Ask No Mercy

by Martin Österdahl

  From Lazarev’s point of view, Paul Olsen’s choice of base was not ideal. The staff here could not be bribed, and the security was rigorous. Nevertheless, he was now inside the hotel, armed and ready to meet the young Swede face-to-face. Continuing to play the role of an elderly man who moved with difficulty, he pressed the button for the elevator. When the elevator doors had closed, he straightened up to his full height and screwed the silencer onto his Makarov.

  Lazarev walked to the Swede’s suite with long, determined steps, as he had always walked, dutifully advancing into conflict and danger, straight into the fire. He held his pistol inside his coat sleeve with his right hand, his fingers around the barrel.

  He knocked on the door of the Swede’s belle chambre. The French phrase made him think of the redheaded traitor he had killed with a tuning fork. And if the young man was in the room, what kind of end would his be? What would be suitable for a pathetic Swedish life? A couple of shots in the forehead? No hero would survive that. When it was done, he would take care of the worthless Tatar bitch who was defiling the hangar. That would give him the greatest pleasure of all. He would see to it that that moment was a fitting conclusion to this entire disruption.

  No response. Lazarev took out a set of picks. He hadn’t picked a lock in at least thirty years, but there were things a body could always do automatically, like riding a bicycle. After a moment he opened the door.

  The suite had been kept orderly. Through the doorway that led to the bedroom he saw neatly folded clothes on a chair next to the bed. Papers lay on the coffee table in a perfectly aligned stack.

  No one here.

  Lazarev looked through the papers and put them back in the order in which he had found them.

  Election rigging? Opinion polls? The documents were much like those he had found in Pashie’s home. This was certainly the right room and the right man.

  He went into the bedroom. On the far wall, Paul Olsen had put up a collage of white sheets of paper on which he had made notes.

  Lazarev walked over and stood directly in front of this collage.

  He felt a chill when he read what was written on the various sheets. This was an incomplete account of his life. He absorbed it, recalled the various moments, from the present to the distant past.

  Large gaps in the middle. The dark period of my life.

  How was this possible?

  Paul Olsen, the man he was looking for, was also looking for him—that was clear.

  But why? And who was he?

  Lazarev read words on the wall.

  “Election rigging and opinion polls.”

  “Pashie.”

  “St. Petersburg GSM.”

  “Ivanovich.”

  “Marcel Rousseau / Günther Baumann, East German, dead.”

  “Margarita, Domashov.”

  “Chairman.”

  “Stalin’s most beloved son.”

  St. Petersburg GSM’s logo, the cosmonaut floating in space, had been put up at the center of the wall. This was the symbol Lazarev himself had chosen for his life’s great work.

  Rousseau’s name was circled. Why?

  Technology—she was very interested in the technology.

  There it was again, that reference to the technology. Why was it so important to everyone in this mysterious organization, this collection of journalists and academics?

  It was all I had to cling to, all I could exploit to rebuild my life, create my life’s work. My gift from him. My inheritance.

  He looked at the remaining sheets of paper.

  “The Colony Field, the Shutul Ravine, money—technology—politics.”

  They had traced him from the war in Afghanistan, where his wealth had begun to grow and his legend had been reborn, to today, when he was on the brink of realizing his dream.

  Had they found his base? Was that where he was now, the young Swede, while Lazarev stood here like an idiot, staring at a wall and experiencing a kind of summary of his own life?

  Next to the cluster on the wall was a single, isolated sheet of paper that bore two names.

  “Wallentin. Borgenstierna.”

  And next to them: “Bomb attack Stockholm 1944: Eriksdal Theater.”

  For a moment, Lazarev couldn’t move. Once again, he felt the cold chains being locked to his body; the light faded and all sound was cut off by the closing of a thick cell door. He closed his eyes. Then sound returned, the sound of engines high above him. The sound of revenge being taken on the young woman who had betrayed him, a woman who had been the same age as the bitch now hanging in chains at his base.

  The beautiful traitors were the deadliest. How could history repeat itself like this? What kind of trick was he being subjected to? Both women deserved the same end, the same final solution.

  Lazarev took three steps forward and tore the sheet of paper from the wall.

  So you’re still alive? You’re all going to meet the same fate as the traitor of 1944.

  56

  Max, Ilya, and Mishin sat in chairs with armrests and seats covered in red velvet at L’Europe, the Grand Hotel Europe’s flagship restaurant. Tuxedo-clad waiters walked the room. On the tables were white tablecloths and lit candles. Potted plants stood on high pedestals. Wine-red patterned drapes covered the many entrances and exits through which the restaurant’s personnel soundlessly passed.

  Two maps lay on their table. One from 1976 and one from last year. On top of each map, Mishin had laid a rectangle of thin, transparent plastic film on which he could write and draw. These rectangles covered the same area on both maps, an area on the outskirts of the city near the Neva River’s mouth at the Baltic Sea. The map from 1976 indicated that the area was a restricted military area designated “The Marine Center: The Government Research Center for Marine Biology and Development.” The map from last year simply identified the area as “The Baltic Point: Harbor Area.”

