I finished the first draft of a second Smirnova novel in 2013. I wasn't really satisfied with it, so, after printing it out, I set it aside.
Now, I'm getting back to it. This time around, I'll figure out how to fully format a Kindle book, with chapters and shit like that there.
Friday, October 22, 2021
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Yet Another Project, Chapter 3
I didn’t return to the office. Rather, I drove to Georgetown University’s campus in northwest D.C. I wanted some information on the current staff of the Norwegian embassy. It might have been available at the local library, but it was an excuse to have lunch at the Au Bon Pain restaurant. It was kind of fun to see the contrast between the yuppies who went there and the panhandlers outside. And it was a change from the greasy-spoon grade diners that I tend to gravitate towards.
The school library had some reference works on the local diplomatic corps. I copied the photos of the top level players at the embassy. Hauger was listed as the Assistant Counselor for Fisheries. He evidently didn’t have enough pull to rate having his photo in the reference books, or maybe he didn’t want to.
The embassy itself was on 34th street, just off Massachusetts Avenue and pretty much across the street from the Naval Observatory. Not having a Mass. Ave. address probably meant that the embassy wasn’t officially on Embassy Row, if I cared about such things. At least the address on the invitation matched up to the embassy’s address.
I learned enough to be somewhat surprised. Norwegian Liberation Day was supposedly not that big a holiday; they folded the celebration into their Constitution Day, which was several days afterwards. But they were going to have this bash for some reason. Maybe the Ambassador was going to be out of town the following week, or there was some larger diplomatic function set for the same day. Didn’t matter to me.
When I returned to the office, I consulted my address book and then dialed a number in Kentucky.
“Special Agent in Charge’s Office,” a youngish woman’s voice announced.
“This is Sam Hawkins. Does SAC Yates have a minute to talk?”
“Hold on, sir.”
I listened to about two minutes’ worth of mindless instrumental music.
“This is Yates. Talk to me.”
“This is Hawkins. Some Norwegian spook named Jens Hauger wants me to check out some guy who works for them. Yaacov wants me to take the job. I just want to find out if that’s kosher with the Bureau.”
“How do you know Hauger’s a spy,” Yates asked.
“His business card said that he was the chief security officer, but the public profile for the embassy says that he’s a fisheries official,” I said.
“When do you need to know?’
“By the 8th. I’ve been invited to a function there that evening,” I said.
“I’ll be in touch.” Yates hung up.
* * *
Three nights later, I was sitting in my car, parked down the street from the embassy. A small but steady stream of people were going into the embassy. Yates had called me back that morning to let me know that the FBI had been aware that Hauger had been looking for a private detective and that they had no problem with my taking the case. I had mentally added “at this time” to Yates’s assurance. Things can change and when they do, the bureaucracies in this town have a memory hole that makes the one in 1984 look benign.
I started up my car and moved it to a legal parking place, then locked it up. I wasn’t terribly worried about it being stolen. First off, the car had a manual transmission. Second, this neighborhood was as well-patrolled as any in the city. You would see more cops pass by in a day her than a resident of Southeast DC. would see in a month. And let’s just say that more than the city cops kept an eye on things around and near embassies. It would not go over well if the attaché at a legation was mugged.
There were two men at the door. They smiled and were dressed well. But they were hard guys. Their suit coats were well-tailored and they did a very nice job of hiding their pistols. If I had to guess, I’d guess they were packing Glocks, which were the issue handgun of the Norwegian military. For once I had left the sidewalk, I left American soil.
One of them held a clipboard. “Good evening, sir, may I see your invitation and your photo ID,” he asked politely. I handed them to him. He checked the number of the invitation against the list and then my ID. He handed my license back to me and then nodded his head towards the door. “Enjoy the reception, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Thank you.” I went inside.
The party was inside of a room that was probably the formal dining room. It was larger than any home dining room, but probably quite a bit smaller than the State Dining Room in the White House. People were conversing in several languages, including Russian. That made sense, for the Red Army had liberated northern Norway. Even though Norway was now part of NATO, the Norwegians had never forgotten being freed from the Germans by the Russians. Most Americans didn’t know that. Hell, I didn’t until I had looked up this Norwegian holiday.
