Rocks

by M. J. Lawless

  Hayden stared at him blankly, barely understanding anything that was said.

  “As such, you will realise that our mutual acquaintance, Maarten Kropp did not trust Ms Pietersen as much as she thought. He installed a tracker on this device, but perhaps you already know that.” Hayden said nothing: he suddenly felt as though any information he revealed now could be extremely dangerous. Lars watched him silently for a moment and then shrugged.

  “Now, as you say, she has keys to two lockers—the one you took from her at Heathrow and this other one at Euston. It would be reasonable for us to both assume that there is nothing at the airport, but I need to be sure if I’m to catch her quickly. I am not an unreasonable man, Mister Carter. I know that torturing you is useless if you do not know the information I need. It’s an interesting philosophical point, don’t you think? There are known knowns, and known unknowns—and both of us realise that you have no idea which locker Ms Pietersen has gone to. How could you? You’ve been tied up, as it were. Let’s hope for both our sakes that she is still carrying the mobile this is linked to.” With a wink, Lars gave Hayden’s genitals a dreadfully playful pat.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed once more, staring at the screen with glee. “It seems this is your lucky day! If this information is correct, she is currently on her way to Euston. Well, that should make things easier.”

  “Oh god,” Hayden groaned. “What are you going to do?”

  The other man frowned at this. “Do you really care what I do to Ms Pietersen, after the way she has... inconvenienced you?”

  Hayden could not resist a bitter laugh. “Not her. Me. What are you going to do to me? You’ve got what you want, let me go.”

  Lars let one gloved hand fall and almost affectionately stroked Hayden’s cheek, making the bound man shudder. “A good point, Mister Carter. Unfortunately, I don’t have what I want—not yet. I merely have the tools to discover it. Nonetheless, I don’t want to leave you here while I’m gone, convenient as that would be in some respects. Somebody else could find you, and that wouldn’t do at all—not at all.” Reaching into a pocket on the inside of his jacket, Lars retrieved something that Hayden couldn’t see clearly.

  “This is really your lucky day after all,” the Norwegian said, almost cheerfully. “After all, who would have suspected that someone with my talents would be passing by?” Leaning across Hayden’s face, Lars fiddled with the handcuffs and, to Hayden’s surprise, released him from the bed.

  Pulling away, Lars gestured nonchalantly to the corner of the bedroom where Hayden’s clothes were still scattered. He continued to watch the screen of Maarten’s phone as he said: “Get dressed.”

  Hayden’s fingers were so numb that he fumbled with the ropes that bound his ankles, but whatever other skills Karla possessed tying knots was not one of them. He was shaking as he pulled himself from the bed, almost dragging his clothes across his tired body. Buttoning his shirt, he turned around to see the other man standing on the far side of the bed. In his hand was a gun.

  “Very good, Mister Carter. Now, find some shoes. You’re coming with me.”

  Lars sat in the passenger seat, pointing his gun at Hayden who drove to Euston. Although they’d missed the rush hour, the traffic was still quite heavy, which made Hayden sweat more and more as he thought that the Norwegian might shoot him at any moment.

  “It’s bad enough trying to make it near the centre of London at this time of day without you pointing that thing at me,” he remarked testily. He could just see Lars smile out of the corner of his eye.

  “You should try and relax more, Mister Carter. You know, your associate Maarten was much more stoic than you are.”

  “Yeah, well, bully for him.” Hayden couldn’t disguise his bitter sarcasm. “He hadn’t had the day I’ve just had.”

  “You don’t think so? I’m not sure I agree. He’d been violently sick before I turned up, thanks in no small part to your attentions. He knew I’d been hired by Boeckman’s, probably to do something unspeakably unpleasant to him. And he also felt that he was in danger of losing the love of his life.”

  The last made Hayden snort. “Love of his life? Well, she didn’t love him—that’s for sure.” Unbidden, an image of Karla riding him from above flashed into his mind. Equally unbidden, his trousers started to feel very tight. Great—just what he needed, to discover that he had a submissive streak at the moment of his possible impending death.

