The Lynx Assassin (The Society Book 2) Read online

  The Lynx Assassin

  Book 2 of The Society series

  Karen Guyler

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Did you enjoy this book?

  Also by Karen Guyler

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  A few minutes late would be better for his alibi. Carl Rubin instructed his bodyguard to slow down.

  “Your reservation is at seven.” Sean Finch reminded him.

  Rubin knew his diary better than Finch, but he admired he understood what he liked. Sloppy habits carried risk, that would headline Rubin’s obituary, if it were to be written by anyone who knew him.

  Finch took his foot off the accelerator, letting the big car slow on its own. Out of his eyeline in the back seat, Rubin nodded his approval. The roads might have been snow-ploughed today, but ice would be a factor as the temperature plummeted.

  “Arrive at seven past seven.” That had a perfect synchronicity to it.

  Rubin turned his attention away from the arresting view of Bergen at night, an arctic wonderland of warm welcoming lights in low-slung buildings. He reread the report from Denmark open on his tablet. The latest modelling test for Yellowstone had assimilated his recommended changes. The results were excellent, better than he’d hoped. It was time to test it in the real world.

  “Seven past seven.” Finch turned into the road at the end of which was Rubin’s favourite fish restaurant.

  Another car raced to get into the entrance ahead of them.

  “Let them in first.” Rubin instructed.

  Finch did as he was told, well-trained.

  As was Goran Willander, feet stamping in front of the pile of freshly shovelled snow on the right-hand frontage of the restaurant. Rubin remembered when those monuments had been as tall as him by the end of winter. But the evils of climate change reached its talons even there, he could have leapfrogged the one tonight. Willander seemed oblivious, bending down, beckoning Rubin out to join him.

  Rubin threw his tablet into his briefcase, snapped it closed, waited for the click of the electronic lock. “You can leave now but no need to go far.”

  He left his cold weather coat on the back seat, it was only a short walk from the car into the restaurant, where the staff would be watching for his arrival.

  Willander shuffled forward to greet his partner as Finch did as he was told. “Carl, I was beginning to think I’d got the time wrong, you’re not usually late.”

  Rubin held out his gloved hand, shook Willander’s heartily, his left hand clapped Willander’s arm. “Snow on the road, can’t be too careful in a big car like that.”

  “I know you’re not a fan but you can’t beat a Volvo, built for a climate like ours, solid, dependable.”

  “Like you, in fact.” Rubin said. “But not as environmentally sound as the Tesla.”

  “I’ll get onto the borough, they should be more on top of the weather.”

  Their hands dropped apart.

  “Are those my . . .?” Willander gestured at Rubin’s gloves.

  “They are. Found them in the office. Very nice.” Rubin flexed his hands. “Are they pinseal?” Willander looked away, even though Rubin was careful to keep his tone good-natured.

  “They’re from a reputable source,” he justified them. “The law clearly states products made by indigenous people are a legal use of seal pelts. They’re not stripping resources.”

  Willander’s flat nose and weathered face hinted at a smattering of Eskimo in his genes somewhere in his family’s lineage, so he could claim it wasn’t a big deal for him to have the gloves. But he’d always been fairer than Rubin, and with his sandy blond hair and blue eyes, laughter-lined behind round glasses, more Viking. Beside him, Rubin’s ancestry wasn’t so clear-cut, brown hair which he was holding onto more successfully than his partner, brown eyes that didn’t yet need glasses. Rubin looked the younger of them, though mid-forties wasn’t any age at all. Not to have achieved everything he had, not to be poised ready to springboard off those accomplishments to greatness.

  “Glad to hear it. They are comfortable, warm, like a second skin.” It was as much a concession as Rubin could give as they were better left on the seal. He placed a hand on his partner’s winter coat-covered chest. It was a tighter fit than it should be. Excessive living was dangerous for everyone but Rubin held back his instinctive lecture, patting Willander’s coat instead. “I wish I’d worn mine. Here.”

  Carefully, he peeled off the gloves, handing them back to their owner one at a time.

  “What’s the big emergency you wanted to talk about?” Rubin thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, grasping the things in them, a fob, a couple of coins, but even a 100% wool suit wasn’t so warm in these temperatures. A shiver shuddered through him, but he welcomed it, the weather behaving how it should.

  “There’s a troubling amount of Futura Energy funds going to a Danish bank.” Willander said.

  “And you didn’t want to discuss this in the office?”

  “It has to be someone in accounts instructing the transfers. I thought it prudent to not tip them off.”

  Rubin gestured between them. “We meet all the time, part of running the company, no one would suspect anything.”

