Laynie slowly turned the pages until she found the “simple” word from the Lord in Deuteronomy that Miss Laurel had delivered to her. She read the short passage, and her breath caught in her throat, threatening to strangle her.
Miss Laurel was right. It needed no explanation.
Take heed to yourselves,
that your heart be not deceived,
and ye turn aside,
and serve other gods,
and worship them.
Laynie slapped the Bible closed, likewise clamping down on the guilt caroming around like a loose bowling ball in her heart. She shoved the book and its convicting words into her nightstand drawer and slammed the drawer shut.
Chapter 13
January 3, 1978
IT WAS EARLY AND STILL dark when Sammie loaded Laynie’s bag into his car. Laynie hugged her parents and said goodbye to them. They had, somehow, made peace with her leaving.
Still, as her mother held her close, she whispered in Laynie’s ear, “Laynie-girl, Dad and I will be praying for you ever’ night and ever’ day. We be holding you up to the Lord, asking him to keep you safe and keep you in his will.”
As she whispered back, “Thank you, Mama,” a sardonic heckler shouted in her head: Won’t it be kinda hard for God to keep you in his will, if you aren’t there in the first place?
Shut up, Laynie answered.
Gene Portland hugged Laynie next. “We love you, Laynie. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t forget. I love you, too, Dad.”
Sammie drove Laynie to Sea-Tac to catch her 7 a.m. flight. He was mostly quiet during the drive, which suited Laynie. She was preoccupied with her own thoughts. It was when they arrived at the Departures curb that he said his piece.
“Laynie?”
She sighed. “What, Sam?”
“I don’t believe you’re just ‘taking a job’ in Sweden. I already told you that—and I’m sticking to what I said. But, having thought it over, I figure you can’t tell me what it is you’re really doing. So, just know . . . just know that whatever it is you’re mixed up in, Mama and Dad aren’t the only ones who’ll be praying for you.”
Laynie looked down into her lap, blinking back the sting of moisture. “Thanks, Sam.”
“And you’ll be back this summer, right?”
“Yes. August.”
“Okay, well now that you’ll be making the big bucks, can we plan to rent a little boat for a week while you’re here? Get out on the Sound?”
Laynie sniffled. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” Sammie said. “I’ll . . . I’ll get your suitcase out of the trunk now.”
Standing at the curb, they hugged.
Then Laynie took her bag and walked away.
MARSTEAD HAD BOOKED Laynie from Seattle to London with London as her final destination. Linnéa Olander was booked from London to Stockholm, and Marstead had built a two-hour window between the two flights, more than enough time to accomplish their purposes. Per her instructions, Laynie, her handbag slung crosswise over her chest, left her gate looking for her contact, an individual loitering nearby who would be holding a beige valise with a distinctive oxblood-leather monogram stitched to its side.
There. By the trash bin.
Laynie sauntered by the bin, eyes front and ahead. She dropped some wadded paper in the trash. At the same time, the woman with the bag turned toward Laynie, sliding by her. The pass was perfectly timed; when Laynie cleared the bin, she carried the bag by its handle. She then sought the women’s restroom nearest her arrival gate and went in.
The restroom was busy, and all of the stalls were in use, so Laynie got in line. When a stall opened up, she went in, sat, and opened the valise. Inside, she found a complete change of clothes and a different handbag. Within the handbag she found a passport, airline ticket to Stockholm, a wallet containing a modest number of kronor, a letter of instructions, and several personal items.
“Take everything off and dress entirely in the clothing and accessories provided. Exchange purses. Take nothing from your old purse; take no old article of clothing or jewelry with you. Put your old clothing and your purse inside the valise.”
Laynie breathed deeply. Nothing. She would have nothing of her own when she left the restroom.
She stripped down and put on the clothing Marstead had provided. It all fit her, right down to the underwear and shoes.
Well, duh. They took all my measurements after fourteen weeks of training—because I’d lost weight.
