Hugo licked his lips. It was close now. But he knew from experience that this was the moment when you had to keep from rushing. It was so easy to think that victory was near, but the wrong frame of mind led to carelessness and negligence. He’d seen it before and was determined not to let it happen to them.
“We still need to be careful, though,” Hugo told Mikko. “Let’s take the safe route over the unsafe one.”
Mikko nodded, and they moved like one. The wind howled, and far behind the ship, a siren joined in. But through all the noise, Hugo could still hear voices—close ones. And an engine. The engine seemed to be getting closer, too, and it made Hugo freeze. Was that a motorboat? Here?
“What the hell?” he whispered, looking at Mikko. Mikko looked back at him, his eyes narrowed in similar confusion.
The two men kept going. Ten meters away, the container they were walking along came to an end. He and Mikko advanced, weapons raised and ready. Then Mikko’s foot slipped on the wet deck, and he went sprawling. His rifle hit the deck and rattled as it skidded away.
Hugo froze. When no one came shooting or running toward them, he ran to help Mikko up. Just then, the voices returned. They were very close, coming from around the corner.
Hugo took a few steps toward the edge of the wall, carefully and slowly. When he got there, he stuck his head out, and his eyes widened. He saw three men dressed all in black. They were standing around one man who was squatting and another lying facedown. The moment Hugo stuck his head out, a fourth man came up over the railing and jumped down onto the deck. Hugo swallowed. They’d been reinforced.
The squatting man looked up then and met Hugo’s gaze. It was him—the same man who had stood by the van, watching him earlier. Hugo immediately recognized the scarred face. The man said something, and the four large, black-clad goons turned around as one and lifted their high-speed weapons toward Hugo. A wave of fear came crashing in on him—all of a sudden, the hunted had become the hunter. Hugo swore, spun around, and dragged Mikko with him. Behind them, the four men opened fire.
“Run!”
***
It was one mishap after another. Captain Ashraf’s stomach turned when he heard gunfire again. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. Everything that could’ve gone wrong today had gone wrong. And now, his bad luck had progressed to yet another level. Shooting. On his ship. With all the chemicals they had on board, a shot in the wrong place was enough to make them explode in a fireball that would be the top story of all the major news channels within half an hour.
“Goddammit!” he yelled as he grabbed his binoculars. Where was the search patrol he’d sent out a few minutes ago? The stormy sky made things too dark to see anything besides the shadows that flitted in front of him.
The walkie-talkie on the table crackled. “Captain, can you hear me?”
Ashraf grabbed it and held down the button. “Yes, I hear you, Tong. What’s up?”
Tong, a thirty-five-year-old Vietnamese sailor, sounded excited. “You won’t believe this, Captain, but we’ve got two yachts on deck.”
Ashraf was sure he had heard wrong. “Repeat.”
“You heard right. There are two half-demolished yachts up here. I don’t know how, but they’re here. Right in front of me. They look abandoned—no, wait!”
Tong fell silent, and Ashraf held the button on the walkie-talkie. “Tong? Come in, Tong.”
A few seconds passed, and then Tong came back. “You won’t believe it, but there are two women here. They’re in front of one of the boats with their hands in the air. They are just standing there with their hands up in the air, and they want us to talk to them.”
“What do they look like?” Ashraf asked, bewildered.
Tong hesitated. “What do you mean, Captain? They look like women standing with their hands in the air.”
Ashraf winced. The whole situation seemed like a dream. He shook his head and said, “Okay, Tong, hear what they have to say. Get back to me as soon as you can, okay?”
“Roger that.”
Ashraf lifted the binoculars again, but it was futile. There was nothing to see. After less than a minute, the walkie-talkie came back to life.
“Captain?”
Ashraf grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Yes.”
“We’ve got the two women with us, and we’re coming back with them.”
“Where? Here?”
Tong hesitated, then replied, “Yes, Captain. Where else?”
Ashraf cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said. “Well done. Yes, bring them here as quickly as possible.”
