Falling Star (10 page)

Eric looked over his row and smiled at his row mate.  In 16A sat a spinsterish older woman who had already started her knitting project.  Her white hair was pulled tightly in a bun.  Mildred Swensen was traveling to New York on her way to Oslo, Norway, to shop for her Scandinavian craft shop in Crookston, Minnesota.

She was dressed like every Norwegian aunt or grandmother Eric had ever known.  Mildred wore a pale yellow silk print dress with a high collar and a light blue summer blazer.  She carried the unmistakable scent of lilac.  A cameo pin adorned her blazer.  Large silver bangles hung from her left wrist. She carried her purse but also carried a large straw bag from which knitting needles of various sizes and yarn protruded.  She was working on a project, quite absorbed in her task.  From the looks of it, the project was going to be a sweater, probably a Christmas gift for a grandchild.

Eric knew how efficient these Scandinavian grandmothers could be, for example, knitting Christmas sweaters in June.  If the visit was at Christmas time, the menu was always the same: fruit soup, boiled potatoes, lutefisk, Swedish meatballs, lefse, and, if you're lucky, Johnson's temptation, a mixture of scalloped potatoes, onions, and anchovies.  The smell of freshly baked cookies, evergreen branches, the smoky fire, Yule kaka, sprits, and thumbprint cookies made up for the annual ordeal of lutefisk.

Lutefisk starts life swimming in the North Atlantic as cod.  When caught, the cod is dried and salted.  To prepare lutefisk, the dried and pungent cod is soaked in caustic soda for several months.  The soaking revivifies the flesh of the dried fish.  When boiled or baked and served with white sauce, lutefisk becomes a tender, flaky seafood delicacy.  Norwegian aficionados of lutefisk compare it to lobster.

Detractors compare it to death.

Comedians have said that the best recipe for lutefisk is to soak the fish, then drain it for two hours on a wood cutting board, and, when drained, throw away the fish and eat the cutting board.

Eric stopped himself.  Why am I thinking about Christmas in June he thought, and then he realized how much the lady sitting in Seat 16A looked like his grandmother.

Eric had been hoping that he would get a chance to sit next to the cute young woman with her pale hazel eyes and blond hair pulled in a ponytail.  The one who he thought was trading glances with him in the gate area.  He wasn't sure, but the coed had looked awfully familiar.  Maybe he had seen her around Northfield.  Maybe she was an Ole, as St. Olaf students are called, or, heavens forbid, a student at Carleton College, St. Olaf's arch-rival in the small college town of Northfield, Minnesota.

Damn! Here I'm about to become a big gun on Wall Street and I still can't get the nerve to chat up some girl.  I've got to get over this hang-up, thought Eric.

At least he wasn't going to have to sit with the greasy hippie with long smelly hair who immediately preceded him down the aisle.

Sliding into his seat, Eric turned to the older woman and said, "Hi, I'm Eric Johanson."

"Hello, I'm Mildred Swensen.  I see from your sweatshirt that you're an Ole.  How is Northfield these days?  I graduated from St. Olaf College in the fifties."

"I graduated just last month.  I'm going to New York to join Franklin Smedley Associates as an analyst."

"How nice.  What does an analyst at Franklin Smedley Associates do?"

"I'll be working in the project finance group for a guy named Mike Liu, probably the best project finance banker on Wall Street.  As an analyst, I get to examine the financial credibility of many different types of industrial projects.  Franklin Smedley Associates has one of the biggest domestic and international project financing practices around, so I hope I get to go overseas as well.  I'm really excited; it's the chance of a lifetime."

"Sounds like such an adventure for a boy so young.  Liu?  What kind of name is that -- oriental?"

"I think so, Chinese."

"Johanson, that's Norwegian.  Are you from Minnesota?"

"Yes, ma'am, I grew up in Ely."

"Ely?  What a nice town."

Eric and Mildred settled in for a leisurely conversation.  The flight to New York was made that much more enjoyable.  After a while the conversation, as it always does with Minnesotans the world over, turned to weather.  The soon-to-be Wall Street mogul and the grandmother from Crookston tried to top each other with the worst winter storm story they could think of.  Finally, Mildred regaled the youngster with Olav and Lena anecdotes, keeping alive the traditional Norwegian culture.

