Valenka and Kratt get an even worse phone call.
Valenka wakes to the hard floor knocking her ass into reality. Without even bothering to get up first, vaguely grateful for the soft moquette that broke her fall, she paws at the nightstand for her phone.
It's around 8 pm, she managed to fall from a darn queen-sized bed, and she has zero calls and zero new messages.
She just leans her back against the frame of the bed, loosely drawing her sleep-numbed legs under her. She frowns at the open, empty screen, displeased: by that time, Le Chiffre is usually nearing the end of his list of meetings, and has made at least a call to check on her and plan something for dinner.
She pulls up the text app on her phone and has thumbed in Kratt's name before she hesitates, twirls it in her hand once and hits cancel. What if they're in the middle of something important? Kratt always remembers his silent mode when he should, but it would still look bad in a quiet room. Can't we even afford bad impressions anymore?, she thinks rebelliously, then shakes her head at herself. No, we can't. The market has been unforgiving to them since their failure. She'd better take her own advice and not be paranoid. Yeah, good one.
She waits half an hour, taking a shower with the phone at full volume balanced on the edge of the sink, where she could hear it over the rush of water if it were to ring. She waits half an hour more, then counts every nerve-wracking second of the following five minutes.
At 9:10, when she finally goes with fuck it and calls Kratt, she hears his ringtone – a very decent heavy metal cover to Pokerface – coming from somewhere nearby and stands still and perplexed for a moment.
Her first thought is that she's taken his cellphone without thinking, maybe while they reviewed fake info to fill into the booking form; but no, the sound comes from behind her door. It would have been a bit worrying to have mistaken his simple black flip for her shiny green smartphone, after all. She turns the lock and Kratt is there staring back at her, unblinking.
He puts the call off, greets her with a peck on the lips and immediately looks around the room.
"Listen, have you heard from–" they say at the same time, waving their cellphones. Valenka's lips quirk up and Kratt shakes his head fondly. He gestures for her to speak first.
"I haven't, no," Valenka says, watching Kratt's light eyes cloud over. He has very pretty eyes, of a deep greyish-blue and very expressive, and she thinks he himself would be surprised at how much can be read into them. She reads worry: as his right-hand man, partner and personal bodyguard, it's very rare and very distressing for Kratt not to have Le Chiffre in sight. "I thought he wanted to try out that place the airport guy recommended?"
"I was to meet him down at the bar ten minutes ago, then come up and get you." Kratt pauses and licks his lips. "He's not with Leo and the guys, I can't reach his phone, I hoped he'd be already up here."
Valenka feels a frown mar her face as she shakes her head. Alarm ripples on her skin but she doesn't want to give in to it, not yet.
They probably can't picture it at all – or at least she can't, but really can't imagine Kratt doing differently either – how would it be if their lives didn't revolve around him, like a tiny solar system of three. Even if Le Chiffre more often than not behaves more like a whimsical moon, Valenka is sure she called it upon herself. She always preferred things that shine in the night and pull tidal waves.
"Maybe he got delayed, or can't get signal," she tries. Kratt shrugs minutely. Valenka places her hands on her hips, thinking.
Their boss' phone is often in sleep-mode, but always on: one can't track a turned off phone if needed; also, they all use international private providers exactly to avoid switching through sim cards every time they cross a border, and she seriously doubts a battery problem, not with the level of tech they invest on.
She watches Kratt shift his weight, clenching and unclenching his hands. The man is extremely protective of the both of them, and after a minor fuck up almost cost them their lives in Montenegro, his protectiveness can sometimes border on the paranoid. Go figure. Nonetheless, Valenka trusts Kratt's instincts almost as much as her own.
"You have a bad feeling about this," she says, giving in. He looks relieved, nodding at her. She leaves him standing there and goes fetch the pair of sneakers she brought along. She quickly gathers a few things in her backpack-purse, slips on the shoes and pockets her phone. "Me too, let's go."
