Hard Knocks

by Zoe Sharp

  “So Major, can we come to some mutually agreeable arrangement in this matter? You, more than anyone, must appreciate my distress as a father at having my son taken from me in such violent circumstances.”

  The deliberate tone set the hairs up on the back of my neck.

  Gilby stared at him coldly for a moment, forcing himself to relax even though it clearly cost him to do so. He crossed his legs, taking his time to make sure the crease in his twill trousers was perfectly aligned.

  When he didn’t immediately throw Venko’s offer back in his face Dieter Krauss half-lifted from his chair in protest. “What are you talking about?” he cried. “Valentine, for God’s sake. You’re not seriously thinking of trusting this – this murderer?”

  “Shut up, Dieter,” Gilby said softly, and the other man fell silent as though he’d shouted. “Just what do you know of my son?”

  Venko met, matched, and maybe even outplayed the Major’s stare. “That he followed you into the army and was blown up by an Iraqi mine,” he said calmly. “I understand you were present at the time. Very unfortunate.”

  My God, I thought.

  “My family is my business,” Gilby said, still quietly, but there was a brittle quality to his voice now. “I’d thank you not to mention the subject again. That is not the issue here.”

  “Of course.” Venko nodded, allowing his eyelids to droop briefly. To cover what? Triumph as the barb went home? He opened them again and returned his gaze to me. I braced under the force of it. “So, Miss Fox, you are the one with the guns here. How do you propose that we solve this unpleasantness?”

  “Solve it? We don’t have to solve it!” Krauss squeaked, flapping his hand towards me. “You’ve just said yourself that she’s the one with the gun. She will shoot you if you do not give me my daughter!”

  I raised my eyebrows a fraction at that. “I hate to break this to you,” I said, “but things may not be quite so black and white. I saw at least two men patrolling the outside of the Manor, plus another two who have the domestic staff held at gunpoint in the dining hall. I shouldn’t imagine they’re the only ones. The moment I start shooting anyone, I expect they’ll come running.”

  “Quite so,” Venko agreed, taking the possibility of his own demise with graceful equanimity. “So, it would appear that we have something of a stand-off situation, no? But, this can be easily resolved,” he went on. “Give me my son now, and don’t try to prevent us leaving, and your daughter will be released within twenty-four hours.”

  It would have been an impressive speech, cold and commanding, but there was just the faintest suggestion of a tremor underlying Venko’s sonorous tones.

  “Please,” Krauss begged, pouncing on the words regardless. “I just want my little girl. I’ll pay your ransom, anything! I just want her back. I didn’t know what they—”

  “No deal,” Gilby sliced across him curtly. He sat back, calmer now, smoother, more confident, and I knew he’d seen that tiny waver too. “Release the girl now, or no deal.”

  “You are hardly in a position to bargain, Major.”

  Gilby cocked his head in my direction. “Neither are you,” he said.

  Venko leaned forwards, resting his thick forearms on the desk. The cuffs of his wool cashmere overcoat rode up to reveal a gold Rolex plastered with diamonds. He stared straight at the Major as he spoke, trying to hypnotise him into capitulation by a sheer act of will.

  “Give me my son. You have my word that Heidi will be released unharmed.”

  Gilby gave a short, harsh bark of laughter. “Not good enough,” he snapped. “He isn’t here. It will take a little time to retrieve him. And even if he was, Europe is littered with corpses as testament to the value of your word.”

  “Then, indeed, we have a problem.” Venko sat back and just for a second he allowed his frustration and his anger to show through in a swirling heaving mass. Under that unruffled surface, it would seem, the currents were as diverse as they were deadly.

  Ah well, in for a penny . . .

  “You’re approaching this from the wrong position, all of you,” I said. Three heads turned slowly in my direction. I think I preferred it when their concentrated spite was focused on each other. I took a deep breath and kept going. “What do you all want to happen here?”

  “I just want my daughter,” Krauss said, sounding close to tears.

  “And I want my son,” Venko said, expressionless.

  “I want the safe return of Heidi, and a guarantee of the future safety of my school and its remaining personnel,” Gilby said, with a narrowed glance at Venko which I ignored.

  “OK,” I said carefully. “Well, as far as I can see none of these demands preclude any of the others. We know where we want to go. The question is, how do we get there with the least amount of blood being spilled?”

  Venko suddenly switched on a big smile. “Bravo,” he said, all jolly as though his flash of steel was just an imagining. “You see, Major. All it needed was the logic of a woman.”

  “Wonderful,” Gilby drawled acidly. “So, Miss Fox, how do you propose that we achieve these aims?”

  I turned to Venko. “You leave now, and you pull your men out with you. You return here in twenty-four hours, with Heidi. By which time the Major will have retrieved the boy from wherever it is he’s got him stashed. You make the exchange and you leave. No tricks, no ambushes, no double-crosses. And no retribution.”

