The Girl in the Ice aka A Price for Everything

CHAPTER 28

The parting on Monday morning between the Countess and Konrad Simonsen at Polititorvet in front of Police Headquarters was awkward. The Countess dropped her boss off before continuing on to her breakfast meeting. In the car she had explained to him in detail for the first time her parallel investigation around Bertil Hampel-Koch on which she had spent a good deal of time over the past week, including this morning, which meant that she was removed from the actual case. She still kept her peculiar phone conversation with Simonsen’s clairvoyant friend to herself. Even though it was her actual motivation-which she had admitted to herself early on-it was impossible for her to justify her actions based on that kind of metaphysical warning. But she told him everything else. Everything except the most important thing.

Simonsen was not impressed, primarily because he had a hard time seeing the purpose of her exertions. She had fallen for one of the classic temptations in detective work: namely to pursue a false track and uncover a story that may very well be exciting, but which had nothing to do with the relevant crime. He had experienced that many times before, and it was his job as chief to allocate her time in a more productive direction; well, after hearing her explanation he might say in a much more productive direction. The problem was that he didn’t, which-in all honesty-was because he was living with her now.

He opened the car door to get out, but had second thoughts and turned towards her. She anticipated him.

“I know what you’re going to say, Simon, and you’re right. What I’m doing is a little on the periphery of what we are otherwise occupied with. But I have a very strong intuition about it.”

“Combined with a very strong curiosity about matters of state that don’t concern us. That’s also why you spent the whole weekend Googling Greenland and talking with anyone and everyone on the phone.”

“The whole weekend is overstating it. I seem to recall that we were at the Louisiana museum and the theatre.”

“Granted, but when we get home, we have to find a way to get you back on track.”

“You promised me that I could have a week.”

He ignored his own promise as well as her imploring tone.

“A way that holds up.”

“Okay, I promise you, dear chief.”

That combination of words went straight to the heart of his dilemma, and he knew her well enough to realise this was no coincidence. So he left her and went to work, with the pointed comment that someone had to.

The Countess had invited the Oracle from Købmagergade to breakfast. When he’d agreed, he requested a discreet location, a wish she did not accommodate however, for much could be said about the SAS hotel, Arne Jacobsen’s functionalist mastodon of a skyscraper in the heart of Copenhagen, but discreet it was not. On the other hand she had arranged a quiet meeting room just off the lobby, where a sumptuous morning buffet awaited them. Her guest was already enjoying the delicacies when she arrived. They greeted each other, and the Countess poured herself a cup of coffee. She was nervous, which surprised her. He asked in amazement, “Aren’t you going to have anything else?”

“No, unfortunately. It does look delicious.”

“It is delicious, but go ahead and start. I can listen and chew at the same time.”

She showed him the photograph of Bertil Hampel-Koch in Greenland. In the foreground was a young, crew-cut man in the process of lighting a pipe, while a pretty woman with black, wavy hair smiled into the camera from the background.

“Bertil Hampel-Koch, alias the geologist Steen Hansen, and Maryann Nygaard-the woman who was later murdered-photographed at the Søndre Strømfjord base on Saturday, the ninth of July, 1983. The picture is verified by her female friend at the time.”

Her guest finished chewing and said in his gravelly voice, “Well, it’s confirmed then. Bertil Hampel-Koch was in Greenland in July of 1983.”

He did not ask the question, but the subtext and what about it? was obvious. She resorted to her last card in a bid to get him to play along.

“The two freelance reporters in whose wake I’ve been sailing are political journalists, not crime correspondents.”

“I hope that isn’t a concealed threat that you would share your knowledge with the press.”

“No, but if they are also trying to find out what Hampel-Koch was doing in Greenland-”

He interrupted her.

“Also?”

She would have preferred to wait before she revealed her own research, but…

“Yes, I’ve been curious, and I actually think I’ve tracked down the truth, but of course I’ve had a considerable head start on them.”

“Do you mean the picture?”

“No, not at all. I mean my knowledge of Helmer Hammer’s involvement combined with what you told me last time we met.”

