“Did you or did you not tell me they would wait for backup?” he screams. “You told me they would wait!”
“That’s what they said—”
“Then what are they doing here? They have nothing on me!” Raphael says. “They have absolutely nothing!”
The navigator steps back as he shakes his head. Raphael barges closer.
“Why the hell are they here if they have nothing on me?” Raphael keeps screaming. “There’s nothing—”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” the navigator screams. “I can only tell you what I heard—”
“What did you tell them?”
“Tell them? Me? I don’t understand—”
“Don’t mess with me! Just tell me what the fuck you told them!”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“Coming from you, that’s strange … most unusual, very strange indeed. Don’t you think so?”
“I only listened in as I was told to, I didn’t—”
“Why don’t you confess!” Raphael roars as he leaps toward the navigator and pushes the knife deep into his belly.
There is little resistance as the knife slides through his shirt, his fat, and into his intestines. Blood is channeled past the knife and spatters on Raphael’s hand and arm and even onto his gym clothes. A confused expression comes over the navigator’s face as he tries to step backward to get away from the knife, but Raphael looks deep into his eyes.
The beautiful music still filters up from the dining room. Unbelievably rapid notes dance up and down the scale.
“It could be Axel Riessen,” the gray-haired bodyguard says abruptly. “Maybe he was bugged … maybe he’s in contact with the police …”
Raphael jerks the knife back out of the navigator’s body and throws himself down the stairs.
The navigator stands still, holding his stomach as blood drops onto his black shoes. He tries to walk, but slides to the ground instead and lies there, staring mutely at the ceiling.
Raphael’s bodyguard is running behind him, holding his rifle ready to fire as they both run down the carpeted stairs.
Axel stops playing when Raphael comes roaring in, pointing to him with the bloody knife.
“You traitor!” he roars. “You betrayed me!”
The bodyguard suddenly fires his rifle at the window, the bullets slamming through while the brass casings clatter down the stairs.
112
automatic fire
Joona and Niko run up the winding stairs, past the lower deck and to the huge afterdeck. The silent ocean is like an infinite glass plate spreading in all directions. Oddly, they hear violin music. Joona tries to see what’s beyond the glass doors, but he can make out only vague shapes behind the mirrored surface. He can see only part of the dining room, but no people. The music continues feverishly. It’s as distant as a dream, sound dampened by the doors.
They pause for a few seconds and then they dash past an open area with a dump heap for a swimming pool. Silently, they run across the sunken terrace and over to the metal stairs.
Footsteps sound overhead and Niko points to the stairs. They press their bodies against the wall.
The light, playful notes are clearer now. The violinist’s work is extraordinary. Joona peeks into the enormous dining room and sees the odd arrangement of office equipment on the impressive table. He still can see no people; the person playing the music must be beyond the wide stairs.
Joona motions for Niko to follow and cover his back as he points to the captain’s bridge overhead.
The violin stops abruptly in the middle of an ascending, beautiful run.
Very suddenly.
Joona throws his body behind the stairs at the same moment automatic fire slams out. Quick, hard bangs. The full metal jacket bullets splinter the stairs where he’d just been standing and are now ricocheting in all directions.
Joona crouches farther back, behind the stairs, and feels an adrenaline rush. Niko has found cover behind a lifeboat crane and is returning fire. Joona, bent over, sees the row the bullet holes have made in the dark glass, like frosted rings around black pupils.
113
the blade of the knife
The gray-haired bodyguard continues down the stairs with his weapon steadily aimed at the windows. Smoke trickles from his rifle and the casings are still bouncing down the stairs.
Peter has curled into a ball and holds his hands over his ears.
Silently the bodyguard slips out a side door.
Axel is backing away between the tables, holding the violin and its bow, and retreating as Raphael points at him with the knife.
“How could you ruin everything?” he roars as he tries to catch up to Axel. “I’m going to cut up your face, I’m going to—”
“Pappa, what’s going on?” screams Peter.
