The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) (21 page)

He glanced over his shoulder as the car pulled even with Christina.

The rear passenger door opened and a man in a suit stepped out.

* * *

Christina’s umbrella bumped someone or something, a hazard of being short and carrying the pole resting on her shoulder in a country filled with tall Teutonic types. “Sorry.” She raised the umbrella and looked behind to repeat the apology.

A man stood far too close to her left shoulder. “Glad to meet you, Christina.”

He knew her name.

She opened her mouth to scream, but he placed one thick finger over her lips, pressing hard enough that her chin jammed into her throat and her breath bottled in her chest.

“If you move or shout, I will shoot you. I don’t care about the mess.”

Looking into the empty blue eyes, so devoid of laugh lines or character wrinkles that they could be a computer simulation, she believed his threat.

“Get in the car.”

Last week she would have stated that most people were basically good, but also that if she was in trouble, she was a fighter, not a quitter. Looking into this man’s eyes, feeling the unmistakable poke of a pistol in her side, she knew there wasn’t a shred of good in him and she’d be bleeding out on the pavement if she didn’t do as he said.

This man made Skafe look like a rainbow unicorn.

* * *

Stig saw the man push aside Christina’s brolly, but he couldn’t see the man’s hands, so he ran toward her.

Two firemen blocked the sidewalk. He dropped the bag and darted into the street, crossing diagonally, fists pumping.

Then the man turned to the open door of the vehicle.

Stig recognized him. Leif. Unferth’s craziest enforcer had Christina.

* * *

Europeans claimed the United States was gun-crazy, but Christina had never had a firearm pointed at her in California. She’d lost track of how many weapons she’d encountered over the last three days. Gun or no gun, she couldn’t get in that car. “Hel—”

The man wrapped his palm around her chin, dug his thumb into one hinge of her jaw and his first finger into the other, and squeezed until the final
p
of her cry sounded like nothing more than blowing a bubble. Pain drilled through her face and she wondered if the pressure would pop her jaw off the rest of her head.

“Shut up,” he said.

The web of pain radiated out to cover her entire skull. She stumbled with the agony, and the leather car interior rushed up to meet her nose and forehead. She used the momentum to keep going, straight across the seat to the silver door handle on the far side. Right there at nose level, she clutched it and yanked, and the door started to swing out while she kicked and writhed on her stomach to cross the interior.

Stupid her, she’d zipped and buttoned her coat. The man had a fistful of the back, and she couldn’t pull free of the sleeves. He jerked so hard the fabric pulled her across the seat by her armpits and the zipper-tab gouged her larynx, but she didn’t stop flailing her arms because this was a fight she had to win.

The car shot forward. Her captor’s grip slackened for a moment and she yanked free, turning to the door, but he had her leg and all she could do was try to be seen through the rear window, screaming, waving.

Chapter Nineteen

When Stig saw the other Viking lay his meat-hooks on Christina’s face and shove her in the car, he had a new candidate for Ivar’s mortality treatment.

He chased Leif’s taillights down the center of the street as the car followed the curve of the road away from the treasury. Brakes squealed behind him, but giving up this crazy run would be like giving up on Christina.

He saw her. She was struggling with Leif and her head turned— No, she wasn’t fighting, Leif had forced her to stare out the back. Her mouth was open and his heart heard a scream even over the honks of cars around him, but they were pulling away from him.

Paper flew out the driver’s window. Fluttered.

He changed direction to get to that paper before it was torn under wheels. The white scrap went up, then down, in the turbulence of a passing tire, but he didn’t lose it.

Another honk. He must have swerved into a car’s path, but the only thing that mattered was that note. Because he knew it was a note. Taking Christina was about him, after all, not about her. Unferth didn’t want an American wine merchant. He wanted Grendel’s arm.

* * *

“Stig!” His name burst from Christina’s lips. She wasn’t going to disappear without a trace.

Her hope faltered as her captor yanked her back to the seat. “Enough.”

He smiled, showing yellowed teeth and canines so pointed they might have been filed. “Did he see?”

“Yeah.” The driver raised his window. “He’s chasing the paper.”

She was bait. He’d allowed her to press her face the back window for the sole purpose of showing her to Stig.

“Head for Antwerp.”

* * *

The paper was white and lined with a jagged left edge where it had been ripped from a notebook, but Stig didn’t care about the forensic analysis. Just the mobile number.

Chest heaving, he looked up to find Locke’s sedan alongside, with Luc in the back.

His entire life had changed in the space of six blocks, but the car offered a second chance. He jumped in the passenger side and slammed the door.

“Go!” His hand shook as he pointed forward. “Black four-door. Maybe we can spot it on the ring road around Aachen.”

“Saw it pass me.” Locke squealed into the red light at the intersection. “Right or left?”

“Try right. Easier turn, easier getaway.” He wanted to bury his face in his arms and sob at his hubris for playing games with other Vikings. His old crewmates weren’t silly insurance detectives, but he’d convinced himself this was only another game, like his wine game or his confidence schemes.

Please don’t let this mistake turn deadly.

