Anger Mode

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  “You’re goin’ down, comprende?” the ringleader continued the challenge, thrusting his chin forwards. He raised one hand and extended his fingers in a street gesture. He continued to gesticulate with jerky arm movements as he described various threats. This was obviously some form of street sign language, but Tor had no idea what all his flapping was about.

  He thought that the silly, little ringleader reminded him a lot of Benno, a neighbour with cerebral palsy that Tor knew when he was a kid. Except for the crotch holding, which, in Benno’s case, would have resulted in self-castration.

  And instead of Benno’s slurred speech, the gang leader got his words out in batches and in some strange form of Swedish, as if he were singing and talking at the same time.

  Tor did not know what the midget wannabe idol was saying and knew even less how to answer him. Instead, he checked out both of the men in anoraks on the other side of the street. They had slowly started to move towards Tor. Maybe they were undercover cops after all. He had nothing to fear from the cops, since he had not done anything wrong. He had not been anywhere close to Omar’s car yet.

  “Yo jefe, give the crackhead a beating!” someone in the group shouted. The leader danced towards Tor, measuring him up for something that looked like a head kick. But then he stopped the kick halfway. Another in the gang whistled and pointed at the men coming towards them. The gang forgot about Tor and quickly moved on. The men in denim jackets followed after them.

  Tor had been rescued by the police.

  After getting into Omar’s car, he did not know what to believe any more. In his hand was a flyer the size of a parking ticket. Someone had tagged his car with a discounted lunch at a newly opened bistro on Swedenborgsgatan. And he had been saved by the cops from a gang of baby gang members. Everything was getting more and more bizarre, and the madness did not stop there. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and called his psycho partner.

  CHAPTER 27

  MARTIN BORG WAS released from the hospital at three in the afternoon. The bandage on his arm had been replaced with a new one and he had been given a prescription for painkillers in case he had difficulty sleeping. He did not anticipate sleep problems, but took the prescription anyway.

  He thought he had handled the psychologists and Internal Affairs in an exemplary fashion. There would be a few waves for a little while, but he would get through this. All that remained was Thomas Kokk, who was very keen to talk to him. And so he would, but first, Martin had to fetch the hard drive down in Gnesta. Martin took a taxi to the Statoil petrol station in Solna, where he hired a Ford Focus.

  The area surrounding the burnt-out warehouse had been closed off by his colleagues, and they had also put up a tent in the centre of the yard. He observed five police officers in the area at most – two uniforms and three from SÄPO. Some curious bystanders stood outside the police tape on the gravelled road.

  Flashbacks from the shootout surfaced and he sat in the car for a few minutes, unable to move. It was only now that he realized how close he had come to dying. If Headcase had aimed his gun less than a centimetre to the right, the bullet would have hit Martin in the throat. He had been ten millimeters from certain death. Martin squeezed hard the charm in his hand. Perhaps there was a reason he had been so lucky. He dismissed that thought instantly. He had no religion. He hated religion, and everything their lies stood for, and he despised all the religious fanatics that spread their manure over the world while waiting for their rewards in the next life.

  The place where Martin had hidden the hard drive was fortunately outside the police cordon. He went on foot through the forest to avoid being seen and, after thirty minutes searching, he was able to pinpoint the spot.

  He pulled out a bag to put the hard drive and Omar’s mobile phone in and then stashed them in the inside pocket of his jacket.

  For a while, he held the gun that Jerry had used to kill Jernberg in his hand. Then he took that with him too. He left Tor’s pistol.

  Then he walked back to the car the same way he had come. A powerful feeling came over him when he sat behind the wheel. He felt as if he had a treasure chest in his jacket, a power wrapped in a metal casing that would aid his cause and protect him from harm for the rest of his life. His pulse raced. With a little luck, defeat could now be turned into victory.

