by Karen Guyler
He nodded. “It was hard won. Everything we do on mission has to be from the standpoint that we’re ruthless assassins. No one must ever find out the link between us and MI6.”
It had been the overriding message throughout her training.
“What about the plane?” She nodded at the number painted on the tail of the jet they were approaching.
“Shell corporation owns it, shell corporation owns that, another owns that. No one’s going to figure out its provenance, it’s as shady as The Society is to anyone looking and we hide in those shadows.”
“A private plane though.”
Luke laughed. “You sound like Nora. Overall, it works out cheaper in terms of use of man hours, it’s faster but most importantly it’s more secure than flying commercial. We’re subject to minimal security checks, no questions asked about whatever we’re carrying. The payoff is sometimes we share, stuff gets taken in and out of countries in the diplomatic bag on here, including people. Sometimes we have to wait for our ride or drop everything to take it. The pilots and co-pilots are cleared at top level but not for anything ‘eyes only’ or to do with our specific brief.” She didn’t need his emphatic look. “Just us today but, going forward, no passenger on here, no matter who they are, how much they pretend to already know, should hear anything from us about anything, not even your name. Same for any air crew.”
“Got it.”
He checked his watch. “Let’s get on board, we’re taking off.”
For the biggest test of her life. She squared her shoulders and followed Luke up the steps into the cabin.
“We only carry stewards if we have additional people on board.” Luke closed the door, pointing at the instructions beside it. “If it all works out, you’ll learn how to do it all. Buckle up, wherever you like.”
If it all works out? Didn’t he think she’d pass the test?
Eva chose the seat facing forward at the table, Luke took the one opposite her. The plane’s smooth taxi-ing increased to take-off speed, pushing her back in the cushioned leather seats.
“Every cabinet in here is fully loaded.” Luke said. Eva looked around at them, locked by digital keypads “You’ll get the combinations if you’re taken on. You don’t share them with anyone or open them in front of others. Guest luggage goes in the hold.”
Out of the instructions he was giving her, the one thing that repeated over and over reinforced that her being there, part of this, wasn’t a done deal.
When the plane levelled out, he got up.
“Coffee? So you know all about Norway, what can you tell me?”
“I’m half-Swedish, not Norwegian.”
“Isn’t being Scandinavian the same,” he chinked real cups and saucers from the unit at the back of the cabin.
“Not quite. And that’s like asking if you like being a Great Britainer, no one says that. Norway has the fjords, beautiful to kayak in, sail around, not so hot to swim in unless you have a good dry suit. You can camp anywhere you want, they love the outdoor life, the brown cheese is to die for.”
Luke wrinkled up his nose. “Brown cheese, that shouldn’t be a thing.”
“Tell me that after tasting it.”
He brought them what looked like lemon cake and a pack of dark chocolate ginger biscuits with a pot of coffee.
“You make a pretty good air steward.” Eva teased.
“You can be mother.” He put the cups down. “Nora’s uploaded everything we need to know for the mission to the server. The usual protocol here is that we fake kill the victim and then the spouse is arrested on some other charge to keep our reputation intact. The fake death photos are uploaded to our portfolio.”
“Who gets to see them?”
“Potential clients. They big us up, consolidate our reputation as the best, cases all unsolved. We practically guarantee no comeback on the clients, strict anonymity, which is what they’re looking for.”
“But all the clients end up in prison?”
“Something like that. Any new client never thinks to look at that, they only ever want to know about the ‘victims’ as proof we can deliver.”
“What’s our mission?” She felt ridiculous calling it that as if the laptop would spontaneously destroy itself at any moment.
Luke pulled up a photo of a lean brown-haired man in his mid-forties on the screen.
“Carl Rubin. CEO of Futura Energy, a renewable energy company.”
“Lily was telling me about him this morning. He’s an advocate for climate change. He wants to kill his wife?”
“Best piece of advice I can give you for this job, actually for life, is never assume.”
Eva’s father’s words coming out of Luke’s mouth rapped at her.
He gestured at the laptop. “Rubin’s business partner was shot the day before yesterday, while he was standing right next to him. Something I’ve learned in this business, there’s usually no such thing as coincidence. We believe that his lovely wife,” Luke clicked through the information and Carl Rubin’s image was replaced by a stereotypical Scandinavian woman, slim, long blonde hair, blue eyes, just like Eva. “Agnetha here paid a novice and the guy missed, got his partner. She’s now stumped up for The Society to bump him off properly. He’s a self-made billionaire so she can afford us.”
“We’re expensive?”
He sipped his coffee. “Every person is billed according to what we know they can pay because we don’t want to scare them into going elsewhere. They’re ordering a hit on someone, we like to get them to face the justice of that. But, yeah, for those who can afford it, we’re not cheap.” He gestured around them. “We have a few more overheads than a guy in a hotel room. It weeds out people who might not be serious but are just pissed off at that moment. Those who follow through, well, they don’t get exactly what they were expecting.”
“What’s her motive?”
