Iceland: An International Thriller (The Flense Book 2)

by Saul Tanpepper

  Though he enjoyed the trappings of the rich, he never felt comfortable with the role. Sometimes he wished to tell the people he employed exactly what he did for a living, explaining how he had come into his money, which was simply through hard work, wise investments, and more than a little luck. But he was forbidden from divulging such details except to people his superiors vetted. The group obligated their members to maintain the strictest confidence about their past and present activities.

  "There's different flavor coffee pods. Even decaf."

  "No thanks," Cheong said, declining the offer. He did, however, step away from the window. "I'm fine for now."

  The man shrugged and pointed a shiny metal rod toward a table along the back wall. "Machine's there if you change your mind. Make yourself a cuppa. Better than that instant crap."

  Cheong did wish for a cup of coffee, but he didn't trust the water here. Cases of individual sized bottles sat against the wall, along with the larger five-gallon jugs. The water cooler was covered in dark grease stains. Just looking at it turned his stomach.

  His private car was just outside the door, and in it was a few bottles of his private reserve of Lauquen Artes. But there was no way he was going to run it through the machine here. Who knew who used it or what they might have put into it. Besides, the disposable single-serve packets were a huge waste, another example of the ecological recklessness that had become so prevalent lately.

  No, he'd wait till the weather cleared and he could get something on the plane.

  "What are you going to France for anyway? Business meeting?"

  "Something like that."

  Despite the chill in the maintenance bay, Cheong was sweating inside his jacket. He wanted to remove it, but then he'd look odd keeping his gloves on, and there was no possible way he was going to take them off in a place as filthy as this.

  "I hate flying into de Gaulle," the pilot carried on. "Orly's better. Actually, le Bourget is the best for private jets. They treat you well there."

  "We're not going to Paris."

  "Right, mate. I know. I'm just saying. I haven't actually ever flown to the Saint-Exupéry. Never had the opportunity. Paris gets all the business. In France, anyway."

  He added the last item to the case and closed it up, then leaned back in his chair. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the loose panels in the eaves. Cheong snuck a glance out the window. It was half covered in white now and the sky had turned a darker shade of gray.

  "Hope you weren't supposed to meet someone. I mean, if it's that important, we could request special clearance."

  "No!" Cheong spun around. He forced himself to settle down. "It's okay. I think the storm's starting to lighten up. We'll give it another hour."

  Greig gave the window a doubtful look and shrugged.

  "If not, we'll try again in the morning," Cheong said.

  "We can fly later tonight, too. It's only a few hours."

  Cheong shook his head. It was already probably too late to make any difference. Even if they managed to leave within the hour, by the time they arrived in France and drove out to the estate, it'd be too late. He didn't want to be digging at night. The lights would surely catch someone's attention in the town down the hill.

  After that, he'd have to find a hotel room. He'd rather sleep in his own bed here and then hope the weather cleared so that he could try again early the next morning.

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and texted Emily instructions.

  Ten minutes later the door to the bay opened and his young assistant stamped in, trailing a flurry of sloppy snow. Despite taking a covered cart from the jet, where she'd been preparing the cabin, her hair was soaked. Water dripped from her nose and ran down her jacket. She stomped her feet to loosen the slush.

  "Everything's locked up?" he asked her.

  She nodded and glanced over at the pilot. "What should I tell the team meeting us?"

  "They can get rooms for the night. We'll meet with them in the morning."

  "But they just called about twenty minutes ago. They're already on their way to the house."

  Once more she glanced at Greig. He was leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. He appeared to have fallen asleep.

  "Tell them to get rooms in town," Cheong repeated. "If the weather clears, we'll try again . . . ." He checked his watch. "In about ten hours. That'll put us at the house around first light. What's the weather there supposed to be like tomorrow?"

  "Clear but cold."

  "Good." He turned to the pilot. "David?"

  The man popped open an eyelid. "We calling it, boss?"

  Cheong nodded. "Let's try for two in the morning if the weather clears."

  "I guess I better get some sleep then. And call the wife." He pulled out his phone. "Let's see . . . . A two o'clock departure'll put us on the ground in France around four-thirty in the morning."

  "Emily here will send you a wakeup call at one."

  "Make it one-thirty," he said, and kicked off his boots, then lifted his feet onto a second chair. "Won't need but twenty minutes to get the bird ready to fly."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Angel arrived at the enclave shortly before five o'clock and, after a brief interrogation by the armed men standing outside the tall stone and wrought iron gate, they were allowed to enter.

  The guards had expressed alarm at Padraig's physical condition, thinking his injuries had been sustained under more hostile circumstances. Given the state of affairs and his appearance, it was a reasonable assumption. He was laid out in the back seat in considerable distress, and when Angel gave a terse explanation that it wasn't what it appeared to be, the men became suspicious of her and demanded to know more.

  Speaking through gritted teeth, Padraig told them how he'd thrown out his back. The men laughed and teased him mercilessly until Angel snapped at them if they were finished. They waved them through, but they continued to hurl taunts at the receding vehicle, joking that they'd make sure to protect him from any drunk American school girls who came looking for him.

