by Arne Dahl
They nodded briefly at Viksjö, pulled two chairs over to Petrovic’s table, switched the TV off and sat down.
‘For a possible Crown witness, you’ve said far too little,’ Hjelm said in English. ‘This is your last chance or you’ll be going back to Kumla. And you know what’ll happen then.’
‘Our colleague Gunnar Nyberg gave you a list of the information we need,’ said Chavez. ‘One: the link between you and Niklas Lindberg. Two: all imaginable and unimaginable information on Rajko Nedic’s organisation. Three: the nature of the handover. Four: its recipient. Five: what Lindberg’s going to use it for. Six: where Lindberg and his men are right now. Let’s start from the end and modify number six: where is Niklas Lindberg right now?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Risto Petrovic, a half-kilo of spaghetti twisted around his fork.
‘No possible hideouts?’
‘Sorry. No possible hideouts. I know very little about Sweden. I just came here for a job, but got locked up almost immediately.’
‘Let’s go straight to number five, then. What was Lindberg going to use the money for?’
‘Buying stuff. You buy stuff with money. That’s why everyone wants it.’
‘Thanks for the foundation course in capitalist economics. He wasn’t going to use the money for anything in particular, then?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Four: who was going to receive the money?’
‘You’re just asking the same questions as the others.’
‘Who?’
‘A Swedish policeman. I don’t know anything else. He was blackmailing Nedic for money. Ten million kronor.’
‘We’ve not heard about this sum before. It’s a big one. The policeman must’ve found something valuable, then. Something which could sink the entire Nedic organisation.’
‘Yep,’ said Petrovic, his mouth full of spaghetti. ‘Must’ve done. But I don’t know what.’
‘So that’s three answered, too,’ said Hjelm. ‘And we were going to take half each. The second, then. Rajko Nedic’s organisation.’
Petrovic nodded, chewing away. When he was finished, he fished under the table and retrieved a pile of handwritten papers.
Hjelm took it from him, leafing through the pages. It looked solid. He must have really worked on it. On that, and nothing else. Sinking Nedic.
‘Thanks,’ said Hjelm. ‘Impressive. Now it’s starting to look like something.’
‘Thank you,’ said Risto Petrovic in English, starting to twist spaghetti again. Twist after twist after twist.
‘Let’s try number one, then. What’s your relationship with Niklas Lindberg really like?’
‘We met in the Foreign Legion. Neither of us really fitted in there. We became friends and survived a year together. Then we bumped into one another in the Kumla Bunker. It was a welcome reunion. I was working for Nedic and tipped Nicke off that he was going to hand over ten million kronor to a policeman. Later, Lordan mentioned that meeting would be taking place in Kvarnen. I told Nicke about that, too.’
‘And what did you get out of it?’
‘Nothing. We’re friends. If you’d been through what we went through in the Legion, you’d understand. Otherwise you can’t.’
Hjelm nodded and looked at Chavez. Chavez nodded and looked at Hjelm.
‘Good,’ said Hjelm. ‘So now we know roughly where you stand, then. You want to sink Nedic whatever the cost, and you want to protect Lindberg whatever the cost. You’re united by the tough experience you went through. You’re friends in an almost Arab sense of the word. Friends for life. Thick as thieves.’
It had taken him a moment to express himself in English.
‘Sound familiar? he asked Chavez, still in English.
‘I heard it just recently,’ Chavez answered in English. ‘We’re just a normal group of robbers. We’re just friends. Same pattern.’
‘Though I don’t think we can talk about tees now.’
‘I don’t think we’d get a bite, no. So let’s do this.’
Jorge Chavez ripped Petrovic’s handwritten stack of papers into pieces.
Petrovic choked. Half-chewed spaghetti flew out into the room, uniting with the gaping Viksjö’s glowing flakes of tobacco.
‘You think that you’re a Crown witness to squeal on Rajko Nedic, but that’s not the case. We don’t give a shit about Rajko Nedic. What we’re interested in is the attack on Stockholm’s Stadium in a few days’ time. The World Police and Fire Games. Everything you know. Otherwise you’re heading straight for Kumla, where you’ll be back up close with Zoran Koco, Petar Klovic and the rest of Nedic’s men.’
