The Believer

by Joakim Zander

  What exactly is going on? She’s seen the payments made to Charlotte, seen her meeting with George, who works for Stirling Security. Everything indicated that they were about to get what they wanted, that Charlotte was in their pocket. What is it that she doesn’t know?

  Klara heads toward the exit through the mass of conference attendees. Where did Charlotte go? Klara completely lost sight of her boss after the presentation. But out there in the foyer she spots Charlotte’s back on the way out through the metal detectors. She seems to be in a hurry, and Klara speeds up her steps.

  Where is she going? Typically, a presenter stays after a presentation to answer questions.

  She exits into the sunny, cool morning, only a few dozen feet behind Charlotte, and is about to shout her name, when she sees her hop into a waiting taxi. As the car slowly rolls past the entrance, Charlotte looks up and meets her eyes for a moment, but then looks down without acknowledging her. There’s nothing in those eyes of her former obvious self-confidence. Just defeat, and something that resembles fear. Klara’s thoughts are spinning in her head. What exactly is happening here?

  When she turns around George is standing right behind her, and she’s so surprised to see him that she takes a step back. He looks different now. His eyes aren’t stressed or haunted anymore, instead they look older, almost sad.

  “Come with me,” he says, pointing to an Audi parked in the driveway. “We really need to talk.”

  76. STOCKHOLM/BERGORT—SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015

  IT’S MY BROTHERS who wake me. I am surrounded by a great darkness, but suddenly I hear them whispering and moving around me, and when I open my eyes, I’m standing on Pirate Square. The cracked concrete slabs are covered by red sand that swirls and colors the whole world. In front of me lie long rows of shattered bodies and behind me Mehdi’s lungs whistle after an afternoon at Camp Nou. When I turn around he smiles and waves, then slowly backs up and vanishes into the red wind. Then they come, one by one. Bounty, Räven, and Dakhil. Al-Amin and Umar. I stand there in front of the rows of my dead brothers, like a guard or a representative. No one says anything. The wind blows harder, the red sand covering everything until I can no longer see them. Finally nothing is left but sand, and I squeeze my eyes shut and sink down with my hands pressed against my face.

  And then I hear you, your voice in my ear.

  “Habibi,” you whisper. “Wake up, habibi, you’re dreaming.”

  When I open my eyes the red sand has disappeared. The square has disappeared. The concrete and the brothers have disappeared. I’m lying in a bed in a white room filled with wires, tubes, drapes, full of cool morning light, breathing, and whispering voices. I turn toward you, and it’s like seeing you for the first time. Your long hair is down now, thick and wild, and the swelling around your eyes is no more than a shadow. You lean over me and put your cool hand on my forehead, press like you did when I was little, when you thought I had a fever.

  I gently grab hold of your wrist and press it firmly against my forehead. Your hand is as cool as I remember from when we were little. You used to play hooky when I was sick and sit beside me all day. How could I forget? How could I forget how you told me the stories your teacher read to you at school again and again, until it felt like you’d made them up yourself? I remember them now. I remember everything now, and I feel like I can’t keep it inside me anymore, can’t be alone another minute of my life.

  “Remember what Birk told Ronia in Ronia the Robber’s Daughter?” I mumble and squeeze my eyes so you won’t see me crying like a child.

  You move your hand away from my forehead and lean down until your cheek is against mine. And you nod quietly.

  “How many times are you going save my life, sister of mine?” I whisper.

  And you press your cheek even harder against mine, so close that I can feel your heartbeat through your skin. But you don’t answer as Ronia answered Birk. You don’t answer that you’ll save my life as many times as I save yours. And I can’t hold back my tears any longer. I let them run slowly down my cheeks and onto my pillow. I’m not crying for the brothers or for the past. I’m crying with relief. I’m crying because you’re my sister, and you don’t ask anything in return. I’m weeping because only in stories does love balance out, only in fairy tales is sacrifice symmetrical.

