“Oh, shit. Uh … Plattas? Sankt Nico? Sorry, my brain’s a bit …”
“Platres. Saint Nikolaiou. Repeat.”
“Platres, Platres. Nikolaiou. All right. See you people.”
Just as promised, by a meeting spot along the coastline there were many young guys with motorcycles. When Rygg offered one money for his dirty old Yamaha XT they all decided that they’d like to sell theirs. He nodded his head no, using the excuse that Marin had given him, paid him ten hundred euro notes, and saw his jaw drop. With that, he took off, happy to see he had a full tank of gas.
He moseyed along on the roads that were closest to the coast, making his way toward the airport, and through the town for a bit, looking at the little churches. It was time to stop being such a tourist though and eventually he struck out to the east on the wide road, passing several tour buses, one of which gave him a friendly honk.
Chapter 22
Arrivals
The airport, despite Marin’s assertion, didn’t seem that large. Rygg parked the motorcycle and went into the arrivals lounge, from which he had a decent view of the landing area. The planes dropped in every five or ten minutes, mostly European carriers, and he could see them in holding patterns over the sea, like a flock of huge swallows. He scanned the tarmac, but couldn’t see anything resembling the plane Marin had showed him. From the snippets of conversation he heard, most of the passengers seemed to be English and German. Those coming in were pallid as bread dough, but those heading out were brown or pink or scarlet. This place is like an oven, he thought. Slide them in, bake them for a week or two, and slide them out.
He went over to a bookstore, intending to buy a magazine, but spotted on a shelf the same Penguin paperback of Anna Karenina he’d started reading in Croatia. He decided to purchase it again, hoping to eventually finish it. In all of the sudden departures it had been impossible to take anything with him for the entire duration. The cashier looked at him peculiarly for his literary choice and he just smiled. “It’s a great book. Have you read it?”
She nodded her head no, handed him his change, and turned to the next customer in line.
He bought some coffee and a pastry and found a corner seat that allowed him a view of the landing area as well as the arrivals lounge. He settled back to read and sip his coffee, looking up at the end of every spread.
For two hours nothing happened at all. The sunset turned the horizon gold and green, and then the first veil of twilight fell across the sky. Once he fell asleep inadvertently, and the book clattered to the floor, waking him up with a jerk. He drank some more coffee and walked around, trying to stay alert, but he was so weary he was almost ready to give up, just lay down the book for an hour and snooze. It would feel so good, so good …
Then he saw, out of the corner of his eye, something that jerked him upright. He leaned forward, peering out the window. Down on the tarmac, to the left, a gray van had pulled up beside one of the buildings along it. Two passengers got out. Even from this height, Rygg could see that the eyebrows of one formed a solid bar, and there was a dark shading on his hands. And he remembered that smooth, measured walk. “Din Jævel!” Rygg shouted angrily, startling the middle-aged woman beside him. “Sorry,” he told her.
He pulled out his phone, stood, and moved away from her, toward the window. He pretended to click on the buttons, holding the phone up so Sokolov and his companion appeared in the screen. And obligingly, just as he was about to take the picture, they turned toward the window and Sokolov pointed something out in the sky above the airport, so he got a clear snap of their faces. Then they walked off the tarmac, keeping close to the edge of the terminal. Rygg watched them, moving almost unconsciously along the pane, until he reached the far wall. They stood looking up into the southern sky. Scanning the dusky air, he watched the circling planes, their lights visible now. And all at once he saw it, the An-124, sweeping into the vortex of aircraft. It was huge, like a hawk among the swallows, its lights spaced farther apart.
He took a step back, and felt hands on his biceps. “Whoops!” he said, but the hands did not release their grip.
“Turn around slowly. I have a gun,” a man’s voice said. He had an American accent.
Rygg did as he was told, and looked into the face of a mustached pilot. Realizing he still had the phone at chest height, he pressed the button. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Look down.”
Rygg did so. The pilot’s jacket was draped over his forearm. Poking from the folds of blue cloth, he could see the round metal snout.
