Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3)

by Lina Andersson

  Dieter ‘Pico’ Böhm was shorter, had a moustache, hair pointing in all directions and only held down with the help of the military cap he’d put on the second he got off the bike. It was obvious he was in charge because Olle waited until Pico was ready, and then walked behind him up to Brick.

  “An honor,” Pico said in broken English. He definitely had an accent; that much was obvious even by those two words alone.

  “Yes, an honor,” Eagle said next, and his English was better. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  After greeting Brick, Bear, and Bull, they shook hands with the rest of them. Eagle actually introduced himself as Eagle. Apparently the English translation of his last name had stuck among the Marauders.

  Dutch took Mitch to the side after a tight hug.

  “How are things with hacking attempt?” he asked.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Mitch assured him. “He’s hidden his tracks, but he didn’t get anything. We’re doing a search in the system, and so far it’s clean. He’s been back a few times but hasn’t been any more successful, and he’s very careful, so we’re considering giving him a honeypot.”

  “A what?”

  “A trap. We’ll basically make him think he’s found what he’s looking for. He’ll hack it and that way we can track him.”

  “I like it,” Dutch smiled. “Think it’s cops?”

  “No. Not even cops suck that bad at hacking. This is something else.”

  “Could it have something to do with them?” He nodded towards the guest.

  “Doubt it. Their intel guy is a man called Staccato. If he’d wanted to test us, he would’ve done a better job, and if he’d wanted to get into our system, he would’ve. We might have caught him, but he’d get in.”

  “And the emails, think he can get to those? The hacker, I mean.”

  “We have programs that encrypt emails on all club computers, Dutch. I’ve told you that, at the same time as I told you that unencrypted emails are about as private as postcards. Don’t worry.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That’s why I only email you from the club computer. Anything you and Mech have seen before? What he used.”

  Mitch laughed. “Sure. But we’ve seen most of it. He was probably trying to add some rootkit, get sudo access—”

  “Fuck it,” Dutch laughed. “I don’t give a shit, and I don’t get it, either, but we need to keep an eye on it.”

  “We are. We’ve just temporarily hit a wall, but our system is clean. It’s almost like he’s just poking us with a long stick. He doesn’t even seem to be trying very hard anymore, but we’ll get him.”

  “Glad you and Mech are on our side,” Dutch said with a smile. “Take me to the bar.”

  After a few welcome beers, they all went into the chapel, and Mitch sat down at his usual place. They’d put out extra chairs for Chucky, Dutch, Pico, and Eagle. Brick held his usual welcome speech to their guests, and then they quickly got down to business.

  “I’m letting Eagle here speak for me,” Pico said with a nod towards the huge Swede. “His English is better.”

  He looked at Eagle, who nodded. Before starting to talk, he took something out from under his upper lip, put it in the lid of a small, round canister, before opening it and once again shoving something black under his lip. Mitch just stared, and Eagle smiled at him.

  “Swedish snus, twice as much nicotine as those fag sticks your suckling on. Puts hair on your chest, boy. Want some?”

  Mitch shook his head. “Um, are you gonna need something to spit in?”

  “Nope. Not from this.”

  Mitch still didn’t think it was smart to put that shit in before he started talking, but it wasn’t his problem, so he shrugged.

  “We’ve heard that you immediately guessed we wanted diamonds from you, which is correct,” Eagle smiled. “But we do also want pot. We’re growing our own, but we’re in control of most coffee shops in Amsterdam and Rotterdam now, and we can just barely cover our own needs, so we’ve decided to keep our own production in Holland, and smuggle in foreign products to ship to the rest of Europe.”

  “I don’t need detailed answers to my questions, and if I step out of line, just let me know, but I do have some practical questions,” Brick said. “I’m assuming you’re taking things through the US already, so do you have a port here where we can ship things from?”