  They release me from the ward early in the morning. I could have left last night, but you wouldn’t let them wake me and convinced the doctors to let us stay the night. Maybe because we don’t have anywhere else to go.

  A police officer is waiting outside the door, and I feel myself being sucked into darkness again, but you take me by the hand as he comes toward us.

  “Everything’s fine,” he says. “Do you have someone who can take care of you now? We can drive you if you want.”

  But you shake your head.

  “No more police,” you say. “Thanks for your help.”

  “What are the cops doing here?” I say in the elevator on the way down.

  “They wanted to check that we were OK. If you remember you were kidnapped? But we have a lawyer now, Fadi.”

  You smile when you see my questioning look.

  “I’ll tell you later,” you continue. “But she fixed all this. All that old stuff is over now.”

  On the street outside Söder Hospital your friend Igge is waiting next to a dusty old BMW. I didn’t even know which hospital we were in, hadn’t even thought about it. He hugs you and opens the door for me to the backseat.

  “Wallah, you’re both as skinny as reeds,” he says as he starts the car. “Where are we headed?”

  You sink down in the front seat beside him.

  “Arlanda,” you say. “But first we need to go home.”

  We stand outside while Igge goes up to Parisa’s apartment. He’s back in five minutes with the bag of stuff Mehdi was taking care of for me in one hand and my passport in the other. His eyes are dark and sad as he hands them to me, and he turns to you.

  “You were right,” he says quietly. “She doesn’t want to meet you. The funeral is tomorrow. You know, they wanna do it quickly, according to the Qur’an. You’re not welcome, it seems.”

  You nod silently, and I can barely breathe as you both head slowly down the footpath back toward the parking lot. I turn my head upward, looking along the cracked facade for their windows.

  “Jalla, Fadi!” you shout. “Come on!”

  Finally, I find it. And just before I turn around I see Parisa’s face behind the curtains, see the little bundle she’s holding in her arms. Our eyes meet for a second. Then she disappears into the darkness of the apartment again. There is no forgiveness, there’s nothing, but it’s enough for my feet to come unglued from the ground. Slowly I turn around and leave it behind me.

  “Just one more thing, Ignacio,” you say. “Then we go.”

  He nods and understands without you having to tell him. His crappy BMW swings out onto the street again, down past the school and the woods and Camp Nou, between the low-rises, up onto the little bike path and all the way to our front door, all the way back to where it began.

  But when we get there, we can’t bring ourselves to leave the car, just lean out to try to see through the windows. But it’s impossible. Everything is dark inside, and the windows just reflect the sun and pine trees outside.

  “Those fucking blinds,” you say quietly.

  “She’s working,” I say. “And he probably hasn’t woken up yet?”

  You nod, lean back in your seat, and look at me.

  “Is this how it ends?” I say.

  You shake your head. Then bend back and stroke my cheek.

  “No, habibi,” you say. “This is how it begins.”

  77. STOCKHOLM—SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015

  THEY SAY NOTHING to each other while George maneuvers the car between the barricades and drives onto the E4 ramp. The news is playing on the radio. The riots have subsided in the suburbs. Last night was quieter. George turns it off.

  “Je
sus Christ,” he says. “What a fucking trip.”

  Klara turns toward him. He looks tired and much older than she remembers.

  “What’s going on, George?” she says. “Are you going to tell me or not? What happened in there, for example? With Charlotte and the report?”

  He glances at her but quickly returns his gaze to the road.

  “It’s a pretty complicated story,” he says.

  She looks at him doubtfully. It’s strange to be sitting here in his car. Suddenly it feels like it was only yesterday they rode her grandfather’s boat through a blizzard in the Sankt Anna archipelago.

  “You owe me an explanation, George,” she says quietly.

  “Yes, I surely do. How much do you know?”

  “Stirling Security paid Charlotte for the report, and they paid kids in the suburbs to riot. And you’re mixed up in all this. But can we start with what happened just now at the conference?”

