The Last Pilgrim (48 page)

A steady stream of noise like an electrical current now filled her head, drowning out the sounds coming through the open window and the words coming out of the mouth of the secretary, who was speaking to her from the bathroom.

One round in the chamber,
she thought as the secretary took the first step out of the bathroom. The sound of her heels striking the parquet floor sliced through the blanket of static in Agnes’s head.

She quickly opened her purse, not even considering what would happen if the Welrod failed to fire. Rolborg was still sitting in front of her, muttering to himself as he studied the papers.

A sharp sound came from the street. A tram clattering along Stortingsgata, as if sent by God Himself. The sound would mute the secretary’s fall, dampening the blow as her lithe body hit the floor.

She was less than six feet away now.

As the secretary realized what Agnes was pointing at her, she opened her mouth in a soundless scream.

The sound of the glass striking the floor was drowned out by the rattling of the tram below the windows. Agnes stood with her feet apart, both hands holding the gun. She would never forget the look in the woman’s eyes. Never.

Slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, Agnes then turned toward Research Director Torfinn Rolborg. The backlighting from the window formed almost a halo around him, and Agnes couldn’t see his face clearly. She glanced at the windows in the buildings across the street, but the gray film that covered half the pane made it impossible to see inside the office. No one was going to see what was happening. Shock was making it difficult for Rolborg to open his mouth properly. He sat in his high desk chair as though nailed to it, while a strangled sound—almost like the whimper of an injured animal—came out of his mouth. Agnes drew back the bolt of the Welrod and took four quick steps toward Rolborg, who was now trying to get up from his chair. Before any audible sound issued from his lips, she was only two feet away. He seemed to be simply incapable of understanding what was happening.

The only sound was a muffled pop that merged with the last rumbles of the tram. Rolborg fell backward in his chair with a stifled cry. He stared down at the hole in his jacket, then pressed his hand over the blood that swiftly soaked his pinstriped suit. He stared up at her one last time as Agnes pulled back the bolt to reload.

“Sven,” he said. “Sven, help me.”

Agnes took aim at his chest again and pulled the trigger. She couldn’t bring herself to shoot at his head, but it didn’t matter. The life had already started to ebb out of him. Two shots to the left side of his chest were enough. Agnes went over to the window to examine her coat. There was no blood. When she stuffed the Welrod into the left sleeve of her coat, she started shaking all over. Rolborg’s lifeless body lay slumped over only a few steps away, his head threatening to collapse onto the desk. Agnes turned her head very slowly to the right. Blood was pooling soundlessly on the floor around the dead secretary.

Agnes picked up the phony identification papers from the desk, now stained with blood. She bent down to pick up two of the empty shell casings that lay at her feet. The third one was next to the chair where she’d been sitting only moments ago.

She walked slowly over to the chair and sat down, as if nothing had happened. She opened her purse, wrapped the papers around the three casings, and then stuffed them in the bottom. She sat there motionless for a full five minutes, unable to go back downstairs yet. She’d only been in the office a few minutes. Or was it longer than that? She needed to leave. Why hadn’t anyone told her what to do afterward? This was madness, sheer madness!

From time to time she heard footsteps outside. The whole floor around the secretary had now turned a dark red. Agnes tried to convince herself that the woman was merely sleeping. She told herself that if she hadn’t done this, someone else would have.

She had to get out of there.

Miraculously, Agnes didn’t run into anyone in the corridor. The only sound was a woman’s laughter coming from an open door behind her. When she reached the stairs leading down to the ground floor, the steps looked like a steep cliff. She barely managed to stay on her feet. The receptionist frowned when she caught sight of Agnes in the middle of the lobby.

“Are you done already?”

Agnes nodded and took a few steps toward the receptionist’s desk. She knew that her face was ghostly pale, but there was nothing she could do about that.

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.

The receptionist motioned to a young woman Agnes’s age. She was evidently the next candidate waiting to be interviewed.