  They’d all assumed that it was going to be done by ships. If the Smiling Ghouls were in control of outlaw activity in the Netherlands, they had contacts in the Amsterdam and Rotterdam ports, or were even partly in control of them. A quick look at what cities the Smiling Ghouls had in the US, it became fairly evident that they tended to choose cities with important ports.

  “We have a few,” Eagle said with a smile. “Since these things are going to Europe, they’re going from the East Coast. One problem could be that you’re muling on a small scale. You do it often and small shipments. That’s not going to work with the way we’re transporting.”

  “If we get to that point, we’ll figure it out,” Chucky said with a nod. “Setting up a transport company and a few trucks re-built for smuggling doesn’t take long, but we’re not going to start with that until we know where this is going.”

  “What would our role be, exactly?” Brick asked.

  “Your roll would be getting the goods to a harbor here in the US, probably New York, and setting up the deal with the cartel. You already have a good pipeline of clubs up there, and I don’t see any reason why you should create a different one,” Eagle said. “You leave it to our men, get your cut, and they ship it over to Amsterdam to distribute it in Europe. It wouldn’t be that different from what you’re doing now. Just a bigger risk, since it’s bigger amounts.”

  “Even if the pipelines are the same, we’re not going to be able to do it in the same way as we are now, if the shipments get bigger,” Bear said and shook his head. “So what pipelines we have now doesn’t really matter. Might be better to use one further south. Shorter travel distance.”

  “I think our US friends will insist on the New York Port,” Eagle answered with a casual shrug, but Mitch couldn’t help noticing his tense jaw when he said it. “But that’s something we can discuss later. And you can separate the shipments. Take the regular ones one way, and ours another way. That’s up to you. We don’t care either way.

  “What about borders on your end?” Tommy asked. “This is just me being curious, but there’s a lot of small fucking countries in Europe, a lot of borders to cross.”

  “It’s the EU,” Eagle smiled, and he seemed a lot more comfortable with that discussion. “No borders is the EU. Haven’t seen a manned station at a border in ten years. It’s trickier if you’re going outside EU, but not even that is much of a problem if you know the right routes.”

  “You can come and we show you,” Pico said to Brick and Bear. “Or anyone else who wants to see.”

  “They’ve invited us to come with them on a run if we set this up,” Chucky explained. “Think it would be a good thing to go on the first run. If for no other reason than to see Christiania.”

  Eagle chuckled. “You wanna see it and the coffee shops in Amsterdam, too.”

  They talked for hours, and it was definitely interesting. As far as Mitch could tell, the two visitors were straight with them. The only strange thing was the weird Swedish idioms Eagle kept using. Apparently he wanted them to spread around the word. The weirdest was definitely ‘shitting in the blue cupboard,’ which basically meant stepping over the line. Mitch liked it, though.

  Once the meeting was over, Mitch called Anna. They’d seen each other at least twice a week the past month, and he still hadn’t managed to get her to stay the night at his place. She kept blaming her aunt or starting work early the next morning, but he was sure that wasn’t it.

  He promised Dutch they’d sit down with Sisco the next day to go over what the cooperation with the Europeans could mean for the money laundry, but even after a quick talk he knew they were all o
n the same page. It would make it easier.

  -o0o-

  “You know, if you were a seventeen-year-old high school girl, I might have believed the excuse that you don’t want your aunt to know you’re having sex, but you’re not,” he said to Anna while she was getting dressed. He was still in bed, and he was studying her while having his post-coitus smoke. “So tell me what the real reason is.”

  “The leg,” she said without looking at him while she buttoned up her shirt.

  “I’ve seen your leg, baby. Quite fond of it, to be honest.”

  She sighed and eyed him. “I need to do a twenty-minute exercise every morning to get it started.”

  “So?” he shrugged. “Do it here, not like I’d mind.”

  “It’s just…” she didn’t continue.

  “It’s okay.” He got up from the bed and went over to her cane. “Did you know that the cane got popular among wealthy men in the 18th century since swords became banned? It was used as a protection, and also something that showed you didn’t make a living by physical labor.”

