The Løvstad Transcripts

Evidence Ref. #JE-2019-0487:

Vane

Feb 16, 2026

EVIDENCE REF. #JE-2019-0487

PERSONAL LOG

Property of: S. Løvstad

Position: Summer Worker, Digital Archival — ████████████ Foundation

Period: June 10 – June 21, 2018

RECOVERED FROM ISLAND OPERATION — EVIDENCE REF. #JE-2019-0487

[Digitized transcript. Original handwritten. Some entries damaged by acid. Redactions per DOJ directive.]

JUNE 10, 2018

The contract arrived by email. A PDF with no sender.

It said quite a lot, but there were two sentences I hyperfocused on.

Pay: $1,100 per day. Cash. Accommodation included.

I said yes in fourteen seconds. That’s less time than it takes me to open my banking app and see the red balance glowing back at me.

Signed digitally and sent my reply. Afterward I had a cigarette and lay back on the couch. My body was buzzing, and I couldn’t relax. I checked my inbox, got up and paced restlessly around. It took three hours. Three. Before I finally got a reply. There were the final coordinates, plane tickets from Gardermoen, and a ferry ticket to the island. The island. First to London, then to Miami, San Juan, and finally to St. Thomas. The ferry ticket was to Little St. James. Everything was in my name. Løvstad, S.

It was ██████ who had recommended me when I worked at ████████████. I considered calling, or sending a thank-you message, but I let it go.

JUNE 13–15, 2018

I packed just a small suitcase and left in summer clothes. I was sweating at Gardermoen, but nobody took notice. The London flight felt longer than the flight to Miami, even though I couldn’t sleep on any of them. Miami hit me like a wall of humidity and heat. The distance from Miami to San Juan is roughly the same as Oslo to London. It was starting to wear on me, but my body was still full of adrenaline. The last flight was a propeller plane. There were no tourists on board. It was me, and people who looked rich. Not suits and dresses, but it was the small details. The women had expensive jewelry, the men were tanned. Expensive sunglasses, expensive watches, expensive shoes. I stood out. It was the glances, not anything they said. Pale, a shirt that only looked fine in Oslo, and a pair of Doc Martens. Nobody wanted to sit next to me. Nobody wanted to look at me for too long either.

The same people were standing on the dock when I arrived by taxi. None of them had taken a taxi. I also saw a black helicopter take off as I stepped out. It smelled of seaweed and salt water, diesel from the worn-out ferry. Ferries are always worn-out. Now the glances got stranger, especially when I boarded the ferry, showed my phone with the ticket, and wasn’t turned away. But they took my phone and placed it in a bundle with other phones. It wasn’t just my phone that was there, but none of the rich had theirs taken.

The crossing took no more than half an hour, maybe a bit longer. It’s the first time I’ve been separated from my phone since I bought my first one in 2012. Now I only have the diary. It will have to be my eyes.

I’m writing this while the boat engine vibrates beneath me, and the waves rock the ferry from side to side. The engine hum settles like a lid in the back of my head, the salt over everything else. I discovered a new kind of silence that only comes when the distractions are gone and you’re forced to see the world as it is.

A lone seagull landed on the railing and screamed at me. I waved it away. It flew up into the air, found another seagull, and together they cackled at me.

By the way, I saw ███████ sitting over there. I only noticed her because she seemed embarrassed and avoided looking at me, and so I dared to look more closely. It took a moment to recognize her, without the gloss and the entourage. No bodyguards. It struck me then that you don’t need bodyguards here. That realization hit me like a wall. Power is safest where it need not be protected. I didn’t feel safer because of it. Quite the opposite.

When we arrived I was the last to disembark. Nobody stopped me, but I understood. The rich, and her, were escorted onward. I was received by a man in work clothes—denim, a shirt, practical shoes. “Løvstad,” he said. That is, it was more like “loovstadd,” but so be it. I write it the way I understood and remember it. He escorted me to the annex where I’m sitting now. We walked along a narrow, hard-packed road. On one side the sea glittered, on the other the bushes were thick. We passed a path that led toward the sound of laughter and music. We didn’t take that one. Instead we went to the annex. He called it CIA, but he smiled when he said it. It was the first time I’d seen him smile, and I noticed he was missing a front tooth. It was a charming smile. I barely had time to laugh myself.

Cottage Intelligence Agency, he explained, and the joke soured in my mouth. Now I understood what it meant. “You’re safe as long as you stay in here,” he said. Then he left.

