She gazed over the Strip, recognising the ultimate power in those flashing lights and grand casinos, and took the small distractions Colby Taylor had to offer, all the while thinking about Matt Drake and the woman she’d seen him with.
She entered the guest bedroom of the apartment to find Professor Roland Parnevik tied spread-eagled to the bed exactly as she’d left him. With Taylor’s heat still glowing between her thighs and a flush in her cheeks, she cried Geronimo! and jumped onto the mattress to land beside the old man.
She bounced on her knees and ripped the silver duct-tape off his lips. “You heard us, didn’t you, Prof? Course you did.” Her gaze strayed to his groin. “Still some life down there, old man? Need a hand?”
She laughed maniacally, and bounced off the bed. The Professor’s terrified eyes followed her every power-hungry move, firing her ego, spurring her to wilder displays. She danced, she twirled, she turned coy.
But, ultimately, she sat herself on the old man’s chest, causing his breathing to labour, and brandished a pair of rose-cutters.
“Finger-chopping time,” she said gaily. “I like my torture as I like my sex — one inch at a time. And the longer it lasts, the better. Seriously, pal, I’m just here for the blood and the mayhem.”
“What… what do you want to… know?” Parnevik’s Swedish accent was thick with fear.
“Tell me about Matt Drake, and the whore who helps him.”
“Drake? I… I don’t understand… do you not want — Odin?”
“I don’t give a dry fuck about all that Norse crap. I’m in this for the sheer violent excitement of it all.” She clacked the rose-cutters rapidly near the tip of his nose.
“Umm… Drake is — was — SAS, I heard. He became involved by… by accident.”
Alicia felt ice wash over her. She shuffled carefully up Parnevik’s body, positioned both blades around his nose, and squeezed until a trickle of blood appeared.
“I sense you stalling, old man.”
“No! No! Please!” Now his accent was so thick and distorted by the pressure on his nose that she could barely understand the words. She giggled. “You sound like that chef from The Muppets. Blah, blah, bla-bla-bla, blah blah.”
“His wife — she left him. Blame SAS!” Parnevik blurted, and rolled his eyes in terror. “His friend has a sister who help us! The woman — she is Kennedy Moore, police, from New York. She set free serial killer!”
Alicia wiggled the blades nastily. “Better. Much better, Prof. What else?”
“She… she is on… umm… holiday. No. Forced holiday. You see, the serial killer — he killed again.”
“Jeez, Prof, you’re starting to turn me on.”
“Please. I can tell Drake is a good man!”
Alicia withdrew the rose-cutters. “Well, he certainly comes across that way. But I got bloody with him in the SRT, not you. I know what haunts that bastard.”
There was a shout and a bang, and then Colby Taylor thrust his head through the door. “Myles! I just got a call from our ally in the Swedish government. They’ve figured out where the Valkyries are. We need to hurry. Now!”
Alicia took the rose cutters and snipped off the tip of the old man’s finger.
Just because she could.
And whilst he screamed and writhed, she straddled his back and stuck him with a jet-injector, a needle-free syringe, delivering a miniscule tracker just under his skin.
Plan B, Alicia thought, her soldier training still running strong.
TWENTY-SIX
When Torsten Dahl’s mobile rang, Drake’s mouth was full of blueberry muffin. He gulped it down with fresh coffee, listening expectantly.
“Yes, Statsminister.” After that surprise, the rest of Dahl’s side of the conversation was bland, a series of ‘I sees’ and affirmations and respectful silences. At the end there was an ‘I will not let you down, sir,’ which sounded a little ominous to Drake.
“Well?”
“My government has had to promise one of these Serbian scumbags a reduction in prison time in exchange for help, but we do have confirmation.” Drake could tell that under Dahl’s conservative exterior there was a man wanting to rejoice.
“And?”
“Not yet. Let’s get everyone together.” In a few moments Ben had been dragged away from the laptop screen, Hayden was perched within an inch of his elbow, and Kennedy was standing expectantly beside Drake, long hair still unfettered.
Dahl took a breath. “Short version — the leader of Sweden’s Serbian Mafia in the nineties — a man currently in our custody — gave the Valkyries to his U.S counterpart as a gesture of goodwill. So, Davor Babic received the Valkyries in 1994. In 1999 Davor stepped down as leader of the Mafia and passed control over to his son, Blanka, retiring to the place he loved more than anywhere in the world — even his homeland.”
Dahl paused for a moment. “Hawaii.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Abel Frey stared from his top-floor apartment window down at the millions of tiny ants scurrying along the pavements below. Unlike ants though, these people were pointless, aimless, lacking the imagination to see beyond their miniscule lives. The term ‘headless chickens’, he imagined, had been coined by a man standing at this very height, whilst he surveyed the disenchanted cesspool that was humanity.
Frey had long since set his fantasies free. A much younger version of him had learned that being able to do anything made everything boring. You had to come up with new, more diverse and entertaining pursuits.
Hence the battle arena. Hence the fashion business — initially a way to own beautiful women, then a front for an International smuggling ring, now a way to conceal his interest in the Tomb of the Gods.
His life’s work.
The Shield was flawless, a work of art, and, in addition to the coded map carved into its convex surface, he’d recently discovered a cryptic sentence inscribed around its upper rim. His pet archaeologist was hard at work on it. And his pet scientist was trying to figure out another recent surprise — the Shield was formed of a curious material, not an obvious metal but something more substantial, yet startlingly light. Frey was both happy and frustrated to find that there was even more to the mystery of Odin than he had first imagined.
His frustration came from the lack of time to study it. Especially now he was part of this international race. How he would have loved to retire everyone back to La Verein, and, whilst the improper socialites partied, he and a few select others would analyse the mysteries of the Gods.
Then he grinned to the empty room. An analysis always had to be punctuated with a few precious moments of uncouth respite. Maybe set a couple of male models against each other in the arena, offer them a way out. Better still, pit a few of his captives against each other. Their ignorance and desperation always offered up a better spectacle.
His e-mail pinged. A video-feed came up on the screen, showing the new girl, Karin Blake, sitting on her bed in chains.
“At last.” Frey got his first look at her. The Blake woman had marked every one of the three mercenaries he’d sent to abduct her, one quite viciously. She was highly intelligent, quite a catch, and she’d just been locked in her little prison back at La Verein to await Frey’s arrival.