Blood Brothers

by Rick Acker

  Ben decided to give his feet a rest and headed for the little grouping of chairs. As he got closer, he noticed that the clothing on the Viking mannequin didn’t look right, though the light was too dim to say exactly why. As Ben approached, the figure stirred and looked up. It was Gunnar. “Ah, Mr. Corbin. I see that I’m not the only escapee from the hot air blowing out there.”

  “The speeches do start to sound the same after a while. I figured the exhibit might be more interesting than the people talking about it.”

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “Pretty impressive, especially when it’s empty like this. They’ve really created the atmosphere of another place and time. When I walked in here, I almost felt like I’d arrived early for a Viking war council and that any minute the king and his generals would walk in.”

  Gunnar regarded him with an odd, piercing look for a moment. “It’s interesting that you should put it like that. I—” There was a noise behind them, and Gunnar looked past Ben’s shoulder. Ben turned and saw Karl Bjornsen walking up to them.

  “Gunnar!” he said in a booming voice. “I’m so glad you could make it to our exhibition.” He was smiling, but it was the hard, predatory smile of the victor greeting the vanquished.

  “I wanted to make sure you didn’t screw it up too badly after I left,” Gunnar replied. He stood and looked around. “It looks good. I assume someone else took care of it.”

  Ben shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked away, but Karl continued to smile. “You’re right. I was so busy cleaning up the mess you left at my company that I didn’t have time to work on this myself.”

  Gunnar’s face hardened. “Ditt selskap, sier du?”

  “Ja. Og min teknologi som du stjal,” Karl growled in reply.

  Gunnar tensed and clenched his fists. “Din helv—” He stopped himself as he noticed a group entering the exhibit hall from the reception. “Excuse me; do any of you speak Norwegian?”

  “Yes, I do,” replied a matronly woman with white hair and a tentlike dress.

  “How unfortunate. Since that is the case, I will limit my remarks to wishing you all a good night,” Gunnar continued with an icy smile. “Even you, little brother.” Then he pushed past Karl and out of the hall.

  Two hours later, the festivities were winding down. The bar was closed, everyone who wanted to see the exhibit had been through the hall, and most of the crowd had left. The Corbins had spent the past half hour near the door, saying good-bye to guests. At last, even Karl Bjornsen and his wife gathered their coats and were on their way out into the blustery night.

  As Ben watched the Bjornsens’ retreating backs, he leaned over to his wife and asked, “What’s the deal with him and his brother? I thought they were going to start fighting when they ran into each other in the exhibit.”

  “I told you about that,” replied Noelle. “They founded Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals together, decades ago. Karl was the chairman and Gunnar was the president, but they set it up so that neither of them could make any major decision without the other’s consent. That worked fine for a long time, but about a year ago they stopped agreeing. It turned into a feud over control of the company, and Karl won. He forced Gunnar out in a proxy fight about a month ago.”

  Ben vaguely recalled having seen articles about the brothers’ battle, though he hadn’t read them. “That was in the Tribune a while back, wasn’t it?”

  “And Crain’s,” replied Noelle. “A couple of the board members didn’t want to invite Gunnar tonight, because they thought there might be a scene.”

  “There was a scene.” Ben recounted the incident in the exhibit hall.

  Noelle sighed. “I’m glad it wasn’t worse. It sounds like Karl gave Gunnar the bump just as their company was developing that new product, which could be huge. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  “What new product?”

  She looked at him first with surprise, and then with suspicion. “You snuck out before Karl’s presentation, didn’t you?”

  “I knew the speeches would go downhill as soon as you stopped talking,” he replied.

  She smiled affectionately. “Good answer, but you missed a really interesting talk.” She summarized the story of the hiker’s discovery and the results of Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals’ test results.

  “Wow,” Ben said when she had finished. “I’m sorry I missed that. So he’s invented brain steroids, huh? I wish we’d had those when I was in law school.”

