The Princess Trap (26 page)

J
enna stumbled when she stepped
down from the truck in the darkness. The clearing swirled before her eyes, and if first Perry and then Nahira hadn’t grabbed her arm, she would have collapsed to the ground.

“She hasn’t slept for days,” she heard Perry say, as if trying to excuse her. After that she didn’t hear anything else.

When she woke up, it was morning. Perry lay next to her, fast asleep on a bed of pine branches, the scent of which had accompanied her in her dreams. In his sleep, Perry had put his left arm over her shoulder, as if to protect her.

Poor Perry
, thought Jenna.
Poor, brilliant little Perry. Now I know what Jonas meant when he called Malena his sister. You’ve been my brother during these last few days — and that will never change.

Carefully she removed his arm from her shoulder and sat up. In the tiny shack to which they had been taken last night, everyone was trying to be quiet in order not to wake the newcomers. Now Nahira was there, smiling at her and putting a finger to her lips, pointing toward Perry.

Jenna nodded.

Through the open door she could see Meonok carrying the television set to the pickup truck. Nearby, Lorok was busy lifting a satellite dish off a tree stump. It looked incongruous here in the forest clearing. A third man hurried through the narrow doorway, carrying a cable.

“We have to go!” whispered Nahira. “It’s too dangerous here. Since last summer we’ve moved from one place to another practically every day. It’s a pain, but we have to.”

Perry opened his eyes and stretched.

“Just don’t ask, ‘Where am I?’” said Jenna as he looked at her, half-asleep and bewildered. “You’re not Sleeping Beauty.”

He yawned. “More like Hansel and Gretel, by the looks of things,” he said. “Though I could sleep for days. Anyway, where are we?”

Lorok poked his head through the door. “We’re ready now,” he said.

“We’re off,” said Nahira, motioning to Perry to stand up. Jenna could see that she was on edge. “We’re almost off. No shower today, and you’ll have breakfast on the way.”

Perry yawned and stretched again. “OK by me,” he said, getting up. “As long as that whole kidnapping thing is over.” Then he seemed to recall what he had figured out the day before. “At least as long as that’s over,” he murmured again, but his face had fallen.

Jenna was scarcely listening. She had a feeling that she knew the third man who was helping Meonok to load the truck. Oh! How could she have …?

“Jonas!” she cried, and jumped up. Then she stopped in her tracks.
Ylva!
she thought.
How could I forget that, even for a second?

Jonas stood against the back of the truck, his arms folded defiantly across his chest, gazing out over the clearing. He turned toward her, his face expressionless. “Hello, Jenna,” he said without even smiling. Then he turned away again, and helped Lorok fasten the sides of the truck.

Jenna’s face turned red. She could ask later what he was doing here. But how could she have forgotten about Ylva?

Now he’s freaked that I’ll throw myself at him again
, thought Jenna, feeling the redness deepen.
Like at the garden party, when he had to literally run away from me. Oh God! He’s trying to show me that he doesn’t care so that I don’t get the wrong idea again.

She mustn’t think about it! Not now. She’d seen Jonas with Ylva, oh so gracefully sucking face, so he didn’t have to stress that she’d make things any more awkward. Just for a moment on Sunday she’d thought he shared her feelings, but now she knew better. As soon as she had the chance, she would show him that he was safe from her, no worries.

From the truck, Lorok signaled that they could go. Jenna stood tall and walked toward the clearing. Toward Jonas.

“Cool to see you,” she said with the smile that she had learned to put on for the cameras — though rarely with much success. Lorok cupped his hands to lift her onto the back of the truck. “We’re so relieved to be out of that terrible fisherman’s hut, aren’t we, Perry? And what’s been happening with you?” Perry had waited for her to climb in first; now she stretched out her hand to him, and without Lorok’s help he clambered up and joined her.

To her surprise, Jenna found the fake smile easy to keep up. Shouldn’t she really be feeling happy, after all? Relieved? Wasn’t she glad that they’d rescued her? And she was still alive!

Who was Jonas, anyway? What did it matter who he was in love with, or who he was hooking up with, or what he thought of her?
Lovesickness!
she said scornfully to herself.
What’s that compared to being afraid for your life?
Her lips tightened. It was no use. Her head was saying one thing, but her heart …
Stop that!
she told herself.
You’re Princess of Scandia, and you’ve just been freed from your kidnappers. You’re still alive, which is all that matters.

“Hello, Perry,” said Jonas. Surely it wasn’t necessary for him to look as coldly at his best friend as he had at her?

Perry laughed. “Funny seeing you here!” he said, punching Jonas’s arm. “How come? Did you hear what happened to Jenna and me?”

