Afternoon came and Rygg went for a run, up into the forest. It felt great to get his muscles working again, feel the blood beat in his head. On his way back down, he saw Lena sitting with her back to a tree. Breathing hard, he plopped down next to her and looked out to the west. Through the trunks, scraps of the distant sea flashed. For a couple minutes, they just sat in silence, while his breaths eased.
“I met him at a press conference,” she said at last, still looking at the sea. Her voice was quiet. “I was nineteen only. But I was on the other side. I grew up in soft life, in big villa. My father is businessman. Was businessman. Now he is dead. He was big businessman, and he do many … things, many deals with government, about oil, about I don’t know. But then at the press conference, I see Marko. He is small, he is ugly. But he ask very interesting questions. I see that he know everything, everything about my father and his work. He is very polite. I meet him to argue, we have vodka and argue. And in one evening I turn, from my father to Marko. At the end of the evening, I think he is big, he is beautiful.”
“How did you father die?” Rygg asked.
“He was shot in his car. This is common for businessmen in Russia.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rygg …”
“Torgrim. Call me Torgrim.”
“Thank you, Torgrim. But I am not so sad about my father now. Many people died because of him. Marko is my father now. My father and my lover. I do everything for him, because he try to help. What you do together, maybe is difficult, but he try to help Russia, to help the small people in the world. He is very brave. You cannot know how brave. He has many lives, many times death comes, and he makes escape. This was not the first bullet for him.” She touched her right arm, where the bullet had gone through.
“And what’s your role, Lena?”
“My role?”
“How do you help Marko?”
“I drive. I carry letter. I tell him eat.” She laughed. “He forget to eat.”
“I’ve seen that.”
“He says that cigarettes and vodka contain vitamins enough for a Russian,” she said.
“How long have you been with him?”
“Four years only. It seem like all my life. All my life.”
“You’ve been in Russia all that time?”
“Some time in Russia. But Russia is dangerous for us, unfortunately, so sometimes we come here, to Croatia. Or to other countries in Europe.”
“Where does he get his money? Who funds all this?”
“My father,” she laughed.
“How’s that?”
“My father was rich, you cannot imagine. But if he know how we use his money … his ghost would become crazy.”
That evening Lena loaded the fireplace with wormy apple wood from the shed behind the house, and they sat on dilapidated armchairs before it, drinking vodka. Lena cradled her glass on her lap, with her feet drawn up under her. She was reading a slim hardcover. Rygg reached over and tipped the book up so he could see the cover.
“Chekhov,” she told him.
He shrugged.
“Anton Chekhov. Stories. They are like life. Better than life.”
“Better than life? I’ll have to give that a try.”
She smiled at him and returned to the book.
The next morning Rygg spent most his time with Sasha in front of the computer, going through all his accounts – LinkedIn, Facebook, bank, email – making sure that he was up to date, that he’d replied to everyone as though he’d gone to Hamburg. Sasha made him feel uncomfortable. He seemed constantly on edge, one knee jerking up and down, and he muttered to himself as his fingers flickered over the keyboard like white moths. He never looked at Rygg, keeping his gaze on the screen or the floor.
“Surely they’ll be able to trace me to here, though?” Rygg asked. “They’ll know our ISP.”
Sasha shook his head, jerking his leg more rapidly. “They can’t find Sasha, no way, man. No one can find Sasha. This computer is like the matryoshka – you know, the Russian dolls? All inside each other. Maybe they can break the first doll. It would take maybe one month. But inside is another doll. And this computer is the smallest doll, hidden inside all the others, man.” He laughed, displaying rotting teeth that seemed strangely at odds with his porcelain skin.
By that afternoon, Rygg was teaching Marin the basics of Krav Maga, so he could use him as a practice opponent, when Sasha opened the window of his room and peered out. His face was paper white against the dark interior. He said something to Marin, and Rygg caught the word ‘Alpensturm.’
