Alexei nodded slowly. Intrigued. I knew then that she would accept.
13
OSLO. JULY
Gudrun and company certainly knew how to butter up their protégés. Sea Supreme’s base in Naxos is several hours’ ferry ride from Athens, too far to then catch a flight to Oslo on the same day. I found they had booked me a night at a swish hotel just off Syntagma Square, followed by a convenient morning flight by SAS, business class, to Oslo.
By the time I staggered off the plane at Gardermoen airport, well fed and watered, I was feeling no pain and prepared to agree to almost anything. It was a glorious day, temperature in the high twenties. And I was about to see Alexei. Absence had made the heart grow not only fonder, but desperate.
In the arrivals hall, as promised, was a man with a welcoming banner for ‘Max Bowen’. He was thirty-ish, about six foot, with brown hair on top and designer stubble below. Name of Holger. He took command of my small case, which he rolled at a brisk trot towards the short term parking.
“There’s a good rail service into town, but the nearest station is a little way from your hotel, so the boss thought a car would be more convenient,” he explained.
“You’ll see better sitting in the front,” he suggested, as we reached our vehicle, a silver coloured Toyota. Adding, “Servant in the front and master in the back is not our style.” His English was idiomatic and near perfect. In common with just about everyone in Norway, as I was to discover.
We set off south, airport buildings soon giving way to trees. A country of trees and rocks, according to Holger.
“Used to have a cosy little in-town airport at Fornebu,” he informed me. “But that was too noisy for the neighbours and couldn’t be expanded, so after the usual arguments they moved it up here to Gardermoen. An old military field, so they had a head start. Oslo has two more airports on the fjord to the south, used by Ryanair and the cheapos. All about the same time from town.”
I was enjoying his tourist chat and we were entering the suburbs when the summer’s day suddenly turned to night.
“Troll territory,” explained Holger. “City’s becoming too crowded, so we’re going underground with the trolls. They say the country now has over seventy miles of road tunnels.”
“A lot,” I said.
“More than a lot. We call ten kilometres a mile, so our mile is worth about seven of yours.”
“Must be confusing. Not having any landmarks to guide you.”
“Yep. Need to keep our satnavs up to date. They say you can sometimes see skeletons of tourists who’ve gone round and round, never escaped.” He glanced across and added, “Just kidding.”
This particular Oslo transport cave must have lasted about ten minutes before we broke surface again. Soon after we drew up in front of the Saga Hotel, a comfortable looking Victorian era establishment.
I thanked Holger, who said he would probably be fetching me for the return journey in a couple of days. Then went to check in. Got no further than a couple of steps before being attacked by a female dervish. Alexei.
Disentangling ourselves, she told me breathlessly she had arrived from London about an hour earlier. Gudrun was expected shortly to show us the city and eventually take us out to dinner, but there should be time to go to our room and ‘freshen up’. Alexei was looking gorgeous, the warm weather having encouraged a skimpy blue dress and sandals, so after making my salaams to the receptionist we went upstairs and were just about presentable again when the phone rang. Gudrun was awaiting us downstairs.
Back at reception I had gathered my wits sufficiently to be able to take in my surroundings. The Saga was a homely hotel, a late 1800s shell done up with every modern convenience. In the lounge, glancing at one of their coffee table magazines, was Gudrun, who got up as we arrived.
These days the embrace seems to be de rigeur. Male politicians greeting a lady always seem to envelop her in a bear hug, even though they may disagree about almost everything and loathe each other. I was relieved that Gudrun was having none of such nonsense, extending her hand the old fashioned way. Tall, slim, her blonde hair still cropped to a laddish length, she was unmistakeably female in white blouse and jeans.
“We sometimes go a whole summer without weather like this,” she said. “The Met men tell us it should last a couple of days more. Just long enough for you. So we’ll walk.”
This was an order, not a request, so we set off through what appeared to be the mature bourgeois quarter of town. Oslo’s version of London’s Mayfair.
“How’s Freddie Ricketts?” Gudrun asked.
