Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund; Börge Hellström

  The principal officer put a hand on his shoulder, which was thin and trembling.

  "What do you mean?"

  "There were three of us. Jacobson, he was here too."

  The conversation had ended some time ago.

  When the words dried up, he was irritated and hoped for more, something mitigating, calming, a continuation that assured him everything was fine now. But there wasn't anymore to say. The principal officer from B2 had explained all there was to explain.

  Two guards locked in. A dead prisoner.

  And an assumed hostage-taking.

  The chief warden hit the receiver against the desk and a vase of yellow tulips fell to the floor. A third warden, Martin Jacobson, had been taken by an armed prisoner serving a long sentence who had been in solitary confinement, a certain 0913 Hoffmann.

  He sat down on the floor, his fingers distracted by the yellow petals that floated in the spilled water.

  Of course he had put up a protest. Just as Martin had later put up a protest.

  I lied outright to a detective superintendent. I lied because you ordered me to. But this, I won't do this.

  He tore the yellow petals to shreds, one at a time, small, porous strips that he dropped onto the wet floor. Then he reached over for the telephone receiver that was still hanging from the wire, dialed a number and didn't stop talking until he was absolutely certain that the general director had understood every word, every insinuation.

  "I want an explanation."

  A cough. That was all.

  "Pål, an explanation!"

  Another cough. And nothing more.

  "You call me at home late at night and order me to move a prisoner back to the unit where he was threatened, and no questions. You tell me that it has to happen by this morning at the latest. Right now, Pål, that prisoner has a loaded gun aimed at one of my employees. Explain the connection between your order and the hostage-taking. Or I'll be forced to ask someone else the same questions."

  It was warm in the security office that was part of the entrance to Aspsås prison and was called central security, just as it is in every prison in Sweden. The warden in a creased blue uniform, who was called Bergh, was sweating despite the fan on the table right behind him that made any loose paper and his thin fringe flutter. So he turned around and looked for the towel that hung in the space between the red and green buttons on the control panel and the sixteen TV monitors.

  Naked bodies.

  The resolution of the black-and-white image wasn't great, and it flickered a bit, but he was sure.

  The picture on the screen closest to the towel showed two naked bodies on a floor and a man wearing prison-issue clothes holding something to their heads.

  He looked up at the beautiful blue sky. A few wispy clouds, a pleasant sun and a warm breeze. It was a lovely summer day. Apart from the sound of the sirens from the first police car, two uniformed officers in front, both from Aspsås police district.

  "Oscarsson…?"

  The governor of Aspsås prison was standing by the main gate in the asphalt garage, the concrete wall like an unpainted gray set behind him. "What the hell-"

  "He's already shot someone."

  "Oscarsson?"

  "And threatened to do it again."

  They were in the front with the windows rolled down: a young policewoman whom Lennart Oscarsson had never seen before sitting beside a sergeant of about his own age, Rydén-they didn't know each other, but knew of each other, one of the few policemen who had served in Aspsås for as long as Oscarsson had worked at the prison.

  They turned off the blue light and got out.

  "Who?"

  I've just come from the hospital unit. You can't see him.

  "Piet Hoffmann. Thirty-six years old. Ten years for drugs offenses.

  According to our records, extremely dangerous, classified psychopath, violent." A sergeant from the Aspsås district who had been to the large prison enough times to know his way round.

  "I don't understand. Block B. Solitary confinement. And armed?" He's going back. To G2. By tomorrow morning at the latest.

  "We don't understand it either."

  "But the gun? For Christ's sake, Oscarsson… how? Where from-?" "I don't know. I don't know."

  Rydén looked at the concrete wall, over it and at what he knew was the second floor and roof of Block B.

  "I need to know more. What kind of gun?"

  Lennart Oscarsson sighed.

  "According to the warden who was threatened-he was confused, in shock, but he described some kind of… miniature pistol."

  "Pistol? Or revolver?"

  "What's the difference?"

  "With a magazine? Or a rotating cylinder?"

  "I don't know."

  Rydén's gaze lingered on the roof of Block B.

  "A hostage taking. A violent, dangerous convict."

  He shook his head.

  "We need a completely different kind of weapon. Different knowledge. We need policemen who are specially trained for this."

  He went over to the car, a hand in through the open window. He could just reach the radio microphone.

  "I'll contact the inspector on duty at the CCC. I'll ask them to send the national task force."

  The dirty floor was hard and cold against his bare lower leg.

  Martin Jacobson moved carefully, tried to rock his body back, pain pressing on his joints. Crumpled, bent forward, hands behind their backs, they had been kneeling beside each other since they came into the main workshop. He shot a look at the prisoner who was so close he could feel his breath. He couldn't remember his name, it was seldom that those who were locked up in solitary confinement became individuals. Central European, he was sure of that, big, and his hate was tangible, there was bad blood between them, something old-when their eyes locked, he spat, sneered, and Hoffmann had gotten tired of him screaming in a language that Jacobson didn't understand, had kicked him in the cheek and wound the sharp plastic tape around his legs as well.

