“No moose ever fed me a Mickey Finn. And if you’d done your homework, you’d know what our standing orders are in that situation.” I stared back at him. “What the hell is this all about? Just how do I complicate things for you?”
He walked over to the stove and picked up the sharpening steel. He put on a show of testing it and deciding that it wasn’t as hot as it should be. He laid it back in the flame, a nice little menace bit that was designed to make me sweat and was reasonably successful. I don’t enjoy being burned any more than the next guy. Or waiting for it. Olaf returned to stand over me.
“What is this Lysaniemi business?” he asked.
I was surprised by the question, and saw no harm in letting it show. “Lysaniemi? Why would you be interested in that? As far as I know, it’s got nothing to do with you, or Astrid, or Karin Segerby, whatever it is you’ve all been up to. At least I get the distinct impression that you’ve been working together: Astrid knocks me out for you, Karin tapes me up for you, and you question me. Cooperation.” I shrugged. “But I really can’t see how Lysaniemi concerns any of you. To be honest, I can’t even figure out how it concerns me.”
Olaf regarded me bleakly. “Since Astrid called me from your Oslo motel room, I have done some research, but I have learned very little. That Lysaniemi is a village of a hundred and fifty persons in the country of Norbotten, the northernmost county in Sweden. That it lies just above the Arctic Circle, a hundred and twenty kilometers north of Highway E4, the main road to Haparanda on the nearby Finnish border. That it is not too far from our Swedish space facility at Kiruna, not to mention our big military installation at Boden. and our new communications center at Laxfors.” He had been watching me closely to see if I reacted to any item on his list. Now his eyes widened slightly with satisfaction. “Ah, you are interested in Laxfors!”
“I’d like to know what it is,” I said. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Lax means ‘salmon,’” he said, still studying my face. It seemed as if every Stjernhjelm relative I met felt compelled to teach Swedish to the stupid American cousin. He went on: “A fors is a ‘rapid,’ or ‘torrent.’ A loose translation would be Salmon Falls; but in fact it is too far to the east, too far from the mountains, for a true waterfall. It is simply a minor cataract on a minor stream, not even large enough or steep enough to be harnessed for electric power… You have not heard of Laxfors? It has been the subject of some controversy in the Swedish press. There have been suggestions that it is not exactly what it pretends to be; that the government is keeping secrets from the people, American secrets.” He regarded me bleakly, and threw me a question in Swedish: “Har du faktiskt aldrig hört om Mörkrummet?”
It didn’t seem necessary to pretend not to understand. “I said, “I know, I know; don’t tell me. Mörk means ‘dark’; rummet means ‘the room.’ So Mörkrummet means ‘the darkroom.’ How’m I doing?” I gave him a grin. “And to answer your question, no. I’ve truly never heard of the Darkroom, whatever the hell it may be. At Laxfors?” When he nodded, I said, “I presume the name doesn’t refer to a simple photographic facility. You started out by saying that Laxfors is a communications center.”
Olaf shrugged. “There is a windowless building, there at Laxfors, with an elaborate ventilation system. An imaginative Stockholm journalist called it the Darkroom, and the name has persisted. I understand the Russians are as curious about it as anybody else. After all, it was apparently built in response to all the numerous violations of Swedish territorial waters by Soviet submarines during the past few years. As I said, there have been suggestions to the effect that it was built with American advice and cooperation, which has upset a great many people in this country, who associate America primarily with the atom bomb and nuclear warheads. Any such cooperation has, of course, been firmly denied by our government, which insists Laxfors was built strictly for purposes of military communication.”
“A communications center should have antennas,” I said, making it a question.
“To be sure,” Olaf said. “Large and conspicuous fields of tall antennas, out there on the tundra. But what transmissions are really involved? It is not as if Sweden had a global defense system. Our military forces are concentrated in a limited area, easily covered by ordinary radio. However, the American military might find good use for elaborate electronic equipment close to the Russian border… But you say that Laxfors and its Darkroom do not concern you?”
I said, “How do I know what concerns me, at this point? How close is Laxfors to Lysaniemi?”
“The distance is about eighty-five kilometers, roughly fifty-five of your English miles.”
“You’d think if my boss was interested in this mysterious Darkroom of yours, he’d have given me an aiming point that was a little closer, and spelled out his wishes a little more clearly.”
Olaf made a sharp gesture of annoyance. “Still this pretense of ignorance! You have never heard of Laxfors. You know nothing of the Darkroom. And you have no idea why you have been presented with the name Lysaniemi. You are completely mystified by the fact that your superior, now apparently försvunnen—vanished—considered this lonely Arctic village so important that he had the name passed to you indirectly by a courier of sorts rather than risk compromising it by giving it to you directly over the telephone. About all these things, you are totally in the dark! I am supposed to believe this?”
I said, “If my possible interference bothers you so much, why the hell did you get in touch with Astrid and ask her to help decoy me to Sweden?” A thought came to me, and I looked at him sharply. “Come to that, how did you make her acquaintance in the first place… Acquaintance, hell! You’re the demon lover who took off when she got pregnant, according to her story, leaving it up to nice Cousin Alan Watrous to pick up the pieces, and redeem the family honor by marrying her.”