It was a question I was keen to hear the answer to myself. Although Alexei and I had exchanged the odd emails, we’d both been busy, so I knew little beyond the fact that she had established contact with our target.
“I’m now one of Freddie’s Facebook friends,” replied Alexei. “My name is Nancy. And one of his fans.”
“Why not your own name?” I asked.
“The cyber-world often uses pseudonyms. You’re now talking to an entirely fictitious person. New email address. New everything. As far as Freddie’s concerned, Alexei Thomas doesn’t exist.”
“What if he wants to see you? Face to face?”
“Unlikely. Freddie is a social misfit, who’s scared of real people. Happy to fantasise via a computer screen, but won’t go any further. Anyway, if we do eventually meet, everyone makes up these cyber names; sometimes, dozens of them.”
“You hope.”
“What’s in a name? For all you know, I might not be Alexei Thomas.”
“I’ve seen your passport.”
“Spoilsport!”
“That’s the palace ahead.” Gudrun interrupted our jokes. “Through the palace park is the shortest and nicest way into town. And talking of names, see that fellow on a horse?”
We had crested a small rise and broken through the tree cover. To our right lay the palace. Ahead was a large equestrian statue.
“King Karl Johann,” explained Gudrun. “Sounds Norwegian, but it was at a time we had to share kings and he was in fact Swedish. Or, if you like, French. Because he started life as Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and rose to become a marshal for Napoleon, who made him Prince of Pontecorvo. Later, invited to become King of Sweden, he changed names yet again to Karl Johann.”
“Confusing country,” I said. “On my way from the airport a chap called Holger introduced me to your trolls. Now you tell me Norwegian kings are in fact French and Swedish.”
“Not anymore,” said Gudrun. “Now we have a king all to ourselves. A different breed, because his grandfather was Danish and his grandmother English. Come, I’ll show you.”
We passed in front of the palace, which was without fences or railings of any sort and guarded by a solitary and small member of the Viking race, dressed in a crumpled black uniform, bowler hat and a shouldered weapon that looked too big for him. His eyes followed us as we strolled past: would he have opened fire had I knocked on the palace front door?
At the far end of the palace stood a light grey stone statue of a lady dressed in a long skirt, hands held demurely in front of her. The inscription read ‘Maud. Norges Dronning.’
“Queen Maud,” explained Gudrun. “Wife of Haakon, Independent Norway’s first king since the Viking age. Maud was the daughter of your Edward the Seventh and so one of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren.”
“Making the Norwegian royals about as British as the British royals,” I said.
“And the reason you all speak English so well,” suggested Alexei.
“Like the rest of the world, we speak English because we have to. Crown Prince Haakon sends his daughter, our future queen, to a school that teaches in English. Caused quite a stir, but he reckoned it was necessary in the modern world... but enough of that! You’re here to learn about the Stockmann Institute, so follow me.”
Yes ma’am! We followed Gudrun down a path that led off the palace park onto a main road. A tram clattered past as we left the treeline.
&n
bsp; “Drammensveien.” Gudrun pointed up the road. “Main road leading to Drammen, next town down the fjord. Well, that’s what we used to call it. But they tell us it’s now Henrik Ibsen’s road. Named after...?” She looked at us expectantly.
“The playwright,” I replied.
“Well done.”
Gudrun beamed. Brownie points to Bowen. I’d never seen or read any Ibsen, but some half-hidden memory had come up with the goods.
“We’ve been slow to honour our most famous writer,” continued Gudrun. “Maybe because he didn’t much like us. Emigrated to Italy’s sunshine as soon as could. But there’s now an Ibsen museum across the road. An Ibsen road. And... let’s see if I can find it.”
She started walking slowly along the pavement. Head down. Opposing pedestrians diverted to either side. At first I couldn’t understand what she was up to. Then I saw it. Some paving stones were inscribed with what looked like quotations. Naturally in Norwegian.
“Ah, here we are!” Gudrun had found the one she was looking for.
The inscription read: ‘Minoriteten har altid retten’. Underneath: ‘En folkefiende. 4 akt.’
