Game of Revenge

by Charlotte Larsen

  Her face betrays a fear that has lain dormant in her for weeks. “Oh, God. You mean that somebody might be trying deliberately to hurt us?”

  “I don’t know, Camilla. But I promise you I will find out. In the meantime, I need you to stay with my mother and Ms. Nielsen. Don’t leave the house alone. Don’t accept any visitors. Don’t go back to your flat. In short, don’t do anything stupid.”

  She nods, too stupefied to say anything. This day is a nightmare, worse than the one she just came out of, and her earlier thought of this being a date makes her cringe.

  Chapter 22

  “What a strange place to meet!” Niels Bang-Henricksen extends his hand, “Why wouldn’t you let me take you to lunch?” he asks, attempting a smile, but ending up with a facial grimace in pain instead.

  “Why? On such a lovely day?” the other man says, returning the handshake. “Much too beautiful to waste indoors. Besides,” he leans in conspiratorially and Bang-Henriksen unconsciously mirrors the movement, “there is not a lunch restaurant in Copenhagen that will not have a reporter, or a gossiper present to raise questions about you and me meeting.”

  “But,” Bang-Henriksen looks confused, “why shouldn’t we be meeting?”

  The other man shrugs his shoulders, “I always try to keep my business life out of the papers. Just a general precaution, you know. Don’t take it personally.” He points to a bench under an old oak.

  On the ancient ramparts of the city, runners are exercising alone and in small groups. A single lady is walking an old, intrepid dog, who drags behind her as if on its last legs. Trees are casting their shadows over the grassy mounds, and pairs of swans glide elegantly along the narrow channels, hauntingly avoiding the noisy ducks and their enormous families. The hustle and bustle of the city seems far away. The peace is ancient and illusory.

  The two men sit down. “So, you wanted to see me, Niels?”

  Niels nods and fiddles with his coat, moving around, uncomfortable. “No small talk?”

  “No small talk, Niels. I’m busy; so many people to see, you know?”

  “All right, well, you know how you helped me out six months ago when an investment of mine failed, ahem, rather unexpectedly. Unexpectedly for everyone, I should say.”

  “Of course,” the other man nods sympathetically. “It was rather unexpected, Niels.” He pulls off his sunglasses and polishes them carefully, maddeningly slowly with a kerchief, allowing Bang-Henriksen to feel like a squirming underdog. “Or perhaps, less unexpectedly than one would think, knowing your background.”

  “What do you mean ‘my background’? This is the first investment that has failed for me.”

  “Well, yes. But it is also the first investment you’ve made without either your father or brother to supervise you, wasn’t it?”

  Bang-Henriksen nods, blood flooding to his throat. “Well, you see. It is a bit hard for me to repay just at the moment. Just temporary, you know.”

  “Of course.” The man deliberately replaces his glasses and turns his head, slowly eyeing Bang-Henriksen. “Of course, Niels, I understand.”

  “I thought you would! One businessman to another. Could happen to anyone, eh?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “I’m sorry?” Bang-Henriksen looks up.

  The other man’s voice is patient as a parent explaining the obvious to a child. “It doesn’t happen to anyone that they enter into debts and then find themselves unable to pay. Actually, it has never happened to me. Come to think of it; it generally doesn’t happen to the people I do business with.”

  “I…I’m not sure what you’re getting at?”

  The other man leans toward Bang-Henriksen, flicking a speck off his revers.

  Bang-Henriksen startles as if he has received a slap in the face, pulling back and away from the other man whose eyes are now inches from his own.

  The man reaches out a hand and caresses Bang-Henriksen gently on the cheek. “Of course, I will help you, Niels. You are a fool. But you are my fool. And you know I know your father and am quite familiar with your brother. Actually, your family is quite important to me.”

  “But…”

  “I know; I know. It really is unfortunate that you should squander the family business in this way. Your father, good old Marius, went through so much trouble to build H’Allure after the war. Of course, he didn’t exactly start from scratch now, did he? As you and I both know, he was fortunate enough to have access to a goldmine of recipes and a store-house full of ingredients, once he had his horrible Jewish neighbors shipped off to the camps.” A sharp intake of breath stops him, “Ah, but you do know this, Niels. Of course, you do. That’s why your family was never quite so well received as Marius wished for it to be, even though he married the illustrious and noble Ingeborg Abel. Ah, well, this is all water under the bridge if you will permit me an appropriate metaphor. And no one needs to be any the wiser, do they? This is just between you and me, of course.”

  He gets up, briskly buttoning his coat. “I’ll have my lawyer send you a revised contract. This time, I will need some security. Say forty percent of your shares.”

  Bang-Henriksen jumps up, “Forty percent! Are you crazy? That is exactly the number of shares I have, once my kids have had their shares. I cannot give you all my shares as security. No way. What would my wife say?”

  The other man’s voice is deadly cold, “You should have thought of that before squandering first your own money, but more importantly my money. I don’t sanction people doing that without my leave, you see. I am kind of old-fashioned that way.” He extends his hand and says, “Now, do you understand why I preferred to meet away from the Copenhagen lunch scene? We don’t need to involve the press just yet, do we?”