They shut the door behind them, and a moment later Kratt's phone rings. Valenka glances at it and has barely the time to spot the icon of a black king of chess and 'Der Boss' as caller ID before he lifts it to his ear.
"Oh look, we summoned him," she smirks at Kratt, washed over with instant relief. She feels silly for worrying so much after a delay of only ten minutes, but the unease stays rooted there in her stomach.
Kratt answers the phone with a tightlipped 'hello, sir' and a smile in his voice. Valenka sees in the sudden cold glint of his eyes that the voice on the other side of the line is not Le Chiffre's.
"Who is this?" Kratt asks, switching to his curt business voice, cutting short both pleasantries and their caller's benefit of doubt. This is serious. Valenka has the distinct impression that her stomach is freezing over.
Kratt calls her attention, glancing at her pocket and back up at her eyes, switching the call to speakers so that she can hear too. She whips out her own phone as fast as possible and holds it near his to connect and track the call.
"...–to cut it short, an ex-client of yours paid us to dispose of your employer, but is now withholding half our money," the voice is saying. Valenka can tell Kratt is cataloguing it mentally by the way his gaze flickers. Male, native speaker, American accent. "We thought you might like to outbid the offer."
How kind, Valenka snarks, but not out loud. The man makes no names, of course, and she rakes her brain for an American organisation that does jobs like this one. The modus operandi is peculiar, and very risky, calling directly and trying to play both client and customer like that. Valenka would know.
She grits her teeth at the thought that the bastards are probably praying on them because they know they've been clawing their way up from bankruptcy but are now out of Quantum's protection, and currently facing complete reorganisation. Much of the business meetings they do these days consists in convincing their old contacts not to cut strings with them.
The asshole on the phone calls it a refund, but what they want is a ransom: he lets them know that Kratt has until dawn to drain Le Chiffre's main account into theirs. They evidently decided their client could only be outbid with the entirety of their founds. This of course, "If you want your employer back in one piece, so to speak," the voice says, colouring with a tinge of mockery.
Valenka curses mentally at how long the tracking process is taking. If this is a joke, she's not laughing. She intends to share an incredulous glance with Kratt, but he's focused on how to get more out of their contact.
"How do I know you haven't completed the job already?" he asks, tone cold and neutral. He's trying to gauge if they actually have him, and if they do, if they have any idea of who they intend to kill. Valenka knows that if someone had tried to pull a stunt like that only three months before, they'd have agents pounding on their doors seconds from hanging up. Now they have to do everything by themselves, and can barely trust anyone outside their closest circle. She bets Kratt's thinking the exact same. His hand is clenching the phone like he wants to crush it. "Put him on the phone."
"Well, I would, but," the voice drawls, "he's feeling a bit... down at the moment, and can't speak."
Valenka actively blocks her first thought. And the one after it. She doesn't need the imagery that is trying to sneak into her brain. She needs to keep calm.
"I'll send you a little video, so you can tell for yourself." A low ping alerts them of a received message, just a moment after. "Crack up the volume, it's a bit homely."
Fuck it, she thinks as alarm seeps into her bloodstream, covering her arms in goosebumps. She doesn't want to see this. She feels oddly lightheaded, rooted to the spot and ready for flight at the same time. She sees Kratt's eyes harden until she has the impression they could crush diamonds, tear down skies and gods.
"Alright, now you crack up the volume," he says in a terrible, growling voice, enunciating through the hard set of his jaw. They all over-pronounce when they're angry, to keep from slipping out of the common ground of English. When they can't do it, it means trouble. She hears an insult in German, a snarled hiss darting unstoppable out of his mouth; she can see his bone-white knuckles, his shoulders stiff with anger. "You bend a single hair on his head the wrong way, you will regret it. Have I made myself clear?"
Wrong move. Valenka slaps a hand on her mouth, staring in horror. Worst fucking move.