  “Something convinced Charlotte not to present the report she wrote for Stirling Security,” George says quietly. “When she realized she’d been exposed, she was quick to do what was in her best interest. Charlotte’s good that way. She has what you might call an intuitive understanding of what’s most advantageous for her.”

  He smiles crookedly. She shakes her head.

  “What do you mean ‘convinced’?” she says. “You work for Stirling Security. But you don’t seem particularly upset?”

  He takes a deep breath and sighs.

  “Stirling Security is basically the Russian government. There are a number of such companies. More now than ever. They contacted us, my firm Merchant and Taylor, almost a year ago, when there started to be talk of doing this report and holding this meeting. They wanted a fancy lobbying firm that didn’t ask too many questions. My bosses were very interested, of course. Russians pay full price, if you know what I mean. For no questions asked. And I started working with them almost immediately after what happened over Christmas, one and a half years ago. It was one of my first meetings after getting back from . . . You know, what happened in the archipelago.”

  “You certainly do attract a particular clientele,” she says.

  He shrugs.

  “That’s part of the job . . . But after what happened, I got a little—how to put this?—more scrupulous about my clients.”

  He smiles and glances at Klara again. He doesn’t need to say more than that. It was one of George’s clients that had come close to murdering all of them that Christmas.

  “And we were already in contact with Säpo, if you remember?”

  “Bronzelius,” Klara says quietly.

  “Exactly. I couldn’t take getting embroiled in this kind of shit again, so I decided to tell Säpo about Stirling Security—I told him that they didn’t exist officially in Sweden yet, just rented an office under another name, and their CEO seemed to be some kind of attaché at the Russian Embassy. Bronzelius thought it sounded interesting.”

  She nods, but she can hardly believe her ears. Just yesterday Gabriella told all of this to Bronzelius, who dismissed it entirely. What an ice-cold bastard.

  “I’d hoped they’d arrest somebody and get me out of my vile assignment,” George continues.

  “But?”

  “Instead, they asked me to go forward as if nothing had happened. So I continued working with Charlotte. It wasn’t so difficult. I knew what she was made of. Ambitious and money-hungry. Not much for scruples. And the Russians pay well, like I said. They didn’t want the report to be too obvious, just enough doubt to give them an opening.”

  She nods and closes her eyes. Despite everything that happened, it’s still too much to take in. Too much to be sitting here with George on the E4 freeway headed toward . . . well what?

  “But the last few weeks really got out of hand,” he continues. “Stirling Security started to subsidize the unrest in Bergort—the riots were already under way, but they were quick to see an opportunity to exploit them. They sent me out into the suburbs with stencils to paint onto the walls, you might have seen the fist? Totally sick stuff by the way. And the other day, some ghetto chick popped up who’d seen me in the suburbs. Bronzelius got really nervous, of course, and when the girl and I decided to meet at the City Library, he sent out some thugs to pick her up. And she ended up holding me at gunpoint! Can you believe it! Fucking crazy shit!”

  Klara nods, doesn’t want to interrupt his monologue to tell him she actually knows about that. Not yet.

  “But what did Säpo say about it?” she says instead.

  “They were ice-cold: Just keep going, do what they ask you to.”

  “What the hell?” Klara says and turns toward him quickly. “They allowed Bergort to burn when they could have stepped in and prevented it? It’s so cynical it makes you nauseated.”

  George just nods.

  “It was important to gather evidence, they said. They weren’t interested in rowdy teenagers, they wanted to get higher up in the hierarchy. But it seems like the only one we got is Orlov, and he’s officially just some minor diplomat at the embassy. They’re good at lying low.”

  Klara feels her anger growing. Anger at the ruthlessness and indifference of it all. How the hell could Swedish Intelligence just let all this continue? First Fadi and now this?

  “But what do the Russians want exactly?” Klara says. “Is it economic? Is it really just about money or do they have some other aim?”

