The doctor took his pen from his pocket.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“You’re going to be able to sit wherever you want to in the dining hall and sleep well at night. Draw the line.”
When the German had done what he’d been asked, Ozols walked out of the doctor’s office, leaving the article on the table. He went around the corner, stopped at the woodshed, and looked around the open camp.
I have sworn to return. To Anna and to my son. I have sworn to avenge my brothers.
When no one was looking in his direction, he pulled up his left jacket sleeve and laid his arm on the chopping block. Looked at the line.
And lifted the hatchet toward the sky.
SATURDAY,
AUGUST 19
96
Sofia sat at her desk at the National Bureau of Investigation and waited for what could connect the man they had in custody to the murders: his DNA sample. The sample from the man who was exercising his right not to say a damned thing. She had asked one of her investigators to find the author of the book De vi vårdade, the contents of which seemed to constitute the motive for the murders. But that, too, was taking time. She couldn’t understand how it could be so hard for them to find a woman named Anna Isaksson in the Örebro area.
The low woman on the totem pole, she thought again. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be the first person who got the news about the DNA sample. Everyone understood that this was a serious situation and that extreme things had happened. It was obvious that the government needed to have more information and to get that information faster than in other cases. But something about this didn’t smell right. Something rotten. A bit of a dictatorship atmosphere. As though it all were directed theater and the director was a representative of a government ministry, not the police. Sarah suspected the director’s name might be Tomas Schiller. He seemed to be everywhere. Max had called and told her that Schiller had checked the book De vi vårdade out from the Stockholm public library. Perhaps he had already drawn the conclusions Max and Sarah and she herself had drawn? But why all the secrecy?
She had gone to visit her father after a late beer with her colleagues last night, had told him how they’d congratulated her. How they’d characterized her as a star who made sure she got results when everyone else was running around in circles. She’d caught the man who’d been the object of a nationwide manhunt. She’d never seen her father so proud. Didn’t think she could have said anything that would have made him happier.
Well, there was something, actually. To Papa it made no difference what sick bastard she locked up. It was catching a good man that was hard. He would have been happier if she’d told him someone had proposed to her.
When she’d gotten back to the office that morning and walked the halls after four hours of deep sleep, she’d immediately noted that her heroic glamour had been highly temporary. The matter hadn’t been resolved yet. To be sure, the man they’d been looking for was in custody, but they couldn’t, with certainty, connect him to the murders of Callmér, Lindström, Toom, and Wass, nor to the attempted murder of Knutsson, until they got a result from the lab.
She looked up when the door to her boss’s office opened. Carpelan had his briefcase in his hand and a light summer jacket over his arm. He was on his way out. She stood up, and he nodded toward her.
“Come with me.”
When they’d gotten halfway down the corridor on their way to the stairs, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“We’ve been summoned to a meeting at the ministry.”
“What’s going on?”
“The gauntlet’s been thrown down, Sofia. And things are going to move fast. I’m coming well prepared. Just play along by being yourself. I’m going to toss out some bait.”
Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in a conference room in the Ministry of Justice, facing Tomas Schiller. Sofia felt like she was shrinking under his gaze.
Once again it was the ministry’s man who opened the conversation.
“Everyone knows what we’ve received?”
“No,” said Carpelan. “Sofia doesn’t.”
“We’ve gotten the result from the forensic laboratory,” said Schiller. “The man you so heroically arrested with the aid of the Norwegian military yesterday is not Goga Golubkin.”
Well, that’s what I thought the whole time, thought Sofia, but she said nothing.
“Which means,” he continued, “that we can’t connect him to any of the crimes. Possibly to one. Charlie Knutsson.”
“Yes. I don’t suppose there’s any doubt he attacked Charlie on the ship?” said Sofia.
“Do you have any witness testimony about what happened in the sauna?” asked Schiller.
“Excuse me?” Sofia tried to figure out what the man was driving at. “No, we don’t.”
“Okay, so no witness testimony. Have you had an opportunity to examine Knutsson?”
“You mean I should send a pathologist or forensic expert to the intensive-care unit and interrupt treatment of his life-threatening injuries to see if we can find something that will convict the man we have in custody?”
“Take it easy,” said Carpelan. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. We’re trying to move forward here, aren’t we, my friends?”
Tomas Schiller nodded.
My friends? She looked at her boss. Was he being serious or just clever?
“Because the investigation of the crime committed on the Seaway Eagle is taking some time,” said Schiller, “we can currently only prove that this man stole military identification.”
Before Sofia could respond, her boss said, “That’s correct. However, we have made some progress on evidence collection. As you know, Sofia had prioritized another track in the investigation, one that pointed toward the Baltics, before we received information that DNA from the crime scenes matched that of a rogue Russian agent. We are now going to focus on that track again. The fact that the man we apprehended is not Goga Golubkin suggests that we were on the right track. All this business about Russian agents was a false trail.”
