by Anne Holt
They were people.
They had not been recruited to fight, like the terrified soldiers through the ages who had faced death for a flag and a country they would never see again. The battlefields were no longer drawn up by generals on both sides of the front, who basically fought with the same parameters for victory and defeat: territory won and battles lost.
America’s new enemies were individuals, with an individual’s experience, greatness and flaws. They did not live in one place, in one system, and they did not wave a visible flag. They did not go to war because they had been ordered to, but because of their own conviction. They were not bound together by the same nationality and sense of belonging, but by belief and distrust, hate and love.
America’s new enemies were everywhere, and Helen Lardahl Bentley was convinced that the only way to uncover them and render them harmless was to get to know them. The first thing she did in office was to establish the Behavioural Science Counter-terror Unit. Their remit was to transform dry facts and random intelligence into living images. The BSC Unit was to see people where the rest of the extensive domestic security system saw only possible attacks and potential terrorists, bombs and hi-tech equipment. By analysing, understanding and explaining what made men of different nationalities and from different backgrounds choose a martyr’s death in their collective hate of the US, the States would become better at forestalling them.
Warren Scifford had been allowed to choose from the most talented people. The group of nearly forty special agents included some of the best profilers in the FBI. Every single one of them had accepted eagerly.
But Warren had begun to regret his decision.
When one of the special agents had wandered into his office six weeks ago, with four sheets of paper in his hand, and in a quiet voice had shared his concerns with his boss, Warren Scifford had for the first time in his fifty-six years been truly scared.
A Trojan horse attack did not fit in with the picture they had drawn.
It didn’t make sense. It was neither spectacular nor symbolic. It would not generate terrifying, unforgettable images like those of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. No hordes of people fleeing in fright and tears, panic and disbelief to frame in powerful TV images. The Trojan Horse would not attract attention to the enemy; there was no honour, no matter how twisted, to be gained from this.
The rest of the system had done everything it could to link al-Qaeda or related organisations to the Trojan Horse. Warren Scifford and his men and women had protested violently. Something wasn’t right, they argued. That wasn’t the way al-Qaeda operated. They didn’t think like that. And it certainly wasn’t the way they wanted to punish the US. As the BSC Unit had already been frozen out by everyone other than the President, what they said generally fell on deaf ears. After a couple of weeks of intense and focused work, trying to find a link with existing terrorist networks, without so much as a hint of success, it was concluded that Warren Scifford’s group had been right after all. Al-Qaeda was not behind this. The diffuse, incomplete information was therefore no longer of interest. The vast US intelligence apparatus received so much; there was almost too much to deal with. So as more incomprehensible and chaotic information about more potential attacks ticked in, every hour, every day, the Trojan Horse was parked in a quiet back alley.
But Warren Scifford was still worried.
And so was Madam President.
And now Warren was lying in bed in a Norwegian hotel room with a gnawing feeling in his belly. He read the memo for the fourth time. Then he got up and went to the bathroom. He took a lighter out of his pocket, held the document over the toilet pan and set light to it.
The thing that made him most uneasy was the feeling that someone was taking him for a ride.
For a few weeks now, he had been dogged by a nagging suspicion that the information was planted. Having thoroughly studied the document, which included all the new information they had received in the past twenty-four hours relating to the complex he had chosen to call Trojan Horse – searching up and down, left to right, until nothing made any sense any more – he was still completely at a loss.
The flames licked the paper. Small flakes of soot drifted down towards the white porcelain.
If everything was planted, the whole thing was a red herring. And if that was the case, the President could be the actual target. And in that case, they were facing an enemy they knew nothing about. Not Osama bin Laden, not the many terrorist organisations based in . . .
‘It can’t be true,’ Warren said out loud to himself, to interrupt his own thoughts. ‘No one has the apparatus to plant something like this. It’s too good to be planted.’
He had to let go of the last tiny scrap of the paper. He flushed the toilet. Small black flakes still clung to the pan, and he had to use the toilet brush to get rid of it all.
He went back to the desk and picked up a copy of the note that had been left in the President’s hotel suite.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ muttered Warren Scifford. ‘But when?’
He dropped the note suddenly as if it had burnt him.
He had to eat.
The clock on the TV told him that breakfast was now being served. It took him three minutes to pack up his office and put the locked suitcase back in the cupboard. Only the pile of coloured paper was left on the desk, with the three pens lined up like tin soldiers on top.
He put one of the mobile phones in his pocket before he left. It hadn’t been necessary to call anyone after all. And to be honest, he wasn’t sure who he should ring anyway.
II
The customs officer at Oslo Airport Gardermoen could scarcely believe his own eyes. The gang of Americans had arrived on a charter flight, but their arrogance in relation to the security and laws of another country still beggared belief.
‘Excuse me!’ He held up his hand, then took a couple of steps out from behind the counter where he had been standing getting bored for the last hour and a half.