“All right. You have my attention. Now, what do you want?”
“You’re going to walk slowly past me, keeping to the wall. Turn right. Go into the men’s room that you’ll see straight ahead of you.”
Rygg followed the directions, still holding the phone up. There was another pilot standing beside the men’s room door. Rygg nodded to him and took his picture as well. The second pilot opened the door for him. The bathroom was empty. Rygg stepped inside and turned around. The first pilot joined him and let the door close. “Now,” he said. “Put your phone in the sink. Then place your hands flat on the mirror.”
Rygg followed the man’s instructions. The man’s hand snaked around his waist and plucked up the phone. Then, one-handed, he swiftly patted Rygg up and down, reaching under his arms and between his legs. Rygg could see him in the mirror. As the man straightened up, he smashed an elbow backward into the man’s nose, and as part of the same movement turned and yanked on the hand holding the gun, driving it into the side of the sink. He heard the bone crack and the gun clatter to the tiles. The man groaned and Rygg stomped on his mouth, smashing his head into the floor. Gathering the gun, he held it to the man’s head and knelt beside him. “One sound, and your brains are coming out,” he whispered. He went through the man’s pockets. He found his cell phone, and pocketed it. He also took the man’s wallet. Then he took off the pilot’s jacket and put it on. It was a little tight, but he managed to squeeze in. In one of the pockets he found a dozen plastic cuffs. Using two of these, he bound the man’s wrists and ankles. He fetched the hat from where it had rolled against a wall. Checking himself in a mirror, he was quite pleased with the look. He emptied the magazine and pocketed the bullets, then dropped the pistol in the wastebasket and gave the man a final kick, but elicited no sound. Maybe he’d lost consciousness.
Rygg strode out of the bathroom. “Stay there!” he called to the second pilot, who was still loitering beside the door. He took off at a trot around the corner, careful not to turn his head. Angling toward the entrance, he suddenly changed his mind and headed to one of the gates. There were four gates in a row at the end of a long hallway. Three were accepting passengers. He waited until the flight attendant was dealing with a mother and her two small children, then strode swiftly along the queue, tossed his keys and the phone into the box, walked through the metal detector, retrieved them, and marched through the lounge and out the doors at the far side. No one paid him any attention.
On the tarmac, the air was soft and warm and smelled of kerosene. One plane was taking off and another was landing. He could feel the vibrations in his ribcage, and wished he had some of those yellow earmuffs the airport ground crew all seemed to sport. Completely awake now, he walked along the edge of the terminal. He’d expected to see the An-124 by now, but it wasn’t on the ground. He looked back just in time to see it land. It was much larger than it had appeared on the screen. Any of the other planes scattered around the airport might snuggle into its belly. The ground shuddered as it hit the tarmac, and Rygg covered his ears with his hands to shut out the scream as its engines reversed. It rumbled the whole length of the runway, finally howling to a halt just a couple meters from the marshy end of the track. Ponderously, it turned and lumbered back down the runway toward the terminal. Many of the ground crew had stopped what they were doing to watch its progress. It really was a gigantic beast, standing out to everyone.
Rygg moved more quick
ly now – all eyes would be on the huge plane. He sidled along the glassed wall of the building, to within fifty meters of where Sokolov and his companion stood. There was a movable staircase ahead of him. He got into the cab, keeping low. The huge gray plane swung around and moved past his windshield like a rolling mountain. He took a picture of it, just for fun. Then he got in position by the side window, keeping his head beside the door panel, but holding the phone up to the glass, using it as a periscope so he could see the plane. The commotion subsided as the plane’s engines were switched off, and he tracked Sokolov and his companion as they walked over to it. The door seemed very far off the ground and no steps were moving toward it. Then the entire nose of the plane slowly split vertically and gaped open, so the nose was pointed at the sky. The lower portion dropped to the tarmac. Seven people trotted down the ramp and greeted Sokolov with hugs. They ignored the companion.
