Max moved through the room with that reassuring precision possessed only by people who, over decades, have learnt to handle both wealth and disaster with equal quietness.
Jennifer led the small party inside: Jonathan, Fox, Scully, Shane with a makeshift sling, and Ilya, impeccably composed to the point of seeming almost rude. Max unfolded napkins as if this were not a refuge following a chaotic ice-rink disaster, but a perfectly ordinary winter evening with guests running slightly late.
“Mrs Hart. Mr Hart,” said Max. “You’ll find the wild boar pâté with cranberries, onion marmalade and fig mustard, accompanied by an Austrian Riesling from the Traisental, whose acidity harmonises superbly with the savoury pâté.”
Jonathan acknowledged the announcement with a friendly nod as Max poured him a taste: “Max, you’re a beacon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Max pulled out Shane’s chair with unobtrusive consideration, so that his injured side was spared without it looking like he was being helped.
Dana noticed. So did Shane. It didn’t make it any easier for him, but it was less humiliating. He sat down, somewhat stiffly. Ilya took the chair diagonally opposite, not next to him. Jonathan and Jennifer sat at the ends of the table. Fox and Scully in between. Perfectly mixed, perfectly above suspicion, perfectly arranged so that no one had to explain away accidental closeness or distance.
The first minute was devoted to the tableware.
Jonathan picked up his starter fork, said a Latin grace, and then invited everyone to help themselves. “I know it sounds like a strange priority, but I’ve always believed that the first step back to sanity lies in a good pâté.”
Fox looked at the elegantly arranged starter plate. “That’s more sensible than almost anything that’s been said tonight, except for Amara El-Amin’s speech.”
Dana took the first bite and purred contentedly. For a moment, she closed her eyes. The pâté managed, for a moment, to blur the crazy evening and the interruption of the return journey.
Jennifer glanced briefly at Shane. “How’s your shoulder?”
“Still attached.”
“Barely,” said Dana, who had opened her eyes again and resumed her medical seriousness.
Jonathan raised his glass slightly. “To just about. It’s often the most stable form of survival.”
No official toast, just a small, human touch of humour.
Ilya said nothing. But his gaze drifted once, quickly and involuntarily, to Shane’s shoulder and back again.
Fox looked at his glass. “No mobile reception?”
Jonathan nodded. “That’s one of the reasons we like the chalet so much, and the main reason Jennifer considers it educational. It only gets tricky when the snow blocks the landline down to the village; then you’re almost completely cut off here if you don’t have satellite contact.”
Jennifer looked at him. “Some people need silence to realise what they want to say.”
“And some,” said Fox, “need a signal to find out who’s just snatched a suspect from under their noses.”
Scully put down her spoon. “Toolidle?”
The word hung briefly between the fireplace and the candles.
Jonathan set down his glass. “Indianapolis, St Louis or Mexico City will bring him to trial faster than you could say ‘Sputnik’ in 1957 or than the local police can spell ‘jurisdiction’.”
“Mexico City?” said Fox.
Jennifer had Max clear away the starter plates and serve the cream of leek soup.
At first, the conversation skirted around the edges: the weather, religion, road conditions, global warming, the motivated Austrian cadets from Enns, the brilliant Amara El-Amin, who, despite her young age, addressed the United Nations with an ease befitting an experienced Ottoman, British or Japanese princess. The impossibility of managing good press when local politicians got sentimental. Jonathan told half an anecdote about a Texan security chief who had almost been executed in Mexico City, and a mislabelled snow blower in Illinois. Jennifer let him speak for just long enough that the table breathed as one.
Then the landline rang.
Everyone looked up.
Max was there immediately, picked up the receiver in the next room and returned a moment later.
“Mrs Hart. Alexis Colby.”
Jonathan slowly looked up.
Jennifer did the same.
“Now?” asked Jonathan.
“Yes, sir.”
Jennifer stood up. “Please excuse me.”
She went into the adjoining room. The door remained ajar, just enough for them to hear her side of the conversation, but not the other woman’s.
“Alexis, how lovely to hear from you.”
A pause.
“Right now?”
Another pause.
“Denver in Mexico?”
Jennifer was silent for a moment. Then her voice was once again all velvet and steel.
“No, of course not impossible. Just very surprising. And Manama? For a jewellery auction?”
Pause.
“Yes. Yes, I understand. It goes without saying for you. And of course I’ll bring Jonathan along. He loves Denver.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes briefly.
“When Alexis calls,” he said into the room, “it’s never something that would politely wait until tomorrow. And I’d already been looking forward to a hot bath after dinner. With Jennifer, of course.”
Fox looked up. “I can well understand that.”
Scully shot him a reproachful look.
Fox raised both hands. “That was general agreement on the concept of hot baths with our charming hostess.”
Ilya couldn’t suppress a giggle, Shane rolled his eyes, Dana aggressively rubbed some pepper into her soup. Jonathan looked round the room, first at Dana, then at Shane, at Fox and finally at Ilya.
“Financially, socially, strategically — with Alexis, it’s usually all the same. And just for your information, Agent Mulder, our bath is only big enough for two!”
Jennifer came back.
“We have to go to Denver, darling.”
Shane looked up. Ilya set his spoon aside after quickly finishing the last of his soup.
Jonathan said nothing. That alone meant he had accepted that the sentence would become reality, whether he liked it or not.
Scully asked, “Tonight?”
“Alexis has a problem that apparently can only be solved with immediate personal attendance, a great deal of goodwill, and probably some oily vodka.”
Jonathan sighed. “Then it’s serious. And it’ll cost a fortune.”
Jennifer nodded to Max. “Please get everything ready for our departure after dinner.”
“Of course, Madame.”