  He turned the ignition key and drove away from the place where Jernberg had lost his life. In the mirror, he saw the burnt-out warehouse become increasingly smaller and gradually disappear into the golden autumn trees.

  Five minutes later, Martin’s personal mobile phone rang. Tor announced that he was out of the hospital and was in Omar’s car, waiting for instructions. Martin was just about to answer when it hit him. Martin had called Omar several times from his personal mobile phone on the day of the shooting. The base station used by Omar’s mobile phone would have registered all calls to and from the phone, even the unanswered calls, and SÄPO would request the base-station lists from the phone company. Even though Martin used a top-up card, they could take the phone number from the list and subsequently map the position of the phone to within a ten-metre radius. They could reconstruct all the locations from which the calls were made. This realization sent a chill through Martin Borg. If they were successful in retrieving data that could prove calls were made from the police station and Martin’s home in Gärdet, the story he had fabricated would slowly unravel like a ball of string.

  WALTER SILENTLY EXAMINED the material Jonna and Jörgen had brought with them. No matter how hard he tried, he could not help being impressed. Not just with the documentation and its contents, but also by how they had managed to pull it off.

  Despite being young and having the experience of a newly hatched chick, Jonna had succeeded where an almost sixty-year-old detective with three decades of experience had failed – and without being detected. In addition, she had broken a few minor laws in order to prevent serious crimes, even though she had just recently graduated from the police academy, indoctrinated with the ideology that the world was divided into black and white, right and wrong. She would be an excellent organiser and was definitely a potential leader.

  Jörgen Blad was merely an instrument that she had used in a masterly fashion. Finally, Walter put down the documents.

  “So, our three names are mentioned in all of these four trials,” he began, pushing his glasses onto the tip of his nose. He looked inquiringly at Jonna.

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “In all four district court trials, Ekwall has been the prosecutor, while Sjöstrand was lay juror and Lantz was the judge and court president. If we had the name of another lay juror, we would know exactly which one of these four is the key. If our theory is correct, that is.”

  Walter hummed while thinking and lay back in his bed. He neatly folded the blanket over his chest and put his hands together. His glasses were still on the tip of his nose. Jonna guessed from his gaze that he was working something out.

  “It could just as well be random chance that dictated which ones the perpetrator attacked with that hi-tech drug,” Jörgen suggested. “Then the names don’t mean a thing.” He was desperate to read the document.

  “Possible but not probable,” Jonna replied. “What goes against that theory is that they all work for Stockholm District Court, except Ekwall who is employed by the District Prosecutor’s Office.”

  “Exactly,” Walter said. “If it was a straightforward attack by terrorists against the Swedish court system, in the way the Security Service are ranting about, then even personnel from other courts would be attacked. That didn’t happen. On the contrary, we have yet another name to add to the list.” Walter took off his glasses.

  “Really?” Jörgen cried. “Who’s that?”

  Walter held up his finger. “Have you seen the evidence on Uddestad?” he asked, looking at Jonna.

  Jonna nodded. “Unfortunately,” she said abruptly.

  “Why unfortunately?” Walter asked.

  “You can find out for yourse
lf,” she said and handed over the memory stick.

  “I see,” Walter said, throwing a dirty look at Jörgen. “I just wanted to be sure that the material is authentic.”

  “It’s definitely authentic,” Jonna said.

  “Good, because it seems that madame Chief Prosecutor has got cold feet over SÄPO and has finally responded to my voicemails,” Walter said. “She called me and asked if I could contribute to the investigation. That Martin Borg at SÄPO has apparently really messed up and has been suspended, which seems to be a trend at police headquarters nowadays. He was involved in the Gnesta drama that is now under investigation. Also, the head of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, a certain Thomas Kokk, has taken his place.”

  “So Julén has changed her mind about our memos?” Jonna asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “What did you tell her?” Jonna asked.

  “That I was suspended and couldn’t contribute anything.”

  “That’s all?” Jonna said, surprised.

