Antler Plan (A Konrad Loki Thriller Book 1) Read online

  Antler Plan

  A Konrad Loki Thriller

  Joonas Huhta

  Random Revolver

  ANTLER PLAN: A KONRAD LOKI THRILLER

  Copyright © 2017 Joonas Huhta

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 13 digit: 978-9-529-392-766

  ISBN 10 digit: 952-939-2761

  Published by Random Revolver

  Edited by Lizzie Harwood, lizzieharwood.com

  Cover design by Anna Cowie, The Pixel Pusher

  Cover image “Time Traveler” by Alessio Lin, Unsplash

  Printed in the United States of America and Europe

  www.joonashuhta.com

  For my family

  Contents

  Note to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Note to Reader

  Map of Rovaniemi, Finland, showing how the town was planned in the shape of a reindeer’s antlers… the “Antler Plan.”

  1

  THE SNOWFALL BURIED Konrad Loki alive.

  Raw cold stung his face and made his eyes spider with frost; he felt his blood freeze white. The snow weighed next to nothing, but it made certain his head wouldn’t budge. With each second the thick snow became more packed with fat, lazy flakes, the nagging truth sank deeper into his mind.

  His mistress was a suicide bomber.

  Accompanied by tinnitus, Konrad reasoned that no algebra of the mind could have predicted her stunt. But failing to assess reality with both hemispheres of the brain was something that happened to other people, not him. Flying saucer zealots, priests, and fairytale men—whoever miracles happened to—would have been watchful for premonitions: whispers in the wind, a deep chill in the bone, or sudden darkness, with grasshoppers going biblical and obscuring the Sun. Unfortunately, reality was under no obligation to conform to human fantasies.

  Konrad tried to blink snow out of his eyes. He focused on the hush around him. Dead silent. Finnish Lapland—a place where birds didn’t sing. Where only the snapping fibers of the ice-stiffened branches, exploding into muted gunshots, broke the deafening silence. Where death was most alive.

  Could a man cycling to work in the blood-freezing weather be blamed for failing to read the suicidal signs behind a flirting woman’s smile?

  His mind-altering stupor made him see his wife Julia’s expressionless face. A sudden swell of relief erupted in his chest. No more unpredictable melancholy streaks, no random cold shoulders, no deep funks with short-fused answers to simple questions. One less mystery in the universe. Besides, if he were going to find a way out of this mess, he would have to come out as clean as Gandhi and as elevated as the Father of the Nation.

  If I live through this, I’ll be a better father.

  After Konrad had swallowed past the cactus of guilt, something moved. A snow-crackling cacophony underfoot.

  “Oh my God.” A woman’s voice trailed off in disbelief. “Is she dead?”

  Konrad heard whispers. Hands digging into the snow around him.

  “...an explosion...”

  “...never seen so much snow falling in my life...”

  “...is it safe to be in here?”

  Konrad registered being logrolled, this way, then that. The dark-haired woman came into view. Frosty lashes, beautifully curving lips, brutally butchered body. No snow angels tonight. A ghost of a smile seemed to touch upon her face.

  Sitting amid the papers flung from his briefcase, exposing his life to the world, was the biggest piece of his exploded helmet. It looked like a cracked egg.

  A banshee wail of sirens crept up the valley below him. A flash. Someone took a photo. More smartphones were firing away.

  Something stirred the crowd.

  A voice yelled in a pursuit, “Stop! Thief! That’s his bike!”

  I don’t mind. I stole it in the first place.

  A man dashed through the crowd with a hero’s confidence in his voice. “Make space. I know CPR.” Upon placing his big hands on the woman’s chest, his confidence deflated. “She’s... dead.”

  A few people’s hands shot to their mouths, the obvious confirmed.

  “What’s taking the ambulance so long?” came an old woman’s voice.

  The big-handed man shifted over to Konrad. Unable to hide nervousness in his voice, he said, “H-hang in there, buddy! You’ll be just fine.”

  I’m already doing mental cartwheels…

  Nearby, a car’s ABS clattered, controlling the wheels as they locked up on the slippery surface. With a devil’s whisper, the black ice under the fresh powder snow carried the car much farther than the driver intended.

  “Look at this,” a woman’s startled voice said. She picked up a gun.

