1222

by Anne Holt

  He was lying.

  What he was saying just had to be a lie.

  It couldn’t be true that this whole nightmare, everything that had happened to do with the mysterious carriage, all the rumours and the unpleasantness, the rebellion in the wing – it couldn’t be true that the whole thing was based on a bluff. I couldn’t have wasted so much energy on nothing, on an exercise, on a little training jaunt for the security service boys, when I should have been concentrating on one thing from the very first night: who killed Cato Hammer?

  ‘An exercise in what?’

  I swallowed and tried to keep my voice neutral.

  ‘In transporting high-risk prisoners by train. You said it yourself.’

  Once again that experienced look, confidently sweeping the room.

  ‘We live in a new age with new challenges. In fact, you mentioned one of them.’

  He winked with his right eye. The eyelashes curving over his eyelid made the gesture more comical than confidential.

  ‘Please go now,’ I said. ‘Please leave me in peace.’

  ‘Goodness,’ he said, taking a step back. ‘I didn’t mean to — ’

  ‘Go. Just go.’

  ‘OK.’

  The smile was back. He straightened his jacket, fished a packet of chewing gum out of his pocket and offered it to me.

  ‘No thank you. I want to be left in peace.’

  ‘In that case, thank you for your company,’ he said, starting to move away. ‘I wish you a pleasant journey home.’

  Just three metres away he turned around.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ he said, chewing like mad. ‘During dinner yesterday I could see that you were wondering what language we were speaking, Clara and I.’

  I didn’t reply. Didn’t even look at him. Slowly I rolled my chair towards Adrian.

  ‘Esperanto,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Neither of us speaks Arabic well enough, really. Hardly anybody speaks Esperanto, and it sounds nice and foreign. Don’t you think?’

  His laughter was genuine. He wasn’t making fun of me, he was just as glad as I was that the whole thing was over and we were all going home. But right there and then I could have strangled him. I never wanted to see him again.

  An exercise. I felt as if I had been conned. Badly conned.

  And what was worse, I felt like an idiot.

  ‘Adrian,’ I said quietly.

  But the boy didn’t even look up.

  ii

  It was now Saturday 17 February, and the time was approaching one o’clock in the afternoon. Finse 1222 was virtually empty of guests. The big helicopters had been running a shuttle service since three o’clock in the morning. They had come buzzing in from the south-west like dragonflies, heavy as lead, swallowing up groups of passengers before slowly climbing into the sky and disappearing. Magnus Streng was among the first to leave, and he had hugged me so hard when he was saying goodbye that I thought I might sustain permanent damage. I had taken his card, and promised faithfully that I would call him.

  ‘One day,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you one day.’

  I never called Magnus Streng.

  The dead were taken away in a separate helicopter: the train driver, Einar Holter; the old man, Elias Grav; the priests, Cato Hammer and Roar Hanson; and the terrified Steinar Aass, who was stupid enough to think he could beat Hurricane Olga. Only little Sara in her pink baby clothes had been given permission to travel with her mother, wrapped in a woollen blanket that her mother clutched to her breast as she was led to the helicopter, silently weeping.

  And I had actually allowed myself to be carried.

  That had hardly ever happened since I grew strong enough to get out of bed on my own after I had been shot. In four years I had allowed someone to pick me up on only a handful of occasions. Geir didn’t even ask my permission. He simply picked me up, so easily that it almost felt pleasant, and carried me up the cleverly constructed steps in the snow from the main door, up and out into the fresh air and the intense, white sunshine. On the eastern side of the hotel right next to the snowed-in station building he had dug out a wide sofa covered in reindeer skins, with a view out over Finsevann.

  Frozen waves of snow covered the entire lake. On the opposite shore the mountains rose up, and Geir pointed as he named peaks and valleys, even though I wasn’t really listening.

  Neither was Berit, apparently.

  She already knew the landscape and leaned back against the skins. Closed her eyes behind her sunglasses. Her mouth was half-open. She almost looked as if she were asleep; a carefree mountain tourist in the ice-cold sunshine. I, on the other hand, gazed around in fascination. Berit had given me a pair of sunglasses from the kiosk, and refused to take any money. They made me look like an emaciated fly, so it was probably just as well.

  The fact that white could be so white surpassed my understanding. The light stabbed my retina like a knife when I took off the glasses to experience the intensity in all its colourlessness.

  Which wasn’t colourless at all, however.

  I screwed up my eyes to look at the magnificent view.

