Hugo ground his teeth.
“My brother’s shot—he works here—get help here, now!”
The cops looked at each other, processing the situation. Then a voice blared from the hallway. Another officer, the one Hugo had helped earlier, stepped into the room and between the other two cops.
“He’s one of the good guys,” he told them. “Get help for his brother—go!”
The two policemen spun and hurried out. The third cop reached Hugo and crouched down beside him.
“All right, help is on the way. Where’s he shot?”
“Stomach. Two rounds.”
“Make sure to keep pressure on it. I’ll make sure the paramedics come in here first.”
He disappeared, and Hugo was once more left alone with Felix, who was sliding in and out of consciousness. He felt utterly helpless. He pressed the wounds and stared at his brother’s pale face, willing him to keep breathing. Suddenly, Felix twitched and gave a brief cry.
Then there were voices outside the door again. A woman, dressed in green and yellow, entered the room, a large first aid bag slung over her back.
“George! In here!”
Another medic jogged in, and they both rushed over to Felix.
“Where’s he shot? Stomach?”
“Yeah. Two rounds. Both right through, two exit holes in the back. He’s barely conscious.” Hugo’s fingers trembled on Felix’s chest.
The medic made a quick assessment and said, “You’ve done well here. Scoot back—we’ll take over now. George, prepare the pressure dressings.”
Hugo did as he was told and pulled away to give them space to work. A third medic came in pushing a stretcher, and together, the three of them got Felix onto it. Felix moaned and opened his eyes. Ignoring the cracked, dried blood covering his fingers and palms, Hugo took his brother’s hand. His fingers felt like he’d just come in from the snow.
“Hey,” Hugo said gently. “I’m here.”
Felix’s voice came in a whisper. “I knew you’d come.”
“We need to get him to the ER,” said one of the medics. He’ll go in for surgery right away, and we‘ll just cross our fingers. Okay?”
Hugo nodded numbly and the small group disappeared, leaving him alone. Lost in thought, he stared at the window—just at it, not through it—as faint voices from the room next door trickled past his ears unheard. He wasn’t aware that he was sitting on the floor, shirtless, his own brother’s blood smeared across his torso, arms, and face. How long he sat there before he heard the rapping on the door he didn’t know.
He looked up. It was Madeleine. Her skin was pale, and she was pushing herself along on a rolling chair with her right foot while her left was supported by the cushion of the chair. Her left ankle was wrapped thickly in gauze. She had a thin red streak down one cheek where a stream of blood had coagulated.
“Felix is in the ambulance,” she told him in a monotone. “He’s on his way to the hospital now.”
“Yes.”
Madeleine pushed herself closer and put a hand on his shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
Hugo shrugged. “I’m fine. I just can’t believe what happened. To Felix and—and this.” He swept his hand around the room.
“I know.”
“Who would want to do something like this? Does Novus have any enemies?”
Madeleine’s face tensed. “I have a strong suspicion of who it was. In fact, I’m pretty sure I know who was behind it.”
“Who?”
“A wry little German bastard named Klaus Horst.”
Hugo waited for her to continue. She spat on the floor.
“He contacted us two weeks ago. For a job. We accepted, but he gave me a bad feeling right from the start. We started doing some research, but the more information we got, the more sure I was that he was using us as bait.”
*
A young woman entered the room and walked over to Madeleine.
“Hey, how are you?”
Madeleine erupted. “Freya! You’re alive!” A big smile spread across her dirty face, and she pulled the woman in for a long hug. When she released her, there were tears in Madeleine’s eyes. She glanced at Hugo and said, “Freya, this is Hugo, Felix’s brother.”
On instinct, Freya stuck out her hand for Hugo to shake, as if it were any other ordinary day at work. Instantly realizing what she was doing, she shook her head sheepishly and began to retract her hand, but Hugo reached out and took it, shaking it gently.
“Nice to meet you,” he said with a smile. Freya had blonde hair in a disheveled ponytail. She seemed nervous but unharmed.
“I heard they took him to the hospital; hope he pulls through.”
“So do I.”
Freya looked down at the floor and the pool of blood Felix had left there. She pursed her lips and turned away. “That was a lot of blood he lost.”
“Yeah, it was.”
Freya turned to Madeleine. “Everyone in the basement is okay. When the alarm went off, the automatic doors closed, and they’re only now opening.”
Madeleine slapped her hand on the table edge. “Ah! Who was down there?”
“Three people besides me: Mikko, Sussie, and Tony. The police are debriefing them now.”
“Great. Well, that’s some good news, at least.” A tear slid down Madeleine’s cheek, and she hurriedly wiped it away. “Let’s gather everyone in the conference room as soon as possible. We should go over everything together.”
Hugo stood and wiped his bloody hands on his jogging pants. “Good idea. I want to be there.”
Both women looked at him in surprise.
“Why?”
“Because I want to know who did this to my brother. And to you.”
Freya saw the anger blazing in Hugo’s eyes and felt the suffering he’d gone through. There was an inferno burning inside him It contrasted sharply with the snow that was falling even harder now, visible through the windows behind him.
