Shadow

by James Swallow

  Marc stepped inside, crouching to peek into the frames.

  “Bolts are sheared off on a lot of these.” He smelled the faint whiff of burned plastic. “I think they pulled them without bothering to do a proper shutdown. They didn’t want to leave anything behind.”

  “You assured me there would be physical evidence here,” Larsson said firmly, and he tugged angrily at a cluster of cables. “This won’t count for anything in a court of law!”

  “They took them out,” said Marc, pointing to the drag marks in the corridor. “Must have used a 4 × 4 to get the hard drives off site or loaded them on the chopper…”

  One of the Viking Squad men nodded, and spoke up in English.

  “Echo confirms two vehicles are missing, Inspector. Alerts have been issued.”

  “It’s the Bitcoin heist all over again,” grated Larsson, and he turned on his heel, marching out into the corridor. Marc and Lucy trailed after him as another voice crackled over the inspector’s radio. He listened, his expression darkening, before he glared back at Marc. “The men sweeping the other buildings are reporting the same thing. No one on site. All computers have been cracked open and their hard drives removed.”

  “Andri, we didn’t lie to you about what happened here,” Marc insisted, seeing suspicion begin to form in the other man’s eyes.

  “I would welcome anything approaching proof of that,” he retorted. “You may be certain that my superiors in Reykjavík will demand it.”

  Another Viking Squad officer marched up to them at the intersection.

  “Found this.”

  He held up Marc’s battle-worn Swissgear backpack. He shook it and broken pieces of equipment rattled inside.

  Marc reached for it.

  “That belongs to me.”

  “It is evidence now,” Larsson told him, waving off the other officer.

  “Andri—”

  Larsson gave him a cold look.

  “You will address me as Inspector,” he corrected.

  Whatever measure of openness the two of them had shared, it was gone now. Marc had burned through his currency with the Icelander.

  The radio crackled again and spat out another terse communication. Larsson and the Viking Squad officer both stiffened, and the second man made a reply. Marc couldn’t understand what was said, but the tone was clear: Are you sure?

  Lucy saw it as well.

  “What’s going on?”

  “A body has been found in the dormitory block. A woman.”

  Park.

  Marc’s gut tightened and he heard the echo of the scientist’s tortured screams.

  “I need to see her,” he said.

  Larsson’s expressionless face studied him for a moment, then he nodded.

  “This way.”

  * * *

  The dorm rooms were an annex off to the south side of the main blockhouse, connected by a sheltered walkway. Like the rest of the buildings on the Frigga campus, it was a low, single-story prefabricated affair, divided into thirds. One section was a cafeteria, another made up of small rooms each with a single bed, but the largest was a combination changing area–locker room.

  Park’s body was lying on the floor of a shower cubicle, and breaths of hot steam fluttered in the air around her, dissipating into nothing.

  She was still wearing the clothes she had been murdered in, the soaked-through lab coat clinging to her slight frame like a shroud. The dead woman’s face, bloated and seared, was smeared with streaks of her black hair. Clasped in one hand was a kitchen knife, and there were vertical cuts on her bared forearms.

  Lucy’s jaw hardened as she took in the scene. This was a clumsy attempt to make her death look like a suicide, trying to hide the method of Park’s murder beneath the boiling spray of the shower and the post-mortem lie of the slashed wrists.

  “When they came in, the water was running at full heat, full blast,” said Larsson, translating the words of the men who had found the corpse. “It had to have been that way for hours.”

  “That’s not how it happened.”

  Lucy looked back to where Marc stood a few meters away, staring fixedly at the body. Every mistake he had made in the past twenty-four hours was encapsulated in Park’s murder. Seeing her again, so soon after witnessing Verbeke brutally end her life, shocked him into silence. She knelt by the body, forcing herself to stay focused.

  “I’m sorry, Ji-Yoo,” she whispered.

  “This entire complex is now a crime scene,” said Larsson, drawing himself up. “You two will return with me to the city, and we will attempt to unravel the mess you have presented us with.”