“Come,” Marin said. They went inside, and Rygg sat on the bed while Marin peered at the computer screen. He talked with Sasha for a while, then turned to Marin.
“It seems that our ship has reappeared.”
“Where is it?”
“It was off the coast of England, two days ago. The operator heard its call signal. The Alpensturm disappeared on April 7th. But now it seems to have reappeared, for a few hours, at any rate. It went past the Dover cliffs on the 24th. Yesterday.”
“So it’s out of the Baltic and is headed south. But to where?”
The remainder of the afternoon was spent in detailed preparation, going over maps and code words, again and again. He got Marin to test him.
“Are you sure you don’t want to just take a map?” Marin said at one point.
Rygg shook his head. “Everything memorized. Safer. Another thing – tell Sasha to use the computer as little as possible.”
“Sasha is very good. The best.”
“All hackers have big heads. They think they can’t be broken. He may be very good, but somewhere on the other side is someone better. So I prefer all communication in person. No one can hack my brain.” He tapped his forehead twice.
Marin had prepared a briefcase for Rygg. It contained papers, a laptop, a few CDs and a memory stick. He had Rygg look through the papers. Many were identical to ones he’d just been going over in Oslo.
Rygg looked through it, and nodded in admiration. The laptop contained his spreadsheets, documents, music, photos of his daughter. “You’ve done your homework,” he said.
Marin shrugged and jerked a thumb to the back room. “Sasha,” he said. “There are no walls for Sasha. We could look into your company and take what we needed.”
Marin placed the laptop and papers inside the briefcase and snapped it shut. “Now, this briefcase is like a normal briefcase, but it has two small differences. First, look here.” He turned the case upside down and peeled back the leather from the bottom. He pried at the corner of the case, and a little door slid back, revealing a slot. “In here,” Marin said, “you will place whatever the contact gives you. Maybe documents, maybe a disc. But for now, it contains an envelope with ten thousand dollars. This envelope you will give to the contact upon receipt of the information.” He slid the door into place again, then covered it with the leather and tamped it down flat. “And look.” Turning the case upright again, he peeled back the leather of the handle. In a recess in the metal, a knife lay. Its blue steel glinted. “You will never have to use this, I hope,” Marin said. “But it is there. To be safe.” He opened the briefcase again, flipped open the folder, and took out several scraps of paper. They had been roughly ripped from newspapers and magazines. Marin spread them out, and Rygg leaned over them, thinking they must contain background information. The articles were on oil reserves in the North Atlantic. Marin chose one of the clippings. “You will keep these together,” he said. “But this one is special. You see, it has the picture of the iceberg? This is the one you will give to the contact. He has the other half of the page. He will ensure that the two halves match exactly.”
Rygg nodded. Marin placed the clipping with the others. “Which article?” he asked Rygg.
“Iceberg.”
“Good. How do you feel?”
“Ready.”
Lena drove him back to Zagreb. Marin and Sasha had waved goodbye, standing on t
he steps of the farmhouse like a family in a picture. Rygg had the briefcase on his lap, running his fingers across the handle. The knife lay under the textured leather, like a scorpion under a rock.
“You are nervous?” Lena asked as they wound up into the forest.
“Sure,” he said.
“That is good. It is good to be nervous. It keep you awake.”
“I guess so.” One moment he was walking to a bar in Hamburg, the next he was driving through a forest in Croatia with a knife hidden in his fucking briefcase handle. He turned to Lena. “How did I end up here?” he asked.
“This is the question I ask every morning. How? I could be in a nice dacha in Peredelkino, you know, with my book, with nice samovar, with my nice cat, my nice handsome man. Tall man with big muscles. But I am with short man, he smell like cigarette, I have to give him antibiotic injection in his buttock because he is shot, always we are running, always there is danger.” She laughed. “But if you give me one million dollar I can’t go to my dacha. I will stay with Marko Marin. Why? Because he is alive.” She pressed her fingers together at her heart, burst them open like a blossom in front of her face. “Alive.”
