Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3)

by Lina Andersson

  Mitch started after a nod from Mech, “What could be expected on the two members. Did, however figure out that Örn, with the two dots over the o, means eagle in Swedish.”

  “Eagle,” Sisco chuckled. “Tell me he’s at least tall.”

  “He actually is,” Mitch nodded. “Anyway, both Mr. Eagle and Mr. Böhm have some priors. I’m mostly curious about the fact that Eagle did five years in Swedish prison for a drug-related charge that was considered a felony charge.”

  “Five years?” Dawg asked. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No. Apparently the most you can get for a felony drug charge in Sweden is ten years, and you usually only serve two thirds of that.”

  There was a silence until Bear chuckled. “Think we’re operating in the wrong fucking country.”

  “Yeah. Looks like it. They don’t really have life sentence, either,” Mitch muttered. He’d been pretty surprised when he’d realized that, and had sort of surfed off the tracks until he remembered what he was supposed to be looking for. “I checked Smiling Ghouls and their work in Europe. It’s one of the bigger clubs operating there, and the only one worth mentioning in the Netherlands. They pretty much own that fucking country, and they got their fingers in everything but diamonds.”

  “So that’s what they want?” Bear nodded, so he’d probably suspected it.

  “I’d say so. Amsterdam is the central hub for diamonds in Europe, kind of like New York is here. So I’d say it’s a safe bet.”

  “Not pot?”

  “No. Don’t think our pot is something they’re particularly interested in. It would be considered shit compared to the stuff they grow themselves,” Mitch explained. “They got suppliers for all the other drugs, and make their own chemical stuff.”

  “Isn’t marijuana and hash legal there?” Bear asked. “Wouldn’t be much point for them to smuggle it at all.”

  “It’s… a bit weird,” Mitch answered. “It’s legal at the front door, but illegal at the back door. Meaning, it’s legal for the coffee shops to sell for private use, but not for anyone to sell in big quantities to the coffee shops.”

  “How the fuck does that add up?” Tommy asked.

  “It doesn’t,” Mitch smiled. “And even without the pot, Holland is pretty much the continent’s gatekeepers to anything smuggled. Everything goes through there. They get the cocaine from Colombia, heroin from the Middle East, and the cannabis from Morocco except for the stuff they grow themselves. And the production of synthetic drugs in Holland has basically made it the Colombia of synthetic drugs. They supply pretty much the entire world.”

  “And how the fuck do the bikers in Holland get away with that?” Bull asked. “Or do they have punishments in line with the Swedish ones?”

  Mitch laughed. “I’d say so. Drug dealers rarely serve jail time, and sometimes they even get to deduct the expenses of their crimes when they pay damages. Like the cost for weapons.”

  They all started laughing.

  “Definitely working in the wrong fucking country,” Mace said and started to re-braid his beard, something he often did when he was focusing. “What about what Bull said last time, about the European clubs being slightly crazy?”

  “Yeah…” Mitch cleared his throat. “I read about some of the biker wars they’ve had, and let’s just say they’re not doing toy runs over there. They’re not even trying to seem legit most of the time.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Denmark was one of the first countries outside America with any bigger biker clubs, and today it has the highest rate of bikers in the world. During a Scandinavian biker war in the early nineties, a biker club raided an underground storage owned by the Swedish military and stole sixteen shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons, and they used them in populated areas to blow up clubhouses of rival clubs.”

  “You’re shitting me?” Brick asked.

  “Nope. Also a shooting at an airport, and I’m mentioning this because the Ghouls are big in Scandinavia. They’re the main supplier to the Freetown Christiania, a freezone in Copenhagen, the Danish capital. It’s an area in the harbor where hash and marijuana is legal.”

  “Hang on,” Sisco interrupted him. “There’s an area in the middle of the Danish capital where hash and marijuana is legal?”

  “I thought Copenhagen was chewing tobacco,” Tommy mumbled.

