Shadow

by James Swallow

  Marc gave a slow nod. “But what does that gain them?” He met her gaze. “If they’re not taking responsibility for it, how does Verbeke get anything from this?”

  “Perhaps … it’s just for hate’s sake,” Assim said grimly. “Done out of spite.”

  “Verbeke’s a thug and a hooligan,” said Marc, “but I think by now we know he’s not stupid. He’s cunning. He thinks ahead, yeah?” The Brit turned away from the screen. “He’s playing a bigger game. This is one outbreak. There are two bioprinters.”

  “Which brings me to my next point,” noted Assim. “The other text on the paper you recovered was unclear, but I was able to assemble a probable translation.”

  “Another location?” said Lucy. She had the grim sense of events moving around her, picking up speed, as if she were a tiny cog in a much larger machine.

  “Yes. The address is Lebeaustraat in Brussels, Belgium.”

  “Verbeke’s home town,” she said immediately. “Motherfucker’s gone back to his old turf. Makes sense, he’s returning to the place he knows best.”

  “And hates the most,” said Marc. “He’s made no secret of his dislike of the Belgian government and the EU for their intake of foreign refugees. That has to be it. The Lion’s Roar are going to launch the next attack there. Tomorrow.” He went to the speakerphone. “We need to warn the VSSE, the Belgian state security service.”

  Assim paused before replying. “That option is being considered.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” said Lucy.

  “Delancort went to the board,” he continued, his tone dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. “They decided that the first priority is for the Rubicon Group to insulate itself from any potential blowback in this matter. The bioprinters are MaxaBio property, and MaxaBio is a Rubicon subsidiary—”

  “In other words, they gotta cover their asses first,” interrupted Lucy. “Meanwhile, people are dying!”

  “Where’s Solomon?” demanded Marc. “I can’t believe he’d let this happen.”

  “Mr. Solomon is in the process of directing assets from Rubicon’s Disaster Recovery Solutions to Libya. The board has temporarily limited his involvement in all other matters and dialed back SCD operations. Technically, I’m not even supposed to be talking to you.”

  That explained the silence from the African. Lucy had grown more concerned with every day that their employer was out of contact with them, and now she understood why. An unpleasant thought caught up with her.

  “They’re going to lock up on this,” she said, almost to herself. “Roll out the lawyers, cut ties to MaxaBio before anything comes out to connect this whole mess back to Rubicon.”

  “And what happens in the meantime? We sit back and hope that the Lion’s Roar don’t release another Shadow infection in a major European city?” Marc’s fury was building. “Verbeke is going to do it. You saw him—did he strike you as the type to choke out halfway?” He took a breath, centering himself. “He’s going to be there, if he’s not already. Verbeke’s a vicious sod, he’ll want to see his handiwork from the front row.” Marc put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “We have another chance to stop him. The last one we’re going to get.”

  She inclined her head toward the door.

  “Did you forget about Thor and Loki and their playmates? ’Cause if you wanna pitch another pull-it-out-of-your-ass plan to get us away from Iceland, I have to tell you … right now, you’re oh-for-four.”

  “Is that a baseball thing?” Marc gave her a questioning look, and off her nod he shrugged. “You’re right. My average has been in the shitter all week. I reckon I could spin up something, given time, but you know what? I’m not going tempt fate. I need to bank the luck I still have, if we’re going to stop everything from going to hell.”

  “So what’s the play?” she said. “I’m open to ideas.”

  He didn’t answer straight away.

  “Assim, what’s the quickest way to get us from Reykjavík to Brussels?”

  Lucy heard the clatter of a keyboard down the phone line.

  “Okay. There is an Icelandair Cargo flight leaving for Frankfurt in two hours. I could arrange something, set up a connection from there to Belgium.”

  “Do it,” said Marc. “We’ll sort out comms and the rest on the way, call you back then.” He hung up and gave Lucy a look as he marched to the door of the suite. “I am going to talk us out of this, that’s my play.” Marc banged loudly on the door and yelled. “Oi! Get Larsson in here! I need to speak to him!”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long.

