by Anne Holt
She was sitting in an office at the far end of the flat.
When the doorbell rang, she only just heard it. It rang again. She listened. It rang a third time. Quietly she got up and picked up the gun that Hanne had found and loaded for her. She left the gun locked, put it inside her waistband, and pulled her sweater down over it.
Something was terribly wrong.
XIV
Warren Scifford and Adam Stubo were standing outside the door to Hanne Wilhelmsen’s flat in Krusesgate, arguing at the tops of their voices.
‘We’ll wait,’ Adam said, furious. ‘A patrol car will be here any second!’
Warren pulled his arm out of the Norwegian’s firm grip.
‘It’s my president,’ he hissed back. ‘It is my responsibility to find out if my country’s top leader is behind that door. My life depends on it, Adam! She is the only one who believes me! No way am I waiting for a gang of trigger-happy uniformed—’
‘Hello,’ said a hoarse voice. ‘Who’s that?’
The door opened ten centimetres or so. At about face height there was a taut steel safety chain, and an old woman stared out at them with wild, wide-open eyes.
‘Don’t open it,’ Adam said immediately. ‘Please, woman, please close the door now!’
Warren kicked the door. The woman jumped back with a stream of oaths. The chain was still intact. Adam grabbed hold of Warren’s jacket, but it slipped out of his hand and he lost his balance. He made a desperate attempt to grab Warren’s trouser leg, but the older man was much fitter. When he pulled his leg loose, he also planted a powerful foot right in Adam’s groin, which made the Norwegian collapse and black out. The old woman inside stopped her carry-on when another kick to the door made the chain come loose. The door flew open and hit the woman, who was thrown backwards and landed on a shoe rack.
Warren stormed in with his gun in his hand. He stopped by the first door and pulled himself in to the wall before shouting: ‘Helen! Helen! Madam President, are you there?’
No one answered. With his gun raised, he moved on and went into the next room.
It was a large sitting room. There was a woman in a wheelchair sitting by the window. She didn’t move and her face was expressionless. However, he did notice that she was looking at a door at the back of the big room. There was another woman sitting on the sofa, with her back to him and a child on her lap. She pulled the child tightly to her and looked terrified.
The child wailed.
‘Warren.’
Madam President came in.
‘Thank God,’ Warren said and took two steps closer as he put his gun back in its holster. ‘Thank God you’re alive!’
‘Stay where you are.’
‘What?’
He stopped instantly when she pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.
‘Madam President,’ he whispered. ‘It’s me! Warren!’
‘You betrayed me. You betrayed America.’
‘Me? I haven’t—’
‘How did you find out about the abortion, Warren? How could you use that against me, you who—’
‘Helen . . .’
He tried to move closer, but quickly stepped back when she raised the gun again and said: ‘I was tricked to leave the hotel by a letter.’
‘I swear . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Hands above your head, Warren.’
‘I—’
‘Put your hands above your head!’
He reluctantly put his hands in the air.
‘Verus amicus rara avis,’ Helen Bentley said. ‘That’s how the letter was signed. No one else knows about the inscription. Only you and me, Warren. Just us.’
‘I lost the watch! It was. . . stolen! I . . .’
The child was screaming like it was possessed.
‘Joanna,’ the President said. ‘Take your daughter with you and go into Hannah’s office. Now.’
Johanne got up and ran across the room. She didn’t even look in the man’s direction.
‘If your watch was stolen, Warren, what is that you’re wearing on your left arm?’
She cocked the gun.
In slow motion, as if to avoid provoking a reaction, he turned his head to look. His sweater had slid down his arms when he raised his hands. He was wearing a watch around his wrist, an Omega Oyster with diamonds for numbers and an inscription on the back.
‘It’s . . . You see . . . I thought it was . . .’
He let his hands fall.
‘Don’t,’ the President warned him. ‘Lift them up again.’ He looked at her. His arms were hanging loosely by his sides. His palms were open and he started to lift them towards her in a peremptory, pleading gesture.
Madam President fired.
The bang made Hanne Wilhelmsen jump. The echo thundered in her ears and she felt her hearing vanish into a drawn-out whistling sound for a few seconds. Warren Scifford lay motionless on his back on the floor, with his face up. She rolled over to him and put her finger on his pulse. Then she sat up and shook her head.
Warren smiled and raised his eyebrow, as if he had thought of something amusing at the moment of death, an irony that no one else could share.
Adam Stubo stood in the doorway. He was holding his balls and his face was white. When he saw the dead body, he groaned and stumbled forward.
‘Who are you?’ the President asked calmly; she was still standing in the middle of the room with the gun in her hand.
‘He’s a good guy,’ Hanne said, quick as a flash. ‘Police. Johanne’s husband. Don’t . . .’
The President raised her gun and handed it to Adam by the butt.
‘Then it’s best that you look after this. And if it’s not too much bother, I’d like to phone my embassy now.’