  “It’s also the capital of Denmark,” Mitch explained before he answered Sisco’s question. “And yes. It’s like a society in its own, if I got it right. Sort of like a miniature Amsterdam but run by hippies. Bikers have been fighting over the right to the sells there forever, but currently it’s the Ghouls who do it.”

  “Are the Netherlands and Scandinavia the major areas they operate?” Bear asked.

  “Yes, some in Germany, too,” Mitch answered. “They work with a few other clubs, but I don’t think that’s gonna matter much to us. It’s smaller, local clubs with no representation here in the states.”

  “Well,” Brick said and cleared his throat. “There are certainly things that need considering. They seem butt-fucking crazy over there, but I’d still like to meet them before I say something for certain.”

  “Question is of course if it matters to us what they do there,” Mech shrugged. “Kind of depends on what kind of cooperation we’re going to have. Not like it matters much to us where our diamonds end up, and we rarely notice. We just ship the shit.”

  Brick and Bear looked at each other while they nodded.

  “We’ll think on it, and see what they say when they come here. I can’t do shit without the cartel’s okay either. I’m guessing they’re gonna want big amounts, so the cartel needs to be onboard, too.”

  The rest of the meeting was even more farfetched speculations, which somehow landed them in discussion about Russia and whether they thought that the other Marauder clubs would be interested in setting up clubs there. As usual, they wrapped up the meeting with the financial situation

  Afterwards, Mitch went to the strip club with Mace, Sisco, and Tommy. Mace and Sisco soon disappeared to the back rooms, but Mitch stayed there to talk a little to Tommy.

  “So… you were a sniper,” he mumbled. “How good are you?”

  “Good,” Tommy smiled.

  He wasn’t the smartest guy, but loyal as hell, and he’d served in the Marines as a sniper. He’d gotten his discharge soon after he’d been hurt in an ambush where his friend had died. His leg had been mangled, but it was hardly noticeable anymore; he didn’t even limp. He was a good guy, pretty funny, and was built like a bull. His neck wide, loads of muscles, and close-cropped hair.

  “How does that work? Do you just lie on your stomach and wait?”

  Tommy laughed and nodded, and Mitch was just about to ask more when he felt his phone vibrating. He picked it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Mech. Did you just try to log on to our server while drunk?”

  “No. I’m at The Booty Bank. You know, this bromance we’ve got going is really cute, but since I’m single—as opposed to you, Mr. Married My High School Sweetheart—I do actually have an active night life. That’s when I get laid, and I don’t log on to our server while getting a blow job.”

  “Someone did, with your user name but the wrong password. Meet me at the clubhouse.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said and hung up before turning towards Tommy. “Gotta go. Have a go at one of them for me,” he added and nodded towards the girls on stage.

  He hurried around the corner to the clubhouse to see if he could catch someone trying to breach their security. He wasn’t too worried they’d manage, to be honest, but they needed to be on top of shit like that, and he sat down in front of the computers and logged on.

  “How does it look?” Mech asked when he walked into the office twenty minutes later.

  “Pathetic, and he’s still connected,” Mitch answered without taking his eyes off the screen. “Think my dad could’ve made a better attempt than this.”

  “I’
m not convinced Brick even knows how to turn a computer on,” Mech chuckled as he sat down next to him. “But they’re not even close to breaking through? Is he isolated?”

  Mitch just gave him an eye. Obviously he’d isolated the guy to keep him from even accidentally stumbling into the important stuff. He wasn’t a fucking idiot. Mech just chuckled.

  “I’ll start going through everything,” he mumbled. “Keep an eye on him.”

  Mitch kept watching the intruder, who couldn’t be much of a fucking hacker if he didn’t even keep an eye on who else was connected to the system he was exploring. If he had, he would’ve immediately seen that he wasn’t alone, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out you were being watched. This was by no means an elite hacker; he probably wasn’t even a fucking script kid, because in order to miss the sysop in the system, he had to be a complete newbie.