  Martin Jacobson had gradually started to feel what he hadn't had the energy to feel when everything was chaos and he had to concentrate on trying to get the hostage taker to communicate.

  A creeping, terrible, engulfing fear.

  This was serious. Hoffmann was under pressure and resolute and another person who would never think, talk, or laugh again was already lying on another floor.

  Jacobson rocked gently again, took a deep breath-it was more than fear, perhaps. He had never felt like this before, absolute terror.

  "Keep still."

  Piet Hoffmann kicked him in the shoulders, not hard but enough for his bare skin to shine red. He then started to walk through the workshop, along the rectangular workbenches, and reached up and turned the first camera to the wall, and then the second and the third, but he held the fourth in both hands for a while, his face right up to the lens, he stared into it, moved even closer until his face filled the entire screen, then he screamed; he screamed and then turned that one to the wall as well.

  Bergh was still sweating. But he wasn't aware of it. He had moved the chair in the glass box that was central security and was now leaning forward in front of the monitors, four of them with pictures from the Block B workshop. A couple of minutes ago, someone had joined him. The chief warden was standing right behind him and they were watching the same black-and-white sequences with shared concentration, almost silence. Suddenly something changed. One of the monitors that was connected to the camera nearest the window went black. But not an electronic black, it was still working-it was more like it was obstructed by something or someone. Then the next one. The cameras had been turned quickly, maybe to the wall-the darkness could be a film of gray concrete only centimeters away. The third one, they were prepared. They spotted the hand just before it was turned, a person who forced the camera around on its fixture.

  One left. They stared at the monitor, waiting, then both jumped. A face.

  Close up, as close as you could get, a nose and a mo
uth, that was all. A mouth that screamed something before it disappeared.

  Hoffmann.

  He had said something.

  He was cold.

  It wasn't a chill from the cold floor, it came from fear, from losing the will to fight thoughts of his own death.

  The prisoner beside him had made a threat again-more hate, more scorn-until Hoffmann got a rag from one of the workbenches and stuffed it in his mouth and his words were swallowed.

  They both lay still, even when he left them every now and then, purposeful steps over to the far glass wall, a window into the office. When he turned his head, Martin Jacobson could see him go into the small room, bend down over the desk and lift something that from a distance looked like a telephone receiver.

  The mouth moved slowly. Narrow, tight lips that looked chapped, almost split.

  He is.

  They looked at each other, nodded.

  They had both recognized the movements of the mouth that formed the words.

  "Next."

  Oscarsson was sitting beside Bergh in the cramped security office and eager fingers pressed the play button, one frame at a time. The mouth filled the whole screen, the next word, the lips wide and stretched.

  "Did you see?"

  "Yes."

  "One more time."

  It was so clear.

  The words, the message from the lips, said with such aggression that they were an attack.

  He is a dead man.

  His hand was shaking-it happened so suddenly he had been forced to let go of the telephone receiver.

  What if he got an answer?

  What if he didn't get an answer?

  A quick look out through the internal window into the workshop and the naked men; they were still lying there, without moving. A porcelain cup in the middle of the desk, half full of day-old coffee, which he downed, cold and bitter but the caffeine would stay in his body for a while.

  He dialed the number again. The first ring, the second, he waited. Was she still there, did she still have the same number, he didn't know, he hoped, maybe she-

  Her voice.

  "You?"

  It had been so long.

  "I want you to do exactly what we agreed."

  "Piet, I-"

  "Exactly what we agreed. Now."

  He hung up. He missed her. He missed her so much.

  And now he wondered if she was still there, for him.

  The blue, flashing light got stronger, clearer, and would soon push its way through the woods that separated the country road from the drive up to Aspsås prison. Lennart Oscarsson was standing next to Sergeant Rydén in the parking place by the main gate when two heavy, square, black cars approached. The national task force duty troops had left their headquarters at Sorentorp and Solna twenty-four minutes earlier and dropped off-while the heavy vehicles were still moving-nine identically clad men in black boots, navy blue overalls, balaclavas, protective visors, helmets, fireproof gloves, and flak jackets. Rydén rushed forward and greeted the tall thin man who got out of the passenger seat of the first car. Head of the task force, John Edvardson.

  "There. The black roof. Top floor."

  Four windows in the building nearest the outer wall. Edvardson nodded, he was already heading over there and Oscarsson and Rydén had almost to run to keep up. They looked around and saw the eight others following, submachine guns in hand, two of them with long-distance sniper guns.

  They passed central security and the administration block, continued through an open gate in the next wall which was slightly lower and divided the prison up into different sectors, identical squares with identical three-story L-shaped buildings.

  "G Block and H Block."

  Lennart Oscarsson kept close to the inner wall where they had an overview but were still protected.

  "E Block and F Block."

  He pointed at the buildings one by one, the home of long-term prisoners.

  "C Block and D Block."

  Sixty-four cells and sixty-four prisoners in each complex.

  "Normal prisoners. The special sex offenders' unit is in a separate part of the prison, as we had a few problems some years ago when several prisoners crossed paths."

  They continued sprinting along meter after meter of thick concrete, getting closer to the last L-shaped building. Oscarsson was flagging a bit, but he kept up.

