Something about Max had been different after he returned from Saint Petersburg. Charlie tried to remember what they had talked about, what Max had asked and what Charlie had said in response. What Max had said was more or less an order. That the monitoring of Vektor’s telephones had to continue. That if it didn’t, they would never find the Russian agent.
Charlie had warned Max that it was possible he was being hunted. But in Max’s eyes he was the hunter, not the prey.
Max, he said to himself. You can’t start a war in the middle of Stockholm. Control your feelings and your instincts. You can’t end up like them.
102
She opened her eyes. The room was almost painfully white.
Where am I? Am I alive?
She was alone in a room. A low humming came from some machines to her left. She tried to move, but her body was very weak, strapped down.
I’m covered with white bandages. Like a mummy.
She tried to hear sounds other than those coming from the machines—sounds of people. But other than the humming of the machines, there was only silence.
She was so weak, she couldn’t get out a single sound. It felt as though there were a big clump of something in her mouth.
She tried to turn her head to see the window better—wasn’t something there? Like the rest of her body, her head seemed to have been fixed in place, and she could get only a glimpse of the window. It was dark outside, almost completely black, but there was a light shining in from beyond the white blinds. A moving light.
She could hear a new sound now; it was getting louder and seemed to be approaching. It was coming from outside, and it was the sound of a helicopter. A helicopter that appeared to be aiming its spotlights at her room.
Are they coming to take me now?
103
The helicopter landed softly on Södersjukhuset’s helipad. Ray took off his black helmet, laid it on the seat beside him, and waited until the rotor blades stopped moving. Then he got out. He straightened the sleeves of his black overalls. No bat decorated his right sleeve; there was no clenched fist holding a Kalashnikov on his left. He had prepared for this mission carefully, removing the emblems. He couldn’t reveal who he actually was or leave any clues behind.
The losses of the last twenty-four hours had been terrible. They were losses that would soon be avenged.
The plan he had come up with entirely on his own was bold, but he didn’t doubt his ability to carry it out. When he had finished here, he would get to Sarah Hansen before anyone realized what had happened. Then everything would be taken care of.
Ward 56 was connected directly to the roof. It was one of the closest wards. They hadn’t wanted to move Pashie Kovalenko farther than this because of her condition.
The hospital’s security was inadequate. The staff would behave like a flock of lost sheep when he went into action. Most of them would surely run for their lives. That was how Swedes always behaved in a crisis. In less than three minutes, he would be in the air again.
And Pashie and her boyfriend would be dead. No one would ever read what she had written in that notebook.
Ray pulled out his thirty-one-centimeter 6P9, the silenced pistol he had had since he came to Sweden. He held it pointed down along his thigh and walked to the door that led into the hospital.
A nurse in white clothes met him just inside the door with a surprised expression. “Do you have a delivery now? Where do you need to go?”
Ray smiled at him.
“I don’t have a delivery. I’m picking something up. Two hearts.”
“I don’t have any information about . . .”
The man trailed off when Ray pointed the pistol at him. Ray fired two quick shots. One in the heart and one in the head. The man fell on the floor in front of him, dead.
Ray stepped over him. Then he continued into the stairwell.
He jogged down the stairs and opened the door to Ward 56, glanced back. He was alone.
Just inside the door was a little room with a toilet on the left and a bar with clothes hangers on it. Straight in front of him was another door, one with a window.
Ray looked in and saw what he had expected: an air lock. He pulled open the door and entered the air lock. He waited impatiently for the click from the door in front of him, the one that led into the sterilized room, and when he heard it he stepped inside.
He quickly took in what was in front of him. Straight ahead, he saw the body lying motionless on the bed. The body was covered with bandaging, and in the pale light he could see no more than a vague shape. On one side of the bed stood machines that kept the body alive. Cords led from the machines into a cabinet containing electrical instruments and what appeared to be large tubes, probably filled with painkilling gas.
On the other side of the bed stood a chrome steel stool, and on top of it lay a notebook and pen. Ray picked up the notebook and read what was written in it. Looked at the bed. The body was covered by a tightly tucked hospital blanket. The arms were under the blanket.
What in the hell was this?
He read the text again. Dropped the notebook to the floor and pulled away the blanket with his free hand. Looked at the body.
Suddenly, it started to move. Ray lifted his pistol and aimed it at the head. The bandaged person began muttering, and not in the voice of a woman. Ray grabbed the bandage covering the head and unwrapped it until the face became visible. A face that belonged to a person he knew well.
Frank Ståhl.
“You?” he said, looking at the notebook on the floor once again.
For the third time, he read the message written on it in Cyrillic letters. “Surrender. Your fight is over.”
Max Anger has to be behind this, thought Ray.
First Gusin, now this. Allying himself with amateurs like Frank had been a mistake.
Frank was panting on the bed, twisting his body in an attempt to get free.
“Help me out of this bed, and then we’ll get this straightened out,” he said.
Ray shook his head and pointed the pistol at him again.
“Stop pointing that pistol at my head, damn it,” hissed Frank. “We’re going to work this out. You’re going to get everything you’ve dreamed of. Here in Sweden!”
