Phantom(135)

Fourteen, thirteen.

From the moment he shot two gas cartridges at the living-room window, which exploded and became an avalanche of white, it was as though time stood still and became a juddering film in which he registered that he was in motion, his body was doing what it should, his brain was capturing mere fragments.

Twelve.

He pulled down his gas mask, threw the riot gun into the living room, swept away the largest shards of glass in the window with his MP5, placed the rucksack on the sill and put his hands on it, raised a foot high and swung himself into the white smoke billowing towards him. The lead bullet-proof vest made movement more difficult, but once he was inside it was like flying into a cloud. He heard shots being fired and threw himself to the floor.

Eight.

More shots. The dry sound of the parquet floor being shredded. They had not been paralysed into inaction. He waited. Then he heard it. Coughing. The kind you are powerless to restrain with tear gas stinging your eyes, nose, lungs.

Five.

Harry jerked up the MP5 and shot at the sound in the grey-and-white mist. Heard short, pumping steps. Running-on-stairs-type steps.

Three.

Harry rose to his feet and sprinted.

Two.

On the first floor there was no smoke. If the fugitive got away Harry’s odds would be dramatically worsened.

One, zero.

Harry could discern the outline of a staircase, then the banister with the rails below. He threaded the MP5 between the rails, wrenched it to the side and up. Pressed the trigger. The weapon shook in his hand, but he held on tight. Emptied the magazine. Pulled the machine gun back, released the magazine while his other hand searched his coat pocket for the other one. Found only the bottle. He had lost the spare magazine while lying on the floor! The others were still in the rucksack on the windowsill.

Harry knew he was dead when he heard footsteps on the stairs. On their way down. They came slowly, hesitantly. Then faster. Then they raced down. Harry saw a figure dive out of the mist. A reeling ghost in a white shirt and black suit. He hit the banister, bent in the middle and slid lifeless down to the newel post. Harry saw the frayed edges of the wounds in the back of the suit where the bullets had entered. He walked over to the body, grabbed the fringe and lifted the head. Felt sensations of asphyxiation and had to fight the impulse to pull off the gas mask.

One bullet had torn half of the nose away as it exited. Nonetheless, Harry still recognised him. The little guy from the doorway at Hotel Leon. The man who had shot at him from the car in Madserud allé.

Harry listened. There was silence except for the hiss of the tear-gas cartridges from which white smoke was still gushing forth. He retreated to the living-room window, found the rucksack, inserted a fresh magazine and stuffed one under his bullet-proof vest. Only now did he notice the sweat running down the inside.

Where was the big man? And where was Dubai? Harry listened again. The hiss of the gas. But hadn’t he heard footsteps on the floor above?

Through the gas he glimpsed another room and an open door leading to the kitchen. Only one closed door. He stood beside the door, opened it and pointed the riot gun inside and fired twice. Closed the door and waited. Counted to ten. Opened and entered.

Empty. Through the smoke he identified bookshelves, a black leather armchair and a large fireplace. Above it hung a painting of a man wearing a Gestapo uniform. Was this an old Nazi house? Harry knew the Norwegian Storm Trooper boss Karl Marthinsen had been living in a confiscated house in Blindernveien when he ended his days riddled with bullets outside the Science Building.

Harry retraced his steps, went through the kitchen, through the door behind, to the typical maid’s room of the time, and found what he was looking for, the back staircase.

Usually these stairs had also functioned as a fire escape, but these ones didn’t stop at an external door, quite the opposite, they continued down to a cellar, and what had once been a back door had been bricked up.

Harry checked that there was still a gas cartridge left in the magazine and mounted the stairs in long, soundless strides. Fired the last cartridge into the corridor, counted to ten and followed. Pushed open the doors, with stabbing pains in his neck, but still managed to concentrate. Apart from the first door, which was locked, all the rooms were empty. Two of the bedrooms looked to be in use. The bed in one didn’t have any sheets on though, and Harry could see the mattress was dark, as if drenched in blood. On the bedside table in the second bedroom there was a Bible. Harry studied it. Cyrillic letters. Russian Orthodox. Beside it a prepared zjuk. A red brick with six nails in. Exactly the same thickness as the Bible.

Harry walked back to the locked door. The sweat inside the mask had made the glass mist up. He leaned back against the opposite wall, lifted his foot and kicked at the lock. The door cracked at the fourth kick. Harry crouched down and fired a salvo into the room, heard the tinkle of glass. Waited until the smoke from the corridor had drifted inside. Went in. Found the light switch.