To the Top of the Mountain

by Arne Dahl

  ‘Back to Kumla,’ Hultin said, remaining completely neutral.

  Söderstedt changed tracks without much of a problem.

  ‘Niklas Lindberg and Sven Joakim Bergwall were both part of this Nazi clique. Lindberg might’ve been the leader. Otherwise, we’ve scraped together about twenty or so names. Eight of them are out now. Some of the other criminals might be part of this eight, but at the moment we can’t say for sure. As many as three of the men released have AB negative blood: Christer Gullbrandsen, Dan Andersson and – no joke – Ricky Martin.

  ‘On the other hand, we’ve got a rookie like Eskil Carlstedt, a used-car salesman, in their gang. Linking this too closely to the Kumla Bunker is probably a mistake. The question is whether we’re right to link it to these Nazis at all. We’ll see. We spoke to several members of this clique, the ones that’re still inside. Viggo’s laconic description fits well there: they’re all keeping their mouths shut. Our ex-Yugoslav friends are keeping their mouths even tighter shut. No one is saying a word. They pretend they don’t understand a single word of Swedish. Still, they listened carefully to our account of Lordan Vukotic’s torture. And Göran Andersson didn’t have much else to say. He did tell us quite a lot of interesting things about how Fra Angelico played with different shades of blue, though.’

  ‘What else?’ said Hultin.

  ‘I spoke with Eskil Carlstedt’s workmates at Kindwall’s Ford garage in Hammarby harbour,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘With his old mother out in Bromma, too. A picture of a man with quite extreme opinions when it comes to racial issues is emerging, so we can keep that Nazi connection for the time being. Violent tendencies aren’t lacking, either. His workmates described a pretty scary paintball game, the start to some company party, where Carlstedt gave two of them a beating under the cover of darkness. He’d gone berserk. Actually, no one there really seemed to like him at all. A couple of them said he was a strange character, impossible to get to know. But on the other hand, he sold cars better than anyone else. Easily the best. It was this car-seller trait that Sven Joakim Bergvall trusted when he let Carlstedt stay behind in Kvarnen. And now both of them are dead. All that trust was in vain.

  ‘We’ve also tried to recall the witnesses from Kvarnen to get some better descriptions of this so-called “policeman” who was sitting with Gang One. News of his existence came so late that we didn’t have time to ask earlier. Most of the witnesses had left the city for Midsummer, and the ones who’d stayed behind didn’t have anything useful to add. So we don’t have any description of the “policeman”. The same’s generally true of Gang Two. Everyone remembers Carlstedt clearly, the broad one with the shaved head and moustache. A couple thought that they recognised Bergwall when we showed them his photo. Someone mentioned a man with a purple face. Otherwise, nothing. The man with the earphones was neither Carlstedt nor Bergwall, so we can assume this means that the technician in the group is still alive and well.’

  ‘Speaking of technicians, our own have gone through Eskil Carlstedt’s hard drive,’ said Hjelm, glancing down at yet another forensic report. ‘The problem is that it was empty. Completely empty, I mean. Which means it was new. The computer wasn’t new, but the hard drive was. As far as we can tell, it was replaced for our benefit. Which, again, tips the balance in favour of professionalism. The night before Carlstedt came and let himself be interviewed by us, the same night that they cobbled their story together, the hard drive seems to have been swapped. They realised we’d be making a visit. Scrapping the whole computer was too risky; there’s always the chance of someone finding a scrapped computer. So they swapped the hard drive so that they didn’t leave any evidence. That means there must’ve been something on the hard drive, in all probability of a racial character. Now we’ve got a swapped hard drive, a sophisticated listening device in Kvarnen, and two utterly subtle bombs. They don’t seem to be lacking technological competence.’

  ‘Can you commit a crime without technical competence nowadays?’ asked the technologically minded Chavez.

  ‘Meat cleavers and penises are still popular,’ said the less technologically minded Kerstin Holm. ‘The latter have worked especially well as instruments of crime for millennia.’

  There was a moment of silence. Everyone seemed to be thinking about their penis as a potential crime tool. Kerstin Holm smiled covertly.

