“It’s a start.” He reached into his pocket and placed a USB stick and a British passport on the table. “All the background we have is on there. UK passport in the name of David Porter. Your contact in the Swedish Security Service will probably need to know who you are, but we’ll use the alias for most of the others.”
“What if the Swedes share the information with Langley, let them know what you’re up to?”
“They won’t. I still have some influence. I assume you’ll want to go up to Fillon’s place to begin with, see where the trail starts, and I can arrange for your baggage to bypass Security for that trip, but thereafter it might be better if you make your own arrangements.”
“I always have in the past.”
“The CIA wasn’t trying to kill you in the past.”
Dan nodded, put the passport and USB stick in his pocket, and drank the rest of the cognac. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d just agreed to, and wasn’t really sure what he’d expected out of this meeting anyway. He certainly hadn’t expected a trip to northern Sweden but, on the positive side, he doubted Brabham would ever think of looking for him there either.
Chapter Eight
Dan was met off the plane at Arlanda by a guy called Henrik Andresen from the Swedish Security Service. He was in his forties, looked older, and came across like a slightly rumpled high school teacher.
He addressed Dan as Mr. Porter, then as David. They bypassed Security, headed to a small spare office which had the feel of an interview room, and Andresen brought him coffee and pastries.
They stayed there for just under an hour, Andresen talking primarily about the weather and how much colder Dan might expect to find it up in the north. At no point did he refer to the job or Dan’s position.
When his next flight was ready, Andresen carried out the same courtesies in reverse. Then, with some relief on Dan’s part, he said goodbye to him, explaining that another colleague would meet him in the north.
Dan sat by the window for the hour or so of the internal flight and, as he looked down at the seemingly endless landscape of lakes and forests, he could understand more than ever why someone would choose rural Sweden for a hideout. If it hadn’t been for the accident, he doubted anyone would have ever found Jacques Fillon.
Maybe that’s what it would take to secure his own future too, if Patrick’s plan didn’t work. He imagined himself falling off the grid the way Fillon had, but wasn’t sure he had it in him. True, he’d stayed out of reach one way or another for most of his adult life, but he’d also stayed on the move, and was less confident that he’d ever be able to settle permanently into some rural idyll.
Of course, he didn’t know what Fillon had been running from, or what kind of person he’d been. Maybe he’d been one of life’s natural loners, maybe he’d been a keen hunter or birdwatcher, or had possessed some other interest to explain the move. Or maybe he’d just been afraid enough to put up with it.
There was a woman waiting for Dan as he left the plane. She was in casual clothes, pretty and fair, a sporty leanness about her, almost too Scandinavian. He’d hoped she was there to meet him as soon as he’d spotted her, and it felt like a lucky break when she met his gaze and smiled, saying, “Welcome to Lule?, Mr. Hendricks.”
She knew his name, which felt like it mattered somehow, and he stepped aside from the other exiting passengers and said, “Thanks, and call me Dan.”
She shook his hand, saying, “Inger Bengtsson, from the Security Service. I know Patrick White quite well. Please, follow me.”
They started walking. She had the sing-song voice that he was used to from Swedes speaking English, but also a brusque matter-of-fact quality that he liked.
“Are you based here, Inger?”
“No, I flew up from Stockholm, on an earlier flight.”
“I thought you had an office in Ume?, covering the north.”
“We do.” She smiled, making clear she didn’t see a need to explain herself. He liked her more for that.
Once outside, she pointed to a uniformed policeman standing next to a patrol car and as they reached him, she said, “This is Per Forsberg, from the local police—he drove down to collect us. This is Dan.”
Dan couldn’t help smiling to himself as he shook hands with the policeman, because she’d introduced him as Dan, not David Porter. That’s what he got for relying on Patrick White to arrange his alias.
Per put Dan’s case in the car next to Inger’s and they drove out of the airport.
Dan and Inger were sitting in the back and as he looked out of the window he said, “Is it far?”
“I think about forty-five minutes, maybe a little more—I’ve never been there before now.” He began to wonder if her brusqueness might not be as friendly as he’d first imagined, fearing perhaps that she and her colleagues even resented whatever pressure Patrick had brought to bear in order to have them babysit Dan on this trip. But she gave a smile now and said, “What about you? I guess you must have been to Sweden before, but have you ever been this far north?”
“Actually, this is my first time in Sweden.”