  “Yes, that’s all,” Walter replied. “Well, I did suggest that she talk to Lilja, the Drug Squad and Internal Affairs to lift my suspension.”

  “And?”

  “She said she would do what she could, which leads me to believe that she will really try all her tricks. Some pressure from above maybe. What do I know? Together with the complaints from the owl at the police union, it may change things.”

  “In what way has SÄPO failed?” Jonna was keen to know.

  “She didn’t say much about that, except that they have switched investigators and that the Islamists will be released. The way she put it, she was back to square one,” Walter replied, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “Yes, that a former lay juror had recently killed his brother on a building site in Huddinge.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Jonna exclaimed, feeling a sudden shiver.

  “Apparently he buried a hammer in the skull of his little brother.”

  “What’s his name?” both Jörgen and Jonna said in unison. Jonna flashed an irritated glance at Jörgen.

  “Per Lindkvist,” Walter said. “He was a Social Democrat lay juror and participated in one of the four trials.”

  Jonna flicked quickly through the document. She had seen Per Lindkvist’s name, but could not remember in which trial.

  “Drunk driving,” Walter helped her out.

  “Precisely,” she said. “That man, Sonny Magnusson, who, for the eighth or ninth time, was arrested for drunk driving and got off without a prison sentence as many times. Which sounds quite unlikely.”

  “Why did he get off so easily?” Jörgen asked.

  “Apparently, he was a director of an insurance company,” Jonna said. “If the file is correct.”

  “Just so,” Walter exclaimed. “A fat cat with good contacts and millions in tax payments to the state. A true pillar of society, who got good value for his taxes, by in staying out of prison. Expensive lawyers and contacts in the right circles certainly paid off too.”

  “That’s a rotten scandal,” Jörgen commented.

  “The swine is also named in another case,” Walter continued.

  “A vehicular homicide in which he killed a mother and daughter,” Jonna said, shaking her head. “He died himself from his injuries. What a tragedy.”

  Walter nodded contentedly. “What goes around comes around. Unfortunately, two innocents lost their lives because the justice system failed to put that drunkard behind bars.”

  “Then we have a fifth factor. Something we had not considered,” Jonna stated.

  “What do you mean?” Jörgen asked impatiently.

  “That we see a pattern and you don’t,” Walter snapped.

  “What pattern? I haven’t even read the document,” Jörgen snapped back. His headache had subsided a little, but his eye was hurting instead. Also, he was still tired and felt uninspired despite the fact that they were on the brink of a breakthrough. He did not even have the energy to take out his notebook today.

  “Ekwall, Sjöstrand and Lantz were part of the trial in which Sonny Magnusson was charged with manslaughter,” Jonna explained.

  “If I remember correctly, the deceased mother and child had the last name Brageler,” Walter said.

  “Quite right,” Jonna confirmed. “One Leo Brageler became a widower after the deaths of his wife and daughter. Sonny Magnusson died as a result of his injuries from the car crash, on the same day that sentence was passed on him. He would have spent six months in an open prison for the manslaughter of Anna and Cecilia Brageler.”

  “But that’s a softer sentence than for withholding a few million in taxes!” Jörgen exclaimed.

  “If you only knew how right you are,” Walter muttered, sitting up in bed. He suddenly became very red in the face. “A sick system with even sicker values created by the idiots appointed to protect our society,” he continued, wildly gesticulating. “In the eyes of the law-makers and politicians, the biggest moral imperative is that people comply with the tax laws and pay their taxes on time. It’s so important because otherwise society wouldn’t be able to function. Most people would accept that. Therefore, being responsible for the death of two human beings is not considered to be as undermining and as damaging to society as cheating on your taxes. Therefore, the penalty is not as high. And if you’re drunk, which is considered a mitigating circumstance, it will normally reduce the sentence further. And if you, on top of that, are a fat cat with lots of high-up contacts in society, the sentence will be six months at an open prison. By scratching a few backs, you can get an ankle tag so that you can sit at home in your armchair with a Chesterfield in your mouth and a fine Cognac in your hand. Bloody hell, what kind of punishment is that?”

