Even going about their everyday business and keeping their heads down, anyone who looked like the guys Bolan had seen in the videos would be noticeable. Long-haired metal fans were a minority; even without their face paint, these guys would have the tattoos and piercings that would set them apart.
As Bolan checked in and went up to his room, settling in, he went over the briefing he had received before leaving the States.
* * *
“IT’S STRANGE HOW I suddenly became an expert because of tastes that got me laughed at the rest of the time,” Kurtzman had remarked. “Black metal is a strange beast, Striker. For such a macho and posturing music, its protagonists can be surprisingly mild mannered. Either because they’re kids compensating for adolescent feelings of inferiority, or because they realize all their aggressive tendencies through their chosen art form—”
“Like Polynesian traditional theater or Japanese Noh theater,” Bolan interjected.
“Hey, you do read some of those books I leave in your quarters,” Kurtzman commented.
“It’s interesting how people work out their aggressions,” Bolan said. “If more people did that, there would be a whole lot less work for me to do.”
“You’re not about to become redundant,” Brognola growled, cutting across the conversation. “Can we stick to the point?”
“Of course,” Kurtzman said. “My point, in the middle of that discourse, was that the minority of people in these bands—and it’s primarily a male preserve, as you might expect—are committed or obsessive enough to follow through on their beliefs, to take action to realize the aims they profess. But when they do, they can be incredibly destructive.”
“I saw the clip of the burning church,” Bolan commented, keeping the disgust out of his voice. “It’s been a while since they were doing that.”
“Yes, but sadly that’s not the only instance in recent times. However distasteful we find that, though, it’s not the real problem. Since the pendulum started to swing right in Eastern Europe, the bands and followers who take their views seriously have found a lot of people who are willing to help them realize their fantasies and in turn enlist their help.”
“What do the locals have to say about this?” Bolan asked, turning to Brognola.
“The police in Trondheim are attributing the murder to the dead guitarist, who apparently died from acute alcohol poisoning.”
“If he could kill someone with the force and direction indicated by the medical report you emailed to me, then he can’t have been that drunk when he did it. Why keep on drinking? Why not try to get away?”
“Indeed,” Kurtzman said with a sardonic edge. “Particularly as an inventory of the apartment doesn’t seem to indicate there was enough booze there to actually induce the condition. Let alone account for the evidence that at least two other people were there around the estimated time of death.”
“So the locals are happy to tie it up regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Nice.”
“They’re embarrassed about the churches, and it took a long time to recover from the damage the black metal deaths caused back in the nineties.”
“There were links to far-right groups in Trondheim?” Bolan queried.
“Only after that nut-job metalhead—what’s his name—was banged up,” Aaron Kurtzman replied. “And the Norwegian security services have no evidence of any real links between far-right groups and the bands beyond a few messages of support between the two on websites. There are no documented meetings between the factions, and no communications that can be traced.”
“That says more about the Norwegian security services than anything else,” Bolan remarked.
“You were never the most diplomatic of men, Striker,” Brognola murmured, “but I can’t fault your logic. These rogue groups get smarter all the time.”
Bolan sat in silence for a moment, then said, “I guess there’s no point in relying on any local liaison to fill me in. On the other hand, there’s no one to get in my way, and I won’t be interfering with any official lines of inquiry, as there aren’t any. A clear field...it could be a hell of a lot worse.”
* * *
BOLAN WENT OVER this intel to date as he showered and changed before hitting the streets. He had brought with him currencies for both Norway and Finland. The trail began here in Trondheim, but he figured that it would rapidly take him across the border to the lost bunker. The last thing he wanted was to waste time on logistics.
He carried his favored Beretta 93R handgun in an underarm holster, and a micro Uzi SMG clipped to the belt of his blacksuit. Some spare magazines and a couple grenades—smoke and fragmentation— completed his immediate armory, though he had some in reserve in his case. The convenience of using USAF transport was that he could ferry ordnance across borders with no problems.
Stashing his case, he left the hotel, the blacksuit covered by a winter jacket and baggy ski pants, his combat boots not appearing out of place in this cold environment.
Searches by various intelligence services—those of the U.S. and Finland, plus Stony Man’s own resources—had yielded no background on the band Asmodeus, whose members had been at the root of the church burning, and who were known contacts for the dead Finns.
The only proof of their existence entailed email addresses and a website domain—paid for with a credit card that was then paid off in cash and billed to a P.O. Box under the name of a man who had been dead for seven years. Even their music and related videos had no material presence, bought solely on download. Their few local shows seemed to be organized by equally shadowy men under aliases that disintegrated under close examination.
Whoever they were, these ghosts were adept at covering their tracks. In their everyday lives they would be unable to hide their allegiance to a certain type of music because of their looks but would probably pay lip service to a less controversial form of the music. But they had to rehearse somewhere. Sure they would be using other names, but because of the nature of what they played, they would want some privacy.
This was the Achilles’ heel that the Stony Man intel team needed. It was a relatively simple task for them to isolate all rehearsal spaces in Trondheim, or other locales that were hired and used for such a purpose, and whittle down the possibilities.
All the conventional rehearsal spots for musicians could be dismissed out of hand. These would be used by a number of bands, of varying types, and so would be too open for such a necessarily secretive group.
Of the warehouses and spaces remaining, there were eight: two of them were along the dock, and were in areas that were well populated during the working day but deserted at night. The other six were within the city itself, and could hardly be said to be private or isolated at any time.
Bolan opted to check out the isolated venues first. If either of the dockside warehouses were used by Asmodeus, then night would be the best time to scout them out. The band would not wish to be seen by day. As it was now early afternoon, it gave Bolan time to navigate the city and check out the businesses surrounding these prime targets. He was pretty sure that one of the two dock locations would be his objective, but it would be politic to double check.
The
