Page 80 of The Collector
“The heist of the century.”
“Bigger than the job you pulled in Tehran?”
“Much less paper,” said Gabriel. “But the stakes are considerably higher.”
“I’m listening.”
Gabriel gave the PET chief a brief outline of the operation he intended to plan and launch from Danish soil.
“Risky,” said Mortensen. “What sort of promises did you make to Magnus to get him to do it?”
“I implied that you would look favorably upon his case if he were to help us.”
“And the Johansen woman?”
“More of the same. If you had any sense, you’d hire her when this is over.”
“The PET is part of the Ministry of Justice. We don’t hire criminals.” Mortensen returned the two photographs. “I insist on being a full partner. You and Adrian are to keep nothing from me.”
“Done.”
“I also want a promise that the video of Magnus Larsen’s interrogation will never see the light of day.”
“Never,” repeated Gabriel.
“What do you need from me?”
“Countersurveillance for me and my operational team. Protective surveillance on Katje Strøm. Full-time physical surveillance on Magnus Larsen.”
“What about electronic?”
“Don’t bother. We own him.”
“What else?”
Gabriel tossed four copies of the same photograph on Mortensen’s desk. They were passport photos for a woman in her mid-thirties with short platinum-blond hair and cat-eyed spectacles.
“The Johansen woman?”
“One version of her.”
“Name?”
“Astrid Sørensen.”
“Date of birth?”
“Sometime in the late eighties. You pick the date.”
“Address?”
“It doesn’t matter, Lars. Just make it something I can actually pronounce.”
The operation commenced three days later with an impassioned speech on the floor of the Danish Parliament by Anders Holm, founder of the Coalition for a Green Denmark, now a rising star in the Social Democratic Party. The firebrand environmentalist issued his demand at the behest of an old friend from Aalborg University, for what reason the friend refused to say, though she implied it was related to Danish national security. The phone call that Holm received from the director general of the PET made it abundantly clear that was indeed the case.
The authoritativePolitikenpiled on at midday with a blistering editorial—it included the wordsshameandoutrage—and by that evening the usually cautious minister for business made it clear the time had come. Yes, he admitted, appearances could be deceiving. But by allappearances, Denmark’s largest producer of oil and natural gas was helping to finance Russia’s war in Ukraine. The situation,he said, was both intolerable and immoral. The sooner it ended, the better.
Not surprisingly, the commentary on social media was far less restrained. The general consensus seemed to be that DanskOil CEO Magnus Larsen was personally to blame for the tragedy that had befallen the Ukrainian people. That evening, as he departed DanskOil headquarters, a small but vocal group of protesters splattered his car with red paint. The organizer of the rally was a hitherto unknown group called the Ukrainian Freedom Federation. Curiously, the Danish police made no arrests.
