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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

189

By the time Bjorn and Frank entered the parking lot, Igor had already unloaded his car. And Ante was out with Igor looking over the wares and signing off on the delivery.

"You got any mail for us? Any parcels? Letters?" Frank asked, directing his question at Igor.
"Yep! Several letters and a parcel from Oslo," Ante answered on Igor's behalf. "Looks like you got our scanner already."

Ante handed the parcel and some letters to Frank, who gave a satisfied nod at the sight of the brown cardboard box, marked special delivery.

"Let's check this out," Frank said, turning to Bjorn. "Let's see if it is the scanner."

Frank brought the box and the letters into the living room where he dropped them on the coffee table.

"Ah... This letter is for you," Frank noted as he quickly looked through the post. Frank handed the letter to Bjorn, who put it in his back pocket. Then he opened the parcel with eager anticipation.

"Well, there it is!" Frank said with a satisfied smile as it became evident that the parcel did indeed contain the promised scanner. "Looks like you'll have your PC back very soon," Frank continued while removing a small hand held device from the box. "This comes with its own PC," he explained, calling Bjorn's attention to a small laptop included in the box.

A one page instruction leaflet explained how the included PC was configured to plug and play. All that was required was to connect the scanner to the PC, and to connect the PC to the internet.

"Why don't you take this out to Geir?" Frank suggested, putting the scanner back into the box before handing it all over to Bjorn.
"Sure! I'll do that," Bjorn replied, happy to know that he would soon have his PC back.

Bjorn took the box under his arm and headed back out, where he came across Ante and Igor again.

"So it was the scanner, was it?" Ante asked.
"Yes it was," Bjorn replied with a satisfied smile. Then he set off to the glass cage to have it installed.

Bjorn found Geir strutting about on the road immediately in front of the glass box, the automatic pistol hanging across his belly. He was clearly enjoying a sense of importance where he was moving slowly around. It was not immediately clear what it was all about, but as Bjorn came closer to the glass cage, he could see that Gus and his men had started setting up a sign down the road. The curve in the road, and the steepness of the stretch of road where the men were working had hidden them from Bjorn's view.

"They are not our prisoners of war, you know," Bjorn noted dryly as he approached Geir.
"No. Of course not," Geir replied, pretending to be confused by Bjorn's remark. "I'm just watching them. Making sure they do their job right."
"Yeah, but you don't need to stand here to see them work. You can see them just as well from the office."
"Sure. But it's a nice day. And it's easier to call them from here if I see them doing anything wrong."

Bjorn looked at Geir, but did not call him out on his nonsense. Instead, he called Geir's attention to the parcel under his arm,

"I can set it up for you," Bjorn suggested, seeing that Geir was in no hurry to go into the glass cage.
"If you don't mind," Geir responded, returning his attention to Gus and his men.
"You're not curious about the scanner?" Bjorn asked.
"No. Should I? It's just a scanner, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but..."

Bjorn gave up on drawing Geir's attention back to back to the scanner. And, in fact, he was quite happy to leave the man outside, as his very presence made him nervous and irritated.

Bjorn climbed into the office with the parcel where he disconnected his own PC, and replaced it with the one sent to them from Oslo. Bjorn connected the scanner to the lap top, typed in the name and password included in the one sheet manual, and after connecting it to the web, everything came up as it should.

Bjorn made a quick check to see if he could go to other web sites, but that proved impossible. The only site accessible to the lab top was the database at the foreign ministry. And even there, the browsing he had been doing earlier was cut off. The PC was dedicated to doing one thing, and one thing only, and that was to scan passports and similar travel documents.

"Maybe just as well," Bjorn thought to himself while picking up his own laptop and charger. "It's not like we are supposed to sit out here and surf the web."

Then, as Bjorn was about to leave the glass cage, Igor drove up to the side of the office. Bjorn let him pass with a friendly smile and a push of the green button. He watched Igor drive down the hill, slowly passing Geir and Gus before speeding up. Things were harmonious in a way, Bjorn thought as he picked up his things. Even Geir seemed to fit into the picture, despite his irritating ways.

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