Sohlberg and the White Death

by Jens Amundsen

  A gendarme poked his head out of the cottage doorway and said:

  “The medical examiner is about to take the body out. Want to see her again?”

  Sohlberg did. He walked back to the cottage.

  What was he going to tell her family in Turkey?

  Azra Korbal had visited Sohlberg and his wife several times for dinner and they tremendously liked her. The boyfriend less so. The Sohlbergs’ dislike had now been confirmed. The man was a junkie and maybe even involved in her death.

  Sohlberg stood in solemn attention by her corpse. The coroner had already placed it inside the body bag. Azra Korbal’s face had a peaceful look. Sohlberg felt her presence quite strongly as he often did with the recently deceased. He slipped a soothing Ricola lozenge into his mouth to erase the sour taste that he got when he saw a murdered victim’s body.

  ~ ~ ~

  Murder always made Harald Sohlberg think about the mysterious ways that the lives of men and women intersect. He thought about how those intersections were sometimes random. Sometimes intentional. Some for good. Some for evil. Some quite deadly. He also thought about how those intersections used to be so local most of the time.

  A careless teen would plow his car into another and kill a mother and son who lived less than a mile away.

  The old alcoholic in Apartment 3-B would fall asleep smoking a cigarette and burn down the building and leave everyone homeless except for the young couple in 4-B who wound up in pine box residences six feet under.

  A jealous boyfriend would strangle his lover when she called off their affair or told him she was pregnant from another man.

  Today the intersection of lives spans the globe. Sometimes random. Sometimes intentional. Sometimes deadly.

  A Chinese pig farmer breeds the next strain of influenza virus that kills 3 million elderly in Europe and the USA.

  A farmer plants coca bushes in Bolivia. Another poor farmer plants opium poppies in Afghanistan. The deadly crops are harvested and processed for the overdoses that kill the Stanford University sophomore from Florida and the software executive in Oslo.

  Nineteen hijackers get on four airplanes and on September 11 they intersect their lives with those of hundreds of millions of other lives. Trillions of war dollars are spent on Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of soldiers are killed and maimed.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sohlberg looked at the murdered young woman and her bruised angelic face and he wondered what would be next in the globalization of crime.

  Why would anyone want to murder Azra Korbal?

  Was the Portugese boyfriend her killer?

  Sohlberg doubted if Otelo Carvalho even knew how to shoot a gun. Sohlberg had his doubts because the boyfriend was a clumsy young fool. Extreme milquetoast. A trust fund baby. The ultimate weakling. The kind of rich boy who’d pee in his pants if he heard a gun blast. Guns were far beyond Otelo Carvalho’s homicidal skills which were close to zero. The guy couldn’t even figure out how to open the front door lock at the Sohlbergs’ apartment when the young couple had visited for dinner last week.

  Sohlberg hovered around the crime scene for another half hour. But there was nothing more to be found or said or done for his part at the stone cottage. So at two o’clock in the morning he drove off to Lyon and his office at Interpol.

  Where is Laprade?

  It was very strange of him not to answer his phone.

  Why was a computer hidden in Azra’s car?

  Why did it have a thumb drive stuck to it?

  The computer could be planted or staged. But even planted or staged evidence has great value for the false story that it’s trying to tell.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sohlberg drove off. He turned up the heat in the car. He shook uncontrollably and retched not once but six times. The sight of Death had frozen his insides.

  Homicide is never pretty.

  He thought of the cold blue skin of Azra Korbal and the purple smudges around her sunken lifeless eyes.

  “Azra,” he whispered. “Why?”

  An ugly glacier slowly moved down his body as it pushed aside his heart and soul—they cracked under the brutal weight of Death’s crushing reality. The devastating and absolute finality of her death brought to mind the ugly corruption that disfigures all human bodies subjected to homicide. Death’s merciless wall of ice grabbed, twisted, and ground his innards into a messy rubble, a moraine of grief.

