by Trevor Scott
The little woman waved around the table.
“The man on the screen is a low-level Scottish thief named Gary Dixon. He’s been an MI-5 informant for years. Velda and I were working undercover for MI-5 when we discovered something was going down in Norway. Dixon wouldn’t tell us what, and we suspected that was because he really didn’t know. But then we coordinated our efforts with the Americans and the Norwegians and also followed Dixon to Oslo. It was apparent that something was going down.”
McLean went through a long sequence of photos, mostly of little people in Scotland and then from the last few days in Oslo.
Anna raised her hand and said, “What do they have to do with Victor Petrova?”
“They’re all thick as thieves together,” Jimmy explained. “We suspect Petrova will use these people to spread the virus around the world.”
Kjersti broke in now. “Not to actually spread the virus, though. I’m guessing Petrova has some kind of monetary incentive—like international blackmail. He doesn’t seem like a terrorist without a Euro symbol.”
“Good point,” Jimmy said. “We discussed that at great length last night and came to the same conclusion.” He flipped to the next photo. “This is Colonel Reed, a former American Air Force officer and with the old CIA and the new Agency. He was hired by Petrova to collect the virus in the Arctic. Reed, in turn, hired this man.” A photo of Jake Adams filled the screen.
Anna took a deep breath as she watched the photo of Jake. He was standing in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. He was so handsome, she thought.
“I’m sure most of you know of Jake Adams,” Jimmy said. He went on to brief the others about Jake’s career. When he was done, he said, “That pretty much brings us up to date. Oh, yeah.” He went to the next screen and added, “This is Agency officer Toni Contardo. She is running the operation here in Norway now; however, she is currently with Colonel Reed following Victor Petrova and will brief us by phone in a moment. But first we need to be briefed by the two of you.” Jimmy McLean lay his right hand, palm up, out toward Anna and Kjersti.
When Anna saw Toni’s picture, she couldn’t believe it. Jake’s former lover was running the op. A woman who had haunted her relationship with Jake for two years.
“You all right?” Kjersti asked.
“Yes. If fine. Could you brief them?”
Kjersti nodded and got up. While she ran through everything that had happened to the three of them over the past few days, Anna stared at the last picture that remained on the huge screen. Damn it. It had to be a beautiful photo of Toni also. Why couldn’t it be one with the woman’s hair all messed up?
24
Travel by car was Jake’s favorite form. He had near-complete control over his actions and was not dependent on others. It also allowed him to clear his mind and run everything through, including possible scenarios. Traveling alone was even more cleansing, since he wasn’t required to keep up inane banter. It wasn’t that he was sick of traveling with Anna and Kjersti. They were both great conversationalists and comfortable associates. Christ, what was the matter with him? Now he was thinking of Anna as an associate? She was much more than that. He knew he loved her, even though he had a hard time bringing the words to his lips first. Perhaps he should be more responsive and feeling. He even knew in his heart that he had been a royal pain in the ass the last few months. And why? Hell, he was no shrink. Didn’t believe in them. If a man couldn’t grow a set and straighten himself out, then he didn’t deserve to take up space on this planet. Suck it up. That had always been his mantra. You drink too much; stop the damn drinking. You gain too much weight? Don’t eat so damn much and get the hell off the sofa. Easy to think and easy to say, but not always that easy in practice, he knew. Maybe part of a man questioned if he should live anymore. What was the point? Did he have a purpose on Earth? Without a case to work over the past three months, Jake had fallen into that questioning mode. Wondering if he had anything else to give society. He was tired of playing the game of life. Exhausted by living life on the cold edge of reality. He didn’t even want to consider how many people had died by his hands. And why? Because someone had determined them to be the enemy. Not someone. Society. But still. . .what kind of man loses count of how many people he has killed? Was the number too high? Was it too much for his conscience to consider?
