'Minimally.'
'How minimally?'
'They'll throw me out if I drink any less.'
This time Moller couldn't hold back his laughter. I need three liaison officers to secure the road,' he said. 'Each will have ten men at their disposal from various police districts in Akershus, plus a couple of cadets from the final year at police college. I thought Tom Waaler…'
Waaler. Racist bastard and directly in line for the soon-to-be-announced inspector's job. Harry had heard enough about Waaler's professional activities to know that they confirmed all the prejudices the public might have about the police. Apart from one: unfortunately Waaler was not stupid. His successes as a detective were so impressive that even Harry had to concede he deserved the inevitable promotion.
And Weber…'
'The old sourpuss?'
'… and you, Harry.'
'Say that again?'
'You heard me.'
Harry pulled a face.
'Have you any objections?' Moller asked. 'Of course I have.'
'Why? This is an honourable mission, Harry. A feather in your cap.'
'Is it?' Harry stabbed out his cigarette furiously in the ashtray. 'Or is it the next stage in the rehabilitation process?'
'What do you mean?' Bjarne Moller looked wounded.
'I know that you defied good advice and had a run-in with a few people when you took me back into the fold after Bangkok. And I'm eternally grateful to you for that. But what is this? Liaison Officer? Sounds like an attempt to prove to the doubters that you were right, and they were wrong. That Hole is on his way up, that he can be given responsibility and all that.'
'Well?' Bjarne Moller had put his hands behind the long skull again.
'Well?' Harry aped. 'Is that what's behind it? Am I just a pawn again?'
Moller gave a sigh of despair.
'We're all pawns, Harry. There's always a hidden agenda. This is no worse than anything else. Do a good job and it'll be good for both of us. Is that so damned difficult?'
Harry sniffed, started to say something, caught himself, took a fresh run-up, then abandoned the idea. He flicked a new cigarette out of the pack.
'It's just that I feel like a bloody horse people bet on. And I loathe responsibility'
Harry let the cigarette hang loosely from his lips without lighting it.
He owed Moller this favour, but what if he screwed up? Had Moller thought about that? Liaison Officer. He had been on the wagon for a while now, but he still had to be careful, take one day at a time. Hell, wasn't that one of the reasons he became a detective? To avoid having people underneath him, and to have as few as possible above him? Harry bit into the cigarette filter.
They heard voices out in the corridor by the coffee machine. It sounded like Waaler. Then peals of laughter. The new office girl perhaps. He still had the smell of her perfume in his nostrils.
'Fuck,' Harry said. Fu-uck. With two syllables, which made his cigarette jump twice in his mouth.
Moller had closed his eyes during Harry's moment of reflection and now he half-opened them. 'Can I take that as a yes?'
Harry stood up and walked out without saying a word.
8
Toll Barrier at Alnabru. 1 November 1999.
The grey bird glided into Harry's field of vision and was on its way out again. He increased the pressure on the trigger of his. 38 calibre Smith amp; Wesson while staring over the edge of his gun sights at the stationary back behind the glass. Someone had been talking about slow time on TV yesterday.
The car horn, Ellen. Press the damn horn. He has to be a Secret Service agent.
Slow time, like on Christmas Eve before Father Christmas comes.
The first motorcycle was level with the toll booth, and the robin was still a black dot on the outer margin of his vision. The time in the electric chair before the current…
Harry squeezed the trigger. One, two, three times.
And then time accelerated explosively. The coloured glass went white, spraying shards over the tarmac, and he caught sight of an arm disappearing under the line of the booth before the whisper of expensive American tyres was there-and gone.
He stared towards the booth. A couple of the yellow leaves swirled up by the motorcade were still floating through the air before settling on a dirty grey grass verge. He stared towards the booth. It was silent again, and for a moment all he could think was that he was standing at an ordinary Norwegian toll barrier on an ordinary Norwegian autumn day, with an ordinary Esso petrol station in the background. It even smelled of ordinary cold morning air: rotting leaves and car exhaust. And it struck him: perhaps none of this has really happened.
He was still staring towards the booth when the relentless lament of the Volvo car horn behind him sawed the day in two.
Part Two
GENESIS
9
1942.
The flares lit up the grey night sky, making it resemble a filthy top canvas cast over the drab, bare landscape surrounding them on all sides. Perhaps the Russians had launched an offensive, perhaps it was a bluff; you never really knew until it was over. Gudbrand was lying on the edge of the trench with both legs drawn up beneath him, holding his gun with both hands and listening to the distant hollow booms as he watched the flares go down. He knew he shouldn't watch the flares. You would become night-blind and unable to see the Russian snipers wriggling out in the snow in no man's land. But he couldn't see them anyway, had never seen a single one; he just shot on command. As he was doing now. 'There he is!'
It was Daniel Gudeson, the only town boy in the unit. The others came from places with names ending in - dal. Some of the dales were broad and some were deep, deserted and dark, such as Gudbrand's home ground. But not Daniel. Not Daniel of the pure, high forehead, the sparkling blue eyes and the white smile. He was like a recruitment-poster cut-out. He came from somewhere with horizons.
'Two o'clock, left of the scrub,' Daniel said.
Scrub? There can't be any scrub in the shell-crater landscape here.
Yes, there was because the others were shooting. Crack, bang, swish. Every fifth bullet went off in a parabola, like a firefly. Tracer fire. The bullet tore off into the dark, but it seemed suddenly to tire because its velocity decreased and then it sank somewhere out there. That was what it looked like at any rate. Gudbrand thought it impossible for such a slow bullet to kill anyone.
'He's getting away!' yelled an embittered, hate-filled voice. It was Sindre Fauke. His face almost merged with his camouflage uniform and the small, close-set eyes stared out into the dark. He came from a remote farm high up in the Gudbrandsdalen region, probably some narrow enclave where the sun didn't shine since he was so pale.