  “This is the area you followed the black Mercedes to after you’d been at Margarita’s place, right?” said Max.

  Ilya nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  Mishin cleared his throat.

  “When I saw this, I called a colleague from the university, Gachov. He lives nearby and walks his dog along the beach promenade here. He helped me put everything together.”

  With one of the pens, Mishin pointed to a place on the map from the previous year.

  “This is where the big ferries from Helsinki and Stockholm come in.”

  “What’s the area around there like?” asked Max.

  “It’s bleak. Buses take the ferry passengers into the city center from there as quickly as possible. There’s no functioning infrastructure in the area; there aren’t many shops. But there are plenty of abandoned warehouses.”

  “And quite a few notorious nightclubs,” said Ilya.

  One of the sharply dressed waiters stopped by their table, and they paused their conversation while he filled their glasses.

  Ilya studied the map closely.

  “Afanasy, wasn’t there a hospital out there before, not far from the marine center?”

  “Yes. The hospital’s on the old map but not on the new one. Why do you ask?”

  “A hospital and a government research center in the same area,” said Ilya. “That could mean something.”

  “So you think this is where the Colony Field once was?” said Max.

  “Right here, to be precise.” Mishin placed the tip of his finger on a rectangular block right next to the large building that had housed the marine center.

  “That’s the building I followed the Mercedes to,” said Ilya.

  Max heard his pulse roaring in his ears. He was barely aware of what was going on around him.

  “That must be where they took Pashie,” he said.

  “Gachov found something macabre in this area,” Mishin said in a new, more serious tone. “Human remains.”

  Human remains? Max felt a burning sensation run up his spine from his tailbone to his neck. He clenched h
is teeth. Tried to get his heart to stop hammering in his chest.

  “Remains?” he said. “You mean he found a body?”

  Mishin swallowed.

  “Gachov told me something else about what he had found, but I didn’t want to believe what he said.”

  “Why not?”

  “Max,” said Mishin. “If you’re planning to go there, you have to be prepared for the worst. If we’re to believe what my friend told me, the flesh of the person whose remains lay in the water had been cooked and eaten by a human being.”

  57

  Max looked at his reflection in his suite hall mirror. Twenty-four hours without benzo. Had his eyes started to regain their original color?

  Ilya, who was about to drive out to the Baltic Point to reconnoiter the territory, stood in the little hall putting on his gloves and his blue-and-white Zenit Saint Petersburg scarf. Max patted him on the shoulder and then went into the bedroom.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  Max put a finger to his lips.

  He looked at his papers on the coffee table, noting the neat alignment of the stack. He checked to see whether the papers were in the order in which he had had them. Walked over to the window with a view of Nevsky Prospekt.

  “Someone has been here,” he said.

  “Housekeeping?” said Ilya.

  “No, someone else.”

  Everything was exactly as Max had left it. Nevertheless, something wasn’t right. Max went into the bedroom. The bedsheets had been changed, but something else was different.

  Suddenly Max saw what it was.

  A sheet of paper was missing from the wall. Could it have fallen on the floor and been thrown away by the housekeeping staff? No, that seemed unlikely. The service at the Grand Hotel was first-class; they would have put the sheet back up on the wall or laid it on the desk.

  Max walked over and stood in front of the wall. What was it that was missing?

  He imagined the wall as it had looked before.

  He heard his father scream the names into the telephone in the middle of the night.

  “Wallentin. Borgenstierna.”

  Of all the sheets of paper, someone had taken that one.

  Now they didn’t just have to find Pashie soon. Someone also had to hurry to the hospital in Stockholm where the old man was being treated. Before his secrets went to the grave with him.

  Sarah hurriedly signed the taxi receipt, threw open the door, and walked quickly toward Södersjukhuset’s entrance.

  Given the information she had just received, she felt it was more important than ever to reach Carl Borgenstierna.

  One of the people she had asked for information about the 1944 bomb attack had just contacted her and told her something that made her heart stop for a few seconds.

  She hurried past all the people in the lobby; she didn’t want to look the receptionists at the information counter or the security guards in the eye. She didn’t know why; after all, she wasn’t doing anything illegal. Nevertheless, an unease spread through her. A feeling of being watched.

  When she reached the elevators, she pressed the button several times.

  She should have come here long ago. Just as Max had asked her to.

  The elevator doors opened, and Sarah walked to a reception area. A nurse wearing red-framed glasses looked up from a journal and met her gaze.

  “I’m looking for Carl Borgenstierna,” said Sarah.

  “Let me see.” The woman typed something on the keyboard in front of her. “Are you a relative or close friend?”

  “We’re old friends.” Sarah was surprised at how quickly she had answered. “Colleagues.”

  Which they in fact were, in a way. After all, Borgenstierna was one of her organization’s most important sponsors.

  “I’m sorry, but Carl Borgenstierna is no longer here.”

  “He’s not here?”

  The nurse scratched her neck with red-painted nails.

  “I think you’re actually going to have to speak with his family,” she said.

  “Why is that?” said Sarah, a little too loudly. “Has he died?”

  The nurse shook her head. “Even if you’re a colleague of his, there’s information in the record I can’t share.”

