Holy Terror (41 page)

A few minutes after 1 a.m., the front door of the building opened and a wide triangle of yellow light fell across the road. It was closed again; and then reopened. Two men came out carrying a large cardboard box, which they stored inside the back of one of the Volvos. They stood talking for a while, and then they went back inside.

By 2.30 a.m. it was clear that nobody else was going to leave the building, not tonight. He started the Opel's engine and drove out of the industrial park as quietly as he could, although he was sure that he saw somebody parting the Venetian blinds and peering out into the darkness.

* * *

They met Birger in the Troll Bar at lunchtime. He was looking pleased with himself and he bought them all a drink.

‘My friend called me and we went together to the Radisson Hotel to meet the people who want to make the excavation. Very strange, all of them. They were all wearing black and some of them had crosses around their necks, like priests. They asked me a lot of questions. Did I have a family? Did I have insurance? Where did I live? They even wanted to know my blood group.'

‘How many were there?'

‘Five, altogether. One looked as if he was the boss man but he sat in a comer and didn't speak.'

Conor produced his picture of Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘Did he look anything like this?'

Birger held it close to the table lamp. ‘Yes. Very white face, very white hair. And little blue sunglasses. Where did you get this? Do you
know
these people?'

‘Did they give you the job?'

‘You bet. Why do you think I'm buying drinks? Ten thousand krone a day, for however long it takes. Plus everything found – food, someplace to stay. Plus the bonus at the end of it.'

‘That's good money. Worth postponing your trip to Italy. Where are they going to be digging?'

‘I'm sorry. I'm not supposed to tell you that. They said this was a very secret expedition, something to do with NATO. Nobody must know where we're going.'

‘Can't you give us a tiny little clue?' asked
Magda, leaning toward him and picking a loose thread from his brown checkered shirt.

Birger said, ‘Sorry. They said anybody who talked about the expedition would be fired, snap! just like that.'

Magda glanced at Conor and he knew what she had in mind. She ran her finger all the way down Birger's sleeve and stroked his hand. ‘You must be so excited about going so far.'

‘Well, it's not so far, really.'

‘Is it north or is it south?'

‘North.'

‘Oh, dear … even colder. Will there be polar bears?'

Magda kept stroking Birger's hand and his trance was gradually deepening, but all the same she was waiting until he was well under her control before she asked him the critical question: what was the name of the place he was going to? Branch's people had specifically asked him not to reveal it, and Conor knew that a dramatic conflict of instructions could easily awaken him.

‘When are you leaving, Birger? Is it very soon?'

‘Tomorrow morning. Seven-thirty sharp. As soon as it's light.'

‘How will you go? By ship, perhaps? Or airplane? Or maybe by train?'

Birger was about to answer when a girl in a maroon suit marched into the bar and called out, ‘Mr Storvik! Mr Storvik! Telephone for Mr Storvik!'

Instantly, Birger's eyes blinked into focus and he stared at Magda as if he had never seen her before in his life. ‘What?' Birger said, in bewilderment.

‘Mr Storvik! Telephone!'

‘That's me,' he said, blundering to his feet.

‘You can take it at the bar,' smiled the girl, and went marching off. Conor, Eleanor and Magda waited while he talked, his head nodding as he did so. Eventually he came back and said, ‘You'll have to excuse me. I have to go now. They want to fit me for some protective clothing.'

Conor stood up and shook his hand. ‘Good luck, Birger. Let's hope you don't need it.'

‘Ah, but think of all that money!' Birger retorted, rubbing his hands.

‘So they're going tomorrow morning and it's someplace further north but we don't know where it is or why they're going there.'

‘Yes,' said Conor. ‘But if Birger and his pals are going to need protective clothing, then it must have something to do with this biohazard that Victor Labrea kept on talking about.'

‘You need protective clothing for all manner of things,' said Eleanor. ‘Cold, heat, radioactivity, acids, soil pollution,
water
pollution—'

‘All right, I think we get the picture. If only I could get into that goddamned building and see what they're doing there.'

