by Anne Holt
‘But they overlooked this,’ said Warren and once again bent down over the loose grate.
‘We don’t know that for certain.’
‘Would there still be traces there if they’d discovered it? Wouldn’t the whole grate have been taken in for investigation?’
Adam didn’t answer.
‘And this,’ Warren continued and pointed with his penknife to a spot in the middle of the grate. ‘Do you see? All the scratches?’
Adam studied the nearly invisible stripes in the white metal. Someone had scraped against the enamel without breaking it.
‘Genius in its simplicity,’ he said quietly.
‘Quite,’ said Warren.
‘Someone has unfastened the grate, pulled a stay tied to string or rope through the middle hole, attached double-sided tape to the edge of the grate . . .’
‘And climbed in,’ concluded Warren. ‘It was simply a matter of pulling the grate up to close it. Then there he was. That explains why he was carrying a small ladder.’ He pointed at the ceiling with his thumb. ‘All he had to do was crawl in when—’
‘But how the hell did he manage to get in in the first place?’ Adam cut in. ‘Can you explain to me how anyone managed to get into the suite where the US president was staying, set up all this . . .’ he pointed at the ceiling and then at the loose grate that was lying on the table, ‘get comfy in the air vent, then creep out and take the President away with him, and get away with it?’
He coughed before continuing, his voice low and exasperated. ‘And all that in a hotel room that was minutely examined only a few hours before the President retired. How is it possible? How is that at all possible?’
‘There are lots of loose ends here,’ Warren said, with his hand on the Norwegian’s shoulder.
Adam moved almost imperceptibly, and Warren lifted his hand.
‘We have to find out when the CCTV cameras were turned on,’ he said swiftly. ‘And if they were ever turned off. We must establish when the room was last examined before Madam President came back from the meal. We must—’
‘Not we,’ Adam corrected and pulled out his mobile phone again. ‘I should have called ages ago. That is the investigators’ job. Not yours. Not mine.’
He held Warren’s gaze as he waited for an answer at the other end. The American was as expressionless as he had been when they came into the suite half an hour ago. When Adam made contact, he turned away and walked slowly towards the windows facing the fjord, talking in a low voice.
Warren Scifford sank down into a chair. He stared at the floor. His arms hung limply by his sides, as if he didn’t really know what to do with them. His suit didn’t look so elegant any more. It was crumpled and his tie knot was loose.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Adam asked. He had finished his conversation and turned round without warning.
Warren quickly straightened his tie and stood up. The surprise in his face vanished so swiftly that Adam wasn’t sure if he had seen correctly.
‘Everything,’ Warren laughed. ‘Everything’s wrong at the moment. Shall we go?’
‘No. I’ll wait here for my colleagues to come. It shouldn’t be long.’
‘Then,’ Warren started, lightly brushing the right sleeve of his jacket, ‘I hope that you won’t mind if I go.’
‘Not at all,’ Adam said. ‘Just ring me when you need me.’
He wanted to ask Warren where he was going, but something stopped him. If the American wanted to play that game, he would let him have all the secrets he liked.
Adam had other things to think about.
XX
‘I’ve got other things to take care of,’ he said and switched his phone from his right to his left hand as he got into the passenger seat of a uniformed Oslo Police car. ‘I’ve been at work since half past seven this morning, and now I’m going home.’‘You’re the best,’ the voice at the other end said. ‘You’re the best, Adam, and this is the closest we’ve come to anything concrete.’
‘No.’
Adam Stubo was completely calm when he put his hand over the mouthpiece for a moment and whispered to the driver: ‘Haugesvei 4, please. Off Maridalsveien, just before you get to Nydalen.’
‘Hello,’ the voice on the other end called.
‘I’m still here. I’m on my way home. You’ve given me the job of liaison, and I’m trying to do it to the best of my ability. It’s unprofessional, quite frankly, to then suddenly pull me into—’
‘Not at all. On the contrary, it is very professional,’ the Chief of Police, Bastesen, retorted. ‘This case demands that we use only the best people in the country at all times. Regardless of shifts, rank and overtime.’
‘But—’
‘We have of course cleared it with your bosses. You can take this as an order. Come immediately.’
Adam closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He opened them again when the driver braked suddenly at the roundabout by Oslo City. A young lad in a clapped-out Golf jumped in too fast in front of them.
‘Change of plan,’ Adam said, exhausted, and closed the conversation. ‘Drive me to the police HQ. Some people obviously think that today has not been long enough.’
There was a loud rumble. Adam patted his stomach and smiled apologetically to the driver.
‘And please stop at a petrol station,’ he added. ‘I have to eat something, a hotdog or three.’
XXI
Abdallah al-Rahman was hungry, but he still had a couple of things to do before he could have his evening meal. First he wanted to see his youngest son.
Rashid was fast asleep, with a soft horse under his arm. The boy had eventually been allowed to watch the film he had gone on about so much, and was now lying on his back with his legs wide open, his face the picture of peace. He had kicked off his blanket some time ago. His jet-black hair was getting too long. His curls lay like rivers of oil against the white silk.