“Get my gun and get on the helicopter! We’re leaving this boat!”
The boy nods. His face is pale, his chin wobbles. Raphael skirts around tables toward Axel. Axel moves backward and throws down chairs between them.
“Load it with Parabellum, hollow-point!” commands Raphael.
“How many?” the boy asks. “One magazine?”
“Yes, that’s enough—but hurry!” Raphael yells as he kicks aside a chair.
Axel is trying to get through the door on the other side of the room. He turns the lock one-handed, but the door won’t open.
“I’m not finished with you!” howls Raphael.
Axel shakes the door again with his free hand and then sees the bolt high up. Raphael is barging closer. The knife glistens in his hand. Axel reacts impulsively and whirls around to hurl the beautiful violin at Raphael. It tumbles in the air, red and glowing. Raphael jumps aside and trips but still lunges as he tries to save the instrument. He almost catches it, but fumbles although he’s broken its fall. The violin skitters across the floor with a sibilant whisper.
Axel has gotten the door open and rushes out into a cluttered hallway. There’s so much trash he can hardly get through. He clambers over a heap of lounge-chair pillows and over a pile of diving masks and wet suits.
“I’ll get you!” Raphael is following him with the knife in one hand and the violin in the other.
Axel’s foot gets caught in the mesh of a rolled-up tennis net. He crawls away, kicking at it as Raphael draws nearer.
Short, hard bursts of automatic fire can be heard outside.
Raphael pounces, driving the knife down at Axel, but he misses as Axel kicks himself loose. He scrambles to his feet and knocks over a foosball table to block Raphael, then rushes again down the hallway to the door at the end. His hands fumble with the lock and the handle, but something blocks it shut. He shoves. The door opens a crack.
“You can’t get away from me!”
Axel tries to press himself through the gap, but it’s too narrow. The edge of a large shelving unit stacked with clay pots is in the way. Axel throws his whole weight against the door and the unit beyond scrapes a few inches. He can feel Raphael behind him. He shoves once more and finally can squeeze his body through. He tears his hand on the lock but he can’t notice. He must get out of there.
With a scream, Raphael stretches out and swipes down with the knife. The blade rips Axel’s shoulder. It burns with pain.
Axel stumbles into a room with a glass ceiling that looks like a forgotten greenhouse. He runs again, feeling for his shoulder, covering his fingers with blood. He stumbles over a withered lemon tree in a pot and rushes on, bent over, along rows of dead plants with dry, rustling leaves.
Raphael is kicking powerfully at the door. He grunts at every kick. The pots shake as the shelving unit is shoved aside, bit by bit.
Axel searches frantically for a hiding place. He crawls under a dirty plastic sheet hanging down from one of the banks of plants. He keeps crawling past buckets and tubs. He prays Raphael will give up soon and escape from the boat with his son.
There’s a thundering boom from the door, and a few pots smash on th
e floor. Raphael wrenches his way into the room, panting hard, and nudges against a trellis with withered grape vines.
“Come out and kiss my hand,” he calls.
Axel holds his breath. He tries to retreat farther but there’s a massive metal potting bench in his way.
“I promise I’ll give you everything!” There’s a wide-stretched, oily smile on Raphael’s face. He prowls forward, searching among the shelves and past the dead stumps of bushes. “Your brother’s liver is waiting for you. All you have to do is kiss my hand and it’ll be yours.”
Axel’s stomach lurches and, shaking violently, he leans against a metal cabinet. He’s blocked. His heart races and he hears a roaring in his head. He tries to remain silent. He searches everywhere and then discovers a hatch just five meters away, a hatch that must open onto the foredeck.
The helicopter’s engine is roaring louder.
Axel plans to crawl under the table and then run the last few steps. He peers closely. The door is held shut with just a hook. He begins to shift to one side.
He lifts his head slightly to estimate the distance. But then he freezes. In his concentration, he lost track of Raphael, who has crept up behind him. He hears Raphael’s rasping breath and smells his sweat. And he feels the cold edge of a knife against his throat. It burns where the blade touches Axel’s skin.
