‘Oh?’ Gabriella said. ‘And what is that?’
Klara shook her head.
‘Well hell, Bosse,’ she said and turned to Gabriella. ‘That there is Bosse’s finest vintage. Moonshine from his very own machine, I’d guess?’
‘That’s right!’ Bosse said. ‘An island specialty. There’s no better liquor than this here liquid gold. It’s Christmas! You’ll need something tasty, right?’
He looked at his wristwatch.
‘All right, you’ve got what ya’ need. I’ll come back tomorrow, weather permittin’. But at the moment I’ve got things to attend to.’
‘Get going then,’ Klara said, suddenly relieved to be alone with Gabriella. ‘We’ll be fine.’
She went over to Bosse and gave him a hug.
‘Thanks for everything,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve saved my life again.’
Bosse looked embarrassed and shrugged.
‘Oh, come now. I only wish I could do more.’
‘You’ve done enough,’ Klara said.
Bosse went to the door and stopped with his hand on the doorknob.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Just in case. I brought your gun.’
He pointed toward the stove, where Klara’s shotgun was lying next to a few boxes of cartridges.
Klara went over and patted him on the cheek.
‘That was nice,’ she said. ‘But if I end up needing it, it will probably already be too late.’
60
December 23, 2013
Arkösund, Sweden
From where George was sitting, on the floor with his back against the locked door, he could hear the old house creak and complain about the winter storm like a tired old man. The headset had been silent since he’d put it on. Someone had undoubtedly been speaking in it when he took it out of the closet, but since then it hadn’t made a peep. George had checked the battery and volume several times, but everything seemed to be in order. He could only hope that the last orders he’d heard hadn’t been instructions to change frequency.
But maybe it didn’t matter. He still didn’t know what he’d do with any information that he managed to get a hold of. He was a prisoner. And a cowardly prisoner too. Apparently he lacked both moral courage and any real survival instinct. How else to explain being drawn deeper and deeper into this mess without doing anything about it, neither trying to escape nor to stop what was about to happen to Klara? He was in so deep that he couldn’t even figure out how to get out of this room. Again, he buried his face in his hands and let out a long moan.
Then he heard Reiper’s voice in his ear, so clearly that he jumped and, with his heart racing, started to turn around before realizing the neutral, unsettling voice was coming from the radio.
‘Beta one to alpha one,’ Reiper said.
It took a second before Kirsten’s voice came on.
‘Come in. Alpha one here, over.’
‘Switch to channel five. Copy, over.’
‘Copy that. Switching to channel five, over.’
‘Roger, see you there, over and out.’
‘Over and out.’
George fumbled with the radio. Channel five, channel five, channel five. He found a control labeled channels. A few keystrokes later, the radio display indicated he was on channel five. It didn’t take long before Reiper’s voice came on again.
‘Beta one to alpha one.’
Barely a second later, Kirsten’s voice sounded through the earpiece.
‘Alpha one here, over.’
‘We’re in the shelter of an island at the following coordinates.’
Reiper rattled off a long sequence of digits. George stood up and ran over to Josh’s bedside table. Josh did Sudoku before going to sleep; there should be a pen next to his bed.
‘I repeat,’ Reiper said and stated the coordinates once again.
George repeated the numbers aloud to himself until he finally found a promotional pen from Merchant & Taylor. He raised his eyebrows. Where the hell had Josh gotten a hold of that? He couldn’t recall having any with him. Whatever. Fully focused, he managed to scribble the long combination of numbers on a page of Josh’s half-finished Sudoku.
‘I repeat,’ Kirsten said and read out the digits again.
George checked them against his row and noted with satisfaction that he had gotten them all right.
‘Roger that,’ Reiper said. ‘The target is installed at the following coordinates.’
A new series of numbers followed and was confirmed. George also copied them at the bottom of the Sudoku page.
‘We’ll wait until dark and then we launch an operation to identify the target. Once we have full identification, we’ll continue with the original plan.’
