Helsinki White iv-3

by James Thompson

  “But still, why me and why now?”

  “Don’t make me uncomfortable. You know why. You’re a good boy, I’ve enjoyed your friendship, and you’ve made me feel a part of your family. Why now? I’m ninety fucking years old. Don’t be thick.”

  I sat for a moment, overwhelmed. I searched for words, but only found two. “Thank you.”

  He smiled. “You’re welcome. Let’s not speak of it again.”

  We enjoyed a comfortable silence. Kate didn’t bring coffee. She had lived in Finland long enough to know we wanted peace, not caffeine.

  The buzzer rang again. Milo and Sweetness arrived at the same time. They were weighed down with packages. They looked at me and gawked. Sweetness dropped his armload of gift-wrapped boxes. “Damn, pomo,” he said. “You look great, but I wouldn’t have even recognized you.”

  “You two laughed at me when I told you to keep a low profile, so I decided to set an example.”

  “You did a good job,” Milo said. “You look so … young.”

  They had to make three trips to get all the boxes into the apartment, and they piled them in the middle of the living room. They kicked off their boots and found places to sit. Arvid kept my new chair. Kate sat on the couch beside me, and Sweetness on the other side of her. Milo swept the house for electronic surveillance, then sat on the floor, in the middle of his treasure trove.

  “Well, Kari,” he said, “welcome back to the world.”

  “I never left it.”

  “You came close enough.”

  “Not really.”

  Milo had on an exquisite new leather jacket. Must have cost a fortune. Our talk about anonymity must not have quite taken hold. I didn’t comment on it.

  “Does anyone notice anything unusual about this coat?” he asked.

  No one did, and he kept waiting, so finally Kate said, “Well, it’s very nice,” so he would get on with it.

  “It’s custom-made to conceal this,” Milo said, and drew an antique sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from a soft and thin leather holster sewn into the coat’s lining. He handed it to me. It was the most beautiful firearm I’d ever seen.

  “It’s a 10-gauge Colt Model 1878 Hammer shotgun. When it first came out, it was the most expensive gun Colt made. It’s a side lock, double-hammer, double-trigger gun with brown Damascus pattern barrels, blue trigger guard and break lever.”

  I looked it up and down. It was covered in gorgeous floral scroll engravings. The barrels extended just past the fore-end, and the buttstock had been cut down to the pistol grip with such skill that it looked as if it had been designed that way. The modifications to the checkered walnut and ebony were the work of a master craftsman.

  “When it was manufactured, it had thirty-two-inch barrels,” Milo said. “Before it was turned into this hand cannon.”

  I passed it around so the others could admire it. “Can it handle modern ammunition?” I asked.

  “No. It would explode like a grenade. I got everything so I can make shells just like they were in the 1880s. The same gunpowder, paper shell casings, wadding. Everything is perfect. Cut down like this, the shot pattern is wide enough to take out a room full of men with a single blast if I let both barrels go. But you have to be careful. If you shot it with one hand, instead of keeping the other on top of it for ballast, the gun would rear up and backward, maybe break your wrist and split your head open.”

  My thoughts turned back to his apartment and his hand reloading outfit. When I was there once, he was loading shotgun shells with flechettes, razor-sharp darts, instead of normal lead shot. In this weapon, they would cut a room full of men into fish bait. “Load it with rock salt,” I said. “That thing’s a menace. Even rock salt will tear through clothes and scorch the hide off somebody. Use birdshot at most.”

  The dark circles around his eyes furrowed and he wanted to argue, but he didn’t want to ruin our fun today. Arvid handed it back to him. He put it back in his jacket and hung it up in the closet.

  He came back and handed each of us a passbook and paperwork from a bank in Bermuda. Arvid, Kate, and Anu got them, too. “We all have offshore accounts now,” he said. “I put seventy-five thousand in each of them to start. Go to your accounts online and change your passwords and you’re all set.”

  I thought Kate might be distressed by killing machines and repositories for stolen money. Instead, she seemed fascinated. “Why Bermuda?” she asked.

