Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

  Swiftly, Sasha flicked through the pictures of Marin. He brought up the first of the images from the room in the Ministry of Defense, expanding it so it filled the screen. And instantly Rygg was back in the room. He could taste the adrenalin like a bitter spice.

  Marin and Sasha bent to the screen and peered at the image for a long time. Then they moved through the other three. The first and last ones seemed the most fruitful. The second was tilted, and just caught a corner of the whiteboard. The third, for some reason, was blurry. They returned to the first one. Marin circled three areas: the whiteboard at the back of the room, a pad of paper under one man’s elbow, and a computer screen. They flipped over to the last image. Here, Rygg had caught what looked like a television screen on the left side of the room. Marin tapped that. Bringing up a graphics program, Sasha moved the images over, chopped out the sections Marin desired, and blew them up.

  For the next couple hours, Marin and Sasha pored over the images. On the whiteboard were numbers and a few diagrams. It looked like algebra to Rygg. He’d never been good at algebra. For a while, he watched their discussions. They brought up various internet sites – Sasha had somehow hooked into a nearby net café, bypassing the password – and peered at numbers. Finally, Rygg went and got Anna Karenina and took it to the balcony of Sasha’s room. He’d read a chapter when Lena dragged a chair out to the balcony and sat reading her own book. “How you like Anna Karenina?” she asked.

  “It’s great,” he said. “Slow, but it really takes you into the world. I like Levin.”

  “Lyoovin,” she said.

  “Oh. Right. Lyovin. Yes, he’s an interesting character. Bumbling, but loveable. What are you reading?”

  She showed him. It was Hunger, by Knut Hamsun. “I think, if I am friends with Norwegian, I must read Norwegian book.”

  “Well, you let me know how it is. I’ve never gotten around to it, I’m afraid.”

  Marin came to lean on the balustrade, looking down over the busy street. “So how’s it going?” Rygg asked.

  Marin shook his head. “I think we have analyzed all the information. It doesn’t look promising, unfortunately. The whiteboard numbers are all to do with data from a certain factory in the Urals – useful, but nothing interesting, nothing to do with our quest. One man appeared to be checking his email on his laptop, and the other screen, the screen from the third image, is just ordinary satellite television.”

  “Hey, sorry about it.”

  “No. I am sorry to have put you through the trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Marko. It was an adventure.” He was feeling magnanimous now that his wounds were bandaged and he was on the antibiotics.

  “We will have another deeper look at the images. Maybe there is something we missed.”

  Rygg and Lena went back in and stood by while they peered at the images again, this time zooming around at six hundred percent resolution. It was Lena who stopped them as they were panning across the second image. She pointed to the glasses on one of the men. He was sitting on the far side of the table, looking up at the camera. Sasha zoomed in. The glasses were huge, square-framed horrors, like those worn by African dictators. On the right lens, they could see the reflected image of the man’s laptop. Sasha zoomed closer. Then his knee started bouncing. Cutting out the reflection, he pasted it into the graphics program, flipped it, and enlarged it. More numbers, barely legible.

  “Okay, okay. Thank you, Lena,” Marin said. “We will examine these.”

  Crunching the new numbers took another couple chapters of Anna Karenina, and night had fallen by the time Marin, in a state of great glee, called Rygg and Lena in from the balcony. He had covered a piece of paper with scribbles.

  “We found it!” he exclaimed. “Look!”

  They looked at his scribbles. Lena frowned. “You’re going to have to explain this to us,” Rygg said.

  And so he did. It took half an hour. The man had been looking at a screen of data related to the Alpensturm and the various Russian military ships and submarines that had been sent to intercept it. It gave positions, code names, and the names of the commanding officers. “Wow. Fabulous!” said Rygg.

  “Yes. Fabulous indeed,” Marin beamed. “Now we know exactly where the Alpensturm is, and when it will be intercepted. But there is something more. Much more important, in fact. Look at this.”

