Despite his increasingly upset stomach, Jonathan listened with the ears of a fox. But he wanted more. “Did the pilot say anything?”
“Just a few words. Russian, I guess.”
“Is she sure? Would she know Russian from Greek or Chinese?” asked Jonathan. “Wait, don’t translate what I just said.”
Hark shrugged his shoulders, asked her and then translated her reply. “She said Ragnar had heard him speak some Russian on the boat, before they came ashore. The pilot never said anything to her.”
“Did Ragnar know Russian?”
“Probably not,” Hark replied. “Does it matter?”
“Perhaps,” Jonathan replied. Of course it did. What if it wasn’t Russian at all, but rather English? Maybe it was an American pilot or a sailor the Meecham was sent to rescue. Anything was possible. That could have been the reason to send the ship into the Baltic. But then again, the Meecham was a recovery vessel, not a rescue ship in the truest sense of the term. Jonathan knew he was going down a path paved with speculation, something neither Judge Breaux nor the jury would find plausible or relevant.
Hark gazed at his notes. “Tantina left Ingrid’s house to grab towels and blankets from home and returned around...eh, four-thirty in the morning. That’s when she found Ragnar sick—terribly sick. He had thrown up several times and looked pale, fatigued and wasn’t his usual talkative self. Ingrid, too, looked unusually pale, but she was busy taking care of the pilot, who by then had lost a lot of blood and whose temperature was still very low, despite her efforts.”
“And then?” Jonathan glanced at Hark, who continued to ask Tantina questions and note her answers.
“At around five in the morning,” Hark said, “a hospital administrator from Visby telephoned. Tantina answered. The man said not to worry, that a Soviet medical team was coming at any moment to pick up the pilot. But by then Tantina was worried about Ingrid and Ragnar. Both began to appear worse than the pilot. They weren’t just tired; they were deathly sick, but she could not understand why.”
Jonathan let his mind wander for a moment, trying to piece together the little there was. “What about his uniform? Did she see anything unusual?”
Hark turned to her and asked.
Her vivacious voice echoed around the small dining area of the quaint bakery. Her hands crossed over the table, while her eyes glanced occasionally at the ceiling and walls. She was nutty, all right.
“She says that his uniform was plain dark green, absent of any insignia, flags or indication of rank. It was wet and torn, with blood on it. Ragnar had cut apart the pilot’s life vest and shirt with scissors.”
“What happened next?”
Hark translated her reply. “She was there when the helicopter brought the Russian medical team. There were three people, all of them wearing plastic lab coats, gloves and face masks. They went straight into the house to pick up the pilot. She was very angry that they came in like storm troopers, so she demanded to see their identification.
“She did?” Jonathan grinned, imagining the old woman raising hell with the Russians.
“Yes, she says she argued with them. Apparently, when they first refused to cooperate, she threatened them with a frying pan from Ingrid’s kitchen.”
Jonathan raised his eyebrow. Hark was dead serious.
“Finally, one of the men showed her an ID card. He was a Soviet Army general and she wrote his name down as well as the names of the other two in his team.”
“What was the general’s name?” Jonathan asked.
Hark asked Tantina, who then murmured what was probably a curse word or two.
“She says his name was General Yakovlev...Andrei Yakovlev—about fifty years old, with black hair.”
“What did the Russians do?”
“She says they wheeled a stretcher from the landing spot all the way to the house, picked up the pilot, gave him an IV and took off. At that point, she was very worried for Ingrid and Ragnar. When the ambulance finally arrived nearly an hour after the helicopter had left, the doctor tried frantically to revive Ragnar, but he died.”
Tantina shrugged her shoulders and then took a pastry from the basket in the center of the table. She didn’t have much else to add, other than to say that the ambulance crew took Ingrid away. Six days later, she too was dead, and no one knew why.
