Jonathan continued to peer through the rear windshield. “Please use a smaller road for the rest of the way,” he told the driver.
“Is there a problem?” asked the baffled driver, his English surprisingly good.
“Yes,” replied Jonathan, focusing his sights on one car—a dark blue Jetta—some hundred yards back. As feared, it followed Jonathan’s cab through the same highway exit.
“I don’t want trouble,” said the driver, lobbing a nervous look at his passenger from the rearview mirror.
Jonathan instantly felt his cab slow down a bit.
“Drive faster, please. There is someone following us,” Jonathan said anxiously, and then to calm the man, he added, “It’s not the police, trust me.”
The driver looked over his shoulder and gave Jonathan a disturbing stare down.
“Please, can you lose them?” Jonathan asked. “I will pay you whatever you want—the largest tip you’ve ever had.”
The man shook his head. “You better be telling the truth, sir.” He picked up his radio mic and spoke to his dispatcher, her replies echoing from the speaker below the dash.
Jonathan was now deeply worried. The gap between the two cars was closing rapidly. He leaned forward and asked, “What are you—”
The driver quickly raised his hand to interrupt his passenger. He spoke again to the dispatcher and then looked at Jonathan through his rearview mirror. “I call the station and say for her to call police for drunk driver behind us.”
Jonathan nodded and smiled. “Perfect.”
The driver resumed a higher speed along the suburban road. Jonathan glanced periodically over his shoulder to gauge the Jetta’s distance.
“There, you see,” the driver suddenly said, excitedly slapping his steering wheel.
A police car approached from the opposite direction. It passed them, and not a moment later slammed on its brakes and made a U-turn. For a split second, Jonathan thought the driver had called the police to stop him instead of the Jetta. But a moment later, the police car pulled up behind the speeding Jetta, flashed its high-beams and turned on its blue lights. Jonathan’s pursuers slowed to the side of the road and stopped.
“You like?” the driver asked, his wide grin taking up half the mirror’s surface area.
“Yeah, excellent.” A huge sense of relief oozed through Jonathan. “Now, take me to Nynäshamn. And please hurry, my boat leaves in one hour.”
The M/S Tjelvar was a huge ferry, painted white, with a bright red smoke stack. It had everything: restaurants, a small movie theater and shops. But Jonathan sat the entire five-hour trip gazing out the window at a calm, unimpressive Baltic Sea. A dreary gray sky hovered above.
Jonathan smiled momentarily. He was lucky to have once more evaded his enemies—whoever they were. But a fear inside him brewed: he might not be so fortunate the next time.
Jonathan had skimmed through a tourist pamphlet of Gotland, getting the skinny on a place he had never heard of until a few months before trial, when Allen had blathered an exhaustive Geography 101 of northern Europe. The island, situated in the middle of the Baltic Sea, some fifty miles west of the Swedish mainland and eighty miles from the former Soviet Baltic States, was apparently a favorite holiday destination for mainland Swedes—a bit like Pensacola or Biloxi for those from the Big Easy, Jonathan mused, only possibly not as warm.
Upon arriving in Visby, the island’s largest town, Jonathan rented a car and headed northeast along Gotland’s winding rural highway 148, past the quaint towns of Tingstäde and Lärbro. He then caught another ferry at Fårösund for a short ride to yet another island, Fårö, for the last leg of the journey to the tiny village of Hammars.
At the ferry dock, Jonathan asked an attendant for directions to the bed and breakfast he had been recommended in Visby. It was also the only guesthouse in the area. The man didn’t speak a lick of English, but he knew where to point. It was a matter of two long turns through a wooded area before Jonathan reached the place, a spacious L-shaped row of a half-dozen pristine square cabins, most painted white, one peach, and all illuminated by several outdoor gaslights.
Jonathan drove up the dirt road to the circular driveway. A quick knock at the door prompted a stocky, elderly man to answer, greeting his guest in English with a docile Swedish accent.