  Seizing the mouse from Sasha, he pulled up the reflected image of the laptop. Beside it, almost concealed by the screen, was a small notebook. On the open page was a single scrawl. It looked like a fat bar of ink. “It took us nearly forty minutes to decipher this,” Marin said. He brought up another image, of the ink bar enlarged and clarified. “It is a telephone number. A telephone number that we were able to trace – in fact, Sasha called it a few minutes ago. It is the number of Yashka Baron.”

  “And who is Yashka Baron?”

  “Yashka Baron, my friend, is one of the leading officers in Mossad.”

  “Mossad.” Rygg nodded slowly. “So you think …”

  “Yes. I think, though I am not sure, that the hijackers are Mossad agents.”

  “Dæven steike! Mossad! So they boarded the ship, to try and stop …”

  “This is what I am beginning to think. The shipment must have been destined for some country that is not friendly to Israel. Mossad realized what was happening and boarded the ship. They are now, probably, in negotiations with the Russian government. Highly sensitive negotiations, which is why, I presume, Sokolov was so eager to learn what we had uncovered, and then get us out of the way.”

  “So where were the missiles headed, you think?”

  “Yes. There are only actually three possibilities. The first is Libya. The second is Syria. The third is Iran.”

  “What about Egypt?”

  “Egypt, you forget, is friendly with America. They have no need of Russian weapons.”

  “So who do you think it is?”

  Marin sat on the bed. He took the paper with his scrawls and smoothed it over his thighs. “I think,” he said. “I think that it is not Libya. They have too much to lose at this point, internationally. Though Gaddafi is a fool. But I do not think they would risk their reputation, after Lockerbie. Syria? Maybe. But we are talking about a billion dollars. A billion dollars in missiles. I don’t think Syria would be able to afford it.”

  “So it’s Iran.”

  “I think it is Iran, yes. I am not absolutely sure, but that is what I think.”

  “So are we done? We know what’s on the boat, where the missiles are going, who the hijackers are …”

  Marin shook his head a little sadly. “Unfortunately, we know almost nothing, Torgrim. I must have concrete evidence of the Israeli involvement. And then we must find out what will happen with the missiles.”

  “And how are we going to get that info?”

  Marin looked into the night. “I have no idea.”

  “Give me that phone,” Rygg said.

  “Why?”

  “Just give me the fucking phone. I need to make a call.” Dredging the number from his memory, he let the phone ring twice, hung up, called again, letting it ring seven times, hung up, and called again. On the tenth ring, a low, accented voice answered.

  “Hello,” the voice said cautiously. “This is Abdallah from Sakkara Travel.”

  “Abdallah. I’ll be making a trip to Luxor tomorrow at 11 a.m. Can you organize that?”

  “Of course. Good to hear your voice again.”

  Rygg hung up and looked at the Russians. He nodded. “I think I might have something for you,” he told them.

  Chapter 17

  Youssef

  May 12

  The next morning, careering through the streets in a black-and-white taxi, Rygg caught a glimpse of Lena in one of the half-dozen mirrors that spangled the windscreen. She was gripping the seat-back in front of her and her face wore a permanent grimace. Marin’s arms were clutched to his chest. Rygg glanced back at them and laughed. “The best thing to d
o,” he said, “is just to sit back and relax. If there is an accident, you are better if you are relaxed. Anyway, I’ve found that there is a strange pattern here. There are fewer accidents than you think.”

  The driver was talking on his cell phone and chain-smoking. When he needed to shift, he’d steer with his knee. Several times they became immobilized in traffic jams, and then he went nuts, banging on the horn every five seconds, leaning out of the window and cursing all and sundry.

  “What’s he saying?” Marin asked.

  “Ah. Yes. He is informing the gentleman in front of him that his mother is a dog and that he has personally had sex with her from the rear entry.”

  They’d had breakfast at eight, which was about two hours earlier than most Egyptians. Sasha had joined them for breakfast, but declined the excursion, saying he’d rather stay inside playing video games.

  It took them an hour to get to the outskirts of the city. They drove over the ridge on which perched the Citadel – Saladin’s palace. Past the Citadel, they got onto an overpass. Below them, on either side of the road, was a vast sunken area textured with dun towers and domes. “The City of the Dead,” Rygg said. “This is our destination.”