  “Neat-o! A Parabellum!” A hooded teen squeezed through the crowd and shoved, sending a granny to the ground. A prison mug shot waiting to happen—the outcome when parents saddle their child with the lifelong curse of neglect or suicide. Or worse—too much control. He snatched the weapon from the woman’s hand.

  Take it, and I will hunt you down.

  “Gideon put down the weapon!” A woman’s voice cracked the air like a whip. “Move back! All of you!”

  Two black-clad men entered Konrad’s peripheral vision and assumed control with ramrod exactness. A woman dressed in urban camo patterns that screamed ‘military’ came straight to him. She was small, sinewy of
arm and springy of leg, which carried her through leaps on the balls of her feet with ease. A cat-woman oozing sex appeal and sending off not-to-be-messed-with vibes at the same time.

  “Blink your eyes if you can hear me,” she said in rasping, sore-throat voice.

  Konrad did, gleefully.

  “Doing graceless somersaults, Konrad?”

  “Who... the hell... are you...?” he managed.

  “Amnesia, your old friend.” A wink revealed her inward smile. “It’s me, Ruut Stark. You were my teacher in junior high. You have a severe head injury. Stay completely still. I’ll supervise your care.”

  “Captain,” one of the black-clad men said, “you’d better take a look at this.”

  Ruut took a paper handed to her and checked it with one cursory glance. She spoke to Konrad with a grave cast to her tone. “Blink to confirm, do you know the woman you collided with?”

  Konrad put the pieces together. A suicide note? He kept his stare stable.

  She stared back in a freeze frame of confusion.

  Allahu akbar! She declared that God is great, and since I didn’t...

  “Medical team and police are here, Captain.”

  “Assist the police. Then head back to the base and wait for further instructions.”

  “Affirmative.”

  A medical team closed in with a clanging stretcher.

  Ruut kept him company, refreshing his memory. “I’m the girl who always shot her hand up, unasked, salivating with my questions. You must have hated me.”

  Konrad’s mind was blank. His world teetered.

  Should I remember you?

  The metallic rattle stopped next to Konrad. Paramedics prepared him to be lifted. Ruut mentioned to a paramedic something about frostbite, then turned to him. “Something doesn’t add up.”

  An oxygen mask appeared on Konrad’s face. With last reserves of strength, he forced his eyes to stay open.

  A paramedic screamed, “Pressures dropping, we’re losing him!”

  “The woman carried something personal on her,” Ruut said. After stealing a glance at the dead woman for one strangely static second, her gunmetal eyes bored into his. “A will.”

  Konrad slipped into oblivion with an echo as his only company.

  ...it bequeaths everything to you...

  2

  LIGHT PLAYED BACK and forth across the floor from the cracks around the door. Konrad stepped inside—into brightness.

  A slicing pain spread through his head, as if his skull had been torn to shreds, ripped like fabric, then sewn all the wrong way round.

  A big man dressed in white pointed at him with a penlight. The doctor’s great, gray side-whiskers framed a face blessed with unnaturally white teeth. He was big-bellied and plump-cheeked, a self-congratulatory smile planted on his face. Like a hundred-meter bronze Buddha statue with the satisfied face of a man post sex.

  “Open Sesame, Mr. Loki,” the doctor said. “My name is Doctor Olaf. You are high on pain medication, so go easy. I know that you don’t believe in miracles, but your recovery has been remarkable. You must have a guardian angel. But since keeping up with the world affairs in a coma can be challenging—here’s someone who’ll bring you up to speed.”

  Having assessed Konrad’s status, Olaf nodded over the bed at another man in the room who was dressed in black. The man evaluated Konrad from under a pronounced brow with onyx eyes and colorless lips thinned into cynical lines. The nametag on his chest declared authority.

  “Excuse us, Doctor,” the man said.

  Olaf made his exit.

  “My name is Kaspar Nyman. Police. A few routine questions. Your name, age and birthplace?”

  For a moment Konrad’s tongue was stuck as if on cold metal. “Konrad Loki, 38. Born in Helsinki.”

  “Your occupation?”

  “I’m a professor at the University of Lapland. Teacher Education. I bet you have figured that out already.”

  Kaspar’s eyes glowed with animal pleasure. “Oona Louhi—does the name ring the bell?”

  In a burst of memory, Konrad saw the dark-haired, suicidal woman smiling at him.

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Did you know she’s dead and buried? That she is being mourned by a husband and two children?”

