Ask No Mercy (Max Anger Book 1)

by Martin Österdahl

  He opened his eyes and looked at the coffin at the front of the church. Vladislav was dead, but he refused to believe Pashie was. She couldn’t be.

  A drizzling rain was falling on them as they left the graveside.

  “I think I’ve found a trail to follow,” said Max.

  Mishin looked at him in astonishment. “It’s not safe for you here. You should go back to Sweden.”

  Max shook his head.

  “I have to find Pashie. Help me, Afanasy. I can see to it that you keep getting a salary from Vektor for the time being.”

  Mishin sighed deeply. “A young woman is very likely dead. A boy has died in an explosion. Isn’t it enough?”

  “We’ve lost so much,” said Max. “We have to get to the bottom of this. What’s happened isn’t one or two isolated incidents. It’s the beginning of something. You recognize these patterns.”

  Mishin looked down at his feet. “What is this new evidence you’ve found?”

  “I think the trail Pashie left will lead to the organization that’s financing St. Petersburg GSM.”

  “What organization are you talking about?”

  They had reached the parking lot. Mishin nodded toward his car.

  “I don’t know yet,” said Max. “But Pashie knew what she was doing. Fortunes are being transferred from one owner to another here in Russia at the same time a new president is being chosen. In the middle of all this, a technical revolution is happening. The fortunes changing hands are of a size the world has never seen. They are worth fighting for—worth dying for. The victors will be not only the richest people in Russia but the most powerful people in the world.”

  “So where is this leading us?”

  “To the explosion, the bogus explanation. What kind of people could be behind that?”

  Mishin shook his head, looked over at his car again.

  “Afanasy, Pashie made some notes in the book you gave me. Does ‘the Shutul Ravine’ mean anything to you?”

  Mishin wrinkled his brow. “Is that all? ‘The Shutul Ravine’?”

  “No, I have something else,” said Max. “The Colony Field.”

  Mishin’s wrinkled brow suddenly smoothed.

  “The Colony Field is a myth,” he said. “Nothing more.”

  He walked over to his car—Max stayed with him—and opened the driver’s-side door. Max took hold of the door.

  “I’m not done yet.”

  Mishin looked at Max’s hand.

  “I am turning more and more to God,” he said. “For solace and for peace of mind. What do you believe in, Max?”

  “I believe in the right of every human being to life and freedom.”

  “Democracy?”

  “Democracy is a good start, but it’s not always enough.”

  “In a democracy, those who have something have a reason to vote,” Mishin said. “Those who don’t have anything don’t have a reason to vote.”

  Max thought of the Stalin paraphrase Pashie had jotted down in the book. “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”

  Mishin laid a heavy hand on Max’s shoulder.

  “The undemocratic forces claim that democracy is the religion of egotists,” he said. “The cure for this egotism is to create a world in which everything belongs to everyone. Or, as they put it, in which everything belongs to one. We know where that led us. I’m with you so far. But I don’t know anything about tracking missing girls or solving murders. What is it you want me to do?”

  “To begin with, I want you to tell me about the Shutul Ravine and the Colony Field. You know what those names mean.”

  Mishin looked up at the clouds above them. The rain was increasing in intensity.

  “Let’s get in the car,” he said. “It would be silly for us to get colds.”

  Max closed the door on the passenger side as Mishin switched on the ignition and the heater. Mishin warmed his hands in the air blowing from one of the vents. Sighed heavily.

  “During the war in Afghanistan, many tragedies occurred on the way to Kabul,” he said. “The Shutul Ravine was a catastrophe. A large convoy was returning after many days of attacks. Clear orders had been given to watch out for rebels in the area, but the soldiers were completely exhausted. The officer—I think there was a single lieutenant—was obviously sick, his face jaundiced from hepatitis.”

  Mishin scratched his head.

  “The convoy was divided up into two groups that were to pass the ravine on either side and a small reconnaissance group that was to go through the ravine itself. They were there, of course. The rebels. Well hidden, impossible to discover in the difficult terrain. But the Russians were lucky—only four or five soldiers died in the ambush. The convoy’s leaders had been up on the edge of the ravine and were not injured.”

  “That sounds like the way things usually go in war,” said Max. “What was it that was special about this?”

  “The real tragedy occurred later, and it wasn’t the Afghan rebels who were responsible for it. Instead of being allowed to return to base, the survivors, around one hundred men, were ordered up onto a glacier. They were forced to stay up there for a whole week, in summer uniforms and with only twenty sleeping bags to share. Sixty of the men never came down from that mountain; no one knows exactly what happened to them. Many of them surely froze to death, but there are also other stories, horrible stories, about how soldiers ate each other because they had nothing else.”

  Max shivered even though it was starting to get uncomfortably warm inside the car.

  “But why were they forced to stay up on the glacier?” he asked.

  “It was punishment. The GRU were enraged because the soldiers had failed to detect and neutralize the rebels in time to avoid taking casualties despite having been warned about the rebels in advance. I have heard that it was a particularly ruthless man at the organization’s highest level who was ultimately responsible for the decision.”

