That had to be a signal, but Rake let the work talk go on. He asked her about snow tracking, and she knew things that interested him, the way the sun melted snow, how to read tracks on the steppe, and the talk moved on to how they got into their work, not married, no kids to put to bed, forgotten what a weekend was, Rake’s island home thousands of miles away, Nilla raised on a farm thirty miles south, family still there, the kind of foreplay conversations that rang warning bells or opened doors, depending.
Sometimes, at this stage, Rake would use his ex-fiancée’s name as his safety cordon, deploy Carrie like the ring he didn’t have because she had closed down on him. But Rake found himself in a screw-Carrie mood, at a bar with a beautiful, intelligent woman. He asked Nilla to his room. She took his hand, led them to her car, then her apartment.
Rake leant his hand on the door jamb, eyeing his friend, fellow orphan, step-brother, whatever the hell Mikki was. ‘You wanna come in?’
‘It’s not your house to ask me into.’ Mikki stayed where he was. ‘There are a million stunning women in this country, and you had to shit on my doorstep.’
‘Where’s this reindeer?’
‘Knocked down across the border. It must have got through the fence. Probably across the lake. Its markings say it belongs to a Norwegian herder. The Norwegians and the Russians have an arrangement to return reindeer. The Russians have just called for us to go across to collect it.’
Rake’s expression stayed flat. ‘You’re hammering on this door because you need to collect a dead animal.’
‘Told you life here was different.’ Mikki grinned.
‘What about this crossing we’re meant to be watching?’
‘I’ve heard nothing. They know where we are if they need us.’
Rake dropped his hand from the door jamb. ‘Give me a ride to the station.’
‘You sure Nilla’s not here? How in hell’s name could you lose her?’
‘Maybe she’s gone looking already.’
Nilla appeared behind him, clipping up her hair and putting on a police hat. ‘Hi, Mikki. What’s going on? You want coffee? Come in for God’s sake and close the door before this wind freezes the freezer.’ Nilla kissed Rake briefly on the lips and ran her hand affectionately down his arm. He had known her less than twenty-four hours. Spousal. Normal day around the house. Rake found himself not minding.
Mikki stamped his boots free of snow and stepped in. ‘The boss called. There’s a reindeer down on the Murmansk road, about ten miles across the border. He wants us to go get it.’
‘Is it tagged?’
‘A herder in Elvenes.’
Nilla made a call, speaking in Norwegian, namechecking Rake twice. When she finished, she said: ‘We’ll get coffee at the station and be there in less than an hour.’ She tilted her head toward Rake. ‘You can come with us. Not your weapon.’
THREE
Light snow lay like dust along the road to the Russian border. Nilla was at the wheel of a white and yellow police van towing a trailer with a snowmobile and enough space to take the animal carcass. She had the wiper on slow, sweeping away crystallizing flakes every few seconds. Mikki sat with her in the front. Rake was in the back.
‘See, there,’ enthused Nilla, waving her hand to the right. ‘Across the water, those hills, that is Russia.’ Rake looked through ice-speckled trees where snow was settling on a fjord of ice. Nilla swapped driving hands to point to the other side. ‘And that hotel. They have cabins with glass ceilings so you can fuck and watch the sky turn green with the Northern Lights.’
She drove, switching hands back and forth, talking like a tour guide, capturing Rake’s gaze through the rear-view mirror.
‘So, when are you guys off exploring Europe?’ she asked.
‘Day after tomorrow,’ said Mikki. ‘Oslo, then Paris. Never been to Paris.’
‘So tomorrow, come down to my farm. Do you dog sled, Rake?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Sometimes. Bullshit,’ said Mikki. ‘Rake’s done the Alaska Iditarod, a thousand miles – Anchorage to Nome.’
‘Great.’ Nilla slapped her hand on the wheel. ‘So, come to the farm, talk to our students. Meet my brother, Stefan. Meet the dogs.’
Mikki glanced at Rake as if to say, Let’s do it.
