Read Online Chasing the Storm by Martin Molsted - Free Book Online Page A

the bulbs over the bar were burnt out. A half-empty glass stood on the zinc. There was an inept oil of intertwined Indian girls on one side of the bar, and a rectangular mirror painted over with the queen of hearts on the other. The tables were covered with what looked like dark red velvet.
    “Do not turn around. I have a gun.” The voice was behind him, male, accented. “Raise your hands, please. Spread apart your legs.” He obeyed. Someone plucked the briefcase away. Then he felt hands on him, firm, squeezing into his armpits, groin, down along his ankles. “Okay. Turn.” He looked around. A man in a leather jacket, with a shaven head, angled the muzzle of a gun at his face. A tattered moustache concealed his mouth. “Who are you?” the man asked.
    “Torgrim Rygg. I was sent by Marko. Marko Marin.”
    “We will see. Over here, please.”
    Rygg followed the man’s gesture to booths along one wall. They were lit by pink lamps recessed in the cornices of the low ceiling. The man allowed Rygg to sit first, then laid the briefcase on a bench and slid in across from him. For a long minute they sat, staring at each other.
    “How did you say you were called?” the man asked, finally. He spoke with a faint lisp and broken English. By the pink light, Rygg saw that the moustache hid the scar of a mended harelip.
    “Rygg. Torgrim Rygg.”
    “And Marin sent you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “It was dangerous for him here. He was shot.”
    “I know this. And where is he now?”
    “He told me not to say.”
    “Good. That is good. And I do not want to know. Now first, do you have anything for me?”
    “In the briefcase.”
    The man pulled the briefcase onto the red velvet tablecloth. “Combination?” Rygg gave it to him. He popped open the lid.
    “In the folder there, the green one,” Rygg said.
    The man opened the folder.
    “Under the papers you’ll find some clippings. Yes. Now look through. You’re looking for the iceberg. There. That one.”
    The man lifted out the magazine page and laid it on the table. He shut the briefcase. Then he pulled a folded piece of paper from an inner pocket of his jacket. He spread it out, running his fingers along the creases to flatten the paper. Laying the other one beside it, he leaned over them, then crumpled both together and put them in his pocket.
    “Good,” he said. “Very good. Now. My name is Yuri.”
    “Yuri. Pleased to meet you.” Rygg extended his hand. Yuri’s grip was like being bound by wire, and his calluses were hard as plastic. His fingernails looked like flakes of flint.
    “And now, do you have anything else for me?” He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together.
    “Yes—” Rygg began, but Yuri stopped him with a hand flattened on the velvet.
    “Good. I believe you. You are Scandinavian. I like Scandinavians. They are straight people. I was in Sweden five times. Stockholm, Gothenburg.”
    “I’m Norwegian.”
    “I was in Oslo once. Visited the Fram Museum. I like Nansen. He was a good man. Now, you wait. I have ordered some food. We can share.” He went to a door beside the bar and pushed it open and shouted. Then he came back.
    “Okay, Mr. Rygg, we are doing a business, yes? I want money, you want story. Okay. But story will take a long time. So we have food, we have vodka, we are friends, yes?”
    “Sounds good to me.” He was still jumpy and had no appetite at all.
    The door banged open. From a haze of hanging pans and steam, a fat man bustled in with a tray.
    “I order for you Hamburg specialties. You will like very much,” Yuri told him.
    The fat man set down a bowl containing a thick beige stew in which nameless chunks surfaced and sank again. The man placed two glasses of vodka among the crockery, and cutlery wrapped in paper napkins. “ Guten appetit !” he cried, and waddled back through the door.
    “So what do we have here?” Rygg asked. He was frightened of the stew.
    “Mm, mm, mm. I love to come to Hamburg just to eat,”