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Authors: Donald Hamilton
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informant?”
“Totally unreliable, but with a charming Finnish-Swedish accent.”
“I suppose she’s blonde.” Amy’s voice was tart.
“What else?”
“Young and pretty, too, I bet.”
“An old hag of thirty-two.”
“An old bag of thirty-two, did you say?” Amy laughed shortly. “Well, to proceed, the name is Finnish, but the town is on the Swedish side of the border.”
“So it does exist. I wasn’t quite sure somebody wasn’t kidding me.”
“You’d better apologize to your blonde. It’s a small village up in the wilderness well north of the main road through the area, Highway E4. That’s the one that runs around the Gulf of Bothnia from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, up to Haparanda at the very top of the gulf, and then down to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. If you’ve come up through Sweden, you turn off E4 before you come to Haparanda, which is on the border, at the little town of Porkkala, spelled with two
ks.
You take an unpaved road inland a hundred and twenty miles in the general direction of the North Pole, which isn’t actually so awfully far away. You’ll hit Lysaniemi, a metropolis of a hundred and fifty inhabitants, it says here, shortly after you cross the Arctic Circle.”
I frowned at the phone. “Miles? Last time I was in Scandinavia, they worked their distances in kilometers.”
“Just a minute, let me check my notes.” There was a pause; then Amy’s voice said ruefully, “So sorry. You’re perfectly right. A hundred and twenty kilometers it is. Point six two miles per kilometer, right? Roughly seventy-five miles.”
“And this is the only Lysaniemi they were able to find?”
“How many do you need?” Then she said quickly, “I’m sorry, Matt. Smart aleck me.”
I said, “The trouble is, the damn’ name came to me too easily. I don’t trust anything I’m handed on a platter like that. Here I was expecting to have to work like hell for it, and it was whispered in my ear before I was well started on the operation. I have a sneaky feeling that people are being very cute at my expense or think they are:
Let’s have some fun with the stupid government mercenary who carries his brains, the few he’s got, in his trigger finger.
Not an entirely original estimate of my character, is it, Miss Barnett?”
She laughed softly, way down in Florida. “I never called you stupid, Matt.” She hesitated, and changed the subject: “What about that Joel person? What should I report to Daddy when he calls back?”
“Tell Doug that Joel will have to catch me at Dulles Airport. National Flight three-oh-seven to Kennedy, departing two fifty-five. Say I’ll see him at the gate; it’s too late to set up anything more complicated. And I’d better put it on the road right now if I’m going to get there in time to talk at all before we board.”
“Matt, be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
I heard her laugh disbelievingly as I hung up, but I don’t know what she found so funny. When a man in my line of work lasts to my age, he’s got to have been very, very careful. Astrid was waiting in the car. I got in and drove directly to the nearest freeway. Turning my back on Dulles Field, southwest of the city, where I was expected, I headed for the Washington/Baltimore International Airport, northeast of it, where I wasn’t. The New York connection there was by way of Frontier Flight 74 to LaGuardia. Not quite as convenient for catching a transatlantic flight, but safer.
Like I said, careful.
7
Flying SAS first class across the Atlantic is about as good as it can get, which still isn’t very good. I mean, no matter how much they pamper you, it’s a long, long flight; and comfortable or not, you’re still six or seven miles up in the air with several thousand miles of ocean, several thousand feet deep, beneath you, and not a damn’ thing you can do if things go wrong.
When the stewardess—excuse me, the female flight attendant—offered me a drink, I took two
“Totally unreliable, but with a charming Finnish-Swedish accent.”
“I suppose she’s blonde.” Amy’s voice was tart.
“What else?”
“Young and pretty, too, I bet.”
“An old hag of thirty-two.”
“An old bag of thirty-two, did you say?” Amy laughed shortly. “Well, to proceed, the name is Finnish, but the town is on the Swedish side of the border.”
“So it does exist. I wasn’t quite sure somebody wasn’t kidding me.”
“You’d better apologize to your blonde. It’s a small village up in the wilderness well north of the main road through the area, Highway E4. That’s the one that runs around the Gulf of Bothnia from Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, up to Haparanda at the very top of the gulf, and then down to Helsinki, the capital of Finland. If you’ve come up through Sweden, you turn off E4 before you come to Haparanda, which is on the border, at the little town of Porkkala, spelled with two
ks.
You take an unpaved road inland a hundred and twenty miles in the general direction of the North Pole, which isn’t actually so awfully far away. You’ll hit Lysaniemi, a metropolis of a hundred and fifty inhabitants, it says here, shortly after you cross the Arctic Circle.”
I frowned at the phone. “Miles? Last time I was in Scandinavia, they worked their distances in kilometers.”
“Just a minute, let me check my notes.” There was a pause; then Amy’s voice said ruefully, “So sorry. You’re perfectly right. A hundred and twenty kilometers it is. Point six two miles per kilometer, right? Roughly seventy-five miles.”
“And this is the only Lysaniemi they were able to find?”
“How many do you need?” Then she said quickly, “I’m sorry, Matt. Smart aleck me.”
I said, “The trouble is, the damn’ name came to me too easily. I don’t trust anything I’m handed on a platter like that. Here I was expecting to have to work like hell for it, and it was whispered in my ear before I was well started on the operation. I have a sneaky feeling that people are being very cute at my expense or think they are:
Let’s have some fun with the stupid government mercenary who carries his brains, the few he’s got, in his trigger finger.
Not an entirely original estimate of my character, is it, Miss Barnett?”
She laughed softly, way down in Florida. “I never called you stupid, Matt.” She hesitated, and changed the subject: “What about that Joel person? What should I report to Daddy when he calls back?”
“Tell Doug that Joel will have to catch me at Dulles Airport. National Flight three-oh-seven to Kennedy, departing two fifty-five. Say I’ll see him at the gate; it’s too late to set up anything more complicated. And I’d better put it on the road right now if I’m going to get there in time to talk at all before we board.”
“Matt, be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?”
I heard her laugh disbelievingly as I hung up, but I don’t know what she found so funny. When a man in my line of work lasts to my age, he’s got to have been very, very careful. Astrid was waiting in the car. I got in and drove directly to the nearest freeway. Turning my back on Dulles Field, southwest of the city, where I was expected, I headed for the Washington/Baltimore International Airport, northeast of it, where I wasn’t. The New York connection there was by way of Frontier Flight 74 to LaGuardia. Not quite as convenient for catching a transatlantic flight, but safer.
Like I said, careful.
7
Flying SAS first class across the Atlantic is about as good as it can get, which still isn’t very good. I mean, no matter how much they pamper you, it’s a long, long flight; and comfortable or not, you’re still six or seven miles up in the air with several thousand miles of ocean, several thousand feet deep, beneath you, and not a damn’ thing you can do if things go wrong.
When the stewardess—excuse me, the female flight attendant—offered me a drink, I took two
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