He shrugged. “Motive doesn’t matter to us, that she hit the button to instruct us, despite our warnings, and we give them plenty of chances to stop, does. Ordering murder for hire makes her a criminal so that’s how we treat her. Her husband can probably give you an idea if you ask the right questions. You’ll be surprised at how petty some of them are.”
“What happens to her?”
“Local law enforcement will deal with her, we have no powers of arrest.” Luke hesitated.
“What is it?”
“We’ll have to see what happens. This is your mission, I’m only here to witness what you do.”
Eva nodded. She was glad it was him. Someone she kind of knew, someone she felt safe with.
He took a second slice of cake, offered the plate to her.
“No thanks, don’t like it.”
“Don’t like cake?” He looked as if she’d said she was going to step outside.
She shook her head, stopped herself saying not eating it had saved her life last year because it had cost her former colleague his.
“How’re you feeling about this, into the field?” Luke asked while she poured more coffee for them.
Eva put the pot down. “Honestly, bit nervous, I’m not fully trained. This is like the hardest job interview ever.” She sipped the coffee, hot and strong. She imagined she could feel the caffeine zinging through her body. “And I’m carrying a gun, that makes me more nervous than anything.”
“That’s good. No nerves is a bad thing, time to get out.”
“You’re nervous?”
He shook his head. “Not on this one, it’s your show. On mine, sure, at some points, helps the get it done mentality.” He adjusted his cup on its saucer, looked at her, intensity burning in his hazel eyes. “Don’t get caught up blaming your perceived lack of training, no one can teach you to be prepared for everything. Sometimes all the training isn’t enough.”
He handed her a leather wallet which she opened to see her face on an ID card for Erika Miles.
“Interpol?”
“We use them as cover a lot, people have an inflated sense of what t
hey actually do, think they’re some kind of continental police. It’s a Hollywood ideal that Interpol Agents waltz around the world, gun on hip, arresting bad guys.”
“Like us, you mean?”
Luke laughed. “Exactly.”
8
Eva touched the flap of her hip holster.
Luke noticed from the driver’s seat in their hired 4 x 4. “It won’t just fall out and the holster won’t spontaneously undo itself.”
“Just checking.”
“Think you got it the third time.”
He steered the big SUV past what would probably be a grassy knoll the rest of the year, but was a snow-covered mound now.
“What do I do if someone asks about it?”
“Who are you?”
“Erika Miles, Interpol.”
“Who are you really?”
“Eva Jan—”
“No, Eva Janssen doesn’t exist on this trip. You’re a nameless assassin pretending to be Erika Miles.” Luke parked in the visitors’ section in front of a two storey glass-fronted building. Every space had a charging point in front of it, but only three cars were parked, two of which were plugged in. The engine of the third was still running. “That’s why you didn’t come on your passport. Your Interpol ID is sufficient for anything on this job. Eva Janssen is in the UK at her boring meeting. And how can you be an assassin without your weapon?”
She looked at the boxy building in front of them. If her nerves were tightly strung before, they were positively humming now.
She could do this. She was just asking a man some questions. No need for the gun there at all. She rubbed her hands together, pulled the door handle.
“Check it.” Luke said. “They taught you that much, right? Before entering any new situation, you check your weapon. Even one as innocuous as this.”
Eva did as he said, clipped it back into her holster, checked its fastening.
Getting out of the heated car, the icy air sucked away her breath. She’d never inherited her father’s immunity to the cold, something he’d never lost, despite spending much of his life in the desert areas where conflict made itself at home.
Everything felt heightened: the weight of Luke’s gaze on her back as he followed her up the snow-cleared walkway; the vast emptiness beyond the glass building they approached; the flatness of the white landscape making it hard to differentiate between the horizon and the colourless sky. Sound was deadened, muffled, and every breath crystallised against the back of her throat with a rawness coughing didn’t dislodge.
Someone waited outside Futura Energy’s main entrance, head bowed, their long blue padded coat a splash of colour in the white on white on grey surroundings. Eva and Luke’s footsteps made them start, look up, brush past them, dabbing at their face hidden beneath a large fur-trimmed hood.
“Are you okay?” Eva wished she knew how to say it in Norwegian.
The coat-shrouded person shook their head, flapped a gloved hand at the doorway where half a dozen bunches of flowers lined up beside each other.
“We’re very sorry for your loss.”
Luke tried the door, but it was locked to them. No sign of anyone inside who might have heard and apparently was ignoring his knocking.
“Excuse me,” Eva called after the figure. “Do—”
“The company is closed until tomorrow as a mark of respect.” The woman sniffed.
“Would you have any idea where we can find Carl Rubin?”
She shook her head, disappearing further into her coat.
Eva flashed her ID, “International police.”
The woman took a slow step towards her, another, until she was close enough to ask quietly. “Is it true, the rumour?”
“Which one?” Luke asked. As if realising he’d taken the lead, he stepped backwards, away from the conversation.
“That Mr Rubin was the target.” the woman said.
“What makes you think that?” Eva asked.
The woman turned towards the car with the running engine.
“We want to bring the killer to justice. Mr Willander was obviously well-liked.” Eva gestured behind them.
