115

By the time Bjorn got out in the hallway, everybody were clattering down the stairs, except for Frank who came staggering out of his room apparently just woken up from a dream.

"Hi Frank," Bjorn said cheerfully. "I need to talk to you about a thing."
"About what?" Frank asked grumpily.
"About a boat taxi I came across last night."
"I know, I know," Frank interjected. "Geir told me all about it."
"He did?" Bjorn asked, feeling a sting of disappointment.
"He sent me an e-mail."
"Oh... So that's taken care of then?"
"I've reported it on to Oslo," Frank explained, leading Bjorn towards the stairs. "We don't have the resources to control the entire coast line for this kind of thing, so my suggestion is that we should employ the coast guard to patrol the entrance to the bay. That way every boat coming and going can be controlled as they pass through the narrow straight to Kirkenes."

Bjorn nodded in agreement, as he walked down the stairs. Frank sure knew his stuff. He might be a show off, but he had a good head on his shoulders, at least when he made an effort to use it.

Sitting down at the table, Frank was not very happy to see his gun, but revealed no concern about this apart from an almost undetectable twitch. Then, he simply pulled the gun towards himself, and lay it across his lap. Frank was obviously in no mood to talk about the gun, and Ante, together with Bjorn, pretended to be completely ignorant about it. And with John and Espen either oblivious to it, or sensing the unspoken tension related to the gun, did not remark on it either.

And to make absolutely sure that no one would mention the gun, Bjorn announced to everyone his intention to go out with a plate of food and a glass of wine to Thomas out in the glass cage. And this had the desired effect of setting off the conversation on a happy and careless note.

Bjorn piled up some meat, potatoes and vegetables on a plate, poured a generous glass of red wine, and headed out to Thomas with it all, grabbing a paper napkin and some cutlery on his way out.

The rain had turned to a light drizzle, and Bjorn got to the glass cage without getting wet beyond a very light sprinkle that did not even soak into his clothes.

"Thanks, that's very good of you," Thomas said cheerfully as Bjorn entered the tiny office. "This will certainly make my time here in the cage pass quicker."
"I´m sure it will," Bjorn agreed.

Then, before heading back to the barracks, Bjorn took in the view from the glass cage. The clouds hanging low and heavy over the bay added to the fairy tale beauty of the place. The utter greyness and lifelessness conjured up the feeling that this was indeed the edge of the world, an arctic corner where no man was ever supposed to come, and which civilization had violated by adding roads and houses in godless defiance of the natural order of things.

"It's almost a little spooky, isn't it?" Bjorn asked rhetorically.
"What is?" Thomas asked, taking an initial sip of his wine.
"The view."
"I like it," Thomas said as a matter of fact.
"Me too," Bjorn agreed. "It's beautiful."

Bjorn left Thomas with his plate of food and glass of wine, heading back to the kitchen where the conversation had turned to the riots at the asylum centre in Lier. John had learned from looking around on the web that the riots had indeed been taking place at the very same place where Lars had organized his demonstration just days before, and John was sensing a conspiracy of some kind.

"So you think that Lars is behind it?" Espen asked.
"Well, he did not seem very upset with the riots, did he?" John replied.
"When was Lars ever upset with a riot?" Frank commented with a grin.
"But you have to admit it's a little disconcerting that he is targeting Lundby with his rhetoric these days." John added in defence of his theory.
"And that is why we are going to get a big fence around this place," Frank explained. "As long as we are one step ahead of the mob, we're fine."

The men fell silent on this note, and Bjorn took another sip of his red wine, only to be struck by its unusual taste.

"So what wine is this?" Bjorn asked, taking the opportunity to change the subject matter.
"It is a red green wine," Ante answered with a big smile.
"So they do exist," Bjorn commented glibly.
"They do indeed! Proves that even you can be right at times."
"Wasn't it Espen who came up with that theory" Bjorn asked modestly, turning to Espen.
"Or was it Thomas?" Espen asked.

Ante looked around the table with a smile.

"You know, maybe we should all take credit for being such good thinkers," Ante suggested.

