Sealed With a Kiss

by Kristin Hardy

  Joss stood transfixed.

  Bax shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “That is a pity. I approve of honor, as you know. But I approve of intelligence more.”

  “It’s more than honor, Markus.”

  Markus looked at him with curiosity. “More than honor.” He moved the gun slightly in Bax’s direction. “More than your life is worth?”

  Bax returned his gaze. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love her,” he said calmly.

  Joss snapped her head around to stare at him.

  Markus shook his head in disgust. “When did you become a fool, Johan?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe the day I met her.” His reply was to Markus but it was Joss he spoke to, even as he calculated ways and means to get the two of them out of there alive.

  Markus studied him. “I could shoot her.”

  “I’d come for you.”

  “I could shoot you, too, of course. Probably first. Perhaps now.”

  “You think so?” Bax asked. “Is your memory really that short?”

  Their eyes locked together and the seconds ticked by. “So,” Markus said at last, “you wish my debt repaid.”

  Bax said nothing.

  A slight smile played on Markus’s lips. “It is perhaps not so great a price as you now think.” He nodded to the French doors that let out from the living room to the terrace and the lawn beyond. “I will let you go and count to ten. You and the lovely Ms. Chastain will get a chance to escape with your lives and you and I will be even. Go.” He jerked his head and lowered the gun. “One…”

  And they went.

  Markus replaced his gun in his holster and walked out into the living room. “Two,” he said softly to himself as footsteps sounded from within the house.

  “Stop them,” Silverhielm roared from the hallway. “She has the real stamps.” He burst into the living room and stopped, staring first at the open doors and then at Markus, who stood impassively before him. “Where are they?”

  Markus nodded toward the lawn, toward the two running figures.

  “What have you done, you fool?” Silverhielm demanded.

  Markus looked at him serenely. “Nothing that will matter.”

  “Go after them. Warn the others.”

  “Don’t worry,” Markus said, reaching in his pocket for a walkie-talkie. “It is taken care of.”

  BAX RAN ACROSS the slick grass with Joss. Moonlight bathed the scene in a deceptively calm wash of silver. Beyond the grass, the sea was a presence of darkness broken by the distant haze of light that was Stockholm. If Markus were true to his word, they might have time to make it to the boat before the others pursued them. They might be able to make it to open water.

  For now, they needed to reach the staircase that hugged the side of the low rock bluff. Once they were on it, they’d be protected from anyone running toward them, at least until their pursuers got close. He grabbed the hardwood banister and took the stairs two at a time, listening to Joss behind him. Then they hit the landing at the bottom, turning around an outcrop toward the dock.

  Only to come to a scrambling halt.

  Small lights on the railings silhouetted a guard at the landward end of the dock as he leaned against the railing, nodding his head a little, not looking up. The light offshore breeze brought them the scent of the smoke from his cigarette. Out at the other end of the dock, by Oskar and the boat, the red light flashed. Waves slapped quietly against the pilings.

  Joss tapped Bax’s arm. “He has a headset on,” she whispered. Bax nodded, edging forward. The closer he could get without warning the guy, the better. He couldn’t see a gun, but he knew there had to be one. A staticky buzz like that of a walkie-talkie broke the silence. Even as the guard slid off his headset to answer, Bax pounced.

  The guard was bigger than he was, solidly built in a way that suggested more muscle than fat. Size wasn’t everything, though. Bax was on him before he could raise his gun, chopping at the hand that held it. The revolver spun away.

  “Run to the boat,” Bax bellowed to Joss, then stepped in to catch the guard with a punch to the eye, pain exploding up his arm. The punch should have decked the guy but he only stepped back, shaking his head. Not a good sign, Bax thought, trying to step in before his opponent had gotten himself set. A fraction of a second later, Bax found himself bouncing dizzily off the dock railing, struggling to keep his feet while his ears rang.

  The guy was definitely quicker than he’d anticipated. And so were the others, judging by the shouts he heard.

