by Trevor Scott
15
Tromso, Norway
They had made it across the ocean with plenty of fuel, landed at a small airport near Tromso, the city called the ‘Paris of the North,’ which Jake wasn’t buying, and rented a car with cash. Tromso was far more beautiful than Paris, with the snow-capped mountains ringing the town and the ocean-front fjords that ran through the area like a spider web. He had come to hate the crowded big cities of Europe. Although Vienna didn’t seem big to him, the traffic could be a nightmare. Rome was worse and Paris perverse. No, he missed living in Innsbruck. Tromso might have been in the running if it weren’t for the cold winters and the bug-filled summers. Not to mention the strange lighting—long summer nights and nonexistent daylight in the winter.
Now, the three of them were together in more confined space, having transferred their gear from the helo to the rental Volvo sedan. They had just grabbed dinner, decided it would be better to keep moving, so they would drive through the night in shifts. Jake had taken the wheel first, with Anna at his side, and Kjersti sprawled out in the back sleeping. It was closing in on midnight, but the sky was still a strange glow of light. The Land of the Midnight Sun finally made sense to Jake. Most of the night would be in that weird glow. The highway they were driving resembled a tunnel as it wound along a river, the canyon walls periodically steep and narrow.
According to the map, they would reach the border in a few miles. They were at the top of the world here, with Norway, Sweden and Finland coming together in a narrow stretch of land. Not far to the northeast and they could have crossed into Russia. Traffic? In the past fifty kilometers they had come across only two other cars.
“Are you sure we cross into Finland?” Anna asked Jake, her voice quiet and confused.
“Yes,” he said. “But for only about a hundred and twenty kilometers. Then we head south into Sweden.”
“Wow. I had no idea they all came together like this. Where do we go from there?”
Jake looked into the rearview mirror at Kjersti, whose breathing indicated she was in deep sleep. “We continue south and eventually work our way to Oslo.”
“Why the crazy route? We could have flown and been there by now.”
They had been over this before. Jake was tired and didn’t want to explain it again, but he also knew that Anna was finally feeling better. She had been constantly sick while flying on the helo. Not to the point of throwing up all the time, but she had lost her lunch a few times in the last couple of days. So, considering the circumstances, she might not have heard everything he told her.
“We couldn’t bring the box on a commercial flight,” he said. “I couldn’t trust placing it in baggage. And there was no way they would have allowed it in carry-on. This is the only way. Plus, the bad guys could easily pick us off at commercial airports.”
“What about crossing the borders? We have enough firepower for a small army.”
Jake had thought about that. “You have Interpol credentials and Kjersti is with Norwegian Intelligence. That should give us enough clout to pass through without trouble. Besides, Kjersti said the border crossings up here are not very heavily controlled.”
“I guess we’ll find out in a minute.”
They passed a sign saying the border was ahead. As Jake slowed and collected the passports, he looked for any sign of human activity as he powered the window down. Only one small building sat between the two lanes of traffic. No gate. He slowed even more and a man appeared from a door, his hand up. Jake stopped and handed the passports to the older man. So this was where border patrol agents went to retire, Jake thought.
The man asked him something in a language he didn’t understand. English, German, French or Italian, Jake asked the man.
“I speak English,” the border agent said. “I mentioned to you this was a strange group of passports. American, Austrian and Norwegian.” His disposition turned from confused to dubious. “What’s the purpose of your visit to Finland?”
Jake saw Kjersti wake in the back seat.
“We’re tourists,” Jake said. “Just passing through.”
“It’s after midnight,” the guard reminded Jake.
“Yeah, I know. I can’t get used to this light at night. How do you do it?”
“Please step out of the vehicle.” All serious now.
They didn’t have time for this. But he had their passports. Reluctantly, Jake did as the man asked.
“Jake,” Anna said, her hand reaching to him.
“It’s all right. I’ll take care of it.” He smiled at her and got out. As he did so, another man, a man in his early twenties, came out of the door, an automatic rifle in his hands across his chest.
The older man stepped toward the back of the car, giving Jake some room.
“Please open the trunk,” the older guard ordered.
“Why?” Jake asked.
“Inspection.”
“For what?”
“Contraband. Drugs. Maybe a bomb. You could be terrorists.”
Jake shook his head. This was crazy. He was trying to save all of their asses from a deadly virus. Sure, they didn’t know that. Damn it.
Hesitating, Jake twirled the keys in his hand and threw them up in the air. As the old guard’s eyes followed the keys, Jake punched the man in the sternum, taking his breath away and bending him over. The young man backed up, his rifle coming around. Suddenly the back car door opened, hitting the young man in the legs and swiveling him toward Jake again. With a sweep, Jake took the young man off his feet and into a sleeper hold. But as the man struggled, his gun discharged three rounds into the trunk of the car. Jake thrust his knee up into the man’s kidney, making him drop the rifle and come to his knees. A second later and he had passed out.
Kjersti grabbed the rifle and pointed it at the old man, who had started to recover and grab for his handgun on his side.