  ‘I suppose that’s a kind of technique, too,’ Hultin said eventually.

  ‘Speaking of those two ingenious bombs,’ said Norlander, glancing briefly at Kerstin Holm’s notes. ‘In one of Svenhagen’s reports, I’ve finally managed to find some information on the bombs. It’s a case of highly explosive, highly concentrated liquid, like nitroglycerine but more effective and easier to handle. It’s detonated by electricity alone; not warmth, not impact, just that little microscopic trigger that sends a short, sharp burst of electricity through the liquid, causing it to explode. Works brilliantly with a remote detonator, as we’ve seen. It’s an explosive that hasn’t been used in Sweden before, but there are certain hints of something similar in the US. They’ve not found a name for it yet, though.’

  ‘In any case, we can probably assume that Niklas Lindberg’s stock isn’t empty,’ said Chavez. ‘Do you want to hear a bit more about him, by the way? I’ve devoted my life to him for the time being. Searched all the databases I could think of, interviewed a whole load of former friends and colleagues over the phone, even been down to Trollhättan to talk to his parents and ex-wife.

  ‘He was married for a while when he was still living there, even though he was mostly away on military exercises and in UN service in Cyprus. Just as his relationship was breaking down, he left the army and joined the Foreign Legion. Apparently you can still do that. His ex-wife is still called Lindberg, which might suggest that it wasn’t an acrimonious divorce. It didn’t sound that way, either. She got tired of him being away all the time, she had lovers, he had lovers among the nurses over in Cyprus. Popular with women in general. But let’s start from the beginning. Niklas Lindberg was born in January 1965, took the science route in high school in Trollhättan, leaving with good grades in 1983. Did his compulsory military service in a commando unit in 1985, went through that with top grades, started officer training in autumn 1986, was a cadet in Boden in 1988, an officer in Cyprus in 1990 and 1992, climbed up the ranks and had just become a major with the commandos in Arvidsjaur when he left in 1994. Twenty-nine-year-old major, pretty good, no?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hultin. ‘That’s great.’

  ‘A couple of friends from school talked about him as a fun-loving guy who it was generally going well for,’ Chavez continued. ‘A high-flyer. A golden boy, you could say. Loads of women. His friends saw the thing with the commandos as a way to . . . get good grades in his enlistment, too. He liked getting good grades. His friends didn’t take it seriously. There was nothing soldier-like about him. He doesn’t seem to have done his service with his eye on a regular officer’s career, either. And his childhood seems to have been a comfortable, small-town, middle-class one. His parents seem nice. A sweet couple, you could say. High-school teacher and occupational therapist. No racist tendencies, and believe me, I can normally get an instinctive feel for that. They were talking about a little tow-head who had always landed on his feet, always been happy, always taken care of those weaker than him. The pictures from his childhood didn’t suggest anything else. His parents really were immensely sad about his inexplicable transformation into a violent offender. A deep, internal sorrow. He stayed in Trollhättan even once he’d become an officer, married an old flame and seems to have been a nice enough guy. Smart, handsome, kind, or thereabouts. Then there seems to have been some kind of breakdown linked to his divorce five years ago. Spring 1994. A critical point.

  ‘I’ve been talking to two of his superiors from the commando unit in Arvidsjaur; no one understood why he quit. There were no complaints. From either side. He just quit and went straight into the Foreign Legion. Two weeks later. It must’ve been we
ll planned. But why? I haven’t managed to get in touch with any of his Foreign Legion colleagues, they’re a bit secretive after all, but I’ll keep working on it. He quit that after a year, in any case, went to Stockholm and took part in a failed bomb attempt against a Kurdish cultural centre. There’d been a party there, but the bomb went off when everyone had gone home. It turned out there was something wrong with the timer. The bomb was meant to go off right in the middle of the party, and it was powerful enough to kill a lot of people, a hell of a lot. It was generally assumed that Lindberg himself was behind the bomb, but they never managed to pin it on him. There was no doubt the day after, though, at a Kurdish demonstration in Solna Centrum, where he violently assaulted two Kurds. In the investigation, it transpired that he had good contacts with Nazi organisations in both Sweden and the US, and presumably elsewhere, too. So we can assume that his departure from the army had its roots in some kind of Nazi conversion.’

