Lita’s olive complexion glittered as faint sun rays broke through the waning snowfall outside. She was unbelievably beautiful, with high cheekbones and dark hair that rocked forward and back when she walked. She and Hugo had met just a little less than two years ago, and their relationship was a stormy one.
She could be difficult when things didn’t go her way, but then again, he wasn’t all that easy to live with himself. She’d been a defining point in his life, though, especially after he’d been discharged from the military three months ago because of his diagnosis (a mild form of hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy type V pain syndrome). It was a complicated expression of a genetic defect that made him insensitive to pain. The symptoms had snuck up at first, but Hugo had known for a long time that something was wrong.
Lita stood in the doorway and leaned against the door frame. “But Hugo, what about the baby? How can you leave me now?”
He knew she was going to cave. When he got his mind set on something, then he did it, no matter the cost. Lita didn’t like it, but she accepted it. He went up to her and held her face gently in his hands.
“You know that you and the baby are the most important thing to me. You mean everything. But my brother means a lot to me, too. Someone has put him in the hospital—he might die—and I will move heaven and earth to avenge him. Felix has a competent team, and I can jump in and try to complete the mission Felix had planned.”
Lita sobbed. “It’s not fair.”
He hugged her. She smelled so good, like jasmine and summer.
“No. It’s not,” he said. “But if all goes well, then I’ll be back in two days.”
“Do you promise?”
“Word of honor.”
They headed to the living room and sat down on the sofa. They didn’t say anything but just sat together in silence. It ripped his heart, but he had to do this.
When a few minutes had passed, he whispered, “I will be back. Count on it.”
He took his gear and left the apartment. When he closed the front door, he could hear her crying from within.
9
Fine, icy snowflakes whirled past the windows as the car passed the booms and continued up the bridge. The dark sky loomed heavy over Copenhagen, and Hugo tried to relax in the passenger seat. Sussie was driving; Mikko and Freya sat in the back seat.
“Are you sure about this?” Sussie studied him. Now was not time to show weakness.
Looking straight ahead through the windshield, Hugo answered simply, “Yes. I’m sure.”
Mikko chuckled behind him. “He’s as crazy as Felix. If not more.”
Hugo smiled. Mikko and he had met only once before, but the fact that he knew and loved his brother made Mikko feel like a close friend anyway. The big Finn patted his shoulder.
“Right, Hugo? Aren’t you a little crazy like your brother?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
Sussie used her voice to wake up her cell phone, which was docked on the dashboard, and called Madeleine’s number. It barely had a chance to ring before she picked up.
“Madeleine? We’re on the bridge now,” Sussie informed her. “We’ll be at Kastrup in ten minutes.”
Hugo let his mind wander as they approached the high bridge. A gust of wind caused the van to wobble, but Sussie handled the disturbance with expert skill.
“Sussie,” Hugo asked, “what kind of information do we have about Xi?”
Sussie was not only the most adept driver of the group but also their information and communication expert. She pulled an iPad from the door pocket and handed it to Hugo.
“Check it out. Unlock code is one-two-zero-three-eight-four. There’s a folder called Xi Liu. The guy’s a mercenary, born in the nineties. Grew up in Singapore and later lived in northern Africa. He’s worked for a lot of shady types over the years—we’ve run into him twice during assignments in the last two years. He’s an expert in martial arts, has a reputation for being a real sadist type. He’s not the top mercenary around, but he’s definitely a rising star.”
Hugo found the dossier and read through it. At the end were pictures of Xi. He was short, thin but fit-looking. His dark hair fell just over his eyes, and in some of the photos, he wore a thin goatee. A scar ran along his forehead and down his left cheek. Whatever had injured him had barely missed his eye.
They followed the exit from the freeway and continued down into the underground parking garage of the Copenhagen Airport. Once there, they unloaded their gear, and Mikko tossed a backpack to Hugo. Hugo caught it and swung it over his shoulder, then noticed that Sussie and Freya were staring at him. He nodded congenially. It was okay; he understood that they were wondering how anyone could leave a pregnant wife at home to set off on a mission to avenge his brother.
“I know. You think I’m crazy.”
Sussie shook her head. “No, not at all. I’m just trying to take it all in. I’m still disoriented from the attack, so I can only imagine how you must feel.”
Hugo shoved his hands into his jeans pockets to keep the others from seeing how badly they were trembling. The truth was that he was still running on adrenaline, though it was finally beginning to slow down.
“Well, I can’t just go home,” he said. “If the people who did this to my brother were to get away with it, I couldn’t live with myself.”
Freya hoisted a backpack half her size and swung it onto her back. “And what about your wife?” she asked.
“Girlfriend,” he corrected her.
“Girlfriend, then. Isn’t she pregnant?”
“Yes, she is. She’s due any day now, actually.”
Before anyone could say another word, Mikko burst out in shrieking laughter. Tears ran down his face and his howls echoed through the parking garage. After all the stress and death, there was something liberating about laughing. The others watched him in various levels of amusement. When a few minutes had passed and Mikko had collected himself, he wiped his eyes.
“You’re a really tough bastard,” he said to Hugo.
