Halfway up to the ceiling on the right-hand side was a bundle of electrical cables. On the left side were the steam pipes, their diameter a little greater than that of a soccer ball. The temperature was okay, but Max assumed this was because the manhole cover had recently been lifted, letting cold air into the tunnel.
He shone the flashlight on the upper steam pipe and spit on it. There was a sizzling sound when the saliva struck the hot metal. Soon it would be very warm down here.
Max crawled forward in the darkness. After a short while or an eternity—it was hard to say which here—he saw what appeared to be a sharp turn. He crawled on his elbows and toes in order to hold the flashlight in front of himself. Every move brought him forward only a few centimeters. His body was quickly heating up, and he started to sweat. He paused, took off his jacket, and left it behind.
It was a ninety-degree turn. The tunnel was somewhat wider here, and the ceiling was higher. Max squatted. The pipes crossed the tunnel from one side to the other. The distance between the lower pipe and the floor was about twenty centimeters. It was impossible. Could he kick the pipe loose? If he did, the tunnel might fill up with hot steam that would cook him like a vegetable. The only alternative was to climb over the pipes.
Max moved as close to the ceiling as he could. Sweat started trickling down his forehead, into his eyes and mouth. He tasted salt on his tongue. He felt the heat radiating through his clothes, felt it on his skin.
He lifted his left leg over the pipe and stretched it out, like a low kick, straight out. Halfway. Now he was standing with one foot in the air, with the pipe between his legs and sweat sizzling on the metal. The burning heat was just millimeters from his scrotum; if he slipped now, the pipe would burn him into pieces. He cautiously leaned his body weight over toward the other side. His trouser leg brushed the pipe, and the smell of burnt fabric spread through the tunnel. He lifted his right foot and simultaneously let his upper body land on the other side, breaking his fall with his left shoulder, which struck the floor hard. He tried to relax his body as much as possible when he rolled.
He had made it over.
Around the corner, the tunnel was larger, and he could step up his pace.
Suddenly, he heard a sound.
He stopped and switched off the flashlight. Listened in the dark heat of the tunnel. Where was the sound coming from? One second it came from in front of him, the next from behind him.
What would make that kind of noise? Rats?
76
Lazarev tried to banish the doubts he felt. He had received detailed information from Telia’s database now, the logs of calls and subscribers associated with Vektor in Stockholm. Two numbers in Sarah Hansen’s name. One of the telephones appeared to have been in Saint Petersburg for a long time. Probably Pashie’s telephone.
It was clear that this woman, Sarah Hansen, who was evidently of Polish extraction, was the leader of the organization known as Vektor. It was she who had employed the others.
But it was not she who was the problem.
There was no Paul Olsen. From the beginning, Lazarev had suspected that this was a cover name. But the name specified on the log extract in Paul Olsen’s stead was nothing short of shocking.
Max Anger.
Among Margarita’s possessions, they had found a card bearing a number and a name, Max. That couldn’t be a coincidence. So it was Max Anger who was hiding somewhere in the city under the cover name Paul Olsen.
That day in June thirteen years ago. The salon in the little shopping center in Älmsta. The strong sunshine, the young hairdresser who had worked for him and let him know that Jakob Anger would be alone that day, the drunken mechanic who had done as he was told until he was taken behind the auto shop and shot in the back of the head.
Hadn’t that day closed out the account?
Was there another Anger? A son?
There had been a boy sitting at a table outside the café next to the salon. His look had been black when he raised his eyes from his newspaper.
Is this your diabolical plan to get revenge on me, Borgenstierna?
He took the sheet of paper from the Grand Hotel from the desk drawer. Held it up, read what was written on it once again. How long had Wallentin and Borgenstierna been planning their vengeance? Planning to take revenge here, in his own backyard?
Had they figured out where he was? Was Max Anger on his way here at this very moment?
Lazarev rose, moved his shoulders to relieve the stiffness. He walked to his office, to the photograph on the bookshelf. The frame stood with its front turned toward the wall, as it had since Rousseau had come to see him. On the back, Lazarev had written her name, date of birth, and date of death.
So you’re still alive, Carl Borgenstierna? he thought. For it is you behind Vektor in Stockholm, the department at the university in Saint Petersburg, Pashie, and Max Anger, isn’t it?
Is this your way of avenging her?
You have to take responsibility for the role you played. I saw to it that she was killed, but you erased her from history. That was probably because of an ultimatum from the Swedish government. Did they threaten to kill you if you ever told the truth about February 22, 1944? And not only you.
The child, too.
The child we found in the end.
I never shut down monitoring of you and Wallentin, and thanks to that monitoring I learned that Jakob Anger existed and was living out there in the archipelago.
Why her of all women, Carl?
She was our property.
Lazarev clenched his fist and saw the names Wallentin and Borgenstierna disappear in a crumpled ball of paper, disappear from his life for the very last time.
The girl in the inner courtyard, Pashie, was just like Tatyana, a traitor who had fallen in love with the enemy. She was beyond salvation now. Lazarev had gone out there before his guests had arrived. She was done howling; she hadn’t even tried to resist when Lazarev had taken off her blouse. She had looked like an elf in a winter landscape, her body pale and shimmering in the rain.
