A Triple Thriller Fest (107 page)

Borisenko considered. “You, Anton, my London broker.”

“Anton again,” she said.

“No,” he said. “He’d never do that. I’ve trusted Antosha before with far bigger things. Money is nothing to him, he doesn’t care about it.”

And Borisenko didn’t care about a few million here or there. Anton could take what he needed, what he wanted, even. Besides, Yekatarina was the last one to get suspicious about other people’s motives. She had her own side games, he knew, spending some of the vast wealth left by her father.

Six months ago, one of his agents had called from London to warn about a sudden upward movement in the price of gold. Borisenko didn’t carry gold—except a few million as an emergency hedge, of course—but he needed to know when it was climbing or falling unexpectedly. Both gold and the dollar had knock-on effects on the price of oil, or vice versa. Every dollar movement in the price of oil netted or lost him forty-seven thousand dollars a day.

He traced the movement to a buyer out of Moscow. Not purchasing shares in gold mining companies, or fractional ownership of a stash of gold bars in Dubai, but actual, physical possession of gold bullion coins. Gold eagles, maple leaves, krugerands, as well as older stuff like British sovereigns and French roosters. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of coins. The resulting updraft, including copycats wanting in on the action, swept the price of gold higher by nearly fifty dollars an ounce in less than a month.

The buyer was Yekatarina. He had no idea why and had never asked. He didn’t want her to think he was snooping into her affairs, because he wasn’t.

He hesitated. “It wasn’t you, was it? The money, I mean. If you needed any, you can always ask.”

She laughed. “Sasha, you know better than that. Do you want to see my accounts?”

“No, no, I’m sorry. I was just hoping there was a better explanation.”

“I’m not mad, dear. But I’ve been careful, I’ve got every ruble my father left, plus a few billion. I don’t need twenty million pounds. And if anything ever happened to my money, you’d know about it.”

“Well, it wasn’t Anton, either.”

“Okay, I believe you,” she said. “Anyway, the money could have been a bank mistake, and the business with the Turks was probably just that Lebanese guy who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The virus, some bored kid with a computer.”

“I don’t care about that,” Borisenko said. “What’s worrying me is this thing with Peter and his castle. If someone is working me, retreating to the island could be damn risky. I don’t know who else will be there. I’ll have no way to call for help, or escape if it gets ugly.”

Yekatarina looked thoughtful. “Once the players arrive at the castle, Peter closes the circle. You back out now, you’ll have no way to get back in. Is that what you want?”

He didn’t know. He would have said no, but now he wasn’t sure. It was a fantasy they were chasing, that much was obvious. A compelling fantasy that could draw you in and never let you out.

Yekatarina drew closer. She straddled his lap and looked into his eyes. He remembered the obnoxious comment to Anton at the club and thought he couldn’t have been more wrong. She was a beautiful woman. How did he miss it before? He felt himself stiffen.

“If only I could take Antosha,” he said, “but I need him in Russia, watching the ministry.”

“You have bodyguards. Loyal men who worked with your father. Siberians. And that Finn, what’s his name?”

“Talo. Nothing but a mercenary.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But he’s a professional mercenary. Not the kind to change his loyalties mid-fight, and I like the way he pays attention to his surroundings.”

“Not enough. I need someone who is strong, smart, and absolutely loyal. Nobody else fits that bill like Antosha.”

She reached a hand between their legs and smiled as it connected with his crotch. “You’re forgetting someone. All those things and damn sexy, too.”

“No, Katenka, too risky.” He closed his eyes against the pleasure of what she was doing with her hand.

“Risky for you, you mean,” Yekatarina said. “If I’m not there. We’ll bring Talo, he’ll be the muscle. I’ll be the brains.” She stroked harder, then rolled her ass until it was doing the stroking.

He breathed harder. “I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

She took him with her hand and guided him inside. “Because I’m stronger than any of your men, even stronger than Anton. I’ll protect you.” She rocked down onto his body. “Now shut up and give it to me.”

Chapter Fourteen:

“I’m a Viking,” Lars said. “And Vikings always want to go to war.”

Tess watched him take a sip of wine, then pop a crust of bread with camembert cheese into his mouth. Not exactly a tankard of mead and a haunch of bloody venison.

