Winroth started to poke around in his briefcase again. Once he found the right tools, it took only about two minutes per lock. Ladybird Maria was incredible. Six minutes for three locks of which the newest one had nine tumblers. It shouldn’t be possible, Bergman thought. He went up to Winroth, who had stepped aside to let them through, and patted him gently on the shoulder as Modin turned the door knob.
A dog barked inside the office.
“Fuck,” Modin said.
He let go of the door handle.
“Alright, what’s the plan?” Axman said.
Bergman had, unconsciously, taken fives steps back toward the stairs. The dog sounded vicious. It was over.
“Wait a minute,” Winroth said. “I’ll take care of that.” He bent down and took out a small package wrapped in white paper. “Best sirloin steak ever.”
Winroth held the slices of steak in one hand and opened the door with the other. He tossed the meat into the corridor beyond, and closed the door quickly.
“Now we just wait,” he said. “Meat makes them very drowsy. Especially if it has been peppered with sleeping pills.” Winroth looked at Bergman’s fearful face and let out a heartfelt laugh. Bergman felt like an idiot.
“No worries,” Winroth said a little while later. “I’ve been here before. I did tell you that, didn’t I?”
A few minutes later, they opened the door. A brown Doberman Pinscher, a sizeable beast, lay just inside the door, sound asleep.
“So here we go,” Winroth said. “Now we’ll have to see whether I can find my way to the vault. It’s been a while.”
He stumbled along the corridor and stopped outside the door with Loklinth’s nametag on it. They stepped in through the open door and listened. No sounds penetrated the room. Modin went and sat down in Loklinth’s chair. King Charles XIII on the wall looked grim. Modin averted his eyes and instead browsed through Loklinth’s desk drawers. Bergman saw Modin plant something in one of them.
Axman went over to the window and closed the blinds.
“It’s behind that curtain,” Winroth said. “I must be getting old.”
He pointed toward a thick, maroon velvet curtain that covered part of the wall behind the writing desk. Apart from the desk, the room was furnished with a wobbly chair, a stool and an IKEA shelf with cardboard files and some paperclips.
Winroth pulled back the curtain, found the discreet steel door, and tried the handle. Locked! Modin removed his backpack and put it on the desk. He opened it and took out the brick-red Semtex.
“Here, on the door to the vault,” Winroth murmured and pointed at the hinge. Modin and Winroth carefully placed some Semtex in the door crack near the hinge. Then Modin taped a detonator to the crack and pushed some fuse wire into the detonator. They worked quickly; ink less than ten minutes they were done. Winroth took a couple of steps backward and exchanged glances with Modin.
“That’ll do.”
He sat down on the wobbly chair and opened a thermos he had in his briefcase.
“Anyone for coffee,” he said and poured some into the cap.
“I don’t know whether I’ve got time for a cup,” Modin said as he anxiously listened for sounds in the corridor.
“I’ve done my part,” Winroth said. “I’ll put the chair out in the corridor and just sit and wait.” He placed the chair just outside the door, sat down, leaned back, and planted his wrinkled, narrow hands on his stomach.
CHAPTER 58
We have exactly ten minutes to go after the explosion,” Modin said. “Then the police will be here, and by that time we should be out of here. Nuder’s in the car and can warn us with a text message.” He turned and held up the palms of both hands as a gesture to calm everyone down. “There’s a hell of a lot to go through in the vault. Now listen to what I want to happen: When we get the door open, only Bergman and I step inside. We’ll only have time to look at a fraction of what’s in there, so we must choose very carefully.” Modin was addressing Bergman. “I want you, Axman, to keep an eye on the courtyard to see if anyone reacts to the detonation. Listen to the police radio scanner and check for alarms. It’ll be a fairly loud bang. But if we’re lucky, not much of the noise will spill out onto the street. The residents of Östermalm are used to all sorts of noises and tend to fall asleep quickly. Pull your gun, just in case. Ready? Winroth?”
“Yes, thanks,” Winroth said as he stepped back inside the office with a smile. “Nice to have a cup of java. You have to seize the moment and enjoy, gentlemen. Maybe the last time I can take part in something like this. I’d give anything to see Loklinth’s face tomorrow.”
He continued to smile while putting the thermos cap on the floor, popped a couple of yellow earplugs into his ears and made a final inspection of the explosive charge. Then he went back out into the corridor and cut through the wires to the sprinkler system.
Bergman and Axman followed him out. Modin mounted the power line to a small battery and then closed the door carefully.
They sat down on the floor with their backs to the wall and covered their ears.
The explosion was deafening, but the pressure wave did not break any windows. Modin and Winroth had managed to calibrate the explosive just right, and the door to the vault had flown open just as planned. Loklinth’s office was full of smoke and smelled of solvent when they re-entered the room.
Winroth came last into the office. “Nice work,” he said. “A perfectly controlled explosion.”
Modin was already inside the vault. He had turned on the only light in there, a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and was already looking through one drawer of a metal filing cabinet. “Come on Bergman, be quick with the camera.”
The vault was actually bigger than the office itself. Shelves, drawers, and files from floor to ceiling. A squarish table, fifteen or twenty feet inside, with a reading lamp.
Modin looked completely wild. He was ripping out documents, browsing through them rapidly, while throwing the unimportant ones to the floor. The important ones he placed on the table in the vault. He ordered Bergman to start taking photographs and, “try not to read anything. That would simply waste time.”
Modin searched and Bergman took photos. Bergman was handed a thick dossier with the title B-76 The Brothel Affair. It was filled with heaps of documents. He could see photos, dirty pictures, and various video recordings. He stopped and looked for a moment at a picture of a young blonde giving head to an old man in a suit, presumably in a hotel room somewhere in the city.
“Modin, we can’t do all this. There’s too much of it. There are VCR tapes, what shall we do with them? It’d take days to copy all of this.
“Shit,” Modin said. “So let’s take with us what we can. I can’t even find the Palme dossier. Where the fucking hell is it?”
Bergman pushed the Brothel Affair dossier into his backpack.
Modin was rushing around the vault without a plan. He was breathing heavily, and the naked bulb revealed that he was sweating profusely. He was pulling out documents, cursing that he just wasn’t finding the most important ones and that they would soon have to leave. Now and then, he tucked something into his backpack, which was about to burst. He stopped, holding a bunch of papers, and seemed to forget where he was, breathed with his mouth wide open, and had a fit of coughing.
“Found what you want?” Bergman asked as he walked round the last filing cabinet in the vault. Smoke had collected there. He sneezed several times and felt a tickle in his throat.
“No, not yet. Still looking. Got to be here somewhere,” Modin yelled. He looked as if his pulse had reached the two hundred mark.
Bergman discovered a metal box under the cabinet, bent down, and pulled the handle of the box. It measured about 20 by 10 inches, had a handle at each end, and was sealed with two copper seals. He put his backpack on the floor and lifted the box with some difficulty; it was unexpectedly heavy. He placed it on the wooden table. It was locked with a padlock.
“Look at this!” he said.
Modin rushed over at the same time as Axman called from the doorway.
“The police are on their way. An alarm has gone out. You have about two minutes!”
Bergman and Modin did not answer. A text message pinged in Modin’s breast pocket. They were fully concentrated on the metal box. They simply had to open it.
“What the fuck are we going to do?” Bergman said. “It’s sealed and we’ll never have time to examine the contents.”
“Take it with us,” Modin said with decision in his voice. “Must be in here, we’ll have to risk it. