My connecting flight to ARN was at 1610, which was 48 minutes before we landed. On the way out, two cops were there and people were showing them their passports. I thought it was SOP. But they were actually there for me. I didn’t know this until the cop, after I showed him mine, said, “We’ve been waiting for you. Come with us.”

The cops took me to a special side room that was built entirely in the prison-flavored cinderblock style secure zone, just like a holding tank:

Many cops were busy on the inside. I sat next to a leathery tattooed skinhead who was really upset. Tried talking to him but no English. Then two dark skinned guys came in. Tried talking to them but no English again. After an hour, I was escorted in by two cops, a tall young blonde and an older one. Old instructed Young on what do to: “Ask him why he is here, how long he will stay, when he committed the crime, the details of the crime, and crimes committed since then.” Just like in the US, they were working around a fictitious profile. They had a character in mind that I was supposed to be. I recorded the whole thing.

After Old left, I asked Young why I was there. “I have a connecting flight to Stockholm,” I said. “That’s not the reason you are here,” he said. “Why am I here?” I asked. “I cannot discuss it right now. We will inform you shortly.”

Old came back and did all the talking, so I don’t know why he gave Young all those instructions. He thought that the “crime” occurred in 2007. As I explained things, he kept cutting me off. Then he phoned his supervisor and told him that my case was “very strange”—that I had slept with my “step-mother and step-sister.” Did he not understand what I had said? I clumsily shook his hand and told him he was “very kind,” after insulting him with the informal du, and finally got out at 1814.