He poured himself a glass of apple juice, slowly and deliberately. Then he said, “You are right that our two eager journalists may cause problems for the under secretary, especially if their-shall we say focus?-spreads to the other media, which however there does not seem to be any danger of at the moment. But they have tried to get an interview with Bertil Hampel-Koch, which definitely does not please him. So yes, they constitute a problem and potentially a big one too, because Helmer Hammer can control many things but not the press. On the other hand that’s his headache, not yours. Or not necessarily.”

The Countess sensed an opening.

“Not necessarily?”

He ignored her and said instead, “Tell me what you have found about Hampel-Koch’s Greenland trip. And also, please, your conclusions.”

“I was hoping that you would explain to me-”

He interrupted.

“Maybe later, you first.”

The meeting had barely started, and yet she felt cheated. He should be talking, not her. She was the one, after all, who had paid dearly for their arrangement, out of her own pocket besides. Normally that sort of thing meant nothing to her, but here and now it seemed unreasonable. But there was no alternative. She finished her coffee, took a notebook from her bag, cleared her throat a few times and began.

“So, what has made the biggest impression on me, and what has also been my starting point, is the revelation in 1995 from Prime Minister H. C. Hansen’s well-known letter to the Americans in 1957. You must know the story better than anyone.”

“I would like to hear your version.”

“What can I say that you haven’t heard before? But the story is that in 1957 the Danish Prime Minister received a highly unwelcome query from the American Ambassador about whether Denmark wished to be informed if the US stored atomic weapons in Greenland. Officially there was no doubt about the matter. Denmark and therefore Greenland was an atomic-free zone. Unofficially, on the other hand, matters were diametrically opposed. The Americans could do what they wanted, so long as they kept it to themselves. H. C. Hansen therefore wrote a reply, together with a senior official, which, reading between the lines, accepted the existence of atomic bombs in his country, but at the same time made it clear that no one in Copenhagen wanted to know anything about anything. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. The letter was only reproduced in two copies, one delivered to the American government and one stored in a safe in the Foreign Ministry. The Danish copy was found and published nearly forty years later in 1995. Is that more or less correct?”

The man confirmed this with a little grunt.

“The surprising thing was the reaction in the media. The discovery of the letter was described as a genuine revelation and evidence that H. C. Hansen had deceived his own government, Parliament, and not least the Danish people. By his own account the Foreign Minister of the time, that is 1995, had his summer holiday spoiled. Even though so much time had passed, and all the individuals involved were long dead, the case stood out as extremely embarrassing, not to mention harmful.”

“Yes, the scale of the reaction was surprising.”

“But that’s nothing compared to how a corresponding revelation would have been received in 1983.”

“You’ll have to expand on that.”

“Nineteen eighty-three marked the middle of the Cold War. The year that saw medium-range missiles set up on both sides of the Iron Curtain, multiple nuclear test explosions, major peace demonstrations all over Europe. It was the year in which President Ronald Reagan introduced his Star Wars project, to mention just a few of the security issues that characterised the time. In 1983 the revelation of the Hansen letter would have been a catastrophe, both foreign and domestic, for Poul Schlüter’s coalition government. And for the opposition too. If it turned out that top Danish politicians verifiably knew about the Greenland atomic weapons, but lied to the Danish population about them, many members of Parliament would have been in hot water.”

“Would have been… if it turned out. You’re speculating.”

“Somewhat but not entirely. Jens Otto Krag was familiar with the secret letter to the US, because a short time after it was sent, the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, thanked H. C. Hansen for it at a NATO top meeting in Paris, after which the Prime Minister was compelled to inform his Foreign Trade Minister, that is, Jens Otto Krag, who was also at the top meeting. We know that today.”

“This is certainly very interesting, if you’re an historian.”

He said this without exaggerated sarcasm, but the put down was unmistakable. The Countess threw out her arms.

“I readily admit that for a little while I seriously considered giving up. On the one hand I had no doubt that if in 1983 a case involving atomic weapons in Greenland had been hushed up behind the scenes, it could easily explain Helmer Hammer’s current interest. Many ministers from 1983 are still active today, and perhaps a similarly explosive document is lurking somewhere in the archives. A document that journalists with the Freedom of Information Act in hand can demand to see, if they know it exists. On the other hand I could not find any such case in 1983, and Hampel-Koch’s trip to Thule did not fit with that scenario.”

