The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) (3 page)

A
waking in the Grande Verde’s penthouse suite, Penny threw off the Italian linen on the
emperor-size bed and padded barefoot across the marble tiles to the state-of-the-art
kitchen. She hit the double espresso button on the fancy drinks maker and took the
freshly ground cup of coffee out onto the veranda, sipping it gently while scanning
the great ocean. Penny knew there was no chance of
Future
simply sailing
back into port over a month after going missing but stuck to her morning ritual
nonetheless to acknowledge the possibility of Hans and Jessica fighting for
their lives in a life raft.

Penny had fallen for Hans the moment they met in the marina
in England, making the decision to accept his offer to crew for them an easy
one. Athletic, good looking, intelligent, thoughtful, nonjudgmental – the list
went on – Hans possessed a deep understanding of the world and blazed a path through
life guided by his own moral compass, circumventing intimidation, convention
and others’ self-serving rules. He made her laugh with his wry observations, self-effacing
humor and subtle wit but occasionally flashed a more serious side, resulting from
his tough childhood, horrors witnessed in the special forces and the murder of
his wife and son.

Although an affectionate father, Hans was afraid of nothing
and no one and would do whatever was necessary to protect those close to him. Penny
witnessed this firsthand when two police officers tried to arrest them for no apparent
reason during a riot in Portugal. Hans had gone easy on the men, resulting in a
short stay in hospital for them, but a gang of pirates attempting to hijack
Future
offshore one night was not so fortunate.

Born to somewhat bohemian parents, Penny grew up on yachts
and, other than practicing as a veterinary nurse for a year in London after graduation,
had spent most of her life at sea. In recent times she’d made a comfortable
living skippering rich folk to exotic locations around the globe and teaching
them to scuba dive.

Because of the nomadic nature of the job, Penny hadn’t been in
a serious relationship before Hans, apart from a whirlwind romance with a playboy
millionaire who’d hired her to captain his yacht around the Caribbean. Only,
after parting company, Penny found out he was married with three children . . .
and
that she was pregnant. Alone with no support a long way from home, she’d
opted for an abortion, a decision that still haunted her. It was impossible not
to think of the adorable Jessica as the child she never had.

When Hans invited Penny to spend time with them in Portland,
she knew it was time to leave the past behind and had looked forward to testing
her land legs and finding work in a local sailing or scuba school.

In the penthouse’s wet room, Penny turned the matrix of jets
spurting from the gold-flecked charcoal tiles to full and stood amid the
powerful spray. Another of her morning rituals, it was as if cleansing herself
of the previous day’s grime would somehow open the way for fresh fortune.

“C
offee?”
Penny handed Phipps a mug.

“Thanks, honey.”

The Concern’s special operative set it down next to his
laptop and took a welcome break, having been awake since 3:00 a.m. contacting vessels
crossing the North Atlantic on a bearing intercepting the possible predicted
drift of
Future
’s life raft.

They were on the floor below the penthouse in a guest suite
originally used as a command center by the Concern, who’d flown a team of
special operatives to Cape Verde following the yacht’s disappearance. Hans – code
name “Orion” – was one of the organization’s foremost agents.

All they knew of the missing yacht were the coordinates, ten
miles offshore, that Hans had radioed through to the local marina as he swung
Future
about to return to port. With no Mayday broadcast or a signal from
Future
’s
emergency beacon picked up by satellite or aircraft, the coastguard believed the
yacht must have collided with an object – possibly a whale or shipping
container – and sank immediately.

“But there’s still hope if they took to the raft,” Phipps maintained.

Yet after overseeing an extensive air-and-sea search
involving multiple parties, the team’s coordinator – Hans’ handler, Innes
Edridge, code name “Muttley” – had no choice but to ramp down the expensive operation,
leaving only Phipps behind on Cape Verde to support Penny and liaise with the
authorities and shipping.

A group of disenfranchised patriots and aggrieved special ops
veterans formed the Concern after the Vietnam War, seeking to bring to justice individuals
who had used the conflict for private gain. The list included politicians who
spun the war so their cronies in the military-industrial complex made enormous
profits, CIA operatives illicitly trading in weapons and drugs under the cover
of the supply chain, and company directors and financiers doing business with
both sides.

Operating below the radar of society and government, the
Concern functioned on a need-to-know basis, recruiting highly skilled and
accomplished individuals of all occupations – former special ops and intelligence
types, medical professionals, airline owners, bankers, immigration and embassy officials,
weapons specialists – through a system of sponsorship and rigorous background
checks. The Concern had blossomed into a formidable force for good, its private
contractors involved in all manner of operations, from exposing corporate
wrongdoings and supporting humanitarian projects and persecuted political
parties, to hostage rescue and generally sticking up for the dispossessed.