  Walter caught his breath. He was shaking with rage.

  After calming down, he took a mouthful of rosehip soup from a bowl on the bedside table.

  Jonna gazed at Walter, shocked. Obviously, this business had touched a sore spot.

  “I still don’t see what the connection is,” Jörgen said after Walter calmed down. “More importantly, I don’t see who the connection is.”

  Walter nodded at Jonna. “I’m betting that Einstein over there has already figured it out,” he said.

  “Per Lindkvist made all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place,” Jonna replied.

  “Keep going.”

  “We can start by excluding two cases that the trio was involved in, because Per Lindkvist didn’t take part in them.”

  “Three,” Jörgen interrupted. “He took part in only one case. One minus four is three, the last time I checked.”

  “Take it easy, I’ll get to that,” Jonna said.

  “In the trial that acquitted Magnusson, Per Lindkvist was one of the lay jurors,” she continued. “All the members of the jury acquitted Magnusson. One month later, he kills Anna and Cecilia Brageler in a car crash.”

  “So?”

  “The evidence against Magnusson was so strong that a conviction should have been a sure thing. One of the traffic patrolmen, a Hans Jonasson from the Uppsala County Traffic Police, tried to persuade District Prosecutor Ekwall to send the district court’s decision to the Court of Appeal. The patrolman was very familiar with Magnusson’s drunk driving because he had pulled him over a number of times and didn’t live that far from the director’s estate outside Uppsala. He drove under the influence more often than he was sober; everybody in the village knew that, according to Jonasson. Ekwall refused to allow the appeal despite the hard evidence of the blood test. He thought that there were more important cases to prosecute. It’s all noted in the memo that’s attached to the decision, which, as I understand it, is not standard procedure.”

  Walter nodded in confirmation. “Special statements can be attached to the court decision; however, they don’t affect it in any way.”

  “So, is the policeman the one behind the druggings?” Jörgen thought aloud. He sat down in one of the visi
tor’s chairs with a confused expression.

  “Hardly,” Jonna said. “Think who it was who suffered the most from Magnusson’s drunk driving.”

  “Himself, since he’s dead,” Jörgen said, stating the obvious.

  “Let’s stick to the living, shall we?”

  “His family?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Jonna said. “But still not quite right.”

  “Well then, that would leave the family of the dead mother and daughter,” Jörgen said.

  “You saw the connection even before you knew about Per Lindkvist,” Walter said, looking at Jonna with a wry smile.

  “Yes, but Lindkvist confirmed the connection,” she said without smiling back. “In fact, I checked out Anna Brageler’s husband, Leo Brageler. He lives outside Sala, a few miles from Magnusson’s estate. He has worked in Uppsala for the last fourteen years with the company Biodynamics & Genetic Research, or BGR, where he’s head of research.”

  “Bingo!” Walter said. “And BGR is in the pharmaceuticals industry, I presume.”

  “Even better,” Jonna said. “According to their home page, they do research in advanced genetic medicine and are suppliers to larger pharmaceutical companies around the world. They have about three hundred employees and are owned by a venture capital company and the company directors.”

  “That’s our man,” Walter declared.

  Jörgen picked up a notepad and began to take notes. His fatigue was gone. Things were starting to fall into place like dominoes and he was the only member of the press who knew about this story. The finishing line was approaching fast and he was way out in front.

  “What happens now?” Jonna asked. “Will you contact Åsa Julén?”

  Walter laughed. “What should I say, do you think? That we have been undertaking our own private investigation, as well as hacking into the criminal records and district court databases? She would have a heart attack.”

  “I understand that, but there’s a pressing problem which must be tackled,” Jonna pointed out.

  “I know,” Walter said. “Tuva Sahlin.”