“Mr. Rolborg asked me to say that he didn’t want to be disturbed for a few minutes,” said Agnes. “His private secretary will call you when he’s ready.”

The receptionist nodded sullenly.

“Good-bye,” said Agnes before the receptionist could say anything. The phone under the desk began ringing. The receptionist seemed to hesitate, as if wondering whether to ask Agnes another question or answer the phone instead.

Agnes forced herself to turn away. Looking straight ahead, she started for the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the security guard who had stared at her come in from the left. He headed for the door, past the security gate where the two Germans stood, and opened it for her. Agnes attempted a smile. He said a few words, but she was beyond comprehending what they were. Then she silently brushed past the corporal and the soldier.

A light drizzle was falling on the pavement outside. Agnes walked as slowly as she could along Rosenkrantz Gate, which was nearly deserted. She fixed her gaze on the bakery on the corner, which was only forty or fifty yards away, and focused all her energy on placing one foot in front of the other. A man came toward her, but he dissolved right before her eyes. Behind her they were invisibly chasing after her, and soon her feet would stop moving. In only a few seconds the corporal and soldier would come running out the front door of the Knaben offices. The soldier would open fire with his Schmeisser, and she would be lying on the ground, riddled with bullets, only a few steps from the black cab that was parked in front of the bakery.

“Only thirty more steps,” she whispered to herself. A figure that looked like the Pilgrim—
my dear Pilgrim,
she thought—came out of the bakery wearing an ill-fitting cab driver’s uniform. Without looking at her, he walked over to the taxi. As she crossed the street, she pictured in her mind’s eye the receptionist knocking on the door of Rolborg’s office and a second later screaming so loud that it could be heard all the way out here. She almost ran right into somebody at the thought and had to resist the urge to turn around.
Don’t!
she told herself.
Don’t! Don’t!
Why was she wearing this blue suit? They could see her from fifty yards away.
Start up the engine,
she thought.
Start it up, goddamn it! Start the fucking car!
The engine started up with a roar, and she jogged the last two or three yards. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. She got in and slammed the door closed, and they were off.

Agnes turned around in the backseat to get one last look at Rosenkrantz Gate. Nothing was going on. All she saw was an amorphous crowd of people. The street looked like it was now full of people. And a car. No, two. But no soldiers running down the street, no National Police patrol with officers running after it.

“Your coat,” said the Pilgrim from the driver’s seat. “Take it off.” He cast a quick glance at her in the rearview mirror, but his eyes were hard, devoid of life. Beneath that cold veneer, though, Agnes thought that she could see raw fear smoldering deep inside his soul.
That’s the last thing I need,
she thought as she tore off the blue coat. From a paper bag under the passenger seat, she pulled out a beige coat. As she stuffed the blue coat under the seat, she felt the shaft of the Welrod against her fingers. The private secretary’s face flitted across her retinas for several seconds. That gentle woman who had treated her so kindly, the shocked silence as she stood there holding the glass of water in her hand, the dark-red blood all around her.

“Mission accomplished?” said the Pilgrim in a remarkably calm voice. He shifted gears and the cab raced down Rådhusgata.

Agnes mumbled “yes” without meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror. She took off her glasses and put them in her purse. Then she stuck the blue hat under the backseat and leaned forward to pull off the wig. She pulled a light-brown hat with a wide brim out from under the driver’s seat and put it on. Then she straightened up. She just managed to hold back her tears as she removed the contact lenses, which were practically burning her eyes.

After a few more blocks, the Pilgrim drove the cab through a narrow doorway, which was promptly closed behind them. He brought the taxi to an abrupt halt. Agnes looked around in confusion. They were in some sort of mechanic’s workshop. She heard a rumbling from out on the street. A tram was approaching, the sound cutting through the steel door, just as it had sliced through the windowpanes in Rolborg’s office.
Who’s Sven?
she thought.
His son. It must be his son.

The Pilgrim opened the back door. The cab was suddenly filled with the smell of motor oil and something else. Maybe paint. The nausea returned. Without a word, he removed the things from under the seats. The Welrod brushed against her calf.

