With quickness now, Jake and Kjersti pushed the knocked out man into the compartment and closed the door. His adrenalin raced through his body. The man against the outside wall quivered in concert with the spurting blood from his neck. Jake swiftly pulled a plastic bag from the garbage can and wrapped it over the head of the stabbed man to contain some of the blood, then pulled the knife out of his neck and wiped it on the guy’s shirt. But the room was a mess, with blood all over the place.
Anna, still in a daze, rolled to her side. “Jake, what’s going on? Who are they?”
“That’s what I plan on finding out. You two get the bags and put them in Kjersti’s room. Stay there while I clean up this mess and find out what this asshole knows.”
They both did what he said within a couple of minutes. Kjersti stepped back in and handed Jake his gun, which he shoved into the holster under his arm.
Alone now, Jake sat on the bed and thought it through — figuring out the approach he would take with this man.
First, he bound the man’s hands behind his back and his feet together, then strapped a line from his hands to his feet. He shoved a wash cloth in the man’s mouth. Then Jake clicked on the overhead light, found two towels in the bathroom, wet them down and soaked up the blood. It took many trips back and forth to the narrow shower, washing out the towels and soaking again until the majority of the blood was gone.
When the bound man started to stir, Jake hurried and pulled identification from each of the men. He read the passports and driver’s licenses; both men were from Stockholm. He turned off the light, leaving the room lit only by a small reading lamp on the lower bunk.
The man’s eyes opened and gazed up at Jake, who loomed over him. “Wakie wakie time, motherfucker,” Jake whispered loudly.
Grunting something through the rag, the man tensed his muscles against the restraints. He was strong, but Jake had him bound tight.
“This can go one of two ways,” Jake said. “You tell me what I want to know, or you die like your friend there.”
The man twisted his body and saw his friend’s head in a blood-splattered plastic bag with more dark blood soaking down the man’s clothes.
“You understand your situation?”
The man nodded his head.
Jake pulled the rag from the guy’s mouth and said, “Good. Now…who sent you?”
“Fuck you,” he said. Too loudly.
Jake punched him in the sternum, taking his breath away, and shoved the rag back in his mouth. The man gasped for air and finally settled down.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Jake said. “I asked you a simple question and you say that to me. What happens when we get to more difficult questions?”
The guy’s eyes shifted wildly at Jake. He wanted to kill him, Jake knew that much. Good. The feeling was mutual.
“Answer my question,” Jake said, and then took the rag out of his mouth again.
“We were looking to rob some people,” he finally muttered, his English perfect.
“Come on. The couple down on the end have a shitload of money and the woman more jewelry than a movie star. You have no bag of goodies collected. You were looking for someone. And I’m guessing that was me.”
The man glowered at Jake but said nothing.
“Okay.” Jake shoved the rag in and then rolled the man to his stomach. He found a point under the man’s right ear and applied pressure, bringing excruciating pain to the man. He struggled beneath him until Jake let go. As the guy relaxed, Jake knuckle struck him in the right kidney, making him gasp for air.
While the man squirmed in pain, Jake thought about their current route and situation. The train wouldn’t stop for another hour, until they reached the port city of Gavle, Sweden. Then they would have another three hours until Falun. Plenty of time.
“We’ve got plenty of time before your friend starts to smell,” Jake said. “Now you will tell me who sent you and why. The body can only take so much pain, and I can deliver more than you can handle. I’ll guarantee you that much.”
Jake went from pressure point to pressure point, bringing just enough pain, but not enough to make the man pass out. He pulled the man’s pants down and even threatened to cut the man’s balls off, poking the tip of the knife that had taken his friend’s life into his scrotum. That got him. Always did. Every man thought they would rather die than lose their balls or penis. This guy held out a little longer, until Jake found a glass coke bottle and shoved it up the man’s ass and said he’d break it off inside him if he didn’t talk. That worked.
The bound man nodded his head, so Jake pulled the rag from the guy’s mouth and waited.
“Some Russian guy,” the man forced out.
“And you don’t know his name? Hard to believe.”
Hesitation, and then, “Goes by the name of Oberon.”
Jake guessed that much. So Victor Petrova had sent his men to get the box before Jake could turn it over to Colonel Reed in Oslo. He also had to assume that Petrova had sent the men in the chopper in Spitsbergen. But how in the hell had they found them on the train. That was disturbing. Jake would have to work that out in his mind. But first…
There was a light knock on the door. Jake got up and looked through the peep at Kjersti before opening it.
“Everything all right?” she asked, her eyes catching a glimpse of the man on the floor. He still had his pants down around his ankles, the coke bottle sticking out of his butt.
“Just great. We’re getting to know each other.”
“I see that.”
“It’s not what you think,” Jake whispered.
“Never is. We’re about ten minutes out of Gavle.”
Jake checked his watch. “Already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Right. It’s a five minute stop. Lock yourself in your room. Keep your eyes open. They could have a back-up team.”
She nodded compliance and left.
Jake stuffed the rag into the man’s mouth until they passed through Gavle. Then he had a longer talk with the man, getting as much information as possible. When he was done, Jake was sure the punk had given up everything he knew. He ripped the coke out of the guy’s butt, pulled up his pants, and punched him in the left kidney just for the hell of it. Then Jake shoved some of Anna’s sleeping pills down the guy, followed by the rag, and made sure his bindings were nice and tight before leaving him with his dead friend.
He locked the door behind him and crossed the hall to Kjersti’s room. Anna was asleep again on the upper bunk. Jake took off his leather jacket and went to the window, looking out through the curtains. He thought about being in that room a while ago, with Kjersti naked and waiting for him to make love to him. The situation had gone from a moment of sensuality to a man dying and another having to be persuaded to talk. The contrast was not lost on him.
Suddenly, Kjersti gasped behind him.
Jake turned and saw horror in Kjersti’s eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked her.
She pointed at his side. Jake looked down and saw that blood had drenched his T-shirt, soaking out from a slice in his side. The man’s knife had caught him, but only now did the pain start to come. His side ached and Kjersti pulled away the shirt to check on the wound. He had lost a lot of blood, and that loss made his head light, his knees almost buckling beneath him. Kjersti helped Jake to the lower bunk and went to work patching him up.
20
The four of them made an odd group. Jimmy McLean was a tall man in his thirties, a Scotsman with an no-nonsense attitude to life and his work with MI6. Serious. His colleague couldn’t have been in greater contrast. Velda Crane was a hip-height voluptuous woman, with a fun-loving disposition. Yet, Toni quickly realized that she also had a serious side to her. Then there was Colonel Reed, the gray-haired uncle figure, at times serious and other times his eyes would wander disturbingly at Velda’s overflowing breasts. He probably would have looked at Toni’s as well if she hadn’t been wearing discreet clothing. Then there was the quiet Norwegian Intelligence Service officer, Thom Hagen. Toni had no way of knowing what he was thinking, if he had a thought. The man was stereotypically stoic. And how would Toni describe herself at this point in her life? That was the problem. She had no idea. Although she had been married only a few months, she had also only seen her husband a few weeks during that time. She couldn’t control her husband’s overseas assignments any more than she could control her own.