Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

cartoon workers shifted as the car descended, their bulbous red noses and peaked hats giving way to icy blue skin and fanged maws. The troll-like creatures clawed at the stones with black nails and leered at the elevator’s occupants, tongues lolling between jagged teeth. Something about the image disturbed Gunnar. Maybe it was the haggard reflection of his own face in the glass.

“It’s a virus,” Ray said. “It moves fast. Things will be dicey tonight. We might get violent. Once that phase passes, though, we should be fine.”

Mimi muttered under her breath again and jabbed Gunnar in the ribs with a sharp elbow. The tattered Guns N’ Roses concert T-shirt she wore was several sizes too big, which was a change from the style Gunnar remembered. The tears in it revealed a small part of the collection of scars and tattoos that dotted Mimi’s lean torso. She looked better than Gunnar remembered, and even sick he couldn’t help but admire the sleek lines of her muscled arms and the swells of her thighs through her tight jeans. She caught him looking and tapped his nose with her knuckles. “I can’t believe you brought some psycho fucking plague here, Gun. You owe me big time when this is over.”

“More than you’ll ever know,” Gunnar admitted.

Mimi had saved him when YmirRe had chewed him up and spit him out. She’d scooped him up off the Strip and introduced him to people who, while definitely on the wrong side of the law, could put his prodigious size and particular skills to very good use. With her guidance, Gunnar had clawed his way up the criminal ladder to a very comfortable, very profitable job working for the Corso family.

And then his morals had reared their ugly head and fucked that gig right in the ear. Gunnar wondered how much of that mess had made its way to Mimi, and what she thought about him now.

The elevator dinged and its doors slid open. Mimi hustled out of the narrow box and guided the rest of them into a pastel subterranean wonderland. The only illumination came from pale purple and pink mood lighting scattered around the concrete perimeter walls to mimic the light of a spectacular sunset. Pastoral murals of forested mountains occupied the walls closest to the lift, and a swath of fake grass covered a wide section of the floor. Support columns disguised as fake trees jutted up from holes in the carpet, their thick branches spread across the low ceiling. A ranch-style home took up most of the space in the strangely decorated subterranean box. Gunnar peered through the kitchen window and couldn’t help but give Mimi a grin.

“You are now thirty feet below the surface,” Mimi said. “Nothing and nobody can get at you down here without coming through me first.”

“Who could afford to build a place like this and not use it?” Gunnar asked.

“The original house is older than you think,” Mimi explained. “It was built in 1978. No one’s lived here for a while, though. A couple of years ago, my employer snatched it up and went hog wild on the retrofitting.”

“That’s a lot of money,” the bodyguard said, then coughed. “Just who is writing your checks, Mimi?”

“Someone who might need a bunker in the event the bad guys go full gung ho,” Mimi said, pointedly raising her eyebrows at Gunnar.

A chill racked the bodyguard’s tall frame. He wasn’t sure if it was the virus doing a number on him, or the realization that Mimi was in bed with one of the spookshow government agencies they used to laugh about over drinks.

“Cozy,” he said.

“The good news is there are two bedrooms in that house, and another in the guest cabin around back. The even better news is that they’re not only cozy, they’re very secure.” Mimi wiggled her pierced eyebrows. “And I can lock them from the outside.”

Mimi guided Gunnar and the ladies into the home, through another seventies-style living room, and down a hallway with a door on either side. She opened the solitary door and gestured for Ray to step inside.

“I’ll lock all of you in,” Mimi said. “I’ll spend the night upstairs to make sure no boogeyman gets to you. These rooms don’t have their own bathrooms, though, so I hope you took care of that business before you got here. In the morning, I’ll unlock Gunnar’s door from the surface security panel, and we can have a chat over the closed-circuit TV. If you look all right, I’ll let you two ladies out.”

With her plan explained, Mimi opened another door, waited for Bridget to step inside, then pulled both doors closed and locked them with modern keypads set into the walls. She motioned for Gunnar to follow her, then went outside the ranch house, around back past a pool set into the concrete floor, and into a smaller cabin.

“You’re in luck,” she said. “This one’s got its own shitter. You can thank me for that later. If I don’t die from whatever plague you gave me.”

“Mimi,” Gunnar said, “you know I wouldn’t have come here if I had any other choice. It’s crazy out there.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, Gun.” Mimi sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “You better hope to hell I like what you have to say. We had a deal, and you broke it.”

“I never meant—” Gunnar started.

“I know.” Mimi put her hand flat on Gunnar’s chest. “Give me some time to cool off. Maybe I won’t hate you. Get comfortable. Sounds like you’ve got a long night ahead of you.”

“Wake me up first,” he said. “In case Ray or Bridget needs my help.”

“Sure,” she said. “What if you’re the one who needs help?”

Gunnar shook his head and stifled a cough with his forearm. “I won’t.”

“You better not,” Mimi said. “Get some rest.”

The bodyguard watched his old friend go, her swaying hips bringing back memories of much happier times they’d spent partying their nights away. When the door