by Trevor Scott
“Tomato potato.”
“That’s not the way it goes,” she said.
Putting his pants on, he said, “That’s my way. Why’d you want to meet me downstairs at the bar anyway?”
“I didn’t. The restaurant.”
She had a point. Although they were technically connected. “Right. Why don’t I take you someplace nicer. I’m sure Oslo has a decent JapaChinese place. Tai? Indian?” He strapped his watch to his left wrist. “Where have you been for the past three hours?”
“Shopping.”
“You have no bags.”
“Shopping is not buying.”
“It is when you go,” he reminder her as he stretched a polo shirt over his head and then combed out his longer than normal hair with his fingers. Jesus, he had let his hair get long again.
“Must you always be a smart ass, Jake?”
“That’s rhetorical, right? That’s like asking me to piss sitting down.”
A slight smile crept up the right side of her mouth. Okay, he had her now. She was cooling down.
Reaching his hands to her, he said, “Come on. I’ll buy you some Sushi.”
“Sushi with a hangover?”
She put her hands out and Jake pulled her up from the bed and into his arms. They kissed and she pulled away from him.
“Hangover assumes I still don’t have a shine on,” he said, knowing she had pulled away because of the alcohol on his breath.
“You’ve got to slow down, Jake. It’s not good for you.”
No shit. Maybe that was the point. He was bored out of his skull. “I know. I need to get back into the game.”
A knock on the door surprised Jake, but Anna didn’t seem to flinch. Maybe she had ordered room service.
After hesitating another moment, Anna went to the door, looked through the peep and opened the door.
Jake expected to see some room service dude. Instead, there stood a man in his late 50s, gray hair in a military flat top, and dressed in nice tan Dockers and tight black polo shirt that showed the guy was still full of muscle and vitality. Even though it had been ten years since Jake had seen the man, that time passed would not hide his ex-commander, Colonel Russ Reed.
“Jesus,” Jake said, his head shaking. “What the hell you doing here, colonel?”
The two of them embraced like brothers, for that’s what they had been, first in Air Force intelligence stationed in Germany, and later, when the colonel retired and Jake moved on from the military early, where their paths crossed many times in the old CIA. Jake had spent much of his CIA time in Western Europe, and Colonel Reed had been assigned at various embassies in Eastern Europe. Although they hadn’t seen each other in years, they had talked on the phone and corresponded by e-mail.
Anna closed the door and stared at Jake.
“I’m sorry, Russ,” Jake said. “This is Anna, my—”
“We’ve met,” the colonel said.
Jake was rightfully confused. But then he remembered that Anna had opened the door without hesitation. She had recognized him. His head swirled and he had a feeling the alcohol was only part of the problem.
“Have a seat, Jake,” Colonel Reed said. It was more of a order than a request.
He would have protested, but Jake felt like shit and maybe close to throwing up. Reluctantly, he sat on the end of the bed. “What is this some kind of intervention? I admit I’ve been drinking too much. But come on. . . .”
Anna pulled a chair from a small table, took a seat, and cast her gaze on the colonel. “You want me to talk?” she asked the colonel.
“Let me start,” Colonel Reed said.
He remained standing, his fully-expressive, ruddy face his only tell. Something was seriously disturbing him, Jake could see.
“I contacted Anna in Vienna,” the colonel continued. “You had mentioned she worked for Interpol, and more specifically The Public Safety and Terrorism Sub-Directorate.”
Jake looked at Anna and said, “That wasn’t exactly a secret. After all, your mother and father in Zell am See know that much.”
She didn’t say a word.
“Anyway,” the colonel said, “you had also told her about my background. So Anna knew, to a certain extent, where I was coming from. As you might know, there’s been a huge shake-up in the U.S. intelligence community.”