  Silence followed the outlining of my plan. If I’m honest I hadn’t expected anything else. At least they didn’t laugh it straight out of court.

  Venko smiled again, rather sadly this time, and shook his head a little. “Impossible,” he said. “You have good heart, Miss Fox, but what guarantee do I have that the Major will deliver my son?”

  “He’ll deliver.” My chin came up. “On that you have my word.”

  He regarded me, brooding, unconvinced.

  “What’s your son called, Mr Venko?” I asked.

  “Ivan,” he said, a father’s pride putting roll and drama into it. “His name is Ivan.”

  I nodded. “And how old is Ivan?”

  Venko hesitated before he answered, as though the question was some kind of a trick. “He is just twenty,” he said at last.

  “I see,” I said, choosing my own words with care. “And how would you feel if Ivan never lived to be twenty-one because you couldn’t bring yourself to trust me?”

  Venko stared at me again, as though his gaze alone could bore through the outer layers of skin and skull and lay my brains out on a slab looking for the dark cancerous stain of lies.

  I forced myself not to flinch under the onslaught, just stood quiet with the Desert Eagle resting in my hands, and the Uzi hanging from my shoulder. Difficult to take the word of someone who forces you to listen to it at gunpoint, but Venko didn’t seem to mind.

  Eventually, long after I’d given up hope, he favoured me with an austere smile. “Very well, Miss Fox, we will leave now and we will bring the girl here at ten o’clock tomorrow.” He stood, the cashmere coat closing around him with the silent floating grace of old-fashioned velvet theatre curtains after the last encore.

  He moved out from behind the desk, not much taller than my own height, but twice as wide, and barrel-chested. I backed up as he came past me, kept my finger on the trigger as he waved his disgraced bodyguards to their feet with a brusque, “Come, we go.”

  Sideburns would have liked to have made a bigger production out of getting to his feet, but a glance at his boss told him sympathy would not be forthcoming. In fact, staying as invisible as possible was his best chance for survival. He didn’t even have the courage to demand the return of his personalised gun.

  Just as they reached the study doorway Venko halted and turned back, encompassing all of us in a visual sweep that singed where it touched. It finished up on me and I could feel it burning.

  “Just remember, Miss Fox,” he said, sombre, “what I risk by trusting you. Yes, I will return the girl to her father,
just as I wish to have my son returned to me. I will keep my side of this arrangement.” His voice roughened then, grew harsh with the emotion that vibrated through him.

  “But let me promise you one thing,” he went on. “If anything happens to Ivan, I will raze this building to the ground and make it my life’s work to destroy you – all of you – and hunt down what is left of your families. I hope I do not regret making this bargain with you, Miss Fox.”

  And with that cheery farewell he and his entourage stalked out of the study.

  “So do I,” I murmured, watching them go. “So do I.”

  Twenty-one

  “Here,” the Major said, splashing a decent couple of fingers of brandy into a lead crystal tumbler and placing it into my trembling hands. “I think you need it.”

  “Thanks,” I only managed to keep my voice steady with an effort. “I’d rather have a single malt, though, if you have it.”

  “No,” he said. That familiar arrogant tone was back, but he almost smiled. “Drink what you’re given, madam.”

  Venko had gone. His men had gone. Dieter had gone, too. He’d allowed the Major to lead him out of the study. I’d heard him protesting in staccato German all the way along the corridor.

  I was left sitting in the chair Gilby had so recently vacated while he went to calm the staff and organise them into a makeshift security patrol. The ease with which Venko and his men had walked into the Manor and taken control of it had obviously galled. The instructors and pupils were all still down at the assault course. Run ragged, but oblivious. No doubt there would be time later to explain what had happened here to those of them who needed to know. I had a feeling Gilby wasn’t going to make this invasion common knowledge.

  So I sat by myself in a room made more empty by the sudden absence of violent men, and tried to stop the cracks joining up and becoming tears. By the time he came back I’d more or less got them papered over enough to fool him. Maybe for a couple of seconds.

  He closed the study door and looked at me for a while before moving over to the drinks’ cabinet. A long thorough inspection like I was a racehorse none of the pundits had fancied much, but who’d somehow put on an unexpected spurt at the finish.

  Me, I felt like a racehorse who’d run out of their distance and damned near burst my lungs to do it. I was exhausted.

  A loaded Desert Eagle weighed over four-and-a-half pounds. Holding the gun out and ready for that length of time had overstressed my biceps where they blended with the deltoid muscle at the front of my shoulders. With every movement I was aware of the stretched and torn fibres. Even lifting the glass was painful.

  My sternum, which had been keeping a low profile, was throbbing like crazy. Breathing hurt. Sitting hurt. Now the adrenaline was slowly bleeding from my system I felt thoroughly second-hand.

  The Major poured himself a brandy and took it to the other side of his desk. I’d put the Uzi and the hand cannon down onto the surface and he moved them aside with a frown of disapproval, like he was worried about scratches. Then he sat and looked at me some more.

