“Yes, of course,” Jacobsen said. He turned back to Eve. “Again, my sincerest apologies, Dr. Larsen. If there is anything else that I or the committee or the staff of this hotel can do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you,” Eve said, and she felt a little sorry for the man.
“Until this evening then,” Jacobsen said with a half bow and he left.
Don was agitated, all the muscles in his face tense. “You coming here has ruined everything,” he told McGarvey.
“That’s not true, Don,” Eve said. She’d seen him like this before, not often, but when he got like this it usually ended up with him stalking off and staying away until she could find him and talk him down. Sometimes he was like a spoiled kid.
“Yes, it is. This afternoon was supposed to be ours to enjoy. But now this incident will be all over Norwegian television, and will probably be picked up by CNN or someone like that. All the networks are here.” He turned back to McGarvey. “Are you really carrying a gun?”
Eve put a hand on Don’s sleeve. “I asked him to come here with me.”
Don gave her a bleak look. “Christ,” he said, and he stalked off.
“He’ll get over it,” Eve said.
McGarvey nodded. “Will you?”
The afternoon had turned chilly, especially for DeCamp who had spent most of his life in the southern portions of the African continent or Mediterranean France, so in the afternoon of the ceremony he’d purchased a warm, fur-lined jacket from the upscale department store Bertoni Byportenshopping.
He’d returned to his suite where he’d had a light snack of pickled herring, small toasts, and two bottles of Ringnes beer, and had watched the Nobel news conferences, especially the one on TV 2. Dr. Larsen had come across as a tired woman who’d rather be in her lab, or soon aboard the oil exploration platform en route to Florida’s Atlantic coast. The TV journalist had been an ass, but he’d focused on McGarvey with a couple of pointed questions, giving DeCamp at least a small measure of the man. Impressive, the thought came to mind. In control.
Afterwards he’d taken a shower, got dressed and cleaned, and loaded his Steyr and attached the suppressor. When he was finished he packed his single suitcase, for his early morning departure on the six fifteen flight to Berlin, and packed the second magazine of 9mm ammunition and cleaning kit in a FedEx package and addressed it to William Jenkins, SOS Ministries, McPherson, Kansas, USA.
Downstairs at the desk, he settled his bill, arranged for the package to be sent out in the morning, and asked for a wake-up call.
“Early flight, sir?” the clerk asked.
“Unfortunately business in Berlin first thing in the morning. You know how that can be.”
“Yes, sir.” She smiled.
By the time the first dignitaries began showing up at city hall, and along with them the growing crowd, DeCamp took a quick pass once through the hundred or so onlookers satisfying himself that Billy Jenkins, the abortion clinic bomber, whose dossier, including photographs, that Wolfhardt had sent him, had not shown up yet. The man was blond and had the physique of a rugby player, hard to miss. But best of all the FBI considered him a man of interest who’d shown a propensity for religious intolerance and violence.
Wolfhardt had written a note on a second dossier, that of Terrance Langdorf, warning that the two men often worked together. Almost certainly both of them had been involved in the act of vandalism against Dr. Larsen’s Princeton lab, and they’d both been in front of the Fox television studio the evening she’d been interviewed. In fact it had been Jenkins whose arm McGarvey had broken.
The ceremony was held at Oslo’s city hall a short distance from the Grand Hotel. Eve rode over in the back of a Mercedes limousine with McGarvey and Jacobsen, Don in the front with the driver. Already a big crowd of onlookers lined the street outside the north doors that led to the ornate central hall where the medallion, certificate, and a document that confirmed the prize amount set since 2001 at more than one million U.S. would be presented in the presence of Norway’s King Harald V. The Prize was a point of great national pride for the Norwegians. Jacobsen had explained on the way over that when Alfred Nobel bequeathed his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes in 1895, Norway and Sweden were a confederation. Since Sweden was responsible for all the foreign policies of the two countries, it awarded the prizes in the sciences and economics, but left the Peace Prize to Norway to avoid any hint of political corruption.
Police had kept a path from where the limousines were pulling in to the entry doors up two broad ramps that flanked a fountain and cascading waterfall. McGarvey, wearing a tuxedo, handed Eve out of the car, his attention on the people waving Norwegian and American flags. None of the religious demonstrators were evident.
Jacobsen and Don, also dressed in tuxedoes, got out of the car, and followed behind McGarvey and Eve, who was wearing a long, flowing white gown beneath a borrowed mink wrap, elbow-length gloves, her short hair done up that afternoon in her room by a stylist the Nobel committee had arranged for, and a diamond tiara, looked stunning. She was a completely different woman, in McGarvey’s estimation, from the one yesterday and this morning at the news conference. She finally had confidence.
“I think I belong here,” she said to McGarvey, her voice low enough so that no one else could hear her. “Is that too vain of me?”
McGarvey smiled for her. “Like you told that television reporter, the Nobel Prize committee thinks that you’ve earned this. Enjoy.”
“Not until I’m aboard Vanessa Explorer,” she said.
But then they were inside the fabulous Grand Hall that had been decked out for the ceremony with a stage and podium at one end and rows of chairs facing it. The hall soared three stories, the walls covered with elaborate frescoes, a line of windows at the ceiling level, which during the short northern days would practically flood the space with the oddly slanting natural light.
Already most of the seats were filled with dignitaries, everyone here strictly by invitation, and almost all the seats on the stage were occupied by members of the royal family, along with the prize selection committee. Eve handed her mink wrap to Don, and Jacobsen led her and McGarvey to their places. Don had been assigned a seat at the rear of the hall.
People got to their feet and applauded politely, and on stage Eve shook everyone’s hand, smiling and nodding.
When everyone was finally settled, Jacobsen went to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, His Majesty Harald V, king of Norway, and his consort, Her Majesty Sonja Haraldsen.”
Everyone rose, and moments later the king and queen in formal state dress entered from a rear door and came onto the stage. Everyone in the hall applauded.
Harald was a tall man, thin white hair at the sides of his head, his face long, his eyes kind. He’d been a chain-smoker but after a bout with cancer had quit. Jacobsen introduced him to Eve, who curtsied, which seemed to take the king by surprise and he smiled.
“I’m so pleased to finally meet you, Dr. Larsen,” he said, still smiling. “I’ve followed your work with great interest.” And he winked. “Perhaps this evening’s affairs will help quiet your critics.”
“I hope you’re right, Your Majesty,” Eve said.
The king turned to McGarvey. “We’ve never met, but I’ve heard a great deal about you, and your service to your country. We’re most pleased that you’re here with Dr. Larsen.”
They shook hands. “Thank you, sir, but I hope that my being here remains totally unnecessary.”
“But you don’t think so,” the king said. “Not here and not later after she leaves.”
“No, sir,” McGarvey said.
“No,” the king said, and he and the queen moved down the line, and when they had finally taken their seats and everyone else in the Grand Hall were seated, Jacobsen began the ceremony, introducing the honored guests on stage, including McGarvey, giving a short history of Alfred Nobel and the prizes, and finally the citation detailing Eve’s work to solve the world’s energy needs and calm violent weather around the world for which reasons she had been selected to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
On cue the king got up and Eve remained in her seat until he reached the podium, then got up and went to where he and Jacobsen and an aide, who’d spent an hour coaching her on the etiquette and choreography of the awards ceremony, waited.
