This Land is no Stranger Sarah Hollister (best biographies to read .txt) 📖

Brand and Hammar left he had conducted them on a tour of the estate’s private menagerie. His ladies did not accompany him, forced by the very un-Thai Swedish weather to remain indoors. The three—two of them were twins—did not much like Gammelhem, much preferring Malmö, or the penthouse apartments in Stockholm or London.

Baron Kron accompanied his two guests around the grounds. The big aviary was closed. The birds had been transferred to his place down south. But all the other beasts were present.

Truth be told, the baron was a little bored with his zoo. The lionesses lazed about, dulled by being retired from the hunt. The big male king of the pride had died almost a year ago. Jimmy the chimp bellhop had been reduced to a party joke. The Bengals, Bill and Hillary, seemed to be rendered somehow less regal by long captivity.

The tigers dutifully allowed the baron to demonstrate his fearlessness. They padded over to him and lowered their sleek heads to be petted. A funky musk scent rose in a cloud from their pelts.

The hyenas were the baron’s first and favorite of all the animals in the menagerie. The zoo had been founded around them, in fact, sixty years ago. The beasts never failed to impress visitors. Two from the pack remained in their paddock when he led the New York detective inside the barn. As they always did, they languidly turned their heads toward the humans, as if assessing the visitors as prey. The baron rattled the lid of their food locker and they came alive, trotting forward and vocalizing joyously.

Ak-ak-ak-ar-ar-ar-haroool!

Smiling proudly, the baron turned to Brand. “Your American president, Roosevelt, not the communist but the first one, Teddy, he kept a hyena as a pet. He named it Bill.”

Unfortunately the big male, Fenrir, had already been loaded into the truck for his trip south. Hyenas were the rare species where the females were normally bigger than the males. Fenrir was the exception. He was large beyond measure. As the baron and the Brand woman had emerged from the barn, the noble made it a point to flip back a corner of the tarpaulin covering the Scania’s cargo bed. The chained animal lay crouched in the dim interior of the truck, its eyes twin pinpoints of glowing amber.

“You know, despite appearances, they’re more closely related to cats than to dogs.” The baron had thoroughly enjoyed seeing the creature’s effect on his guest from New York. The blood drained from Veronika Brand’s face. The baron moved forward, wanting the pleasure of catching the detective as she fainted from fear. But he was forced to conclude that the streets of New York City had trained the woman well, because she stood her ground.

“He’s named Fenrir,” the baron said. “That’s the great wolf of our mythology, son of the trickster devil god Loki. He’s often quite docile, but today the poor thing is scheduled for dental surgery. I would not advise climbing in there with him.”

A minor incident at the truck had marred the baron’s equanimity. He caught his man Dollar Boy exchanging words with Krister Hammar. The two of them spoke in what sounded like Romani, a language Baron Kron had never bothered to learn.

As the old man passed by with his swagger of privilege, he gave the kid a stinging whack across the shoulders with the leather switch he carried. “Prata svenska!” he barked, telling Dollar Boy to speak only Swedish. Kron had an impulse to strike the Sami lawyer, too, but pinched it back before walking on.

Now he watched Brand and Hammar drive away from Gammelhem in their preposterous Saab. The woman drove, the baron noticed disgustedly. He had a momentary thought that he should not have allowed them such unfettered access to his lodge and grounds. A disturbing picture formed in his mind. Brand and Hammar might meet with his man Dollar Boy down the road. They would exchange intel and hatch plans. A tiny eruption of rage bubbled up within the baron.

Veronika Brand was the kind of woman whose looks you didn’t notice, until suddenly you did. She hid her sexual appeal under a bushel. Commonplace minds couldn’t see it, the baron thought. Sun-colored hair, yes, and piercing gray eyes, but a certain hardness to her face prevented most people from considering her pretty. His visceral recognition of the woman’s beauty only added to his irritation. His own feeling of attraction offended him.

The woman Cynny, the non-twin of the threesome, approached from behind him just then, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. The scent of sandalwood perfume enveloped the baron like the breath of heaven.

“Come inside.” Cynny made the simple words sparkle with multiple meanings.

The baron’s upset vanished in anticipation of coming pleasure. He was never much given to second-guessing himself. He would discipline Dollar Boy upon his return. Let the Vosses take care of the two meddlers.

38.

Once they dropped off Mattias Rapp in the small village of Västvall, Varzha was alone in the car with “JV,” Jarl Voss. They drove toward the Norwegian border in Jarl’s super-expensive cocoon of an automobile, a Volvo SUV that Varzha thought he probably prized more than his own mother.

Considering the circumstances, she had an easy time of it. He threatened no violence and Varzha felt no fear. The two of them weren’t all that far apart in age. On the rare moments he wasn’t talking on the phone, they listened to his idiot black metal music full blast. He acted like the king of Sweden, and forgot the real king, Karl Gustav. Technology kept his royal highness well-connected to the rest of the world. Jarl seemed childishly proud of the three newest-iteration iPhones he kept in his car.

“Cold, warm, and hot,” he explained. “One for family, one for business, and one for social.”

Varzha returned a blank response to whatever nonsense Jarl might spout, carefully maintaining the pretense that she did not understand Swedish. She noticed he never used the family phone and would ignore