The Terrorists

by Maj Sjowall

  As they drove up to the foreign-arrivals building they saw the plane, just about to land.

  The operation had begun.

  Over the police radio, they heard a metallic voice: “All radio units are to observe signal Q from now on. I repeat: Signal Q to be observed until counterorders given. Only instructions from Chief Inspector Beck will be forwarded. They are not to be answered.”

  Signal Q was highly unusual. It involved total silence on the police radio.

  “Hell, I didn’t have time to shower or change,” said Gunvald Larsson. “That’s that damned Heydt’s fault.”

  Martin Beck glanced over at his colleague and noticed that Gunvald Larsson nevertheless looked considerably better than he did himself.

  Gunvald Larsson parked outside the terminal. The plane was not quite down yet. Despite everything that had happened, they had plenty of time. At least several minutes.

  20

  The shining aluminum jet landed twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds early. Then it taxied over to the place that Eric Möller had personally designated as not dangerous.

  The mechanical steps were lowered and, still twelve minutes, thirty-seven seconds ahead of schedule, the Senator stepped out of the cabin. He was a tall, sunburnt man with a winning smile and sparkling white teeth.

  He looked around the desolate airfield and scrubby forest surrounding it. Then he raised his white ten-gallon hat and waved gaily at the demonstrators and policemen on the spectator’s terrace.

  Maybe his sight’s bad, thought Gunvald Larsson, and he thinks it says “Long Live the Next President” on the placards and banners, instead of “Yankee Go Home” and “Motherfucking Murderer.” Maybe he thinks those portraits of Mao and Lenin are pictures of himself, although the likeness isn’t especially great.

  The Senator descended from the plane and, still smiling, shook hands with the airport chief and a governmental secretary. Behind him on the steps was a large bulky man in a wide checked overcoat. His face seemed hewn from granite, and out of this granite face stuck a huge cigar that looked almost like an extra limb. Despite his overcoat’s capacious dimensions, it bulged considerably below the left armpit. This must be the Senator’s personal bodyguard.

  The Prime Minister of Sweden also had a bodyguard, the first prime minister ever to have one. The political leader of the country had chosen to remain in the VIP room with three other members of the government.

  A bunch of Möller’s elite agents conducted the Senator and his stonefaced protector to an armored car, borrowed from the army, and they were driven the few hundred yards to the VIP room. (Möller was taking no chances.)

  There, the Senator and the Prime Minister shook hands, lengthily and cordially, for the benefit of television and press photographers, but there was no orgy of kissing as when the Russians were around.

  The Prime Minister was a slightly edgy, nervous type, with effeminate and slightly sorrowful features. Whatever he radiated, it was not the paternalism for which some of his predecessors had been known and adored. Those who had tried to analyze in depth his appearance and behavior maintained there was clear evidence of a guilty conscience and childish disappointment.

  On the other hand, it was immediately noticeable that the Senator was a trained handshaker. With an interpreter from the embassy at his heels, he went up to each person in the room and pressed that person’s hand. Martin Beck was the first to benefit, and his immediate reaction was surprise at how firm and trust-inspiring the handshake was.

  Only Gunvald Larsson showed a certain annoyance. He had turned his back on the whole gathering and was staring out the window. Outside, Möller’s agents were swarming about in the slush while the motorcade vehicles were being backed into place, the bulletproof limousine just outside the door.

  A moment or two later he felt a determined tap on his shoulder, turned and found himself staring at Stoneface with the cigar.

  “The Senator wants to shake hands,” said the bodyguard, the cigar whipping slightly as he spoke.

  The Senator smiled even more captivatingly and looked straight into Gunvald Larsson’s china-blue eyes. His own were yellow, like those of a Tibetan tiger.

  Gunvald Larsson hesitated only a moment, then stretched out his hairy right fist and gripped as hard as he could. It was something he had amused himself with in the navy, and he held on until the politician’s smile stiffened into an extremely strained grimace. Stoneface followed the procedure with his eyes, but the cigar did not move as much as a millimeter. The man obviously did not have more than one expression.

