The vor had dropped his pistol during his fall; he took a few steps toward Max and lifted his knife. Then bullets ripped his arm apart. He staggered forward, and his smile got wider and wider.
Max stood up, picked up his pistol, advanced to the vor, and kicked hard at his knees. The vor sank down in front of him.
Max aimed at the man’s forehead. The smile finally disappeared.
Without shifting his aim from the vor’s head, Max said, “Ilya?”
At first Ilya didn’t answer, but then there was a weak “yes,” scarcely more than a whisper.
“I’m going to take you to a hospital, Ilya. Hang in there, you hear?”
Then the man behind the pane of glass moved. Viktor Gusin, the Goose, rose to his full height and looked out into the hangar.
Gusin took out a cell phone and put it to his ear.
Was he calling for reinforcements?
Max’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He quickly glanced at the vor on the floor. There was no change; he was slowly dying. With his left hand, Max fished his Russian cell phone from his pocket.
He looked at the screen. It was Margarita’s number.
Max pressed the green handset button.
“Max?” he heard a man say. “Max Anger?”
Max looked straight at the Goose through the glass. He could hear his breathing; he was waiting for Max to say something.
But instead of replying, Max aimed his pistol at Gusin, squeezed the trigger, and fired.
84
David looked around. Indoors or in the yard? From the swing set? No, it wasn’t tall enough. The kitchen might work. They had experienced some of their worst moments together there.
A last job. That was what Ray had called it. But Ray couldn’t be trusted. There was never a last job.
Using a stepladder, David removed the crystal chandelier from the hook in the ceiling and carefully laid it on the sofa in the living room. It was worth a small fortune.
It hadn’t sunk in before it was too late that the so-called last job Ray had given him had meant passing a point of no return.
The rope was as thick as his wrists. He took off his Breitling watch and laid it on the sofa next to the crystal chandelier. He had bought the rope at an auction a few years ago. According to the auctioneer, it had once decorated the railing of a tender on a luxury yacht that belonged to the founder of the Heineken brewery in Amsterdam. David had coveted it back then, when they had had no shortage of money and had loved to mingle with successful people at the auction world’s VIP events.
David could no longer remember what use they had imagined for the rope. He had had some kind of idea about a room in the house with a maritime theme.
Tying a knot with such a thick rope wasn’t easy, but David had always been a stubborn man.
He attached the rope to the hook in the ceiling when he was done.
It would continue if he didn’t put a stop to it himself. Ray would never stop pressuring him, and there was nowhere to run. He would always have to look around on the streets, look over his shoulder, would always worry about the children’s safety.
Ray and his friends might leave him alone for a while, lull him into a false feeling of security, and then one day a man, Ray or someone like him, would suddenly be standing in his driveway and would remind him that the last job he had done had made him a blood brother, one of them forever—isn’t that right, David?
Taking another human being’s life was the point of no return. It made no difference that he had been tricked into it. She would die because of him, and he would thus lose his own right to live. David Julin no longer existed.
He had created the problem with Sarah’s phone so she would need a new one. He had interrupted the line to customer service so any and all calls from Vektor’s numbers would be connected to him directly. He had rigged the new phone with Ray’s extra equipment.
Ray had told him when, how, and where he was to deliver the package, and David had done exactly as he had been told. Without ever stopping or turning back.
He looked at the chairs that were available to him—that was what they did in the movies. Maybe one of those ultramodern wooden chairs that Gabbi liked so much, that she insisted they have around the kitchen table? No, the worn old chair in front of the computer would be better—it had wheels. But on his way over to the computer he realized he’d have to get up higher than that, and decided simply to use the stepladder.
When he had seen Gabbi there, in Tyresö, everything had changed. He had made his decision then and there. He had hoped for a different feeling, for the feeling of being finished and free. But it all seemed even more complicated than he’d thought.
The special yellow paint. The color that had been used only for the Saab 900 cabriolet, the car she’d been so eager to have when they’d gotten married. He had offered her more luxurious cars, but no, she’d always dreamed of the yellow cabriolet. Gabbi from Filipstad. She liked things that were classy, but she was no snob.
She’d driven by him, totally unaware he’d been there. Then she’d looked at him as if he’d been a different person. He’d stood there, frozen.
Are you still there?
He spread a tarpaulin out under the rope and the hook in the ceiling. What kind of dealings could Gabbi have with the head of a think tank that had provoked the Russians? It had taken him a remarkably long time to figure it out. It wasn’t a book club. Nor was it a conspiracy against him. Gabbi wasn’t moonlighting as a spy.
She lied to me; she lied to the children about Grandma being sick.
He took off his crocodile-skin belt. He had bought it in an expensive shop in Miami on their honeymoon. Caspar loved it and had said he would like to have it.
The personnel carrying out Telia’s internal investigation had called him and left messages. They wanted him to come to the office as soon as possible. They said that they had tried to get in contact with him a number of times and that if they did not hear from him promptly, they would turn the matter over to the police.