He contemplated all of these things as he drove through Hamar, Norway and on to Lillehammer. He had never been to this Olympic site, but had heard great things from Anna and seen her photos of her Olympic experience on the Austrian Biathlon Team. The two of them had talked about going to Lillehammer on vacation, but never had. When you live in Austria, the skiing capital of the world, it’s hard to justify going anywhere else, especially an inferior site, just to do the same thing.
When he finally got to Lillehammer, he was reminded somewhat of Austria, although the surrounding mountains were nowhere near as dramatic. Still, the place had its own charm. It was late afternoon.
He went directly to downtown and pulled over to the curb in front of a restaurant. Food. That’s what he needed.
As he ate a late lunch and early dinner, he watched people pass by outside. When he saw a little person shuffling along, his mind immediately went to the recent photo of Victor Petrova. But it wasn’t him. This man was younger and had blond hair spiked up by jell. He finished his meal and drank a cup of coffee. Then he saw another little person walk past. This one, a bald man, was mumbling something aloud, just like the first one had. He didn’t want it too, but his mind considered the possibility that a circus was in town.
After dinner, Jake drove to the outskirts of town, near the Olympic ski jump, and paid for a room at a small B&B with cash. He still had plenty left from cash advances at ATMs along the way in Sweden. He couldn’t use any cards from now on, though. All cash.
He lay down on his bed and rested, knowing he would be up late that night. He crashed immediately into a deep sleep.
Hours later, he startled awake, coming out of a dream. He had dreamt of he and Anna together in a cabin in the Tyrolean mountains, a fire burning in a river-stone fireplace. Anna walked across the hardwood floors in her nightgown carrying something in her arms. And then the windows burst in with gunfire and Anna fell to the floor, dropping what she was carrying. Jake couldn’t respond soon enough to save her. What kind of man was he? Not even able to save the woman he loved in their own home. Their home?
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. It was dark outside. He lit his watch and saw it was an hour from midnight. Time to move out.
Dressing in black clothes, from his military tactical boots to a long-sleeve black Under Armor shirt, he strapped his 9mm auto under his arm and slipped a Gortex jacket over that. He checked the gear in his backpack. Extra magazines. Binoculars and Night Vision Goggles. Handheld GPS. Digital camera. He checked his cell phone and saw it was still turned off. No need to check for messages. He might have one from Anna and another from Kurt Jenkins. Maybe Colonel Reed. Digging deeper into the backpack, he found a lock pick kit and a couple of tools, including a hex-head screw driver, which he shoved into his back pocket. Then he locked up and left.
First he drove back to town and found a car parked in a large hotel parking lot. It was a Saab like his—same year and color. It was also from Sweden. Perfect. In less than a minute, he had swapped the plates from his car to the other. Nobody checked their own plates. Hell, most people didn’t even remember the numbers and letters from their own plates.
Then Jake drove out of town to a remote lake, where large houses sat on the banks, their wealthy occupants saying to anyone looking: “Hey, I’ve got a shitload of money, and you don’t.”
At the far end of the lake, the most impressive place sat on a hill back into the forest, with a long strip of grass leading down to the water’s edge. Jake knew there was a gate ahead that would need a code or buzzing in from someone inside. But he didn’t get that far. Instead, he found a little road that pulled off toward the mountains, where Ja
ke found a place to park.
Getting out, he checked his watch. Just about midnight. He was thankful the midnight sun had passed this far south. A month earlier and it would have still been light at this time.
He hiked through the woods above the road for a half mile until he came upon a high metal fence with razor wire topping that. Looking more closely through his NVGs, he saw it was also electrified. Great. What was Victor Petrova hiding behind the wire?
Now, Jake could get through the fence, but that was just the first obstacle. He guessed Petrova would also have motion sensors, perhaps dogs. He could handle the dogs. He had brought some treats for them, and bullets if they decided Jake would taste better. But that would also give up his position, because he didn’t have a silencer for the 9mm. His biggest fear, though, was the motion sensors. Because if he didn’t know where they were, he couldn’t avoid them. It wasn’t like the movies, where huge lights would come on and an alarm would sound. Victor Petrova was smarter than that. He would have the motion sensors in synch with cameras, which would pinpoint the movement and silently record. Sure an internal alarm would go off, allowing a security agent to check the monitors and either release the hounds or send those with guns.
