The expressions on their faces buoyed my sagging ego.
I was driven to the
There was a narrow iron cot with a wafer of a mattress and coarse, clean sheets, a tiny wash basin and an honest-to-john toilet. There was also a light, controlled from the outside. “You may read until nine o’clock. The light goes out then,” the guard informed me.
I didn’t have anything to read. “Look, I’m sick,” I said. “Can I see a doctor, please?”
“I will ask,” he said. He returned an hour later bearing a tray on which reposed a bowl of thin stew, a loaf of bread and a container of coffee. “No doctor,” he said. “I am sorry.” I think he meant it.
The stew had meat in it and was a veritable feast for me. In fact the meager meal was too rich for my stomach, which was unaccustomed to such hearty fare. I vomited the food within an hour after dining.
I was still unaware of my circumstances. I didn’t know whether I would be brought to trial again in Paris, whether I was to complete my term here or be handed over to some other government. All my queries were rebuffed.
I was not to stay in Paris, however. The following morning, after a breakfast of coffee, bread and cheese which I managed to keep inside me, I was taken from my cell and again shackled like a wild animal. A pair of gendarmes placed me in a windowed van, my feet secured by a chain to a bolt in the floor, and started on a route that I soon recognized. I was being driven to Orly Airport.
At the airport I was taken from the van and escorted through the terminal to the Scandanavian Airlines Service counter. My progress through the terminal attracted a maximum of attention and people even left cafes and bars to gawk at me as I shuffled along, my chains clinking and rattling.
I recognized the one clerk behind the SAS counter. She’d once cashed a phony check for me. I couldn’t now remember the amount. If she recognized me, she gave no indication of it. However, the man she’d cashed a check for had been a robust two-hundred-pounder, tanned and healthy. The chained prisoner before her now was a sick, pallid-faced skeleton of a man, stooped and hollow-eyed. In fact, after one look at me, she kept her eyes averted.
“Look, it won’t hurt for you to tell me what’s going on,” I pleaded with the gendarmes, who were scanning the human traffic in the vicinity of the ticket counter.
“We are waiting for the Swedish police,” one said in abrupt tones. “Now, shut up. Don’t speak to us again.”
He was suddenly confronted by a petite and shapely young woman with long blond hair and brilliant blue eyes, smartly dressed in a tailored blue suit over which she wore a fashionably cut trench coat. She carried a thin leather case under one arm. Behind her loomed a younger, taller Valkyrie, similarly attired, also holding an attache case tucked under an arm.
“Is this Frank Abagnale?” the smaller one asked of the gendarme on my left. He stepped in front of me, holding up his hand.
“That is none of your business,” he snapped. “At any rate, he is not allowed visitors. If this man is a friend of yours, you will not be allowed to talk to him.”
The blue eyes flashed and the small shoulders squared. “I will talk to him, Officer, and you will take those chains off him, at once!” Her tone was imperiously demanding. Then she smiled at me and the eyes were warm, the features gentle.
“You are Frank Abagnale, are you not?” she asked in perfect English. “May I call you Frank?”
CHAPTER TEN.
The two gendarmes were transfixed in amazement, two grizzly bears suddenly challenged by a chipmunk. I myself stood gaping at the lovely apparition who demanded that I be released from my chains and who seemed determined to take me from my tormentors.
She extended a slender hand and placed it on my arm. “I am Inspector Jan Lundstrom of the Swedish police, the national police force,” she said, and gestured to the pretty girl behind her.
“This is my assistant, Inspector Kersten Berglund, and we are here to escort you back to Sweden, where, as I am sure you are aware, you face a criminal proceeding.”
As she talked, she extracted a small leather folder from her pocket and opened it to display to the French officers her credentials and a small gold badge.
The gendarme, perplexed, looked at his partner. The second gendarme displayed the sheaf of papers. “He is her prisoner,” he said with a shrug. “Take off the chains.”
I was unshackled. The crowd applauded, an ovation accompanied by a whistling and stamping of feet. Inspector Lundstrom drew me aside.
“I wish to make some things perfectly clear, Frank,” she said. “We do not normally use handcuffs or other restraints in Sweden. I never carry them myself. And you will not be restrained in any way during our journey. But our flight makes a stop in Denmark and my country has had to post a bond to ensure your passage through Denmark. It is a normal procedure in these cases.
“We will be on the ground only an hour in Denmark, Frank. But I have a responsibility to the French Government, to the Danish Government and to my own government to see that you are brought to Sweden in custody, that you do not escape. Now, I can assure you that you will find Swedish jails and prisons far different from French prisons. We like to think our prisoners are treated humanely.
“But let me tell you this, Frank. I am armed. Kersten is armed. We are both versed in the use of our weapons. If you try to run, if you make an attempt to escape, we will have to shoot you. And if we shoot you, Frank, we will kill you. Is that understood?”
The words were spoken calmly and without heat, much in the manner, in fact, of giving directions to a stranger, cooperative but not really friendly. She opened the large purse she carried on a shoulder strap. Bulking among its contents was a.45 semiautomatic pistol.
I looked at Inspector Berglund. She smiled angelically and patted her own purse.
“Yes, I understand,” I said. I really thought she was bluffing. Neither of my lovely captors impressed me as an Annie Oakley.
Inspector Lundstrom turned to the clerk behind the ticket counter. “We’re ready,” she said. The girl nodded and summoned another clerk, a young man, from a room behind her. He led us through an office behind the counter, through the baggage area, through operations and to the plane’s boarding stairwell.
Save for the shabby clothing I was wearing, we appeared to be just three more passengers. And from the lack of interest in my appearance, I was probably regarded as just another hippie.
We were fed on the plane before we landed in Copenhagen. It was the usual meager airline meal, but deliriously prepared, and it was the first decent meal I’d had since being committed to prison. For me, it was a delightful feast and I had to force myself to refuse my escorts’ offer of their portions.
We had a longer layover in Denmark than was expected, two hours. The two young officers promptly escorted me to one of the terminal’s restaurants and ordered a lavish lunch for the three of us, although I’m sure they couldn’t have been hungry again. I felt it was strictly an attempt to appease my still ravenous hunger, but I didn’t protest. Before we boarded the plane again, they bought me several candy bars and some English-language magazines.
Throughout the trip they treated me as if I were a friend rather than a prisoner. They insisted I call them by their given names. They conversed with me as friends, inquiring about my family, my likes, my dislikes and other general subjects. They probed only briefly into my criminal career, and then only to ask about my horrible treatment in Perpignan prison, I was surprised to learn I had served only six months in that hellhole. I had lost all
