BOOK THREE: WHEN IT WILL COME
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
— William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar [1599]
Chapter 21/Tjueen
TROMSØ AND REINØYA ISLAND, NORWAY:
JULY 31, OR THREE MONTHS AND 19 DAYS
AFTER THE DAY
At 6 AM two marked police vehicles pulled into the Hansnes-Reinøya Ferry. Skrautvol and Rasch went in one of the rugged VW Passat Alltrack SUVs while Giske drove the second one.
Chief Inspector Skrautvol looked forward to visiting Reinøya Island. The island was a distant suburb of Tromsø and it stretched out parallel to Ringvassøy Island north of Tromsø. A half-mile of water separated the two islands.
Reinøya Island exuded the melancholy loneliness of remote isolation. The lack of a bridge kept the population down to a minimum; otherwise, thousands of commuters from Tromsø would move to an island with dramatic and panoramic views of mountains and sea. Reinøya only measured 10 miles at its longest and 5 miles at its widest. Difficult terrain and hefty mountains imbued the island with a wild air.
“See you soon!” yelled Giske before he tore off on southbound Farm Road Fv301.
Skrautvol and Rasch took the northbound lane of the narrow road. Fv301 circled the island except for a 4-mile stretch on the southeastern tip—where Ervin Vikøren lived.
Rasch closed his window and he turned on the air conditioner at full blast. “Hope you don’t mind Chief Inspector . . . but I need to stay alert . . . I didn’t sleep well last night . . . my wife and five-year-old daughter both had a fever . . . some bug they caught from the daycare center.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Hope they’re on the mend.”
The constable’s cell phone rang. He took the call and hanged up. “I just got more intel on Ervin Vikøren.”
“You’re absolutely sure that he’s alive?”
“Oh yes. Vikøren has been in hiding ever since we found our victims . . . supposedly he’s been holed up in a cabin about a half-mile from his residence. My source now tells me that he was seen taking the ferry yesterday from Hansnes up north to Vannøya Island . . . he apparently went to visit one of the people who buy fish from him. The buyer lives in Vannvåg.”
“Very good. And your other source . . . the night clerk . . . she said that Vikøren bought gas at the Esso station in Hansnes late last night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s another payoff to us canvassing the area around a crime scene . . . hitting it hard with lots of flyers and personal visits . . . carpetbombing I call it.”
Rasch grinned. “I’m glad you convinced the boss to send constables out to Skibotn and Furuflaten . . . otherwise we would never have found three people who witnessed a large boat come in and pick up our victims at the Furuflaten marina.”
“Thoroughness is the key. I’m just glad that Superintendent Eilertsen supports the investigation.”
“He always fights to get us the necessary resources. Don’t they in Oslo?”
“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Depends on which way the political winds are blowing.” Skrautvol almost went into the details but she had said enough. The young constable would sooner or later discover that law enforcement can and does get very political. “Do you think that Inspector Giske will be able to arrive in time to cut off Vikøren if the man tries to escape?”
“Yes,” said Rasch as he checked his watch against the odometer to make sure he was on time. “Inspector Giske will be speeding like a maniac . . . he knows that his route is much longer and that the road is poorly paved and full of potholes. I told Giske everything he needs to know about the road that I took yesterday to spy on Vikøren from the mountains on the back part of his property.”
“Do you think that Vikøren still has the two all-terrain vehicles up there . . . for possible use as get-away vehicles?”
“Oh yes. He’s a sly one. I also heard rumors that Vikøren has a cache of arms up there . . . and booby-traps all over the cabin.”
“Well . . . at least you warned Giske.” Skrautvol glimpsed at her wristwatch. She worried that Giske would get delayed. He had two miles of difficult off-road driving after the paved road ended on the southeast tip of the island.
Rasch noticed her taut face. “Chief Inspector . . . Giske will make it on time. The off-road is deeply rutted but it’s doable. The only issue is whether Inspector Giske will have a hard time finishing the last half-mile on foot. He’s got to hike some steep terrain. And he’s not in the best of health.”
Skrautvol frowned. “I know. I asked him if he wanted to switch with you. He insisted that you go with me.”
Rasch lifted his right hand as if to say, “Whatever. I just follow orders.”
The Chief Inspector cracked open her passenger-side window. Her nerves left her feeling as if she was about to float upwards and pop out of the car and become airborne until she was thousands of feet up in the sky. She finally broke down. “Mind if I smoke?”
“No . . . go ahead.”
The Sobranie Black delivered its calming payload of nicotine into her bloodstream. The sting in her lungs confirmed its toxicity. She took two more drags and crushed the cancer stick. “I shouldn’t.”
“You didn’t.”
“Three puffs.”
“Better than three packs.”
A few scattered homes dotted the shoreline. They drove past a collection of homes known as Nordeidet and kept going past the Lakselva River. Skrautvol could see herself living in one of the many islands of Troms County. The summer daylight and the greenery brought out the imposing beauty of islands and mountains and sea.
Rasch brought the vehicle to a stop. “Here we are. That’s their house at the end of the road.”
“You can say that again. It is the end of the road for Ervin Vikøren.”
