Hard Knocks

“I don’t suppose you’d care to enlighten me?” I said to Venko.

He considered my request, weighed it up carefully. The fact that I had a gun on him was of no consequence. “I am a businessman, Miss Fox,” he rumbled at last. His voice had the projection of a Shakespearean actor, designed to be clearly audible even in the cheapest seats. “Let us just say that we each of us have a product which the other desires. I am here to propose a simple exchange.”

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Sideburns’s companion shifting stealthily. Without taking my eyes away from Venko’s, I stepped sideways far enough to prod the bodyguard in the back of his head with the barrel of the Desert Eagle. I made sure I did it just hard enough to bump his nose against the wall.

“Ah, ah,” I said. “No cheating.”

I moved back to my original position again. “I hear what you’re saying,” I told Venko, “but I’m afraid I’m inclined to believe that you were intending to leave without paying up your half of the bargain.” I tilted my head towards the two men kneeling. “For a businessman you travel with unusual associates.”

Venko shrugged, momentarily causing his neck to disappear entirely. “My line of business often takes me to dangerous places,” he said. He still had his hands flat on the desk in front of him. Not a coward, but too experienced to want to make me nervous, either. There were heavyweight gold rings on three fingers. “These men are simply my insurance. To enable me to arrive and depart without hindrance.”

I stared at him without blinking for several seconds then said, “Not very good, are they?”

He laughed. A deep belly laugh, a burst of genuine amusement despite the tension, or maybe because of it. “No, you are quite right,” he said. “But this is something that will be remedied very shortly, I assure you.”

I had the feeling that when a man like Gregor Venko terminated your employment, your cards came pinned to a wreath.

Venko had tired of sparring with me. His deceptively sleepy eyes flicked across to Gilby and any trace of humour faded from his features.

“So Major, can we come to some mutually agreeable arrangement in this matter? You, more than anyone, must appreciate my distress as a father at having my son taken from me in such violent circumstances.”

The deliberate tone set the hairs up on the back of my neck.

Gilby stared at him coldly for a moment, forcing himself to relax even though it clearly cost him to do so. He crossed his legs, taking his time to make sure the crease in his twill trousers was perfectly aligned.

When he didn’t immediately throw Venko’s offer back in his face Dieter Krauss half-lifted from his chair in protest. “What are you talking about?” he cried. “Valentine, for God’s sake. You’re not seriously thinking of trusting this – this murderer?”

“Shut up, Dieter,” Gilby said softly, and the other man fell silent as though he’d shouted. “Just what do you know of my son?”

Venko met, matched, and maybe even outplayed the Major’s stare. “That he followed you into the army and was blown up by an Iraqi mine,” he said calmly. “I understand you were present at the time. Very unfortunate.”

My God, I thought.

“My family is my business,” Gilby said, still quietly, but there was a brittle quality to his voice now. “I’d thank you not to mention the subject again. That is not the issue here.”

“Of course.” Venko nodded, allowing his eyelids to droop briefly. To cover what? Triumph as the barb went home? He opened them again and returned his gaze to me. I braced under the force of it. “So, Miss Fox, you are the one with the guns here. How do you propose that we solve this unpleasantness?”

“Solve it? We don’t have to solve it!” Krauss squeaked, flapping his hand towards me. “You’ve just said yourself that she’s the one with the gun. She will shoot you if you do not give me my daughter!”

I raised my eyebrows a fraction at that. “I hate to break this to you,” I said, “but things may not be quite so black and white. I saw at least two men patrolling the outside of the Manor, plus another two who have the domestic staff held at gunpoint in the dining hall. I shouldn’t imagine they’re the only ones. The moment I start shooting anyone, I expect they’ll come running.”

“Quite so,” Venko agreed, taking the possibility of his own demise with graceful equanimity. “So, it would appear that we have something of a stand-off situation, no? But, this can be easily resolved,” he went on. “Give me my son now, and don’t try to prevent us leaving, and your daughter will be released within twenty-four hours.”

It would have been an impressive speech, cold and commanding, but there was just the faintest suggestion of a tremor underlying Venko’s sonorous tones.

“Please,” Krauss begged, pouncing on the words regardless. “I just want my little girl. I’ll pay your ransom, anything! I just want her back. I didn’t know what they—”

“No deal,” Gilby sliced across him curtly. He sat back, calmer now, smoother, more confident, and I knew he’d seen that tiny waver too. “Release the girl now, or no deal.”

“You are hardly in a position to bargain, Major.”

Gilby cocked his head in my direction. “Neither are you,” he said.

Venko leaned forwards, resting his thick forearms on the desk. The cuffs of his wool cashmere overcoat rode up to reveal a gold Rolex plastered with diamonds. He stared straight at the Major as he spoke, trying to hypnotise him into capitulation by a sheer act of will.

“Give me my son. You have my word that Heidi will be released unharmed.”

Gilby gave a short, harsh bark of laughter. “Not good enough,” he snapped. “He isn’t here. It will take a little time to retrieve him. And even if he was, Europe is littered with corpses as testament to the value of your word.”

“Then, indeed, we have a problem.” Venko sat back and just for a second he allowed his frustration and his anger to show through in a swirling heaving mass. Under that unruffled surface, it would seem, the currents were as diverse as they were deadly.

Ah well, in for a penny . . .

“You’re approaching this from the wrong position, all of you,” I said. Three heads turned slowly in my direction. I think I preferred it when their concentrated spite was focused on each other. I took a deep breath and kept going. “What do you all want to happen here?”

“I just want my daughter,” Krauss said, sounding close to tears.

“And I want my son,” Venko said, expressionless.

“I want the safe return of Heidi, and a guarantee of the future safety of my school and its remaining personnel,” Gilby said, with a narrowed glance at Venko which I ignored.

“OK,” I said carefully. “Well, as far as I can see none of these demands preclude any of the others. We know where we want to go. The question is, how do we get there with the least amount of blood being spilled?”

Venko suddenly switched on a big smile. “Bravo,” he said, all jolly as though his flash of steel was just an imagining. “You see, Major. All it needed was the logic of a woman.”

“Wonderful,” Gilby drawled acidly. “So, Miss Fox, how do you propose that we achieve these aims?”

I turned to Venko. “You leave now, and you pull your men out with you. You return here in twenty-four hours, with Heidi. By which time the Major will have retrieved the boy from wherever it is he’s got him stashed. You make the exchange and you leave. No tricks, no ambushes, no double-crosses. And no retribution.”

Silence followed the outlining of my plan. If I’m honest I hadn’t expected anything else. At least they didn’t laugh it straight out of court.

Venko smiled again, rather sadly this time, and shook his head a little. “Impossible,” he said. “You have good heart, Miss Fox, but what guarantee do I have that the Major will deliver my son?”

“He’ll deliver.” My chin came up. “On that you have my word.”

He regarded me, brooding, unconvinced.

“What’s your son called, Mr Venko?” I asked.

“Ivan,” he said, a father’s pride putting roll and drama into it. “His name is Ivan.”

I nodded. “And how old is Ivan?”

Venko hesitated before he answered, as though the question was some kind of a trick. “He is just twenty,” he said at last.

“I see,” I said, choosing my own words with care. “And how would you feel if Ivan never lived to be twenty-