Abdallah sank down on his knees and spread the blanket carefully over the boy again. He kissed him on the forehead and adjusted the horse so it would be more comfortable.
They had watched Die Hard with Bruce Willis.
The nearly twenty-year-old American film was Rashid’s favourite. None of his older brothers could understand why. For them, Die Hard was incredibly old-fashioned, with hopelessly out-of-date special effects and a hero who wasn’t even tough. But for six-year-old Rashid, the action scenes were perfect: cartoon-like and unreal and therefore not frightening. Another bonus was that in 1988, terrorists were Eastern European. They hadn’t yet become Arabs.
Abdallah looked up at the old film poster hanging above Rashid’s bed. The night light, which the boy was still allowed to keep on because he was scared of the dark, cast a reddish glow over Bruce Willis’ bruised face. It was partially covered by Nakatomi Plaza, an explosive tower of fire. The actor’s mouth was open, almost aghast, and his eyes were fixed on the unthinkable: a terrorist attack on a skyscraper.
Abdallah got up to leave. He stood for a while in the doorway. Bruce Willis’ mouth was a gaping black hole in the semi-dark. Abdallah thought he could see a yellowish-red reflection of the massive explosion in his eyes; a nascent fury.
That’s how they reacted, he thought to himself. Just like that. Thirteen years after the film was made. Shock and disbelief, helplessness and fear. And then came the anger, when American society realised that the unthinkable was now reality.
The terrorist attack on the 11th of September 2001 had been the work of madmen. Abdallah had seen that immediately. He got a distraught phone call from one of his contacts in Europe and managed to turn on the television in time to see United Airlines Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower. The North Tower was already in flames. It was just after four in the afternoon in Riyadh, and Abdallah had not been able to sit down.
For two hours he stood in front of the TV screen. When he finally pulled himself away from the news to answer some of the telephone messages that had been streaming in, he realised that the attack on t
he World Trade Center would be as fatal for the Arabic world as the attack on Pearl Harbor had been for the Japanese.
Abdallah closed the door to his son’s room. There was more to do before he could eat. He started to walk towards the part of the palace where his offices were, towards the east wing, where the morning sun was allowed to stream in at the start of the working day, before it got too hot.
The building was now quiet and dark. The few employees that he felt it was necessary to have out here lived in a small complex he had had built two kilometres closer to Riyadh. Only the private servants stayed in the palace after office hours. And even they had their sleeping quarters some distance from the main buildings, in the low sand-coloured houses by the gate.
Abdallah crossed the square between the two wings. The night was clear, and as always, he took time to stop by the carp pond and look at the stars. The palace was situated far enough from the city lights for the sky to look like it had been perforated by millions of white dots; some were small and sparkling, others big shining stars. He sat down on one of the low benches and felt the evening breeze against his cheeks.
Abdallah was a pragmatist when it came to religion. His family upheld the Muslim traditions, and he made sure that his sons received instruction in the Koran, as well as a rigorous academic training. He believed in the Prophet’s word; he had done his hajj and paid zakah with pride. But for him the relationship between himself and Allah was personal. He said his prayers five times a day, but not if time was short. Which it was more and more frequently, but he didn’t let it bother him. Abdallah al-Rahman was convinced that Allah, to the extent that He was bothered by such things, would have the greatest understanding of the importance of taking care of his affairs, over and above following the salah rules down to a T.
And he was strongly opposed to mixing politics and religion. To worship Allah as the only God and acknowledge the prophet Mohammad as His messenger was a spiritual matter. Politics, on the other hand – and therefore business – was not about the spirit, but about reality. In Abdallah’s opinion, the split between politics and religion was not only necessary from the point of view of politics. It was equally important, if not more so, to protect what was pure and sublime about faith from the cynical, often brutal, processes required by politics.
He was a cynic when it came to business, with no other god than himself.
When al-Qaeda launched its devastating attack on the US on the 11th of September 2001, he was just as horrified as most of the world’s six billion inhabitants.
He was appalled by the attack.
Abdallah al-Rahman saw himself as a warrior. His contempt for the US was just as potent as a terrorist’s hate for that country. And killing was a means that Abdallah accepted, and at times used. But it was to be used with precision, and only when necessary.
Arbitrary violence was always evil. He had in fact known several of those who died in Manhattan. Three of them were on his pay roll. Without knowing it, of course. Most of his American companies were owned by holding companies that in turn were affiliated with international conglomerates, which effectively concealed the actual ownership. Via the usual routes, Abdallah made sure that the families of those killed would not suffer financially. They were Americans, all of them, and they had no idea that the generous cheques they received from the deceaseds’ employers actually came from a man who was from the same country as Osama bin Laden.
Arbitrary violence was not only evil; it was also inconceivably stupid.
Abdallah had problems understanding why such an intelligent and well-educated man had become involved in such banal terrorism.