~ ~ ~
A deep pain sickened Ervin Vikøren. A constellation of aches plagued his body. Turmoil roiled his mind. Nothing had been the same since he had picked up the passengers in his boat. He knew deep down inside that nothing would ever be the same. A stupid decision had again derailed his life. He was outraged over the fact that he always got a raw deal whenever he caved in to the demands of his greed or groin.
“You have chores to do,” said the shrew.
“I don’t feel well.”
“Time’s over for excuses. Now get out and do what needs to be done.”
“You don’t understand. I’m sick. I can’t sleep well. My digestion is shot. My mind . . . it’s like I’m going to explode . . . something horrible is crushing me . . . it’s squeezing the life out of me.”
His woman scoffed. “Don’t start with this nonsense. A guilty conscience is for children and nuns. Get out and make us some money. We have bills to pay.”
Vikøren groaned. He turned over in bed and pulled the covers over his head to avoid seeing and hearing the harpy.
She stood naked by the bathroom door and finished padding herself dry with a monogrammed towel. He shot a furtive peek under the covers at her reflection on the dresser mirror. Her dripping wet locks slithered over her shoulders. The blonde medusa gazed with immense approval at her own reflection on the bathroom mirror. He often caught her looking at herself in the mirror with a joy and pride reserved only for herself. Her auto-ecstasy reminded him that the loneliest place was often next to the one you thought you loved or desired.
A knock on the door jolted him out of his disconsolate and restless slumber.
~ ~ ~
Skrautvol and Rasch heard muffled voices inside the large and modern two-floor house. A loud argument exploded and immediately died down. A disturbing silence came over the Vikøren home. Both officers instinctively reached for their service weapons
. They released the safety catches of their Heckler & Koch P30 semi-automatic handguns. Superintendent Eilertsen had approved C.I. Skrautvol’s request to carry weapons—a rare occasion because Norway’s police do not carry weapons.
“Ervin Vikøren,” said Rasch in a loud but not alarming tone. “We need to ask you a few questions.”
More arguing could be heard inside but it was much less strident. A few seconds later the door opened and Vikøren said:
“Yeah. What is it so early in the morning? . . . You woke me up.”
“This isn’t a social call.” Rasch then identified himself while Skrautvol remained hidden behind the wall next to the door. “We’ve got questions about the passengers in one of your charters.”
Vikøren’s downcast eyes said it all. “Come in.”
Skrautvol quickly walked in behind Rasch. Vikøren slouched as soon as he saw her. The double stripes on her epaulettes indicated a much higher rank than constable. Skrautvol’s presence reminded Vikøren that his troubles were going to become much worse and more complicated. He inwardly shuddered. Life becomes unbearable when a man faces the possibility of a long prison sentence.
Vikøren’s woman emerged from a hallway dressed only in a sheer bathrobe that left little to the imagination. Rasch lowered his eyes to avoid a voluntary or involuntary eyeful of her pendulous breasts.
The woman ignored the officers. She went straight to the kitchen where she prepared herself a heaping bowl of organic Kornkammeret Muesli with cold milk. She sat down at the dining room table as calm and collected as if the two armed police officers were Avon or Amway representatives making a friendly sales call. She flipped nonchalantly through Henne and Sva and other glossy fashion magazines.
Skrautvol knew about Vikøren’s woman and yet no one in Troms County was sure of her name. The detective studied the brazen woman for a few seconds and said:
“And you are?”
“Kjersti Tellefsen. Who are you?”
“Chief Inspector Skrautvol.”
The woman shrugged and went back to her breakfast.
Rasch and Skrautvol sat down only after Vikøren took a seat. They felt relatively safe because Ervin Vikøren was barefoot and dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. At least he could not conceal a weapon on his person. His lean muscular frame posed a danger but his overall composure signaled defeat. The Tellefsen woman, however blasé, could not have concealed a toothpick underneath her bathrobe.
~ ~ ~
Rasch launched straight off into his preliminary statement as previously agreed with Skrautvol. “We know what you did.”
“What?” said a clearly shocked Vikøren who pretended not to be so.
“We know about your passengers. We know when and where and how you picked them up.”
Vikøren was an open book—every single emotion flashed on his face. He could be read a mile away by his two unwelcome guests. His eyes also gave Rasch and Skrautvol a very good idea as to what he was thinking. “What? . . . What passengers? . . . I take many passengers on my charter boat.”
“The passengers you picked up at Furuflaten.”
All that could be heard in the house was Vikøren nervously tapping his toe against the coffee table and Tellefsen loudly chewing her cereal and flipping through her magazine pages.
“We also know everything about the nine bodies at Per Moen’s fish shack. We know about the Ingebrigtsen brothers and how you hired them. We know about the Russians . . . the raped woman . . . and who raped her. . . . We know everything.”
Vikøren’s eyes flickered. His hands trembled. The seaman’s tanned skin and his graying blonde beard could not hide the sickly pallor that spread over his handsome face.
“We also know about your boat . . . The Asgard. We know that you recently filed for insurance . . . claiming that it sank when you hit some unchartered reef. But it didn’t sink by accident. You sank it to get rid of evidence.”