  “Because I didn’t have to leave the country,” Milo said. “Opening an offshore account in Bermuda doesn’t require you to be present at the bank. An account can be opened by mail.”

  Milo was on a roll and about to embark on one of his biblical length rants, citing the mandate I had given him to be in charge of acquisitions. Kate escaped, went to the kitchen to cut a cake she had made for the party. He ranted and words zinged through my head: window mounts, suction cups on glass, audio surveillance, wireless video, wireless audio, Bluetooth stealthware.

  Just when I thought he would never stop, he asked us to look out the window. He pointed out two vehicles. “Those are ours,” he said. The first was a Crown Victoria.

  I felt my eyes roll. “Oh, Milo, not a Crown Vic.”

  The cliche of all law enforcement vehicles. Aside from actually being used by many American police departments, Crown Vics have also appeared in dozens or even hundreds of films and TV shows as cop cars. It’s an embarrassment.

  Milo laughed so hard that he held his belly, trying to stop. “I know,” he said, “but I couldn’t help myself. This isn’t just any Crown Vic. This is the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. It’s got heavy-duty parts and two hundred and fifty horses under the hood, plus a higher idle, and the transmission has more aggressive shift points and is built for firmer and harder shifts. For God’s sake, it’s even got Kevlar-lined doors for gunfights. It’s only got twenty thousand miles on it, and I got it for four thousand euros. Besides, I’m going to be the one driving it most of the time.”

  I conceded defeat.

  “Maybe everybody will like this one better.” He handed Sweetness a set of keys. “You look like Gulliver in Lilliput driving around in your little worn-out shitbox.”

  He pointed down at a good-looking SUV. “Behold the 2008 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara. It’s got four-wheel drive and four doors-I thought that would be handy for putting in Anu’s car seat-and an extra-wide wheelbase. And it’s a convertible, fun with summer coming on. It’s high on safety features: an electronic stability program and seat-mounted side air bags, a navigation system and Sirius satellite radio. And a MyGIG multimedia entertainment system to make driving fun.”

  Sweetness crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, flummoxed, as if this were some sort of trick, afraid Milo was teasing him. “This is for me?”

  “It belongs to the group, but I bought it for you to keep and be the primary driver, and I registered it under your name. So yeah, it’s yours.”

  Still perplexed, he said, “Thank you.”

  Milo didn’t acknowledge him. He turned toward me. “You like your Saab, so I didn’t get you a vehicle,” and then to Kate, “and I didn’t know if you drive or want a car.”

  “I have a license, but I just use public transportation, since you really don’t need a car in Helsinki anyway.” She pointed at the small mountain of packages that still lay on the floor. “Should we take a break for cake and coffee?”

  I said, “That guy I mentioned will be here in a little while. Let’s wait on him.”

  Milo’s face said Goody goody gumdrop, now my circus won’t have an intermission. Four big and heavy boxes were in a stack. “These are care packages for all of us guys. They’re all the same.”

  “Me too?” Arvid asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re one of us, one of the team.”

  Arvid smiled at him as he would a child. “I am? How so?”

  “Kari said you’re our bookkeeper. Anyway, we all think of you as one
of the team.”

  Arvid’s smile widened, indulgent, and he nodded assent. “All right. Then I’m one of the team.”

  Milo paused, cautious. I saw him consider whether he should vocalize something. “I’ve been thinking. The team should have a name.”

  When I felt emotions, I would have teased him without mercy. “What name do you suggest?”

  “How about …” He paused again and pretended like he hadn’t been thinking about it. “The New Untouchables. Or, since Arvid is one of us, the New Veterans.”

  Arvid looked at me. This last was an insult to him and the men who had suffered through the ordeal he and his brothers in arms had experienced. I felt certain he was considering ripping off Milo’s head and shitting down his neck.

  I tried to lighten the situation. “Remember the movie Fight Club?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Milo said, and his tone told me he wondered where I was going with this.