‘We’re close to the border now,’ said Nilla. ‘We cross under an agreement between the Norwegian Border Commission and Russia’s Federal Security Service. We call it the FSB. They handle internal security. Same as your FBI. I know the guys there. Norway and Russia get along well. We have not fought a war for more than a thousand years. Here in Finnmark, this is the only conquered territory anywhere in the world from which Stalin voluntarily withdrew. Big territory. Finnmark is bigger than Denmark—’ She noticed Mikki’s blank response. Who the hell knew the size of Denmark? Or maybe he had heard it all before. She caught Rake’s eye in the mirror. ‘New Jersey. More than twice the size of New Jersey. Get the proportions. Hitler burned Finnmark. Stalin gave it back to us. What do you reckon about that, Major Rake Ozenna?’
It was a flirtatious challenge. ‘I like places where people don’t fight wars.’
‘He’s holding back,’ said Mikki. ‘Rake’s an expert. He’s been lecturing about war. I suggested he became a detective. Instead he sends himself to college.’
‘I thought you’d been in Afghanistan,’ queried Nilla. ‘That’s not college.’
‘Before that. Tell her what college you went to?’
‘Mikki’s exaggerating like he often does,’ said Rake. ‘I did three months at a military academy.’
‘Which is fucking West Point, isn’t it,’ smiled Mikki. ‘My little brother at West Point.’
‘What course?’ asked Nilla.
‘Mid-career on leadership and social behavior.’
‘You took it and taught it, didn’t you?’ said Mikki. ‘They loved you because of how you handle the Taliban. They parade you, then send you off to another war.’
‘What a man of mystery!’ Nilla turned sharply in her seat as if she were assessing Rake for the first time, even more favorably.
‘Like Mikki says, post-deployment, a lot of guys get back, wanting to work out why the world is so fucked up. At West Point, they teach it.’
‘So, tell us, Nilla,’ said Mikki. ‘How come you and Russia love each other so much when NATO has got an exercise about to start where they practice blowing Russia up? Rake, what is it called?’
‘Dynamic Freedom,’ said Rake. ‘Next week. They do it most years, aimed at testing Russia’s defenses.’
Nilla laughed. ‘The biggest threat we have is Russian women coming across to marry drunk, no-good Norwegians. They live in Nikel, a few miles from here.’ She pressed down her window, breathed in hard, did the same with Rake’s window. Snow smacked harsh into his face.
‘Taste the pollution in the air.’ Nilla opened her mouth to expose her tongue. ‘Nikel’s a filthy place. Chimneys and smoke. Smelters. Factories. There’s a visa-free arrangement for thirty kilometers on both sides. The Nikel women come across, marry, wait seven years to get Norwegian citizenship, then kick their husbands out. Between Nikel and Kirkenes is one of the world’s biggest income gaps. If I were a Nikel woman, I would do exactly the same. If your stupid President lifted sanctions on Russia, we could do great business, from here to Murmansk to China. Instead people stay drunk and poor.’
A large blue sign appeared ahead of them. White lettering in English, Norwegian, and Russian read: ‘Schengen Border. Restricted Area. Border Crossing Only.’ Schengen was a vast area in Europe of twenty-six countries. Once inside, travelers could move freely without customs or passport checks, which was why securing the border with Russia was so important. Nilla pulled into a rest stop. Through two stone gate posts, Rake saw light-brown, modern low-rise buildings.
‘This is Storskog, the only crossing point on a hundred and twenty miles of border,’ said Nilla. ‘Away from here, there are posts every four meters. The Russian ones are red and
green. Ours are yellow with gray on the top. On the Russian side, they have a fence right along, but inside Russian territory, some of it just a few meters, some of it several hundred meters. They have sensors, CCTV, alarms. Bears break the wire, but the reindeer we’re collecting most likely jumped over because of snow piled up against it, then got hit by a truck.’
Nilla adjusted the satellite navigation screen. ‘We are here. A couple of miles back is Elvenes, where the herder lives. The carcass is on this road, E105, about ten miles down. The closest Norwegian settlement is Svanvik, here where I come from. My family has a farm there. Huskies. Tourist sledding.’ She turned to Rake, her expression tighter. ‘We used to have family across the border. Stalin moved them all to Siberia.’
‘He did the same out east,’ said Rake. ‘We had family across the water. Stalin moved them miles away and set up a military base there.’ Rake’s home of Little Diomede lay at the opposite end of Russia with no border markings, no immigration posts, no flags, no signs of any kind. No crossings allowed. In Europe they had called it the Iron Curtain. In Alaska, they still called it the Ice Curtain.