  George shrugs.

  “I think it’s both. Those Russian companies . . . They are always connected to politics in some way. The company would earn big money if EU countries started to privatize their police powers. At the same time, Russia would be in a pretty strategic position if businesses with Russian owners suddenly controlled parts of European police forces. You follow?”

  “It sounds totally fucking bizarre.”

  “Yes, but Bronzelius says it’s more like a submarine violation. Not exactly a direct invasion, more like a warning shot: Look at us, we’ve got the muscle to create some real political chaos.”

  “I can’t believe Charlotte actually allowed herself to be bought,” Klara says.

  “Oh, bought reports aren’t exactly anything new. But she probably wasn’t feeling so cocky last night when Bronzelius picked her up and laid his cards on the table. She denied it of course. Swore that the money she received in Liechtenstein was completely irrelevant to her academic independence.”

  He laughs dryly.

  “But then Bronzelius showed her the draft she’d given to me during our meeting yesterday. A version in which the conclusions were the opposite of what she claimed today. She apparently turned white as a sheet and went straight home and stayed up all night rewriting the report. Like I said, she knows what’s best for her.”

  “Was that the plan all along? I mean, to expose her right now, just before the presentation? Or was he planning to push things even further until he had a real emergency on his hands?”

  “As I understand it, the plan was to stop now, before the Russians got any real influence. Säpo probably wanted to take it as far as possible without risking any real impact, in order to see how much information they could obtain.”

  Klara nods thoughtfully.

  “And what’s going to happen to Charlotte now?”

  George shrugs. “I suppose she’ll go back to London and lick her wounds until it’s time again.” He laughs. “Unlike a weakling like me, it will probably take a bit more for the likes of Charlotte to see the light.”

  “What the hell, people have died because of this,” Klara says quietly.

  The images from the London Underground flash by. Patrick’s rigid, pale body on the tracks.

  George nods gently.

  “I didn’t know about that until yesterday. Stirling Security hadn’t anticipated Anonymous would sniff out what Charlotte was up to. Or that you’d start poking around either. The Russians are pretty damn nervous now.”

  “Why did you send me into the middle of this?” Klara sa
ys. “If you knew what the hell this was about?”

  George glances at her cautiously.

  “I guess I wanted to help you. I knew you wanted to finish Mahmoud’s dissertation, and I could see that Charlotte would let you do that because I was paying her. I didn’t realize you’d end up getting this involved. And I really didn’t know everything would end up taking on such epic proportions. Bronzelius has made it sound like we were almost done since the beginning of the summer. But then he just wanted to push it further and further.”

  He falls silent. They’ve arrived at Sergels Square now, and he turns onto Sveavägen.

  “Where are we going?” Klara says.

  “You’ll see. Somebody wants to meet you.”

  He stops at the sidewalk outside of King’s Tower.

  “Fifteenth floor,” he says. “He’s waiting for you there.”

  “You’re not going up?”

  George seems to shudder and shifts the gear of his car.

  “No way. I’ve had enough of the view from that office.”

  She nods.

  “Will I see you later?” she says.

  George laughs. “Whenever you want. I think after this we’ll both have quite a bit of free time.”

  “What do you mean? Do you think you’ll get fired?”

  He shrugs. “Who knows? It’s not exactly company policy to actively work against your client’s interests. Whether they’re Russian or not. We’ll see. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  He hands over a business card.

  “Call me whenever you feel like it,” he says.

  78. STOCKHOLM—SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 2015

  THE FIRST DOOR on the fifteenth floor belongs to a law firm, and the other one is unmarked and ajar. She pushes on that one hesitantly.

  “Hello?” she calls out and takes a step into the dark hall.

  “In here,” calls a voice from somewhere inside.

  She walks through the hall cautiously and enters a large room with a magnificent view of Stockholm. The room is completely empty, except for a pale desk and two chairs in one corner. Bronzelius rises from the chair and walks toward her.