“We both want Sweden to thrive, Modin. We simply have different ways of tackling the problem. You’re a bit rougher, quicker, and have a good deal of energy. I wish I could tell you everything, then you’d understand. It isn’t as simple as it looks. You don’t take out a prime minister just like that, I’m sure you understand that. Especially not a celebrity such as Olof Palme. There are more people involved in all of this than you can possibly imagine, and exposing them all would not only damage Sweden and her people, but other nations and people beyond our borders. The world is run by the intelligence services, Modin. You know that and I know that, but the people don’t. They would neither understand nor accept being governed this way. They couldn’t handle the truth.”
Chris Loklinth rolled his little rock with his foot, trying to figure out Modin’s motives. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked Modin over from head to toe. A man in his forties, rather shabby and anxious, scared. He was off balance, you could clearly see that from his weary gray blue eyes, but he was not harmless. Far from it. Modin was not to be underestimated. When he seemed to be at his weakest, he could hit back with a blinding force, even kill. Loklinth knew that better than anyone else.
He rubbed the tip of his mutilated little finger against the ring finger of his right hand and looked out over the water before continuing.
“Do you believe that the fight against communism could take place effectively unless the intelligence agencies in the West cooperate? Hardly, and everyone involved knows it. We are the Fourth Reich. The New World Order if you like. The realm that Hitler never managed to create. It exists now, but it is invisible on the surface, and al Qaida knows that as do the IRA, Hamas, Abu Nidal, the PKK. Take your pick. They are up against the whole world. Do you imagine that they stand a chance? With God or without? No.”
He chased away a sparrow that was hopping around on the ground, a gesture intended to soften Modin up a little.
“Modin?” He tried to make eye contact, but Modin was staring at the ground.
“We could use someone like you in our organization. We only choose the best. With us, you would be able to exert power and find answers. But responsibly, with future generations in mind, if you like. We have a legacy to protect, my son.”
Loklinth said these last words quite spontaneously, but immediately regretted them. He had to admit that Modin was like a son to him; that was the cement holding them together. Modin had been a child of nature when he had picked him up out of the gutter. He was born to be a secret agent. He had been eighteen at the time, large, strong, and lost. And lots of qualities he admired: courage, intelligence, integrity, and passion. A missile that had to be pointed in the right direction. The welfare of every country depends on the creativity, integrity, and especially the intelligence of its citizens. He knew that; Olof Palme knew that. That is why Palme had created Special Ops in the 1950s within the Military Intelligence Service. Special Ops was intended to be the brain of Sweden that would rescue the country from chaos and stagnation. Just like the Russian KGB and the American CIA. Special Ops DSO was meant to support Swedish business and ensure its success, sometimes by using unsavory methods. Suitable individuals were picked to run the state industries, others to run the government departments. And sure, they became rich; but they were working hard for their country, ran successful enterprises, created jobs; their personal wealth was their reward. A New World Order. A modern feudal society. Loklinth considered this a brilliant idea developed by great minds, and it was now almost fully realized. It would mark an end to all world conflicts. The perfect society!
“I intend to find out the truth about the murder of Olof Palme,” Modin said slowly and with emphasis. He turned his left toward Loklinth and followed a freighter with his gaze, a vessel that was going to moor at the dock at Beckholmen.
Loklinth looked at Modin with rising anger. He’s so frigging obstinate.
“Who do you think you are?” he asked condescendingly. “God himself, or maybe the devil? Don’t you realize that you risk demolishing much of what we have built together? Special Ops will never allow that to happen. You will become a parenthesis in history. No one will remember you. A grave among graves. No one will even be able to grasp what you were after. Think of your legacy, your reputation after death. You’ve done a lot of good things, don’t destroy that. If you help us, you will be helping yourself. We can create legends, you know that; but we can also wreck careers and drag your name in the mud.”
“As you did with Christer Pettersson,” Modin said, without an ounce of hesitation.
“You have to sacrifice a few pawns to save the king. Christer Pettersson was never more than a pawn. A dropout, a rotten apple. Do you want to become a victim or do you want to be a hero?”