He hesitated, and shrugged. “Very well. I… knew her in America. I have never said I did not. But it was not the way you suggest. When she became enceinte, to use that old term, I offered to do whatever she wished. What she wished was for me to leave, and let it be thought I had deserted her. She preferred Alan, and the position and security I could not provide; she was certain she could persuade him to look after her and her unborn child, and she did. But we have remained friendly enough that I was not embarrassed to ask a favor of her when one was needed.”
I studied him for a moment. Some odd relationships were involved here; but then, these were odd people, my Swedish relatives. Well, I’ve been told I’m a little odd myself.
I said, dismissing the subject, “Which brings us back to the question: why did you ask her to approach my boss and request my help, when the last thing you really wanted was my interference?”
“You are being very obtuse,” Olaf said irritably. “I had to go through the motions of doing what those important family members required, in order to retain a little of their uncertain confidence. I could not have them thinking I resented too much being bypassed in your favor. They would have summoned you anyway, even if I had refused to help. Better to remain in a position to know if you were becoming dangerously suspicious; in a position, also, to discover that your chief in Washington had not, apparently, released you from your government service to assist your aristocratic Swedish relatives entirely out of the kindness of his heart. He had another axe to grind, to use your American slang; he had another fish to fry. Lysaniemi.”
“Okay, say he’s using me to kill two birds with one stone, to keep the cliches coming; suppose he’s sent me here to solve the Segerby problem for my family and at the same time solve the Lysaniemi problem, whatever it may be, for himself; what difference does it make to you?”
Olaf shook his head grimly. “We cannot afford to have his problems conflict with our problems. We have serious plans. They will be implemented soon. We must know that nothing will interfere with them. You seem to be a dangerous man in your clumsy, blundering way. Years ago, for instance, you came to this country and m
anaged, somehow, to smash an important Soviet espionage operation, you and your foolish guns. Although we are not dealing with Russians or espionage now, we cannot afford to have you stumbling around in the wrong places shooting everything in sight while you try to prevent Karin Segerby from bringing disgrace to the family. What an old-fashioned idea; some people still live in the Middle Ages, here in Sweden! As if the tired old Swedish nobility means anything these days!”
I said, “That ought to be my speech, Baron Stjernhjelm. I’m the democratic character who calls himself Mr. Helm.”
“And who, nevertheless, like all Americans, is tremendously respectful of any title.” He laughed shortly. “Astrid is even worse; I think she even allowed me to make love to her, at first, simply because I was a baron. She is very impressed and somewhat intimidated by us obsolete aristocrats, even though her own Finnish family is as good as any. Barons frighten her, counts positively terrify her—it was a great shock to her, working with him, when she discovered that Alan had a title, even one he had put aside to become an American—and Heaven help her if she should ever meet a prince. I suppose it is the result of being brought up in Indiana.” Olaf shook his head quickly. “But enough of that. We have more important things to discuss. Like Lysaniemi.”
“I keep telling you—”
Olaf didn’t let me finish. He interrupted: “We have you now, and we will keep you until it is too late for you to interfere personally; but we must also leave no loose ends to trip ourselves up. We must know that this other problem you have been sent here to deal with is not going to backfire without you—is that the proper word, backfire?—and damage our plans. We must know the significance of Lysaniemi.” He glanced towards the stove. “We do not like to employ such methods, but an answer we must have!”
Since the beginning of time and torture, they’ve always announced that they were too good, too pure, to use the rack and thumbscrew, or the knout, or the hot irons, and gone right ahead and used them anyway, for the simple reason that they work.
I put some desperation into my voice when I answered. It wasn’t hard to do under the circumstances, and I managed a nice scared quaver: “For Christ’s sake, can’t you get it through your head that I don’t know what it means? Lysaniemi, Lysaniemi. Lysa means ‘light’ or ‘shine’ in Swedish, doesn’t it. Or it could be a girl’s name, perhaps derived from Elizabeth. Elise. Elyse. Lysa. Niemi means ‘point’ or ‘cape’ or ‘promontory’ in Finnish. Or ‘naze’ or ‘ness,’ like in Inverness, if you want to be old-fashioned. Derived from the Scandinavian näsa, meaning ‘nose,’ in case you’re interested. Shining Nose, Lapland. Lizzie’s Point. If that means anything to you, you’re welcome to it.”
He backhanded me alongside the head. I was grateful that, once I’d been securely taped, he’d laid aside the pistol.
“You are playing games with me!”
I said, “Damn it, you’re the one who’s been making with the languages; I thought you liked the semantic stuff. I don’t know what the hell Lysaniemi means. If it’s a code word, I don’t have the code. As for why it was passed to me like that, by way of the lady instead of through normal channels, I, have absolutely no idea except that, as she’ll have told you, our channels aren’t very normal at the moment.”
“You will talk,” he said, stepping forward. “You will talk, I guarantee it.”
He was very systematic about it. He carefully untied my necktie and unbuttoned my shirt. Then he took out a small penknife, opened the larger of the two blades, and slit my undershirt down the front from throat to waist. He pulled it open to bare my chest, and frowned.