  “Watch out,” Joss screamed.

  Bax looked to see the guard moving in again, sending a looping roundhouse toward Bax’s temple. Ducking to get inside of it, Bax summoned up a fast uppercut and snapped the guard’s jaw shut. The man stood for a moment, then his knees softened and he sagged toward the ground.

  Bax vaulted over him and pounded down the dock to the boat.

  “Oskar’s gone,” Joss shouted from inside the boat.

  Cursing, Bax unfastened the bow and stern lines. He gave the front of the vessel a shove and jumped in.

  “Did you hear me?” Joss cried. “Oskar is gone.”

  “He’s not all that’s missing,” Bax said grimly. The keys, as he’d feared, had also been taken and they’d disconnected the GPS unit. Silverhielm’s men had been thorough. Bax reached under the dash to fumble for the ignition wires. And the boat drifted slowly away from the dock, turning back toward Stockholm.

  Figures appeared at the edge of the bluff and a bullet ricocheted past him with a whine.

  “Get down,” Bax shouted and ducked himself.

  “Bax, we can’t leave,” Joss shouted. “What about Oskar?”

  Bax ignored her and squinted to see the wires in the moonlight as he untwisted them. He couldn’t think about Oskar, he couldn’t think about feelings. Compartmentalize. The key to survival was focusing on action and admitting no distractions.

  A spark jumped from one wire to the other and the engine chugged once. Pumping the gas, he touched the wires again and the engine caught with a roar. With a spin of the wheel, he headed the boat back toward Stockholm.

  Joss caught at his arm. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “We have to get out of here.” He grabbed her, shoved the throttle forward and the boat leapt out of the water.

  “We can’t just leave him behind.” Her voice rose in fury. “They could do anything to him.”

  Bax glanced back to see figures spilling over the edge of the bluff and clustering around the fallen figure at the head of the dock. Another shot whined past them. “There are people shooting at us, in case you hadn’t noticed. We have to leave him.” He stared at the water ahead, trying desperately to see his path. The moonlight threw a silver glaze over the water, making it easier to see land but harder to see hazards. He aimed the boat away from the islands and tried to remember landmarks from the previous day. “If we stay here, they’ll take us, too and we’ll be no good to him at all.”

  “We’re no good to him if we just let them have him. What kind of a man are you?”

  As cold and calculating as he could make himself be. “We can’t help him right now, Joss. The only way we can help him is by getting back to Stockholm and Rolf.”

  “And if they hurt or kill him in the meantime?”

  “That’s a risk we have to take. Don’t you finally understand who we’re dealing with, here?” Bax glanced back as a roar started up behind them and he cursed. “Do you hear that engine? They’re coming after us in that goddamn big cigarette boat. We’ll be lucky to make it back in one piece, but we’re guaranteed to die if we try to go back to Silverholmen alone.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he rode right over her. “We don’t have the tools, Joss, and you’re not helping me by being hysterical.”

  Her mouth clamped shut and she glared at him. Good, he told himself, and tried not to care. If she was angry she’d be focused. “Fine,” Joss snapped.
“What do you want me to do?”

  The conversation wasn’t over yet, he knew that. At some point, there was going to be hell to pay. First, though, they had to survive. “Concentrate on getting back to the hotel in one piece and then we can figure out what to do. We’ve got a mile on them, maybe two, but they can outrun us and they’ve got guns. Here,” he stepped back. “Take the wheel for a minute. Aim for that light over there.” He pointed.

  “I’ve got it,” Joss said.

  Bax reached up under the dash and searched for the gun he’d duct taped in place earlier that evening. “Okay.” He brought it out. “It’s not much fire power, but it’s all we’ve got. You cock it by pulling back the action, like this. The safety is right here.” He showed her. “If you want to help, when that boat pulls up to within eight or ten feet, try to take a shot. See if you can get them to keep their heads down.” He took the wheel and adjusted their course. “Sit down and steady it on the gunwales. Remember to squeeze the trigger, don’t pull.”

