Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund; Börge Hellström

They're too far apart from each other.

  He walked slowly toward the shower room and toilets, three guards inside, they're too far apart from each other.

  He sat down on the dirty plastic toilet seat, flushed, turned on the tap. He breathed deeply, each breath from somewhere deep in his stomach, the calm that was down there, he needed it, he wasn't going to die, not yet.

  "I'm ready. You can open again."

  The warden opened the door and Piet Hoffmann launched himself forward, showed the mini-revolver first and then held it hard to the bastard's eye that stared at him through a hatch in the cell door.

  "Your colleague."

  He whispered.

  "Get your colleague to come here."

  The warden didn't move. Maybe he didn't understand. Maybe he was petrified.

  "Now. Get him to come here now."

  Hoffmann kept his eye on the personal alarm hanging from the warden's belt and pressed the muzzle of the gun even harder against the closed eyelid.

  "Erik?"

  He had understood. His voice was feeble, a careful wave of the hand. "Erik? Can you come here?"

  Piet Hoffmann saw the second warden come closer, then stop suddenly, realising that his colleague was standing stock-still with what looked like a piece of metal to his head.

  "Come here."

  The warden who was called Erik hesitated then started to walk, casting a glance up at the camera that maybe someone was watching right now up in central security.

  "Once more and I'll kill him. Kill. Kill him."

  With one hand he pressed even harder against the eyelid and with the other he tore loose two pieces of plastic that were their only way to raise an alarm.

  They waited. They did precisely what he said. They knew that he had nothing to lose, it was obvious.

  One more.

  One more person who could move around freely in the corridor. Hoffmann looked over toward the wardens' office. The face was still turned away, the neck bent forward, as if he was reading.

  "Get up."

  The older, gray man turned around. There was about twenty meters between them, but he knew exactly what was going on. A prisoner holding something to someone's head. A colleague standing absolutely still beside them, waiting.

  "No alarm. No locked doors."

  Martin Jacobson swallowed.

  He had always wondered how it would feel. Now he knew.

  All these damn years waiting for an attack and all the damn anxiety that just this sort of situation might arise.

  Calm.

  That was how he felt.

  "No alarm! No locked doors. I'll shoot!"

  Principal Prison Officer Jacobson knew the security instructions for Aspsås prison by heart. In the event of attack: lock yourself in. Raise the alarm. He had many years ago helped to formulate the instructions that underpinned a prison culture with unarmed staff, and now for the first time was about to put them into action.

  He should first lock the door to the wardens' office from the inside. Then he should raise the alarm with central security.

  But the voice, he had listened to it, and the body, he had watched it, he had heard and seen and knew Hoffmann's aggression and he knew that the prisoner who was shouting and holding a gun was both violent and capable. He had read the prison file and the reports on an inmate who was classified as psychopathic, but his colleagues' lives, human lives, were so much more important than security instructions. So he did not stay in the office and he did not lock the door. He did not press his personal alarm nor the one on the wall. Instead, he approached them slowly just as Hoffmann had indicated that he should, past the first cell door where someone started to bang on it from the inside, a heavy monotonous sound that echoed in the corridor walls. A prisoner reacting to something that was going on out there and doing what they always did when they were angry or wanted attention or were just happy about something, anything that was out of the ordinary. Every door he passed, someone else began to knock, others who had no idea what was actually going on out here but were keeping up with something that was better than nothing.

  "Hoffmann,

  "Shut up."

  "Maybe we-"

  "Shut up! I'll shoot."

  Three guards. All sufficiently close now It would take at least a few minutes more before the ones out in the yard would come in.

  He shouted down the empty corridor.

  "Stefan!"

  Again.

  "Stefan, Stefan!"

  Cell 3.

  "Fucking snitch."

  The voice was vicious, ripping through words and walls.

  Stefan.

  A couple of meters away, a locked door, the only thing that separated them.

  "You're going to die, you fucking snitch."

  When he pressed the gun harder against the young warden's eyelid it slid on something.

  Something wet, tears, he was crying.

  "You're going to swap places. You go in there. Into Cell 3."

  He didn't move. It was as if he hadn't heard.

  "Open the door and go in! That's all you've got to do. Open the door, for fuck's sake!"

  The warden moved mechanically, pulled out his keys, dropped them on the floor, tried again, turned the key with great precision, moved once the door had slowly swung open.

  "Fucking grass. With his new mates."

  "You're going to swap places. Now!"

  "Bastard snitch. What-what the fuck you got in your hand?"

  Stefan was considerably taller and considerably heavier than Piet Hoffmann.

  When he stood in the cell doorway, he filled it-a dark and despising shadow.

  "Get out."

  He didn't hesitate. Sneering, he moved too fast, too close.

  "Stop!"

  And why should I do that? 'Cause some little snitch shit has a gun to a screw's head?"

  "Stop!"

  Stefan kept coming toward him, the open mouth, the dry lips, the warm breath. His face was too close, it was invasive, it was attacking.

  "Go on, fucking shoot. Then there's one screw less in the world."