“No,” said Ray. “I can get myself out of this, but you wouldn’t get very far. They’d break you before I even got out of central Stockholm. And I can’t risk having my sisters and brothers in Sweden exposed because of you.”
“Please, Ray!”
Ray pulled the hammer back.
“Ray!”
“Goodbye, Frank.”
104
The man looked like an angel. Everything around him was white.
“Can you hear me?” he asked. “I’m Dr. Cleaver. You’re at the American Medical Clinic in Saint Petersburg. Can you understand what I’m saying, Pashie?”
The American Medical Clinic?
“Pashie?” said Dr. Cleaver. “You’re safe here, and you’re going to get well. I need to know whether you understand what I’m saying to you. Max Anger has brought you here so that you can heal. Nod if you understand what I’m saying, okay?”
Max? Pashie tried to answer but couldn’t get a single word out.
“Don’t try to speak, Pashie. You have injuries in your mouth, but they’re healing quickly. Just answer me by nodding or shaking your head. Okay?”
All she could perceive was the taste of blood. Where was Max?
“You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you, Pashie?”
Pashie nodded.
“Good. You’re making great progress. Soon we’re going to be able to transport you to Sweden. Max is waiting for you there.”
Pashie nodded again and closed her eyes.
105
As quietly as he could, Max walked into Ward 56. The man called Ray had left the door to the air lock open behind him. Max heard the men talking to each other, their words increasingly heated. Then he saw Ray point a pistol at Frank Ståhl’s he
ad.
Max took a few quick steps toward Ray and raised the hunting club. But Ray must have sensed movement behind him, because he turned around and twisted to the side so the blow landed on his right shoulder. Max heard the sound of bone being crushed. Ray fired one shot before the pistol flew out of his hand and landed on the other side of the bed. Shattered glass rained down on both of them.
From the bed, Frank Ståhl looked at Max with terrified eyes, unable to say a word.
Ray collapsed, his left hand against the floor. He was breathing hard.
“You knew I was listening to your conversation with Sarah Hansen,” he managed to get out.
“You put a bomb in the home of my best friend and abducted and tortured the woman I love,” said Max, raising the hunting club again.
Ray moved and was suddenly holding a knife. Then, unexpectedly quickly, he sprang to his feet. He took a few steps to the side, and Max could see he was fighting pain.
There was an uncertainty in Ray’s movements, but Max nevertheless prepared himself to counter an attack. Then, just as unexpectedly as he had risen to his feet, Ray turned and ran out through the air lock.
It took Max a hundredth of a second to react; then he ran after Ray. When he came out of the room, he saw Ray disappearing through the door that led to the stairwell.
Max hurried after him. In the stairwell, he heard Ray’s footsteps above him. They weren’t as fast now; Ray seemed to be feeling the effects of his injury. But the distance separating them was too great, and when Max got to the top of the stairs, the heavy door had already closed again. He jumped over the body on the floor and yanked the door open.
The wind was strong up on the roof. Max saw Ray struggling about ten meters ahead of him. For a moment Ray seemed to have lost his balance, but then he straightened up and ran on toward the helicopter.
Lactic acid was pumping through Max’s thighs. Max had to get to Ray before he managed to board the helicopter and take off.
Ray pulled open the helicopter door with his left hand. But instead of getting in, he reached for an object lying near the pilot’s seat on the floor. When Max saw what it was, he took a firmer grip on the hunting club. Ray didn’t mean for either of them to leave here alive.
This time the blow landed squarely on the top of Ray’s head, crushing the skull. Ray fell to the ground. In his left hand he held a grenade. The pin was still in place.
Max bent down, turned Ray over on his back, and took the grenade out of his hand.
He looked into Ray’s eyes until he was sure the blink reflex was no longer present.
Stockholm, September 1986
Seventy-four was no age to die. Particularly not for a man like Wolfgang Wallentin, the virile, successful doctor. As Carl walked across burgundy wall-to-wall carpet to the sick man’s bed, he couldn’t help wondering whether they weren’t being punished for their cooperation in covering up the events of February 22, 1944—wondering whether that wasn’t why Wallentin was lying here now, riddled with cancer.
Carl had carried Tatyana from the bomb crater in Eriksdal to the hospital, where Wallentin had been that night. Södersjukhuset hadn’t officially been inaugurated yet, but Carl had known that Wallentin was there and that the emergency rooms were ready to use. Snow had fallen after the attacks, as if a higher power had contributed to eradicating the evidence as efficiently as possible. From his place at her side in the hospital ward, Carl heard snow being tipped into the water near Hammarby Slussväg. That night, when hell fell from the heavens, no one was granted any rest. But what else was being tipped into the open water? Bomb fragments with Cyrillic letters on them? Dead bodies?
Carl had been able to hear a late news broadcast coming from a radio out in the corridor.
“Navigation error by the Soviet Northern Fleet. The Swedish capital was subjected to an attack intended to strike targets in Finland. Extensive damage to buildings, but no fatalities. The Swedish government has called in the Soviet ambassador. A diplomatic protest has been issued.”
