Sara had been proud of her interior decorating skills; having filled the room with tasteful furnishings, she’d given the office the distinct expression of an English library. Thick carpets muffled all sound. Gold and green sconces illuminated the walls. Dark, solid wood furniture was perfectly spaced.
She touched a button on her keyboard, and the large, curved monitor on the desk immediately came to life. She tapped lightly with her fingers. “Maybe the helicopter?” she said to herself.
It would be a risk in this weather, but it was probably the only chance she had to get to Oslo within the next few hours. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. A web page for a premier helicopter company appeared on the screen.
Sirius Helicopter Service.
She clicked on the login page and entered her username and password, smiling to herself when at the thought that Marco wasn’t aware she had the password for this site. The screen loaded, displaying Marco’s account. She clicked through the pages until—there! Two available helicopters.
“You’re one lucky girl,” She muttered.
She picked up her phone and called the company.
“Sirius Helicopter Service. How may I help you?” a young man answered.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, this is Sara Blitz.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Blitz. How may I help you?”
“Well, to get straight to the point, I need a favor.”
“Absolutely.”
“I need to travel to Oslo today.”
The man hesitated. “Today? Unfortunately, ma’am, that won’t be possible.”
“What? Why?”
“The storm, of course. I’m afraid we can’t fly in this weather. It’s strictly prohibited by company policy.”
Sara gripped her temples. “Listen,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended. “What’s your name?”
“Theo.”
“Now listen to me, Theo. Do you know who I am?”
Theo’s voice became a little clearer. “Of course, Mrs. Blitz. You and your husband are some of our most respected customers.”
“Good. Now it’s like this—we have a family crisis, which means that I need to get to Oslo as fast as I can. And the only way I can do that is with your help.”
“But Mrs. Blitz,” he countered, a hint of a whine in his tone, “you must understand that we can’t fly in this weather. We’re a serious company. We have no pilots who can fly now. What you’re asking for is simply impossible, if not illegal.”
Sara bit her lip. Theo was clearly convinced that he was right. She would have to put up a hard fight.
“Listen, Theo. I will gladly pay extra.”
No answer.
“I’ll personally pay you a million kroner if you help get me to Oslo.”
Theo hesitated. “What do you mean?”
Sara’s voice softened. “You heard me. I’ll pay you a million extra. Completely off the record. No one but you and I will know about this.” She paused, then said, “And I’ll take care of you. Whatever you want.”
Theo was silent, and Sara waited, holding her breath. When Theo finally spoke, his voice was strained.
“It’s going to be a secret between you and me. To Oslo, you say?”
“Yes. To Oslo. Today.”
“We will do anything for our customers, Mrs. Blitz. I agree with your proposal.”
Sara licked her lips. Theo had bent to her will.
10
Satisfaction. That’s what it was—sheer and utter satisfaction. Jasper sat up in bed. Anna, the massage therapist, slept by his side. Jasper pulled on a silk bathrobe, stood up, and walked out of the bedroom. He closed the door as he went out. He wasn’t done with Anna yet.
He walked the long corridor that led from the bedroom toward the living room and out into the kitchen. The marble slab on the kitchen island sparkled in the sunshine. Everything in the kitchen was of the highest quality. Jasper went to the Sub-Zero fridge, opened it, and retrieved a bottle of mineral water. He finished the whole thing at once and threw the bottle in the trash. This is how it was and how it should be—on top. All the power he now possessed! It was an intoxicating feeling. Jasper was a recognized businessman in the French business world and was worth many billions.
As chairman of the board for Pantheon Global, he had enormous influence in the business world. Directly and indirectly through subcontractors, he was the head of more than fifty-five thousand people worldwide. He’d fought hard to get to where he was, but that wasn’t what gave him the high he had now.
Instead, the feeling Jasper now enjoyed resulted from a process that had begun two months ago, when he had been contacted by another famous businessman—or rather, businesswoman. Juliet Rapp, the manager of a global medicine group, had requested a meeting with him. Jasper had accepted, thinking that Juliet might propose a collaboration of some kind, but he hadn’t gone to the meeting with particularly high expectations. He had been entirely wrong not to. What Juliet had told him that day had changed Jasper’s life. Juliet had informed him that she was part of a secret organization called the Shadow Council, and she wanted Jasper to join.
Jasper had been taken aback but had quickly gotten hold of himself. He’d been curious about the proposal and had agreed. During the long initiation process, Jasper had more than a few times doubted what he was doing, but he had stayed the course. And he hadn’t regretted it. It had only been two weeks since he’d been admitted to the Shadow Council, and this operation was the first Jasper had carried out with the help of the Shadow Council’s resources. All the power he now had access to was exhilarating.
A single telephone call, and a team of hardy killers was available for his command. He’d exercised power before, but this was something else. And Jasper hadn’t been late in seizing the opportunity. He had planned a hostile takeover of Gripen Defense within the following six months; however, stubborn rumors claimed that Magnus von Silverstråle had other plans. This had forced Jasper to move his agenda forward. And when he’d found out Sara’s intentions, a golden opportunity had appeared.
A voice came from behind him, and Jasper jumped. Anna stood naked in the doorway, her body sculpted from marble.
