Trophy

by Steffen Jacobsen

  She was standing in the porch, rummaging around in her jacket pocket for it, when she heard a faint snuffle right behind her. The warm air molecules from a body very close to hers made the tiny hairs on her neck stand up and she spun around with her pistol drawn and her torch at shoulder height. The beam caught the two round bloodshot retinas in the roebuck’s wide-open eyes. The animal snorted with contempt, gathered up its legs and leaped away with long strides through the mist.

  Lene squatted down, pressed the cold steel of the pistol against her forehead and stared at her black brogues. Her heart was beating too fast again and she swore for a long time, fluently, despite her terror, and wished that she had shot the damn thing.

  Then she let herself in, walked quickly through the hall, across the living room and stopped at the bookcase.

  The desert photograph was still there.

  She turned it over, pulled the small metal clips back, and extracted the photograph. Lene sat down on the sofa and studied the soldiers once more in the light from her torch. She focused on the tall, broad-shouldered man standing apart from the others. Legs slightly akimbo, arms folded, muscles bulging under his tanned skin. His eyes were invisible behind the reflective, close-fitting sunglasses. The tattoos continued from the shoulder up under his right ear: the scorpion and its poisonous sting.

  A guarded smile at the camera. He was definitely not like the others.

  *

  The man at the edge of the forest removed his night-vision goggles and the world ceased to be made up of grey-green surfaces and shapes. He smiled at the thought of the roebuck that had startled the superintendent. He had actually been impressed by her reflexes, though he had seen better, obviously.

  He walked back through the forest, wondering if he should have taken her there and then. It was a very attractive, almost irresistible thought. She was alone. The nearest neighbour was more than a kilometre away. He stopped on the narrow forest path and solemnly reviewed every single thing he would have done to her.

  Then he walked on. Some other time. Superintendent Lene Jensen was resilient and strong. It would take a long time to reduce her to an animal.

  Chapter 8

  No one had to tell Michael that a good disguise didn’t mean a fake beard, a wig, sunglasses, or shoes with built-in elevation, but rather a well-rehearsed combination of voice, posture and expressions. It was a question of presenting a character who would block out the person behind the disguise in people’s memories. Keith Mallory used to say that people would always see Mickey Mouse, but forget the man inside the costume.

  Today’s first appointment required him to play the part of a harmless, anxious father. Michael combed his hair forwards to a fringe that ended a finger-width above his eyebrows. He dabbed a little glycerine on his temples to make it look as if he were sweating nervously, and put on a pale, slightly too big, flat-woven linen jacket (which his wife referred to as his ‘pottery-maker-from-Møn-at-an-exhibition look’), a brown, stripy shirt, and brown sandals (his ‘biology-teacher, closet-paedophile, 1973 look’), along with a pair of grey chequed socks and baggy, non-descript trousers that even Sara couldn’t find words to describe. A pair of sturdy spectacles with plain lenses completed his look.

  He might be overdoing it, but this assignment was unusual and he didn’t want anyone to be able to reconstruct his movements or uncover his identity. Not to mention the risk of exposing his client’s identity.

  After a hearty breakfast he had gone to FOTO/C behind the Royal Theatre: a specialist shop for cameras, darkroom equipment, film and photo editing. A staff member had made a copy of the best and clearest images from the starry sky in the last few seconds of Elizabeth Caspersen’s DVD. Using advanced software, he had emphasized the constellations even more clearly and produced a set of high-resolution black-and-white photographs.

  Michael walked up to Kongens Nytorv, took the metro to Nørreport Station and decided to walk the rest of the way to the Niels Bohr Institute on Nørrebro.

  He had called ahead with his request and after being put through to various extensions had ended up with a young and helpful PhD student with the romantic name of Christo Buizart, currently on loan from the Observatoire de Paris. Michael had introduced himself as Knud Winther, a desperate father in need of Buizart’s help to find his daughter through the constellations on a DVD.