“And I thought retirement would be slow.” Locke guided the car through traffic fast enough to pass other cars while each of them scanned intersections for black sedans. “Where do you think they’re headed?”

“Don’t know. But they want me. Or at least what they think I stole.” Stig clutched the scrap of paper. “I need to ring people.”

Locke reached into his coat pocket and handed Stig a simple black phone. “Never used. I have four more.”

From memory, he dialed the number Ivar had given him on a card at the pub.

The Viking leader answered with a flat “Yes,” no other greeting.

“I need help,” Stig said.

“Media reports say you managed already. Without damage.”

“Easy, but the oarman from the second bench took the brunette.” He wouldn’t use names on an unsecure line, not even a virgin one, because Ivar must be bugged.

Ivar wasted time for one profanity. “I’m too far away right now, but my brother can be anywhere you want in twelve hours. Maybe less.”

“They left me a number to call.”

“Give it to me. We’ll track it and call you back. This line?”

Stig weighed the risk of using a phone twice. “I’ll keep it open for one hour.”

“Too short.”

After he read Ivar the mobile number and the license tag, Stig felt the acid of accusation boil in his throat. “You know what this means?” If he could make Ivar feel one-tenth the guilt and pain he felt, then he knew the other Viking would work his arse off to save Christina. “Your faucets are leaking.”

“They could have been waiting at the target.”

“Maybe, but we worked separately and they knew to grab her even though I didn’t spot them inside. They were on her before I left the building.”

“
Skīta.
We’ve been trying to fix our plumbing.”

“If you want what I have, try harder. Or I’ll make my own trade.” He’d bargain with anything or anyone to get Christina back, and if that meant setting an ultimatum for Ivar, maybe one that the kidnappers were simultaneously overhearing, so be it. “One hour.”

He disconnected, his heart racing over the realization that yes, there were many things his chief didn’t know or control. He might be in this alone.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken—” Locke’s dry comment interrupted Stig’s racing mind, “—but I believe we still don’t have the item you’re using to bargain.”

“No, we don’t. Before this gets any deeper and there’s no going back...” Stig twisted to look at Luc. The old man was tiny against the leather, barely larger than the dog on his lap. “These people won’t let us walk away.”

“Berthilde’s gone twenty-one years, my son for nine.” From the way Luc worked his jaw in a circular motion, Stig suspected he would have spat if they weren’t inside such a nice auto. “My only family is a daughter-in-law who wants me to die so she can sell and move to Brussels and a grandson who thinks I should quit eating meat and start voting communist.” He hacked into a red handkerchief. “This week has been the most excitement I’ve had since the ‘86 Cup when we beat the Soviet hat trick and came in fourth.” His chest expanded. “Today’s as good as tomorrow to die. I’m in.”

“Christina reminds me of...” Locke’s voice trailed off as he merged across lanes, even though the maneuver didn’t require that level of concentration.

“Who?” Stig, like the others, was continuously scanning for the sedan, but they marked nothing except normal Germans.

“My stepdaughter.”

“There won’t be any police. No 1-1-2 or 9-9-9 rescue calls. These people—” he crumpled the paper with the phone number, “—are likely to be hiding somewhere impossible to get in to or out of, and you’ll both die. Knowing Leif, painfully and unburied.”

Please back out.
If he’d been thinking more clearly, he wouldn’t have jumped in Locke’s car. He would have tackled this alone. Some other part of him knew he’d created such a gargantuan cock-up that one man might not be able to solve it.

“You always talked too much. Can’t believe the Nazis never heard us coming.”

Locke snorted in the driver’s seat. “You have yourself a team. Three men and a dog. I know what I’m getting into.” He glanced sideways at Stig. “I recognized the man in the back seat when they passed my parking spot. Used to work for him. Until he murdered my wife.”

“That’s...”
Unexpected
was an inadequate word, but the man who always had plenty to say felt emptied, like a suddenly erased message board.

“Enough of this shit.” Luc slapped his palm on the leather seat, making a loud smack. “Call the number they gave you.”

The paper shook in Stig’s hand as he touched keys on another disposable mobile. He was almost afraid to speak, afraid that anything he said would corrupt his chances of saving Christina.

Leif, however, had no qualms or fears. “I want the item you have.”

He’d dropped the fake bone in the middle of the street. “I’ll negotiate with Unferth.”

“No. You won’t.” Leif’s chuckle filled Stig’s head. “I’m in charge.”

That was news Ivar either hadn’t shared or didn’t know, and it left Stig wondering what the fuck had happened to Unferth. “Congratulations on the promotion. No one deserves it more.”

“Thank you.” Fifteen centuries, and Leif still didn’t completely understand sarcasm. “The girl for Grendel’s arm. Easy trade.”

“That’s the thing.” Fresh sweat ran down his spine, despite the air blowing through the car vents. “I don’t have the arm.” He needed as much time as he could get, and he knew Leif liked to feel that he was smarter than everyone.

Silence, then Leif’s voice in a tone between a question and an accusation. “You haven’t given it to Ivar.”

“Because I haven’t retrieved it.”

This pause was longer, as if Leif was considering. Slowly. “Then what did you do this morning?”

