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Nordic Peril: The Sequel to Gone Missing in Sweden

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twonines said:
I can never read that without immediately thinking of Dorothy Parker.
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Some memorable Dorothy Parker quotes:

“Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
 
Barbaria1 said:
Chapter 16. Guest room, Hotell Appleberg, Storgatan 51, Sollefteå, Sweden. Wednesday, 21 January 16:05.

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“How much farther is it to Persson’s house? Can’t be that far. We’ve made it this far despite the snow and ice.. I don’t see why we couldn’t go the rest of the way.”

“I already explained it to you,” snapped Arne Skogman, the local Syndicate operative in Sundsvall, who had been dragooned into escorting … with minimal notice or explanation in the midst of a once-in-fifty-years winter storm … a three-man special-ops Syndicate team to Persson’s country home.

Turning away for a moment, he glanced through the hotel window, looking northwest at the blinding sheets of windblown snow scurrying down the length of Storgatan, Sollefteå’s only business street, and at the deep frozen mounds that marked the buried presence of the few vehicles parked along the curb.

“It’s another 10-12 kilometers from here, but the road is impassable. Indeed, the authorities have closed it down. We have no choice but to wait here until the storm blows itself out.”

“Why can’t we rent a couple of snowmobiles or some such thing?” persisted the special-ops leader, a rather tall Asian, with hardened features who, so far, had not shown the lightest sign of good humor.

“Because that would be foolhardy. And, besides no one is about to rent us anything right now. The entire town is at home, hunkered down and riding this one out. We were fortunate to even find an available hotel room.”

At that moment Skogman would have given just about anything to not be closeted with these three killers in a twin-bed hotel room in Sollefteå, of all places. But, ever since leaving … or more accurately getting himself booted out of …. SÄPO, he had been doing well hiring himself out as a local ‘on-call freelance operative’ to any takers, which included both the Syndicate and the American CIA. To his neighbors in Sundsvall he presented himself as a businessman, but always taking care to be vague about his line of business.

He was thinking fondly of his cozy flat back in Sundsvall, but getting back to reality, he turned to his three roommates and declared, “Okay. Let’s use this down-time profitably and go over once again the outline of your mission. I understand that the main purpose is to ‘eliminate’ a North Korean defector, who for some Godforsaken reason is holed up at this fellow Persson’s place outside of Sollefteå.”

“That’s right. We’ve already told you that. She’s a traitor to the People’s Republic and the Syndicate has undertaken her elimination as a service for contract fee. It’s what we do.” responded the leader in his clipped Oxbridge English.

Skogman wondered whether he had once worked for Mi6. The other two, on the other hand, apparently spoke no English at all, for they seemed to be uninterested in the conversation, busying themselves instead with cleaning their weapons … with scant regarded for staining the hotel bedding with lubricants.

“I know, but what about the other occupants of the house?” persisted Skogman. “There’s the owner, Persson, and as I understand it you say there are at least three others, according to an operative you’ve placed on the scene already. And given that you have an operative there already, why are you guys even needed?”

The special-ops leader sighed irritably before answering, “First, our operative on the scene is posing as house staff, and has already been ordered to proceed with the elimination, given the storm and the need for haste. Our mission is back up, in case she fails, and to deal with the others.”

“So the operative is a female?”

“Correct.”

“Okay. Then who exactly are the others?”

“Persson, as you already know, is the owner of the property and the host. He works for the UN, that much I know. Although in exactly what capacity has not been passed on to me … ‘need to know’ protocols and all that … one might expect a defector to be telling her story to some government rather than s Swede working for the UN … but one can well imagine that he’s eager to hear what she has to say.”

“Is he to be eliminated too?”

“Not necessarily. We’ll all be masked. If we can eliminate her before she tells him anything of value, I think the object is to just scare the hell out of him.”

“Okay, and the others?”

“I’m told she has a body guard … an American who goes by ‘Pecos Bill Johnson’. Heard of him?”

“Yeah. I’ve heard some stories about him. He’s kind of a legendary figure in mercenary circles.”

“Right. He could well be trouble. We’ll likely have to kill him.”

“And the other two?”

“According to my briefing … both are female. One is a cop … a detective on the Uppsala force by the name of Gun Thorell.”

Skogman blinked. He knew who she was, although he said nothing. He’d crossed her path the previous spring on an assignment for the CIA, in which he picked her up in a hotel bar in Norrtälje, accompanied her to her hotel room and fucked her. After which, he planted a bug in her underwear before leaving her asleep on her hotel bed. He was never told the purpose of that mission, but gathered later that it had to do with a missing person case that was all over the news involving an American woman called Barbara Moore. In his after action CIA report he’d boasted, rather unprofessionally but with boastful pride, that Thorell was in his opinion a ‘hell-uva good fuck’.

“And the other woman?”

“Barbara Moore … An American academic. You know her?”

“ Uh … No … I’ve heard of her … I think,” he stammered. “So what are your instructions with regard to the two females?”

