by Sam Clarke
I fidgeted with the safety strap to keep awkwardness at bay. ‘Maybe you hang out with the wrong kind of boys,’ I mumbled.
She produced a snort of superiority. ‘Actually, they’re the coolest boys in my school.’
I stopped fidgeting and made eye-contact. ‘If they don’t look out for their friends, they’re not that cool.’
She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘You looked out for me today. Does that mean we’re friends?’
I gave her a non-committal shrug, unsure how to handle her soft and polite version. ‘We could be. We’re stuck in Nassau for the foreseeable future, maybe we should bury the hatchet and make the most of it.’
She thought about it. ‘How about a secret trial friendship?’
I frowned. And not because the sun was shining straight into my eyes. ‘A what?’
‘We bury the hatchet for two weeks and see how we get on. Social medias aren’t part of the deal, though. No selfies, no tagging and no following each other. If the friendship doesn’t work out, I would have to ban you from my profiles and banning someone after such a short time always leads to rumours. We don’t want our friends to think that we dated for two weeks before I dumped you, do we?’
If anything, being virtually dumped by such a good-looking girlfriend would have done wonders for my reputation, but I pretended to agree with her. ‘No, we definitely don’t want that. So, when does this trial start?’
A rare, genuine smile crossed her lips. ‘Now?’
CHAPTER 9
By the time we got to Hope’s shop, I was a total wreck. With my life no longer in danger, the adrenaline surge had been replaced by a ton of guilt. The third possibility I had so far refused to consider was gaining ground, at least in my head: I had never hit anyone before, let alone with a double-paddle, and I had convinced myself of having accidentally murdered the intruder. Isabelle took her new role as a friend extremely seriously and spent a whole four seconds trying to cheer me up. When her attempt failed, she huffed and ordered me to stop moaning. Hope was on her way out with a group of Japanese divers and bought our story about the jet ski running out of fuel. She lent me her phone to call my father and didn’t ask too many questions – the few she asked were about Viggo, but I had no idea about his star sign. Or about star signs in general. An hour later, my father’s truck pulled up outside her shop and hooted. In spite of my recent brush with the Grim Reaper, he hadn’t even bothered to come and get me in person. I climbed inside – feet first, long face afterwards – and didn’t make much of an effort to return Viggo’s smile. ‘Magnus really wanted to be here,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t get away.’
I slammed the door shut. ‘Couldn’t or wouldn’t?’
He immediately jumped to my father’s defence. ‘Dude, he was worried sick, but things are pretty hectic on Valhalla at the moment – this is the first time we’ve had a breach.’ He flicked the indicator on and joined the traffic. ‘The good news is that the map is still in the safe, so no harm was done.’
The guy I had hit with the paddle would beg to differ. I scraped together enough courage to ask about the intruders. When Viggo repeatedly assured me that no dead bodies had been thrown overboard, I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Any idea who they were?’ I asked.
‘Two Russian dudes recovering the map on behalf of their boss,’ he replied. ‘We got their first names from the security video – Yuri and Vladimir. They tracked us down through the intermediary, reported us to the police to get us off Valhalla and broke in. If they hadn’t miscalculated the size of our crew, they would have walked out with the map while we were in custody. Luckily for us, you bumped into them.’
I certainly had. More literally than I would have wanted to. ‘Who did I…?’
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. I wasn’t even sure which verb to use. Viggo helped on both counts. ‘You paddled Vladimir,’ he said, stopping at a non-existent zebra crossing to let a pretty girl through.
Images of Vladimir’s blood flashed through my head and threatened to bring up the breakfast I hadn’t eaten. I forced my mind to move forward. ‘Who’s their boss, then?’
Viggo winked at the hot pedestrian. ‘No idea. The intruders refer to him often enough throughout the CCTV video, but never by name. Or at least that’s what Ariel says. Since he’s the only Russian speaker on-board, we’ll have to take his word for it.’
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised my tutor spoke Russian. He would have looked quite at home in an unwelcoming Siberian tavern, where vodka was cheap and conversation frowned upon.
