The Nightmare

99

After lying huddled in the trunk of a car, Axel is stiff when he’s finally allowed out. He finds he’s been taken to a small private airport. The landing strip is made of concrete and surrounded by a high fence. A helicopter waits in front of a building that looks like a barracks. A tall mast sticks up from the roof.

Axel can hear the screech of seagulls as he is made to walk between the two men who have kidnapped him. He’s still wearing just trousers and a shirt. There’s nothing to say, so he climbs into the helicopter with the men. He sits down and fastens the harness. One of the two men is the pilot. He manipulates the instruments on the panel before him, then turns a tiny, shining key, hits another control, and presses a pedal.

The man next to the pilot spreads a map over his lap.

There’s peeling tape on the windshield.

The motor hums as the engine takes hold and the rotors start to slowly rotate. The narrow blades slice heavily through the air and the hazy sunshine blinks across the windshield. The rotor revs more and more quickly.

A paper cup on the ground is blown away.

The engine has warmed up. The blades clatter deafeningly. The pilot holds the joystick in his right hand, moving it with small, square movements. Suddenly they lift.

The helicopter heads slowly straight up at first, but then it tips forward and they move off.

Axel’s stomach lurches as they fly over the fence, up over the trees, and then swing so quickly to the left that it feels as if the helicopter is tipping to the side.

Swiftly they put the rolling green ground behind them, along with a few lonely roads and a house with a shining tin-plated roof.

The helicopter engine thuds and the shadows of the rotating blades flick across the windshield.

The mainland ends and the sea opens up beneath them.

Axel tries to think through what’s happened. Raphael Guidi must have had everything in place. He’d phoned Axel from his yacht in the Finnish bay. He’d said that he was on his way to Latvia and heading for the open Baltic Sea, then Axel had cut him off. There could have been no more than a minute or two between the time he told Guidi he would not sign and the moment when the two thugs broke into his house and shocked him with the stun gun.

At least they didn’t rough him up. They made sure he was lying comfortably even if it was in the trunk of a car.

Half an hour later, they’d stopped that car and exchanged it for another.

An hour later, they let him walk on his own to the helicopter.

The ocean beneath them moves past as swiftly as a highway. The skies above seem static, cloudy, and moistly white. They’re flying at fifty meters and at great speed. The pilot talks into the radio but Axel finds it impossible to hear what he’s saying.

Axel dozes for a while and can no longer sense how long he’s been in the helicopter when he looks down to see a luxury yacht plowing through the rippling sea. It is huge, a white ship large enough to contain a light blue swimming pool and several tanning decks.

They drop steeply down.

Axel reminds himself again that Raphael Guidi is a very rich man and he leans forward to take a good look at the yacht. It’s really unbelievable. The ship is trim and arrow-sharp and so white it looks frosted. It’s at least one hundred meters long with a soaring captain’s bridge, at least two stories high, on the afterdeck.

The helicopter thrashes its way down toward the rings marked on a helicopter pad on the foredeck. The backwash from the rotor blades whips along the water curving from the sides of the boat. The helicopter hovers, sinks slowly, and then settles onto the platform, softly swaying. They land smoothly and wait until the blades stop. The helicopter pilot remains in the cockpit while the other man takes Axel’s arm to guide him across the platform. They stoop in the wind draft until they pass through a glass door.

The room they enter seems to be an elegant waiting room, with sofas and a coffee table as well as a darkened large-screen television. A man in a white uniform greets them smoothly and gestures toward a sofa for Axel to take a seat.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asks softly.

“Just water, please,” Axel replies.

“Plain or mineral water?” asks the man.

Before Axel can reply, another man walks through the door.

This one resembles the first man who’d escorted Axel from the helicopter. They are both tall and wide with well-coordinated bodies, but this new man is so blond that his eyebrows are almost colorless, and his nose looks like it had once been painfully broken. The resemblance ends there. Axel’s first captor has gray hair and horn-rim glasses. They move together as a team, silently, effectively and with no wasted movement, as they lead Axel down some steps to the suites below.