  One of the servers walked up with a question, and Noelle turned her attention to the aftermath of the party. “The caterer says there’s seven pounds of grilled salmon left,” she informed Ben a few minutes later. “What do you say we bring it home?”

  “Brutus will love it,” he replied. Brutus was their ten-pound cockapoo—50 percent cocker spaniel, 50 percent poodle, and 100 percent terror. Noelle had picked the breed, and Ben had picked the name. Brutus was still a puppy and had a huge appetite, particularly for human food.

  She made a point of looking appalled. “No way are you giving it to the dog!”

  “It’ll stink up the fridge if we have it in there for more than a day,” Ben countered.

  “Okay. We’ll take half, and it will be gone in thirty-six hours.”

  Ben knew she was up to the challenge. “Deal.”

  Gunnar’s car would have been uncomfortably silent had it not been for Markus’s intermittent snoring. Tom nudged his brother, who was quiet for a moment before starting up the chain saw again.

  Markus was drunk, as he generally was by late evening. After a contemptuous remark from his father in the parking lot, Markus had put in his earbuds, tuned out his family, and fallen asleep by the time the car reached the highway. About fifteen minutes later, Gunnar said, “Markus!” in an irritated voice. No response. “Markus!” he boomed.

  His son bolted awake and cringed. “What?”

  “You were snoring. Stop it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Markus replied in a slurred mixture of subservience and resentment. He turned up the volume on his music and closed his eyes again. But he didn’t snore.

  Gunnar drove fast. He always did when he was angry. Early in their marriage, Anne would urge him to slow down, but she soon learned that there was no reasoning with him when he was like this. All she could do was wait for the storm to pass and pray that he didn’t hit anyone. So far, he hadn’t.

  “Are you still planning on taking the boat out on Thursday?” she asked, hoping to distract him from his wrath.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Did the weather forecast change?”

  “No.”

  She debated whether to dig deeper and decided it was worth the risk. “Then why wouldn’t you go sailing?”

  He was silent for so long that she began to think he wouldn’t answer. “I think I’m going to see a lawyer.”

  She leaned over and whispered, “About the boys’ inheritance—about Markus?”

  “No,” he replied. “About the other problem male in the family.”

  The Corbins walked into their Wilmette home and were energetically greeted by ten pounds of fur, tongue, and bark. “Whoa! Down, boy!” said Ben as he tried to protect the pants of his best suit. “I just had these dry cleaned.”

  After Brutus’s affections subsided, Ben and Noelle trudged upstairs, worn out by the busy evening. Ben changed into a pair of sweats and got ready for bed. Then he lay down and let his mind idle as he waited for Noelle to finish her complicated ritual for removing her clothing, jewelry, and makeup after society evenings.

  His thoughts wandered for a few minutes, but he soon found himself thinking about the exhibition. The intricately worked gold, the weathered runic inscriptions, and the sense that he had been walking among the ghosts of warrior kings all percolated in Ben’s tired brain. He imagined mist-shrouded fjords and mountain forests growing over the burial mounds of ancient Viking lords.

  Noelle walked in, interrupting her husband’s Nordic reverie. “Hey, honey,�
�� he said, “what do you think about maybe taking a trip to Norway? We’ve never been there, and it’ll be a lot harder to take trips after the baby comes.”

  “That’s true.” She thought for a moment. Every now and then they had vaguely discussed taking another overseas vacation, but they had mostly talked about Asia, not Scandinavia. “We’ve also never been to China.”

  “Yes, but just imagine how good the Norwegian salmon will be. Also, I’ll bet the plumbing is a lot more modern in Norway.” Two years ago, they had spent three weeks touring Southern Italy and Greece. During their travels, Noelle had found exactly one bathroom that was remotely acceptable by her standards.

  “Those are excellent points,” she responded. “But do you think you can take any more time off from work?”

  Ben hesitated before answering. Shortly after his victory against the terrorists, and partly thanks to his sudden celebrity, he had settled a large trade-secrets case on very favorable terms. The contingent-fee portion of his compensation had amounted to two million dollars, plus one hundred thousand per year for at least the next ten years. That, combined with some good investing, meant that he no longer had to work unless he wanted to—and he often didn’t want to.

