Gieger
Page 40
‘Think about Leo and Sixten,’ Agneta said in a low voice that Breuer wouldn’t hear. ‘You’re their mother.’
Lotta stopped. She looked as if she was performing a mathematical calculation in her head, rather than thinking about her sons.
The flames from the garden shed lit up the scene with a hot, flickering yellow glare that was spreading across the lawn and the shrubbery.
Agneta looked at her daughter. Leo and Sixten’s mother.
She had chosen a struggle that had died long ago ahead of her own children and her sister’s. A brutal and belated revenge for the fall of an evil empire, instead of an untarnished future for her sons. For Agneta’s grandchildren.
‘The codes!’ Breuer cried out, and Lotta grabbed the bar again.
Agneta’s pleading had been in vain.
Somewhere, someone was entering the codes into a firing system that would soon kill tens of thousands of Europeans, and kill hundreds of thousands in the long run.
It would sink the entire EU.
It would change the balance of power in the world forever.
It would ensure the victory of the repressive powers.
The same kind of system that had taken Lidiya’s father from her was now going to take Agneta’s grandchildren away from her.
Was everything she had done in vain? All those years of readiness. All the preparations and all the work when the call had arrived. All the killing afterwards. Was it all for nothing?
Was she truly prepared to allow Breuer to win Lotta over to her side? If the cost was Agneta’s family and the grandchildren’s childhood?
No.
She’d managed to persuade Breuer that she was still committed to her mission. She had to exploit that. And there wasn’t much time.
As quietly as she could, she pulled out her Cold Steel knife and kept it concealed behind her thigh as she approached Breuer.
At the moment the white-haired woman turned around, Agneta aimed the tip of the knife at her midriff and stabbed. The intention was to go deep and then damage as much as possible, but Breuer’s reactions were quick despite her age, and she twisted out of the way.
‘No!’ Lotta cried out when she realised what was happening.
The knife penetrated into the German’s side, but didn’t incapacitate her.
Breuer’s hand automatically went to the wound, making her drop her automatic weapon. She looked around and ran towards the house with the white facade. Agneta grabbed the MP5 and chased after her. Lotta stood irresolutely where she was by the paving slabs for a moment, then she hurried after the other two.
‘Mum!’ she shouted, both pleading and reproachful.
Breuer turned the corner of the house and Agneta raised her weapon, thinking the German would be easy prey in the narrow space to the side of the building.
But Breuer came to a sudden halt, pressed herself against the wall and pulled out her pistol. When Agneta rounded the corner, Breuer put two rapid shots in her chest and one in her head.
She fell to the ground just as Lotta caught up with the others. Dumbstruck, the daughter witnessed her mother’s death throes.
Agneta fumbled in her pocket for the object she’d been carrying – the secret weapon that would win the battle for her.
When Breuer saw that she was moving, she once again raised her weapon.
With her final ounce of strength, Agneta managed to pull out what she had been carrying ever since the call for Geiger had arrived, and she’d been forced to resume life as Desirée.
Breuer was about to squeeze the trigger, but stopped herself when she saw what Agneta was holding.
A yellow rag doll in the shape of a banana with a red mouth.
Agneta’s eyes closed and the doll fell out of her hand.
Once Breuer had confirmed that her opponent was out of action, she turned to Lotta.
‘The codes.’
Lotta was immobile, her eyes shifting from Agneta to Breuer, as if she was trying to process the course of events. But then she began to head back towards the garden path. After just a few steps, Breuer stopped her with a movement of her hand and silenced her with a finger to her lips.
They listened.
And they heard a sound from the garden.
Rapid footsteps heading down towards the water.
Breuer immediately hurried towards the sound.
For Lotta, it took a second to make the same decision.
Sara was making her way along the jetty when she heard steps behind her. Running as quickly as she could, she reached the edge and dropped the heavy paving slab.
The splash when the slab hit the water was like a gunshot. She’d hoped to sink it without Breuer and Lotta noticing anything, praying that it would disappear without trace.
She had at least managed to shift a second slab to one side, so that Breuer wouldn’t know which order the final slabs had been in, even if Sara had only had time to sink one of them.
Breuer raised her hand as she ran. It was as if she was pointing at her, and Sara collapsed before she registered the sound of the subdued gunshot. She didn’t feel the pain from the bullet that had entered her body.