The annex is bigger than it looks from the outside. There’s only one floor above ground, but there’s a door showing that stairs go down. There are two bedrooms, a simple kitchen, two large living rooms, a shower, and a closet used as a wardrobe. I can hear humming from the floor. The familiar sound of a server room. In one living room there’s a large leather sofa, a table, some chairs, and a TV. The other is wall-to-wall with desks and computer screens. This is where I’ll be sitting and working, I realize. But doing what? I don’t see any instructions anywhere. I’m exhausted.

JUNE 16, 2018

I woke up early, I think, but I have no watch so I don’t know exactly when. It was the sound of a helicopter that woke me, and the intense heat from the sun grilling my face. Curtains, must remember them. [two lines under the word curtains]

I craved coffee and thankfully there was some in the kitchen. Nespresso, simple and sour. Not good. I opened the door and sat down on a plastic chair that stood outside. No matter where you are, white plastic chairs are a sign of civilization. Yes, that’s actually what I was thinking when the man from yesterday showed up. He called out to me in his broken English. I couldn’t quite place it, but I was thinking of old Clint movies, and it struck me that he both looked and resembled that Mexican guy, Eli something or other.

I called back in my probably equally broken Norwegian-English. He gave me two envelopes. One heavy and one light. I immediately understood what they were—money and instructions. Would I be paid every day? Fine by me. It was the next thing he said that unsettled me.

“You can sit out here, but don’t go anywhere on the island without an escort,” he said. “Don’t open any doors you haven’t been given permission to open.”

And then the last thing.

“Don’t go down to the cellar.”

Why not, I asked, but he just repeated the warning. It was the stern look in his eyes that made me not ask again. The coffee had gone too sour. A mosquito had landed in it. I poured it out and went inside. Eli left without saying anything more. I’m starting to wonder who he really is.

I went into the living room with the computers. The office, as I’ll now call it. I thought maybe they had internet access? But first I opened the envelopes. The heavy one—dollars. I counted, $7,700. Almost eighty thousand Norwegian kroner. The other envelope, the light one, contained what I expected—instructions.

It reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Løvstad (they spelled the name right!)

Your job is to log in to the workstation and work on the proprietary database program. You will assign names to images, and connect names and images together to create profiles. That’s the entirety of your job. This is highly confidential and we rely on your…

Yes, I don’t need to write more, it’s more of the same. We trust you. But it sounds too simple? That’s what I thought when I turned on the workstation. It hummed and the screen lit up in front of me. No internet access. Not even Windows, just a terminal connected to another computer somewhere.

So they hired a computer expert from Norway because he knows ██████ and give him a job a first-year student could do? I’m not complaining. It’s an adventure.

My terminal showed me two things: a button for images, video, and scanned documents. Another for a name registry. So it was that simple. I opened the name registry, and now I actually got chills down my spine. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. It was like opening the newspaper. There was ███ and ████████ and ████, and even more. I pressed the down button until I reached her—██████. The balcony lady. Waving flags. I clicked in, saw a list of emails, linked images. And even as smart as I am, I didn’t understand it until now.

This was a systematic blackmail archive.

What do I do now? That was the first thought. The second was that this was dangerous. And the third… I looked up, at the walls and ceiling. Video cameras pointed at me. I’m writing this under the duvet. I don’t think they can see me there. And then I started working. Images that weren’t linked to anything. I looked at them, first nervously, then properly. The ones I recognized I linked to names. I wrote what they were doing in the notes field. Whether they were sitting on a sofa, lying in a bed, lying half-naked on a sunbed. Who they were talking to, how they looked at each other. And finally I saw what I didn’t want to see.

And I don’t know if I want to write about it, because it shook me to my soul. I had to take a break. A long, long break. I went to the kitchen, drank water, poured it over my face. Then I went outside and now I heard the whirring of cameras following me. I sat in the shade on the plastic chair outside with my head in my hands.

After a while I looked up. There was nobody there. Nobody that I could see, but I knew now that the island had eyes everywhere. They saw me. The heat hit me. The wet smell from the forest, the fresh one from the sea. It was a salty scent that I actually loved, but which now gave me no joy. It gave me nausea.

I went inside, and continued. I linked █████ to the images. Described… that was really the worst part. And the fact that it now said “l0vstad” (with a zero with a slash instead of an Ø) on the reports made me feel that I was now part of it. It was getting toward evening, I had worked all day. I hadn’t eaten, and by a strange coincidence the door opened just as I was thinking these thoughts.