  Sohlberg accelerated the Volvo sedan to 90 mph on the empty roads back to Interpol headquarters. He wasn’t worried about getting stopped by a French policeman for speeding. He had a greater worry—the evidence. Sohlberg was preoccupied if not obsessed with gathering all of the evidence as soon as possible.

  A set of headlights in the rear view mirror. They caught Sohlberg’s attention. He slowed down. The car behind also slowed down. He accelerated and the driver did the same. Sohlberg got off the A43 Highway at the cloverleaf intersection with the A46. He dropped his speed down to 15 mph. The car passed him in a blur. He wondered if the driver and passenger were tailing him.

  Am I getting too paranoid?

  Ominous feelings. Sohlberg was sure that he had been under surveillance ever since the start of Operation Locust.

  ~ ~ ~

  The Norwegian detective arrived at Interpol less than 20 minutes after leaving the crime scene at Heyrieux. He parked on the third floor basement and took the elevator down to the tenth floor basement. After swiping his badge through several doors he walked past the overnight staff guarding the central archives.

  “Bon jour,” said Sohlberg.

  The two men said nothing. They barely looked at Sohlberg. The chilly and rude French reception matched the cold temperature of the basement.

  A long antiseptic hallway led to a secure room where Sohlberg sat before a computer terminal. The machine was directly connected to one of Interpol’s dedicated servers in the basement. The flourescent lights enhanced the ghastly pallor on Sohlberg’s drawn face. He began searching for—and printing out—the names of all cases in which Azra Korbal had worked as a translator or interpreter.

  Ishmael. . . . Could this be related to Ishmael?

  The thought went round and round in Sohlberg’s mind like a dog that chases its tail.

  Ishmael. . . . Could this be tied to Ishmael?

  The printer ran out of ink during Sohlberg’s frantic search-and-download computer session which lasted until 5:35 AM. By pure chance he knew which hallway closet held fresh ink cartridges.

  Toward the end of his computerized inquiries Sohlberg had grown sick of the ugly buzzing sound of the printer doing its work.

  Did Azra Korbal get killed because of Ishmael?

  Or was she dead because of someone else in Operation Locust?

  Could her work on another project have brought on her murder?

  Sohlberg knew that the answer had to be somewhere in the files.

  As soon as he was done with his computer inquiries Sohlberg looked down at his wristwatch and realized that he had very little time before Interpol employees started arriving for the early morning shift. He rode the elevator up to Azra Korbal’s cubicle on the second floor.

  ~ ~ ~

  A cork board held dozens of pictures of Azra and her boyfriend and her family. To the left was a large wood frame that showcased a picture of Azra as a girl with two boys. On the right was another frame with a picture which showed Azra as a teenager standing before the Eiffel Tower.

  Sohlberg flinched. He hated having to call her parents and break the bad news to them.

  A dozen small plastic toys sat on top of her computer’s monitor. His throat tightened when he saw the long-haired troll that he had given her as a birthday gift. Everything in the office remained in the exact same place that Azra Korbal had left it in before she departed for the weekend. Sohlberg could feel her presence and he would not have been surprised if Azra Korbal had walked in on him at that very minute.

  Sohlberg put on his gloves. He spent two hours carefully searching th
e cubicle and the desk and the chair. He reassembled the phone after opening and inspecting it for transmitting devices. Sohlberg opened and inspected the picture frames and flipped over every picture on the cork board. He scanned all of the pictures with her printer and then e-mailed digital copies of the pictures to himself.

  Nothing interesting so far.

  His fingers searched every inch of the cubicle’s fabric walls to find secret compartments and he pulled out every drawer and looked at all the contents and checked where anything could have been taped to the bottom or the sides or the rear of each drawer. The chair cushions got a good squeeze and he turned the chair upside down to inspect whether anything could’ve been hidden on or inside the chair.

  ~ ~ ~

  It’s always easy to act like a cool and collected professional when the homicide victim is a stranger.

