The Terrorists

by Maj Sjowall

  The Commissioner raised his hands an inch or two and let them fall flat on the table again. “Well, Larsson,” he said, “there’s no need to tell you how genuinely pleased we are that you escaped from that terrible business without serious injury.”

  Gunvald Larsson glanced at Malm, who did not look the least bit pleased. But when Malm saw that he was being observed, he tried to repair the damage with a wide smile. “Yes, indeed, Gunvald,” he said. “You certainly gave us an anxious morning.”

  The chief turned and looked icily at his second-in-command, and Malm realized he’d gone too far. He at once suppressed the smile, looked down and thought despondently: Whatever you do, it’s wrong.

  He did in fact have good reason for a certain misanthropy. If he or the Commissioner made some slight error that the evening papers could splatter all over their front pages, it was Malm who got blamed. And when some subordinate erred, it was Malm again who got shot down. If he had shown a little more spunk, this might not have been the case, but Stig Malm never carried his reasoning that far.

  The Commissioner, who for some reason thought long pauses increased his authority, now said: “What seems slightly peculiar is that you stayed there for eleven days after the assassination, although you had a flight booked for the following day. You should have left on June sixth, and yet you weren’t back until the eighteenth. How do you explain that?”

  Gunvald Larsson had prepared an answer to that question. “I had a new suit made,” he said.

  “Does it take eleven days to have a suit made?” asked the Commissioner in astonishment.

  “Yes, if you want the job done properly. It can be done more quickly of course, but there’s bound to be some sloppy work here and there.”

  “Mmm,” said the Commissioner irritably. “As you know, we have our auditors, and things like suits may be difficult to fit into the budget. Why couldn’t you buy a new suit here?”

  “I don’t buy my suits,” said Gunvald Larsson, “I have them made. And there’s hardly a tailor in Europe who could have done the job the way I wanted it. So, since I was there and had to wait for my suit, I took the opportunity to try to find out what had happened.”

  “Doesn’t sound very constructive,” said the chief. “The police on the spot did a very thorough investigation. They sent us all the information while you were still out there, in fact, so they might just as well have given you the papers.”

  “Personally, I’m convinced that the Security Service made several mistakes,” said Gunvald Larsson, “and that the conclusions the police came to are incorrect, particularly with regard to several important details. I’ve got a copy of the report in my office. They gave it to me before I left.”

  There was a brief silence in the room. Then Malm risked opening his mouth. “This may be important for the visit in November.”

  “Wrong, Stig,” said the chief. “This isn’t just important, it’s extremely important. We must call a meeting at once.”

  “Exactly,” said Malm. He was good at meetings. They were part of life itself. Without them, nothing would ever get done. Society would quite simply collapse. “Who should we ask?” Malm was already standing by the telephone.

  The Commissioner was deep in thought. Gunvald Larsson was pulling at his large fingers one by one, cracking the knuckles.

  “Gunvald will have to be there, of course, to introduce it,” prompted Malm.

  “After this, he should be there as an expert,” said the Commissioner. “But I was thinking about something else. The special team hasn’t been selected yet. True, we’ve quite a bit of time, but it’s a big and demanding assignment. I think it’s high time we gathered together a small team of key men.”

  “Chief of Security.”

  “Yes, of course, obviously. And the chief of the Regular Police and the Stockholm City chief.”

  Gunvald Larsson yawned. When he thought about the City Police chief, with his silk ties and the countless armed numskulls under his so-called command, he was always overcome with weariness. As well as a certain amount of fear. Deep down inside.

  The Commissioner went on: “We’ll need experts of all kinds. We’ll have to borrow equipment and men from the army and the air force. Perhaps from the navy, too. Naturally, the final responsibility for what happens will rest on one single person—me. But there’s one other thing. If we are to make preparations now to bring together all this expertise, gradually adding more and more, like Psychological Defense for example, then we ought to have a chief of operations right from the start. An experienced policeman and a decent administrator. A man who can coordinate all of the forces involved. A man who possesses all these qualifications plus criminological acumen, and who is also a good psychologist. Who is that man?”

  The Commissioner looked at Gunvald Larsson, who nodded without saying anything, as if the answer were self-evident.

  Stig Malm unconsciously straightened up. The answer was indeed self-evident, he thought. Who else apart from himself had the qualifications for this difficult task? The fact that he had once served as chief of operations in a case that had ended in disaster could be ascribed to bad luck and coincidence.

  “Beck,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “Exactly,” said the Commissioner. “Martin Beck. He’s our man.” Especially if something goes wrong, he thought. Aloud he said, “The final responsibility is mine anyhow.”

  That sounded all right. Still, he wondered if it would be more effective to say, for instance, “The ultimate responsibility nevertheless rests on my shoulders.”

  “Why don’t you start calling them?” The Commissioner was looking questioningly at Malm.

  “Beck’s on a case,” said Malm, pulling himself together. “He is in fact subordinate to me, in my division.”

