"It’s a remarkable thing, brothers," the Spaniard said as he handed over a backpack. I looked inside and saw a bag full of cash, enough that I didn't want to waste time counting at the moment. "I too had a brother once. The price I sold him out for was remarkably less than you. Congratulations on a good bargain."
"Congratulations at having agents from so many different backgrounds," I returned. "There's no way that anyone could have suspected that you were involved in all of this. Russians, Moroccans, you, Mexicans, you have quite the network. So is he going where I suspect he is going?" I asked. The Spaniard shrugged.
"It’s an age-old tale. The sins of the father are often visited upon the son. You should be grateful that my clients think it is only one son that needs to pay the price.”
I understood the implication. Holding my bag, I left the docks, ditching the Peugeot three blocks from the train station. Sticking to the shadows, I made my way around, hanging out until the sun rose. Going into the station, I bought a ticket for the first train to Paris, and mentally rehearsed how I was going to break the news to Jordan. Felix was dead and I would now be the new King.
Chapter 25
Felix
The first thing I was aware of was a splitting headache. The second was cold. Bone-chilling cold, the type of which we never got in France except in the mountains.
"What the hell . . .?” I asked, blinking my eyes. I could have been blind, but I doubted it. I waited a few minutes, and could see just a single pinprick of light in the upper left corner of my vision, so at least I wasn't blind. I blinked and made sure the light wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't. My sense of gravity came back, and I could tell I was lying on my back, although I couldn't hear anything.
I tried moving my hand, and I found I could block the light in the corner of my vision. Turning my head was painful, so I kept my head where it was. "Francois?" I croaked into the still, chill air.
Only silence greeted me, so I lay still, hoping the pain in my head would diminish enough that I could think clearly. I was obviously inside something, I could sense that. What, I didn't know, but I was lying on a hard, smooth surface. I was still wearing clothes, but they weren't enough for this kind of cold. It was chilly enough that I swore it felt like I was lying down in a meat locker.
At least I was alive. Memories came back to me slowly, and I still felt like there were some holes. I remembered the warehouse in Calais, and walking up to the Quonset hut. I opened the door and went in, and after that, all was blank until just now.
After a while I thought I could at least sit up, but I started slowly, rolling to my side and then pulling my knees underneath me, letting blood pool in my head to keep my thought processes as strong as possible. The pain increased, but not by too much, so I sat up, leaning over in a cross-legged position with my elbows on my splayed knees in order to let some of the dizziness fade away.
I was starting to think about trying to get to my feet when I heard footsteps outside whatever I was in. Instead of moving, I leaned back, trying to give myself the best ability to listen and think. It's an under-appreciated skill and one that was of vital importance for whatever I found myself in at the moment. A door rattled in front of me and opened, slate gray light filtering in. It was still blinding, and I shaded my eyes to try and diminish the dazzle.
"Ah, you’re awake. That's good — that’s very good."
I couldn't place the voice, but I could place the accent. Russian, perhaps Lithuanian. "Yeah. Do you have any aspirin?" I attempted, but I figured it was futile.
The voice came back, and I thought it belonged to a man, but maybe a very deep-voiced woman too. A shape moved in the light as the dazzle faded from my eyes, and I saw that my first impression was correct. A dapper man, maybe about sixty years old or so, wearing a slim fitting suit that looked Italian in design, but the horrific smell of the tobacco wafting in told me he was certainly from the Russian sphere of the world. The Russians never have learned how to make tobacco that didn't smell like burning sweat-socks. "Aspirin? Very funny, Felix. You should have gone into comedy instead of following in your father's footsteps."
The man stepped closer, letting in more light, and I could see some more of my surroundings. We were in a shipping container, but one that had been converted at least slightly. The floor had been covered in thick plywood, and there was minimal insulation on the walls. Considering the thick layer of snow on the hills in the narrow bit of vision I saw through the door, I was grateful. "Thanks, but it wasn’t really a joke. Who are you, and what's going on?"