‘Roger that, over.’
‘Everything under control on your end? Over.’
‘Everything according to plan, over.’
‘Good, over and out.’
‘Over and out.’
George sat down on the bed again. He looked at the numbers he’d written down. So now he knew where Reiper was. He knew where the target, Klara, with 70 per cent probability, was. So what? As soon as darkness fell Reiper’s people would identify her. And then kill her. And probably also her friend who had evidently been with her on the boat in Arkösund. And here he sat, locked in a drafty bedroom, most likely awaiting his own execution.
This time he didn’t bury his face in his hands as hopelessness streamed over him. Instead he put the radio and headset back into the charger in the closet where he found them. Then he went up to the locked door that led out to the landing. He took a deep breath. It was time to take control of the situation.
‘Kirsten!’ he shouted as loud as he could while pounding on the door. ‘Kirsten! I need to go to the bathroom! Come on! Open up!’
It took a minute before George heard the stairs creak, and he stopped pounding on the door. He turned and looked out the window at the gray lawn, the gray, sprawling apple trees. Behind them he sensed the waves beating against the smooth rocks. It was getting dark already. He glanced at his Breitling watch. It was almost three o’clock. With his heart pounding in his chest he shouted again.
‘Kirsten, what the hell, I really need to pee!’
‘Calm down.’ Kirsten’s voice came from the floor below.
A few seconds more, then the sound of a key in the lock.
‘I want you to go and sit on your bed before I unlock this,’ Kirsten said through the thin wood. ‘So, step away from the door.’
George groaned.
‘Come on! What the hell do you think I’m going to do? Attack you?’
A mixture of disappointment and relief washed over him as he moved away from the door to his bed. His first idea had been to pounce on her as soon as she opened the door. Surprise her, wrestle her down to the floor, and take the gun away from her before she knew what was happening. It wasn’t a particularly well thought out plan, and he wouldn’t have had a chance. She was probably both stronger and smarter than he was. In addition, she most certainly fought dirty. It was just as well that the possibility had been precluded right away.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sitting on the bed.’
The key turned in the lock, and Kirsten stood in the doorway. She looked focused, her cheekbones were even more prominent than usual, her mouth set in a thin line.
‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ she said. ‘And put these on.’
She threw a pair of matte black handcuffs next to him on the unmade bed. She didn’t move from the doorway.
‘Seriously!’ George said. ‘Handcuffs? Are you serious? Isn’t it enough that you’ve imprisoned me? Don’t you even remember that this started out with you as my client?’
‘Stop fucking around,’ interrupted Kirsten. ‘Just put those on. And be grateful that I’m breaking protocol. Because the rules state you should have a hood and earmuffs on when you’re out of the area of confinement. So you can consider this a favor.’
‘Rules?’ mutter
ed George. ‘What fucking rules? When did this turn into Guantánamo?’
Kirsten didn’t answer, just gestured to George to hurry up. He put on the handcuffs with a sigh. They closed silently and alarmingly tight around his wrists.
‘After you,’ Kirsten said. ‘You know where the toilet is. I’m a few steps behind you. I’m sorry, George. I really don’t think you’re going to do something stupid, but we have rules for how we do things around here.’
George nodded mutely and took a tentative step down the stairs. His head was spinning. Maybe this was his only chance. Why had he been so impulsive? Why didn’t he have a plan? Why was he such a fucking idiot?
There was a guest bathroom in the hall at the foot of the stairs. That’s where Kirsten was leading him. Maybe he could convince her to let him sit in the living room for a while? To avoid the boredom of the bedroom? Once there, he could think about what to do. He took each step carefully, slowly, trying to win time. The staircase spiraled downward.
It was when he finally saw down to the entrance that his opportunity appeared, his only tiny, tiny chance. He suddenly felt giddy from both possibility and fear. On the windowsill at the foot of the stairs, there was a black iPhone charging. From her position three steps behind George, Kirsten hadn’t seen it yet.
