Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund; Börge Hellström

  There was a little coffee left in the thermos and the stare secretary poured herself half a cup. Then she got up and moved away, looked at her visitors and spoke in a quiet voice.

  "You should have informed me yesterday."

  She didn't expect an answer.

  "You've maneuvered us into a corner."

  She was shaking with rage. She looked at them one at a time, then lowered her voice even more.

  "You have forced him to action. And now I don't have any choice, I have to act as well."

  She continued to look at them as she walked toward the door. "I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

  Each step had been painful, and when Ewert Grens spied the aluminum ladder that led up to a hatch in the church tower, his stiff leg protested with a series of small sharp twinges that obliterated any other thoughts. He said nothing when he slipped on the first rung, nor when his chest seemed to push up into his throat a few rungs up. His forehead shone with sweat and his arms were numb when he hauled himself through the wooden hatch and banged his head on the edge of the heavy cast iron bell, cutting himself. He lay down and managed to creep the final stretch to the door that led our onto the balcony and the cooling breeze.

  They now had forty-six police officers positioned outside the prison, inside the prison, outside the church, and two up here, in the church tower-marksmen who were keeping an eye through binoculars on a window on the second floor of Block B.

  "There are two possibilities. The railway bridge over there is probably a couple of hundred meters closer, but the angle is harder and the target area is too small. Whereas from here the target area is perfect. We have full view of him. But we have a problem. Our marksmen use a gun which is called a PSG 90 and is designed for firing distances of around six hundred meters. That's what our men are trained for. And the distance from here is far greater, Ewert."

  Ewert Grens had gotten up and was now standing at the far end of the narrow balcony, gripping the railing with his hands. He saw the shadow again, Hoffmann's shadow.

  "And what does that mean?"

  "The distance is impossible. For us."

  "Impossible?"

  "The greatest known distance that a sniper has covered successfully is two thousand, one hundred and seventy-five meters. A Canadian marksman.),

  "So?"

  "So what?"

  "So it's not impossible."

  "Impossible. For us."

  "But it's nearly nine hundred meters less! So what's the bloody problem?" "The problem is that we have no officers who can shoot at that distance. We don't have the training. We don't have the equipment."

  Grens turned toward Edvardson and the balcony shook-he was heavy and he had pulled hard at the railing.

  "Who?"

  "Who what?"

  "Who does? Have the training? The equipment?"

  "The army. They train our marksmen. They have the training. And they have the equipment."

  "Then get one of them here. Now."

  The balcony shook again. Ewert Grens was agitated and his ponderous body swayed as he tossed his head and stamped his foot. John Edvardson waited until he was done; he normally didn't care that much when the detective superintendent tried to look menacing.

  "It doesn't work quite like that. The armed forces can't be used for police matters.

  "We're talking about someone's life!"

  "Statute SFS 2002:375. Ordinance on support for civil activities by the Swedish Armed Forces. I can read it for you, if you like. Paragraph seven."

  "I don't give a damn about that."

  "It's Swedish law, Ewert."

  He had listened to them moving around on the roof, small movements, they were there the whole time, they were ready and waiting.

  Then there was a crackling in his earpiece.

  "The army. They train our marksmen. They have the training. And they have the equipment."

  Pier Hoffmann smiled.

  "Then get one of them here. Now."

  He smiled again, but only inside. He was careful to stand in profile, his shoulder at a right angle to the window.

  The equipment, the training, the know-how.

  A sniper. A military sniper.

  The map of Aspsås district was still lying on the conference table when the state secretary returned to the room and made a point of closing the door behind her.

  "So, let's continue."

  She had been tense and flushed when she left the room fifteen minutes ago, and whatever it was she had done, whoever it was she had spoken to, had done the trick-she looked calmer, and she was resolute and concentrated as she drank the rest of her coffee.

  "The log book?"

  She nodded at one of the files that had been moved from the table. "Yes?"

  "Give it to me."

  Göransson handed her the thick black file and she noticed as she leafed through that the pages were handwritten alternately in black and blue ballpoint pen.

  Are all the meetings between your handler and this Hoffmann recorded here?"

  “Yes.”

  "And this is the only copy?"

  "It's the copy that I keep as CHIS controller. The only one."

  "Destroy it."

  She put the file down on the table and pushed it over toward Göransson. "Are there any other formal links between the police authority and Hoffmann?"

  Göransson shook his head.

  "No. Not for him. Not for any other informant. That's not how we work." He seemed to relax a bit.

  "Hoffmann has been paid by us for nine years. But only from the account that we call reward money. An account that can't be linked to personal data and therefore doesn't need to be reported to the tax authorities. He's not on any payrolls. Formally, he doesn't exist for us."

  The file with the Prison and Probation Service documents was still lying on one of the chairs.

  "And that one? Is that his?"

  "That's only about him."