When the flight attendants brought lunch, Mildred offered her carrot cake to Eric.

"Airlines just don't serve enough food for growing boys."

Eric accepted the dessert, as he always had accepted extra helpings of dessert from his grandmother.

"We are now making our final approach to New York's La Guardia Airport.  Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their original upright position."

Eric's thoughts were now focused on getting into Manhattan and contacting another Ole who had preceded him by one year and was working as a paralegal at a Wall Street law firm.  They were planning to share an apartment in New York.

"Good-bye, Eric, best of luck to you in your new venture," Mildred said as she and Eric gathered their belongings.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Swensen."

After deplaning, Eric hurried to the baggage area to collect his suitcase, duffel bag and sport bag.

Despite her comments to the young Eric about going on to Oslo, Mrs. Swensen proceeded to the inter-terminal shuttle bus for the short trip to the Washington shuttle.  She was trying to get the 2:00 p.m. shuttle to Washington, D.C., even though the connection was very close, due to the late arrival of the Minneapolis flight.  Settling down in the shuttle bus, Mildred did not pay any attention to others from the Minneapolis flight who also got on the bus, including the blue-eyed, black-haired woman from seat 12D.

After deplaning from the shuttle in Washington, Mildred took the escalator up from the shuttle gate and turned left toward the rental car stands and the door to the taxi stand.  As she turned, she noticed the restroom to her right.  Mildred went in.

Almost immediately after she entered, the heavy door slammed shut.  Simultaneously, a wire garrote was thrown around her neck.  Instinctively, Mildred grabbed the thin wire with her left hand and, in the process, got her silver bangles jammed between her hand and neck, but the grip of her unseen assailant was strong and the wire cut into the flesh of her left hand.  Gagging, choking, Mildred tried to think.  Stay cool.  Try to think.  Don't act hastily.  God, that hurts.  The rush of the kill.  Uncontrollable ecstasy.

The unseen foe tightened the garrote.  Mildred drew upon strength she had forgotten she had to combat her attacker.  Frantically kicking backward with her high heels, Mildred tried to find a vulnerable spot.  Her efforts to break free of the death grip were ineffective and her strength started to wane.  Mildred's attacker was too well positioned to be pushed off.  The attacker exerted maximum power, tightening the garrote while avoiding Mildred's flailing legs.

Mildred was dragged into one of the toilet stalls, powerless to resist the backward pull of her assailant.  Desperately, Mildred's right hand raced through her straw bag, searching, hoping, struggling to find the knitting needle.  As Mildred's mind started to cloud from pain and the lack of oxygen, she found and gripped the special knitting needle, a number 10.

With one desperate swing, Mildred's right hand jammed the needle into the soft area under her attacker's sternum.

As soon as the tip of the knitting needle, which had been modified by DARPA, the think tank research agency of the Department of Defense, penetrated the attacker's abdominal cavity, the chemical pellet stored in the tip was released.  Immediately reacting to the warm, moist environment of the human body, the pellet exploded, releasing gases into the attacker's abdominal cavity.  The expanding gases and the shock wave of the explosion pushed the attacker's diaphragm upward into the chest cavity.  This had the effect of immediately collapsing the attacker's lungs, deflating them much as a swift blow to the chest might do.

The swift upward pressure of the expanding gas was also a death kick to the attacker's heart, causing instantaneous cardiac arrest.  With cardiac arrest, the attacker's body convulsed uncontrollably.  The attacker never knew what had happened.  The death grip on the garrote encircling Mildred's neck loosened as the attacker's lifeless body slumped toward the wall of the toilet and slid into a sitting position on the stool.

The lifeless but still penetratingly beautiful blue eyes of Mildred's attacker stared upward into nothing.  Shaking, Mildred turned to examine the lifeless body of the attractive, black-haired, blue-eyed woman, recognizing her as a fellow passenger from New York.

Mildred reached forward and gently closed her attacker's lifeless eyes.  Her black hair remained remarkably undisturbed.  Mildred's attacker looked as if she were asleep, except for the small but spreading red stain on her white silk blouse.

Leaning down, Mildred picked up the garrote, rolled it up, and placed it into her straw bag.  There wasn't enough time for a thorough search of this stranger.  How could I have been so careless, she thought.

