hell away from here," I said. "You okay to walk?"
"Fuck, yeah. It takes more than a bomb to get
Sander Lars Hansen any day!" He smiled. "I'm just a little
sore, but I'm okay."
A two minute phone call later and we were told to
meet the shuttle van outside the main entrance. And
within the hour we were the proud drivers of a
Volkswagen Golf. It's all they had, unless we wanted to
hire a moving van or a Smart Fortwo. No thank you! Our
little white Golf would do just fine, and we could leave it
at the Hertz office in Odense. We'd worry about retrieving
our own car later.
"Let's go get our brother," Sander declared. "I'm
ready for this day to end."
"BUT HE HAS TO BE HERE," Sander told the admitting
nurse. "We've already been to all the hospitals, and even
one in Tastrup. Nobody knows where he is! Where's my
brother?!" Sander yelled.
"Sander... Sander! She's trying to help us. We'll find
him," I said, doing my best to comfort him.
"As I said, sir, I have the final list of casualties, as
well as those who didn't make it. There is no boy named
Jannik Hansen, and there are no boys who are even close
to matching his age or his physical description. I'm truly
sorry," she said.
"We saw him carried into an emergency van, and
they left for the hospital, I'm sure," I explained. "Where
else could he be?"
"Perhaps they took him to the police station.
Mathias Krug is the head man over there, and if the police
have him, he will know. Do you want his number?"
"NO, GENTLEMEN, WE DON'T have the boy, I assure
you," Police Major Krug reported. "If you saw him leave in
a medi-van, they would have taken him to hospital."
Sander and I were speechless. The fear that welled
inside both of us was excruciating. Sander broke down in
sobs, and I wasn't very far behind. In fact, I found
difficulty in processing my thoughts. I knew what I
wanted to ask, but the dread I felt kept the words inside.
Krug broke the tension.
"Mr. Allen, can you describe to me the van you saw
the boy being loaded into?"
"Uhmm, yeah. It was a very bright white with an
orange—a fluorescent safety orange—stripe, and it was
very tall and had black and white checkered paint all
around the top of it," I recalled.
"Do you remember if it was right or left hand
drive?" he asked. "Only say if you know for sure."
"It was right hand," Sander interjected. "I'm sure of
it, because I saw the driver sitting on the right side with
the steering wheel, and the one who talked to the terrorist
was sitting on the left."
"You say you saw the Arabic translator in the medi-
van?"
"Yes. It was him, why?"
Krug called a sergeant over and instructed him to
take us to one of the small apartments in the police
barracks, across from the small back garden. Before we
even had the opportunity to determine that Krug must
have felt there was something wrong, we found ourselves
in a hallway with open doors revealing off-duty policemen
relaxing until their next shifts.
"You both can stay here until the chief figures out
where your boy is. And he will figure it out. He's the best
there is, okay?" the youthful, rosy-cheeked sergeant
insisted. "And the canteen is to your left. There is always
plenty to eat, or there's coffee or Cokes. So make yourself
at home, please."
"Thank you, Sergeant."
"You're welcome, and please call me Josef. I will be
at the desk all night, so if you need anything..." He mimed
placing a telephone against his ear. The sergeant went on
his way, and we just sat on the beds and stared at each
other for comfort. Sander spoke first.
"Do you think that Jannik is okay?" I didn't know
what to say; what to think. None of this made any sense at
all. A whole medi-van of EMT's, the driver, the translator,
and Jannik can't have just vanished. They had to be
somewhere safe. And I know Jannik—nothing would keep
him from us if he had any say in the matter. At the very
us, to let us know that he's safe.
"I have to think he's okay, Pokes. How else could
he be? A van full of medics didn't just disappear. I mean,
it's been a crazy day, right? I bet they just didn't think of
the place where they're obviously at," I told him.
"You have to be right, Johnnie. You just have to. I
don't know what I do without Jannik. Besides you, he is
my favorite person in the world!" Sander cried. "I want to
know where my brother is! I want to know if he's safe!"
The only thing I could do at the moment was to
hold him and let him cry in my arms. God, I felt so fucking
useless!
Chapter 6
annik awakened for the third time, but now he
wasn't tired anymore. He just felt weird. He was
J disoriented when he first entered the big car. Yes it
was a van, he remembered. Big, and he could tell that it
was diesel powered because he caught a whiff of the
exhaust fumes and recognized the smell—it was the same
odor that came out of the smokestack on the ship that he
and Sander had taken to Norway that one summer.
There were men—four of them—and they didn't
speak Danish, English or German. They sounded angry.
Maybe they were talking in French, he thought. But maybe
not. All he knew was that he couldn't understand a single
word they said.