Petrovic stopped coughing. The spaghetti was hanging like scraps of meat from his mouth. It looked like the final scenes of the Jaws films.
‘What the hell does it say here?’ asked Ludvig Johnsson. ‘In brackets?’
‘JC rips P’s N mtrl,’ Gunnar Nyberg read. ‘Apparently Jorge ripped up Petrovic’s papers on Nedic.’
‘How can he justify that?’
‘There’s something fishy about it. He’s bluffing. Presumably they’d already made a copy. But it’s a nice twist. It’ll be interesting to see what happened next.’
‘You were probably an organised right-wing extremist even before the war in Croatia broke out,’ said Hjelm. ‘The descendants of the old, ultra-nationalistic Ustaša. Serb-hate. Then during the war, you really went in for your role as commander of a paramilitary unit. You probably widened your web of international contacts during that time. Got some false papers from them and fled to the Foreign Legion. Took the opportunity to recruit ideological kinsmen in the Legion to this contact web of international fascists. Among these was Niklas Lindberg, who then started to bomb and beat up Kurds, and went to prison. In turn, he scraped together friends to join to the web of contacts inside Kumla: the so-called “Nazi clique”, in which the known right-wing extremist Sven Joakim Bergwall, who died in the Sickla Slaughter, was active. Together, the three of you planned a bigger attack in Stockholm, and what could be more appropriate than this summer’s World Police and Fire Games? Blow up policemen and prison guards. What a dream.
‘You knew that there was a suitable kind of explosive available within your big international group of contacts. A highly volatile and reliably explosive liquid which uses a microscopic electronic detonator. The South Africans had developed it for the ANC’s meetings, but apartheid ended before they had time to put it into use. So you smuggled a sample into Kumla and gave it to Lindberg, and you made sure that he would have enough money to get hold of a proper amount of this explosive. The money could be taken from your employer, Rajko Nedic – the Serbian bastard who’d managed to unite former enemies in his drugs organisation. A real peace organisation. Two birds with one stone. You could blow up policemen and Serbs in one go. Nice plan.
‘Lindberg’s still out there, and he’s got money – if not ten million then at least almost one – and he’ll be able to carry out the plan despite all the trouble. All while you, protected by four fine policemen, chew spaghetti, sink Nedic and are given a nice new identity by the Swedish state. Well planned, again. But you forgot the A-Unit.’
‘What did I forget?’ Risto Petrovic exclaimed.
‘Nothing,’ Hjelm continued. ‘Nothing at all. A parenthesis.’
‘What? When? How?’ asked Chavez. ‘Otherwise, we’re sending you back to Rajko Nedic. It’s that simple. Where will the bomb be? Where will Lindberg be when he detonates it? When will the bomb be put in place? When will it be set off? And how is it all going to pan out?’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Risto Petrovic, wiping his mouth. ‘It’s not so simple.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because some things are bigger than any individual.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Send me back to Nedic if you want. This is bigger than me. I’m a dispensable cog in a big machine.’
Hjelm and Chavez looked at one another. It had been going so well.
And now, to be stopped in their tracks by something as unexpected as . . . idealism.
Sick, black idealism.
The most dangerous kind.
‘Did they send him back?’ asked Ludvig Johnsson.
Nyberg looked at him as he nibbled on yet another ice-cold chicken leg.
‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘He might still be valuable.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Johnsson. ‘He’s not going to talk. He’s well versed in his warped idealism. He really believes in ethnic cleansing and ethnic purity. The weak link is Kullberg. There’s still a chance there.’
‘If he knows enough. I’m wondering.’
‘I think he does. I think they’re completely right, your colleagues. And I agree with you: they’re damn reliable. I can’t believe I missed them when I was gathering people for the paedophile unit. They’re probably right that the planning took place in Kumla. Three intelligent fascists planning a clever attack: Petrovic, Lindberg, Bergwall. But there was another person to turn to: Kullberg. I don’t think they left him out. The rest were foot soldiers, cannon fodder: Carlstedt, Andersson, Sjöqvist. But not Kullberg. He knows.’
