Blood Brothers (27 page)

She looked up at him. “How?”

“Well, there’s a church up the street that I visited when I was here last time. I plan to go there and pray for him when we’re done talking. You’re welcome to join me if you want. Or I can take you back to your hotel room.”

She thought for a moment. “I’d like to come with you.”

He nodded and suppressed the urge to smile. “Do you want to go now, or did you want to talk some more?”

“We can go now. It’s just that, well, you know I don’t necessarily believe in God, right?”

“Yeah, I know. That’s fine. You can just sit next to me if you want; you don’t have to pray.”

“Actually, I’d kind of like to pray. I’m just wondering if it’s, well, if it’s okay.”

“You mean, if there is a God, will he be offended if you pray to him without believing in him?”

“Yes.”

He smiled and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I haven’t really thought about that one, but I’ll bet that won’t bother him. I’m pretty sure he’d rather have you pray with all your doubts than not pray at all.” He stood and reached out his hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

The bronze doors of the Oslo Domkirke stood open, and a small sign in English and Norwegian announced that it was open to the public from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. every day. The interior seemed cool and dim to Elena after the bright warmth of the late-July day outside. There were no services or concerts that day, so the church was mostly empty and quiet. A handful of people sat or knelt in random pews, and a few tourists strolled around the edges of the sanctuary, reading plaques or talking in whispers and pointing at the richly carved altar or one of the windows. Elena and Sergei picked an empty pew and sat at the end by the central aisle.

Sergei bowed his head and closed his eyes, but Elena felt a little hesitant—almost shy—about joining him. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and let her eyes wander over the church.

The Domkirke was very different from the church she had attended with Sergei in America. Sergei’s church had the look and feel of a well-designed convention center—good lighting, comfortable seats, a modern sound system, and large display screens on which songs or PowerPoint notes complementing the pastor’s sermon could be shown. This church had none of that, but something about it made anyone who entered instinctively speak in a whisper.

The years lay thick in here, a deep layer of invisible dust that hushed the voice and stilled the spirit. The Domkirke’s ancient holiness was almost palpable, hovering at the edge of her senses like a faint sound just below the threshold of hearing. Every day for centuries, men and women had come here to pray and praise, and their worship had left an indefinable residue, a scent of fire and incense that only the soul could catch.

The turmoil and pain gradually drained from Elena as she sat beside Sergei. The weight on her heart slipped off and she felt a deep peace filling her. It was like stepping out of a bitter winter storm and into a warm room with a crackling fire and a comfortable chair waiting. She felt a new and unexpected calm seeping into her soul. Then she suddenly remembered why they were there, and she bowed her head in prayer.

At eight fifteen the next morning, the phone rang in Judge Reilly’s chambers, a half-decorated office down the hall from his courtroom. Boxes of books and memorabilia still sat along the walls and beneath the window that offered a panoramic view of the Chicago cityscape. So far, the only items to make it out of the boxes were some books, Judge Reilly’s law-school diploma, and a trophy naming him Midwest Conference Basketball Player of the Year for 2003. The judge sat behind his desk, wearing a slightly frayed dress shirt and tie. Bert Siwell was in a chair on the other side of the desk. The judge pushed the speakerphone button. “Mr. Corbin?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Ben’s voice was distorted by the poor quality of the speaker. “Thank you for agreeing to hold this hearing telephonically and on short notice.”

“That’s not a problem,” replied the judge. “I understand that there are circumstances beyond your control here. Mr. Siwell is sitting in my chambers. Are you both ready to proceed?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said both attorneys.

“Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Corbin.”

“Your Honor, due to the circumstances you just mentioned, defendant and counter-plaintiff Gunnar Bjornsen moves to continue the trial date for at least four weeks, preferably more. As set forth in our papers, my wife was brutally attacked in Norway, which caused my son to be born prematurely. Neither of them will be able to fly for at least a month. I would very much like to stay with them until they can return to Chicago. If I do that, however, I will be unable to represent my client at trial. Mr. Bjornsen and I therefore request that the Court continue the trial date for at least four weeks to allow me to be with my family during this time and still be able to spend at least a week preparing for trial when I return.”

“Have you discussed this matter with opposing counsel?” asked the judge.

“I called him yesterday, Your Honor. He said that he couldn’t agree to my request.”

The judge looked at Bert Siwell in surprise. “Counsel?”

