The Girl in the Eagle's Talons by Karin Smirnoff

Author:Karin Smirnoff [Smirnoff, Karin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2023-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

38

She should have walked home, but instead she pulls her hood over her head and makes for Berget.

The snow creaks as she walks. It crunches beneath her feet and makes the going slow and slippery, but what you see in the snow can be lost in a thaw and if she’s to find what is hidden, there’s no time to lose.

When she reaches the first fence, she gets out her binoculars. She tries to remember all the details of the area from Google Maps. She would prefer to avoid using her phone for navigation. She’s sure to need both hands if she is going to look for Märta Hirak. It’s more than likely that anyone who has gone missing is in the clutches of those bike club bastards. Their lair is a good place to start looking.

There’s a gate, presumably kept locked at night. Through her binoculars she can read the signs. Although this is an industrial compound with a number of different businesses, you might think it was some homeowner’s private property. A paranoid homeowner afraid of being burgled.

Beware of the Dog.

This Is a CCTV Surveillance Area.

No Unauthorized Access.

Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted.

Plus one older sign with some of the lettering weathered away.

Visitor Parking to the Left. All Visitors to Sign in at the Security Hut.

A sign left over from the days of the pulp mill, perhaps.

She cannot detect any cameras. The sign could be a bluff. The question is whether she dares chance it.

The alternative is to follow the fence around, cut an opening and go in from the back.

She’ll just have to put dogs and other potential booby traps out of her mind.

Tell yourself it’s a Labrador. Slobbery and lumbering, sure, but friendly.

She passes a row of dilapidated wooden huts inside the perimeter fence, on the side where it runs along the forest edge. She makes slow progress. This is hillside terrain and the ground is slippery with wet snow and rotting leaves.

She reaches the end of one hut and finds there is a long gap before the shelter of the next. She doesn’t dare risk it. She takes out her wire cutters and makes a hole large enough to get through. She bends the fence back into place so it looks more or less as before.

At the end of the hut there’s a door. If she can gain entry, she’ll be able to get a better idea of the overall layout from a front window.

She gingerly feels the handle. The door seems to be unlocked. It budges at the top, but the bottom edge is stuck. She braces herself to get as much leverage as she can. The door flies open with a bang that resounds across the whole compound. She steps quickly inside and shuts it after her. Stands still and listens.

No barking of dogs. No voices. Only her heart, pumping with adrenaline.

Easy now, she tells herself. Easy now. She gets out her phone and lets its flashlight illuminate the floor for a few seconds.

Those seconds

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