  “The City of the Dead?” Marin asked. “Are we going to visit a ghost?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps we are. It is, in fact, a gigantic cemetery. One of the largest in the world. For many thousand years, the rich people of Cairo buried their dead in tombs, which were more like huge houses. And in their tradition, they must come once a year to eat a meal among the bones. But then, as the city grew, there was no more space. The poor people began to enter the City of the Dead, and to live among the bones. Now it is just another quarter, with the dead and the living side by side.”

  The taxi veered down among the tombs. There was less traffic here, and what traffic there was seemed to be mostly donkey carts and bicycles. Snot-nosed kids played in the street with balls of knotted plastic bags. Cats – all missing an ear, a leg, or an eye – nosed about in garbage heaps. An obese rat gamboled across the road in front of them at one point. The driver swerved to try to hit it, but the rat put on a burst of speed and managed to waddle into a doorway.

  They wound through the tombs for a while, Rygg directing the driver. Some of the structures had crumbled. Others had portions of walls repaired with flattened tin cans or nail-studded boards. Through the arched doorways they caught slivers of life: a man smoking a sheesha and watching a football game on a black-and-white television; a woman smacking a naked child; the yellow maw of an oven within which baking pita bread puffed; a young girl gnawing on a cucumber the size of her arm.

  Rygg stopped the driver and they all piled out. He passed a handful of cash through the window and grabbed Lena and Marin’s arms. The driver howled and honked behind them. In the corner of his eye, Rygg saw Marin and Lena staring at him.

  What was that all about? Marin wondered.

  “Ignore him,” Rygg said. “I gave him a little more than I should have and he thinks that by crying he can get even more.”

  They wandered among the tombs for a quarter of an hour. A couple kids darted out of a house at one point and hurled stones at them. One whizzed past Rygg’s nose. A blind beggar whined before trying to whack them with his stick for ignoring him.

  As they passed the entrance to one tomb an ancient crone sitting on the steps, her chin tattooed, held a hand to her face as they walked past. “She is averting the evil eye,” Rygg told them. “She thinks we are afriit – people from the spirit world.”

  They climbed up toward the Citadel and finally stopped in front of a huge tomb with an iron gate. Rygg peered inside at the courtyard. It was swept, but appeared entirely empty. He reached through the iron scrollwork, seized a huge rusted padlock, and banged it against the gate a couple times. A few seconds later, a tall man with a black-and-white checked headscarf and a machine gun around his neck emerged from a side door. He came up to the gate and pointed the gun at them. Rygg spoke to him in Arabic. Without a word and betraying no change in expression, the man swiveled and went back into the tomb. Five minutes later, another man emerged. He was bearded and barefoot and wore a light purple robe. He unlocked the gate and ushered them inside.

  “Quickly,” he said, leading them across the courtyard and through the side door, into the tomb.

  Inside, he turned and beamed, embraced Rygg. “My friend, how you have been?” he asked. “Why you not tell me you are coming?”

  “It was a bit of a surprise for me as well,” Rygg said.

  “Are you still in the FSK my friend or are you a private contractor now like so many others these days?”

  “Nah. I quit the FSK the moment I got back to Oslo. I joined up with the Etterretningstjenesten – the Norwegian Intelligence Service – for a couple years, doing the Middle East paperwork, before joining an oil company, Iversen Foss.

  “Why you quit the FSK? The military was your life.”

  “I lost all of my friends in the ambush and when I was captured by those assholes I promised myself that if I’d manage to escape from that ship I’d leave the forces immediately.”

  “Yes, I heard you were held hostage on the Krasnyĭ Rodinu? How you escape from that?”

  “After being held hostage, living on bread and water for ten days, I managed to kick down a guard and throw myself overboard in the Suez. I was picked up by a fisherman.”

  “Wow. They really screwed you over, my friend.”