“Välkommen. Welcome to Gotland and to Stora Gåsemora Gård. I’m Hark, the owner. You must be Mr. Brooks.”
“God dag,” Jonathan replied, using one of a handful of Swedish words he had picked up in the last twelve hours. “I’ll be staying one night, perhaps two.”
“Stay as long as you wish. This is off-season, so we’re extra happy to see visitors.” He then lowered his bifocals, and added, “I must apologize. There is no phone in your room. But you can always use this phone on the wall.”
“No problem.”
“I say this because I assume Americans want all the comforts possible.”
“I just want a bed,” Jonathan said with a hearty chuckle. “And maybe a stiff drink.”
“Ah, I’ve got just the medicine for you. When you’re all settled in, come back here for one of our local drinks that will put hair on that young face of yours, eh?”
“You bet.”
Hark led Jonathan to the two-story peach-colored cabin. The second-floor apartment was a cozy nest, with a large bedroom, antique furnishings and a modern—if somewhat sterile—Scandinavian kitchen.
After freshening up a bit, he went down, armed with his thirst and a copy of the news article.
Judging from his glassy, red eyes and toxic breath, Hark had taken a shameless head start.
“I’ll give you a choice,” Hark said, lifting two bottles from behind the counter. “This one is my very own Gotlandsdricke—malt, brown sugar, hops, yeast, juniper twigs, only enough water to make it flow, made into a thick paste called lännu and then fermented. Don’t mind the color, it’s fairly safe—it’s only brewed here. Illegal on the mainland.”
“And the other,” Jonathan asked of the bottle with a semblance of a label.
“Brännvin, local vodka made from corn and potatoes and flavored with more spices than you can imagine.”
Vodka it was. Hark poured it into schnapps glasses.
After a touch of small talk and a few toasts of the wicked brew, Jonathan placed the article in front of Hark.
“Can you tell me more about this incident?” Jonathan asked. “I understand that a pilot was rescued by a fisherman from here.”
“Huh? This was years ago,” Hark said, his eyes as surprised as they were red. He adjusted his glasses and began reading, holding the paper at eye level. “Ah, Ragnar, the poor fellow.” He slowly shook his head. “He was a good man, a strong lad, beautiful children. He came back from fishing one night with a pilot—rescued, barely alive. He immediately took the man to Ingrid, our village nurse. The pilot apparently spoke a few words of Russian to Ragnar before becoming unconscious. Ingrid called for a doctor in Visby and in Ljugarn, but no one was available to travel so far north that night, not until the next day.” He put the article down for a moment.
“What happened to Ragnar?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes...it was very, very strange,” Hark said, gazing at Jonathan, and then returned to the article. “From what I heard from others in the village, Ragnar and Ingrid stayed up late in the night taking care of the pilot, but they got very sick, and Ragnar especially. And I remember later that morning seeing a large helicopter fly right over my head and land just south of town, along the shore. It had a red star on it—Soviet Army, no doubt about it.” Hark then chuckled and added, “An invasion, I thought. But then again, those crazy Russians already invaded Gotland in the early Nineteenth Century, and only stayed for a few weeks, I think.”
“What was the helicopter for?”
“To take the pilot away!”
Jonathan was taking copious mental notes, unfazed so far by the potent vodka gushing recklessly through his veins.
“Not muc
h later,” Hark continued, “an ambulance finally arrived, but it wasn’t for the pilot—he was already on his way home. It was for Ragnar and Ingrid. The medical team tried to save Ragnar, but it was too late. I was told he had a high fever and died.”
“But he was fine before rescuing the pilot?”
“Yes, of course. I think that’s why a coroner from Stockholm visited the village for a day or two, asking lots of questions, but then he left, and—” Hark suddenly interrupted himself, put his half-empty glass down and lobbed an odd stare at his American guest. “Why are you so interested in this...this old incident?”
Jonathan sensed Hark’s uneasiness, as if suddenly the man realized that a total stranger had come from so far away to ask questions about what might be the strangest thing ever to take place on his tiny island.