Jake knew. Nearly a decade ago the old CIA, FBI, NSA, ATF, and nearly every other alphabet soup agency had been swallowed up in one major intelligence agency, the new Agency. The Agency also included members of the military intelligence community. Unfortunately, the expected streamlining had also developed at times into an even more cumbersome bureaucracy. Jake had been called back to the new Agency, which he had never really been a part of, on a number of occasions over the years. And it was always the same old mantra—your country needs you. Each time had almost cost him his life.
“What’s the Agency need this time?” Jake asked callously. “Who do you need killed.”
Colonel Reed laughed. “You’re still a funny guy, Jake. But it’s nothing like that.” His eyes shifted toward Anna and then settled back on Jake.
“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “You could have just dropped by our flat in Vienna. Oslo is kind of out of the way. A connection too far. You convinced Anna that she and I needed a vacation in Norway in August. But why?”
Anna leaned back in her chair, her expression defiant yet defeated.
“Well,” Colonel Reed said. “Glad to see your training hasn’t entirely been washed away by schnapps.”
“Did you come here to insult me, or tell me I just won the Megabucks Lotto?”
The colonel hesitated, selecting his words. “You remember a guy named Captain Steve Olson?”
“Of course. You only had seven officers at any one time under your command in our tactical intel squadron. Steve and I hung out a lot. But you know that. What about him? He was reassigned as a military attaché here in Oslo until he died in a plane crash.”
“There was no plane crash,” the colonel muttered.
Jake’s mind tried to recall the circumstances of his old friend’s death, but it had been nearly two decades ago, and too much had happened between then and now. “A cover story,” he finally surmised.
“Right.”
“Okay. . .so how did Steve die?”
“We don’t know for sure,” the colonel said somewhat reticently. “But we might know now.”
Glancing at Anna, Jake said, “And how does this impact Anna and Interpol?”
“It doesn’t,” Reed said. Perhaps too forcefully.
“It doesn’t but it does,” Jake said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked her to be here. You would have just called me in Vienna and told me what you’re going to tell me right now. Come on, Russ, before my buzz wears off.”
“Right to the point. I always liked that about you, Jake. All right. Steve and the assistant Oslo station chief, John Korkala, went missing together back in October of 1986. They had heard of a plane crash on Spitsbergen Island in Svalbard and went to investigate. Last the CIA heard they were following four KGB officers. Something went wrong up there, because not one of the six ever left that island.”
Thinking of the scenario, Jake tried to remember the Svalbard Archipelago. He had flown over the islands once during a mission. To call them remote would be like calling the sky blue.
“Svalbard made news recently,” Jake said. “The Norwegian Seed Bank.”
“Exactly.”
The Norwegian government had recently completed a cave-like structure under the permafrost where they would store as many species of seeds as possible, just in case the world decided to blow itself up. Then the Norwegians could come to the rescue and help the world re-plant and survive. Of course, they might not have taken into consideration that whole Nuclear Winter, and the fact that they would need someone to till the soil, fresh water, etc.
“So, what happened to Steve?” Jake asked. “You sure the Ruskies didn’t just kidnap him?”
>
“We weren’t entirely sure, but his failsafe intel had never been put to the test.”
All intel officers were given a piece of information that could be exploited after a little intimidation or torture. None of the officers knew what their own failsafe response entailed. That was the only way the other side knew the officer was not lying, especially under drug-induced lie detectors.
“Interesting. But now you know. Who turned?”
“A retired Soviet intel officer with GRU. He told me about a MiG going down in Svalbard in October of 1986.”
“You believe him?”
“Yes. His brother was the MiG pilot.”
“So officially that makes seven,” Jake said.
“Seven?”
“Seven dead in Svalbard.”
“Right.”
“So, this Soviet GRU officer told you more.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. This officer has been going to Spitsbergen every August for the past five years to search for his brother. This has been an unusually warm summer up there.”
“Global warming,” Anna finally said.
“That or fairies and dwarves,” Jake said. “He found something?”
The colonel smiled. “Last week. The tail section from his brother’s plane.”
