by Karen Guyler
“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Luke gasped, playing along.
“That something in my training manual I should have read?”
“Chinese general. Sun Tzu.”
“I’ll look him up.” He slid off her, onto the step near enough behind the too thin wooden pillar. He was paler than the snow. “You’ll be okay here, I think I scared it pretty good.” Neither of them mentioned the other one, though Eva certainly worried about it.
“I’ll be as fast as I can.” She was sure it wasn’t much reassurance.
The curtains she’d pulled across the side window in the dining room were still closed. She nudged them, checking that Agnetha hadn’t piled an obstacle course behind them. They moved as she expected them to.
Gathering the fabric in her gloved hand, she pulled it back. No one in the room.
She hoisted herself up onto the windowsill, stepped into the welcome warmth and listened.
Silence.
If she were a real Interpol officer, she had enough on Agnetha to arrest her. Eva heard something from deeper in the house.
Not easy to tiptoe across wooden and slate floors in ski boots quietly. Eva peered around the lounge door. The flames were playing only to Ralph, lying where he’d dropped. Eva leant over him, just stopped herself pressing her fingertips to his neck and leaving her fingerprints unnecessarily. His sightless gaze told her Agnetha had been right, he was gone. The top of the drinks cupboard was empty and the door locked, no sign of their weapons or the remote.
She followed the noises. Agnetha was in the bathroom bending in towards a Hollywood style mirror, lit around the edges by brighter than the sun lightbulbs, a tumbler holding a couple of ice cubes with a mouthful of brown liquid in the bottom beside her.
It was a palatial bathroom, taking Eva enough running strides across the tiled floor to reach her that Agnetha could snatch up the gun hidden under her towel and scream at her to stop.
“What is it with you? What part of get out don’t you understand?”
“Holding an officer of the law at gunpoint, again, I’m adding that to your list of offences, and, believe me, they’re racking up right now. Setting the lynx on us, that was stupid. That implies intent.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re the one in trouble: you shot an unarmed civilian. And what am I to do if my idiot husband can’t keep his pets under control?”
“This,” Eva gestured between them, “is also intent, we’ll charge you twice for that, once under Norwegian law and once under international criminal law. You want me to go on?” Her bluff sounded believable enough.
Agnetha laughed. “I thought you worked for an international company?”
“Interpol is international. My partner’s injured, if you help me get him to hospital, I’ll ask the courts to be lenient.”
Agnetha laughed harder. “You have a bigger pair of balls than Carl. You think skirting the law bothers me? Our whole life together has been one long,” she drew a spiral downwards with the gun barrel.
Eva charged.
She collided with Agnetha, marching her backwards until she had her pressed up against the huge bath, her hands pressing Agnetha’s gun arm back, away from her. Eva pushed harder. With nowhere for their momentum to go, Agnetha’s legs buckled, and they crashed into the bath.
Eva scrabbled to hold on to Agnetha’s right arm, forcing it upwards, keeping the Glock pointed away from her. Agnetha screamed and writhed like a wild thing. She wrenched her left hand up and grabbed her right, pulling it against Eva’s one-handed grip. Moving the barrel closer to her face.
This was nothing like it had been in training.
Eva snatched up the shower head and swung it at Agnetha’s head, as hard as she could. The blow reverberated into her hand, made Agnetha gasp. Her grip loosened on the gun. Eva pulled it upwards, twisted it.
She shuffled upwards on her knees pressing down hard, one knee pinned Agnetha’s arm, the one in her stomach making Agnetha scream.
“Enough.” Eva panted. “Let go or I’ll break your fingers. And they won’t heal well enough for you to want to show off your expensive jewellery anymore.”
Agnetha screeched as Eva knelt down harder. She let go of the gun.
Eva twisted it away from her and held it in front of her face. “Now you’re going to do exactly as I say, is that clear?” Agnetha stared. “Clear?” Eva bellowed.
Agnetha nodded.
