Finland

The flight from London to Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport took just over three hours and was one of luxury as Williams indulged himself in business-class in-flight entertainment, snacks and two Screwdrivers. He knew it would be different once the flight touched down at the second terminal though. Waiting nearly an hour in line at immigration, kept accompanied by the tunes in his iPod, he finally was officially in Finland.

Williams proceeded to the Hertz car rental sign. He stood for a few seconds when a sales representative came up to him, not the cute receptionist at the desk but a tall blonde Finnish man.

"The sun always shines in Northern Finland"

"Only in winter" the man replied with a soft but strong European accent

"Unless you've drank way too much Finland Vodka" who actually comes up with these things?

"Follow me please"

The tall man led Williams into the car park, secluded from the other cars in a far corner lay a Mercedes Benz. Apparently it was the most often used car in Finland, so he would have to ditch the Porsche for subtlety's sake. Actually, the sleek black machine was not that bad. At least it had a socket for his iPod.

After signing the paperwork and being given the keys, Williams stepped into the car and turned it onto the highway heading towards Turku. At least the car had cruise control so he could relax a bit. He was tempted to step on the accelerator but was reminded that this was his first time in Finland, and thus it was better to enjoy the landscapes rolling by. In a way it was like England, only icier.

Turku came into view after almost two hours. The city was nearly as large as Helsinki. It was in fact the old capital of Finland, believed to have been settled since the 1200s, making it Finland's oldest city and it was Finland's largest city until 1840, when Helsinki took over both as capital and the largest city. In the old days, the word "Finland" simply referred to Turku and the area around it. The region's current name, "Finland Proper", is a tribute to Turku's glittering and important past. Turku is known as the cultural and economic capital in modern day Western Finland. The city is also known for being Finland's official "Christmas city". Every Christmas eve at noon, a declaration of Christmas Peace is read. It was a practice done every year since the Middle Ages, the only exception being in 1939 during the Winter war when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. It has since been nicknamed Finland's "gateway to the west" due to its location next to the Gulf of Bothnia. After the Iron curtain fell, many Russians came to Turku to open their eyes to Western business practices. President Vladimir Putin was among them.

Williams pressed a few buttons for the GPS to tell him where to go. After driving around the shopping area, he noticed the ballet school he was looking for, tucked away in a corner. A few blocks later he ended up at the corner he was looking for, a giant Holiday Inn sign up high.

Williams (luckily) quickly found a place to park his car when a young couple got into their blue Audi and left a space in the parking lot. With the help of a porter he found himself at the reception in a few minutes. He approached the desk with a placard saying "Deutsch", where a young blonde with glasses and tied back hair welcomed him with the obligatory smile.

"Guten Abend mein Herr, wie kann ich Ihnen behilflich sein?" she was very fluent and he could tell she was probably actually German

"Mein Name ist Alexander van Basco, I habe eine Reservierung" his considerably fluent German was a result of his past, but he was not planning to dwell in it. He lay his right arm on the desk as the receptionist typed his name into the computer.

"Ja… Herr van Basco, Ihr Raum befindet sich auf dem dritten Stock" She handed him the key, in an envelope labeled "302".

"Vielen dank."

He almost started walking when he remembered about the package.

" Wenn ich mich nicht taeusche, sollte hier ein Packet fuer mich bereit liegen" I believe there's also a package waiting for me

" Einen Moment...da ist es" the package was a standard box one would expect to have come from eBay. It was rather heavy, but one could not tell what was inside by shaking. He took it, anticipating the weight.

"Geniessen Sie Ihren Aufenthalt" she wished him an enjoyable stay

"Vielen Dank, Nadja" he noticed the nametag the moment she was typing his name into the computer. She smiled at him, for real this time, for noticing her name.

Room 302 was a modest accommodation in such a luxurious chain hotel, with a single bed and enough space for bags and a bathroom. Williams threw the package onto the bed and decided to shower. He removed his business suit and stepped into the shower. The water's warmth reminded him that this place was colder than what he was normally used to. Anything short-sleeved he brought was rendered useless there and then. Drying himself with the hotel's towel, he slipped into a long-sleeved navy blue shirt and cream-colored trousers.

Williams opened the curtain and looked out the window. The afternoon was dying out, but the streets were still busy, mainly with shoppers. He could see shops such as Zara right from his window. He looked at the clock and decided that, if he hurried, the ballet school might still be open, and if not, his stomach was calling for dinner anyways.

He tore the package open. Taking out the foam, a piece of paper fell to the floor. His attention was diverted as he bent down to pick up the piece of paper. It was a short note.