‘Maybe. What do you think Niklas Lindberg is doing now?’
‘The handover will take place soon. He’s buying the explosive from the right-wing organisation. But he’s still pissed off that the ten million got lost. That would’ve been an unforgettable bang. It’ll be pretty good for a million too, don’t get me wrong, but I’m damn sure he wants the ten million.’
‘You mean he’s . . .?’
‘Yes. I think he’s going to go after Rajko Nedic directly.’
44
HE IS LIGHT, she is dark, and they are sitting in the sunshine, limbs entwined, on the steps of Högalid church. They aren’t alone. Several young couples are sitting there, limbs entwined, enjoying the sunshine. They all look alike.
It’s like a slice of nature thrown into the middle of the city. Greenery in all directions, but only for a short distance. Then the asphalt reappears. The concrete jungle.
They don’t know whether it’s an oasis or a mirage. They’ll find out very soon.
Against the brilliant-blue sky above the waters of Riddarfjärden, small slivers of cloud dance. Constantly changing, they take on new, equally fleeting shapes.
A dance of metamorphosis.
He looks down at his four-year-old size 7 Reebok shoes; they’re starting to feel mouldy. They’ve gone too far. She looks down at her new white sandals, size 7, and then up again, gazing at him until his eyes reach hers. Their mouths meet in a kiss. The light touch of tongues. The spark through their bodies.
They can’t stop touching one another. They won’t ever be alone again. Whatever happens now, they won’t ever be alone again. They’re planning to die together, to let ‘th’ incroaching rinds their closing lips invade’.
But they will be old by then.
They will follow the gods up to the top of the mountain.
They stand up and wander through the greenery of Högalidsparken. On the church steps, a copy of Expressen has been left behind, from 24 June. The headline, ringed in felt pen shouts: THE SISTERS THAT VANISHED INTO THIN AIR.
But he pushes Ovid’s Metamorphoses into his pocket. The paperback edition.
A large tree looms over them. It places a protective arm around their shoulders. It’s still there as they come out onto Hornbruksgatan, turn down the short stretch of Lignagatan and out onto Hornsgatan. There they turn to the right, down towards Hornstull.
They stop outside the bank.
She casts a quick, furtive, shy glance over the street. Four floors up in the building opposite. She assumes that the black figure she catches sight of through the window is in her head.
They go into the bank.
The great man stands looking out of the window. It’s unbearably warm. A shimmering green bluebottle has developed a liking for his sweat, and nosedives repeatedly towards his forehead. He doesn’t bother swatting it away. Considerably bigger flies are nosediving towards his forehead. From within.
They can’t be swatted away.
Leaks. Only a few weeks ago, the word had been unknown. It hadn’t been in Rajko Nedic’s Swedish vocabulary. Now it was popping up time after time after time.
First that difficult policeman Ludvig Johnsson, who had found the thing which absolutely couldn’t be found. He would pay anything to deal with that problem. He knew all too well what happened to paedophiles in prison. Then came Risto Petrovic’s betrayal. Crown witness. How would he deal with that? Maybe the damage could be limited. His workers didn’t know enough to sink him, especially not those imported directly from the Balkans. Ljubomir’s betrayal was worse. Though he didn’t know a great deal about the business, either. Lordan was meant to shoulder that burden. But then he died. That was his only betrayal. And then those phones missing from the restaurant. He knew instinctively that it was no normal robbery.
It was a leak, too. Somehow.
And then he sees – he can’t comprehend what it is he’s seeing, the connections between his brain cells can’t stretch to it. He sees his daughter. He sees Sonja outside the bank, together with a young man. It doesn’t fit. It’s an impossible equation. He’s standing in the room with the soundproof walls, understanding nothing. He’s utterly cold.
Two mobile phones stolen from the Thanatos restaurant.
