Interquels

by Macalister Stevens

  Diðrik aimed a remote control at the monitor; the screen split, and next to the images from the satellite appeared the photograph Steinn had taken of the white van leaving the factory. ‘This is Zoran Kasun. Former colonel with the Serbian Land Forces. Briefly he was part of the Special Brigade, Serbian military’s counter-terrorism and special forces unit. However, he fell foul of the authorities and for some time was associated with Narodna Odbrana 2000, a group formed by disaffected former Serbian military officers. Their initial goals were political, but they soon segued into criminal activities. Kasun still has ties to the organisation, but in recent years he has been primarily involved with this man ...’

  Kasun’s image was replaced by a photograph of a handsome blond male with smiling blue eyes. The photograph was a police mug shot, but could easily have been mistaken for a movie star publicity headshot.

  ‘Anton Edilov,’ Diðrik announced. ‘Edilov is a career criminal. Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to Russian parents. Likes to masquerade as Dutch or Swedish. Known to use the aliases Casper Vos and Per Torvalds. He has a highly developed Covert-Aggressive Personality, and this makes him an extremely adept manipulator, and a very successful con-man. In fact, for a time, Interpol seriously considered Kasun and Edilov were involved in a massive con perpetrated on a number of extremist organisations. However it seems their offer to facilitate the purchase of the materials and expertise to build Radiological Dispersal Devices was a genuine one. The FBI believes such a sale was made to Lincoln In Hell, and Zoran Kasun’s presence in Iceland suggests Cetus Bellator is their latest customer.’

  Elgin was the fastest growing city in Illinois, expanding from its core of Victorian era architecture and cobblestone houses towards Chicago, forty miles to the southeast. It wasn’t the place to look for biker-friendly bars. But Big Daug’s clientele sat on the fringes of what might be described as biker-tolerant. The men were uncompromisingly blue-collar, and the women were of a type that didn’t expect to pay for more than their first drink.

  Erik Lindberg slid into a booth, next to Bobby Jefferson: former part-time delivery driver, now, at just 26, a full-time disgruntled ex-con. Across from Jefferson was Leland Mitchell: former soldier, former union enforcer, casual misogynist, and full-time white-rights advocate. Across from Lindberg sat the reason they needed a biker-tolerant meeting place. What a sorry-assed cliché: tattoos, a chopper Harley and a damned ridiculous nickname.

  Creed muttered, ‘Can’t even trust the census. Federals count race and ethnicity as something different. Means they can say seventy percent of this city is white, when the fact is about forty percent are Latino. Means less than a third is white. Government Jews and Blacks try to fool us with their numbers.’ Creed sloshed a refill into his whisky glass. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘You’re right.’ Jefferson nodded and sipped at his coke.

  Mitchell was staring at Lindberg. ‘When I call, you come. We’ve been here thirty minutes. Where you been?’

  ‘Travelling. I had business in Sycamore. What’s going on?’

  Mitchell leaned his stocky frame a little towards Lindberg. ‘We’re in lockdown. This is it. This is the big one.’

  Creed grinned.

  Mitchell said, ‘We’re just one cell. Others are meeting up elsewhere. We all got packages to deliver.’

  ‘Then boom.’ Creed mimed an explosion. ‘Chicago’s going to make Oklahoma City look like a firecracker.’

  Mitchell shot a lower-your-voice glare at Creed. The biker shrugged.

  ‘How come we’re just finding out now?’ Lindberg asked.

  ‘Top secret need-to-know shit, that’s how come.’ Mitchell jabbed a forefinger at Lindberg. ‘And you didn’t need to fucking know. Till now.’

  ‘A little notice. Is that too much to ask? My business in Sycamore isn’t done.’ Lindberg reached for his phone. ‘I need to make a call.’

  ‘No. You don’t.’ Mitchell held out a hand. ‘Lockdown. Remember?’

  Lindberg handed over his phone. But added a surly, ‘This will cost me serious money.’

  ‘Cash isn’t going to be a problem.’ Mitchell pocketed Lindberg’s phone. ‘I told you, this is big.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Creed, ‘we’re going to crack open that liberal bullshit the Federals been feeding us.’