I suppose that the party was a nice one. I wasn’t there long enough to have a drink. A young woman intercepted me and showed me to a small conference room. On the table were some trays with finger foods. Next to the food were several bottles of liquor, wine, as well as ice and some bottles of water. The room itself was rather tastefully decorated. She told me to help myself and she left me alone.
I cracked open the top of one of the bottles of Poland Springs. I was pretty sure that they didn’t drink that brand in Oslo, but it’s probably a pretty stupid idea to ship bottles of water across an ocean.
I heard a door open and turned around. Two men came into the room. One was Hauger. The other man was better dressed. I recognized him.
“Mr. Hawkins, I’d like to introduce our ambassador to your fine nation,” Hauger said.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hawkins,” the Ambassador said, sticking out his hand.
“The pleasure is mine, Your Excellency,” I said. The Ambassador had a good handshake. I blinked for a second as his accent registered with me. “You’re from Boston?”
The Ambassador smiled. “No. But I majored in economics at BU and then got a masters in international relations at Harvard. Which’s why my government has season tickets for the Red Sox and the Celtics.”
I grinned at that.
“Jens tells me that you may be able to help with a little problem that we might have,” he said.
“I presume that’s why I was invited,” I said.
“Good. Well, I’ll let the two of you talk for I need to get back to the reception. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” I replied. We shook ands again and then the Ambassador left out the door that I had come through.
“Let’s go to my office, if you don’t mind,” Hauger said.
I made a “lead on, McDuff” gesture. Hauger took me through some hallways to an office. The office had an outer area with a secretarial desk that was not occupied. Hauger’s office was not tiny, he had a wooden desk and a small conference table. He gestured to a chair and I sat. He pulled up one on the adjacent side.
“Are you hungry,” he asked.
“I can eat,” I said.
“Do you have any preferences,” he asked.
“As long as it’s not alive,” I said.
He smiled at that. There was a multi-line telephone on the conference table. He picked up the handset and punched in a few numbers. When whoever answered, Hauger spoke rapidly in Norwegian and then hung up. Or I presumed it was Norwegian. I didn’t know.
“Before we get into it, I’m guessing that you’re the Station Chief or Resident or whatever the term is for the boss spy,” I said.
He smiled. “How do you know that I’m not the head security officer, as it said on my business card?”
I shrugged. “If you were, you’d have gotten someone from the State Department’s diplomatic protection folks, or maybe the Secret Service or the FBI to come by to visit me. But you got a CIA agent to pay me a call. I figure it was professional courtesy from one spook to another.” I paused. “Or maybe one of the game wardens, if you’re really the embassy’s fish czar.”
Hauger smiled. “Why do you wish to know?”
“I like to know whom I’m dealing with.”
Hauger was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. A young woman brought in a serving tray with two wrapped submarine sandwiches. She set a bottle of water in front of me and a bottle of beer before Hauger. She and Hauger had a brief exchange, again in Norwegian, then she left.
We each took one of the subs. I unwrapped it and then looked at Hauger.
“Philly cheese steak,” I asked.
“You expected a herring sandwich, perhaps?” He had a merry tone in his voice.
“Or lutefisk?”
Hauger shook his head. “I’d have to really dislike you to do that.” He took a bite of his sandwich and sighed. Contentment.
I took a bite from mine. It was good, the embassy cooks used good beef.
“Anyway, how about answering my question,” I asked.
Hauger had taken another mouthful. He finished chewing it and then washed it down with a sip of his beer. The beer probably was Norwegian, the writing on it was foreign and the name on the label was one that I’d never heard of.
“I can rely on your keeping this confidential,” he asked.
“You can’t make a living in my line of work by blabbing confidences, So, yes, you can,” I said.
“All right.” Hauger drank some more beer. “Without going into details that don’t matter, I work for my government’s version of MI6.”