‘What is that?’ he asked in English, with an accent that made the American smile.
‘This?’ The man lifted his jacket, so that his government-issue firearm was visible.
The customs officer shook his head in disbelief. There were more of them coming through now, all with that characteristic bulge under their ribcage. They descended on him, wanting to get past, but he stood there with his arms held out and shouted: ‘Stop! Wait just a moment!’
An irritated mumble spread quickly among the new arrivals, who must have numbered some fifteen or sixteen men and a couple of women.
‘No guns,’ the customs officer said firmly and pointed at the wide, low counter. ‘Put all your weapons here. Then form a queue and you will get a receipt for each one.’
‘Now listen here,’ said the man who had come first. He was in his fifties and a good head taller than the small, rotund customs officer. ‘Our arrival has been cleared with the Norwegian authorities, as you no doubt know. According to the messages I’ve received, we were to be met by a police office as soon as we—’
‘Makes no difference,’ the customs officer persisted, and for safety’s sake pressed the button under the counter that closed the mechanised doors further down the corridor. ‘I’m the one in charge here. Do you have papers for these weapons?’
‘Papers? Now listen—’
‘No papers, no weapons. Please form a queue here, then I’ll—’
‘I think it would be best if I spoke to your boss,’ the American said.
‘He’s not here,’ the customs officer replied. He had big blue eyes and a friendly smile. ‘Now, let’s get this sorted as quickly as possible.’
The American turned towards his increasingly impatient colleagues and started a somewhat muted conversation. One of the women took out her mobile phone. She tapped in a number with nimble fingers.
‘There’s no reception in here,’ the customs officer said gleefully. ‘So you can just forget about that.’
The woman
continued to listen for any sign of life at the other end. Then she shrugged and gave the man, who was obviously some kind of boss, a look of exasperation.
‘I really must protest,’ he said to the customs man, with a look that stopped the short duty officer from interrupting again. ‘There has obviously been a breakdown in communications on several fronts. To begin with, we were supposed to be met off the plane by our Norwegian colleagues. But instead we’ve been shown into this . . . labyrinth, without anyone to accompany us, and without knowing where to go.’
‘You have to go out through there,’ the customs officer said, pointing to the closed door.
‘Then I suggest that you open it. Now. This is an embarrassing error on your part, and I’m losing patience.’
‘I suggest . . .’ the customs officer said, with a slight pause that gave him enough time to jump up on to the counter, with an agility that no one would have expected of him, ‘that you do as I say. Out there . . .’ his voice rose to a shout as he pointed towards the arrivals hall, ‘other people decide. But in here, in this corridor, at this desk where you’re now standing, it’s me who knows the rules. And according to those rules, it is strictly forbidden to bring weapons into my country . . .’ he was nearly screaming now, ‘without the required papers. So please, start queuing, for God’s sake!’
He broke into Norwegian. His face was flushed and he was sweating. The Americans stared at each other. Someone muttered something. The woman with the mobile phone made another equally unsuccessful attempt to call for help. There was a pause of about thirty seconds. The customs officer hopped down from the counter and stood arms akimbo. Another thirty seconds passed.
‘Here,’ said the boss suddenly, and put his weapon on the counter. ‘But I can assure you, there will be consequences.’
‘Only doing my job, sir!’
The customs officer was grinning from ear to ear. It took him nearly half an hour to collect in all the guns and place them in the plastic containers that were stored on a shelf at the far end of the room. When he had finished, he gave a two-fingered salute and pressed the button to open the doors.
‘Have a nice stay,’ he said and laughed when nobody answered.
He was only doing his job. Surely they could understand that.
III
When Johanne woke up, work was the first thing she thought about. She lay there without moving and squinted at the morning light. She had just finished a research project before having Ragnhild and hadn’t really started on anything else since, so neither she nor the university would suffer too much if she took the two years’ unpaid maternity leave to which she was entitled. She and Adam had agreed on that, as they were afraid that they might not get a nursery place for Ragnhild. They had both been well established when they met, and could pay the mortgage with only one income. They lived a simple, quiet and good life. Kristiane was improving too. They were all in a better place.
Johanne liked the routine of being at home. Life went at a different pace when she was with the children. She had always enjoyed making food, and the long mornings gave her the opportunity to do it from scratch. They had let the cleaner go, and even the cleaning was now part of the contemplative boredom that she had come to appreciate. Ragnhild slept for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, and sometimes Johanne felt that she really had time to think, for the first time in years.
It was a good life. For a while.
Maybe that time was over now.
Suddenly the idea of quiet mornings in the house was not so appealing. She listened for the sound of Ragnhild’s chattering, but then remembered that the one-year-old was still with her grandparents. She felt unusually stiff. Slowly she stretched her arms over her head and turned over.
Adam wasn’t there.