He thought about the screen, the spreadsheets. He’d be working on the damn exploration application right now, trying to get it done before five. He’d head back to Drammen, collapse into bed at nine, and the next morning it would all begin again, the commute past the gray girders, under the gray sky, then the numbers rolling up on his screen, the stacks of papers on his desk. Savor this, he thought. Savor this moment. This is the real thing, finally. After twenty years of hell. The real thing.
They had an hour in Zagreb before they had to be at the airport. Lena parked on a side street and led him to a central plaza. She held his elbow and leaned into him to guide him, her slender frame tapping against his. They walked down a wide path bordered with tulip beds. Colossal trees lined the path. On either side were buildings with frothy decorations and carven stone heads on the facades. They emerged onto a large square crisscrossed by tram tracks. In the center was a massive equestrian statue. Lena led him to a café opposite the statue. “That is the ban Jelacic sculpture,” she said. “It is a big … it has big meaning for Croatia. In communism, they hide it, some people who love their country. Then when the war is finished, they bring the sculpture. They are very proud people. You see how they have built their country? After the war, this city was nothing, but now … beautiful.”
“What’s Russia really like? I’ve only once briefly visited the Kola Peninsula and it wasn’t much to write home about, if you know what I mean.”
The tea and coffee arrived, with croissants. She waited to speak until the waiter left.
“Russia,” she said, more quietly. He loved the sound of the word from her mouth. “I grew up near to St. Petersburg. Also beautiful city. Big streets. Canals. In winter it is very beautiful.” She looked into the square. “But Russia is now the country of the fat men. They eat the beautiful. They want only money, money. For them, people, the people of Russia are like, are like sheeps, to use for money. And Russia for them is only a, how you say, something to take from. To destroy. My father was like this. But Russia is the country of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky.” Her lips trembled slightly, but she sipped her tea, and when she turned to him, her blue eyes were dry. “Drink your coffee, Torgrim,” she said. “We must go to the airport, I think.”
April 9
Dmitri was leaning next to Ilya. Their hands were stained purple with beet juice, and the small galley was filled with the rich, earthy smell of beets. They worked as slowly as they could, extending this time away from the cramped room, slicing away the rinds, then chopping the beets into cubes. The dark juice ran onto the metal floor.
The commandos had been on the ship for five days. Things had entered a routine. The sailors were grouped four to a room, and mostly were forced to stay in, with the doors locked from the outside. Dmitri and Ilya were allowed to work in the galley. A commando loitered at the top of the steps, smoking. At first, Ilya, irrepressible, had tried to chat with Dmitri, but the guard had stomped down the stairs and shouted at them and banged Ilya on the head with the magazine of his gun. So they worked in silence. But today, as they were peeling the beets, another commando called to their guard, and he walked off. Ilya sidled next to Dmitri and murmured to him. He was in a room with the captain and Ludo, he said. He told Dmitri that the captain helped manage the boat, always under supervision. The captain had been forced to send a message to the owners that the ship had been hijacked. Then they had switched off the AIS. One of the commandos, according to the captain, was a superb seaman. They were zigzagging all over, so that even the captain had no idea where they were. The commandos used their own communication system, which they had brought with them – some sort of battery-run telephone. They spoke in a code that the captain did not think was Russian-based. Something was strange: eleven commandos had boarded the ship, but after the first day he’d only seen five. Dmitri thought about that.
“But there are eleven extra people on board,” he said. “I wash the dishes. I know.”
“But where are they?” Ilya said. “And another thing: Alexey and his short friend – did you know they have a room to themselves?”
“So are they with the hijackers?”
“They eat with us.”
“I don’t understand. Do you know where they’re taking us?”
“Well, the captain thinks it’s a hostage situation. They told the ship owners they want a ransom. He heard them.”
“Like Somalia.”
“Coming to the Baltic now. People are desperate, I guess.”