It wasn’t Eli this time. It was a young girl in a black uniform, the kind you see in movies from Paris, who came with a meal under a cover. She didn’t say much, just “For you, mr…” She tried my name but it didn’t come out right. She didn’t look up at me, just turned around and hurried away. It was food, good food. Probably leftovers, but better than anything I could have made myself, either here or back home in Oslo. Maybe better than anything I could have ordered. It was steak, the best steak I’ve ever tasted. Pink in the middle, with a sauce that tasted of something sweet and dark. Beside it lay asparagus, perfect, with something grated over it that was dark, a mushroom like a dark champignon but tasted better. There was dessert too, a glass with layer upon layer of cream and berries I didn’t recognize. I ate as if someone might take it from me. It was the first proper meal I’ve had in as long as I can remember.

And while I ate I know that someone sat watching through the cameras. And then I started to wonder if those videos were in the system I had access to. Maybe I could see myself there?

Was the meal a thank you for good work, or just normal courtesy?

I listened at the door with the stairs as I passed it. Was it my imagination or did I hear sounds other than the humming of computers down there? And was there a blind spot for the cameras here? Was the door a test?

I felt paranoid. I went to bed. Now I’m lying here writing this and wondering if that last thing will have consequences.

JUNE 17, 2018

I was woken by helicopter noise again. And sun-roasting. The curtains! I really have to remember them. I was already warm in the face, now it’s burning.

Made the same sour coffee, sat outside in the same white chair, and now the charm was gone. Yes, the water is azure blue. Yes, I love the sea air. Yes, I love the warmth. But I’m scared.

Yes, scared. That’s what I am. But nobody has been anything other than polite and friendly. It’s the images, the videos. It’s not just what I saw. It’s what I know.

Nobody came, so I got up and walked a stretch down the road. Far off I could see the dock. Behind me I could see one of the large main buildings. It was quiet there, but I’ve seen the videos and what goes on behind the walls. At the dock the ferry arrived, and I strained to see who was coming. Realized I should have had binoculars. Realized that would have been too dangerous.

But I saw something else too. The helicopter lifted off from a spot on the island. A black helicopter, which swept over where I was standing (I hid behind a bush) and down toward the dock. It circled over the ferry for a while and I could see waving. Then it flew on. I hurried back inside.

The door! I looked at the video recordings. They weren’t sorted, but I flicked through until I saw something that looked like the annex. What I didn’t think about is that I was sitting at a terminal. The people who owned the terminal could see exactly what I see. They would see that I was searching for something. That I wasn’t following instructions. How stupid of me. But scared people do stupid things, and maybe it wasn’t that dangerous?

I didn’t actually find the annex, and didn’t dare to continue, so I went back to the top and started linking.

I saw █████ again. Note: in bed with an unidentified young boy. Note: do these have names? Erased it again, because there’s a limit to how stupid I can be. Hoped nobody saw my notes.

I can’t say I was surprised when ████████ showed up in pictures. The one who recommended me. Maybe that’s why he did it? Maybe he knew I was here? I wonder if there are others from his political party here? I noted it in the comments anyway and linked the images. With so many Norwegians on this island… Maybe that’s why I got the job?

There was a knock again in the evening. Hard this time, not just the young girl, but she was also there, with food like yesterday. A man who might as well have been in uniform. A regular James Bond. He looked me straight in the eyes. He didn’t need to say anything. I saw him. I saw the weapon he had. That was enough.

I was shaking when they left, and the food didn’t taste as good. If they had known I was writing this…

But they can’t see under the duvet. No cameras here. Maybe they just think I’m coping with the videos and images I’ve seen. The thought almost made me throw up.

I fell asleep to the sound of the helicopter.

JUNE 18, 2018

Now my face was really stinging. It wasn’t just hot. The curtains again. Maybe forgetting them was my punishment for being here?

I had placed my diary under the mattress. That gave me an idea. The other bed. Were there supposed to be two of us? I dragged myself to my feet, felt battered, face stinging, and looked under the mattress. Nothing. It would have been an insane coincidence. Too stupid. I straightened the duvet and lay down on it. Then I felt something under my head. In the pillowcase, a note.

It said:

Do not wander. Key to cellar in kitchen, under the cutlery. Not guarded at night. They set traps.

Who had left it there? Was the message for me? I hid the note quickly, and carefully glanced up at the wall. The camera wasn’t pointing directly at me. Maybe they hadn’t seen it? I stretched carefully, fluffed the pillow and straightened the duvet again. Did the same with my own bed. I was just going to make it tidy. My cheeks were pounding.

