by Trevor Scott
A knife.
Standing a few feet apart, the man made another lunge for Jake when he suddenly dropped to the floor at Jake’s feet, a knife sticking out of the side of his neck. Jake thrust his foot into the man’s face, sending him crashing backwards into the outer wall.
With quickness now, Jake and Kjersti pushed the knocked out man into the compartment and closed the door. His adrenalin raced through his body. The man against the outside wall quivered in concert with the spurting blood from his neck. Jake swiftly pulled a plastic bag from the garbage can and wrapped it over the head of the stabbed man to contain some of the blood, then pulled the knife out of his neck and wiped it on the guy’s shirt. But the room was a mess, with blood all over the place.
Anna, still in a daze, rolled to her side. “Jake, what’s going on? Who are they?”
“That’s what I plan on finding out. You two get the bags and put them in Kjersti’s room. Stay there while I clean up this mess and find out what this asshole knows.”
They both did what he said within a couple of minutes. Kjersti stepped back in and handed Jake his gun, which he shoved into the holster under his arm.
Alone now, Jake sat on the bed and thought it through—figuring out the approach he would take with this man.
First, he bound the man’s hands behind his back and his feet together, then strapped a line from his hands to his feet. He shoved a wash cloth in the man’s mouth. Then Jake clicked on the overhead light, found two towels in the bathroom, wet them down and soaked up the blood. It took many trips back and forth to the narrow shower, washing out the towels and soaking again until the majority of the blood was gone.
When the bound man started to stir, Jake hurried and pulled identification from each of the men. He read the passports and driver’s licenses; both men were from Stockholm. He turned off the light, leaving the room lit only by a small reading lamp on the lower bunk.
The man’s eyes opened and gazed up at Jake, who loomed over him. “Wakie wakie time, motherfucker,” Jake whispered loudly.
Grunting something through the rag, the man tensed his muscles against the restraints. He was strong, but Jake had him bound tight.
“This can go one of two ways,” Jake said. “You tell me what I want to know, or you die like your friend there.”
The man twisted his body and saw his friend’s head in a blood-splattered plastic bag with more dark blood soaking down the man’s clothes.
“You understand your situation?”
The man nodded his head.
Jake pulled the rag from the guy’s mouth and said, “Good. Now. . .who sent you?”
“Fuck you,” he said. Too loudly.
Jake punched him in the sternum, taking his breath away, and shoved the rag back in his mouth. The man gasped for air and finally settled down.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Jake said. “I asked you a simple question and you say that to me. What happens when we get to more difficult questions?”
The guy’s eyes shifted wildly at Jake. He wanted to kill him, Jake knew that much. Good. The feeling was mutual.
“Answer my question,” Jake said, and then took the rag out of his mouth again.
“We were looking to rob some people,” he finally muttered, his English perfect.
“Come on. The couple down on the end have a shitload of money and the woman more jewelry than a movie star. You have no bag of goodies collected. You were looking for someone. And I’m guessing that was me.”
The man glowered at Jake but said nothing.
“Okay.” Jake shoved the rag in and then rolled the man to his stomach. He found a point under the man’s right ear and applied pressure, bringing excruciating pain to the man. He struggled beneath him until Jake let go. As the guy relaxed, Jake knuckle struck him in the right kidney, making him gasp for air.
While the man squirmed in pain, Jake thought about their current route and situation. The train wouldn’t stop for another hour, until they reached the port city of Gavle, Sweden. Then they would have another three hours until Falun. Plenty of time.
“We’ve got plenty of time before your friend starts to smell,” Jake said. “Now you will tell me who sent you and why. The body can only take so much pain, and I can deliver more than you can handle. I’ll guarantee you that much.”
Jake went from pressure point to pressure point, bringing just enough pain, but not enough to make the man pass out. He pulled the man’s pants down and even threatened to cut the man’s balls off, poking the tip of the knife that had taken his friend’s life into his scrotum. That got him. Always did. Every man thought they would rather die than lose their balls or penis. This guy held out a little longer, until Jake found a glass coke bottle and shoved it up the man’s ass and said he’d break it off inside him if he didn’t talk. That worked.
The bound man nodded his head, so Jake pulled the rag from the guy’s mouth and waited.
“Some Russian guy,” the man forced out.
“And you don’t know his name? Hard to believe.”
Hesitation, and then, “Goes by the name of Oberon.”
Jake guessed that much. So Victor Petrova had sent his men to get the box before Jake could turn it over to Colonel Reed in Oslo. He also had to assume that Petrova had sent the men in the chopper in Spitsbergen. But how in the hell had they found them on the train. That was disturbing. Jake would have to work that out in his mind. But first. . .
There was a light knock on the door. Jake got up and looked through the peep at Kjersti before opening it.
“Everything all right?” she asked, her eyes catching a glimpse of the man on the floor. He still had his pants down around his ankles, the coke bottle sticking out of his butt.
“Just great. We’re getting to know each other.”
“I see that.”
“It’s not what you think,” Jake whispered.
“Never is. We’re about ten minutes out of Gavle.”
