'Rakel,' a woman's voice said. It sounded a bit older than the one that had just spoken. After a couple of sentences she handed over to a boy who excitedly chatted away. Then the last message came again. And he knew for certain he had not been imagining that he had heard the voice before. It was the girl on the white bus.
When the messages were finished, he stood looking at the two colour photographs stuck to the wall under the mirror. In one, Hole, a darkhaired woman and a boy were sitting on a pair of skis in the snow squinting at the camera. The other was faded and old, and showed a small girl and boy, both in bathing costumes. She seemed to have Down's syndrome – he was Harry Hole.
He sat in the kitchen eating at his leisure and listening to the sounds in the stairwell. The glass pane was patched up with the transparent tape he found in the drawer of the telephone table. After eating he went to the bedroom. It was cold. He sat on the bed and ran a hand over the soft bedclothes. Smelt the pillow. Opened the wardrobe. He found a pair of grey boxer shorts and a folded white T-shirt with a drawing of a kind of eight-armed Shiva with the word FRELST, redeemed, underneath and JOKKE & VALENTINERNE above. The clothes smelt of soap. He undressed and put them on. Lay down on the bed. Closed his eyes. Thought of the photograph of Hole. Of Giorgi. Put the gun under the pillow. Even though he was absolutely exhausted he could feel an erection on the way. His dick pressed against the tight-fitting but soft cotton. And he went to sleep in the secure knowledge that he would wake up if anyone opened the front door.
'Expect the unexpected.'
That was the motto of Sivert Falkeid, the leader of Delta, the police Special Forces Unit. Falkeid stood on a ridge behind the container, a walkie-talkie in his hand and the swish of taxis and juggernauts heading home for Christmas on the motorway in his ears. Beside him stood Chief Inspector Gunnar Hagen with the collar of his green flak jacket turned up. Falkeid's boys were in the cold, ice-bound darkness beneath them. He checked his watch. Five to three.
It was nineteen minutes since one of the dog patrol's Alsatians had indicated that a person was inside a red container. Nevertheless Falkeid did not like the situation. Even though the task seemed easy enough. That was not what he disliked.
So far everything had gone like clockwork. It had taken a mere fortyfive minutes from the time he received Hagen's call for the five selected soldiers to appear primed and ready at the police station. Delta consisted of seventy people, in the main highly motivated, well-trained men with an average age of thirty-one. Details were drawn up according to need, and their spheres of activity included so-called 'difficult armed actions', the category into which this job fell. In addition to the five men from Delta there was one person from FSK, Forsvarets Spesialkommando, the military Special Forces. And this was where his misgivings began. The man was an ace marksman personally drafted in by Gunnar Hagen. He called himself Aron, but Falkeid knew that no one in FSK operated under their real name. In fact, the whole force had been secret since its inception in 1981, and it was only during the famous Enduring Freedom Operation in Afghanistan that the media had managed to get hold of any specific details at all about this crack unit which, in Falkeid's opinion, was more reminiscent of a secret brotherhood.
'Because I trust Aron,' had been Hagen's brief explanation to Falkeid. 'Do you recall the rifle shot in Torp in '94?'
Falkeid remembered the hostage drama at Torp airfield very well. He had been there. No one was told afterwards who had fired the shot that saved the day, but the bullet had gone through the armpit of a bulletproof vest hanging in front of the car window and into the bank robber's head, which had then exploded like a pumpkin in the back seat of a brand-new Volvo, which the car dealer took in part exchange, washed and resold. That wasn't what bothered him. Nor that Aron was carrying a rifle that Falkeid had not seen before. The letters MÄR on the gunstock did not mean a thing to him. At this moment Aron was lying somewhere outside the terrain with laser sights and night-vision goggles, and had reported in that he had a clear view of the container. Otherwise Aron confined himself to grunts when Falkeid asked for updates on the radio. But that didn't bother him, either. What Falkeid did not like about the situation was that Aron should have been there at all. They had no need whatsoever of a marksman.
Falkeid hesitated for a moment. Then he raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. 'Flash the light if you're ready, Atle.'
A light next to the container moved up and down.
'Everyone in position,' Falkeid said. 'We're ready to move in.'
Hagen nodded. 'Good. Before we go into action I would just like to have confirmation that you share my view, Falkeid. That it's best to make the arrest now and not to wait for Hole.'