  Niels automatically shakes the offered hand. His will has gone. His mind is blank, as it must be, to protect his feelings from the tremendous shock he has just received.

  Chapter 23

  “Jo! Long time, no see.” Thomas pecks Jo chastely on the cheek.

  “Yes. It is, indeed, Thomas,” she says with a thin smile on her lips.

  “Are you working?” he asks.

  “Not on anything major,” she answers evasively. “You?”

  “Nah. Just keeping a number of smaller projects afloat. After you.” He stands back to allow her first use of the espresso machine. As he does so, he spots part of a bandage showing at her neck.

  “Are you hurt, Jo?”

  She turns on him with a suddenness that forces him to take an involuntary step back. Later, he swears to himself that she actually snarled like a wild animal.

  They are wary of one another. They circle, sniff, and watch like two male dogs. They both know they can make each other’s lives hell. He can find anything there ever was to know about her, and Jo has an inkling that Thomas already has deeper insight into her life than she does herself. On the other hand, she can kill him ten different ways with her little finger, or so it sometimes seems to Thomas when he observes her move across a room, like at this moment. But that is not the only reason for their mutual distrust. They both belong to Francis’s inner circle, and he has a knack for keeping everybody on their toes by subtly playing queen bees and alpha males out against one another when energy gets lax.

  Sipping her coffee, she walks into the analysts’ room, a large airy space with huge factory windows that allow plenty of light even in the darkest of winters and filled with the most expensive technological toys any computer geek could desire. It resembles the inside of a NASA control room. Six young men and women wearing headsets, each at a work station, stare into multiple screens of various sizes and formats.

  Jo greets them politely and with respect. They have helped her out of impossible situations and facilitated some of her greatest operational successes. But they are unmistakably Thomas’s team. He has handpicked every single one of them. Most of them are university dropouts. Kids that were too bright and too independent to accept the rigors and bureaucracy of universities or an ordi
nary workplace. They are young people that move freely in cyberspace, who understand and master the digital rules of conduct better than they do the ones in the real world, with limited social skills or needs. They are some of the brightest and least socially adjusted people of their generation.

  In two teams of six, they work in twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. And more hours during big operations. They are paid well but not extravagantly because Thomas realized long ago that these kids get high on the sophisticated gear and the smell of the hunt. They like anything that exercises their analytical minds and challenges their ability to come up with creative ideas fast and flawlessly—or if not flawless, then at least workable.

  Francis loves Thomas’s teams. Thomas must regularly remind Francis that they are his employees, not his kids. Francis spoils them with food and digital toys and things like that, but when he starts to take an interest in their living situation and looks after their family, he generally makes an ass of himself, in Thomas’s opinion. Thomas has no choice but to confront his employer.

  Thomas has worked for Francis for nine years. Prior to that, he was a senior intelligence analyst at PET, the Danish security and intelligence service. His exceptional analytical skills and an unsurpassed ability to identify and interpret patterns in enormous data sets gave him great career opportunities. But it was his ability to present the essence of complex problems in a simple and effective manner that made him popular at PET, particularly among the more action-oriented officers who had little regard for analysts who insisted on presenting their findings in excruciating detail.

  Thomas stayed with PET for ten years, unearthing and analyzing evidence that put hundreds of prospective terrorists, industrial spies, extremists, and particularly ambitious criminals behind bars. But too many of them walked for political reasons or because of the Danish predilection for tolerance. Eventually growing impatient with the government’s inability to act and prevent the bastards from ruining his country, Thomas quietly started a small operation on the side.

  He and Francis met in a South African airport where they ended up spending the night since a storm canceled all departing flights. They had found that rare kind of immediate trust, and before dawn broke, Francis had recruited Thomas. They matched well: Thomas’s meticulous details to Francis’s visionary ambitions.

  One of the first things Thomas did was to score this very space. A huge, dilapidated building in the darkest part of town where no one with a pension plan ever came. They took out all the interiors, only leaving the outer graffitied walls, the old factory windows, and the rusty roof. After an intense effort, the building now appeared as it always had, the only visible difference was a new front door that deceptively looked like an old one, but was, in fact, double steel-enforced, fire- and bomb-proof. A door that only ever opened for certain pupils and thumbprints.

  On the top floor, above the analysts, a large light-filled conference room occupies most of the floor. Thomas holds the door for Jo but almost regrets it for the chilly smile she thanks him with.

  “Thomas, Jo! Good to see you. Say hello to my hero, Dhammakarati!”

  Thomas and Jo mutely take their seats opposite Francis, their acrimoniousness dense enough to be almost visible. Francis grins. Nothing he likes better than his agents having it out with one another.

  Chapter 24

  “What is it, Dhammakarati,” Jo whispers, laying a hand gently on the monk’s arm. She has recognized a tiny ripple of movement around his eyes. The monk shakes his head, gently removing her hand.

  But Francis picks up the thread. “Dhammakarati, you seem to have had the most dramatic week of us all; why don’t you go first? Tell Thomas and Jo what went down in Alexandria.” He nods to Thomas, who touches one of his screens and large panels of electronic whiteboards glide slowly down, covering the glass walls.