Nahira was the last to climb on the back of the truck. Meonok closed the flap and fastened it. “We can go,” said Nahira. She sat down opposite Jenna and Perry.

Jonas sat with his back to the driver’s cab. “Everyone in Scandia knows about it,” he said without looking at Perry. Then he gazed out at the passing forest.

“Crazy, right?” said Perry. “Hey, Jonas, is something wrong?”

“We must hurry,” Nahira interjected. “As soon as the plotters find out we’ve taken their hostages, they’re bound to take action. And quickly, too.”

Jenna looked up. “Action?” she said. Nahira’s voice had sounded tense.

“I wonder if they’ve found out yet,” said Perry. “Your men took the guards’ phones. They’ve got no way of telling anyone.”

“True,” said Nahira. “But sometime during the morning, their contacts will realize what’s happened. Then the question is what they’ll do.”

Perry nodded. Jonas kept his eyes so fixed on the forest, it was as if he was preparing for a presentation in biology class on the growth patterns of pine trees. Jenna forced herself to look at Nahira.
What’s lovesickness? Don’t be such a drama princess, Jenna. Better to think about the serious political situation at hand, what needs to be done now.

Then she remembered. “We made a discovery, Perry and me! Nahira, did Perry already tell you about it last night? In this old factory by Saarstad. We’ve got to —”

“I know,” said Nahira. “Lorok found out about it, too. That was why I met with Liron. But we were careless — unforgivably careless!”

“Why didn’t you go to the press, then?” cried Jenna. The truck bounced through a pothole, and she had to cling to the side. “Instead of meeting with Liron? They could have taken photographers along, and then everyone in the country would have known …”

“Jenna!” said Nahira. “Me? And the press? I’m the leader of the rebels! Who would have believed me? I’d have been locked up before anyone could have gone to the depot!”

“Then let
us
do it now,” said Jenna. “Perry and me! Take us to a police station — or a television station! We’ll tell them what we saw —”

“To give them the heads-up so that they can clear out the depot pronto?” said Jonas dismissively. Now he did look at her. “How naïve are you two? Haven’t you noticed the way the media have been reporting things for weeks on end? Whose side they’re on — ever since last year? These people will clear out whatever they can clear out, or even pack the place with weapons to show that the rebels had set up the depot and are planning an armed revolution!”

Jenna hesitated. An image came to mind. “On Sunday I saw the editor in chief of the
Scandia Times
at the von Thunbergs’,” she recalled. “At the party. Where there was so much to eat.” She looked at the others. “But all this time, his paper’s been reporting that the people of Scandia are going hungry, because the rebels … Jonas is right. We can’t go to the media.”

“They’re also claiming they’ve found weapons everywhere,” said Nahira. “You wouldn’t know about that, but the news has been full of it since yesterday. In factories in the south, farmhouses in the north, even in a cemetery! The people in the south feel threatened again. Fear’s spreading all over Scandia. So everyone is more than willing to believe whatever the papers and television tell them about the rebel menace. And that’s what the plotters are building on.”

“So there’s no way of informing the country about what’s going on in that old warehouse?” asked Jenna. “There must be at least one paper in Scandia, one TV station that isn’t —”

“We’ve got no choice,” said Nahira with an impatient shrug. “But the danger is that we might achieve the exact opposite —”

“Because then the conspirators will be warned,” said Jonas, once again staring out at the passing forest.

“Probably,” said Jenna. “But the plotters already know that Perry and I found the depot. And now we’re free …”

Up until then, Perry had said nothing.
He’s thinking of his father
, thought Jenna.
Nobody understands his feelings better than I do
.

But now he looked up. “You’re talking as if Scandia is the same country it was a year ago,” he said. “But it isn’t. We’ve got foreign TV broadcasters here now, foreign newspaper bureaus, and the Internet. Every Scandian has access to the outside world. So if we try to get the
international
press …”

“Yes!” cried Jenna. “They’ve all got correspondents here in Scandia. If we took
them
to the factory …”

“You’ve got their phone numbers?” Nahira asked ironically.

“I’ll call Bea!” Jenna insisted. “She can arrange it for us. She’ll do it, or her father!” She looked at Nahira.

Nahira hesitated.

“It’s worth a shot, Nahira,” said Perry. The truck hit another pothole, and he was thrown against Jenna. “What other options do we have? If my theory about the southern aristocrats is correct, then the situation is critical. Now that we’ve escaped, who knows, they might even launch their coup today.”

“Today,” murmured Nahira. “Today …”

“At least let Jenna try to contact Bea,” said Perry.