  He looked at the renowned institute’s grey walls before he checked the note with the young Frenchman’s directions. On the first floor he soon got lost in a labyrinth of small passages, strange changes in levels and adjacent wings, and he had to ask for directions several times before he was finally able to knock on the door with the name of the astronomer written on a yellow Post-it note.

  It appeared to be an informal place.

  The Frenchman ruled over an office that was slightly smaller than two telephone booths put together. Stacks of papers, humming electronic cabinets and several large computer screens made the office practically impassable, and there was only one chair, occupied by the young scientist himself. He rose, nearly knocking over a coffee cup, swore in his mother tongue and held out his hand.

  ‘Bonjour.’

  ‘Bonjour,’ Michael said. ‘Could we possibly speak English?’

  ‘Naturellement, monsieur.’

  Michael began his cover story about a twenty-year-old daughter with an unhealthy fixation with goth rock, who had convinced herself that she was in love with the lead singer of a German band called Styx. The daughter referred to the singer as ‘the Master’. Judging by his publicity photos ‘the Master’ was at least sixty years old.

  Christo Buizart smiled sympathetically.

  ‘After a concert in Berlin in 2012, my daughter became obsessed with this wretched band and its strange world, and took off. We only heard from her through text messages and e-mails. Styx is worse than a religious cult. It’s every father’s nightmare.’

  The Frenchman, who was twenty-five years old at most, nodded as if he understood.

  ‘But how can I help you?’ he then said.

  Michael wedged his shoulder bag under his arm and fumbled with the envelope containing the constellations. At the sight of the shiny photographs, Christo Buizart quickly gathered up his papers and reports and made room on the desk.

  ‘One of my colleagues suggested I had these photos made,’ Michael said. ‘He’s an amateur astronomer and thought you might be able to locate my daughter using the constellations. The recording is from a short film she sent my wife a couple of months ago.’

  Michael’s face assumed a desperate expression while the astronomer closed the blinds and studied the photographs through a magnifying glass.

  ‘Can I draw on them?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  With a white pencil the Frenchman quickly joined the stars to form their constellations.

  He pointed to the largest glowing spot at the centre of the picture.

  ‘This is Venus, of course,’ he said.

  Michael smiled, impressed, and leaned forwards.

  ‘Above Venus we have Sheratan in Pegasus and here we have Sheratan in Aries,’ Buizart continued. ‘So we’re somewhere north. Very far north. We’re looking at the western sky? Somewhere in the high latitudes. There is Pisces. Fine … very fine, in fact.’

  He glanced at Michael.

  ‘There’s water, a sea in the foreground. It looks as if it lies below the point of observation.’

  ‘She wrote something about standing a hundred metres above the water and greeting the stars,’ Michael informed him gravely.

  The Frenchman nodded and clicked through different databases, tables and endless rows of green, constantly changing digits on a computer. Then he entered some numbers into a sophisticated pocket calculator.

  ‘This is an astronomical calculator,’ he explained.

  ‘I see.’

  The young man was lost in his private universe for a few more minutes before he looked up.

  ‘Latitude seventy degrees, twen
ty-nine, forty-six North, longitude twenty-five degrees, forty-three, fifty-seven East,’ he said, scribbling down the coordinates on a notepad. ‘If we assume that the elevation above sea level was 102 metres.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘There.’ Christo Buizart opened Google Earth and moved the cursor to the coordinates. ‘Just east of Porsanger Fjord. The northernmost part of Norway, monsieur. Voilà.’

  ‘What th –?’ Michael cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, when?’

  The astronomer swiftly entered more numbers into the calculator.

  ‘At precisely eighteen forty-five local time on 24 March.’

  Michael looked at him.

  ‘What year?’

  A Gallic shrug.

  ‘Je ne sais pas, monsieur. Within the last few years. The constellations and their exact position in relation to the Earth repeat every year, obviously. More or less. If I could be absolutely sure of the elevation and if there were comets, satellites or other distinctive objects on the photographs, I would be able to tell you which year. But you said yourself that your daughter disappeared in the autumn of 2012, so surely this could only be 2013 if you received the film a couple of months ago?’