‘Viggo, concentrate on the road,’ snapped Isabelle, giving the pretty pedestrian the death stare. ‘The cars in front are slowing down.’
He tapped on the brakes. The dashboard doll – a headless hula girl – swayed her hips accordingly. Her performance was cut short by a sudden traffic jam. Within seconds, hips and car had come to a total standstill. A policeman warned us to expect some delays – a water pipe had burst and traffic was being re-routed. I hoped it wouldn’t be a long wait, my father’s truck was already hotter than a furnace. Viggo shifted the gear into neutral, whipped out his phone and caught up with his messages. I wished I could do the same, but my handset was lying on the floor of the panic room. Isabelle and I were so bored that we ended up having a semi-decent conversation: I talked football, she talked footballers. The traffic eventually started to move. Whatever Viggo was typing had to be pretty interesting, because he didn’t notice. The cars behind hooted wildly and forced him back to our dimension with a start. His phone slipped out of his hand and landed at my feet. I bent forward to pick it up.
‘Dude, leave it,’ he said, an edge of panic in his voice. His reaction startled me. If he hadn’t freaked out, I would never have glanced at the screen. It displayed a picturesque chateau overlooking a peaceful lake – the kind of idyllic setting that dormant prehistoric monsters tend to favour in horror films. The snow-capped mountains in the background froze my brain and it took me a while to realise that I was staring at the website of an all-boys boarding school somewhere in Switzerland. A half-filled contact form asked about entry requirements for a fifteen-year-old British student. I turned to Viggo, shell-shocked. He shot me an anxious glance. ‘Dude, it’s not what it looks like…’
Confusion and disappointment made way for absolute anger. I pushed the phone in front of his nose. ‘Why are you booking me into a boarding school?’
He didn’t flinch. Clearly unimpressed by my weapon of choice. ‘You should ask Magnus.’
‘I’m asking you.’
He dropped his gaze. ‘It’s not my place to say. Speak to Magnus.’
‘So he can feed me more lies? He didn’t even tell me that Knut was my grandfather! You may worship the ground he walks on, but I can’t trust a word he says!’ Anger turned to bitterness. ‘I thought I could trust you, though.’
He looked up. ‘You can. I’m your friend.’
‘Then prove it, for God’s sake! Tell me what the hell is going on! Why is my father getting rid of me? Is it something I’ve done?’
‘Dude, Magnus had nothing to do with this!’
His loyalty was beginning to border on the pathetic. ‘Stop covering for him!’ I yelled.
‘I’m not lying!’ he yelled back. ‘Don’t you get it? It’s not Magnus who’s trying to get rid of you!’
The penny finally dropped. ‘It’s Knut.’
Viggo bit his lip and nodded. ‘The boarding school was his idea. Magnus agreed to look into it just to keep him off his back.’
I punched the dashboard in frustration. ‘Knut has avoided me for fifteen years! He has no right to choose where I live!’
‘Take it easy,’ said Viggo. ‘You’re not going anywhere. Magnus will fight your corner.’
Isabelle’s head snaked between the seats. ‘Don’t give him false hopes, Viggo. What Knut wants, Knut gets.’ She squeezed my shoulder. ‘I’ll help you pack.’
My tear ducts were at bursting point. I sank back in
to my seat and spent the rest of the journey pretending to sleep.
#
By the time we arrived at our marina, I had come up with seven different ways to wipe Knut off the face of the earth; none of them particularly humane. Viggo grumbled something about his to-do list being longer than a reticulated python and disappeared in the bowels of the ship. Isabelle and I headed for the lounge, which had been turned into a war room that Churchill would have approved of. The blueprints of Valhalla’s security system were pinned to the wall, next to the blown-up images of the intruders and of the device that they had plugged into the access panel. Ariel was barking in Hebrew in a funny-looking phone, similar to the one that Viggo was holding when Knut rang. In spite of the dining table between them, my father and Miguel were at each other’s throats. They were so engrossed in their verbal onslaught that they failed to register our presence. My father was yelling at the top of his voice. ‘Drop it! I’ll tell Knut when I’m good and ready.’