  "Blocks A and B. One in each arm. Block B faces the other way. He's been spotted a few times in the big window, the one that looks out over the fields, toward the church over there, Aspsås church. I've had sightings from two separate wardens and they're absolutely certain."

  A gray concrete bunker, a Lego brick, an ugly and hard and silent building.

  "At the bottom, the isolation unit. Solitary confinement. Bl. That's where he took the hostages. That's where he escaped from."

  They stopped for the first time since the armed task force had arrived in their vehicles a couple of minutes earlier.

  "One floor up, B2 left and B2 right. Sixteen cells on each side. Normal prisoners, thirty-two of them."

  Lennart Oscarsson waited for a few seconds, still speaking in short bursts-he hadn't caught his breath back yet.

  He lowered his voice a bit.

  "There, at the top. B3. The workshops. One of the prisoners' workplaces. You see that window? The one that faces the yard?"

  He stopped talking. The big window, it felt so strange-it was beautiful outside, the sun and the green fields and the blue sky, and inside, behind the glass, death.

  "Armed?"

  While he waited for Rydén's answer, Edvardson ordered six of the national task force men to position themselves at the three entrances to Block B and the two snipers to check out the roofs of the nearby buildings.

  "I've asked the guards who saw his weapon twice. They're still confused, in shock, but I'm fairly certain that what they're describing is a kind of miniature revolver that can take six bullets. I've only ever seen one in real life, a SwissMiniGun, made in Switzerland and marketed as the world's smallest gun."

  "Six bullets?"

  "According to the guards he's fired at least two."

  John Edvardson looked at the prison chief warden.

  "Oscarsson… how the hell did a prisoner who's locked up manage to get hold of a deadly weapon in the hole, in one of Sweden's high-security prisons?"

  Lennart Oscarsson couldn't bear to answer, not right now. He just shook his head in despair. The national task force chief turned toward Rydén.

  "A miniature revolver. I don't know anything about it. But you reckon it's powerful enough to kill?"

  "He's already done it once."

  John Edvardson looked up at the window that faced the beautiful church; the hostage taker had been spotted there, a prisoner serving a long sentence who obviously had contacts who could get him a loaded gun in a high-security prison.

  "Classified psychopath?"

  “yes:,

  Reinforced glass in the window.

  Two hostages lying naked on the floor. "And a documented history of violence?"

  “Yes.”

  The man in there had known what he was doing the whole time. According to the wardens he was calm and determined, he had chosen the workshop, and that wasn't by chance, either.

  "Then we've got a problem."

  Edvardson looked at the front of the building where they wanted to get in. They didn't have much time, the hostage taker had just threatened to kill for a second time.

  "He's been seen in the window, but the snipers can't access it from inside the prison. And given your description of this Hoffmann and his record… we can't force our way in either. Break down the door or smash in one of the skylights on the roof, it would be simple enough, but with such a dangerous and sick prisoner… if we were to do that, if we stormed him, he wouldn't turn on us, he'd stand his ground, he'd point the gun at the hostages, no matter how threatened he was himself, and he'd do what he's promised to do. He'd kill."

  John Edvar
dson started to walk back toward the gate and the wall. "We're going to get him. But not from here. I will position the snipers. Outside the prison."

  He moved away from the window.

  They were lying naked at his feet.

  They hadn't moved, hadn't tried to communicate.

  He checked their arms, legs, pulled a bit at the sharp plastic band, which already was cutting in deeper than was necessary, but it was all about power. He had to be sure that word of his potency got out to those who were just turning theirs in toward him.

  He had heard sirens for the second time. The first, about half an hour ago, were police from the local station, the only ones who could get here that fast. These ones had a different sound, more persistent, louder, and had lasted for as long as it took for them to get from the national task force headquarters in Sorentorp to the prison.

  He walked across the room, counted his steps, studied the door, studied the second window, looked up at the ceiling and the layer of loose glass-fibre tiles, used to absorb and dampen sound in the noisy workshop. He picked up a long, narrow metal pipe from one of the workbenches and starred to force the fiberglass tiles loose until they fell to the floor, one after the other, and revealed the actual ceiling.

  The heavy black car left the parking place outside the main gate into Aspsås prison and stopped about a minute and a kilometer later outside another, considerably smaller gate-one that opened onto a gravel path that led up to a proud, white church. John Edvardson walked along the newly raked gravel, Rydén beside him and the two marksmen right behind. Some visitors to the sunny, well-maintained graveyard looked uneasily at the armed, uniformed men with black faces-they didn't fit together somehow, violence and peace. The church door was open and they looked into an empty but impressive nave, and then chose the door to the right and the steep stairs up to the next door which, given the fresh evidence on the door frame, looked like it had recently been forced open, and then finally the aluminum steps that led CO a hatch in the roof and to the church tower. They bent down to pass under the cast iron bell and didn't straighten up until they were our on the narrow balcony, where the wind was stronger and they got a clear view of the gray, square blocks of the prison. They kept a firm hold on the low railing as they studied the building nearest the wall and the window on the second floor where the hostage taker had been seen and was assumed to be hiding.