The Terrorists

by Maj Sjowall

  Also, it was said that Kaiten and the other man had been overpowered and captured inside the apartment. That should have been impossible. And yet someone had done it, and it did not appear to have been any kind of mass conscription of police. Only three or so men, with Beck as leader, and one of them had put Kaiten out of action without killing him or being injured himself.

  That man was dangerous, but who was he? Beck? Or perhaps one of the best CIA agents? That was always also a possibility.

  Or could it really have been a Swedish policeman?

  From what Heydt had seen of the Swedish police, that seemed out of the question. On three occasions he had seen this country’s National Police Commissioner on television, and once some kind of departmental administrator. Both had seemed to him, if not exactly idiots, then at least blown-up bureaucratic ciphers, with very vague ideas about their work, and a certain propensity for making meaningless, bombastic speeches.

  The country’s security forces did not appear in public, understandably enough, but they seemed to be generally derided, though they could hardly be as incompetent as people said. They seemed to have had a hand in only a part of the arrangemerits for the Senator’s visit—primarily the part that had been most disastrous from the police point of view. But the rest of the planning had been clever; Heydt was the first to admit it. Someone had tricked him.

  Who?

  Could it be the same someone who had beaten Kaiten and put him under lock and key? Someone who was sufficiently interested in Reinhard Heydt to be truly dangerous to him?

  It seemed so.

  Heydt turned over onto his stomach and spread the map of Scandinavia out in front of him. He would soon be leaving the country and he had tentatively decided where he would go first. To Copenhagen. Levallois and several other sympathizers were there.

  But how was he to get there?

  There were several possibilities. Some he had long since abandoned—scheduled airline flights, for instance, as they were too easy to control. Levallois’s method, too, which had probably been fine for him; he had spent five years building up the necessary contacts. Heydt had no such contacts. The risk of being betrayed was far too great.

  To go to Finland also looked dangerous, partly because communications were well controlled, and partly because the Finnish police were said to be more dangerous than their colleagues in the other Scandinavian countries.

  The exits remaining were few, but promising. Personally, he was most tempted to go by train or car to Oslo, and from there by passenger boat to Copenhagen. The boat itself would be a satisfactory retreat, maybe involving a pleasant cabin and elegant saloons.

  But was that way the safest? Sometimes Heydt thought so, and sometimes he found the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingör more tempting from a security point of view. Just before Christmas, that route would be extremely overcrowded. That was even truer of the hydrofoils between Malmö and Copenhagen, where things were chaotic at every season of the year.

  There were other ways, the ferries and small boats from Landskrona to Tuborg and Copenhagen, for instance. And also the car ferries from Helsingborg, Malmö and Trelleborg to the German Federal Republic and from Ystad to Swinemünde, which was in Poland now and called something peculiar, Swinouscie or something like that.

  But the passport police were thorough in Poland and East Germany. No, it would have to be the large passenger boat from Oslo to Denmark, the Helsingör ferry or the commuter hydrofoils between Malmö and Copenhagen. When the Christmas rush was at its worst.

  Though he hadn’t yet really decided, to be on the safe side he had already booked a luxury cabin on the King Olav V from Oslo.

  He studied the map, stretching so that his joints cracked.

  He thought for a moment about Kaiten and Kamikaze, but without anxiety. No police brutality or torture would make them reveal anything.

  On the other hand, perhaps it would be a good idea after all to get rid of this fellow Martin Beck. A police force could seldom afford to lose the few good brains it had. Heydt had a rifle with a night telescopic sight. He had assembled it a few days earlier, and it was now standing in the wardrobe, ready for use.

  But was it really Martin Beck who had taken Kaiten and Kamikaze and was now undoubtedly trying to lure him into the trap? He doubted it. But still, one couldn’t be sure.

  Naked, Heydt went to the wardrobe and took out his rifle, dismantled it and thoroughly inspected the parts. Everything was in order. He began to assemble the rifle again, and finally took a handful of cartridges out of his false-bottomed suitcase, loaded the gun and put it under his bed.

  Reinhard Heydt was right, even if his invisible opponent was farther away than he imagined.

  Even by city standards, it was a long way from Solna in the northwest to the dreary suburb of Bollmora where Gunvald Larsson lived, south and also quite a bit to the east of the city.

  Gunvald Larsson had just returned from the supermarket, where everyone had seemed more or less neurotic because of Christmas. Driven almost to distraction by the fifth consecutive repetition of “Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer” on the piped-in music system, Gunvald Larsson bought the wrong kind of cheese—Swedish Camembert instead of Danish Brie—and on top of everything else, the wrong kind of tea—Earl Grey instead of Twining’s Lapsang Souchong. He had finally struggled his way through the check-out line and left the store, tired, battered and irritable.

  After his meal he lay in the bath for a long time, thinking about the various possibilities. Then he toweled himself down, put on clean silk pajamas, his slippers and bathrobe, unfolded his large map of Scandinavia and placed it on the floor. He lay facedown on his bed after fiddling for a while with the pillows, for the struggle with Kaiten had left various bruises from blows on his chest and thighs. Then he devoted all his attention to the map.

