Sohlberg and the White Death (33 page)

“What deal is that?” said Rasch in a highly skeptical tone.

“No charges in exchange for my full cooperation.”

“Chief Inspector,” said Rasch, “I think we’re being sold a bill of goods that might not be so good.”

“I agree,” said Skrautvol with a smile. She was pleased at how well Rasch was handling his first homicide suspect.

Rasch moved up closer to Vikøren. “This is how it works. . . . You tell us your story. I’ll tape you and ask some questions. We’ll check out your answers. If it’s
all
true then we will make a recommendation to the prosecutor . . . who might or might not offer you a deal once he or she has
all
the necessary information from you. If there’s one tiny little lie in your story then you better believe that there will be a whole lot of charges for you.”

Ervin Vikøren looked up at his woman.

The golden locks of the vituperator moved forwards in unison as she looked down in an almost imperceptible nod. She had spoken.

“All right. Get your tape recorder and I’ll talk.”

Skrautvol radioed Giske: “We’re inside. All clear. What’s going on up there?”

“The property is booby-trapped every which way . . . rigged with all sorts of handmade crossbows that shoot pointed steel projectiles with vaned tails . . . very silent little killers. . . . I also found an improvised explosive device in the ground that looks like a steel barrel with a three-inch mouth packed with these fléchettes.”

“Be careful!”

“Of course. But we’re going to need bomb disposal experts to clean up the place before forensics can come up here.”

“Go ahead. Call headquarters. If necessary have the army send someone out.”

“Will do.”

Rasch reached into his jacket. He pulled out a small tape recorder and stared steely-eyed at Vikøren. “Ready?”

~ ~ ~

Vikøren sighed. “Where do I start?”

“At the beginning,” said Rasch.

“An old business contact called me.”

“Who?”

Vikøren and his woman had decided that if he was going to be sent to prison then they wanted to identify the man who had gotten Vikøren into trouble. The man’s name had to be given up so that he could suffer like Vikøren. “Devin Archer . . . this British guy. From London.”

“How do you know him?”

“I’ve done work for him before.”

“What work?”

“I brought stuff over from England on my boat.”

“What stuff?”

“I. . . .”

“We’re not interested in your old crimes unless you killed someone. So tell me.”

“Cocaine.”

“We’ll get into the details of that later. He calls you and says what?”

“He’s got a job for me. Seven passengers need to be picked up in Furuflaten and taken to Scotland. No questions allowed. Immigration and customs are to be avoided at all costs.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Seven hundred thousand U.S. dollars . . . in cash.”

“How much did you get up-front?”

“A third . . . in cash.”

“How much did you pay the Ingebrigtsen brothers?”

“Karl and Bjørn each got fifty thousand dollars as a down payment. I needed them as sailors . . . they knew my boat well. They could pilot the boat while I slept. And they could help me take care of the passengers if there was any trouble . . . they’re huge . . . they sometimes worked as bar bouncers during the winter.”

Vikøren described the seven passengers and the Ingebrigtsen brothers. His description matched the identities of the nine victims. “We went up the fjord. Everything was going well. The passengers brought pulla bread with them from Finland. They gave us some and we ate it.

“I soon realize that something’s wrong with the party. The boss is a nasty Russian man with stainless steel teeth. This guy and the two young Russians thugs with tattoos are clearly in charge of the two Asians and two other men who look Russian . . . one of them is the oldest in the group . . . maybe in his late sixties. I call him Grandpa Shakes because he’s really afraid of the nasty Boss. The other man is in his late forties . . . he’s a real cool customer . . . I call him Cool Hand . . . he’s a mystery. Cool Hand doesn’t seem to be afraid of the Boss or his two thugs.

“I notice that the Asians are also very
very
afraid of the Boss . . . I start wondering if the Asians and Grandpa Shakes are prisoners or hostages of some kind.

“I’m sorry I ever met Stainless Steel and those two crazy psychopaths covered with tattoos. . . . I knew those two were trouble as soon as I laid my eyes on them. They’re carrying submachine guns under their jackets . . . that was bad news. Then they open their duffel bags and what do I see?

“Vodka. . . . They start drinking as soon as we leave the marina . . . they grab the Asian woman and take her into one of the staterooms and start doing their business. The screams are horrible. Those crazy jerks. What did they think we were running? A cruise ship for their pleasure? . . . Those idiots ruined everything.

“I see the look on Karl and Bjørn . . . I can tell they’re not going to put up with those Russian thugs raping the Asian woman. The Ingebrigtsen brothers have a sister who’s around the same age. They complain to the Boss . . . Stainless Steel tells them to mind their own business.

“Karl and Bjørn then tell me that they want to be dropped off. I tell them I can’t do that. So they go back out on the deck . . . I see them talking . . . they go down to the staterooms. I hear them pounding on the door and yelling at the Russian perverts to stop. Then those crazy Russians—”

Vikøren blanched. Rasch and Skrautvol watched as the man turned a nauseous shade of green.

“Those crazy Russian bastards shoot both brothers. Karl dies immediately from a chest wound . . . Bjørn the younger one gets shot twice in the gut. He’s bleeding all over and screaming in pain. The two Russian animals haul the brothers up to the deck and get ready to throw them overboard. I put my foot down and tell the Boss that if the Ingebrigtsen brothers are dropped in the water then I will not pilot the boat. Period. I tell him, ‘
Take it or leave it . . . I don’t care what happens.
’

“I want to stop the boat because it seems that Bjørn might still be alive. I think he might have a chance if we get him to a hospital. The Russian Boss gets his gun out . . . points it at my head . . . and tells me to keep going and not stop. And . . . before I can do anything about it . . . I see and hear the two thugs shoot each of the brothers in the head.

