submitting the most accurate of expense reports.
Sohlberg had as ususal organized all the paperwork for the expense report on a day-by-day basis from the day that he and Fru Sohlberg had flown out of Seattle in the United States to the day that they arrived in Copenhagen Denmark for a four-day meeting of Interpol’s National Central Bureau (NCB) for the European Region. He still needed to add the paperwork for the airfare from Copenhagen to Oslo and the car rental at the airport.
Representatives from all 49 member nations of the Regional European NCB had attended the Copenhagen meeting to review and discuss links between major organized crime groups that smuggled drugs and humans from Asia into the western shores of Canada and the United States.
Sohlberg attended the Copenhagen meeting because he officially works full time as an Adviser at Interpol. During the past two years he had worked out of Seattle in the USA and directed a secret 12-country investigation into the smuggling of pure grade Number 4 heroin by criminal gangs based at Vancouver in British Columbia Canada and at Seattle in Washington State USA.
He placed the Interpol forms for reimbursement on the desk and was focusing on not making any errors when his cell phone buzzed angrily. Sohlberg frowned when he saw the incoming phone number on the little screen.
“Hei,” he said trying to sound as relaxed and casual as possible given the caller’s identity.
“Are you free to talk?”
“Ja.”
“Are you still on schedule to give a talk three days from now on heroin smuggling to all twenty-seven of our districts?”
“Ja. Why?”
“We need to meet. Come by my office after you finish your talk.”
The call from the Commissioner for the Oslo Police Regional District enraged Sohlberg. He hated Ivar Thorsen. Technically the man was his still his boss and that made Sohlberg hate him even more. On days like this Sohlberg felt that he would explode and have a heart attack or a stroke over the cruel fact that he was still subject to taking orders from an incompetent fool like Ivar Thorsen.
To think that they had once been close friends all the way from high school to law school!
Even as Sohlberg thought about their lost friendship from so long ago he remembered that he and other classmates could barely tolerate Ivar Thorsen after a couple of hours. Few could tolerate the man’s hypocritical fawning. Thorsen’s endless bootlicking disgusted all but the dumbest persons as grotesque and obvious attempts to ingratiate himself into a subservient but beneficial relationship. In other words Ivar Thorsen had inherited all of his mother’s pushy and cunning social designs and schemes but none of her charms which included the ample bosom and other intimate delicacies that she first shared with her employer’s son and then with the employer himself.
“Why?” shouted Sohlberg. “Why do we need to meet? What’s this about?”
“I’ll see you at noon sharp.”
Sohlberg immediately hanged up without waiting to hear more. “What a piece of garbage that Thorsen! Just what does he want from me?”
His former friend Ivar Thorsen was now
“The Politidirektor (National Police Commissioner) of the Politidirektoratet (National Police Directorate) is pleased to announce that the Commissioner is, effective immediately, assigning and loaning Politiforstebetjent (Police Chief Inspector) Harald Sohlberg of the Oslo Police Regional District to Interpol at the request of the General Secretary of Interpol.
“Herr Sohlberg will serve as a senior Interpol Adviser for an indefinite period of time on critical international law enforcement matters that directly affect Norway and Europe. Furthermore, pursuant to long-standing arrangements with Interpol, Herr Sohlberg will continue in his capacity as a Politiforstebetjent for the Oslo Police Regional District and continue reporting to Commissioner Ivar Thorsen of the Oslo Police Regional District.”
Of course the government’s official press release failed to disclose that Thorsen moved Sohlberg to Interpol after Sohlberg exposed scandalous judicial corruption in Norway’s Supreme Court. The humiliating exile still rankled Sohlberg even though it had taken place 15 years ago on the very day that Sohlberg was celebrating his fifth year as a highly respected Politiforstebetjent.
Sohlberg cursed. He left his father’s cabin to take a long walk on Ulvoya Island before he got angry enough to punch a hole through his father’s desk.
A few miles away another man was about to receive another troubling communication. The man turned on the laptop computer and waited. He was in for a long long night and it was not just because of the midsummer Sankthansaften celebrations. He did not look forward to the midnight sun which would serve as a constant reminder that his personal life was one of extremes. Oslo provided 18 hours of daylight in the summer and 6 hours of daylight in the winter and those unbalanced extremes were no different than those in his heart and soul. He felt that he was losing his grip on reality.
The spy software SILENT KEYLOGGER finally loaded and asked him for his password.
You are?
He typed in *******.
The man felt sick when he read the latest entries that the key logging software had picked up from the desktop computer in the small bedroom down the hallway. Despite the waves of nausea he was grateful that keyboard monitoring software accurately and secretly records every single keyboard strokes that anyone makes on a computer.
What does a man do when he is betrayed on every single possible level of a relationship?
The question disturbed him more than the answer or answers. The question inevitably raised the question of how he had allowed himself to be trapped in such a sick and false relationship. Twisted and putrid would not begin to describe the mess he had gotten himself into so stupidly and recklessly. The worst part of his troubles was that he still could not believe that someone as intelligent and educated as himself could be so thoroughly duped.
A door opened and closed somewhere in his house. Footsteps got closer. He quickly exited the spyware and clicked on his favorite game of solitaire.
“Hei,” she said after opening the door, “what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just my solitaire.”
Lie upon lie.
Harald Sohlberg hurried away from his parent’s home. He had been looking forward to his three week summer vacation until the phone call from Ivar Thorsen. He turned and looked fondly at his ancestral home.
The older Sohlbergs had insisted that he and his wife stay at their home on Fiskekroken or Fish Hook Drive in Ulvoya Island. His parents now spent most of the year living in the United States of America with his younger brother the petroleum engineer who lived in Houston Texas working for British Petroleum. His parent’s generosity in providing free lodging at Fiskekroken or Fish Hook Drive meant that Interpol would save a fortune in hotel bills because Oslo was far more expensive than insanely overpriced cities like Tokyo and London and Moscow.
A block away Sohlberg walked past the grand old home where Thorsen had grown up while his mother worked as a maid for the bank executive. In the distance he saw a swimming pool through the trees and wondered if the banker or his wife or his son still lived there.
Sohlberg looked with suspicion at Ulvoya’s attractive gardens and beaches because he knew how well the gardens and beaches temporarily tricked residents into forgetting during the summer months that they lived in subArctic Norway where six months from now they’d be in the dark in sub-freezing weather.
“And yet. . so pretty,” he said softly to himself.
Less than a mile across the round island of Ulvoya is one of the many charming islands in the Oslofjord just five miles southeast of downtown Oslo. The splendid sun-drenched views of the land around Oslo and the Oslofjord reminded him of Seattle and Puget Sound in the State of Washington USA. Sohlberg and his wife lived in the Seattle suburb of Silverdale among the pines and waters behind Bainbridge Island.
“Hei!” he said warmly to joggers and pedestrians who threw him cold looks. He was no longer used to the curt and reserved nod that Norwegians traditionally give to strangers including neighbors and others whom they
