Phantom Read Free

Same red. Without the little red carry-on that could be fastened to it on top. They knew nothing of each other, nothing of motivations, nothing of the background or the family. All that linked Sergey, Schultz and the young first officer were the numbers of their unregistered cell phones, purchased in Thailand, so they could send a text in case there were changes to the schedule. Andrey limited all information to a strictly need-to-know basis. For that reason, Sergey didn’t have a clue what happened to the packages. He could guess, though. For when the first officer, on an internal flight between Oslo and Bergen, passed from air to land, there was no customs check, no security check. The officer took the carry-on to the hotel in Bergen where he and the crew were staying. A discreet knock on the hotel door in the middle of the night and four kilos of heroin exchanged hands. Even though the new drug, violin, had pushed down heroin prices, the going rate on the street for a quarter was still at least 250 kroner. A thousand a gram. Given that the drug—which had already been diluted—was diluted once more, that would amount to eight million kroner in total. He could do the math. Enough to know he was underpaid. But he alsoknew he would have done enough to merit a bigger slice when he had done
the necessary
. And after a couple of years on that salary he could buy a house in Tagil, find himself a good-looking Siberian girl and perhaps let his mother and father move in when they got old.
    Sergey Ivanov felt the tattoo itch between his shoulder blades.
    It was as though the skin were looking forward to the next installment.

The man in the linen suit alighted from the airport express at Oslo Central Station. He guessed that it must have been a warm, sunny day in his old hometown, for the air was still gentle and embracing. He was carrying an almost comical little canvas suitcase and exited the station on the southern side with quick, supple strides. From the outside, Oslo’s heart—which some maintained the town did not have—beat with a restful pulse. Night rhythm. The few cars there were swirled around the circular Traffic Machine, were ejected, one by one, eastward to Stockholm and Trondheim, northward to other parts of town or westward to Drammen and Kristiansand. Both in size and shape the Traffic Machine resembled a brontosaurus, a dying giant that was soon to disappear, to be replaced by homes and businesses in Oslo’s splendid new quarter, with its splendid new construction, the Opera House. The man stopped and looked at the white iceberg situated between the Traffic Machine and the fjord. It had already won architectural prizes from all over the world; people came from far and wide to walk on the Italian marble roof that sloped right down into the sea. The light inside the building’s large windows was as strong as the moonlight falling on it.
    Christ, what an improvement, the man thought.
    It was not the future promises of a new urban development he saw, but the past. For this had been Oslo’s shooting gallery, its dopehead territory, where they had injected themselves and ridden their highs behind the barracks that partially hid them, the city’s lost children. A flimsy partition between them and their unknowing, well-meaning social-democratic parents. What an improvement, he thought. They were on a trip to hell in more beautiful surroundings.
    It was three years since he had last stood here. Everything was new. Everything was the same.
    They had ensconced themselves on a strip of grass between the station and the highway, much like the shoulder of a road. As doped-up now as then. Lying on their backs, eyes closed, as though the sun were too strong, huddled over, trying to find a vein that could still be used,or standing bent, with bowed junkie knees and knapsacks, unsure whether they were coming or going. Same faces. Not the same living dead when he used to walk here—they had died long ago, once and for all.