Silence. Absolute silence except for a ticking clock somewhere in the kitchen.
“You can talk to us . . . or we can arrest you right now for murder . . . human trafficking . . . insurance fraud.”
“Let’s talk. But I need a deal.”
~ ~ ~
Skrautvol noticed that Vikøren’s woman had stopped all of her activities. Although she pretended to read her magazines, the woman was completely focused on the tendered negotiations. Skrautvol had no doubts that the dragon herself had coached and counseled and nagged Vikøren into talking with the police. His negotiating stance and talking points had surely been prepared by the Nordic virago. Skrautvol wondered what termagant storms the woman had unleashed upon Vikøren over the deadly charter. The angry argument overheard earlier from the front door must have been but one of the mildest.
“What deal is that?” said Rasch in a highly skeptical tone.
“No charges in exchange for my full cooperation.”
“Chief Inspector,” said Rasch, “I think we’re being sold a bill of goods that might not be so good.”
“I agree,” said Skrautvol with a smile. She was pleased at how well Rasch was handling his first homicide suspect.
Rasch moved up closer to Vikøren. “This is how it works. . . . You tell us your story. I’ll tape you and ask some questions. We’ll check out your answers. If it’s all true then we will make a recommendation to the prosecutor . . . who might or might not offer you a deal once he or she has all the necessary information from you. If there’s one tiny little lie in your story then you better believe that there will be a whole lot of charges for you.”
Ervin Vikøren looked up at his woman.
The golden locks of the vituperator moved forwards in unison as she looked down in an almost imperceptible nod. She had spoken.
“All right. Get your tape recorder and I’ll talk.”
Skrautvol radioed Giske: “We’re inside. All clear. What’s going on up there?”
“The property is booby-trapped every which way . . . rigged with all sorts of handmade crossbows that shoot pointed steel projectiles with vaned tails . . . very silent little killers. . . . I also found an improvised explosive device in the ground that looks like a steel barrel with a three-inch mouth packed with these fléchettes.”
“Be careful!”
“Of course. But we’re going to need bomb disposal experts to clean up the place before forensics can come up here.”
“Go ahead. Call headquarters. If necessary have the army send someone out.”
“Will do.”
Rasch reached into his jacket. He pulled out a small tape recorder and stared steely-eyed at Vikøren. “Ready?”
~ ~ ~
Vikøren sighed. “Where do I start?”
“At the beginning,” said Rasch.
“An old business contact called me.”
“Who?”
Vikøren and his woman had decided that if he was going to be sent to prison then they wanted to identify the man who had gotten Vikøren into trouble. The man’s name had to be given up so that he could suffer like Vikøren. “Devin Archer . . . this British guy. From London.”
“How do you know him?”
“I’ve done work for him before.”
“What work?”
“I brought stuff over from England on my boat.”
“What stuff?”
“I. . . .”
“We’re not interested in your old crimes unless you killed someone. So tell me.”
“Cocaine.”
“We’ll get into the details of that later. He calls you and says what?”
“He’s got a job for me. Seven passengers need to be picked up in Furuflaten and taken to Scotland. No questions allowed. Immigration and customs are to be avoided at all costs.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Seven hundred thousand U.S. dollars . . . in cash.”
“How much did you get up-front?”
“A third . . . in cash.”
“How much did you pay the Ingebrigtsen brothers?”
Vikøren described the seven passengers and the Ingebrigtsen brothers. His description matched the identities of the nine victims. “We went up the fjord. Everything was going well. The passengers brought pulla bread with them from Finland. They gave us some and we ate it.
“I soon realize that something’s wrong with the party. The boss is a nasty Russian man with stainless steel teeth. This guy and the two young Russians thugs with tattoos are clearly in charge of the two Asians and two other men who look Russian . . . one of them is the oldest in the group . . . maybe in his late sixties. I call him Grandpa Shakes because he’s really afraid of the nasty Boss. The other man is in his late forties . . . he’s a real cool customer . . . I call him Cool Hand . . . he’s a mystery. Cool Hand doesn’t seem to be afraid of the Boss or his two thugs.
“I notice that the Asians are also very very afraid of the Boss . . . I start wondering if the Asians and Grandpa Shakes are prisoners or hostages of some kind.
“I’m sorry I ever met Stainless Steel and those two crazy psychopaths covered with tattoos. . . . I knew those two were trouble as soon as I laid my eyes on them. They’re carrying submachine guns under their jackets . . . that was bad news. Then they open their duffel bags and what do I see?
“Vodka. . . . They start drinking as soon as we leave the marina . . . they grab the Asian woman and take her into one of the staterooms and start doing their business. The screams are horrible. Those crazy jerks. What did they think we were running? A cruise ship for their pleasure? . . . Those idiots ruined everything.
“I see the look on Karl and Bjørn . . . I can tell they’re not going to put up with those Russian thugs raping the Asian woman. The Ingebrigtsen brothers have a sister who’s around the same age. They complain to the Boss . . . Stainless Steel tells them to mind their own business.
Sohlberg and the White Death Page 23