3. Oath in Norway (9 pgs.) – Champions Renaissance

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ACT II - CHAPTER 3

OATH IN NORWAY

Monday May 28, 2018

Oslo Norway

The day before, Sunday, May 27, in Sundvollen, northern Buskerud, at three in the afternoon, Yellow and Francisca were questioned by the police. Sundvollen lay about an hour north of Oslo.

“We agreed to have lunch together at his country house. When I arrived, the gate was open. I found three guards dead from gunshots to the head. Inside, the cook was also dead. They didn’t steal anything. The only thing taken was my father,” Francisca said.

“And you? Were you in Athens?” the policeman asked, looking at Yellow.

“Yes. I flew when Miss Walker told me to come urgently,” Yellow said. He explained the sequence of events. “The plane took off from New York and arrived in Athens at 11:00 a.m., Greece time. I received a message from Miss Walker: URGENT. I WILL WAIT FOR YOU IN OSLO. COME ALONE WITHOUT PASSENGERS AND DON’T COMMUNICATE WITH ANYONE.”

“Why were you in Athens?” the officer asked.

“Attending the Walker business,” Yellow answered.

“What is your position in the company?”

“He’s head of operations,” Francisca said.

“What is your name?” the policeman asked.

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“Aksel Sandvik,” Yellow replied. He had worked with the Walker family since childhood. His mother had been the cook who was murdered. Ragnar Walker trained him as their right-hand man to solve difficult problems. He nicknamed him Yellow because, as a child, he liked to wear yellow boots. Two meters tall, strong, athletic, with a square face and clear eyes, Yellow had the intelligence and presence of a typical Norwegian Viking. He could handle any situation. He was grateful to the Walkers; for he and his mother they were like family.

“Was the cook your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Sign here,” the officer said, finishing the routine procedure.

“Please keep this private. We don’t want the details of the kidnapping on international news,” Francisca said.

“We will do our best, but your father is famous. I can’t guarantee anything. You know the press,” the officer warned.

“I understand. Goodbye,” she said and left.

Two days later, Tuesday, May 29, at noon, Francisca was at Walker Companies’ main office, 1340 Thor Olsen Gate, Oslo.

Her father’s kidnapping was already international news, but the police were holding back details until the investigation concluded.

A police car had been found with its beacon on. An officer was dead from a gunshot to the head. There was no evidence linking him to the kidnapping. The car was parked beside a container thirty meters from the road, in the middle of nowhere. The container was a simple warehouse. No other vehicles had been there. Snowfall that night had erased traces.

Francisca sat in an armchair in front of her father’s large desk, in the main office of Walker Companies. It included a meeting area, living room with sofas, pool table, bar, and gym. Three private offices lined the exit, including hers. Beyond, thirty staff worked at their desks in a big space.

All packages or correspondence addressed to Francisca or Mr. Walker were x-rayed in a special room. Strong security measures had been in place for years after a bomb attack.

That day, Yellow checked the mail. Among it was a cube-shaped package for Francisca. It was heavy, just over a foot on each side. It said FRAGILE, with red arrows pointing up.

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Yellow carried it to the special room. As he ran it through the X-ray, he froze. Nothing metal inside, but it could contain poison or another weapon. He closed the door, covered the surveillance cameras, and placed the cube inside the armoured glass security cell.

Using a mechanical hand, he opened the box from above. Inside was a transparent plastic bag. He raised it to eye level, staring without blinking. Tension froze him. After several seconds, he withdrew, returning the bag to the box. The cube was untouched.

He couldn’t hide it from her. He went to Mr. Walker’s office. Francisca sat at her desk.

“What’s wrong, Aksel? Why that face?”

“It’s just…” He couldn’t finish.

“Tell me what happens!”

“It’s better you don’t see it.”

“I don’t see what!”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You can’t tell me what?”

“A box arrived.”

“What box? To whom?”

“To you, Miss Walker. You must not see it.”

“What is in the box?”

“You must not see it.”

“Bring the box now!”

“No.”

“That’s an order!”

When he returned, employees watched him enter with a cardboard cube. He closed the door and placed the box on Mr. Walker’s desk, across from where she sat. He closed the curtains and disconnected the surveillance cameras. Francisca rose, walked around the desk, and stopped in front of the box.

“I better take it out of here,” Yellow said and reached for it.

“No! Don’t move! Leave it there! Sit on the couch and stay still!”

“Please don’t open the box.”

“Shut up and sit down!”