  Piet Hoffmann's mind was blank as the heavyweight body approached him. He had wanted to swap hostages, threaten Wojtek rather than the Prison and Probation Service, but had underestimated the hatred. When Stefan broke into a run for the last few steps toward him, his brain wasn't working, only his fear gave him the drive to survive. He pushed the guard away and aimed the revolver at the hating eyes and fired, one single bullet through the pupil, the lens, the vitreous, to the soft mass of the brain, where it stopped somewhere.

  Stefan took one more step, still sneering, he appeared to be unaffected, but a second later he fell heavily forward and Hoffmann had to move to avoid finding himself underneath him, then he bent down toward him, pressed the muzzle to his other eye, one more bullet.

  A person lay dead on the floor.

  The thumping banging that had drummed persistently and the echo of the shot… suddenly, suddenly everything was silent.

  A strange, breathless silence.

  "You can go in now."

  He pointed to one of the younger men, but it was the older one, Jacobson, who answered.

  "Hoffmann, now let's-"

  "I'm not going to die yet."

  He looked at the three guards that he needed, but were in the way. Two were younger, shaking, close to break down. The older one was fairly calm, the sort who would carry on trying to intercede, but also the sort who wouldn't break down.

  "Go into the cell."

  Metal on eyelids that were crying, darkness only a finger-twitch away. "Get in!"

  The young warden went into the empty cell and sat down on the edge of the iron bed.

  "Close! And lock!"

  Hoffmann tossed the keys to Jacobson; not a word this time, no attempt to communicate, no false contact intended to confuse, generate trust, emotion.

  "The body."

  He kicked it, it was about maintaining power, keeping distance.


  "I want it outside Cell 6. But not too close, so that the door can still be opened."

  "He's too heavy."

  "Now. Outside Cell 6. Okay?"

  He moved the gun from his temple to his eye, to his temple from his eye. "Where do you think it will be when I pull the trigger?"

  Jacobson got hold of the soft arms that no longer had muscle reflex; the sinewy, elderly body pulled, dragged 250 pounds of death along the hard linoleum floor and Hoffmann nodded when it was positioned just so the cell door could be opened.

  "Open it."

  He didn't recognize him, they had never met, but it was the voice that had passed his cell yesterday and called him Paula several times, one of Wojtek's runners.

  "You fucking stukatj."

  The same voice, shrill as he stormed out, when he stopped in his tracks.

  "Jesus…"

  He looked down at someone lying at his feet, stock-still, lungs that weren't breathing.

  "You fucking bastard.."

  "Down on your knees!"

  Hoffmann pointed at him with the miniature gun.

  "Get down!"

  Hoffmann had expected threats, maybe contempt.

  But the man in front of him said nothing as he collapsed beside the motionless body and for a second Hoffmann stood still-he had been prepared to kill again, and was now standing in front of someone who obeyed.

  "What's your name?"

  The young warden, when he felt the pressure of the muzzle, had closed his eyes and cried.

  "Jan. Janne."

  "Janne. Get in there."

  Another person in a prison uniform sitting on the edge of yet another empty iron bed when Jacobson locked the door to Cell 6.

  Hoffmann counted quickly. It felt like eternity, but he had only just begun. Eight, maybe nine minutes had passed since he opened the door to the toilet and raised the gun, no more. Two of the guards were locked up, the third was in front of him and the fourth and the fifth would stay out in the yard for a while longer. But central security could choose at any moment to look at the cameras in this unit on their monitors, or guards from other units might pass. He had to hurry. He knew where he was going. He had been on his way there since he realized he was on his own, with a death threat, burned by some of the few who knew his purpose and code name; on his way to the place he had chosen a long time ago in order not to die if what shouldn't happen happened.

  They were standing close by. Just as close as they had to. Enough distance for him to be in full control but to avoid being overpowered, and the prisoner who still had no name was dangerous, he would kill if he could.

  "I want you to get that lamp there."

  He held his outstretched arm toward a simple standard lamp that was lit in one of the corners of the wardens' office and waited until Jacobson had put it on the floor in front of him.

  "Tie him up. With the extension cord."

  Hands behind the prisoner's back and Jacobson pulled the white cord until it pressed into the equally white skin. Hoffmann felt it, checked, then wound the cord around the warden's waist and they started to move up the stairs that seemed to be alive: closed unit doors held back loud exchanges between angry prisoners and the rattling clatter of plates being laid on the table and the voices of irritated card players and a lonely TV that had been left on full volume. One single scream, one single kick on a door and he would be caught. He moved the gun barrel between the prisoner's and the guard's eyes, they should know, they should know.

  They got to the top of the building, to the narrow corridor just outside the workshop.

  The door was open. All the lights in the large space were turned off.

  The inmates who worked here were still eating breakfast with an hour to go before the morning shift.

  "That's not enough."

  He had waited to command the prisoner down onto his knees until they were in the middle of the workshop.

  "Even lower. And bend forward."

  "Why?"

  "Bend forward!"

  "You can kill me. You can kill the fucking screw. But Paula, that's what your fucking pig friends call you, isn't it, you're still dead. In here. Sooner or later. Doesn't matter. We know. We won't let you go. You know that's the way it works."