Miguel threw his arms up. ‘You’re being unreasonable! They’re Russians! It could be Dragomirov!’
My father’s snort of disagreement could have put out a minor fire. ‘Dragomirov goes for different finds, very specific esoteric artefacts. Treasure hunting is not his style. He has enough money to buy a small country, he wouldn’t care for common gold.’
‘Agreed,’ said Miguel, ‘but if it is Dragomirov, Knut would want to know.’
‘I never understood his obsession with Dragomirov,’ said my father, with a powerful shrug. ‘He’s just another billionaire with more money than sense. If dung was a status symbol, he’d buy it by the ton.’
As curious as I was about this Dragomirov guy, being caught snooping wasn’t an option. With the boarding school looming in the background, I had to be on my best behaviour. Much to Isabelle’s annoyance, I stepped further inside the room and brought our espionage mission to an end. She cursed my good manners and flew into Miguel’s arms with unnatural spontaneity. My father kicked his chair back and rushed towards me. He cupped my chin in his hand and lifted my face to look at me properly. There was no need, I was nearly as tall as he was, but he kept on squashing my jaws, and my dignity, between his fingers. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. ‘We found a tooth on the main deck.’
I went weak at the knees. A tooth? My first physical confrontation and the guy loses a tooth? I heard myself say that it wasn’t mine. My father released my face and grilled me about the break-in. I did my best to fill in the blanks. ‘I’m so sorry you had to go through something like that,’ he said. ‘Valhalla is a fortress. She’s equipped with the best security money can buy. I’m about to meet with a team of surveillance experts to get to the bottom of this.’
Ariel finished his call and marched towards my father. ‘My contact at the Special Forces confirmed that intruders’ equipment is latest generation, military issue,’ he said.
‘As good as ours?’ asked my father in disbelief.
‘As good as ours,’ confirmed Ariel. ‘Whoever they work for must be pretty wealthy. This stuff doesn’t come cheap.’
I lit up. ‘If these guys went through so much trouble to get the map back, it must be real.’
‘My main concern at the moment is figuring out how they breached our security system,’ said my father flatly. ‘All the rest can wait.’
His indifference rasped on my nerves. A bit more enthusiasm towards our search wouldn’t have gone amiss. ‘We may be sitting on an authentic treasure map!’ I protested. ‘The scroll should be our priority. We should re-examine it, see if we missed anything. We can’t wait around; the Russians have already tried to steal it once…’ My voice trailed off. A shiver made its way down my spine. I suddenly realised why he was so paranoid about the security system. ‘You think they’ll come back for it, don’t you?’
He stroked his beard, which had been fairly skew since his rendezvous with Fiona. ‘I’d be a fool not to consider the possibility. Which is why it would be best if you went away for a while.’
‘Away?’ I breathed. I couldn’t believe that it had taken him less than a morning to give in to Knut’s demands. Isabelle had been right after all: what Knut wanted, Knut got.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I have a great place in mind. Are you alright? You look a bit… flustered.’
I struggled to think of a polite answer. Viggo rushed in holding my phone. ‘Dude, I found it in the panic room. It won’t stop ringing. You’ve got a bunch of missed calls from your mum.’
I blanched. Missing mum’s calls resulted in astronomical fines which she automatically deducted from my pocket money. ‘How many?’ I asked.
‘Nine.’
I was officially destitute. I took the phone and thumbed my way to the Skype icon. ‘I’d better call her back.’
‘Not yet,’ said my father, snatching the phone out of my hand.
‘I missed our weekly call. In her book, it’s pretty serious stuff.’
My desperation didn’t sway him. ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to say?’ he asked.
‘Not really, but I may have to grovel. It won’t be pretty.’
He wet his lips. ‘I don’t usually ask people to lie for me, but you can’t tell her what happened. If she finds out about the break-in, she’s going to unleash her lawyer on me.’ He gestured towards the war room and gave me a helpless look. ‘I really could do without the extra hassle…’
His aversion to my mother’s sabre-toothed lawyer was justified. For the right fee, the man could have reduced Satan to tears. ‘Don’t worry,’ I grumbled. ‘Even if I told her the truth, she’d never believe me. I’ll think of something.’
