Whatever happened to the concept of duty, that sacrifice for the good of others is not only laudable, but expected, especially when it comes to family? I’m scared for Kate because of the psychological dangers that lie within her, and the physical dangers that loom from without. I will sleep in this chair. I will retire and devote myself to her care for the next forty years if need be. And I will protect her from the dangers of the world as best I’m able.
Milo went halfway around the world and saved her for me. He’s crazy as a shithouse rat, but I owe him a lifetime debt. He’s asleep on the couch, stirs and wakes. We have coffee and cigarettes and decide this should be moving day, to the home I inherited from Arvid in Porvoo. I consider the ramifications of taking Kate away from familiar surroundings to go on our “vacation.” It could be considered as such. A lovely home with the Porvoo River directly in front of it, close enough so that I could step off the porch, onto the wooden walkway and jump into the river if so inclined. In practical terms, it’s a safe move. The water, like a moat, adds a measure of protection.
Milo’s complicated plan to perpetrate the mass-murder frame-up of Roope Malinen requires a.50 caliber Barrett, as it’s a sniper rifle he’s familiar with, but he doesn’t want to use his own because of a possible ballistics match. He has cheap automatic pistols we stole from drug dealers and kept to use for frame-ups or as throw-down guns, but he needs a military automatic or semi-automatic rifle for a frame-up video he wants to make. Something that can at least be fired as fast as the trigger can be pulled.
This presents a problem for him because of the severely limited use of the fingers of his right hand. Physical therapy is improving it, but we don’t have six months or a year to wait while he regains sufficient mobility to rapid-fire a weapon. It is, however, he says, sufficient to pull a hair trigger on a sniper rifle. Via his home network connection with the police database, he’s found a person with the firearms he needs to do the job. A retired army major in Helsinki has a Barrett, a pair of Sako military-issue RK-62 assault rifles, and an Israeli Uzi submachine gun. He intends to B amp;E the major and steal his arsenal.
I ask him what kind of plan might require that many weapons. He doesn’t know, but all the bases will be covered. He also intends to visit an underground construction site and use his police card to weasel his way into an explosives cache, claiming a need to inspect them. He’ll take Sweetness, create a diversion, and they’ll steal a small quantity of high-grade explosives. A little, he says, goes a long way. But that’s a project for another day. Today, he’ll get his boat and dock it in Porvoo.
“And how do you intend to kill the minister of the interior and national chief of police?” I ask.
“Don’t know for sure yet, but probably while they’re golfing, which means we have to pick a Saturday for this.”
“We?”
“Aren’t you going to kill Jan Pitkanen?”
I don’t want to think about it. He tried to murder my wife and child and killed an innocent girl instead. I have no way of stopping him from attempting the same again. I have no legal recourse. I can’t see that I have much choice. Still, I’m so conflicted about it that part of me wants to let him live, just put all this behind us, and internally, I keep waffling about it. Not killing him, however, is a threat to us all, and this isn’t all about my wants or feelings. I sigh. “I guess so.”
He senses my reluctance. “Do you want us to do it for you?” Milo asks.
I can’t ask someone to commit a murder on my behalf because I don’t have the will. “No.”
“Then you have to time it with us. He’ll just be another dead guy in a crowd.”
I nod. This is at once all logical, pragmatic and insane. What’s more, I have no doubt that we’ll get away with it, for the simple reason that no one would ever believe it. I picture the headline: HERO COPS ON CRAZED SHOOTING SPREE. That’s never going to happen. As Arvid Lahtinen once told me, “It would be like trying to convince people that Jesus was a pedophile.”
Milo gets in the shower. Anu sleeps in her stroller beside my chair. I warm her formula, put cups of coffee on a tray and, precarious, carry it with one hand and rap on my bedroom door with my cane.
A sleepy voice says, “Come.”
I walk in, sit on the edge of the bed and lay the tray on it. “I thought you might like to have a little family time this morning,” I say.
Kate looks at me, her face blank. “What family?”
