They had made it across the ocean with plenty of fuel, landed at a small airport near Tromso, the city called the ‘Paris of the North,’ which Jake wasn’t buying, and rented a car with cash. Tromso was far more beautiful than Paris, with the snow-capped mountains ringing the town and the ocean-front fjords that ran through the area like a spider web. He had come to hate the crowded big cities of Europe. Although Vienna didn’t seem big to him, the traffic could be a nightmare. Rome was worse and Paris perverse. No, he missed living in Innsbruck. Tromso might have been in the running if it weren’t for the cold winters and the bug-filled summers. Not to mention the strange lighting — long summer nights and nonexistent daylight in the winter.
Now, the three of them were together in more confined space, having transferred their gear from the helo to the rental Volvo sedan. They had just grabbed dinner, decided it would be better to keep moving, so they would drive through the night in shifts. Jake had taken the wheel first, with Anna at his side, and Kjersti sprawled out in the back sleeping. It was closing in on midnight, but the sky was still a strange glow of light. The Land of the Midnight Sun finally made sense to Jake. Most of the night would be in that weird glow. The highway they were driving resembled a tunnel as it wound along a river, the canyon walls periodically steep and narrow.
According to the map, they would reach the border in a few miles. They were at the top of the world here, with Norway, Sweden and Finland coming together in a narrow stretch of land. Not far to the northeast and they could have crossed into Russia. Traffic? In the past fifty kilometers they had come across only two other cars.
“Are you sure we cross into Finland?” Anna asked Jake, her voice quiet and confused.
“Yes,” he said. “But for only about a hundred and twenty kilometers. Then we head south into Sweden.”
“Wow. I had no idea they all came together like this. Where do we go from there?”
Jake looked into the rearview mirror at Kjersti, whose breathing indicated she was in deep sleep. “We continue south and eventually work our way to Oslo.”
“Why the crazy route? We could have flown and been there by now.”
They had been over this before. Jake was tired and didn’t want to explain it again, but he also knew that Anna was finally feeling better. She had been constantly sick while flying on the helo. Not to the point of throwing up all the time, but she had lost her lunch a few times in the last couple of days. So, considering the circumstances, she might not have heard everything he told her.
“We couldn’t bring the box on a commercial flight,” he said. “I couldn’t trust placing it in baggage. And there was no way they would have allowed it in carry-on. This is the only way. Plus, the bad guys could easily pick us off at commercial airports.”
“What about crossing the borders? We have enough firepower for a small army.”
Jake had thought about that. “You have Interpol credentials and Kjersti is with Norwegian Intelligence. That should give us enough clout to pass through without trouble. Besides, Kjersti said the border crossings up here are not very heavily controlled.”
“I guess we’ll find out in a minute.”
They passed a sign saying the border was ahead. As Jake slowed and collected the passports, he looked for any sign of human activity as he powered the window down. Only one small building sat between the two lanes of traffic. No gate. He slowed even more and a man appeared from a door, his hand up. Jake stopped and handed the passports to the older man. So this was where border patrol agents went to retire, Jake thought.
The man asked him something in a language he didn’t understand. English, German, French or Italian, Jake asked the man.
“I speak English,” the border agent said. “I mentioned to you this was a strange group of passports. American, Austrian and Norwegian.” His disposition turned from confused to dubious. “What’s the purpose of your visit to Finland?”
Jake saw Kjersti wake in the back seat.
“We’re tourists,” Jake said. “Just passing through.”
“It’s after midnight,” the guard reminded Jake.
“Yeah, I know. I can’t get used to this light at night. How do you do it?”
“Please step out of the vehicle.” All serious now.
They didn’t have time for this. But he had their passports. Reluctantly, Jake did as the man asked.
“Jake,” Anna said, her hand reaching to him.
“It’s all right. I’ll take care of it.” He smiled at her and got out. As he did so, another man, a man in his early twenties, came out of the door, an automatic rifle in his hands across his chest.
The older man stepped toward the back of the car, giving Jake some room.
“Please open the trunk,” the older guard ordered.
“Why?” Jake asked.
“Inspection.”
“For what?”
“Contraband. Drugs. Maybe a bomb. You could be terrorists.”
Jake shook his head. This was crazy. He was trying to save all of their asses from a deadly virus. Sure, they didn’t know that. Damn it.
Hesitating, Jake twirled the keys in his hand and threw them up in the air. As the old guard’s eyes followed the keys, Jake punched the man in the sternum, taking his breath away and bending him over. The young man backed up, his rifle coming around. Suddenly the back car door opened, hitting the young man in the legs and swiveling him toward Jake again. With a sweep, Jake took the young man off his feet and into a sleeper hold. But as the man struggled, his gun discharged three rounds into the trunk of the car. Jake thrust his knee up into the man’s kidney, making him drop the rifle and come to his knees. A second later and he had passed out.
Kjersti grabbed the rifle and pointed it at the old man, who had started to recover and grab for his handgun on his side.
Jake took the gun from the man’s holster and retrieved their passports. “Watch them,” he said, and then ran into the building, the gun pointing in all directions. Nobody else there. He came outside again.
By now Anna was out of the car. “What the hell, Jake.”
Jake grabbed the young man and dragged him inside the building, while Kjersti escorted the old man inside. He hand-cuffed and tied both of them.
“Get in the car,” Jake ordered. “Grab the keys out there,” he said to Kjersti. “You drive.”
When the two women were gone, Jake got close to the old border guard and said, “We are all officers of our respective governments. I’m sorry we had to do this, but we are tracking international terrorists from Russia. I will drop your guns precisely two kilometers down the road. I could have killed the both of you. We must get to Helsinki by tomorrow afternoon to intercept the terrorists. Do you understand?”
The man nodded his head.
“You didn’t see us. You understand?”
Head nod again.
“Good.”
Before leaving, Jake turned off the lights and then locked the door behind him. He jumped into the back seat and Kjersti gunned it, squealing the tires as they pulled away. Checking his watch, Jake realized the entire event had taken less than five minutes. They were lucky no other cars had come along.
In exactly two kilometers Jake had Kjersti pull over and, after wiping down their prints, he dropped the guns along the side of the road in tall weeds.
Back in the car and driving down the highway, Kjersti glanced at Jake in the rearview mirror. “I had heard you were crazy, but I didn’t expect that.”
“All we needed was someone there calling in our location. He should have just let us pass.”
“Trust no one?” she said, smiling.
“Something like that. Can you go a little faster. We need to get the hell out of Finland before those two break free.”
“How far for our turn?” Kjersti asked.