Jake took the gun from the man’s holster and retrieved their passports. “Watch them,” he said, and then ran into the building, the gun pointing in all directions. Nobody else there. He came outside again.
By now Anna was out of the car. “What the hell, Jake.”
Jake grabbed the young man and dragged him inside the building, while Kjersti escorted the old man inside. He hand-cuffed and tied both of them.
“Get in the car,” Jake ordered. “Grab the keys out there,” he said to Kjersti. “You drive.”
When the two women were gone, Jake got close to the old border guard and said, “We are all officers of our respective governments. I’m sorry we had to do this, but we are tracking international terrorists from Russia. I will drop your guns precisely two kilometers down the road. I could have killed the both of you. We must get to Helsinki by tomorrow afternoon to intercept the terrorists. Do you understand?”
The man nodded his head.
“You didn’t see us. You understand?”
Head nod again.
“Good.”
Before leaving, Jake turned off the lights and then locked the door behind him. He jumped into the back seat and Kjersti gunned it, squealing the tires as they pulled away. Checking his watch, Jake realized the entire event had taken less than five minutes. They were lucky no other cars had come along.
In exactly two kilometers Jake had Kjersti pull over and, after wiping down their prints, he dropped the guns along the side of the road in tall weeds.
Back in the car and driving down the highway, Kjersti glanced at Jake in the rearview mirror. “I had heard you were crazy, but I didn’t expect that.”
“All we needed was someone there calling in our location. He should have just let us pass.”
“Trust no one?” she said, smiling.
“Something like that. Can you go a little faster. We need to get the hell out of Finland before those two break free.”
“How far for our turn?” Kjersti asked.
Anna looked at the map. “Little over a hundred kilometers. At this rate, assuming we don’t hit a herd of reindeer or an elk, per
haps forty minutes.”
“How do I explain bullet holes in the trunk?” Kjersti asked.
They had rented the car in her name. Since it was her country, it was the best choice. “You took out the insurance, right?”
“Of course. But somehow I don’t think that covers bullet holes.”
“Blame hunters. Crazy Finns.”
They traveled through a couple of tiny towns along the way. In less than an hour they turned south at Kaaresuvanto, Finland, a border town across the Konkamaeno River from Kaesuando, Sweden. They crossed into Sweden without even a nod from the border patrol. The word had not gotten out on them. Either the men were still tied up, or they had decided to let the incident go. Better to save face and not admit to someone getting the jump on them and tying them up.
Safely in Sweden, they continued south at the speed limit until they reached Gallivare, some two hundred ten kilometers from the Finnish border. Kjersti had kept the wheel for that entire stretch.
“Kjersti,” Jake said from the back seat. “Pull over up ahead on that road.”
She didn’t hesitate, pulling over on a remote side road on the outskirts of town.
Anna and Kjersti both turned around, wonder in their stares.
Anna said, “What’s up?”
Jake had a feeling they weren’t going to like this. “We need to split up.”
“Why?” Kjersti asked.
“Just in case those two at the Finnish border decide to call us in. The Swedes could also be looking for us.”
“I don’t think so,” Kjersti said.
“You don’t think they’ll be looking for us,” Jake said, “or you don’t think we should split up?”
“Both.” Kjersti looked disturbed and concerned. “Besides. . .this is my case and my territory.” Determined now.
“She’s got a point, Jake,” Anna said, her expression of disappointment in him obvious.
Jake had anticipated them not wanting to comply, so he had a back-up plan. The real plan, in fact. But he needed to sell it. “Listen. There’s no need for the two of you to be exposed to this virus. Anna, perhaps you should go with Kjersti back to Oslo.”
“What?” Anna was pissed now, like she had been finding Jake drunk on the floor at the Oslo hotel. “This is my case as well. If anyone should go back to Oslo, Jake, it’s you. You’re a private citizen.”
Cold but true, and part of his plan. See how determined they were; then break in with the real plan. “I was paid to go to Svalbard,” Jake reminded Anna.
“To find an old friend.”
“You think I really believed that story Colonel Reed was selling?” Jake shook his head, playing it up big-time. “And now the Agency is involved. I’ve essentially been ordered by the highest intelligence source in the world, a man who takes his orders directly from the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, to bring this virus to Oslo so the American scientists can render it inactive and save the entire world from this deadly pandemic.” Too thick? Maybe.
But the two women simply stared at him. Then they broke out in laughter together and didn’t stop until tears came to their eyes. Jake sat back and crossed his arms until they were done, his poker face not revealing anything to them.
“You done?” Jake asked.
They both nodded to him.
“So I guess we’re a threesome,” he said.
“You wish,” Kjersti said.
“Yes, he does,” Anna chimed in.
Finally Jake got out and went to the driver’s door, opened it and reached down for the trunk release.
“What you doing?” Anna asked him. “Come on, I know you can take a joke.”
“I need to grab something. The SAT phone. See if I can get a call through.”