  Lindberg sighed. ‘So how long do we have to sit here stitching together poorly constructed metaphors?’

  Creed scowled. “If you don’t like the way I—’

  Mitchell held up a hand to silence Creed. Eyes on Lindberg, he said, ‘We don’t need your college smart mouth. We just need to sit tight and wait.’

  ‘Wait for what?’

  ‘The Viking Funeral.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  Mitchell stabbed a thumb at the large TV suspended in a corner. ‘Just take an interest in current affairs.’

  Lindberg glanced at the TV; it was tuned to a news channel. ‘You telling me there’s going to be a Viking funeral on TV?’

  Mitchell nodded. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Hey.’ Creed nudged Mitchell’s shoulder and nodded towards a couple of women at the bar. ‘Any reason why we can’t enjoy a little company while we wait?’

  Mitchell looked over. ‘Redhead’s mine. I’ll send the other one over.’

  Brynja was the first through the doors of the factory. And she was the first to see Steinn’s body slumped on a storeroom floor. Her team swept the rest of the factory buildings …

  Empty.

  The Cetus Bellator cell had moved on.

  Brynja reported in. Then she called Úlfur.

  ‘No change,’ he said. Úlfur was still tailing Njörður Sindrason’s white van. ‘They’re still driving around. No deliveries, no pick-ups.’

  Brynja broke the news about Steinn. Then she relayed their orders: ‘We’re to maintain surveillance but not engage. The FBI is concerned that an RDD fire sale has taken place, putting Dirty Bomb technology in the hands of various militant groups in the USA, and beyond. Our investigations appear to be linked. So in the interests of cross-Atlantic cooperation, the National Commissioner has agreed to allow the Americans to take the lead. They’ve got a team on a jet heading here to assist with Kasun’s questioning when he’s brought in. In the meantime, the FBI’s Chicago Field Office is running the show.’

  The muted TV’s massive screen was filled by the bulk of Elias Notaras as a cameraman zoomed in a little too quickly. A speedy readjustment caught a bodyguard shoving a reporter to one side as Notaras’s retinue of hired muscle cleared a path from his limousine to the Manhattan Federal Court building. Anonymously emailed documentation detailing particulars of $19million in pay-offs to officials in India to help secure a titanium-mining deal had led to the tycoon’s downfall. The FBI’s investigation of the kickbacks had uncovered tax violations, bank bribery and fraud on bank regulators; Notaras was looking at a 12 year stretch.

  Erik Lindberg had been part of the original FBI team investigating The Notaras Group, but seven months ago he’d been reassigned to Chicago; they’d needed help with an undercover operation. Contrary to Hollywood myth, the Bureau didn’t have a group of dedicated undercover agents ready to step into any scenario as required. If an undercover operation required an agent to pose as a mechanic, or a chef, or speak Spanish with a particular regional accent, the appropriately skilled agent would be sourced and seconded. But Chicago hadn’t wanted Lindberg for a specific skill or ability; they needed someone to infiltrate a group of white supremacists, and the blue eyes and blond hair Lindberg inherited from his Swedish grandparents put him on Chicago’s recruitment list.

  Lindberg looked away from the screen and stared at Creed.

  Creed’s eyes narrowed. ‘You got a fucking problem Larsson?’

  Lindberg had been Larsson for six months. ‘No,’ he said, pouring another whisky. ‘Your girlfriend has the fucking problem.’ Lindberg set down the bottle and pointed at the woman hanging onto Creed’s arm. ‘First she’s got to find your tiny dic
k. Then she’s got to worry about it getting stuck between her teeth.’

  Bobby Jefferson chuckled. Creed threw the young man a sneer. Jefferson swallowed, made a dry coughing sound and lubricated his suddenly dry throat with a large swig of coke.

  Creed’s sneer returned to Lindberg.

  Lindberg sipped his whisky.

  Without taking his eyes from Lindberg, Creed disentangled himself from the bar-slut. ‘Charlene, you need a trip to the restroom.’

  Charlene—not bothering to mention her name was actually Shannon—silently slid out of the booth and sashayed to the back of the bar.