  Angel was impressed that he'd been able to speak at all. He'd done little more than moan for much of the trip since the petrol station, although it grew annoying after a while, especially since he refused to be taken to a hospital. The guards' treatment of him, however, angered her. "Your friends aren't very sympathetic."

  He grunted an incoherent reply.

  They proceeded up a long tree-lined drive toward a massive hilltop estate a kilometer or so in the distance, but reached another checkpoint about halfway there. The guards at that station directed them to take a fork leading toward a large horse barn on the other side of a sweeping vale. The building was so much the Kentucky thoroughbred farm cliché, complete with a giant copper weathervane atop the central cupola, that it looked out of place in the French countryside. From the distance, she estimated the barn was large enough to stable at least fifty horses.

  The packed gravel road dipped and curved through a swale and over a pretty stone bridge spanning a burbling stream before entering a strand of mimosa trees. When they emerged, it was onto acres upon acres of rolling vineyard, the plants dropping their dry, dead leaves as the wind plucked at them.

  Every tenth row or so was taken up by a line of rose bushes, each one managing somehow to still be in bloom. She guessed they were a special varietal and that they must be treated with a lot of chemicals to keep them so bright.

  "Who owns this place?" she asked Padraig.

  "Herr Stefan Nordqvist," he panted.

  A cold wave of revulsion washed over her. "The software developer?"

  "You know him?"

  "His and my father's interests overlapped. We met once, when I was a child."

  "Small world. I guess that might explain why he insisted you come," Padraig added through clenched teeth.

  It's certainly not to make amends, Angel thought. The man her parents had spoken of so often had not been one to apologize for anything. More likely he wants to
rub it in how successful he became.

  She shook her head unhappily. Already she could feel the headache starting to form from the tension in her jaw. It was good that Padraig couldn't see her face, as he'd expect more of an explanation out of her, and she didn't really feel like discussing ancient history, especially not this history. And not with someone who knew so little about her.

  "He's a special advisor to the Office of Science and Technology at the UN."

  "Fantastic," she grumbled.

  At the barn, she was directed by yet another set of armed guards and told to pull through the central breezeway. The smell of horses assailed her nostrils, accompanied by hay and wet shit and wood oil.

  It wasn't until they were inside the barn that Angel realized how much larger the structure was, deeper than she'd originally realized. Two breezeways ran parallel with each other the length of the barn and perpendicular to the one they were traversing. She tried to see down one of them, but coming out of the bright sunlight she was blind and couldn't make much out before they emerged again on the other side.

  She followed the gravel road, which led to a dirt racing track surrounded by a white wooden fence encircling a pristine oval of the greenest, trimmest grass she had ever seen.

  A pair of the prison buses had been parked out onto the gravel between the track and barn. The refugees had already disembarked, a group of about a hundred and twenty or so. They were gathered on the grass inside the track area, sitting or standing, bottles of water in their hands. They looked startled by the beauty of their surroundings. Many were smiling; others laughed uneasily.

  A couple children ran around, squealing in delight. They tumbled to the lawn and wrestled. Beyond them, she saw a group of young men kicking a football. Moving through them were a handful of people dressed in white lab coats.

  On the concrete apron between the barn and track, portable toilets were being unloaded from the bed of a truck. A smell of barbecuing meat filled the air, which Angel traced to a large tent situated at the other end of the field. Smoke rose from the back. Smaller tents surrounded it, temporary shades. Tables and chairs were set up underneath them, but they remained mostly unused. The air was chilly, despite the brilliance of the day, and the sun too pleasant to swap for shade.

  "We're here," she told Padraig.

  "Something smells good."

  "Hungry?" She realized she was, too, despite the sandwiches they had had a couple hours before.

  "Not really."

  "Well, I hope the refugees at the other locations are being treated just as well."

  "Well enough, I suppose," he replied. "Can't imagine anything worse than where they were."

  I can, she thought.

  She parked the car behind one of the buses and got out to stretch before grabbing her bag and opening the back door. Her muscles were stiff from sitting for so long, ghosts of the trauma she'd endured in China, ghosts which still haunted her body and mind.

  "Do you need any help?" she asked, after opening the back door.

  With considerable effort — heroic, even, if the torment on his face was any indication — Padraig managed to extricate himself from the car. When his knees gave out, he resorted to leaning against the door in a half-crouch, slapping his thigh with his free hand as if he were trying to wake it up.

  "Are you all ri—?"

  "Little Angelique de l'Enfantine!"

  She turned to find a tall, handsome man striding toward them along the side of the building, his arms outstretched and a wide grin on his face. His skin was ruddy and weathered, leathery, though taut and unblemished. The look suited him, as she remembered it always had. White hair, once light brown, peeked out from beneath a green baseball cap. He was dressed in black jeans, a leather jacket the color of straw, and boots befitting barn work, but there wasn't a speck of dirt on him or a hair out of place.

  "Not so little anymore." He clasped her by the arms and pulled her into a hug. "Never in my wildest dreams before today would I have imagined seeing you again," he said, beaming from ear to ear. "And under such odd circumstances! What times we live in, eh? My god, has anyone ever told you how much you look like your mother?"

