Gabriel Mørk felt vaguely twitchy as he waited to be met in Mariboesgate. As far as he knew, Oslo Police had its headquarters in Grønland, so that was where he’d expected to go, but it turned out not to be the case. He had received a short text message: Go to Mariboesgate. Will pick you up at 11 a.m. No sender. Nothing. Strange, really. Come to think of it, his whole week had been strange—entertaining up to a point, sure, but Gabriel Mørk still did not know exactly what he had signed up for.
A job. He’d never had one of those before. Reporting to a boss. Working as part of a team. Joining the real world. Getting up in the morning. Becoming a responsible member of society. Not something this twenty-four-year-old was used to.
Gabriel Mørk liked staying up at night when the rest of the world was asleep. Much easier to think then. With the dark night outside and just the light from the screens glowing in his studio. Calling it a studio was a slight embellishment. Mørk was always reluctant to admit that he was still living at home. Yes, he had his own entrance and his own bathroom, but his mother lived in the same house. It wasn’t very rock ’n’ roll and definitely not something he would bring up on the rare occasions he met new people or bumped into old school friends. Not that it was a problem. He knew several hackers who did the same. Who still lived at home. But even so.
However, his situation was about to change. Completely out of the blue. It was all happening a little too quickly. Or was this what he’d been waiting for his whole life? He had met her online only seven months ago, and already she was pregnant. They were looking for a place together, and now he was standing in the street having gotten himself a job working for the police. Gabriel had never felt that he was very good at anything except computers. In that area few were better than him, but not in other aspects of life. At school he had kept mostly to himself. Blushed whenever a girl came over to invite him to join in something.
He glanced around nervously, but there was no sign of anyone coming to meet him. Perhaps it had all been a joke? Working for the police? At first he’d thought some of his cyberfriends had been messing with him. He knew a couple of people who would think a prank like this would be hilarious. Screw with people. Hack their medical records. Hack lawyers’ offices. Send messages to strangers telling them they were pregnant. Make false paternity claims. Wreak as much havoc as possible. Gabriel Mørk was not that kind of hacker, but he knew many who were. It was possible that someone was setting him up, but he didn’t think so. The guy who’d called him had seemed very credible. They’d gotten his name from GCHQ in Great Britain. MI6. The intelligence service. Like most of his acquaintances, Mørk had had a go at Can You Crack It?—a challenge that had been posted on the Internet the previous autumn. To ordinary people it was a seemingly unbreakable code. One hundred and sixty pairs of numbers and letters with a clock counting down to zero to increase the tension. He had not been the first to solve the code, but neither had he been very far behind. The first to crack it had been a Russian, a black hacker, who cracked the code only a few hours after it had been uploaded to the Net. Mørk knew that the Russian had not cracked the code itself; he’d merely reverse-engineered it by hacking the website, canyoucrackit.co.uk, and found the HTML file, which was supposed to contain the solution. Kind of fun, but not really the point of the challenge.
Gabriel Mørk had spotted right away that it was machine code, x86, and that it implemented the RC4 algorithm. The creators of the code had put in place numerous obstacles, such as hiding a block of data inside a PNG file, so it was not enough merely to decrypt the numbers, but despite this it had taken him only a couple of nights. A fun challenge. The solution to the code itself was not quite as entertaining. The whole thing had turned out to be a PR stunt on behalf of GCHQ, a section of the British intelligence service, a test, a job application. If you can break this code, you are smart enough to work for us.
He had entered his name and explained how he’d cracked the code. Why not? He might as well. He had received a friendly reply that yes, his solution was correct, but unfortunately only British nationals could apply for jobs with the service.
Gabriel Mørk had thought nothing more of it. Not until his cell phone rang last Friday. Today was Thursday, and here he was with his computer under his arm, meeting a stranger before starting some kind of job. Working for the police.
“Gabriel Mørk?”
Gabriel almost jumped and turned around.
“Yes?”
“Hi, my name is Kim Kolsø.”
The man who had spoken his name stuck out his hand. Gabriel had no idea where he’d appeared from. He looked very ordinary; perhaps that would explain it. Somehow he’d been expecting flashing blue lights and sirens, or a uniform, at the very least a brusque tone, but the man now standing in front of him could have been anyone. He was practically invisible. Ordinary trousers, ordinary shoes, an ordinary sweater in colors that didn’t stand out from the crowd in any way, and then it struck Gabriel that this was precisely the point. He was a plainclothes police officer. He was trained to blend in. Not to stand out. To suddenly appear from nowhere.
“Please follow me, it’s this way,” said the man named Kim, and he led Gabriel across the street to a yellow office building.