Your mermaid from the Baltic, Max Anger. The final accounting is at hand. Come and seek your revenge. No one is going to suck on her frozen nipples. The life will soon have been sucked out of her.
77
Max pressed the illumination button on his watch. He had been in the tunnel far too long. He had crept along as quietly and cautiously as he could after he had begun hearing the sound. There was more room in the tunnel now, and he was able to move forward in a slight crouch. He must be near the hangar, he thought. Using the flashlight, he looked for a pipe leading off in one direction or another, a hatch or a door.
The sound seemed to come nearer all the time; it was bouncing off the pipes. Max turned around and shone the beam of light backward. Nothing was there.
The sound grew louder as he walked forward. A swarming, persistent sound. Soon he could hear it more distinctly, a quick pattering against the floor of the tunnel like a soft drumroll. Thousands of little footsteps. The drumming sound was accompanied by a chirping. Suddenly he could hear high-pitched squeaks everywhere—in front of him, behind him, below him, above him.
Max sped up his pace in order to get to the sources of the sounds before those sources reached him. He was sweating copiously, and his heart was throbbing so much it hurt.
When the beam of the flashlight finally illuminated the animals making the sounds, Max thought at first that he was looking at a big anthill. But the creatures crawling around on a large object on the tunnel floor were no ants. They were black rats ranging in size from small hamster-like animals to huge beasts.
A carrion stink made his stomach turn.
Max realized he would have to get past the rats and pulled out the pistol. He struck the steam pipes with the butt of the gun, and a dull echo resounded through the tunnel. Many of the rats fled immediately at this unexpected noise. Some of the bigger ones remained. Max approached slowly and cautiously. He banged the pipes again, shouted, and more rats f
led.
He shone the flashlight on one big rat that was still sitting on the object in the tunnel. This rat had its teeth buried in meat; there was blood around its snout.
Max approached.
“Get away!”
Some of the rats continued to sit there, biting at the body. Max passed the flashlight beam across the body, and the rats fled.
He felt as if his head were about to explode. He shone the flashlight on the body, ending with the face. The body was that of a woman. Her eyes were open, staring at the roof of the steam tunnel. She was completely naked. There were bruises around her neck. Her body was covered with blood. Her skin had been punctured and ripped; large flaps of skin had been pulled away, exposing the soft flesh of her breasts and belly.
I should have taken you and your children to the airport. I betrayed you.
Max knelt next to Margarita Yushkova’s body and dropped the flashlight on the floor.
A second later someone tackled him.
78
A long, hot shower. Sarah let the water wash away the stress of the last few days and what she had seen in Borgenstierna’s shop.
She rubbed her body with the oil that made her skin soft, the way Gabbi liked it. She stepped out of the bathroom, slipped into her kimono, and closed the window she’d opened to let the cigar smoke out.
Her body was still warm from the shower. She played with the dimmer in the living room for a long time to get the perfect lighting—not too bright, not too dark. She wanted to be relaxed but also be able to see everything, all the nuances, all the shifts, all the words that were not said. She loaded the CD changer in the living room with the eight discs that would take them through the night’s various stages. Everything had to be perfect this time; she didn’t want to leave anything to chance. There couldn’t be any interruptions, any moments of embarrassing silence or uncertainty.
What kind of music did Gabbi like? Did she like music at all? She had married young, had children early. Nothing too heavy, nothing too sophisticated. She was a happy camper. More Billy Joel than Roxy Music.
Sarah’s thoughts fluttered uncontrollably. She had never felt this way before.
She lit the candles in the windows, vanilla-scented white block candles some client had bought her in London, perfect for concealing traces of cigar. She went into the kitchen and took out a bottle of rosé she’d had cooling in the refrigerator. Did you have to let rosé breathe? Wasn’t it actually a summer wine? Sarah thought Gabbi would like it. She opened the bottle and sniffed the wine. Poured two glasses, set one to her lips, and took a sip.
Jesus Christ. She’d been preparing for tonight since this morning. Like a teenager. She saw her face reflected in the dark glass in the door of the Bosch oven. Are you ready for this, Sarah Hansen? Can we ever get ourselves—get these strange feelings—under control?
She took another sip, a bigger one this time. It helped; she felt calmer. But she still felt oddly hot. She opened her kimono and stood in the kitchen nearly naked. What would the children say if they saw her now? It was damned lucky they were away for the night.
She closed her kimono and was setting her glass down on the kitchen counter when she saw a car pull into the driveway. It wasn’t Gabbi’s Saab, and it stopped about fifty meters short of the house. It was a blue Volkswagen with tinted windows.
Her street was a cul-de-sac, and her house was at the end of it. She couldn’t see anything through the tinted windows. On one door was a sticker with a logo on it. A company car? Was this someone who had gotten lost? Or was the driver uncertain of the address for which he or she was looking?
Finally, a man got out of the car. He was wearing gray-brown overalls and looked like a delivery guy. He looked in all directions before he started walking toward Sarah’s house. He was holding a box in front of his body.