Abdallah knew the al-Qaeda leader well. They were about the same age and were both born in Riyadh. They moved in the same circles when they were young; a group of rich men’s sons who mixed with the innumerable princes of the house of Saud. Abdallah liked Osama. He was a friendly boy, gentle and attentive, and far less flashy than a lot of the other boys, who wallowed in their wealth and did little to look after their family fortunes that welled up in the country’s vast desert. Osama was academically gifted and bright and the two boys had often ended up in a corner having quiet discussions about philosophy and politics, religion and history.
When Abdallah’s brother died and his carefree life as the younger son was over, he lost contact with Osama. But that was probably a good thing. The man who was later to become a terrorist leader experienced a political-religious awakening towards the end of the 1970s, a process that was speeded up when the Soviet Union decided to invade Afghanistan.
They had gone their separate ways and had not seen each other since.
Abdallah got up from the bench. He stretched his arms up towards the stars and felt his muscles being fully extended. The cool evening breeze was soothing.
He wandered slowly over to the east wing.
He believed that al-Qaeda’s attack on the US was driven by pure hate, which always made him puzzle at his childhood friend’s lack of insight into the Western psyche.
Abdallah knew the limitations of hate. During his convalescence in Switzerland, following his brother’s death, he had come to understand that hate was an emotion he must never indulge in. Already then, as a sixteen-year-old, he recognised that rationality was a warrior’s most important tool, and that reason was irreconcilable with hate.
Hate only reproduced itself.
The destruction of three buildings and four planes, and the deaths of around three thousand people had unleashed a hate and fear so great that the people accepted gross misconduct on the part of their authorities.
In Abdallah’s view, the American people had willingly compromised their constitution in the hope that they would not be attacked again. They accepted tapping and arbitrary arrests, raids and surveillance to a degree that would have been unthinkable a hundred years earlier.
The Americans had closed ranks, Abdallah mused, in the way that people always close ranks against an external enemy.
He opened the big, beautiful carved door to his office. The lamp on his desk was on, and bathed the many carpets that lay on the floor in a golden light. There was a faint humming from the computer and a fragrant smell of cinnamon made him open a cupboard by the window. Here he found a newly made pot of tea, ready on a stand. The last servant always made sure that this was done before leaving the office wing so that Abdallah could complete his evening duties in peace. He poured himself a glass.
This time they would not close ranks.
The thought made him smile. He drank half a glass of tea before sitting down at the computer. It took him a matter of seconds to pull up the ColonelCars’ website. There he read that it was with great sadness that the management had to announce the death of the company’s CEO, Tom Patrick O’Reilly, in a tragic accident. The management expressed their deepest sympathies to the director’s family and reassured their clients that their extensive international operations would continue to be run in the spirit of the deceased, and that 2005 already looked set to be a record year.
Abdallah had his confirmation and logged out.
He would never again think of his old university friend Tom O’Reilly.
XXII
The man who had just collected his dead mother’s personal belongings from the hospital locked the door behind him and went into his sitting room. For a moment he stood there, at a loss, staring down at the anonymous bag that contained his mother’s clothes and rucksack. He was still holding it in his hand and didn’t quite know what to do.
The doctor had taken time to talk to him. He had comforted him by saying that it had been quick and his mother would hardly have known that anything was wrong before she collapsed. She had been found by another walker, he told him, but unfortunately the old woman had died before she got to hospital. The doctor’s smile was warm and open and he said something to the effect that he hoped he would die in much the same way, in the forest one May day, as a healthy eighty-year-old with an alert mind.
Eighty years and fi
ve days, thought the son, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. No one could complain about getting to that age.
He put the bag down on the dining table. In a way it seemed undignified to unpack it. He tried to win over his reluctance to go through his mother’s belongings; it felt like breaking his childhood rule number one: don’t poke your nose in other people’s business.
The rucksack lay on top. He opened it gingerly. A tin lunch box was the first thing he saw. He took it out. The lid had once sported a picture of the Geiranger Fjord in brilliant sunshine, and an old-fashioned luxury steamship. Now all that remained of it was some dirty blue water and grey sky. He had given her a new bright red plastic lunch box a couple of years ago. She immediately went and exchanged it for a hand whisk, as there was no point in replacing a perfectly usable lunch box.
He emptied the rest of the contents of the rucksack on to the table, and smiled at the thought of his mother’s grim face every time he tried to force something new on her. A worn map of Nordmarka. A compass that certainly didn’t point north; the red arrow wavered back and forth as if it had drunk some of the alcohol it lay in.
Under the rucksack was her walking jacket. He lifted it up and held it to his cheek. The smell of the old woman and the forest brought tears to his eyes again. He held the jacket out and carefully brushed away the leaves and twigs that were caught on one of the arms.
Something fell out of the pocket.
He folded the jacket and put it down beside the contents of the rucksack. Then he bent down to pick up whatever it was that had fallen to the floor.
A wallet?
It was made of leather, and was quite small. But it was unexpectedly heavy. He opened it and caught himself laughing out loud.
He mustn’t laugh, so he gulped and sniffed and opened his eyes wide to stop the tears.
But he couldn’t stop laughing and had problems breathing.
His obstinate eighty-year-old mother had met her death with a Secret Service ID card in her pocket.