Freya looked at Madeleine and then said, “Okay, Hugo, come with me and I’ll show you the way to the conference room—or what’s left of it, anyway. And maybe we can find you a shirt somewhere.” To Madeleine, she said, “I don’t think the elevators are working, so we’ll have to get you down the stairs.”
“It’s fine—don’t worry. I can manage.”
Freya raised her eyebrows in a “yeah, right” expression and said, “I don’t think so. Come on, Hugo and I will help you. You can just hop all the way down.”
It was slow going, with a few breaks needed to ease the burning in Madeleine’s hopping leg, but the three of them finally made it to the conference room. Four other people waited there, one of them a police officer. The sharp smell of smoke was less intrusive here.
The cop stood when Freya and Hugo entered the room. To the other three, he said, “Thanks for the information. I’ll be right back.” Then he exited the conference room, leaving the gathering in silence. Freya helped Madeleine to a chair, and Hugo studied the reasonably harmless collection of people. One of them was a man of about his size. He had a thick but well-trimmed beard—and, Hugo couldn’t help but notice, he was wearing a sweater on top of a white dress shirt. The man approached Madeleine and took her hand. She smiled.
“Mikko. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
Mikko answered in a weak, Finnish accent, “It was pure luck, nothing else.”
Hugo smiled and offered his hand to Mikko. “Hey, I’m Hugo.”
Mikko returned the smile, shook Hugo’s hand, and looked the other man up and down. “You okay there, Hugo? You look like you’ve been in a brawl.”
Hugo looked down at his bare torso and the blood dried on his arms, hands, and chest. “Uh, yeah—it was pretty rough up there. Hey, any way I could borrow that sweater for a little while?”
Mikko’s mouth fell open, and his eyes flitted to Madeleine’s and back to Hugo again. “I . . . sure, yes, of course.” He pulled the sweater over his head and handed it to the blood-smeared stranger.
Another woman and a man walked up to Madeleine and embraced her.
“Sussie, Tony,” Madeleine said. “Are you guys all right?”
They both nodded shakily.
“Good.” Madeleine gestured toward the oval table. “Let’s all sit,” she said. Dust and dirt were strewn across the table, and on the far end lay a part of the collapsed ceiling. Hugo pulled up a chair and sat down beside Freya. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Madeleine. She cleared her throat and steeled herself. She was on the edge of exhaustion, but she had to hold it together a little longer, just until she’d gotten this discussion over with.
“We’re down for the count, no doubt about it,” she said, looking steadily into each person’s eyes in turn. “We’ve lost more than half of our team. Tom, Lena, and Ilsen are dead.”
At this, Sussie gave a little cry. Mikko gasped audibly, and the others stared at Madeleine, frozen in place.
Madeleine continued, “Emma, Jens, Felix, and Caesar are injured—they’re at the hospital now.” Bitterness flooded every word that left her mouth. Novus was her creation; it was she who had hired every single one of the names she’d just mentioned. Hugo could almost physically feel her red-hot wrath; he recognized it to be the same as his own.
“For the time being,” she went on, “the police are going to put a lid on as much of this as possible. The press is already outside trying to find out what happened.”
Hugo pounded the table with a fist.
*
“What happened?” he shouted. “You were almost eradicated, that’s what happened! And I want to know why! My brother is fighting for his life!”
Madeleine glared at him, and her voice came out icy. “Yes, thank you, I know very well what happened here. Your brother is still alive, though. That’s more than we can say about some of our colleagues. This company is my creation, and I’m responsible for every single person here. We will do everything we can to make sure whoever did this is held accountable.”
Hugo fell silent and his shoulders sank. “You’re right. Sorry—I didn’t mean to attack.”
Madeleine took a deep breath and said, “It’s okay, I understand you’re upset. We all are. But we have to regroup now if we’re going to have any chance of overcoming this.”
There was a knock, and the group turned around as one to see a female police officer standing inside the doorway.
“Hi, am I interrupting?”
Madeleine shook her head. “No, come in.”
“Thanks. I just want to have a few words with you if that’s okay.”
Madeleine stood, got her leg into position on her chair, and she and the officer went to the far corner of the conference room. Hugo couldn’t hear what they said, but as he watched, the officer produced photographs that they studied together. After a few minutes, the cop left the room without another word, and Madeleine rolled her chair back to the table and sat down.
“What was that about?” Freya asked.
“The people who attacked us were recorded when they left.”
Everyone stood up at one time and began shouting in astonishment.
Mikko said, “What? How? They destroyed the cameras here!”
“It was two blocks away,” Madeleine answered. “There are two cameras at the train station.”
“Of course. So they have pictures of them?” said Sussie.
Madeleine nodded. Hugo was torn. He should go to the hospital and be with his brother. And he should also call Lita—he had completely forgotten about her in all the commotion. He pulled out his phone. There were seven missed calls. He laid it face-down on the table.
“So, do we know who it was? Was that what the officer told you?”
“Not with a hundred percent certainty, but it looks like it might be someone we know.”
Sussie broke in. “Who?”
“Klaus Horst.”
Mikko pounded the table so hard the dust swirled. “That bastard! Was he the one who attacked us?”
