Chapter V
Five months later
Pine Valley, PA
After his final visit to the Pine Valley Police station, Dimitri had gone home to the hunting lodge and made a decision.
If he could not let go of the pain and loneliness that filled his days, at least he could work through it, in the hope that the constant activity would keep his mind too pre-occupied to think of anything else.
These days he started work before sunrise, in the lodge, on his laptop, and then went down to the office at Wildwind for the remainder of the day, for a host of conference calls, online trading and videoconference meetings. He had begun to weed out the subsidiaries of Marick Inc. that were lagging behind, uninspired in the cozy comfort of their parent company, and, instead, he accumulated various new holdings. Companies that impressed him with their revolutionary approaches to doing business. Companies whose missions weren't just the a gain in capital but a better way of life for those whom they served and employed. His principal investment was a diamond mine in Canada's Northwest Territories. A mine he had chosen not only because it offered a huge potential return but because its owners were committed to sustainable development and to reversing the huge unemployment rate on nearby native reserves.
He also invested in the construction of countless village wells in Central Africa, a newspaper in London, a stage production company in Minnesota and a gas pipeline in Kazakhstan. In addition to multiplying his financial holdings, he strove to make the Andrassy Foundation a world leader of scientific research. It became a non-profit research body for a host of infectious diseases now, not merely ones of neurological origin, as had been its original purpose. He began spending millions on AIDS treatment in South Africa and Southeast Asia, and on research in both the US and Europe.
Dimitri worked seven days a week now. And when he didn't work he rode his horses, jogged, or fenced on the grounds of Wildwind. At night, he collapsed into bed, too exhausted to think or dream, and for that he was grateful.
Surprisingly, the only break in his work-sleep routine was offered by his ex-wife, Erica Kane. At first Dimitri suspected that Edmund had sent her to help him with his grief, and, as he had done with everyone else, he had brushed her off. The only difference between her and everyone else was that Erica Kane was relentless.
Dimitri has no choice but to give her an occasional victory.
So he often joined her for dinner at her countless social functions. Not because he truly wanted to, but because it was easier than it was to argue with the force of nature that was Erica Kane.
This evening was once such concession. She was celebrating the launch of a new line of smear proof lipstick and here he was sitting in an elaborately decorated ballroom listening to her praise the glories of her latest cosmetic must have. After Erica gave a raucous speech on the nearby podium, she returned to the table, hungry for the meal that awaited them.
"Aren't you glad you came tonight, Dimitri? The food is going to be spectacular. The principal dish of each course is sharing its main color theme with one of the twelve brands of lipstick."
Dimitri had to admit he enjoyed watching Erica's unabashed enthusiasm.
"You mean like 'blood red steak with beet soup in a burgundy cherry reduction'?" he asked her.
Erica lifted up the menu to show him, "Yes, dear, something like that, minus the sarcasm. See here, one of the mains is Chilean sea bass covered in a blanket of aubergine dust. 'Aubergine Dust' is the name of lipstick number eight. Then there is the New Zealand rack of lamb in a wild cranberry jus. 'Wild Cranberry' is the name of lipstick number ten. And so forth, for all twelve colors."
Judging from the excited laughter at dozens of tables around the ballroom, Dimitri decided that connecting the product to the dinner was indeed a hit.
And so was Erica Kane. Dressed in an exquisite gown that featured twelve shades of red, Erica looked positively aglow, and Dimitri didn't fail to notice envious glances coming from nearly all women in the ballroom.
When Dimitri finished his arctic char wrapped inside a luscious blueberry crepe, Erica, as she inevitably did at these dinners, asked him to dance with her.
" I'm dreadfully tired tonight Erica, I've been working all day." His refusal was gentle, so as not to hurt her feelings."
But it was too late for that. Gentle or not, it was still a refusal and she was annoyed. "I really shouldn't have to ask you, you know. I accepted your refusal the last few occasion because I know how inconsolable you were, but tonight is my night. Do you know how badly it will look, if the hostess of this gala does not dance the first dance?" she whispered icily to him.