And with this the conversation turned permanently to lighter matters. The wine drinkers at the table all agreed that the wine had an unusual feel to it which went quite well with the turkey. But they were more divided when it came to whether or not to repeat the experience. Frank and Espen thought it a nice experience as a one off, while Bjorn and Ante thought it good enough to try again, with Ante suggesting they should try the wine again one day with a duck or a goose or some similar fatty bird.

"Well, you're the one in charge of the household," Frank noted. "So I guess the decision is ultimately yours to make."
"It is indeed," Ante said smiling form ear to ear.

61

Dinner was a feast as always, and Ante had selected a white wine to go with the salmon, potatoes and cucumber salad. The wine was unusually fresh and had a light sparkle to it. But it was by no means a sparkling wine. There was only a light pleasant tingle when he drank it. Curious to find out more about the wine, Bjorn reached for the bottle to take a closer look at the label while his colleagues dug into their portions, complimenting Ante on yet another fine meal.

"So this is what Portuguese white wine tastes like?" Bjorn remarked.
"Green wine!" Ante corrected. "It is a green wine?"
"Looks like white wine to me," Frank commented.
"Branco!" Bjorn added. "It says branco here in small letters. Doesn't branco mean white in Latin speak?"
"But it says vinho verde in big fat letters above the branco, doesn't it? What do you think that means?"
"Beats me!" Bjorn replied. "I don't speak Portuguese."
"Well, it means green wine. That is what it says: green wine!"
"Well, literally it says wine, green, white."
"So now you're suddenly an expert in Portuguese?"

Bjorn smiled at Ante. "Well, am I right, or am I right?"
"Okay, it's a white green wine," Ante admitted. "Not that I've ever come across a red green wine... But any way... The sparkle and freshness of the wine is typical for green wines."
"So it's a white wine made in a special way?" Espen suggested.
"Yeah, I guess so," Ante replied, happy to go along with Espen's suggestion.
"So there may well be red wines made this same way," Espen continued.
"I guess..."
"I wonder what that would taste like."

There was a brief silence while the wine drinkers around the table were trying to imagine a red wine with a light sparkle.

"Maybe a sweet one would be drinkable, if it was chilled," Thomas suggested.
"Sweet and sour with a light sparkle," Ante mused. "I guess that could be kind of nice."

There was another brief silence which Bjorn broke by bringing up Pedro and Lundby in the conversation.

"Do you think Pedro is behind this in some way?" Bjorn asked of the group. "I mean, Pedro is Portuguese, right? And there were an awful lot of Portuguese wines and foreign cheeses in Pingo."
"Duh... Pingo is Portuguese. Of course they have Portuguese products for sale," Ante answered, happy to get back at Bjorn.
"Well, excuse me for not knowing that," Bjorn retorted with feigned hurt feelings.
"It's hardly likely to be a coincidence that Pingo is from Portugal given that Pedro is Portuguese," Thomas continued. "And Pedro is the one in charge down there, right? So, of course he's behind this."

Bjorn had to admit that it didn't take a genius to figure out that things necessarily had to be related to those in charge of the village, but was Thomas correct in his assertion that Pedro was in charge of the village?

"What about Jan," Bjorn protested. "He owns the place. Doesn't he? Why would he let a foreigner take over?"
"You're right," Thomas answered thoughtfully. "They must be cooperating in some way."

There was again silence around the table. Then, just as Thomas was about to say something, John asked, "have any of you guys ever seen Pedro?"
"No..." Everyone had to admit that they had never seen him.
"But who else has invited Pingo to set up shop in Lundby?" Thomas protested.
"I don't know," John answered "But I don't think the man exists. I've been looking him up, and I haven't found anything."
"You googled his full name, and you didn't find anything?" Bjorn asked in amazement.
"No. Nothing, except for what has been coming out of the mainstream media."
"So, you did find something?" Thomas corrected.
"Only the official stuff. Nothing else."

The wine drinkers all looked at John with his glass of water. Then they looked at each other before breaking out in light laughter. "You really are paranoid, aren't you?" Frank blurted out with a big friendly smile.