  “What about extra ammunition?”

  “There’s another clip.” He handed it to her. “If we’re not out of trouble by the time you’ve finished them both off, we’re not going to be.”

  She nodded and took the gun from him.

  And in that moment, compartmentalization be damned, he loved her.

  JOSS STARED tensely back at the lights of the cigarette boat as it drew inexorably nearer. They’d moved through the line of barrier islands on the outer archipelago. Ahead of them, the inner islands formed a funnel of land that would bring them into the narrow, tree-lined pass that led to the Stockholm harbor. She felt their speed drop a little.

  There was a whine and a corner of the little boat’s windshield exploded into shards.

  “Get down,” Bax hollered. “They’re within firing range.”

  Joss dived down on the deck of the boat and scrambled over to the gunwale, her anger and fear forgotten. Survival was all that mattered now. “They’re a good half a mile away.”

  “So they’ve got a rifle.” He slalomed the boat a bit to make them less of a target. “It’s getting shallow and tricky in here. They’re going to have to come down off the plane, soon, and that’s going to bounce them around more. Make them less accurate, slower. But we’re going to have to slow down, too.” Another shot whined past them.

  The entrance to the pass was tantalizingly near yet frustratingly distant. The gun felt heavy and useless in her hand. Turning, she searched for an answer in the darkness.

  And felt a surge of hope. “Bax,” she shouted, “the ferry.” Coming up from their left, the white boat looked like a waterborne chandelier, the deck lights shining out over the water as it steamed majestically along toward the Stockholm inner harbor. “Could we use them as a shield in the pass?”

  He stared at her a moment, then understanding broke.

  It was a chance, she thought. If they could get ahead of the ferry before they went into the narrow waterway, the cigarette boat couldn’t get to them, Silverhielm’s men couldn’t shoot them. If they could head off the ferry they might be safe.

  Another shot whistled by them. Bax made a minor adjustment in their course and inched the throttle forward, his expression hard and focused as they rocketed through the dark waters. The ferry steamed along, closer and closer to intersecting their course. Would they get there in time, was the question. Behind them sounded the relentless engine of the cigarette boat.

  Ahead of them lay the pass between the island of Nacka and the island of Ingarö. The ferry began its long, slow turn across in front of them, aiming at the pass.

  And everything began to happen way too quickly.

  One minute, they were behind the white ship. The next, Bax was whipping the boat around the ferry, skimming terrifyingly close to the rocky margins of the islands. The high, white side of the ferry towered over them mere feet away as they surged past it. The coastlines flowed in toward them.

  Joss’s hands tightened on the gunwale. If Bax miscalculated, they’d be wiped out like a bug on a truck windshield. And if he lost his nerve… Another shot from their pursuers whizzed past them, ricocheting off the white side of the ferry and clipping the edge of the speedboat’s gunwale. Reminding them of what lay behind.

  Foot by foot, they neared the ferry’s bow. Time stretched out, the seconds crawling by. Then Bax shoved the throttle all the way up. The speedboat jumped forward and shot ahead of the ferry, slipping in front of the white painted prow with only a few feet or so to spare. The ferry’s airhorn blared in protest.

  Then they were in the narrow pass, the solid bulk of the ferry behind them and no room for the cigarette boat to get by. They’d made it. They were safe.

  For now.

  23

  JOSS WAS a pacer from way back. Sitting still made her want to scream. When she was upset, she had to move. Stay away from the window, Bax had told her, so she moved from the bathroom to the bed and back, four steps, turn, four steps, turn. It kept her from going crazy.

  It kept her from worrying about Oskar.

  Across the room, Bax cursed. “Dammit, Rolf.” He tossed Joss’s cell phone on the bed. He’d been using it to stay off his own, which remained stubbornly silent. “Your big chance to nail Silverhielm and where are you?”

  Four steps, turn, four steps, turn. “Forget about Rolf,” she told him. “Call the police directly.”