She remembered Ms. Stridsvagn’s mandate: “Don’t overindulge.”
Laynie dropped the letter into the toilet and watched it dissolve. When she had folded her discarded clothing and shoes into the valise, she added her old handbag and zipped the valise closed. She left the stall and went to the sinks to wash her hands. While there, she brushed her hair, then drew from her pocket the scarf Marstead had provided. She folded the scarf into a wide band that she tied over her hair and studied its effect in the mirror.
Laynie Portland had arrived in London and would go no further. In an hour or so, Linnéa Olander would depart Heathrow for Stockholm, Sweden.
As Laynie left the restroom and started down the concourse, the valise in her left hand, the same woman who had handed off the valise to her, swept by and carried the bag away.
The woman left in her wake a blonde Swede wearing the stylish scarf, repeating to herself,
Linnéa Olander. My name is Linnéa Olander.
THREE AND A HALF HOURS later, Linnéa deplaned in Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport and headed for baggage claim. She’d been traveling for close to seventeen hours, having left the Pacific coast of the U.S. in the early morning yet arriving in Stockholm just after 4 p.m. because of the time change. She was tired.
Also, while it had been wet, dreary, and downright chilly in Seattle, from what Linnéa saw through the airport windows, Stockholm was in the grip of full-on winter, and she wore only a light sweater.
She handed her claim ticket to a baggage handler who returned with a suitcase much like her own, but one she’d never seen before. The case had an ID tag reading “Linnéa Olander.”
Guess that’s mine.
Linnéa led the baggage handler out of the airport to the Arrivals curb. There, Linnéa spotted a man with a placard reading, “Olander” and made her way to him.
While Linnéa tipped the baggage handler, the placard-holding man took her suitcase and put it in the trunk of a small car. He held the rear door for her. She slid in and found a nice parka waiting for her on the seat.
“Tack.” Thank you.
He nodded, then navigated out of the airport in silence and turned the vehicle onto an artery running south/southwest until it merged onto the E4, southbound. Linnéa, for her part, sat still with her head angled toward the window while her hungry eyes roved over the passing scenery. She knew the airport was about thirty-seven kilometers north of Stockholm’s city center, about midway between Stockholm and Sweden’s fourth-largest city, Uppsala.
The map of Sweden, from a distance and to the casual observer, appeared to have a solid outline. Close up, particularly the easternmost point of the country where it jutted into the Baltic Sea, the border of Sweden encompassed a maze of islands and interconnecting waterways—an archipelago. Linnéa knew that Stockholm itself was built on fourteen of those islands joined by fifty bridges. As her driver entered the city, Linnéa saw water everywhere she looked.
I’m used to water. Lots of it surrounding Seattle.
Eventually the driver drove into a parking garage and pulled into an unoccupied spot. He got out, and Linnéa saw him speaking to a woman.
The woman approached and opened Linnéa’s door.
“God middag, Miss Olander. Välkommen till Stockholm. Come with me, please.”
Linnéa slid from the rear seat and followed the woman. Her driver fetched her suitcase and trailed after, putting her case in a second vehicle.
“Please sit with me in the front seat where
we can talk more easily,” the woman said to Linnéa in Swedish. A moment later, they left the parking garage.
“My name is Annika Norling; I am the head of Marstead’s linguistics center. You may call me Anna.”
“Thank you, Anna,” Linnéa answered.
“I think you’ll find the ‘house’ comfortable, but we do have a few rules you should be aware of before we arrive. You are familiar with the first: Anonymity with regards to your previous identity and background. You are now Linnéa Olander. You have committed your brief bio to memory, ja?”
“Ja.”
“We will reinforce and build out your background as we go along. The second rule is this: no English from this point forward.”
Annika slanted her eyes toward Linnéa. “We have been instructed to teach you Russian as well as Swedish.”
Linnéa nodded. Annika’s announcement did not surprise her.