49

"Ante sure knows how to throw a party," Bjorn thought to himself as he entered the kitchen where most of his colleagues had already sat down to eat. Only Thomas and Espen were still over by the stove heaping up generous amounts of steak, baked potatoes and vegetables for themselves. There was no shortage of whine either, but John and Espen were both having water, either for personal reasons, or in sympathy with the official rules banning any kind of alcohol consumption from Norwegian military bases. But Bjorn saw no reason to be any more prudent than Frank or Ante, and poured himself a big glass of red wine to go with the food.

The atmosphere was positively festive which made Bjorn almost embarrassed to think that he had suddenly felt so uncomfortable in the living room less than two hours earlier. "This is not a bad place at all, is it?" Bjorn thought to himself. "And they are definitely a friendly and polite bunch." And to encourage himself to be more positive in his view of things, he concluded his short lecture for himself. "This is far better than I had imagined," He thought. "So why not be a little more grateful over this unexpected bit of good fortune?"

Almost immediately after sitting down, Bjorn was bombarded by questions from his colleagues which served to underscore his deliberately positive view of his colleagues. They were all curious to hear what he had to say about Lundby, and genuinely interested in all he had to say. They were especially curious to hear about Ane's factory, which none of them had visited before. But Ante was also very curious to hear about the open air market, and everybody thought the replacement of perfectly good pavement with a Portuguese style cobbled stone alternative excessively extravagant, especially in light of the poor living conditions that most of the inhabitants were suffering under.

At one point, they all descended into a discussion on the environmental aspect of the fish processing plant, sparked by Bjorn's description of how all the waste was simply spewed directly and untreated into the water underneath the plant. They all agreed that this could not possibly be legal. But with the alternative being to send everything to China with no guarantee that the environment would be treated any better over there, they could not agree on the factory´s net effect on the global environment. The local environment would surely come under strain from Ane's careless waste treatment, but would things really be any better if the exact same was done in China?

This in turn brought up the idea of a global government. A government with global powers on environmental issues, but they all agreed that such a solution sounded too utopian, and that it had to be up to local governments all over the world to make sure that people like Ane could not go around polluting the environment without any kind of cost or consequence.

Having settled on a conclusion of sorts as far as the fish processing plant was concerned, the talk turned towards the planned outing on Friday night, with Ante raving about Nora's place for which he clearly had great expectations. And Frank was all enthusiastic about the casino, eagerly describing the place as he remembered it from an earlier visit.

Bjorn gathered from the talking that all of the men, except John, had been down in the village on one or more occasion. John, it seemed, was fearful of the village, and the enthusiastic raves by his colleagues made him only less eager to ever visit the place, which made Bjorn think that the young man might be fearful of a lot more than just the village. John, it seemed, was not only fearful of the village, he was fearful of himself.

42

Geir paid for the petrol with Ante's debit card. The man operating the pump, typed in the price to be paid on a small handheld device, and all Geir had to do before leaving the petrol station was to type in the pin code to execute the transaction.

"It's not really Ante's debit card, is it?" Bjorn asked as Geir drove back into the street. "It's more like a common card for all of us at the check point, for groceries and petrol and stuff, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess I shouldn't call it Ante's card when it really is our card. But Ante is the one administrating our food budget, and he's the one who got hold of it. He's responsible for it. But, you're right. It isn't Ante's personal account we're dipping into when we're using it."

Bjorn caught sight of the captain from the fishing boat, heading for the tiny market in the middle of the square, together with some of his crew members, just as Geir pressed the accelerator, heading back in the direction of the check point. "What a strange place this is," Bjorn thought to himself. "Terrible wage conditions, civilians carrying guns, a casino, no taxes on food, wine, or petrol. And people not even using real money, but casino tokens instead."

"So, what's with the wine?" Bjorn asked, taking another quick look at the receipt from Pingo which he had been absentmindedly fingering since he sat down in the car. "It's kind of un-Norwegian to drink wine at a military base, isn't it?"
"It sure is," Geir replied. "It's not even legal."
"That's what I thought too. So why isn't Frank putting his foot down?"
"Because he likes it... He's a bit of an alcoholic."
"Really?"
"He and Ante," Geir continued. "Ever since Ante started buying food from Pingo, wine has been constantly available at the base."
"And you're not tempted to report this?" Bjorn asked.
"I am, but it wouldn't be very popular."