I went to the kitchen and made another cup of sour coffee. I looked around in the cupboards for sunscreen, or preferably aftersun, and then I looked in the cutlery drawer. Pretended I needed a spoon for the coffee, reminded myself that I also had to find sugar, and then I found it. The key, that is. I grabbed it along with a spoon.

With quick hand movements I slipped the key into my pocket and placed the spoon in the cup. Then I stood for a long time thinking before I remembered that I had to find sugar. Thankfully there were some cubes in paper wrappers there. I fished them out and stirred them in with the spoon.

Then I went outside and sat in the sun. It didn’t help the sunburn, but I thought the routines had to be maintained. Anything else would have been suspicious.

Eli didn’t come today either. What is it with this island? New people every day. Would I see the boss himself? I have to admit I thought so. The note said I shouldn’t wander. But how much wandering is wandering? Surely I could take a walk around the annex? Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to exercise? It is, after all, a tiring job.

That’s how I sat rationalizing to myself, despite a direct warning. Is that who I am? A person who gets an order and just has to break it? Is there a word for that kind of behavior? Regardless, I got up and looked around. It was quite quiet this morning. I took a walk around the annex. It was more like a large shed, even though it was solid enough. Stone foundation with a timber frame, and corrugated metal for a roof. That was the strange thing. I thought corrugated metal was a Norwegian phenomenon. There were no other doors, but a path went behind the building toward the main house.

There were no cameras back here. The key was for the cellar. I’m sure of it. But the path—was that what wasn’t guarded at night? Or was it the cellar? I looked down the path. It was a dirt road, still hard-packed, but a bit more like a Norwegian forest trail than a public road. And even though the main house was at the other end—I’m sure of that—it wasn’t much used. Is this where they bring the food?

I stood for a long time thinking before I went back. I took a quick look behind me before I went in. Nobody had seen me. My cheek stung even more. I put the cup down in the kitchen and went to the bathroom. There was shaving cream, soap, a bucket, floor soap, and moisturizer! Not aftersun or sunscreen, but at least something that could soothe. I applied a thick layer.

Should have taken a shower first, I thought, but went back to work. The same kinds of images, same kinds of videos. I was starting to get a good overview of quite a few well-known people. Secrets they would never want to come out under any circumstances. Career-destroying secrets. Criminal secrets that would lead to long prison sentences if they came out. I knew this now. These are not good things to know.

That’s how I sat for hours while I waited for the food to arrive at the door. I’ve always appreciated routines. This time he came in. James Bond. Not the young girl, who by the way wasn’t the same one. It was just the smart uniform that was the same. What scared me most was that he went straight to the bedroom and removed the sheets and pillowcase. Was he searching for something? I froze. What if he found my diary? But he didn’t, and the proof is that I’m writing this now. He didn’t find anything in the other bed either. The sheet and pillowcase lie crumpled at the foot of the bed.

I need a better hiding place for my diary. I’ll find one tomorrow.

JUNE 19, 2018 — NIGHT

I’ve done something stupid. Something very stupid. I got up after midnight, or sometime after it got dark and quiet at least, and crept to the door with the stairway sign, and tried the key. I opened the door, and crept quietly in, and closed the door behind me.

That wasn’t the stupid part, I think, but what happened next. The stairway is long, and it spirals downward like a coiling rope. The first basement level is the server room. I listened at the door and heard the humming. That’s not exciting. A server room is a server room.

I went down one more level. That’s the second to last. The door is unmarked. I felt it. Locked. I hope there was nobody behind it. Then I went down to the last level. There was also a door there. It was unlocked. I went in and that’s where the stupid thing I did took place. As I said, there are cameras everywhere. But I had forgotten that. It’s my eagerness when I see something new. It doesn’t matter how scared I am. When I see something new I have to figure it out. So I went in and didn’t notice that the corridor was messy. I didn’t notice that at the end of the corridor there was a cove with a boat. Nor that there were people there being led out of the small boat. It was only afterward that it struck me that it was children being led out and that the people manning the boat were dressed in black diving gear. So when I kicked a metal bucket right in front of a camera and it made so much noise that the people over there turned around—that’s when I understood that I had done something stupid. Fortunately I didn’t freeze, but slipped back out the door, ran up the stairs, locked the cellar door and threw myself into bed.