“It’s you and all the other has-beens at Special Ops who are the victims,” Modin said almost inaudibly.
“You are David pitted against Goliath. You’re so naïve. Grow up, accept your responsibility, rescue your country by giving up your plans. It’s your fucking duty.”
Loklinth turned around and walked toward a shed on the other side of the dock. A black Saab 9-5 was parked there, waiting. He opened the car door and climbed in. Before he shut the door, he said with great clarity and emphasis:
“Follow us, or follow your kids into the deep, Anton Modin.”
• • •
The my son pitch had worked. The words had come from the heart. And they had hit there, too. No doubt about that. For a split second, Modin wanted to be part of a human bond. A kind of overlapping of wills… love that would tolerate the clipping of a fingertip. A power struggle between father and son. Between Chris Loklinth and himself.
When Loklinth quickly glanced at the edge of the dock, where seven months earlier Modin had been pushed into the water, Modin understood that Loklinth had been involved in the attempt on his life.
A fingertip! Hell, what was that compared to murder? A great father figure—is that what Loklinth imagined himself to be?
By now, Modin was boiling with rage. His body was reacting violently. His thighs were trembling uncontrollably. He felt nauseous, as if run over by a freight train, mutilated, insignificant, and small. As the black Saab left the area, he started to weep. The car disappeared behind a rise. Dry, disgusting dust whirled through the air.
I’ll get him, Modin thought, grinding his teeth.
CHAPTER 46
STOCKHOLM, FRIDAY, MAY 8, 10 P.M.
Anton Modin returned to Götgatan Street, his head bowed. A broken man with smashed kneecaps, slashed tendons, a broken neck, and fear in his eyes crawled into the entrance to the apartment building. That, at least, was how it felt. The sheer shockwave of the realization that Loklinth had been involved in the attempt on his life had shaken the ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t cope. “I can’t go on like this,” he said to himself.
He heard the outside door shut heavily behind him. It was made of massive oak, had small panes of glass, a solid handle, and a kick plate along the bottom. The echo of the clank rolled through the stairwell.
He stopped to listen. Something was awry. He knew it instinctively. His heart was throbbing in his temples; he stood there terrified, trying to make out which noise had made him react.
He moved forward cautiously with short, quiet steps. One at a time, toward the stairs. Someone had tampered with the lock; the outer door does not click shut properly. This was the last thought he managed before a blow exploded his nose.
His head was thrown backwards. The pain blinded him. He tried to reach for the wall. He managed to turn and dampen his fall against the hard marble floor with his left elbow. The elbow dissolved in an indescribable flash of pain. The walls rocked back and forth, their contours blurred. He staggered, then felt as if he was going to throw up. His face scraped along the dirty floor; he tasted gravel, dust, and blood in his mouth.
My nose must have been knocked out of joint, he thought as he lay there still, with his face and lips pressed against the cold floor. He was breathing bl
ood. He was not sure whether he was awake or dreaming. Everything was quiet all around; or, at least, he heard nothing. Pain covered him like a blanket. If I don’t move, it won’t get any worse. I can cope with what it’s like now. I have to.
He opened his eyes and looked straight at the toe of a black boot. The sole was broken near the tip. He twisted his head back to see who was standing above him. It hurt his neck and he breathed hoarsely through his wide-open mouth.
A large man wearing a dark blue windbreaker and a black knitted face mask with holes for the eyes stared at him. Modin was reminded of terrorists, maybe the Red Army Fraction, but he didn’t know why. The man was holding a revolver in his right hand, and Modin was staring right down its barrel. A black hole waiting to be filled with a deadly bullet that would find him, the truthseeker, as its target.
The boot was lifted from the floor and placed on the side of his twisted neck and head. The pressure forced him to look down at the floor again. Modin was lying in a growing pool of his own blood.
Someone was speaking German into a cell phone further down the hall.
“Was sollen wir mit ihm machen?”
What shall we do with him? Modin understood that he himself was the problem.
