The inspector got comfortable by taking the largest chair in the room while the sergeant stayed alert near the door. The room maid had not yet been around, but the place was still tidy because Kyle’s military training had ingrained in him the need for being shipshape in his personal space. Her eyes vacuumed the place while he ordered room service, coffee for three.
“So. What is this about, Inspector?” Kyle asked.
Like all cops, she answered with a question of her own. “Why are you here, Mister Swanson?”
He came back with, “Do I need a lawyer?”
Aura shook her head. “This is a courtesy visit. No, you are not in any trouble. Why are you in Finland?”
Swanson sighed with resignation and found a straight chair off to one side. “A combination of business and pleasure.”
The sergeant by the door had pulled a small notebook computer from his jacket and read from it. “Executive vice president of Excalibur Enterprises, Limited, based in London and Washington, D.C.”
“Yes.” Best to keep the answers simple.
“And you have a meeting at one o’clock today with Colonel Max Piikkilä at our Defence Ministry.” A bit of acting.
“No. It’s at two o’clock.”
Inspector Aura spoke. “That is your only business appointment, and it was only requested late yesterday afternoon. Why was that?”
“I hope to get the colonel’s advice and permission for a tour of some Finnish industrial plants during the next few days so as to introduce our product line around. That sort of thing, Inspector. Normal outreach procedures, scratching for new customers and suppliers. You know how it is.”
She kept the pleasant look on her face. “You arrived very late at this hotel. Why was that?”
“I flew in from Italy after a business trip there, and it was a long flight.”
Sergeant Kiuru pulled up more information and spoke. “Yet you did not arrive on any commercial flight. You cleared customs on the military side of the airport. That is peculiar.”
Kyle answered, “Not in my world. We frequently fly on private aircraft, and, in fact, own one. Waiting in airports is a waste of time, and time is money.”
Now the inspector’s eyes grew flinty as she took over. “The plane’s tail number shows that it is an aircraft that we know is owned by a front company controlled by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. So I am wondering why this wandering important business executive with only one appointment in Finland flies in on a CIA plane.”
Swanson waved off the question as also being unimportant. “There is nothing mysterious about it at all, Inspector Aura. My company deals in advanced military technology and maintains very good relations with various government agencies. My office discovered the plane was available in Rome, while our company jet was in England. It was a simple lease arrangement and it happens all the time.”
“A man with your incredible military record flies all the way from Rome to Helsinki on a CIA jet for a business appointment that had not yet been made?”
“You spent a long time in the U.S. Marines,” read the sergeant. “Exceptional sniper.”
Kyle did not respond other than nodding in the affirmative.
“What of the pleasure side, Mister Swanson? You mentioned business and pleasure.”
“Now you are getting personal, Ms. Aura.” He intentionally dropped her official title. “Who I want to see in my personal life is none of your business.”
She rolled her eyes, as if enjoying the verbal fencing. “Ah. An affair of the heart. Perhaps you have a secret lover in our country. How touching. What’s her name?”
“Again, none of your business.”
“It is all my business. Sergeant? What does your computer say about all of this?”
“There was nothing romantic at all. He was brought to the hotel by Special Agent Lem James of the U.S. Department of State Security Service, and they had drinks. The bartender and registration desk confirm.”
“So Lem James is the friend that you came to see? I’ve known him for several years. Very nice man. Very professional and quite large. Do you know where he was born? I do. How many children does he have?”
“You can ask him about his life story in about thirty minutes. He’s meeting me here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Lem is taking me over to the embassy to introduce me around to the trade and military people there. Then we have some lunch and I go to see Colonel Piikkilä…”
“And then you go tour some plants and maybe take a reindeer sleigh ride and watch the northern lights with your secret lover. Before you do any of that, can you tell me why the U.S. Embassy has tightened its security so much? The Marine guards have even requested extra local police patrols. What’s going on, Mister Swanson?”
“Since I have never been there, I don’t know what they do.” Kyle thought Inspector Aura’s grandmother may have been a great white shark.
The woman got up and brushed down her jeans, as if she had just eaten crumbly toast. “No. Of course you would not know. I mean, how could you? Before we leave, however, you need to understand a bit of important Finnish history.”
“Fine. I’m listening. Anything to get rid of you.”
She smirked. “Our country is a proud member of the European Union. We have never joined NATO, not only because we think that it is merely a front for American policy in the region, but also because we signed a neutrality treaty in 1948 with our trading partner and good next-door neighbor, Russia. Our government has no intention of antagonizing Russia more than we do already on almost a daily basis.”
“May I reply to that nonsense?”
“No. I came here to inform you, Mister Swanson, that whatever is going on with you and the American embassy will not be allowed to spill beyond those gates and put our country at risk.” Her words were sharp and then, from her purse, she withdrew a U.S. passport. “This is yours, sir. It will be returned to you tomorrow morning when you leave. You can make your own arrangements, but you are no longer welcome in Finland. Meanwhile, our people will follow you… for your own protection, of course. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to an important business executive.”
“Wait a minute. You are kicking me out of the country?”
She and the sergeant were at the door, ready to leave. “Yes,” she said. “And don’t come back.”
There was a small traffic jam in the hotel hallway as the Supo officers almost collided with the coffee trolley being pushed by a room service boy, and Lem James stepped from the elevator.
“Hello, Lem,” Inspector Rikka Aura said with a genuine smile. Old friends.
“Morning there, Rikka. And Alan, too.” James was puzzled, but showed no surprise at coming so unexpectedly upon Aura and Kiuru. He saw there was a coffee service for three on the little cart that pushed through as they stepped back against the hallway walls to let it pass. Kyle Swanson was leaning against the open door of his room, grimly watching. James wanted to ask, “What the fuck is going on here?” but instead said, “You guys are up bright and early.”
“Yes,” confirmed Alan Kiuru, with a satisfied look. “Early birds out catching worms. What happened to your face?”
The DSS agent’s right eye socket and cheek was a pattern of yellow, black and purple, and his lip had been cut. “My son and I were doing mixed martial arts last night,” he explained.
The inspector laughed. “Your son is four years old.” She flicked her eyes back to Swanson. I know the family.