The police? He would be interrogated, put on trial, and convicted. Would have to tell everyone how far one can fall, how quickly one can go from Entrepreneur of the Year to jailbird. Representatives of the IT sector and reporters from Dagens Industri would be on hand. Given what was going to happen in Tyresö, maybe even reporters from the morning newspapers and the evening tabloids would show up and follow the trial. The millionaire found guilty of murder. He could see the newspaper posters.
I can’t hide anymore.
He put one foot on the first step of the ladder and kept going to the top. The kitchen looked different from up here.
In the windows of the living room in Tyresö, white pillar candles had been burning, spreading an atmospheric light. Two glasses of rosé had been poured. The stereo had been playing eighties pop. She had been wearing nothing but a kimono.
I’m a gambling-addicted idiot who’s lost everything.
I don’t want to lose you, the children, our family.
I don’t want to lose myself.
I don’t want to destroy us.
He took hold of the rope with both hands, placed the large knot to the left of his chin, under his jaw. That was where it had to be if it was to break the neck vertebrae.
A last job.
He would never be able to look his children in the eye.
His blood pressure would drop immediately. He would no longer feel anything.
Forgive me.
85
The bullets didn’t penetrate the glass; they only left small marks on it. Max was breathing hard, and his heart was pounding. The hand holding the pistol cramped up.
Viktor Gusin hadn’t blinked. The old man on the other side of the glass was standing completely still. Slowly, he moved the phone away from his ear and put it in his pocket.
Max walked up to the glass. He counted the bullets that remained in the magazine. He had fired three shots now and two at the office door earlier. Had three rounds left. He fe
lt no anxiety as he approached Gusin. Whatever it was he had over there on the other side, he couldn’t kill Max through the bulletproof glass.
When Max got closer, he saw more of the room. In the middle, several tables had been pushed together. These were surrounded by simple chairs. On the walls were maps of the former Soviet Union, covered with markings: stars, crosses, lines. He saw a map of northwestern Russia. At the top was the familiar figure of the cosmonaut floating in space. St. Petersburg GSM. The map showed the positions of telecommunications towers. Under the towers was a black trefoil on a yellow background, the international warning symbol for ionizing radiation.
What is it you’re planning here? Arming phone towers with nuclear weapons that can be remotely fired? An international reign of terror?
He was standing directly in front of the old man. Only a pane of glass separated them, protected them from each other. The Goose, as Lazarev had been called since he was a child, was a head taller than Max, his face at least eighty years old. Despite the clear signs of aging—the white hair, the wrinkles along the narrow cheeks and around his eyes—there could be no doubt that this was the same man.
I never forget a face.
June, Swedish Flag Day.
I never believed it was an accident.
86
Something woke her. Gabbi was sleeping soundly next to her in the bed. Why had she woken? It had been the same last time Gabbi had stayed overnight. Sarah wasn’t used to having someone else in her bed. It would probably take some time to get used to it.
She looked at the clock radio next to the bed. It was ten past one in the morning. Even later in Saint Petersburg. How had things gone for Max? Had he found Pashie alive? Had he survived, himself?
Don’t think those thoughts.
Had he connected what he had found there with the events of 1944 and the origins and fate of his family? With what was happening in Stockholm right now?
It probably wasn’t the novelty of having a woman next to her that had woken her after all, Sarah thought. Most likely it was the unease she’d been feeling ever since Max had left for Saint Petersburg. It had grown stronger since she’d had her last conversation with Charlie K and become aware of the connection between Vektor and the attacks on Telia.
Sarah realized she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again and slid cautiously out of bed so as not to wake Gabbi. She went into the front hall and saw the package lying on the table. She’d almost forgotten about it. Now she remembered that strange meeting with the guy at the door, how she’d felt uncomfortable in her state of undress.
And how Gabbi had acted so confused when she’d arrived.
The whole world has been turned upside down.
Ten past one. The SIM card would be activated at midnight, the man had said. The card was a so-called twin card, and she hoped it had all her data. Perhaps there was a message from Max on the phone now?
Had he listened to her message?
She picked up the package from the table. For a package containing only a phone, it was heavy. She sat down on the bench in the hall with the phone in her lap. It had been sealed with stiff, strong tape. She used her long, sharp thumbnail, slid it between the lid and the lower part of the box and cut the tape. When she finally managed to get the box open, she didn’t at first understand what she was looking at. Something had been connected to the phone. That was why the package was so heavy.
My God.
A black metal tube was attached to the phone; on the tube, she could see a red display. The red display was blinking, and the sight of it sent a shock wave through her whole body.
She carefully set the package back down on the table. Then she ran into the kitchen, grabbed the wall telephone, and dialed 90000.
When the call connected, her voice nearly failed her. During the few seconds that passed before they answered, she saw a collage of images in her mind. Tears blurred her vision.
“There’s a bomb in my house.”
87
How hard could the glass be? Max looked at the Mercedes behind him. Through the door opening he could see that the key was in the ignition. He turned his back on the Goose and walked toward the car.