“The papers,” he said. “And the casings, if you managed to collect them . . .”

She opened her purse and handed him the casings wrapped in the papers. Rolborg’s blood had turned to dark splotches that had soaked into the paper.

The Pilgrim took the rounds out of the Welrod and handed them to a man wearing dirty coveralls. Then he seemed to change his mind and took back the bullets and gun.

“Oh dear God,” said Agnes. “Oh dear God.” She buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t hold back any longer.

The Pilgrim got in the cab to sit beside her.

“Hold me,” she said.

He looked out the window, though it wasn’t as if there was anything worth seeing in that small workshop with the green walls.

“You know I can’t do that,” he told her quietly. “You have to take this. We can’t leave it here.”

He held out the Welrod and the bullets to her.

“Me? I can’t take them with me.”

“This is the best way.” The Pilgrim opened the stock and carefully put the bullets back in the magazine.

“What if they search my apartment? Or what if I’m stopped on the way home?”

“They’ll be looking for a blonde. Not for you. Hide it at Gustav Lande’s place. Who would look there? And if anyone does find it, they’ll link it to him, not to you,” he said calmly. He slipped the gun into the sleeve of her coat. “In the office you’ll find a beige skirt, a white blouse, and a new pair of shoes.” He motioned to a spot behind her.

Agnes turned around. They seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world here inside the workshop. The man in the coveralls was standing in the middle of the filthy floor, staring down at the paper bags the Pilgrim had given him.

“So. Are you all right?” said the Pilgrim without looking at her. He seemed distant, as if she could be anybody, as if they were talking about some ordinary topic.

“All right?” she repeated.

The Pilgrim opened his mouth to say something but then changed his mind.

Agnes got out of the car and slammed the door. The sound echoed metallically under the high ceiling. Her head was now filled with the nauseating stench of motor oil.

“Where’s the bathroom?” she said to the man in the coveralls. He had moved over toward a door at the other end of the room. He looked at her, then silently pointed at the mezzanine on the right. Agnes tilted her head back, blinded for a moment by the light coming in through the second-floor windows. She gripped the metal railing as she staggered up the metal stairs. The Pilgrim followed.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered.

The bathroom, located in the back of the office, was cramped and filthy. She didn’t even make it all the way inside, instead throwing up on the threshold. Standing there, her feet set wide apart, she stared down at her own vomit.

The Pilgrim stopped behind her, inside the office.

“You need to get the Vaseline out of your hair,” he said. Agnes squatted down and picked up her hat from the floor. Her face contorted, and she couldn’t stop sobbing. She pressed the palms of her hands against her eyes.

“It’ll be fine,” said the Pilgrim behind her. Then he put his arms around her. Finally he was holding her. “It’ll be fine.”

“I throw up every morning,” she said quietly. “Do you know what that means?”

He didn’t say a word. His only response was to take his arms away.

“Do you love me?” she whispered as she stood up.

The Pilgrim looked past her, into the dark and filthy bathroom. He blinked.

“Carl Oscar? Tell me that you love me.” She held his face in her hands. He had grown old in the last few weeks. Fine lines had appeared around his eyes, and a deep furrow had settled between his eyebrows.

He removed her hands, turned on his heel, and left the office. Then she heard the pounding of his feet on the metal stairs.

Agnes rinsed her mouth several times. She didn’t bother to clean up the vomit.

From the office doorway she could see down into a small back courtyard. The man in coveralls was standing over an oil drum with flames shooting up around the rim. He tossed in the bag holding her clothes, the wig, and the papers. The Pilgrim was leaning over the hood of the cab in the workshop.

Agnes could have been mistaken, but it looked as if he was crying.

CHAPTER 55

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Oslo Airport

Gardermoen

Oslo, Norway

The sliding doors slowly opened. Tommy Bergmann found himself staring at a group of people who looked disappointed that he was the one to appear in the arrivals hall. Then they looked away from him and threw themselves at the people coming through the doors behind him.