  GRU stood for Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye; this organization, the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, was the largest foreign intelligence agency in Russia, perhaps the largest in the world.

  The GRU had at its disposal twenty-five thousand human killing machines, known as Spetsnaz, who were ready to act anywhere in the world at any time. During his military service, Max had devoted a great deal of time to them. They were the archenemy personified, elite Russian soldiers programmed to grant no mercy and ask for none. He had been trained to understand these Spetsnaz, had studied their ability to kill with whatever was available, from spades to fingertips. He had learned how they were to be interrogated—to fix their jaws so they would not be able to bite their own tongues off and bleed to death.

  “Why do you think Pashie wrote that in the margin at this point in the book?”

  Mishin finally turned off the heater vents and turned to Max.

  “How can we know how anyone thinks? Did she want to say something with this? Maybe. Do I know what? Unfortunately, no, I do not.”

  He stared at the cemetery.

  Max realized they might never understand what connection Pashie had made or why she had written “the Shutul Ravine” in the book.

  “And the other reference?” he said. “The Colony Field?”

  “The Colony Field has never existed,” said Mishin.

  “What do they say about what has never existed?”

  “That it’s a secret facility for training and interrogation, here in Saint Petersburg.”

  “For the GRU?”

  Mishin nodded.

  Max reached into his inner jacket pocket and took out the photograph he had found in Domashov’s apartment.

  “Does this have to do with the GRU, too?”

  “Where did you find this?” asked Mishin, looking at the photograph.

  “Under a rug in the home of a dead journalist.”

  The picture was old; it had been taken perhaps thirty years ago. The man in it was tall and broad-shouldered and had thick h
air like steel wool that covered a disproportionately small head. His long neck gave him a look of superiority, like that of a large bird of prey observing its victim before attacking. His eyes were dark and had a compelling, almost magnetic effect. His chest was covered with medals and emblems. Max recognized two of them: the black bat in front of a circle representing both the planet Earth and a target, and the double-headed eagle above the red five-armed star.

  Spetsnaz and the GRU.

  Max turned the picture over. Domashov had written a name on the back.

  “Lazarev?” said Mishin. “Nestor Lazarev? The chairman of St. Petersburg GSM?”

  “I don’t know,” said Max. “But it seems likely.”

  “Let me keep this photo; I’ll see what I can find out about him.”

  Mishin turned the picture over again, looked at the man’s ice-cold gaze and the symbols that decorated his uniform.

  Max was starting to understand why Domashov had been told to shut down his investigation.

  Is it you who has Pashie? If so, I’ll find you. If it’s the last thing I do.

  39

  Sarah Hansen stood at the windows in her office and looked at the big trees outside. The wind was calm today, but she knew how fast that could change. She drummed her fingers restlessly on the glass; it had been much too long since she’d smoked.

  She sighed, took a last look at the view, and left her room and went into Max’s office. He didn’t surround himself with many objects. There were no decorations: no paintings, no flowerpot or fruit bowl. A stack of papers was at one end of the desk. A stack of books at the other. In the wastebasket lay a declaration of ingredients from a package of anti-anxiety pills. What was it he called them? Benzos?

  You’re not an analyst, Max, she thought. You belong out in the field. Having you here is like having a lion in a zoo.

  Sarah poked around in the papers. There was a photocopy of a newspaper article from 1944. She picked it up and read the headline. “Foster Children Get New Families.” The picture showed a group of hollow-eyed children. It was so long ago. Another time, another planet.

  On another sheet of paper, Max had written “Carl Borgenstierna.” Under the name, Max had noted

  Borgenstierna and Dr. Wallentin founded the Baltic Foundation in 1944. Borgenstierna a prominent lawyer, Svea Court of Appeal judge, later chairman of the court of appeal. Wallentin, head of the newly opened Södersjukhuset in 1944. Died in 1986. Borgenstierna unmarried, no children. Residing in the family’s house in Gamla Stan. The family line is referred to as the Purple Lilies.

  At the bottom of the page Max had written a telephone number for the department at Södersjukhuset where Borgenstierna was being treated. Sarah had tried the number again, without success. She would have to go there and surprise him.

  Sarah picked up the telephone on Max’s desk and called directory information, told them what she needed, and asked to be connected.

  A man answered. “Kannan administration.”

  Had she been misconnected?

  “I thought I had called the Baltic Foundation.”

  “You’ve reached the property manager,” said the man. “The Baltic Foundation has moved out.”

  “When did they move?”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “I apologize. My name is Sarah Hansen. I am the head of Vektor, an organization established with the support of Carl Borgenstierna and the Baltic Foundation.”

  “He moved out between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The lease expired at the end of the year.”

  “Do you know where the foundation has moved to?” asked Sarah.

  “Nowhere,” said the man. “They’ve shut down their operation.”

  Was that true? That explained why it had been so difficult for Max to get in touch with Borgenstierna. But why hadn’t Max said anything? Again, Sarah had the unpleasant feeling that she had missed quite a few things recently.