“Well, I’m a lawyer working on a maritime case back home, and for some reason what happened here might help my client.”
“Uhuh,” Hark said, scratching his chin. “Hmm...”
“My firm has been trying to piece together information, but we keep coming up against a brick wall, mostly because of the government, the military in particular. So we have to pursue every possible lead we find. I’m not yet sure how this piece of information fits in this puzzle, but I’d be very grateful if you would give me more details.”
“I see,” Hark replied, nodding a few times. He then smacked the counter with the palm of his hand. “I’m happy to help.”
“So, weren’t you curious about what happened?” Jonathan prodded.
“Of course, Mr. Brooks.”
“Call me Jonathan, please.”
Hark nodded. “You know, Fårö is a quiet place—has been so since the Stone Age! It’s the most remote part of Gotland, with a hundred square kilometers and less than six hundred locals with very simple lives. And only a few thousand visitors each year come by to give us something to talk about. So yes, when a pilot is taken away by a Soviet helicopter and the rescuer dies mysteriously, we don’t soon forget, and we get terribly curious.”
Jonathan could not quite understand why the pilot was so quickly turned over to the Russians, before he’d been given proper medical care. “Is Ingrid still in town. I would like to ask her—”
Hark raised his hand. “Unfortunately, no.” He glanced again at the article, fidgeting with his bifocals. “What this leaves out is that Ingrid died a week later—mysteriously, just like Ragnar. They are both buried at Fårö Kyrka, a church near here. It’s a beautiful place. Our most elegant landmark. Can I show you tomorrow?”
“Yes, that would be nice. Did you see the pilot?”
“No, but I know someone who did. She’s our well-known orchid grower, and she hears, sees and repeats everything. She’s...oh, how do you say in English?”
“The town gossip?” Jonathan suggested.
“Yes, that’s it,” Hark said and laughed. “I’m forgetting some of my English these days. I’m trying my best to keep up—rereading my old collection: Hemingway, Frost, Kipling, Russell. So, would you like to meet this talkative woman? She could be helpful.”
“Yes, please.”
Since arriving on Gotland, Jonathan had been tempted to call Gary. But he knew using the phone would be risky. Nothing was beyond the reach of America’s eavesdropping capabilities, and he feared Scarborough had the means of tracking him down if he so much as dialed a number back home. Jonathan had been lucky to roam about the island without being followed or hunted down, and he wasn’t about to jeopardize this relative safety.
7
The sky was gray, and faint droplets of rain slid down the windows. Jonathan took his key and small notepad and slowly headed to the main house. Despite a long sleep, he felt drained from the trip, from the stress of the assault near Dulles airport, from being followed in Stockholm and from Hark’s local vodka, which had just about dissolved his liver and left him with a hangover that would have killed a small animal. Not even this tranquil bed and breakfast could help him unwind.
Hark looked like he had been up for hours. His husky arms were busy flinging logs over a stone wall near the front steps.
“God morgon,” Jonathan said, experimenting again with his limited knowledge of Swedish.
“Hello,” Hark answered. “Had a good night?”
“Perfect.” Jonathan didn’t mention the hangover or the fact that his stomach was threatening to revolt.
“I’ve arranged a breakfast meeting with Tantina at ten at the bakery. You know, the orchid woman.”
The words were good to hear. Jonathan was not only eager to ask the woman questions but also to munch on anything at the bakery that would absorb into and soothe his stomach after the harsh vodka he had guzzled the night before. The last thing he wanted to do was to be remembered as the American who came, asked crazy questions, vomited and left.
As soon as Hark was done with his chore, he waved at Jonathan. The two hopped into Hark’s old two-door Volvo station wagon, a 1959 Duett, he called it. Orange, dented and festering with the scent of manure, the car was his proud possession. Hark wouldn’t stop raving about it: from which relative he had bought it, where it was made, how many pigs and other animals he had carried in it. And so they headed toward the village.
