She brought her face up and kissed him on the cheek. “What you thinking?” she whispered to him in German. It was more likely someone there spoke English than German.
“Maybe we should have just flown down to Oslo and get rid of this damn box.” His eyes rose to the overhead compartment that contained his backpack and the metal box before settling on her again.
“This is safer,” she assured him. “It’s more logical to be safe and make sure we don’t expose too many people.”
“We could have just kept the rental car.”
She shook her head. “Not if the Finns had reported us. What’s bothering you?”
Should he tell her? Not yet. He had been taken in by Colonel Reed, and by extension so had she. And that tightened his jaw. When he caught up with his old friend they would have more than words.
“Let’s get some sleep,” Jake said, sticking with the German. “We have about two hours to Boden, our next stop, and then another three or four to Umea.”
“Is that where we switch to the sleeper car?”
He nodded his head.
The two of them rested their heads together, holding hands, and drifted off to sleep.
Jake opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the Swedish police officer standing next to Kjersti, his right hand on the butt of his gun and the left looking at her passport and ticket. Anna was still sleeping, her head against the window now.
Kjersti tried not to look at Jake, but she was concerned. He could tell that much.
He slowly rose and stretched with the rocking train. Then he made his way up the aisle toward Kjersti, stopping because the police officer blocked his way.
The police was speaking English to Kjersti. Something about a rental car. Crap. They had already found it.
“Why didn’t you report the car stolen, then?” the policeman asked Kjersti.
She needed to come clean with the police and tell them she worked for Norwegian Intelligence. Or not. How could she explain running an op in Sweden without coordinating it with the Swedish Security Service, SAPO? No. She was right to not tell them. It was never a good idea to run something in another country without the home team knowing about it.
Jake got uncomfortably close to the police officer and shoved a thumb into his kidney, pushing him forward to the train window. The policeman dropped Kjersti’s passport while Jake rushed to the front of the car and through the door toward the next car.
Time seemed to stand still for a moment as the policeman and Kjersti were both caught off guard by Jake’s action. The policeman recovered and started after Jake.
By now Jake was in a sleeper car. He had to hurry. He rushed into a bathroom at the end of the car and waited.
When he heard the door between the car swish, he timed his exit and swung the door open with great force, smashing it into the cop’s face. He went down to his knees and Jake swept his foot up into his crotch, bringing the man to a rolling ball on the floor.
Quickly, Jake took the man’s gun and radio. He hated to do this. The guy was only doing his job. But Jake couldn’t let him stop them. Not now.
As the man held his nuts in a fetal position, something started to happen. Something that gave Jake an idea. The train was beginning to slow for their stop in Boden.
At that exact moment, the door opened and Jake turned to see Kjersti standing there, her mind obviously conflicted.
“What have you done?” Kjersti said.
The policeman got to his knees and Jake swiftly wrapped him in a sleeper hold. Seconds later the man passed out and Jake lay him on the ground.
“Jesus,” she said. “What do we do with him?”
“How long is our stop in Boden?”
“Five minutes. No more.”
“Good.”
“Go swap seats with Anna. I need Interpol for this.”
Kjersti left immediately.
While she was gone, Jake took off the man’s clothes, leaving him only in his underwear. He shoved the clothes, the gun and the radio and other gear into the closest sleeper unit, keeping only his handcuffs and the key.
When the door opened next, Anna entered and then stood there with her arms crossed. Jake was crouching over the near-naked man and it looked like he was trying to have man sex with him.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Jake said. “Help me get him to the end of this car.” He explained his plan to her and she shook her head and helped him.
Jake cuffed the man behind his back and dragged him to the front of the car. By now the train was almost stopped.
“You think this will work?” Anna asked him.
“Yes. He has no clothes.” Then his plan got even more interesting. “Go get those sleeping pills of yours and those two little bottles of whiskey you took from the room in Longyearbyen.”
“They’re a sleep aid,” she corrected, and then hurried off.
By the time she got back, the train had stopped in the station and Jake was between cars with the man.
“How many should we give him?” Jake asked her.
“Two knock me out.” She opened a bottle of water.
“Give him three.”
“He’s out cold,” she protested.
Jake lifted the man up to a sitting position, cranked his head back, and pulled the man’s mouth open. “Shove three in.”
She did it and followed them with the bottle of water. Jake shoved the man’s mouth closed and held his hand over it. The man tried to choke, but finally got the water and pills down. The activity woke the policeman, though. He moved his head from side to side.
“Now the whisky.”
“It could kill him,” she said.
“Bullshit. He’s a big guy. He can handle it. Besides, I don’t care if it all goes down. He just needs to smell drunk.”
“But the pills will take fifteen minutes to react.”
Crap. He hadn’t thought of that.
The man came more to life and Jake could feel his muscles tense beneath him.
“Get a baggage cart,” Jake ordered.
Anna looked concerned, but she did what he said.
When she was gone the man tried to struggle free, so Jake elbowed him in the head. That just made him more mad. He hated to do it, but Jake put him in another sleeper hold until the man passed out. He knew it could be dangerous making the man pass out twice in such a short period of time, but he had no other choice.
Jake dragged him outside the train onto the cart Anna had brought. People stared, wondering what was going on. Jake pushed the cart inside to the first police officer they could find. He was an older man. Anna showed her Interpol identification, which impressed the local cop, and explained that the man had been drunk and obnoxious. This kind gentleman with her had helped her subdue the drunk. But they had to get back on the train. She was tracking a possible terrorist. A real pro, Jake thought, as the two of them hurried back to catch the train. They just got aboard and the doors closed. The train pulled away from the station.
“Great job,” Jake said. “He should be out cold for about eight hours.”
“Will that be enough time?”
“No. But it’ll be the middle of the night. He’ll tell a story and it will take them a while to check into it. Probably until morning. By then we’ll be to our stop in Falun or Mora. Go back to your seat. I’ll get rid of the cop’s clothes, gun and ID.”
She smiled at him. “This is all too natural to you. Are you sure you worked for the government?”
He put his hand behind her head and kissed her on the lips. They embraced and she finally pulled away.
“Sure, change the subject,” she said as she wandered off through the sleeper car.
Alone now, Jake went into the sleeper compartment where he had stuck the cop’s gear. First he made sure he had not left any fingerprints on the man’s gun, and then he pulled a pillow case from a pillow and shoved everything inside. Then he looked at the window. They opened. Great.