  She opened it, looked through the printouts and reports about his mental health.

  "And this is all?"

  "That is our picture of him."

  "Our picture?"

  "The image we've created."

  "And the overall image… if I can put it like this… does it give a sufficient basis for the gold commander to make a clear decision about Hoffmann… well, the consequences of the hostage taking?"

  The room brightened as the sun flooded in and the white sheets of paper intensified and reflected the light.

  "It was a sufficiently strong image for him to be accepted by the mafia branch that he penetrated. We've since developed it to make him totally credible in relation to the work inside Aspsås."

  The state secretary put the file down to one side, looked at Göransson, who as commanding officer could easily have been in charge of the hostage-taking operation.

  "Would you… with this information and in the current situation at

  Aspsås where the hostages' lives are in danger… would you make a decision based on the fact that Hoffmann is dangerous, capable?" Chief Superintendent Göransson nodded.

  "Without a doubt."

  "Would all the police officers who might be assigned as gold commander make the same decision based on that information?"

  "Given our information about Hoffmann, no police officer at the scene would question the fact that he is prepared to kill a prison warden."

  The sun wearied of fighting the light clouds outside the window of the Government Offices and the bright light subsided, making it more comfortable to look round the room.

  "So… if the gold commander at Aspsås is convinced that Hoffmann is prepared to kill the hostages… and has to make a decision… what would he do?"

  "If the gold commander considers the hostages to be in acute danger, and that Piet Hoffmann will kill them, he would then order the men to storm the premises in order to safeguard the hostages' lives."

  Göransson moved closer to the table and the map, and drew his finger over the paper from the r
ectangle that represented Block B to a rectangle one and a half kilometers away that represented a church.

  "But it's not possible from here."

  He drew a circle in the air over the building that was marked with a cross and kept his hand there, a slow movement, around and around, a circle that stopped when he did.

  "So the gold commander will, if he must, order the national task force marksmen to take out the hostage taker."

  "Take out?"

  "Shoot."

  "Shoot?"

  "Put out of action."

  "Put out of action?"

  "Kill."

  * * *

  The room with the small wooden altar had already been transformed into the control post. There were drawings of Aspsås prison lying on every surface intended for the priest to prepare his services. Paper cups of vending machine coffee from the local gas station stood empty or half finished on the floor, the small window, which had been opened wide to let in some oxygen to replace that which had long since been breathed out by stressed and raised voices, creaked gently on the breeze. Ewert Grens moved restlessly between Edvardson, Sundkvist, and Hermansson, loud but not aggressive or even angry; he had just taken over as gold commander and was resolute and solution-orientated. He would have to make the final decision in a while. It was he, and he alone, who was directly responsible for several people's lives. He left the room with no air, wandered through the empty churchyard, between the headstones and newly planted flowers and saw in his mind's eye another cemetery that he had not yet dared to visit, but that he would now, later, when this was all over. He stopped between a gray, rather beautiful headstone and a tree that looked like it might be a maple, lifted the binoculars from his chest and studied the building behind the Aspsås prison wall. The man who could be seen behind the window, the one who was called Piet Hoffmann, whom Grens should have questioned the day before… there was something odd going on, something wasn't right-people who suddenly got ill rarely had the strength and focus to shoot someone else through the eye.

  "Hermansson?"

  He had gone over to the open window and shouted through.

  "I want you to contact the prison doctor. I want to know how a prisoner who was put in isolation in the hospital unit yesterday morning is now, at lunchtime today, standing over there pointing a gun at hostages."

  Ewen Grens stayed outside the open window for a while and looked over at the prison. The inner strength he had, the one that was always there and forced him to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until he had an answer, he knew exactly where it was coming from this time. The older warden. If the two people who had been taken hostage were both fellow prisoners, he wouldn't have been so motivated, he wouldn't have felt the same driving edge. That's just how it was. He didn't care much about one of the naked bodies on the workshop floor, he felt nothing for the prisoner who in theory could be in cahoots with the hostage taker. It wasn't something that he was proud of, but that was how he felt. The warden, on the other hand, who wore a uniform and worked there, an ordinary representative of a workplace that the general public hated, an older man who had given his life to this crap, shouldn't have to deal with such deep humiliation, a person who believed they had the right to take his life, a gun to his head.

  Grens swallowed.

  It was the warden, that's what this was all about.

  He lowered the binoculars and fished out his mobile phone. He tried to remember if he had ever before asked his line manager for help two days in a row. After all, they had had an unspoken understanding for a long time to stay out of each other's way in order to avoid conflicts. But he had no choice. He dialed the number of the office only a couple of doors down from his own. No reply. He dialed again, the switchboard this time, asked them to put him through to his mobile phone. Chief Superintendent Göransson answered after the first ring, his voice hushed, as if he was in a meeting and leaning forward to speak.

  "Ewert… I don't have time right now. I'm trying to find a solution to a critical problem."