Jonathan pulled out his wallet to pay the bill and turned to Hark. “Please thank her for the information. So, tell her I’d love to see her orchids—unless you can find a polite way to postpone this for another day.” He opened the wallet flat on the table to find the right Swedish currency when suddenly Tantina leaned forward and let out a loud gasp.
“Åh, Herregud!” she said excitedly, immediately stabbing Jonathan’s open wallet with her index finger. She started pulling at a picture that stuck out above his driver’s license.
“Vad tar du dig till?” Hark said to her, nearly shouting. He leaned into her and asked something, and then cocked his head back. “She wants to see it.”
Jonathan threw his hands up and let her have it.
Her thick fingers plucked the wallet photo out, and she turned it her way and intensely examined the picture.
“What is it?” Jonathan almost shouted, his stomach turning.
Tantina was agitated. She rattled off words to Hark, who sat wide-eyed, his jaw falling.
“What is she saying?”
“Jag förstår inte—” Hark replied and then interrupted himself, realizing he’d just spoken to Jonathan in Swedish. “Sorry. She is saying that this is the pilot.”
“Impossible!” Jonathan felt his stomach ball up. “It can’t be. This is a picture of my brother, and...he’s been dead seven years.” Jonathan interrupted himself, realizing, as if for the first time, that the Meecham’s collision with the Cajun Star and his brother’s death both occurred in the spring of 1989. But it wasn’t the first time. Linda had first mentioned it in passing when they’d talked about the case over a year earlier, and most recently two days ago.
But it makes no sense, Jonathan pondered. His chest suddenly felt cold.
The woman uttered something else, and Hark quickly translated. “She says she never forgets faces.”
She’s a nutcase, he instantly thought, but he could not convince himself that she really was. Her face was too honest, her demeanor too confident, and her gaze at Hark too intense to simply brush her off as a senile old hag with a screwed-up memory and a freakish passion for orchids.
She continued to speak to Hark, holding the picture under her hawkish stare. She nodded a few times and then slowly handed it back to Jonathan.
Hark listened to her and turned to his American guest. “Tantina says she’s certain this is who Ragnar rescued that night, but if you say it can’t be true, then she’s obviously wrong.”
Jonathan breathed in deeply and looked into Hark’s eyes, feeling completely baffled. “For Christ’s sake, my brother died a couple of weeks after the date of this incident. And he died in the North Atlantic, near Iceland, nowhere near Gotland. And he was not even a pilot.”
“I understand,” murmured Hark.
Jonathan was so upset, he jumped to his feet, his wallet slipping from his hands and falling to the floor. His thoughts ran a hundred miles per hour. It can’t be. But then again, Matt’s remains arrived in New Orleans nearly three weeks later.
“She must be mistaken,” Hark said in an appeasing tone.
“My brother was only a linguist—a Pentagon translator, nothing more,” Jonathan added, his voice nervously jumping from word to word. But Matt was proficient in Russian, as well as Polish. And he had been to Europe several times, though he never shared great detail about his deployments. Jonathan’s skin felt as if it was crawling off his body, and he was now fighting to keep his food down.
He ran for the door just as he heard Hark shout his name. When he reached the curb, it all came out. The cheese. The sausage. The kaffe. White blobs of filmjölk. And perhaps even the remnants of the vod
ka from the night before. The ugly American had marked his spot in the annals of Hammars history. He’d come, he’d caused an argument, he’d thrown up, and surely he’d leave.
Hark quickly came to his aid, handing him napkins and apologizing profusely for Tantina’s comments.
“I’ll be fine. I think it’s just jet lag.”
Tantina stayed inside, perhaps embarrassed by her claims.
Jonathan went back into the bakery to use the washroom, where the moment he saw the toilet he threw up again, this time in the bowl.
“Tala med Ralf i den stora vita telefonen,” he heard Hark say as he followed him into the restroom.
Jonathan got up and rinsed his face in the sink. “What did you say?”
“You speak to Ralf in the big white telephone,” Hark said, laughing.
“Ahah,” said Jonathan, splashing more water on his face, “or, as we Americans say: you pray to the porcelain god.”
