possible.
A set of headlights in the rear view mirror. They caught Sohlberg’s attention. He slowed down. The car behind also slowed down. He accelerated and the driver did the same. Sohlberg got off the A43 Highway at the cloverleaf intersection with the A46. He dropped his speed down to 15 mph. The car passed him in a blur. He wondered if the driver and passenger were tailing him.
Am I getting too paranoid?
Ominous feelings. Sohlberg was sure that he had been under surveillance ever since the start of Operation Locust.
~ ~ ~
The Norwegian detective arrived at Interpol less than 20 minutes after leaving the crime scene at Heyrieux. He parked on the third floor basement and took the elevator down to the tenth floor basement. After swiping his badge through several doors he walked past the overnight staff guarding the central archives.
“Bon jour,” said Sohlberg.
The two men said nothing. They barely looked at Sohlberg. The chilly and rude French reception matched the cold temperature of the basement.
A long antiseptic hallway led to a secure room where Sohlberg sat before a computer terminal. The machine was directly connected to one of Interpol’s dedicated servers in the basement. The flourescent lights enhanced the ghastly pallor on Sohlberg’s drawn face. He began searching for—and printing out—the names of all cases in which Azra Korbal had worked as a translator or interpreter.
Ishmael. . . . Could this be related to Ishmael?
The thought went round and round in Sohlberg’s mind like a dog that chases its tail.
Ishmael. . . . Could this be tied to Ishmael?
The printer ran out of ink during Sohlberg’s frantic search-and-download computer session which lasted until 5:35 AM. By pure chance he knew which hallway closet held fresh ink cartridges.
Toward the end of his computerized inquiries Sohlberg had grown sick of the ugly buzzing sound of the printer doing its work.
Did Azra Korbal get killed because of Ishmael?
Or was she dead because of someone else in Operation Locust?
Could her work on another project have brought on her murder?
Sohlberg knew that the answer had to be somewhere in the files.
As soon as he was done with his computer inquiries Sohlberg looked down at his wristwatch and realized that he had very little time before Interpol employees started arriving for the early morning shift. He rode the elevator up to Azra Korbal’s cubicle on the second floor.
~ ~ ~
A cork board held dozens of pictures of Azra and her boyfriend and her family. To the left was a large wood frame that showcased a picture of Azra as a girl with two boys. On the right was another frame with a picture which showed Azra as a teenager standing before the Eiffel Tower.
Sohlberg flinched. He hated having to call her parents and break the bad news to them.
A dozen small plastic toys sat on top of her computer’s monitor. His throat tightened when he saw the long-haired troll that he had given her as a birthday gift. Everything in the office remained in the exact same place that Azra Korbal had left it in before she departed for the weekend. Sohlberg could feel her presence and he would not have been surprised if Azra Korbal had walked in on him at that very minute.
Sohlberg put on his gloves. He spent two hours carefully searching the cubicle and the desk and the chair. He reassembled the phone after opening and inspecting it for transmitting devices. Sohlberg opened and inspected the picture frames and flipped over every picture on the cork board. He scanned all of the pictures with her printer and then e-mailed digital copies of the pictures to himself.
Nothing interesting so far.
His fingers searched every inch of the cubicle’s fabric walls to find secret compartments and he pulled out every drawer and looked at all the contents and checked where anything could have been taped to the bottom or the sides or the rear of each drawer. The chair cushions got a good squeeze and he turned
A set of headlights in the rear view mirror. They caught Sohlberg’s attention. He slowed down. The car behind also slowed down. He accelerated and the driver did the same. Sohlberg got off the A43 Highway at the cloverleaf intersection with the A46. He dropped his speed down to 15 mph. The car passed him in a blur. He wondered if the driver and passenger were tailing him.
Am I getting too paranoid?
Ominous feelings. Sohlberg was sure that he had been under surveillance ever since the start of Operation Locust.
~ ~ ~
The Norwegian detective arrived at Interpol less than 20 minutes after leaving the crime scene at Heyrieux. He parked on the third floor basement and took the elevator down to the tenth floor basement. After swiping his badge through several doors he walked past the overnight staff guarding the central archives.
“Bon jour,” said Sohlberg.
The two men said nothing. They barely looked at Sohlberg. The chilly and rude French reception matched the cold temperature of the basement.
A long antiseptic hallway led to a secure room where Sohlberg sat before a computer terminal. The machine was directly connected to one of Interpol’s dedicated servers in the basement. The flourescent lights enhanced the ghastly pallor on Sohlberg’s drawn face. He began searching for—and printing out—the names of all cases in which Azra Korbal had worked as a translator or interpreter.
Ishmael. . . . Could this be related to Ishmael?
The thought went round and round in Sohlberg’s mind like a dog that chases its tail.
Ishmael. . . . Could this be tied to Ishmael?
The printer ran out of ink during Sohlberg’s frantic search-and-download computer session which lasted until 5:35 AM. By pure chance he knew which hallway closet held fresh ink cartridges.
Toward the end of his computerized inquiries Sohlberg had grown sick of the ugly buzzing sound of the printer doing its work.
Did Azra Korbal get killed because of Ishmael?
Or was she dead because of someone else in Operation Locust?
Could her work on another project have brought on her murder?
Sohlberg knew that the answer had to be somewhere in the files.
As soon as he was done with his computer inquiries Sohlberg looked down at his wristwatch and realized that he had very little time before Interpol employees started arriving for the early morning shift. He rode the elevator up to Azra Korbal’s cubicle on the second floor.
~ ~ ~
A cork board held dozens of pictures of Azra and her boyfriend and her family. To the left was a large wood frame that showcased a picture of Azra as a girl with two boys. On the right was another frame with a picture which showed Azra as a teenager standing before the Eiffel Tower.
Sohlberg flinched. He hated having to call her parents and break the bad news to them.
A dozen small plastic toys sat on top of her computer’s monitor. His throat tightened when he saw the long-haired troll that he had given her as a birthday gift. Everything in the office remained in the exact same place that Azra Korbal had left it in before she departed for the weekend. Sohlberg could feel her presence and he would not have been surprised if Azra Korbal had walked in on him at that very minute.
Sohlberg put on his gloves. He spent two hours carefully searching the cubicle and the desk and the chair. He reassembled the phone after opening and inspecting it for transmitting devices. Sohlberg opened and inspected the picture frames and flipped over every picture on the cork board. He scanned all of the pictures with her printer and then e-mailed digital copies of the pictures to himself.
Nothing interesting so far.
His fingers searched every inch of the cubicle’s fabric walls to find secret compartments and he pulled out every drawer and looked at all the contents and checked where anything could have been taped to the bottom or the sides or the rear of each drawer. The chair cushions got a good squeeze and he turned
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