Hugo winked. “Got that right.” He threw a glance at Sussie and Freya. He sensed that they still hadn’t fully accepted him. If this mission was going to work, he’d need to convince them that he was serious.
“Listen. I get that it’s hard to understand why I’m doing this, but I need you to trust me. Felix has told me about assignments he’s done, so I know more about his work than you think. And with my background, jumping in to take his place and finish his work is something I can do.”
With all eyes on him, Hugo took the opportunity to explain to the group what he’d done before and what his life had been like. He talked until he’d told them everything.
*
It was too late to turn around now. Hugo threw two heavy bags of equipment through the door of the plane. Madeleine had called in some favors at a major transport company and arranged for one of their planes heading for St. Petersburg to allow the Novus team to tag along.
The cave-like cargo compartment was packed with boxes as far as the eye could see. At the end, two rows of seats fit snugly between the load area and the cockpit. The group brought their gear on board and sat, Mikko and Sussie in the second row behind Hugo and Freya.
Mikko patted Hugo on the shoulder. “What do you think? Getting used to things yet?”
“I’m impressed. Madeleine has good contacts.”
“She really does.” Mikko paused and said, “But I guess you’ve seen the inside of a transport plane before.”
“A few of them, actually.”
Freya crossed her arms in frustration.
“What is it?” Hugo asked.
She turned to him in a huff. “You told us the things you’ve done, but we still don’t know you as a person.” She looked around at the others. “We’re just supposed to accept that we’ve got to carry out a mission with this guy who’s basically wandered in from the street?”
Sussie leaned forward toward Freya’s seat. “Freya, that’s enough. Madeleine vo
uches for him—that should be enough. It is for me, at least. If she says he’s capable, I trust her judgment. And at Felix’s.”
“It’s easy for you to say that when neither of them is here.”
Hugo turned to Freya and looked her in the eyes. “Listen, I understand how you feel. Considering everything that happened this morning, none of us expected to be here. But now we are, and we need our vengeance. You have your reasons, and I have mine. I promise you that you won’t be disappointed. I have experience from my military missions—I’ve done this kind of work for years. I know it‘s hard to accept, but you’ve got to trust me for this to work. Can you do that?”
Freya opened her mouth as she stared at Hugo. His gaze did not fade away, and finally, she shrugged.
“Okay, I guess I don’t have any choice. We’re here together on our way to Russia, so we have to do this as a team.” She put her face in her hands and rubbed her temples for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and looked at Hugo. “Did you say you worked on classified missions?”
“Both classified and unclassified,” Hugo answered. “I didn’t do classified so much in the beginning, but as the years went by, more and more assignments were abroad. Most of them are still classified, so, unfortunately, there’s not much I can tell you about them.”
“Why did you quit?”
The question was so abrupt that Hugo froze in his seat for a moment. He recovered quickly and sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”
Freya wasn’t giving up. “I want to know you better, so try.”
“All right.” Hugo pressed his lips together, then said, “I . . . have a condition, a special sort of disease. It’s called CIP—congenital insensitivity to pain. It comes from a mutated gene. I was honorably discharged once they discovered I had it.”
Freya narrowed her eyes. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. You’re saying you’re invincible?”
Hugo chuckled. “No, I bleed just as easily as you do. It’s more that I don’t feel pain the same ways other people do.”
Freya raised her eyebrows skeptically and opened her mouth to ask another question, but Mikko cut her off.
“So, now that we know Hugo a little better, maybe we ought to go through the mission?” He glanced from face to face hopefully.
The pilot’s voice echoed from the speakers just then, “Hey, Novus team, please go ahead and strap in. We’ll be descending soon.”
After they buckled their seat belts, Sussie pulled out a stack of tablets and gave one to each team member.
“These tablets each have a copy of the dossier we compiled about Markov Tupolev, the Russian scientist. He’s just over fifty years old, and he lives and works outside St. Petersburg. For a long time, he worked in the Russian Armed Forces developing various drugs and chemical-technical products. Five years ago, he moved to the private sector, where he’s developed some synthetic products that have made him rich.”
Hugo pulled up a picture of Tupolev on his iPad. The scientist was short, round, and had one of the most obnoxious comb-overs that Hugo had ever seen.
“Jeez. He looks like a mad scientist.”
“Don’t let the look fool you,” Sussie said. “He may look like a slob, but he’s one of the best researchers Russia has. He’s top-tier.”
“Where is he exactly?” Hugo asked.
Freya indicated for him to swipe to the next page of the report. “Look,” she said. “He’s two kilometers outside St. Petersburg, staying in a villa that’s guarded by a team of some twenty top-trained men.”
Hugo’s heart rate started to speed up. “Twenty?”
Mikko thumped Hugo’s shoulder lightly. “Any regrets yet?”
Hugo hardened his gaze and replied, “No.”
Freya continued, “Good. This is going to be difficult. When we did the initial analysis for the mission, we hacked their databases.”
“So we have access to all their information?” Hugo asked.
“Not all, but a lot. At least, we think so. And the information we found was interesting, to say the least. All Tupolev’s guards are ex-military—special forces—so they’re all top-trained.”