Now he was expressing himself clearly. Finally. Per Carpelan wasn’t a man you could push around. Sofia thought he’d let the state secretary go on long enough.
“The Baltic track?” said Tomas Schiller.
Sofia couldn’t tell whether he was pretending to be surprised or really was.
“To put it briefly, we think the man we have is Oto Zagars. One of Latvia’s most dangerous men, sought by international police and by the counterterrorism police in Riga in connection with the Centrs bombing. Known in extreme nationalist circles as Kandinsky. Previously convicted of murder.”
Carpelan opened his briefcase and tossed a plastic folder over to Schiller. Sofia saw that it was the one she’d delivered to him marked “Oto Zagars (Kandinsky).” A picture of the man from his prison time in Riga was clipped to the upper left corner.
“Now, I don’t have the experience with investigative work that you have,” said Schiller. “Could you explain to me how we can have DNA from the same man at various crime scenes without his being the perpetrator?”
“We can’t do that yet,” said Sofia.
She had no desire to share the theories she’d played with.
“All right. Good. Then I’m not alone in wondering about that,” said Schiller. “The technicians have found this Golubkin’s DNA at the crime scenes, and no one knows where he is. But we think we have the man who actually carried out the murders? And that this man’s motives are related to extreme Baltic nationalism? Is that a correct summary of where we are right now?”
Sofia could hear how wrong it sounded. But she didn’t mind. The less this man understood, the better.
“That sounds like a good summary,” she said.
“On behalf of the government, I suppose I hardly need to say that we will all be extremely relieved if it turns out to be the case that this is not connected to a Russian agent.”
Now you’re saying more
than you should, thought Sofia. She glanced at Carpelan. He nodded. This is going exactly according to plan. It was time for him to toss out the bait.
“There’s another thing you should know about, Tomas. Oto Zagars arrived in Trondheim in a car that has since disappeared without a trace. We’re conducting an intensive search for that car. A red Opel. We have reason to believe the answers to the questions we’re currently struggling with could be in that car. It’s our highest priority.”
When they were back in Carpelan’s car, Sofia turned to him.
“Thanks for sticking up for me and my investigation in there.”
“It was the least I could do.”
“I’d really like to be a fly on the wall in Schiller’s office,” said Sofia.
Carpelan raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve given an order that will make or break us,” he said, with new seriousness in his voice. “I want you to know about it. Because if I go down now, you’re going down with me.”
“I’d be happy to. You know that. What have you done?”
“Sometimes you have to take measures you would’ve never thought would be necessary. I recognize the smell. It stinks up there. That’s why I’ve very secretly been in contact with a judge and gotten a court order.”
“A court order with regard to what?” said Sofia.
“One that makes it possible for us actually to be flies on the wall and listen in on Tomas Schiller’s telephone conversations.”
“Hakuna matata, boss! People should really think twice before forcing you to cancel a long weekend in London.”
Carpelan smiled and started the car.
97
Papanov listened patiently to the man on the telephone. When he’d finished, Papanov said in Swedish, “I want to interrogate him myself. Just he and I. No one sees, no one hears.”
“That’s impossible, unfortunately,” said the man on the other end.
“I can get information out of him. Believe me. Give me half an hour and we’ll know where his car went. Do I have to explain to you how important it is that we find that out?”
“Unfortunately, that’s completely out of the question. We’ll find the car.”
“You’re making a big mistake. Don’t forget that I offered you my help. And that you declined it.”
He ended the call. This was exactly what he’d expected. The Swedes were much too locked into their routines. In situations like this, one had to improvise. And all methods were permissible.
He went to the door and told his men to come in.
They stood in a line in front of him. Their feet wide apart. Their hands clasped behind their backs. Their gazes steady.
“Okay, let’s go. Plan B. You know whose pretty face I want to see before the sun goes down tonight. Don’t disappoint me. And remember. Only the stars are above us.”
98
The doctor came walking down the gray-white corridor on the other side of the glass door, and Max stood up. A little too fast. He felt a stabbing in his ribs again. He tapped Sarah’s shoulder, and she looked up from her cell phone.
“Charlie has head injuries caused by a substance that resembles what’s used in acid attacks,” said the doctor. “It is extremely corrosive, and we believe the pain has practically paralyzed him. That acid has not only eaten away his scalp but also gone into the skull itself and run down toward one eye. It’s uncertain whether he will regain his eyesight. I want to underscore that his injuries are still considered life-threatening. If he makes a complete recovery, he can consider advanced facial surgery and skin transplantation to try to reconstruct his appearance. He has also been branded in three places. Downward-pointing arrowheads. One on his forehead, one on his chest, and one adjacent to his navel.”
Max nodded. The symbol of Laima. The goddess who was associated with fate, childbirth, marriage, and death. He clenched his fists and tried to banish the images in his head.
Sarah wiped away her tears. Max pulled her close.
