Chasing the Storm (2 page)

Chapter 2

Marin

April 10

He had two
more days in Hamburg before heading back to Oslo. The next morning, while brushing his teeth, he heard “Orfeoplatz” from the television, and went and sat on the bed. There was a picture of the woman, flanked by two teenage girls. He thought she was wearing the same stiff blouse. Her name was Katrin something. Then a shot of one of the girls weeping and trying to talk, and being comforted by a man in a blue work shirt. Then a shot of the Orfeoplatz, from high up in one of the surrounding buildings. Pigeons strutted around a polygon of candy-striped tape in the middle of the square and one of the blue-and-silver German police cars was blinking beside it. The announcer started talking again, and there was a picture of the hijacked ship.

He went back into the bathroom and spat in the sink. The little man had been remarkably thorough for someone who had just been shot: there was not a speck of blood on the fixtures, not a trace of his makeshift stitching.

His meetings that morning were in the offices in Langenfelde. His presentation went badly. He felt as though he were talking through a sheet of plastic. At one point he forgot a question in the middle of answering it, and had to ask the woman to repeat it. He also found, once he reached the end of the presentation that he’d left the folder with his handout back at the hotel, and had to ask one of the lackeys to print up a dozen copies. The lackey, an earnest kid, was unable to resize the images properly, consequently some of the diagrams were missing an inch off the top. Rygg was short with him, finally shooing him off and doing the printing himself.

Gerhardt, his Hamburg contact, took him out to lunch and asked him if he was all right.

Rygg nodded. “Insomnia,” he said. He toyed with telling Gerhardt about the little man, about the shooting, but Gerhardt played everything straight, and he didn’t want to have to go to the police. Besides, he’d given the man his word. Why hadn’t the man wanted to go to a hospital? Was he a criminal? But somehow the word did not match that small, almost delicate frame, the serious, intelligent dark eyes.

April 11

The next evening, when he returned to the hotel from the Chilehaus bar, the concierge handed him a sealed envelope. “This came for you, sir,” he said. The envelope had no name on it, just his room number. He opened the envelope in the elevator. Inside was a folded piece of plain paper. There was no name, no date, no address. Just a sentence, in black ballpoint. The writing was cramped but legible: “Please be ready at 8 o’clock.” That was it. Rygg stuck the letter in his pocket. When he got to the room he called Gerhardt. “Are we getting together this evening?” he asked.

“I can’t, I’m sorry, Torgrim. Tonight’s in-law night. My wife’s parents have us over once a month.”

“Right, right. See you tomorrow then.”

“Get a good night, Torgrim. I hope you can sleep. Have you tried this Dalmane? My wife says it works.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He set the receiver down. It must be the little man then. He didn’t know anyone else in Hamburg. He didn’t even know if the message was indicating eight o’clock this evening or tomorrow morning. He stood staring at the carnations. They were starting to wilt. He fetched a glass of water and poured it into the vase.
Be ready at 8 o’clock
. Ready for what? He spritzed on some aftershave and combed his hair. Choosing a tie from the closet, he slung it around his neck, then took it off and stuffed it in his pocket.

At precisely eight the phone rang. “Party to see you at the desk, sir,” said the concierge in his toneless voice.

Stepping out of the elevator, Rygg scanned the lobby warily, hands slightly curled at his sides. Three men sat on flower-patterned armchairs, drinking beer. A couple was waiting at the reception desk. A woman stood by a potted
ficus
, looking into her handbag. She looked up, then walked swiftly toward him. She was tall, with high cheekbones and hair the color of white honey. Immediately, Rygg wished he’d shaved and worn the tie. He sensed the men in the armchairs turning to watch her walk.

“Mr. Rygg,” she said. Her hand was fine-boned in his, and she did not let it linger. “Come, please.” He followed her out the door. One of the seated men gave him a smirk and a wink, and Rygg frowned.

Outside, he grabbed her elbow. “Okay, what’s it about?” he said.

She nodded. “I am coming from Mr. Marin.”

“Mr. Marin?”

“You helped him. Three days ago.” He didn’t think her accent was German – it didn’t have the harsh gutturals – but he didn’t know for sure what it might be. Some kind of Eastern European, perhaps.

“All right.”

“He wants to thank you.”