  Marin and Lena were looking around the tomb in astonishment. In contrast to the squalor of the quarter they’d just walked through, the walls were smoothly plastered and painted fresh white. Intricate patterns of stained glass glittered in the dome and a perforated brass lampshade hung on a long chain from the ceiling. Underfoot, carpets of blood-red, orange, yellow, and indigo overlapped. A couple beautiful children in spotless white robes played in a corner. The guard with the machine gun took up a position by the door.

  “But who are your friends?” the bearded man asked.

  “I’m sorry. Marko Marin, a Russian acquaintance. And this is Lena Lorincozová.”

  “Your wife?”

  “No. My wife, ex-wife, is back in Oslo.”

  “Excellent. And your daughter? Where is she?”

  “Also in Oslo. She is studying to be a dentist.”

  “Masha’allah!”

  “This,” Rygg turned to Marin and Lena, “is Youssef. He is my friend from many years ago. He is not Egyptian, but Palestinian. As you can see, he is in hiding here. He has quite a few enemies.”

  “The whole world is my enemy,” Youssef grinned at them. “Except for Mr. Torgrim and his friends. This is why I must hide in the house of djinni.”

  He called his children over and introduced them – Amani and Ali. They took each of their hands in turn, saying “Marhaba,” in soft voices.

  Youssef invited them to take tea with him, gesturing to a corner of the tomb, where a dozen large cushions lay around a low round brass table. Following Rygg’s example, Marin and Lena slipped off their shoes and padded across the carpets to the cushions.

  Youssef went out and they could hear him talking with someone in the courtyard. He came back and chatted with Rygg for a while in Arabic. He had a wide, lively smile, full of sparkling teeth, but Rygg’s news snuffed this, and he stroked his beard and looked thoughtful as Rygg spoke. He did not reply at length, however, until a woman veiled to the eyes brought a tray to the entrance of the tomb. Youssef fetched the tray and set it on the low table. Four glasses had a dusting of tea leaves at their bases and contained sprigs of fresh mint. Youssef poured each of the glasses full of hot water from a long-spouted teapot. He added three spoons of sugar to each glass, stirred them, and handed them around. Also on the tray were a plate of dates stuffed with slivers of walnut, and another of pomegranates, figs, and grapes. Lena took a date and nibbled at it daintily.

  “So,” Youssef said finally, when they’d all sipped their tea and he and Marin had lit foul-smelling
Cleopatra cigarettes. “I have, yes, heard of this ship. I have heard of this ship …” He smoked for a while. Then he leaned back against a wall. “I will tell you a story. It is a story I heard last year, from a man I did not trust. He is now dead. His name was Ibrahim.”

  Youssef told the story in a mixture of English and Arabic, with Rygg translating the Arabic into English, and Marin occasionally translating the English into Russian for Lena.

  Two years ago, a young man named Ibrahim had joined the Cairo group. His experience had been similar to Youssef’s: disillusionment with the violence of the Palestinians, resulting in being an informant to the Israeli military. He was more cynical than Youssef and, though he was disgusted by the Israeli methods, he liked the money. He liked driving around Cairo in a BMW, with a dyed-blonde Syrian girl by his side. He liked his plush apartment in Zamalek and the occasional holiday in Europe. Youssef did not trust him: he had been known to create spurious, hyperbolic reports if he needed a little extra cash.

  Earlier this year, in March, Ibrahim arranged for an urgent meeting with Youssef – they had a system of signaling that involved the purchasing of certain groceries from a downtown shop. Youssef had met him in a secluded nightclub normally frequented by engaged couples. There, Ibrahim told him a story. He claimed that he had, for more than a year, been sleeping with the Czech mistress of his Israeli minder. The week before, he’d gone to the house as usual and had been told, after their lovemaking, that the minder, whom he knew as Roman, had left in a hurry. The mistress didn’t know where he’d gone. She wanted Ibrahim to join her for a holiday in Dahab, on the Sinai coast. Ibrahim told her that he’d think about it. He left, but watched the house. After the mistress had gone to her yoga class, he put on gloves, crept back in, and went through Roman’s desk. He found nothing. He went through the pockets of his clothes. Nothing. There was no computer, no cell phone.