Hard Knocks

one because you couldn’t bring yourself to trust me?”

Venko stared at me again, as though his gaze alone could bore through the outer layers of skin and skull and lay my brains out on a slab looking for the dark cancerous stain of lies.

I forced myself not to flinch under the onslaught, just stood quiet with the Desert Eagle resting in my hands, and the Uzi hanging from my shoulder. Difficult to take the word of someone who forces you to listen to it at gunpoint, but Venko didn’t seem to mind.

Eventually, long after I’d given up hope, he favoured me with an austere smile. “Very well, Miss Fox, we will leave now and we will bring the girl here at ten o’clock tomorrow.” He stood, the cashmere coat closing around him with the silent floating grace of old-fashioned velvet theatre curtains after the last encore.

He moved out from behind the desk, not much taller than my own height, but twice as wide, and barrel- chested. I backed up as he came past me, kept my finger on the trigger as he waved his disgraced bodyguards to their feet with a brusque, “Come, we go.”

Sideburns would have liked to have made a bigger production out of getting to his feet, but a glance at his boss told him sympathy would not be forthcoming. In fact, staying as invisible as possible was his best chance for survival. He didn’t even have the courage to demand the return of his personalised gun.

Just as they reached the study doorway Venko halted and turned back, encompassing all of us in a visual sweep that singed where it touched. It finished up on me and I could feel it burning.

“Just remember, Miss Fox,” he said, sombre, “what I risk by trusting you. Yes, I will return the girl to her father, just as I wish to have my son returned to me. I will keep my side of this arrangement.” His voice roughened then, grew harsh with the emotion that vibrated through him.

“But let me promise you one thing,” he went on. “If anything happens to Ivan, I will raze this building to the ground and make it my life’s work to destroy you – all of you – and hunt down what is left of your families. I hope I do not regret making this bargain with you, Miss Fox.”

And with that cheery farewell he and his entourage stalked out of the study.

“So do I,” I murmured, watching them go. “So do I.”

Twenty-one

“Here,” the Major said, splashing a decent couple of fingers of brandy into a lead crystal tumbler and placing it into my trembling hands. “I think you need it.”

“Thanks,” I only managed to keep my voice steady with an effort. “I’d rather have a single malt, though, if you have it.”

“No,” he said. That familiar arrogant tone was back, but he almost smiled. “Drink what you’re given, madam.”

Venko had gone. His men had gone. Dieter had gone, too. He’d allowed the Major to lead him out of the study. I’d heard him protesting in staccato German all the way along the corridor.

I was left sitting in the chair Gilby had so recently vacated while he went to calm the staff and organise them into a makeshift security patrol. The ease with which Venko and his men had walked into the Manor and taken control of it had obviously galled. The instructors and pupils were all still down at the assault course. Run ragged, but oblivious. No doubt there would be time later to explain what had happened here to those of them who needed to know. I had a feeling Gilby wasn’t going to make this invasion common knowledge.

So I sat by myself in a room made more empty by the sudden absence of violent men, and tried to stop the cracks joining up and becoming tears. By the time he came back I’d more or less got them papered over enough to fool him. Maybe for a couple of seconds.

He closed the study door and looked at me for a while before moving over to the drinks’ cabinet. A long thorough inspection like I was a racehorse none of the pundits had fancied much, but who’d somehow put on an unexpected spurt at the finish.

Me, I felt like a racehorse who’d run out of their distance and damned near burst my lungs to do it. I was exhausted.

A loaded Desert Eagle weighed over four-and-a-half pounds. Holding the gun out and ready for that length of time had overstressed my biceps where they blended with the deltoid muscle at the front of my shoulders. With every movement I was aware of the stretched and torn fibres. Even lifting the glass was painful.

My sternum, which had been keeping a low profile, was throbbing like crazy. Breathing hurt. Sitting hurt. Now the adrenaline was slowly bleeding from my system I felt thoroughly second-hand.

The Major poured himself a brandy and took it to the other side of his desk. I’d put the Uzi and the hand cannon down onto the surface and he moved them aside with a frown of disapproval, like he was worried about scratches. Then he sat and looked at me some more.

A sudden thought rocked me. I sat up so fast I nearly slopped the contents of my glass into my lap.

“Major, please tell me that you do have Ivan to trade, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he said, not seeming in the least surprised by the question.

The relief had me nearly sagging back into my chair. “Where is he?”

“Somewhere close. Somewhere safe,” Gilby said, short, sharp. “Even my own men don’t know his location.” To his credit, he didn’t point out that I was considerably further down the chain of command and I didn’t press him. There would have been little point.

“That wasn’t the first time you’ve been in this kind of situation was it, Miss Fox?” Gilby said then.

I took a slug of brandy, trying not to wince as it ripped down the inside of my throat like bleach. Whatever the Major siphoned into his decanters, it certainly wasn’t a five-star Cognac.

“Not exactly,” I agreed. “No.”

He nodded slowly. “I thought not,” he said. “Venko isn’t a man who would allow himself to be held captive by a woman unless he believed absolutely that she would kill him.” He paused. “You have that air about you.”

If only you knew . . .

“Yeah, well,” I muttered into my glass. “It’s a knack.”

“Yes,” the Major said. “Yes, I suppose you could say it is.”

I looked round a little then, tried to pull it together, and said, “Where’s Herr Krauss?”

“I’ve persuaded Dieter to let me handle things. It’s going to be difficult enough tomorrow without having to cope with an emotionally unstable civilian.”

“You can hardly blame him. The poor bloke’s obviously frantic.”

“Yes,” Gilby agreed, his voice giving away neither sympathy nor irritation. “But that makes him unpredictable. A liability.”

I took another gulp of brandy. It seemed to be improving as I got into it. Maybe it had just burned away all the more vulnerable taste buds.

“So what’s the connection between you and Krauss?” I asked.

For a moment I thought the Major was just going to tell me to mind my own damned business, then I saw his gaze skim over the weaponry on the desk top. If I had minded my own business. If I hadn’t interfered . . .

“He owns fifty per cent of this place,” he said at last, circling a hand to indicate the Manor as a whole. “He bought in about six months ago.” And having decided to be frank, he really pushed the boat out. “Got me out of a bit of a hole cash-wise, if you must know,” he added stiffly, burying his nose in his glass. “It’s only since then that I’ve been able to pay the staff decent wages.”

Talking about money was a subject the Major clearly found rather vulgar. It was probably how he’d managed to get himself into a financial mess in the first place.

Six months. The words suddenly clicked. Six months ago was about the time that the money Madeleine uncovered had started arriving in the school’s accounts. Gilby had re-equipped, put in a new heating system, hired some decent cooks. And once he’d done that, he’d bought himself a flash car.

It fitted, I couldn’t deny. Better still, it had the ring of truth about it.

“So when Gregor Venko kidnapped Krauss’s daughter, you naturally offered to kidnap Venko’s son to get her back?”

“I didn’t offer, but Dieter was convinced that unless we had some kind of sword of Damocles hanging over