No fatalities? Carl had thought. He had looked at the window and thought about jumping from it. Then he had shaken his head. Tatyana would never have forgiven him if he had chosen that alternative, the act of a coward. That wasn’t the man with whom she had fallen in love, for whom she had risked everything. Their love affair had triggered an act of rage from the world’s most feared and powerful man. What the Ministry of Defence or Radio Sweden’s news program had to say about the matter made no difference.
When Carl reached Wallentin’s bed, he shook off the remembered images from that night in 1944. He sat down at his friend’s side and took hold of his withered hand. It was as though the cancer had emptied it of both muscles and liquids. His hair was gone, his face that of a ghost. But his gaze was the same.
“I can’t accept this,” Carl said.
“You’ve had to before. I think you’ll be all right,” said Wallentin. He could manage only a few words at a time. “But there’s something we need to discuss.”
Carl shifted on his chair.
“You didn’t want to know anything,” Wallentin continued. “I can honor that wish until my death, but then my knowledge will die with me. And I don’t think that’s what you want.”
The dams Carl had built up over the years broke. He couldn’t stop the tears. Wallentin squeezed his hand.
“You’re strong, Carl. We’re talking not about her soul but about her flesh and blood.”
Carl looked past Wallentin, at the rain hammering down outside the window.
“I know you can be relentlessly strong for her sake. You’ll need to be now.”
What kind of information was it his friend had been carrying for so long?
“She gave birth to a son, Carl—you know that. You asked me to take care of the child; you said I mustn’t tell anyone what I’d done, not even you. While you were ensuring that all information about Tatyana disappeared from all official documents, I was ensuring that the child would be cared for. He was given the name Jakob Anger, and he lived nearly his entire life on an island in the Stockholm archipelago.”
“Lived?” said Carl.
“He’s dead; he died in a car crash. I’m so sorry.”
Everything locked up; Carl’s throat swelled shut as if he had had an allergic reaction.
He was back in that room at the hospital in 1944, could see the younger Wallentin before his eyes.
The pitiful screaming Carl had heard from a room farther along the hospital corridor had told him that something new had been born from the terrible thing that had happened. It had been a weak hope, but something to hold on to, a foundation on which he might build a new life and new purpose for himself.
It was a miracle that the child had survived inside her body.
Wallentin had laid his strong fists on Carl’s shoulders, leaned against him, and whispered in his ear.
“They’re here now, and they’re looking for you, the men from the Intelligence Office. Use the emergency exit from my office. Lead them away from here. They can’t stay here, you understand?”
Carl had nodded.
“Tomorrow you can turn yourself in to the authorities. The child will be safe then. I’m going to see to all the necessary arrangements.”
When Carl agreed to what Wallentin had suggested, the words Hedin had spoken on the evening they had arrested the spy had echoed in his head. “We’re trying to gauge the extent of the damage caused by this operation. And since you say this was a move made on your initiative, I’m going to see to it that you straighten out this mess.”
Carl had known what awaited him. He would have to deal with the legal aftermath—with all the people who would present damages claims to the government and the insurance companies. To refuse to cooperate, to deny that the attack had been the result of a navigation error, was not an alternative. He might just as well jump from the window.
The pitiful little voice from the next room had decided the matter. Neither the Russians nor the Swedish aut
horities could ever be permitted to learn of the existence of Tatyana’s child. If they did, it would not survive.
Carl had embraced his friend that night.
“The child must never know, Wolfgang,” he had said. “And I must never know. Remember that—otherwise, we’re all going to die.”
Now, looking at Wallentin’s disease-ravaged face, he realized that the hope he had carried with him all these years, the hope of meeting the child one day, had been in vain. Tatyana’s son, Jakob Anger, was dead.
He cleared his throat to push away the memories and the threatening tears. Turned his gaze toward his old friend again.
“Did you meet him?” asked Carl.
Wallentin took a trembling breath.
“Only once, the day he turned eighteen. I went out to the island and told him there was a foundation that was providing financial support for him, that this money had previously been paid to his foster mother but would now go directly to him. Preconditions for his continued receipt of the money were that he would never seek me out and that he would never attempt to discover the identity of his biological parents.”
Wallentin had arranged everything exactly as they had agreed. He had taken care of everything in secrecy, without telling anyone, for forty-two years.
“What was he like?”
“Big and strong. His character reflected his childhood out there among the outermost islands.”
Tatyana’s genes.
“You could have taken this knowledge with you when you died, Wolfgang. Why did you tell me this now?”
Wallentin took another trembling breath.
“Once again there is a child we must protect. Jakob’s son, Max Anger. He is sixteen years old.”
“Where is he?”
“On the same island. Arholma. He lives with his mother, Josefin, and receives monthly support payments from the foundation.”
Carl closed his eyes.
This was not the end. He had been given a second chance to do the right thing. A last chance.
It was high time he took on the responsibility.
Ask No Mercy (Max Anger Book 1) Page 36