“Those old scars. You have been burned before.”
I said bravely, “Sure, the last guy used an electric soldering iron plugged into the wall, very modern. The hot ends of lighted cigars and cigarettes are also very popular for the purpose, as I’ve discovered the hard way. But don’t be bashful, carry on with your old-fashioned branding-iron technique.”
“You are trying to tell me that you are so hardened to this type of interrogation that you cannot be made to talk?”
I said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Stjernhjelm! I’m a pro, not a fucking hero. It’s only the lousy amateurs who’re supposed to be superhuman. And the armed forces: if captured tell only your name, rank, and serial number, that bullshit! Who’re they trying to kid? Our outfit is operated on the principle that people are practically all human, even our people. When the pressure really comes on, they’ll wiggle and scream and wet their pants, and cough up every last bit of information they own. Oh, there may be a few stoical supermen around, but I guarantee I’m not one of them. What do you want, the agency roster? You want some secret passwords? You want the boss’s middle name, highly classified information? You want our in-house cipher? Ask and it shall be yours as far as I can supply it from memory—I might have a little trouble with the cipher—with the blessings of Washington. If I were carrying critical information, I’d have had a kill-me capsule handy, and choked it down when I realized what that bitch had put into my drink, rather than wind up in a cook-in like this. Otherwise, we’re allowed to spill our guts to save ourselves; except that in this case I have no guts to spill. I don’t know what the hell Lysaniemi is all about. I haven’t any idea.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
That was stupid. I hadn’t the slightest intention of forgiving him if he carried out his painful intentions; but there’s never any sense in blowing off about all the terrible things you’re going to do to the sadistic creep by way of retaliation—the old you’ll-be-sorry routine the loudmouthed heroes are always pulling in the movies to show the audience what brave fellows they are. In real life, you don’t want to antagonize the guy unnecessarily, or give him the idea that, since you’re such a fanatic vengeance hound, maybe the only safe thing for him to do, when he’s through with you, is kill you.
I watched Olaf turn and pick up the smoking steel and come back to me. Well, I guess it was the plastic handle that was smoking a bit, with that acrid petrochemical stink, as the heat traveled up the metal to it. I told myself that I was a very stoical character, practically impervious to pain, and it was just another toast-fest like I’d endured before; but I quickly discovered that the nerve endings get no less sensitive with practice…
Only one thing helps. You don’t have to bluster about it, but you can think about it; and I concentrated on visualizing the scene when it was my turn. First I worked it out with a gun: smash the knee and elbow joints, shoot the fingers off one by one, blast the eardrums with the muzzle held close, and blow away the testicles. One thing you don’t want to do is blind the bastard. You want him to be able to watch you enjoying yourself. You want him to see and appreciate what’s happening to him. You want him to know he played his scorching tic-tac-toe on the wrong guy’s chest and got himself totally ruined; and then maybe you can afford to be nice and put one between the eyes to end it. Or maybe not. Okay. So what about a knife, let’s figure it with a knife. A knife is always good, and you can perform more delicately painful operations with a blade than you can with a bullet… Oh, Jesus, how long is the sonofabitch going to keep this up, anyway? How long does it take to convince the bastard I don’t know?
Or do I?
It came to me quite suddenly. After all, I’d worked with Mac a long time; I should by now have a pretty good idea of how his mind operated. I should have realized what he was trying to accomplish here. I should have understood that I hadn’t been told what Lysaniemi meant for the very simple reason that it didn’t mean anything. At least not yet. Not until the fish took the bait, the meaningless bait, and got itself hooked and netted and gutted, up there in the lonely wilderness above the Arctic Circle. But that was no help at the moment…
“Stop it, Olaf.” It was a woman’s voice. The kitchen door had opened. It was Astrid Watrous’ voice. All kinds of stray females were turning up here, live and dead, I reflected hazily; but I couldn’t deny the powerful sense of relief tha
t hit me, and not merely because somebody was trying to put an end to the blister bash. She cried, “Please stop it now! I told you he doesn’t know. Haven’t you done enough to prove it? Can’t you see he doesn’t know?”
16
Hollywood has the right idea. A movie hero is allowed to have it tough, sartorially speaking. In an action drama he’s always losing the knees out of his pants, the elbows out of his jacket, and the buttons off his shirt, not to mention winding up covered with dirt and gore. A screen heroine, on the other hand, is seldom permitted to suffer anything more damaging to her appearance than some mildly mussed hair and a smudge alongside the nose, even in the most violent disaster epic. That’s as it should be. I mean, you want somebody in the cast looking reasonably attractive even through all the rough stuff, right?
But this was not a movie. The hero, if I qualified for the title, was in a normally heroic and bedraggled cinematic state, to be sure, bloody and burned; but no Hollywood heroine would ever have allowed herself to be filmed in Astrid’s condition. When she came around to where, still taped to my chair, I could get a good look at her, the first gory impression was shocking even to a gent, like me, who’s seen a reasonable number of casualties.
The Vanishers Page 16