I don’t know if she’s being sardonic or genuinely doesn’t know. “Your husband and daughter.”
I see confusion in her eyes. She doesn’t know who I am. Then, maybe because daughter equals Anu, and our baby is a touchstone for her, even when she was in a dissociative stupor, she snaps back into reality and the present. She tries to cover her lapse with cynicism. “Oh, that family. Applied to us, doesn’t that make a mockery of the word?”
She radiates anger, but truly because of frustration caused by her lapse, not by me. “Anu doesn’t need a bottle. I can breast-feed her.”
“I’m sorry, Kate, but you can’t. You’re using medication that prevents it.”
This makes her choke back a sob, but she says nothing.
I don’t know if she remembers this has been discussed. “We’re leaving today,” I say, “to take a little vacation in Porvoo. It’s a charming town, mostly Swedish-speaking. The old town has the kinds of arts-and-crafts stores you enjoy. We’ll stay in the house Arvid left me. It’s a lovely home on the river. I think you’ll be happy there.”
Kate has always been so demonstrative. Now I find her inscrutable. “Who knows,” she says, “maybe I will.”
If I could jump up and down for joy, I would. Kate has uttered something positive to me for the first time in weeks.
I ask Milo if he minds to drive me to Kamp for my meeting with Yelena. He says, “Sure,” and gets dressed.
We take his Crown Victoria. My phone rings as we pull out. Phillip Moore.
“Vaara,” I answer.
“Hello, lad. I’ve called to give you a heads-up. Is your phone secure?”
“The securest.”
“My situation went slightly awry. I decided to decline your generous offer to let me and my family live unless I committed double murder. I intended to take my family and leave the country instead, and so I resigned my position, effective immediately. Saukko took exception to my resignation, never mind that I’ve worked for him for five years and said nothing against him, just said I’d like a change and to move on. He said, ‘Congratulations, you just made my Shit List,’ and had me escorted off the property without even letting me get my kit. I took great umbrage at such treatment.”
“And you’d like me to help you how?”
“It’s me trying to help you, despite the fact that I may kill you one day. I wanted my things and had no intention of being on a death sentence list, neither yours nor his, so I went back and cut the throats of those two Corsican bastards-they were sleeping like babes-took their passports, and appropriated the keys to the safe-deposit box, both Saukko’s and theirs. I did a little passport doctoring and replaced the elder Corsican assassin’s photo with my own, went to the bank, emptied the safe-deposit box and took my retirement fund.”
“A mocked-up passport altered by hand in a hurry got you into that box?”
“It’s July, I took a gamble that the regular admin was on vacation, and it was more than sufficient to get by the zit-faced zombie summer intern from the university.”
“You’ve been a busy man,” I say. “Why are you calling me?”
“To let you know the Corsicans are dead and end our relationship. For now. You know, I never truly feared you. Your torture-session stage props were a bit over-the-top, like a movie cliche, and it wasn’t sodium pentothal and LSD in those syringes, was it?”
“No, it was vodka.”
“The poor man’s truth serum. Injected alcohol works to a certain extent. Good thinking. The reason I’m calling is that I’m no longer in the
country, and both keys to the box are at the bottom of the Baltic. Saukko has to find himself more killers, and there aren’t so many proficient ones around. Then he has to have the box drilled, which he will find empty. So he has to fill it back up. Even billionaires don’t generally have a million in cash just lying around the house. It will take him at least a couple weeks to sort it all out, which gives you a window of opportunity.”
“To do what?”
He laughs. “Anything you like, lad. Anything you like.”
“A couple questions,” I say, “just so I can believe you.”
“Fire away.”
“In your iPad calendar, you list ‘driving’ almost daily. What does it mean?”
“Working on his golf drive. He has some buoys out in the sea at different distances. He aims at them and drives a bucket or two of balls. He has his own green and sand trap as well, to practice putting and chipping.”
“What about the dead Corsicans and body disposal?”