She can tell the exact moment Kratt gets it himself: a huff of amused breath on the other side of the line snaps him out of it, and she sees him blanch. Another faint ping, this time from Valenka's phone, tells them the call has been tracked.
"Yes," the voice taunts, "yes you have."
The call ends, and they stand perfectly still for a moment, barely breathing. Kratt meets her eyes and says quietly, "Tell me I didn't just say that out loud."
When he calls up the video, his fingers move in that overly controlled way they do when he has to actively stop them from shaking.
"You did, honey," she whispers back. When the video starts, she can't help but shut her eyes and press her front teeth to the fingers still on her mouth. She tries to prepare to hear screams and other horrible sounds come from the damn thing. She hears nothing but the crackle of low-tech recording, and the sound of steps. She swallows and asks, "Is it him? Is he ok?"
"Yes, and yes, apparently." Valenka glances at Kratt's face: he's still very pale but his eyes soften with relief. She dares look at the video, and feels chills on her arms again.
There's a figure tied hands and feet in a corner, unconscious, his head leaning against the wall at his side; she can recognise the shirt she got him to celebrate the first step of their reclimb, a tailored royal blue Oxford that fits his chest perfectly, tight but not constricting. Thanks to that, she can see that he's breathing. A bit fast for an unconscious person, but still breathing.
The video zooms in unsteadily on the pale, scarred face of the man they love, and the breath catches in her throat. It's him, it's really him; he's breathing, there's no blood. They probably drugged him when they took him. They put duct tape on his mouth.
They release an unsteady breath, and stand in silence for a moment. Her hands are shaking, but Valenka manages to calls up the GPS on her phone, gaining directions to the place they tracked. She can tell Kratt is still struggling to concentrate; she grabs his arm and squeezes once.
"It's getting to me–" he blurts out, running his fingers around the corners of his mouth in that same gesture Le Chiffre does when he's trying to hide his nerves. She can hear the panic seep into his voice; she squeezes his arm again, firmer. "And now... now I said– now they can play us– now they know it's personal– they'll–"
"Kratt," Valenka clips in her Miss voice. She didn't mean to, but his back snaps straight. She gives him a small, firm tug and they start hurrying towards the garages.
"Alright, alright," he tries again, focusing. He's not a man that gestures much, but now his fingers splay as if trying to smooth out a wrinkled tablecloth. She can tell that walking aids him, but also that he's fighting hard to think past the fact that their lover is being held hostage and that by revealing a personal involvement he basically put the knives in their hands. "We're by ourselves in this. If they want me to work the account, it means they don't know that he has all the codes memorised. If they knew, they'd have tortured him first."
"It means they don't know much of us." Everyone with a bit of game in their world knows that Le Chiffre uses his genius for more than poker. He was never very subtle about his strengths; he was never subtle about anything. A sudden thought crosses Valenka's mind, and she breaks into a run still clutching Kratt's sleeve.
"Motherfuckers." When they reach the staircase, she lets her fingers run down his arm until they clasp hands. "Like shit they don't know."
"What?" Kratt inquires, following her seamlessly. They reach Leo's car and Kratt rummages his pouch for keys.
"They taped his mouth shut– all it takes is someone lifting dust off the floor– if he gets an attack, he's out," she gasps out over the roar of the engine coming to life, diving on the passenger seat and plugging the phone into the car's system. She sees Kratt's eyes widen in immediate understanding. "They made the video and called you to make sure we give a shit. They're waiting for us to walk in there."
Kratt nods once. She watches his fingers dig into the worn leather of the steering wheel, sees all the fear and doubt get wiped out of him in the face of overwhelming priority.
He closes his right hand on the shift and yanks into reverse. The eyes tearing away from hers have the cold hue of cornflowers, the sharp edge of cut beryl. She reads that he couldn't care less if it was a trap.
"Buckle up," he grits out, in a whisper that sends chills up her spine.