  Behind the Senator’s back, Gunvald Larsson heard the interpreter mumbling something about “commander” and “special police.” When he let go of the hand, their foreign guest’s features looked set, as if their owner were sitting in a privy.

  The photographers were running all over the place, crouching down to get interesting angles. One even lay clicking on his back. The Prime Minister was rushing around too, his bodyguard at his heels. He was anxious to get away, but first the champagne had to be drunk, and they were at least twelve minutes ahead of schedule, a fact the television producer present kept pointing out.

  Outside, the motorcycles hummed. Their riders comprised a special corps within the police. They had joined the force because they thought it was fun riding around on motorcycles. They often gave demonstrations on Police Day and similar occasions.

  Melander and Skacke did not consider themselves qualified for the VIP room, but were sitting in the radio van. Silence was total on the police wave bands, but the regular radio and television broadcasts all had commentators in action, describing in solemn and important voices the extensive political career of the ex-presidential candidate. They didn’t mention his ideological attitudes or reactionary domestic and foreign-policy activities, but they did tell their listeners where he lived, what his dogs were like, how once upon a time he had almost been a baseball star, how his wife had almost become a film star, how his daughters looked like most daughters, how he himself usually did the shopping in the supermarket, how—at least during election campaigns—he wore off-the-rack clothes, how large his private fortune was (very large) and how at one time he would probably have been brought before a Senate committee investigating tax frauds if he had not happened to be chairman of it himself. His wife had opened a charitable home for orphans whose fathers had been killed in the Korean War. As a young man he had advised President Truman to drop the first atom bombs, and when older had been indispensable to a number of different administrations. He started every morning with an hour’s ride on his horse, and under normal circumstances swam a thousand yards every day. He had taken an active part in the “solutions” in Thailand, Korea, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, said one television reporter—clearly not one of those who leaned to the left—and was also a breath of fresh and youthful air in a world in which political senility was all too commonplace.

  The motorcade was now lined up and manned, one minute ahead of the plan.

  The Senator, the Prime Minister and an interpreter got into the back seat of the bulletproof limousine. The Prime Minister looked slightly surprised when Stoneface stepped in too, and when the man took the jumpseat opposite him so that the tip of his cigar almost touched the Prime Minister’s nose, he was on the point of becoming really annoyed. His own bodyguard had had to ride in another car.

  The Prime Minister spoke perfectly good English, so the interpreter seated between them did not have much to do.

  “Okay, let’s go,” said Gunvald Larsson, switching on the engine. The Porsche began to move, and Martin Beck half turned to see if the rest of the motorcade had gotten away as it should. It had.

  Inside the car with blue windows, the Senator looked with interest at the countryside, but apart from policemen and an almost unimaginable number of demonstrators, he saw nothing but the somewhat dull bit of countryside between Stockholm and its distant airport. He sat for a long time trying to find something positive to say, then finally gave
up, turned to the Prime Minister and smiled his best campaign smile.

  The Prime Minister had already used up all his standard phrases and platitudes back in the VIP room. He smiled back.

  The Senator kept straightening out the fingers of his right hand. He had never come up against anything like Gunvald Larsson’s grip before, despite hundreds of thousands of handshakes.

  After a while, Gunvald Larsson drove off into a rest area and stopped, the convoy rolling past them in perfect order and at an adequate speed.

  “I wonder what the hell Möller’s thinking of using the clod squad for,” he said as they sat watching the motorcade pass.

  “I expect we’ll find out,” said Martin Beck tranquilly.

  Gunvald Larsson started the engine, stamped on the accelerator and shot past the cavalcade of cars.

  The Porsche was in fact doing one hundred and forty miles an hour on the straightaway.

  “Good car,” said Gunvald Larsson. “How many of these have we got?”