We need Martinvitta alive. These may come in handy if she proves to be resisting.

M

Williams returned his attention to the package which revealed a small pocketbook "Instant Finnish". He looked through some of the phrases he thought he would need, practiced a few of them, then realized how screwed he was if this Emilia could not speak English.

Next in the package was two shiny objects, one he noticed immediately. It was a sleek, black Taser gun. He gripped it in his hands, getting used to the new non-lethal weapon. He then lay it down gently on the bed and picked up the larger, equally sleek but white device. It looked like some kind of a monitor with a wire and a clip attached to the end of the wire. It took him a while to figure out that it was a mini-electronic polygraph machine. There was also a note underneath. He picked it up. It was from the Quartermaster and had instructions on how to operate both materials. Williams already knew how they both worked but read it anyways in case he missed something. He did not. He decided to leave the polygraph in the room's drawer.

He slipped on his holster, thought whether he should take his Walther P99 with him. After nearly a minute of self-debate, he slipped the pistol under his pillow and hung the "Do not disturb" sign on his door, before closing it and hitting the streets, with his Taser inside his holster, covered with a black leather jacket. In his car, he practiced those few Finnish phrases out loud again, not knowing whether it was right or wrong at all.

Williams forgot that most ballet schools actually were opened at night, so it was little surprise that the Karkkainen ballet school has just been opened a few hours for their night classes. He stopped his Mercedes right in front of the school and walked in.

It was clear that the lessons themselves took place the floor above, as the bottom floor only contained the reception, a number of trophies on show and even more pictures, mostly of a few people, celebrating or just dancing. He recognized Emilia in many of these pictures as he approached the receptionist, who was too busy chewing gum and playing a game on her mobile phone. He had to clear his throat to catch the tall blonde's attention. She looked up, after pausing her game, and still chewed her gum.

"Where can I find Emilia?" he asked

She shook her heard in confusion

He sighed, it was time to dig up that Finnish class he took, literally a few minutes ago from the book they gave him.

"Mistä voisin löytää Emilian?" he asked, very slowly, afraid to get a single phrase wrong.

"Ruisrock" He had lost her attention completely by then and she was back on her game.

"Ruisrock?" He asked, but she was already sucked into her gaming world. At least he managed to gather that she was not there. On his way out he noticed a stack of brochures. After browsing through a few he found the one he was looking for. Thankfully it was in English too.

Williams sat in his car and read for a few minutes until a car pulled over behind him and began honking. Regular customer, he gathered. He pulled away and stopped a few blocks further at what he gathered was a typical Finnish restaurant. It took a while for a waiter to notice that he was not looking for anyone and that he was there alone, when he was finally shown a seat in the corner.

"Vodka martini" he ordered. He was never actually a fan of dry martinis, but since he was in Finland, he figured they would serve him Finlandia vodka, and he might as well take in the Finnish flavor.

Adding to that, he ordered Reindeer stew on potatoes, a quintessentially Finnish dish. It tasted strange at first, but he quickly grew fond of it. A rather delighting meal was unfortunately finished off with a disappointing desert: mountain cranberry jelly which Williams knew by its other name, Cowberry jelly. He did not like it one bit, and washed it down quickly with his second martini.

It was another drive, much shorter this time though, and Williams soon crossed over a bridge into the island of Ruissalo. Following the instructions on the brochure, he pulled over and stopped at Turku Conference Center. He paid five Euros for the parking fee as the brochure stated. It was still a considerable walk to get in. As he neared the source of the music he realized it was going to be a long night. It was still early yet he estimated people to be in their thousands. It was dark, too, and the music was not exactly music to his ears.

The pounding drums and the screeching distorted guitars pierced through his ears. Williams tried to enjoy it but after a new songs realized he could not. To start off with, he hated listening to things he did not understand, and it was way too loud, not to mention the screaming teenagers in the crowd and the foul stench of beer. So this was Ruisrock, an annual rock festival founded in 1970 and the second oldest rock festival in Europe. It attracts bands from Finland as well as international bands, especially Swedish and German ones. Williams was lucky the crowd was only in their few thousands, as the record high amount of people present was at 71,000. Even then, it was hard to keep his head on target and find a person whose face he has only seen once, in a photograph nonetheless.

Williams gave up. He decided to drop by the ballet school again tomorrow. At this point he would prefer to learn ballet than stay in this place any longer.