“Not he Norwegian version of the CIA?”
“No,” he said. “Your CIA is nothing more than an oversized clone of MI6. The British refer to the CIA as their cousins.” He took a breath and then added: “And when the British refer to your CIA as ‘their cousins’, the word ‘retarded’ is implied.”
I had no answer to that. I concentrated on eating the sub.
The school library had some reference works on the local diplomatic corps. I copied the photos of the top level players at the embassy. Hauger was listed as the Assistant Counselor for Fisheries. He evidently didn’t have enough pull to rate having his photo in the reference books, or maybe he didn’t want to.
The embassy itself was on 34th street, just off Massachusetts Avenue and pretty much across the street from the Naval Observatory. Not having a Mass. Ave. address probably meant that the embassy wasn’t officially on Embassy Row, if I cared about such things. At least the address on the invitation matched up to the embassy’s address.
I learned enough to be somewhat surprised. Norwegian Liberation Day was supposedly not that big a holiday; they folded the celebration into their Constitution Day, which was several days afterwards. But they were going to have this bash for some reason. Maybe the Ambassador was going to be out of town the following week, or there was some larger diplomatic function set for the same day. Didn’t matter to me.
When I returned to the office, I consulted my address book and then dialed a number in Kentucky.
“Special Agent in Charge’s Office,” a youngish woman’s voice announced.
“This is Sam Hawkins. Does SAC Yates have a minute to talk?”
“Hold on, sir.”
I listened to about two minutes’ worth of mindless instrumental music.
“This is Yates. Talk to me.”
“This is Hawkins. Some Norwegian spook named Jens Hauger wants me to check out some guy who works for them. Yaacov wants me to take the job. I just want to find out if that’s kosher with the Bureau.”
“How do you know Hauger’s a spy,” Yates asked.
“His business card said that he was the chief security officer, but the public profile for the embassy says that he’s a fisheries official,” I said.
“When do you need to know?’
“By the 8th. I’ve been invited to a function there that evening,” I said.
“I’ll be in touch.” Yates hung up.
* * *
Three nights later, I was sitting in my car, parked down the street from the embassy. A small but steady stream of people were going into the embassy. Yates had called me back that morning to let me know that the FBI had been aware that Hauger had been looking for a private detective and that they had no problem with my taking the case. I had mentally added “at this time” to Yates’s assurance. Things can change and when they do, the bureaucracies in this town have a memory hole that makes the one in 1984 look benign.
I started up my car and moved it to a legal parking place, then locked it up. I wasn’t terribly worried about it being stolen. First off, the car had a manual transmission. Second, this neighborhood was as well-patrolled as any in the city. You would see more cops pass by in a day her than a resident of Southeast DC. would see in a month. And let’s just say that more than the city cops kept an eye on things around and near embassies. It would not go over well if the attaché at a legation was mugged.
There were two men at the door. They smiled and were dressed well. But they were hard guys. Their suit coats were well-tailored and they did a very nice job of hiding their pistols. If I had to guess, I’d guess they were packing Glocks, which were the issue handgun of the Norwegian military. For once I had left the sidewalk, I left American soil.
One of them held a clipboard. “Good evening, sir, may I see your invitation and your photo ID,” he asked politely. I handed them to him. He checked the number of the invitation against the list and then my ID. He handed my license back to me and then nodded his head towards the door. “Enjoy the reception, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Thank you.” I went inside.
The party was inside of a room that was probably the formal dining room. It was larger than any home dining room, but probably quite a bit smaller than the State Dining Room in the White House. People were conversing in several languages, including Russian. That made sense, for the Red Army had liberated northern Norway. Even though Norway was now part of NATO, the Norwegians had never forgotten being freed from the Germans by the Russians. Most Americans didn’t know that. Hell, I didn’t until I had looked up this Norwegian holiday.
I suppose that the party was a nice one. I wasn’t there long enough to have a drink. A young woman intercepted me and showed me to a small conference room. On the table were some trays with finger foods. Next to the food were several bottles of liquor, wine, as well as ice and some bottles of water. The room itself was rather tastefully decorated. She told me to help myself and she left me alone.