  “A dozen,” said Martin Beck. “At the most.”

  “What are they used for?”

  “Driving the Commissioner to his country place.”

  “All of them? Does the bastard ride in twelve cars?”

  “Actually they’re mainly used for catching speeders and drug peddlers.”

  They were approaching Stockholm now, though the landscape had grown no less depressing. The Senator peered out through the window again, and then appeared to resign himself.

  What had he expected? thought the Prime Minister, smiling unconsciously and maliciously to himself. Lapps in colorful costumes with silver bells on their clothes? Reindeer ridden bareback by natives with hooded falcons on their shoulders?

  Then he became aware that Stoneface had moved his eyes slightly and was looking at him, so he hurriedly began to think about important discussions on the balance of payments, the oil crisis and trade agreements.

  Shortly afterward, the escort stopped and yet another Porsche with the word POLICE in large letters on each side came up from behind, past the row of vehicles. Apart from Martin Beck and Gunvald Larsson, only very few people knew what was afoot when the black-and-white sports car stopped alongside the limousine and Åsa Torell, who was driving, leaned to one side and opened the door on the left. The Prime Minister changed cars. Without a word, Åsa trod hard on the accelerator and continued toward Stockholm. Immediately the motorcade started up again. The guests followed the procedure with uninterested eyes. It had all taken less than thirty seconds.

  An especially large group of demonstrators had gathered at Haga northern gates, and at first it looked as if they had been in a fight with the police. On closer observation, however, it could be seen that the police were standing passively, while the demonstrators fought with a small group of counterdemonstrators waving flags of the USA, the Thieu regime and Taiwan.

  “Where’s Einar?” asked Martin Beck as they passed Norrtull.

  “He’s around that corner over there, on Dannemoragatan,” said Gunvald Larsson. “We’ve blocked it in both directions, but you have to leave some things to chance. Suspicious tenants and so on.”

  “They’ll never get further than the emergency center or the police exchange.”

  * * *

  In the two-roomed apartment in Kapellgatan, Reinhard Heydt was satisfied that everything was going excellently. He and Levallois were in the operations center, as they called it. Both television sets were on, as were the radios, all broadcasting the same thing: the first visit in a long time of an American statesman of standing. Only one thing irritated Heydt: “Why can’t we hear the police radio?”

  “They’ve stopped broadcasting. So have the cars.”

  “Can there be anything wrong with our equipment?”

  “Unthinkable,” said Levallois.

  Heydt pondered. That Q signal must have meant radio silence. But there was no such signal on his list. It was probably very unusual.

  Levallois checked everything again, though he’d already done so countless times. He also tried different wavelengths. Then he shook his head and said, “Absolutely unthinkable. They’re simply keeping radio silence.”

  Heydt laughed to himself, and Levallois looked inquiringly at him.

  “Wonderful,” said Heydt. “These idiots are trying to fool us by not using their radio.”

  He glanced over at the television screens. The motorcade was just passing the OBS department store in Rotebro. The radio also gave this information, and added that the crowds of demonstrators were getting heavier. The television commentator didn’t say much, except when the cameras panned out over the police and the people along the east side of the route.

  A police car was driving about five hundred yards ahead of the escort to clear the way, and another equally far behind to prevent passing.

  Gunvald Larsson looked up through the windshield.

  “There’s one of the helicopters,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Martin Beck.

  “Shouldn’t it be over Sergei Square?”

  “Well, it’s got plenty of time. Can you guess who’s in it?”

  “The Senator,” joked Gunvald Larsson. “That would have been brilliant, wouldn’t it. Lower a hook for him at Arlanda and drop him down on the Parliament Building roof?”

  “Brilliant,” Martin Beck agreed. “Well, who do you think’s in the helicopter?”

  Gunvald Larsson shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”

  “Malm. I told him it would be ideal for liaison, and he swallowed it.”