  By the time Lucy had dressed, the key-card lock on the suite’s door clicked open and Larsson stood in the hallway, flanked by the two Viking Squad officers.

  “You pulled me out of an important meeting with my superiors,” he told Marc. “This better be worth it.”

  Larsson entered the room, and Thor and Loki moved to come with him, but Lucy intercepted them.

  “Just him,” she said firmly.

  It was a testament to her presence that the two men hesitated and looked to the senior officer for confirmation.

  Larsson dismissed them with a weary shake of the head and they retreated, locking the door behind them. The Icelander walked to the suite’s minibar and cracked it open. He picked through the tiny bottles inside, eventually choosing a miniature of the local Reyka vodka.

  Marc didn’t want to appear standoffish, so he grabbed a bottle of Brennivín for himself. Lucy declined a drink of her own.

  “Someone has to stay clear-headed,” she told him.

  They sat across from each other in the suite’s open lounge, sinking into square-cushioned armchairs. Larsson busied himself with the vodka.

  “So speak,” he said firmly. “What did your ‘lawyer’ have to say?” He made air-quotes with his fingers.

  Marc committed himself to what he would do next, pulling up a mask of confidence that was mostly bravado. He swirled his Brennivín in its glass and looked across the rim at Larsson.

  “By the time I finish drinking this, you are going to open that door and let me and Lucy walk. You’ll even get the God of Thunder out there to give us a lift to the airport.”

  The corner of Larsson’s lip pulled up slightly in amusement, and he nodded at the glass in Marc’s hand.

  “Have you had a few of those already? You should be careful. There’s a reason why we call it the ‘Black Death’ here. Too much of it warps the brain.”

  Marc took a sip. The clear schnapps had a faint aniseed flavor and a strong, sustained burn as it went down.

  “You’ve seen what’s going on in Libya.”

  Larsson nodded gravely, staring into his vodka. “That’s connected to this, is it?”

  “It’s just the beginning,” said Marc. “It won’t happen here. But it will happen again. We can stop it.”

  “Only you can stop it,” said Larsson. “How lucky that it is in my power to assist you.” He shot Marc a hard look. “Do you think that because I live on a frozen island in the middle of the sea, I am an idiot?”

  “No,” said Marc. “I think you’re a pissed off SR inspector whose career has stalled because his superiors don’t like the fact he’s smarter than they are. I remember the work you did when I was with NSNS. I remember how you didn’t get the credit you deserved for that investigation.” The tensing in Larsson’s face showed Marc had hit his point dead on. “Back in the Harpa, you talked about the men above you. People in the government … How did you put it?”

  “Paying undue attention,” offered Lucy.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Marc went on. “People invested in seeing the Frigga facility get a free pass. But now there’s going to be an investigation.”

  “Starting with you,” said Larsson.

  “Maybe not,” countered Marc. “See, if I was you, I would be wondering what those people who paid undue attention are doing right now.”

  “Calling their lawyers,” Lucy suggested.

  Ma
rc gave a nod. “How close were they to the Lion’s Roar? What did they have invested in an illegal Bitcoin mining operation? Did they know that the Frigga facility was being used for bioweapons research? And then there’s the matter of the kidnapping and murder of an innocent woman.”

  He took another sip.

  Larsson’s cold blue eyes studied Marc, measuring him for artifice.

  “Those questions will be answered. By the book. That is how we work here.”

  “Is it, though?” Marc gave a shrug. “Think how much faster this would move if you had the metadata for those Bitcoin transactions. Or the drives from those gutted servers. You’d have direct leads to the bank accounts of everyone who took some króna to look the other way. Email records, cash transfers, the lot.”

  Larsson tensed, and that was when Marc knew he had the man’s full attention.