  It would’ve been easy for Mitch to just kick him out, but that was stupid. It was always better to observe than to interfere. They wanted to catch the fucker, and that was easier if they kept an eye on him, and this way they could control his access and see what he was doing at the same time. Also, just by watching him, Mitch would learn his technique and his skill. And this was an idiot. He was checking ports like a drunk in dorm hall banging on every fucking door he could see. No matter what fucking exit script he had to delete the log files when he left their system, there was no way in hell he’d be able to undo what he’d done.

  Mitch sighed. “Look at this.” He pointed towards the screen.

  Mech rolled over his chair to sit next to him and stared at the screen for a few minutes.

  “What the fuck? He’s a fucking moron.”

  “Either way, we’re gonna have to go through everything to make sure he didn’t leave some shit behind.”

  “I’ll call Lynn,” Mech sighed.

  Lynn was his wife, the high school sweetheart. Mitch still found it pretty fucking unbelievable that the two of them were still in love, but Mech claimed they were. He was never sweet to her on the phone, or anything like that, but he never cheated on her either. And he always called her when he needed to stay late at the clubhouse or had other work to do.

  “Keep an eye on him until I come back. I’m putting on some coffee,” Mitch said as he stood up. “We’re gonna need it.

  -o0o-

  Mitch sighed a little when Eliza came walking towards him in the hallway at his dad’s house. She looked angry, and he knew why.

  “Sorry, buttercup,” he mumbled when she stopped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I called you all night,” she mumbled.

  “I know. I’ve been working.” She opened her mouth, but he interrupted her before she could say anything. “And it really was work. You know I pick up if it’s you even if there’s a girl there.”

  “Work?”

  “Club work,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “None of your business.”

  Eliza was a lot like him. Not really thinking about things, a lot of energy, a brain that was all over the place going a thousand miles an hour, but with that lovely dash of teenage girl hormones. She’d been a monster for a while, but the last year she’d calmed down. Mitch found it hard to think about the fact that she was fourteen. He’d gone after more than one fourteen-year-old. It had been a while since then, and he hadn’t been much older than fourteen when he did it. Which didn’t change the fact that it was quite possible that someone, at that very moment, was planning on how to get into his baby sister’s panties. That was some disturbing shit.

  Soon enough, the noise and all the people got to him, and he sneaked outside for a smoke. When the door opened behind him, he assumed it was Mac, but it wasn’t. It was Lisa.

  “Give me your phone,” she said. He didn’t know what it was about, but he gave it to her. She pushed some buttons and then nailed him down with her eyes. “You have to be so fucking careful—I kid you not! Super careful, she’s… Careful!”

  She’d given him Anna’s number! Things where looking up.

  “I get it.”

  “And really pay attention to her reactions and… Fuck! Just, really careful, okay?”

  “Okay?” He didn’t fully get that but didn’t get the chance to ask her, since she just kept up with her ramblings.

  “And if you make her fall madly in love with you, or say anything she can think means—”

  “I get it!” he exclaimed, but Lisa wasn’t done.

  “—I’ll rip your balls off.”

  “Lisa. I get it.”

  He took the phone and saw that Lisa’d programmed Anna as ‘Anna Dobronravov’. He was a bit impressed Lisa hadn’t just remembered her last name, but also knew how to spell it—assuming it was spelled correctly. He stared at the name for a while.

  “So who is she?” his dad asked when he came outside a few minutes later.

  “What?”

  “Only time you have a smile like that is when you’ve got fresh booty in sight.”

  “Maybe.” He looked at his dad and decided to go inside to give her a call. “Dinner tomorrow?”

  “Always welcome, son. You know that.” He was about to go back inside when he turned around. “Any idea how someone got ahold of your user name?”

  “No, but it’s not hard to guess, and no alarms go off until someone tries to log on with a username that’s correct.”

  “So you didn’t give it to some booty?”