Nahira raised her head, and passed one of her cell phones to Jenna.

Jenna opened it. She’d known the number by heart for years. At first it had been Bea’s father’s, until Bea had taken it over from him.
Mom’s old number and Bea’s
, Jenna thought.
I’ll never forget those two, though Mom’s got a different one now.

She heard it ringing. And then came that familiar voice, which she had heard hundreds of times through the years — friendly but impersonal. “The person you have called is not available …”

“Oh, Bea, where are you?” said Jenna in frustration. “Maybe she’s still at school. I’ll try again later.”

“Send her a text asking her to call you,” said Perry. “Right away!” He looked at Nahira. “Or do you think we should try the Scandian press anyway?”

Nahira shook her head. “We should still have a few hours at least,” she said.

Jenna clutched the cell phone. “So now what, Nahira?” she asked.

Jonas went on gazing at the passing trees. By now he must have gathered enough material for two presentations.

I
n the morning,
Bea didn’t feel like going to school.

“I didn’t get a wink of sleep all night,” she said when, after three wake-up calls, her mother mercilessly pulled off the bedspread. “Mom, please! I’ll be too tired to learn anything, anyway!”

“Don’t you have a French exam today?” said her mother, disappearing through the door before adding over her shoulder: “Next time it’ll be a wet towel!”

Bea couldn’t remember ever having a night like that. She’d always laughed at the sight of her mother sitting slumped at the breakfast table with eyes glued together, saying, “Didn’t sleep a wink!”

How was that possible, Bea used to think. Nights were for sleeping, which was exactly what she did, like any other sensible person. Always. Until last night. She was certain that she’d been awake for every single terrible minute. She’d tossed and turned from left to right, from right to left, till the sheet beneath her had got so crumpled that no one could have slept on it. So she’d straightened the sheet and shaken the bedspread. After that she’d closed her eyes again, breathed deeply and regularly, counted sheep, and then — just when some fragment of consciousness had let her know that she was about to cross the border into sleep — back into her head came the jumble of images: Jenna with a crown on her head; Jenna with a gag in her mouth; Jenna with cheese on her chin in the pizza restaurant. Then Jenna at school — and suddenly the headmaster shooting at her with a gun, with the music that introduced the TV news in the background, and then smacking her rhythmically on the head with a French grammar textbook while he shouted, “Adverbial pronoun
y
, genitive
en
! And that’s for the pizza!”

But that last part must have been a dream. So she
had
had some sleep, at some point. Before her mom could carry out her threat of a wet towel, Bea heaved herself slowly out of bed.

What happened in school that morning was a blur. She fell asleep during history, and no one woke her. She snapped at the math teacher when he asked her a question, and he simply shook his head and said nothing. They all knew the situation.

After the third period she excused herself and went home on the pretext that she’d had a fever the day before and her headache today was unbearable. The young chemistry teacher was concerned and sympathetic. But things couldn’t go on like this indefinitely; she had to pull herself together. Jenna was still in the hands of the kidnappers — the morning news had confirmed as much — and Bea couldn’t do anything about it.

Back home, she dropped her schoolbag on the floor. She was almost too tired to unlace her shoes. She’d go and lie on the sofa in the living room, switch on the TV, and sleep, or — if she still couldn’t drop off — watch the news. But preferably sleep.

As she walked past the answering machine, she noticed the red light flashing. Wouldn’t be for her. Friends would call her cell, or send text messages or e-mails. Nobody would call her on the landline, especially in the morning.

She pressed the button anyway.

The voice that boomed out of the machine seemed familiar, although she couldn’t have said who it was. “It’s your lucky day, Miss!” said the voice. “What I’m doing isn’t exactly by the book, but we’ve known each other for a long time, right? They found your phone in a trash can!” There was a short pause, during which the policeman was presumably taking a good look at her phone. “Hardly surprising nobody wanted it, it’s practically an antique. Lucky for you your parents didn’t get you a more up-to-date one!” He laughed. “This one runs on coal, right? Anyway, you can come to the station and get it anytime.”

Bea stared at the answering machine. How could a person snap so wide awake in just a few seconds? She laced her shoes back up, and grabbed the key. Now at last she could try to call Jenna.

Bolström would have preferred to talk with all the top men around a conference table behind closed doors this morning, instead of having to do everything by phone or e-mail, as he’d done for the last year. There was always the danger of misunderstandings during difficult negotiations like these. Sitting together, being able to look into people’s eyes, was always the most effective way — especially when it came to persuading someone who didn’t want to be persuaded. A smile, a frown, a clearing of the throat: Even the best conference calls could never replace a face-to-face conversation.