“Apparently they’ve both crossed paths with the Syndicate in the past, and the Syndicate feels it has a score to settle with both of them. Our instructions are to treat them roughly … very roughly, in fact … but short of serious injury or death … and then await further instructions.”

At that point, his two silent brutish assistants looked up and smiled.

Which meant they understood some English after all.

Everyone then fell silent.

“Let’s get some rest,” said Skogman, breaking the awkwardness at last. “The storm will hopefully let up during the night, and we best be off as soon as it’s possible.”

***********************

Sauna of the country home of Åke Persson. Wednesday, 21 January, 16:06.

“What do we do now?” asked Barbara, warily eying Anna-Lisa, who was now propped up and sitting, backed up against a sauna wall. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and her ankles were tied together. Fully alert, she glared sullenly at her captors.

“She’s not going to talk. That’s quite obvious,” observed Åke. “She absolutely refuses to speak to us.”

“She’s obviously been well-trained,” remarked Gun. “I knew she didn’t quite fit the model of a typical house servant. Something just wasn’t right. Her claim to be Finnish didn’t quite jive, and she took too much of an interest when we talked business. I wish I had my phone now. I’d like to know what Hansson found out about those tattoos.”

“You could try calling him on my phone,” suggested Barb.

“Sure. Good idea.”

“I could run upstairs and get it?”

“Sure. In the meantime we’ll keep trying to get her to talk,” said Johnson.

“No, wait Barbara. Don’t leave yet. We need to consider the fact that there are very effective ways we could employ to make her talk,” counseled Min-Ji.

“Meaning …?” questioned Johnson, turning his head to one side and raising his eyebrows.

Min-Ji nodded.

“And I know just the place,” said Gun slowly.

“You mean … Åke’s … private torture museum? said Barbara slowly, her eyes widening.

Bill Johnson and Min-Ji exchanged puzzled glances.

“Come with me. I’ll show you what Barbara means” declared Gun, rising to her feet to exit the sauna. It’s over on the far side of the cellar.”

“Hold yer horses thar, ladies!” drawled Johnson. “You three ought to put on some duds first. Then Persson and I will drag our friend, Anna-Lisa, or whoever she really is, over there. And we’ll have ourselves a little look-see.”

TBC
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Thanks for yet another great episode B!
Some conclusions:
1) Good to have a torture chamber in your home, for situations like this. Perhaps IKEA can start to manufacture.......the stretch bench 'Sträcka'???
2) Never be unarmed when you go to the sauna!

Looking forward to next chapter! PS Don't forget to guard the exterior of the house! That syndicate team are very close!
 
Chapter 17. Office of Chief Inspector (Kriminalkommissarie) Lennart Björklund, Police Authority (Polismyndigheten) Headquarters, Svartbäcksgatan 49, Uppsala, Sweden, Wednesday, 21 January, 16:19.

“Back already, Bertil?”

“Yes. As I said, my new intern is very eager and efficient. She’d left the latest intel on Åke Persson on my desk.”

“And …?”

“Seems Persson has landed himself a plum job working for the UN. You’ve got to admit, the guy lands on his feet. One would have thought leaving his university position under a cloud might have made him unemployable.”

“What kind of position with the UN?”

“He’s something called a Rapporteur for the UN Council on Human Rights in Geneva. The job is to report on human rights violations in some designated country … in his case it’s North Korea.”

“So what does that tell us, if anything at all?”

“I think the key is to ask why Gun and Barbara Moore would travel to see him way up in Sollefteå … and what might that have to do with those tattoos, and with Moore’s foiled abduction last May? I think it’s all related.”

“Go on …”

“Well, let’s start with a few facts. First, the four perps killed in that abduction case last May were all Asians, and they all had the same tattoo behind their left ear, which suggests they belonged to a secretive organization that used that tattoo as an identifying insignia.”

“Makes sense, I guess …”

“And being Asian could mean they were North Koreans, and if Persson is investigating human rights violations in North Korea, he might be on to something that the North Koreans might not like.”

“And how do Gun and Barbara Moore fit in?”

“Moore … like Persson … is a human rights specialist. She could be working with him, and that would explain why she’s here in Sweden, and might be with him up in Sollefteå.”

“And Gun?”

“Well, we both know Gun is quite smitten with Moore. She likely went along to Sollefteå to be with Moore.”

“But Gun then … out of the blue … suddenly contacts you about the tattoos?”

“That suggests that Gun has made a connection between someone … or something that’s going on in Sollefteå … which she suspects ties in somehow with what happened last May!”

“And the fact that Gun has suddenly gone silent?”

“Suggests that she … all of them, actually … are or may be in mortal danger!”

“And if it weren’t for this storm, you’d have driven up there already?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ve heard enough,” concluded the Chief, reaching for his phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Bulldozer Olsson!”

*****************************

Cellar of the country home of Åke Persson. Wednesday, 21 January, 16:21.

“Well, here it is,” announced Gun, reaching for the key hidden above the door to Åke‘s private instruments of torture museum.The others gathered behind her as she bent down to unlock the door. Straightening up, she swung the door open, entered and flicked on the lights.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Johnson as he entered dragging Anna-Lisa along, on her back, by her bound ankles, behind him. “Will ya look at this!”

