Some of them did still come to the meetings he tried to set up several times a day in an attempt to coordinate the American effort with anything that the Norwegian police might have discovered regarding clues, evidence and theories. When he informed them that the body of Jeffrey Hunter had been found, he was given something that might at least resemble attention. As far as he could understand from the ambassador, a minor diplomatic tussle had ensued regarding the man’s earthly remains. The Norwegians wanted to keep him for further examination. But the US authorities simply refused.
‘I don’t give a damn,’ whispered Warren Scifford and gave his face a good rub.
He had warned Ambassador Wells.
‘They’re going to hit the roof when they realise what you’re up to,’ he’d said in exasperation when they met at the embassy the day before. ‘OK, they might have a US-friendly government, but I realise that this is a country where opposition can be strong. They might be stubborn, as you warned me, but they’re not stupid. We simply can’t -’
The ambassador had interrupted him with an ice-cold stare and a voice that made Warren hold his tongue. ‘I am the one who knows this country, Warren. I am the US ambassador to Norway. I have three meetings a day with the Norwegian foreign minister. The government of this country is constantly informed of what we are doing. Everything that we are doing.’
It was a complete lie and they both knew it.
Warren took a sip of the tea. It didn’t taste of much, but at least it was warm. The room was too. Far too warm. He went over to a box on the wall to see if he could turn down the temperature. He had never managed to get the hang of the whole Celsius system. The switch was turned to twenty-five degrees, and that was certainly too hot. Maybe fifteen would be better. He held his hand up to the vent in the wall. The air cooled immediately.
He hesitated for a moment, and then turned his computer off. There were two files on the desk. One was as thick as a book. The other contained no more than twenty pages. He took both of them and lay back down on the bed, bolstered by the pillows and cushions at the head of the bed.
He looked through the classified report on the intelligence situation first. It was more than two hundred pages long and he had not received it in a coded email, as he should have done according to various agreements and routines. He had discovered, by accident, that it existed when he overheard some snippets of conversation in the headquarters at the embassy, and had had to argue his way to a copy. Conrad Victory, the sixty-year-old special agent who was in charge of operations at the embassy, thought that Warren didn’t need the document. And in situations like this they operated with a strict ‘need-to-know’ policy, which Warren, given his experience, should understand. His role was to be the liaison between the Norwegian and American police. He had himself complained how difficult it was to resist the pressure the Norwegians put on him with regard to American information and intelligence. The less he knew, the less Oslo Police would interfere.
But Warren didn’t give in. When nothing else worked, he resorted to highlighting his close personal relationship with the President. Between the lines, of course. It worked. Finally.
He had fallen into bed at two in the morning and had not really had a chance to look at the document until now.
It was frightening reading.
In the intense search for the President’s kidnappers, it was becoming increasingly clear that her disappearance would be followed by a major terrorist attack. But neither the FBI nor the CIA, nor any of the other numerous organisations that fell under the umbrella of Homeland Security, was willing to use the name that Warren Scifford’s BSC Unit had given to such a potential attack: The Trojan Horse.
They didn’t dare to call it anything yet.
The problem was that no one knew what or who would be the target of any such attack. The intelligence was extensive, in terms of the amount of reports, tips, and theories, and speculation was overwhelming. But the information was fragmented, confusing and to a large extent contradictory.
It could be an Islamist conspiracy.
It presumably was an Islamist conspiracy.
It had to be the Muslims.
The reports indicated that the authorities had a full overview of all other potential criminals, attackers and relevant terrorist groups – to the extent that anyone could ever have a full overview. And as far as twisted, fanatical American citizens were concerned, they were always a latent threat, as the bomber Timothy McVeigh had shown when the Gulf veteran killed 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995. The problem was that there were no indications of abnormal activity in any of the many ultra-reactionary groups in the US. They were still under comprehensive surveillance, even post-9/11, when most of the attention was now focused in another direction. There was nothing to indicate that extreme animal-rights or environmental activists had taken the step from illegal, bothersome protests to real terrorist attacks. There were fanatical religious groups all over the States, but as a rule they were really only a threat to themselves. And there was nothing extraordinary to report from their ranks either.
And kidnapping an American president from a hotel room in Norway was light years away from what any known American group would have the ability to orchestrate.
It had to be an Islamist conspiracy.
Warren straightened his glasses.
The tangible angst in the report was fascinating. In all his thirty years in the FBI, Warren Scifford had never read a professional analysis that was so permeated by impending catastrophe. It was as if the truth had finally dawned on the entire Homeland Security system: someone had managed the impossible. The unthinkable. Someone had stolen the American commander-in-chief, and it was hard to imagine that those responsible had any limits as to what they might do.
The fear was focused on an attack targeting various unidentified installations on American soil. It was based on a number of reports and events, but the reports were insubstantial and the events ambiguous.
The most worrying and confusing factor was all the tips.
The American authorities were constantly receiving such communications, and more often than not there was no substance to them. House-owners who wished unpleasant visits from uniformed police on their neighbours could come up with the most fantastic claims about what was going on on the other side of the fence. Suspicious visits, strange sounds at night, abnormal behaviour and something that could only be dynamite in the garage. Or maybe even a bomb. Property sharks found it both convenient and effective to get help from the FBI in evicting troublesome tenants. There were no limits to what people claimed they had seen. Arabs going in and out at all times of day and night, conversations in foreign languages and the transport of boxes that contained God only knows what. Even teenagers might decide to report a classmate as a terrorist, simply because the guy had shown disrespect in trying it on with a girl he should have kept his hands off.
This time the tips seemed more like warnings.
The FBI’s field offices had received an unusual number of anonymous messages in the past few days. Some were phoned in, others came in emails. But the content was exactly the same, and they all claimed basically that something was going to happen, something that would make 9/11 pale into insignificance. Most of them said that the US was a weak nation that couldn’t even look after its president. They only had themselves to blame for leaving their ranks open. This time the attack would not be targeted on a specific area. This time the whole of the US would suffer, in the same way the US had caused suffering throughout the world.
It was payback time.
The most alarming thing was that the phone calls could not be traced.