So I was feeling pretty good about myself when I slid down from the rooftop of the Winter Palace and out onto the pier that’s across the street. I had a boat waiting. It was a forty-footer, built for the hideous weather they get up there in the Baltic. The engines were running, and there was a guy at the wheel, Arvid, who knew his stuff. And I knew him. I’d used him on a couple of jobs before this one. Arvid was Swedish. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and who the hell knows how many more great-greats had all been fishermen in the Baltic and North Atlantic. They knew the waters and the weather the way only old-world craftsmen can know their turf. And it turns out that part of the turf when you’re a Swedish fisherman can also mean being a smuggler now and then.
Totally understandable. Fishing for a living is very dicey. The fish come and go, the weather works overtime to screw you, and market prices are never in your favor. So for more generations than I can count, Arvid’s family had been bringing things across the Baltic without paying a whole lot of attention to technical formalities like import duties and taxes. Wine, brandy, silk, English wool, whatever people wanted and thought they paid too much for. It was all supply and demand, a pure lesson in market economics. And for the last two generations, that meant drugs, too. The money was too good to ignore.
It also made the enforcement get more serious. And that meant Arvid’s family boat was fast. It had to be to outrun the assorted national and international patrols. The boat looked like a beat-up old trawler—grease stains, fish blood, nets hanging off the side, old-fashioned round portholes—but Arvid had put a couple of great big brutish diesel engines in it and modified the hull, and he could outrun just about anything the cops had.
Arvid could practically fly if he had to. Which smugglers have to do every now and then. And times being what they were, he didn’t mind making a few off-the-record trips for me. I paid him really well, too—like, two years of fishing income for a couple of days of shut-the-fuck-up-and-drive-the-boat.
I prefer to work alone. It’s a whole hell of a lot safer, which counts for a lot. But if I need somebody—like to fly a chopper or whatever—I always pay well. Riley’s Fourteenth Law: If you have to have help, pay them too much and promise them more later.
In the past five or six years, Arvid had made a shitload of money off me, and he figured to make more in the future. And I’m talking early-retirement-in-Tahiti money. I never mind spending too much if it gets the job done right. Arvid did just that. Anytime I needed a boat in that part of the world, he was my go-to guy. He knew what he was doing, which is rare enough. Plus he had always been reliable—and kept his mouth shut—and he always came through for me. So when I got on board his boat and he steered us down the river toward the Baltic, I relaxed.
Stupid. I mean, I know that. But in spite of the fact that I really do know better, I kind of trusted Arvid.
Hindsight is always 20/20. But in retrospect, I should have remembered Riley’s Eleventh Law: Trust is what you’re doing when the knife comes down. Maybe I should have that tattooed on my hand, where I can look at it anytime I’m feeling stupid. In my line of work, stupid is always the lead-in for the fat lady singing. And sure as shit, that’s what happened.
Arvid didn’t use a knife. And he waited for me to pay him, which shows he had a whole lot more sense than I do. He just counted his cash, looked up with this goofy grin, and pointed a pistol at me. Before I could even say, “What the fuck,” he pulled the trigger. I heard a loud PPFFFUTTT! and felt something sharp jab into my chest. I took one step toward Arvid—I was definitely going to heave him over the side and let him swim home—and then . . .
Nothing. No lights or music or dreams—just deep, dark nothing.
3
Until suddenly my eyes opened. My mouth was dry and tasted like ancient sewer. I had a headache, and the bright light coming in through the porthole didn’t help. There was no way to know how long I’d been out. I was still on the boat. I didn’t smell the usual fish and diesel stink of Arvid’s boat, but I could feel the strong and steady thrum thrum thrum of the boat’s engine and the slow pitch and roll as we plowed through some big waves. So we had to be out in the open sea now. The Baltic is mostly smaller, sloppy chop, but it can roll big when it wants to. It wanted to now, and it did. And it was cold, a lot colder than it should have been for July.
I closed my eyes again. On top of the headache, I was feeling like I might vomit. I don’t get seasick, so it had to be because of, of . . . What? I couldn’t remember what had happened, and that worried the shit out of me. I had been on Arvid’s boat, right? And we were headed out to sea and—
And Arvid shot me.
I opened my eyes. I couldn’t see any holes in my shirt. So had I imagined it? I touched my chest and found a tender place. I pulled up my shirt and looked. There was a purple circle on my chest. It had a small red spot in the middle, a puncture, like a bad nurse would leave when she gives you a shot.
So Arvid really did shoot me, but obviously not with a bullet—a dart? Like they use to put animals to sleep? Yeah, had to be. And that explained the headache and nausea, too. Aftereffects of the tranquilizer.
Okay. Arvid knocked me out with a tranquilizer dart. Why?
I frowned. That made my head hurt even more, so I stopped. I mean, I can think without frowning, right? Except at the moment, I couldn’t think at all.
I took a big breath to clear my head. That turned out to be a mistake. I barely managed to turn my head to one side and then I was vomiting violently. That lasted for a minute, but when I was done I felt a little better, and my brain seemed to be working a little. Plus, Arvid was going to have some puke to clean up, and that cheered me up. So I put my brain back to work.
Question One: What the fuck was going on?
It seemed like a safe bet that Arvid had shivved me. Why?
Obvious Answer: Money.
Arvid liked money. I mean, who doesn’t? I always paid him well. It was supposed to keep him tame. Could somebody pay him more to go wild on me? Sure, why not? It would have to be a lot, but it could be done.
But wait—even with a lot of extra money, Arvid would know he had to stay cool with the deal he made with me. Word gets out, and if it got out that he’d betrayed me, he’d be fucked. Plus, he had to know I would match the offer. If not straight out, then with future work.
So there was another reason, something that would overrule all that shit, and that was an easy guess, too.
Fear. Fear of somebody who was scarier than me and had enough money to throw around that it took the sting out of losing his lucrative side job. And somebody who could combine fear and money would be very tough to turn down.
So, okay; who would do that? Well, that was a little tougher to nail down. There was a long list of people who would part with very big dollars to get their hands on me. And a lot of them had the kind of operational profile you don’t put on Facebook.