“That business with external features we can fix,” he said. “It will take time, but we’ll fix it.”
He turned to the doctor.
“No knife wounds?”
“No, no knife wounds.”
“And no other markings on his body?”
“Other than the arrowheads? No.”
“Is he going to survive?”
The doctor shook his head. “It’s very difficult to say. As I said, we don’t yet know what kind of acid was used. He has infections in his body and internal bleeding. He’s in critical condition.”
“Okay,” said Max. “What should we keep in mind in there?”
“You must disinfect yourselves meticulously. Put the protective clothing on; don’t touch him. His head is bandaged, but one eye is open and he can talk. He is very weak and I must ask you not to upset him in any way. He needs rest if he is to recover.”
Max nodded.
They went into the little room on the other side of the door, scrubbed their hands and arms with the disinfectant, put the protective clothing on, and entered the airlock. While they waited for the next door to open into the room where Charlie lay, they glanced at each other. They looked like crime scene investigators in their all-white suits. For Max this wasn’t the first time. He had gone through the same thing four years previously. But that time it had been Pashie lying in a hospital bed wrapped in bandages.
They sat down next to each other on chairs beside the bed, where Charlie could see them. When Max met Charlie’s gaze, he saw something in it he had seen before in both human beings and animals. It was the struggle to remain, to stay alive.
He leaned toward Charlie, but the doctor’s words came to him. “Don’t touch him.”
“What can we do for you?”
In a hissing voice that lacked the strength Charlie usually had, he responded, “Can you terminate my membership at Sturebadet spa?”
Max couldn’t help laughing. It was impossible not to love this man, because he always stayed true to form.
“Shit, Charlie,” Sarah said quietly.
“What a seventieth birthday, huh?” hissed Charlie.
“You’re going to make it, and everything is going to be all right,” said Max.
“Is he locked up?”
Max nodded.
“Was it you?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t alone.”
“One never should be. Thank you for coming to rescue me.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
Charlie blinked a few times.
“I can’t do half of what you can,” he said.
“What were you doing on that damned ship?” asked Sarah.
“How did you find me?”
“You had asked me for Hein Espen’s contact information,” said Max.
Charlie nodded. “I’ll have to be sneakier next time.”
“I met Anastasia Friedenberga, who said you’d left Thursday at lunchtime. But she didn’t know where you had gone.”
“Is that what she said?” whispered Charlie.
“Yes,” asked Sarah. “Why?”
“I told her.”
Max thought back to the morning in Gustaf Adolf Church when he’d walked up to Anastasia. He thought about how surprised she’d been by his question about the lullaby “Aija zuzu,” how she’d fainted when he’d told her about Maj-Lis, and how she’d sat on a chair in the sacristy with tears on her cheeks.
It had all been an act.
“We know she was at your place the night before you left,” said Max. “Can you recall anything she said? Something you talked about, other than your trip to Trondheim?”
Charlie closed his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to talk about this anymore. Max was afraid he had upset him.
“What kind of relationship do you have with that woman?” Sarah asked. “One minute she’s your worst enemy. The next she’s hopping into your bed.”
Charlie looked Sarah in the eye.
“She’s a woman who knows wha
t she wants,” he said. “For her, nothing is beyond the limits of the reasonable.”
99
Sofia stared straight ahead. She didn’t see her computer screen; she didn’t see anything. It was as if her senses were blunted. She didn’t know when she’d last cried. Or laughed. Well, actually, that she did know. It was when she and Max had had such a hard time getting to a toilet at Amaranten. “Maybe we’ll have to ask for a room?” Had she really said that?
A little too obvious, perhaps?
Max was a man who paid his debts, a man who showed who he was in his actions. Sofia felt frightened delight when she thought of him. She hoped she was right to trust him. Because she felt that she really did now.
The department had taken him on as an external consultant because of his knowledge about Russia. He’d been invaluable to the investigation. Now that they’d caught the perpetrator, she didn’t know whether there would still be a role for him to play.
But it wasn’t only that.
Music that had been playing in the cottage in the allotment gardens while she drank beer and ate a late meal with her father came back to her. Fred Astaire’s soft, warm voice singing “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket.”
She saw Max sitting there bare chested while she wrapped a bandage around his injured arm.
She went to the sink in the restroom, splashed water on her cheeks, rubbed her eyes, and tugged her hands through her hair. Papa’s eternal question: When are you going to meet the right one?
Pull yourself together, damn it.
Her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her jeans. A number she didn’t recognize. An area code she wasn’t familiar with. She accepted the call.
“This is Colonel Stefan Borg, the commander of regiment KA 2.”
“What can I do for you?” asked Sofia.
“Today our annual red deer hunt began. A number of invited dignitaries were present. Perhaps you’ve heard about that?”
She remembered Per Carpelan saying they had a week to work with. Before Mir 2000 and the weekend’s hunting in Scania.
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