A short time later, the doorbell rang. Sarah took a look at herself in the hall mirror. The kimono covered everything now that she’d tied the belt properly. Not that it really mattered—she wasn’t going to let him over the threshold.
Sarah opened the door. The delivery guy had octagonal glasses and shoulder-length hair combed straight back. On the breast pocket of the overalls was the SwitchCom logo she had seen on the side of the car.
“Sarah Hansen?” asked the man.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I work for a service company that takes care of repairs and replacement phones for Telia. You requested that a new phone be delivered to your home, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Sure, I did,” said Sarah. “I’m just a little surprised. I’d almost forgotten about it.”
“Could I ask you to sign here?” said the man.
He handed Sarah a form, which she signed. He gave her the box.
Sarah looked at it; it was blue and white and contained a Nokia 1610.
“Unfortunately, the SIM card won’t be activated until tomorrow—or at midnight, technically. We have to enter a date, and the computer chose tomorrow’s date for this card.”
He was talking much too fast. If Sarah had met him in a nightclub, she would have checked his pupils for traces of amphetamine abuse. Was he nervous? Was it because she was standing in front of him almost naked?
“That’s fine,” said Sarah. “I’m going to be busy with other things tonight anyway, but it’s good to know it’ll be working tomorrow morning. Anything else I need to know?”
“No,” said the man. “We’re done. Tomorrow morning you can just open the package and switch on your new phone.”
Gabbi Julin slowed down; she’d realized she’d been driving too fast. She was almost there, and the roads closest to the house on the Tyresö peninsula were narrow and winding. She’d left an empty house behind her. The children were with the happy family in the house next door, the family that had a paternal grandmother or maternal grandmother or whatever who lived in the attic and kept everyone in a good mood.
When David got home, he could dig into the rumors and speculation about all the races at Solvalla tomorrow. It would make no difference that she wasn’t sitting on the sofa by herself, watching some romantic comedy they’d already seen. No difference to anyone. He wouldn’t even miss her when he went to bed.
When she pulled into Sarah’s driveway, she saw a man in overalls opening the door of a dark-blue sedan parked some distance from the house. He glanced at her when she drove past him. In her rearview mirror, she saw that he’d stayed where he was and was watching her.
God. Was that David?
Her heart was pounding. Surely it couldn’t have been David? Her brain must be playing a trick on her. Was it all her unease, all her clandestine activities?
She parked in Sarah’s driveway, grabbed her bag, and walked quickly toward the front door. One last time she glanced at the car, which was now leaving.
Come on, damn it. Pull yourself together.
She looked in through the kitchen window. There stood Sarah, her own Aphrodite, a glass of wine in her hand.
She knocked on the door, and a moment later Sarah opened it.
Gabbi closed the door behind her and dropped her bag on the hall floor. Couldn’t hold everything inside any longer.
“I think I’m losing my mind.”
Sarah embraced her, opened her kimono, let Gabbi feel her soft body. Her warmth.
“Everything is all right. You’re with me. Nothing can harm you here.”
79
The perfect trigger. In the past one had needed big panels, control units with hundreds of buttons and knobs, screens with graphics in green and red, a crowd of people in the room, a dedicated language with codes and commands. Now he himself could do it with a cell phone. So simple. Ingenious.
He had just finished talking with the man in Stockholm. They had gone over the information that had disturbed Lazarev. Sarah Hansen and Max Anger. The man had reported that everything was ready. What remained to be done he could do himself via his telephone.
They would soon see whether Paul Olsen was
really Max Anger. He would get what was coming to him. But they would start with Sarah Hansen.
It was entirely fitting that the first blow would strike a Polish woman. Like the rest of her people, she had forgotten how the Soviet Union had saved them from the Nazis, imperialists who had considered the Slavic peoples to be of marginally higher value than Jews.
Lazarev launched the application on his phone. Punched in the security code. Placed his finger on the Execute button.
He suddenly heard an odd echoing sound that seemed to be coming from the radiator. It repeated several times. As if something were moving, striking the pipes, under him.
Under the building.
He looked at the TV screen to see what the security cameras were picking up. Outside his office, everything looked as it usually did; the corridors were utterly quiet. Had one of the men who had participated in the meeting remained in the hangar? Could there be someone in the conference room? He had ordered the vory to guard the hangar. Had they failed once again?
No. He had seen the fire in the eyes of the Siberian tree. If the woman had survived the rape, she had surely met her end in accordance with Lazarev’s instructions.
A human being against a wild animal.
That was the sound he was hearing.
The sounds from beneath him became louder. Hard blows against the pipes. An echo rang in the radiator behind his desk.
A man’s howl suddenly filled the building.
Lazarev put the telephone in his pocket and left his office.
80
The flashlight had ended up on the floor some distance behind them. Max lay on his back with the man on top of him, wrestling in total darkness. The man was striking at his face, but Max kept his body moving constantly. The man’s fists struck the concrete floor hard, and Max knew how much this must hurt.
Ask No Mercy (Max Anger Book 1) Page 30