  “Are we under arrest?” Lucy asked the question without looking up.

  Larsson held up his hand, the thumb and forefinger a short distance apart.

  “You are very close.”

  Marc’s head suddenly jerked up, like a machine reactivating. He crossed the room, moving to the lockers.

  “The ring…” He glanced toward Lucy. “Her wedding ring. She doesn’t have it on her, does she?”

  Delicately, Lucy examined Park’s pallid fingers.

  “No. But she never had it on in the lab, before.”

  “What ring?” said Larsson. “Explain.”

  “We found her husband’s wedding ring,” said Marc, examining the line of lockers. “After Verbeke’s people killed him and their son. They kept her working for them because she thought her family was being held hostage.”

  They wouldn’t let me wear my ring. Park’s words came back to Lucy in a rush. It’s safe in a locker in the other building.

  “Park knew where the bioprinters were sent,” Marc went on, his thoughts paralleling hers. “She said she had that information in a safe place.”

  In a sudden flurry of movement, he spun toward one of the Viking Squad officers. Before the man could react, Marc snatched his tactical axe from the scabbard on his back and moved to the nearest of the secured lockers.

  Lucy bolted to her feet as the operative brought up his gun to bear on Marc, but Larsson put his hand on the man’s arm, holding him back.

  The Brit used the razor-sharp head of the axe blade to cut through the deadbolt mechanism on the first locker, and wrenched it open. He rifled through the inside, then moved on to the next, repeating his actions.

  “What is he doing?” Larsson demanded of Lucy. “Must I put you both in handcuffs?”

  Marc was on to a fourth locker when he stopped suddenly.

  “Here,” he said. “Here it is!”

  Thoughtlessly, he tossed the axe back to the Viking Squad officer, who snatched it out of the air with an angry grunt.

  Lucy stepped in to take a closer look. In between the folds of the crumpled jacket Park had been wearing on the day of her abduction, there was a wad of toilet paper wrapped around a small object.

  Marc picked the paper apart to reveal a silver wedding band, the twin to the one that Lucy had found in the bloodstained basement of a Singapore warehouse.

  Larsson took the ring and sealed it into an evidence bag, but Marc was more interested in the paper that had concealed it. Carefully, he unfolded it to its full length. Writing in a shaky, hurried hand discolored the thin tissue, forming a string of symbols in Hangul, the Korean pictographic alphabet.

  “Can you read that?” said Lucy.

  Marc shook his head. “But I know someone who can.” He turned to Larsson. “Andri, I need my pack.”

  “You are in no position to make requests,” said the Icelander.

  “Fucking hell, man!” Marc’s frustration flared. “Take the bloody stick out of your arse and give me the pack! I need my phone! Don’t you get it? This is a lead. This is from her!” He pointed toward the body in the shower, and when he spoke again he was almost pleading. “Don’t let her die for nothing.”

  Larsson frowned, but at length he beckoned over the officer holding on to Marc’s gear and handed the backpack to him. He recovered his Rubicon-issue spyPhone, laid out the paper on a bench and too
k a series of photos, before hitting the upload tab. The images would automatically be shunted through an encrypted satellite communications net directly to Rubicon’s secure server.

  “I’m sending a message to Assim Kader,” Marc explained. “He can get a translation back to us. I’m betting Ji-Yoo kept this information because she thought she might be able to use it as leverage.”

  Lucy shook her head. “She didn’t know what kind of people she was dealing with.”

  “No…” Marc agreed, and with it done, he handed back the phone and the daypack.

  Larsson’s gaze cooled.

  “When were you going to tell me, Marc? At what point would have you revealed that a gang of right-wing terrorists were assembling a biological weapon in the middle of my country?”

  The man’s patience diminished with each word he uttered.

  “There’s no weapon here,” Marc insisted, but the fight wasn’t in him. “I told you, the Lion’s Roar would gain nothing by launching an attack in Iceland. Europe is their heartland, that’s where they are strongest. That’s where they fight.”