  “So you say, so you say,” Lars mused. “There is a strange arrangement between the three of you that I can’t work out. Never mind. We’ll find Ms Pietersen and the Wallenstein and then, well… you’ll either tell me or you won’t.”

  “Don’t you care to find out?” Hayden was feeling more nervous again. He glimpsed Lars shrugging.

  “I’ll get what I need to know eventually from Maarten.”

  “What have you done with him? Where is he?”

  “Somewhere safe, Mister Carter, somewhere safe. Why don’t you concentrate on your driving and stop worrying about Maarten.”

  “Just one thing. Why is he ‘Maarten’ and I’m always ‘Mister Carter’?”

  “Because I have a certain affection for him. He’s a genius, in his own way, and certainly the most valuable of the three of you. You and Ms Pietersen on the other hand, you’re just scum who have dragged him into this.”

  “Hey, I didn’t drag anyone—” Hayden’s outburst was interrupted by the sensation of a gun being pressed into his ribs.

  “Just drive, Mister Carter. Soon this will all be over.” The cool tone did nothing to calm Hayden’s nerves.

  They parked a few hundred metres away from the station and Lars consulted Maarten’s phone. “Good,” he said. “She’s still here. Perhaps she’s having some difficulty finding the diamond.” He gave Hayden a strange look. “This is where you left it, isn’t it?”

  Hayden nodded. “And you know who you’re looking for?”

  Lars smiled. “That’s why you’re here. I believe you know Ms Pietersen as intimately as anyone, though the truth is we don’t need to know the colour of her pubes and how nice her backside is. Find the right redhead and diamond for me, and perhaps you might get out of here in one piece.”

  Hayden turned his head away at this. Of course! Maarten had only ever seen Karla with auburn hair and Lars knew nothing about her recent transformation. It was the one advantage Hayden had, though he didn’t know what he’d do with it.

  The station was still busy, with people milling around as Hayden reluctantly led his captor to the lockers where he’d placed his stash. “Why here?” Lars asked curiously.

  “I had someone to see and didn’t intend it to stay long—but I was otherwise detained,” Hayden answered ruefully.

  “Has she been here?”

  “I don’t know. She has the bloody key and I can’t get into it.”

  As Lars bent to inspect the locker, Hayden glanced around the concourse, his eyes straying to the platform gates. His heart stopped.

  It was her. Though she had changed her clothes and carried a bag closely to her chest, she couldn’t disguise that walk. The petite brunette was entering onto one of the platforms. Hayden looked at the board and frowned. Holyhead? Why there? Where did that train stop en route?

  Then it clicked. He knew exactly where she was going. That made him smile. He felt in his pocket where the key to Lars’s hire car still rested.

  “We’ll have to look for her,” Lars said, standing up and pulling out the phone he was using to track Karla. “Bloody maps app,” he grumbled. “It’s only good for ten metres or so. I think she might be catching a train.”

  This was Hayden’s chance—probably his only one. While Lars’s attention was still absorbed by the phone and his gun in his holster, Hayden suddenly launched himself against the Norwegian, using the full weight of his body to crash into the tall but wiry man. That caused a number of people to cry out in shock but Lars was stunned—which was precisely what Hayden had hoped for. He didn’t waste any mo
re time dealing with the other man who crashed to the floor, his limbs flailing. Instead, he ran at full speed towards the exit.

  His luck held. He managed to get into the car and start the ignition without too much fumbling. “I’ve never liked Volvos before, but thank you God,” he muttered to himself, and hit the accelerator to drive away as quickly as possible.

  Some sixth sense must have warned him to keep his head low, because the glass that exploded from the rear windscreen went over him—along with the bullet that Lars must have fired. He heard two more shots and glanced in terror at the rear-view mirror, seeing the blond-haired, dark-clad Norwegian receding into the distance.

  It was a long time before his heart stopped beating rapidly against his chest, but he drove on grimly towards north London. He knew exactly where he had to go now, and he didn’t need a tracker to guide him.