Magda said, ‘If they never answer their door we can't hypnotize them or use burundanga.'

‘You brought some burundanga with you?'

‘Only a little. We didn't have very much left. But you never know … I thought it might be useful.'

‘Well, I suggest something theatrical,' said
Eleanor, lighting another cigarette. ‘A spectacular diversion, to keep our friends busy while Conor gets into the building.'

‘What exactly do you propose?' asked Magda. ‘That I walk up and down Lofotgate with nothing on?'

‘That would work,' said Conor.

They had lunch in the Domus Café overlooking the harbor. Across the sound they could see the snow-covered peak of Storsteinen, with its cable cars climbing up and down like tiny spiders. It was a weird, blue, half-lit day – not as blue as the time in the middle of the winter when the sun sinks below the horizon for two months on end – ‘
morketia
' – with only the moon and the snow to see by – but unsettling all the same.

By the time they reached Breivika Havnegata it was growing dark, and a chilly southeasterly wind was blowing. The two Volvos and the Saab were parked outside, as well as two white panel vans.

They parked out of sight behind a red-painted boatshed. Magda gave Conor the small foil package of burundanga. ‘If you have to use it, make sure you blow it well away from you, hard, directly into the person's face. Make sure you don't breathe any of it yourself, or else you'll be playing zombies, too.'

Conor climbed out of the car and walked toward number 22. He stood at the side of the building, out of sight of the windows and the front door. Magda shifted over to the driver's seat, while Eleanor stuffed up the sleeve of her coat a long strip of candystriped
cotton, torn from a hotel pillowcase. ‘You know, I've always wanted to do this,' she smiled. ‘They did it in the movie version of
Scarface & Son
. You couldn't have done it on the stage, of course.'

‘Eleanor – be very careful, Eleanor,' Magda warned her. ‘These people will kill you without even thinking twice.'

‘I'll be careful, dear. I have a very special reason to be careful.'

She eased herself out of the car, buttoning up her thick black coat, and then reached back inside for the thin brass-capped walking-stick which they had bought that afternoon in a souvenir shop. She began to walk toward number 22 with an exaggerated hobble, using the stick to support herself. The Venetian blind was parted by two fingers and two eyes stared out, but Eleanor looked no more threatening than any other old biddy with arthritic knees, and after a moment's hesitation the blind snapped shut.

Eleanor passed so close to Conor that he could have touched her arm, but she didn't even glance at him. She stepped off the curb and made her way between the two parked Volvos. She paused beside the one on her left – her back turned to the building to hide what she was doing, in case anybody decided to take a second look at her. With a narrow penknife blade, she sprang the lock on the filler cap: she had practised on nine similar Volvos in the parking tunnel in the city center. Then she pulled the long strip of pillowcase out of her sleeve and pushed it into the fuel tank, using the walking-stick like a ramrod to push it well down. She left only two
inches of cotton protruding. Then she closed the cover and hobbled off.

Her walk didn't take her far. She circled behind the birch trees, and in three or four minutes – once the cotton was saturated in gas – she came hobbling back. She looked around to make sure that nobody was watching. Then she reopened the cover and forced her walking-stick into the tank to keep its protective flap wide open. She flipped her lighter and touched it against the cotton wick.

Her hobble suddenly became a very hurried walk. Her walk became a jog. A long tongue of orange flame streamed out of the Volvo's gas tank. It grew higher and higher and it began to make a fierce roaring noise like a blowtorch. The parking lot became brightly illuminated and orange reflections danced on every window around.

From inside number 22 Conor heard a yelp like a trodden-on dog. The door was flung open and a man came jumping down the steps. He tried to approach the Volvo but the heat was already overwhelming and its rear windows cracked and popped. ‘Shit!' he kept shouting. ‘Shit, shit, shit!'

Two more men burst out onto the steps. ‘Go get the goddamned fire extinguisher!' one of them yelled. American, without a doubt, and a Southerner by the way he said ‘
fah
'. He turned in the lurid light of the burning car and Conor saw the deathly white face of Dennis Evelyn Branch.