  "This is critical too."

  “We-“

  "I'm exactly fifteen hundred and three meters away from the prison in Aspsås. I'm responsible for an ongoing hostage situation. There's a risk that one of the prison wardens might die if I make the wrong decision and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that that doesn't happen. But I need some bureaucratic assistance. You know, the sort of thing you do."

  Chief Superintendent Göransson ran his hand over his face and through his hair.

  "You're at Aspsås, you say?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're the gold commander?"

  "I just took over from Edvardson. He's focusing on the task force." Göransson held the telephone high up over his head and pointed at it with big gestures, catching the attention of the national police commissioner and state secretary and nodding vehemently at them until they understood.

  "I'm listening."

  "I need a competent marksman."

  "The national task force are there, aren't they?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I don't understand."

  "I need someone who is trained and equipped to shoot over a distance of fifteen hundred meters. Apparently the police aren't. So I need a military marksman."

  They were listening, the national police commissioner and the state secretary, they were sitting next to him and had started to get the picture.

  "You know as well as I do that the armed forces can't be used against civilians."

  "You're the bureaucrat, Göransson. If you're good at anything, then it's that. Being a pen-pusher. I want you to come up with a solution." "Ewert-"

  "Before the hostage dies."

  Göransson held the phone in his hand.

  Dread.

  It was there again.

  "That was Ewert Grens. The DS who's investigating Västmannagatan 79. And right now he's standing right here."

  He pointed at the map, at the thin lines that symbolized something that actually existed. Ewert Grens was actually standing there. It was Ewert Grens who would shortly make a decision based on the doctored information that was accessible in the databases and records, an image that was developed by his own colleagues and that for any police officer would provide powerful grounds to shoot.

  Shoot.

  "Here… he's standing precisely here, as the assigned gold commander. He's the one who is leading the whole operation, who is responsible for it, who will make the decision on how to resolve it."

  Göransson's hand was shaking. He pressed it hard against the paper of the map, but it continued to shake-it didn't normally do that, shake.

  "He is fifteen hundred and three meters from the window where

  Hoffmann has been sighted regularly, but the snipers, the police marksmen, don't have the right training and equipment. So he's asking for a military marksman. A more powerful weapon, heavier ammunition, someone trained to shoot at extreme distances."

  Shoot to kill.

  "There's always a solution. Always a reasonable solution if you really want to find it. And clearly it is in all our interests to find it, to help to resolve this." The state secretary's voice was calm, clear.

  "It is our responsibility to save the hostages' lives."

  Ewert Grens had asked for a suitably trained and equipped marksman.

  With the information that was now common knowledge in the prison corridors, Hoffmann would not give up his hostages.

  If Grens got his military marksman, he would also use him.

  "What are you actually saying?"

  Göransson straightened his back. He looked at the slight woman sitting in front of him.

  They wouldn't have their finger on the trigger.

  It would be the gold commander who ordered the sniper to fire. It would be the marksman who fired.

  They wouldn't make the decision.

  They were giving others the opportunity to make the decision.

  "Bur… Jesus Christ=

  Göransson
's finger was still on the map when he suddenly pulled the paper toward him and scrunched it into a ball with both hands.

  "-what the hell are we doing?"

  He got up abruptly, his face stiff and flushed.

  "We're making Ewert Grens into a murderer!"

  "Calm down, please."

  "We're legitimizing murder!"

  He threw the ball of paper so that it hit the window and fell with a thud onto the state secretary's desk.

  "If we give the gold commander the solution that he's asking for… if he then makes a decision based on the information he has about Hoffmann… Ewert Grens could be forced to order a shot to be fired at a person who has actually never committed a violent crime, but who is believed to be violent, merciless and capable!"

  The state secretary leaned forward and picked up the paper ball, held it in her lap, for a long time looked at the face that was about to explode.

  "If that is the case, if the gold commander has the military marksman and then later decides to shoot… then it will be to save the hostages' lives."

  Her voice was controlled, and was quiet enough to be heard but not loud enough for those listening not to hold their breath.

  "Hoffmann is the only one who has killed anyone. And it is only Hoffmann who is threatening to do so again."

  The square yard at Aspsås prison was covered in coarse, dry gravel that was dusty, no people, no noise; all the prisoners had been locked in their cells for the past few hours, behind doors that would not be opened until the hostage siege was over. Grens was walking with Edvardson beside him, two members of the national task force in front of him and Hermansson a couple of steps behind. She had been waiting for him just inside the prison gate and had briefly told him about her meeting with the prison doctor who had heard nothing about an epidemic and had never asked for anyone to be isolated in all his time at Aspsås. As they approached the outside door to Block B, Grens stopped and waited for her.

  "It's all a goddamn lie, all of it, all this is connected. I want you to carry on, Hermansson, find the prison chief warden and get an answer out of him."