Grendel's Curse

by Alex Archer

  “In the hotel lounge having coffee with an older woman.”

  “Mortensen’s grieving mother.”

  That made sense. Creed was a meddler. She couldn’t leave well enough alone. “Do they know each other?”

  “It seems they do now. That leaves us with another loose end you will need to tie up before this is over, but there is a more pressing problem now.”

  “A problem?”

  “Yes. And you know how I hate problems.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “There’s a man who knows too much. Now he thinks that his silence is worth something. Surprisingly, I agree with him, but not in the way he’d hope. Silence him. Permanently.”

  Tostig listened while Thorssen gave him the name and address of the problem. He didn’t need to write the details down; he knew exactly where the address was. Tostig had met the man once. If he was talking about things best kept secret that put Tostig in the firing line. He didn’t like the idea of that. The assassin took another glance at Annja Creed and Mortensen’s mother. Creed was comforting the old woman now.

  That was another weakness. Empathy. He could work with that.

  Tostig started the car, pulled out into traffic and drove.

  The warehouse stood just outside of town.

  It was surrounded by farmland.

  A herd of cows looked inquisitively toward him as Tostig stepped out of his car.

  Every country had its secrets. Sweden was no different. There were enough explosives stored in this building to blow Gothenburg off the map.

  The signage declared Grendel Pyrotechnics on one side of the warehouse.

  The only other vehicle in the vicinity was a white van bearing the same name and corporate logo.

  Tostig had seen the van before; it had been parked near the theater on the morning of Thorssen’s call to arms.

  He’d noticed that Thorssen became agitated at the sight of it, demanding that the driver move it farther away once he had unloaded his equipment. If Tostig hadn’t known what was being planned it might have seemed uncharacteristic and unnecessary, but given what was going to happen, the assassin could all too well see the risks the van’s presence constituted.

  The reinforced metal door stood open, inviting the assassin to come inside the warehouse.

  Tostig strolled past it, taking a tour of the building to get the lay of the land.

  All of the windows were of frosted glass and covered with bars to keep intruders out.

  They’ll work just as well to keep people in, he thought grimly.

  The fire exit was at the rear of the building. Tostig didn’t want the man slipping out the back and missing out on all the fun. He used a crowbar to wedge the door shut. There was no other way in or out. Having secured the building he returned to the trunk of his car and retrieved the gallon can of gasoline he kept there for just such situations.

  The man at the workbench inside didn’t see him at first.

  Tostig took the opportunity to cast his eyes around the space.

  There were boxes of completed fireworks and bins of the raw materials for their construction all around the workshop. Nils Fenström had built himself a nice little business working on special effects for film and television companies in Sweden, and even farther afield after Swedish crime shows became the toast of the world. Fenström was good. Better than good. When it came to blowing things up spectacularly, he was the man. It didn’t matter if it was small-scale fireworks for the holidays, or rigging it to look as though parliament was ablaze for the latest action-adventure blockbuster.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked, clearly unphased by the fact that he had a visitor.

  “Mr. Thorssen has an answer for you.”

  “Ah, right. So he’s agreed to pay up?” The man smiled. It was an avaricious leer. “Come on, then, what is it, a check? A bag of silver? No. A briefcase of used banknotes, right, like out of the movies?”

  “There’s no money. Not now. Not ever,” Tostig replied.

  “So you’re supposed to frighten me off?”

  “No.”

  “What, then? You want me quiet? That comes at a price. Simple as that. Tell Thorssen it’s just business.”

  “I’m not here to intimidate you,” Tostig said, unscrewing the cap from the plastic fuel can.

  The man looked instinctively toward the fire exit. The movement revealed the scar tissue that puckered up the skin as far as his disfigured ear. He wanted to bolt, but was rooted to the spot, staring at the gasoline can in Tostig’s hand. The assassin could see him solving the equation—gasoline, fireworks, an enclosed prefabricated warehouse and human skin. It all meant so much pain before death.

  Instead of running, Fenström fumbled in the pocket of his overalls for something. It wasn’t a gun. Not in a place like this. Not when he felt safe. People were never prepared for death to walk into the four friendly walls where they spent the majority of their lives. That was just the way of things. Death was always a stranger. Fenström produced a cell phone, but in his panic, he dropped it to the floor.

  The screen shattered on impact.

  Tostig could have kicked it away from him but there was no need. Instead, he said, “Go ahead, pick it up, make a call. They won’t reach you in time.”

  He splashed the gas to the left of Fenström, in an arc, and to the right. The man didn’t move. He stared down at the stains on the concrete, the stench of gasoline permeating the air. “You can’t...”

  “But I just did,” Tostig said, emptying the can over the pyrotechnics expert’s overalls, getting it in his face and hair, before he tossed the canister into one of the bins marked Explosive Material.

  “Look...I get it. No money. I won’t say anything. My lips are sealed. Mr. Thorssen can trust me. It was a joke, okay? A joke. Not a very good one. I didn’t mean anything by it. You called my bluff. He knows me. I’d never take his money. You can let him know that I’ve got the message. Received and understood. I can call him now.” And thinking it would save his life, Nils Fenström dropped to his knees and scrambled about on the floor trying to pick up the shattered phone. Fear made his hands shake so badly he couldn’t hold on to the bits of phone.