‘My wallet's in there!' the first man screamed. ‘My passport, my traveler's checks! Everything! My clothes!'

One of the men dragged out a fire extinguisher. He
broke the seal and started to spray water all over the rear end of the blazing Volvo. The fire instantly spat and jumped, and the man on the steps screamed, ‘Not water! You can't use water! Don't you know shit?'

Another man emerged. ‘That car's going to blow! Get that van out of here, pronto!'

The next second, the Volvo's gas tank exploded. Although he was hidden around the side of the building, Conor could feel the huge hot blast of expanding air. A fiery plastic bumper was thrown high into the air, and landed in the parking lot more than thirty feet away. Fragments of metal and glass came showering down everywhere. A burning door landed in a tree, and continued to bum, shriveling the leaves. The man with the fire extinguisher was blown to the ground with his shirt on fire. He was kicking and screaming, ‘Put me out! Put me out!' Another man thumped at his back with the doormat from the building's front steps.

The second Volvo was burning now; and so was the van. ‘You're going to have to call 110!' shouted a voice that sounded Norwegian.

‘What, are you crazy? And have the whole place crawling with cops?'

‘You don't think that somebody's going to call the fire service anyhow? Look at this place, it's like daylight!'

‘I don't believe it,' said Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘I can see it with my own eyes, but I just don't believe it. Marcus – how much equipment we got in that van?'

‘Ten bio suits, three two-way radios, a whole stack
of containment boxes, a couple of Nikons. General stuff, like body bags and candy bars.'

‘O Lord, what did I do to deserve this punishment?' Dennis Evelyn Branch appealed, in a high, hysterical voice. ‘O Lord, I'm begging of you now, if you want me to do your work, then send down a storm of rain. Send down a hailstorm if you have to. But put out this fire. Lord, any way you will. For my sake. For your sake.'

There was a moment's pause. Dennis Evelyn Branch cried out, ‘
Please
, Lord!' but the Lord wasn't impressed. The panel van blew up with an ear-splitting bang and tumbled backward across the parking lot, over and over. The second Volvo blew up, too, jumping sideways into a border filled with flowering shrubs. The shrubs immediately caught fire like the burning bush in the Bible, and so did the wood-chippings in the border, with a strong whiff of barbecue. A single blazing wheel rolled drunkenly away toward the trees and disappeared from sight.

The heat from the three burning vehicles was immense. They groaned and crackled and splintered. The men stood and watched them, shielding their faces with their hands.

‘This here, this is arson,' Dennis Evelyn Branch declared. ‘Don't you try to tell me this wasn't arson. Don't no vehicle catch on fire spontaneous. What,
whamm!
just like that? I don't think so. This here's somebody with a deliberate intention to prevent us from doing the Lord's work, passing on His holy message, you believe me.'

‘Believe you, reverend,' said the man beside him.

In the distance, Conor heard the braying-donkey
noise of Norwegian firetrucks. He looked out and saw that the Southerner and his companions were all preoccupied with their blazing cars. He took a deep breath, and then he risked it: mounting the steps toward the building three at a time. He reached the door, put his hand on the doorhandle, and it was locked.

Don't panic
, he told himself.
And whatever you do, don't look around
.

He took the key out of his pocket, jabbed it in the lock, twisted, and stepped inside. None of the men turned around: they were all too busy with the burning chaos in the parking lot.

Inside the building there was a plain reception lobby, much like the building next door, except that this one was stacked with dozens of boxes and wooden crates. Behind the desk a large-scale map of northern Norway had been pinned, from Narvik to Spitsbergen, with a criss-cross pattern of red ribbons stretched across it with thumbtacks.

Conor studied the map closely, but so many towns and villages were marked that it was impossible for him to work out where tomorrow's destination was. He left the lobby and pushed his way through a heavy wooden fire-door. He found himself in a short corridor with three more doors leading off it to the left.

He tried the first door but it was locked. The second door opened into a storeroom, where more boxes were stacked, as well as assorted oddments of lighting equipment and reels of heavy-duty electrical cable. The third door took him into a brightly lit laboratory.