by Trevor Scott
Petrova did the math in his head and said, “Almost two hours since they changed direction, and you were just going to call me now?” He’d pay the price for that. But not right now.
Let’s see. They weren’t in Mora and the GPS had them near Stockholm. Jake Adams was better than he thought. They got off the train in Falun and somehow put the SAT phone on the Stockholm train. Good idea. Especially with incompetent fools working for him, those who couldn’t see a feign move to save their ass.
His man on the other end didn’t even try to explain his actions, he just remained silent. His best move in weeks, Petrova was sure.
“Forget tracking the SAT phone,” Petrova ordered. “Get the word out to all our friends. Operation Huldra.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
Yes. You’re ugly. “No. What else is there?” He snapped his phone shut. Time for a bath and a drive. He guessed Huldra wouldn’t come for another few hours, perhaps a day. Jake Adams had forced his move much quicker, which meant he knew. He knew what was really in the box. Jake would now eschew any federal responsibility and come directly for him. He cackled with glee at that thought, stripping his silk Elvis pajamas from his body and shuffling to the bathroom, his naked pendulous structure sloshing side to side.
●
Toni had barely slept all night, and now her cell phone woke her, jarring her to her side. The room was still dark, but the clock read zero nine ten.
She checked the incoming number and said, “Yeah.”
“You sound asleep.” It was Kurt Jenkins calling from Camp Springs.
“I’m awake. What’s up?”
“Our friends have changed directions. Looks like they switched trains in Falun, Sweden and are almost to Stockholm.”
“Maybe they’ll catch a flight from Stockholm to Oslo,” Toni said, sitting up in bed and running a hand through her long, dark hair.
“With the virus?”
He had a point, she realized. “Something you’re not telling me?”
Hesitation. “They found a man stabbed to death on the train when it came into Mora.”
Her heart skipped a beat and then almost stopped. “Jake,” she muttered.
“A Swede from Stockholm. Criminal background. Another man was found bound, gagged and drugged. Looks like someone worked the man over with great enthusiasm.”
Now that sounded like the new Jake Adams. “You think that was Jake.”
“I’m guessing. But whatever information this man had, Jake now has as well. Which probably sent him to Stockholm.”
Toni got out of bed and peered out the window at a solemn, damp Oslo morning. The sun had risen, but the clouds and rain kept it hidden behind a shroud. She thought about Jake and how he would react under those circumstances. He had to know they were monitoring the SAT phone by GPS. In fact, he had counted on it. But he also must have guessed that someone else had tracked them the same way, and was trying to throw them off his track for a few hours—until they realized, like her, that he was nowhere near Stockholm. No, Jake had something else in mind. But why?
“You still there?” Jenkins asked.
“Yeah. The scientists set down in a couple hours?”
“Right. You’ll meet them.”
She didn’t think so. “I need to think this over. Jake isn’t in Stockholm. He probably got off the train in Falun, but they didn’t change directions. They changed mode of transportation.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I would do. Someone had found them. Jake had to assume the only way was by the GPS SAT phone, so he dumped that onto the Stockholm train and found a car.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” But she had no idea where he was going.
“Will he still bring the virus to Oslo?” Jenkins asked, concerned.
Something had changed. But what? “Jake will do the right thing. You know that.”
“I know. So I guess you get to the airport and wait for the scientists and Jake.”
“I understand,” she said. Not an actual promise. “Have you found Victor Petrova?”
“That was next,” he said. “We believe he checked into the Grand Hotel on Karl Johans Gate.”
“That’s only a few blocks from here. What name’s he using this time?”
“Vladislav Petrenko.”
“Keep it simple. Same initials.”
“Right.”
“I think I should stick with him. He doesn’t know me. You can send someone from the embassy to meet Jake and the scientists. But I have a feeling Petrova is the key here. Better to keep an eye on him.”
Heavy sigh on the other end. “You’re right. I’m glad you’re over there, Toni. All right. I’ll make it happen.”
“One more favor?”
“Shoot.”
“Could you make sure our NIS friend, Thom Hagen, escorts our embassy folks to the meet?”
“Why?”
“He’s a stiff and I don’t trust him.”
“No pulling punches with you, Toni. That’s what I like about you.”
They both hung up and Toni quickly went to her computer and scanned Victor Petrova’s file one more time, making sure she knew everything there was to know about the man. Then she grabbed her things and went to check out of her room.
23
Jake had mixed feelings as he had driven through the remote Swedish countryside, the trees lining the twisting road and broken only by fields of hay and well-kept farm houses. He had been too hard on Anna, he knew, but he also had no time to play games. He had to make up time and get to Mora as soon as possible. As it turned out he had gotten to the town just after the train had pulled into the station. When he saw the police arrive shortly after, he knew a porter had swept through and found the two men. Jake guessed the man he had questioned was a small-time criminal, but the police would suspect he was the victim this time and let the man go after a brief stop at the local hospital. That’s what Jake was counting on anyway.
Since Jake had anticipated the cops bringing the man to the Mora hospital, he had gone there in advance and had found the two men waiting outside in the black Volvo.
