated the stick on his armrest, rotating his chair to the door.

Janika held her arms out. ‘It is all done now. Are you hungry?’

With a malicious grin, Voldan trundled up to her.

All of a sudden he had a brilliant appetite.

29

New York

W
hile Tawny Lascelles was in the bathroom, the man achieved his final task. He located the payload without difficulty: Tawny never went anywhere without it.

He inserted the device, a timer and thermostat, and set it, consulting his watch to confirm the date and hour. He checked it, checked it, and checked it again.

This was no practice run. This was the real deal.

The man worked smoothly and quickly. In the adjacent room the shower ran steady, her voice singing a tune beneath the hammering water. He gave no thought to her as a person. She was a target. He could have sex with her, laugh with her, kiss her, all the things lovers did, and never feel a thing.

His instructions were simple, as all the best were. When schemes got over-complicated, that was when fuck-ups happened. There would be no fuck-ups.

Tomorrow, Tawny would fly to Jakarta to meet her party of doomed VIPs. He gave no regard to those, either. They were names on a list, bullseyes, nothing more.

At Jakarta, they would board their jet. No official would challenge them. No handler would check the luggage. No
security would forbid the gas canister inside Tawny’s precious hair straighteners and instruct her to remove them.

To do so would be an insult. These celebrities lived by different rules. Rules that would cost them their lives …

The man could picture it now.

Halfway through the flight, the timer activates: it is a soundless omen, the bringer of the end. The straighteners start to heat, setting alight to materials, first to Tawny’s clothes and then to her companions’, a licking flare and then a galloping fire, devouring all in its path. In the cockpit, the cargo alarm sounds.

The pilots don’t have time to panic; they have trained for this. Extinguishers are triggered in the hold.
Remain calm
, they tell themselves,
keep control.

There is less than seventeen minutes before the hull is a loss.

Emergency descent procedures begin. Altitude evaporates as the jet falls through the sky. The captain terminates the oxygen supply. Smoke and fumes fill the cabin. The passengers are unable to make sense of it through their terror.

Ditching briefs begin. They are going to land in water.

The aircraft drops to sea level, slowing in a last attempt at salvation. Maybe there is hope. Maybe they will survive. Maybe their prayers are heard.

Maybe there is a God.

Maybe not …

Panic erupts. The fuel tanks at the wings ignite. Smoke flounders from the rear. The plane decelerates and the cockpit collapses, killing both pilots on impact.

Unmanned, the stricken craft pitches and yaws, rolling to its demise in the cold, cold dark, plunging deep into the purple night ocean, and then gone.

After that there is nothing. Silence. Still. Objective complete.

Drawing himself back to the present, the man checked his work a final time, calmly replaced the yellow straighteners and resumed his post on the bed.

He gazed up at the ceiling, and blinked.

Tawny emerged with a towel wrapped around her waist. She let it fall to the floor. Her body was golden, perfectly proportioned, and it seemed almost a shame that in less than twenty-four hours it would be lost and bloated on the sea floor.

‘So …’ she teased, coming to join him, ‘are you going to miss me?’

30

Jakarta

A
ngela Silvers was fifth to arrive. Her flight from the States had been long and turbulent and she was relieved to reach the safety of the VIP suite at Jakarta.

Four of her companions were already there.

‘Jeez, Mom,’ Kevin Chase was muttering, ‘as if I’ve never gone away before!’ He was tapping at his phone, a violet baseball cap yanked down over his ears. His mother was fussing, patting his rucksack and suitcase to make sure he had everything.

‘Hello, Kevin,’ said Angela. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘Hey.’ Kevin deigned to toss her a cracked, insincere smile—an aloof reception given he was clad in thousands of dollars’-worth of Silvers gear.

‘I’m Joan,’ said the woman, compensating with an obsequious handshake that, at the last minute, flattened into a curtsey. ‘It’s a privilege.’

Sketch Falkner, whom Angela had met at several industry events, was grappling with a miniature dog. The dog was wearing the same cap as Kevin’s.

‘He’ll be fine once he gets there,’ said Sketch, giving the pop star a playful slap on the shoulder. The slap could have been gentler, Angela thought.

Joan simpered, ‘I know he’s used to all this, but a mom can’t stop caring …’

‘JESUS!’ Kevin exploded, with a scowl that chewed his eyes up almost completely. ‘DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING?’