  He had a couple of cases that occupied about fifteen hours per week, and some pro-bono work that took around five hours more, but that was it. He spent most of his time reading, working in his woodshop, or watching old movies. Noelle was not a great fan of her husband’s newly relaxed lifestyle, and had said so on more than one occasion. Her question was therefore a dangerous one and needed a careful answer. “I think so. Things are starting to pick up at the office, but I should be able to make the time for a vacation. Besides, this will probably be our last chance before the baby is old enough to travel.”

  “You mentioned that already.” She thought about that for a moment and then shook her head. “Maybe you can take the time, but I can’t. There’s just too much to do. I’ve got two new clients with quarterly reports coming due, and one of them has SEC filings to make. And that’s on top of all the other stuff I’ve got to do.” Ben knew that most of that “stuff” involved catered brunches in large homes, luncheon board meetings, and charity dinners. He was surprised she hadn’t put on thirty pounds even before she’d gotten pregnant. “Oh, and it looks like we’re going to get invited to the Adlers’ son’s bar mitzvah. The Bishops and Gossards are likely to be there.”

  “That’s nice,” Ben replied with a yawn. “We can send him a card and a sweater from Norway.”

  “You mean we could if we were going to be there instead of at his bar mitzvah.”

  “You’d give up three weeks in the Land of the Midnight Sun for three hours making small talk with the Bishops and Gossards? They’re nice people, but they’re not that nice.”

  She looked at him with raised eyebrows. “You were thinking of taking three weeks off?”

  “Okay, two weeks.”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t have time, bar mitzvah or no. And neither do you. Going to Norway would mean even more time out of the office—and you couldn’t possibly spend less time there without retiring.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “If I take up shuffleboard and start complaining about how young people drive, would you stop bugging me about that?”

  “No, I’d bug you about being boring.” She changed her tone and tried again. “Do you remember what you said when we were thinking about going out on our own?”

  He shrugged. “I said a lot of stuff. The only one that sticks in my head was that I was going to miss the free catered lunches at B&R.”

  “The one that sticks in my head was that you wanted to do something more important than defend the rights of Fortune 500 companies. Remember that? We prayed about our decision, and you said you felt that God was calling you to use your gifts to make a real difference in the lives of real people. What happened? Now that we’ve got money, is God calling you to spend more time sitting in front of the TV or making Shaker chairs in the basement?”

  “Man, you’re hard to please! A few months ago, you were complaining because I worked too much. Now you’re complaining because I’m not working enough. Make up your mind.”

  “I’m not saying you have to spend all your time suing people, I’m just saying you should do something. Maybe you could do some work for the Field. I could introduce you to some very interesting and charming people.”

  “There are plenty of interesting and charming people in the world,” Ben replied testily. “Not all of them have five-thousand-square-foot homes and live on the North Shore. In fact, I’ll bet a lot of them live in Norway. Who knows, maybe we can even find some rich people there for you to talk to.”

  She stopped getting ready for bed and glared at him. “Do you really mean that? Do you really think I spend over a hundred hours every month working for free just so I can talk to rich people?”

  Ben sighed inwardly. Why did these speak-the-truth-in-love conversations always seem to happen when he wanted to go to bed? “That was a cheap shot, and I’m sorry. No, I don’t think that’s the only reason you do it, but I do think it’s one of the perks. I mean, if there was nothing to it, would I have hit a nerve like that?”

  “Let’s test that little theory,” she returned sharply. “Why don’t I try hitting a few of your nerves, and then you can tell me whether there’s anything to my comments. Deal?”

  Ben chuckled ruefully and sat up in bed. “How about I apologize again and you forgive me and then I give you a backrub to soothe that nerve I hit. Deal?”