“You’re going to drive my partner to hospital. Got it?” Eva climbed carefully out of the bath, training the weapon on Agnetha all while she directed her to do the same.
“From shooting Ralph, you’ll know this has a hair trigger.” She pressed it up against the back of Agnetha’s head. “Any movement I’m not happy with, anything that surprises me and it’ll go off, got it?”
“Yes.”
“I need our IDs and the other Glock. Slowly, don’t make me shoot you.” While she covered Agnetha and got her outside, Eva’s heart rapped as if it was sending morse code to London.
“You okay?” she called to Luke.
He was still upright and thankfully not mauled. “Bit chilly.”
“Agnetha’s going to drive us to the hospital.”
“Mighty kind of her.”
Eva prodded Agnetha with the Glock to make her walk to the garage. Agnetha put her hand on the access panel and the nearest door whirred up. Inside the four garages were one huge space. Between the out-of-place convertible parked at the far end and Eva and Agnetha were two SUVs, one much bigger and beastlier than the other.
“That’s mine.” Agnetha gestured at the smaller of the two.
“Keys?” Eva asked.
She gestured to the end wall where a white slimline cabinet was also locked by an access panel.
“Open it.”
Agnetha’s palmprint clicked it open. “Those.” She pointed at the sets on the right.
Eva pressed the unlock button at Agnetha’s car and it bleeped open.
“Can I wait in there while you get your partner, it’s cold out here.” Agnetha shivered.
One less thing for Eva to watch while she helped Luke. She pocketed all the keys from the key safe. “Sure.”
When the door clunked closed and she could be sure Agnetha wasn’t about to rush her, Eva jogged over to Luke.
“You want to hold on to me?” She had him halfway to standing when Agnetha drove out of the garage, tyres crunching on the crispy snow as she roared away down the driveway.
23
“Should’ve taken the keys off her.” Luke gasped.
“I did, they’re all in my pocket.” Eva shot back. “How did she do that?”
“Don’t sweat it, we’ll take the other one.”
The shiny black beast loomed over everything in the garage like a dare. “We can’t. I can’t drive.”
“Piece of cake,” he said through gritted teeth, shallow breathing. “It’ll have snow tyres, it won’t be as risky as driving in London in winter.”
“No, you’re not listening. I can’t drive that because I can’t drive.”
“How can you not drive?” His voice rose and there she was, failing all over again.
“I live in London, why would I need to? That’s what public transport’s for.” It sounded too defensive.
He hissed out pain. “We should’ve made that part of the training clearly. It’ll be automatic, it’ll practically drive itself and it’s not like it’s rush hour out there.”
Eva pointed the biggest key fob at the huge SUV, half-expecting it to snarl as she hit unlock.
She got Luke into the front seat, but he said no when she pulled the seatbelt out for him.
“I’d feel a lot happier if you’d wear it.”
“No chance.”
Eva got into the driver’s seat. It felt very high up, and the bonnet was huge. It was like an American rapper’s car. She had to pull the seat all the way in to reach the pedals as though she was a kid pretending to drive it. Big breath, she
could do this. First thing, get the heater going.
She ran a finger over the fob, no key, at the side of the steering column, nowhere to put one. The few buttons, the blank screens surrounding her, none of them helped.
“Keyless, the round button.” Luke breathed.
She pressed it, but nothing happened. The car was very helpful. Its LCD screen told her to press the brake pedal when starting the ignition. She looked down at her feet.
“Big one in the middle.” Luke confirmed, “right foot for both pedals.”
The engine roared to life, the complete opposite to the Tesla, its throaty growl reverberating in the enclosed space. Behind her the wall of the garage glowed red.
“D is for drive, press the button on the selector and move it to D.” Luke said.
Eva hated this, hated that he’d got injured, that she couldn’t help him enough, that he had to stay conscious of what she was doing. First thing back in London, she was booking driving lessons.