114
the final fight
The gray-haired bodyguard slides out of the dining room silently, glides through the doors, and then runs quickly along the glass-covered section of the deck, holding his camouflaged weapon ready. The lenses of his glasses sparkle. Joona sees him sneaking up behind Niko and knows he will get Niko in a few seconds. Niko’s back is unprotected.
The bodyguard raises his automatic weapon and shifts his finger to the trigger.
Joona stands up, rigid, and places two shots into the middle of the man’s chest. The bodyguard staggers and catches the railing to keep himself from falling overboard. He looks around wildly to see Joona coming. He raises his weapon back up to shoot again.
Joona realizes that the man wears a bulletproof vest under his black jacket.
Joona has already sprung at the man and knocked his weapon before slamming his gun into the base of the man’s nose. The bodyguard’s legs collapse. He staggers back, head thudding against the railing, his sweat and snot scattering about the deck. He flops down completely.
Joona and Niko run along the yacht on each side of the dining hall. They can hear the helicopter’s rotor blades revving even more.
“Hurry up! Get aboard!” someone is shouting.
Joona runs as close to the wall as he can. He pauses to take a look around the corner to the foredeck. Raphael Guidi’s son is already in the helicopter. The shadows from the rotor blades flutter over the decks and railings.
Joona hears noise from overhead and realizes that Raphael’s other bodyguard has spotted him. The blond man is just twenty-five meters away and he’s already aimed at Joona. There is no time to react. A bang rings out and Joona feels a flick like the stroke of a whip across his face. His surroundings fade to white. He falls over some lounge chairs without being able to stop himself and sprawls on the floor unable to keep his neck from striking the railing. His hand hits a bar, knocking his weapon from his hand so hard that his wrist feels broken. The gun falls over the railing and clatters down to the deck below.
Joona blinks as his sight returns. He creeps along the wall. He still feels confused and for a moment doesn’t realize what’s happened. Blood trickles down his face. He has to get up, he has to have Niko’s help, he must find out where that bodyguard has gone.
He rubs his bloody cheek. It burns from pain and he feels along his face to understand that the bullet scored it.
It’s a surface wound, but nothing more.
He hears an odd ringing in his left ear.
His heart pounds.
As he stands up, protected by the metal wall, his head feels a familiar ache.
It is the warning that precedes a migraine.
Joona presses a thumb against his forehead between his eyebrows and closes his eyes, trying to force the pain away.
After a moment, he opens them again, tries to see Niko, the helicopter, and beyond the foredeck and the railing.
The Finnish navy’s well-equipped vessel is approaching like a black shadow on the smooth sea.
Joona twists free a long rod of metal from the broken lounge chair. At least he will have something in his hand when he has to face the bodyguard.
He presses tightly against the wall. He spots Raphael and Axel out on the foredeck. Moving backward toward the helicopter, they’re oddly fused together. Raphael has an arm slung across Axel, the beautiful Amati in his hand a bright red against Axel’s chest. With his other hand, he holds a knife blade to Axel’s throat. Their hair and clothes flutter in the draft from the rotor blades.
The man who shot Joona is creeping sideways to locate him again. He’s not sure if he scored a direct hit to the head; it happened so quickly.
Joona slides backward to get away, but his headache slows him down until he comes to a stop. He can move no more.
Not now, he thinks as he feels the sweat on his back.
The bodyguard edges around the corner, weapon ready. He catches sight of Joona’s shoulder and glimpses his throat and his head.
Then blond-bearded Niko Kapanen barrels around another corner with his automatic rifle raised. The bodyguard is too quick. He whirls and lets off four shots in a row. Niko doesn’t even feel the first one hit his shoulder but he’s thrown back when the second hits his stomach. The third misses, but the fourth strikes Niko in the chest. He falls on his side, along the edge of the raised helicopter platform. He’s so shocked from his wounds, he doesn’t realize his finger is still on the trigger as he falls. The bullets aren’t even aimed and fly out over the water as he empties the entire magazine in two seconds until his weapon clicks.