“Roger.”
A wave of doubt welled up in Ashraf’s mind. What would he say to these people? What if it was all a plan to get to him? To murder him? But who would put this kind of resources into it? Ashraf swallowed and tried in vain to regain something resembling control. Two minutes passed before he heard voices behind him. He recognized Tong’s voice but not the women’s.
Ashraf’s heart was beating fast when Tong came up the stairs and onto the command bridge. Behind him walked two women. One was tall with dark hair, and the other was smaller and blonde. The women met his gaze, and Ashraf suddenly became very aware of his appearance. He straightened his back, approached the women, and spoke in his most commanding voice.
“What is this? Who are you, and what are you doing on my ship?”
The tall one took a step forward; Ashraf felt the instinct to take a step back but managed to stop himself.
“My name is Freya, and this is Sussie. We work for Novus, and we’re in the middle of a recovery mission after a theft last night in Copenhagen.”
Ashraf gaped at Freya as she casually explained the situation. He held up his hands.
“Whoa, hold on! What did you say?”
Freya smiled and quickly went through what had happened in the last few hours and what was going on down on the deck. Ashraf shook his head slowly.
“You mean your comrades, this Hugo and Mikko, belong to some kind of police and are looking for criminals who drove their boat onto my ship to try to get away from you?”
Sussie stepped forward and said, “That about sums it up, yes. And the shooting you hear means you are going to need to make some serious resources available to help Hugo and Mikko.”
Ashraf held his hand over his mouth in disbelief. This day just got worse and worse.
13
A dull, grinding feeling twisted in Magnus’ stomach. He breathed deeply to regain some control over himself. Now was not the time to let his memories run away with him. There was a time and a place for reverie, and it wasn’t now.
He glanced out at the landscape as the chopper took off and ascended. Mary adjusted the controls and set a straight course north. Magnus pulled down the microphone from his helmet.
“Mary, how long do you think it’ll take to get there?”
“Depends on how much of a headwind we get on the trip,” she replied in his ear. “But hopefully, no more than three hours.”
Magnus glanced at his watch; it was a little after one. It was going to be tight. The presser was starting at five o’clock in a hotel in Oslo, and he had to be there—at any cost. He could not be late for his press conference. Not when large parts of the world press would be there. He shuddered at the thought as he stared at the twinkling lights in the distance.
The rotor’s heavy vibrations propagated through Magnus’ seat. He turned and looked at Veronica. She sat with her back straight and her hands clasped tightly in her lap. He leaned against her and put his hand on hers.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
Veronica took his hand and hugged it. His skin was hot.
“Of course! Everything I do is for you. You know that.”
He nodded. It had only been recently that he’d decided for sure that he wanted to marry Veronica. He’d had a hard time opening up to anyone for many years. It wasn’t that he hadn’t met women. He had—a lot of them. But whenever it would get serious, he would always withdraw. I
t was something about himself that irritated him, but he didn’t know how to control it.
He sighed. It didn’t matter. Magnus knew why he couldn’t control it. What had happened to him when he was young had left deep wounds within him. He could still remember every feeling that day as if he were feeling them for the first time.
That had been twenty years ago. Magnus and his brother Henri had gone out to sea with their father, Leopold von Silverstråle. Leopold wasn’t a man to whom you said no. He’d been a large man, standing at one hundred ninety-one centimeters and weighing a little more than ninety kilos.
His long arms went down to his knees, and his face always carried a brutal expression. But he’d also been a brilliant businessman. Leopold had taken the small inheritance he’d received from his mother and grown it until he’d become a multimillionaire. The same vigor he’d had in attacking his competitors in working life he had also taken home to his wife and two sons. This had generally been tolerated when Henri and Magnus were small, but when they were in their teens, Magnus, in particular, had pushed back against his father. He no longer accepted the violent outbursts Leopold subjected his wife and children to. One night when they were arguing, Magnus had stood up to his father. It had been too much for Leopold. He’d struck Magnus hard on the cheek—and that had changed everything. The next few years had been brutal for Henri and Magnus. Leopold had it in his mind that his children would become successful businessmen, and he demanded that they master everything he thought necessary for that future to come to pass.