It was not like her to sleep so heavily. She usually woke up several times during the night, and would be wide awake within seconds if there was the slightest noise from the kids.
She sat bolt upright, cocked her head and held her breath so she could listen better. But the only thing she could hear was a car engine idling some way off and the spring chirping of ecstatic birds outside the bedroom window.
‘Adam?’
She got up and pulled on her dressing gown, then padded out to the kitchen. The clock on the cooker said it was nearly quarter past eight. Silence everywhere. There was a half-finished cup of coffee on the worktop. When she picked it up, she could feel it was still warm, so it wasn’t long since he’d left. There was a note beside the cup.
My love, I have to do my job, I’m sure you understand. And when you don’t even give me a good reason to try to get out of it, I have no choice other than to go. Not easy to say when I’ll be home, as I don’t even know what the job entails. I’ll ring as soon as I can. Your Adam.
Johanne took a sip of the lukewarm coffee.
Adam was going to be Warren’s liaison. She had asked him not to. She had threatened him with what she thought was his worst nightmare. And yet he had got up as she slept, quietly made some coffee, written a short, cool note, then slipped out.
She stood with the sheet of paper in one hand and the cup in the other for a long time.
She couldn’t go to her parents. Her mother would just get hysterical and her father would take it to heart, as he always did when the world was against him. Johanne often wondered if her parents were fonder of Adam than they were of her. Her mother certainly always bragged about him to anyone who bothered to listen. Adam was showered with attention by his in-laws, and he was the one who got all the honour every time Ragnhild impressed anyone with her language and motor skills.
‘It’s actually me who’s at home with her all the time,’ Johanne would sigh, before masking her irritation with a smile.
She couldn’t go to her sister’s either. Marie’s perfection had become an insurmountable hurdle between them. She was beautiful, well dressed and childless. The very thought of invading her harbourside flat with baby food and smelly nappies made Johanne hyperventilate.
She read the short note again. The letters became unclear. She tried to blink away the tears. They coursed their way down her nose and she wiped away some snot on her sleeve.
When they had gone to bed the night before, she had been certain that he had understood. He had snuggled up to her in bed, without saying a word, his hands warm and strong, just the way she loved them. Adam knew that she needed protection and that Warren Scifford must not be allowed anywhere near their safe, routined life in Haugesvei. When he stroked her hair, she had been convinced that he realised all this. She was certain that she’d seen the acknowledgement in his eyes that Warren’s very presence threatened all that they had that was beautiful and true and pure. And she had fallen into a deep, blissful sleep.
Then Adam had just left.
He hadn’t taken her threat seriously. He hadn’t taken her seriously. Well, he was going to find out how just serious she was.
Johanne packed the bare necessities. She folded enough clothes for a few days for herself and their younger daughter, and put them in a small suitcase.
‘Kristiane can stay with Isak,’ she whispered to herself as she tried to stop crying. She had to collect Ragnhild. Her mother would immediately notice her red eyes, the way she always noticed when anything was wrong with her daughter.
‘Pull yourself together,’ Johanne hissed and sniffed.
She didn’t know where to go. But she continued to pack. The suitcase was eventually so full that she struggled to close it. With some florid language and a forceful arm she finally managed to zip it up.
She had to seek refuge with someone who would leave her in peace. Not her family, or friends. She couldn’t go to anyone who might tell her how childish and irresponsible her behaviour was. She didn’t want to go to anyone who might state the obvious: that the drama would be over in a few days, and that she wouldn’t leave Adam, so she might as well go home again. And under no circumstances would she go to Line, her sociable best friend, who wo
uld undoubtedly drum up a party in the belief that there wasn’t a problem in the world that couldn’t be fixed with good food, good friends and buckets of drink.
The wind still felt cool as Johanne locked the front door behind her, even though the garden was bathed in sunlight. Then it struck her: there was only one place to go.
She dried her tears and forced a smile to a neighbour who waved to her from the road. Then she took a deep breath and got into the car. She had to collect Ragnhild. She should be able to think up a plausible lie for her mother as she drove over.
Johanne didn’t feel any better about things, but at least she knew where she was going.
IV
It was half past two in the morning in Farmington, Maine.
Al Muffet had been woken by a dream he couldn’t remember. It was impossible to get back to sleep. His sheets were sweaty against his skin and his quilt had bunched into a nest at his feet. He changed position. It didn’t help.
He had watched the news on TV all day. The disappearance of the President had shaken him as much as it had shocked the rest of the nation, but he also felt an inexplicable twinge of alarm.
His brother had phoned.
The last time his brother had called was three years ago, when their mother was dying. A stroke had stopped the industrious woman in her tracks, and she only had a matter of hours left. He had caught the first flight back to Chicago, but got there too late. His mother was already laid out in an open coffin, beautifully made up and dressed in her finest.
