The hall was silent, and Eve would remember this solemn moment for the rest of her life. Every Nobel laureate did.
“On behalf of the Nobel Foundation, and of a grateful Norway for your contributions, I am happy to present you with a this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace,” Jacobsen said. He took an open velvet box containing the Peace Prize medal cast in eighteen-carat green gold and plated with twenty-four-carat gold the aide handed him, and presented it to Eve. The medal was heavy, nearly a half a pound, and she hadn’t expected that. Nobel’s profile was cast on both sides.
Jacobsen took the ornately decorated diploma in a leather folder, embossed with Nobel’s profile, and handed it to Eve along with the document confirming the prize amount.
The audience got to its feet and applause rolled through the hall, and Eve fought a nearly overwhelming urge to cry. She found Don on his feet at the back, applauding, and she nodded. The damn thing works, he’d told her that morning on the
Television cameras were, according to Jacobsen, broadcasting the ceremony around the world to 450 million households in 150 countries, and Eve was allowed to savor the thing for only a few moments before she handed the medal, diploma, and document to the aide. Jacobsen and the king stepped aside for Eve to come to the podium where her speech, leather-bound, had been placed for her, and then they withdrew and took their seats.
She took a moment until everyone was seated and silence returned before she opened the leather folder. And she waited for another beat, the words on the first page suddenly meaningless to her, as if they’d been written in Chinese characters or Arabic script and she panicked. But just for an instant. She could only think for that moment of the banquet immediately following her speech, and tomorrow night’s concert hosted by Harrison Ford and Oprah Winfrey, and starring among others Andrea Bocelli. She wanted this and all of the rest to be done so that she could return to her work.
But then she began in much the same way Al Gore had begun in 2007. “Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, honorable members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
“More than thirty years ago a young scientist by the name of Amory Lovins raised the important argument that the United States had reached a critical crossroads. Down the path we were taking guaranteed an ever- increasing demand for and a reliance on nuclear fission and dirty fossil fuels.
“He warned that burning coal to produce electricity would double the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations early in the next century. This century. Unless something was done soon we were headed for a possible change in global climate that could become irreversible.”
Eve looked up and paused for a moment.
“Lovins called this road the ‘hard path,’ but he proposed an alternative. His ‘soft path.’ He called for renewable energy sources from the sun and the wind that along with conservation and new efficient technologies would bring about a cleaner, healthier environment in which the energy wars of the near future could be eliminated.
“An important article that appeared in 1977 in the magazine
Again Eve paused. The damn thing works.
A woman in formal dress seated at the rear of the hall suddenly jumped up. “Stop this evil before it is too late!” she screeched at the top of her lungs.
The king’s two bodyguards suddenly appeared at the side of the stage, and McGarvey got to his feet.
“You are an affront to our Holy Father’s plan for us!” the woman screamed.
A pair of metro policemen reached the woman and bodily dragged her to the doors as she shouted, “Repent now, apostate, before it is too late for your mortal soul!” And then she was outside, and as the doors opened and closed Eve could hear people on the street actually cheering.
Jacobsen was on his feet and he started for the podium, but Eve waved him back and turned to the audience and smiled. “Actually I’m quite glad to see that Norway honors freedom of speech as well as America does.”
The king behind her applauded and then so did everyone in the hall, and it took a long time to die down before she could continue.
“In actuality, Lovins was speaking not merely for the U.S., but for the entire world, which is why I’m here today to tell you about my vision for taking the soft path.”
The streetlights switched on about the same time Jenkins and Langsdorf came sauntering up the street from the direction of the harbor. They were dressed almost identically in jeans, leather bomber jackets, and dark blue knit watch caps, Jenkins’s right arm was in a cloth sling that fit over his jacket. They both wore gloves.
DeCamp had positioned himself a few feet back from the front of the crowd that pressed the walkway from the main doors to the hall. Oslo police had erected barriers and held people back. But Eve’s speech had been piped outside to loudspeakers and the crowd, probably more than three-quarters of them Schlagel’s people, in his estimation, had become restive, and the cops nervous.
The two men passed within a few feet of DeCamp, stopping nearly at the barriers, and he gently shouldered his way through the crowd until he was within touching distance directly behind them. He had a very good sight line on the walkway from the hall out to where the limos had pulled up, the chauffeurs waiting at the rear passenger doors.
A burst of applause came from the loudspeakers and minutes later the city hall doors opened and the first of the dignitaries who’d been up on stage began coming out, all of them stopping on either side of the walk, forming a tunnel of well-wishers that Eve Larsen, and presumably Kirk McGarvey, would have to pass through.
The problem as he saw it was twofold. First he had to get a clear shot, preferably two. If he hit the woman center mass, the explosive bullets he’d loaded would be fatal. There was little doubt of it. The second was convincing the onlookers that it was Jenkins or Langsdorf who’d fired the shots in such a way that the crowd would become hysterical, leaving the police no option but to return fire.
To solve both problems, DeCamp had removed the suppressor. In the first place shooting without the silencer vastly improved the pistol’s accuracy. And in the second, the noise would startle the crowd, and like a flock of birds they would almost immediately spread out.
He’d put a little Vaseline on his fingertips and the pad of his thumb on his right hand, and he reached for the Steyr inside his jacket pocket, cocking the hammer so that it would take only a light pull to fire.
More people were streaming out of the hall, taking up their places in the reception line, until finally Eve Larsen, flanked by McGarvey on her right, and Leif Jacobsen on her left, came out and began moving slowly through the line. More applause began from the people on the walkway and some in the crowd, but most began booing and chanting something about going against God’s will. The Oslo police stiffened up and McGarvey’s head was on a swivel, but his attention was directed toward the people nearest to Eve, those in the reception line.
DeCamp moved closer to a position directly between Jenkins and Langsdorf, almost touching them, from where he had a clear sight line and their bodies would effectively shield his gun hand from the people on either side.
Eve would pass within twenty feet of him and as she shook hands with a woman dressed in furs, DeCamp pulled out his pistol, holding it in front of his chest.
She leaned over and said something, then moved closer. DeCamp raised his pistol and fired one shot at the same moment Jacobsen moved in front of Eve to speak to McGarvey. The bullet caught the Nobel Prize committee chairman in his shoulder, slamming him backwards off his feet into the line of people.
McGarvey shoved Eve to her knees as he pulled out his own weapon, and the crowd reacted, going wild, women screaming, everyone trying to get away.
Jenkins was turning toward DeCamp, who thrust the pistol into his hands.
“My God, my God!” DeCamp cried. “The reverend knows!” He backed off.
Jenkins took a step toward him.
But DeCamp melded with the crowd. “He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!”
Both Jenkins and Langsdorf, confused, turned back toward the police. Suddenly they were out in the open, all alone, the people moving away from them.
