“The Politidirektor (National Police Commissioner) of the Politidirektoratet (National Police Directorate) is pleased to announce that the Commissioner is, effective immediately, assigning and loaning Politiforstebetjent (Police Chief Inspector) Harald Sohlberg of the Oslo Police Regional District to Interpol at the request of the General Secretary of Interpol.
“Herr Sohlberg will serve as a senior Interpol Adviser for an indefinite period of time on critical international law enforcement matters that directly affect Norway and Europe. Furthermore, pursuant to long-standing arrangements with Interpol, Herr Sohlberg will continue in his capacity as a Politiforstebetjent for the Oslo Police Regional District and continue reporting to Commissioner Ivar Thorsen of the Oslo Police Regional District.”
Of course the government’s official press release failed to disclose that Thorsen moved Sohlberg to Interpol after Sohlberg exposed scandalous judicial corruption in Norway’s Supreme Court. The humiliating exile still rankled Sohlberg even though it had taken place 15 years ago on the very day that Sohlberg was celebrating his fifth year as a highly respected Politiforstebetjent.
Sohlberg cursed. He left his father’s cabin to take a long walk on Ulvoya Island before he got angry enough to punch a hole through his father’s desk.
A few miles away another man was about to receive another troubling communication. The man turned on the laptop computer and waited. He was in for a long long night and it was not just because of the midsummer Sankthansaften celebrations. He did not look forward to the midnight sun which would serve as a constant reminder that his personal life was one of extremes. Oslo provided 18 hours of daylight in the summer and 6 hours of daylight in the winter and those unbalanced extremes were no different than those in his heart and soul. He felt that he was losing his grip on reality.
The spy software SILENT KEYLOGGER finally loaded and asked him for his password.
You are?
He typed in *******.
The man felt sick when he read the latest entries that the key logging software had picked up from the desktop computer in the small bedroom down the hallway. Despite the waves of nausea he was grateful that keyboard monitoring software accurately and secretly records every single keyboard strokes that anyone makes on a computer.
What does a man do when he is betrayed on every single possible level of a relationship?
The question disturbed him more than the answer or answers. The question inevitably raised the question of how he had allowed himself to be trapped in such a sick and false relationship. Twisted and putrid would not begin to describe the mess he had gotten himself into so stupidly and recklessly. The worst part of his troubles was that he still could not believe that someone as intelligent and educated as himself could be so thoroughly duped.
A door opened and closed somewhere in his house. Footsteps got closer. He quickly exited the spyware and clicked on his favorite game of solitaire.
“Hei,” she said after opening the door, “what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just my solitaire.”
Lie upon lie.
Harald Sohlberg hurried away from his parent’s home. He had been looking forward to his three week summer vacation until the phone call from Ivar Thorsen. He turned and looked fondly at his ancestral home.
The older Sohlbergs had insisted that he and his wife stay at their home on Fiskekroken or Fish Hook Drive in Ulvoya Island. His parents now spent most of the year living in the United States of America with his younger brother the petroleum engineer who lived in Houston Texas working for British Petroleum. His parent’s generosity in providing free lodging at Fiskekroken or Fish Hook Drive meant that Interpol would save a fortune in hotel bills because Oslo was far more expensive than insanely overpriced cities like Tokyo and London and Moscow.
A block away Sohlberg walked past the grand old home where Thorsen had grown up while his mother worked as a maid for the bank executive. In the distance he saw a swimming pool through the trees and wondered if the banker or his wife or his son still lived there.
Sohlberg looked with suspicion at Ulvoya’s attractive gardens and beaches because he knew how well the gardens and beaches temporarily tricked residents into forgetting during the summer months that they lived in subArctic Norway where six months from now they’d be in the dark in sub-freezing weather.
“And yet. . so pretty,” he said softly to himself.
Less than a mile across the round island of Ulvoya is one of the many charming islands in the Oslofjord just five miles southeast of downtown Oslo. The splendid sun-drenched views of the land around Oslo and the Oslofjord reminded him of Seattle and Puget Sound in the State of Washington USA. Sohlberg and his wife lived in the Seattle suburb of Silverdale among the pines and waters behind Bainbridge Island.
“Hei!” he said warmly to joggers and pedestrians who threw him cold looks. He was no longer used to the curt and reserved nod that Norwegians traditionally give to strangers including neighbors and others whom they know for decades without ever speaking one single word of acknowledgment or greeting.
He blushed at the thought of acting like a tourist in his own country.
Sohlberg wondered if he would ever fit in his old country. He felt like an alien among his own people. Without a doubt he and Fru Sohlberg had changed a lot by living abroad for so long: four years at Lyon France; four at New York City; two at Salt Lake City in Utah; and, ten at Vancouver in Canada and Seattle in the USA. Change had also arrived at Fiskekroken which was now packed with homes in what had once been farm fields and forests and fisherman’s cabins.
He marveled at how Ulvoya Island had transformed itself since 1975 when his family had moved into their new home which was one of the first modern homes built on the island. Enchanting Ulvoya was now crammed with homes. Sohlberg fondly and sadly remembered the heavily-forested island from his childhood. He certainly did not expect to find the island so grossly overbuilt with homes. The homes squeezed side-by-side reminded him of pleasant well-to-do neighborhoods in Los Angeles like Pacific Palisades.
He walked west on Fiskekroken and was shocked to see so many new homes on the narrow street without sidewalks. Sohlberg could see downtown Oslo between the homes although the larger northern islands of Malmoya and Ormoya sometimes blocked views of the city skyline. He turned into Makeveien which circled the island.
At the corner with Vargveien he stopped. He looked up the gentle hill and stared at the house where his life had taken a turn for the worse when he was three years out of law school. The pretty blue house on Vargveien reminded him of the great painter Gauguin who had suffered so much in Tahiti in the Maison du Jouir or House of Pleasure. This Norwegian house of pleasure had also turned into a house of pain.
“Harald?”
A matronly woman stood by a hedge. She looked vaguely familiar. He thought a few seconds and said the first name that came to him:
“Fru Fredriksen.”
“My. . you’ve gotten very formal Harald.”
He instantly realized his mistake but he did not let on to having confused the daughter for the mother. Instead he smiled and said:
“Margerete. . one has to be formal in my line of work.”
How she had changed! The sexy and thin high school vixen Margerete was now a thick-set grandmother with a very square and solid body. He vaguely remembered that a few years ago his mother had told him that Margerete had gone through several unhappy marriages and affairs and was living back on Ulvoya Island with her parents. He wondered if he also looked as old and worn with his bald spot and thinning hair which he kept very short to hide his baldness and age.