He sat now in his acquired Saab and waited, spending the time looking over information on Victor Petrova on his laptop. He was even able to access the internet with the hospital’s wireless network.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he flipped it open. “Yeah.”
“Where the hell are you?” It was Kurt Jenkins, the director of Central Intelligence.
“Stockholm,” Jake said, his eyes still on the two douche bags in the Volvo across the parking lot.
“Ah, no. Some lady found the SAT phone in her purse and turned it over to the police in Stockholm. They traced the card to one of Victor Petrova’s front companies.”
“How’d you find out about that?”
“We’ve been intercepting all of their unsecured communications. It doesn’t matter. Can you just tell me what the hell is going on? We understand you ran into a little trouble on the train.”
“No big deal.”
“You have the package?”
“Of course.” Jake thought about telling Jenkins about the true contents, but that might keep him from helping him. And Jake could use his information.
“So, where are you?” he asked again.
“Have those scientists take a nap,” Jake said. “Better yet, you might want to get them a room. This could take a while.”
Hesitation. Silence.
Finally, Jenkins said, “You’re going after Victor Petrova.”
The man who had attacked them on the train suddenly appeared at the entrance to the hotel, looked around until the brain trusts in the Volvo flipped their lights on and off, catching his attention. Then he adjusted his pants, pulling them away from his buttocks, and wiggled down the sidewalk like an old man. Coke bottle, Jake thought with a smile.
“Well,” Jenkins said.
“Listen. I’ve gotta go. I’m going to be followi
ng three Nobel laureates. I’ll get back to you with my plan as soon as I know it.” With that he flipped the phone shut and cranked over the engine.
The three men in the Volvo were not hard to follow. In fact, he had a feeling he knew where they were going. Only time would tell if he was right.
They headed North immediately, but turned off onto a smaller country road in fifteen kilometers, heading west. An hour later they crossed a small frontier border station into Norway. Jake didn’t get much more than a nod at the border from the disinterested old guard, and would have had a lot of explaining to do if they had looked in the trunk and found the guns and gems. Or even looked under his left arm, where his 9mm automatic hung in its holster. Especially without Anna or Kjersti pulling credentials.
Shortly after crossing into Norway, Jake’s hunch about their direction was confirmed. He saw the signs for Hamar, Norway, 110 kilometers, and started to back off the Volvo. No need for them to entirely engrain the Saab in their mind. He knew where they were going.
While he drove the remote country road, Jake ran through his mind how he wanted to proceed. First, he would need to do a little house cleaning. He found an isolated area far from the nearest town and farm, pulling off on a tiny road that headed north. He drove for a while and parked the Saab on the side of the road. This road was nothing more than a logging access, but looked like the Norwegians had not cut trees here in ten years or more. That was good. It meant they probably wouldn’t cut again for twenty or thirty years.
He got out and went to the trunk. Found his handheld GPS, turned it on and took a reading of his location, and rendered the reading to his memory, speaking the numbers over and over in his mind until he would never forget it. Then he purged the location from the GPS memory.
Looking around, Jake saw what he was looking for—a rock with a large tree behind it. Swinging his backpack over his shoulder, he went to that spot and found a stick. He set the pack down. The ground was moist and mostly moss and lichen, which he ripped back like a thick blanket at the back side of the rock. Then, digging with the stick, he finally had a hole deep enough for the box. He set the box inside and covered it only with the thick moss. Satisfied with his work, he flipped the lighter pack over his shoulder and went back to the car.
Anything else, he thought. He would need the guns. No. Should be good. While he was there, he relieved himself on the side of the road, then took a bottle of water from the trunk before closing it. He got back into the car, turned around, and drove back toward the main road, running the GPS location through his mind again. Without all those millions in Alexandrite gems lingering around, he felt a lot better. Now he could go have a discussion with that little Russian troll and see why he had devised such an elaborate scheme involving Jake.
●
Anna Schult was conflicted. She knew that her departure from Jake had not gone as smoothly as it could have, considering their abrupt split at the Borlange airport. She had fought back tears on the short flight to Stockholm, during the short layover there, and again during the one-hour flight from Stockholm to Oslo. Her emotions were all over the place, and that bothered her. Why couldn’t she just get over it? Jake was always intense, especially when he was working on a case. And she had to cut him some slack, since he had also not had a drink in days. She could only imagine how that was affecting him.
Now, Anna and Kjersti Nilsen wandered along the concourse after just having gotten off the plane.
“Are you all right?” Kjersti asked her.
“Yeah.”
“You’re wondering about Jake.”
Anna stopped against a concourse wall. “I know he thinks he can handle almost anything on his own. And he has in the past. You’d be amazed at the things I’ve seen him do, the adversity he’s overcome so many times.”
“But?”
“I’m afraid. Afraid he might go too far this time.”
“Why do you say that?”
They started walking again, this time slower, at their pace and not that of commuters rushing for the baggage claim.