Think Jake. What would that little gnome do?
●
Toni Contardo and Colonel Reed had followed Victor Petrova from his hotel in Oslo, past the airport and toward the north. She knew where they were going as soon as they passed the airport. They had a good deal of information about Petrova’s estate outside of Lillehammer. It was probably more secure than most Norwegian military installations. And why? Norway was one of the most crime-free countries in the world. Most people in the country wouldn’t even lock their doors. But she knew that Victor had a lot of enemies, including those in the Russian government, former KGB officers, and even those in the current SVR. Not to mention those in the criminal world who wanted a piece of his action. No, Victor Petrova was right to be paranoid. Well, not paranoid. Paranoid meant you thought people were out to get you. Petrova knew for a fact people wanted him dead.
Once they confirmed that Petrova had gone to his estate on the lake, Toni had checked into a small B&B on the outskirts of Lillehammer, with cash, her in one room and the colonel next door.
Past midnight now, she flipped open her phone and called a number from memory on her secure cell.
“Yeah, we’re in place.,” she said.
“Jake never showed in Oslo,” Kurt Jenkins said.
“What? Why not?”
“We don’t know for sure.”
“Did you talk with him?” She got off the bed and started to pace the room.
“Earlier in the day. He split up from the two women. Sent them by air to Oslo.”
“So where is Jake?”
A long delay, followed by, “We think he’s going after Victor Petrova.”
Great. “What about the virus? What has he done with that?” Jake would never compromise the safety of so many people unless. . .
“We don’t know,” Jenkins reiterated brusquely.
Jenkins was getting upset, she could tell.
“Does he know about this place?” she asked.
“Of course,” Jenkins said. “He knows what you know.”
“He knows more than that,” Toni said. “He knows Petrova from the old days. Knows how he’ll react.”
No reaction.
“You didn’t know that?” she asked him. When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “Petrova was heavily involved with the INF Treaty verification process. So was Jake. Their paths crossed many times—in the Ukraine and Russia.”
“How’d that go?”
“Jake never really discussed it. I just came out of the conversations thinking Jake was both impressed and frustrated. There was respect on both sides, but something had happened that Jake wouldn’t discuss with me. Said it was need-to-know.”
“Understand,” Jenkins said. “Yet, there’s nothing in the official record.”
“I think it was more personal.”
Neither said a word for a while.
“What’s the plan?” she finally asked him.
“We’ve got nothing on Petrova. Not officially.”
“We have Petrova hiring Colonel Reed, who hired Jake, to go to the Arctic.”
“Right. To find his old friend.”
“But. . .” She knew Jenkins was right. They weren’t even sure the colonel had told them the truth. It could have all been a ruse of some sort. A grand bit of disinformation. Petrova’s specialty. “But if Jake has the virus and a link to Petrova that goes back to the 80s, then we have something on the guy. We can stick the guy in one of our prisons until the little man drops dead.”
“But until then,” Jenkins said, “we need to hold back. Sure we have him on possible attempted murder charges, but the local courts in Norway and Sweden would have to fight each other for jurisdiction—if they could even tie Petrova to the shootings in Svalbard and the attack on the train. You need to find Jake.”
She agreed and flipped him shut. But that might be harder than it sounded. If Jake didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t find him. She lay onto the bed and thought about her old friend. They had been on some dangerous missions in the past with him. Both almost getting killed too many times to count. Now things had changed between them. She was married and he was living with a younger woman. A beautiful blonde Austrian.
25
The Bell 407, almost identical to the helicopter they had used in Svalbard, cruised in the darkness at four thousand feet, Kjersti behind the stick and Anna to her right. Behind them sat a strange group: the MI6 officers, Jimmy McLean and Velda Crane; Norwegian Intelligence Service officer, Thom Hagen; and two beefy men with the Norwegian Police Security Service, the PST. An additional SWAT unit from PST was driving north in their mobile command post and would reach Lillehammer by morning.
