Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

O SLO

The safehouse was hidden in the middle of one of the city's trendiest neighborhoods, Tjuvholmen.

Roughly translated, the word meant "isle of thieves," which was exactly what it had been for hundreds of years—a small island where pirates, cutthroats, and other ne'er-do-wells set up shop in hopes of escaping the long arm of the law.

Now connected by a series of bridges, Tjuvholmen and the adjacent Aker Brygge area boasted some of Oslo's hottest restaurants, bars, nightclubs, museums, boutiques, apartments, condos, and townhouses.

Wrapped within shimmering glass and steel structures, every commercial and residential space took advantage of unparalleled views across the sprawling Oslofjord.

One such waterfront apartment had been quietly leased by a fictitious British investment banking firm, allegedly as a corporate residence for its visiting executives. The true holder of the lease, however, was the Norwegian Intelligence Service.

The stunning unit had five bedrooms, five and a half baths, and three adjacent parking spots in the massive underground garage complex that served Tjuvholmen like a web of catacombs.

With its marble countertops, high-end fixtures, and gallery-level art, the apartment looked like something out of Architectural Digest. The icing on the cake would have been the vistas through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but all of the drapes had been pulled. What was happening inside needed to stay inside. The debriefing of Leonid Grechko wasn't meant for public consumption.

S?lvi looked at her watch. They had been at it for over five hours. It was long past time for a break.

The session had been taxing. The Russian spymaster had changed tactics and was no longer being forthright. He was playing games.

She wasn't surprised. In fact, she had been expecting it. They were getting closer to the most valuable intelligence he had to offer. And the closer they got, the harder he was going to bargain. She was going to have to get much tougher with him. Before that, however, she needed a mental reset.

It had taken all of her professional strength to set aside everything Scot had told her back at her apartment and to focus solely on Grechko's debriefing. Right now, that's what mattered most.

Nevertheless, she felt betrayed, unable to give Holidae Hayes even the slightest benefit of the doubt. It was a personal and professional gulf that would never be bridged. As far as she was concerned, Hayes was dead to her. Completely.

After letting the security team know that they were taking a break, she allowed Grechko to leave the debriefing room and stretch his legs. Her only prohibition was that he wasn't allowed to leave the apartment—that included not stepping out onto the balcony.

Once he had exited, she spent a few moments jotting notes—avenues of conversation she wanted to pick back up on after their break.

After getting everything down on paper, she closed her notebook and went in search of some coffee.

The apartment had a machine that used pods, but she much preferred the pour-over method and had purchased a glass Chemex system to keep there. For a coffee aficionado, it was well worth it.

"Can I interest you in some tea?" the Russian asked as she joined him in the kitchen. He was standing at the sink filling a kettle.

"No, thank you," she replied, opening the cabinet where she kept her coffee beans. Taking them down, she popped the top off the burr grinder she had brought from home and filled the hopper.

The Russian shook his head and laughed. "Norwegians and their coffee."

"Russians and their tea," S?lvi said with a smile. "Not to mention their vodka."

"Touché."

Looking over at the leader of the security team—a tall, muscular man in his mid-fifties seated in the living room—she asked, "Coffee, Martin?"

"Yes, please," the man replied.

"You're sure you don't want tea?" Grechko interjected, attempting a little good-natured competition. "I can even do it Moroccan-style for you."

All business, Martin stated, "I'm only interested in Norwegian-style. Coffee, black."

The Russian turned his attention back to S?lvi. "You people don't produce a single bean, yet you're the world's second-largest consumer per capita. Amazing."

She knew what he was up to. He was being a chameleon.

Away from the debriefing room and its video cameras and microphones, Grechko had shifted back into "charm" mode. He was trying to build rapport with her, to get her to trust him. It was what all good intelligence officers did.

Except in this case, he wasn't the debriefer, she was. And she had no intention of being drawn into any of his games.

That said, she could understand how he had risen so high through the ranks of Russian intelligence.

He was a distinguished-looking man in his early sixties with an above-average intellect. He carried himself with poise and a heap of self-confidence. But beneath that confidence, behind the charm that he turned on and off like a light switch, he was tired, world-weary. He was a man who had seen enough—particularly the unspeakable things that men could do to other men.

He had done many of those unspeakable things himself—all in service of his nation. A nation, if he was to be believed, that he had lost faith in and no longer wanted any part of.

With only the clothes on his back, he had driven across the Norwegian border at Storskog—one of the few European crossings still open to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. It was a trip that citizens of Murmansk Oblast made every day. The prices in Norway, not to mention the quality of the goods, were far superior. It wasn't until the next day that anyone realized he had fled. By then S?lvi had already whisked him the nearly two thousand kilometers south to Oslo.

He was now a man without a country, completely dependent on the Kingdom of Norway for his survival.

For that reason alone, S?lvi was eager to dispense with the "cooperative" defector, "reluctant" defector nonsense and get to the bottom of what he had to offer.

"That's a shame," Grechko said, staring into an empty tea tin. "You're all out of black tea."

Dumping the coarsely ground coffee into the moistened filter of her Chemex, she told him, "There's more. Check the pantry."

He set the tin down and walked around the corner of the gourmet kitchen. The large butler's pantry was lined with well-stocked shelves containing everything from breakfast cereal to barbecue supplies for the currently off-limits outdoor grill. Through a connecting door, there was a laundry room, which could also be accessed from an additional door off the main hall.

The Russian searched for a few moments, before shouting, "I can't find any."

S?lvi rolled her eyes, stopped what she was doing, and went to help him.

As she did, Martin rose from his chair in the living room. "Do you hear that?" he asked.

From where she stood, all she could hear was the pressure building inside the kettle on the nearby stovetop as the water began to boil. She shook her head and continued to the pantry. There she waved Grechko out of the way.

The safehouse was meant to support the entire team for up to two weeks if necessary, without anyone having to enter or leave. She knew the contents of the pantry like the back of her hand—right down to the large nylon duffel bags and hard-sided plastic cases on the bottom shelf of the far wall. They included everything from an advanced tactical medical setup complete with surgical equipment, vials of morphine and epinephrine, a pulse oximeter, tourniquets, and defibrillator, to a high-end vehicle diagnostics and repair kit, capable of handling almost anything one of their vehicles downstairs might throw at them. Every single item was meant to reinforce their self-sufficiency.

Moving a couple packages of Knekkebr?d, S?lvi retrieved a fresh tin of black tea and handed it to him.

"Huh," Grechko replied, having practically been staring right at it.

Back in the kitchen, the kettle began to whistle.

Pushing past him, she reached the pantry door and was about to exit when she noticed Martin across the living room. He had pulled the drapes partway open and was staring at something.

Sensing her presence, he spun to warn her.

"Stay away from the windows!" he ordered. "Get down! There's a drone outside with—"

But before the security team leader could finish his sentence, a massive explosion tore through the living room, sending glass, steel, and molten fire everywhere.