He returned my phone and gave me the thumbs up.
‘But you owe me,’ I added.
My threat amused him, which was kind of humiliating. He rummaged through his pockets and produced a crumpled banknote. ‘Will this do?’ he asked, handing me twenty Bahamian dollars. ‘I’ve never bribed a teenager before so I’ll have to trust you on the going rate.’
His carefree attitude was the straw that broke the camel’s back. How could he be so chilled when he was about to ship me off to a Swiss boarding school? I snatched the note out of his hand and threw it back at him. It fluttered to the floor like a graceless butterfly. ‘I’m not for sale,’ I said, through gritted teeth.
His forehead creased in confusion. ‘C’mon, I didn’t mean it like that. It was just a joke.’
‘To you everything is, isn’t it?’ He made to speak, but I didn’t let him. ‘You promised I would be part of your next search and this is it. You cannot pack me off to Switzerland when things start to get interesting. I won’t tell mum about the Russians, but I want to be involved in anything even vaguely related to the map. And I want to stay here. With you. Whether your “client”, or whatever you want to call Knut, likes it or not. You’d better stick to your word or… or…’
His eyes turned to ice. ‘Or what?’
I had never threatened anyone before. I had no idea what to say next. ‘I… um…’
He squared up to me. Eyes to eyes, nose to nose. His voice cut through the air like a deadly blade. ‘Save your empty threats for the playground, Noah. I never break a promise.’
He turned on his heels and slammed the door behind him. The hinges shook. Inside, I did too. I looked around the room, Miguel was the only person who met my gaze. He blew his cheeks out. ‘When you lose it, you certainly lose it like a Larsson.’
I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it as a compliment. ‘I don’t want to go to Switzerland,’ I grumbled.
‘Where did the obsession with Switzerland come from? Magnus had booked you into a beach-front hotel in Pirate Cove.’
My voice rose an octave. ‘Pirate Cove? Is that where he wanted to send me?’
‘Yeah,’ said Miguel, ‘he thought you’d be happy to spend a couple days larking about with Viggo and Isabelle while we got Valhalla sorted out.’
I slid my hand in front of my eyes and wished for the floorboards to swallow me
there and then. When Ariel strode up to me, I wished even harder. He crossed his arms over his muscular chest and gave me a slight nod. I tensed – Ariel would rather be hit with a stun grenade than have a conversation with me. ‘Attacking an armed opponent with a double-paddle was a bold move,’ he said, throwing me a measuring stare. ‘As of tomorrow, you’ll train longer and harder. If there is a latent fighter loitering within you, I will smoke him out and whip him into shape.’
And when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, my mother rang.
CHAPTER 10
Before locking himself in a meeting with the security experts, my father had issued everyone on board with a to-do list. Isabelle and I were supposed to help Viggo clear up the chaos left behind by the Russians. Unfortunately, any type of work sent her argumentative side into overdrive. Viggo’s patience was running wafer-thin. ‘Princess, pick any cabin you want and pack stuff away. Magnus said so, giving me attitude won’t change things.’
‘Then I’ll start from his cabin,’ she said, thrusting her chest out. I’m pretty sure she meant it as a defiant gesture, but I was momentarily distracted by the outline of her breasts.
Viggo didn’t even notice them. ‘You know the rules: nobody can stay in Magnus’s cabin alone. Noah will go with you.’ He turned to me. ‘Dude, you’re in charge. You’ve got to be in and out in fifteen minutes. Make sure the floor is clear and keep well away from his desk. If she gives you a hard time, call me.’
‘I survived a whole afternoon at the Chelsea Flower Show with my mother,’ I replied. ‘Fifteen minutes with Isabelle won’t kill me.’
Her glare implied the contrary, but I hit back with one of her favourite weapons, the blanking. Shortly afterwards, we were entering my father’s cabin. Chaos reigned supreme, but I wasn’t sure it had been burgled at all. Isabelle, who had never set foot in his cabin before, gaped in astonishment. ‘My God! They searched everywhere!’