“These sidewalk scribbles are all quotes from Ibsen’s works,” she explained. “This one, from his play An Enemy of the People, says: ‘The minority is always right. Not sometimes right, always right.’
“Pretty subversive,” I said.
“Ibsen spent his life upsetting people. Over a century on, he still does. And you’re correct. Democracy, which can do no wrong, is based on the Majority being right. Ibsen is saying the opposite.”
“All very interesting,” said Alexei. “But what’s this got to do with us? Or with your Stockmann Institute?”
“The main character in this play was Doctor Stockmann.”
“Ah... so your institute is named after an Enemy of the People?” Alexei was quick on the uptake.
“Seemingly so... but Stockmann was Ibsen’s hero... Or maybe anti-hero... look, this is complicated. I wanted to show you this first, but explanations will take longer. Best done over a drink or two. Let’s go.”
14
Gudrun’s venue for explanations was a pontoon moored off a pedestrian precinct in the harbour.
“Aker Brygge,” she said, waving a hand at our surroundings. “Once a shipyard, but as industries were moved out of city centres they pulled it down for something nicer. Now we have harbour pubs with a view. My choice is beer and prawns - fresh not frozen. But it’s up to you.”
Alexei and I accepted our guide’s recommendation; then relaxed to enjoy the scenery, which was spectacular, the waters of Oslofjord lapping by our side. On the far side we could see Akershus fort; at the head of the harbour the chunky twin towers of the Town Hall; around us the comings and goings of ferries. Although the sun had disappeared behind the tall blocks of Aker Brygge, it was still warm and the natives were making the most of it.
Alexei brought us back to business. “So you’re asking us to join an organisation that’s a self-confessed Enemy of the People?”
Gudrun gathered her thoughts. Took a sip of beer. Shelled a couple of prawns. Eventually said, “Ibsen was the classic grumpy old man, who loved annoying the establishment. A contrarian, who never stopped asking awkward questions. Like that ‘sitat’ - that quote - from the Enemy of the People: ‘The Minority is always right’. Turn it round to the accepted view that the Majority must always be right and you wonder whether the old devil might not have been on to something. Because the Majority is all too often hopelessly, absurdly wrong.”
“The sun used to orbit the earth,” I said. “Everyone except a few crazy scientists could see that.”
“God insisted it was so,” said Gudrun, with a smile. “His disciples on earth, from the pope down to the humblest priest, would condemn you to the everlasting fires if you dared to whisper the ultimate blasphemy: that the earth went round the sun.”
“From the sublime to the ridiculous, what about the diesel dispute?” said Alexei. “Last week all the experts were telling us to buy diesel cars because they were ‘cleaner’. This week we’re likely to die at the slightest sniff of diesel.”
“The list is endless,” said Gudrun. “So-called experts are forever changing their minds. Turning somersaults. The Stockmann Institute is in business to try and bring some sanity to the proceedings. We marshal the known facts. Sift them. Change our minds if these ‘facts’ turn out to be fiction. Or if new facts come to light. Above all, we try and put a brake on bandwagons, another name for collective hysteria.”
“Bandwagons such as climate change?” asked Alexei.
Gudrun nodded. “There’s no doubt we are wrecking planet earth, but the Inconvenient Truth campaign has got us fixated on Carbon as the culprit. And apostles of that gospel get quite upset at any hint of heresy. They’d like to throw all ‘deniers’, as they call them, into the everlasting fires.”
“Are you and Stockmann climate change deniers?” asked Alexei.
“We’re sceptics,” replied Gudrun. “The world has always seesawed between warm and cool. A thousand years ago some of my ancestor tribe, the Vikings, settled in Greenland when it was a place flowing with milk and honey. Then came the mini ice age, which wiped out the Viking colony. At that time homo sapiens was still a small blob on the landscape, so these climate changes must have been natural. CO2 is far from being the worst greenhouse gas and we consider the case against it to be unproven. What worries us is that by focussing on this single possible problem we’re not paying enough attention to others.”
“Such as?”
