Sohlberg and the Gift (13 page)

“Fascinating.”

“Here’s how today is going down . . . I will bring you two case files. One is on a series of bank robberies . . . the other for the Janne Eide murder. Okay?”

“Yes. Do you have the case names and numbers?”

“It’s all taken care of . . . I found one file on a series of bank robberies at Nordlandsbanken and the other file on the Janne Eide case. The identifying numbers for the two files are identical except for one number . . . that way I can realistically claim that I picked one up by accident.”

“What’s your authority for taking police files out of their shelves?”

“I’m in charge of the digitizing project . . . we’re putting everything that’s a paper document into searchable electronic format . . . we are digitizing all police files going back sixty years.”

“That’s quite an undertaking.”

“You should see the holograms we’re generating for archive items that are in two or three dimensions . . . even very old stuff like archeological artifacts . . . Viking swords . . . crowns . . . you name it.”

“All very high tech. Very good.”

“Yes . . . but the high tech almost left you without access to the files you want to see. You’re quite lucky.”

“Why?”

“You arrived just before we started digitizing
and
encrypting the police case file you want to see. Most police files haven’t been digitized . . . we’re still working on papers that involve state secrets . . . but all police files on closed cases will be shredded . . . gone forever once they’re converted to electronic format. That will be sometime next year. . . . That’s when they’ll also be encrypted. Good luck getting past that. They’re unbreakable codes. And that’s why I couldn’t get you any files from the prosecutor in the Janne Eide case. Those files have all been digitized and encrypted.”

They shot past Sundvollen. The hamlet sits at the mouth of the spectacular Steinsfjorden which empties into the larger and more spectacular Tyrifjorden. A right turn took them north along the lake on Asaveien or Fv156.

“I’m curious,” said Atle. “What makes a police officer like you come up here on false pretenses?”

“The truth.”

Six miles after the little town of Sundvollen they turned right into Stubdalsveien. The narrow and winding road threaded itself higher and higher up and through the intimidating Krokskogen forest that engulfed the steep mountains surrounding Mt. Gyrihaugen. From time to time Sohlberg caught sweeping views of the lakes and valleys below.

While speeding through a plateau Sohlberg pointed at the tall metal towers that mysteriously sprung from the mountaintops. He also pointed at the enormous white dish antennas that grew like mushrooms in shallow valleys. Squat concrete buildings clotted next to the towers on the ridges and the parabolic Cassegrain dishes in the valleys.

“What’s all this? . . . What are all these antennas doing up here? . . . Are they for television or radio?”

“Neither. They’re military. Our military and NATO and the Americans . . . their Defense Intelligence Agency.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And they’re also foreign intelligence. By that I mean C.I.A. and N.S.A. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency . . . those American twins of so-called foreign intelligence . . . especially the N.S.A. Those boys are the great Omniscient Eye and Ear that see and hear everything. But one thing they’re not is All-Knowing . . . they don’t know everything since they’re distracted collecting too much noise . . . too much junk . . . to be able to sift through it all. They always miss the important stuff . . . like the fact that the old Soviet Union was about to collapse . . . or that Osama bin Laden was about to attack America on Nine-Eleven. I’m sure that they’re also very distracted looking through information from corporations that do business all over the world.”

“What for?” said Sohlberg—his curiosity intensely evoked.

“To steal secret business information . . . and then trade on stocks and bonds and options and commodities . . . you name it. Rumors are that several top analysts and deputy directors at the N.S.A. have made hundreds of millions of dollars and euros on insider information.”

“When did all these electronic contraptions get put up here?”

“The antennas were installed in the fifties and sixties to get first wind of any Soviet attack or invasion.”

“Were those installations ours . . . or American . . . or NATO?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“No. Not really. But why are they still up there nowadays . . .
why
have them up there?”

“The usual. Eavesdropping.”

“Spying on Russia?”

“Spying on everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes . . . why not? . . . They spy on you and me and everyone else in the free and not-so-free world.”

After a sharp curve Atle immediately turned off the road into an unmarked side road that sliced through the forest. The unremarkable road would be extremely easy to miss unless a person was carefully looking for it. A mile later they stopped where a chainlink fence jutted out of the forest. A simple sign declared:

TREE RESEARCH CENTER

U.M.B. DEPT OF PLANT SCIENCES

AND THE NORWEGIAN MINISTRY OF

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD.

“How clever,” remarked Sohlberg. “It almost looks real.”

“Oh . . . it is real. It’s a tree farm that’s run by the Center for Plant Research.”

“A government front?”

Atle smiled. “No. It’s real . . . part of U.M.B.”

“What?”

“The miljø- og biovitenskap . . . Norwegian University of Life Sciences. They’re just south of Oslo.”

“Oh. I actually think I’ve heard of it.”

“Anyway . . . the Temple Mount is deep inside the tree research property.”