  ‘In that case, the Foreign Legion sounds like a really strange choice,’ said Hjelm. ‘Isn’t it a truly multicultural army?’

  ‘Maybe that’s what he discovered,’ said Chavez, shrugging. ‘But he had a year-long contract. All he wanted was to make war, for real. And maybe his racial hatred reached unexpected heights among all of those foreigners. Well, from my conversations with the police and lawyers involved, I got a picture of an unusually cold, violent man, with a great love of bombs. Acute lack of empathy, that’s what his own defence lawyer said off the record.’

  ‘He always wants to be best,’ said Kerstin Holm, thoughtful. ‘Could he really be challenging the man he views as best? Sweden’s smartest drug dealer, Rajko Nedic? Who’s also an unusually well-integrated foreigner.’

  ‘There’s probably only one who’s better assimilated,’ boasted Jorge Chavez. ‘Sweden’s best-educated policeman.’

  ‘Let’s not get cocky now,’ Hultin said neutrally. ‘Anyone else have anything?’

  ‘One strange thing which might not be that important,’ said Viggo Norlander, deep in the reports, one of which he waved in the air. ‘Forensics’ report from the crime scene in Sickla. The dead men, Bergwall and Carlstedt, they were wearing black balaclavas. The same brand. A whole load of black fibres from other, similar hats have been found there, too. But also some gold-coloured ones.’

  ‘Gold?’ an uncoordinated chorus exclaimed.

  Chavez smiled and said: ‘Aha. The golden one . . .’

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ Hultin asked, irritated.

  ‘Could it be possible that Niklas Lindberg marks his dominance over the others by wearing a golden balaclava?’ Chavez asked.

  There was a momentary pause in the Supreme Command Centre. Suddenly, they felt that they knew Niklas Lindberg much better.

  ‘Of course it could,’ Hultin nodded.

  After yet another pause, he continued.

  ‘How’re you getting on, Gunnar?’

  Gunnar Nyberg had been sitting in silence. He was torn. Was this his team? Or was it Sara Svenhagen, Ludvig Johnsson, Ragnar Hellberg and the others? He felt deeply and sincerely torn.

  ‘I’ve been switching between paedophile and Nazi sites online,’ he said, ‘and I haven’t been able to work out where I belong. I’m starting to get a feel for the extent of these secret networks, in any case. And for how they’ve grown massively since the Internet became commonplace. But I can’t find Lindberg online. Or Carlstedt, aside from as a seller at Kindwall’s. Bergwall’s name crops up on certain racist home pages. He seems to have been the group’s ideologue.’

  ‘So now they’re ideologically homeless,’ said Söderstedt.

  ‘But no less dangerous for it,’ said Hultin. ‘Let’s keep going as before. Don’t forget that there’s a little party tomorrow afternoon for the Police Olympics. They need all the support they can get. So, 16.00 in the Police Board’s assembly halls, Polhelmsgatan. You’re guests of honour. Waldemar Mörner hinted subtly that you’ve got orders to be there. Anyone missing will be kicked out, quote “arse first”.’

  ‘Good job his priorities are in order,’ said Paul Hjelm.

  24

  FOUR HUNDRED AND one. An inscription on a small plaque above a key, a hand shaking slightly. It had done the same several times already. It would probably stop shaking soon. It would just be a matter of routine.

  He had even found himself a little ritual.

  Four hundred and one, another one gone, he sang to himself, pushing the key into the lock and turning it.

  No. He didn’t turn it. It wouldn’t turn. It was the first time the key had even gone in. That’s a bit strange, he thought, taking a piece of paper from his pocket and marking it. Why had the key gone in? Was that a hint that the safe-deposit box was in another branch of Föreningssparbanken? Maybe. But it didn’t make a difference. He had to check them all anyway. Every single place on the list had to be checked off.

  Every place. Every bank. And the places were banks. And the banks were places.

  Postbanken, he thought, distracted, walking over to the branch of SE-bank on the other side of the road.

  Four hundred and one, another one gone.