  “Oh, so the Homicide Squad is working on a case?” said the Commissioner. “Well, I’m sure he’ll find the time. Anyhow, the Homicide Squad may soon work itself right out of existence.”

  “I’m on eleven cases myself,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “But you’re not in my division,” said Stig Malm.

  “No, thank the good Lord in heaven. Or some such.”

  They all arrived at the prescribed time, except Möller. Stig Malm and Gunvald Larsson greeted each other and the Commissioner, not especially warmly, but then it was not the first time they had met on this rather dreary July day. Martin Beck was there, wearing a denim jacket and baggy trousers, and the Stockholm City Police chief was sporting the usual white silk tie.

  But Möller was missing.

  They were already seated down around the conference table when the National Commissioner noticed the fact and remarked cleverly, “Where’s Möller? We simply can’t start without him. You know what a fuss there is whenever Security’s involved.”

  Eric Möller was head of the State Security Police, better known as Säpo, but it was questionable whether even he himself really knew what he was in charge of. The actual Security Police was nothing special. It employed about eight hundred people who supposedly spent their time on two things: first, exposing and catching foreign spies; and second, counteracting organizations and groups considered dangerous to the security of the state. Over the years, however, its role had become more and more confusing, since everyone knew that Säpo’s only task was to register, persecute and in general make life a misery for people with left-wing views.

  When Säpo finally reached the point where they were keeping dossiers on members of the ruling Social Democratic party, the supposedly socialist government began to find it more and more difficult to control its embarrassment.

  Eric Möller arrived at the conference room thirty-three minutes late. His face was perspiring and he was puffing and blowing.

  Even if Möller were a spy or a counterspy or whatever, it would have been extraordinarily difficult for him to appear in disguise. Though roughly the same age as the others, he was much more overweight and had a wreath of foxy-red hair around a bald head and large ears that stu
ck out at a striking angle. None of the others knew him very well, as he kept to himself, perhaps because of his profession.

  The only person present who genuinely loathed Möller was Gunvald Larsson, who said: “How’re things with your Croatian terrorist friends? Do you still have tea parties in the garden on Saturday afternoons?”

  The chief of the Security Police, however, was too out of breath to reply.

  The National Commissioner then opened the meeting, gave an account of the somewhat unpopular senator’s coming visit on Thursday the twenty-first of November and said that Gunvald Larsson had brought back some interesting and useful material from his study trip. He spoke of the difficulty of the task and its enormous importance for the prestige of the police. Then he went on to the various special missions each of those present could expect to be assigned.

  Pity I didn’t bring that head back with me and put it in a jar of Formalin, thought Gunvald Larsson. Now that would really be interesting and useful material.

  The news of his very first assignment as chief of operations reached Martin Beck in the middle of a yawn. He suppressed it as best he could and said, “Just a minute, please. Are you talking about me?”

  “Precisely, Martin,” said the Commissioner heartily. “What is this if not a preventive murder investigation? You’ll be given all the resources you need, you can choose whom you like and use your staff as you think best.”

  Martin Beck at first thought of shaking his head, and then he thought, good God, the fact is he can order me to do it. Then he noticed that Gunvald Larsson was nudging him in the side and turned to him.

  Gunvald Larsson murmured, “Tell him you’ll organize the whole protective apparatus, preliminary investigation, long-range security and everything.”

  “How?”

  “With staff from the Homicide Squad and the Violence Division. But only if someone else takes charge of short-range security, to see to it that no one pops up and bashes the senator’s head in with a brick or something.”

  “Gentlemen, would you stop mumbling and speak up, please,” said the Commissioner.

  Glancing swiftly at Martin Beck, Gunvald Larsson said, “Beck and I figure that with personnel mainly from Homicide and Violence, we can undertake to coordinate all long-range activity—preventive measures and everything. But we’d rather not have to deal with the close-range protection. That assignment seems made for Möller and his gang.”

  The Commissioner cleared his throat and said, “What do you think, Eric?”

  “Fine,” said Möller. “We’ll take that on.”

  He was still having difficulty with his breathing.

  “That particular job is really embarrassingly simple,” said Gunvald Larsson. “I could do it with the twenty dumbest cops in the city. And Möller, after all, has several hundred numskulls out there in the bushes in disguise. I heard one of them photographed the Prime Minister as he was giving his May Day speech and reported that he appeared to be a dangerous communist.”

  “Cut it out, Larsson,” said the Commissioner. “That’s enough. So you’ll take the job, Beck?”

  Martin Beck sighed, but nodded his agreement. He saw the assignment ahead of him with all of its wretched complications—endless meetings, officious politicians and military people meddling in everything. Still, he could not in fact refuse to carry out a direct order, and Gunvald Larsson seemed to have some sort of idea of how the whole thing could be handled. He had already succeeded in getting rid of the Security Police, and that was a very good thing.

  “Before I go on, I’d like to know one thing,” said the Commissioner. “Something our friend Möller should be able to answer.”

  “Oh, yes,” said the security man stoically, opening his briefcase.