  Chapter Twelve: Karla

  Karla made her way to the edge of the ship and clutched her bag to her chest. The sky was dark and she could see a few stars overhead between the lights of the ferry as it slowly made its way out of Holyhead port.

  The wait had been frustrating. The train journey itself had been fine, and as much as anything she’d responded opportunistically to its presence at Euston. After that, though, she’d had to hang around Holyhead until she could get on the first ship that was leaving. At least this way she would be going straight to Dublin rather than Dun Laoghaire, with Uncle Colin ready to meet her at the other end. She’d forgotten how frustrating it was in North Wales. She’d barely registered the glory of Snowdonia as the train travelled through the mountains, and it had been just long enough since she’d been in Holyhead for her to forget how much of a dump it was until she’d had to sit in some dismal bar, sipping a drink and fending off unwanted attentions from leery strangers.

  There was attention she wanted from someone, it occurred to her as she felt the chill wind blowing through her hair. She suppressed that thought immediately. Karla had never been the type of woman to nurture any sense of regret and she had no intention of starting that as a habit now, but as the memory of Hayden Carter, bound to the bed and with that thing of his inside her, she couldn’t resist one sigh. Then she thought of the look of anger mixed with lust on his face and she had to giggle. After that, it occurred to her that she’d never see him again and she sighed once more.

  Instead, she focussed on the future. She had quickly changed into jeans and a sweater, with a warm coat wrapped around her for travel. She hadn’t bothered with other clothes, merely grabbing one of several passports that Uncle Coilin had arranged for her over the years, as well as a few Euros which she stuffed into a bag along with the Wallenstein, safely zipped up in an internal pocket. The bag was small enough for her to clutch it to her side at all times, and she had no intention of losing the diamond again.

  Indeed, she had to resist the inclination to keep reaching inside to take it out and stare. She’d looked once, just briefly, on the train when she was sure no-one else was around. It was the same, large stone she’d seen in Maarten’s hands and her heart had leaped up into her mouth. It was stunning, simply stunning.

  With a frown of irritation, she wondered what had become of Maarten. He was a loose end to be tied up lest he cause trouble, but in the end she would forget about him more quickly than Hayden Carter, bastard that he was.

  She shook her head again. Why did her thoughts keep returning to him? He was her past—a more than usually pleasant fuck, but for that reason alone a danger to her. She had to keep her mind clear. She had everything she wanted in the Wallenstein diamond. Yet if that was true, why did she feel so melancholy?

  Instead she turned her thoughts to Uncle Coilin. He always made her smile. In many respects, he’d been the most steady influence in her life—which itself was funny considering his own erratic lifestyle. Nonetheless, when she’d threatened to turn into an unruly teenager he was the one who’d kept her steady, ensuring she studied languages, went to university, telling her to learn something useful so that she could do the business like he did.

  That was perhaps one of the reasons why she was on this ferry now. He’d taken her across the Irish Sea a couple of times, when he was on business—his real work, not the idle “business” he performed to keep up appearances. As he’d told her countless times, security was more lax on the boats and it was easier to move things—and people—around. She’d spent many a pleasant day as a teenager with him on this crossing, and she was looking forward to seeing him again when the ferry arrived at Dublin by six o’clock that morning.

  She was lost in such musings when she felt someone come up behind her on the ferry. Turning around, she almost fell over the side when she saw who it was who stood in front of her.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

  Hayden smiled, his eyes on her bag. “Bet I’m the last person you expected to see.”

  Karla’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. All her romantic thoughts had been replaced by the need to protect herself: Hayden Carter was a big man, that was for sure, but she’d learned some useful moves from Uncle Coilin. A blow to the solar plexus and a rabbit punch to his throat would deck him, she thought, or perhaps she should give a sharp sideways kick to the back of the knee, watch him drop and then run as fast as she could among the other ferry passengers. If not that, she could just knee him in the balls.