  There had been a time, lasting in fact for several years, when Gunvald Larsson had never taken his work home with him, and he had often managed to forget he even was a policeman the moment he entered his own home. But that time had passed.

  Right now he was thinking exclusively about Reinhard Heydt. At this point he felt he almost knew the man and he was convinced that Heydt was still in the country. He was also almost certain that he’d make use of the crazy confusion of Christmas to try to slip out.

  Gunvald Larsson had drawn some blue and red arrows on to his map. The red arrows predominated; they were the escape routes he reckoned most likely, and also the most difficult to control. The blue arrows were the most sophisticated possibilities. A number of blue arrows led eastward, mostly to Finland, a few to the Soviet Union, and some to the south, to Poland, East Germany and the German Federal Republic. To the west, blue arrows pointed from Gothenburg toward Tilbury Docks at the mouth of the Thames, to Immingham and to Fredrikshavn in Jutland, and from Varberg to Grenå.

  There were blue circles around the fortunately not too numerous international airports. They would be easy to watch, especially since the recent wave of hijackings had prompted the establishment of relatively good control points that only needed stirring up a bit.

  The really hot lines were in other directions. Red arrows ran down the main highway to South Norway, the European highways numbers six and eighteen and the railway to the capital of Norway. From Oslo, Gunvald Larsson had also drawn in the sea route to Copenhagen with a broad red line, which he looked at thoughtfully for a long time.

  Then he lowered his eyes to South Sweden. The broad red line from Helsingborg to Helsingör indicated the Danish train ferries, the Swedish car ferries and the smaller passenger boats on that route. The sailing frequency between Sweden and Denmark was highest at just this point, usually only fifteen minutes between sailings, often less.

  Landskrona had two separate lines to the Danish capital—the car ferry to Tuborg harbor and the smaller passenger boats to the inner harbor—but the boats sailed at longer intervals, and not even at the height of the Christmas rush were there more travelers than could be reasonably
checked. He was content with blue arrows there.

  In Malmö the situation was quite different. The route to Copenhagen included a train ferry to the free port; two shipping companies with medium-sized passenger boats which sailed right into the inner harbor of the Danish capital; and the famous hydrofoils, which in critical situations—for instance on national holidays—commuted back and forth with double trips and no special timetable. On top of all this, there were the car ferries from Limhamn to Dragør in Amagar, a line that on the days before Christmas often ran no fewer than five ships.

  Gunvald Larsson stretched and thought for a while longer. If he were in Heydt’s position, he wouldn’t hesitate very long. He would get himself to Oslo by car, or preferably by train, and then continue by boat to Copenhagen. Stopping him there would be the business of the Danish police and thus almost impossible. Once he got to Copenhagen, the whole world would lie more or less open to him.

  But Heydt might be thinking differently, and perhaps had never been a seaman. In which case he would probably make use of the most crowded route, and that was in Helsingborg or Malmö.

  Gunvald Larsson rose and folded up the map.

  Control would have to be concentrated on three points; the roads to Oslo and the ports in Malmö and Helsingborg.

  * * *

  The next morning, Gunvald Larsson spoke to Martin Beck.

  “I lay awake all night studying the map,” he said.

  “So did I.”

  “And what conclusion did you come to?”

  “That we should ask Melander,” said Martin Beck.

  They went into the next room, where Melander was trying to get his pipe to draw.

  “Were you up all night looking at the map?” Gunvald Larsson asked him.

  It was a stupid question, as everyone knew that Melander never lay awake at night; he had more important things to do, namely sleeping.

  “No,” said Melander. “I certainly wasn’t. But I looked at it this morning while Saga was getting breakfast, and for a while afterward.”

  “And what conclusion did you come to?”

  “Oslo, Helsingborg or Malmö,” said Melander.

  “Mmm,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  They left Melander fiddling with his pipe and went back to Martin Beck’s still temporary office.

  “Did that agree with your own conclusions?” said Martin Beck.

  “Exactly,” said Gunvald Larsson. “And yours?”

  “Yes.”

  They were silent for a moment, Martin Beck standing in his usual old place by the file, pinching the bridge of his nose between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, Gunvald Larsson over by the window.

  Martin Beck sneezed.

  “Bless you,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “Thank you. You think Heydt’s still here?”

  “Certain of it.”

  “Certain,” said Martin Beck. “That’s a strong word.”

  “Maybe,” said Gunvald Larsson. “But I feel certain. He’s here somewhere and we can’t find him. Not even his damned car. What do you think?”

  Martin Beck didn’t reply for a long time. “Okay,” he said finally. “I think he’s still here, too. But I’m not certain.” He shook his head.

  Gunvald Larsson said nothing, staring gloomily out at the almost completed colossus outside.

  “You’d like to meet Reinhard Heydt, wouldn’t you?” Martin Beck said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “How long have we known each other?” asked Martin Beck in return.