  “Well, this organization called UGH or whatever it’s called what do we know about it?”

  “It isn’t called UGH,” said Malm, stroking his hair.

  “But it ought to be,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  The Commissioner burst out laughing. Everyone except Gunvald Larsson looked at him in surprise.

  “It’s called ULAG,” said Malm.

  “That’s it,” said the Commissioner. “What do we know about it?”

  Möller took a single piece of paper out of his file and said laconically, “Practically nothing. That is, we know it has carried out several assassinations. The first time was in March last year, when the president of Costa Rica was shot as he stepped out of a plane in Tegucigalpa. An assassination attempt was unexpected and the security measures do not appear to have been very satisfactory. If ULAG itself had not taken the responsibility, the assumption would have been that the assassin was some individual psychopath.”

  “Shot?” asked Martin Beck.

  “Yes, apparently by a long-range sniper who lay hidden in a van. The police did not succeed in tracing him.”

  “And the next time?”

  “In Malawi, where two African prime ministers were meeting to discuss a border dispute. The whole building suddenly exploded and more than forty people were killed. That was in September. The security measures were extremely comprehensive.”

  Möller wiped the sweat from his forehead. Gunvald Larsson reflected with satisfaction that his own physical condition was not all that bad by comparison.

  “Then the organization carried out two assassinations in January. First, a North Vietnamese minister, a general and three members of his staff were all killed when their car was attacked by mortar fire. They were on their way to a conference with some senior South Vietnamese, and the convoy had a military escort.

  “Only a week later, the organization struck again in one of the northern states of India. When the president of the state visited a railway station, at least five men threw hand grenades at both the train and the station building. Then the terrorists fired several salvos with machine pistols. It was their bloodiest attack to date. Several hundred schoolchildren had gathered to cheer the president and about fifty of them were killed. All the police and security men on the spot were also killed or severely injured and the president himself was blown to bits. This was also the only time anyone saw the criminals. They were masked and wearing some kind of commando uniform. They drove away in several different cars and could not be traced.

  “Then there was one more case in Japan in March, where a well-known and controversial politician visited a school. In this case, too, the building was blown up and the politician killed, along with a good many other people.”

  “Is that all you know about ULAG?” asked Martin Beck.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you prepare that summary yourself?”

  “No.”

  “When did you get it?”

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “May I ask who supplied you with it?” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “Yes, you may, but I don’t have to give you an answer.”

  They all knew, anyhow. Möller said with a resigned expression, “The CIA. It’s no secret that we exchange information with the USA.”

  “So the Security Police knew nothing about ULAG before that?” said Martin Beck.

  “No,” said Möller. “No more than what was in the newspapers. It doesn’t seem to be a communist group.”

  “Nor Arab,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “Now let’s hear what Larsson has to say,” said the Commissioner. “What more do you know about this ULAG, or whatever it’s called?”

  “I know just as much about ULAG as Möller has down on that piece of paper, plus a little more. I was in on most of the investigation after the assassination on the fifth of June, and I’ll merely point out that there are countries whose security men do more than subscribe to mimeographed material from the CIA.”

  “Don’t be so long-winded, Gunvald,” said Martin Beck.

  “If we look at these assassinations, certain conclusions can easily be drawn,” Larsson said. “For instance, they have all been directed at prominent politicians, but those politicians have no
thing else in common. Costa Rica’s president was more or less a social democrat and the two Africans were nationalists. The Vietnamese, in contrast to what Möller said, were not North Vietnamese but connected to the PRG—that is, the provisional government in South Vietnam—and were communists. The state president in India was a liberal socialist, and the Japanese an ultraconservative. The president whose demise I witnessed was a fascist and ran a dictatorship of many years’ standing. However you twist and turn it, there is no clear political pattern. Neither I nor anyone else I know of is in a position to offer even a possible explanation.”

  “Perhaps they do the jobs to order,” said Martin Beck.

  “I’ve thought of that, but it doesn’t seem likely. It just doesn’t fit somehow. Another thing that strikes me is that all the assassinations were so well planned and carried out. They have used a whole series of different methods and all of them have functioned perfectly. These people know their job and are extremely dangerous. They are evidently well trained and educated, and they seem to have considerable resources at their command. They must also have some kind of base.”

  “Where?” asked Martin Beck.

  “I don’t know. I could make a guess, but I’d rather not. But regardless of what their ultimate aims may be, I find it hard to imagine anything more unpleasant than a terrorist group that always succeeds in its assassination attempts.”

  “Tell us what happened out there,” said the Commissioner.

  “It took me a while to figure it out,” said Gunvald Larsson. “The explosion was extremely powerful. Twenty-six people were killed in addition to the president and the governor—most of them police and security men, but also the drivers of several taxis and horse-drawn cabs parked nearby. There was even one person walking along another street who was killed when what was left of the car landed on his head. What made the explosion so powerful was that the bomb had been placed in one of the city’s gas mains, so it must have been detonated by radio by someone who was quite some distance away.”