He doesn’t have time to react. He doesn’t have time to give the sign to his men. Doesn’t have time to give them the order to storm the bank. The door flies open. A volley of silenced bullets spreads death through the flat. It’s silent as they fall. Three of five. He looks at his body. No holes. No sneaky, belated gunshot wounds; the kind you notice only when it’s too late.
His two surviving men raise their hands to the ceiling. Their expressionless faces haven’t changed much. When he sees that, he understands what war damage is.
He can’t see the man’s face. It is covered by a golden balaclava. Smoke is rising from the sub-machine gun’s silencer. He speaks crystal-clear English with a Swedish lilt.
‘I know about those devices in your sleeves. Please don’t use them. Then you’ll live. Take the hidden pistols out. Carefully.’
The two of them do as they’re told. The man turns to Rajko Nedic. It’s the first time in his life he’s had a weapon pointed at him.
‘Stay calm, Mr Nedic,’ the man says in well-mannered Swedish. A dialect, the great man thinks in confusion. Bohuslän or Västergötland. Uddevalla, Trollhättan.
There’s a body sitting on the sofa. As though he had fallen asleep at his post – unthinkable. The others are lying on the floor. It’s unbelievable. It can’t have happened. He looks over his shoulder, out through the window. Sonja and the boy are going into the bank. He smiles. Awry. Suddenly, it’s all so clear.
‘Sit,’ the man says, pointing to the sofa. The two of them sit down beside the body, handing their pistols over to the man. He quickly and routinely wraps them in strong tape. The two men look like silver mummies.
Rajko Nedic can feel the time passing. He counts how much each second is costing. Sonja will still be waiting to get into the safe-deposit box. There’s still time. Ten million kronor.
Ten million or a daughter.
The man turns to him. His eyes are icy blue behind the gold.
‘How did you find us?’ asks Rajko Nedic. He has to buy some time. He has to think while he talks; think about something else.
The man laughs. His gaze is steady.
‘I followed you from Danderyd,’ he says with disgust, adding, more distinctly: ‘I need that ten million.’
‘So do I,’ says Rajko Nedic. ‘I can’t get at it myself. But I don’t understand – didn’t you get hold of the key?’
‘There’s a lot you don’t understand. Where’s the money? In which bank? And what’s the number of the box?’
The great man doesn’t feel so great. He can imagine the scenario before him, can imagine him saying to the man:
‘The bank opposite. There are a boy and girl in there taking the money out right now.’ And he can imagine the man running over. The great man freeing his two men. They would follow after him. A firefight would break out in the bank. His war-damaged heroes would shoot the man. Rajko Nedic would get his ten million.
Then he would have to give up his daughter.
Then he would have to kill his daughter for a second time.
And in that moment, the screams break free from the walls. The clear, piercing screams which had been stored in the porous walls, clad with gold-coloured foam. They screech right into Rajko Nedic’s ears, bursting his eardrums.
He says: ‘You’ll never find out.’
And for the first time in his life, the great man feels great.
The man looks over his shoulder. Out through the window. He doesn’t like that gaze. He might catch sight of Sonja when she comes out of the bank. Maybe he’ll recognise her.
But all the man sees is a fleeting glimpse of eight unmistakable figures, led by a young, short-haired woman. They’re creeping along Hornsgatan, nearing the door.
The man sighs, binds Rajko Nedic’s hands behind him using the silver tape, and takes a small metal box from his pocket. He pushes it into Nedic’s mouth and tapes his jaws shut. He winds the tape around his jaws like a corpse. The great man can feel the little box on his tongue. It tastes of steel. He can’t spit it out.
‘An old promise,’ says the golden one, disappearing.
Sara Svenhagen is following her men. In the stairwell, they meet a well-built man with cropped hair and clear blue eyes. He nods to them. As though to colleagues, she thinks to herself. They wave him past and continue up the stairs.
On the fourth floor, they take out their service weapons. They find the door marked Ahlström. They gather around it.
Then they see that it has been kicked open. It isn’t closed. It only looks like it’s closed.
They press up against the wall. Pistols raised. Close to their bodies. They kick the door open.