  Sarah held up a hand in front of her.

  “I understand that, but I really need to get in touch with him. This is an emergency.” She paused, decided to say what had been lying in her subconscious and disturbing her sleep. “It has to do with a person close to him. It’s an emergency. I need to know how I can reach him. Is he dead?”

  “No, or at least not as far as I know. He didn’t die here.”

  Sarah exhaled. Thank God. She tried to smile at the nurse, was amazed at how coldly and crassly she’d spoken about death.

  The nurse cleared her throat.

  “There’s nothing more we can do for Carl Borgenstierna here.”

  58

  David scrolled through the forum. Some users could be trusted, while others just liked to sound off. He massaged his tailbone. He had promised himself that he’d never bet on the horses again, that he’d do everything for his family. And now he was sitting here, bent over in front of the computer on a Monday evening, going over tips for the coming race.

  His computer pinged. He’d gotten e-mail at his work address. What could it be now?

  He opened his mail program. The dull ache in his back got worse when he saw that the e-mail was from Frank Ståhl.

  Have been calling you today, but you haven’t answered. It’s extremely important that you contact me.

  Frank had called his cell earlier, but David had declined the call. Was a little break—one evening off—too much to ask for?

  “Here you go.”

  David jumped. When he looked up, Gabbi was standing there with Teodor in front of her.

  “Caspar and Vilma are trying to watch TV, but Teodor’s been screaming the entire time,” said Gabbi. David took his youngest son from her as she left.

  Holding the little body in his arms made his backache go away. He shut down his work e-mail and turned Teodor toward the screen.

  “Would you like to see what Daddy is doing?”

  He brought up the browser, and Teodor pointed at the screen with his little hand.

  “Horse,” he said.

  “That’s right. That’s a racehorse. He can run very fast.”

  Teodor pressed keys, and the browser closed.

  David rocked his leg up and down.

  “Now you’re a cowboy,” he said, opening the browser again.

  The computer pinged again. An e-mail had been sent to his private address. Did Frank Ståhl have that one?

  He opened the mail program, and the brief peace he had known with Teodor on his lap was blown away. Did he really have to read this e-mail? He knew he couldn’t avoid it. He had to deal with it. He had to do it so he could get on with his life. He had to do it for the sake of his children.

  The e-mail was from Ray.

  The subject line was One last job.

  Vilma and Caspar were sitting on either side of Gabbi on the sofa. Their bodies were sagging more and more, but their attention was still on the TV and The Lion King. Gabbi felt nothing as she watched the images flickering past and heard the songs being sung.

  In the next room sat the man who had barely reacted when she had handed over Teodor, the man who couldn’t tear his eyes off his computer and his damned horses.

  I can’t stand it for another week. For another day.

  Her thoughts drifted to Tyresö, to a woman who was standing on her own two feet and could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

  She missed Sarah’s hands.

  “David?”

  No reply.

  “David?” she called again, more loudly this time.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “I just got a message from Mama. She’s feeling worse again. I’m going to have to go over there tomorrow and stay overn
ight.”

  59

  The feeling of choking her with just one hand was exciting. Almost erotic. She was weakened and could resist him even less than before, when he forced her to swallow the rest of the vodka. The vein in her neck swelled when the blood had nowhere to go. Her throat and windpipe contracted in desperate attempts to draw air into her lungs.

  Lazarev released his grip on Pashie’s neck. She coughed; her lungs pulled in air in panic.

  “I don’t need you anymore,” he said. “I know where Paul Olsen is staying. I’ve been there, and I now know who sent him here. Survival is no longer something you can choose. Now your choice is between a quick death and a slow one.”

  With his left hand, he took out the sheet of paper from the wall at the Grand Hotel. With his right, he took out his Makarov. He held the sheet of paper out in front of her and put the pistol to her temple.

  “For the last time. What is the nature of your relationship with Carl Borgenstierna?”

  Pashie shook her head from side to side. Her eyes were closed.

  Her strength is gone, thought Lazarev. She’s made her choice. She wants a long, painful death, and that’s exactly what she’ll get.

  He put the sheet of paper back in the inside pocket of his suit coat. He slid the pistol into its holster.

  He unlocked the locks that had secured her to the chains attached to the wall, and pulled her up. She weighed almost nothing. He dragged her across the concrete floor, toward the exit that led to the inner courtyard. He hadn’t used it in many years, but he knew what was there—her final destination.

  When they came out into the cold, it was as though Pashie’s body realized what was happening; it suddenly started jerking as though it had been given new life, like a fish that had been pulled over the railing of a fishing boat.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Lazarev put a hand over her mouth, and she bit him hard. He let go of her, and she fell to the wet asphalt. He kicked her in the stomach, and she curled into a ball.

  A fine, icy drizzle fell on them.

  The shed that stood above the water pit was open to the inner courtyard and to the sky; it had walls of rotting wood. Lazarev attached the chains and padlocks to the brackets on the back wall of the shed. Then he picked her up and dragged her there. He lowered her body into the murky greenish-yellow water of the pit until the bacterial soup covered her to the waist. Then he stretched her arms to the sides and locked her to the chains.