Jake checked his watch. “Already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Right. It’s a five minute stop. Lock yourself in your room. Keep your eyes open. They could have a back-up team.”
She nodded compliance and left.
Jake stuffed the rag into the man’s mouth until they passed through Gavle. Then he had a longer talk with the man, getting as much information as possible. When he was done, Jake was sure the punk had given up everything he knew. He ripped the coke out of the guy’s butt, pulled up his pants, and punched him in the left kidney just for the hell of it. Then Jake shoved some of Anna’s sleeping pills down the guy, followed by the rag, and made sure his bindings were nice and tight before leaving him with his dead friend.
He locked the door behind him and crossed the hall to Kjersti’s room. Anna was asleep again on the upper bunk. Jake took off his leather jacket and went to the window, looking out through the curtains. He thought about being in that room a while ago, with Kjersti naked and waiting for him to make love to him. The situation had gone from a moment of sensuality to a man dying and another having to be persuaded to talk. The contrast was not lost on him.
Suddenly, Kjersti gasped behind him.
Jake turned and saw horror in Kjersti’s eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
She pointed at his side. Jake looked down and saw that blood had drenched his T-shirt, soaking out from a slice in his side. The man’s knife had caught him, but only now did the pain start to come. His side ached and Kjersti pulled away the shirt to check on the wound. He had lost a lot of blood, and that loss made his head light, his knees almost buckling beneath him. Kjersti helped Jake to the lower bunk and went to work patching him up.
20
Oslo, Norway
The four of them made an odd group. Jimmy McLean was a tall man in his thirties, a Scotsman with an no-nonsense attitude to life and his work with MI6. Serious. His colleague couldn’t have been in greater contrast. Velda Crane was a hip-height voluptuous woman, with a
fun-loving disposition. Yet, Toni quickly realized that she also had a serious side to her. Then there was Colonel Reed, the gray-haired uncle figure, at times serious and other times his eyes would wander disturbingly at Velda’s overflowing breasts. He probably would have looked at Toni’s as well if she hadn’t been wearing discreet clothing. Then there was the quiet Norwegian Intelligence Service officer, Thom Hagen. Toni had no way of knowing what he was thinking, if he had a thought. The man was stereotypically stoic. And how would Toni describe herself at this point in her life? That was the problem. She had no idea. Although she had been married only a few months, she had also only seen her husband a few weeks during that time. She couldn’t control her husband’s overseas assignments any more than she could control her own.
The five of them had gone to the MI6 hotel, starting out in the bar, and not being able to talk freely, had retreated to Jimmy McLean’s room. They had talked for hours over drinks, trying their best to understand everything that had happened and everything they needed to accomplish in the future. The facts? Jake Adams had found a metal box that the old Soviet guard had lost in the Arctic. A box containing one of the most deadly flu viruses to ever spread throughout the world. A pandemic virus modified in some way. But to what end? And now Jake was to deliver the box to scientists that were currently somewhere over the Atlantic on their way to Oslo.
She watched as the other four of them bantered about the room, finishing off all the alcohol from the mini-bar. Velda had already raided the little bottles from her own room, but now they were dangerously low and in fact running out. That was good. Toni hadn’t gotten much sleep on the flight over the pond, barely slept the night before in the colonel’s room, and it was well past two in the morning. She was getting too old for this type of late night.
Toni’s secure cell phone went off and she picked up, moving into the bathroom. She recognized the number as that from the Agency.
“Yeah.”
“Is that any way to talk to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“Sir. It’s zero two twenty here and I feel like I’m babysitting.” She told Kurt Jenkins about how they had caught up with the two MI6 officers, and how the three agencies were now working together.
“How’s the NIS handling this?” Jenkins asked her.
“Just the one officer. An odd fellow.”
“There’s also the woman with Jake,” he reminded her.
“Well, we haven’t met yet. But so far I’m not that impressed.”
“They’re working in the background, providing us some great intel and helping keep Jake out of trouble. Which reminds me. . .” He stopped and the line went dead for a second.
Toni glanced around the bathroom, noticing that Jimmy McLean kept a low profile. Tooth brush and paste and razor and small can of shaving cream. Speed stick. That was it.
Jenkins came back on the line. “Sorry about that, Toni. Had to deal with something. What was I saying?”
“Something about Jake.”
“Right. He’ll arrive in Mora, Sweden at zero eight forty by train.”
“How far is that from here?”
Jenkins asked the question to someone on his end and came back. “About two hundred kilometers by air. Longer by road.”
“How’s Jake traveling?” she asked.
“No idea. He wouldn’t say.”
She smiled. That sounded like the Jake she knew. “Let me guess. He doesn’t want to get into Oslo and sit around waiting for the scientists.”
“Exactly.”
She couldn’t blame him. With a deadly virus like that, she was surprised he had even gotten on a train. “What’s the ETA on the scientists?”
Jenkins hesitated as if he was asking the question, but he never left the line. “Be there by noon. They stopped off in Iceland to refuel.”