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She gathered her courage, stood over the box, stared down for a few seconds, and opened the lid. The first thing she saw were red cables tied around a plastic bag, forming a handle that peeked out from above. She touched the plastic. It was thick and clear. The cables had several turns. She counted ten; they were tight. After a long look, she grabbed the bag by the plastic and the wires. When she began to lift it, she felt its weight. Francisca was strong.

“Please don’t do it!” Yellow exclaimed.

Standing, she lifted the bag, raised it to eye level, sighed, tensed, and stared without moving or speaking. She held it for several seconds. Slowly she set the bag on the desk, beside the box. She stepped back and crouched to look closer, leaning her head forward. Her breathing sounded calm, but her body had frozen and her eyes filled with blood when she read.

2 + 2 = 5

It was written on her father’s forehead. She stared for a few seconds, then looked at the floor. She stood up violently and grabbed her father’s gun from the desk. She removed the safety. Finger on the trigger, she pointed first at the numbers, then at her temple, then at Yellow, then again at the numbers, then at her temple. She dropped to her knees and the gun fell from her hand.

“No! No! No!” she shouted, looking at the head. “Don’t go, Daddy,” she said when she calmed slightly, though tears still rolled down her cheeks.

In silence, Yellow watched her cry, feeling the same pain and keeping his eye on the gun on the floor.

“Get out of here. I want to be alone,” she said, still on her knees.

Yellow rose and walked carefully, as if stepping on eggs, and picked up the gun.

“Does anyone else know about this?” Francisca asked.

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Nobody knows.”

“No one must know. Not even the police. You understand?”

“Yes.”

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“Now please get out, and don’t let anyone bother me. Close the door.”

“Okay,” Yellow said and left the office with the gun hidden in his pocket.

Alone, she could not hold back her tears. She cried and cried. Remembered so many happy moments. Her father had been the sunshine in her life. How much she had learned from him. How much she had loved him. He was the only valuable thing she had left, and now he too had been taken. She swore to avenge his death.

When she was calmer, she dialled an encrypted number.

“I have my father’s head in a transparent plastic bag on my desk,” she told the person on the other end.

“Who else knows?” the voice asked.

“Aksel.”

“Do not tell anyone. Come to the eagle’s nest in four hours. Bring the head.”

“On his forehead it says 2 + 2 = 5,” Francisca said and began to cry again.

The voice comforted her until she calmed. When the call ended, she washed her face in the bathroom, put on her makeup, and called Yellow.

“Aksel, this cannot be known. You’re still in charge. I’ll be back tomorrow or maybe in a week. I take the head. Now give me the gun.” Yellow stared at her without moving.

“Give me the gun! I won’t use it on myself,” she said, and Yellow handed it to her.

“Do not call me. I’ll get in touch with you,” she said in a tender voice and kissed him on the cheek.

“Now get out of here!” she said in a sweet voice and kissed him again before leaving.

Shortly after, she left the office with a sports bag containing a backpack, the box, and her father’s head. When staff saw her leave, they thought it was a normal day.

She drove two hours, parked the jeep at the roadside, put on her backpack with the box and the head, and climbed the mountain to a hilltop above a waterfall that fell into the fjord.

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I never thought I would carry your head in my backpack, she thought as she climbed the Eagle’s Nest, the peak she and her father had named long ago.

At the top she saw his silhouette against the sky. She set down the backpack carefully. They hugged for a long time beneath an orange and violet sunset that felt like the last light of that day.

“Without him you are my last refuge,” she said and began to cry.

She cried for an hour. Between sobs she told him how much she had loved her father and how much she had enjoyed being with him since childhood. As a teenager it had been her favourite place. She loved the snow, the wind, and the sound of waterfalls. She felt free and wild, dancing to the rhythm of the universe. Her fitness owed much to mountain climbing.

Her father tutored her when she could not stand school. He arranged private teachers. He supported her studies in economics and nuclear physics at university.

Her father’s head and the man she loved were the two best companions she could have then.

“If I hadn’t met you, I would have killed myself today,” she sobbed. “I hated that the world was so corrupt. As a child I hoped to find an honest society like my father’s. I became disillusioned. I punished corrupt businessmen and politicians. How disgusting to find so many lies!”

She cried in catharsis and confessed things she had never told anyone. She said the first attempted rape happened when she was thirteen, by a boyfriend aged fifteen. She had fallen in love and imagined a family. One night while camping he arrived with four friends and they tried to rape her. She fought back, pushed one who struck his head on a rock, and he died. She fled to the mountains. They did not follow. She returned home the next day and told her father. She only learned years later that one of them had died. Her boyfriend and his friends never appeared again.

She had grown up in a natural, innocent, wild environment and had her father as an example of integrity. She believed the world she loved would exist when she grew up.