  The light from the snowdrifts was refracted in the tears that had stuck on my eyelashes like little prisms of water. In this cannonade of light it seemed to me that every single snowflake in the open landscape was rainbow-coloured. Everything around me was shining with small sparks of colour that disappeared before I could get hold of them properly.

  Geir was talking and waving his arms around, but I didn’t hear a thing.

  I was deaf to everything but the view. It was as if I could actually hear the sunshine crashing to the ground and exploding in this overwhelming show of colours that just took my breath away.

  I had to put my sunglasses back on.

  The reflections disappeared, and once again I was looking out over a beautiful, white, Norwegian mountain landscape.

  From where I was sitting I could see over the top of the snow on the right-hand side of the little fortress Geir had built. We were sheltered from the slight breeze that still nipped at the cheeks, and I could see most of the temporary landing pad between the railway track, the hotel and the station. The penultimate helicopter would soon be leaving Finse.

  Veronica was walking up the snow steps from the hotel. The handcuffs had been removed. The two younger police officers were each holding one of her arms. From the way she was wobbling across the platform towards the huge machine, she looked as if she needed all the support she could get.

  I shaded my eyes with my hand and peered at the hotel.

  Per Langerud was coming out of the wing with the South African man in front of him. I hadn’t given the man a thought since assuming he must have gone over to the wing before the carriage came down.

  The South African was over-exposed in the sharp light, making his face black and unreadable.

  ‘Why ...‘I murmured, then stopped myself.

  The man was in handcuffs. Per Langerud gave him an irritated shove to move him on when he stopped at the sight of the helicopter.

  ‘Berit,’ I said, clearing my throat.

  ‘Yes.’

  So she wasn’t asleep.

  ‘Why has the South African been arrested?’

  She sat up and raised herself slightly so that she could see.

  ‘Oh, him. He’s not South African.’

  ‘Yes, he ...’

  It struck me as soon as I started to speak: nobody had ever said the man with the sharp, sing-song British accent was South African. I had just guessed.

  ‘He’s American,’ said Berit, sinking back against the reindeer skins. She sighed with pleasure, despite the cold that made her wrap the woollen blanket more tightly around her.

  American.

  He had managed to fool me with a convincing accent.

  I tried to remember exactly what Thomas Chrysler had said during our brief encounter when the whole thing was over, and all I wanted to do was take care of Adrian. The words still hurt. It was only an exercise. I also remembered
Geir Rugholmen’s outburst in the office just before the first helicopter arrived; If a terrorist really has been caught or sought refuge on Norwegian soil, then it’s the Americans he ought to be afraid of! They would go to any lengths ...

  ‘May I borrow your binoculars?’ I said to Geir.

  The man I had assumed to be South African was still just as impeccably dressed. I could even see the narrow stripes on his suit through the powerful lenses. The tie was just as neatly knotted, the shoes in which he was ploughing through the snow were just as elegant and shiny as they had always been.

  Only his face had changed.

  ‘Why has he been arrested?’ I asked, without taking the binoculars away from my eyes.

  ‘Because he was carrying a gun,’ said Berit. ‘That’s all, I think.’

  That’s all they’re telling you, anyway, I thought.

  I lowered the binoculars and glanced over at Geir. He wasn’t looking at what was happening down below. Instead he was gazing out over the lake, his expression dreamy, murmuring something about kiteboarding.

  There’s your Yank, Geir, I thought. You were right.

  But I didn’t say anything.

  The South African who wasn’t a South African was proof positive that Thomas Chrysler, who certainly wasn’t called Thomas Chrysler, had been lying about an exercise that most definitely wasn’t an exercise.

  I didn’t really know what I was feeling. My pulse was beating faster and little spurts of adrenalin were making me breathe more quickly. Perhaps I was furious. Perhaps mostly relieved. I hadn’t been wrong, when it came down to it.

  As if that mattered.

  I raised the binoculars to my eyes again.

  The American climbed on board the helicopter. He almost stumbled, but Langerud saved him with a firm grip on his arm before he fell. Once he was inside, Langerud followed him. The rotor blades began to spin slowly with a dull, clattering sound. Berit sat up and shaded her eyes from the sun with both hands.

  ‘The next to last helicopter,’ she said. ‘When the last one comes it’s your turn, Hanne.’

  ‘You must come back another time,’ said Geir with a smile. ‘I will personally guarantee to haul you up to the top of Finse on a sledge.’

  I actually smiled.

