Anne Holt - 1222

Only his face had changed.

‘Why has he been arrested?’ I asked, without taking the binoculars away from my eyes.

‘Because he was carrying a gun,’ said Berit. ‘That’s all, I think.’

That’s all they’re telling you, anyway, I thought.

I lowered the binoculars and glanced over at Geir. He wasn’t looking at what was happening down below. Instead he was gazing out over the lake, his expression dreamy, murmuring something about kiteboarding.

There’s your Yank, Geir, I thought. You were right.

But I didn’t say anything.

The South African who wasn’t a South African was proof positive that Thomas Chrysler, who certainly wasn’t called Thomas Chrysler, had been lying about an exercise that most definitely wasn’t an exercise.

I didn’t really know what I was feeling. My pulse was beating faster and little spurts of adrenalin were making me breathe more quickly. Perhaps I was furious. Perhaps mostly relieved. I hadn’t been wrong, when it came down to it.

As if that mattered.

I raised the binoculars to my eyes again.

The American climbed on board the helicopter. He almost stumbled, but Langerud saved him with a firm grip on his arm before he fell. Once he was inside, Langerud followed him. The rotor blades began to spin slowly with a dull, clattering sound. Berit sat up and shaded her eyes from the sun with both hands.

‘The next to last helicopter,’ she said. ‘When the last one comes it’s your turn, Hanne.’

‘You must come back another time,’ said Geir with a smile. ‘I will personally guarantee to haul you up to the top of Finse on a sledge.’

I actually smiled.

The Sea King lifted slowly, as if it didn’t quite dare to break contact with the ground. The snow was whirling so violently that we had to put our hands up to our faces and lean forward. Only when the helicopter had reached a height of a couple of hundred metres was I able to look up at the sky again. Suddenly the helicopter picked up speed and headed west, with two prisoners and three police officers on board.

‘I mean it,’ said Geir eagerly. ‘Come back. I’ll make sure I dig out my apartment by then, at least. We can take you out with the snow scooter, Johan’s got a fantastic dog team, we can-’

‘Was the next helicopter supposed to come right away?’ I interrupted him, gazing south-west through the binoculars.

The last Sea King had already put more than a kilometre between itself and us. However, even further away and a little further south I could see something dark approaching through the air.

‘No,’ said Berit hesitantly. ‘It’s due in about an hour. Why?’

I pointed. By now the object was visible with the naked eye. It was flying lower than the Sea King, and following a slightly different route from the rescue helicopter.

‘I can hear it,’ said Geir, squinting at the sky. ‘It’s a helicopter. And it’s flying low. Very low.’

It was heading straight for us. Halfway across Finsevann, at a height of no more than a hundred metres above the snowdrifts, it veered to the west and headed towards Finsenut in an arc before approaching the landing area in front of the hotel.

‘It’s completely black!’ Geir roared through the racket. ‘No markings! No identification!’

The snow whirled up once again in a frenzy that reminded us of what the hurricane had been like over the past few days.

‘Give me the binoculars,’ I yelled to Berit, who passed them to me before leaning forward and hiding her face between her knees, with her hands covering her ears.

When the helicopter landed I managed to shuffle forward to the very end of the little snow fortress. I crept right up to the wall and poked my head a little way over the edge. The snow hurt my eyes, but it was better once I had the binoculars in place.

I could see mostly snow. However, I had brief, lightning glimpses of a clear view. I saw the four men from the cellar crouching as they moved towards the helicopter, which clearly had no intention of switching off its engine. It was difficult to distinguish between the figures down below, but I thought the first of them must be Severin Heger. He was almost two metres tall, and his back looked broader than the others’. None of them was dressed in thick winter clothes any longer, even though it was almost minus fifteen outside; they were expecting a warm helicopter.

The snow and the wind were hurting not only my eyes; it felt as if my face was being peppered by thousands of tiny arrows made of glass. I had taken off my mittens to get a better grip on the binoculars, and my knuckles were so cold I was afraid my fingers would break.

Severin had reached the helicopter. He stopped and straightened up slightly before grabbing hold of the next man’s upper arm and helping him up the short flight of steps that someone inside had lowered as soon as they landed. I suddenly realized that it was only the man who was just boarding the helicopter who was no longer wearing a rucksack. He hesitated briefly before taking the final step, and looked around him in all directions.

His face filled my field of vision for just long enough to convince me that I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Perhaps it was a second before the driving snow and whirling wind blocked my view of the four men and the black, unidentifiable helicopter.

Perhaps it was half a second, perhaps a little more.

I couldn’t have seen what I thought I saw. It couldn’t be him.

The man’s beard was long and dark, with stripes of grey in an upturned V running downwards from his mouth. The eyes that were staring into my binoculars without being aware of it were dark, with long lashes and a gentle, sorrowful expression. His whole being created a violent, almost paralysing impression, yet the mouth was the most striking element. It was large with unusually full, beautifully shaped lips. Since he was squinting against the light and the driving snow, he was exposing his teeth, which were white and even, forming a sharp contrast with the signs of age in his curly beard.

He was a very handsome man, and I couldn’t get my head around what I had just seen. It was even more difficult to understand why the Americans had contented themselves with sending just one man.

Perhaps they hadn’t. Perhaps there were more than the man I had assumed was from South Africa. It was just that nobody had discovered them. I closed my eyes tightly to get rid of the tears, then opened them again.

The rotor blades were screaming.

The helicopter began to lift. I defied the cold, and forced myself to look into the chaotic, whirling snow. Everything was white, and for a while I felt as if I had gone blind. I took a deep breath and rubbed my face with my ice-cold hands once the helicopter was high enough for the driving snow to settle, and it became possible to see again.

I was not blind, but it was impossible to believe what I knew I had just seen.

‘What was that?’ said Geir as the black helicopter disappeared in the same direction from which it had come, flying fast and low, and complete silence once more descended on the mountains.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, hoping more than anything that I was telling the truth. I really didn’t have any idea what it was.