She turned the heater to high then fiddled with the satnav and, after two false starts, input the hospital in Bergen. The computerised voice ordered her to do something in Norwegian. She could follow the graphic.
“Take the handbrake off, button on the console.” Luke said. “Keep your foot on the pedal, ease it off gently. It’s power steering so don’t overcorrect, just a gentle turn with the steering wheel.”
Eva pressed harder on the brake, released the handbrake button. As she eased up the pressure on her foot, the huge vehicle pulled forward.
Out of the garage, a much slower turn than Agnetha’s, Eva crawled down the drive.
“Don’t slam the brakes on, too much ice. You need to stop gently.”
They did. Several metres from the edge of the road.
“Maybe get closer to the road first.” Luke suggested.
Eva got the car to the road, just two metres away this time. Luke could have walked it quicker, even in his state.
She checked right, left, right, left, though it was completely dark in both directions, then eased the SUV onto the main road.
“Any sign of our hire car?” Luke asked.
“I didn’t see it.” She hadn’t been looking but Rubin didn’t seem like a man to not follow through on what he threatened.
After a few minutes Eva’s hands cramped, making her release her death grip on the drive wheel, just a bit.
Luke stopped watching where they were going, leaning his head against the backrest of his seat, closing his eyes, hissing out the pain. At least the road wasn’t potholed and Eva was going so slowly he barely moved as she coaxed the enormous car round the bends.
She was almost beginning to enjoy it when she caught sight of a brief flash of Bergen’s lights twinkling in the far distance against the darkness. The windscreen wipers shushed suddenly across the screen, wiping away snowflakes.
Oh, please, not now.
The wipers sped up in a faster back, forth, back, forth as the flakes drifted down like feathers escaping from a burst pillow. She dropped her speed.
The end of the headlights’ reach was getting shorter, lost now in the whirling eddies of snow closing them in. The car dipped the headlights. It was amazing, there really was nothing to it, these new cars did everything for you.
Until she drove round a bend and saw a stationary car in front of her, angled half on, half off the road.
She pulled her foot up, away from both pedals, jerking the big SUV onto the other side of the road.
“What you doing?” Luke groaned.
“It’s okay.” Eva pulled the car back onto the right side. Corrected her over-correction and braked to a gentle stop. She selected R and the car’s parking camera showed her a whirling mist of falling flakes behind her. She reversed slowly up to the stricken car.
“No sense wishing you’d just be a good Samaritan to me?” he asked.
“I’m not being a good Samaritan.” Eva checked her gun and clambered down from the heated car. She opened the boot and checked inside. The two snow shovels she laid on the back seat. Blanket, she left that in place, rummaging through what Carl Rubin thought was necessary for survival in case of breakdown. She glanced behind her at the stricken car. No movement. She pocketed most of the contents from the smallest dry bag—the energy bars, the self-heating hand warmers and bullets. The handwipes and bag she placed on top of the blanket, the rest of the filled dry bags went on the shovels.
“Won’t be long.” She reassured Luke, conscious that his heat was escaping.
Clicking the video on her phone, drawing her Glock, Eva took a deep breath. The frigid air rushing into her body was like an adrenaline shot. She approached the car, walking carefully, deliberately. The crisping snow squeaked beneath her tread, but she didn’t trust the ground. Tensed against the unexpected beneath the benign-looking covering, she dug every step into the slope beside the road as though she were mountaineering.
In a regular climate Agnetha might have tried going on foot, but in this remote part of Norway in February, staying in her car was the sensible call.
Eva pointed her Glock and her filming phone at her, gesturing at the door. Agnetha shook her head. Eva gestured more firmly.
Agnetha placed her fingertip on the dash and the car started, but the angle she’d ended up at gave her back wheels no traction. She was going nowhere except further off the road. And down into the yawning blackness below them wasn’t a ride Eva would want to take. Agnetha neither apparently as she hit the steering wheel with both palms, then switched off the engine.
“Out.” Eva shouted.
Agnetha shook her head.
