hard on the bullets to check that the magazine is fully loaded. She puts it between her thighs and picks up the pistol. She pulls the slide all the way back until it clicks open, and then peers into the chamber to make sure it’s empty. She checks the magazine receiver for any debris or lint. Satisfied, she returns the magazine to the pistol. With a flick of her thumb on the release, the spring rams the slide forward, chambering the first round ‘American style’.
She engages the safety and then holsters the gun.
Petter looks at her, and she looks back.
She turns her head fully to him and says, ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ says Petter.
The radio crackles. Sigrid can picture the operations room back at the police station, and imagines the computer-system display that tracks all the vehicles as they converge on the summer house.
It is a rushed mission, and she knew it, but the Beredskapstroppen are ready. Like her, they have already seen the satellite images of the approaches to the cabin, and have noted that there is only one road. They’ll have checked the angle of the sun against the available natural covers, to position snipers and assault teams. It is likely that the Kosovars are armed. There are a great many unregistered weapons across the country, and criminals are getting bolder in exploiting that weakness faster than the state can guard against it. They might also have found the two rifles registered to Lars Bjornsson for hunting. Unless Lars got them first. Or Horowitz has. In which case, everyone is armed, and the situation is volatile.
Sigrid taps her fingers anxiously on her knees and checks their speed.
‘Can’t we go any faster?’
‘Yes, but we shouldn’t.’
She taps faster and looks out the window again.
Sigrid keeps tapping.
It was probably pity that motivated the hunters to drive Sheldon and Paul all the way to Glamlia. It must have been out of their way, even if they had been heading north. The ride has taken more than an hour, and now that it has finally ended, Sheldon is staring straight at his biggest fear.
The Ford pick-up approaches a white Mercedes 190 E parked on the shoulder of the dirt road behind a yellow Toyota Corolla from the mid-1990s.
‘Stop the truck,’ Sheldon says to the driver.
The pick-up crunches to a halt behind the Mercedes. Only a metre away, the car looks like a sleeping white panther waiting for its tail to be pulled.
‘Is this the turn?’ asks the driver.
It is a good question. Sheldon looks down the road. He’s never been here before — he just knows the picture.
‘Do you see a white Mercedes?’ Sheldon asks the driver.
He is about 35 years old and has a dirty blond scruff on his tanned face. He’s a smoker and outdoorsman. He looks weathered, but not unkind. The question does not surprise him. Instead, he looks out the window and then back at Sheldon. He has become familiar with such questions from his own grandfather. He answers gently.
‘Yes, I do.’
Sheldon hasn’t seen a Korean in weeks. Not a single one in the shadows. And now the white car is here at his granddaughter’s summer retreat. After everything. After all that. They not only knew where to find him. They got here first.
‘That’s more disappointing than I can explain,’ he says.
‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
Sheldon wonders the same thing. The driver looks weathered, but he does not look tough. His aged skin and calloused hands come from peacetime activities. Like taking off his gloves in the winter to get a better feel from the rifle. Like lying on packed snow with a flashlight between his teeth to find the hook to winch his friend’s car from a ditch. Like walking barefoot to the sauna. Like letting the rope slip too soon when coming about, and getting burned on the sea.
Walking up to the window of the truck, as though he’d been waiting for Sheldon to arrive, is his friend Bill.
Bill leans into the window.
‘What are you thinking about, Sheldon?’ asks Bill.
‘I’m thinking that from here on, I go alone.’
Sheldon gets out of the cab and holds the cool steel side of the truck for support as he walks to the back. Paul is sitting Indian-style on the floor, with Mads and Tormod on either side of him. There are two other men that Sheldon hasn’t properly met, sitting on their hunting gear.
‘Any of you have girlfriends?’ Sheldon asks.
One of the two men Sheldon doesn’t know raises his hand rather tentatively.
‘Well done. Have lots of sex. Now, what I want to say is this: you can’t come up to the house. I can’t tell you why. But it has to do with the white car. I need you boys to take young Paul here to the police station in the middle of town. And don’t stop for anything. Don’t stop for a drink. Don’t stop for a pee. Don’t stop if one of you falls overboard. Just bring him to the police and give them this.’ Sheldon hands the one without the girlfriend a piece of paper with the licence plate of the Mercedes, as well as his own driver’s licence from his wallet.
‘You tell them you saw this car. You tell them you saw me. You tell them this is the son of the woman who was murdered in Oslo.’
There is silence in the truck.
‘Are you all getting this? I can’t tell when your race is processing information and when it isn’t. It’s nothing but blank stares with you people. I need you to get this. Are you getting this or not?’
‘OK.’
This is said by the big one who failed to shoot the bunny.
‘OK what? Repeat it.’
He’ll go to the police with the boy and the licence-plate number and the old man’s driver’s licence, and say that he’s the son of the woman murdered in Oslo.
‘And tell them to get over here. And bring guns. Speaking of which, I need a rifle.’
No one moves or answers.
‘Rifles are the thunder sticks you all use to scare bunnies with. I need one. With a scope. An adjustable scope. My eyesight is off. And bullets. Don’t forget bullets.’
There remains no movement or speech.
‘OK, boys, what’s the matter?’
‘We can’t give you a rifle, sir.’
‘Why the hell not? You’ve got plenty.’
No one says anything.
‘You think I’m nuts.’
‘It’s just that it’s against the law, and we aren’t hunting anymore.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ says Sheldon.
Then, without asking, he unzips one of the hunter’s duffle bags and rummages through it.
He pulls out ammunition he can’t use and tosses it. He pulls out flashlights, whistles, a pair of shoe laces, and a woollen hat. He discards them all. He finds a pair of binoculars, and puts them in his satchel.
‘Um, sir…’
‘I need them more than you do. I’ll give them back if I’m not killed. OK?’
The man only nods. What else can he do? Perhaps if Sheldon were forty years younger and sane, he might