The Mercedes’s motor started immediately when Max turned the key. Through the windshield he could see Viktor Gusin moving farther and farther back from the window.
Max backed up and steered the car in a wide arc through the large open area of the hangar.
Gusin was standing with his back to the rear wall covered with maps of his imagined empire. He had a telephone in his hand and was punching its buttons.
Max switched off the car’s headlights. The hangar was now illuminated only by the pale light of the moon and the strong glare from the fluorescent tubes in the room on the other side of the glass.
He put his seat belt on.
The brakes stopped working. The police never found the mechanic.
He pushed the accelerator to the floor. The turbocharged motor howled. His heart was pounding. His arm shook as he raised his hand to protect his eyes when the car hit the glass.
88
“Leave the house immediately. Take only what you absolutely must. Ensure that there is no one in the vicinity.”
Sarah ran out of the kitchen and grabbed the green cloth bag from her military service lying under the bench in the hall. She went into the living room and took the family portraits from the mantel. Then into the children’s bedrooms to get her daughter’s favorite stuffed animal and her son’s Buzz Lightyear action figure. What else? What are the most important things I have in my life? She hurried back into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a container of cottage cheese. On her way out she picked up her eyeglass case from the kitchen table.
A pair of clean panties and a little makeup.
She dropped the bag on the hall floor and ran to the bedroom. She closed the dresser drawer and only then noticed the person sleeping in her bed.
Shit.
With the panties in her hand, she sat down next to Gabbi, laid a hand on her warm hip.
“Wake up, Gabbi.”
Gabbi didn’t react. The bedroom seemed to rock, and Sarah had to lean on the bed to steady herself.
She shook Gabbi, harder and harder.
“You have to get up now—there’s a bomb in the house!”
The desperation in Sarah’s voice finally made Gabbi react. She opened her eyes, looked at Sarah in fright. She was soon up and yanking on her clothes.
The man who had taken Sarah’s call had sounded serious after she had described the object in the box. A bomb-disposal team was on the way. Sarah had given the man an incoherent account of what had occurred the previous evening. What the man who had brought the replacement phone to her house had looked like—octagonal glasses and shoulder-length hair combed straight back. What it had said on his overalls and on the blue Passat. SwitchCom.
Gabbi slung her coat over her shoulder and walked out the front door without having pushed her feet all the way into her shoes. Her heels were sticking out, bare in the cold.
Sarah fumbled with her keys. Did she really need to lock?
“My bag!” Gabbi shouted when she saw Sarah’s bag. “I can’t go home without my bag.”
Sarah couldn’t absorb what she’d said. Shouldn’t they hear sirens soon?
“We’ll come immediately,” the man had said. Sarah shook her head, refused to open the door again. She took hold of Gabbi’s arm and started walking away from the house.
A sudden blast wave knocked them to the ground. Red flames rose toward the starry night sky. Sarah screamed as she felt a heat that made her feel as if her back and neck were on fire.
89
Everything around him was white and plastic. Something was pressing against his face. Max managed to get his seat belt off and pushed away the airbag. He picked up the pistol and tried to open the car door, but he couldn’t. The window was broken, and he hauled himself through the hole with a pained sigh.
H
e cut himself on the shards of glass that lay everywhere: on the floor, on the table, in his hair. His neck ached. He kicked away a chair and staggered to the hood of the Mercedes. The front, once long and elegant, had been crushed like a soda can.
The man who had become known as Nestor Lazarev had merged with the car. He was bent double. The front of the car had pinned him to the wall.
But he was still alive. His eyes followed Max’s movements searchingly; his mouth was half-open. A string of saliva and blood ran from one corner of his mouth.
“Where is she?” asked Max. “Where is Pashie?”
“You?” hissed the man. “Unbelievable.”
Max took the Makarov’s safety off.
“What is it you’re planning here in your war room, Viktor Gusin? That is your real name, isn’t it? Who were those friends of yours who came here?”
Gusin laughed quietly.
Max looked at the maps on the wall behind him. Radar stations, telecommunications masts. Northwestern Russia, Finland, and Sweden.
“Your willpower,” said the Goose. “Remarkable. I recognize the fire in your eyes. That fire can eradicate everything that stands in the way. No power in the world is stronger than a man with such a will. A will of steel.”
“Where is Pashie?”
“Forget the Tatar whore. She is gone. As Jakob Anger is gone. You can find something far more valuable now.”
Max raised the pistol. The cramping sensations in his hand came back.
“Where is Pashie?”
“You should have heard how they shouted our names and how they envisioned a future as he imagined it, in which the whole world lies at our feet.”
He coughed.
“We have chosen the successor, Max. It will make no difference if that drunk is reelected. Our successor stands ready in the shadows. We will control him. You can control him together with us. That is a part of your inheritance.”
Max looked around. A short distance from the car lay the cell phone Gusin had had in his hand when Max had driven into him. It looked like a cross between a cell phone and a walkie-talkie. It was a military satellite telephone.
Ask No Mercy (Max Anger Book 1) Page 32