“We haven’t even left Lyngen Fjord and I have this disaster on my boat. I need to stall for time. So I use my stall line . . . it’s a special line I built . . . it feeds air into the fuel line . . . stalls the engine.

“I use the stall line for charter clients who abuse their privileges . . . or when I want to go home early. . . . You see . . . some clients want to go on fishing way past the agreed time . . . and without any night-time during the summer they feel entitled to keep fishing twenty or more hours. They think they can bribe me and the crew to continue working by offering us ridiculous tips. If we like them I just start the stall line and tell them we need to go back for repairs or risk getting lost at sea with a dead engine. If we don’t like them we take their tips and then I use the stall line.”

“Clever. Keep on.”

“I throw the switch and the engine starts stalling . . . I keep it up until the engine dies. By then we’re out at sea. . . . The waves get rougher. I make sure the boat gets rocked real hard by the waves . . . it never fails . . . everyone gets seasick . . . even the two psychopaths. Their boss is in worse shape.

“Before the Russian Boss goes down below I tell him that we have to go in for quick repairs and to change a bad fuel filter. The animal has no choice. I warn him that I will sink the ship with him and everyone on board if his two goons throw the Ingebrigtsen brothers into the water.”

“What was this man’s name?”

“The two thugs sometimes called him Pyotr . . . sometimes Nicolai. But I doubt if that’s his real name.”

~ ~ ~

Rasch and Skrautvol wanted to look at each other. This could be the break that they’ve been waiting and looking for. Nicolai Dvorkovich was the name on the Russian passport and Interpol badge left under the fish shack.

“Why do you think Nicolai wasn’t his real name?”

“Because I had to use the head . . . Cool Hand must have heard me coming down the stairs. He goes into the bathroom right before I get there . . . he leaves me a note in English on the sink . . . I can read a little English . . . he writes that we cannot leave Norway under any circumstances because
FSB Colonel
Pyotr Zubkov
plans on killing me and sinking the boat as soon as we land in Scotland. I already figured as much.”

“By any chance . . . do you still have the note?”

“Yes. But I won’t show it to you until I have a written and signed deal with the prosecutor. By the way . . . Cool Hand wrote down that they were on their way to Scotland where a private jet would take them down south to Columbia with stops at the Azores and Barbados.”

“We will be searching your home in a few hours.”

“Go ahead. Cool Hand’s note is not here or in the cabin.”

Rasch showed Vikøren a picture of the dead man who had the name Nicolai Dvorkovich on the Russian passport and Interpol badge.

“Who’s this man?”

“That’s Nicolai . . . also known as Pyotr . . . the Russian Boss with stainless steel teeth.”

“Do you have a name for Cool Hand?”

“Maybe his name is on the note. Maybe it’s not. But you won’t see the note until I cut a good deal with the prosecutor.”

“Did Cool Hand tell you anything else?”

“He wrote down that I had to quickly dock the boat somewhere nearby . . . and that’s when we have to take out the two thugs and their boss.”

“Then what happened?”

“I tell Stainless Teeth that I have a place where we can land safely before heading back out to sea . . . it’s isolated . . . no one will see us while I repair the boat and we hide the Ingebrigtsen brothers.”

“Did you head straight out to Per Moen’s fish shack?”

“Yes. What an awful trip. Horrible. The worst was the silence after the Asian woman stops crying. . . . We get to Moen’s pier . . . I pretend that I own the property.”

“Why did you pick Moen’s place?”

“It’s very isolated. And I hate him. Over the years he’s called the police on me for stealing his fish. He’s promised to shoot me if he ever caught me. This was my payback . . . if someone found the bodies in his shack then he’d become a suspect and get blamed. If he found them then he’d have to get rid of them. I never thought he’d call the police.”

“Go on . . . continue,” said Rasch.

“We get there and I tell the Russian Boss that the brothers can be buried under the floor of the shack . . . but that I need his two goons to bury them while I’m fixing the engine. I tell Stainless Steel that the little outbuilding on the pier has the filter and other parts that I need to do repairs.

“The two psychopaths get busy . . . they carry the bodies out of the boat and into the shack . . . that takes them a long time. I go down to the engine and pretend to look around . . . I ask the Russian Boss to come down and give me some help. . . .

“While I’m waiting for him I make a garrote. . . . I can’t shoot him since he’s got to go quietly . . . without making any noise that the two thugs outside can hear. I grab the strongest fishing line and tie the ends to two small pieces of copper pipe. . . . He walks down the stairs and I’m waiting for him with my harpoon. I ram it deep into his back between the shoulder blades and feel it cracking his spine. . . . He groans loud . . . real loud . . . but doesn’t scream. No one outside the boat can hear him anyway. I bash his head in with a wood club that I use to kill fish. Then I use my fish line garrote to strangle him. I hated that evil bastard . . . I could feel the line going all the way through his neck . . . I was so worked up that I even felt the line slide into the soft disc between the neck bones. I almost cut his head off.”

~ ~ ~

The intensity of Vikøren’s confession quickened the pulse and heartbeats and breathing of everyone in the room.

“I drop the Russian Boss on the floor and see that Cool Hand is up at the top of the stairs. He’s been watching me . . . he’s also been a lookout protecting me from the two goons outside. I realize that he’s not going to double-cross me because he hasn’t warned them.

“I get hold of my guns . . . I hid them on board because I had bad vibes about the whole thing from the start. I take my Beretta semiautomatic handgun. . . . I give Cool Hand my sawed-off twelve-gauge Remington shotgun. We also grab a lot of my deep-sea fishing tools . . . gutting knives . . . and gaffs. They’re perfect for hand-to-hand combat.

“We’ve got guns and knives but I still wonder how we’re going to take out the two goons who have submachine guns
and
semiautomatic pistols. But it’s got to be done.