  ‘Larsson, I’m done listening to your fucking shit. Cut it the fuck out, or I will fuck you up.’

  As a verb (both transitive and intransitive), as a noun, as an adverb or as an adjective, to convey aggression, confusion, curiosity, disbelief, disgust, rage, resignation or surprise, the word fuck had become a constant feature of Lindberg’s six months as Larsson.

  Lindberg took another sip of whisky and leisurely said, ‘D, I, double-L, I, G, A, F.’

  Creed’s brow furrowed.

  Jefferson cleared his throat. ‘Um, it’s an acronym.’

  Creed’s hooded eyes shifted to Jefferson, and the young man blurted, ‘It means Does It Look Like I Give A Fuck.’

  Lindberg, eyes on Creed, laughed. ‘You Fucktard.’

  Creed lunged. Straight into the whisky bottle. The blow to the biker’s forehead shattered the thick end of the bottle, leaving a jagged glass stump in Lindberg’s grip. Momentum sent Creed sprawling and he slammed onto the table, dazed and quickly pinned down by Lindberg’s free hand. Creed thrashed then reached back for the handgun grip sticking out of the back of his jeans. Lindberg waved the broken bottle in front of Creed’s eyes. Creed froze.

  Leland Mitchell moved swiftly from the redhead at the bar to the booth. He bawled, ‘Hellfire, I said not to poke that grizzly.’

  Lindberg shrugged.

  Mitchell glowered.

  And Lindberg glowered back.

  Mitchell held out his hand. ‘Gimme.’

  Lindberg placed the broken bottle on the table.

  Mitchell picked it up. ‘Creed, when I say so, Larsson is going to let go. And that’ll be the end of this shit. Understand.’

  Creed grunted.

  ‘I fucking mean it. Test me and I’ll end you myself.’ Mitchell nodded to Lindberg.

  Lindberg released Creed, who slowly pushed himself to his feet. Blood from a gash on his forehead dribbled down his nose.

  Mitchell glanced over his shoulder; the barman had a phone to his ear. ‘Shit.’ Mitchell glared at Creed. ‘Get yourself cleaned up. We’ll meet at Skeeters in thirty minutes.’ Mitchell turned his glare to Lindberg. ‘Do not be late.’

  ‘The Vikings messed up.’

  Will Colvin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘How?’

  ‘They lost contact with their man covering the factory,’ Henry Beckett said. ‘They sent in a team. All they found was their surveillance guy’s body. The cell has disappeared.’

  Colvin looked up. ‘Kasun?’

  ‘His van’s just entered a Reykjavik dock.’

  Anton Edilov ran his fingers over his recently shaved head; his scalp felt unnatural, but he now looked very different from the images Interpol would have distributed. Edilov had flown from Reykjavik to the opposite side of the island. At Egilsstaðir, he’d been met by a Cetus Bellator driver, and Edilov was now stretched out on the back seat of a four-by-four. They were making the short journey to Seyðisfjörður, and soon after arriving, Edilov would board the weekly ferry to Denmark.

  The four-by-four jerked and the hard lump of Edilov’s handgun pushed against his hip.

  ‘Sorry, pot-hole,’ said the Cetus Bellator driver.

  Edilov grunted and shifted his weapon to a more comfortable position. It was an ugly little semi-automatic. Edilov preferred revolvers, but he couldn’t have flown with the Taurus Model 85 he’d had in Reykjavik, and the best replacement Cetus Bellator could provide was the Kel-Tec P11 he now had in his pocket. It wasn’t that Iceland was short of firearms—a third of the population owned guns—but strict laws meant contraband choices were limited. However, the semi-automatic would tide Edilov over during the almost three-day sailing to Denmark.

  He closed his eyes and thought of Zoran Kasun. ‘Regardless of their cause, fanatics are all the same,’ Kasun had once said. ‘They’re too far up their own arses to see themselves as pawns.’

  The last few months had proved that. Kasun and Edilov had contacted more than a dozen extremist groups. Feigned, but convincing empathy with each warped political ambition had allowed Kasun and Edilov to manipulate each group into believing the offer of devastating weaponry was a blessing from whichever deity watched over each righteous cause.