Jake couldn’t hold back a flash of incertitude. “Why do you need me?” he asked.
Colonel Reed cleared his throat. “Our governments can’t get involved with this.”
“Why not?”
“That’s one thing I can’t tell you, Jake. All I need you to do is go up there and find whatever remains of your old friend, Captain Steve Olson. Anna has agreed to go with you. She thought. . .”
“That I needed something to do.”
A slight smile tried to escape from Anna’s mouth, but she was doing a fine job holding back.
“Well, she said it’s been a while.”
“Can I think about it?”
Colonel Reed pulled his wallet from his back pocket, retrieved a plastic card, and handed it to Jake.
He looked at the Visa symbol and then read his name on the card. “A platinum debit card with my name on it. Pretty sure of yourself. How much is on it?”
“Just under ten grand. Pin number is the last four of your Social. Kept it simple. You’ll need to buy some gear. You have e-tickets waiting for you at Oslo Gardermoen international airport. Flight to Longyearbyen, Svalbard leaves tomorrow at thirteen ten. I’ve already given Anna a programmed GPS, maps, a satellite phone, and instructions on who you’ll meet up there.”
“You’ve thought of everything,” Jake said. “What if I just want to hang out here in Oslo and party?”
“Your sense of duty,” the colonel said. “And Steve was a good friend. Plus, you could never turn down a good adventure.”
He had Jake right on that one. Duty was more than something you stepped on in a cow pasture. Adventure was a reason to live. And, other than for Anna, Jake had not found many reasons in the last few months.
“Fine,” Jake said. “But I hope to hell you plan on providing some polar bear prevention.”
“You’ll get some guns when you reach Spitsbergen,” Colonel Reed assured him. With that he went to the door and turned back to Jake, who had followed him from the bed.
The two of them shook hands and turned that into a hug.
“You two take care up there,” Reed said. Then he whispered, “That’s a beautiful lady you have. Don’t let her get away.”
Jake smiled and nodded and let him out the door. Then he turned to Anna, who was looking at the floor.
“Shopping?” Jake asked her.
She shrugged. “The GPS and SAT phone. It’s like shopping.”
Something wasn’t settling properly in his stomach, and he guessed it had nothing to do with the schnapps. Regardless, he rushed to the bathroom and puked his guts out.
●
Colonel Reed got downstairs, strolled through the lavish hotel lobby, and out onto the street. Gazing left and right, he eventually went to the left and then down a narrow side street. Darkness from an overcast sky had nearly enveloped Oslo, but the city lights of the downtown shone brightly as he got behind the wheel of his rental BMW. He glanced up to the fourth floor and tried to guess which room held his old friend, Jake Adams, and that pretty little Interpol agent. He hated this. Hated to lie to Jake like this. But what choice did he have? Some things were bigger than mere individuals.
He checked the rearview mirrors and thought about starting the engine.
Suddenly the passenger door swung open and a man slid onto the leather seat, closing the door behind him.
“How’d it go?” the man asked with an indeterminate accent. A voice that resonated with each syllable. His gruff intonation was probably the result of the skinny cigars he always smoked. He had one now hanging out the right side of his mouth, smoke rising up and making him close his right eye.
“Jake looked like shit,” Colonel Reed said. “I don’t know if he’s up to the task. Looks like he’s trying to drink himself to death.”
“What’s his problem? I’ve seen his girlfriend. They don’t get any warmer than that.” He moved the cigar to the front of his mouth and puffed the end red.
“You mean hot,” Reed corrected. “Don’t get any hotter than that.”
“You know what I mean,” the man said, exhaling smoke in a straight stream at the windshield. “Try to say that in Russian. Has Jake Adams ever failed to complete a mission?”
He had good points. The colonel smiled thinking about sending Jake to Kurdistan back in the 80s, and how he had come back with first-hand evidence that Saddam Hussein had used nerve agents on his own Kurdish population. No. Jake had never failed him. But he had also never led Jake this far astray. And that bothered him.