The voice was hoarse and drawled, as if the blows he had just administered had been a fine wine that he was still holding and gurgling against his palate. They fell silent, only to continue at an even louder volume. “Ja, ich verstehe.” Yes, I understand. A decision had been made. Then a beep, and the call. was over.
Modin could hear a whisper, but he couldn’t make out the words. They were still speaking German.
“Modin,” someone whispered in his ear. “This is our very last warning. You’ll get away this time. Someone feels sorry for you. Someone you know. But all this digging into the Olof Palme assassination has to stop. Got the message?”
Saliva splashed on Modin’s throat and cheek as the man articulated these words in a whisper.
“Do you understand?” the man said and fumbled with something in his own crotch. “I would really like to put an end to you right here and now. Don’t misunderstand me, first see you suffer, then die slowly, bleed to death in torment. You’re a little shit. Insignificant. This is way above your head.” A small pause, and then he continued. “And you’re going to leave Julia alone, is that clear, too? Julia’s too good for you.”
Modin felt a large blob of spit sliding down his forehead and into his left eye. He was forced to shut his eyes. The man above him smelled of cabbage and cooking fat as if he had just eaten a good lunch.
From the corner of his eye, Modin could see the man pull out a semi-erect circumcised penis as he continued in a half-whisper.
“One fine day I will end you. You and your queer friends should have been extinct long ago. You’re fucking this country up. It’ll be a great pleasure to let you follow the rest of your family down to hell where you belong, Modin. Are you listening to me, Anton Modin? Because that’s where you belong.”
He’s insane, Modin thought. A fucking Nazi. Then suddenly he felt a warm fluid on his cheek, mouth, and nose. Over his hair, down his neck. The man was pissing on him.
Modin lay there waiting, his eyes shut. He could feel the cold floor through his clothes, pressing against his stomach, his upper thigh, and his left hand. He lay there, resigned to the humiliation, without moving a muscle. The man finally left. He heard someone laughing in the background. The outer door opened, then shut, and it was quiet.
CHAPTER 47
STOCKHOLM, FRIDAY, MAY 8, 10:30 P.M.
Let’s call it a day,” Modin said looking down at the rug on the kitchen floor. “Loklinth’s winning. We don’t stand a chance. We’ve got the whole world against us.”
Bergman and Axman had carried Modin into his apartment. He now sat on a kitchen chair while John Axman taped his nose. It was still bleeding as Axman carefully pushed plugs of cotton wool into each nostril.
Bergman sat there, watching passively. He felt like throwing up. The situation sent shivers down his spine. His best friend smelled of piss. He felt a wave of sympathy.
“We’re dealing with lunatics from all over the world,” Modin said in a shaky, muffled voice. Bergman could see from his reddened eyes and dampened eyelashes that he had been crying.
“How much beating can you take, Modin?” Bergman said. “How much can anyone take?”
“I should have heard that something was going on out in the stairway and come to your assistance,” Axman said.
Bergman had found Modin on the floor by the entrance when he arrived at the apartment building with hamburgers from McDonalds on nearby Folkungagatan, about a hundred yards from Modin’s front door. Axman called him after Modin had left for his meeting with Loklinth, and asked him to come by so they could discuss how to proceed. Now the French fries, hamburgers, and soft drinks were sitting on the coffee table in he living room.
“Fucking hell.” Modin’s nose was blue, almost black. He kept feeling it with his fingers, and kept grinding his teeth with pain. A fallen, bruised, and broken fighter, that is who he was.
His friends were reminded of the time immediately after the Estonia disaster, when Modin began to drink himself into a stupor every night. Back then, he seemed to grow shorter, as if his spine was shrinking. Bergman could see that he was on his way down that hole all over again. The Estonia hole, as they used to call it back then.
“Did you have a chance to see who they were?” Axman asked, running his fingers over Modin’s various moist wounds, moving cautiously toward the back of his head.
“Germans. They were Germans, believe it or not. At least they were speaking German to each other. It may not be the Barbro Team after all. One of them was likely Julia’s brother, Christer Steerback. He mentioned her, and what he said sounded personal—as if he hated me. We knew one another when we were kids.”
