She nodded and turned around and he watched her rather slim back and shoulders through the light cloud of dust. They hadn't spoken much together recently, not at all in the past year-he hadn't really spoken to anyone. Once he had been to the grave he would seek her our again. He who was never going to talk to a policewoman again had learned to appreciate her more and more each year. He was still not sure when she was laughing at him or was annoyed with him, but she was good at her job and intelligent and she looked at him in a way that was at once demanding and uncompromising, in a way that very few dared. He would talk to her again, maybe even ask her to leave the offices with him for a while, ask her for a coffee and a cake in the cafe on Bergsgatan. It felt good to be having these thoughts, to look forward to something, to having a coffee with the daughter they never had.
Ewert Grens opened the door to the solitary confinement unit and the corridor where everything had kicked off a few hours ago. The body that had fallen forward with blood pouring from the head had already been removed-strapped onto a stretcher and taken for an autopsy-and the two prison wardens who had been threatened with a gun and each locked away in a cell were now with a crisis management team in one of the visiting rooms, talking to a prison psychologist and prison chaplain.
His first thought was actually about the banging.
In each cell on the ground floor, the prisoners in solitary confinement were banging on their closed, locked doors. A regular thumping sound that made your heart beat out of rhythm. He knew that that was what they did and had decided to ignore it, but it forced its way into his mind and he was relieved to go up the stairs behind Edvardson and past the armed police on the first landing.
They stopped when they got to the second floor and nodded silently to the eight members of the national task force standing outside the workshop ready for an order to break down the door, throw in a shock grenade and take full control of the situation within ten seconds.
"That's too long."
Ewert Grens was talking quietly and John Edvardson leaned in closer in order to reply in an equally quiet voice.
"Eight seconds. With this team, Ewert, I can get it down to eight seconds."
"It's still too long. Hoffmann, to aim and then move the muzzle from one head to the next and shoot, he doesn't need more than one and a half seconds. And in his frame of mind… I can't risk a dead hostage."
John Edvardson nodded at the ceiling and the dull shuffling of bodies changing position every now and then.
Grens shook his head.
"That's not going to work either. From the door, from the roof, the number of seconds you're talking about… the hostages could die several times over."
The banging, he couldn't stand it much longer, his concentration couldn't stretch to encompass both the madmen downstairs and the madman in there. He was on his way back down the stairs to the thundering noise, but turned when Edvardson put a hand on his shoulder.
"Ewert…"
"Thank you."
They stood in silence, with the waiting police breathing behind their backs. "In that case, Ewert, unless Hoffmann suddenly gives himself up, if and when we deem his threat to be more than just a threat… then there's only one solution. The military marksman. With a weapon that is powerful enough to kill."
The dread hounded him, translating into jerky movements and a nervous cough. Fredrik Göransson had been walking for ten minutes now in endless circles, between the window and the desk in one of the rooms of the Government Offices, and he hadn't gotten anywhere.
"We made sure that the prisoners got the information about a snitch." The crumpled map was in the wastepaper basket-he picked it up and unfolded it.
"We forced him to act."
"He had a job to do."
The national police commissioner had let the state secretary answer thus far. Now he looked at his colleague.
"That didn't involve threatening another person's life."
"We burned him."
"You've burned other informants before."
"I have always denied that we even work with infiltrators. I've stood by and watched without giving any protection when an organization has dealt with that person. But this… this isn't the same. This isn't burning him. This is murder."
"You still haven't understood. We are not the ones who will make the decision. We are only providing a solution for the police officer who will make that decision."
The agitated man with the jerky movements couldn't bear to stand still any longer, and with the dread chasing right behind him, he made a dash past the table to the closed door.
"I want no part in this."
He wasn't cold anymore. The floor that smelled of diesel was just as hard and just as cold, but he didn't feel the cold, nor the pain in his knees, he didn't even think about the fact that he was naked and bound, and would shortly get another kick in the side from someone who intermittently whispered that he was going to die. Martin Jacobson didn't have the strength to speak, to think-he lay down and didn't move. He wasn't even sure if he was seeing the things he saw now, if Hoffmann really did walk over to the largest workbench and pull a plastic pocket from the waist of his trouser that had some kind of fluid in it; if he then cut it into twenty-four equally sized pieces and with a roll of tape from the shelf, attach them to the nameless prisoner's head, arms, back, stomach, chest, thighs, lower legs and feet; and if he took from the same place something that looked like a thin piece of pentyl fuse that was several meters long and wrapped it around and around the prisoner's body. If that was the case, if what he saw was what was really happening, he couldn't face anymore. He turned his eyes slowly the other way so he didn't need to see-there was no room left for things he didn't understand.
One of the three chairs that had been pulled out from the conference table was empty, and the person whose office it was, a state secretary from the Ministry of Justice, ran her hand back and forth over a crumpled map as if subconsciously trying to smooth out the bumps that shouldn't be there.