In the course of a second he decided to bet it all on this one card. With a scream he pretended to stumble, two quick steps down in a pretense of regaining his balance, then he threw himself forward, twisting so that he fell sideways down the last few steps.
‘Aaaaaaah,’ he cried.
He felt the worn wood of the stairs on his hip bone. His shoulder hit the parquet floor in the hall. But the only thing he saw was the phone and the charger. He managed to twist and stretch his arms toward the window as he landed. He grabbed the cord of the charger between his fingers and yanked as hard as he could. The phone was pulled down from the windowsill and landed on the floor. George’s head hit the heater and he felt something wet and sticky dripping into his eyes. He must have split an eyebrow. Through a reddish haze, he saw the phone in front of him on the floor, still spinning after the fall. He stretched his bound hands out for it and grabbed hold of its cold, smooth surface.
‘What the hell!’ he heard Kirsten hiss behind him.
Her feet thudded down the stairs. George leaned forward, one shoulder to the floor, and, using both his hands, he pressed the phone inside his waistband, down into those damn tighty-whities he’d gotten from Josh. For the first time since he got them, he was grateful they weren’t boxers. The phone would stay put in his underwear. He did his best to pull down the huge, borrowed sweatshirt to conceal his crotch.
Kirsten was behind him. I’m going to die, thought George. This is when I die.
‘What happened?’ she said with something like genuine concern in her voice.
‘I stumbled,’ George wheezed. ‘And these fucking handcuffs didn’t help.’
Kirsten crouched down beside him and George rolled onto his back with his hands over his crotch.
‘You’re bleeding,’ Kirsten said. ‘You’ve split an eyebrow. Nothing serious. But you’ll have to tape it. Come on, go into the bathroom and fix yourself up.’
George got up on his knees. His whole body aching, his eyebrow pounding. Was it possible? Was it really possible that she hadn’t seen the phone? He hardly dared to breathe but still managed a small smile.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Seriously, I didn’t mean to fall and hurt myself.’
‘Yeah, good thing we didn’t put you in a hood, you would have fallen right through the window,’ she said drily. ‘Get up.’
George stood up cautiously. He pinched the bleeding wound and started walking toward the bathroom.
The phone was cold and hard against his genitals. Was this what a last chance felt like?
61
December 23, 2013
Stockholm and Arkösund, Sweden
It’s the same airport, but a different time. Wood and glass and Starbucks. A confidence that didn’t exist here twenty-five years ago. welcome to the capital of scandinavia. Smiling people. It doesn’t resemble a funeral anymore. But the darkness is the same, as I maneuver my rented Volvo out onto the highway with jet lag breathing down my neck. Even the car design has changed. They are no longer coffins, more like water, with their flowing lines and tinted glass. Here’s where I’ll start to retrace my own footsteps and continue on where they end.
I drive over the same asphalt, through the same dense web of forest, over the same bridges and wet fields. The same road where everything is exactly as I remember it, and the only thing new is me. This is where I’ll suffer the consequences of my actions. This is where I’ll take hold of the story and change its course.
It’s been twenty-five years since I drove this road that one time and yet I remember it, never once glancing at the car’s GPS. Snow hangs in the air when I stop and buy coffee to keep from falling asleep. Microscopic crystals glitter weightlessly in the light from the shell select sign. Hard, compact steam billows out of my mouth. The cinnamon buns are bigger and sweeter. The coffee is no longer watery, but bitter and mixed with steamed milk. I throw half of it into a modern-looking trash can, covered with technical and complicated instructions for recycling, and continue driving down the almost deserted, black road. It’s difficult to stay within the speed limit. Impatience, fear, lack of time. They’re all hunting me like an outlaw. All I can think is that I regret everything. That maybe there’s nothing I don’t regret.
Somewhere near Norrköping I turn off the highway, onto small winding roads, and am engulfed in a darkness so intense that I have to slow down, a darkness so thick that it barely lets the light of the headlights through. Every single car I meet is an explosion that shakes my world for a moment until it passes. It shouldn’t surprise me, I’ve seen it before. But my history is false, full of constructions and justifications. Not even my memory of the dark matches reality.