Dmitri looked down at his stained hands and shook his head. He thought about Ludo and his nose for funny business. Something was up, and Dmitri didn’t think that the hostage thing explained it away. The captain had known from the beginning, he was sure. And the gray brothers hadn’t seemed like hijackers. They were too solid, too professional, to risk their lives on a mission like this. He felt like a boy trying to fit a puzzle piece into the wrong slot. It almost fit, and he kept pressing, trying to force it, even though he knew it was just slightly off.
Chapter 5
Yuri
April 26
Rygg walked along Wendenstrasse, over the canal. He stopped, one hand on the railing, and looked down at the wavering reflections of the buildings in the dark green water. Leaning across the railing, he saw his shadowy reflection: suit, tie, briefcase – his daily uniform, which was now a disguise.
Walking again, he let the briefcase swing and forced his breaths into a rhythm. He knew he just had to act normal, but whatever he did it felt strange now that he was acting out his life.
He had checked into the Crillon-Hapsburg the afternoon before, and the impassive receptionist had murmured politely that he was pleased to give him the same room he’d had two weeks before. But it was not the same room, somehow. The view from the balcony was a set for the play he was in. He laid out his things – comb, razor, toothpaste – nudging them into forty-five degree angles, this way, that way. What would I do now? He walked to the Chilehaus bar, had a couple beers, chatted with the bartender. The beer helped, dulling his nerves. And a couple aquavits at the hotel bar made him feel like home. Allowed him to sleep.
But now he was following the script. The map was before his eyes. He turned right along Hammerbrookstrasse. Then left onto Albertstrasse. Then right again. He stopped at intervals, to tie his shoelace and glance casually backwards, looking for repetitions, for the same pair of shoes, the same car. He spent a minute in front of a shop, looking into the glass, watching the reflected cars, the passing shoes. Always watch the shoes, he’d once learned from a book on intelligence tactics. They can put on a jacket, switch bags, put on wigs, spectacles, but the shoes will remain the same. But nothing stood out.
As he was walking down Nagelsweg, he suddenly crossed the street and hailed one of the white, boxy Hamburg taxis. “Balduinstrasse,” he told the dri
ver. He stayed low in the seat for a minute, watching the cars in the rear-view mirror. Four silver BMWs swept past the taxi. Four? And here was another one. He shook his head. You’re in Germany, he told himself. They’re all silver BMWs.
The driver stopped in front of the glassed windows of a bank and said, “Balduinstrasse.” Rygg handed over some cash and got out. He strode immediately into the bank and stood looking out the window. Shoes passed, cars passed. He saw three more silver BMWs, and shrugged. He’d just ignore those. He checked his watch. Working backward, he and Marin had figured out that he had twelve minutes. But when he checked the watch again, twenty-two seconds had gone by. The second hand seemed to be creeping suspiciously slowly, and he turned into the bank, checking his watch against the clock on the wall: enormous spokes pinned directly into the polished granite. No, it was right. Must be his nerves slowing the time.
He turned to the window again, and leaped backward, clutching the briefcase to his chest. A woman was standing on the other side of the glass, not a foot away, staring straight at him. She was pretty, in a charcoal-gray business suit, a handbag under her arm. Had he met her in the Hamburg office? Or in the hotel, perhaps? He didn’t recognize her face at all, and was beginning to shake his head, when she leaned closer and pulled down one of her lower eyelids. She plucked something invisible from the eye, then blinked a couple times and walked off. His heart was pounding. “Relax,” he muttered. When, at least an hour later, his watch finally indicated twelve minutes had passed, he walked out of the bank, and around the corner.
He walked for fifteen minutes, first heading west along Friedrichestrasse, then north to the Reeperbahn. Prostitutes leaned against posts advertising Cats and a George Michael concert, their hips angled this way and that. The sündige Meile, the Germans called it: the sinful mile. But somehow the German propriety and cleanliness divested the street of tainted ugliness, and made it all good fun. Backpacker couples strolled together along the pavement, and three crisply dressed businesswomen emerged from a café, laughing together.
Chasing the Storm Page 5