“Those are Gotland’s very own breed, dating back to the 13th Century,” Hark said, pointing at two horses behind a fence. “Known as Russ. They are still wild.”
“Are there other animals common here?”
“Lamb. Sixty thousand on Gotland—as many as people! We also have many, many hedgehogs and cows.”
Hark slowed down as he approached Fårö Kyrka, the church he had mentioned the night before. Its facade was a tall, square, four-story stone tower with a wooden spire. The church was surrounded by an old stone wall.
“Inside, there is a wonderful painting called Stora kuta tavlan, from the 17th Century,” Hark said. “It’s about seal hunters who were stranded on a small iceberg in the middle of the Baltic; they were rescued and lived to tell their story.”
“Unlike Ragnar, huh?”
“Yes, he’s buried in the cemetery behind the church. Ingrid too.”
The smell inside the car was getting unbearable and made his stomach even more uncomfortable, so Jonathan cracked open his window.
“Gotland is full of these churches, many Romanesque and several Gothic, mostly built by early German merchants,” Hark explained as he checked his watch. “We should hurry, we’re a little late.”
Hammars was a quaint coastal hamlet—essentially one street, lined with small one- or two-story buildings. The gentle sound of waves washing upon the rocky coastline came their way.
At the bakery, Hark introduced Tantina, the orchid lady, a rosy-cheeked, thick-boned woman in her mid-sixties. She gave Jonathan a firm handshake and uttered words in Swedish until Hark stopped her. They made themselves comfortable at a table near the window. By then the drizzle had turned into a downpour.
Tantina flicked her curly, grayish-blond hair off her brow and talked with Hark while Jonathan sipped his kaffe and picked his way through an assortment of cheeses and meat.
“Try the filmjölk,” Hark suggested. “It’s like a blend of sour-milk and yogurt.”
Jonathan obliged though he feared he might not be able to keep the stuff down.
“Tantina welcomes you to the island,” Hark said, translating for Jonathan’s benefit. “She also wants to show you her orchids.”
Jonathan laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Hark asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Jonathan said, not wanting to explain that back home, “orchids” is also a euphemism for someone’s privates.
Hark handed the woman the news article, as Jonathan had asked.
“Can she describe the pilot—what he looked like, his uniform and any other details she remembers?”
Hark chatted with her, but judging from Hark’s expression, she seemed to go off on a tangent. Hark sighed and turned to Jonathan. “She really wants to show y
ou her orchid collection. She says you can’t visit our island without seeing the huge variety of orchid species—some are even unique to Gotland.” Hark then shrugged his shoulders. “She insists.”
Jonathan smiled. “Fine, fine. But I need to ask her several questions first.”
Tantina picked up the article but only glanced at it before setting it down. She spoke fast, as if she had mastered the details of the incident, and was now professorially speaking to Hark. Of course, Jonathan didn’t know Swedish, so she might still have been yakking about her damn orchids, for all he knew.
As Tantina continued to talk, Hark helped himself to Jonathan’s notepad and began jotting things down. Hark’s face gave an air of renewed interest, as if she had told him something unexpected. He wrote some more as Tantina paused and took a long sip of her coffee, the steam rising over her face.
“After Ragnar brought the pilot to Ingrid’s house, Ingrid called Tantina for help,” said Hark to Jonathan. “Remember, no medical doctor was available. By the time Tantina arrived, Ragnar was removing the pilot’s wet clothes. He then carried him to the small examination room—nothing elaborate, like at a doctor’s office. As I told you before, Ingrid’s home was also our village clinic.
Jonathan, still feeling his hangover, sipped his drink from the warm mug and listened to every word Hark said.
“She says the pilot had short, brown hair and had a broken arm. He was unconscious but breathed on his own. Ingrid was hesitant to give him any medicines until she had a better sense of his condition. She was not equipped for much. No x-ray machine. No laboratory. Only simple things. Tantina held the oxygen mask over his face for a while. And she said Ingrid stood ready to give him a dose of morphine for his arm if he regained consciousness. It was a terrible fracture.”
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