The noise of sirens grew in the distance.
And got louder and louder.
XV
Al Muffet carried his dead brother down into the cellar and put the body in an old chest that had presumably been in the house since it was built. It wasn’t long enough. Al had to put Fayed in sideways, bending his knees and neck, like a foetus. Having to pull and struggle with the body repulsed him, but he finally managed to force the lid down again. His brother’s suitcase was at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. Neither Fayed nor his belongings would be staying there for very long. The most important thing was to remove all traces before the girls came home from school. His daughters did not need to see their dead uncle. Nor their father being arrested. He had to send them away. He could make the excuse of an unexpected conference or an important meeting out of town, and arrange for them to stay with their dead mother’s sister in Boston. They were too young to stay at home on their own.
Then he would ring the police.
But first he had to make sure that the girls had somewhere to stay.
The biggest problem was the car that Fayed had hired. It took Al a long time to find the keys. They were under the bed. Maybe they had been lying on the bedside table, and had been knocked off when he was trying to get Fayed to tell what he knew about the disappearance of President Bentley.
Al Muffet sat on the steps outside his picturesque New England house with his face in his hands.
What have I done? What if I made a mistake? What if this is all due to an arbitrary and fatal misunderstanding? Why didn’t you say anything, Fayed? Couldn’t you just have answered me before it was too late?
He could drive the car into the old, dilapidated barn. The girls had no reason to go there; as far as he knew, no wild cats had had any kittens recently. Only kittens could tempt Louise into the barn, which was full of spiders and webs that normally scared the life out of her.
He wasn’t even able to cry. An icy claw was hooked somewhere just inside his breast bone, which made it difficult to think and impossible to speak.
But who would he speak to anyway? he thought, emotionally drained. Who could help him now?
He tried to straighten his back and take a deep breath.
Fayed had talked about a letter.
Letters.
He could barely manage to stand up. He should move the car, remove all traces of Fayed Muffasa, and then pull himself together so he could welcome his daughters home from school. It was three o’clock, and certainly Louise was going to be home early.
His legs could only just carry him as he walked down the drive. He looked around. There was no sign of human life anywhere, except the hum of a motor saw somewhere far in the distance.
He opened the postbox. Two bills and three identical envelopes.
Fayed Muffasa, c/o Al Muffet.
Then the address. Three identical, thickish envelopes that had been sent to Fayed, at Al’s address.
His mobile phone rang. He put the letters back in the postbox and stared at the display. Unknown number. No one had phoned him during this horrible day. He didn’t want to speak to anyone. He wasn’t sure that he even had a voice any more. He put the phone back into his breast pocket, took the letters from the postbox and started to walk slowly back towards the house.
The person who was calling didn’t give up.
He stopped when he got to the steps and sat down.
He had to galvanise his energy to move the damned car.
The telephone kept ringing and ringing. He couldn’t bear the noise any more; the high, shrill tone made him shiver. He pressed the button with the green phone.
‘Hello,’ he said. His voice was barely there. ‘Hello?’
‘Ali? Ali Shaeed?’
He said nothing.
‘Ali, it’s me. Helen Lardahl.’
‘Helen,’ he whispered. ‘How did . . .’
He hadn’t watched TV. He hadn’t listened to the radio. He hadn’t been near his computer. All he had done all day was despair over his dead brother and try to work out what kind of a life his girls would have after this.
Finally, he started to cry.
‘Ali, listen to me. I’m on a plane, crossing the Atlantic. That’s why the connection is bad.’
‘I didn’t let you down,’ he shouted. ‘I promised you I would never tell anyone, and I haven’t broken that promise.’
‘I believe you,’ she said calmly. ‘But you realise that we’re going to have to investigate this. And the first thing I want you to do is—’
‘It was my brother,’ he said. ‘My brother spoke to my mother on her deathbed, and . . .’
He stopped and held his breath. He could hear the hum of an engine in the distance. A cloud of dust rose behind the hillock with maple trees. A dull, rotating noise made him turn to the west. A helicopter was circling over the trees. The pilot was obviously looking for a place to land.
‘Listen to me,’ Helen Bentley said. ‘Listen to me!’
‘Yes,’ Al Muffet said and stood up. ‘I’m listening.’
‘The FBI are coming. Don’t be frightened. OK? They got their orders directly from me. They’re coming to talk to you. Tell them everything. If you’re not involved in this, everything will be fine. I promise you.’
A black car swung into the drive and drove slowly up towards the house.
‘Don’t be frightened, Ali. Just tell them what there is to tell.’
The phone was cut off.
The car stopped. Two dark-suited men got out. One smiled and held out his hand as he approached.
‘Al Muffet, I presume!’
Al took his hand, which was warm and firm.
‘I hear that you’re a friend of Madam President,’ the agent said and did not let go of his hand. ‘And a friend of the President’s is a friend of mine. Shall we go inside?’