  A storm of ugly thoughts pelted Sohlberg on the journey home. His professional detachment seemed to have evaporated somewhere on the road between Heyriux and Lyon. He was surprised by his overwhelming desire—a blood lust—for the deadly revenge that he wanted to impose upon those who had killed Azra Korbal.

  Azra Korbal’s murder was personal.

  Who had the audacity to kill the translator who had worked so closely with him?

  Her boyfriend was an unlikely suspect.

  Azra Korbal’s death was an outrageous affront that cried out for retaliation.

  Avenging thoughts rose in his mind like towering thunderstorms.

  A few minutes later the storm was spent. Sohlberg decided that his best revenge would be to expose, capture, and arrest the cowardly ghouls who were responsible for her death.

  ~ ~ ~

  Sohlberg arrived home at 7:30 AM. He didn’t want to break the upsetting news to his wife. She had become good friends with Azra Korbal. The exhausted detective sneaked into the library and began reading the list of all cases that Azra had worked on.

  An hour later he heard Emma Sohlberg start her shower. Afterwards he kept reading while she had breakfast. He had less than an hour before she would come into the library to check her e-mails on the computer. He read at a maniac’s pace.

  A wave of tremendous relief came over Sohlberg when he finished reviewing the list of cases. Azra Korbal had never personally participated in any face-to-face meetings with the Confidential Informant known as Ishmael. Nor had she translated any written or verbal communications to or from Ishmael—who spoke decent English and passable French.