“Since you will be studying Russian as well as Swedish, you may use either language in the house. However, we are to train you to look, think, and speak as a Swedish citizen. This will be your primary objective. Your assigned linguist will issue you a Swedish-English dictionary. If you cannot pose a question in Swedish, you must study out how to convey your meaning. The rule is meant to discourage anything but Swedish.
“The third rule is that, until we deem you able to pass as a Swede, you will avoid making acquaintances outside the house. For the time being, we will control your access to non-Marstead personnel. Förstår du?” Do you understand?
“Ja, jag förstår perfekt.” I understand perfectly.
“Your inflection is quite good.”
“Thank you. My father—” Linnéa stopped. “Sorry.”
“Make your mistakes now. They will not be tolerated once we reach the house.”
She saw, when they arrived, that the ‘house’ had obviously once been a narrow three-story apartment complex containing six little apartments, two to a floor. Those overseeing the conversion to Marstead’s linguistics center had combined the bottom two apartments to create single, larger living and dining areas and kitchen. The two bedrooms had been converted to classrooms.
They had taken the remaining four apartments—two on the second and two on the third floor—and expanded them to six apartments, three per floor, by excluding the kitchens and dining nooks from the original apartments and combining them to make one new apartment.
Linnéa’s apartment was on the third floor. She had a bedroom, a tiny bath, and a small sitting area to herself but would take her classes and meals on the first floor.
From her front window, she looked out onto the street below and the rooftops of other narrow homes or apartments nearby; from her bedroom window, she stared across the alley three floors down and into a neighboring house so close, she felt she could reach across and join hands with its occupants. She drew the thick curtains, not relishing the idea of anyone looking in while she dressed or undressed.
“Your days,” Annika explained as Linnéa unpacked, “will be full, from daybreak to nightfall. In the linguistics center, we do most everything together as a group, utilizing every task or outing as a learning experience. You will have classes with the other two residents three mornings a week—languages, history, art, music, literature, government and politics—and a variety of field trips in the afternoons and evenings to museums, concerts, galleries, and folk festivals.”
“We share the household tasks—cooking and cleaning—and also the shopping. When it is your turn to cook, we will visit the markets where you will learn how to shop, haggle, and count Swedish money.
“To ensure that your tradecraft does not grow stale but continues to improve, probationary agents will report three times a week to another Marstead facility. The instructors there will continue your training, taking you out in the city to run exercises. In this way, you will hone your field practices and learn the city—its layout, important landmarks, how to navigate through it, and varying modes of transport.
“However, publicly, you will pretend to know little of Marstead International and have no known association with Marstead until their plans for you are ripe, until you are fully prepared for the role they have chosen for you—which may or may not be as a direct Marstead employee.”
Linnéa listened, but she was sleep-deprived, jet-lagged, her thoughts drifting due to her long flight and the nine hour time difference between Stockholm and Seattle. She stifled a yawn.
Can’t wait until they let me go to bed.
Annika must have seen her fatigue. “Come; let me introduce you to your housemates and the staff. Dinner is at 6:30 each evening, in about ten minutes. You may retire after you’ve eaten.”
An hour later, as soon as she put her head on her pillow, Linnéa felt herself falling down a dark, welcoming hole. She slept so hard that her neck was stiff when a bell echoed up the stairwell the following morning, rousing her. Soon after the bell, Annika knocked on her door.
“Ah, Linnéa. I see you are up. Feeling rested?”
“Yes. I slept well.”
“Good, good. Breakfast is in fifteen minutes. You will join us and begin your studies today.”
AT BREAKFAST, LINNÉA met three instructors and two residents, Milo and Erika. By their accents, she pegged Erika as Danish and Milo as German. She nodded as they introduced themselves.
“Linnéa Olander,” she replied. “Trevligt att träffas.” Pleased to meet you.
