He grimaced, hissed a single, heartfelt expletive and then cursed himself for letting his guard down. In the old days, when he worked on the principle that he might be forced on the run at any moment, he never went anywhere without a money-belt round his waist, containing cash, credit cards in at least two identities, matching passports and a clean pre-paid SIM card. Now he'd gone straight, he was as helpless as any other forgetful civilian.
So what did he have?
His most important asset was his phone. There wasn't much battery power left, so he'd have to ration its use, but its text log contained the messages he'd supposedly received from Jack Grantham. They were the only evidence in his defence, the only suggestion that he had called the fatal room-number at someone else's behest.
Besides the phone, his pockets produced his day-card for the Oslo public-transport network, a couple of two-euro coins left over from Paris, and sixty-eight Norwegian kroner in change. So was there anywhere he could go with that? He looked at a route map. The nearest station to the Swedish border was Halden, due south of Oslo. There was a train leaving in eight minutes' time, but the cheapest ticket was almost two hundred kroner. He'd just have to jump it and hope to avoid the ticket-collector once he got on board.
Carver looked around, as he had done repeatedly since he arrived at the station, sweeping the concourse for his enemies. This time he saw one, a man, apparently buying a bottle of water from a newsagent's stand. His back was turned to Carver, but his shaven head and the line of the black nylon bomber jacket stretched over his massive shoulders were familiar. He'd been third from the left in the picket line of men arrayed in front of the Mercedes.
Very calmly, without any sign of haste, Carver walked away from the ticket-machine.
The man put the mineral water back in the cooler and followed Carver, slightly behind him and a few paces to his right.
Carver spotted another familiar face, apparently losing interest in the departures board.
He was still walking quite slowly, as were the men tailing him. They were like competitors in a track-cycling sprint, idling around the track, waiting to see whose nerve would crack first, who'd be the first to try a burst of speed.
Carver walked beneath a sign directing passengers towards the airport express, the left-luggage office and the south exit. Ahead he could see another set of escalators. People were slowing down as they reached them, manoeuvring cases on and off. A mother was taking hold of her small child.
Now Carver ran.
He sprinted up to the start of the escalator, barging one man out of the way. Then he grabbed the long handle of a large roller suitcase and yanked it out of its owner's hand, dragging it behind him as he kept moving. As he stepped on to the downward escalator, Carver swung the case round so that it toppled over, blocking the entrance to the escalator. He got moving again, taking the moving steps three at a time while a barging, complaining, pleading knot of humanity formed around the case.
He reached the bottom and dashed towards the exit. Carver dared not slow down for an instant. He did not need to look behind him to know that his pursuers, whoever they were, had not been long delayed.
40
Tyzack had a vision in his head of how he wanted this to go. He'd make Carver sweat. He'd even give him the illusion that he might get away. But that illusion wouldn't last long. Tyzack had always been the fitter, faster and stronger man: that was one of the many things that had been so unjust about the way Carver had betrayed him. So he'd win, that was inevitable. He'd hunt Carver down, corner him and take him away – he had the place prepared, a farmhouse miles from anywhere. And then, when Carver was tired and hungry, when the arrogance had been knocked out of him and he knew for sure that no one was coming for him, Tyzack would sit down with him and have a little chat. They'd talk about the old days, put a few things straight before Tyzack pulled the plug.
So far, it was all going nicely. Carver had got away from his men in Karl Johans Gate, but that was all part of the game. It would have been a disappointment to catch him too easily. And the momentary illusion of success had only made Carver's failure at the station all the sweeter: it had been a joy to watch him search for the wallet. Only a few minutes gone, and already he was broke. His only shirt was covered with blood, and once he stopped running, he'd feel the evening chill something rotten.
But Carver wasn't going to stop running for a while yet. He'd keep moving till he felt the way they used to on training runs – past the point when you wanted to stop, and the point where you wanted to puke, to the point where you wanted to die. Tyzack would make sure of that.
He'd had enough of leaving it to his men to do the job. As Carver fled from the station, Tyzack stepped out of the fast-food joint from which he'd been observing the main concourse and broke into a steady jog. As he set off in pursuit, Tyzack felt in great shape, well on top of his game. This was a race he was going to win.
41
A motorway ran past the railway station before plunging into a tunnel that hid its traffic out of sight of the city. Carver didn't stop moving, trusting in his agility and the good sense of Norwegian drivers to keep him alive. He crossed the last two lanes and, breathing heavily now, ran beneath a ramp that carried traffic up to a raised intersection. He needed to slow down, get his bearings and gather his strength. As he looked around it struck him that he'd been driven right down to the sea. The men on his trail were like a pack of hounds running down a stag, backing him into a corner till he had nowhere left to run.
Ahead of him, to his left, lay a long thin strip of water that must once have been a dock. Away to his right, past a line of buildings, he could see a car park, beyond which was a much larger expanse of open water. Carver did not believe in stealing cars. He did not approve of petty criminals who preyed on innocent civilians, nor did he enjoy attracting undue attention from the police. But it was a bit late for scruples now. If he was going to get away, he'd need wheels. He turned right, picked up his pace again, and made for the car park.
He was running parallel to a development, which lay between the narrow dock and the car park, the size of a full city block. At first glance, it looked ordinary enough: modern, flat-roofed, maybe half a dozen storeys tall. The lower storeys were glass-fronted, revealing workshops of some kind. As he went further, however, Carver realized that this was actually just a rear extension to a much larger structure. And the more he saw of it, the stranger it became.
The whole thing was an exercise in asymmetry and skewed geometry, with almost no true horizontal or vertical lines: everything was tilted or off-centre. Its angular aggression reminded Carver of a gigantic, architectural stealth bomber, as though all the brain-scrambling planes of stone and glass had been chosen to deflect radar beams. Then he realized that there were people walking along great ramps that ran up the side of the building along and out on to the roof. Some were standing at the very top of the facade, waving down to friends on the ground far below, like figures in a Maurice Escher drawing of staircases that lead round and round in an infinite, impossible spiral.
This must be the famous Oslo Opera House that Thor Larsson had mentioned.
He was approaching the car park now. A narrow strip of water ran like a moat between the car park and the opera house, bridged by a single stone walkway. He looked around, trying to find a car to take, one left in a place where he would not be spotted.
It wasn't going to be easy. A cluster of figures was standing at the near side of the opera house roof, directly opposite him. For now, their attention was directed across the city towards the pillar of smoke and dust still rising from the wreckage of the King Haakon Hotel, but if they ever dropped their eyes, they would have a clear view over the parked cars. There were more people dotted around him, going to and from their vehicles.