Niko draws a ragged breath and his eyes roll back in his head. He drops his weapon and dazedly sees the massive bolts on the underside of the helicopter pad. He notices that rust has forced its way through the white paint at the cracks of the large nuts, but he doesn’t notice that his right lung is filling with blood.
He coughs weakly and fights against losing consciousness. He spies Joona hiding behind the wall to the dining room with no weapon but a metal rod in his hand. Their eyes meet. Niko gathers his last strength and kicks his automatic rifle over the deck to Joona.
Axel is terrified. His heart races. Gunfire all around makes his ears ring. He can’t help trembling under Raphael’s knife, his body held as the man’s shield. The knife has cut into Axel’s skin and blood runs down his shirt. He can see the bodyguard getting closer to Joona Linna’s hiding spot, but he can do nothing.
Joona reaches for Niko’s carbine and pulls it toward him. The bodyguard crouching near the helicopter pad lets off a blast toward him. The bullets ricochet every which way. Joona jerks out the empty magazine and, from the corner of his eye, sees Niko rummage through his pockets. Niko looks drained of blood and he can barely move. He has to stop a moment, his hand pressing against his stomach. A bodyguard yells at Raphael to hurry and climb in the helicopter; it’s about to lift off. Niko fumbles in a pocket on the leg of his pants. A candy wrapper flutters away. Still, his fingers close over one stray bullet. Niko coughs and looks at the full metal jacket bullet in his palm, then he tosses it to Joona. The bullet rolls across the metal floor, flashing in the sunlight. Its bronze hull and tip of copper shine.
Joona grabs it and shoves it into the magazine as fast as he can.
Niko’s eyes are shut now. A bubble of blood appears between his lips, but his chest is still rising and falling with shallow breaths.
The bodyguard’s heavy steps clunk across the deck.
Joona shoves the magazine into the carbine, slips in the one bullet, lifts the weapon, waits a second, and leaps out of his hiding place.
Raphael is still
pulling Axel with him. Raphael’s son yells something from within the helicopter and the pilot is waving at Raphael to get in.
“You should have kissed my hand when you had the chance,” Raphael murmurs into Axel’s ear.
The Amati gives off a deep sound as Raphael pulls it into Axel’s chest.
The bodyguard is strolling toward Niko and bends to send a bullet into his face.
“Jonottakaa!” yells Joona in Finnish.
He sees the bodyguard whirl to shoot at Joona instead. Joona leaps to one side to concentrate on the line of fire since his one bullet must count.
It all happens in seconds.
Behind his shield, Raphael keeps a firm grip on his knife. The increasing draft from the helicopter rips at their clothes. Rivulets of blood are sucked from Axel’s neck. They see Joona crouch, shift the muzzle of the carbine slightly, and fire.
Jonottakaa! Joona thinks. Get in line, boys! He feels the hard recoil bang against his shoulder. The full metal jacket bullet leaves his weapon at eight hundred meters a second. Making almost no sound, the bullet plunges into the bodyguard’s throat and exits in a spray of blood before it plunges again into Raphael’s shoulder and out to fly over the water.
Raphael’s knife arm is shocked from the hit and the knife tumbles to the deck.
Axel Riessen falls away.
The bodyguard looks at Joona in surprise as his blood spurts from his throat to pour over his chest. He tries again, groggily, to lift his weapon, but he can’t. An odd sound emanates from his throat. He coughs, and this time blood splutters from his mouth and down his chin.
He sits down abruptly. He lifts his hand to the hole in his throat. He blinks two times and then his eyes fix, wide open.
Raphael’s face has drained and he wavers in the strong, pulsing draft. He still clutches his violin. He stares malevolently at Joona.
“Pappa!” Peter yells. He throws a pistol to his father.