Rage. Rage, Geoff, he thought. Which was at the same time not only thought, but also something akin to a command. Highly familiar. As if it had been laying dormant in his subconscious somewhere, like a dark beast asleep in a dank cave, awaiting dawn and steeling himself for the subsequent wild hunt.
Geoff was furyous. Not because of the haunting dreams. Not because of what happened with Patricia. Not because of what happened with Put, John nor Gavin. Nor the Russian. Nor what had transcribed with Eddy. No, none of that. In the kitchen, Geoff finally had the opportunity to speak to his employer, hoping to get some long-awaited vital information for the case. But it resulted, of course, in zilch. Nada. This was Kim’s father. This was the man who hired him. Geoff always went to the source, did the preliminary and primary interview, this is where he always mined the gold. The vital morsels of information that not per se would break open the case, but most definitely would set a course towards the right path. Geoff asked him the bare basic questions. When did you last see Kim? He didn’t know. Was Kim involved in any recent shady business and or people? Mr. Fredricksen shrugged apologetically, relaying that he knew Geoff had spoken with Patricia, so he knew about their crime and drug affairs. But other than that the man didn’t offer much extra intel. Do you think Kim is in Bergen at all? To this he had said yes. OK, there are seven mountains in Bergen, which one did he ascend? The man said he didn’t know. Geoff switched course and asked for motive. Why would someone want to kill Kim, or make him disappear? Mr. Fredricksen simply did not know. And this is the moment when Geoff knew that this was horseshit. All of it. This case, Mr. Fredricksen, Patricia, John, Gavin, The Russian, Eddy. Geoff was simply lured out of his cave, and then lured straight into a maze. Ready for him to implode and get confused as hell, and then he’d be prim for the plucking, ready to be hauled back to the clan. There were so many loose threads being unraveled and this is ultimately why Geoff’s main mode of being and the theme of the thoughts on his mind were rage.
Geoff was raging, per usual, all by himself on a bus to the heart of Bergen. After the interview, Geoff got fed up, given some sandwiches by Alfred, who was called Albert apparently, and he took one of Mr. Fredricksen’s jets to Bergen airport. By the time he arrived in Bergen it was very late and dark, so it meant all the book stores and kiosks were closed. Geoff wanted to buy some magazines and books, chronicling the seven mountains of Bergen. And gather some other generic information on Bergen. This is the most optimal way to go about it. Gather the intel from within the city. It’s fresher, more potent. In Geoff’s experience this always beat researching on your phone. Which Geoff had to do anyway, since all the shops were closed. Geoff was scrolling on his phone, researching, when he made his way to the bus stop outside Bergen airport in the dark. He had to take a bus, because there were no taxis in sight. Just his luck. As he hopped on the bus, which was to take him on a twenty to thirty minute ride to Bergen city center, Geoff spotted a tail. Eddy. Not Eddy himself, but definitely his handiwork. Geoff pretended not to notice the highly suspicious looking guy. They all wear black for some reason. Geoff went on the bus, and walked all the way to the back and seated himself dead center of the last row of the bus. Still pretending to scroll on his phone. But at the same time actually doing research, and not caring much about the environment, or this singular individual. Geoff had long ago learned to put up a somatic outer sense barrier of sorts. A shield which acted as a threat-assesment mechanism. It alerted him when there was danger, and when there was not. Geoff intuited he was not in danger, at this given moment. Geoff also knew he was in the presence of five to ten other people who also got on the bus. Geoff sat down, phone in hand, its blue light clawing up to his face like mystical blue mist over an ancient lake of the east.
At one point during the bus ride, Geoff had put his phone away and was raging. In his rage, he had gone half-to sleep, one eye always open, keeping everything in sight, half-alert. In his rage, he’d activated the protocol to let his mind go over the case again. And he willed it so that no dreams would haunt him this time. He was fed up with distractions for the time being. When he fully came to, he looked outside the window. It was drizzling. Legend goes, it always rains in Bergen. Which was spot on in this case. It was dark outside. The small droplets peppered the glass. He saw the small port, desolate and the water inky dark. There were no people about town, and the wet cobblestones shimmered under the spectral flood of the ample ancient looking lanterns positioned here and there. The bus lurched to a stop. And the passengers hauled their luggage and got off, one by one. Geoff didn’t have any luggage, so moved swiftly for the first exit. Outside he made a quick left and hid behind a lantern. The tail was indeed following him, but the second Geoff had made a left, the tail had lost him in the dark and in the distance, the Bergen mountains emanating their magnanimous presence in the dark as the backdrop of this cat-and-mouse game.
The reason the tail couldn’t see Geoff was because of three reasons. One, Geoff was fast and had moved fast. Explosive almost. And it was night. So the man wasn’t fully awake, too, and Geoff had caught him off guard. Two, and because it was night, it was dark, that coupled with the distance Geoff had set between the two of them, made it harder to catch up to him. Three, finally and sublimely, Geoff had utilized the sniper’s concept of dead space. In sniper training, during the final examination, one has to go through the stalking-phase. Here, the examiners are on the other side of a massive, dry and expansive field, overlooking it all with binoculars. The participants, the snipers in field, have ample places to hide, as the field is dry and almost barren. Usually, what is left are dry remnants of trees, almost resembling erect and lifeless twigs. But because of the concept of dead space, these in fact function as perfect hiding spots. But it only works, because of the distance. The eye is a device of trickery, it never truly knows what it is in sight, and is always calculating, predicting and extrapolating to form a clear mental image, what we perceive as sight. Throw into the mix, lack of alertness and awareness, the night and darkness. Throw into the mix, distance. And you got yourself a pristine counter-tail mechanism put in place. You can just hide behind a thin lantern, and absolutely vanish like a poltergeist haunting its next victim, lying in wait at the haunted mansion at the end of the desolate farm road.