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The first mission went off without a hitch.
I left Heathrow at 5:30 PM and flew into Oslo at 8:40 PM with only a carry-on duffel bag. From there, I caught a cab to a nearby hotel. I ate a late dinner delivered by room service, then went to bed early.
The next morning, I grabbed breakfast at the Oslo airport before boarding my flight to Kirkenes at 8:10 AM. Two and a half hours later, we arrived.
Kirkenes was located within the Arctic Circle at the northernmost tip of Norway, on a narrow strip of land that curved around the top of Scandinavia. The Finnish border lay 15 miles to the west, and the Russian border was only three miles to the east.
It was a tiny town with only 3500 residents. However, it was a kind of mecca for ice fishing from February to May when the weather warmed up after the worst of the brutal winter. The airport consisted of a single runway nine miles from town.
Having grown up in Sweden, I was used to cold weather, but it was still a chilly 12 degrees Fahrenheit when we landed. I was thankful for my leather jacket, gloves, and the thermal underwear beneath my jeans.
When I reached the baggage claim, I saw him: a man holding up a sign with ‘Kinberg’ written in black marker. He wore a heavy parka and a fur-lined trapper hat – the kind with two flaps that hang down on the sides like a Bassett Hound’s ears.
When I walked up to him, he looked at me with dead, emotionless eyes.
“You Kinberg?” he asked in English with a heavy Norwegian accent.
“Yes.”
“First name?” he asked, checking that I wasn’t just some random asshole trying to get a free ride.
“Lars.”
“Come with me.”
I followed him out to a battered blue Toyota pickup truck, and he drove us down the narrow highway leading towards town. I didn’t ask any questions, and he didn’t volunteer any information.
About ten minutes later, we reached a tiny town called Hesseng. He drove to a small grocery store, parked beside a white BMW X3 SUV, and dropped a car remote in my hand. “There is cold-weather gear in the vehicle.”
“Where are the guns?”
“In the back, under a blanket.”
As soon as I got out of the pickup truck, he drove off.
I opened the rear passenger door of the BMW and looked inside. There was a white parka on the backseat, white snow pants, a pair of white boots, white gloves, and a white trapper hat lined with white fur. Perfect for a sniper trying to blend in with the snow.
A grocery store parking lot wasn’t the best place to check the guns, so I decided to wait.
When I got behind the wheel, the interior was cold as an ice box. I cranked the engine and turned on the heater. It blew cold as an Arctic wind until the engine heated up, which took almost five minutes.
In the meantime, I searched Google Maps for an isolated field to test the guns and found a dead-end road about seven miles away.
When I reached my destination – a snow-covered field – it had been several miles since I’d passed a house and three minutes since I’d seen another car.
Perfect.
I got out and opened the back door of the SUV. Inside was a retractable cargo cover meant to conceal items from thieves. I unclipped it and let it wind back into its housing.
Underneath a black blanket was a padded gun bag – and inside that was a beauty of a sniper rifle. The suppressor was already threaded onto the barrel, the scope was brand new, and there were 12 magazines with 60 total rounds of ammunition. Everything was white so it wouldn’t stand out against the snow.
In another bag was a Glock with a suppressor and seven magazines full of ammo – all white, too.
To top it all off, there was a digital range-finder to determine distance – a good tool if you were shooting from further than 100 yards away.
I trudged out into the field with both bags and made sure there was no one around. When I saw no signs of life, I decided to proceed with my tests.
I made a dozen large snowballs, then arranged them into four very short snowmen, each about a foot tall. Then I trudged about 300 feet away, lay down in the snow, and sighted on the first snowman. I made the necessary adjustments with the scope and took my first shot.