Axman touched Modin’s broken nose carefully and Modin flinched.
“Steerback is, after all, a German name,” Bergman said. “Maybe they were right wing extremists.”
“Could be.” What would these people have against me? I’ve never had problems with them before. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Axman. What do you think?”
“No idea. Neo-Nazis hate homosexuals, we know that much. Their goal is to exterminate all of us, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with that.” Axman briefly stroked Modin’s head to indicate that he had finished examining his wounds.
Bergman watched him. Axman was a bright guy all right, but no one should be fooled by his gentleness. He could be ice cold when necessary. Axman had been a helicopter pilot before he started working for the police identifying pedophiles and organized crime via computers. Bergman knew he was risking his career for Modin.
“This means that we shouldn’t move around the city alone, and that we must be armed,” Axman said. “This was brutal and merciless violence. You could have died, Modin.”
“I know. Down there by the door, I was sure I would.”
Modin got to his feet, stretched his back and staggered. Bergman broke his fall, grabbing him round the waist. He led Modin into the living room and placed him on the sofa. Axman sat down in the armchair.
Modin rubbed his left hand. “I think we’d better give up the project,” he said taking a big gulp of Coke from one the McDonald’s cups with a straw. “Our enemy is clearly Special Ops, even if they are utilizing Germans for the dirty work. They are too powerful. I don’t care too much about myself, but now you’re involved.”
“What do you mean give up?” Bergman asked. “That doesn’t sound like you, Modin.”
Bergman was trying to cheer him up. Ewa had never liked the fact that they were this close, and often he himself didn’t like what Modin was doing, but he needed him for more important things than solving the Palme murder. “I can fight tigers,” he said aloud.
This made Modin turn slightly and look at him.
“But you’ve got to take it easy f
or a while and let everything heal.” Bergman noticed that what he had said didn’t sound convincing. Axman was watching him while munching his Big Mac.
“I suggest you all go back to your apartments. I will stay in my house in Grisslehamn. I need some rest—and some time to think this over.”
“What about protection?” Axman said.
“As long as we are passive, we are safe,” Modin answered. “But I think they will still watch us.”
Outside on the main road, a truck could be heard accelerating and the echo reverberated around the yard behind the building. Bergman heard it and opened the door to the balcony. It had become stuffy.
Deeply discontent, yet still sure of himself, Bergman thought: We can’t stop now. I want my daughter back.
CHAPTER 48
GRISSLEHAMN, MONDAY, MAY 11
Modin sat up cautiously. He rubbed his eyes and felt the area round his nose, which had almost doubled in size. His face hurt badly still. He shivered.
Seems chilly in the house, he thought. Or maybe my nose is making me shiver. I may be running a fever.
It was Monday morning, eight o’clock, and Modin felt more alone than ever before. He had no one to hold on to when waking up, no one to say the first words to in the morning. Only Miss Mona was lying in bed with him, at his feet, slowly waking up now. She stretched, then rolled up in a ball so that she touched Modin’s legs. Her whiskers were sticking out and she brought out her paws. He could feel himself smiling as he looked at her.
Everything made him worry when he was awake! He had slept most of the weekend, only getting up to go to the bathroom and eat and drink. He was still dizzy when he put on his jeans and sweater. The sleeping pills he had been taking regularly put a blanket of numbness over him and helped him forget. But they also sedated him. He couldn’t stand that. He had to get back into action. He hated to be in this situation yet again—depressed and in pain.
His children’s rooms were empty but he furniture—no clothes strewn about, no cookies crumbs in bed, no books on the desk. A constant reminder that everything he had touched had gone bad. His once perfect career with Military Intelligence and his Special Ops training had not been more than a well-polished surface. When Loklinth caught him in his net and bought him onboard, what had been good in his life disappeared. He had become a puppet in the service of the state. His jobs were as far a cry from family life as you could imagine. Slowly his assignments eroded his soul; he couldn’t even remember them all; his memories were suppressed and lay far down in his subconscious to surface only in his dreams.
Enemy of the State (Anton Modin Book 2) Page 21