“They’re all authentic historical pieces,” announced Åke proudly.

Detaching herself from the group, Min-Ji began to wander about the room. The others watched silently as she would stop to touch an instrument thoughtfully, but after a moment, shake her head and move on.

Finally she returned, made a sour face, and said, “All very nice, but these are antiques. In my professional experience, the use of modern methods saves on time and effort, and are so much more effective. Electrical shock techniques, for example, are proven time and again to produce excellent results.”

“Wait a minute,” cautioned Barbara. “We’re talking torture here. Let’s stop for a moment and think about who we are, and what we stand for. You and I, Åke, are working for the UN Council on Human Rights, for God’s sake! If we do this to Anna-Lisa, doesn’t that say we are no better, no more humane, than those we decry?”

“A valid point,” replied Åke, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“You see what I mean then. We are here for the cause of human rights.”

“But, let’s not forget that our friend, Anna-Lisa, here, cold-bloodedly tried to kill Min-Ji, you and Gun,” retorted Johnson. “If I hadn’t stopped her, all three of you would be back in that sauna, sprawled on the floor or slumped over the bench, riddled with bullets! She’s a killer, and gave no thought whatsoever to your rights as human beings. In this case necessity overrules scruples. I say we do what ever it takes to get Anna-Lisa to talk.”

“I agree. This is no time to play at bleeding hearts. Babs.” pronounced Gun evenly. “And it’s probable that, had she succeeded in massacring us in the sauna, she’d probably have gone on to do the same to Bill and Åke!”

“Alright, we need to get to the bottom of this. I don’t especially like it, but I think we need to make her talk. We may still all be in danger. What if she’s not acting alone?” concluded Åke.

“Right, then. What’ll it be?” said Johnson.

“Well, we lack the means to employ what Min-Ji calls modern methods,” mused Åke. “We’ll have to make do with what we have on hand.”

“I think Babs can attest to the persuasive powers of the rack,” suggested Gun.

Johnson gave her an amused ‘what’s that all about’ kind of look.

“The rack will have to do,” concluded Min-Ji.

“Alright then …let’s get Anna-Lisa up on it!” agreed Johnson. “Give me a hand, please, Åke.”

“Don’t you want to remove her clothing first? suggested Barbara, her tone sarcastic. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall you insisting that that was the way it was properly done.”

TBC
 
Barbaria1 said:
“Who are you calling?”

“Bulldozer Olsson!”
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Uh-oh! the A-Team is mobilised!:facepalm:

Barbaria1 said:
“Wait a minute,” cautioned Barbara. “We’re talking torture here. Let’s stop for a moment and think about who we are, and what we stand for. You and I, Åke, are working for the UN Council on Human Rights, for God’s sake! If we do this to Anna-Lisa, doesn’t that say we are no better, no more humane, than those we decry?”

“A valid point,” replied Åke, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“You see what I mean then. We are here for the cause of human rights.”
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Just call it "historical reenactment"! Nothing wrong with that!:roto2nuse:
 
As if his own presence to vindicate,
Bill foils an attack by the Syndicate.
He binds the assassin
And drags her bitch ass in
To where Gun and Barbara indicate.

Says Barb, “Put the bitch on the rack!
Strip her naked and make her joints crack!
It isn’t humane
But some intel we’ll gain
On the Syndicate’s plan of attack!”

So the hapless assassin is tied
To the rack, as the storm howls outside.
It’s good fun to stretch
An unfortunate wretch,
So don’t knock it until you have tried.
 
Barbaria1 said:
“I think the key is to ask why Gun and Barbara Moore would travel to see him way up in Sollefteå … and what might that have to do with those tattoos, and with Moore’s foiled abduction last May? I think it’s all related.”
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He's bloody good, is Bertil!
Barbaria1 said:
“Bulldozer Olsson!”
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At last! The Cavalry is on its way!
Barbaria1 said:
Let’s stop for a moment and think about who we are, and what we stand for.
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Bloody hell Barb, now's not the time to develop a conscience!
Barbaria1 said:
I say we do what ever it takes to get Anna-Lisa to talk.
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Thank goodness for Pecos Bill!
Barbaria1 said:
Don’t you want to remove her clothing first?
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Damn right they do!

I loved this piece. The action on several fronts is starting to kick off! Roll on tomorrow ...
 
montycrusto said:
As if his own presence to vindicate,
Bill foils an attack by the Syndicate.
He binds the assassin
And drags her bitch ass in
To where Gun and Barbara indicate.

Says Barb, “Put the bitch on the rack!
Strip her naked and make her joints crack!
It isn’t humane
But some intel we’ll gain
On the Syndicate’s plan of attack!”

So the hapless assassin is tied
To the rack, as the storm howls outside.
It’s good fun to stretch
An unfortunate wretch,
So don’t knock it until you have tried.
Click to expand...
A great trio, Monty, definitely on form today.
 
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