He disappeared silently.
From outside, another sound could already be heard in the distance. Rotors.
Fox looked towards the window. The wind had picked up. Snow was drifting past the panes. The chalet suddenly seemed even taller, even more isolated, even more final. And had a wild boar just run across the terrace?
Jonathan looked up and went to the window. “The storm’s coming faster than we thought.”
Dana looked out too. “How fast?”
Jonathan didn’t answer straight away.
Jennifer took over. “Fast enough that we have to take the helicopter now. It’s already too dangerous for the cars and too dark for the sleigh.”
Shane put down his spoon. “We can, of course, go back down to the valley.”
Jonathan turned round as if Shane had suggested something completely mad.
“On a night like this? With your shoulder? On these roads?”
Jennifer said it more gently. But no less firmly.
“No.”
She now looked directly at Shane and Ilya.
“You two are staying here, of course. By car it would be a four-hour drive without snow; now it’s impossible. And unfortunately there isn’t enough room in the helicopter for everyone if we have to get to Springfield Airport.”
Ilya blinked once, because he had to check briefly whether she’d really just said exactly what she’d said.
“Mrs Hart—”
“The chalet has plenty of guest rooms next to the master bedroom—forty rooms in total, with a pool in the basement and a small gym,” said Jennifer. “Plenty of supplies. Max will get everything ready. As soon as the snowstorm is over, we’ll send the helicopter back to take you back down to the valley. You can keep as far apart as you like. You don’t have to see each other, so no East-West conflict breaks out.”
Jonathan added dryly: “In about three to four days, if the weather behaves itself and the mountains don’t decide to put on a bit more of a show.”
Shane looked back and forth between the Harts.
“Three to four days?”
Jennifer smiled, charmingly and completely unobtrusively. “You’ll survive.”
Ilya said nothing.
Jonathan looked back from the window to the table. “And please — don’t argue. It’s an excellent house, but the acoustics carry.” Max served the souvlaki: three per person, one with lamb, one with duck and one with salmon. He also placed a bowl of roast potatoes and steamed vegetables on the table. At each place setting, he placed a small bowl of spicy tzatziki.
Jennifer picked up her fork and removed the pieces from the skewers. “You are our guests. Behave like it.”
Then she added, in a more conciliatory tone: “And do both of you get some rest.”
Dana looked at Jennifer.
She understood exactly what Jennifer was doing socially: creating a safe haven, a plausible necessity, a discreet separation from the public eye, and an arrangement that needed no explanation as long as no one was malicious enough to look too closely.
Fox noticed the same thing and said nothing that would give it away. Max returned.
“The helicopter will be here in seven minutes. Your travel bags are already packed. For Messrs Hollander and Rozanow, I’ll leave the British and Soviet suites as they are, unless otherwise requested.”
Jonathan nodded. “Excellent. And please, something warmer for later—preferably yeast dumplings with melted butter and poppy seed sugar.”
“Of course, sir, I’ll pop them in the steamer.”
Shane looked at his injured shoulder, then briefly at Ilya, then back at the table.
“That’s very generous.”
Jennifer replied immediately: “No, it’s just practical given the lack of helicopter landing pads.”
Jonathan looked at both young men. “And before either of you gets the idea of disappearing into some cold servants’ hut on the grounds out of politeness: don’t.”
Ilya raised his eyebrows slightly. “I wasn’t planning on sleeping in a hut.”
“Good, then you’re the man I’ll be betting on, even if he’s fighting for the enemy.”
Outside, the helicopter was now audibly drawing nearer. The light flickered briefly across the snow. The noise of the rotors filled the room with that harsh reality that turned any cosiness into a reprieve.
Jennifer stepped behind Shane and briefly placed her hand on his uninjured shoulder.
“You’re safe here.”
Then she walked round the table and paused for a moment beside Ilya too.
“And so are you.”
Jonathan was already putting on his coat. Max handed Jennifer hers. Fox and Dana quickly finished the leftover tzatziki and nodded gratefully to Max.
Dana looked at Jennifer. “Are we flying to Springfield with you?”
“Yes, of course. From there, you can get on with your next urgent assignment, write your reports, or try to track down Dr Toolidle again, in case London suddenly decides it’s interested in polite cooperation after all and reveals whether he’s ended up in Indianapolis, St Louis or Mexico City.”
Fox put on his coat. “That sounds like a fairy tale.”
“I like fairy tales,” said Jennifer. “They’re more honest when they admit that dragons exist.”
Jonathan put on his gloves. Fox looked at Shane and Ilya. Both were now standing as well. In public, this was still a result of their heroic cooperation. Privately, it was a completely different story.
Jennifer walked to the door, turned around once more and said in a tone that was perfectly balanced between jest, command and tenderness:
“No arguments. No heroic solo missions. No night-time escapes into the storm. Use the guest rooms. That’s what they’re there for. And enjoy six portions of Max’s fantastic crème brûlée.”
Jonathan added, “And leave room for the yeast dumplings.”
For the first time that evening, something almost resembling a genuine, weary laugh escaped from Shane. Ilya, at least, allowed himself a hint of an expression that, in warmer light, might have passed for a smile.
Max opened the door.
The wind whipped snow almost horizontally across the veranda. Rotors. Light. Cold.
Jennifer stepped out, Jonathan behind her. Fox and Dana followed.
Max lingered in the doorway for a moment, looked back at Shane and Ilya, and said only:
“The teapot is in the lounge. In case the evening isn’t heated up enough yet.”
Then the door closed. The sound of the rotors swelled, slowly receded and was finally swallowed up by the storm.
Warmth lingered in the dining room.
And two young men who suddenly had more time on their hands than they cared for.