  “Your judgment is not something I trust,” Larsson replied. “Not anymore.”

  “We kept you in the dark because we had to.” Lucy came to Marc’s defense. “If we’d given you the full story, what would have happened? You would have stormed this place in full force.”

  She gestured at the Viking Squad officers.

  “Yes, we would,” Larsson agreed. “Because your approach was the wrong one, and this is the proof of it.” He turned to his officers. “Take Dane and Keyes back to the city. Put them under house arrest. Do it discreetly.”

  The operatives moved up, flanking the pair of them.

  “You’re making a mistake,” said Marc. “We have to keep after Verbeke!”

  “I am not the one you need to convince,” said Larsson, shutting him down. “When I return to Reykjavík, you’ll be turned over to the National Security Unit for a full debriefing. And I advise you not to hold anything back this time.”

  * * *

  The Arab had a nasal voice which Elija Van de Greif found distinctly irritating. When the man became agitated, his tone rose to a level that made Van de Greif wince with the utterance of every word. It was a struggle for the antiques dealer not to allow his contempt to show. He kept his expression fixed, allowing the Arab to rant about how long the delivery was going to take.

  The great bronze Qing-era plaques the Arab had ordered for his Bahrain mansion had been held up at customs. It was a minor issue with the paperwork, but the man could not stop himself from immediately visiting Van de Greif in person to berate him. He stalked backward and forward in front of Van de Greif’s desk, grabbing at the air and snarling. The dealer remained seated. Like many Dutch of his line, he was tall and thin, and when he stood next to his client he was forced to slouch in order not to tower over the other man.

  The Arab’s ranting was winding down, and Van de Greif decided to punish him for his crassness. He was already overcharging the grotesque little man with a huge mark-up, but on the spot he fabricated a story about how the delay was due to a backlog at the port.

  “It could take weeks to clear,” he said, faking a sorrowful look. “Unless we could consider arranging a priority transfer.” He let his smile become a frown. “There would be an additional release fee, of course.”

  “Pay it,” snapped the Arab, and he stalked out of the office without looking back.

  I should send him fakes, Van de Greif thought, finally allowing his loathing to shine through once he was alone. Let him whine about that, not that he would have the aptitude to know the difference.

  There was a tap on the glass, and Van de Greif’s assistant Agatha hovered at the doorway. The elegant young blonde woman always kept out of sight around the Arab, affronted by his naked leering.

  “Sir,” she began, her open face lined with worry. “Your other guests…”

  Van de Greif gave an offhand nod. “They’ll be here in a couple of hours.”

  “No, sir,” she corrected. “They’re here now.”

  “What?” Van de Greif’s blood ran cold. “Where?”

  “In the storehouse.”

  He shot up out of his chair and waved a hand at her.

  “Close up. Do it now.”

  He stepped around his desk and dithered, pulling nervously at the cuffs of his gray Canali jacket. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t prepared.

  “No calls, no interruptions,” he continued, walking briskly across the gallery, toward the doorway in the far wall that led to the adjoining building.

  “What should I do—” began Agatha, but he cut her off with a terse reply.

  “Nothing! Just stay out of the way!”

  Van de Greif paused to check his reflection in a glass cabinet. He reattached his professional half-smile once again, adjusted the shirt collar around his long neck and wiped a sudden sheen of sweat from his brow. Smoothing back his crown of graying hair, he attempted to project an air of cool astuteness. Inwardly he was grasping the edges of fear.

  They came early to test me, he told himself. That’s exactly the sort of thing he likes to do. You stupid old fool! You should have anticipated this!

  Van de Greif took a deep breath, and stepped through the door in the wall. The connecting arch joined two skinny shopfronts along the downward slope of Lebeaustraat, a pair of five-story terraced buildings dating back to the eighteenth century that had been in the Van de Greif family for generations. One was the office, showroom and gallery space for VdG Acquisitions, and the other served as a storage facility for everything that wasn’t on display, or was deemed too “sensitive” to be left in the company warehouse. The latter term was a convenient synonym for “unlawfully acquired.”

