“Yep.”
“Who’s driving?” Anna asked.
Jake took the keys from Anna. “It’s only a short drive. Five or six hours. I’ll drive, you navigate. Kjersti can sleep in the back.”
Nobody complained. They all just piled in and drove off like it was their car.
Inside the car, Kjersti asked, “What you do with the SAT phone?”
“Set it into the woman’s open bag when I bumped into her,” Jake said. “It’ll soon be on its way to Stockholm. Might fool them for a while.” In retrospect, he probably should have simply hidden it on the train and let it go to their original destination, Mora. But he didn’t want the men and the phone found at the same time. Besides, it was possible they could have changed directions.
Jake drove south toward Borlange. There was no good route from Falun to Oslo. Most roads led to Stockholm, but there were smaller roads that wound through little villages to the west, and Jake would have to decide randomly which one to take. About fifteen miles down the road, after passing through Borlange, there was a sign for the airport. He pulled over onto a side street and stopped the car, the engine still running.
“What’s going on?” Anna asked him.
He turned off the engine and looked into the rearview mirror at Kjersti. She looked perplexed also.
“We need to split up,” Jake said.
Kjersti said, “Why?”
Time for him to come clean and explain what was going on. “It would be safer for us to split up. The two of you should fly to Oslo, go to NIS headquarters and explain what has happened.”
“What about the virus?” Anna asked. “We have a stake in this also.” Meaning Interpol.
“Truthfully,” Jake said. “Not your division.”
“A biohazard, a bio-weapon. That is my business,” Anna reminded Jake.
Jake reached into his pocket and retrieved an item that had fallen from the metal box when it had been shot in Finland. Between his thumb and forefinger, he lifted it to show them. The early morning light shone onto the oval-shaped one carat gemstone, changing it quickly from a brilliant burgundy-red to a dark shade of green.
“What is that?” Kjersti asked, scooting forward to get a closer look.
Anna tried to take it from Jake, but he pulled his hand back.
“This, my friends, is the flu virus everyone wants to kill for,” he said, closing the gem into his hand.
“A ruby?” Kjersti said. “We went all the way to the Arctic for a ruby?”
“It’s not a ruby,” Jake said. “Watch this.” He opened his hand and the gem was a beautiful red and turned swiftly to the dark green again. See that change in color?”
“What kind of trick is that?” Kjersti asked.
“Anna knows,” he said. “Remember that jewelry store we visited in Zurich?”
Anna thought and then nodded her head. “Yes. But I don’t remember the name of it.”
Jake handed the gem to Anna, who played with the color change for a moment and then handed it back to Kjersti, who did the same thing.
“That’s amazing,” Kjersti said, handing it back to Jake. “What is it?”
“It’s called Alexandrite,” he said. “Named after the Russian Czar, Alexander the second. It’s one of the world’s rarest gems. This one, because of the color clarity, brilliance and cut, is probably worth about seven to eight grand.”
“You’re kidding,” Anna said, her interest suddenly more intense.
“Wait a minute,” Kjersti said. “How did you get it from the box?”
Jake didn’t answer. Instead, he got out and went to the trunk, returning with his backpack. He pulled the metal box from inside and showed them the hole in the side, closed off now with the broken pencil. “A bullet strike in Finland,” he said. “The lead is still inside here. This one popped out before I plugged the hole, but I could see that the box was full of them.” He put the box back in the backpack and zipped it shut.
“Let me get this right,” Kjersti started. “The old Soviets filled this box with these Alexandrite gems, sealed it, marked the box as biohazard, and flew it out of the country in nineteen eighty-six on a MiG, which proceeds to crash on Spitsbergen Island. The Soviets send a crew of KGB to find it. The Americans send the CIA after it, thinking it’s something it isn’t. They all die and are lost under the snow for more than twenty years. Until we go up there and find it.”
Anna twisted her head to the side, her version of misunderstanding. “But why wait so long to go back after it? Especially if it’s not the virus, but precious gems.”
That had also bothered Jake. “I believe the pilot thought the mission was something else. He thought he was doing something for his country. Perhaps the KGB officers were equally motivated. They were sent to simply clean house, destroy any evidence of their mission.”
“Which was?” Kjersti asked him.
Jake had spent much of the trip down the Swedish countryside wondering that as well. But he had a few theories, based on who was involved. “I think the old Soviet guard were flexing their muscles. Gorbachav was on his way to Iceland for a summit with Reagan. Any deal, they felt, would weaken the Soviet Union. They thought Gorby was giving away too much of the Soviet state. As it turned out, the old guard was right. They were about to lose power. Anyway, I think that our good friend Victor Petrova, who was at the time in charge of the Disinformation Department in the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, came up with the ruse. Petrova must have somehow stolen the Alexandrite stones from the mines in Russia’s Ural Mountains, had them cut, and then came up with a way to ship them out of the country by flying them out on a MiG. By then the Alexandrite mines were almost dried up. They’re still finding some there, but in much lower quantities and size.”
“Wait a minute,” Anna said. “Why doesn’t Petrova go back for the gems in the past twenty years?”
“Why send you now and not his own men?” Kjersti chimed in.
Jake had already thought this through as well. “First, he had no idea where the MiG had crashed on Spitsbergen. We checked on that. They only had a general idea of the crash site back then. The KGB found a local to help them find the crash. That man went missing at the same time, and we suspect the KGB killed him. Our two men found them, but were not able to call in their position before being killed. They had one of the old SAT phones back then, and coverage at the time was only a fraction of what it is today. And you saw I was having a problem with my current SAT phone because of the Boreal Activity. Records show they had similar activity back in nineteen eighty-six. So, if our guys couldn’t relay the crash site position, the KGB must have been similarly hampered.”
“So Petrova thought he had lost the gems forever,” Anna said.
Jake nodded. “Until recently. And by now Petrova is calling himself Oberon and a dozen other names, running one of the largest crime syndicates in Northern Europe.”
“Sill,” Kjersti said. “Why have you go to Svalbard to get it for him?”
“Ah. That’s the mad genius at work. He’s the king of disinformation. The master of manipulation. He’s still being watched by the SVR. If he goes to Svalbard or sends his own men, they might realize he’s not going there for vacation.”
“I’m still confused about the original MiG mission,” Kjersti said.
“Me too,” Anna said.
“The old Soviet guard thought that Victor Petrova was shipping the modified flu virus to Iceland during the Reykjavik summit between Reagan and Gorbachav. They were going to release the virus in the capital a day before the summit. It would quickly spread to all the major players, killing both Reagan and Gorbachav and setting back any peace process decades. The Soviet Union would remain strong.”
“How high did the plot go?” Kjersti asked.
Jake smiled. “It was limited to an Air Force general and a few Politburo members, who all ended up dying mysteriously in late October of eighty-six.”