A whole new world

Chapter 5 : Bows and Heros

Chapter 5 : Bows and Heroes.

- Oslo, Norway - July 14th

It was exactly twenty past seven in the morning when a tall blonde woman pressed on the button of her coffee maker for an Espresso Ristretto – a small black coffee that was very intense, given a ten out of twelve on the scale of intenseness. It was an essential part of her morning routine and she dreaded the mere possibility of ever being without the Italian coffee and having to reduce herself to energy drinks or sodas. To be sure she had exactly thirty-seven spare boxes of ten capsules in each box to last an entire year, plus five slip-ups. One could never be too sure when it came to her precious coffee. The small white cup was filled under loud noise with the one weakness she allowed herself to divulge in, and she enjoyed it as intensely as her coffee.

Ten minutes later, at seven-thirty the backdoor opened and the young woman appeared on the terrace, out of her veranda, with a tray containing the rest of her breakfast to eat in the nice summer-weather. But she found herself to occupied with thoughts, theories and worries to simply enjoy it.

Sarah Jenssen sighed. She had accepted by now that her brother was definitely not simply sidetracked or delayed. He had truly gone missing. For a bit more than an estimated month now. And the reports that she had been able to gather, sometimes by making her contacts hack in servers, otherwise by pulling some strings, were contradicting, confusing and empty. Either some organizations purposefully made false records for their own reports and databases, or they were just as empty-handed and useless as she was feeling now.

Frustrated, she gathered her tray and put it in the kitchen. She'd clean it up later. She sat herself at the dark wooden table once more and took a pen and some blank paper. Her structured mind and punctuality didn't deal very well with the mystery she was presented with. She needed a base to work from and to deduct, to research. Large databases, libraries and archives were her homes.

"Okay, let's try to solve this puzzle once more..." she muttered as if the old house of her grandparents had ears.

"I know that he was checked in in a hotel in Alesund, which is roughly 500 kilometers or three hundred miles northeast of Oslo.
Going north doesn't make much sense, since it would be going close to the northern pole.
West is straight into the Norwegian sea.
Straight south along the coastline towards Bergen or even Stavanger is possible but doesn't match his phone signals, nor has there been any sign of him there.
Going south-east, towards me via Geiranger and then inland like what was planned is the logical option, and there were no operations, presences or activities that could have given him emergency reason to go a complete different direction.
He has not taken a plane or big train under any of his aliases, he has more than enough experience with wild animals to avoid encounters correctly and wouldn't take stupid risks for the heck of it close to his destination since he wants to lay low, there have been no recent criminal victims...
Alexander James Jenssen, you dum blodig tosk, what the hell are you doing to be so untraceable? Jeg savner deg..."

His phone had stopped sending any form of signal whatsoever. It had last been recorded near a high point east of the Geiranger fjord, where they had been as children in the summer of 2004... Sarah was relatively sure that the cause or trace would be found there, but so far there was absolutely nothing. A rock slide had found place. Had he really been crushed by tons and tons of falling granite, deep in some opened crack in the earth? The quick visual image of her brothers blood, darkly dripping from rocks, his hand visible while the rest of his body had been crushed beyond recognition almost caused her to throw up on the very moment.

"Calm down girl, calm the fuck down. He isn't dead like that, he can't be. He's not. He's NOT. Not until there is absolute proof and the local search team haven't found any trace of real victims. If he is wounded he would already have signaled long ago. He isn't dead, he is a survivor. He has just... disappeared." She mumbled.