  The Sea King lifted slowly, as if it didn’t quite dare to break contact with the ground. The snow was whirling so violently that we had to put our hands up to our faces and lean forward. Only when the helicopter had reached a height of a couple of hundred metres was I able to look up at the sky again. Suddenly the helicopter picked up speed and headed west, with two prisoners and three police officers on board.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Geir eagerly. ‘Come back. I’ll make sure I dig out my apartment by then, at least. We can take you out with the snow scooter, Johan’s got a fantastic dog team, we can—’

  ‘Was the next helicopter supposed to come right away?’ I interrupted him, gazing south-west through the binoculars.

  The last Sea King had already put more than a kilometre between itself and us. However, even further away and a little further south I could see something dark approaching through the air.

  ‘No,’ said Berit hesitantly. ‘It’s due in about an hour. Why?’

  I pointed. By now the object was visible with the naked eye. It was flying lower than the Sea King, and following a slightly different route from the rescue helicopter.

  ‘I can hear it,’ said Geir, squinting at the sky. ‘It’s a helicopter. And it’s flying low. Very low.’

  It was heading straight for us. Halfway across Finsevann, at a height of no more than a hundred metres above the snowdrifts, it veered to the west and headed towards Finsenut in an arc before approaching the landing area in front of the hotel.

  ‘It’s completely black!’ Geir roared through the racket. ‘No markings! No identification!’

  The snow whirled up once again in a frenzy that reminded us of what the hurricane had been like over the past few days.

  ‘Give me the binoculars,’ I yelled to Berit, who passed them to me before leaning forward and hiding her face between her knees, with her hands covering her ears.

  When the helicopter landed I managed to shuffle forward to the very end of the little snow fortress. I crept right up to the wall and poked my head a little way over the edge. The snow hurt my eyes, but it was better once I had the binoculars in place.

  I could see mostly snow. However, I had brief, lightning glimpses of a clear view. I saw the four men from the cellar crouching as they moved towards the helicopter, which clearly had no intention of switching off its engine. It was difficult to distinguish between the figures down below, but I thought the first of them must be Severin Heger. He was almost two metres tall, and his back looked broader than the others’. None of them was dressed in thick winter clothes any longer, even though it was almost minus fifteen outside; they were expecting a warm helicopter.

  The snow and the wind were hurting not only my eyes; it felt as if my face was being peppered by thousands of tiny arrows made of glass. I had taken off my mittens to get a better grip on the binoculars, and my knuckles were so cold I was afraid my fingers would break.

  Severin had reached the helicopter. He stopped and straightened up slightly before grabbing hold of the next man’s upper arm and helping him up the short flight of steps that someone inside had lowered as soon as they landed. I suddenly realized that it was only the man who was just boarding the helicopter who was no longer wearing a rucksack. He hesitated briefly before taking the final step, and looked around him in all directions.

  His face filled my field of vision for just long enough to convince me that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Perhaps it was a second before the driving snow and whirling wind blocked my view of the four men and the black, unidentifiable helicopter.

  Perhaps it was half a second, perhaps a little more.

  I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw. It couldn’t be him.

  The man’s beard was long and dark, with stripes of grey in an upturned V running downwards from his mouth. The eyes that were staring into my binoculars without being aware of it were dark, with long lashes and a gentle, sorrowful expression. His whole being created a violent, almost paralysing impression, yet the mouth was the most striking element. It was large with unusually full, beautifully shaped lips. Since he was squinting against the light and the driving snow, he was exposing his teeth, which were white and even, forming a sharp contrast with the signs of age in his curly beard.

  He was a very handsome man, and I couldn’t get my head around what I had just seen. It was even more difficult to understand why the Americans had contented themselves with sending just one man.

  Perhaps they hadn’t. Perhaps there were more than the man I had assumed was from South Africa. It was just that nobody had discovered them. I closed my eyes tightly to get rid of the tears, then opened them again.

  The rotor blades were screaming.

  The helicopter began to lift. I defied the cold, and forced myself to look into the chaotic, whirling snow. Everything was white, and for a while I felt as if I had gone blind. I took a deep breath and rubbed my face with my ice-cold hands once the helicopter was high enough for the driving snow to settle, and it became possible to see again.

  I was not blind, but it was impossible to believe what I knew I had just seen.

  ‘What was that?’ said Geir as the black helicopter disappeared in the same direction from which it had come, flying fast and low, and complete silence once more descended on the mountains.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, hoping more than anything that I was telling the truth. I really didn’t have any idea what it was.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

&nb
sp; Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13