The man who saved him from the dynamite guy
was sitting next to the driver, that much he could see. But
that was about all. He felt the odd motion, but he could tell
that the van was—parked? But why the odd sensation of
motion if it was parked? He didn't feel very well, and
his face hurt
from the scratches. Sweat poured from his forehead and
ran in rivulets to the tiny wounds, making them sting like
hell. He decided that English would be his best course of
action.
"Hello! Excuse, please, but I am back here! Can you
help?" he began. That begot a frenzy of quick, heightened
activity from all of the men, each over-talking the other
one, each louder than the next. And to Jannik the whole
affair just seemed very odd. What were they so upset
about? "Can you understands what I say?"
"Yes, boy, of course we understand. We are not
stupid!" the driver barked.
"You are a guest," the one sitting next to him
added, a tad kinder but still menacing. At least to the
young boy he appeared to be. Anyway, none of them were
very nice at all.
"You have a name?" the smelly one asked. Jannik
hadn't seen him at first. The tall man with the spotty beard
was sitting in the rear of the van and he had a gun.
"I'm called Jannik," he answered.
The fourth one sat behind the driver's seat
in the
extra cab.
"It's the right one," he said. He just glared at the
boy and turned his attention back to the front. When
Jannik tried to move, he realized for the first time that he
was strapped onto a gurney.
"Why am I here? And where are you taking...
Uh, please, where are you taking me?" the boy asked
calmly. "Does my brothers know that you take me here?
We must to call them on the mobile phone. I know his
telephone number."
"We do not worry of this, my friend," the nicer one
said. "You were in a great accident and you are with us
now."
"But where do we go?" Jannik insisted. "My mother
and father will be wery angry if we not say we is here, so
we shall call them, yes?"
"No."
And that was that. The men suddenly went quiet.
Jannik noticed that there were sounds of machines and
some kind of heavy blower fan nearby. He could also hear
people talking outside. They sounded kind of distant, or
like they were talking in a cave. Again, he couldn't place
the language. Then he heard the great whistle blow. Now
he knew! He was on a ship! The van was aboard a ferry—
where to, he didn't know. But it explained the odd sense of
motion he'd felt since he'd woken up. They were at sea.
EARLY SUNDAY MORNING the duty officer summoned
Sander and me. The chief wanted us to look at some
photos. The apprehension we both felt was nearly
unbearable, and I knew that whatever he had to show us
must be very important—what if it was a morgue shot of
Jannik lying on a slab, his little body lifeless? No! No way
it could be that! He was fine, and he'd soon be back in our
care and we'd be on our way home.
"Sander, son, does this look like the van you saw
your brother taken away in?" the chief asked without
emotion.
"Yes! Just like that! Just exactly like that!" Sander
exclaimed.
"Is that the van?" I asked Chief Krug.
"No, Johnnie. But we believe this one is." He
showed us a photograph of the checker-topped medi-van
driving onto a huge car ferry. "The van we are looking for
boarded the Nils Holgersson, a TT-Line ferry out of
Travemünde. It left at ten last night, and they drove off of
it in Sweden at seven-thirty this morning," he said.
"So, what are you saying?" I asked. "They're your
people, right?"
"Why would you take my brother to Sweden?"
Sander demanded. "That's stupid!"
"We didn't," Krug responded. "We don't know
anything other than the fact that it's definitely the van that
you saw take your brother. We know this from the number
plates. We caught them in security footage from the blast
site, and at both ferry terminals. The van's stolen. We also
know that a translator who was entrusted to help us
defuse the hostage situation is working with whoever did
this."
"You mean, Jannik is—they have taken my brother
from us?" Sander whispered, just before he collapsed.
"IT'S BAD... REALLY BAD," I spoke into the phone. "We
don't know why, we don't know who—we don't know a
fucking thing," I said.
"Tell me every idiotic detail you can think of,
Johnnie. Don't leave anything out," Marge Stuplemann
said. Marguax Stuplemann—Marge to everyone who
knows and loves her—was my first boss at the CIA Field
Transport Center in Denmark. Now she coordinates the
schedules of all of our intelligence assets. She sets it all up,
and then my team and I physically move the assets into
place, and exfiltrate them when their work is done. If there
is anyone in this big world who can help us, it's Marge
Stuplemann.
I took her through every step—from the time we
left our place near Odense, until the moment I thought to
call Marge. I swear I didn't leave a single thing out. Not
one friggin' detail.
"Is there anything you can think of that I'm not
seeing, Marge? None of this makes any sense. None of it!"
