Krogh turns.
‘That hedge there,’ he says, pointing to one side of the house. ‘It’s dense. It’ll provide cover. There is also a veranda close to the hedge. I want two men up on that veranda, but do it quietly. I don’t want him to hear your footsteps and panic.’
The officers Krogh is pointing at nod.
‘On the other side, to the right of the garage, you can get across the fence and access the back garden. There are no windows on that side, something that will help us get closer. But the house has several windows on its long sides. So stay out of sight. See, but don’t be seen.’
Krogh then goes over to two men who are assembling rifles.
‘If you see the hostage taker aim his gun at the hostage and declare an intention to shoot, then you must await orders from me before you can take him out. No heroics. Understand?’
The marksmen nod.
The rest of the officers take up positions, both outside and inside the white picket fence.
‘Okay,’ Krogh says, walking towards Bjarne. ‘What do you make of the hostage taker’s demand?’
Bjarne shakes his head.
‘Difficult to know. Even the lunatic in there must know that you can’t just pick up the phone and, hey presto, the Justice Secretary comes running.’
‘Well, I think we should alert her,’ Krogh says. ‘So that at least she’s aware of the situation.’
‘I’ve tried getting hold of some of her aides, but it’s chaos at the Ministry right now. As far as I can understand the Minister is about to hold a press conference.’
Krogh nods.
‘The hostage taker wants to talk to her. He has a gun, which he says he’s not afraid to use. I think that a call to a Minister is a small price to pay to save someone’s life.’
Bjarne takes a deep breath.
‘I’ll get my boss to put some pressure on the Justice Secretary’s staff.’
Chapter 78
The words from Katarina’s mouth were like a punch to the stomach. Trine had never thought that the sound of a name could cause her so much pain. The years they have spent together. The plans they have made. Their dreams. The foundations underpinning everything they had done – blown away. And she understands it now; she sees how the traps were set for her and how she walked into each one without even thinking about it. Just because he told her to.
It was fiendishly clever. And now it’s too late. He has won.
Or has he?
Trine looks at the clock on the wall, gets up and rolls her shoulders. She goes to the cloakroom and looks at herself in the mirror. Tiny needles of anger prick her at the thought of what she is about to do. In the last half hour alone she has been to the lavatory three times. An hour’s run would be welcome now, she thinks, to drain the stress from her body. She is still suffering the after-effects of the liqueur she drank too much of in the cabin.
Trine removes a strand of hair from her forehead, adjusts her jacket and turns around in the full-length mirror. She looks okay, doesn’t she?
Yes, she assures herself. You look fine.
She inhales, stares into her own eyes and then closes them. She knows she is going to hate every second of this press conference. She returns to her desk, picks up the pages she printed out, though she is not sure if she really needs them. She has always been comfortable giving speeches and lectures without notes. Nevertheless it’s good to have something to look at, just in case. Something to do with her hands.
She is about to step outside when Katarina Hatlem rushes in. After she had made a clean breast of everything to Trine, Katarina said without prompting that she would obviously clear her desk immediately and not come back. Now she is waving her arm in the air and holding a mobile in her hand.
‘Trine, wait,’ she calls out.
It is as if the confrontation they had only a couple of hours ago has been wiped from her face. There is a sense of urgency to her movements that Trine has seen many times before. It means that something has happened.
Katarina stops right in front of Trine and puts her hand over the microphone on the mobile.
‘I’ve got a policeman on the line,’ she says. ‘There’s a hostage situation in Jessheim.’
Trine gives her a look of exasperation.
‘I’m just about to give a press conference, Katarina, I can’t—’
‘Two seconds,’ Katarina implores her. ‘Just listen to what he has to say for two seconds.’
Trine looks at her ex-friend for a moment before she takes the mobile and says ‘yes’. A man introduces himself as Arild Gjerstad.
Trine says nothing while she listens to his briefing. Her thoughts are racing. When Gjerstad has finished, she says: ‘Tell the hostage taker I’m on my way. Tell him that he will get to talk to me, but that I want something in return. Such as a hostage.’
Trine hands back the mobile to Katarina without ending the call.
‘I want you to go to the press room,’ Trine says as she walks past her. ‘Tell the reporters that the press conference has been postponed until further notice.’
Trine asks her secretary to inform her driver that she will be downstairs in two minutes. She doesn’t even put on a coat before she goes over to the lift and hits the down button several times. Four minutes later, after having fought her way through a throng of noisy reporters who can’t understand why she is leaving without talking to them, she is on her way to Jessheim in her ministerial car, a perk she thought she had enjoyed for the last time. The driver asks if he should request assistance from the police to get out of the capital as quickly as possible, but Trine doesn’t think that will be necessary. She regrets her decision once they get stuck in the Trafikkmaskinen interchange roundabout, but the traffic eases up as they approach the Vålerenga Tunnel. Then it slows down again near Furuset, and again at the exit to Olavsgård. Trine looks at her watch. The call came in thirty minutes ago. She hopes she won’t be too late.
The drive to Jessheim takes almost fifty minutes, but the location proves easy to find. Crowds of curious neighbours and news-hungry journalists have gathered behind the police cordons. A reporter from TV2 is holding a microphone in her hand while talking to a camera; her face is solemn as if she were about to announce a death. Then her gaze is drawn to the car in which Trine is travelling. It takes only a few seconds before the blonde reporter recognises the ministerial car and realises who has arrived.
Trine tries to find something to focus on while her driver looks for a place to park. She gets out of the car and instantly feels everyone’s eyes on her so she picks a spot above them and concentrates on that, ignores the murmur of voices and makes her way through the crowd and over to police cordons. The TV reporter calls out to her.
‘Minister, what are you doing here?’
Trine doesn’t reply, but identifies herself to the uniformed officer standing guard and is let through immediately.
Her heels make a steady clicking sound against the damp tarmac. Everyone she meets looks at her and follows her with their eyes. She finds the car marked ‘Head of Operations’ and nods to some of the uniformed officers outside.
‘Hello,’ she says. ‘Who is in charge here?’
A tall, dark-haired man turns around.
‘I am. My name is Simen Krogh,’ he says, holding out his hand.