“Are you leaving me?”
Jasper smiled. He opened the refrigerator again and took out another bottle of mineral water.
“I figured you’d be thirsty when you woke up,” he said.
Anna walked toward him, her golden hair glistening in the sun. She took the bottle, put it down next to the sink, and grabbed Jasper’s bathrobe. Pushing it back, she exposed Jasper’s chest and the long scars that ran from his shoulders to his abdomen. Her fingers slid over them.
Anna hadn’t wanted to ask him about the scars before but now seemed like the right time. “These,” she said softly, “what are they?”
Jasper was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Memories from another time.”
Anna stroked a scar along its edge. Some of the marks were soft and traveled uniformly over his chest. Others stopped abruptly and then continued a few inches later, as if someone had pulled a knife over Jasper’s chest, changed their mind, and then started again.
He took hold of her hands and found they were hot. Kissing them, he said, “It doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters is this.”
Jasper pulled Anna closer, kissed her lips, and instant heat flared up between them. She moaned, took his hands, and dragged him back to the bedroom. Jasper smiled to himself.
Satisfaction.
***
It was now or never. Hugo grabbed the edge of the table as a gargantuan wave pushed the boat up. Behind him, Freya shouted.
“No!”
Hugo bent forward at the knees for a fraction of a second before the hull hit the water with a brutal bang. He looked out. The lights of the fleeing boat had gotten significantly closer.
“How much farther?”
Frank adjusted the instrument panel and replied, “A few minutes, no more. They seem to have had some kind of problem, though; they�
��re not driving as fast as before.”
“That’s good for us.”
Blue-white flashes of light flickered over the murky sky. The rain had eased somewhat, and the wind wasn’t as strong as before. Hugo turned and ran back to the others.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Sussie and Mikko said at the same time.
Hugo looked at Freya. She was still a little pale, and her hands were trembling.
“Freya?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to have to just act as support now. I’m not able to do my best work at the moment.”
Hugo put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll fix this. You and Sussie can support Mikko and me. Mikko, you and I will take the heavy weapons and go up to the deck to stop them.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Mikko said.
Hugo stood and nodded in agreement. “It’ll be tough, all right, but we’re starting to run out of fuel, and if we’re going to stop them, it’s got to happen now.”
He let his eyes slide over the faces of his team. Sussie and Freya nodded.
Mikko slammed his fist on the table, making everything on it jump. “Here we go!” he shouted, grinning widely the only way Mikko could at a time like this.
Hugo walked over to where Frank stood at the wheel. “Can you take us a little closer?” he asked.
Frank’s furrowed face turned toward Hugo with raised, bushy gray eyebrows, and he nodded toward the windshield.
“You’re really going out there?”
Hugo nodded. “Have to.”
Dubiously, Frank shook his head and muttered, “You’re crazy.”
Mikko joined them, and his boisterous laughter echoed in the cabin. “Tell us something we don’t know,” he said.
Hugo met Frank’s gaze. “Listen,” he said into the captain’s eyes, “I know this is out of the ordinary, but I need you to keep the boat as stable as possible, okay?”
Looking right back at him, Frank replied, “I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I can ask for,” Hugo said and turned to Mikko. “You have the weapons?”
Mikko picked up a long, black automatic weapon and handed it to Hugo. “Here. It’s loaded.”
Hugo weighed it in his hand. The slender rifle was extraordinarily well-balanced, and as he gripped it, the weapon became an extension of his arm.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Hugo walked to the door with Mikko on his heels, grabbed the handle, and went out. The wind instantly whipped at their faces, and they stumbled onto the deck. The gusts roared and pulled at their clothes, pushing them so forcefully that they could hardly stay upright. Mikko pointed to the bow.
“We can take a position over there!”
Hugo nodded and crouched down, grabbing the thin metal support that stretched around the bow. A wall of horizontal, lashing rain met him, and he turned his face away. Through the cabin’s windows, he saw Sussie and Frank watching apprehensively. Hugo turned toward the bow again and saw the lights of the fleeing yacht not far in the distance, perhaps a hundred meters away.
Hunkering down, he and Mikko aimed their weapons at the boat as they tried to keep their balance on their own reeling vessel. A wave pushed the bow up toward the sky, and for a moment, they were airborne. The boat came back down to the surface with a violent crash, and Hugo’s weapon smashed against the metal railing so hard his hands vibrated. Pain that would make any man scream shot up his forearms to his shoulders, but Hugo ignored it.
Blessedly, the sea calmed down a bit, perhaps to rest up for the next thrashing. At the helm, Frank took the opportunity and picked up speed again. The boat’s slender hull cut through the water like a knife.
Hugo raised his weapon and aimed at the fleeing craft ahead of them. “On three!” he shouted to Mikko. “One, two, three!”
Mikko and Hugo opened fire, directing death and destruction at their adversaries.
***
The rain pelted the windows. Although Captain Ashraf was fifteen meters above the waves, he was having difficulty seeing the horizon. Thick shocks of rain poured in from the northwest, and he ordered that the windshield wipers’ speed be increased to max. The sinewy helmsman nodded quickly. When he spoke, he displayed a darkened and rotting front tooth.