  Tostig took a step back toward the open door.

  “I’ll pass him the message. Maybe he’ll forgive you.”

  “Yes. Yes. I know he will. He’s a good man, he’ll get the joke.”

  “I’m sure he’ll laugh when I tell him the punch line,” Tostig said. He reached inside his pocket for a book of matches, tore one off the strip and struck it. He used the match to set light to the rest of the box, and as the matches caught fire there was a burst of flame. “Catch.” He tossed the box toward Fenström, who scrambled backward, trying to get away.

  It didn’t matter. The box landed in a puddle of gasoline at Fenström’s feet, caught on fire and spread to engulf the man. Fenström tried to beat the flames out with his bare hands, screaming, twisting, then dropping to his knees as the flames raged higher.

  Tostig watched the panic transform into certainty in the man’s eyes as his body began shutting down to hide from the pain.

  Tostig turned his back and walked away, shutting the heavy door behind him. He went toward his car with the echo of death still ringing in his ears.

  He slammed the car door, putting it into reverse as the first ear-shattering explosion ripped through the warehouse.

  Watching the flames rise, he hit redial on his phone.

  It rang once.

  “It’s done,” Tostig declared.

  Before Thorssen could ask how, the scream of buckling metal and the roar of gunpowder gave him the answer to every question he never wanted to ask.

  Tostig could see the cows stampede to the chaos of exploding fireworks.

  He hung up on his employer, and put the radio on. The DJ had a sense of humor: Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” was followed by The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” The assassin found himself singi
ng along as he drove away, fire in the sky behind him.

  20

  Given how things were playing out, Annja was glad that she’d put Johan on the train rather than handing him the car keys. She was hoping there’d be an element of safety in numbers. Even though she knew she was the object of the goons’ affection, she couldn’t be sure he was safe. She didn’t like that uncertainty. She hadn’t heard back from Roux, either, which worried her. Still, she couldn’t help her overactive imagination.

  She stared at every face as people went by her, just in case she recognized one of them from Johan’s footage. It was exhausting. She knew that if she kept it up she’d drive herself crazy, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Una Mortensen held her hand as they walked to the police station.

  The visit proved less stressful than she had anticipated.

  Annja caught a glimpse of the young officer who’d been at the scene and had tried to keep her away from the burning car. He showed no sign of noticing her. A wry half smile crossed her lips; the joys of not really being famous.

  A female officer was sent down to collect them from reception.

  She was as compassionate as it was possible to be in such circumstances, reassuring Una, modulating her tone, keeping it emotionless, offering no extra commentary as she led them to a quiet room and sat with them. The sight of the silver medallion, almost melted from the blistering heat of the burning car, and the chain that had fused into a lump of coil offered a grim reminder of what had happened to her son’s body.

  “Can I hold it?” Una asked. She didn’t reach for it. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, and leaned forward, unable to take her eyes from the ruined chain.

  “Are you sure?” the policewoman said, but even as she did, she reached for the evidence bag and broke the seal, emptying the chain and medallion into Una’s cupped hands.

  “I gave it to him when he went away on his first dig.” She said the words like some half-remembered prayer. The medallion, Annja realized, was of Saint Christopher, obviously meant to keep her son safe when he was out of her sight. The fused chain was a very vivid reminder that it had failed him. Una Mortensen held it tight in her fist. Annja knew the old woman never wanted to let it go. There were certain things she had in her own life that made her feel like that, relics from her time growing up with the nuns in the orphanage.

  The tears came again.

  “Can she keep this?” Annja asked, reasonably sure that the officer would agree with the request. It wasn’t about preserving a chain of evidence. Lars Mortensen’s murderer would never be made to stand up in court.

  “I’d like to go to my hotel,” Una said.

  “Of course,” the policewoman said. Annja didn’t know who she was answering.

  “It’s not far from here,” Una said. “I think I’d like to be on my own.”

  Annja didn’t want to leave her, but knew how important solitude was to the grieving process. The necklace had made it real for her. It didn’t matter that she’d known for twenty-four hours. This visit stole the last fragment of hope she’d been able to cling on to. Because right up until that moment, holding the twisted silver in her hand, she’d been able to convince herself it might—just might—be someone else’s body in the wreckage. Someone else’s son.

  The old woman stood, shook her hand and left them. She didn’t relinquish her hold on the necklace, and the policewoman didn’t try and stop her from taking it, so that was her answer.

  “I’ll call you when I’d like to go out to the site,” Una said.

  “I’ll pick you up at the hotel, just let me know,” Annja reassured her. As eager as she was to check out the laptop, she’d just have to occupy herself until the woman was ready. A promise was a promise.

  Annja was watching Una’s receding back when she heard the distant rumble of thunder—only it wasn’t thunder. Thunder didn’t sound like that. She knew that sound. An explosion. A massive explosion. The sound dampened as it reached them through the concrete of the station house, but still unmistakable.

  She ran to the nearest window. In the distance, above the rooftops, Annja saw the beginnings of a cloud of black smoke pluming up toward the sun.