"Okay, boyfriend, first off, how's our little Sander
right now?" she asked.
"He's completely gutted. He fainted and they've got
him on a bed with some ice packs. I don't know what we're
gonna do, Mags."
"Well, first we're gonna keep our shit together.
We'll get to the bottom of this and get your baby home.
Where are you?"
"We're in Flensborg at the central police
headquarters," I told her. "Next thing I gotta do is call
Pokey's folks and break the bad news. From there, I don't
know," I admitted. "I just don't know."
"Keep it together. If you go down, Pokes and the
kid go down with you, got it?" she scolded. "I'm serious as
a Big Mac heart attack. Don't let us down, Johnnie."
"I won't. I promise. I'm here."
"I know you are. So it's time to get to work."
SANDER AND I CAUGHT the next ferry to Sweden. He
laid his head against the car window, his usually bright
eyes instead casting a gaze of despair.
He held my hand and wouldn't let it go for
anything. Even as we drove onto the ship, he wouldn't
relinquish his grip at a critical time when I really should
have used both hands on the steering wheel. I now know
that I can drive and maneuver a car within the tight
confines of a ferry parking lane one-handed, but I wouldn't
have let him go for all the tea in China. Whenever Sander
Lars Hansen is hurting, you can bet that I hurt twice over. I
can't stand it.
"Sander, baby, what would you like to do?" I asked
gently. "Would you like to go upstairs and rest in the
cabin, maybe have a bite to eat? You have to eat
something."
"Can I just stay here?" he asked, his eyes red and
moist from steady off and on crying for the past three
hours.
"Sure, babe. But let me get you a sandwich or
something. I'll bring it back and we'll stay right here
together, okay?" My love just nodded his head, agreeing to
whatever I'd said. I don't know if he'd even registered a
word of it, and I don't blame him one bit.
I kissed him gently on the cheek and told him how
much I love him. He managed a tiny grin, but I know he
just did that for my benefit. The day I can stop him from
thinking first about everyone else before he takes his own
needs into account, a Republican will be born who
possesses compassion and a soul. Some things just aren't
meant to happen.
"Be right back. I promise."
When I reached the top of the stairs and emerged
onto the main deck, I found a relatively quiet spot on the
leeward side of the ship and called Marge. She picked
up—as Marge usually does—on the very first ring.
"We're on the ferry," I began. "Sander's below on
the car deck. He wants to just stay there, and I'm gonna be
with him, so there's no signal. But I'll come up at, say,
between ten and twe
nty minutes after the top of each hour
in case you need to get hold of me."
"Sounds good. I'll be leaving for Malmö about an
hour before you're due in," she said. "Since you left
Flensborg I've been floating some scenarios."
"Yeah? Tell me," I said.
"Don't get too excited yet," Marge cautioned, "but I
think all the parts fit, so hear me out."
"Go ahead!"
"So first thing I wonder is why do our guys target a
kid? I mean, it's not like he's a pop star or royalty or
anything, and his folks certainly aren't rich. It's not like
they've snatched a Heineken or a Rothschild, right?"
"Right..." I agreed.
"Except, in a way they have."
"What?!"
"So why take him to Sweden? Especially when they
gotta know they'll be seen at some point. I mean it only
took, what, twelve hours before the cops got a bead on'em.
Also, the ferry's a slow-boat way of getting anywhere,
right?" she said. Of course I agreed. Like we all thought
from the beginning : none of this makes any sense at all.
Marge continued: "So I asked myself, why Sweden?
And then I thought, What's next to Sweden?"
"Finland?"
"Finland! And to the right of Finland we have...?"
"Oh, shit! Russia!" I exclaimed. "Fucking Russia!"
"Fucking Russia. And as we'll both agree, you and
Sander are probably not very high on anybody's Christmas
list at the Kremlin after that business in Belgium," Marge
said.
"But these guys were supposed to be Arabs. I mean,
the guy who held Jannik hostage was your average, run of
the mill jihadist with a dynamite vest and everything," I
explained.
"You do recall that the Kremlin's middle eastern
section ran your fake spy, right? And the Ruskies believe
that revenge is a dish best served cold. So, what if this was
just a way to kill a couple of birds with one stone? They get
to revenge their failed attempt to fuck with the Iranians,
while helping their camel fucker friends exact some jihad
in the name of good old Allah. In our world, Johnnie, two
and two usually adds up to four."
"Fuck me..." I whispered absent mindedly.
"No thanks. But I'll let you buy me dinner when
this is over," Marge chuckled.
"Oh! You know I didn't mean..."
"At ease, skipper! I know! I'm just fuckin' with ya.
So is the chase on?" she asked.