  “The first rule of Fight Club was ‘Nobody talks about Fight Club.’ What if they hadn’t given Fight Club a name? It would have been really hard to talk about. The first rule of … is nobody talks about … Maybe we shouldn’t have a name, so no one can talk about us. To name a thing is to define it. If we have no name, in a sense, we don’t exist.”

  It was the truth and he realized it as such. “You’re right, forget the name thing. It was a stupid idea.”

  I glanced at Arvid. He was placated.

  “Would everyone like to open their boxes, or should I just open one and show you everything?”

  “Arvid, Sweetness, and you need to take them home,” I said. “Maybe it’s better if you just open mine.”

  I checked the time. Four o’clock. Moreau wasn’t the kind of man who would be late. He was a spook. He was watching us from somewhere, waiting for us to finish so he wouldn’t intrude.

  Milo took each item out, one by one, and gave us a running commentary on each as he did so. Our knives: “The Spyderco Delica Black Blade. Overall length, seven and one eighth inches. Closed, four and a quarter inches. Blade length, two and seven eighths inches. The Delica4 has a non-reflective VG-10 flat saber-ground blade coated with black titanium carbon nitride.”

  He went on citing its virtues from memory, basically reciting the entire manual. He did the same with: night-vision goggles, Nomex coveralls, shoulder holsters, belt holsters, ankle holsters, gloves, Kevlar masks, zip-lock plastic handcuffs, bulletproof vests, utility belts, glass cutters, lock picks, electronic pick guns, key wax, ear protection, Maglites, saps that were extendable steel rods, Kevlar vests, Tasers, flash-bang stun grenades, double magazine pouches and spare magazines, Gemtech silencers that would render our weapons so quiet that we would only hear the clatter of our automatics’ slides recycling, and in discussing these he hinted at the weapons that we would receive to go with them. In his mind, setting us up, sitting us on pins and needles of anticipation.

  Kate tried to escape to be with Anu, but he called her back. Milo had a small box for her containing a Taser and pepper spray, because it’s a dangerous world out there. The others were bored enough to cut their own throats with their Spyderco Delica Black Blades, but I was fascinated. Each item had been chosen with utmost care. I had never seen such a display, such an act of love. This team was the most important thing that had ever happened-and possibly ever would happen-to him.

  Next came our weapons. First, we all got new.45 caliber 1911 Colts with three-inch barrels. Backup guns to be worn in ankle holsters.

  He handed all us men boxes. Sweetness got the biggest. He asked, “Should we take turns, or all open them at the same time?”

  Milo didn’t hesitate. “We have to take turns. I’ll go first.” He had bought himself a serious collector’s item, a.45 Colt 1911, manufactured in 1918, with black walnut grips and engraving patterns on the frame and slide.

  “How much did that cost?” I asked.

  “Five thousand U.S. dollars.”

  We had a lot of money, but still. “Isn’t that a little extravagant?”

  He took umbrage. “When you asked me to join this team, I told you I wanted certain weapons and you agreed. Additionally, you appointed me armorer, and I did the job as I best saw fit.”

  Maybe it was a lapse from brain surgery. “Sorry, but I don’t recall naming you armorer.”

  “Before you went to the hospital, you told me to get the stuff we needed. Same difference.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to destroy his day in the sun. “You’re right. So I did. But one question. If you actually have to shoot someone with it in a situation that doesn’t conform to law enforcement conditions to justify it, you have to get rid of it. It would be a shame to throw that down a sewer drain.”

  He beamed, triumphant. “I bought extra barrels and firing pins by the box. I just replace them and keep the pistol. In fact, I’ve already swapped them out, just in case. Barrels in bulk are sixty bucks apiece. And I got five thousand rounds of two-hundred-and-thirty-grain ammo.”

  Again, I conceded.

  “Open yours,” he said.

  Guns don’t interest me, and I’m a lousy shot. I opened the box. I admitted though, it was a pretty pistol.

  Milo said, “It’s a.45 Colt 1911 Gold Cup National Match. A competition-grade target pistol. I hoped it might encourage you to practice.”

  It won’t. “Thank you,” I said.