Dimitri hated how easily Erica could make him feel guilty, "Of course, you're right. I'm sorry."
One of the waiters handed Erica a microphone, "Ladies and Gentlemen, now that you've enjoyed the colors and flavors of your meal, I would like to invite all of you to join myself and Count Marick on the dance floor."
The orchestra began to play the opening strains of the Blue Danube. It was a piece Dimitri knew all too well, and he led the waltz easily and gracefully. Erica looked radiant as the colors of her gown spun across the floor. There was an almost complete silence in the ballroom as everyone watched them dance together.
Later, when he was back at the hunting lodge, Dimitri had to admit Erica had done it again. She had created an unforgettable evening for all the prospective buyers who had attended the launch party of the new lipstick. He even managed a smile when he thought of her outrageous menu.
Before retiring for the evening, he checked his phone messages one final time and the last one made him sit down with a frown.
The message was from the newspaper he had bought in London. It was another direct request from the publisher to come to their headquarters, this time for an annual shareholders meeting. Although he had gone on more than a dozen business trips in the last five months, he had always avoided London. Until now, avoiding London has been doable with the aid of conference calls and video conferencing, but this latest message made him realize that it was impossible to avoid one of the largest financial centers in the world forever.
'How can I go to London without you there?' he asked himself.
He feared that everything he had tried so hard to keep at bay would flood him as soon as he set foot in the city. It was the one place in the world that held only beautiful memories.
No sadness. No darkness.
London was where he met Alexandra.
A good friend of his had referred him to her, when all the other specialists were ready to give up on him. "She's different," his friend had told him, "One of the few research scientists who practices at the same time. She has a reputation as being a bit of an outsider. She takes on only a handful of patients, but if she does take you on she'll fight for you."
London was where she Alex took him from the doorstep of death, and brought him back to life. Where they had their first meal together and he had been hungry only for her lips. Where they went riding together and he had been thrilled to discover someone who could ride not only as well as he could, but better. Where she had fallen asleep lying against his shoulders, on a bench in Hyde Park.
Where they fell in love and married.
"How can I possibly go back there without you, my love?" he asked her, as he began to pack his suitcase.
Brynn Wydd, Wales.
Lonely. If there was only one word Alex could use to describe her pregnancy that would be it.
Although Charlotte kept her occupied throughout the day, evenings were another matter. When she went home at the end of the night, Alex had no one to talk to and no one to call. No one she could call a friend even knew she was still alive. Sometimes, she walked into the nearby village and attended the local church service in the evening, not because she felt particularly devout, she admittedly never had, but because it gave her the chance to be around others, even if they said little more than 'hello' to her.
As much as she despised Charlotte, Alex had to admit her mother had kept her end of the deal.
Alex demanded to move off the compound at Brynn Wydd and a few days later she was given keys to a tiny two-bedroom cottage a short drive from Brynn Wydd.
At first Alex was shocked at the freedom she had. She could come and go as she pleased, and she was almost certain there were no cameras monitoring her in the cottage. However, as the months passed, she realized she was as much a prisoner as if she were held behind bars.
Charlotte gave Alex two credit cards, both in Charlotte's name, to buy anything she might need. Yet she had no cash, not even handful of pennies to buy candy from the village's produce stores. All the food she needed was brought to her cottage by one of Charlotte's men.
At first, she had been reluctant to eat anything, thinking it could be drugged, afraid, more than anything of losing the one thing she could still hold on to, her memories. But as time went by she realized Charlotte had no reason to drug her food. In fact, if anything if would defeat her purpose, and besides, she had to eat, not for her sake but for the baby's. Every month when Charlotte's cold, clinical physician examined her, he chided Alex for not gaining enough weight during the pregnancy, so she forced herself to eat more.