‘We’ll look after each other,’ said Angela kindly, thinking Kevin’s screw-you attitude wouldn’t welcome the slightest bit of looking after. The Kevin Chase the world knew was a spoiled teen tyrant. Every day, a new story got splashed across the web: Kevin smoking dope outside a police station, Kevin drinking too much and ploughing the rear end of his Escalade into a mini-mart, Kevin shouting obscenities from a hotel window and flashing his tiny white ass over the balcony …

She felt sorry for him. This was his life. Everybody wanted fame but fame was only tolerable if you knew how to handle it, and that meant preserving some iota of privacy, whatever the cost. No one had told this to Kevin, and so Kevin didn’t know.

As Angela moved to greet the senator, she heard Sketch mutter, ‘Now you’re
sure
you have enough pills?’ and Kevin’s yapped, exasperated response.

Mitch Corrigan was casual in slacks and a shirt, a regular all-American golf dad, but his handshake was tense. ‘And this is my wife, Melinda.’

A shrewdly assembled blonde extended fingers heavy with rings, palm down, as if she expected Angela to kiss the back of her hand. Angela cradled the limp offering in hers, a lifeless paddle. Melinda seemed to be only half there, gazing off into the distance and thinking, quite clearly, of something or someone else.

Mitch’s smile was rigid. ‘Not a great flyer,’ he admitted. ‘You?’

‘Hate it.’

‘They call it luxury but, jeez, these light aircraft rock about like crazy …’

Angela preferred not to consider the crossing to Salimanta. ‘It’ll be tough seeing the wreckage,’ she said instead. ‘All those people … all those lives. It’s awful.’

Mitch seemed to think that should have been his line, instead of complaining about their lavish transport. ‘If we can do anything to help,’ he put in, ‘right?’

An attractive woman joined them. Immediately the senator turned away. His abrupt departure struck Angela as odd for a man so versed in greeting new faces, and she wondered if he and infamous news-hound Eve Harley had locked horns in the past. It wouldn’t be the first time the reporter had pissed off someone important.

‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’m Eve. Good to finally meet you.’

Finally
seemed an odd choice of word.

‘I know Orlando,’ she explained. Eve had the inquisitor’s manner of making a statement into a leading question, as if Angela should already know this information.

But Angela was surprised. ‘You do?’

‘Yes.’ Eve looked as if she had been expecting a different response, and was relieved not to get it. ‘He and I have met, a few times actually. You don’t look alike.’

‘That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.’

They smiled at each other. Angela knew straight away that Eve was pregnant, even though her bump wasn’t yet obvious. The reporter’s auburn hair and bright-green eyes gave her a likeable girl-next-door appeal, and Angela identified something else there, too: an edge of steeliness, of defiance, something not unlike herself.

‘I didn’t know about Donald,’ said Eve. ‘Not until it came out. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

Angela didn’t want to dwell on it, least of all accept pity. She nodded across the room to where a dark-haired woman was sitting alone. The woman was absorbed in her Kindle. A thick fringe obscured her features.

‘Celeste Cavalieri?’ she presumed.

‘That’s right,’ said Eve. ‘She price tags for the super-elite—art, jewellery, antiques. She’s quite the enigma. Doesn’t talk much.’

‘I doubt there’ll be much work where we’re going,’ said Angela drily.

‘I did wonder when I saw her name. She’s not like the rest of you.’

‘The rest of us?’

‘Celebrities.’ Eve smiled.

Angela laughed. ‘Right …’

‘Don’t ask me, I’m just here to write it up.’

‘And what a job that must be.’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

Angela went over to the Italian and introduced herself. ‘How was your flight?’

‘Uneventful.’ Celeste’s accent was strong.

‘Where in Italy are you from?’

‘All over.’

‘My mother’s Sicilian,’ offered Angela, wishing Celeste would make eye contact. ‘It’s a great country. I don’t get back as often as I’d like.’

Celeste nodded, quickly returning to her tablet. Angela couldn’t decide if she was shy, or rude, or possibly both, and so it was a relief when the door burst open and admitted their penultimate member. The playboy had arrived.

‘Well, hey,’ said Jacob Lyle, cocky as ever, as he let an enormous bag slip off his shoulder.

Kevin leaped to attention. Celeste glanced up briefly.

Angela remembered from society functions that Jacob was tactile to say the least, so it came as no surprise when he strode over and embraced her, giving her waist a light squeeze just to make sure. Jacob had propositioned Angela in the past, on more than one occasion. The temptation had never been there. He had bedded more women than she could count, and his attitude, while fun in small doses, was rooted in what she suspected was a nest of severely tangled morals.