The whole ship seems strangely deserted. A beautiful little wicker suite on a platform has been neglected. The exquisite weaving has splits and jagged points that stick out from the edges of the chairs and table. Axel is surprised to see that the pool, which looked so blue from above, almost looks dusty. It clearly has not had water in it for years. It’s filled with piles of broken chairs, a sofa without cushions, and some broken desk chairs.

Inside, the farther one goes in the ship, the more empty and deserted it seems. Axel’s footsteps echo across the hallway’s scratched marble floor.

They walk through double doors with the words SALA DE PRANZO elegantly carved into the dark wood above. The dining room is enormous. Only open sea can be seen outside the panoramic windows and a wide, red-carpeted staircase leads to the upper level. Stunning crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The room has been designed to impress, but on the dining-room table there’s nothing but a copier, a fax machine, two computers, and a massive collection of folders with filed paperwork.

A short man sits at a small table in the massive room. His hair is flecked with gray and a wide bald spot shines on his crown. Axel recognizes Raphael Guidi at once. Guidi is dressed casually in light blue gym shorts with a matching jacket. The number 7 is stitched to his breast pocket with a larger image on the back. He wears white tennis shoes without socks. “Welcome,” he says in English.

A cell phone rings in his pocket, and Guidi picks it up, glances at the number, but doesn’t answer. Almost immediately afterward, another phone call comes in, and Guidi says a few words in Italian. Then he looks at Axel Riessen. He gestures proudly to the panoramic windows and the rolling ocean waves.

“I am here against my will,” Axel begins.

“I’m sorry, but there was no other way. We’ve run out of time-”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want your loyalty,” Raphael replies shortly.

The two bodyguards grin down at the floor and then immediately wipe the expression from their faces. Raphael takes a long gulp of what looks like yellow vitamin water and burps loudly.

“Loyalty. The only thing that matters,” he says softly as he looks sternly at Axel. “I know you believe I have nothing you might want in payment, but-”

“That’s true,” Axel answers sharply.

“Still, I believe we can make a deal… I believe I have something you want desperately,” Raphael continues. He smiles, but there is no pleasure in the grimace. “For your loyalty I will offer something that you really, truly want. In fact, what you want more than anything else in the world.”

Axel shakes his head in disbelief. “I couldn’t even say what that might be.”

“Oh, no,” Raphael says smoothly. “What you want more than anything else in the world seems so simple… a good night’s sleep-”

“How did you know that?” Axel gasps, then stops short as he sees Raphael’s cool, calculating look.

“So then you already know that I’ve tried every possible way,” Axel says slowly.

Raphael gestures indifferently. “You will be provided with a new liver.”

“I’ve been on the donor’s list for years,” Axel says with an involuntary smile. “I call the doctors every time they have a meeting, but my liver damage was self-inflicted and my tissue type is so unusual, no donors can be found.”

“I have located a liver for you, Axel Riessen,” Raphael says in his sharp voice.

There’s silence in the room and Axel feels his face and ears flush.

“And in return?” Axel says, swallowing hard. “You want me to sign the export authorization for Kenya.”

“More than that,” Raphael says. “I want us to sign a Paganini contract.”

“What is that?”

“There’s no hurry, there will be time to consider. It’s a major decision. But before you decide, I want you to go thoroughly through the information I’ve accumulated about this particular organ donor.”

Axel’s thoughts zip through his mind at blazing speed. Axel eagerly tells himself that he can sign the export authorization and then, once he’s gotten his liver, turn on Guidi and testify against him. He’d be protected by the authorities, he knows, and perhaps he would have to change his identity and all that. But he would be able to sleep again.

“Why don’t we have something to eat?” Raphael asks. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

“Maybe…”

“But before we eat, please phone your secretary at ISP and let her know that you are here.”