  “Carl rented space here for twenty years. He told me he was ready. And Carl is a man who means what he says.”

  “What is he going to do now? Do you know?”

  “He told me he was going to go to Switzerland in January to ski.”

  The man laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Carl Borgenstierna is eighty-four years old and not particularly spry.”

  Sarah went back to her room and sank into her chair. She really wanted a cigar now. She reached for the phone, called Charlie, and told him what she had heard.

  “He’s always been difficult to understand, old Borgenstierna. But in any case, this doesn’t sound like good news for us.”

  “What kind of business could he have had in Switzerland?”

  “I can try to find out. I just hope he hasn’t locked up all his money.”

  “When you applied for funding from various foundations and received support from Borgenstierna,” Sarah asked, “was that the only time? When we founded Vektor?”

  “No. We applied for support another time.”

  “Which foundations did you apply to then?”

  “I didn’t have to speak to more than one person.”

  “Borgenstierna?”

  “That’s right. He provided the entire amount.”

  Sarah thought about what Charlie had said. What were Borgenstierna’s motives? He never came to their dinners, was never seen with Vektor’s other sponsors. Why did he keep such a low profile?

  “What was the reason we applied for money the second time?”

  “That was a little over two years ago,” said Charlie. “When you wanted to recruit Max Anger.”

  40

  Max closed his eyes and let the streams of water from the showerhead hit his body. He turned up the heat as far as it would go, stood there until his skin started to sting. Finally, he couldn’t stand still any longer and began running in place.

  His heart pumped harder and harder, and when his body finally began to feel alive again, he turned down the heat. The cold water streamed over him, and his teeth began chattering. Just a few more seconds. When his skin hurt, he turned off the water and reached for the towel, rubbed his skin until it glowed.

  The agreement he had reached with Mishin at the cemetery was a step in the right direction. He would need him at his side to solve this mystery. But the things they had talked about, the Russian military symbols and the abbreviations, were ominous. For Pashie and for all of them. Whatever was awaiting him, Max realized that the person he had transformed into during the last few years, since a desk had replaced the coast as his workplace, would have to step into the background now.

  He would have to become a soldier again.

  In the bedroom, he took a look at the wall covered with sheets of paper. His eyes locked onto the name Rousseau. The journalist, Domashov, had suggested that he was the key to the whole St. Petersburg GSM mystery. He was the man who controlled all the company’s financial information; he had registered the foundation behind it.

  Switzerland—once again, the little Alpine country that was so good at keeping secrets.

  He picked up the telephone handset. It was late, but that couldn’t be helped, and the person he wanted to talk to didn’t exactly maintain regular working hours.

  Sarah answered almost immediately.

  Max told her about the journalist who had died right in front of him, about the photograph he had found in Domashov’s home, and about how Vektor would be directly paying Mishin a salary for a time.

  “But as horrible as all this sounds, it’s all just circumstantial evidence,” Sarah said. “Pretty weak circumstantial evidence, if you ask me.”

  “I know what Pashie was digging into before she disappeared.” Max forced himself to keep his voice calm. “Of course it’s these forces that have gone after her.”

  Sarah fell silent, and soon Max could hear the puffing sound that told him she’d lit a cigar.

  “Okay, but who are these people? And how can they lead you to Pashie?”

  M
ax closed his eyes. “I’m not going to stop until . . .”

  “Until what?”

  “Until I have her with me again.”

  They both fell silent.

  Sarah took a drag on her cigar.

  “Things are happening here, too,” she said. “Things that make me lie awake at night. Apparently someone is spying on us, tracking our cell phones.”

  “What are you saying?” said Max. “Are these phones secure?”

  “I think so.”

  Max looked around. It was as though an unknown power was moving closer and closer to them, threatening to destroy them all. Where could he feel safe? When was he safe?

  “How do you know someone’s spying on us?”

  “Charlie was informed by Telia. They’re keeping it under wraps, and he’s promised not to leak anything. Apparently they’ve launched a full investigation.”

  Max walked over to the wall. Looked at the name St. Petersburg GSM.

  “That fits the pattern,” he said.

  “What pattern?”

  “I think everything—the engineering of the explosion, the cover-up, the complicity of the authorities—points to people connected to the Russian military, the secret intelligence service.”

  Sarah took a long drag on her cigar. “But what does that have to do with St. Petersburg GSM? Or Telia, for that matter?”

  “Telecommunication comes from the military,” said Max. “Intelligence services are experts in penetrating systems and wiretapping. I see a clear connection.”

  “We’re in deep waters now. Vektor was never supposed to get involved in things like this.”

  “But now we are, Sarah. And we have to find Pashie.”

  Max could almost feel the weight of Sarah’s exhalation at the other end. So far away and yet so close. For the forces that had been set in motion, it was no distance at all. Their power reached around the world.

  “Did you know the Baltic Foundation shut down its operations?”

  “No . . . I had no idea.”

  “Apparently they’ve moved out of the space they were renting.”

  Max closed his eyes. Once again he heard his father mumbling the names Wallentin and Borgenstierna.