  “Ten or twelve years. Maybe a little longer.”

  “Exactly. And that answers your question.”

  Another silence, a long one.

  “You think a lot about Heydt,” said Martin Beck.

  “All the time. Except when I’m asleep.”

  “But you can’t be in three places at once.”

  “Hardly,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “Then you’ll have to choose. Which one do you think’s the most likely?”

  “Oslo,” said Gunvald Larsson. “They’ve got a mysterious booking on the Copenhagen boat for the evening of the twenty-second.”

  “What sort of boat?”

  “King Olav V. Luxury boat.”

  “Sounds all right,” said Martin Beck. “What sort of booking?”

  “An Englishman. Roger Blackman.”

  “Norway’s lousy with English tourists all year round.”

  “True, but they seldom travel that way. And this Blackman can’t be traced. At least the Norwegian police can’t find him.”

  Martin Beck thought, then said, “I’ll take Benny with me and go to Malmö.”

  “Skacke?” said Gunvald Larsson. “Why don’t you take Einar instead?”

  “Benny’s better than you think. And he also knows Malmö. There are a number of other good men there, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Per Månsson’s good, for instance.”

  Gunvald Larsson grunted, as he often did when he didn’t want to say yes or no. Instead he said, “Which means that Einar and Melander will have to go to Helsingborg. Helsingborg’s damned difficult.”

  “Right,” said Martin Beck. “So they’ll need proper backing. We’ll have to arrange for that. Do you want Strömgren to go with you to Norway?”

  Gunvald Larsson stared stubbornly out the window and said, “I wouldn’t want to go piss with Strömgren. Not even if we were alone together on a desert island. And I’ve told him so.”

  “Your popularity is easily explained.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  Martin Beck looked at Gunvald Larsson. It had taken him five years to learn to put up with him, and equally long to begin to understand him. In another five years, maybe they would like each other.

  “Which are the critical days?”

  “The twentieth to the twenty-third inclusively,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “That means Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday?”

  “Probably.”

  “Why not Christmas Eve itself?”

  “All right. Christmas Eve too.”

  “We’ll have to figure on full alert,” said Martin Beck.

  “We’re already on full alert.”

  “—full alert, plus the five of us from tomorrow evening on,” said Martin Beck. “Right on through the Christmas holiday if nothing happens before that.”

  “He’ll go on Sunday,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  “According to you, yes. But what’s Heydt thinking?”

  Gunvald Larsson raised his arms, placed his large hairy hands on the window frame and went on staring out into the gray misery outside.

  “In some funny damned way, it’s like I knew Heydt,” he said. “I think I know how he thinks.”

  “Do you really?” said Martin Beck, moderately impressed. Then he thought of something else. “Think how pleased Melander will be,” he said. “Freezing at the ferry station in Helsingborg. On Christmas Eve.”

  Fredrik Melander had at his own request been transferred first from the National Homicide Squad and then from the Violence Division in order to avoid having to be away from home, despite the fact that he was miserly and the transfers had cost him a raise in salary as well as a promotion.

  “He’ll have to put up with it,” said Gunvald Larsson.

  Martin Beck said nothing.

  “You know, Beck,” said Gunvald Larsson, without turning his head.

  “Yes, what?”

  “If I were you, I’d be careful. Especially today and tomorrow.” Martin Beck looked surprised. “What the hell do you mean? Should I be scared? Of Heydt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been in the newspapers a lot, and on radio and television lately. Heydt’s not used to being tricked. And it might be in his interest to pin our attention down. Here. To Stockholm.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Martin Beck, and left the room.

  Gunvald Larsson sighed deeply and went on star
ing out the window with his unseeing china-blue eyes.

  28

  Reinhard Heydt was standing in front of the bathroom mirror. He had just shaved, and now he was combing his sideburns. For a moment it occurred to him that perhaps he ought to shave them off, but he immediately abandoned the thought. The idea had come up before, in different circumstances. His superior officer had suggested it, almost ordered it. He studied his face in the mirror. His suntan was fading a little more every day. But there was nothing wrong with his appearance. He had always approved of it himself, and no one else had ever commented adversely on it. Let them try.

  From the bathroom he went into the kitchen, where he had just breakfasted, then on into the bedroom and out into the large room where he and Levallois had had their operations center about a month earlier, now rather bare and empty.

  As he never went out, he knew nothing about what was in the newspapers, but television and radio were devoting a great deal of attention to the capture and the court proceedings, returning again and again to the subject. Now it seemed clear that the man Olsson was at most an administrator. The really dangerous person seemed to be the policeman who was mentioned so often—Martin Beck. Beck must also have been the one who thwarted the assassination attempt the month before. It seemed incomprehensible that such a person should exist in a country like Sweden.

  Heydt strode with long silent steps from room to room in the none too spacious apartment. He was barefooted and wore only a white undershirt and white briefs. He hadn’t brought much in the way of clothes, and since he never went out now anyhow, there wasn’t much reason to dress. He washed his underclothes in the bathroom every evening.