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Her second disappointment involved a friend of her father who was a police officer. When she was fourteen, he entered her room and raped her while she slept face down. She did not see his face. He put a knife to her neck and a handkerchief to her mouth. Afterward he anesthetized her with chloroform. The next day she told her father. His friend’s handcuffs lay on the carpet, engraved with the initials S O. The officer was Sten Olsen. That night he had stayed in another room. He always denied the rape and claimed his handcuffs had been stolen days before. Her father never believed him and told everyone about the handcuffs on the carpet. Ragnar sued Olsen and lost. Olsen kept his job but ended isolated and disowned by the community. Rumour said Olsen would one day take revenge on Ragnar.

On the day of Mr. Walker’s kidnapping, besides the security footage, a gardener filmed events. The video showed a police car with Sten Olsen’s license plate and a police officer who appeared to kidnap Ragnar Walker. Those videos were conclusive. Olsen’s police car was at the house, but Olsen was missing.

“I swear I’ll get revenge when I find Olsen,” Francisca said furiously.

“What other option do you have?” he asked.

“Do I have another?” she shot back.

“What do you think?” he asked. She did not answer. “What do you love most?” he asked again.

“The world I thought existed.”

“And that world does not exist?” he pressed.

“You know it doesn’t. Without my father there is nothing left to love. I loved everything about him and his hope for a better world, but he no longer exists,” Francisca said and fell silent.

“But you exist and you can choose,” he added.

“It’s true. I always chose to punish those who corrupted the world I love. I think I was wrong,” Francisca said, looking at the fjord below. Suddenly she tilted her head as if she had discovered something.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“Build the world I love with you.”

“Are you free?” he asked.

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“Yes, and the consequences of my decisions, absolute,” she answered. There was silence. She added, “I learned it from the book, you know?” She looked toward the mountains; her eyes shone as if she had found a treasure. “I will take an oath,” Francisca announced. He nodded.

They rose and walked to the highest rock at the edge of the cliff. Standing tall, she breathed deeply and opened her arms. She looked out at the sea at the bottom of the fjord; above, the moon and the northern lights shone. The diamond tetrahedron hanging from her neck tinkled, uniting the light of the night with the glow of her soul. The distant waterfalls sounded like drums announcing the oath.

She solemnly said, “I swear before myself, and before you as witness, that I will fight to build the world I discovered as a child: the world of nature, empathy, integrity and reason; the world where I want to live, and where I want our children and grandchildren to live.” She stood in silence, then lifted the tetrahedron to her lips and kissed it. “Thank you,” she said, looking at it, her eyes filled with tears.

“So be it,” he said proudly and hugged her. The mountains, fjords, waterfalls, and stars were witnesses too.

“We will bury your father here in the Eagle’s Nest. This will be our solemn secret. Ragnar will look back at us every time we see this summit,” he said as a Norwegian golden eagle flew overhead.

They buried the head without the bag and placed three flat stones as a gesture of presence. They would visit him regularly.

“I’m glad to know that he will live here forever, in the nest of the eagle,” Francisca said. Shortly after, they began to descend the mountain.

Halfway down, he told her to call Victoria.

“Hello, Victoria. Yes, I’m fine, don’t worry. The police are looking for him. Did Ricardo want to talk to me? Thank you, I’ll call him back,” she said, then dialled.

“Put your phone on speaker so I can hear,” he asked.

“Hello, Ricardo! Can you hear me?” she said.

“Yes! Hello, Francisca! Are you okay?” he replied; the man beside her listened too.

“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

“And your father?”

“The police are looking for him.”

“I’m very sorry,” Ricardo said.

“Why did you want to talk to me?” Francisca asked.

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“Alexandre is determined to publish the book in twenty languages and launch it on World Cup opening day, in three weeks. We finished the last philosophical meeting and can finish the book, but we must polish, publish, and publicize it. Your father was going to help, but now we must do it alone. We are against time. We have twelve million euros to finance this mission. Alexandre is determined, especially because something serious will happen in Moscow, but I cannot tell you by phone. Anyway, it’s better you watch the World Cup final from the southern hemisphere,” Ricardo said.

While they listened, the man beside Francisca typed a message and held the phone screen so she could read it as her own words. She read aloud:

“Ricardo, the support and our help remain the same, but the book is not ready. Cancel the operation. Do not publish for any reason. I will contact you. Wait for my news.”

“Okay,” Ricardo said, and they hung up.

“What is going to happen in Moscow?” she asked.

“When I’m sure, I’ll tell you,” he answered, but he would not say what he suspected.

Down the hill they said goodbye. He carried the box and the plastic bag in his backpack, then burned and buried them far away.

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