“He already thanked me. I don’t need his money. And who are you?”

“My name is Lena. Come, Mr. Rygg. The car is here.” Her eyes were dark blue, like the sky at high altitude. He quickly scanned the street, but there were just a couple evening strollers.

The woman opened the back door for Rygg. He hesitated a moment, then got in. She sat in front. The driver was a long-haired man who said nothing at all. He drove very fast, down the Willy-Brandt-Strasse, then along the Elbe. The cranes of the docks stood to their left like angular twigs. They moved through back streets and Rygg had no idea where he was. Somewhere north of the Reeperbahn.

The car stopped on a narrow, poorly lit street. Lena got out and opened the door for him. No one had said a word during the ride. She led him up steps to what seemed to be a private house: one of those slightly baroque Hamburg facades – long narrow windows and curly iron banisters and a frieze of stone leaves halfway up the brickwork. She rang the bell and he noticed she wasn’t wearing nail polish. It seemed incongruous, somehow. All the pretty women he’d known wore nail polish. The door opened and a man in a green coat ushered them into a hallway that smelled of tobacco and varnish. He walked ahead of them across the carpet and opened a door that led into a large, low-ceilinged room. Lamps draped pools of gold light across tables. A wall of bottles glittered behind a bar. On a stage along one side of the room, a girl wearing only a thong writhed slowly in a cage of light. No one was looking at her.

Almost immediately, the little man was in front of him. He took Rygg’s hand in his left, a little awkwardly. His right arm was bound up in a sling. “Mr. Rygg,” said the man. “I am so delighted that you could come. My name is Marko. Marko Marin. I apologize for the rather sparse communication, but it was necessary.”

“What’s all this about?” He stepped back, but the little man beckoned him forward.

“Not here. Come. There is a room prepared for us.”

Rygg followed the little man among the tables, through a door behind the bar, and up a carpeted staircase. There were too many dark corners. He wished he’d brought a weapon. At the top, Marin opened a door and stepped aside to allow Rygg to enter. The room was immediately above the lounge; one wall was a window, angled outward, and it seemed to be completely soundproof; music played softly from hidden speakers. The girl squirmed below them to a different rhythm. On a low table between a leather sofa set was a vast spread of hors d’oeuvres: butterfly shrimp, colorful little sandwiches, sushi, caviar, and miniature kebabs. Against one wall was a bar.

Rygg turned. Marin and the girl were watching him. “Please take a seat, Mr. Rygg,” Marin said, extending his good hand. “Lena will pour you a drink. Whiskey? Aquavit? Or something else? She can make cocktails.”

“Aquavit’s fine.”

There was, he noticed, a bottle of Løiten Linie’s already open on the polished marble of the bar. Marin drank vodka, and Lena fixed herself a martini, then came to sit beside Marin, close enough that Rygg knew they were lovers.

“Please, help yourself to the food. I do not know your preferences, so I ordered a variety. But there are some specialties of Russia. This is
pelmeni
. A variety of dumpling. These are
pirozhki
. And caviar. Sterlet caviar, very nice. From Iran, because the sturgeon does not understand political boundaries.”

Rygg filled a plate and sat back. Marin had lit one of his Gauloises.

“You’re Russian?” Rygg said.

Marin nodded. “And you live outside of Oslo,” he said.

Damn internet
, Rygg thought.
Nobody’s anonymous any more
. “Drammen” he said. “I commute to Oslo.”

“And you are a lawyer, as I understand.”

Rygg shrugged. “Insurance work. Oil, gas, shipping. Pushing paper, mostly. Sometimes I get to travel for a couple days. Yourself?”

“I am a journalist. I used to be a journalist for a newspaper, now I am freelance.”

“I see. And what are you up to in Hamburg? Besides getting shot.”

Marin laughed carefully, watching Rygg. “I am, like you, mixing business and pleasure. I am doing some research.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened back there, in Orfeoplatz?”

Marin reached forward and tapped his cigarette into a brass ashtray. He leaned back. “Mr. Rygg, I wanted to thank you properly.” Marin spread his hand toward the table, leaving a curl of smoke hanging in the air. “You helped me. You and the woman. Katrin Heilbronner.”

“Yes, why was she … ? She wasn’t with you, was she?”