He started walking, right shoulder in front, going in the opposite direction of the increasing crowd, hoping the thumping beat would decrease in volume. It did not. He could see the fence approaching. He hurried his pace and almost missed the sight of six tall men crowding around the fence, all of them leaning in with a purpose.

He nearly reached the fence when he realized that they were crowding around someone. The light from the stage suddenly reflected and he could not have been mistaken. The shining hair which looked black at first- it took a few moments to register it as dark brown, very dark brown- accompanied the not-as-dark brown eyes. She looked even more lovely than in her photograph. She was considerably shorter than him and was wearing a black tank top and blue jeans, covered with a brown jacket. The jacket was only zipped halfway up, but he could tell that she was in a good shape as anyone would expect from a ballet instructor. Then he saw that she was with a friend, a taller blonde girl with scared brown eyes.

They were alone, surrounded, and in trouble.

Emilia Martinviita's eyes met his and called for help. He was already on his way but she continued gazing at him as if he was too late. He took in a deep breath. The men were quite intimidating, and there were six of them.

"Gentlemen, is there a problem?"

It caught the attention of only two of them, but the rest soon turned along with the two friends. Only now did Williams realize he missed two more and there were actually eight of them. The magnitude of the situation began to hit him. He has never been in an actual brawl, let alone one against eight very athletic Serbians. Even in the combat training room, he was up against five at most. At least he had the Taser with him.

Six of the eight men were taller than Williams and a few of them started to chuckle. They started to say things in Serbian, which Williams did not understand exactly, but could make out they were not taking him seriously, and why should they? Truth be told, even Williams himself was afraid. He just tried to keep his gaze up and could see the two girls slipping away.

That was until the shortest guy on the left stopped them and said something along the lines of "Where do you think you're going?"

The other guys began to laugh. This was his chance. He reached for the Taser gun

But what if they ganged up on me?

Now the two girls are surrounded by three of the Serbians, the shortest one along with two others. The 'head' of the group still faced Williams.

He said something in Serbian which sounded rude, then launched a kick straight for William's stomach. He barely had time to react with the absence of the light. In fact, he did not have enough. He kick struck him where it hurt the most. He could feel the reindeer stew about to come gushing out. His hand, on the Taser a moment ago, clutched his stomach as he rolled on the grass in agony.

The Serbs laughed, and two other Serbs began to kick him more. People started to look.

The kicks did not hurt as much as Williams was still hurting from the first one. It seemed like an eternity until the pain began to subside. He began to reach into his jacket for the Taser.

One of the two Serbs took a few steps back for a big kick. He rushed in, like a footballer taking a penalty kick. Williams turned and grabbed his leg with his left hand. The Serb nearly lost his balance but still managed a soft blow to Williams' face. Williams did not care. He took out the Taser with his right hand and hit the Serb on his thigh with it. The other Serb kicked him in the back but he did not care.

The Serb hit the Taser fell down and started to wriggle in pain. This caught the attention of all the Serbs, most of them rushing to him, except for the other one who was beating Williams up, who kicked the gun out of his hand and continued to stomp on him. Williams looked up and saw that the two girls were free.

"Run!" He shouted before another boot landed in his face. The girls didn't have to think twice and they fled. None of the Serbs noticed as they were either helping their fallen friend, checkout the Taser gun, or beating the living daylights out of Williams. It occurred to them then that he had just chased away his mission. How was he going to greet her tomorrow "Hi, I was the guy who you saw getting beaten up last night. I'm a secret agent looking for a missing submarine"? There and then the possibility that this new Double-O-Six's first mission could be his last hit him. He did not live all his life for this.

The head of the group, who was looking at the Taser, pointed the Taser at him. The men kicking Williams stepped away, afraid of what the shot would do. Williams looked up to see the Taser pointed straight at his heart. This might be fatal.

"Piste!" He suddenly heard, Finnish for "Stop"

The head Serbian looked up and so did Williams. Three policemen were standing, guns pointed out, Emilia and her friend by their side. The head Serbian, whose name Williams gathered from the conversations he had with his crooks was Janko, dropped the Taser.

Only then did the pain from the countless kicks take begin to register in Williams' system. He felt as if he was the midpoint of a collision between two full-speed train. His entire body felt numb yet in crunching pain at the same time. His lips, tasting reindeer stew and vodka martini a few moments ago, now tasted of blood. The reindeer stew came back to haunt him as he could feel it reversing up his throat. He thought he felt a tear running down his face but it may just be his cheek rubbing against the grass. The last thing he remembered was Emilia's friend giving him a gentle slap on his cheek to see if he was awake.

It felt like a punch.