The police officer produced a key card outside the front door and entered a code. The door opened. Gabriel followed the man to the elevator—same procedure here, you needed a card to operate the elevator as well. Gabriel watched the man furtively as he entered the code. He did not know exactly what to say or if he should say anything at all. He’d never had any dealings with the police. Nor had he ever taken an elevator that required a code. The police officer looked completely at ease, as if he did this all the time. Met new, unknown colleagues in the street. Entered codes in elevators. The two men were the same height, but the police officer was of a slimmer build, and despite his invisibility he looked in great physical shape. He had short dark hair and hadn’t shaved recently. Gabriel was unable to tell if this was on purpose or whether the man just hadn’t gotten around to it. He didn’t want to stare, but he noticed out of the corner of his eye how the police officer suppressed a small yawn, so it was probably the latter. Long days. Heavy caseload would be Gabriel’s guess.
The elevator stopped on the third floor, and the police officer got out first. Gabriel followed him down a long corridor until they reached another door, which also required a card and had a keypad. There were no explanatory signs anywhere. Nothing saying “Police” or listing the names of any other agencies. Total anonymity. The man opened a final door, and they had arrived. The offices were not large, but they were open and light. Some desks put together in an open-plan office, some smaller individual rooms here and there, most with glass walls, others with the curtains drawn. No one paid much attention to the two men who had just arrived, all busy with their own thing.
Gabriel followed the police officer through the open-plan office to a smaller room. One of those with glass walls. Gabriel would be on display, but at least he had his own office.
“This is where you’ll be,” Kim said, letting Gabriel enter first.
It was sparsely furnished. A desk, a lamp, a chair. Everything looked brand new.
“You submitted a list of the equipment you needed?”
Gabriel nodded.
“And that was a desk and a lamp from IKEA?”
For the first time, the police officer named Kim showed signs of emotion. He winked and slapped Gabriel on the back.
“Eh, no, there was more than that,” Gabriel said.
“I’m just pulling your leg. The IT guys are on their way. They’ll get you up and running in the course of the day. I would have shown you around and introduced you to everyone, but we have a briefing in five minutes, so we won’t have time for that. Do you smoke?”
“Smoke?”
“Yes, you know, cigarettes?”
“Er, no.”
“Good for you. We don’t have many rules here, but there is one that is quite important. When Holger Munch goes outside to the smoking terrace, nobody joins him. That’s where Holger Munch thinks. That’s when Holger Munch does not want to be disturbed, get it?”
The police officer pulled Gabriel out of his new office and pointed toward the terrace. Gabriel could see a man standing there, presumably Holger Munch, his new boss. The man who had called him and had casually, just ten minutes into the conversation, offered him a job. With the police. Don’t bother the boss when he’s smoking, no problem. Gabriel had no intention of disturbing anyone or doing anything except what he was told to do. Suddenly he spotted the woman standing next to Holger.
“Oh, wow!” he exclaimed.
He thought he’d said it to himself, but Kim turned around. “Eh?”
“Is that Mia Krüger?”
“Do you know her?”
“What? No, not like that, but of course I have . . . well, I’ve heard about her.”
“Yes, who hasn’t?” Kim chuckled. “Mia is brilliant, no doubt about it. She’s unique.”
“Is it true that she only ever wears black and white?”
Gabriel had asked spontaneously, his curiosity having gotten the upper hand, but he regretted it immediately. Unprofessional. Like an amateur. He’d forgotten that they had already hired him. Kim probably thought he was a fan or something, which was partly true, but this was not how Gabriel Mørk wanted to come across to a colleague on his first day at work.
Kim studied him briefly before he replied. “Well, I don’t remember ever seeing her in anything else. Why?”
Gabriel blushed faintly and stared at the floor for a moment. “Nothing, just something I read on the Net.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read.” Kim smiled and took an envelope from his jacket pocket. “Here is your card. The code is your birthday, the incident room is at the end of the corridor. We start in five or ten minutes. Don’t be late.”
Kim slapped Gabriel on the shoulder once more and left him alone inside the small office.
Gabriel was at a loss. Should he stay where he was or sit down or maybe just run home and forget the whole thing had ever happened? Find another job, do something else. He felt like a fish out of water. And how could you be on time for a meeting that started in five or ten minutes?
He opened the envelope and was surprised to see a photograph of himself on the card.
Gabriel Mørk
Violent Crimes Section
He felt a sudden surge of pride. Secret doors. Secret codes. Specialist units. And he was on the inside. And Mia Krüger herself was standing outside on the terrace. He decided to make his way to the incident room in a few minutes. Being early had to be better than being late, whatever that meant in this mysterious place.