‘I think,’ Al Muffet said, and swallowed, ‘I think that you should take care of these.’
He handed him the three envelopes. The man looked at them without giving anything away, and then took them by the corner between his fingers and indicated to his colleague to find a plastic bag.
‘Fayed Muffasa,’ he read quickly, his head cocked. Then he looked up. ‘Who’s that?’
‘My brother. He’s in a chest in the cellar. I killed him.’
The FBI agent looked at him, long and hard.
‘I think it’s best we go in,’ he said and patted Al Muffet on the shoulder. ‘Seems there’s a lot to sort out.’
The helicopter had landed and all was quiet again.
XVI
There was only one hour left of Thursday the 19th of May 2005. The intense summer heat had lasted the whole day, leaving a balmy, still evening in its wake. Johanne had opened all the windows in the sitting room. She had had a bath with Ragnhild, who was exhausted and had fallen asleep happily as soon as she was put down in her own familiar bed. Johanne felt almost as euphoric as the one-year-old. Coming home felt like purification. Just walking through the front door had almost made her cry with relief. They had been held by the PST for so long that Adam had eventually called Peter Salhus and threatened to rip up the pile of confidentiality papers they had signed if they weren’t allowed to go home immediately.
‘I think we can forget the idea of any more children,’ Adam said, as he padded, flat-footed, over the floor, dressed in only a pair of wide pyjama bottoms, which had been cut open at the groin, just in case. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything so painful in all my life.’
‘You should try giving birth.’ Johanne smiled and patted the place next to her on the sofa. ‘The doctor said you’d be OK. See if it’s comfortable to sit down here.’
‘. . . proved to be a conspiracy in America’s own ranks. At a press conference at Gardermoen, President Bentley stated . . .’
The TV had been on since they got home.
‘They don’t know for certain yet,’ Johanne said. ‘That there are only Americans involved, I mean.’
‘That’s the truth they want us to know. The most convenient truth right now. It’s the truth that will allow oil prices to fall, in other words.’
Adam lowered himself down on to the sofa as carefully as he could, and sat with his legs wide open.
‘. . . following a dramatic shoot-out in Krusesgate in Oslo, where the American FBI agent Warren Scifford . . .’
The picture they showed must have been his passport photograph. He looked like a criminal, with a surly expression and half-closed eyes.
‘. . . was shot and killed by a Norwegian intelligence officer who has not been named. Sources at the American embassy in Norway have said that the plot involved only a very small number of people, and that all of these are now being questioned by the authorities.’
‘The most impressive thing, really, is that they managed to cook up this story so quickly,’ Johanne said. ‘Especially the fact that the President wasn’t kidnapped at all, but had “disappeared” in order to help uncover the planned assassination. Do they have scenarios like that ready, just in case?’
‘Maybe. But I doubt it. We’ll witness a masterful smokescreen over the next few days. And if they don’t have the stories there already, they certainly have experts in the field. They’ll put something together and tighten all the nuts and bolts, so that in the end they have a story that most people will be happy with. And then the conspiracy theories will follow. This will be a feast for the paranoid. But no one listens to them. And so the world will continue to limp on, until it’s no longer possible to know what’s true and what’s false, and no one is that bothered any more. It’s easiest that way. For everyone. Bloody hell, that hurts!’
He winced.
‘. . . expected that President Bentley, who will arrive back in the States in a few hours, will offer an unconditional apology to Saudi Arabia and Iran. The American people have been informed that she will give a speech tomorrow morning at . . .’
‘Turn it off,’ Adam said and put his arm round Johanne.
He kissed her on the temple.
‘We’ve heard enough. It’s all just stories and lies anyway. I can’t be bothered.’
She picked up t
he remote control. There was quiet in the room. She snuggled in to him and gently stroked his hairy arms. They sat like this for a long time, and she breathed in Adam’s smell and was happy that summer had finally made an appearance.
‘Johanne,’ Adam said quietly. She was nearly asleep.
‘What?’
‘I want to know what Warren did to you.’
She didn’t answer. But she didn’t pull away either, as she always had done before, at the slightest mention of the hornets’ nest that had hung between them since they met on a warm spring day almost exactly five years ago. She didn’t hold her breath, or turn away. He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t feel that she had closed up and was pursing her lips tight, as she normally did.
‘I think it’s time,’ he said and put his mouth to her ear. ‘It’s high time, Johanne.’
She took a deep breath.
‘I was only twenty-three, and we were in DC to . . .’
It was three in the morning by the time they went to bed.
The new day had just started to peek over the trees to the east, and Adam would never know that he wasn’t the first to share Johanne’s painful secret.
It didn’t matter, she thought.
The first was the President of the United States of America, and they would never meet her again.
FRIDAY 20 MAY 2005
When the news that President Bentley was still alive had made its way round the world on Thursday evening, European time, Abdallah al-Rahman had stopped all his usual activities and locked himself away in his office in the east wing.