As if Charlotte's threat of killing Dimitri wasn't enough to keep her from attempting to run away, Alex also had the small problem of lacking any proper identification. She might have made it out of Wales with relative ease but getting further would be tricky. She couldn't rent a car or a hotel room, as Charlotte received daily transaction reports, detailing all purchases made from any agent anywhere in the world that held one of her credit cards, including Alex. Her men would have found her in a day, or less.
And Dimitri would be dead.
Sometimes, when she walked back to the cottage at night, after the church service, she passed by a bright red pay phone. Each time she did, Alex thought about Dimitri.
There were several nights when she went as far as to go inside the old phone booth, and began to dial his number. Stealing the necessary coins, to make the call without a credit card had been easy enough. 'Just one call,' she told herself, 'I'll explain to him that he can't come and look for me. I just have to let him know I'm ok.'
But she stopped herself each time she went so far as to dial the number, knowing very well that Dimitri would never accept a call like that. He wouldn't think twice about tracking her down and trying to find her, even if it meant risking and losing his life. If he knew she was alive Dimitri would move mountains to find her, to hell with his own safety.
It was a risk Alex was not willing to take.
She loved him too much for that.
During the day, Alex was constantly occupied, and she developed a healthy respect for the monstrous organization that her mother had created. She also came to discover that Brynn Wydd had very little to do with espionage. It was, in reality, a training ground for international assassins.
Officially, Her Majesty's Government did not know of Brynn Wydd's existence. Unofficially, Charlotte's agents were in high demand not only by the British government but by most major NATO members, including the United States. Brynn Wydd was a valuable resource whenever they desperately needed to get rid of someone, without dirtying their own hands in the process.
Charlotte's agents were impeccably trained and belonged to no national intelligence service. They traveled under false identities and used the passports of small nations or city states that carried no weight in the global political spectrum, such as San Marino, Andorra, Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg. If they were caught, no one claimed their bodies and no one knew of their existence, and most importantly, no one knew who had hired them. On their death certificates, they were simply listed as rogue mercenaries.
Charlotte's agents had killed Middle Eastern terrorists for Presidents Reagan and Chirac, Chinese spies for Clinton, Russian scientists for Bush and Chancellor Kohl, IRA leaders for Prime Minister Major. The list went on. For the services of her assassins, Charlotte Devane was paid handsomely and she was allowed to pursue her activities without any legal repercussions. In turn, the agents she trained, once they had finished their tasks, were in high demand in the armies and intelligence services of their homelands.
Alex also discovered why Charlotte needed her, of all people, after all these years. It was because of her background as a doctor and scientist. Training someone in superior marksmanship and martial arts could be done in a matter of months. Finding someone who could mingle with stem-cell researchers at a medical conference was more difficult, as it required an actual scientist rather than merely a good actor.
At first Alex wondered who in the world of science could possibly be on the hit list of a national government in the western world, until she found out about countless top secret research projects that including human cloning and biochemical weapons.
Projects that other nations were willing to kill to prevent from ever realizing their goals.
And thanks to Charlotte Devane and Brynn Wydd, there were highly skilled agents available to do the killing.
Alex now spent her days relearning how to be one of Charlotte's top agents.
She spent hours improving her Russian language skills and doing infinitely repetitive target practice with the latest weaponry, some of which she now had to learn to assemble and disassemble herself. She practiced as much self-defense as her pregnancy allowed. She pored over countless scientific journals, some of which covered areas of study that were as foreign to her as they would have been to a truck driver.
It was while she was reading one such publication in the gothic study hall at Brynn Wydd, that Alex saw Charlotte coming to approach her.
"Sasha, my dear. I thought I would come by to see how things are progressing. Justin tells me you're not being very social with any of the other agents."
Alex shrugged and took off her glasses, stifling a yawn. She was always so tired these days. "It seems being your daughter has given everyone an instant reason to stay away from me. I don't know if it's out of respect, fear of repercussions, or simple loathing for having taken someone else's place as the teacher's pet."
"Oh Sasha, you're always so dramatic, just like your poor father once was. Maybe it's because you refuse to live on the grounds at Brynn Wydd, or the fact that you're the only pregnant woman who has ever trained here. People fear what they don't know, you know that."
