She put the microphone back into position.
‘Everything in place and ready.’
‘Thanks. Put your helmet on.’
‘Eh? Honestly, Harry.’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘Put your helmet on yourself!’
‘Mine’s too small.’
A new voice. ‘Passed point 1.’
‘Oh shit, sometimes you’re just so . . .
unprofessional.’ Ellen pulled the helmet over her
head, fastened the chin strap and made faces in the
driving mirror.
‘Love you too,’ said Harry, studying the road in
front of them through binoculars. ‘I can see them.’
At the top of the incline leading to Karihaugen the
sun glinted off metal. For the moment Harry could
only see the first car in the motor-cade, but he
knew the order: six motorcycles from the
Norwegian police escort department, two
Norwegian police escort cars, a Secret Service
car, then two identical Cadillac Fleetwoods
(special Secret Service cars flown in from the US)
and the President sitting in one of them. Which one
was kept secret. Or perhaps he was sitting in both,
Harry thought. One for Jekyll and one for Hyde.
Then came the bigger vehicles: ambulance,
communications car and several Secret Service
cars.
‘Everything seems quiet enough,’ Harry said. His
binoculars moved slowly from right to left. The air
quivered above the tarmac even though it was a
cool November morning.
Ellen could see the outline of the first car. In thirty
seconds they would have passed the toll gates and
half the job would be over. And in two days’ time,
when the same cars had passed the toll going in the
opposite direction, she and Harry could go back to
their usual work. She preferred dealing with dead
people in the Serious Crime Unit to getting up at
three in the morning to sit in a cold Volvo with an
irritable Harry, who was clearly burdened by the
responsibility he had been given.
Apart from Harry’s regular breathing, there was
total quiet in the car. She checked that the light
indicators on both radios were green. The
motorcade was almost at the bottom of the hill. She
decided she would go to Tørst and get drunk after
the job. There was a guy there she had exchanged
looks with; he had black curls and brown, slightly
dangerous eyes. Lean. Looked a bit bohemian,
intellectual. Perhaps . . .
‘What the —’
Harry had already grabbed the microphone.
‘There’s someone in the third booth from the left.
Can anyone identify this individual?’
The radio answered with a crackling silence as
Ellen’s gaze raced from one booth to the next in the
row. There! She saw a man’s back behind the
brown glass of the box – only forty or fifty metres
away. The silhouette of the figure was clear in the
light from behind, as was the short barrel with the
sights protruding over his shoulder.
‘Weapon!’ she shouted. ‘He’s got a machine gun.’
‘Fuck!’ Harry kicked open the car door, took hold
of the frame and swung out. Ellen stared at the
motorcade. It couldn’t be more than a few hundred
metres off. Harry stuck his head inside the car.
‘He’s not one of ours, but he could be Secret
Service,’ he said. ‘Call HQ.’ He already had the
revolver in his hand.
‘Harry . . .’
‘Now! And give a blast on the horn if HQ say it’s
one of theirs.’ Harry started to run towards the toll
booth and the back of the man dressed in a suit.
From the barrel, Harry guessed the gun was an Uzi.
The raw early morning air smarted in his lungs.
‘Police!’ he shouted in Norwegian, then in
English.
No reaction. The thick glass of the box was
manufactured to deaden the traffic noise outside.
The man had turned his head towards the
motorcade now and Harry could see his dark Ray-
Bans. Secret Service. Or someone who wanted to
give that impression.
Twenty metres now.
How did he get inside a locked booth if he wasn’t
one of theirs? Damn! Harry could already hear the
motorcycles. He wouldn’t make it to the box.
He released the safety catch and took aim,
praying that the car horn would shatter the stillness
of this strange morning on a closed motorway he
had never wanted at any time to be anywhere near.
The instructions were clear, but he was unable to
shut out his thoughts: Thin vest. No
communication. Shoot, it is not your fault. Has he
got a family?
The motorcade was coming from directly behind
the toll booth, and it was coming fast. In a couple
of seconds the Cadillacs would be level with the
booths. From the corner of his left eye he noticed a
movement, a little bird taking off from the roof.