  “No deal. As long as we’re sharing constructive criticism here, I want a real answer out of you on why you think it’s okay to spend ten hours a day putzing around here at home and only four or five in the office. And half the time when you’re there, I see you playing solitaire on your computer or surfing ESPN.com.”

  “I need to remember to keep my door shut.” He yawned. “Look, we’ve had a long night and I’m beat. Can’t we talk about this over coffee and muffins in the morning?”

  “No, we can’t. You’ve been ducking this one for months. I want to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

  He flopped back down onto his pillow. “Okay, fine. The answer is that I worked my butt off for eight years after law school because I had to. Now I don’t have to anymore. I kind of like the change, but I’m not as motivated as I used to be. Maybe I should be, but I’m not. It’s a lot harder to drag myself out of bed at six o’clock every morning when the only reason I’ve got to go into the office is that I feel called to do it. Satisfied?”

  She smiled. “Of course. I just needed to hear you say it. And I think you needed to hear yourself say it. Now, did you say something about a backrub?”

  Captain Tor Kjeldaas put the Agnes Larsen’s engines in reverse and pulled her out of the slip she occupied at the crowded municipal pier in Yuragorsk, a small but booming port city tucked away in the far northwest corner of Russia. It was a starless, rainy night and the seas were choppy, but the captain welcomed the darkness and the foul weather.

  The Agnes Larsen was a fishing boat, but there were no fish in her holds tonight. The Norwegian and Russian processing plants had dropped the price they would pay for cod, and the crew of the Agnes Larsen were feeling the pinch. So they’d decided to supplement their income by importing fifty cases of vodka with them when they returned to their home port of Torsknes, Norway. The Norwegian government held a monopoly on sales of hard liquor and charged exorbitant prices—usually three or more times the price in neighboring countries. The result, of course, was a brisk bootlegging business over Norway’s long and sparsely populated borders and coastline.

  Captain Kjeldaas steered his little ship cautiously, his leathery face a picture of concentration in the dim, green glow of the instrument panel. He continually made minor adjustments to the wheel and throttle, his gnarled hands moving with great precision and delicacy despite arthritis and dozens of scars from a half century of working these waters. His exp
erienced blue eyes scanned the black swells for the subtlest change.

  April was a dangerous time for sailors on the Arctic Ocean, even in calm weather and bright daylight. Warmed by the spring sun, icebergs calved off from the polar ice pack and coastal glaciers, drifting for weeks or even months until they finally melted. They ranged in size from huge floating islands, which could be easily spotted and avoided, to small chunks that were little more than ice cubes and bounced harmlessly off even the thinnest hulls. The truly deadly bergs lay between these two extremes—jagged masses of ice that barely disturbed the waves rolling over them, yet could smash fatal holes into any ship unlucky enough to meet them.

  The Agnes Larsen puttered along at only a few knots to minimize the risk from ice. Her speed was further reduced because the running lights were set as dim as possible to avoid detection by the Kystvakt, the Norwegian coast guard. Captain Kjeldaas was a careful and experienced sailor, but neither care nor experience were complete protection against the hazards of the Arctic Ocean. As he looked out through the rain-streaked pilothouse window, he saw an odd pattern in the waves a hundred meters ahead. He frowned and turned his craft a few points to starboard to avoid whatever was causing the water to behave strangely. Then a trough in the waves exposed a pale-white mass several times the length of his ship. Most of it lay to port, but a long spar of ice jutted straight toward the bow of the ship.

  The captain swore and slammed the wheel as hard to starboard as he could, but the wind and current pulled the little craft to port and she barely altered course. The captain gunned the engine in a desperate effort to give the Agnes Larsen enough power to answer her helm. She began to turn, but it was too late. “Hold fast!” he shouted to his crew as he braced himself against the pilothouse walls.

  A second later, the ship lurched, shuddered, and tilted sharply to starboard. Men shouted incoherently belowdecks and objects fell and crashed. A loud, deep groan came from the ship’s timbers, accented by the squeal of ice on wood. Then came the sound the captain feared the most: a sharp crack followed by screams of “Water! Water! The pump!”