“But you didn’t give up, I understand?”

“Almost. I rummaged around in every conceivable American newspaper database without getting any further, and then suddenly it all fell into place due to a Danish radio broadcast.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“It was a feature from this winter, where no fewer than three former Danish Foreign Ministers jointly commented on the H. C. Hansen letter in a very knowledgeable and informative manner. And then, almost in passing, one of them mentioned how in early 1968 Jens Otto Krag, as Prime Minister, visited the American Air Force headquarters in Colorado Springs, where he was shown a map of how the American B-52 atomic bombers patrolled Greenland. He even talked with one of the pilots.”

Her guest almost imperceptibly changed his attitude. Years of experience in interrogation rooms told her that she now had his full attention.

“The story is correct, and the April 1968 issue of Air Force Journal includes a picture of the leader of the Danish government shaking the pilot’s hand and thanking him for his efforts. That’s what the caption says anyway, and it also gives the pilot’s name: Clark Atkinson.”

She looked at her guest. There was an attentiveness in him which he no longer tried to conceal. She enjoyed the moment, like an actor who for one magic minute enchants her audience.

“By 1983 Clark Atkinson had risen through the ranks, namely to the position of base commander at Thule Airbase, but he was on his way to early retirement from the American Air Force. He wanted to go home to Idaho, where he intended to try for a political career, and for that reason he wrote a book, you might say his memoirs, about life in Greenland. The book was entitled On Guard in the North, and it came out in 1984 from the publisher Magic Valley Silhouette. But before it was published, the Idaho Times-Chronicle newspaper published extracts from two chapters. The first was in the Sunday paper on the fifteenth of May, 1983 and is uninteresting. The second came out the week after, the twenty-second of May, that is, and must have created panic in Copenhagen when it became known. Because it did become known, I have not the slightest doubt about that. But fortunately for the powers that be not by the Danish press, who overlooked it. Otherwise all hell would have broken out here.”

“Continue!” he almost snarled at her.

“Perhaps it is worth noting that what in 1983 was a secret in Denmark absolutely did not have to be in the United States. Commander Atkinson related in exhaustive detail his meeting with the Danish Prime Minister in 1968 and mentioned H. C. Hansen’s letter of 1957, praising courageous Danish politicians who did not let themselves be cowed by left-oriented public referenda. I have a copy, shall I read you the relevant passage?”

“No. What about Bertil Hampel-Koch? You’re not mentioning him.”

“My guess is that to start with it was through general diplomacy that attempts were made to get Clark Atkinson to withdraw his book, but this did not succeed. When the articles came out, the book was already printed but not yet released. Finally a representative was sent from Copenhagen to Thule Airbase to speak personally with Atkinson. His name was Bertil Hampel-Koch, although he used a different name on his trip, and he was a man marked for greatness. In high school he was considered brilliant, so brilliant that in 1972 after graduation he was named by the teaching staff of Gammel Hellerup High School as the school’s annual scholarship winner to the US, where he was accommodated for the first six months by a young American couple in Twin Falls, Idaho, namely Helen and Clark Atkinson.”

“You maintain that they knew each other?”

“Yes, and that is of course why Hampel-Koch was sent. Otherwise he would have been considered too young for such a mission. But his personal acquaintance with Atkinson was the decisive factor, for Bertil Hampel-Koch met with success where others had failed, and it is a fact that when Clark Atkinson’s book finally came out in August of 1984, the section about Jens Otto Krag was gone. I wonder whether the Danish taxpayers bought the whole first edition or whether a different solution was found.”

If she had hoped for praise for her detective work, she had miscalculated. When he had heard the whole thing, her guest resumed his customary indolent expression and simply asked, “All this you think you have found out, is there anything you have worked out alone?”

“No, I’ve had help.”

“From whom?”

“From good friends, on a somewhat unofficial basis.”

“Good friends in Denmark?”

“A particular good friend with connection to Gammel Hellerup High School, but otherwise not Danish.”

“American?”

“That almost speaks for itself.”

“We’re going to meet again tomorrow, I’ll call and tell you where and when.”

The Countess answered hesitantly, “I’ll try to-”

“Trying is not good enough. Make sure you’re available.”