Rygg clicked indiscriminately, zooming as close as he could. All the passengers were men, and all had close-trimmed hair and wore bulky jackets. From the way they held their arms, Rygg knew they had fairly substantial weapons concealed under the khaki. The nine men walked to the left and got into the gray van, which moved off around the side of the terminal. Rygg snapped a couple more pictures. Then, for good measure, he clicked a few of the interior of the plane, but it was as black as a railway tunnel and he didn’t have much hope that the images would turn up anything. The nose of the plane closed up again, like a mouth keeping a secret. Rygg guessed there was still a person or two on the plane, who would stay with it until it took off again.
Pocketing the phone, he got out of the cab of the movable stairs and moved around the side of the terminal. An armed security guard was closing and locking a gate in the chain-link fence. The van must have just gone through.
Quickly, he went back the way he had come, walking the whole way around the airport. He hadn’t thought about how he’d get back into the terminal. He didn’t think they’d allow him to just walk in through a gate. Standing with his back to a wall, he scanned the runways.
Suddenly, he realized that the airport backed directly onto the sea. The fences ran into the water on either side, but the passage to the sea was open. Striding purposefully, he walked from jet to jet, making his way across the tarmac. When he got to the final standing airplane before the runway, he stood in its shadow for a few moments; waiting for a plane to land, then struck out fast onto the runway, making a diagonal across it, heading for the fence. It took him a good minute to reach the fence, and he could feel the eyes of the entire airport watching him. Luckily, the far end of the fence, where it entered the water, was in relative darkness. Quickly, in the shadow of a pylon, he undressed. He passed the phone through a gap in the links, setting it on a tuft of grass, and then tossed all his clothes over the top fence.
Naked, he plunged into the water. It was warm. He swam out along the fence, using breaststroke, which he thought would create the least ripples, keeping his head low in the water. The fence went out farther than he’d anticipated, and he was blown by the time he reached the end. But finally he was able to round the last pole and swim back, in thicker darkness, striking away from the airport. He looked back at the tarmac, expecting to see a phalanx of armed guards pursuing him. But unbelievably, the space between him and the landing plane was empty of people.
He got out in some spiky marsh grass and picked his way through the mud and scurf of tattered plastic bags to the fence, then moved along it until he found his heap of clothes. Shivering, he dried himself off on the jacket, wiped the mud off his feet as best he could, and dressed. He tossed the jacket and hat into the shadows. Moving away from the fence, he headed toward the lights of vehicles moving on the airport road. It was pitch dark, and he kept stumbling over tussocks of grass. Off to the left, he could see the spangled web of lights in the city.
He checked his Breitling, wiping the face free of droplets: 9:38. He might just get a few hours of sleep. He finally made it out to the road, making his way to the airport parking lot to retrieve his motorcycle. He half expected to meet the goons who’d tried to take his phone, but there were only a few taxi drivers standing around, smoking. One of them called out to him sarcastically. “Nice motorcycle.” He ignored them and got on, ready to get out of the airport as quickly as possible.
Back at the Ianakis Inn, Sasha was still crashed out on the bed, in the same position Rygg had left him. Lena wasn’t back yet. Marin had moved the desk to the window overlooking the harbor and had the computer open. There were three empty coffee cups beside the computer.
Marin looked up when he entered. “Torgrim,” he said. “You are back more quickly than I expected. What did you find?”
Rygg described his encounter with the American-accented ‘pilots’ in the airport and Marin looked grave. “Strange,” he said. “Very strange.”
“Who the fuck were they, Marko? More of Sokolov’s stooges?”
Marin shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Who else would they be?”
Marin motioned to the bed across from the one where Sasha lay sleeping. Rygg sat with a groan. His joints felt creaky. “Tell me the rest of your story,” Marin said. “Then we will see.”
So Rygg told him about getting out of the terminal and hiding in the cab of the movable stairs and the arrival of the aircraft. Marin was most interested in how many passengers came off the plane. “And did you see anyone who stayed on?” he asked.
Rygg shook his head. “It was too dark in there,” he said. “But I’m assuming they left at least a couple men on board. I took some pictures anyway.”
