Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Grabbing his bag from the overhead, Harvath followed the officer, stopping briefly at the main cabin door to receive additional thanks from the flight crew.

As he and the cop deplaned, they had to step aside to allow medical personnel to board and see to the injured.

But once they had passed, the officer didn't lead him toward the terminal. Instead, he opened the door to the jet bridge stairs and took him down to the tarmac.

The air was chilly and awash with the smell of jet fuel. Two ambulances were standing by, as was a BMW X5 crisscrossed with thick neon yellow stripes, a lightbar, and the Norwegian word for police, Politi.

Harvath was about to ask whether he should sit in the front or the back, when the cop preempted him. Taking his bag, he opened the rear door, gestured for him to sit, and then closed the door once he was inside. After tossing Harvath's bag in the trunk, the cop got behind the wheel, activated the lightbar, and, without saying a word to his passenger, took off across the airport.

Harvath had no idea what was going on. He wasn't in handcuffs and hadn't been patted down, so that was a minor check mark in the plus column.

On the other hand, he had been escorted off an airplane and was riding in the back of a police car being driven with its lights on by a cop who had not returned his passport.

This wouldn't be the first time he'd been taken in for questioning by the Norwegian Police Service. In fact, somewhere in S?lvi's apartment he still had the card of the lawyer who had previously gotten his passport back and had walked him out the door in record time. If this turned out to be anything more than the cops taking his statement about what had happened on the plane, he might need to call her to dig it up for him.

The officer rolled to a stop and killed his lights outside what looked like some sort of private, VIP terminal.

After retrieving his bag from the trunk, the cop opened the door, handed it to him, and motioned for Harvath to follow him into the building.

The lobby, with its polished reception desk, resembled something out of a boutique hotel. The cop nodded at the woman behind the desk and kept moving, leading Harvath down a brightly lit hallway decorated with pieces of modern art.

On a glossy orange door with "Suite 7" written in an oversize font, he swiped a keycard and then stepped inside followed by Harvath.

"Wait here," the officer ordered, stepping back into the hall and closing the door behind him.

The room was decorated with chic Scandinavian furniture and had a private, marble bathroom, complete with a walk-in shower, just off to the side. A large flat-screen TV was tuned to a local Norwegian station. There was a buffet with fresh fruit, an array of snacks, a full bar, and a coffee station. Harvath made a beeline for the coffee.

As he dropped in a pod and waited for his espresso, he opened a drawer and found a range of amenities, including individual packets of pain relievers. Tearing one open, he popped the two pills, chased them with a water from the mini fridge, and put the rest of the packets in his pocket. He also grabbed a fresh toothbrush and some disposable razors. If this was the level at which the Norwegian police were conducting interviews these days, he was all for it.

When his coffee was ready, he walked over to the long leather couch and sat down. The floor-to-ceiling windows provided a terrific view of planes taking off and landing. Removing his boots, he put his feet up, and grabbed the remote. As long as he was being detained, he figured he might as well enjoy himself.

He dialed around until he found an English language news station and then only half paid attention as the host ran through the headlines.

In his mind he was in the city center, forty minutes away, already halfway through a great bottle of wine with S?lvi, catching her up on everything that had happened since they had last seen each other.

Part of him regretted not having picked her up a gift. He had searched for one at the airport shops in Kraków, but there hadn't been anything special. It was all either too crappy or just not her style. He knew she'd understand. Making it back to her in one piece was the only thing that she had said she truly wanted.

The more he thought about her, the more he wanted his passport back and to be on his way.

He was also getting to the point in his pain threshold where ice packs were no longer going to do the trick. He was going to need a full-on ice bath. Where the hell he was going to buy large bags of ice in Oslo, however, was beyond him. That American culinary specialty had yet to pierce the Scandinavian market.

After polishing off his espresso, he was about to hop up and brew another one when there was a knock on his door, followed by the chime of a keycard opening the lock.

He looked up, expecting to see the officer who had brought him over from the plane, but instead he was greeted with the sight of Holidae Hayes, chief of the CIA's Oslo station.

"Bumpy flight?" she asked, stepping into the room.

"I've had better," Harvath replied, taking his feet off the table and sitting upright. "What are you doing here? Is S?lvi okay?"

Hayes held up her index finger, pointed toward the ceiling, and drew imaginary loops with it, indicating that the room might be bugged. "She's fine. I came to give you a ride."

"I can't leave yet. Some cop has my passport."

The tall, redheaded CIA operative removed Harvath's passport from her pocket and tossed it to him.

He opened it and flipped it to the most recent page. "Even got it stamped for me."

"Professional courtesy."

"They don't want a statement?"

Hayes shook her head. "Only if you want to press charges."

It was now Harvath's turn to shake his head. The man on the plane was already going to be facing a host of charges. He was also probably going to get added to Europe's no-fly list. He needed psychiatric help, not Harvath piling on.

They brewed two coffees to go and Harvath followed Hayes out to her black Chevy Suburban with its yellow diplomatic plates.

After throwing his bag in the cargo area, he hopped into the front passenger seat and they drove out of the airport.

"Safe to talk now?" he asked, checking his side mirror as they got onto the pine-studded A10 highway, which led into the city.

"I want to save the shop talk until we're back at the office."

Interesting, he thought as he nodded in response and took a sip of his coffee.

When Hayes had indicated her reluctance to speak because the VIP private jet suite might be bugged, that hadn't been surprising. Corporate espionage, even among allied nations, was big business. The French and Israelis, some of the worst offenders, were even said to bug the business and first-class sections of their national airlines.

But the fact that she didn't even want to speak in a moving U.S. Embassy vehicle was significant. Whatever this was, it was serious. Very serious.