And now I’m lying here hoping they just think something fell over by itself and that nobody is checking the cameras. And that the camera footage isn’t being stored.

And I’m thinking that I need to hide the key, and this diary, and that I should consider that the ferry might not be the safest way to get off the island. And now I hear helicopter noise again. The black devil is out flying.

JUNE 19, 2018 — NIGHT ADDENDUM

An hour has passed and I still haven’t heard anything.

Why didn’t I try the key on the door on the second basement level?

I don’t dare try now.

JUNE 20, 2018 — EARLY MORNING

I’ve been awake all night. The sunlight is still burning my face, but because I’ve been awake I’ve at least managed to hide under the duvet.

I’m going to sneak down the stairs and try the key.

JUNE 20, 2018 — MORNING

It was completely silent in the basement stairway. I crept down to the second level, and do you know what I found there? A kind of hangar. This is where the small boats are kept. All the diving equipment. It’s not a room, but a place where boats are stored and repaired, with a hoist crane down to the lowest level. And not only that, but there’s something else here too. Large barrels with warning labels on them, the kind showing hands melting from drops.

But there’s one more thing. I looked down toward the basement level and there’s a corridor going into the island, in the direction behind the annex. That’s where he takes them. Both routes lead to the main house.

I’m going to go back up and follow the routines, make coffee, catalog images. But you know what, diary? Now you’re in the basement, near the acid barrels, under a tarp. There you’ll be dry and safe.

JUNE 20, 2018 — EVENING

It was smart to hide the diary, because he [double underlined] was there again, and now he searched the entire floor. I had hidden the key outside, buried under the plastic chair. You’re here, after all.

But…

[remainder of this page is acid-burnt]

JUNE 21, 2018

Eli showed up again. I asked why I hadn’t seen him until now. He said he does other things besides just watching over me. Then he asked if I had been in the cellar. It stung inside me. I could barely lie, but I said no. Then I asked him about the man who had searched the room, but he wouldn’t answer that. He seemed scared. Then we sat quietly for a while.

[part of page burnt]

…I snuck down to the cellar again. All the way down, and into the tunnel. I know it’s stupid, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how to get away. If I can take one of the boats and leave during the night, I should be able to get to safety.

But I have to see where the tunnel leads. I’ve seen what they do on film and in pictures, but I have to see it with my own eyes. Not because I want to, but because I can only trust what I see with my own eyes.

Now I’m going in.

[no more entries]

Additional

Investigation Supplement — FBI Southern District Task Force

The following diary was found under a tarp in an underground storage hall on Little St. James, U.S. Virgin Islands, during the search on July 6, 2019. The diary was located next to several barrels of industrial sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄). Some pages were partially damaged by acid exposure, likely caused by leakage from a damaged barrel in immediate proximity.

The diary is identified as belonging to S. Løvstad (b. 1993), Norwegian citizen, based on handwriting analysis and comparison with travel documents found in the investigation’s digital seizures.

Løvstad was employed as a seasonal worker via a facilitator connected to ████████████ Foundation in June 2018. His task was to catalog and cross-reference digital material in a proprietary database. Analysis of the database shows that Løvstad’s user account (”l0vstad”) was active from June 16 to June 20, 2018, with 2,341 registry entries.

A second user account, registered as “ADMIN_E”, showed simultaneous logins during the same period. This account likely belongs to the person referred to as “Eli” in the diary. The account was deactivated on June 21, 2018.

S. Løvstad was reported missing by Norwegian police (Kripos ref. 2018-K-04421) on August 15, 2018, after his family had not heard from him since June 14, 2018. Norwegian authorities received no departure information following Løvstad’s arrival in St. Thomas on June 15, 2018.

No ferry or flight reservation was found in Løvstad’s name after June 15, 2018. His Norwegian passport was never used for departure from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

During the search of the island on July 6, 2019, a tunnel network was identified that corresponds with the diary’s descriptions. The underground entrance described in the last entry leads to a corridor connecting the annex (”CIA”) with the main building via a route of approximately 200 meters. Surveillance cameras were found along the entire route.

In the corridor’s final section, closest to the main house, personal belongings were found that could not be attributed to any registered guest or employee: one pair of Doc Martens boots, size 43, and a Norwegian suitcase of the Beckmann brand.

The suitcase was empty. Scratched into the lining, with a sharp object:

“Power is safest where it need not be protected.”

S. Løvstad has not been found.

Status: OPEN

Priority: SUSPENDED — pending international coordination with Kripos

— END OF DOCUMENT —

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