Jonathan wasn’t nauseated anymore, but he was overcome with grief and anger. He could not dismiss what Tantina had said, as outrageous as it was. How could this be? he now asked himself. And that’s when the words of Vice-Admiral Scarborough and Captain Tucker seemed to echo over one another. Jonathan’s head was spinning as all of a sudden a dark realization captured him. What if Tantina was right? What if the military lied about Matt’s death? And about the Meecham? Captain Tucker had no qualms about lying through his teeth, so why wouldn’t they all? And if they were behind the attempt on Jonathan’s life back in D.C., they’d be capable of nearly anything.
Jonathan’s rage boiled inside him, though he tried to collect himself. He tuned Hark out as he walked by him and headed to the street. He simply gazed at a passing car, but his mind wandered off deeper into the past, arbitrarily replaying images he didn’t want to revisit. Images of that day when the men came. Their shiny green Caprice pulled up into the driveway while Jonathan was mowing the lawn. It was a Sunday in April. Two men in Army uniforms walked calmly toward him. Jonathan was horrified. He had only seen this in the movies, its devastation so incalculable. Every detail had soaked in: the bible in one man’s hand, the cross on his lapel. But not a word could exit Jonathan’s lips. Nothing but a harsh breathing and a strong but hopeless wish that it was all a mistake. A wrong address, perhaps; a wrong name.
But it was not so. Like a bullet jammed in the chamber, not a word could leave his lips because he knew. He knew from their faces, made to look somber but which only showed that they had performed the ritual hundreds of times before. It was time to share the news no one ever wants to hear. Your brother has died in an aircraft accident on his way to Brunswick, Maine, Jonathan remembered the man saying. And the rest played itself out. The disbelief. The sorrow. The formal letters. The elaborate funeral. And the flag, neatly folded. Everything was made to appear so proper, so collected. And he had never thought to question what they had said. Never. Not until now. Not until this very second.
8
The rain had stopped. A desolate, rocky coastline and cool breeze had brought back a sense of tranquility. Jonathan sat quietly on a stone wall, gazing at the sea. It was a welcome distraction from what he had tackled at the bakery.
Hark was behind him, by the car. He had not said a word since they left Tantina and drove to this quiet corner of Fårö.
“I’m sorry if she offended you,” Hark said.
Jonathan didn’t answer right away. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “She didn’t.”
“Is what she said even possible?” Hark asked hesitantly.
“I want to say no, but I can’t be certain.”
Hark offered to take Jonathan anywhere he wanted, but there wasn’t much else to see. Ingrid’s relatives had long ago sold her home, and Ragnar’s family had moved to the mainland and sold the boat that brought the pilot to shore. No one else could corroborate Tantina’s story.
Hark drove around for half an hour, showing Jonathan other scenic parts of the little island. After they returned to Hark’s bed and breakfast, Jonathan used the phone at the front desk to call home, knowing the risk that that entailed.
Linda answered, her voice hinting that she’d just woken up—it was eight in the morning in New Orleans.
“Sweetheart,” Jonathan began, his jumbled thoughts scrambling to line up correctly. But he quickly told himself not to alarm her. “Honey, I need you to find some documents and give them to Gary at the office as quickly as you can.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Jonathan replied, knowing, however, that Linda had a paranormal disposition to decipher his thoughts. “Please give Gary the last two letters from Matt, and the letter of condolence from his unit commander, and the circumstance letter.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing...I’ll explain later.”
“Are you okay? Are you still in Sweden?”
“Yes, and everything’s fine. I’ll give you all the details later. I promise.”
“Okay, honey,” Linda said, her alarm clock ringing in the background. “I’ll take care of it later today. When are you coming home?”
“In a day or two.”
“I love you,” she said.
Her words comforted Jonathan, though he felt a twinge of guilt for not confiding in her. She had always been there for him through the worst of times: when his father died, when his mother passed, and, finally, when Matt died.
