Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

'And what makes you so sure about that?'

Harry tapped his stomach and pulled a sardonic grin.

'There's someone in here, morsing it up to me, boss. There's a reason why he bought the most expensive and best assassination rifle in the world. One of the reasons Daniel Gudeson became a legend was that he was a fantastic marksman. And something down here is telling me that he's decided to take this crusade to its logical conclusion. It's going to be the crowning glory, something to immortalise the legend of Daniel Gudeson.'

The summer heat vanished for a second as a last wintry gust swept up Moztfeldtsgate, swirling the dust and the litter. Moller closed his eyes, pulled his coat tighter around himself and shuddered. Bergen, he thought. Bergen.

'I'll see what I can manage,' he said. 'Make sure you're ready.'

Police HQ. 16 May 2000.

Harry and Halvorsen were ready. So ready that when Hole's telephone rang, they both jumped up. Harry seized the receiver: 'Hole speaking!'

'You don't need to shout,' Rakel said. 'That's why the phone was invented. What was it you said about the seventeenth the other day?'

'What?' It took Harry a few seconds to connect. 'That I'm on duty?'

'The other thing,' Rakel said. 'That you would move heaven and earth…'

'Do you mean that?' Harry felt a strange, warm feeling in his stomach. 'You would like to be with me if I get someone to do my shift?' Rakel laughed.

'Now you sound nice. I should point out that you weren't my first choice, but since father has decided that he wants to be on his own this year, the answer is yes, we would like to be with you.'

'What does Oleg say to that?'

'It was his suggestion.'

'Yes? He's a clever lad, that Oleg.'

Harry was happy. So happy that it was difficult to speak with his normal voice. And he didn't give a damn that Halvorsen was sitting across the desk from him with a grin spread from ear to ear.

'Have we got a deal?' Rakel's voice tickled his ear. 'If I can make it, yes. I'll ring you later.'

'OK, or you could come over for something to eat this evening. If you had the time, that is. Or the inclination.'

The words came across as so exaggeratedly offhand that Harry knew she had been practising them before she rang. His laughter was bubbling inside him, his head as light as if he had taken a narcotic substance, and he was about to say yes when he remembered something she had said in the restaurant: I know it won't stop with the one time. It wasn't something to eat she was offering him.

If you had the time, that is. Or the inclination.

If he was going to panic, now was the time.

His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone flashing.

'I've got a call on the other line which I have to take. Rakel, can you hang on for a second.'

'Of course.'

Harry pressed the square key. It was Moller.

'The arrest warrant is ready. The search warrant's on its way. Tom Waaler is all set with two cars and four armed men. I hope to Christ that the morse-code guy in your guts has a steady hand, Harry.'

'He fucks up the odd letter, but never a whole message,' Harry said, signalling to Halvorsen that he should put on his jacket. 'See you.' Harry slammed down the phone.

They were standing in the lift on their way down when it occurred to Harry that Rakel was still on the other line, waiting for an answer. He didn't have the mental energy to work out what that meant.

Irisveien, Oslo. 16 May 2000.

The first summer's day of the year had begun to cool as the police car rolled into the quiet residential area of detached houses. Harry was ill at ease. Not only because he was sweating under the bulletproof vest, but because it was too quiet. He stared at the curtains behind the meticulously trimmed hedges, but nothing stirred. It felt like a Western and he was riding into an ambush.

At first, Harry had refused to put on a bulletproof vest, but Tom Waaler, who was in charge of the operation, had given him a simple ultimatum: either put on the vest or stay at home. The argument that a bullet from a Marklin rifle would cut through the vest like the proverbial knife through butter had occasioned only a bored shrug with Waaler.

They went in two police cars. The second, in which Waaler sat, had gone up Sognsveien, into Ulleval Hageby, to enter Irisveien from the opposite direction, from the west. He could hear Waaler's voice crackle over the walkie-talkie. Calm and confident. Asked for position, went through the procedure again and the emergency procedure, asked every single officer to repeat their assignment.

'If he's a pro, he might have connected an alarm to the gate, so we'll go over not through!

He was efficient, even Harry had to concede that, and it was clear that the others in the car respected Waaler. Harry pointed to the red timber house. 'There it is.'

'Alpha,' the policewoman in the front seat said into the walkie-talkie. 'We can't see you.'

Waaler: 'We're right round the corner. Keep out of sight from the house until you can see us. Over.'

'Too late. We're there now. Over.'

'OK, but stay in the car until we come to you. Over and out.'

The next moment they saw the nose of the second police car coming round the bend. They drove the last fifty metres to the house and parked the car to block the exit from the garage. The second car stopped in front of the garden gate.

As they got out of the cars, Harry heard the dull echo of a tennis ball being struck by a not too tautly strung tennis racquet. The sun was moving towards Ullernasen and he caught the smell of frying pork chops coming from one window.

Then the show was on. Two police officers jumped over the fence with MP-5 machine guns at the ready and sprinted round the outside of the house, one to the right and one to the left.

The policewoman in Harry's car stayed where she was; her job was to maintain radio contact with the central switchboard and to keep potential spectators away. Waaler and the last officer waited until the other two were in position, secured their walkie-talkies in their breast pockets and jumped over the gate with service pistols raised. Harry and Halvorsen stood behind the police car, watching the whole show.

'Cigarette?' Harry asked the policewoman.

'No thanks,' she smiled.

'I was wondering if you had any.'

She stopped smiling. Typical non-smoker, Harry thought.

Waaler and the officer were standing on the step, having taken up positions on either side of the door, when Harry's mobile phone rang.

Harry saw the police officer's eyes roll. Typical amateur, she was probably thinking.

Harry was about to switch off his mobile-he just checked it wasn't Rakel's number on the display first. The number was familiar, but it wasn't Rakel's. Waaler had already raised his hand to give the signal when Harry realised who was ringing. He took the walkie-talkie from the open-mouthed police officer.

'Alpha! Stop. The suspect is ringing me right now. Can you hear me?'

Harry looked over to the step where Waaler was nodding his head. Harry pressed the button on his mobile and pressed it to his ear.

'Hole speaking.'

'Hello.' To Harry's surprise, it wasn't Even Juul. 'This is Sindre Fauke. My apologies for disturbing you, but I am standing in Even Juul's house and I think you should come here.'

'Why? And what are you doing there?'

'I think I might have done something stupid. He rang me an hour ago and told me to come over immediately, his life was in danger. I drove up and found the door open, but no Even. And now I'm afraid he's locked himself in his bedroom.'

'Why do you think that?'

'The bedroom door is locked and when I tried to peep through the keyhole, the key was on the inside.'