  Hoffmann brought his free fist down on the prisoner's neck with force. He didn't know why, it was just what happened when he couldn't answer. After all, it was true. Wojtek's runner was right.

  "Take down some packing tape. Bind his wrists! And then pull off the cord!"

  Jacobson stood on his toes as he lifted a roll of the hard gray plastic packing tape that is used for cardboard boxes down from the shelves over the press machine. He had to cut two half-meter lengths and tape them around the prisoner's arms, tight, until it cut into the skin and made it bleed, then he had to rip the clothes from the kneeling prisoner and undress himself, each piece of clothing on the floor in two piles, then he had to turn round, his naked back to Hoffmann, the hard plastic around his own wrists as well.

  Piet Hoffmann had carefully remembered everything about the room that smelled of oil and diesel and dust. He had located the surveillance cameras over the drilling machine and the smaller pallet jacks, paced out the distance between the rectangular workbenches and the three large pillars that held up the ceiling, he knew exactly where the diesel barrel was and which tools were kept in what cupboard.

  The prisoner with no name and the gray-haired guard were on their knees, naked, with their hands behind their backs. Hoffmann checked again that they were properly bound, then lifted up both piles of clothes and carried them over to a workbench near the wall with the big windows facing the church. The receiver was in one of his front pockets. He put it in his ear, listened, smiled, and looked out of the window toward the church tower-he heard the wind blowing gently across a transmitter, it worked.

  Then the wind was drowned out.

  A loud, repetitive sound took over.

  The alarm.

  He hurried toward the piles of clothes, grabbed the plastic thing that was flashing red from the belt in the waist of the blue uniform trousers and read the electronic message.

  B.1.

  Solitary confinement. The unit they had just left. It was sooner than he had expected.

  He looked out through the window.

  Toward the church. Toward the church tower.

  He still had another fifteen minutes before the first police reached the outer wall. And another couple of minutes before the correctly trained staff were in the correct position with the correct weapons.

  The alarm had been raised by one of the principal officers who was on his

  way to the prison yard, but who on passing the closed door to the stairs had popped in to say morning and to check that everything was okay. The first guards now rushed down the dimly lit corridor, then all stopped at the same time, all looking at the same scene.

  A dead man lying on the floor.

  Persistent banging on locked cell doors from confused and aggressive prisoners.

  A pale and sweating colleague was released from Cell 6.

  The released colleague was agitated and pointed to Cell 3.

  Another imprisoned colleague was let out, a young man who was crying-he looked down at the floor and said something, he shot him, and then repeated it much louder, as if to drown out the banging, or perhaps because he needed to say it again, he shot him through the eye.

  He heard them storming up the stairs, and saw even more rushing over the prison yard. The two naked bodies on the floor twitched anxiously. He moved the gun from one face to the other, the eyes, reminding them: he needed some more time before they discovered him.

  "What's this all about?"

  The older warden, crouched over on his knees, his joints aching intensely, didn't say anything else but it was obvious that he was rocking back and forth to distribute the weight.

  Piet Hoffmann heard him but didn't answer.

  "Hoffmann. Look at me. What is this all about?"
<
br />   "I've already answered that."

  "I didn't understand the answer."

  "Not dying yet."

  The man leaned his head back, face up, and looked at the revolver with one eye and Hoffmann with the other.

  "You won't get out of here alive."

  He looked at him, demanding an answer.

  "You've got a family."

  If he spoke, became someone, changed from an object to a subject, a person who communicated with another person..

  "You've got a wife and children."

  "I know what you're doing."

  Pier Hoffmann moved, walked behind the naked bodies, maybe to check that the plastic tape round their wrists was still in place, but probably to avoid the watching, demanding eyes.

  "You see, I have too. A wife. Three children. All grown up now. It-"

  "Jacobson? Is that what you're called? Shut up! I just said in a friendly way that I know exactly what you're fucking up to. I don't have a family. Not now."

  He pulled at the plastic which cut in deeper, bled some more.

  "And I'm not going to die, yet. If that means that you have to die instead, so fucking what. You're just my protection, Jacobson, a shield and you'll never be anything more than that. With or without your wife and children."

  The principal officer from B2 had tried to make a connection with the colleague he had just released from Cell 3 a couple of minutes ago. A young man, not much older than his son, just covering for the summer. He hadn't even been there a month yet. That's the way it goes. Someone might spend their entire working life waiting for a morning like this. Others could experience it after only twenty-four days.

  Only the one sentence.

  He had repeated the same thing in answer to every question. He shot him, through the eye.

  The young warden was suffering from acute shock-he had seen a man die and had had a gun pressed to his eye, the circle on the soft skin still obvious. He had then sat and waited, locked inside a solitary confinement cell with death. There wouldn't be anymore words, not for a while. The principal officer instructed the guards who were nearest to look after him, and went on to the other colleague, the one who had been in Cell 6 and who was pale and sweaty, the one who whispered, but was perfectly audible.

  "Where's Jacobson?"