This time I turn off before Arkösund. I avoid the obvious. I’m not sure how much my enemies know. The forest has thinned out and has been replaced by rocks and gnarled bushes. The black windows of empty summerhouses gleam in the headlights. The wind sings against the car and the windshield wipers skid in the rain or watery snow. If the clock on the instrument panel didn’t prove that it was late afternoon, I’d think it was the middle of the night. The asphalt turns into gravel, and finally the road ends at a dock where I see a single, open boat bouncing against its fenders in the wind.
I slow down and stop the car down by the dry reeds. Pull up the hood on my Gore-Tex jacket and step out into the storm. I lean over the trunk of the Volvo and pull open the sluggish zipper of the rubber duffel bag, which was already in the car when I picked it up. Double-check the Swiss automatic rifle that lacks both model name and serial number. Double-check the magazines. When I’m satisfied, I pull out a lined, waterproof jumpsuit, hat, waterproof gloves, the GPS with nautical charts already loaded and the route already plotted.
The small rubber boat is just where I was told it would be. Hidden in the bushes ten feet from the dock. Susan has worked fast. Prepared well.
I place my pack in the boat and attach the GPS to the control in front of me. Pull the light boat down to the edge of the water where I’m able to step in without getting wet. The snow flurries into my eyes. The wind is raging across the bay. Even this far in, the waves are white in the night. Farther out it will only get worse.
I look at the electronic chart and make adjustments so my route will be leeward and avoid the open water. It takes me a few tries to get into the rubber boat, which is rocking wildly in the wind. I take off my gloves and put my hands inside my jacket. My frozen fingers find their way to the zipper of the inside pocket. I open it and feel the locket’s aging silver against my fingers. For a moment I’m tempted to take it out so I can see you again. It’s been so long since I saw you. But it’s too dark, too windy. I can’t afford to lose it. My key, my shibboleth. Instead I close the jac
ket and push off from the beach. The sea is just as dark as everything else. The red route on the GPS’s nautical chart shines its lonely light in the rain, in the snow, in the wind.
62
December 23, 2013
Sankt Anna’s Outer Archipelago, Sweden
When Klara finally woke up, it was already dark. She sat up on the thin mattress and looked around in the soft, warm light from the stove’s smoldering fire, for a moment unsure of where she was. The wind shook the house, twisting around and through it, and came hissing, headlong over the metal roof and past the worn joints. Between the gusts, she heard the waves beating over the rocks just twenty yards from the house. Klara rubbed her eyes, remembering where she was.
How long had she been sleeping anyway? As soon as Bosse had left, an immense weariness had enveloped her as she felt the security of the sea and surrounding islands. Bosse and Gabriella. Gabriella? Klara crept shivering out of the sheets and over to the edge of the loft. Gabriella lay on her back on the couch, sleeping in front of the stove with a worn, red plaid blanket thrown over her legs. There was something peaceful, something so mundane and comforting about that scene.
‘Gabriella?’ Klara said gently. ‘Are you asleep?’
Gabriella grunted, turned onto her side, and blinked her eyes.
‘It seems so,’ she said, shivering, and pulled the blanket over herself. ‘Ugh, it’s so cold. What time is it?’
Klara turned her wrist and took a look at her watch.
‘Nearly eight,’ she said. ‘Oh my God, how long have I been asleep? Six hours?’
‘Well, you zonked out pretty quickly,’ said Gabriella. She paused, and seemed to be listening for something.
‘What a wind!’ she said.
‘Yes, Bosse wasn’t exaggerating when he said it was blowing in.’
Klara suddenly realized she was extremely hungry. The last thing she’d eaten was a dry ham sandwich at a gas station on the way down from Stockholm. She found her jacket and her jeans on the floor, and pulled them on before making her way over to the steps that led down to the cabin’s only room.
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