  “Is this where you ask for a trade?” said the Icelander. “You give me the data and in exchange I release you on your own recognizance. Is that how you saw this going?”

  “The thing I’ve always liked about you, Andri, is that you’re quick to spot an opening. That’s how we caught those ratbags smuggling the caesium, remember? Do you see this one?”

  “I see someone attempting to play me. Poorly.”

  Marc leaned in. “Give me my smartphone, I know you’ve got it on you. Rubicon will get you the metadata. But the rest, that’s with Verbeke. And we need to get to him, before more people die. So you have two choices. You cut us loose, we end this and we help you clean house at the SR—or you do nothing, and tomorrow Verbeke has his victory, and becomes the poster boy for every ultra-right-wing wanker on the planet.” He downed the rest of the Brennivín in a single pull. “Make up your mind, mate. If we’re staying, tell room service to send up some more of this, because I’m getting a taste for it.”

  Larsson took his time finishing his vodka, and when the glass was empty he reached into a pocket and produced Marc’s spyPhone. He slid the glassy rectangle across the coffee table between them.

  “Make me a believer,” he said.

  It took Marc less than a minute to send an encrypted message to Larsson’s phone, giving him one-time access to a folder on a secret Rubicon data server. Inside the folder was Assim’s work so far on tracking the cryptocurrency cash transfers to and from Iceland. Delancort would not be happy about sharing it, but Marc was past caring. Larsson’s eyes widened as he skimmed the information.

  “Good enough?” said Marc.

  Larsson pocketed his phone and stood up.

  “I am going to have to go back to the office. My dogs are going to wonder what has happened to me.” He glanced at Marc, and patted his coat. “I could take this and leave. I didn’t make any deal with you. I don’t owe you anything.”

  For a moment, Marc didn’t know what to say. A rip-off was the last thing he would have expected from the resolute Icelander, and it blindsided him.

  “Yeah, you could,” he admitted. “And that would prove that I was wrong about what kind of bloke you are.”

  “You were not wrong,” Larsson said at length, and he walked back to the door.

  * * *

  Within the hour, an unmarked black SUV was speeding across the apron at Keflavík International, threading between the buildings toward the airport’s cargo terminal. The driver aimed the vehicle at an Icelandair 757–200 package freighter aircraft undergoing final loading preparations, and drew to a halt under the Boeing’s wing.

  Larsson turned back from the front passenger seat to give Marc and Lucy a searching stare.

  “I want to make something clear,” he began. “This is not about me trusting you. This is about the information you will provide. Do not fuck me on this.”

  Marc blinked. It was the first time he had heard the Icelander curse.

  “Never crossed my mind.”

  “The SR has a long reach. One call and every asset you have will be frozen. Rubicon will not be able to protect you.”

  “I like my assets warm,” Lucy shot back. “Don’t worry, we’ll make good on our end.”

  They climbed out of the SUV and into the cold of the night. Larsson handed them back their gear and followed them toward the cargo plane.

  “Your colleague has already cleared you on board,” he noted, pausing to study Marc. “I have to admit, you’ve changed from the man I first met two years ago. That Marc Dane took far fewer risks than you do.”

  “Yeah,” he admitted, throwing Lucy a sideways glance. “People keep telling me that.”

  “Don’t get yourself killed before I have the information I need.” Larsson shrugged. “Afterward, you can do as you like.”

  Marc extended his hand.

  “Thanks, Andri.”

  Larsson looked at the outstretched hand but didn’t accept it.

  “Don’t make the mistake of thinking we are friends, Marc. We are two men whose interests have temporarily aligned.” He turned away and walked back to the idling SUV. “Work fast,” he added, over his shoulder.

  “So what’s the count now?” said Lucy, as they climbed the crew stairs to the jet’s open hatch. “I forget how many countries we’ve pissed people off in.”

  “Too many,” he replied.

  “You know there’s no guarantee those hard drives are going to be with Verbeke in Brussels, right? You may have promised Larsson something we can’t give him.”