Quickly, Mildred noted some features of the dead woman.  Did she look European or American?  It was hard to tell.  No, the assailant had no distinct features; she could have been anyone's daughter.   She was dressed like every other young businesswoman that Mildred had seen on her trip.

"Uffda.  I've got to get out of here," Mildred muttered.

Cautiously, Mildred opened the toilet stall door and perched the body of her attacker on the stool.  Mildred was relieved that the cut on her left hand was superficial.  After wrapping the cut hand in a handkerchief, Mildred carefully put her hand into her left pocket.  She adjusted her silk scarf to hide the bruises on her neck, opened the door to the hallway, and calmly stepped out.

She turned right, walked swiftly past the Hertz car rental stand, and turned right through the sliding glass door.  Exiting the enclosed air conditioned climate of the airport lobby into the muggy Washington summer afternoon, Mildred joined the line of passengers already formed at the taxi stand.  At the taxi stand, the dispatcher asked Mildred where she was going.

"I'm going to 4521 Wisconsin Avenue, Northwest," said Mildred in her soft, grandmotherly voice.

1600 Hours: Thursday, June 10, 1993: CSAC Offices, Washington, D.C.

"Welcome, Ms. Swensen," said the Airman First Class manning the counter at the entry level.  "I hope you won't mind, but security is security."

"Oh, I don't mind at all, son.  What would you like me to do?"

"We have the standard retina, fingerprint and voice analysis test.  However, because of the location, we have to also conduct the ReTek DNA identifier test before we can issue you identification.  New orders."

"My stars!  That is new.  I sure hope it doesn't hurt."

"Don't worry, Ms. Swensen.  It's quite painless.  You just have to give us a saliva sample."  He handed Mildred a small plastic cup.

Having completed the test sequence, Mildred was given clearance to proceed to the debriefing room.

"Who was that?" said the young Marine guard manning the counter with the Airman.  "She could've been my grandmother."

"I'm not sure you would want her for your grandmother.  I hear tell her nickname is The Black Widow.  She has more confirmed kills than any other agent of CSAC."

"Wow."

Mildred was a pioneer in CSAC, its first woman agent.  She was recruited by the fledging CSAC organization in 1965 from her first job as an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, which she had joined in the late fifties.  A native Minnesotan, Mildred was a descendant of Norwegian settlers in the fertile Red River of the North valley of Minnesota.

When Mildred was hired by CSAC, she discovered she had a knack for the more physical aspects of the agency's mission.  She quickly became an expert in special projects, the kind that were not normally considered appropriate for the distaff side of the agency in those days.  Mildred quickly found out that her special skills and inclinations were perfectly suited for that particular line of endeavor.

Special projects evoked in Mildred the same visceral pleasure she had first felt so long ago during deer season in Minnesota with her beloved grandfather.  She would always love the kindly, soft-spoken Norwegian farmer who taught his awkward, bookish, eight-year-old granddaughter the thrill of the chase and the rush of the kill.

Hunting was much more than finding and scoring a kill.  That was the lesson that her grandfather had taught.  There was a system, a methodology that had to be followed: finding a fresh trail, stalking the quarry through its daily chores, gaining knowledge of the minute details of its life, setting up the final moment, and finally the kill, the ultimate intimate moment.  The explosion of the rifle followed by the almost choreographed falling of the prey.  There was no anguish, no dramatic last gasping moment, just the silent slumping of the deer as the bullet completed its grisly assignment.

Young Mildred was upset and shocked when her grandfather field-dressed her first deer that cold November day so long ago; the careful knife cut through the fur and the musculature of the fallen deer lying peacefully, as if asleep, in the fresh-fallen snow.  Afterward, steamy entrails of white, yellow, and blue poured out of the deer's split belly in a cascade of crimson, glistening in the noonday sun.

Her initial shock at the horror of that moment quickly became a lifelong fascination with the machines of life.  Mildred was fascinated with the thought that fur and skin were merely the outer coverings; packaging for the intricate construction of separate mysteries that lay hidden so close to the surface.  Mysteries that could be only revealed when the outer covering was carefully peeled back just as her beloved grandfather had taught her.  Her parents applauded this bent for science and quietly dreamt of Mildred someday teaching biology at the local high school.