But today, time was too short. They had to act now. He couldn’t wait for people to come from all over the country, from their mines, their oil wells, their farms on North Island. By the time they arrived, it could be too late. Everyone who mattered would now hopefully be waiting by their telephones. They’d all hear what the others had to say, and that would have to do.

Everyone, that was, except Petterson. Unfortunately, Petterson had to be excluded from this particular conference call. Who knew what he might do, loyal though he normally was? Since this concerned his son, it was obvious — if regrettable — that he couldn’t be relied upon. No one could possibly have anticipated a development like this, which threatened to ruin all their plans.

It wasn’t until around half past eight that Bolström heard something had gone wrong. The guards at the fisherman’s hut were supposed to check in with his men every two hours, day and night. Whether the two a.m. call had come through, no one knew for sure, because the men on telephone duty had been asleep.
We’ll deal with them later
, thought Bolström. Men who failed in their duties had no place among his people. But now there were other, more urgent matters to attend to. When the four o’clock call didn’t come, the men — who swore they were awake at the time — assumed that the guards at the hut had done the same as them, and fallen asleep on duty. Even when the six o’clock call failed to materialize, they still thought their colleagues at the hut must simply have overslept. And they acknowledged they didn’t want to blow the whistle on them, and they didn’t want to wake Bolström, either, although by now they were, admittedly, beginning to get a bit concerned.

Only when there was no eight o’clock call did they suspect that something must have gone wrong. They’d waited another quarter of an hour, then tried all four numbers. After that, they knew for sure. The only problem then was who should tell Bolström. They’d drawn sticks, because nobody dared to give him the news.

“Tarnation!” roared Bolström. “Send someone there at once! But tell them to be careful. It could be a trap!”

It was hard to imagine who might have set one. The rebels, possibly. Had they freed the children? No, that was absurd. They were scattered everywhere. Could it have been government forces, the police, the press, the military? No, the power centers of the country were now on his side — they’d all had enough of appeasing the north.

Shortly after nine o’clock, he heard that the guards had been found tied up in the hut and the children were gone.

“Tarnation!” Bolström yelled again. “How could this have happened? Now there’s no time to lose!”

If I hadn’t advanced the plan in the last few weeks
, he thought,
and if the military weren’t deployed all over the country, ready to strike — even though they might not know it yet — where would we be now? Suppose I hadn’t come back to take charge of everything? Useless idiots! But we’ve all got to work together. I need them all. And I have to be in charge.

He switched on the speakerphone. He didn’t want to have to hold the receiver to his ear the whole time. He needed his hands free for coffee and cigarettes.

“Is everything ready?” he barked. “It’s an emergency! We’ve got less than twenty-four hours now. Tonight at two. Holmburg. Parliament. The palace. I’m sure the people are ready for it.”

Someone interrupted. “Of course those two children are the second priority,” said Bolström. “Search the whole area for them, and don’t be squeamish. Tell the men there’s a price on their heads, dead or alive.”

People started talking all at once.
Fools!
thought Bolström.
Fools, the lot of them! They’d like to think they can get everything they want without dirtying their hands
.

“What difference does that make to our plans?” he snapped. They stopped talking. There was always silence when he spoke. “If the children are found dead, people will say it was the rebels, and that’s precisely what we intended all along.” He dragged on his cigarette. “And finally,” he said, flicking off the ash, “there’s Norlin.”

Someone said something at the other end.

“No, it has to be done now. Norlin’s got to go before anyone gets the chance to talk to him!” he said. “Who knows what he might come up with? He could ruin us all. But you can leave him to me.”

He’d finished his cigarette. “In summary,” he said, “at two a.m., we march in. Meanwhile, Norlin disappears. And so do the two children. Until then, the media will continue to show yesterday’s photos of the hostages. People may wonder why there are no new photos with today’s paper — doesn’t matter. One answer could be that the rebels have already killed the children. Then, if they’re actually found dead this afternoon, it’ll simply be confirmation that the rebels were responsible, and everybody will hate them all the more for it, as well as be frightened by how ruthless they are. And all that can only be to our advantage when we march on Holmburg tonight.”

Bolström went back to his desk. “We’ll stay in contact,” he said. Then he disconnected the call without waiting to see if anyone else had anything more to say.

Norlin had not yet made an appearance. Bolström’s men could probably dispose of him in his bedroom without the drunken buffoon even waking up. How convenient. That was one less problem, at least. Who’d have thought that Norlin’s boozing could turn out to be so useful?

Out in the hall, a figure in a silken robe hurried toward the staircase.