A gray saloon car, engine and headlights on, was stopped at the border. Men in uniform inspected. A truck pulled up behind it. ‘Switch off your data roaming,’ said Nilla. ‘Or you’ll get billed high by the Russian networks.’ Her eyes found Rake’s in the mirror. ‘You don’t have the exact right papers, but it’ll be fine. I know the FSB guys. Stay quiet, behave, and we’ll have a good time.’
She pulled out, gauging her acceleration against the weight of the trailer. A Norwegian border officer waved them on. Flakes drifted from a drab, leaden sky. By now the sun should be rising. Rake couldn’t see it. The light was like dusk. Fresh snow brought a quiet whiteness to the gray. They crossed into Russia. A black Land Cruiser pulled off the edge into the road. Its headlights flashed. Nilla flashed back. Rear orange hazard-warning lights blinked in recognition. The cruiser speeded up, steadying the wheel with both hands. The trailer juddered as it hit a pothole in the Russian road.
FOUR
Murmansk Oblast, Russia
The reindeer carcass had been dragged to the side of the road and cordoned off. Red tape was strung between six silver metal poles stuck into the ground like tent pegs. Nilla positioned the trailer against the tape, its end a couple of feet from the antlers. The Russian FSB Land Cruiser stopped behind her. On the other side of the cordon, two local cops got out of their car. Nilla cut her engine. The Russians left theirs running. Doors slammed. Boots crunched on snow.
There were two FSB men. Nilla gave a wave. One older in a civilian dark-blue greatcoat, a thickset man with a big smile whom Nilla greeted with a handshake. A younger one wore a dark-green military uniform with a hood, black lace-up boots, and a pistol holstered around his waist. Nilla embraced him with a kiss on both cheeks. She spoke in Russian, introducing Mikki and Rake as colleagues, no other explanation.
The carcass lay battered and twisted, frozen hard, pools of blood where its limbs had been crushed. A coating of snow covered the brown and gray hide. Icicles hung from the elegantly sprawling antlers.
The sun began to puncture through the dreary gray sky. Here and there, toward the horizon, Rake identified low sloping hills. Clumps of trees peppered the white expanse. Such a landscape with sunlight flashing back and forth could play tricks on the eyes. Rake took time. All snow was different, its powder, the way it fell, sometimes silent, sometimes in a gale. In Alaska, in Afghanistan, up here in the Arctic, none of it the same.
Mikki examined the reindeer. Nilla went over documents with the Russians. Rake gave them a wide arc and walked to where he judged the reindeer would have been knocked down. He crouched to inspect the lay of fresh snow, thin enough, if the light were right, to spot marks underneath. He waited until a swift glare of sun gave him what he needed. There were regular tire tracks on old ice, brushed near invisible by the new fall. He looked for new ones, skewed tracks, brake marks, something sudden and harsh that came from hitting an animal that size, something that would have been a few hours old.
Nothing.
Caribou or reindeer were always on the move. They traveled in herds, could be a few dozen, could be several thousand, but not just one, unless sick. Even then, there was a sense of family and caring. Others would stay with it. So why could he find no fresh hoof marks? He saw what might have been the marks of an Arctic fox, a five-paw print, and possibly a bear with a glove-like tread with five toes. They were old, edges faded with weather. There was a handful of reindeer markings, a herd from some time ago. The clearest showed four hoof marks. The rear ones fell slightly outside the front ones, which would be a doe. The carcass was of a stag. Tracks could be a week, a month, even a year old, depending how they had been pressed into the earth and ice.
Rake spotted distinct vehicle markings, tire tracks of a truck and a lighter vehicle like an SUV. The tracks were clear and heavily indented, meaning they would have been stationary. There were well-defined boot marks of human beings, imprints of soles sharp, edges clear, hours old. They were scattered. Some were covered completely, some visible to the eye. But they were away from where the reindeer was meant to have been found dead.
Rake stood up, brushing snow off his legs. Nilla and the Russians talked expressively, a lot of laughter. Nilla examined the buck’s ear where the Norwegian herder would have engraved his family’s identity marking.
‘You done one of these before?’ Rake asked Mikki.