“Yes, very fierce, I can see,” she said. “What was that about your ancestor being Erik Bloodaxe’s timid brother? Maybe it got bred out of you over the centuries.”

Dmitri, Tess, and Lars sat in an outdoor café in Tours, about thirty kilometers from Peter Gagné’s chateau. It was sunny, although a bit chilly. But the café sat on the Place Plumereau, in a charming square, surrounded by timbered fifteenth century mansions and Tess had insisted on having tea outdoors.

“You build medieval siege engines,” Lars said. “You’re the world expert on castles and medieval warfare, and you can’t see the appeal?”

“Sure, I do. Sounds fun. And dangerous as hell, like our own private Lord of the Flies.”

“Come on, we’re grownups. Nobody is going to go crazy.”

“If you’re not going crazy, and this isn’t inspiring any bloodlust, then what’s in it for you?” she asked. “Just making life real? Getting in touch with your Viking heritage?”

“Danes have been emasculated. We’re interior decorators, we make windmills and hearing aids. But war is still in our blood.”

“What is it you want? You want Denmark to build a fleet of long boats? You want to invade England and cut out the still-beating heart of the prime minister, sacrifice it to Odin?”

“Of course you can make it sound ridiculous,” Lars said.

“And she makes it sound like ancient history,” Dmitri said. “Europe has been pretty peaceful for the last half century, but it won’t always be like that. Lars is getting at an important question. Can a country like Denmark defend itself when the peace ends?”

“Now you sounds like Peter.” She shook her head. “Give me one tiny piece of evidence that everything is on the verge of falling apart.”

“I don’t have to, I just look at recent history. Peter’s a bit like me. He’s a Pied Noir from French Algeria, I grew up in a country called the Soviet Union. It can all go to hell in an instant.”

“So you both want in,” she said.

“I do,” Lars said. “Absolutely.”

Dmitri nodded, but more slowly than she’d expected. “I’ve got something for you, Tess, might change your mind.”

“Your dark secret. The mysterious phone call. Let’s have it, then.”

Something flickered in Dmitri’s eyes. He wore a thumb splint, which he claimed had come from slamming his left hand in a car door. But that look made her wonder just what had happed with Peter’s man in Marseille.

“I’m sorry, I’ll take a look.”

Dmitri reached into a briefcase, removed a folder, and slipped out some photos. They were pictures of a castle, taken from the air. It sat on a hill on a forested island, mostly pine, but some hardwoods near the water.

Tess didn’t recognize the castle. “Looks British Isles, Fourteenth Century. Is that a Scottish loch?”

“It’s a lake in the States, actually. But that’s a faithful reproduction of a Scottish castle. It was modernized over the years, but Peter has stripped that out and returned it to a natural state. Well, not natural, obviously, but authentic.”

Lars looked at Dmitri. “Thought you said your inside information came from a drunk Belgian. Do drunks typically carry aerial reconnaissance photos?”

“Yeah, Dmitri,” Tess said. “Who took these?”

“I’m not sure, but I didn’t get them from Peter’s man. I know someone who works with Borisenko, same guy who told me Borisenko would be in Provence. My friend came across these pictures awhile ago and sent me some copies. I thought they were some new place of Borisenko’s. Had no idea you could have guessed Scotland or I would have shown you already. Looked like Bavaria to me.”

“Totally wrong. Look at the stonework.”

“Whatever. Once Henri started talking—he’s the Belgian—I put the pieces together. This isn’t Borisenko’s place, it’s Peter’s. Borisenko wanted advanced information about the castle. No surprise, the guy even cheats at cards, when he can get away with it.”

“Okay,” Tess said. “But what’s this got to do with us?”

“That’s the setup,” Dmitri said. He reached into the envelope and pulled out a second stack of photos. “This is the payoff.”

The pictures showed a cavernous basement somewhere, stacked with crates. Someone had pried open some of the crates and taken pictures. One held an Assyrian statue of a winged creature with a man’s head and a curly beard. Another, a Vermeer that she couldn’t identify. A third was stuffed with unidentified scrolls, perhaps Egyptian.

“Explain,” Tess said. She set them down, but Lars continued to examine the photos with a frown.

“Apparently, there’s a huge store room under the castle,” Dmitri said. “The previous owner had a collection of classic sports cars. Peter uses it for a different purpose.”