  The storehouse space was open from the basement all the way up to the third floor, fitted out with metal frames on which were stacked wooden crates, and pallets supporting ancient relics mummified in bubble wrap. The lowest level opened to a delivery bay, and that in turn to a narrow alley that emptied on to the nearby Boulevard de l’Empereur.

  It was perfect for discreet arrivals and departures. It had served the Van de Greifs not only with regard to their business’s myriad violations of customs law, but also in their support of certain political movements. These movements held views that were considered déclassé, if not completely abhorrent, by Belgium’s bleeding heart liberals and their ilk.

  Noah Verbeke looked up as Van de Greif entered and wound his way down a metal spiral staircase to the basement.

  “Here he is, Elija!”

  The big man was leaning on a marble statue from the Ming Dynasty, a snarling, ferocious-looking beast coiled like it was ready to leap off its plinth and attack. Van de Greif could not avoid the comparison with Verbeke himself. The swaggering, predatory brute exuded threat even when he was at rest.

  The French woman Axelle stood nearby, keeping to the shadows and constantly scanning the alleyway. Cold-eyed and pale, Van de Greif had nicknamed her de vampier, although he would never have dared to utter the words in earshot of her. The third member of Verbeke’s party was the morose thug called Duz, who hunched forward against the bonnet of the Nissan cargo van they had arrived in.

  “It’s good to see you, Noah,” said Van de Greif, smiling his smile. “You’re early.”

  “Are we?” Verbeke gave a shrug. “Afraid I would see you making nice with the raghead?” He chuckled. “I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to be in the same room with one of them. How do you tolerate the smell?”

  He was holding something in his hand, slapping it carelessly from palm to palm, and Van de Greif stiffened as he realized that it was a valuable jade carving, a miniature version of the Ming statue taken from an open box on the floor.

  “Hey, you will know the answer to this,” Verbeke went on, bouncing the carving in the air. “These ugly dogs that the foreigners like so much, what are they called?”

  “They are not dogs,” Van de Greif
said, automatically switching into a lecturing tone. “That is a common misconception. These are shi shi, Imperial guardian lions. They stand outside temples and palaces—”

  Verbeke didn’t allow him to finish.

  “Lions?” He said the word as if he was gravely insulted, and grimaced at the jade form in his hand. “That is bullshit.”

  Without warning, Verbeke threw the ancient carving away, and Van de Greif had to scramble to catch it before it hit the concrete floor and shattered. The bigger man pulled open his shirt to bare the roaring, fanged maw tattooed on his chest.

  “This is a lion.” He prodded himself in the breastbone. “We are fucking lions. Do not forget that.” He came closer and patted Van de Greif on the cheek, the angry outburst fading. “We had to move up the timetable a little. So I hope you have done your part for the cause.”

  Verbeke prodded him to underline each word.

  “Of course.” Van de Greif nodded, disengaging from the bigger man’s grip.

  Over the years, his association with the Lion’s Roar had been lucrative. The network of shipping connections under the aegis of VdG Acquisitions ranged around the world, and his willingness to ignore legal barriers allowed him to move weapons and smuggle people wherever the group wanted them to go.

  Van de Greif had been raised to believe in the fundamental supremacy of the white race, and of Europeans in particular, so a career built on plundering and reselling the antiquities of the Far East was almost a sacred calling. Partnering with the Lion’s Roar allowed the man to feel as if he was doing something to beat back the tide of foreign mongrels without the actual need to get his hands dirty.

  The most recent shipments from Manila and Singapore had moved into place without a hitch, he told Verbeke.

  “The Philippine consignment was sent to your people at the warehouse by the canal, as you specified. The other one is here.”

  He put the jade carving somewhere safe and pulled up a dust cloth. A black lacquered cabinet in the Qing Dynasty style was revealed beneath it. The boxy shape was inlaid with gilt, faded marquetry and metal fittings.

  “It was dismantled and reassembled around your equipment,” he explained. “It passed through customs checks without detection.”