It had not taken a great deal of convincing on Anna’s part to get officially involved in the case. She had made one phone call to her boss in Vienna, who had called the Secretary General himself at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. By the time word had traveled back to Norway, Anna was not only sanctioned to help with the operation, she would become the lead investigator. She didn’t want that kind of responsibility, considering the possible release of a deadly pandemic flu virus worldwide, but then she also had the advantage of knowing there was no virus—a fact she had failed to reveal to her boss in Vienna and would take to her grave. Regardless of motive or effect, Victor Petrova was either a purveyor of a possible weapon of mass destruction, or a criminal mastermind who was looking to fund his operation for the rest of his life with the theft of precious gems. And who knew what he would do with the money he got from those Alexandrite gems? Besides, he had crossed the line by sending his men to kill her, Jake and Kjersti. Twice. Attempted murder would put Petrova away for the rest of his life. But she wanted more. Petrova was a bad guy and they needed to bring him down.
All of this ran through her mind as the helo flew north.
“What you thinking?” Kjersti asked over the mic.
Anna looked over at Kjersti and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready for this responsibility.”
Kjersti nodded her head. “Nobody’s ever ready, Anna. I’m sure Jake would tell you that.”
She was right. Jake probably had told her that. “But he seems to handle these situations so easily. He’s a natural.”
“I could tell. He definitely knows how to take charge.”
That could be part of the problem. Would he let her take over? She had a feeling there was something Jake wasn’t telling her about his relationship with Victor Petrova. It all seemed too personal.
“Does he take charge in the bedroom?” Kjersti asked, a smile on her face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Anna knew she was only trying to loosen her up, relieve the tension. She smiled back and said, “No complaints.”
“I’ll bet. We�
��ll be at the Lillehammer airport in ten minutes. You said you spent some time there, right?”
“Yeah, during the Olympics. But that was years ago.”
“Well, we’re right over Mjosa Lake. At a hundred kilometers long, it’s the largest in Norway. Have you heard of the Mjosa Monster?”
She remembered the narrow lake that stretched along the rolling mountains for many kilometers between Hamar and Lillehammer, and had heard about the purported Loch Ness-like beast that locals had swore seeing for the past four hundred years. Somehow Kjersti had managed to take her mind off the case for a short while. She took in deep breaths and tried to relax, despite her angst over flying in a helicopter. Yet, at least this time she didn’t feel like throwing up. She hoped that bug had passed.
Moments later, Kjersti circled around the resort town of Lillehammer, before setting down the chopper at the tiny regional airport. Large SUVs waited for them and drove them to a large hotel in town, where they would wait for the SWAT unit.
●
Jake had circled the entire compound fence by the time he heard the helo swoop down around the town of Lillehammer. It sounded just like the chopper they had flown in Svalbard.
His recon mission had not found a chink in the little bastard’s armor. Jake was sure there was no way in without being discovered. He might have an advantage in the dark, assuming Petrova didn’t have huge flood lights that would blind him in his NVGs. No, maybe the day would be better. Petrova would assume a strike would come at night.
Moving back through the forest, Jake found his car and started back toward town. On the entire drive, he thought not of Petrova, but of his girlfriend Anna. He had felt sorry for how she had felt during the past few days. She had been miserable and he hadn’t been the most supportive. He could blame his coming down off the alcohol that had consumed him so thoroughly in the past few months, but he knew that wasn’t the only problem. Petrova had been like a nagging wart that wouldn’t go away. He had made Jake’s life during his last year in the Air Force a nightmare. He might have been a contributing factor of Jake leaving the service. And then when Jake had joined the CIA, the man had come up again on one of Jake’s first cases in Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall. They had come close to killing each other more than once. Yet, something had held them back. Was it respect? Was it some professional understanding? Who knows. Regardless of those times, that was the past. They were both private citizens now, and for some reason their paths were crossing again—either by some polar force or unknown desire.