So any way you cut it, I was more likely to end up The Late Riley Wolfe than anything else. Or if it wasn’t me, it would be Monique—or both of us. Plus a whole bunch of poor innocent mercenaries, an arms dealer or two—the body count was getting way too high for my taste. I mean, I’ve got no objection to the occasional corpse along the way, not if it helps get a job done. But this was starting to look like a massacre, the kind that makes even the cops sit up and take a look. So even if I lived, which didn’t seem likely, there would be some very serious long-term heat.
And for what? Just a lousy eight-figure payday!
It was a horrible, useless, lethal bloody mess. And I was stuck with it.
I looked at Stone. He seemed to have a lot of teeth all of a sudden, and he was showing all of them. It was the kind of smile somebody puts on after an all-night poker game when suddenly he somehow ends up with all the chips and everybody else has to walk home. “How ’bout it?” he said through his teeth.
I looked him right in the eye, a truly steely glare, and because I don’t let anybody push me into doing something I don’t want to do, I said, “Sure. Why not.”
And it’s maybe a little weird? But right away I felt better. Because after all that shit, what else could go wrong?
I should’ve remembered Riley’s Ninth Law: Don’t ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer.
10
The same cheerful Aussie drove me back to the Perth airport. He didn’t put the bulletproof g
lass shield up between us this time. He probably figured that since I wasn’t dead I was on his team now. Except he was from Oz, so he probably would have said “side” instead of “team.” And I couldn’t really say if he was right or wrong about that. I hadn’t even settled into the idea of working for Boniface, and Stone had stepped in and stirred up the whole fucking thing.
I had a lot to think about on the drive to the airport. I thought about it. Or I tried to. But when I get pushed, I push back. I can’t help it, and I don’t really want to. I’ve got a deep-rooted thing about being bullied into shit I don’t want to do—and here I was being bullied from two directions. By really impressive bullies, too. So I didn’t like it even more than usual.
So a whole lot of my “thinking about it” was getting mad. That’s counterproductive, and mostly I avoid it. But this was stacking up to be a special case in a lot of ways, and getting mad seemed like just about the only sane response right now. It didn’t give me any really clear ideas about anything, but it did make me promise myself I wasn’t going to just let this slide. And what the hell, that felt good.
The driver took me to the terminal and held the door while I got out. I didn’t tip him. I just went in, still fuming. But when I took out my ticket, it reminded me that this was one hoop I wasn’t going to jump through. Not just yet.
I went to the ticket counter and changed my ticket. Not just because I was pissed off at being told what to do. I had one important stop to make before I went home, and it couldn’t wait. I had two and a half hours before the new flight took off, so I strolled through the terminal, looking into the shops for a few basics. I found a good hard-shell carry-on suitcase, no problem. And all the normal junk like toothbrush, deodorant, and so on. But clothing was a challenge. Apparently, all the passengers who came to Perth International Airport were on their way to go surfing and had left home without any appropriate outfits. I could have bought a terrific wardrobe if I was going surfing, too. I wasn’t, so the choices were limited.
Luckily, I found a couple of shirts without embarrassing patterns or cute slogans, and a really warm jacket lined with merino wool. I also bought a good pair of sturdy boots. And what the fuck, why not?—I bought a really cool hat, too, the kind that would have made Mick Dundee jealous.
I changed in the first-class lounge, stuffed everything else into my new suitcase, and sat down with a cup of coffee. It wasn’t as good as the one Danielle gave me. It was okay, but it didn’t have the same zesty flavor that a civet’s ass gives a cup of coffee.
I finished the coffee and stared at the TV for a while. The time dragged by. I tried not to think. It didn’t work.
Finally they called my flight. I climbed on board and settled into a window seat in first class. Half an hour later I was in the air and on my way. Ten minutes after that I was asleep.