"Can we do this?"
The man opposite her, a national police commissioner, heard her question but knew that it didn't mean just that she was asking if they were capable of something, no one would contend that, it wasn't Göransson alone who was going to solve this, the possibility didn't vanish along with him. What she was really asking was do we trust each other, or perhaps do we trust each other enough to first solve this and then to stick to what we've decided, especially the consequences?
He nodded.
"Yes, we can do this."
The state secretary had moved over to the bookshelf behind the desk and taken a pile of black spines from a file. She leafed through them and found the statute she was looking for: SFS 2002:375.
Then she turned on her computer and logged on, opened the complete version and printed out two copies.
"Here. Take one."
SFS 2002:375.
Ordinance on support for civil activities by the Swedish Armed Forces. She pointed at the seventh paragraph.
"This is what it's about. This is what we have to find our way around.
When support is given pursuant to this Ordinance, members of the
Armed Forces cannot be used in situations where there is a risk that
they may be required to use force or violence against a private individual.
They both knew exactly what that meant. It would not be possible to use the armed forces for police activities. For nearly eighty years, this country of theirs had sought not to resolve problems by allowing the military to shoot at civilians.
But that was precisely what they had to do.
Are you of the same opinion? Do you agree with the DS who is in situ? That the only way to resolve this, for a shot to be fired from here that will reach… here, to this building… is to use a military marksman?"
The state secretary had smoothed out the map enough for it to be possible to follow her finger.
"Yes. I'm of the same opinion. More powerful guns, heavier a
mmunition, better training. I've been asking for that for several years now."
She smiled wearily, got up and walked slowly round the room.
"So, the police are not allowed to use the snipers who are employed by the armed forces."
She stopped.
"The police can, however, use the marksmen who are employed by the police. Is that not the case?"
She looked at him and he gave a hesitant nod and threw his hands up in the air-she was aiming at something, but he had no idea what. She went over to the computer again, looked at the screen for a while, then printed out another document in duplicate.
"SFS 1999:740."
She waited until he had found the right page.
"Ordinance on police training. Paragraph nine."
"What about it?"
"We'll start there and work our way forward."
She read out loud:
The National Police Board can, under special circumstances, grant
exemptions from the training set out in this Ordinance.
The national police commissioner shrugged.
"I'm familiar with that paragraph. But I still don't understand what you're getting at."
"We'll employ a military marksman. For police service as a police sniper." "He would still be military staff and not have formal police training." The state secretary smiled again.
"You are, like me, a lawyer, is that not so?"
"Yes."
"You are the national police commissioner. You have police authority, don't you?"
"Yes."
"Despite the fact that you do not have formal police training?" "Yes."
"So let's use that as our starting point, and work toward a solution." He was none the wiser as to where she was heading.
"We'll find a trained, equipped military marksman. With the cooperation of his superiors, we'll discharge him from service in the armed forces and then make the newly discharged military marksman an offer of a… say… six-hour temporary contract with the police. As a superintendent or another rank. You choose what rank and title you want him to have."
He wasn't smiling, not yet.
"So, he will be employed by the police for exactly six hours. He will complete his contract. And he will then, six hours later, apply for the vacant position that the armed forces haven't yet had time to advertise, and be reinstated."
Now he was starting to understand what she was getting at.
"And what's more, the police never give out the names of their marksmen, during or after an operation."
Exactly what she was getting at.
"And so no one will know who fired the shot."
* * *
An empty, clean building.
A floor that no feet had stamped on, windows that no eyes had stared through.
There were no lights on in the building, no sound, even the unused door handles shone. Lennart Oscarsson had envisaged the inauguration of the newly built Block K, with even more cells, greater capacity, more prisoners, as a manifestation of a newly appointed chief warden's ambition and drive. That would never happen now. He walked down the empty corridor, past the wide-open cell doors. He was about to turn on the strong lights and activate the new alarm system and soon the smell of paint and newly upholstered pine furniture would blend more and more with fear and badly brushed teeth. The uninhabited cells would instead be inaugurated in a few minutes' time by hastily evacuated prisoners from Block B who were under serious threat with the national task force prepped at every door and window, guns at the ready, and a hostage situation on the second floor of the building that no one really knew anything about, why the man had done it, his aims and demands.
Another day from hell.
He had lied to an investigating officer and chewed his lower lip to shreds. He had forced a prisoner to go back to the unit where he was threatened and when the prisoner had taken hostages, had ripped the yellow petals of the tulips into tiny, porous pieces and dropped them on the wet floor. When his mobile phone rang, the ringtone echoing in the empty surroundings, he went into one of the empty cells and lay down exhausted on one of the bunks with no mattress.
"Oscarsson?"