  ‘Of course. You’re right. Thank you so, so much!’

  The astronomer smiled. He had some of the nicest teeth that Michael had ever seen.

  ‘My pleasure. I hope that you’ll be reunited with your daughter very soon,’ the Frenchman said solemnly.

  *

  Michael found a café with a small outside area overlooking the paths by the lakes. He drank black coffee, wiped the glycerine off his temples, combed his hair and put the glasses in his shoulder bag. He watched joggers and young women with prams while his mind processed the latest developments. The spring sunshine appeared to be enticing everyone outside.

  Finnmark. Porsanger Fjord. Michael didn’t know very much about northernmost Norway, other than it was sparsely populated, had few roads and exerted a magnetic attraction over hikers and climbers – though in his view March seemed rather early in the year for hiking in the mountain. But the date would explain the ice floes on the water below the cliffs. Perhaps the man had been skiing. Perhaps he had come from a nearby ski lodge. Or maybe he had been brought there from another location.

  Michael wondered if there might still be human remains on the rocky shore of the fjord, but thought it most unlikely. The local wildlife had had time to consume it, and the tide, the ice and the winter storms had presumably taken the rest. Finnmark could probably swallow up whole armies without anyone knowing.

  Still, at least he now possessed a set of exact coordinates, provided that the elevation – which was crucial for the accuracy of the calculations – was correct.

  He got up, paid for his coffee and walked along the lakes to his next appointment.

  *

  Michael spotted Simon Hallberg easily. As agreed, the young journalist from the Berlingske was waiting under the famous white lamps outside the Boghal bookshop on Rådhuspladsen. He was wearing a short brown corduroy jacket, jeans, yellow trainers and a pale blue shirt, and had a tattered grey bag over his shoulder. Half street, half graduate. In other words, a journalist. His shoulders looked as if he rarely lifted anything heavier than a pen, and along with many of his contemporaries, he had shaved his head. Michael had the impression that more and more young Danish men were losing their hair prematurely. He had heard it attributed to phthalates in teething toys. Or maybe they chewed their iPhones?

  Michael placed his hand on a corduroy shoulder and made the journalist jump.

  ‘Are you thinking of defecting, Simon?’ he asked.

  ‘Hi, Michael! What? No, no, Christ, no, I’m very happy where I am. Absolutely. How are you?’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘And your son?’

  ‘Fine. We had a little girl eighteen months ago,’ Michael said.

  ‘Ace.’

  Simon Hallberg, who was still single, ran his gaze up and down Michael’s outfit with a pained expression.

  ‘Undercover?’

  ‘Very much so. Let’s walk.’

  ‘Coffee? I know a …’

  ‘I think we should walk,’ Michael said.

  They crossed Rådhuspladsen diagonally, passed the statue of Hans Christian Andersen and continued down the boulevard. They found a vacant bench in the beautiful, but usually deserted town hall garden. Michael looked around. There was no one within earshot. Further away, on another bench, a couple of town hall employees were eating their packed lunches.

  ‘Sonartek,’ he said. ‘What’s the story, Simon?’

  The journalist leaned back and pressed his fingertips together. His eyes were half closed in concentration. Michael knew the boy had a photographic memory.

  ‘A sheltered island in the middle of the global, financial tsunami, Michael. Seriously. Solid, like Fort Knox. They appear to be almost unaffected by the crisis. They produce a range of products that will always be in demand and they’re innovative and quick to adapt. They constantly bring out new software and improved hardware, and the stuff practically sells itself. Sonartek has a virtual monopoly in their particular niche market. They’re the text-book answer to Gillette.’

  ‘But can they retain their position following the death of Flemming Caspersen? I thought he was the brains behind it?’

  ‘It would seem so. Their engineers are the best in the business. A sensible mix of people who have been with them right from the start. Young Danish, Chinese and American talent. So they’re future-proof not only in terms of experience, but also in terms of creativity. They moved all the cost- and labour-intensive parts of the business out of Denmark before anybody else.’