11
Thorsang is a small and picturesque fishing village on the east coast of Sweden. Not surprisingly, its population is almost entirely made up of fishermen, tough people who sail out onto the rough waters of the Baltic and the North Atlantic. Very few guidebooks mention Thorsang, and tourists who stumble onto the quaint old hamlet with its one bed-and-breakfast come away with little more than the smell of fish on their shoes and a few pictures of the big bronze statue at the harbor mouth.
The statue isn’t really worth a picture, but once you’ve taken a few shots of the fishing trawlers and a couple of bearded fishermen, it’s about all the town offers. Five meters tall and cast from bronze, it’s a battered and slightly crude rendition of Njord, the old Viking god of the sea. He stands there on the jetty, covered with bird shit and the cruddy patina salt air leaves on metal, and he glares out at his watery kingdom with his spear upraised, as if commanding the waves to behave themselves and let the poor fishermen of Thorsang make a living in peace.
Njord stands on the end of the jetty that juts out from the small harbor, breaking the rough chop of the Baltic so the fishing boats can lie at easy anchor inside its protection. Just to the left of where the jetty meets the shore is a dock that belongs to the only real business in town, the small factory where the fresh fish is cleaned, frozen, and shipped away to a hungry world. Behind that an old cobbled road leads into the tiny town square, lined with a few shops, and Thorsang’s pub, the Gammal Ankare. It’s not merely the town’s source for life-sustaining beer. It’s also the social center of town, the only gathering place for the men and women who live in Thorsang.
Tonight, as on most nights, the pub was about three-quarters full. But tonight—and on most recent nights—it was a little quieter than a fishermen’s pub should be. There was not much jolly talk in the dark and smoky main room. In better times there would be plenty of laughter, loud jokes, even singing, and the room would feel snug, secure, and cheerful. Not tonight. Now it felt like pure gloom, and the conversation was dour.
The fishing was very bad lately, and most people who knew about such things said it would just get worse. It was climate change, most likely. Of course they knew about Greta Thunberg. And they believed her; she was Swedish, after all, from Stockholm. And nobody who lived with the sea could possibly doubt that climate change was real. The high tides were higher—the town square had even flooded at the last spring tide, and nobody could remember when that had happened before. No, things were changing, and not for the better.
Even worse; in spite of more demand and smaller catches, prices were going down! How did that even make sense? In the past, when fishing was bad, the price of fish went up. Now, everything was crazy, upside down. Who could tell what might happen next? Whatever it was, it was sure to be bad. Things only got worse, and that was a historical fact. And it was always workingmen who were stuck with the bill.
So the general feeling in the pub was close to unanimous. This was a truly shitty time to be a fisherman.
But in truth, not everybody was completely full of misery. One of the fishermen sitting there in the pub was clearly feeling pretty good about the way life had been treating him lately. Of course, he didn’t say so. He knew very well that no one wanted to hear that song tonight. He certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone why his face was not as long as the other men’s. He just sipped his pint and agreed that he could not remember when times were worse for the men who fished on the Baltic. But he took larger sips than the others—and if someone wanted to notice such things, it was his third pint, at that.
Per Hakansson, sitting across the table from the nearly smiling man, did notice it. Three pints! Not that it was any of his business, but really; why flaunt your good fortune when everyone else was feeling the pinch? It wasn’t decent. Like most of the other men, Per himself had been nursing the same pint all evening, as he could not really afford more than one. And he had watched his friend buy three pints with a careless air, as if money meant nothing. So Per finally said, “Well, my friend, it seems you have had better fishing than the rest of us, is that right?”
The man gave a single shake of his head, but he smiled, just a little. “Klaga inte över för lite vind—lär dig segla,” he said. It was an old saying, and Per remembered his own father saying it. Freely translated, it meant, Don’t complain about the wind—learn to sail.
Per was not a fool, and unfortunately, he was not drunk, either. So he didn’t ask for any details. He had a pretty good idea what that meant—but it was none of his business, and he did not press for specifics. And in spite of finishing off three entire pints, Per’s friend did not loosen up enough to say any more. But he still had that self-satisfied look on his face when he rose from his chair to walk home.