  The extremists had disparate goals, but Kasun and Edilov had far greater ambitions: they would change the world.

  Unknown to the radical purists and the pious conservatives and the disenfranchised minorities and the separatists and the unificationists and the racists and the neocommunists and the generally angry, the attacks on their individual targets would form a coordinated global assault. Numerous Dirty Bombs would be detonated at various locations in six different cities: Chicago, USA; Marseille, France; Munich, Germany; Osaka, Japan; St Petersburg, Russia; Taipei, Taiwan.

  Responsibility would be claimed, but governments around the world would blame whichever group, race or religion suited their interests. Economies would destabilise, and as fiscal Armageddon gripped the planet, the rich and the privileged would ruthlessly safeguard their interests. And that would lead to their demise.

  In the past, revolution came about by rallying the poor and the disenfranchised to overpower the armies of the rich. But that model had had its time. The rich and the privileged had gathered a protective force too great to be challenged by the poor: they had the middle-classes, whose self-interests helped keep the poor in place. And besides, the poor were now too busy trying to be middle-class to bother with revolution.

  But after the cascade of Dirty Bombs, with nations and corporations at each other’s throats, the rich and the privileged would abandon the middle-classes, and that would be when the real revolution would take place.

  Brynja glanced up to Jökull’s position on the gantry crane. She knew another Víkingasveitin sniper team was in a similar position at the harbour at Hvalfjörður, where the second white van had stopped.

  There had been no movement at Hvalfjörður, but here, the Serb had stepped out of his van. Brynja had been required to wait while the FBI analysts and specialists consulted with Diðrik.

  Finally, instructions: ‘Get closer,’ Diðrik said. ‘Remain out of sight, but be ready to move in. Chicago FBI patched in to comms.’

  At Hvalfjörður, Úlfur received similar orders.

  As he watched the monitor, Will Colvin adjusted his earphone/lip mic; he never found the comms gear comfortable. The giant screen was split into four sections, each relaying a different view. One section showed images of Reykjavik from the reconnaissance satellite, while the other three sections provided on-the-ground views from local surveillance.

  Colvin knew the Icelanders would be resenting his involvement, and he would have preferred to be on location, but there wasn’t time to get him to Iceland; remote command of a force of (likely disgruntled) foreigners on the end of a satellite delay would have to do.

  Like most Icelanders, the police team were fluent English speakers, but Colvin had arranged for a Scandinavian Studies professor from Chicago’s North Park University to be on hand as an interpreter, just in case.

  ‘No movement from the target. He’s still next to the vehicle.’ The update, from one of the Icelandic sniper teams, was for the female officer edging towards Kasun’s unmarked white van.

  Lindberg needed a phone. As he dodged oncoming pedestrians he scanned for someone using a cell, but there wasn’t one in sight. Fucking typical. Then he spotted a payp
hone across the street. He turned; and peripheral vision caught a familiar thickset figure. Mitchell.

  Shit.

  Lindberg turned towards Mitchell, hoping it was a coincidence, that Mitchell would acknowledge Lindberg and take a different route to Skeeters. But Mitchell had stopped and appeared to be looking into a shop window, but at an odd angle that allowed him to keep Lindberg in sight. The shop sold baby clothes.

  Idiot.

  Lindberg strode towards Mitchell, then ducked into an alley, and crouched behind a dumpster. He reached for the Glock 26 holstered at his ankle.

  A few moments later, Lindberg heard heavy breathing, then a few cautious footsteps. ‘Larsson?’

  Lindberg stepped away from the dumpster, the Glock at his side.

  Mitchell had also drawn a weapon. A Colt Mustang; people like Mitchell always bought American.

  ‘Shit, man, it’s you.’ Lindberg, slowly and deliberately, tucked the Baby Glock into the back of his jeans. He held up his arms, hands in front of his chest where Mitchell could see them. ‘Got spooked there.’ He took a couple of steps towards Mitchell.

  Mitchell raised his weapon.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Lindberg took two more steps. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Trust issues,’ said Mitchell.

  ‘Trust? You want to know about trust? I’ll show you trust. Stick that gun in my chest.’