  “Of course,” said Gunvald Larsson. “He’s a nut for helicopters.”

  Reinhard Heydt was beginning to enjoy himself now. He had seen the fight at Haga north and knew the moment would soon be here.

  Levallois was still intently watching his instruments and connections.

  “The motorcade is now passing Haga southern gates,” said the radio announcer. “The streets are absolutely boiling with demonstrators. They’re shouting slogans in chorus. It’s even worse at Haga Courthouse.”

  Heydt looked at the television screens to see for himself. The slogans could be heard less well on television and the reporter did not bother to mention them. Instead, he said, “The Senator’s bulletproof, custom-built car is now passing Stallmästareg ården, where the government is giving a gala banquet tonight.”

  The moment was very close.

  “At this moment, the car with the Senator and the Prime Minister is leaving Solna and crossing the Stockholm city boundary.”

  Very, very close.

  Levallois pointed at the little black box with its white button. He was holding two wires ready to short-circuit some system, presumably in case Heydt dropped dead or got paralysis of the fingers. The Frenchman never took risks.

  Heydt let his forefinger rest very lightly on the white button as he watched the television screens.

  A few seconds left. He looked at the black-and-white Porsche and thought, What a waste of a damned good car.

  Now.

  He pressed the button at exactly the right instant.

  But nothing happened.

  Levallois instantly closed the circuit with his two wires.

  Still nothing happened.

  The television screens showed the motorcade passing Norrtull and swinging into Sveavägen. Then a stationary camera took over and showed pictures of the crossroads at Odengatan and Sveavägen. Hundreds of demonstrators and curious bystanders behind tight cordons of police.

  Heydt noticed a policeman in a safari hat and boots and thought he must be a secret agent.

  Then he said calmly, “We screwed up. The bomb didn’t explode. It’s clearly not our day.”

  He laughed and said, “Mr. Senator, I give you your life, for as long as it may last.”

  Levallois shook his head. He had a gigantic pair of headphones on.

  “No,” he said. “The charge detonated when you pressed that button, just as it should have. I can still hear earth or somethin
g falling.”

  “But that’s impossible,” said Heydt.

  On television, the bulletproof car could be seen passing the city library and shortly after that a large gray building. He knew that was the College of Business Administration.

  The demonstrators were as densely packed as they could be now, but the police appeared quite calm and no one tried to break through their lines. There were no raised batons or drawn guns to be seen.

  “Bizarre,” said Levallois.

  “Impossible,” said Heydt. “I pressed the button to the right tenth of a second. What happened?”

  “Don’t know,” said Levallois.

  Reinhard Heydt detonated the bomb at exactly the right moment for no one to be injured. What he blew up was exactly two thousand ninety-one sandbags and a huge mountain of fireproof fiberglass insulation.

  The only casualty with any human connection was Einar Rönn’s cap, which was blown to shreds and never seen again.

  Rönn had had twenty-five trucks, a repair wagon from the gasworks, three ambulances and two loudspeaker cars, plus a watertender and a firetender with ladders from the Fire Brigade, all standing in Dannemoragatan. He also had thirty hand-picked men and women, most of them from the Regular Police, all in helmets, half of them equipped with battery megaphones.

  After the motorcade had passed, he’d had a period of twelve to fifteen minutes in which to dam up the section of the street under which the bomb might have been placed. He had also had to block all roads and see to it that people in the area were evacuated to safety. Twelve minutes was not enough time for all that, but fortunately the respite proved to be longer, fourteen minutes and thirteen seconds.

  Rönn’s helmet fitted him badly, so he hadn’t taken his cap off until the very last moment, and then in his distraction he had put it on the heap of sandbags.

  One of the trucks had not emptied its load because they couldn’t get it started, but it hadn’t made any difference. The only thing the bomb achieved was a gigantic plume of sand and a white cloud of fiberglass, plus a sizable gas leak which took several hours to repair even temporarily.