She spun round and landed on her back. She saw Breuer come onto the jetty, her pistol still raised.
The shot had hit her shoulder.
It was a good hit, given that the shot had been taken with a pistol at such a long distance and while running. It hadn’t started to hurt yet, but the injury had been a shock to her entire system.
Sara was lying on the jetty, frustrated that she couldn’t think clearly. She shut her eyes, and when she opened them again Breuer was standing in front of her. Above her.
‘She threw one in the water,’ she said to Lotta, who appeared behind her.
‘I’ll retrieve it,’ said Lotta, jumping into the water.
The sound of the splash when Lotta jumped in reminded Sara of throwing sandwiches in their youth. She’d been so fortunate to have the opportunity to apologise to Jane, she thought to herself. It was just a shame that they wouldn’t get to talk more about the life they’d shared. Soon it would all be over. Unless she thought of something very quickly.
Lotta spent a long time searching in the water, diving at different points and feeling her way around. Then she had to struggle to grasp the heavy slab and heave it up onto the jetty.
‘What order were they in?’
‘No idea,’ Lotta replied, and Breuer looked at Sara.
‘What order?’
When Sara didn’t reply, Breuer fired a shot right beside her. The sound made her eardrums ring.
She knew she was going to die if she stayed lying on the jetty. There was only one direction in which she could escape.
She pointed at the slab, as if she was going to tell them. And that made Breuer look at it on reflex.
Sara quickly rolled over the edge and into the water.
The dark, warm water.
It was the first time she’d swum off the jetty, she thought to herself as she sank to the bottom. Up on the jetty, Breuer emptied the magazine into the water, taking aim at the air bubbles.
When she was out of bullets and there were no more bubbles rising to the surface, she turned to Lotta.
‘Are you sure you don’t know the order?’
Lotta nodded, and Breuer thought the situation over.
Time was in short supply, and the obstacle was unexpected. But if she sent nothing at all, then defeat was a certainty.
She pulled out her mobile and took a photograph of the recovered slab. Then she went back to the garden path with Lotta in her wake. She photographed the other slabs in order and sent the photos.
The apocalypse was ever closer.
Revenge.
Punishment.
Finally, there remained just the two slabs that Sara had moved.
A 50–50 chance.
She chose one at random and began to enter the code into the message.
Behind her, the fire – spreading towards the house
via trees and bushes – formed a dramatic backdrop.
The garden shed was completely in flames and almost gone. The fire had new targets. It always had to move on.
The flames were licking at the facade of the white house, and from a distance sirens were audible. It would soon be over.
‘They’re coming,’ said Breuer.
Lotta looked towards the sound, and when she turned around Breuer was aiming her pistol at her.
‘I can help you,’ Lotta said, panic in her voice. ‘I’ll be a member of the government.’
‘I don’t need any help,’ the German said. ‘I’m retired.’
‘But surely this is just the beginning?’ said Lotta. ‘We’re going to rebuild the world!’
‘No,’ said Breuer. ‘This isn’t the beginning, it’s the end. Nothing personal.’
Then she smiled and squeezed the trigger.
At the same moment, Breuer’s arm flew up in the air so that the shot went into the sky.
And at the same time, her head exploded.
Dark red liquid splashed everywhere for metres around her. Onto the lawn, the paving and Lotta.
When Breuer’s body fell to the ground, Sara was standing behind her.
Out of breath and drenched from her swim. With an extremely expensive shotgun from Fabbri in her hands.
One that had been held by King Carl Gustav himself.
‘I stopped by C.M.’s,’ she said.
And the flashing blue lights of half a dozen patrol cars illuminated the garden and the old childhood friends.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank my publisher Jonas Axelsson, my editor Annie Murphy and my agent Sofie Voller. Without their wisdom and superpowers, this book would not have been possible.
About the Author
Gustaf Skördeman was born in 1965 in Sweden and is a screenwriter, director and producer. Geiger is his literary debut.
First published in the UK in 2021 by Zaffre
This ebook edition published in 2021 by
ZAFFRE
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Copyright © Gustaf Skördeman, 2021
Cover design by Nick Stearn
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
The moral right of Gustaf Skördeman to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-83877-433-2
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-83877-368-7
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