“Saukko has had too many bodies about. Daughter. Son. Now this. A background check on the dead men would turn up suspicious things. Too much trouble, too much publicity. They’ll also be at the bottom of the Baltic by now. Maybe they’ll find their key down there.”
“How did you defeat security and get in the house?”
“I designed that system, left myself default security codes. And the easiest way in is by sea. It was a fine night for a swim.”
“Thank you, Moore,” I say. “Just one last thing. You said Saukko has a morbid fear of death. I put a sword to his heart and pushed it hard enough against his chest to draw blood. He never flinched.”
“A sword?”
“Long story.”
“Saukko is a master of facade. He has terrible psychological problems but is very good at masking them.”
“Enjoy retirement,” I say.
“I promise you I will. Take my advice, lad. Help yourself while you can. There are other men with the same set of skills as myself, and when Saukko gets himself a roguish one, it’ll be time to say good-bye to your family.”
I start to say that the last time a man with his skill sets tangled with us, he was so careless that my wife killed him, but too late. He rang off.
“What did Moore want?” Milo asks.
I consider the subtext of his call. He didn’t call me for his stated reasons. He called to get a job done. “Because he wants us to kill Saukko.”
Saying it out loud sparks other truths. Saukko talked about waiting years to take his vengeance on me, yet tried to kill my family within days. He fears death. He reads people. He knows I’ll stop at nothing to protect my family. He fears me. He called the tune. Play for blood.
Moore killed the Corsicans but let Saukko live. Especially after the kidnap and following murder of his daughter, then the drama of the death of his son, the murder of Saukko will generate the biggest manhunt in Finnish history. Moore foresaw this. If Saukko were murdered and Moore disappeared, the investigation would focus on him from day one and he would be apprehended. So he spared Saukko and left us to clean up the mess.
But we have more than just Saukko to deal with. Through some twisted logic, Jan Pitkanen hates both Milo and me for the cards life has dealt him. Jan Pitkanen arranged the car bomb, ultimately murdering Mirjami, proof of said hatred. Jan Pitkanen works for the minister of the interior. Thus, Pitkanen had Ahtiainen’s implicit or explicit blessing before acting. Ahtiainen almost certainly discussed it with his best friend, Jyri Ivalo, before giving the green light. Thus, they are all complicit in the murder of a sweet and innocent young woman. I have too much dirt on both of them. Ivalo fears me. Ivalo will find a way to either kill me or put me behind bars. I have no doubt the pair of them have put as much time and energy into collecting dirt on me as I have on them.
The value of all these lives is reduced to a kind of balance sheet. Either me, my family, Milo, Sweetness or maybe even Jenna must die. Or Saukko, the minister, the chief, the murderer and the patsy hate-monger must die. There are no smaller, neater options. There’s no room for negotiation. There’s no way everyone can live. It’s a terrible decision to have to make, but only one choice is possible.
I pat Milo on the knee. He looks at me, quizzical.
“When we get back to my house,” I say, “I have a present for you.”
32
We arrive at Kamp. I ask Milo to wait in the car. It makes him unhappy, so I explain that I would bring him but the invitation was extended only to me. He accepts it.
The doorman recognizes and greets me. I limp down the long carpet into the lobby, pass by the marble pillars, under the chandelier and rotunda, then take a left to the elevators. Sasha was no more careful with his hotel security than he was with his finances. The key card is in the hotel’s paper holder with the room number on it. I take the elevator to the fourth floor.
Kamp has gone through various renovations. About half of the hotel has security cameras mounted in the hallways. The other half doesn’t. It also has a security staff of one. He mostly attends to preparations for visiting political dignitaries, rock stars, people of that ilk.
I let myself into Yelena’s suite. To the left of the door, Yelena used her blood to write on the wall in big letters. Blood dribbled down the wall as she wrote, I suppose finger painting. “My husband killed me.” I use my cell phone to take pictures. I follow the blood trail to the bathroom, Yelena stills wears the clothes she had on when we met, minus shoes.