Eva fired into the air. The falling snow swallowed the sound, but not enough. A car door opened behind her.
“It’s all under control,” she called to Luke. “Get back in the warm.” She knocked the gun on Agnetha’s window. “Out.”
Agnetha held her hands up and got out onto the snow.
“Need a lift?” Eva asked, as though she wasn’t holding her at gunpoint.
“No.”
“So you’re going to wait for someone else to come along? D’you think that’ll happen before you freeze to death? We’re going into Bergen if you want to join us.”
Agnetha marched towards the SUV.
“In the boot.” Eva said.
“I’m not getting in there.”
“Enjoy your walk then.”
“It’s too high, I can’t—”
“I’m sure you can manage. There’s even a blanket in there to keep you warm. Use one of the wipes on the backs of your hands. There’s always a choice,” Eva pre-empted her, “price of the lift is you do as I say.”
Agnetha reached into the boot.
“Just the wipes,” Eva said. “You touch anything else, lift is cancelled. If you try anything, I will shoot you.”
Agnetha pulled out a wipe and passed it over the backs of both hands. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic. Put it in the dry bag, do it up and drop it on the snow.”
Agnetha did exactly as Eva instructed.
“Get in. Remember when I open the tailgate in Bergen, this’ll be the first thing you see.” She gestured with the Glock. “It’s been a long day, I’m on a hair trigger.”
Eva pressed the close the tailgate button on her captive. When it clicked into place, she holstered her Glock and put her hand on the car, took a breath.
Not done yet.
She zoomed the video onto the dry bag on the snow, “Agnetha Rubin’s sample for gunshot residue in connection with the murder of Ralph. . .” Sorry, Ralph, she didn’t know his last name. She picked up the bag, “taking it into the chain of custody,” put it on the car's backseat and clicked end on the video.
Any lawyer would have this flimsy evidence thrown out, but she didn’t want it for that.
She tried the key fobs in her pocket until Agnetha’s car bleeped at her and the indicator lights flashed orange, there’d be gunshot residue in there too. Hopefully, no one would rear end it during the night
and send it down the slope.
“How you doing?” Eva looked at Luke as she fastened her seatbelt. Not so good. “We’re on our way to the hospital now.”
But what to do with Agnetha?
Eva hit the number for S, stored as Sam on her phone, and someone from the night shift answered.
“This is Sam.” The guy sounded as though he and Eva were close friends and she was calling him at a decent time with good news.
“Hi Sam, it’s Eva, have a slight pr—”
“It’s all normal,” Luke snapped.
Dammit, she should have used the codeword first so Sam didn’t say anything they didn’t want Agnetha to overhear.
“Erika,” Luke mouthed, closing his eyes.
She’d given her real name. She really didn’t need any help with self-sabotaging.
“What d’you need?” Sam asked.
“Just hoped you hadn’t left the clothes in the washing machine, that they’re all rinsed off okay?”
Sam understood her clunky code. “Door’s still stuck, got the engineer coming tomorrow.”
“Hold on, texting you a number.” Fingers clumsy with the cold and fading adrenaline, it took her two tries to spell her solution to the problem, so it was readable.
‘Okay to hand Agnetha Rubin over to local police on a drink driving charge? She crashed her car. Will it come back to us? Complication = she killed someone at her house with one of our weapons.’
She waited, watching the dance of the feather snowflakes whirling in the beam of the headlights. They’d looked exactly like someone had burst a pillow but now they appeared to be shrinking back to breadcrumbs. Sam’s reply dinged on her phone.
‘DUI’s a good call, Norway’s hot on that, they’ll lock her up for three weeks, serves our timetable. Weapons are untraceable, just don’t get caught with it on you.’
“You got it?” Eva ended the charade.
“Cheers, I’ll get onto them tomorrow.” Sam disconnected.
Now Eva just had to figure out how to get Agnetha arrested without her pointing the finger at her for Ralph’s murder.