The gate required number and letter codes to be entered into a panel by the driver’s window. They followed an extremely narrow paved road for five miles until another but much taller chainlink fence stopped them. Unlike the first fence this 12-foot tall barrier was shrouded front and back by concertina wire and crowned with what appeared to be motion detectors. Every 40 feet along the fence signs sprouted and declared in red ink: DANGER: ELECTRIFIED FENCE! DO NOT TOUCH!

The gate circled behind a manned hut with closed circuit cameras mounted on the walls. Two stone-faced white-camouflaged soldiers with machine-guns performed a visual inspection of the car interior including the trunk. The tallest of the army privates waved them through.

The road ended a mile later at an amphitheater-like bowl between three mountains.

“Here we are. The tunnel on the left is our entrance into the mountain.”

Thirty-foot tall walls of snow surrounded the practically empty parking lot. Two steel tunnels bore straight into the snow-faced side of the right mountain. Each tunnel had a 50-foot tall entrance.

“What’s the right tunnel for? . . . Where does it go?”

“To the great vacuum cleaner. We call it the Electrolux Center. The Americans call it the Hoover Center. All nicknames for vacuum cleaners.”

“What vacuum cleaners?”

“Intelligence gathering. Signal collection. We have a deal with the Americans and British . . . it’s part of Echelon . . . we give them access to all of the fiber optic cables on the transatlantic communications cables.”

“Cables? I thought it was all done by satellite.”

“No. Used to be. But no more since fiber optic. It’s really cheap and reliable and carries huge amounts of information that would bog down a satellite.”

“Why did the Americans and British pick us? . . . Why here?”

“Norway has all the fiber optic cables that come in and out of western Russia . . . which of course includes Moscow . . . and we have a big chunk of the fiber optic cables that come to and from Germany and East Europe. So we let the Americans plug into the cables . . . they literally suck everything out of the cables . . . every single solitary telephone call . . . fax . . . e-mail . . . Internet signal . . . computer signal . . . including every single solitary signal ever sent to or from any source in Norway. . . . They send all the signals back to Washington D.C. on their own dedicated lines.”

Sohlberg was shaken by the revelation. “I just can’t believe this.” Although he kept it very quiet he was a
Norway First
patriot who thought that his country was far superior to all other countries. “Do the Americans literally hear and see everything that goes inside Norway?”

“Yes. Everything. Your phone calls and e-mails to family and friends . . . all government communications . . . all business information . . . stock trading buy and sell orders. You name it. Our own government has sold out our country . . . the Americans and the British and NATO and the United Nations now own our politicians lock . . . stock . . . and barrel.”

“That statement’s a bit extreme isn’t it? . . . Slightly exaggerated . . . no?”

“Is it? . . . Then tell me what in the world are Norwegian troops doing in Afghanistan? . . . Why do we do whatever the United Nations tells us to do? . . . Take this refugee and that one.”

“That’s true,” admitted Sohlberg.

Atle clenched his teeth. His jaw muscles quivered. “You hear a lot of tripe about Quisling selling out Norway to Hitler. But Quisling was a benign amateur compared to our politicians on the left . . . the middle . . . and the right. They’re spineless
castrati
. . . they only ask how high when America or NATO or the United Nations say jump.”

“It’s the way of the world . . . no?”

Atle shrugged in disgust. They left the warmth and shelter of the car and braved the outdoor parking lot. Frigid mountain winds stung the men’s faces and lungs. About 100 yards inside the mountain tunnel Sohlberg felt much warmer air blow against his face. They entered a massive lobby that could have passed for an airport terminal at any well-off mid-sized city.

“Hard for anyone to believe we’re inside a mountain,” said Atle with pride.

Tasteful oak and steel panels covered the walls and ceilings. Enormous window frames with shades and fake daylight completed the charade. So did the variety of bright and muted paintings and sculptures which included giant mobiles hanging from ceilings. Sohlberg found it hard to believe he was deep inside a mountain.

“A Calder?” whispered Sohlberg while he pointed at a huge red and green mobile up in the air.

“Yes,” said Atle. A few yards later Atle nodded at a colorful mural that looked like a long comic strip from the 1950s. “This beauty is a Roy Lichtenstein painting commissioned by the government years before they started digging underground . . . it’s seventy-feet long . . . biggest one he ever painted. They say it’s now worth more than forty million dollars.”

Atle stepped before a desk with three pistol-packing guards. He swiped his badge on a scanner and walked past the hatchet-faced guards. Sohlberg took a deep breath. He passed without any challenge after swiping his badge.

“Get closer to me,” said the much taller Atle whose long steps propelled him far forward. “You’re too far away.”

Sohlberg picked up the pace and caught up with his escort on the green-striped corridor. Fifteen minutes later they halted by a steel door that was marked DIGITAL PROJECT LIBRARY. The door slid open after Atle entered codes and swiped his card on a panel by the door. Once they were inside the room Sohlberg blinked and gaped at a brilliantly lit cavern that was the size of a football field. An upstairs mezzanine circled the lower level expanse of row after row of sturdy industrial metal shelves that held neat rows of cardboard boxes.