  “How did you know where to find me?” she asked cautiously.

  “I saw you at Euston, boarding the train. You’re obviously from Ireland, so I just made a lucky guess—very lucky, as it turned out.”

  “For you perhaps,” she growled.

  “And for you too,” he replied, making her gawp with his sheer audacity. Then she frowned once more. “Wait a minute, how did you get to Euston? I tied you up better than that, I know I did.”

  “And there hangs a tale,” he told her, his face twisted into a grimace for a second. “Have you got it?” he asked, nodding towards her bag.

  “Why should I tell you?” she retorted, her fingers tightening on the bag and her leg preparing for a swift kick.

  “Well, that can wait. I need your phone.”

  “Why?” was her suspicious response.

  “Don’t ask questions,” he snapped back. “Just give me your phone.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” she snarled. “I suppose you think you can just take stuff off me, just because you’re handsome Hayden Carter, and like a little girly I’ll just go, ‘Oh, yes, Hayden. Please, have my phone and if you don’t mind here’s the Wallenstein diamond. How can I resist?’ Well that might work with all your other lady friends, but you’ll find I’m a much tougher nut to crack.”

  He had folded his arms and stood there, looking at her, his face showing annoyance. “Have you quite finished?”

  This made her bristle again. “For the moment, yes. But I’m sure I’ll think of plenty more to say—especially when you try to get me to hand the Wallenstein over.”

  He sighed, letting his arms drop. “I don’t care about that. Please, just give me your phone—just for a second.”

  This confused Karla. When she mentioned the diamond he hadn’t responded in the slightest. In her confusion, she reached into her bag and drew out her mobile, passing it to him cautiously.

  He held it in his hands, not even trying to switch it on. Then, to her horror, he drew his arm back and threw it as far as he could over the side of the boat into the night.

  “What’re you doing?” she screamed. “Are you a fucking maniac? That’s my phone!” Without another thought, she launched herself at him, throwing a well-aimed punch to his face that made him stagger backwards. In that instant, she could have caused him considerable damage but instead she rushed to the rail, looking at the dark waves that bobbed up and down. Of her phone there was no trace to be seen.

  She whirled around to face him. He hung back a little, rubbing his jaw. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “You sure know how to throw a punch.”

>   “What on earth were you thinking?” she demanded. “Why did you do that?”

  “Look,” he began to say. “I can explain.”

  “Explain? Explain? What in all that’s good and holy is there to explain about a madman who turns up and throws my bloody phone overboard? That was the latest model as well.”

  “I’m sure the board of Apple will cry hallelujah when you buy a new one. Listen, Karla. Do you know a man called Lars Torkelsen?”

  “No, I do not, and I don’t think for one sodding minute that he has anything to do with you acting like a fucking lunatic!”

  Hayden began to step towards her, his arms spread wide in a placatory gesture. That infuriated her all the more and she punched him again in the chest, causing him to quickly step back again. Rubbing his chest with one hand, his other raised in a stance that was more defensive this time, he spoke quickly, his face reddening with a mixture of pain and irritation.

  “Lars Torkelsen is a hitman. I think he was hired by Boeckman’s to find the Wallenstein. He found me—just after you left me in a very compromising and, if I may add, very dangerous situation—and—”

  “I still don’t see what this has to do with my bloody phone!” Karla yelled impatiently.

  “I was just getting to that. Jesus!” Hayden rolled his eyes to the sky in a silent prayer. “Please, I’m trying to explain. Our mutual acquaintance, Maarten—”

  “Maarten! Where is he? What did you do to him?”

  “I told you, I didn’t do anything. It must have been Lars who broke into his room.”

  “This Lars who’s after my phone?” she snapped sarcastically.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.” That threw her and finally she stopped to listen. “Maarten had downloaded a tracker onto your phone. How do you think I found you so easily that night at Heathrow? Shit, if I’d have had any wits about me, I’d have been tracking you every moment of the day after I left you—then I’d have had warning before you pulled that crazy stunt back in my apartment.”