  “No,” she laughed. “How did you know that?”

  “Read it somewhere,” he said as he handed it to her. “I remember what I read.”

  “Everything?” she asked with a smile.

  “Most of it.”

  “So you could give me useful information about random subjects then?”

  “Probably.” He followed her down the stairs and to the door. “Just so you know, I wouldn’t mind. I’d even help with the massage.”

  “I need an actual massage, not foreplay.”

  “I could do that before getting to the foreplay.”

  “Sure,” she said with an eye roll and pulled him down for a kiss. “I’ll see you.”

  “Whenever you can, just give me a call,” he said with a smile, well aware that she wouldn’t. It was always him making the call. On occasion she texted to let him know her aunt was staying at her boyfriend’s for the night, but that was as close as she’d get.

  Once she was gone, he tried to get some sleep but quickly realized it wouldn’t happen. If he’d stayed in bed when Anna left, it might’ve worked, but getting out meant he was doomed. He was pretty pleased when Eliza called.

  “Buttercup,” he answered with a big smile. “Was actually hoping you’d call.”

  “You free?” she asked.

  “Always free for you, honey. I’ll be there in twenty.”

  He loved taking rides with Eliza. She was easy company and as sharp as she was beautiful. They always had great discussions about physics, comics, or movies. Lately she’d been asking him about boys, too, and as fucking uncomfortable as it made him, he was glad she talked to him, so he could warn her about guys like him.

  A few months earlier, he’d been pulled over by the cops when they were on one of their night rides, and to his horror the cops had thought she was with him—as his girlfriend. They were probably looking to take him in for being with a minor. He’d been so disgusted he’d barely been able to look at her for about an hour after that. He was twelve years older than her! She’d naturally thought it was hilarious, and had teased him relentlessly about it for weeks.

  This time there were no cops in sight, though, and after about a forty-five minute ride, he took her to his place. She took his hand when they walked into the living room.

  “Sorry if I interrupted you,” she said.

  “No you’re not. You’re never sorry, Buttercup.” He gave her forehead a kiss and went to get a Coke each for them. “And she’d already left when you called.”

  Eliza was studying him when he came with the bottle and glasses. He knew he’d said too much because Eliza didn’t miss stuff. At the same time he needed to sort some things out, and with the exception of Mac, Eliza was the best option. Besides, Eliza was lacking the thing that made him and Mac scratch their head about women—a penis.

  “You had a girl here?”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t want to spend the night,” he said, and Eliza raised her eyebrows. “Can you shut up about this? I don’t want it blown out of proportion because you yap about it to Mel or someone.”

  “If you shut up about a few questions I have.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s about a guy.”

  He took a deep breath. She was fourteen; it couldn’t be that fucking bad, and if it was he’d go bury the little prick somewhere in the woods and make sure Eliza never knew about it. He really would, and Mac would help him.

  “Ask me.”

  “It’s this guy at my school. He’s older than me, and we’re texting. He’s really sweet and funny.”

  Mitch bet he was sweet, but just emptied his glass to not say anything.

  “So,” Eliza continued, “I guess I just wanna know if it’s for real.”

  “Tell him you have a purity ring and are planning on staying a virgin until you’re married. If he still texts you after that, it might be. Or he just thinks you need some convincing.”

  “Not everyone is like you, you know,” she muttered.

  “Baby,” he chuckled, “most of them are. At least at that age.”

  Eliza just glared at him, but didn’t say anything. They continued watching the film, but all the time Mitch was just waiting for her to keep going.

  “So you were never in love?” she eventually said.

  “Honey, if you have questions about guys falling in love, you’re better off talking to Mac about it. He took girls a lot more seriously than I did, even before he hooked up with Vi.”

  She muttered something, but he couldn’t tell what, and he dropped it. Sometimes she needed those small victories.

  He wished he could’ve told her differently, that the slightly older guy was probably madly in love with her. And he might be, but he was probably madly in love with anyone who had a cup size the same as Eliza’s. Just thinking about her tits was disturbing as fuck, but that didn’t make it any less true.