“Mr. Corbin may have misunderstood my comments, Your Honor,” responded Siwell. “I couldn’t agree to something as significant as a trial continuance without discussing it with my clients. That’s all I intended to communicate to Mr. Corbin.”

“If that’s what he had said,” replied Ben, “I would not have called Your Honor’s clerk to arrange this hearing, and I would not have stayed up past midnight drafting emergency-motion papers.”

“I apologize if I was unclear,” replied Siwell. “I would never attempt to practice gamesmanship with opposing counsel under these circumstances. But the bottom line is that I have talked to my clients, and they do not object to allowing Mr. Corbin however much time he needs to deal with this terrible situation. We have some concerns about why Mrs. Corbin was at Bjornsen Pharmaceuticals’ Norwegian facility when she was attacked, but I’m sure those will be resolved in due course. What’s important now is that Mr. Corbin and his family have the time they need.”

“I was hoping that would be your response,” said Judge Reilly.

“Incidentally, I noticed that his papers request four weeks,” continued Siwell, “but we would understand if he required more.”

“Mr. Corbin, your papers request
at least
four weeks. Is that what you would like me to order?”

“Four weeks would probably be enough, if nothing goes wrong either here or in Chicago, Your Honor, but I would prefer six.”

The judge looked at Siwell. “Any objection to a six-week continuance, Mr. Siwell?”

“None, Your Honor.”

“All right, the new trial date is October nineteen. Mr. Siwell, please draw up an order.”

Ben hung up the phone. He looked down at the notes scattered across his hotel room desk. Bert Siwell had been surprisingly accommodating just now and had completely reversed the position he’d taken just the day before. Why?

Maybe they really had misunderstood each other on the phone last night. Maybe, but Ben doubted it. Siwell had clearly known about the attack before Ben called and had asked several questions about what exactly Noelle had been doing at Bjornsen Norge when she was shot. Ben had refused to answer, and Siwell had refused to agree to a continuance—or at least that was the impression Ben had been left with when he got off the phone with his opponent.

Even if it was a misunderstanding, why would Siwell volunteer to give Ben
more
time than he had requested? There were some lawyers Ben knew who would bend over backward for a colleague going through a personal crisis, but Bert Siwell wasn’t one of them. So why was he doing this?

Because Karl had told him to, Ben realized. After Ben had called Siwell last night, Siwell must have called his client and been told to reverse himself. Karl Bjornsen wanted some extra time himself before the trial started. Ben swiveled around in his chair and looked out the window at the busy downtown street outside his hotel.
Karl is up to something, but what?

If Ben had been looking through binoculars, he might have seen Karl Bjornsen for a few seconds on the sidewalk about two blocks away. The big Norwegian was heading north, away from Ben, toward an upscale residential area of Oslo. After several blocks, he turned left and disappeared onto a street lined with trendy, recently renovated apartment buildings.

Karl had arrived in Norway that morning on an overnight SAS flight. He had bought his ticket in person and had paid cash—which made the SAS security personnel uncomfortable, but made it much harder to track the purchase electronically. He also used cash to pay for all his other travel expenses. To his secretary’s consternation, he’d sent no e-mails mentioning this trip or even announcing that he would be out of the office. Instead, he left it to her to cover for him until he got back. He also didn’t take his cell phone. He had a satellite phone with him, but he did not plan to turn it on until he needed it.

He stopped in front of an apartment building, glanced at a scrap of paper in his hand, and went in. He found himself in a small, well-furnished lobby facing a locked inner door with an intercom box next to it. He sat down in a comfortably overstuffed armchair in a corner with a good view of the interior door, took out a copy of
Dagens Næringsliv
, Norway’s equivalent of the
Wall Street Journal
, and waited. If Alex Geist was right, Berit Lundgren would walk out of that door in about fifteen minutes to go to a yoga class at a downtown gym.

Sure enough, a young woman matching Berit’s description and the photo Geist had sent emerged fifteen minutes later. She was pretty, blonde, and healthy looking—hardly what Karl expected a cocaine addict to look like. She was dressed in workout clothes and was carrying a gym bag and water bottle. Karl smiled and stood up. He folded the newspaper under his arm and walked over to intercept her, reaching the door in time to open it for her.
“Takk,”
she said automatically. Then she glanced at him and froze in recognition. “Mr. Bjornsen?”

His smile broadened. “And you must be Berit Lundgren,” he replied in Norwegian. “Pleased to meet you.”