Anna said, “This colonel friend of his. They go way back. Decades. If he deceived Jake, for whatever reason, it will throw Jake into a. . .funk of introspection. He’ll start to question everything. He might even start—” She stopped herself, not wanting to think those thoughts.
“Drinking?” Kjersti finished.
“Yeah.” Her head looked toward the ground at the strange pattern of ceramic tiles in front of her.
Kjersti took Anna’s hand and said, “Jake will be fine. I’ve heard nothing but good things about him. He will always do the right thing.”
That was true. Jake had always done the right thing, even if it wasn’t popular or easy.
“Here we go,” Kjersti said, her head nodding toward an approaching man.
The two of them stopped a few feet from the tall, well-dressed man who Kjersti introduced as Thom Hagen, an officer with the Norwegian Intelligence Service.
“Thom works mostly out of Oslo,” Kjersti explained.
The man was nearly expressionless as Anna introduced herself. All he said was that he had a car just outside. He turned and led the way.
“A bit exuberant,” Anna whispered to Kjersti, who held back a laugh.
They piled into a dark Volvo sedan, Anna in the back and Kjersti in the front passenger seat.
Kjersti said something in Norwegian to the driver.
“Hey. No fair,” Anna said. “Don’t make me pull out my Tyrolean.”
Kjersti laughed. “I’m sorry. I just asked him how his wife and kids were.”
In French, Anna said to Kjersti. “I thought he might be gay.”
Hagen looked at Anna in the rearview mirror. Still no significant emotion. “I also speak French,” he said in that language.
“I guessed that,” Anna said. “Just seeing if I could pull a smile out of you.” She waited and then mumbled, “Guess not.”
“Changing the subject,” Kjersti said to her colleague, “what’s going on?”
He briefed the both of them as they drove from the civilian commercial side of Oslo airport to the Gardermoen Air Station across the runways.
“The American scientists are where?” Kjersti asked.
“The operations building.”
Anna chimed in. “You mentioned an Agency officer was with Colonel Reed. Where are they?”
The NIS officer went through the secure gate flashing his ID, and then slowly drove toward the operations building.
Finally, he said, “You’ll get briefed in a moment on the operation.”
Anna leaned back in her seat. Dickhead. She guessed she and Kjersti could brief this guy a lot more informatively than the other way around, considering what Jake had told them just before he dropped them at the airport that morning. In fact, if anyone should be lead on this case it was Interpol.
They got to the operations building, parked, and piled out, the NIS man walking in front of them.
Kjersti slowed Anna with her hand and whispered. “I know you’d like to strangle him. But he has small children and a good wife.”
“I feel sorry for them.”
“He’s a good guy,” Kjersti informed her. “Just no personality.”
“Remember what we discussed?” Anna said.
“I do. Jake still has the virus.”
Anna smiled and mouthed the word ‘thanks’ as they got to the door.
Their backpacks were checked and then they were brought through a security door to a conference room, which consisted of a large wooden table with chairs around two sides. A large LCD screen was mounted on the wall at one end. The three of them took the only empty seats.
A tall black man, a U.S. Army colonel in woodland digital camo, stood at the head of the table. He introduced his team of scientists and then dimmed the lights, clicked a remote, and went into his briefing on the flu virus, possible modifications, and the projected results of exposure and dispersal. While he talked in the semi-darkness, Anna thou
ght about what Jake had told them and shown them. She could stop all of this if she wanted, but then she guessed they would either not believe her or, perhaps worse, believe her and then stop helping them and Jake would be in trouble.
Next, the Army colonel sat down and their NIS escort stood and went to the head of the table. He sequenced the PowerPoint to another file and a photo of a man appeared.
“This is Victor Petrova,” Hagen said. He went on to give background information about the man, including what he currently controlled in the criminal world. Even if the man was not trying to acquire and sell a deadly virus, and this was only about precious gems, this man had to be stopped. For who knew what he would buy with the money he got from the gems.
Hagen then went through a sequence of photos of men and women that were part of Petrova’s organization.
“Hold it,” Kjersti said. “Go back one.”
The NIS officer did what she said, returning to the previous slide.
“He’s dead,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Hagen checked his notes.
“Dead certain. Anna stabbed him in the neck last night on the train.”
A man and woman held back laughter across the table from them. They were a strange pair. A man at least six four, and a woman half his height, her head barely above the table. They were the only two the Army colonel had not introduced.
Anna raised her hands in protest. “Hey, he was trying to kill us.”
Hagen scribbled something in his note pad and then continued with the PowerPoint show.
Another familiar face appeared and Kjersti stopped the NIS man again. “He was with the guy Anna killed.”
“But he’s alive?” Hagen asked.
“Kind of. Jake Adams interrogated him with great prejudice last night. He probably wished he was dead.”
Anna squeezed down on Kjersti’s leg.
“Yeah, he’s alive,” Kjersti added.
The NIS officer stopped and the large man across the table got up and took the remote from Hagen. He opened a new file, showing first a little man.
“For those of you who don’t know, I’m Jimmy McLean with MI6,” the man said, his Scottish accent flowing freely. “And that’s my colleague, Velda Crane.”