Chapter 85
85
The cops put me through the booking process. When they asked me my name and address, I gave them the name on the passport and the made-up address listed in the dossier.
Then came the fingerprinting and photographs. As they inked my fingers and pressed them onto cards, I wondered if Alistair had actually been able to remove my prints from Swedish military records… and if not, whether they would show up in a background search.
They took my phone and wallet. The other cop back at the roadblock already had my car keys; I assumed he had moved the Fiat off the narrow two-lane road until a tow truck could arrive to impound it.
Then they took my necklace and Rachel’s engagement ring.
The cop who’d arrested me pulled it roughly from around my head. I was handcuffed, so there was nothing I could do to stop him.
“Hey,” I snapped.
The cop looked at the ring, laughed, and showed it to the clerk behind the desk. They jabbered back and forth in Italian.
“HEY!” I yelled at him.
The cop sneered at me as he handed the jewelry to the clerk, who wrote something down on a piece of paper and then dropped the ring and necklace into a big yellow envelope.
“I want that back, motherfucker,” I snarled at the clerk. “If anyone steals it, I will fucking hunt them down. Do you understand me p>
Of course he didn’t understand the words – he didn’t speak English well enough – but he looked frightened enough by my tone of voice that I figured I’d made my point.
The arresting cop hoisted me roughly to my feet, marched me into a cramped interrogation room, and handcuffed me to a desk that was bolted to the concrete floor.
“Lawyer,” I snapped.
Actually, I also said ‘avocat.’ I had no idea if that was the Italian word for lawyer, but I vaguely remembered it from a high school French course I’d failed.
It must have meant something, because the cop looked at me in disgust before he left.
I waited for three hours. No water, no bathroom breaks, no food.
Finally the door opened, and a guy in glasses and a cheap suit walked through the door with a briefcase. He probably wasn’t much younger than I was, but his baby face and wisps of facial hair made him look like a goddamn teenager.
“Um, tu sei… Lars Andersen?” he asked as he peered down at a file in his hand.
“Yes, I’m Lars Andersen – but I don’t speak Italian p>
The lawyer sank down in the chair opposite me and smiled apologetically. “My English-a… not so good,” he said in a thick Italian accent.
“Are you a public defender?” I asked.
He stared at me like he didn’t understand.
Jesus Christ, this was a fucking nightmare.
“The court sent you p>
“Uh… me… I am avvocato p>
So I’d been close when I’d said ‘avocat p>
“Why was I arrested?” I asked.
He gave me a confused look.
I pointed down. “Why am I here p>
“Ah. Guns.” He pointed his forefinger and cocked his thumb like a pistol.
“Why was I stopped, though? They didn’t know I had the guns p>
“Uh…” He fumbled through his papers, then showed me a picture: a scowling mugshot of a blond man who looked nothing like me. “Look… for you p>
“That’s not ME,” I snapped.
The lawyer gave me a shit-eating grin like, Yeah, ain’t THAT a bitch.
“Yes, but… they stop. You have guns. Bad, very bad p>
Between the guns not being registered to me AND the suppressors, I figured it would be ‘very bad’ indeed. But it also seemed like a search based on mistaken identity shouldn’t hold up in court.
“They made a mistake,” I said, pointing at the photograph. “They searched the wrong man p>
The lawyer smiled apologetically and shrugged. “Eh… sfortuna. Bad luck p>
Yeah, the very worst luck imaginable…
If it was a case of luck at all.
I kept turning it over and over in my head:
Had someone at MI6 double-crossed me?
Did Alistair have a mole he didn’t know about? Maybe someone on the Dutch arms merchant’s payroll? He’d mentioned that van der Linden probably knew about other MI6 field agents, which was why I’d been selected.
Had van der Linden found out about me, too?
“How bad is it?” I asked the lawyer.
“Um… the guns, no record… the, um p>
He clenched his left hand into a fist, made his right hand into a gun, and stuck the tip of his forefinger into the hole of his fist.
Someone else might have mistaken it for an obscene gesture, but I knew exactly what he meant.
“The suppressors,” I suggested.
“Si, suppressors. Illegale, molto illegale p>
Illegal… very illegal.
“How long in jail?” I asked.
He shrugged. “…five p>
Five months?
That wasn’t so bad.
But he wasn’t finished.
“With suppressors… six… seven years p>
I stared at him in horror. “YEARS p>
He winced sympathetically. “Molto illegale p>
FUCK me.