Bjorn nodded in agreement. He liked Ante and his wine, and would not be very happy himself if Geir was to spoil the little pleasures provided by Ante.

10

It was nice and warm inside the barracks. Bright lights were on everywhere, and the place smelled of fresh wood panelling. It was divided into two floors, with the top floor being little more than a long corridor, with rooms on both sides, and a shared bath room with showers at the far end. Each guard had his own room, and Bjorn was pleasantly surprised when Ante told him he could have a room with a view of the fjord, which Bjorn was more than happy to accept.

"I had expected a room at the back, to be honest," Bjorn remarked as Ante let him into a room half way up the corridor.
"Well, some of us are a little paranoid, and prefer to have a room away from any potential action."
"Action? You mean they are afraid of an attack?"
"Yeah."
"Like being bombed?"
"I think some of us would prefer a bunker, to be honest."
"Isn't that a bit over the top? Which side are you on?"
"I'm on their side, of course!" Ante replied with a grin. "I would not think of bombing this place."
"I mean, which side of the building are you."
"Oh, I see. I'm right next door to you. I got a view too."

Ante gave the wall to his left a light knock, to indicate the location of his room, while chuckling from his own joke.

The room was spartanly equipped, but larger than Bjorn had expected, with a desk and office chair in front of the window, an easy chair next to the bed, a closet to hang his clothes, and a TV attached to the wall next to the window that could be easily viewed from the bed or the easy chair.

Bjorn tossed his back pack onto the bed before letting Ante show him the shared bath room and the downstairs area. They had passed the living room without greeting anyone on their way up the stairs. But coming down, they went straight into the room where four men were gathered around a table, playing cards.

The men put down their cards and introduced themselves to Bjorn, asking him if his trip had gone smoothly, and saying a few words about themselves. None of the men seemed eager to return to their game, clearly happy to see a new face. Their eagerness to talk about themselves and their duties made Bjorn feel very welcome. However, by the end of their talk, Bjorn could only remember the name of one of the men, and had to ask Ante to repeat their names when they went into the kitchen.

"Thomas, Frank, Espen and John," Ante said. "Not exactly difficult names to remember."
"No. You're right... And Espen is the nerd, right?"
"Nerd?"
"Yeah. The autistic guy?"
"Autistic? Ah... I see what you mean. He is not really a nerd. You'll like him. Frank is the odd one. He is one of the bunker boys."
"And he is the one with short dark hear."
"Yep."

Bjorn went through the names in his head once more while Ante showed him around the kitchen. Leading Bjorn over to a large fridge, next to a window with a view of the fjord, Ante explained how he was responsible for breakfast and dinner, in return for limited guard duty.

"It is a great deal. I get to cook, which I like, and I get first pick when choosing days off and when to sit in the box."
"And what about me? When do I have to sit guard?"
"Frank has put you up for the day shift," Ante said, pointing to a sheet of paper hanging on the fridge, "which is the six hours from nine to three. He decided to go easy on you this first week."
"So Frank, the bunker boy, is in charge up here?"
"Yes and no. He is the chief officer. But he is very accommodating and flexible when it comes to planning our shifts. He really is a nice guy."

Ante went on to say a few words about the daily schedules, referring to Frank's Excel sheet on the fridge, before showing Bjorn where he would be sitting during meals. The seating arrangement was important, explained Ante, since some get grumpy if they find their place occupied. However, this was only important during meal times, and Bjorn should feel free to come into the kitchen and grab something to eat, and sit wherever he please at other times, as long as he made sure he left the kitchen clean and tidy after use.

Opening the fridge, Ante asked Bjorn if he would like to have a bite before either retiring or joining the card players in the living room.

"I have not had anything to eat since Kirkenes," Bjorn said, accepting Ante's offer.
"Well, let me heat up some left over lasagne for you!" Ante said with an extravagant gesture, taking out a big serving dish with a few ready cut pieces in it. "One or two pieces?"
"Two please," Bjorn said, feeling hungry at the sight of the dish.
"And do you want some wine to go with that?"
"Wine?" Bjorn asked baffled. "What does Frank say about that?"
"He is a nice guy," Ante answered with a smile. "I told you! He does not take the rules and regulations too seriously."
"Well, then I'll have a glass of red wine."