What happened seems obvious. She slashed her wrists, wrote her message, then came in here to avoid making a mess, and I think to maintain dignity in death. She knelt over the tub. Eastern Orthodox prayer beads are laced around her fingers and her hands are folded. She prayed as she bled out. A green rubber duck sits on the edge of the tub, as does one in every room. It seems to make light of the scene, a kind of accidental mockery, and I’m tempted to move it, but don’t.
I take my shoes off and walk around her suite, looking for anything that might indicate that her husband truly did play a part in her death. I find a letter addressed to me on the nightstand beside the bed, written in impeccable English.
Dear Inspector Vaara,
As you see, I’ve provided you with ammunition against my husband. You seek that urchin. He knows her whereabouts. My husband is a lapdog to his masters. He will not part with that information easily. I have no doubt you will have to torture it out of him. Then, as a favor to me, to reciprocate the favor I have done for you, please photograph both my writings on the wall and myself. Send them to my father (note his e-mail address at the bottom of this note). I promise you that any and all problems concerning my husband will come to an abrupt end, as will he.
With Warm Regards,
Yelena Merkulova
The logic of her note is faulty. It expresses the frantic and desperate state of mind of a woman about to end her own life. There’s no need to torture him if I have photos that guarantee his death. I can offer to give him his life back, use them for barter, trade them for Loviise Tamm. Her less than lucid reasoning probably caused her to think she was covering all the bases, and perhaps the idea of her husband being tortured pleased her so much that she thought, What the hell, can’t hurt to try. Such pure hatred is seldom seen.
Yelena said she was still “Daddy’s little girl,” that her father was a rich and powerful man, and her husband was charged with her care. When her husband discovers what’s happened here, he’ll try to cover it up, to save his own life. I take copious photos to ensure that doesn’t happen. She’ll have her dying revenge for being reduced to “chattel,” in a way no different from the poor girls bought, sold and traded by men like her lover and, I feel certain, under the direction of her husband. I also feel certain that within a day or two, her father will have her husband recalled to Russia and murdered. This, I believe, was the purpose of Yelena’s suicide.
I have the ambassador’s number in my phone. I send him a couple of poignant images. He calls me immediately. As mu
ch as I would like to honor Yelena’s final wishes, I won’t torture her husband. I do, however, offer to suppress the images in trade for the return to me of Loviise Tamm. He says he would if he could, but he doesn’t know where she is. He offers me a quarter of a million dollars to suppress the pictures. His voice trembles with fear. I tell him money won’t cut it and hang up on him.
I call Milo, tell him to come up, and to bring protective gear to prevent us from contaminating the crime scene. I then call Helsinki Homicide to report the death. Milo arrives and we suit up. He sees nothing I’ve overlooked. The ambassador text messages me, asks me again to please not release the images. He writes that the last time Loviise was seen, she was in the company of Yelena as they left the embassy on foot.
Inka and Ilari from Helsinki Homicide come in. I assume they’re competent detectives, but they’re annoying. They’ve had an affair going on behind the backs of their families for years, I’m told, but bicker and treat each other like dogs when they’re around other people. I suppose they think it maintains their charade. They sometimes forget themselves and talk to their colleagues in a similar way, and it makes them unlikable.
“Vaara,” Ilari says. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Milo and I were out in our patrol car and caught the squeal. We were nearby and first on the scene.” It was a joke intended as a little display of my disrespect for his attitude. We use cell phones, not police radios, and we never use a patrol car.
“Well, get the hell out. This is a potential international incident. It isn’t-and it’s not going to be-your goddamned case.”
“Fuckin’ A right,” Inka says. “You’re on leave and have no right to be here. Out.”
I have what I came for, and it’s only going to be their case for about two and a half seconds. “No problem, and good luck.”
Milo and I walk out of the room and find the Russian ambassador, surrounded by an entourage of five men. The forensics team has also just arrived. The ambassador is raising hell, demanding to see his wife, demanding Finnish police leave the scene, invoking various articles about diplomatic privilege. No one is interested. Until Moscow intervenes, it’s a potential crime scene that belongs to the Finnish police.
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