Alex tried to change the topic, "I'm due in less than two months. I need to find a nanny, and I have to shop for things for the baby. I need clothing, a crib, a stroller, I've got nothing right now."
"Of course. I'll have Justin drive you to Swansea."
"No." Alex shook her head, "I want to go to London, and I want to go alone."
Charlotte looked at her daughter, amused. "Fine. You can go to London. I'll have Justin meet you at the cottage at 8am tomorrow with a van. The two of you can spend the night there if need be. It's a long drive."
"Fine." Alex put her glasses back on and went back to her article on nucleic abnormalities in chimera cells.
From the corner of her eye, Alex caught Charlotte watching her, annoyed at being ignored, before she finally left without a word.
London, England.
Alex and Justin hardly spoke during their entire drive from Wales to London. Although Alex couldn't quite explain why she felt the way she did, but she sensed that the hostility Justin Black felt for her ran deeper than the usual cold shoulder she got from most of Charlotte's other agents. Whatever the reason behind it was, Alex didn't care to explore it then and there. Thankfully, she had gotten very good at ignoring the world around her, and today that world included Justin Black.
Alex was in surprisingly good spirits at the thought of buying everything she needed for her unborn child. She knew exactly which shops she wanted to go to and she directed Justin accordingly.
They went to Mothercare on Oxford Street, where they bought everything from wallpaper to a crib and stroller and blankets and baby bottles, and then to Humla at St.Christopher's Place, where they bought knitwear to keep the baby warm during the cold, wet, Welsh winter nights. Lastly, they went to Paul Smith for Children at Covent Garden, where Alex bought dozens of baby outfits that would be suitable and adorable regardless of the child's gender.
Justin was disgusted at how easily Alex spent thousands of dollars of Charlotte's money. His loyalty to her ran so deep; it bothered him to see anyone take advantage of her.
"Could you maybe stop frowning for a few minutes?" Alex was beginning to get annoyed with Justin's obvious disgust. "These shopkeepers think we're the parents, you know. They've probably never seen such a miserable father-to- be."
"Why in the world does one child need all these things?"
Alex stopped him in his tracks. "I'll tell you why, you miserable lackey. This child has no one in the world except for me. No father, no grandparents, no family, just his mother. You can rest assured that I'm going to give this child the love of a dozen people and I will spoil this baby in whichever way I can."
Her answer marked the end of any future conversations between the two of them. The next day he dropped off Alex at the agency that provided live-in nannies.
Finding a live-in nanny was not nearly as easy as shopping for the baby's clothes, Alex discovered. She had spoken with dozens of women over the phone from Wales and most of them balked at the thought of living in a remote cottage in the Welsh countryside. Those that did consider agreeing to it, did it under the condition that they would only sign a short-term contract.
"What about this one?" Alex asked the lady in the agency, pointing to the portfolio of a 20-year-old Swiss girl.
"Oh, she's actually no longer represented by this agency. She came to London for two weeks and went back to her mountain village in Switzerland shortly afterward. She couldn't take the chaos and craziness of London."
"Her credentials are great," Alex remarked, "And she wouldn't have to live in London if she worked for me."
"Well, she really did want to improve her English, and for what it's worth, for the two weeks that they had her, the family she was with absolutely adored her." The lady handed Alex a phone number, "Here…since you are having such a hard time finding someone to meet your conditions, I'll give you Heidi's phone number, even if she no longer works for us. "
So she did, and Alex spent an hour talking to Heidi Nuessli, a young woman with a diploma in early childhood education and a disarming way of speaking English so slowly that she enunciated every syllable of every word. She seemed warm and shy over the phone, a combination that reassured Alex that she had made the right decision when she told the agency worker that she wanted to hire her.
Heidi Nuessli promptly faxed in a one-year contract from Switzerland, and agreed that she would begin living at the cottage near Brynn Wydd, approximately one week before the birth of the baby.