Madeleine raised her hands. “Calm down, please. He wasn’t in the pictures the officer showed me. But Xi Liu was, and since Xi works for Klaus, we can be almost certain he’s the one who arranged this.”
“Time out,” Hugo said. “Who are we talking about? Someone you know?”
“Klaus Horst hired us two weeks ago to perform a mission.”
Hugo scrunched up his eyes. “‘Perform a mission’? What kind of mission?”
Sussie shrugged and looked over at Madeleine. “Now might not be the best time to go through this, you think?”
Madeleine hesitated. She had an instinct, a feeling about Hugo. He was Felix’s twin, and Felix was one of Novus’ best employees. Maybe—maybe—his twin brother was as capable as he was. She had heard rumors; this brother of Felix had been a Swedish special forces soldier—later an officer—and had also joined the special protection group. It was all in his file. The rumor also whispered about his legendary tolerance for pain. Assuming it was all true, if anyone was competent enough to shoulder his brother’s role, it was Hugo.
Madeleine turned her attention completely to Hugo. “Klaus wanted us to retrieve a Russian scientist and his discovery and hand them over to him.”
“You’re talking about kidnapping?”
“That’s not what’s important here. Call it what you want. That was the mission, and we started doing some preliminary investigations. But after our initial analysis, we decided the assignment wasn’t for us. So I contacted Klaus to let him know we were rejecting the op. That was two days ago.”
Hugo drew a line in the dust on the table as he pondered. “Let me guess. As a thank-you for that, he arranged for this attack. To teach you a lesson?”
“That’s the hunch. A man by the name of Xi Liu was with Klaus the two times I met with him. And Xi was one of the people in the pictures the cop showed me.”
A memory of Xi’s dark eyes flickered in Hugo’s brain. “So, what made you give up your assignment?” he asked.
Sussie was about to protest again, but Madeleine silenced her with a glance.
“Sussie managed to hack one of the Russian scientist’s servers and found some interesting information. It seems he’d invented a way to gain control over a human being.”
“What do you mean ‘gain control’?”
“He was creating a specially developed drug and injection that could get nearly total control over a person.”
Hugo shook his head. “I still don’t get it. It sounds like science fiction. So that’s what made you pull out?”
Sussie broke in, “No. When I was on the server, I found evidence that it had already been hacked. The tracks led to a server in Paris.”
“Okay, and?”
Madeleine got up and walked around the table. “Every time I talked to Klaus, there was a warning bell that rang in my head. Add that to the fact that the Russian had already been hacked . . . it all smelled funny. So to play it safe, I canceled the mission.”
“Well, that was a mistake,” Hugo said dryly.
“Apparently.”
5
He trembled. But he also knew it was only the adrenaline that was beginning to vanish from his body. The snow swirled as the car slipped under a red light.
“Take it easy! The last thing we need now is to get the cops’ attention. Slow down and follow the plan.”
Obediently, the driver eased his foot off the accelerator.
Xi Liu pulled off his helmet and scratched his scar. He pointed. “Take a right here. Make sure you take us through town without any problems.”
They continued through the city center, and by this time, the traffic had died down. It was still early morning and lunch traffic had not started yet. Xi took a few deep breaths and thought through what had happened. It had been a success; they had performed their mission with minimal damage, and considering how little time they’d been given for plann
ing, he was very pleased.
The only problem was the late arrival. But it didn’t matter; whoever he’d been, there wasn’t anything he could do now. He pulled his mobile phone from his inside breast pocket and scrolled down the contact list. He tapped a name to dial, and a bright male voice answered.
“Yes?”
“It’s done. Mission accomplished.”
The man on the other end laughed. “Excellent! Very good job, Xi. Any problems?”
Xi recapped the mission in as much detail as he could and was careful not to omit anything. He had no doubt it would be noticed if he tried to do so.
“Fantastic job, Xi,” came the response when he’d said everything. “I knew there was a small risk that the person you described would find his way there, but I didn’t really think it would happen. The odds were minimal.”
Xi frowned. “You mean you knew about the guy who showed up at the end?”
“Well, I don’t want to say I knew it—it was more of a very remote risk. Which turned out to be true.”
A wave of unrest slid through Xi, and he scratched his head with scorn as he thought back on the moment the stranger had arrived just in time to rescue the police. There was something about his face. It was familiar; he had seen it before.
“The man who came,” Xi said. “He was the brother of one of the people we shot in the office, right?”
The man chuckled. “You’re right, Xi. That’s him. It’s his twin brother, as a matter of fact. His name is Hugo Xavier, and he is a special person.”
“Special in what way?”
“Hugo has a résumé that would make a secret agent jealous. He’s currently unemployed, but he’s done hunter training, he was a professional soldier with a handful of different stations around the world, and he spent even more time in the US working with a Navy SEAL team.”
Xi ground his teeth. “This would have been good information to have had before the hit, wouldn’t you say?”
“Come now, Xi. You shouldn’t be bitter that you don’t know everything. That’s why we each have a role to play. You know more than your soldiers, and I know more than you. And above me, there’s someone who knows even more. Those are the rules of the game. You know that.”
The Hugo Xavier Series: Book 1-3 Page 3