And sailing had been one of them.
Veronica hugged his hands to her chest. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “You’ve turned completely pale.”
Magnus trembled. Veronica had never heard the story, but he wasn’t sure now was the right time to tell her. He cleared his throat.
“I’m okay,” he replied and looked into the gray expanse again. He thought about the day they’d gone sailing. Leopold had dictated that his two sons would become skilled sailors because it would benefit them later in business. But for once, Magnus wouldn’t be good at the task he was given. He usually managed all of Leopold’s challenges with bravura, but sailing didn’t work for him. Still, Leopold had forced them into the boat, and they’d gone out on the sea to train. Back on the beach, their nanny had filmed the exercise.
They’d sailed back and forth in the twenty-five-foot sailboat that Leopold had named after his zodiac sign, Capricorn. At first, Henri was assigned to take care of the rudder, and they’d completed four turns in which Leopold and Magnus took care of everything else.
Finally, Leopold had shouted that the jobs should change, and Magnus had taken the helm. The first two turns had gone well, but when Magnus went to complete his third turn, something had gone wrong. Even today, he wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but it was fate, he was sure. The turn had gone far too fast, and when the boom swung over, it smashed into Leopold’s shoulder, and he was thrown overboard. Leopold barely had time to scream before fading into the water.
A fraction of a second later, Henri flew to the edge to save his father. Leopold came to the surface, coughing and hissing. He cursed how clumsy Magnus had been, and Magnus remembered the feeling of horror mixed with panic at the thought of the punishment he would receive back on shore. And that was when he’d done it. It wasn’t something he’d planned; it had just happened.
Henri had shouted at Magnus to help him pull their father up out of the water. But something inside Magnus had instead guided his hands to an oar that hung nearby. He had snatched it up and gripped it tightly. Henri had nodded, thinking that Magnus was going to use the paddle to pull their father up onto the boat. Instead, Magnus had swung the oar in a wide arc. The wood met Henri’s body high on the arm, and Magnus had felt the bones in his brother’s arm snap. Henri roared in agony and released his father, who sunk into the water once more.
Henri had tried again to help their father, but he couldn’t protect himself when Magnus swung the oar like a club another time. This time, he hit Henri right at the waist, and Henri was thrown off the edge of the boat with a loud splash. Inside Magnus, it was as if something had been turned off, like a plug that cut off the power to a lamp. Everything had turned completely black.
Magnus stepped to the edge and looked down into the dark water. Both his father and brother thrashed there, struggling to stay afloat. Neither of them had a life jacket. Leopold fought his way to the front of the boat, stretched out his hands on the edge, and stared at Magnus. He shouted something at him, and a fraction of a second later, Magnus swung the oar again, this time against his father’s fingers. He heard the bones snap.
Leopold fell screaming back into the water. Magnus leaned over the edge, and all the hatred he’d carried for so many years bubbled up to the surface. Leopold’s face had gone paler and paler as the realization that Magnus was going to kill them both slowly sank in. Having a hard time staying afloat, Henri had pulled at his father’s arm, but Leopold had jerked his arm and pushed Henri away. Henri had disappeared beneath the surface, and Magnus watched his brother’s wide-open eyes staring at him as he disappeared beneath the surface.
Leopold had cursed and raged, but before long, he too had disappeared into the dark depths. Magnus stared after them, and when he was sure they were gone, he got up. He flinched, remembering the nanny. Magnus started waving his arms and cried out for help, but the nanny was no longer on the beach. She must have run away.
Finally, Magnus had perceived movement on the beach and realized that the nanny had to run for help. Men pulled out rowboats and rowed for all they were worth out to the roaring Magnus von Silverstråle.