“I love you, sweetheart,” he said, somewhat surprised that she hadn’t probed deeper. “And thank you.”
The day had brought back memories Jonathan had not expected to explore. Fear and sadness were intermittently shaking his psyche throughout the long afternoon and into the evening.
At Hark’s suggestion, he took a walk through the nearby forest to help him relax. The smell of pine, mixed with the gentle scent of the sea that came in with the breeze, filtered through his lungs. He listened to the soft crackling sounds of twigs breaking below his feet. It was strangely peaceful. In the morning he’d head to Stockholm to enquire further on the incident, as he was certain Swedish authorities had investigated the event.
* * *
Loud footsteps jolted Jonathan out of his deep sleep. Someone was racing up the stairs. A hard knock shook his door. Jonathan craned his neck to see the clock. It was a little past six in the morning.
“Open quickly!” shouted a man who sounded like Hark. The knocking continued unabated.
He sprung out of bed, put on some pants and answered the door. Hark’s expression told him something was terribly wrong.
“There’s an urgent telegram for you,” Hark said, looking flabbergasted. He handed the envelope to Jonathan. “I opened it, not knowing that it was for you.”
The message was from Gary, and it read:
A fire at your house. Linda in serious condition at Charity Hospital. I am with her. No cell service at hospital. Please call ER ASAP.
“My god.” He jumped up and gazed around wildly.
“I’m sorry,” Hark said. “You are welcome to use my phone to call home.”
“It must have happened...” Jonathan murmured, checking the timestamp of the telegram and then his wristwatch, “a few hours ago.”
Hark glanced at his own watch. “Isn’t it nearly midnight in New Orleans?”
“Yes.” His heart began racing.
Hark grabbed Jonathan’s arm. “Come with me. We’ll make the calls.”
Jonathan went along, but his mind was numb. Linda was all he could think about.
At the lodge’s reception, Hark quickly placed the phone on the counter. “It’s all yours.”
“How did this telegram come to you?”
“Oscar, our postman. He got it this morning when he arrived at work.”
By the time he dialed Gary, Jonathan’s mind was swirling with suspicion that this was no accident, and certainly not after what had happened in D.C. He called the hospital, knowing that by doing so, he risked being tracked down. But he had no
choice. The switchboard patched him through to the ER, where a man answered.
“I’m calling about my wife, Linda Brooks, she—”
“Oh, yes,” the man said, interrupting Jonathan. “I’m Dr. Crowley. I’m sorry to say...your wife has serious injuries.”
“How bad?”
“Third degree burns on about thirty percent of her body, mostly her legs and lower abdomen, and less severe burns on her chest and left arm. She also has head trauma, possibly from falling down.”
Jonathan felt his body turn cold. “What exactly happened?”
“I was told a house fire.”
“Doctor, is there a Gary Green there?”
“Yes, I saw him earlier; I will tell him you called.”
“Thank you.
Jonathan heard himself breathing, almost panting. His elbows kept him up against the counter. He felt Hark gently take the handset from his hand and hang up the phone. He couldn’t move, though his body wanted to race out the door. His mind quickly recalled the words he had heard Linda say, and her playful eyes that morning before he left for Washington, D.C. Her voice had jazzed up his whole day. A horrid notion then interrupted his train of thought: those words might be her last. Forever. The thought made him move. Fast. Back to his room, where he packed his things and returned to the front desk.
The only thought that swarmed in his head was of getting home, but all the hurrying in the world would not change the predicament: he was in the middle of nowhere on a Monday morning. The fastest way home was by plane from Visby. Oh, no, he then came to another realization. The ferry service doesn’t begin until eight. He picked up his tickets and returned to the phone, where he dialed the airline demanding to change his transatlantic flight from Stockholm.
“Dammit!” Jonathan said as he hung up the phone. He glanced at Hark. “Even if I make the morning flight out of Visby, the best they can do is get me on the first flight to New York on Tuesday morning.”
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