“Performance art. The real arm relic hasn’t been in Aachen for a century. I liberated it before the First World War.”

The laughter on the other end of the call pounded at Stig. “Of course, you couldn’t have left it alone, could you? You’re too much of a show-off for that.”

Show-off.
Even idiots occasionally made brilliant insights, and this one shredded Stig like those damn Panzer shells. “I need three days.”

“One.”

“It’s too hard to get. I need three.” If Ivar’s intelligence contacts could trace the number or the car, maybe he’d have a location tonight and could be on-target tomorrow.

“Drive quickly.”

“You want me to get nicked? I have to go back to the UK, and after the mess with Wend and Skafe, the Brits are all looking for me.” He gambled they’d been watching that closely.

“Fine. Forty-eight hours.”

Relief at the first move going his way made him sag into the seat, but this wasn’t finished. “Where do I bring it?”

“Call this number tomorrow at noon from Britain and I’ll tell you.”

Between now and then, he’d have to buy another giant beef bone and boil and sand it, but at least he didn’t have to convince Unferth of its veracity, only Leif.

“I want proof of life.”

“Listen.”

He heard a thin scream that sounded like
stop.
A woman’s voice.

“Christina—”

The call disconnected.

He looked at the rest of his team. Even Porkchop, with his tongue inside his mouth and his head resting on his paws, looked grim. “We have a deal. And forty-eight hours to find her.”

“What if we can’t?” Locke asked.

He looked at the driver. “Then I go in with a beef shank and a prayer.”

* * *

The zip tie holding Christina’s wrists in front of her was tight enough to make her hands slightly purple, but at least they weren’t behind her. Being men, they’d left her purse hanging across her body too. She wasn’t going to point out the mistake, but she closed her eyes and mentally inventoried the contents: wallet, lipstick, tissues, candy bar and her corkscrew.

The car drove inside an airplane hangar. Her stomach flopped. She’d have less chance to escape if they loaded her onto a plane. In the air, there were no bystanders to beg for help.

“Move.” The man in the back seat with her gripped her arm and hauled her toward the open car door faster than she could get her feet under herself.

She was falling toward the concrete floor, but at the last minute he raised her by her bound wrists. Her arms screamed in their sockets, but she didn’t face plant.
Think.

They were in a hangar, presumably at an airport. Two cars, two helicopters, rolling steps, lots of metal tools and racks, and three men. The driver, the man who’d snatched her and a man next to the larger of the helicopters. He held a clipboard and wore a headset dangling around his neck. Presumably the pilot, and the only one who might help.

“No screams?” The pointy-toothed man spoke quietly very close to her face.

She didn’t answer.

“Stig always had good taste.” The tip of his finger hovered over her lips, filling her with an animalistic urge to bite it off, like snapping through a carrot stick, and then spit it in his face, but he moved it before the wildness overcame self-preservation. His finger marked the air a half inch above her chin, then dipped in at her neck and out over her chest. He never touched her, not even her clothes, but the knowledge of that finger tracing a path down her body made her feel soiled.

“We’re on a tight schedule.” Gripping her elbow, he propelled her toward the helicopter with the driver flanking her. In the metal-roofed hangar, their footsteps echoed like steel doors closing, locking her in. Getting on that helicopter would be a mistake. Her feet knew it and stopped walking.

The one who seemed to be in charge pulled hard enough to make her shoulder burn, and she used the pain to give her voice more volume when she yelled “
No
.” The only result was the driver yanking on her other arm until the two men were dragging her, her soles bouncing across the ground because they’d lifted her enough that she skimmed the floor, unable to find footing to fight back.

“Help!” she yelled. “Help me!”

In front of the helicopter, the pilot’s lips parted as if he intended to speak.

As they drew nearer, she reached with her fingers, the only part of her body she still controlled independently. “Please help me!”

Her kidnapper shoved his gun barrel so hard into the bottom of her jaw that her head snapped back until it seemed to touch her shoulder blades and her teeth clicked painfully together. The sound reverberated through her brain like a dead bolt slamming home.

“Ready?” The question wasn’t aimed at her.

The pilot closed his mouth. “Blowing hard, sir.”

She wouldn’t find a rescuer here.

“Are you saying you can’t fly us?” From the corner of her eye, she saw the smile with the strange teeth, and his shoulders leaned forward as if he wanted to pounce.

“No, not at all.” The pilot held the door, his eyes focused on the metal body of his helicopter rather than on her.

Despair seemed to levitate her outside her own body. From what felt like a viewpoint on the ceiling, she recognized that they tossed her into the helicopter cabin, and immediately followed. When she’d been kidnapped with Stig, his chatter and confidence had lightened her ordeal and given her hope. He’d created the plans. He’d made her feel as if she would survive.

This time she was alone.

* * *

Fifty-five minutes from Stig’s first call to Ivar, the mobile rang.

“Here,” Stig answered, and put the call on speaker.

“The number you gave us last pinged cell towers at the Antwerp airport.” Wulf’s voice hadn’t changed. He sounded exactly like the soldier Stig had known since the first fight at Heorot, a man others wanted on their team, the sort who could kill a man with his pinkie finger and a handful of toasted o’s cereal.