Magnus had played shocked reasonably well, and there wasn’t much for the rescue crew to do except state that both Leopold and Henri von Silverstråle had died at sea. When Magnus stepped onto the beach, the nanny had been one of the people who met him there. When the worst of the commotion had died down, he’d taken her aside and asked what she had done.
She had stammered out what had happened; she’d been standing on the beach filming, and when they made the last turn, she’d seen Leopold thrown into the water. She had dropped the camera and run for help.
Young Magnus froze then—the camera. He comforted the nanny, telling her she’d done exactly the right thing in this tragic situation and that he would take care of everything.
Magnus had searched the area where the nanny had stood, and to his inexhaustible joy, he’d found the camera in the sand. He had taken it with him, and later that evening, he’d played the film with trembling fingers while sitting in his father’s office. The camera had still been rolling when it was dropped, and it had managed to land so that it still captured the boat from the sand. Magnus couldn’t believe his eyes. Not only had he managed to kill his father and idiotic brother, but he also had a movie of the event—and the movie was in his possession! A man only had one or two such days when all the stars stood in line, and that had been one such day for Magnus von Silverstråle.
On the helicopter, Veronica squeezed his hand.
“Are you sure you’re okay, sweetie?”
Magnus pressed out a faint smile. “Yes, now that you’re here, everything’s fine.”
***
It was time to flee! Bullets whizzed past Hugo and Mikko as they stumbled and rushed backward from the four men who came after them. The combatants wore body armor and black helmets, and each had a high-speed automatic rifle in his hand. The weapons fired ten-round bursts, all of which hit just a few decimeters from Mikko’s head, and he threw himself forward.
He sailed through the air, landed on the deck, and rolled deftly. Hugo rushed up to him, grabbed his collar, and pulled him to his feet.
“Run!”
They stumbled on as fast as they could and managed to put ten meters between them and their attackers. They slid between two containers, and for the moment, they disappeared. Hugo’s ears echoed when the volleys ended, and he shook his head. The attackers were
twenty meters away now, maybe less.
Hugo’s thoughts rushed. They had to slow these guys down.
“Mikko! How much ammunition do you have left?”
Mikko quickly checked his weapon. “Not much,” he replied. “Barely two full magazines.”
Hugo swore. He had less than a mag left himself. He hadn’t expected a protracted firefight.
Soon, there were footfalls nearby, and they were getting closer. Hugo gestured for Mikko to take a position on the other side of the passageway. Now, both ends of the aisle were guarded.
Hugo listened as the sound of steps came ever closer, and he nodded to Mikko to get ready. When the steps echoed through the aisle, and Hugo’s instinct told him it was close enough, he nodded to Mikko again.
As one man, Hugo and Mikko leaned out from their hiding places and opened fire. In the cramped space, their weapons thundered. Two of the black-clad men were in the adjacent path; one of them threw himself onto the deck, but the other didn’t have time to get away. Three shells hit him in the leg and one in the stomach, and he groaned and fell.
Adrenaline rushed through Hugo’s system, and he fell back against the wall. Mikko did the same.
“Good,” Hugo breathed, “we got one.”
A smile danced at the corners of Mikko’s mouth. “That’ll give them something to think about.”
Hugo looked back at the aisle they had left. This place was a death trap. As long as they were in these narrow passages, they would be easy targets. It could only be seconds before a grenade came flying in where they stood. Hugo indicated the black pathway they’d come from. The corrugated metal sides gave it a nightmarish quality.
“Time to move. Fall back; I’ll cover you.”
Mikko lowered his weapon and started running through the long corridor with Hugo close at his heels. Their legs worked like jackhammers. As they approached the opening, a moment of doubt flashed through Hugo’s mind. If the assailants had more men, then surely they would be waiting here. But a second later, Mikko rushed through the opening, and nothing happened. The two of them came out into the free air, and Hugo drew a sigh of relief.
The Hugo Xavier Series: Book 1-3 Page 38