“What about the villa itself?”
“It’s pretty big and is surrounded by land—mostly wooded, which can help us get close undetected. The house itself has four floors—two above ground, two below. Tupolev does his work in the basement, so we have to find a way to get down there. The guards are stationed on the above-ground floors and outside the villa.”
A blast of turbulence rocked the airplane, and everyone instinctively grabbed hold of their armrests until it was over.
Hugo nodded. “Okay, let’s read through the report, and then we’ll go over how to proceed.” The team sank into silence as each person opened his or her copy of the document and began to read.
*
Xi Liu could hardly believe his luck. He scrolled down on the screen.
The cooperation between Markov Tupolev and Aino Salo appears to have been of utmost importance. Salo is a prominent researcher who was involved in several heavy collaborations throughout her career.
She has served as Tupolev’s right hand over the past six months and possesses a deep knowledge of how the treatment works. Her lab is on the outskirts of Helsinki. According to the latest information, it is likely that a copy of the treatment is in Salo’s lab. As previously mentioned, the treatment consists of two parts; the first is an injection of a quazepam copolymer (quazepam and another unidentified benzodiazepine drug), into the patient’s bloodstream. This serves to prepare the patient and make him or her receptive. The second step is an injection of autonomous nanobots, which travel to selected areas of the brain and adhere there. For the treatment to work, the nanobots must be injected no more than three hours after the injection of the quazepam copolymer.
Xi slammed the computer so hard that both it and the folding table it sat on shook precariously. Miguel, seated behind him, leaned forward.
“Is everything okay?”
“No.”
“What’s up?”
Xi’s brain was racing as he tried to figure out what to do with the information he’d just read. He would look incompetent if he were to call and tell Klaus that the treatment he was after might be hidden by a researcher in Finland. And he couldn’t appear incompetent now. He clenched his fist.
“It seems there’s a surprise factor in this assignment that I wasn’t aware of.”
“And how does it affect us?” Miguel asked is his ever-cool Spanish-accented voice.
“Good question,” said Xi. “It isn’t clear yet how it affects us or even if it will. But there’s a possibility it could change everything.”
He was silent as the plane began to roll toward the runway, and he looked out the window. The plane rocked as it turned onto the runway; once there, the pilot gave full throttle and started accelerating. The trees outside moved past faster and faster, and as they eased into the air, Xi knew he had to call Klaus. It couldn’t be avoided.
Five minutes later, when the plane reached its marching height, he unbuckled his seat belt, stood, and walked to the back. The flight attendant was working with items in a cupboard when Xi pulled the curtain aside. She spun around.
“Sir, you can’t be here now.”
Xi held up his phone and waved it awkwardly. He beamed. “Important call—I have to speak with my manager.”
The flight attendant did not look impressed. “Sorry, but it doesn’t matter. I must ask you to go back to your seat.”
Xi sighed. He had hoped he’d be able to avoid confrontation today. He took a step toward her and pulled the curtain closed behind him, leaving them alone together in the small space.
She shifted uneasily. “What are you doing?”
Xi took another step toward her and locked his gaze on her. “You seem like a nice person,” he said. “I am too—most of the time. But right now, it’s like this: I have to call my employer at once. I would be so grateful if I could get just fi
ve minutes to myself here to do it. Would that be something you could consider?”
The woman took a step back and bumped into the drawers protruding behind her. “Yes, yes, I guess I could do that. Sure.”
She hurried past Xi and vanished through the curtain. Xi cursed that they had been told to travel commercially. It had been a terrible idea, but Klaus was obsessed with the idea that the mission be completed unnoticed. Xi took a deep breath when he heard Klaus answer the phone panting.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.”
“Yes?” Klaus repeated impatiently.
“There’s some information in the dossier that we were not aware of.”
“What kind of information?”
Xi told him what he’d learned about Aino Salo. When he finished, he heard a rumbling sound on the phone. He looked at it, surprised, to see if something was wrong with the phone itself, but he soon realized that the sound must have come from Klaus. Then, without warning, the call was terminated.
10
Finally, it was over. Klaus Horst wiped the sweat from his forehead as he rolled down next to Heidi on the king-size bed. His muscles ached. He wasn’t a fan of having sex with his boss, but he had to do it. Heidi had insatiable needs, and as he was her closest assistant, it had fallen to him to satisfy them—maybe not all of her needs, but a great deal of them.
He swallowed hard and pushed away the fatigue in his aching muscles. Heidi put her hand on his arm and squeezed.
“That was wonderful. You’re so talented.”
“Glad you liked it.”
No doubt about it—he abhorred having sex with her. She was not only grossly overweight, but there was something innately repulsive about her, something that deprived him of every ounce of his willpower to even be able to perform. It couldn’t happen without a few Viagra tablets each time. He cringed. Was it worth it for the advancement? He shook his head to clear it.
“You seem tense,” Heidi observed.
Heidi rolled over to him and laid her heavy body on top of his. She had to weigh at least twice as much as Klaus; it felt like he was being suffocated. He put his arm around her.
Revenge Page 5
