Cao translated dutifully. The officials nodded, but their eyes lingered westward.
Klara’s hands remained still, but her mind raced. Back home, the red go bag in her closet was ready. Inside was a forged Estonian passport, euro cash, SIM chips, and a ferry ticket to Riga hidden in a birding field guide.
If this tour went sideways — if just one patrol got curious — her window to vanish would slam shut.
She exhaled, then gestured toward the vans. “We’ll finish at the café just ahead. Excellent saffron bread and no patrols.”
They followed without protest. No one spoke. The only sound was the sea wind — and the faint clatter of tank tracks shifting positions in the forest.
The bell above the café door chimed softly as Klara stepped inside. The warmth and the scent of strong coffee, cardamom buns, and clean wood floors enveloped her like a blanket. She pulled down her scarf, glad to be out of the wind.
Annika stood behind the counter, pouring espresso into a demitasse with the precision of a surgeon. Her sharp eyes flicked up. “Look who finally returns to civilization. I was beginning to think you’d defected to Stockholm.”
Klara offered a tired smile. “Only for a few hours. Green energy waits for no one.”
Annika raised a brow. “Green energy, or government guests? Someone saw your convoy down by Tofta. You looked very… official.”
Klara winced internally. Of course someone had noticed. “Part of the Baltic Resilience & Renewables Initiative,” she said casually, sliding onto a stool. “There are some NGOs and investors from Japan, Singapore, Spain, and China. Mostly technical experts from their clean energy board. They wanted a tour of our infrastructure — wind, solar, and biogas — to see the latest tech our Swedish industry has come up with. I think it’s going to lead to some new business for a few of our local companies.”
“Ah, that’s great. That explains the large convoy of guests. Your tour looked like a foreign minister’s motorcade,” Annika pressed.
“Ha-ha, yeah. I suppose it does,” Klara replied smoothly. “I think with all the uncertainty around the world these days, countries are looking for ways to insulate their sources of power in ways that don’t leave them dependent on the whims of a dictator deciding he wants to take over his neighbor.”
Annika made a noncommittal sound and handed another customer a flat white. “Yeah, I suppose you are right. Are you still planning that bird-watching thing?”
“The Baltic Wings Festival?” Klara nodded. “Absolutely. There will be a lot of attention from ecotourists, especially now that NATO’s decided to treat Gotland like a forward base.”
Annika narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
Klara leaned in, voice soft. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise. They’re bureaucrats. Stiff, boring, and constantly jetlagged. I spent half the day explaining anaerobic digesters and the other half making sure they didn’t trip over SHORAD cables.”
That earned a short laugh from Annika. “Well, if anyone can wrangle that crowd, it’s you.”
“Exactly,” Klara said. “It’s all harmless. Besides, I’d rather be arguing solar grid stability than listening to more NATO artillery echoing across the coast.”
Annika gave her a skeptical once-over, then poured Klara her usual tea and joined her at the bar. “If you say so. Just don’t bring any drama to my café.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Klara replied sweetly, though she could still feel Cao’s last glare burning behind her eyes.
She sipped her St. Hans Blend slowly, portraying a practiced calm on the outside. But inside, she was already rewriting the contingency plan for her escape.
Just in case.
The light in Klara’s kitchen was low, and the blinds were drawn tight. She moved with silent efficiency, opening a sideboard that held folded linen and placemats — at least on the surface. Behind the stacked tablecloths, a thin false backing slid away, revealing a narrow compartment no larger than a shoebox.
Inside was the red go bag: matte fabric, unbranded, soft-sided. It contained a rolled bundle of euro notes — none larger than twenties — a slim RFID-shielded wallet with two different national ID cards, a burner phone, and an Estonian passport in the name of Liisa Tark.
Next to it sat a nylon pouch with a handful of USB drives, a small GPS tracker, and a clean SIM pack. She checked everything, fingers moving fast but methodically.
Then she closed it, slid the panel back into place, and refolded the linens with care.
In the bathroom, she flushed a single index card she’d used to sketch a new extraction route — from Visby to Nynäshamn via the early freight ferry, then across to Riga by bus.
She would begin staying more nights at Lars’s place — claiming it helped her sleep better with him gone so often. That way, if anyone came snooping here, they wouldn’t find her home. And Lars wouldn’t have an excuse to stop by unannounced. It also meant less chance of him stumbling on her other contingencies, like the key to the storage unit on the north end of town — rented under a different name — that was currently secured inside her makeup bag. Inside that unit, she’d started storing nonperishable food, a field medical kit, a few changes of clothes, and a collapsible bicycle.
Tonight, she’d head to the co-op market and use self-checkout to withdraw small amounts of cash using her debit card — never more than a few hundred kronor at a time. She would spread these withdrawals out over multiple stores, over multiple nights.
1. Rotate the phone.
2. Update ferry schedules.
3. Buy burner charger with power brick.
4. Prepare second go bag.
She stared at the screen for a long moment before minimizing the window and pulling up the birding website she used as her cover.
She added a cheery post about the upcoming white-tailed eagle observation walk, then shut the laptop and leaned back in her chair.
The room was quiet, save for the soft ticking of the kitchen clock. Outside, the wind howled faintly across the eaves. Klara exhaled slowly.
It was all about timing now. She wasn’t sure whether she’d see the trap before it snapped shut.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Brotherhood Before the Storm
Torres smirked at Novak. The scent of charred meat and cheap vodka drifted through the chill, growing stronger the closer they got to the noise. The pub door creaked open, spilling a wave of heat and sound. Torres stayed close behind Major Kowalski, squinting into the steamy air as Polish rock music thundered from hidden speakers overhead. His eyes adjusted to the amber glow and the crush of bodies — talking, shouting, singing all at once.
“Welcome to the real Poland!” Major Kowalski boomed over the noise, steering them through the crowd. “Not NATO Poland. Not fake Hollywood Poland… but real Poland!”
The place was everything a proper soldiers’ dive should be — scarred wooden tables, faded military patches covering the walls, and a bartender who looked like he’d killed men with his bare hands. Polish and American voices mixed with the clinks of glasses and bursts of laughter.
“This is our tradition,” Kowalski said as they neared a corner table. A handful of Polish soldiers spotted him, nodded, then stood and disappeared into the crowd without a word. Torres, Novak, and the Major slid into the newly vacated seats. “Before every deployment, we drink. We eat. And we become brothers. Tomorrow we could die — but tonight, we regret nothing but the hangover.”