  Willander shook his head. “Not so much these days, Carl.”

  “How did you catch it?”

  “Quite by accident. We need to set a trap for whoever’s doing it to get them when they make the next instruction. In the meantime, I’ll do some more digging to find out how much has gone and to where.”

  Rubin shivered and gestured at the welcome waiting inside. “Shall we?” He set a slow pace along the front of the restaurant. “You’re so certain there’ll be another transaction?”

  Willander nodded. “They won’t stop while it’s working, the sums are sizeable, but they don’t understand banking laws very well.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They didn’t choose an offshore bank, one based in a country with more impenetrable—”

  “Goran, will you look at that,” Rubin pointed at the sky. “A shooting star.”

  Willander frowned. “I don’t see it.”

  “There, to the right.”

  Rubin’s heart rate was far higher than his physician would like. Still in his business shoes, the cold pen
etrated through to his merino wool socks. He pushed his hands further into his trouser pockets, took a step away from his partner, half a step back.

  “Still can’t—”

  He didn’t hear it, fancying afterwards that he only felt the impact on some level. No warning, just two men together looking up at the sky, then the ouff of air escaping Willander’s lungs, his collapse onto the ground, the snow changing colour.

  The plummeting temperature forgotten, Rubin looked at the sky, down to the crime scene tableau at his feet.

  A flutter of feathers spiralled around the hole in Willander’s chest. He looked puzzled, at his untimely end, or was he still searching for the shooting star? Rubin scooped up the sealskin gloves, shadows on the snow, and barged, slipping, sliding into the restaurant.

  “Call an ambulance, there’s been a—” What was it? “An accident. He’s been shot, my colleague’s been shot.” Rubin stumbled in the thick warmth. The maître d’ was there, soothing, smoothing, issuing orders, sitting Rubin down, proffering a generous tumbler of brandy for his most respected customer.

  “Are you hurt, Mr Rubin?” He gestured at the tiny spray of crimson that had rainbowed part of Rubin’s crisp white shirt.

  “No, I, not me, but. . .”

  The maître d’s expression of growing horror summed up what Rubin hinted at.

  “You’re quite safe in here.” He sounded certain but offered the manager’s office at the rear of the restaurant, away from other diners’ gazes, suppositions, away from the windows, as a safer place to wait for the police. Rubin agreed. Closer to the kitchen too, from where the smell of the house special teased him with delicious anticipation. His mouth watered—it would go perfectly with the brandy.

  2

  Eva Janssen looked up at the incline in front of her. She’d read the map right, she was sure, so up there had to be the only structures. The rest of this part of the forest surrounding the coordinates she’d been given was pretty much just trees.

  The path, virtually a straight line up, looked slickly muddy. It would be easier to go around, but the deadline the kidnapper had given for the ransom or a dead hostage was approaching too fast.

  She checked her holster was fastened and took her first step. She made it almost halfway up before her boot tip slipped and she belly-flopped onto the steep path. Last summer’s dead ferns to the right of her mud bath invited her over. The vivid green moss that patched the carpet of brown leaf-fall would make the climb easier, drier, warmer. But picking her way through the storm damage litter of twigs and branches would be like ringing a bell when she got it wrong. The target could be planning a deadly welcome for her just over the top of the rise.

  She pushed herself up in an awkward press-up, her foot slipping while she tried to get traction. They should have included crampons in her kit. Grabbing what holds she could, hands and feet giving her four points of contact now, she crab-crawled on up.

  Out of breath and sweating beneath the layers under her camouflage jacket, just below the top of the slope, she stopped to listen. The chorus of birdsong continued uninterrupted. That was good, right? She wiped her right hand down her trousers to get the worst of the claggy cold mud off, flexing her fingers to warm them up. Some Spring this was.

  A spider scurried over the rock she gripped, running over the alien intrusion of her muddy fingers. It jumped right off, the skein of silk it spun its Tarzan vine as it let the wind carry it towards the other side of the path.

  Just do it. Eva pressed her weight down into her boots, pushing herself up enough she could peer over the top. No guns pointing at her. She still had a chance to do this.

  Cover, where? The trees had been thinned to one every few metres, and those were young, their trunks too skinny. She scanned the area with binoculars. A shallow ditch, a dip in the ground was her only choice. Drawing her gun, she crawled over the rise, crouch-running until she could press herself into the meagre cover.

  Stilling her breathing, listening.

  Just her.

  Ahead of her were two, no three structures; calling them all buildings would have been an estate agent’s optimism. The hut on her left looked like it would fall down if she sneezed near it. Maybe a reason for the kidnapper to choose it? The cabin to the right would give them more protection and security, surely the best choice?

