The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller by Stewart A.J

Author:Stewart, A.J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jacaranda Drive
Published: 2020-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Flynn ate dinner at a brewpub. It was like breaking the surface after a long deep-sea dive. The theater had been dark and hidden, and the brewpub was loud and well lit and pulsed with the energy of humans enjoying other humans. Flynn, sitting at a two-top, ate a burger and drank Jolly Cola. He watched the people at a large table nearby as they did tasting flights of beer, comparing notes as if they were discussing French philosophy.

An hour before he was due to meet Olsen, Flynn began walking. He wanted to take time to peruse the area, to the extent he could. The Royal Library was on the islet of Slotsholmen, along with Christiansborg Palace, which housed the Danish parliament. It was a well-trodden tourist area. Lots of people moved about in the late evening, the twilight that seemed to go on forever.

The evening became brisk as a breeze blew in off the water. Flynn flicked his collar up and saw other people doing the same. A few draped light scarves around their necks. He wandered in a wide ring around the islet, looking for people who didn’t belong.

Lund’s men fit that description. They were hard-scrabble guys, with their muscles and square jaws and chip-on-the-shoulder attitudes. They didn’t fit here. These people were polished and sophisticated. This was the seat of power, so the attitudes were completely different, as if they owned the world.

Flynn saw nothing of note. He walked through the bibliotekshaven—the library garden—and into the original red-brick building. The inside smelled like a library, the scent of a million books, musty and aged. It was a smell that Flynn enjoyed. Because their apartment had been small, his mother had often taken him and his brother to the library, and whether it was the local municipal one or the grand Royal Library of Belgium, the aroma was the same. It was the scent of knowledge.

He ambled through the old library and into the new. The modern addition was spacious and grand in a whole other way. Flynn walked up across the bridge over Christians Brygge and into the new space known as the Black Diamond. He figured entering from inside the library would allow him the chance to observe any watchers outside. He came into the atrium that offered a view out across the harbor to the island on the far side.

The library was closing as Olsen had said it would. People finished their reading or borrowing and moved away into the evening. Flynn watched them step out onto the waterfront concourse called Søren Kierkegaards Plads. There were people walking along the waterfront in both directions, but none seemed to be moving unusually slow or stopping to watch the exit of the library. He saw no watchers and no sign of Olsen.

A librarian told him the library was closing, so he moved slowly toward the exit. He scanned the atrium but didn’t see Olsen inside. A security guy directed the last of the patrons out the

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