Toni calculated how long it would take Jake to drive two hundred fifty to three hundred kilometers. Depending on the roads and traffic. Never. There was no way he would drive the virus to them. He had another plan. She was sure of that.
The Agency director broke her thoughts. “Do you have any idea what that little madman is up to now?”
“Jake?”
“No. Victor Petrova.”
“No. We think he’s in Oslo still, but can’t verify that. We suspect he’ll strike when Jake gets close. We plan on checking out of our hotel this morning and moving out toward the airport.”
“Good idea. The scientists will be landing on the Royal Norwegian Air Force Station at Gardermoen, just across the runway from the Oslo Airport.”
“I just landed there yesterday.”
“That’s right.”
What the hell was the matter with him? “Are you all right? Sounds like you’re having a stroke.”
“No. I mean yes. I’m fine. I just can’t let this virus get into the wrong hands. Not under my watch.”
Now that was the man she knew. “Don’t worry,” Toni said. “Not gonna happen as long as I’m around.” And Jake, she thought.
They both hung up at the same time and she went back out into the hotel room. She’d have to split up this slumber party in a hurry. She needed them fresh by noon.
●
Victor Petrova woke to the sound of his cell phone playing Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He was staying in the most expensive hotel in Oslo, registered under the name Vladislav Petrenko, his newest alias. He rolled over in the darkness and waited for the song to recycle. He loved the Nutcracker, watching all those lithe people jumping around in tights. He imagined them now.
Finally he picked up the phone. “Yes,” he said, and then listened carefully to the man speaking English, the only common language he had with some of his men. He was expecting good news from Sweden.
But the man on the other end didn’t have good news.
“What do you mean missing? You’re their back up crew,” he reminded the man. “Find them. You’re talking about two women and a drunk.”
He listened longer now to excuses, wanting nothing more than to reach through the phone and grab this man by the throat. He hated working with the Swedes. They had a damn excuse for everything.
“Just do your damn job or I’ll send someone to do it for you.” He meant do them as well, and the man would understand without him actually saying it. Then Victor slapped his phone shut and set it on the nightstand. He knew he should have used Russians. They were so conditioned to having nothing, they rarely complained. At least those who had worked in the government.
Maybe he had underestimated Jake Adams. No. The game was early and he had a lot of moves. After all, he had found out the other players, played the old colonel like a pawn, and would soon take their queen. Not long for mate and one step closer to checkmate. He rolled over in his bed and went back to sleep almost immediately.
21
They had locked up Jake and Anna’s room, not wanting some wandering drunk or porter or both stumbling onto a dead man and another drugged and tied up like a pig. But Jake was disturbed by the men finding them on the train. Who knew they were there? The Agency. The Norwegian Intelligence Service. Perhaps Interpol, if Anna had called in their position and travel plans. But he doubted that. As far as he knew, and she had said, her last call had been from Spitsbergen, where she had told them about the virus, against Jake’s better wishes. Yet, they were traveling in Sweden, Victor Petrova’s new home base. He could have had eyes and ears on all transportation routes, heard recently about the police officer on the train, the abandoned rental car, and done the math. After all, Petrova was a bona fide genius with years of experience in the field and behind the scenes. That wasn’t it, though, and he knew it. Regardless of how they had been found, the fact was that they had been discovered, and they would have to do something to change that fact. They had two choices. They could split up or change their transportation again.
The train ended in Mora, Sweden. They could take a bus, not a good choice, catch a commuter flight, a possibilit
y, or go by car. Not long to decide, either. They were a half hour out of Falun, a ten minute stop in a former mining town, before an hour and a half final leg to Mora. Maybe their best choice would come to him.
The three of them were together in the sleeper car next door to the one with the two men who had attacked them. It would be difficult now to explain this to the Swedish police, especially if they were able to tie them to what had happened to their man farther north.
Anna was sleeping soundly on the upper bunk, and Jake and Kjersti shared the lower bunk—Jake sitting up on the end waiting for a possible second team to attack, while Kjersti lay in a fetal position taking up the rest of the bed. But Jake could tell she wasn’t getting much rest. She was tossing and turning for the past few hours, occasionally kicking him in the process.
Now she sat up onto her side and stared at Jake. “What time is it?” Kjersti whispered to him.
“Almost six thirty.”
“Should be to Falun soon,” she said, pulling herself from under the covers and sitting closer to him.
“Yeah. I’m thinking we should get off there.”
“They have camera security on the train,” she said. “When they find our friends next door, they’ll review the digital files and see we were involved.”
“I know. But if we get off at Falun that’ll give us at least an hour and a half head start before we have every law enforcement agency in Sweden after us.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her eyes. “Not to mention the bad guys. I’ve been laying here trying to figure out how they found us.”
“I know how.” Jake reached down to his backpack and found his SAT phone. The one Colonel Reed had given him to use. “With this.” He turned the phone in his hand.
“I thought you disabled the GPS by turning it off,” she said, her face concerned.
“No. This is a newer version. Doesn’t have to be on to track the GPS chip inside.”
“But why? Why not throw the SAT phone away a long time ago if you knew this?”