  “I’ve been trying to. It’s nearly midnight. The people I need to talk to aren’t exactly at their desks.”

  “You swore to me that if we got back here we could find a way to help Oskar.” She rounded on him, her voice tight with anguish. “We have to do it.”

  “They’ll call, Joss. Trust me.”

  “Why should I trust you about anything? You left him there, just to save your own skin.”

  “Looks to me like your skin is in one piece, as well. They’re not going to do anything to Oskar. At least not yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Oskar is leverage. You don’t hurt leverage, you use it.”

  The electronic burble of the phone broke into their conversation, silencing them momentarily. Joss stared at Bax. Stiffly, she walked over to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Chastain. Did you enjoy your trip back to Stockholm?” It was Silverhielm.

  “Perhaps if someone hadn’t been shooting at us.”

  “It added to the excitement, did it not? By the way, please pass my compliments to your associate for his maneuver with the ferry. I’m told it deeply frustrated our captain.”

  “You didn’t call to discuss his piloting skills.”

  “Of course not. I called to discuss a meeting. After all, we have something of yours and you have something of ours. Your forgeries were good, but not good enough.”

  “We don’t have anything of yours.” An edge entered her voice. “The Post Office Mauritius set is stolen goods. They belong to my grandfather.”

  “An interesting assertion. Would you care to hear what your young friend Oskar thinks?” There was a muffled curse by the phone.

  “What are you doing to him?” Joss demanded.

  “Nothing permanent.” Silverhielm’s voice was smooth and lightly amused. “We can do worse, though. You know that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “A swap. You bring the stamps, we will bring Oskar. If the stamps are authentic, we will release him to you.”

  “And what is to stop you from killing us as you tried to do on the way back to Stockholm?” she asked hotly.

  “I want only the stamps.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Whether you do or don’t is irrelevant, Ms. Chastain.” An edge entered his voice. “We are wasting time and your friend does not have much of it.”

  “If you want the stamps, you will see to it that nothing further happens to Oskar,” she said steadily. The blood pounded in her temples but she felt curiously calm.

  “He will not be
harmed, I assure you. What is your decision?”

  “Let’s do it now.”

  “Tonight, then.”

  “Where?” She motioned to Bax, who leaned close enough to hear.

  “The Djurgården, behind the restaurant Ulla Winbladh.”

  Bax shook his head violently again and held out his hand for the receiver. “Silverhielm? You know who this is. I want someplace inside, neutral ground.”

  Joss put her ear near enough to the phone to hear Silverhielm’s reply. “Neutral ground? But what is the Djurgården?”

  “A good place to get shot. Inside, Silverhielm, where there’s people.”

  “My Slussen office, then.”

  “Stop wasting my time,” Bax said impatiently. “Neutral ground. You come in with Oskar, you and Markus alone. If I like the look of things, Joss comes in with the stamps. We trade, everyone goes home happy.”

  “Very well. Erik’s Gondolen, in Slussen,” Silverhielm said finally. “One hour.”

  Bax tensed as though to protest and Joss could almost see when he decided not to. “All right. We’ll be there.”

  He hung up the phone.

  “But that’s the bar in the building where Silverhielm’s office is. It can’t possibly be neutral ground.”

  “It won’t be.”

  “Then what are you thinking of, setting up a meet there?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  GONDOLEN LOOKED like the sort of place Silverhielm would like. Stylish and sleek, it oozed sophistication, from the dark and light wood parquet floor to the wavering chrome bars of the railings that separated the bar area from the restaurant.

  Bax had been there for more than half an hour, using the faint reflections of the windows to monitor the people moving in and out. The goons had been there before him, sitting uncomfortably at a table near the entrance of the bar. They tried, he’d give them that. But even in an upscale establishment like Gondolen, where sport coats were de rigueur and not merely worn to cover up guns, they stood out. It wasn’t just the dress. They were too big, too bulky, too rough-looking.