“Keep an eye on him,” the colonel said. “We’ll feed him more information as needed.”
The Russian nodded and got out, disappearing in the darkness like a ghost in a cloud of cigar smoke and car exhaust.
How the hell had it come to this? He thought he had left the game long ago. Now he was pulled right back in. He started the engine and pulled away from the curb, blending in with light traffic.
2
Jake and Anna checked out of the hotel early the next morning and then went shopping for warmer clothes. After his stomach settled the night before, Jake had checked out the weather forecast for Spitsbergen on the internet. Even though it was summer there now, there was perpetual permafrost and glaciers and they would have to be ready for any weather. Layers would be the best way to go. Jake had also researched the Svalbard Archipelago on the net. Interesting place.
Then the two of them headed to the Oslo airport and waited for their flight. Colonel Reed had not only arranged for tickets, he made them first class. When they got onto the plane, the flight attendant asked if they’d like Champagne. Jake considered it but declined. His right hand shook and he grasped his leg to calm himself. He needed to clean up. Not just for him, but for Anna. She didn’t deserve a drunk. Had put up with him like a saint the past few months as he had descended deeper into a funk that even he didn’t understand. He hadn’t been sober long enough to decipher why he was drinking so hard in the first place.
The flight took three hours, and most of that over the North Pacific. When they finally set down in Longyearbyen, the Svalbard capital of some 1,800 Norwegians, clouds shrouded the little town in near darkness. It was amazing the pilot had even been able to land in that soup.
They took a cab to one of the only real hotels in the town and plopped down onto a feather bed. Jake closed his eyes and his body felt like he was spinning. He needed a damn drink. Couldn’t come down this hard.
Anna ran her hand across his forehead. “You’re sweating like a pig, Jake.”
“I need a drink.”
Her hand moved to his chest and she grasped him by the shirt, catching a handful of hair. “No. You need to tell me why you’re drinking so much. Don’t you l
ove me?”
Opening his eyes, he said, “Of course I love you, Anna. It has nothing to do with you.”
“But it does, Jake. It affects me. What happens to you happens to me.”
He rolled to his side and gazed at her. She was so beautiful. Colonel Reed was right, though. He couldn’t let this woman get away. They had had a good two years. Not perfect, with both of them gone on business so often, but pretty damn good when they were together. And even while they were separated by distance, they maintained contact by cell phone and e-mail. It wasn’t perfect. But what relationship was perfect? Maybe they needed to get away more often. . .together. This would be good for them. He only wondered if she knew how much pain he was in at this moment. God he needed a drink.
“Are you okay, Jake?”
He hesitated. “I will be. A part of my mind is telling me I need a drink, and the other part is telling me I can’t have one. My body is agreeing I can’t. Two against one.”
“Why don’t you take a shower and we’ll go get something to eat.”
“Reindeer steaks?”
She laughed. “Or salmon.”
His stomach became unsettled with the thought of fish. He thought he might lose his lunch, which had consisted of a large pretzel at the airport before the flight. He rolled off the bed and went to the shower.
Once the shower started, Anna pulled the satellite phone from her backpack, turned it on, and punched in the long number from memory.
“Yeah, we’re in place in Spitsbergen,” she said in French. She listened carefully as the shower droned on in the bathroom. “I understand. We go to the site tomorrow.” She listened again, hoping Jake would take a long shower. “All right. When I know, you’ll know.” She clicked off the phone and quickly plugged it into the wall to make sure the charge was full.
Then she pulled out her cell phone, found a full signal, which amazed her, and hit in another number.
“I know it’s short notice,” she said in German, “but I need to extend my vacation beyond the weekend.” Listening, she heard the shower stop. Hurry. “It’s personal. And I haven’t taken vacation in almost a year.” Pause. “Thank you.” She flipped her phone shut just as Jake came out of the bathroom, naked, wiping his long hair with the towel.