“Littering the land and oceans with plastics, which will be around more or less forever. Overuse of antibiotics, which may make them all useless. Pouring out a miasma of obscure chemicals with unknown side effects. But our worst worry is the population explosion, potentially a greater hazard than any nuclear explosion.”
“I was rather enjoying sitting here,” said Alexei. “Perfect weather; great view; best prawns I’ve ever tasted. Then you have to go and pour Nordic gloom all over us.”
Gudrun had the grace to smile. “You did ask.”
Alexei, “And I’ll ask about my new cyber boyfriend, Freddie Ricketts. How does he figure in the Stockmann scheme of things?”
“Stockmann is doing everything I’ve just described, but we’re not just a passive organisation.,” replied Gudrun. “If we have to act, we do. In caveman days it was simple: when threatened you just fetched your club and hit the other fellow before he managed to do the same to you. The accepted way of doing business. Romans became top dogs by being the best with their swords, but when they turned soft the vandals moved in. We’re worried the West is now like the Roman Empire in decline. Too soft. No longer able to take tough decisions.”
“So Stockmann is wielding the big stick on our behalf?” said Alexei.
Gudrun didn’t reply at once. A prawn or two later she said, “If someone had disposed of Hitler early on it would have saved a lot of trouble.”
“Come on!” Alexei was indignant. “You can’t compare Freddie Ricketts - or Kuznetsov, for that matter - with Adolf.”
“Of course not. But people like Ricketts can cause a huge amount of damage. Maybe without knowing it. Remember the case of Edward Snowden?”
“Some sort of whistle blower?” I dimly remembered headlines from a few years back.
Gudrun nodded. “Hero or villain, depending on your point of view, but he certainly caused a rumpus. Worked as an American cyber spy, then proceeded to leak a million of his country’s secrets to the big wide world. The Guardian newspaper thought this was wonderful: made him man of the year. The Yanks were apoplectic, tried to get their hands on him, but he fled to Russia.”
“Ricketts doesn’t work for the CIA, doesn’t work for anyone,” Alexei pointed out. “So can’t know any secrets. How can he be a problem?”
“Like Snowden, Ricketts is a computer wizard,” replied Gudrun. “With a special gift for unlocking cyber secrets. A better comparison mi
ght be with Gary McKinnon. Remember him?”
Again some dim recess of my memory yielded a scrap. “Didn’t the Americans want him extradited?”
“Exactly. McKinnon is a computer freak with Asperger’s. A loner. Exactly like Ricketts. So no secrets to spill out. Said he was only looking for evidence of UFOs and antigravity, but managed to infiltrate the American military to such an extent that he wrecked some of their defence capability. Caused over half a million dollars of damage. The USA was furious, wanted him to stand trial over there, but the Brits refused.”
“Well, I can report that so far Freddie Ricketts has behaved himself,” said Alexei. “But you’ve said you’re also monitoring him for so-called ‘trigger words’; words which might spell danger. Any of those popped up?”
Gudrun shook her head. “Not so far. But we need to stay vigilant. We’re nervous about people with abilities like Snowden and McKinnon. And Ricketts. Norway is a liberal country, but we don’t believe everything should be public knowledge. For its own safety the Western World needs to have some secrets. Your Good Queen Bess would never have survived the Spanish Armada and countless plots had she not been protected by a first class spy network.”
“So you want us to keep on being friends with Freddie?” asked Alexei. “See what happens? Report back if we feel he may be up to something?”
“That’s about it,” replied Gudrun. “When we’ve finished here, we’ll go to a restaurant up on the quay for a proper meal. Consider the prawns and beer here to have been the starters. Tomorrow I’ll take you to our operations base in Slemdal. Show you how it all works: although there’s not much to see, just people sitting in front of computer screens. The main reason for inviting you here was to explain who we are. What we do.”
“The Minority keeping an eye on the Majority,” said Alexei. “Trying to make sure they don’t do anything too stupid or dangerous.”
“Ibsen had a good old rant against what he called the solid, liberal, bloody majority,” said Gudrun. “The fools who ruled the wise.”
ROAD TO MANDALAY Page 7