“We will look at those in a moment. So how did you get out of the airport?”
Rygg told him. Marin laughed. “You have been very creative, Torgrim. Okay, let me see the phone.” They peered at the images. The interior of the plane, on the tiny screen, looked completely blank. Marin stared for a long time at the pictures of the men who had attacked Rygg. “I think …” he said.
He tried for a few minutes to plug the phone into the computer, sorting through Sasha’s tangle of wires, but gave up. “I cannot understand what Sasha does,” he confessed, and went over to the bed. Tenderly as a father, he shook Sasha’s shoulder, tugged at his ear and patted his cheek. “Sasha,” he murmured. “Sasha, pora prosypat’sya!” Sasha didn’t even groan. It took, finally, several sharp shakes, and a poke in the ribs, to get him awake. He looked around blearily and mumbled something in Russian. Marin said, “Come, Sasha. We have work to do. You have slept more than any of us.”
Sasha fumbled around with the computer, phone, and wires, and pulled the images onto the screen. “Easy,” he said. “Now I go back to sleep.”
Marin stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Stay awake, Sasha. We need you now.” He spoke rapidly to him in Russian. Sasha brought up a website, typed in a password, and the screen filled with square portraits, some black and white, some blurred. Some looked as though they had been taken from a strange angle: high up, or as the subject was in the act of turning. Under each picture was a list of names.
“This,” Marin told Rygg, “is a wonderful website, top-secret. It contains all the known agents of most of the enemies of the U.S., as well as all their aliases.”
“How the hell did you manage to get this information?”
“I have a friend who got fired from U.S. Homeland Security. He managed to smuggle this info out for us before he left his job.”
“ Nice.”
Marin scrolled down, slowing here and there and moving closer to the screen. After a couple minutes, Rygg stopped him. He pointed. “There,” he said. “That’s one of them, at any rate. The second guy, the one who was waiting outside.” And a few moments later, they found the first agent, a New York-born Swedish citizen named Ahmad Zardooz. He was a clerk in a ball-bearings company. And he was also an Iranian secret agent. Something about the way the man’s face was turned made Rygg pause. He put a hand on Marin’s arm.
“Wait,”
he said. “I think I’ve seen this guy before.”
“Where?”
“Give me a second. Just a second.” He leaned back and half-closed his eyes. “Somewhere …” And then he had it: “Oh my God!” he exclaimed.
“What?”
“That’s the man who tried to shoot you in Hamburg.”
“Torgrim. Are you sure?”
“Not at all. I just saw his face for a split-second in Orfeoplatz. But it was one of those split seconds that seem to last for a couple minutes, and I could almost swear …”
“Very interesting. Very, very interesting,” Marin nodded slowly.
“But I don’t understand something.”
“What is that?”
“Why didn’t they come after me? Clearly they were watching the plane come in. They must have spotted me. Why didn’t they come down and nab me outside?”
Marin shrugged. “A number of reasons are possible,” he said. “Perhaps they were using just two agents, and one, of course, had to stay with the Russians. Or perhaps they didn’t want to expose themselves too much. But I would guess the real reason is more obvious.”
“What’s that?”
“You severely wounded Zardooz. The second agent, I think, probably had to deal with moving him out of the airport and to a hospital – not an easy task, as he was in disguise, and would not want to alert the airport authorities. I think he did not have time to waste on you. But your work is very helpful. We are now able to prove that two Iranian agents were watching the arrival of the An-124. If Lena’s work is equally fruitful, I may be able to publish soon. Perhaps even tonight.”
“And now?”
“How are you feeling?”
Rygg paused a moment and closed his eyes. In truth, he felt a little strange, as though there was a pane of glass between him and reality. But he opened his eyes and shrugged.
“Would you be able to go down and find Lena? Give her support, if she needs it? That is, if you are up to it,” Marin asked. “Here,” he added, fishing out his wallet. He handed Rygg a laminated card. “This might help to get you in. Berth 42C.”
Chasing the Storm Page 25