  She felt small standing within the circle of his arms, and that was saying something. Few men managed to make such an impact on her.

  He let her go when she didn't answer, dismissing her stiffness with a loud laugh. The sound reverberated off the side of the barn like thunder and rolled across the field. "I'm sorry. You don't remember me."

  "Monsieur Nordqvist. Of course I do."

  "Stefan! Please, you must call me Stefan. How long has it been? You were knee-high to a French poodle the last time we met. It was — what? — the International Cybercrimes Convention in Geneva, I believe. Gaétan rented that party boat, and I remember you and your brother chasing each other up and down the deck until one of you knocked someone's drink out of their hands. Your mother had a fit."

  Better she than you, she thought.

  "And your brother— what was his name? I remember he was even smaller than you! Tiny little boy."

  "Jacques. And I remember you and my father trying to outdo each other at the poker table, and you throwing the cards at the dealer and threatening to toss him into the water."

  He laughed again, though less easily, then glanced quickly at his watch. "How is Jacques, anyway? I'm afraid I haven't kept up with you since, well, you know."

  "He is . . . well. Considering."

  "Considering?"

  "He had a terrible accident several years ago. He still hasn't fully recovered."

  "So tragic. And I'm sorry I missed your wedding. Saw it in the society pages," he said, amused by his own joke. "I'm sure it must have been beautiful."

  "It was a small affair, actually," she said with a lowered voice, unable to stop herself. "We're separated now."

  Once more, that horrible word floated to mind, the one she always hated to think about: estranged. It was true that David had done the leaving, but she had done the pushing. She deserved all the blame for them becoming strangers.

  "Perhaps a blessing in disguise, wouldn't you say?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean," she replied, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "If you are referring to David helping the ter—"

  Padraig coughed loudly, interrupting her.

  "Only that a man who would leave such a lovely woman as you deserves to be scorned. That is, unless you want me to stop," he added, winking.

  She didn't reply.

  "Yes, well, anyway, it's good to have you here at my beautiful ranch."

  The whole situation seemed utterly surreal to her, and she was so completely fatigued, that she could muster no defense against the relentless onslaught of affability, even if she knew it to be nothing more than pretense. The best she could manage was an uttered agreement at how lovely the place was. "And so big," she babbled, immediately hating herself. "It must have cost a fortune."

  At this point, she forced herself to shut up.

  "I'm happy to make it available for such a worthy cause."

  "And what cause is that?"

  "Helping the disadvantaged, of course."

  Ironic, she thought, that he would say such a thing. This coming from the man who has spent his entire life helping himself to the disadvantaged.

  There wasn't much physically different about him from the man she remembered meeting all those years ago. Nearly thirty years older, of course, and more lined. But still the same remarkable chiseled looks. The years had been exceedingly kind to him, making him appear more distinguished.

  In the years which followed that one meeting so long ago, she had continued to hear about him often. His image appeared regularly in the papers and journals to which her father subscribed. But what colored her impression of him most, what solidified her hatred of the man, were the bitter words her parents' often used to describe him. Now, those memories seemed entirely at odds with the gregarious, beneficent man standing before her.

  People don
't change, she reminded herself. Not like that. It's all an act.

  It was impossible for her to think that her parents had been so wrong about him.

  "I am sorry to hear about your parents, of course, Angelique," he said at a considerably more respectful volume. "Such a tragedy when I learned of their passing. It happened in Switzerland, no?"

  She nodded numbly. "St. Moritz. Almost eight years ago."

  "Time dulls but never completely erases the pain, eh?" He checked his watch again. "Come, I'm sure you must be hungry. Shall we go inside and meet with the other scientists? We'll talk over dinner."

  "Scientists?"

  "Yes, you and . . . . Who is this again?"

  "Doctor Hart," she said.

  "Of course! The epidemiologist. Late additions to the team. Very excited to have you. Welcome!"

  "He hurt his back on the way here. I really think he needs to see a physician."

  Stefan studied the Irishman for a moment with his piercing gaze. "Well, do you?"

  "It's nothing," Padraig responded. He tried not to look discomfited, but it was clear he was in a lot of pain. "Really."

  "Nonsense! I'll have the vet give you a pain shot. That'll take care of you right away! We must have a clean horse syringe lying around here for just such an emergency." He grinned mischievously at their horrified faces and winked. "Don't worry, we've got smaller needles for the ponies."

  He laughed even more heartily, to Angel's growing dismay. Padraig's face turned splotchy at the jest.

  "We have a small medical treatment area inside the barn. It's stocked— with people medicine and instruments. Lucky for you we've pulled in the best damn physicians this side of Alsace, so you'll be in good hands. One of them should be able to rustle up some decent painkillers for you. You think you can walk?"

  They ended up transporting Padraig to the room on a stretcher, as he couldn't even stand, much less take a step. After he was settled, Stefan instructed one of the many attendants milling about to bring some food to the meeting room. He grabbed another man in a white lab coat standing outside one of the stalls, whom he introduced as Doctor Catalan. "Call him Duke. Everyone else does."