With that simple greeting, Linnéa moved into a seven-month stint in the linguistic center. She embraced the training but particularly looked forward to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays when Annika drove the three students, Milo, Erika, and Linnéa, to a parking garage where they shifted over to another vehicle (always a different one) and were taken to the outskirts of Stockholm where Marstead owned a combination gymnasium and firing range.
Laynie was in her element there, as her instructors soon discovered. She was fit and agile, and she adapted quickly to whatever problem or exercise the instructors threw at her. As the exercises increased in complexity, the instructors moved their students into the city to run surveillance on randomly selected individuals, both pedestrians and drivers.
Laynie learned to conceal and carry a block of unstained wood carved into the simplistic replica of a small semiauto pistol. It was an appropriate size and weight to practice carrying a gun in a shoulder harness under a jacket, a holster at the small of her back, a holster strapped to the inside of her thigh under a skirt, or one strapped to her ankle when she wore slacks.
“Sweden’s gun laws are not as restrictive as some European nations,” their instructors told them, “but it is illegal for a civilian to carry a firearm for other than a specific, legal purpose, and the gun must be licensed. Transportation of a firearm requires that the gun be unloaded and hidden during transport.
“We do not want our agents, probationary or otherwise, carrying a firearm unless necessary—however, we do want you to know how to carry and keep your weapon concealed. A whole lot of covert operations consist of standing or sitting around, waiting, watching, listening, then waiting some more. But that one instance when your life is on the line? You will be grateful to have this skill, I promise you.”
IN AUGUST, LINNÉA “TRANSITIONED” back to the States and her identity as Laynie Portland for her first annual leave. During her layover in the London airport, she was met by an agent who passed Linnéa her Laynie identification papers and took away her Linnéa papers. In this way, she entered the United States as Laynie Portland, leaving Linnéa behind.
Once home, to avoid in-depth conversations about her work with Marstead, Laynie spoke at length on Swedish culture, the sights she’d seen and history she learned while walking the streets of Stockholm. Gene loved it and enjoyed speaking Swedish with her, marveling at how her facility with the language had far outstripped his.
“You sound just like a native speaker, Laynie,” he praised her.
Good, she thought.
Sam took a we
ek off from his summer job and, as they had discussed, he and Laynie rented a little two-man sailboat and took it out on the water every day of that week.
“I’m saving my money,” she told him. “After you graduate, let’s buy that boat we’ve dreamed about, okay?”
She was sorry when that wonderful week of sailing ended and Sam returned to his summer job. After that, she only saw him in the mornings or evenings. With Sam unavailable, the remainder of her month-long leave stretched before her, another three weeks of it. Laynie intentionally avoided old friends and acquaintances, and that left her with nothing more to do than spend each day puttering around the house and yard with Polly while Gene was at work.
“Let’s take some drives,” Laynie suggested, “see some sights together.”
Polly took to the idea, and they made day forays to scenic or interesting locations while Gene worked—a day over Chuckanut Drive, another through the Whidbey Scenic Isle Way, a morning at Pike Place Market, and getting massages together—something Polly resisted, then gave in to when Laynie insisted.
“Oooh,” Polly moaned in delight. “Never had a massage before. So good, ’tis almost sinful, Laynie-girl.”
Laynie laughed. “Told you you’d love it, Mama. And—oh! Oh, right there, no, there. A little more of that, please!”
Polly giggled like a girl and sighed with happy contentment. A minute later she whispered, “Thank you for taking me out of the house and spending time with me, Laynie. I sure am having the time of my life with you, sugar.”
“Me, too, Mama. Me, too.”
And Laynie, in that moment, experienced a revelation of sorts, that these day trips, just mother and daughter—trips Laynie had initially devised to alleviate her boredom—were actually precious moments she would treasure when she returned to Sweden. Laynie also realized that nothing had ever prevented her from doing this when she lived at home, that she and her mother could have shared a wealth of these priceless moments . . . if I hadn’t been so all-fired anxious to leave, to get away.
Laynie Portland, Spy Rising—The Prequel Page 15