“Started in 1995, spent a few years doing James Bond–style action stuff, then there were power struggles and political rows about its methods, until it was shut down in 2006. The building’s been empty since then.”
“But you’ve got the keys?”
“I was here for its last few years. No one ever asked for them back.”
“Mm. A former spy. That explains the chloroform.”
Bohr smiled wryly. “Oh, we did more interesting things than that.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Harry nodded towards the clock on the City Hall tower.
“Sorry I ruined your evening,” Bohr said. “Can I bum a cigarette off you before we call it a night?”
—
“I was a young officer when I was recruited,” Bohr said, blowing smoke up towards the sky. He and Harry had found a bench on the ramparts behind the cannons pointing out across the Oslo Fjord. “It wasn’t just people from the military in E14. There were diplomats, waiters, carpenters, police officers, mathematicians. Beautiful women who could be used as bait.”
“Sounds like a spy film,” Harry said, sucking on his own cigarette.
“Itwasa spy film.”
“What was the mandate?”
“Gathering information from places Norway could imagine having a military presence. The Balkans, the Middle East, Sudan, Afghanistan. We were given a lot of freedom; we were supposed to operate independently of the American intelligence network and NATO. For a while it actually looked like we might manage it. A strong sense of camaraderie, a lot of loyalty. And maybe a bit too much freedom. In closed environments like that you end up developing your own standards for what is acceptable. We paid women to have sex with our contacts. We equipped ourselves with unregistered High Standard HD 22 pistols.”
Harry nodded. That was the pistol he had seen in Bohr’s cabin, the pistol CIA agents preferred because it had a lightweight and efficient silencer. The pistol the Soviets found on Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of the U2 spy plane that was shot down over Soviet territory in 1960.
“With no serial numbers, they couldn’t be traced back to us if we ever had to use them for liquidation.”
“And you did all that?”
“Not the bit about paying for sex or liquidating anyone. The worst thing I did…” Bohr rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Or the one thatfeltworst…was the first time I deliberately got someone to trust me, then betrayed them. Part of the admission test was to get from Oslo to Trondheim as quickly as possible with only ten kroner in your pocket. The point was to show you had the social skills and imagination that an active situation might require. I offered the money to a kind-looking woman at the Central Station in return for borrowing her phone to call my mortally ill younger sister in the district hospital in Trondheim, to tell her that my luggage had just been stolen, along with my wallet, train ticket and phone. I called one of the other agents and managed to cry on the phone. When I hung up the woman was crying as well, and I was just about to ask to borrow money for the train fare when she offered to drive me in her car, which was in the car park next to the station. We drove as fast as we could. The hours passed, and we talked about everything, our deepest secrets, the way you only do with strangers. My secrets were lies I had learned, good training for someone hoping to be a spy. We stopped at Dovre after four hours. Watched the sun go down over the plateau. Kissed. Smiled through the tears and said we loved each other. Two hours later, just before midnight, she dropped me off in front of the main entrance to the hospital. I told her to find somewhere to park while I found out where my sister was. I said I’d wait in reception. I walked straight through the reception area, out through the other side, and ran as fast as I could to the statue of Olav Tryggvason where the head of recruitment for E14 was waiting with a stopwatch. I was the first person to get there, and was celebrated as a hero that night.”
“No bitter aftertaste?”
“Not at the time. That came later. Same thing with Special Forces. You’re under the sort of pressure normal people never experience. And after a while you start to think that the rules for normal people don’t apply to you. In E14 it started with a bit of gentle manipulation. Exploitation. A few little breaches of the law. And ended with moral questions about life and death.”
“So you’re saying that those rules do actually apply to people with jobs like that?”
“On paper…” Bohr tapped his thigh with his finger. “Of course. But up here…” He tapped his forehead. “Up here you know you’re going to have to break a few rules in order to protect them. Because it’s your watch, the whole time. And it’s a lonely watch—us watchers only have each other. No one else is ever going to thank us, because most people never know that they’ve been watched over.”
“The rule of law—”
“Has its limitations. If the rule of law had its way, a Norwegian soldier who raped and murdered an Afghan woman would have been sent home to serve a short sentence in a prison that would have seemed like a five-star hotel to a Hazara. I gave him what he deserved, Harry. What Hala and her family deserved. An Afghan punishment for a crime committed in Afghanistan.”
“And now you’re hunting the man who killed Rakel. But if you follow the same principle, a crime committed in Norway should be punished according to Norwegian law, and we don’t have the death penalty.”
“Norway might not, butIhave the death penalty, Harry. And so do you.”
“Do I?”
“I don’t doubt that you, along with the majority of people in this country, have a genuine belief in humane punishment and fresh starts. But you’re also human, Harry. Someone who’s lost someone you loved. Someone I loved.”
Harry sucked hard on his cigarette.
“No,” Bohr said. “Not like that. Rakel was my younger sister. Just like Hala. They were Bianca. And I’ve lost them all.”
“What is it you want, Bohr?”