He recognized the general director's voice immediately, stretched out his body on the hard bunk.
"Yes?"
"His demands?"
"What are his demands?"
"Nothing."
"Three hours and fifty-four minutes. And not a single demand?" "No communication at all."
He had just seen a mouth fill a TV monitor, tight lips that slowly formed words about death. He couldn't bear to talk about it.
"If there are demands, when he makes demands, Lennart, he's not allowed to leave the prison."
"I don't understand."
"If he asks for the gate to be opened, you mustn't allow it. Under any circumstances."
The hard bunk. He couldn't feel it.
"Am I understanding you correctly? You want me to… to ignore the policy that you yourself have written? And that all of us who hold senior positions have signed? That if anyone's life is in danger, if we believe a hostage taker is prepared to carry out any threats he has made, if he demands to be released, we should open the gates to save lives. And that is the agreement that you now want me to ignore?"
"I know what policies and regulations I've formulated. But… Lennart, if you still like your job, then you'll do as I ask you."
He couldn't move. It was impossible.
"As you ask me?"
Everyone has their limits, an exact point beyond which they can't go. This was his.
"Or as someone has asked you?"
"Get up."
Piet Hoffmann was standing between the two naked bodies. He had bent down toward one of them and spoken close to the tired, old eyes until they had finally understood and started to get up. The prison warden who was called Jacobson grimaced with pain as he straightened his knees and back and started to walk in the direction pointed out by the hostage taker-past the three solid concrete pillars and in behind a wall near the door, a separate part that seemed to be some kind of store: unopened cardboard boxes stacked up one on the other with sticky labels from tool and machine part suppliers. He was to sit down-Hoffmann pushed him to the floor in irritation when he didn't move fast enough-he was to leanback and stretch out his legs, so that it would be easier to tie his feet together. The older man tried to reach out to him in desperation several times, asking why and how and when, but got no answer, then watched Piet Hoffmann's silent back until it disappeared somewhere behind a drill and a workbench.
That bloody banging. Ewert Grens shook his head. It seemed to follow a pattern. The nutters banged on their cell doors for two minutes, then waited for one, then banged for two more. So he walked over to the security office, with Edvardson directly behind him, and made sure he closed the door properly. The two small monitors side by side on a desk showed the same picture, all black, a camera turned to the workshop wall. He reached over for the coffeepot which was cold and had a brown, heavy fluid at the bottom. He turned it almost upside down and waited while brown fluid trickled slowly into one of the already used mugs, offered it to John Edvardson, but had it all to himself. He drank and swallowed-it wasn't particularly nice, but strong enough.
"Hello."
He had just about emptied the white plastic mug when the telephone in front of him started to ring.
"Detective Superintendent Grens?"
He looked around. All these damn cameras. Central security had seen him go into the security office and connected the call.
"Yes."
"Can you hear who it is?"
Grens recognized the voice. The bureaucrat who sat a couple of floors up from him in the police headquarters at Kronoberg.
"I know who you are."
"Can you talk? There's something making an almighty din there." "I can talk."
He heard the national police commissioner clear his throat.
"Has the situation changed at all?"
"No. We want to act. We should be able to. But right now we haven't got the right people. And time is running out."
"You asked for a military marksman."
"Yes."
"That's why I'm calling. Your request is now on my desk."
"Just a moment."
Grens waved at Edvardson, he wanted him to check the door, make sure that it was closed properly.
"Hello?"
"I think I have a solution."
The national police commissioner was quiet, waiting for a reaction from Grens, but then carried on when the void was filled with the noise from the corridor.
"I've just signed a contract. I have employed an instructor and military marksman, who was recently discharged, as an assistant commissioner for six hours. He's been serving with the Svea Life Guards at Kungsangen. The position will initially entail supporting Aspsås police district. He has just left Kungsangen in a helicopter and will land at Aspsås church in ten, max fifteen minutes. When his contract ends, in exactly five hours and fifty-six minutes, he will be collected and taken back to Kungsangen in the same helicopter and will then apply for the newly vacant position for an instructor and military marksman which has not yet been advertised."
He heard it when it was no more than a small spot in the cloudless sky. He ran over to the window and watched it grow as the noise got louder and then land, blue and white, on the tall grass in the field between the prison wall and the churchyard. Piet Hoffmann looked at the two people waiting high up on the church tower balcony, then at the helicopter and the police officers running toward it. He listened to the people moving around on the roof above his head and the ones just outside the door and he nodded to no one in particular. Now, now everything was in place. He checked that the nameless prisoner's hands and legs were tied well enough and then hurried over to the wall that separated the storeroom from the rest of the workshop, managed to get the old warden up, forced him to walk in front of him across the floor to one of the cameras that was pointing to the wall-he turned it and made sure that the whole of his mouth and the warden's was clear when he spoke.
Three Seconds Page 32