  “Why doesn’t she want to stay the night?” she suddenly asked.

  “She has some exercises, or some shit like that, to do in the morning,” he answered. “She smashed her leg a while back.”

  “Is it Anna?”

  “Fuck. You know her?”

  “No, but Vi talked about her. She’d done some ink on her.”

  Anna had a dancing ballerina on her upper thigh, a really nice tattoo, and he’d known Vi’d done it, but when Anna was naked he didn’t pay much attention to her tattoo. There were a lot nicer things to look at.

  “Okay. Just shut up about it. I don’t think she wants people to know.”

  “And what about you?”

  He laughed. “Honey, I don’t care if people know or not, but I like seeing her, and I have a hunch I need to shut up about it for her to keep seeing me.”

  “You like seeing her?” Eliza said with a knowing smile.

  “Don’t go there ‘cause that’s not it, and you don’t want any details on why I want to keep seeing her.”

  “Okay.” Eliza leaned over and gave his cheek a kiss. “Love you, you male chauvinist ass.”

  -o0o-

  The guests stuck around for almost a week, and towards the end of their stay, Mitch had decided he really liked Pico, and that Eagle was as crazy as Bull. Those two got along really well, and Mitch was glad he’d missed most of their private conversations. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what sick, twisted methods they’d shared between themselves. The only discussion he had been privy to was regarding how many coils there was supposed to be in a hangman’s knot. Bull had argued that thirteen was the correct number, while Eagle claimed that was superstitious bollocks, anything over eight was fine as long as the person you were hanging wasn’t too big. Mitch had left them alone after that.

  “Whatta you think?” Mac asked as he dropped down next to him in the couch.

  “About what?”

  “Fuck!” Mac shrugged. “Take a pick. Going into business with some Europeans, someone trying to hack us, Wrench as a prospect�
�� All of the above?”

  Wrench had been suggested as the next prospect, and Mitch had thought it was a good choice. Wrench was definitely the one he liked best among the current hang-arounds.

  “I don’t know, but I think Wrench is good. A bit cold, but not in a creepy Bull kind of way. He’d get the job done.”

  “That’s what I think,” Mac agreed. “Was a bit surprised that Dawg said he’d sponsor him. I thought Sisco would.”

  Mitch had thought the same thing. Wrench and Sisco had gotten pretty close the last few months, but apparently Dawg had kept an eye on him as well, and Dawg had a good eye when it came to judging people. He’d apparently seen something in Wrench that he liked. They hadn’t voted yet, though; there were some things Brick and Bear wanted to do first, and when Mitch saw his dad walking over to Wrench with a bottle of tequila, he assumed it was the ‘get the fucker drunk as fuck and make him talk’ test coming up.

  “Think he’ll do fine,” Mitch said and looked around and found Mech staring at one of the strippers, which was unusual, but it also reminded him of something he’d been meaning to mention to him. “I just thought about something. I need to talk to Mech. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Need a night by the river soon,” Mac grumbled. When Mitch looked at him with a raised eyebrow, Mac sighed. “It’s Vi. The fucking hormones make her cry all the damn time. She cried about a puppy who stumbled outside a shop yesterday. I just need to spend a night with someone who isn’t bawling.”

  “Next week,” Mitch agreed and walked over too Mech and sat down next to him instead. “What would Lynn say about you ogling tits?”

  “She knows I’m a man, and all men are slaves to boobs. The unconquerable desire to eye the amorous sources of the unmerciful attraction every man feels.”

  Mitch looked at the girl who was definitely showing off her impressively-sized tits to Mech. “Yup, doomed to forever hankering the swelled fleshy spires dangled in front of us,” he chuckled, which made Mech laugh and continue.

  “Chained down by the hypnotizing black arts coming from the female cones.”

  “Cursed to forever dream of the swelling sweetness adorning the female bosoms.”