  She pulled out her binoculars to double check, but nothing she could see ruled either place out. Come on, decide. She had to stop analysing the scene, be more spider.

  Her binoculars showed her the one she’d have chosen. A lean-to type construction propped up against a weathered-to-grey wooden shed beyond the main cabin that might have been a shelter for pigs or a log store. One window on this elevation, all in the kidnapper’s favour, able to see her coming. And the choke point between the two front buildings was the perfect place for a booby trap.

  That’s what she would choose. But had they?

  Decide already, which one?

  Binoculars away, she picked up her gun. Now the real test. In an elbow over elbow crawl, she pulled herself out of the ditch to the not much better cover of a skinny holly bush ahead of her. A shout reached her from behind. Eva froze, barely breathing, holding everything tightly still. So worried about what was in front of her, she’d let her rear guard down. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “Wait up.” A teenager by the sound of her, not a hostile Eva didn’t know about. She strained to place where her shout was coming from.

  “Told you girls can’t do this one, change up,” a cocky guy called back from further to Eva’s right, behind the girl?

  Eva turned slowly, so slowly she hoped she stayed unnoticeable. Then she could see them, the neon yellow of the girl’s bike making it easy.

  “I know how to ride a mountain bike.” she snapped.

  Her friend was ahead of her, both biking far too close to the edge of the slope. The mum in Eva couldn’t help hoping they weren’t going to ride down the path she’d come up.

  Her camouflage helmet hid her bright blonde hair, and her extra layer of mud only helped make her less visible. If she stayed still, they probably wouldn’t realise she was there. But the girl had stopped to adjust her backpack. Go on, get out of here. Eva didn’t dare move to check her watch, but the pressure of the deadline ticking closer with every breath pressed against her.

  “Eat my mud.” The girl barged past the guy, knocking him flying. “Told you girls are better.” She biked off, leaving her friend in a tangle, screaming as though he’d lost a limb. His falling silent was worse. The quiet of the forest smothered everything again. He lay on the leaf litter carpet, his body all wrong angles.

  Nothing to do with her, that’s what Eva’s trainer would shout at her. Ignore distractions, stay laser-focused on the mission objective. And recovering the kidnapped victim was her target, not playing paramedic.

  She looked at the structures, back at the kid. No change on either side. Still silent, that wasn’t good. Eva shook her head. But how could she ignore him? He was someone’s son.

  She crawled back to the ditch through the soggy mud. Crouch-running then to the teenager.

  “You okay?” She reached to feel for a pulse, “can you hear me?”

  His arm was moving from underneath him. It snapped out, and he shot her in the chest.

  Eva dropped to her knees, rolled onto her side.

  “Woo hoo,” his shout echoed through the clearing, negating all of her subterfuge. “Kill shot. She’s out. You’re supposed to stand up with your hands over your head.” The guy untangled himself from his bike.

  The door to the cabin on the right, not the lean-to structure, opened and two men came out, one walking in front of the other.

  The teenager bent over Eva. “Sweet shot, got you good.”

  “Not quite.” She whipped out the knife from her trouser leg pocket and stabbed him with what would have been a quick jab to the heart if it weren’t for the retractable blade on the prop knife.

  “I got you, you’re ch
eating.” he whined.

  “Not at all, not even close.” Eva rolled onto her stomach, pulling her gun out, targeting the second man. It was a long shot.

  “You lost. You can’t do that.” the kid insisted.

  “So you say, but, stab wound to the heart, you’re definitely dead, so shush.”

  “Whatever.” The teen sulked, dropping back onto the ground. “Least I won’t get in trouble for cheating.”

  The men had got close enough. She fired. Her splurge of yellow, not dissimilar to the bright colour of the girl’s bike, splattered across the chest of the kidnapper, making him oomph in surprise. Her second shot, more by luck than anything else, splattered paint on his chin. Kill shot.

  She shouted at the first man, the one she’d been tasked to rescue. “Reggie Wallace, Trainee Agent Janssen, consider yourself saved.”

  Eva unzipped her jacket to show the kid the flak vest she was wearing underneath it. “Not everything is always what you see. If you’d shot me in the chest in the real world, I’d have been winded but alive enough to stab you and save the hostage.”

  “Don’t mean nothing.” Still sulking.

  “Real life doesn’t follow rules.” She told him the one thing her soon to be ex-husband’s actions last year had taught her.

  Eva wiped a strand of hair away, smearing mud over her face. She hoped they had decent showers there. It wouldn’t help her dragging along half the forest with her for the most important test of the day.