Day of Wrath

Spiegel headed back to his own office suspecting that the other man wasn’t going to like the answers he would probably come up with. He’d worked long enough with Helen Gray to appreciate just how stubborn and determined she could be once she had her sights on an unsolved puzzle — or an enemy. What he couldn’t figure out was what she hoped to accomplish. Drug trafficking was a major crime, but it was so widespread that blocking one smuggling route just pushed the stuff somewhere else. Trying to stop it completely was as futile as good old King Canute ordering the tide back with a wave of his royal hand.

Besides, Helen and Peter Thorn weren’t going to be allowed back into Russia — not legally. So where were they going to pick up the trail they’d followed so disastrously to Pechenga?

The CIA officer closed the door to his office and turned toward the wall map pinned up behind his desk. His eyes fell on Norway and he nodded to himself. He’d bet that Helen and the colonel were on their way to the only link left in the chain they’d been tracing — to Bergen.

Well, Spiegel decided, he’d take some time before reporting back to Clifford. The Agency didn’t have many people on the ground in Norway — certainly not enough to waste their time and efforts looking for a couple of government employees who’d only broken a few travel regs. Besides, he thought, Helen Gray might just get lucky.

JUNE 10

_{Bergen, Norway}

The high northern sky over Bergen glowed a deep, rich golden orange — a color that touched the steep green slopes above the city with fire.

The same golden hue danced across the waters of the harbor — softening the outlines of the oil tankers, container ships, and fishing trawlers packed along Bergen’s piers. Although it was already evening, only a few lights gleamed from the windows of the city’s red-gabled houses, shops, bars, and restaurants.

Helen Gray glanced toward the moored ships and then back along the narrow street stretching up from the harbor toward the mountains. The season was working to their advantage. This close to the start of summer, Norway’s warm eighteen-and twenty-hour days attracted streams of tourists. To the casual observer, she and Peter would be just two more vacationers eager to take in the spectacular scenery and amble through the historic sites.

She turned to Peter. “All set?”

He showed his teeth in a quick grin and tapped the Canon EOS camera he’d purchased that afternoon. “You bet.”

With Peter tagging along a couple of steps behind her, Helen walked toward the first waterfront tavern they’d located earlier in the afternoon — after arriving by train from Oslo. They’d waited until now, after the dinner hour, when the men they were looking for would be relaxing, gossiping, and griping after their day working on the docks.

The Akershus was named after the historic fortress that guarded Oslo’s harbor. This was no tourist attraction, though.

The bar’s exterior was weathered, clearly not painted since the winter’s passing, and winters in Norway could be very hard.

Aside from the sign, a small anchor and a Viking longship painted on the front window were the only decorations. Still, it looked clean, and large enough to give them a good chance of finding the witnesses they needed.

Inside, a bar ran along one wall, down the full length of the room. It was surfaced with scarred dark wood. The room was paneled in matching wood, and ten or twelve tables filled the rest of the space.

Even this early in the evening, it was already half full. Some of the men were finishing meals, others were playing cards, and a few were already into their third beers, to judge from the empties.

Helen noticed that there were no women in the room at all.

This was clearly an all-male preserve. Only two men stood at the bar, talking soberly to each other and the barkeep, a large, blond, bearded man, who only needed a horned helmet to resemble one of his Viking ancestors.

Helen and Peter drew a few long looks from the patrons when they first entered. But once they’d ordered beers and taken a table in the corner, they were ignored.

Helen sipped her beer and studied the customers over her raised glass.

A few were young — in their twenties, perhaps. The others ranged up to sixty or so. Most were solidly middleaged.

And all of them were dressed in work clothes — dark-colored overalls, often stained, or ripped and mended. Their scuffed boots and the hard hats dangling from the chairs behind them hinted that these were exactly the sort of men the two Americans were looking for.

Finally, Helen nodded to Peter and got up, approaching a man in his mid-fifties. He sat alone at a table, nursing a beer. “Excuse me, do you speak English?”

“Nei.” Well, so much for him. She turned to a younger man at the next table, scruffy, but with an alert look. “Do you speak English?”’ she repeated.

“Ja, a little.”