  Marc nodded gravely. “We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

  * * *

  The name of the skyscraper was Empire, but in typical fashion for those among Moscow’s ultra-rich, it was uttered without a hint of irony. Originally known as the Imperia Tower, the sixty-story building rose high over the city’s business sector, the aqua-green shades of its curved glass frontage catching the lights of the street far below and the glow from the strongholds of other oligarchs that flanked it. Empire wasn’t Moscow’s tallest skyscraper, but what it lacked in height it made up for with thick layers of opulence. Nowhere was that more true than in Pytor Glovkonin’s rooftop penthouse.

  Saito found the place soulless, for all its forced grandeur. There was no art to the décor, no truth in it. The objects within had been gathered to exhibit one man’s wealth, but not his character. Saito recalled feudal castles and ancient temples from his native Japan, places that were rich not just in design but in spirit, heavy with meaning. Glovkonin’s apartments were a monument to his bank balance and nothing more. The place was full, but it would always be empty.

  Saito left the man he was escorting, designated on their helicopter flight plan as simply as the guest, in a luxuriously appointed anteroom beneath the Empire’s helipad, while he walked into the main atrium of the apartments.

  Misha and Gregor, the Russian’s personal guards, surrounded Saito and checked him with a screening wand. He handed over his rod-like misericorde dagger and a USP Compact pistol without comment, placing them on a silver tray. Both men looked right through him with a cultivated air of disdain, and when the examination was over, they waved him on.

  Outside, a heavy Siberian wind was muttering over the windows of the tower as the night drew in, but inside the penthouse was filled with the chatter of voices from a gargantuan television screen that dominated one wall.

  Glovkonin sat before it with a glass in his hand, idly swirling the fluid within as he watched a financial report on a Russian-language news channel. G-Kor, the energy company that had made Glovkonin the man he was, had recently completed a lengthy series of takeover proceedings that netted them control of several media outlets. The opportune diversification of the company had come after the untimely death of the previous owner, Celeste Toussaint. The passing of the media heiress had allowed Glovkonin to add a new arm to his corporate machine, stepping into the breach when other bidders had mysteriously backed off.

  All of this was engineered by the Combine, of course. Toussaint’s death was murder, and the fog around the facts of her killing remained deep and obscuring. But the members of
the Combine were not given to maudlin introspection. As Saito had learned in his service to their needs, individual members were transitory. With the woman’s loss there were assets that needed to be made secure. Glovkonin, eager and driven, had presented himself as the ideal proxy through which the power brokers could maintain their continuity of control.

  Saito, as the soldier, as the enforcer, could only ever glimpse these actions from the edges. That was his lot—to be in the service of a larger collective. The Combine existed to enrich itself, but in that enrichment there was stability.

  So he believed. It was not something that Saito ever allowed himself to question.

  At least, not until he had been tasked to serve the Russian. Now, questions were accreting in the back of his mind, and Saito was finding it harder to ignore them.

  Who had really been responsible for Toussaint’s killing? The evidence pointed toward an agent of the Rubicon Group, but Saito had met the man in question. He had a good sense for understanding killers, and the Englishman did not seem like a cold-blooded assassin. And if that was so, it set up many more possibilities that he could not ignore.

  Glovkonin glanced up at him with a wry expression. The Russian made a point of looking him over, scrutinizing the slight limp that Saito could not excise from his walk. His judgment was silent, but obvious.

  “What have you brought me?” said Glovkonin, muting the voices from the screen with a tablet device.

  “Your guest is waiting,” Saito reported.

  “There were no issues bringing him back?”

  Saito shook his head. “No one knows he is here.”

  Including the committee of the Combine, he thought, but kept that to himself.

  “Khadir is quite efficient.” Glovkonin nodded to himself, pleased with the prospect of a job well done. “The Chinese will believe our new friend is dead. Leaving us free to offer him a new purpose. How does he seem to you?”