  It took less than two minutes from the crack of thunder resolving until she heard the first siren of emergency vehicles headed in that direction.

  Annja’s first instinct was to help, but it wasn’t her place to. The firemen and paramedics knew what they were doing. She would have just added to the confusion by chasing the explosion.

  She had a story to focus on.

  She had a man intent on making sure she didn’t tell it.

  Annja needed to think. There was still plenty she hadn’t managed to puzzle through. She also needed a decent breakfast—or lunch as it was quickly becoming—so she left the station house and crossed the street to a small deli, picking up an olive and feta focaccia and yogurt drink to take back to her room. She wanted to run through Johan’s footage one more time. She didn’t think she’d missed anything. But every time she watched it served to cement the faces in her subconscious, and who was to know how important that would prove in the long run? And the big man’s presence masquerading as a paramedic proved it wasn’t all about the main people in the shot. It was the people in the background she wanted to look at. The ones who didn’t take up a lot of space on the screen. The ones who didn’t want to be seen.

  The maid had done up her room nicely. There was a basket overflowing with fruit on the desk, and a note from the manager hoping she’d enjoy the rest of her stay. The room felt clean and new again in that way only hotel rooms can. If walls could talk, these ones would have more than just illicit liaisons, or happy vacation chatter. They’d have death and violence to whisper about, too.

  Annja knew the big man would be back to try and finish what he’d started. Next time she was going to be ready for him, assuming she didn’t find him first.

  She turned the television set on as she entered the room. After she changed channels away from the hotel menu the first words out of the speaker were about the explosion. She couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but she didn’t need to understand. A photograph of a man flashed up on the screen, a thin, rat-faced man with a patch of scar tissue on one side of his face. She didn’t know if he was the suspect or victim so she started up the laptop Johan had left with her, and cued up the footage he’d downloaded.

  She watched the frames pass again from the start of the rally.

  Before she had concentrated on the explosion and its aftermath, but this time she looked more closely at the minutia of what Johan had recorded, especially the shots of people milling around outside as they had arrived.

  Johan had filmed hours’ worth of material for what might have been thirty seconds in the actual segment, far beyond what he’d need. It went beyond planning and into an obsessive compulsive need not to miss anything that might be remotely important. It was what made him a good go-to guy for Micke, no doubt. He knew he could trust the man not to screw up and miss the good stuff.

  As she slowly went through it all again, she spotted a couple of faces she was sure she’d seen at the ground breaking. Of course, that should come as no real surprise. These were Thorssen’s disciples after all, it was only natural some would follow him around like little lost dogs. But then she came across another face that stood out for all the wrong reasons.

  At first Johan had caught no more than a fleeting glimpse of the guy, just enough for him to look vaguely familiar. However, there was a second shot where he turned his head to reveal the scar tissue on the side of his face. There was no mistaking it was the same man who had been up on the television screen a moment before.

  Well, now, isn’t that interesting, Annja thought, putting the pieces together. She waited for the news to put up some footage of Thorssen’s rally, which they would have done if they were linking the man to it as the bomber behind both. When it didn’t come she was convinced she was looking at another victim. And
even as she thought it, she realized she’d seen the guy, too, arguing with Thorssen’s security man before he was thrown out.

  Curiouser and curiouser. She shifted her attention back to the frozen frame on the laptop screen and the scarred man.

  She looked at the digital clock over by the bed, annoyed that Roux still hadn’t been in touch.

  There was one person she could think of to call.

  “Annja!” Micke Rehnfeldt sounded pleased to hear from her at least. That was something, considering she’d skipped out early last night. Maybe he hadn’t harbored hopes about how the evening would end, after all. “I’d begun to suspect you’d slope off without saying goodbye!”

  “I’m sorry about yesterday. Chalk it up to a bad day. Maybe if you’re unlucky we’ll get the chance to do it again before I have to head back home.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  It wasn’t hard to hear the smile in his voice, so maybe he was still thinking of them having that coffee, after all. Flirtation was fun and harmless most of the time, but there was a fine line, and as much fun as it was to be flattered, there was something a little uncomfortable about using her sexuality to get what she wanted. She wondered if Micke felt the same way; after all, she doubted many women would have kicked him out of bed in the morning. Did he feel a pang of guilt when it came to using his two-day stubble and deep, serious eyes to get what he wanted out of a conversation? Somehow she doubted it.

  “Have you seen the news?” Annja asked.

  “It’s running pretty much nonstop,” he answered. “What piece in particular?”

  “The fire.”

  “You mean the fireworks factory that just went up in smoke?”

  “Fireworks factory?” That explained the ferocity of the explosion.

  “Well, not just fireworks. There’s a guy that does explosions and special effects for Swedish films, all the pyrotechnics stuff. Nils Fenström. He’s good. Really good, actually. Very much the go-to guy for anything explosive. We’ve worked together a bunch of times, last time was a battlefield reenactment. The factory was his place. He’s pretty much a one-man band.” He broke off for a moment, then finished, “His car was outside. The firemen haven’t been able to enter the place yet. If he was in there...” This time he trailed off and didn’t say anything for an uncomfortably long time.