  ‘To China, India, Lithuania and Poland?’

  ‘Precisely. They have a gold-plated brand; Sonartek’s future looks bright and beautiful. In as much as …’

  ‘In as much as?’

  ‘A company such as Sonartek will always face external and internal threats,’ Simon Hallberg declared. ‘The founder dies, and then what? Danish industry is filled with stories of renowned family companies that split into atoms once the founder is gone. Factions, spoiled heirs who have never done a day’s work in their life and can’t stand each other. They wreak havoc in the boardroom. It’s practically the rule rather than the exception. But standing between Sonartek and dissolution are Victor Schmidt, a solid holding company, a bullet-proof foundation which favours rationality rather than emotion, and a board of professional directors who look after the interests of the company, rather than those of the heirs.’

  ‘And external threats?’

  Simon Hallberg smiled, lit a cigarette and offered one to Michael, which he decided to exclude from that day’s tally.

  ‘Very interesting and unusual. What you need to bear in mind, if you’re interested in Sonartek, is who wants to preserve the status quo and who doesn’t. Their biggest customer is the US Department of Defense – the DOD – but the technology is also essential to the arms industry in many other countries: Bofors in Sweden – or the Celsius Group as it’s now called – Thales in France, BAE Systems in the UK, and so on. Imagine a situation with no Sonartek. It would be catastrophic. There would be no maintenance of weapon systems, no spare parts, no engineers, no automatic software upgrades. Three-quarters of all the world’s fighter planes, tanks, submarines and warships would be grounded. They simply couldn’t be guaranteed to work properly.’

  Michael whistled. ‘Not to mention meteorological early warning systems.’

  ‘Exactly. Airports across the world, civilian as well as military, would have to close. They wouldn’t know how to get the aircraft up in the air or down again. Every system is fitted with Sonartek’s Doppler technology. The Americans worry about it constantly. They don’t like the company’s monopoly. The vulnerability.’

  ‘So why don’t they just buy Sonartek?’

  ‘Oh, they’ve tried, along with everyone else. Now, the DOD isn’t in the business of overt acquisitions, b
ut they could ask a big investment company to do it on their behalf against guarantees of future market shares and contracts, discounts, favourable prices, the smooth processing of patent rights and so on.’

  ‘And have they?’

  ‘Several times. In 2010 an offer of sixty billion kroner for the whole business came in from Bridgewater Associates, followed by a sixty-five-billion bid from Blackwell – two huge American investment companies. No one ever said it out loud, but everyone knew that the Pentagon was behind it. Victor Schmidt and Flemming Caspersen turned them down.’

  ‘And if they hadn’t?’

  Michael tried visualizing sixty-five billion kroner.

  ‘Sonartek would have been broken up in less than five minutes,’ Simon Hallberg said. ‘The military part would be sold to, let’s say, Raytheon, US-owned and a major supplier to the defence industry. They would create a subsidiary with the DOD as the main shareholder. The meteorological part would be sold to Philips or Siemens and the optical division to Sony or Samsung. The investment company would earn billions in a few seconds, and the DOD could sleep soundly at night knowing that their aircraft and submarines would also work tomorrow. Happiness all around.’

  ‘Who on earth says no to sixty-five billion?’ Michael wanted to know.

  ‘Flemming Caspersen and Victor Schmidt. It’s their life’s work and they already have all the money they will ever need. I believe one of Victor’s sons, Henrik Schmidt, will carry the baton. He’s Sonartek’s sales director and most people think he does a very good job.’

  ‘But he has two sons, doesn’t he?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think Jakob Schmidt has ever shown much interest in the business. I believe he’s a big game hunter somewhere? Or maybe he works for aid organizations in Africa? He’s most definitely out of the equation when it comes to Sonartek’s future, is what I’m saying.’

  Michael looked at his watch. There were so many things he wanted to get done today. Such as finding out the name of the man murdered in Porsanger Fjord.