  Konrad remained quiet and fought against the penetrating gaze under which he could feel his defenses melting away.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Kaspar took a magazine under his armpit and threw it on Konrad’s chest. The awkward headline leapt out:

  LOVE PROFESSOR’S EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES.

  “You’ve been harassing women students at work.”

  An invisible fist hit Konrad in the chest. “What? That’s bull—”

  “Shit has hit the fan,” Kaspar said, mid-flow. “Deal with it.”

  Konrad pursed his lips. Kaspar wouldn’t hear that this misconception could have come from the way he always spoke about sexual education and pedagogical love frankly. In Finland, the majority received a silent sexual and emotional upbringing, as parents were oblivious to how to deal with children’s questions. People didn’t even touch each other. He was never touched, only when someone bumped into him by accident. Or when he found himself cramped in an overpopulated sauna of 100°C, being hit by birch bath whisks with lukewarm beer spilled upon him. Finnish men didn’t talk to strangers but saw no problem in spanking each other. What can you expect when you’ve sauna-ed out emotional problems for centuries?

  “Theories about your relationship with Oona keep popping up like mushrooms in the rain,” Kaspar said. “Especially now that everybody knows about the will.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Kaspar shot a glance at Konrad. “The will found at the crash site by Captain Ruut Stark, who probably saved your life.”

  “Has she also accused me of sexual harassment?”

  “Does she have a reason to do so?”

  “Mother of Thor! I’ve managed to insult everybody. Ruut promised to take care of me, and since she’s not here—”

  A monitor beeped.

  “You are not supposed to get angry,” Kaspar said, indifference in his voice.

  The door opened. Olaf said, “I’m sorry, but Konrad’s blood pressure—”

  “We’re fine!” Kaspar boomed with all the grace of a cannon.

  Olaf withdrew his head, and the door clicked shut.

  Kaspar continued while searching for a cigarette in his pocket, “Anyway, the sexual harassment complaints are the least of your problems…” He lit a Camel.

  Breath bottled up in Konrad’s chest.

  “Wait a minute. The woman blew herself up, and I’m the suspect?”

  Kaspar opened a window. Cold air streamed in. “Tell me about your weapon.”

  Konrad recalled the teen. “I had the Parabellum P08 disabled. It can’t be fired. I kept it in my briefcase.”

  “Why were you carrying a Nazi weapon with you? We also found an old compass and knife, both with marks like they’d been hit by a bullet.”

  “I collect anything authentic that might motivate and intrigue my students. They’re my mementos. Once a Soviet sharpshooter shot at my father in the Winter War when he attended a wounded comrade. The bullet tore through his clothes by his heart but stopped when it hit a metal-framed compass he kept in his breast pocket. Currently, a student of mine is doing a master’s thesis about the upbringing of the Veterans. The Parabellum is purely a source of inspiration.”

  “And the knife?”

  Konrad looked at the man’s inscrutable face. “It could be a lesson in history, philosophy, or psychology. If the close-hit wasn’t traumatizing enough for my father, another close-call was when another bullet struck his thigh, near the artery. Fortunately, the bullet hit a sheathed knife, penetrating only the deer-leather and the wooden handle, coming to a halt in the thinnest piece of metal of the tool. Fooling death twice, he collapsed. He became unhealthily interested in collecting wrist-watches from dead S
oviets. Looting wasn’t an uncommon practice—everybody is interested in the background of the dead.”

  Kaspar blew smoke out one side of his nose. There was a silence loaded with unsaid thoughts. “So, Love Professor. Are you a religious man?”

  “Irrelevant question. Religion is just a miserable creation the human species tries to impose on itself so it behaves better.”

  Kaspar’s forehead wrinkled. “It strikes me as odd that Oona named you as the receiver…”

  “Of?”

  “How well do you know the Ten Commandments?”

  “I like to break the first four commandments as much as I can.”

  “In her will, Oona left you a message,” Kaspar said. “‘Not in the seventh commandment.’”

  Konrad recapped, “The seventh commandment says, ‘Thou shall not commit adultery.’ Is she saying that something is missing?”

  Kaspar tilted his head. “What does adultery mean to you?”

  “Men cheat to get laid, women for another life. But the manifestations are the same: feeling you are sinking to the lowest degree of existence and sorting it all out in a sea of tears and beer. From a historical perspective, adultery has always existed. Some adulterers still get tarred and feathered and driven out of town, others are stoned to death.”