“Yes, Captain.”
Ashraf gritted his teeth. He didn’t need this kind of delay. The stress of the last twenty-four hours had cut years from his life, he was sure. Several of his crew hadn’t returned from their land leave at the agreed-upon time the day before, which meant that now, they were already six hours late.
Ashraf approached Alvaro Tencini, the radar operator, who sat in front of a large screen that displayed all the ships around them.
“How does it look?”
The man tapped the screen. “It looks okay, except for these guys.”
Ashraf leaned forward and studied the screen. Two dots were moving north, heading straight for them.
“What are they?”
Alvaro shrugged and said, “Don’t know. But if they continue their course, they’ll be on top of us soon.”
“Try to call them.”
Alvaro glanced up at Ashraf. “Shouldn’t we wait?”
Ashraf pondered the situation. It may be hasty, but he didn’t want to take any risks given what they were carrying. Their cargo comprised a couple thousand tons of chemicals to be used in the mining industry in West Africa. It was a precarious but profitable assignment. This storm that had swept over them hadn’t helped Captain Ashraf’s nerves, and he was still angry about the delay. The last thing he needed was more trouble.
Ashraf stared at the screen for a while, then bit his lip and clenched his gnarled hands behind his back. “Okay,” he said, “hold off on calling them but keep an eye on what they’re doing. If they keep getting closer, tell them to back off. Got it?”
Alvaro nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
Ashraf went back to his seat and peered out the windows. The windshield wipers struggled to keep up with the deluge. He shivered. Storms weren’t that common in this part of the world. He liked Scandinavia; the people he met in port were usually friendly, and he was always impressed with how clean it was. He sat silently for a few minutes while the Golden Wind slowly chewed its way through the water.
In a couple more hours, they would change the course due west and come out on open water. With a little luck, the storm would soon blow past so they could move faster. Yes, that was luck they really needed. With such a heavy load, the ship lay low in the water. Ashraf noted anxiously the way waves spilled over the edge and soaked the deck again and again.
The Golden Wind was his second command; it was two hundred twenty meters long with a deadweight of fifteen thousand tons. It wasn’t a huge ship, but it was agile and could carry an impressive load despite its size. The slender hull was painted in dark blue with hints of red and gold to represent the Malaysian flag.
A man approached him with a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” Ashraf said, taking it. He sipped the hot liquid and stared out. Far away, he could see the blur of the horizon. Lowering his eyes, Ashraf looked at the two fastened bundles sitting on the front of the deck. Tarps covered the objects, and he examined them to make sure they were still secure. They were still in position, and he relaxed. If the cargo were to be lost, he would be blamed, but it appeared to be fine.
After two or three minutes, the rain began to subside slightly. Far to the north, he saw the sky brightening.
“Captain!” the radar operator called.
Ashraf drank the last of the coffee and turned around. He was next to Alvaro in three steps.
“Yes?”
Alvaro pointed at the screen. “We’ve got another boat. It’s coming from Sweden with a straight course toward the other two.”
The two dots to their south had drawn closer to each other as well as to the Golden Wind. Ashraf frowned and shook his head. Christ, not now. This wasn’t the time
for a bunch of hotspurs doing some idiotic competition in the storm.
“Okay, contact them,” Ashraf said. “Tell them to stay away from us.”
Alvaro nodded. “Roger.”
Ashraf listened while their calls were ignored by the approaching boats. The minutes passed, and with each call, Ashraf became more and more stressed. The incoming vessels weren’t far away now. If Alvaro wasn’t able to get in touch with them, Ashraf would have to contact the Coast Guard. But he didn’t want to do that. They would have hundreds of questions for him.
Ashraf swallowed hard and nodded to Alvaro to try again. The Golden Wind kept slicing through the storm, and Ashraf bit his lip.
***
Closer. They had to get closer. Hugo’s face was numb from the cold; he could no longer feel the pelting rain on his skin. He was so high on adrenaline that his body felt light, and everything around him was moving slowly. Hugo knew what was going on; it was something he’d experienced many times before, and he had trained his body to function optimally even during times like this.
To his right, he saw Mikko kneeling and firing at the fleeing boat. The volleys of shots echoed, and Hugo felt a wall of sound shake around them as Mikko held down the trigger. Hundreds of rounds left the barrel, shaking the entire front of the craft, but the surrounding waves made it impossible to land a hit on their target.
We’re still too far away, Hugo thought.
Mikko seemed to read his mind and stopped firing. “It’s pointless!” he called over the storm. “We need to get closer!”
Hugo nodded and looked back through the cabin window. He made eye contact with Frank and signaled for him to speed up. Frank stared at him for a few seconds and then nodded and grabbed the throttle, thrusting it forward. The powerful engine revved, and the yacht sped up and cut through the water like a snorting bull. It slid through two waves, rose up on a third, and struck down again with a violent crash. Hugo could barely stay upright as the wind picked up and drove the rain straight toward him.
Mikko shouted, and Hugo turned to see that his friend had fallen to his knees and was gripping the railing with both hands.
The Hugo Xavier Series: Book 1-3 Page 35