Proposed operations surfaced when a member of the Concern
felt an individual or community needed support in the face of adversity or
injustice. Funding came by way of financial donations from “enablers” – corporate
directors looking to offset enormous profits to assuage their capitalist guilt.
By playing John Wayne cum Mother Teresa from the comfort of an office chair, these
folks got the honor of being in on one of the world’s best-kept secrets and could
take credit for its benevolent work.

Although not-for-profit, the group had a substantial investment
portfolio and a network of agents spanning the globe. Hans held the position of
special operative, as did Phipps, a former Navy SEAL buddy.

Hans hadn’t divulged much information about the organization
to Penny, nor his role in it. When
Future
went missing, she’d taken a
calculated risk and contacted Innes Edridge – Muttley – knowing the elderly
Scot worked in Goldman Sachs’ Boston office.

Calm, methodical and with the clinical detachment required
of true leadership, the former paratrooper, who went on to become colonel of
the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, quickly debriefed Penny, then put together
a rapid-response team and accompanied them to Cape Verde to oversee the search
operation. Through their contacts in the Concern, the team acquired the
services of a leading public relations firm to raise awareness of the plight of
the lost crew. Flyers went out to ports and marinas on both sides of the
Atlantic for distribution to commercial shipping and yachts traversing an area
where a think tank of experts from the fields of meteorology, oceanography and
maritime rescue predicted the trade winds and currents would carry a life raft
or a dismasted yacht. In addition to setting up searchforfuture.com, the PR firm
targeted “missing” adverts to thousands of maritime-related webpages browsed by
transatlantic crews.

At significant expense the Concern team hired every
available skipper in the region. A veritable flotilla sailed for
Future
’s
last-known position, along with a flight of twenty light aircraft, all
coordinated by Phipps, who liaised with the Cape Verde coastguard and the crew
of a Lynx helicopter dispatched from a British Royal Navy warship on exercise in
the area.

Through a third party, the Concern’s team offered a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar
reward for any information leading to Hans and Jessica’s rescue, and a million for
a rescue itself. The promotion attracted all manner of concerned parties to the
searchforfuture.com website – amateur radio enthusiasts, skippers of yachts and
cargo ships suggesting possible sightings, along with well-wishers with
messages of support – but a fair amount of cranks and kooks too.

“Anything new?” Penny sat down next to Phipps, turning the
laptop to view the hit counter on searchforfuture.com.

“The usual contributions,” said Phipps, stretching his huge
black arms above his head. “Another clairvoyant, a Brazilian guy, reckons they
might be in the Philippines of all places.”

From dawn until way past midnight, Phipps had worked
tirelessly, sieving through possible sightings of the yacht, the life raft or
debris, triaging them accordingly and communicating the information via
satellite phone and offshore radio to shipping in the location to request
support.

“It’s not looking good, is it?” Penny ran a fingertip down
her coffee cup, knowing she was stating the obvious.

“I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a month now. If they did take
to the life raft, that’s quite some time to be adrift. But it has been done.
And if there’s one man who could survive . . .”

“I know.” Penny managed an appreciative smile. “But that’s
if
they took to the life raft.”

The two of them fell silent, having discussed every
permutation and outcome many times over, even the theory Hans might have sailed
off with Jessica for reasons known only to him. Without evidence it was
impossible to favor any one scenario. The Concern had invested a substantial
amount of money into the search thus far, the bill for the penthouse alone reaching
ninety thousand dollars. Penny worried that on the balance of probabilities they
would pull the plug on the operation.

As if reading her mind, “Listen, Penny,” said Phipps. “I’m
going to ask Muttley for more time – another month. At least then we can be
sure we’ve allowed for the maximum window . . .” His words trailed off as he
realized how this sounded.

“Tony” – Penny used Phipps’ Christian name – “I can’t tell
you how much I appreciate all you’ve done. Another month would be . . . I mean
it would let me . . .” Penny fought back tears.

Phipps placed his hand on hers.

“And I don’t have to stay here – the Grande Verde, I mean.”

The Grande was the island group’s most prestigious hotel, an
impressive combination of pastel-cream stone, stainless steel and glass, tiered
back against the hillside like an Aztec pyramid. Surrounded by lush green scrub
and with a stunning ocean vista, the ultramodern retreat was popular with the
rich and famous.

“I don’t need an en suite cinema or a conference room,” she
continued. “Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Ha.” Phipps smiled, having gotten used to the organization’s
no-expenses-spared approach. “Seems kinda weird, don’t it?”