  Sweetness opened his without asking. An unblemished walnut presentation case was inside the wrapping. He opened it. It was a two-gun U.S. 82nd Airborne commemorative set, adorned with 82nd Airborne symbols. The slides had never even been pulled. They were something truly special.

  “You’re ambidextrous,” Milo said. “So I got you a pair. I’ll teach you to shoot, and you can blaze away with both hands simultaneously.”

  Tears shone in the corners of Sweetness’s eyes.

  Arvid sat in my armchair with his box in his lap. Milo motioned for him to open it. Inside was the pistol Arvid had used to murder Ivan Filippov, that he had executed so many men with in the Second World War, that his father had carried before him in the Civil War almost a hundred years ago, and the only possession Arvid had that belonged to his father before him. He looked at it with disbelief, dumbstruck.

  “I stole it from the evidence room,” Milo said.

  Arvid just looked at him, expressionless, for a good two minutes without speaking. Milo began to squirm, afraid he had done something wrong.

  “You have my sincere gratitude,” Arvid said.

  “Sir,” Milo said, “you are most welcome.”

  I saw then that Milo’s motive for all this, the extravagance, the silliness of it, his obsession with our black-ops unit, was one that I doubted he himself was aware of. This wasn’t about fighting crime for him. He wanted to be part of a family. My family. For all of us in this room to be one big happy family. He wanted our love. It was unfortunate. It was something none of us were capable of giving him.

  Unbelievably, there was still a big pile of boxes, but Kate couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m dying for a piece of cake,” she said.

  21

  Kate set the table and went to the kitchen. As if on cue, the door buzzer rang and I let Moreau in. He was forty-five minutes late. I recognized in him a man who was never late, never disorganized, always prepared, always in control. He had indeed been watching us from somewhere and made his entrance when it seemed most appropriate.

  Kate came to greet him and, because he was down on one knee removing his boots, her primary view of him was of the large and ornate French Foreign Legion paratrooper wings tattooed on the sides of his head. They startled, even frightened her.

  He stood, took her hand and introduced himself, and his pleasant demeanor offset her initial reaction. He went into the living room and introduced himself to everyone by turn, and then we all went to the dining room.

  My mother had taught Kate to make a traditional Finnish birthday-type cake-my favorite kind-and she did it well, with layers of fruit-based fi
lling and a simple frosting made of cream and sugar. The kind of frosting many Americans are so fond of, that comes ready-made in a can, is now available in Finland, so at Kate’s insistence I once gave it a try. It’s so sweet that it’s like eating rotten candy, disgusting to me. I also find American coffee useless. They drink it weak, like hot black water.

  Moreau gestured toward the pile of gear in the living room. “You are preparing for a paramilitary operation?” he asked.

  Milo loved to talk about our group. He looked at me for permission and I nodded yes.

  I watched the storm come in as he talked. The sky was first zinc, then black and heavy, and then the rain came, wind-driven into silver diagonals. Kate rocked Anu back and forth in her carriage. Katt reclined on my shoulder.

  I waited for an appropriate moment. “Adrien, tell us about yourself.”

  “I grew up in Finland, in Iisalmi-a small town in the east,” he said. “This is the first time I have been back in over twenty years.”

  Now we spoke English, but yesterday we spoke Finnish. His manner of speaking our mother tongue made me believe him. It carried an odd intonation, unusual word choices and grammatical constructions. I’ve noticed this before about the speech patterns of long-term expats.

  “I attended the University of Helsinki and studied philosophy, because I wanted to find out who I was and what I wished to be. By the time I completed my master’s, the answer was clear, and I joined the French Foreign Legion.”

  “Why not the Finnish army?”

  “I had already served in the Finnish army. It has been said that every young man needs his war, and I needed mine. Finland has not fought in a war for sixty-five years now. Finnish boys must seek their glory elsewhere. I have served in Chad, Rwanda, the Cote d’Ivoire, the Gulf War, Gabon and Zaire, Cambodia and Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Afghanistan and, of late, in Mexico. You would be surprised how many Finns are in the Legion, for just that reason.”