  “Dad, I don’t need to give girls inside info to get a blow job.”

  “Shouldn’t you be trying to figure who hacked our system?”

  “Okay, they didn’t hack our system, they tried, and I am tracking them.”

  “While you’re here?”

  “Do you want me to describe exactly how I’m doing it, or are you gonna take my word for it?”

  “Smart ass,” Brick said and gave him a hug. “See you tomorrow.”

  Mitch went through the house, said bye to everyone, and then stopped once he was out at to the driveway. He pressed ‘dial.’

  “Anna.”

  “Hi, it’s Mitch. Lisa gave me your number.”

  “Oh! I didn’t think...” There was a long silence. “Hi.”

  “Wanna go out for a beer?”

  “A beer?”

  He was starting to wonder exactly what Lisa’d said to Anna because she sounded extremely confused. And something else, too, he just couldn’t put his finger on it at the moment.

  “Yeah, thought I’d pick you up with my bike.”

  “I don’t think I can go on a bike.”

  “Nothing to it. I’ll teach you.”

  “No, more that I’m not sure how to bring the cane.”

  “Shit. Didn’t think about that.” He wasn’t sure what to suggest instead, and he was still wondering why she sounded like… a deer in headlights, whatever those sounded like.

  “You could just come here. I have beer and wine, but I’m guessing you don’t drink wine. Probably something else to drink, too.”

  “Okay.” He was starting to suspect that there was something he was really missing, she seemed very nervous, but he could go to her place. It beat taking her to his place by miles, since it was easer to leave than to throw someone out, if that seemed necessary once he was done. “Sure, uh, just give me your address, and I’ll be there soon.”

  “87 Oak Street, fourth floor.”

  “I’ll see you there,” he said and hung up.

  He was still trying to figure out what was going on when he stepped out of the elevator in her house. This was one of the nice neighborhoods in Greenville, and he knew the house only had really big apartments, so he briefly wondered how the hell she was paying for that, since she couldn’t dance anymore. From what he remembered, ballerinas didn’t make that much money to begin with. The door opened, and Anna gave him a bothered smile. She was wearing a simple, black dress, something he really hoped was thigh-highs or stockings, and a white knitted shawl was draped over her shoulders
.

  “Hi,” she said and gave him a shy smile. “Come in.”

  He walked inside and saw a long hallway ending up in what he assumed was the living room, but he wasn’t sure because the apartment was too fucking big for him to see the end of it. He walked farther and to a big opening on the right leading to the kitchen, the very modern kitchen, he noted.

  “So this is your place?”

  She laughed. “No. It’s my aunt’s place—my aunt on my father’s side—their parents bought this place in the forties. We all lived here together before my parents moved abroad.”

  That would explain it. Not that Greenville was the most expensive place, but even here apartments like this cost a lot of money. And she was really cute when she was rambling out of nervousness.

  “It’s nice. Better than any bar I had in mind.”

  “I’m just not comfortable with bars.” She held up her cane. “Or more that I’m not comfortable with walking around with this when I’m drunk.”

  “I can see why that would be a problem.”

  She walked past him into the kitchen and opened the fridge.

  “Beer okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  He took it and watcher her as she walked over to a glass of wine she had standing on the counter. After a few impressively deep gulps, she put it down and looked at him again.

  “What did Lisa say to you?” she said once she’d turned her eyes down on the floor.

  “Not much. She gave me your number.”

  With half a smile and a lifted eyebrow she looked up. “Don’t think that’s the full story.”

  “No, but we didn’t talk much, she gave it to me at a family dinner.”

  “You have family dinners?”

  “Often.”

  He was trying to figure out what the hell was really going on. Lisa was... well, Lisa. He knew how she talked to her friends about him. When she’d set him up with her friends before, it had been clear what was going on. This felt strange. Anna looked insanely nervous, and if she hadn’t been twenty-five he’d have considered her being a virgin.