  The woman was one of Systembolaget’s summer temps, and she was alone in the shop. Monday. A good day to start. Quiet. Sales of the number-one drink, for the most part. Bottles of Renat Brännvin vodka. But if any madmen came in asking for something like a French wine called Château Montpelliermontreusechargot, 1991 vintage, there wouldn’t be much she would be able to do. She was slightly anxious. The only customer was on their way out. Another came in. A handsome young man wearing a little hat, despite the summer heat. She felt a certain Château Montpelliermontreusechargot-risk. He didn’t look like a Renat Brännvin man in any case.

  No, he didn’t ask for the number-one drink. Not for Château Montpelliermontreusechargot, either. Instead, she got a pistol in her face.

  She emptied the tills at once and when the man left the shop, he was carrying six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-four kronor in a carrier bag.

  The woman was lying unconscious on the floor.

  Four hundred and one. Wasn’t that a darts game?

  No, that was 501. That belonged in a completely different story.

  She raised the key and sighed. She thought. She tried to work out the probability of this particular safe-deposit box being the right one. Tiny, she thought. Negligible, she thought.

  The key didn’t go in.

  Well, wasn’t that unexpected?

  She groaned and considered their method. Was this really the best way? How reliable was it?

  Yup. No more banks in Kinna.

  Next stop, Borås.

  There should be a couple of 401s there.

  But first, contact. It had worked well so far. It was like he was with her the whole time. The advantage of the Internet. But also its disadvantage.

  Virtual closeness.

  ‘Nothing?’ asked Niklas Lindberg. He was starting to get tired of asking the same question.

  Bullet shook his head.

  ‘Do we have any reason to assume that the thing hasn’t just died?’ Lindberg continued.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Bullet. ‘We’ve got to read it as a sign we should keep going north. The last contact was in Skillingaryd. It suggested we were going about the same speed. Then we sped up a bit. If they’d gone on to Helsingborg, we should’ve found a new signal somewhere along the way. The only thing I can think is that they turned off somewhere between Värnamo and Örkelljunga. So we’re working our way further north.’

  ‘Where are we now?’ Danne groaned from the back of the van. He was looking paler and paler. Would he really make it? Wasn’t it time for him to pull his weight a bit more? A slightly bigger robbery, maybe?

  Just then, Rogge climbed into the van and sat down in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Go well?’

  Rogge nodded, handing a carrier bag backwards and turning the key in the ignition. Niklas Lindberg peered down into the bag while the van swung
out onto the E6.

  ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘Good?’ said Rogge, putting his foot down. ‘Good? There’s gotta be twenty thousand in there.’

  ‘A slight exaggeration, but OK. Great.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Rogge.

  ‘Can’t one of you bastards tell me where we are?’ Danne shouted. He sounded wheezy. He was losing blood the whole time.

  ‘Ängelholm,’ said Bullet, turning the dials.

  The great man beckoned him over, gesturing disdainfully with his index finger. He would never have thought of doing so in his private moments. He played two different roles, two main roles, and these main roles each contained a number of minor roles. Ljubomir wondered how many there were. The great man was a cornucopia of roles.

  Ljubomir strolled over to the desk. On the way, he tried to avoid looking at the beckoning finger – he couldn’t say that he liked it. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the large electronic globe. He had never seen it in action. It must have been impressive. There were rumours that the great man entered coordinates into the computer, and the best route for transporting drugs between them was automatically illuminated on the surface of the globe. He didn’t know. He hadn’t ever seen it in action.

  Ljubomir reached the desk. The great man stared fixedly at him. More so than usual. Something would happen now. Some kind of test of loyalty. Again.

  ‘Have you come up with anything?’ the great man asked.

  Come up with thought Ljubomir.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘The police claim to know who they are. That means they’re probably Swedes. Some mob. They’ve interviewed Zoran, Petar and Risto in Kumla. Some white detective going on about Nazis.’

  ‘Some white detective? They’re all white, aren’t they?’

  ‘White-haired. Snow-white skin.’

  ‘More specifically?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s called. The other had stigmata on his hands. Spooky, like Petar said. The strange return of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’