“Well, when you’ve shared bunks in a cramped cabin with
strangers most of your life, waking up on a bed that’s bigger than a yacht itself
does seem a little excessive.”

Phipps chuckled, relieved the mood had lightened. “Don’t you
worry about the Concern’s finances, honey. With the money some of our funders
make on a daily basis, you could buy fifty of these hotels and still have
change.”

Penny knew it to be true, also that the treatment she’d
received was a token of the respect the organization had for Orion.

“Tony, can I ask you something?”

“How did I end up working for the Concern?”

“Yes.”

“Whoa, where to begin? I loved being a Navy SEAL, everything
about it – the tough training, being the best of the best, surrounded by a band
of brothers who would willingly lay down their lives for each other. Got to see
some serious stuff – some tough ol’ fights. But after a while . . .” Phipps
pulled down the screen of his laptop, as if shutting out the world to give
himself the freedom to think.

“You began to question your motives?”

“You’ve been talking to Hans.” Phipps grinned.

“He said a similar thing.”

Phipps rubbed a fingertip over the laptop’s silver logo. “I
didn’t think too deep about that stuff as a kid. Was just hooked by the
lifestyle – the diving, the fitness, the travel, drinking beer with my buddies,
and laying down as much firepower on an enemy as possible.”

“But you started wondering who the enemy was.”

“Penny, when you’ve been ordered to invade someone else’s
country by gutless suits in Washington and you’ve got a twelve-year-old boy armed
with a Kalashnikov standing side by side with his father, his uncles, his
brothers, doing what anybody would do, defending their homeland . . .”

Penny saw the same dark look come over Phipps’ face she’d
seen on Hans’ when he talked about this. She was about to change subject, but
Phipps continued.

“When you join the military, it don’t matter who you are –
high school or graduate – you might know all kinda stuff, but you ain’t been on
the planet long enough to put the jigsaw together, to see things in the context
of time. Everything seems black and white, good versus evil, and God bless
America.”

“And now we’ve got the Internet.”

“Exactly. You’d have to be some kinda idiot to have that
information at your fingertips and not realize something ain’t right. You know,
when they opened the first McDonald’s in Kabul, folks back home actually
cheered.” Phipps took a gulp of his coffee and slowly shook his head.

“So you got out?”

“I got out before I did something in combat I would live to
regret. It’s one thing to take a life when you’re young and naïve and believe
you’re doing the right thing, but . . .”

“So you saw the Concern as a way of putting things right?”

“Not exactly. When I left the navy, I worked in investment –
hedge funds, real estate, corporate finance, that kinda thing. Married my
girlfriend, commuted two hours back and forth every day wearing a suit, ‘did
lunch,’ even took up golf.”

“Something tells me that life didn’t suit you.” Penny
smiled.

“It wasn’t so much the life. I enjoyed spending more time
with my girl.” Phipps pulled out his wallet and slid a snap across the desk. “That’s
Jainee, and my boy, Anthony Jr. Hell, my golf swing sure improved, and I could
handle the work. But I got to thinking, is this all there is?”

“Missed the excitement?”

“Yeah, but mostly the camaraderie. What is it the French
call that shit?”

“Esprit de corps.”

“Yeah, esprit de corps.”

“I can relate to that. It’s the same in sailing. You cross a
huge ocean, battle waves as big as mountains, knowing your life is in the hands
of the people around you. You bond as a team and everyone plays their part, because
whether you’re still alive in the morning depends on it. Then you get back on terra
firma, having stared death in the face, and friends say, ‘Oh, that’s
interesting,’ then start talking about their new handbag or where they’re
planning to go on holiday next year.”

“Purses, vacations, the next Lexus, Republican-Democrat
bullshit, whether the Knicks will make the play-offs . . .” Phipps gave a
despondent shrug. “But do you know the worst of it?”

“Go on.”

“In the military, folks act with integrity and honor. If you’re
in a tight spot, your buddies close ranks and get you the hell out of there. If
there’s an obstacle, you go over it. A bullshit rule, you bend it. But in
civilian life so many people are just gutless cowards. They close ranks all right
– not to help you, but against you. Obeying the rules to protect their petty promotions
and greedy salaries, all to pay a mortgage on a life they don’t even own.”

Phipps fell silent. Penny took the opportunity to refill
their mugs. When she sat back down, the huge African American had a grin on his
face.

“You know, we had a fire in our building. Only a small fire,
but the alarm went off, and we had to leave our office on the third floor and take
the stairs down to the street. There’s this one guy in a wheelchair parked on
the landing. Everyone’s rushing past him like he was invisible. So I shout to my
boss to help me carry the guy down. And he says, ‘No! Safety and health policy!
We leave him here and let the fire department deal with him.’”