‘No, but I heard them talking about reindeer retrieval and I know what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m thinking that the buck was trucked here and dumped.’
‘I’m thinking that, too.’
‘No reindeer hoof marks. Boots. Tire tracks. Why would they do that?’
‘The Norwegians pay the Russians for handing back reindeer.’
‘How much?’
‘I asked Nilla once and she avoided answering. Has to be worth it. They find a Norwegian reindeer, kill it, and make out it’s been hit by a vehicle. Norway pays. Money gets shared around.’
‘This is your first?’
‘First I know about.’ Mikki was about to say more when they saw two sets of headlamps driving north toward them. Nilla noticed them, too. Her mood changed, her face flaring. She beckoned Rake and Mikki. ‘We need to lift him onto the truck and get out of here,’ she said.
Not a chance, thought Rake. They were coming too fast. The buck’s weight would be at least 200 pounds before allowing for ice. It was no easy lift. They needed to be slow and careful so as not to damage the velvet coating of the antlers. If this were a money scam, big and expansive antlers like these would be worth a few hundred dollars.
Rake had underestimated Nilla. She took charge, bringing everyone round, shouting for the local cops to help. She jumped onto the trailer and laid down a tarpaulin. She instructed the younger FSB officer to help her with the head and the antlers. Rake and Mikki were allocated the right leg and haunch.
‘Ready?’ Nilla commanded in Russian. ‘One, two, three, and lift.’
The FSB officer next to Rake lifted hard. A sheet of ice slid off the reindeer’s hide and shattered on the ground. The legs were rigid. As Rake tried to maneuver them, he saw a frozen strand of something that looked out of place, not fur, thread of some kind. They raised the carcass high, smoothly took it in, and laid it on the tarpaulin. When the antlers were clear of the trailer’s edge, Nilla shouted: ‘Now, slowly, bring him in.’
The approaching vehicles were close, spraying up snow under the wheels. One was a white SUV with a flashing blue light on the roof. The other a military green armored vehicle that Rake identified as a GAZ Tigr, a smaller version of the American Humvee. They stopped in a way that blocked the road in both directions, the SUV to the south, the armored Tigr to the north, a slab of dark color against the white landscape. Nilla sent a message on her phone. She stayed on the trailer. The older FSB officer made a call. Three men in dark-blue military cold-weather clothe
s got out of the SUV. The younger FSB officer glanced nonchalantly at Nilla, as if to say What the hell? and went to meet them.
‘Which agency are they?’ asked Rake.
‘Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye,’ muttered Nilla in Russian before switching to English and meeting Rake’s Gaze. ‘GRU. Russian military intelligence. The FSB has problems with them, more now with the NATO exercises. It’s like the CIA, FBI, and the Pentagon having a public fight with guns in America.’
Copy that, thought Rake familiar with inter-agency fights over budgets, turf, and power. ‘But you’ve had nothing like this?’ he asked.
‘With an armored car? No,’ said Nilla. ‘We need to hold back and let them sort it out between themselves.’
‘Or we just go?’ said Mikki.
‘No.’ Nilla jumped down from the trailer. ‘But we get in the vehicle, just in case.’
The older FSB officer saw Nilla move toward the driver’s door and patted his hand in the air for her to wait. They stood by the hood. The younger FSB officer ended his conversation and beckoned Nilla over, out of Rake and Mikki’s earshot.
‘Does she know anything thing about the border crossing that doesn’t seem to have happened?’ asked Rake.
‘She doesn’t. Just me and Norwegian intelligence.’
‘This has got to be connected.’
Nilla tapped her hand impatiently against her thigh as she listened to the FSB officer. When he finished, she abruptly turned to go back. He put his hand on her elbow to stop her. She brushed it off and jogged over to her driver’s side door.
‘Get in,’ she snapped.
Rake heard an order screamed out, then a familiar metal-on-metal clicking. He turned toward the Tigr to see its heavy weapon being readied for use.
FIVE
A taut quietness fell. The sun gave a dull silver sheen to the clouds. The Tigr’s 7.62mm all-purpose machine gun ramped up the tension. It might even be a 12.7mm. From where he stood, Rake couldn’t tell. Not that it made much difference. A heavy machine gun on an armored vehicle commanded the scene.
Man on Edge Page 2