  A moment later, the room is dark until Thomas touches his screen again, where a three-dimensional scene of Alexandria springs to life on the walls. Thomas hands Dhammakarati a small pointer. “Take us through your experience in Alexandria,” he says.

  Dhammakarati looks as if he has been handed a live snake. “Can’t I just tell you?” he mumbles.

  Francis laughs, “Let Thomas have his pleasures, Dhamma, this is his latest toy. You can actually take us for a walk around the streets of the old city. We will follow in your footsteps, so to speak.” He laughs again. Nothing like a little emotional disturbance in his team. He enjoys the destabilization it gives them, their need to stay alert. Even Dhammakarati, who is always so cool.

  The monk breathes deeply, then points the small device to the wall along the furthest side of the room. “Here is the Hotel Cecil, where Francis was staying right next to the bay. You see?” He seems, for a moment, amazed at his own ability to conjure forth such a vivid impression of the city where he, only a few days ago, left a man dead. “If we now turn from the Al Naby Danial to the El-Gaish Road, you can see how it runs along the bay. It is obviously a busy road, but nevertheless, it is also where young lovers—or rather—young married people—walk at night. The locals call it El Kornesh. And tourists love it for the beautiful promenade along the sea and the historical, colorful houses and small cafes.” He looks around at his colleagues.

  Francis nods encouragingly.

  Once again, Dhammakarati draws a deep breath, but now he seems to plunge himself back into the past, forgetting everything around him. “Nobody shadowing Francis as he met with Benedict Hardley in the airport. Nor going back. I followed Francis in a taxi. But when Francis entered the lobby, I saw him. He was already sitting in one of the deep leather chairs, ostensibly reading a paper. I noticed the paper was English. He was a tall man. Blond hair and eyebrows, almost white. And pale eyes with skin the color of a dead man, almost like an albino, but not quite. He walked with the grace of a martial arts fighter. That is, softly and delicately, like a panther. I wasn’t sure Francis had seen the man, for he sat down at the other end of the lobby bar.” He looks at Francis, who doesn’t give anything away, except an, “I had tea,” and a benevolent smile at them all. He is enjoying this, Dhammakarati thinks. He is enjoying that I am uncomfortable sharing operational details.

  “I found a seat near the exit where I could keep an eye on both men. After half an hour, the blond man got up and walked over to Francis. He whispered something in his ear. I—”

  “—But weren’t you afraid that he might have attempted something right then and there?” Jo asks, her voice raised.

  “No. If I had been concerned, Jo, I would have shielded Francis.”

  Jo shakes her head.

  Francis is still smiling.

  Thomas is looking intently at the whiteboards where the images of the city have long been abandoned by the monk.

  “Well, there is not much else to tell,” the monk continues. “When he left, I followed him and, on the corniche,” he points halfheartedly at the far wall, “at the corniche, I took him out behind a palm tree.”

  “And the body?” murmured Jo.

  “The sea,” Dhammakarati said almost to himself. “In the sea, with the little fishes.”

  Silence descends over the team. The three of them have questions, but they know that these questions will not only go unanswered but that they are borne of curiosity, not of a need to know. Even Francis, who debriefed Dhammakarati intently on the night of the murder, has no desire to know more than the monk chose to tell him.

  “All right,” Francis attempts to lighten the mood by clapping his hands, “what’s next?”

  “We do need to discuss hiring more analysts who are experienced in deep research.” Thomas looks up from his screen for a moment.

  “And at least one person who can actually retrieve hot information in disguise,” adds Jo.

  “Go ahead,” Francis says, “the Louisa case was well paid. It’s a good time to get new people on board. Thomas, you take care of it. Make sure you get Jo’s requirements for an on-the-ground person.”

  Thomas nods. />
  “Oh, and by the way, I have rented the riad in Marrakesh for another year. The lease had run out, and I think we need to have something in that region.”

  Thomas nods and Jo closes her eyelids in agreement. Dhammakarati never responds to such practical matters.

  “Well, then, there is no need to discuss Jo’s case again. We went over it the last time we met, and it seems to be pretty much closed up and ready for archiving. Right, Jo?”

  “Right.”

  Even in this single word, Francis muses, she manages to signal such a coldness that no one would ever attempt to chat her up. Only me. Only I have the courage. And yet, as he thinks these words, he knows deep down that he has no idea who Jo really is. She has only allowed him to see so much of herself, only what she decides to share with him. Does anyone really know you, my love? He asks her silently, his eyes on hers.

  She looks away.

  Francis forces a smile back on his lips. “We may have something new. I am not sure it will lead anywhere, but I’d like us to look into a James Hampton.”

  “What is the background, Francis?” Jo asks. Her voice is alert.

  “I can’t say much yet, Jo.” Francis answers, “But his name has popped up in some conversations I’ve had recently. Nothing specific, just an odd mention here and there.”

  Her glance told him she knew he was keeping something from her, but that she accepted it. For now.

  “James Hampton,” Thomas says slowly, pronouncing each syllable as he is texting the name into one of his computers. “Ah, here he is.” He taps a few keys, and the image of a man shows up on one wall.