“She got in the way. Unfortunate for her, but happy for me. She saved my life.” Lena put her hand on his thigh. He ignored it. “The bullet passed through her neck.” He placed his finger and thumb like pincers on either side of his voice box. And suddenly Rygg was back in the platz, in the spring sunshine, the woman’s thin lips working, the abrupt applause of the pigeons. That sweet rush of blood to the head. Marin held his hand out vertically. He turned the fingers a centimeter outward. “It was enough,” he said. “Just enough to move the bullet from here—” he touched his chest “—to here.” His hand hovered over his wounded arm.

“Why didn’t they try again?”

Marin smiled, a little more broadly. “Because you chased them. You are a big man, Mr. Rygg. I think they were surprised. Maybe they thought you were
polizei
, or my bodyguard.”

“And why were they trying to shoot you?”

Marin gave a one-shoulder shrug, and sipped his vodka. “I make some enemies in my work. In Russian journalism it is impossible not to make enemies. Any story you write you make an enemy, on this side or on this side. So, Russia is at an interesting place now. You follow the news?”

Rygg shrugged, nodded.

“After Gorbachev, there was a vacuum at the top. The criminals entered at all levels: political, social, economic. There has always been a criminal element in Russia. But for some years, for nearly a decade, it was impossible to do business without involving the criminal element. Now things change. There is a group of people, similar to those who resisted communism, who are speaking out. Journalists, mainly, but also ordinary people. So it is still difficult to do business without involving criminals. But it is also difficult for the criminals to do their work in secret.”

“And you’re a whistle-blower?”

“I fell into something. On accident.” Marin looked down into the lounge. He seemed suddenly pensive. “But tell me about yourself. How did you end up as a lawyer?”

Rygg sat back. Tersely, he outlined his career: college, business school, law school, lawyer for Iversen Foss & Co., marriage, divorce. “She got everything,” he concluded. “House, car, investments.”

“Children?”

“Nora. Studying to be a dentist. We don’t talk.”

“Now, and I apologize for this, Mr. Rygg, but I think you have left out a minor section. Between college and business school. I hope I am not intruding too much on your privacy.”

Rygg glared at him. “
Hvordan i helvette?
” he said.

Marin spread his hands. “I have many connections,” he said. “I apologize. But would you mind telling us a little about—”

Rygg shook his head.

“We just need a few details.”

Rygg narrowed his eyes and felt a raging storm brewing somewhere deep inside of him. “I think our little meeting here is over!” He gripped the cushion of the leather sofa as if he would stand up.

“Relax. I am not out to get you. I just need to know who you are. I may have an offer for you at some point.”

“I’m finished with all that. I’m a lawyer, as I told you.”

“Of course. I’m sorry I asked. Let’s just eat and have a good time, Mr.Rygg, shall we?”

Only much later, on the plane back to Oslo, did he think about how they listened, Marin and the girl. They nodded at the right places, murmuring sympathetically, laughing their careful laughs. If he stalled, or leaned to choose another shrimp or kebab or one of the delicious little crêpe things, Marin would rephrase what he’d just said, or ask a question, and he’d be off again. After another couple aquavits he ended up telling them all about his broken marriage and his dreadful job: how it made him feel physically ill to head out into the traffic every morning, knowing he’d have to stare at the figures and go through tons of documents and make the stupid phone calls for the next eight or nine hours. Once or twice a year he got to make a trip like this. “But basically I’m dead,” he said grimly, and Marin nodded understandingly. “I’m a corpse, among the other corpses. I can’t remember the last time I felt really alive.”

On the plane, staring out the window at the clouds over the Baltic, he remembered saying that, and knew the last time he’d felt alive: when the woman had died in front of him in the square, when he’d run after the shadow, and knelt beside a wounded man. He hadn’t felt a rush like that since the escapade in Assiut.

At one point during that evening with Marin, he had excused himself. Rygg had looked down into the lounge. Another dancer had taken the place of the first. She was taller and slimmer, and moved with a jerkier energy.

Lena had leaned forward. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. He’d looked at her as she nodded. “You are thinking: Russia, guns, secrets – he is criminal. But he is not criminal. Marko is a good man. Maybe you can say he is best man. He try, tries to do the good thing for Russia.”