The woman looked at the shrine outside the building and nodded. “He was, he was a lovely man, keen on educating people, helping them to see things with new eyes.”
“And Mr Rubin?” Eva prompted as she fell silent.
“Mr Rubin is not not nice, he’s just not the same, more distant, removed from people, more focused on the company’s mission. He’d notice you if you were a seal or an elk.”
A sob got the better of her and she hurried to her car, blowing her nose for a long time before driving off.
Luke had the car heating on full blast before Eva got her door shut. “Cold out there.”
“Glad now we’ve got decent outdoor gear?” she asked.
“Yep, successful mission as far as I’m concerned just on that. Though all the survival gear’s a bit OTT, we’re only here one night and in a city.”
“Where are we now?” Eva looked around at the remoteness of the building. “Not seeing much in the way of city things. Better to be prepared and not need it than under-prepared and die.”
“You Scandinavians, you’re brutal.”
“All this blonde-haired blue-eyed business makes us look like pushovers but we’re Vikings at heart.”
“Next step?” Luke asked.
“Rubin’s house.” She hated that it came out as a question.
“Address.”
Eva connected to their secure server and thumbed through the dossier summary. “It’s in Bergen at the top of Mount Floyen. I’ll call.” She tapped the number into her phone.
Luke put a hand on her arm. “Same as the weapon, one thing we do if we have time before making contact?”
Eva had nothing.
Luke pressed call on his phone and their surveillance and tracking expert’s deep voice filled the car.
“How’s it going?” Iago sounded so clear he could have been in the back seat.
“Too cold here for you, mate. You’re on speaker with Eva and me, got a job for you.”
“I love how you never think I have anything else to do, that I just sit here on the end of the line waiting for you to call me up to deploy my genius.”
“That’s exactly what we think you do.” Luke agreed. “Gonna try a target’s mobile, any chance you can hack in and trace it for us?”
“Now you’re insulting me.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere, not sure how good the signal is.”
“Details, details.” Iago tapped at the keyboard controlling his system back in London. “Patching through to you, acquiring you.”
“That sounds all wrong.” Luke said.
“Careful, you’ll owe me a forfeit in a minute.”
“Haven’t seen a doughnut here, not even a bakery.”
“Mental note never to go there, I’d starve in five minutes. Okay, you can try it. Keep them talking as long as you can.”
It took five times of trying before Rubin’s mobile was answered.
“Am I speaking to Carl Rubin?” Eva asked.
“No, but I can help.” The man said.
“May I ask who you are?”
“May I ask who you are?”
Eva had to try hard to not do a Lily-like rolling of her eyes. “I’m an Interpol Officer, should we start again?”
9
Luke pulled up behind the Tesla 4 x 4, the only vehicle they’d seen for miles parked on the snowy verge, just where Rubin’s bodyguard had said they’d be. “That’s some paint job.”
“It looks like paua shell.” Eva said.
The pearlescent white of the body changed as they walked past it, fluctuating flashes of green, silver, pink.
She looked from the Tesla to the trees. “Better than directions.”
Luke followed her onto the disturbed snow where footprints went down the slope between the widest gap in the trees.
As they got closer to the bottom, th
ey thinned enough to give them glimpses of something spectacular, but as they left the cover, Luke summed it up. “You know, I don’t do outdoors much but that is something.”
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Eva agreed. But she wasn’t marvelling at the snow-covered mountains on the opposite side of the fjord that soared from the deep blue water towards the white sky. Her gaze travelled from plateau to outcrop to recess. They’d be camouflaged in white, any potential assassin, and prone, so still that she’d never see them without a thermal camera.
The slope she and Luke had come down levelled out onto a wide, flat shelf of snow-dusted rock. A low white tower with a red roof stood at the far end. The man directly in front of them bundled in a heavy-duty parka, a black holdall near his feet, turned as he heard them. Sean Finch presumably, Rubin’s bodyguard.
“You’re up.” Luke said.
It had to be the most picturesque place a test had ever taken place.
“Rock’s probably slippery,” she warned Luke, not altogether delaying coming out from the cover of the trees.
But she wouldn’t pass anything hiding. Eva forced herself to take one step, another, as tentative as walking a tightrope between two skyscrapers. An eddy of snowflakes meandered around her.
A man in a black helmet and jacket kayaked towards Sean Finch in strong, decisive strokes.
“Good paddle?” Finch’s question sounded loud over the water, the English surprising, but then he probably was. Sean Finch didn’t sound very Norwegian.
Rubin’s kayak bumped gently against the natural jetty. “Too many down the end and a cruise ship, it’s unbelievable.”
He stepped up out of the boat.
“Interpol officers.” Eva said. “Can we have a word?”
“Is this about Goran?” Carl Rubin looked more vibrant than he had in his photo, beyond just having exercised.
“We’re sorry for your loss. It must be quite a shock.” Rubin couldn’t have heard her, for all the notice he paid to her sympathy. She pressed on. “We’re here about you. Could we talk in the trees?”
He looked up the spectacular fjord. “You don’t like the peace, the stillness?”