I cracked open the top of one of the bottles of Poland Springs. I was pretty sure that they didn’t drink that brand in Oslo, but it’s probably a pretty stupid idea to ship bottles of water across an ocean.
I heard a door open and turned around. Two men came into the room. One was Hauger. The other man was better dressed. I recognized him.
“Mr. Hawkins, I’d like to introduce our ambassador to your fine nation,” Hauger said.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hawkins,” the Ambassador said, sticking out his hand.
“The pleasure is mine, Your Excellency,” I said. The Ambassador had a good handshake. I blinked for a second as his accent registered with me. “You’re from Boston?”
The Ambassador smiled. “No. But I majored in economics at BU and then got a masters in international relations at Harvard. Which’s why my government has season tickets for the Red Sox and the Celtics.”
I grinned at that.
“Jens tells me that you may be able to help with a little problem that we might have,” he said.
“I presume that’s why I was invited,” I said.
“Good. Well, I’ll let the two of you talk for I need to get back to the reception. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hawkins.”
“Nice to meet you, sir,” I replied. We shook ands again and then the Ambassador left out the door that I had come through.
“Let’s go to my office, if you don’t mind,” Hauger said.
I made a “lead on, McDuff” gesture. Hauger took me through some hallways to an office. The office had an outer area with a secretarial desk that was not occupied. Hauger’s office was not tiny, he had a wooden desk and a small conference table. He gestured to a chair and I sat. He pulled up one on the adjacent side.
“Are you hungry,” he asked.
“I can eat,” I said.
“Do you have any preferences,” he asked.
“As long as it’s not alive,” I said.
He smiled at that. There was a multi-line telephone on the conference table. He picked up the handset and punched in a few numbers. When whoever answered, Hauger spoke rapidly in Norwegian and then hung up. Or I presumed it was Norwegian. I didn’t know.
“Before we get into it, I’m guessing that you’re the Station Chief or Resident or whatever the term is for the boss spy,” I said.
He smiled. “How do you know that I’m not the head security officer, as it said on my business card?”
I shrugged. “If you were, you’d have gotten someone from the State Department’s diplomatic protection folks, or maybe the Secret Service or the FBI to come by to visit me. But you got a CIA agent to pay me a call. I figure it was professional courtesy from one spook to another.” I paused. “Or maybe one of the game wardens, if you’re really the embassy’s fish czar.”
Hauger smiled. “Why do you wish to know?”
“I like to know whom I’m dealing with.”
Hauger was about to say something when there was a knock on the door. A young woman brought in a serving tray with two wrapped submarine sandwiches. She set a bottle of water in front of me and a bottle of beer before Hauger. She and Hauger had a brief exchange, again in Norwegian, then she left.
We each took one of the subs. I unwrapped it and then looked at Hauger.
“Philly cheese steak,” I asked.
“You expected a herring sandwich, perhaps?” He had a merry tone in his voice.
“Or lutefisk?”
Hauger shook his head. “I’d have to really dislike you to do that.” He took a bite of his sandwich and sighed. Contentment.
I took a bite from mine. It was good, the embassy cooks used good beef.
“Anyway, how about answering my question,” I asked.
Hauger had taken another mouthful. He finished chewing it and then washed it down with a sip of his beer. The beer probably was Norwegian, the writing on it was foreign and the name on the label was one that I’d never heard of.
“I can rely on your keeping this confidential,” he asked.
“You can’t make a living in my line of work by blabbing confidences, So, yes, you can,” I said.
“All right.” Hauger drank some more beer. “Without going into details that don’t matter, I work for my government’s version of MI6.”
“Not he Norwegian version of the CIA?”
“No,” he said. “Your CIA is nothing more than an oversized clone of MI6. The British refer to the CIA as their cousins.” He took a breath and then added: “And when the British refer to your CIA as ‘their cousins’, the word ‘retarded’ is implied.”
I had no answer to that. I concentrated on eating the sub.
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