“According to your friend in the oil ministry?”

“According to the Belgian. He didn’t know what, but said they were always delivering crates, some so big and heavy they needed a crane to move them. Others could be moved easily by one man. They just piled up. Peter never opened them.”

She glanced at the pictures, then looked away. It made her sick. Whatever else Peter was, she couldn’t imagine him doing this. If those opened boxes were a representative sample, he was amassing a private collection that made Borisenko’s thefts look like a kid stealing bubble gum. But it also explained how he’d become friends with the Russian.

“I don’t understand.”

“Sorry,” Dmitri said. “I knew you wouldn’t be happy. In spite of your…history, I mean. Does this change your mind? It changed mine.”

She sipped at her coffee to give herself a chance to think. It had gone cold. “So you’re thinking we’ll use Peter’s war as cover.”

“Perfect chance,” Dmitri said with a nod.

Another sip of the cold coffee. Her heart rate was up and she couldn’t help but follow it through. “We scope out the approach to the island. We find the basement and how to get in, then we wait until the war is over and Peter moves on to his next wild scheme. We come back and rob him blind.”

“Exactly.”

Oh, that was evil. Talk about the perfect way to kick your ex-boyfriend in the nuts. She should have been delighted, but instead, her excitement was mixed with a sick feeling. If she did it, and if Peter found out, she’d never see Nick again. Could she take that risk?

Dmitri turned to Lars. He must know that he had her. Lars, however, would be backing down. Swinging a dull battleaxe was one thing. Robbing billionaires brought out his cautious side. “What about it, Lars?”

“Hell of a plan,” Lars said. He sounded surprisingly confident. “It’d be the biggest haul for my clan since Ragnar Lodbrok sacked Paris.”

Tess couldn’t help the snort. “If we’re going to make this work, we’ve got to leave this romantic bullshit. I don’t care what happens in Peter’s little war, we’ve got to remember what we’re there for, keep our heads.”

Lars and Dmitri nodded, faces suddenly serious. They couldn’t conceal the excited glint in their eyes, however.

#

They flew in comfort to Vermont, then promptly left the Twenty-first Century behind. Sixteen other men met them north of the science museum on the Burlington waterfront. All twenty of them, including Tess, Peter, Lars, and Dmitri, wore long coats, which they shed the instant the boat pulled out of the docks and set sail onto Lake Champlain.

Tess wore rough leather pants, laced tunics, and boots. Most of the men hadn’t shaved for several days, or longer. She couldn’t tell who were the rich men and who were Peter’s employees.

Peter ordered the engine cut and three men raised sail. Another man piloted the ship and it turned north and tacked against the wind.

The lights of Burlington glittered at their back. Ahead, a gray, overcast sky, and a sun already setting behind the Adirondacks on the far side of the lake, even though it wasn’t even five o’clock. A cold drop hit Tess’s face, then another.

A man came up and spoke to Peter in French with a Belgian accent. “Not the best weather. With the wind, it’ll be dark before we get there. You want to use the flood lights?”

Peter shook his head. “No, that won’t be fair. We can use lamps, but nothing electric.”

Dmitri caught Tess’s eye and gave a nod in the Belgian’s direction. She figured this was Henri.

“Let’s suit up,” Peter said. “It’ll keep us warm and get us prepared.”

Henri opened the chests along the deck that normally held lifejackets. He and two Americans hauled out chain mail, breast plates, shields, spears, swords, and a war hammer for Lars.

“Careful with that,” Henri told Lars. “Armor or no, that’ll cave someone’s head in.” He held the hammer with two hands.

Lars took it with one, though his forearm bulged. “Ya think?”

“The swords aren’t sharp,” Peter said as he strapped one to his side. “But you still have to be careful.”

Tess smiled. “I wrote the book, remember?”

“Of course. But we’ve also got first-hand experience. Broke someone’s clavicle, already. Trying to avoid too much of that stuff.”

“What’s this padding?” Lars said. He fingered his chain mail and held it up against the dying light.

“That’s your blood,” Peter said. He held his arms out while Henri strapped on a breastplate. “You get hit hard enough in the chest, it’ll spray red and you’ll be dead for the battle.”

“Kind of like paintball?” Lars asked.

“Exactly. Only it’ll hurt to breathe for the next week.”