And when I do report to Stina, I leave the grounds and take a long walk to the next road out that leads to a pasture and then the bee farm
she asks me without further ado when I make our weekly call,
“so have you anything to report?”
“I do actually….” I tell her but wait as I watch a nearby car drive away, “I was doing some cleaning up in the attic area and—“
“—yes?”
“I came across some interesting things ….some boxes which —well, among some valuable pieces from Africa and Iran—“
“Iran?”
“I found some old files of….documents and ….transcripts….”
“Go on.”
“Apparently he was an interrogator during his time with the FBI—“
“We are well aware of his agent background,” she sounds impatient now
“—from the Cold War,” I continue as if I did not hear her tone
“What sort of files did you find?”
“It looked like —files of things like roughly drawn maps or….I don’t know, like those football strategy plans —I hardly can decipher their meanings, but—“
“He’s after Retnuh Nivek, you do realize—and he may be setting us up because he thinks we know his whereabouts,” she coolly says
“Do you!?!”
“He has an old score with him and ….”
“So that’s why….” I shake my head
“You’re his bait. He’s a hunter, remember? He can’t resist. His finding you on that road was no accident ….or that convenient old school chum stalker of yours who he set up ….”
“Shit….” I stand in the middle of the dirt road pacing its width frantically
“Calm down—we have not left you there on your own, haven’t you noticed the drones around?” But my mind is swimming and I have no time to process her words before she switches approach to ask, “have you seen any new people around then?”
The qualms I felt in divulging his life details seem to fly out of my thoughts now and I answer her,
“Well….” I take a long breath to calm myself
“You have…. you know, Jörn is concerned for you….” she says in such a way as to shake my wits even more into ….putting my faith once again in ….what I’d come to feel a lost cause
“How would you know?”
“He thinks you are being watched—and it could be possible that Sunny is just an innocent bystander,” she seems to coax me
“You don’t believe that though, actually, do you?”
“Who is it then?” she asks
“It’s a man ….he came by with the boys—“
“The boys?”
“Oh…. the Amish boys.”
“What….Amish—?” she pauses as it seems she think “oh…. they are known as Pennsylvania Dutch, are they not?”
I laugh,
“well…. did you have to Google that? They live among themselves. It’s a separate culture ….they did not approve of such things as electricity back around the turn of the last century….”
“And what’s it to do with Sunny….?”
“He’s quite —connected among their community, particularly the Prince family, I guess they are the family he never got to have as an agent….There’s a driver who—you know they don’t drive cars—so—“
“You think their hired driver does more than push the pedal to the metal….” with her usual finesse of using American expressions with slightly off Swedish intonation, she finishes my sentence for me
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