  A sudden thought rocked me. I sat up so fast I nearly slopped the contents of my glass into my lap.

  “Major, please tell me that you do have Ivan to trade, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said, not seeming in the least surprised by the question.

  The relief had me nearly sagging back into my chair. “Where is he?”

  “Somewhere close. Somewhere safe,” Gilby said, short, sharp. “Even my own men don’t know his location.” To his credit, he didn’t point out that I was considerably further down the chain of command and I didn’t press him. There would have been little point.

  “That wasn’t the first time you’ve been in this kind of situation was it, Miss Fox?” Gilby said then.

  I took a slug of brandy, trying not to wince as it ripped down the inside of my throat like bleach. Whatever the Major siphoned into his decanters, it certainly wasn’t a five-star Cognac.

  “Not exactly,” I agreed. “No.”

  He nodded slowly. “I thought not,” he said. “Venko isn’t a man who would allow himself to be held captive by a woman unless he believed absolutely that she would kill him.” He paused. “You have that air about you.”

  If only you knew . . .

  “Yeah, well,” I muttered into my glass. “It’s a knack.”

  “Yes,” the Major said. “Yes, I suppose you could say it is.”

  I looked round a little then, tried to pull it together, and said, “Where’s Herr Krauss?”

  “I’ve persuaded Dieter to let me handle things. It’s going to be difficult enough tomorrow without having to cope with an emotionally unstable civilian.”

  “You can hardly blame him. The poor bloke’s obviously frantic.”

  “Yes,” Gilby agreed, his voice giving away neither sympathy nor irritation. “But that makes him unpredictable. A liability.”

  I took another gulp of brandy. It seemed to be improving as I got into it. Maybe it had just burned away all the more vulnerable taste buds.

  “So what’s the connection between you and Krauss?” I asked.

  For a moment I thought the Major was just going to tell me to mind my own damned business, then I saw his gaze skim over the weaponry on the desk top. If I had minded my own business. If I hadn’t interfered . . .

  “He owns fifty per cent of this place,” he said at last, circling a hand to indicate the Manor as a whole. “He bought in about six months ago.” And having decided to be frank, he really pushed the boat out. “Got me out of a bit of a hole cash-wise, if you must know,” he added stiffly, burying his nose in his glass. “It’s only since then that I’ve been able to pay the staff decent wages.”

  Talking about money was a subject the Major clearly found rather vulgar. It was probably how he’d managed to get himself into a financial mess in the first place.

  Six months. The words suddenly clicked. Six months ago was about the time that the money Madeleine uncovered had started arriving in the school’s accounts. Gilby had re-equipped, put in a new heating system, hired some decent cooks. And once he’d done that, he’d bought himself a flash car.

  It fitted, I couldn’t deny. Better still, it had the ring of truth about it.

  “So when Gregor Venko kidnapped Krauss’s daughter, you naturally offered to kidnap Venko’s son to get her back?”

  “I didn’t offer, but Dieter was convinced that unless we had some kind of sword of Damocles hanging over Venko’s head, he would kill Heidi. He was probably right.” Gilby glanced at me. “But good God, woman, it was a ludicrous idea. Venko’s organisation across Eastern Europe makes the Mafia look like the Women’s Institute.”

  “My mother’s in the Women’s Institute,” I said dryly. “They’re a pretty tough bunch.”

  I was rewarded by another near-miss of a smile. “I didn’t know they had a SWAT team.”

  “You be amazed,” I said, “what she can do with knitting needles.”

  The smile broke out fully. He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “What the hell are you really doing here, Charlie?” he asked, and there was no anger, just a kind of tired amusement.

  I hesitated for a moment, drained the last of the brandy, made my decision.

  “I came,” I said bluntly, “to find out if you’d murdered Kirk Salter.”

  That shook him. He sat up straight, the fatigue momentarily dropping away. “Good God,” he murmured. “We knew there was something about you.” His eyes slid away unfocused into thought, then flicked back to my face, turning shrewd. “And if I had?”

  I shrugged and found that shrugging hurt, too. “Find some evidence and take it home,” I said. “I’m not here on a vengeance kick. Hell, I didn’t even like the bloke.”

  “So why did you come?”

  “I made a promise,” I said, thinking of Sean. And because the Major seemed to be waiting for more than that, I added, a little reluctantly, “Kirk saved my life once.”


  “I see,” Gilby said. I noticed his eyes had shifted to my throat, where the scar lay hidden under a high-neck sweatshirt.

  Sean had once made the mistaken assumption that the injury dated from the same time as Kirk’s opportune intervention. I hadn’t corrected him, either. Maybe it was just easier that way.

  “So,” I said carefully, “are you going to tell me what happened to him?”

  There was silence while the Major rose, walked over to the drinks cabinet and refilled his brandy glass. He turned and waved the decanter at me, but I shook my head. There was only so much of that stuff I could take and still hang on to the lining of my oesophagus.