He went to the trunk and opened it, glancing out onto the main road as a car passed. But they were concealed by a strip of thick trees, so they would not be seen. When he looked into the trunk, the first thing he saw was a bullet hole in his backpack. The border guard’s shots had entered the trunk, passed through and through, and one had crashed into his bag. He thought about stepping back or throwing the bag into the woods, but if the bullet had struck the metal box, chances are the flu virus would have released into the trunk over the past four hours. He could be infected already. No, he probably needed direct contact with the virus. Just look, Jake. He had to know for sure.
Carefully and slowly unzipping the bag, Jake tried his best to look inside. But he couldn’t see anything. Without further thought, he reached his hand down and carefully felt the side of the metal box that had faced the driver’s side of the car. Then he felt it. A hole. Crap.
From a side pouch, Jake found a mini-flashlight and turned it on, looking deep into the bag. Something wasn’t right, though. There was a strange color as the light hit the hole. Yet, the color changed when the light went slightly off center. He shone the light into the bottom of the backpack and saw something else. Something that should not have been there.
“Colonel Reed, you bastard,” Jake whispered. Then he looked around and found a pencil. He shoved it into the hole in the box as deep as it would go, then he broke it off. That would have to do for now. Looking down at his right hand, he noticed a slight tremble, as if early Parkinson’s had set into his body. His body needed a drink. The only thing keeping him from stopping now and grabbing at least a beer was Anna. Her and the rush he got being back in the game. He couldn’t decide which was a stronger fix for him. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes an willed the shake to stop. Opening his eyes, he was steady again.
He quickly zipped up the backpack and found three bottles of water to bring back to the car. He slammed the trunk shut and went to the back seat.
“Water anyone?” Jake asked them.
They each took a bottle from him.
“Everything all right?” Anna asked.
“Yep. Kjersti, how good is the insurance on this car?”
“You checked out the bullet holes?”
“Afraid so. I think we should dump it and catch a train. Once we get down the track a ways, we’ll call in the car stolen.” Jake’s true reason for coming this crazy way in the first place. Passenger service in Sweden started in the little town of Gallivare, just a kilometer away.
“All right,” Kjersti said. “But let’s grab some breakfast, check the train schedule, drop off the bags, and then dump the car.”
“Sounds good,” Jake said, even though he already knew the next train heading south would depart at 11:19. They had a few hours to kill. Jake had been reluctant to take the box on the train for fear of exposure to more people. But that fear was gone now. That bastard.
16
Toni Contardo spent most of the evening just talking with Colonel Reed. She had a hard time thinking of him as a bad guy, or even someone who would do something bad. After all, he had been a respected military officer for decades, and after that had worked for the old CIA, just like Jake Adams. The only difference was that Jake had gotten in and out of both endeavors much sooner than the colonel. But Jake had also stayed in the game since leaving the CIA, working for himself as a consultant and in private security. She had no idea how involved the colonel had been over the past ten years. His Agency file, which she had read thoroughly on the flight from Camp Springs to Oslo, had been spotty over the recent years. So those are the years she concentrated on first. He had mostly been retired, traveling to places he had not been able to see when his security clearance had restricted certain areas. As this became more of a travelogue, she suggested they have a beer from the mini-bar, which she had gotten for them. It was easy to drop the drug into his beer, and he was out cold in a few minutes. Then she had tied him to the bed and had gotten some sleep in the chair.
Now, as the sun seemed to be close to making an appearance, she kicked the bed and watched as the colonel’s eyes opened, his expression changing from erotic dream to bound reality.
“So, it’s come to this,” Colonel Reed said.
He told her about the snow having melted and someone seeing the wreckage from the air.
“But how did you get involved?”
His eyes shifted to the ceiling. “Can I take a piss? I really gotta go.”
“Go ahead. Who’s stopping you?” No smile.
“Wow. You’re cold.”
She simply stared at him.
“All right,” he said. “A guy approached me. He knew I knew the captain who never returned from there.”
“Steve Olson.”
“Right.”
“How’d he know you knew him?”
“He. . .was in the game years ago.”
“At the time of the crash.”
“Right.”
“Russian.” She was guessing.
He hesitated and she got her answer.
Toni was still confused, though. “Tell me about the virus and why this former KGB officer would want to get you involved.”
“I didn’t say he was KGB,” he reminded her.
“KGB, GRU, military officer. But this sounds like KGB. Why’d he need you?”
“He has no former resources.”
“And you do.”
“Well, he knew I had military and Agency contacts. Figured I could help because of that.”
Something was not adding up here. “Why didn’t the Russian just send a crew to Svalbard to get what was there?”
“I’m trying to tell you,” the colonel said emphatically. “He needed my resources.”
“Bullshit! He’s still under surveillance by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. How high up was he?” She knew by name, face and reputation most of the old guard from the KGB and the newer SVR.
He let out a deep breath of air and shook his head side to side. “Jake mentioned how relentless you were.” He hesitated and then said, “He was in the First Chief Directorate.”