Justin waited impatiently outside the doors of the agency. "What took you so long? We have to get going."
Alex walked over to the driver's side of the car and watched him roll down the window. "Not yet," she told him, "There is one more place I have to go to. I'll see you back here at five o'clock."
"I don't think so!" He started to get out of the car, but she had already hailed a taxi and waved him good-bye.
"Where to?" the taxi driver asked her.
"A restaurant called 'The Stone's End'"
It was the restaurant where she and Dimitri had shared their first meal. When she arrived there, most of the lunch crowd had already left.
"Is it still possible to have a meal?" Alex asked the host.
"Of course," he nodded, "Let me show you to a table."
"Actually, I'd like the corner table. The one between the window and the blue cupboard, if it's not taken."
He looked over to it, "No, that's fine. It looks like someone has reserved it for dinner at five, but until then it's yours." He smiled and helped her hang her jacket.
Alex knew that coming here was probably a bad idea. Aside from further fanning the flames of Justin's wrath, she also knew that just being here, where she and Dimitri had shared such happy times was probably more than she was ready to handle.
But the closeness she felt to him here was worth the heartbreak it caused her. She closed her eyes and remembered their last meal here. She remembered Dimitri laughing, his eyes telling her what he hadn't dared to speak aloud yet, that he was falling in love with her.
A red headed waitress with an Irish accent took her order, and Alex decided to order not her favorite dishes, but Dimitri's.
When she finished the waitress approached her table, "Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"No I'm fine, thank you. Just the bill, please."
"Can I ask you how far along you are?" the waitress with the red hair asked with a curious smile.
Alex returned the woman's smile, "Seven months and a few days."
"The father must be very excited."
Alex nodded, and she felt her voice choke. "Yes, he would…be ecstatic."
The waitress didn't know how to respond to her tears, "I…oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."
Alex immediately felt bad for the young woman, "No…it's not your fault. It's me… you know, hormones."
The restaurant manager had watched the exchange Alex heard him grilling the waitress. "What the hell was that? I don't want you discussing things of a personal nature with our patrons. This is a fine dining establishment, not some local brewpub. The only thing I want you discussing with our diners is how fabulous the menu is, is that understood?"
Bothered by the harsh words, Alex got up to defend her, "Please…she didn't do anything wrong!"
But the manager wouldn't have it and insisted on rebating her dessert.
"Don't," Alex told him with icy finality. "Add it to her tip instead."
She left the restaurant without another word.
Later
At five o'clock, that same table was occupied again.
When Dimitri Marick sat down at his favorite table at 'The Stone's End', he suddenly felt very close to Alex. More so than he expected to, because he could have sworn he smelled Alex's perfume in the air. It was a rare perfume with a musky, floral scent, one that Dimitri had never heard of before he met Alex.
'The scent is real,' he thought, 'My mind is not playing tricks on me.' He quickly pulled out a photo of Alex and considered asking the waitress if she had seen this woman. 'She's about 5'4, very slim, long brown hair,' he wanted to add, 'and she has an English accent,' until he realized how ridiculous that would sound in London, of all places.
"Stop it." He told himself when the waitress approached. "This is crazy. Alex is gone and the only reason I smell her perfume is because this was our special place. What did I expect?"
The waitress looked at the photo on the table, as though she recognized it.
"Can I ask you something…"the woman started, but then suddenly stopped, as she glanced in the direction of an older man standing near the entrance of the kitchen.
"Sure." Dimitri told her.
"Uh…actually, it's nothing. I was just going to say that the baby potatoes are particularly good at this time of the year."
Dimitri could have sworn he saw something else in the woman's face. Something she wanted to tell him. "Are you sure that's all you wanted to say? Do you…do you recognize this photo?"
The waitress shook her head. "No. I don't."
She was lying, Dimitri could have sworn. Or maybe it was just hopeful thinking. He exhaled. "I'll have the steak. With the baby potatoes."
When he finished the dinner his left her a generous tip, along with his business card.
Then he walked into the night and headed for Hyde Park