  The relief was temporary. He now had to inform Fru Sohlberg of the murder. And he had to start reading hundreds of case files in which the late Azra Korbal had done translations.

  ~~~

  The Sohlbergs met in the hallway.

  “Oh. You’re home. What was the emergency?”

  He said nothing. The words simply would not come to him.

  Emma Sohlberg’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong . . . is it someone we know?”

  The detective’s throat constricted until he could barely speak. “It’s Azra . . . she’s . . . she’s dead.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone shot and killed her.”

  Tears welled up in Fru Sohlberg’s eyes. “Who did it? . . . Her boyfriend?”

  “No.” Sohlberg hugged her tightly. “We don’t know yet.”

  She cried out—as in pain—and this greatly upset him.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “I feel you’re in danger.”

  “My Love . . . I’m safe . . . her death had nothing to do with me.”

  “But it does. You spent a lot of time with her. I feel something horrible is around us. You . . . we . . . are in danger.”

  “Please . . . My Love . . . let’s not get paranoid.”

  “Paranoid? . . . Someone’s been calling us over and over the past couple of days. I thought it was some prank. But now I’m not so sure.”

  “What? . . . Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you’re never around. At first I thought it was some kids playing a prank. They called and let the phone ring and ring until I answered . . . then they would keep silent and never hang up. It gives me the creeps to think about it now. I’m the one who had to hang up. I once had to place a call and they were still on the line ten minutes later.”

  “I’ll tell Laprade . . . he’ll look into it.”

  “What for?” Emma Sohlberg shook her head with disgust. “Do you think that they called from a number that can be traced to them?”

  “No. Not unless it was some dumb kids.”

  “They weren’t. I’m pretty sure that I once heard them whisper something. . . .”

  “What?”

  “I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. It was hard to tell . . . it was a man’s voice . . . a whisper . . . it sounded creepy . . . threatening . . . ugly.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Later that night Sohlberg tossed and turned.

  Who murdered Azra Korbal?

  Insomnia had always been part of Sohlberg’s life. His troublesome nightly guest had first appeared when he was a teenager. His entire adult life was centered around it. Sleeplessness never left him; it only varied in its intensity and duration.

  Who murdered Azra Korbal?

  The inability to turn off his thoughts at night was both a curse and a blessing. His health suffered during bad spells. His explosive temper worsened. Anything would set him off in a tirade: slow drivers; surly clerks; mediocre food; shoddy products. Only the steady and calming influence of Emma Sohlberg prevented her sleep-deprived husband from suffering a heart attack or a mental breakdown. She always managed to distract and entertain him at the right time in the right amount. Her powers of seduction also brought him sweet relief and intense release.

  Who murdered Azra Korbal?

  The blessing of nocturnal introspection allowed Sohlberg to see crimes and suspects from all possible angles and permutations. Night after night he was to calculate and re-calculate all of the possibilities as to the identity of the person who arbitrarily extinguished Azra Korbal’s life.

  Who murdered Azra Korbal?

  Why didn’t Bruno Laprade pick up the phone when I called?

  Sohlberg looked up at the ceiling and tried to count himself to sleep.

  Locust was supposed to be the golden crown of his career. Operation Locust had consumed almost three years of his life. He had worked day and night to reel in the big fish. Actually it was more than catching the big fish in the ocean of crime. It was all about harpooning the white whale—the biggest cocaine dealers—the most profitable leviathans of the drug underworld.

  Sohlberg had created Locust to serve as his professional high note before retirement. It was also his payback. His comeback. Locust was to bring him the Standing O’s that would make up for all the humiliations that he had put up with ever since he got shoved out of Norway by corrupt idiots like his boss Ivar Thorsen.

  The insomnia intensified during the weeks and months that followed. And yet he could not arrive at the answer to the maddening question.

  Who murdered Azra Korbal . . . and why?

  Who and why?

  Who?

  Why?

  Chapter 2/To

  LYON, FRANCE: MAY 14, OR

  THIRTY-TWO DAYS AFTER THE DAY

  After one month of miserable days and nights Sohlberg had read less than a tenth of the case files in which Azra Korbal was mentioned as a translator or interpreter. Every night after putting in a full day’s work he closeted himself down in the tenth floor basement tombs of the central archives of Interpol.

  “Sohlberg . . . please . . . come home . . . you need to rest.”

  “Soon My Love. Soon.”

  Faced with his nocturnal obsessions Emma Sohlberg stopped chastising him for disappearing from home and for sleeping less than four hours every night. They both wished that he could read the files at home. But he could not. Operation Locust had a Top Secret rating.

  Locust files were encrypted in a
dedicated server in the basement that could not be accessed from the outside through any telephone lines or Internet connections. The electronic files could only be created, edited, and retrieved on special computer terminals inside secure rooms at the basement’s tenth floor. Locust computer printouts could only be read in The Dungeons—the clever nickname assigned by archive staff to Locust-only rooms.

  Non-Locust cases made up about a quarter of the cases which mentioned Azra Korbal’s work as a translator or interpreter. Files in non-Locust cases were scattered around Interpol with different case officers. Sohlberg asked permission from each of the officers. Almost all cooperated. A dozen refused. Sohlberg easily solved this problem with Rageh Ziedan. He was Azra Korbal’s boss and he had full access to those files since he and his underlings had to substitute for Azra.

  ~ ~ ~

  At 9:00 AM the always charming Rageh Ziedan walked into Sohlberg’s office at Interpol.

  The urbane and Oxford-educated Egyptian had spent decades as the chief of translators for Middle East languages. He spoke perfect English and French—the main languages at Interpol. He was also a published poet and he looked the part with his long silver mane and elegant manners. The Sohlbergs had become good friends with many Interpol employees including Ziedan and his wife Thoraya—a history professor at the University of Lyon. This surprised everyone at Interpol because Norwegians with work friendships are as common as teeth on a meth addict.

  Ziedan waved hello and said:

  “I’ve got a bit of interesting news.”

  “Have a seat.”

  “I can’t . . . got to run. We’ve got a major video conference in ten minutes on arms trafficking. The entire department is waiting for me . . . we’re translating in thirty-six languages.”

  “So . . . what’s new with Azra’s family? . . . Have you been able to reach them? . . . I want to break the bad news to them with your help.”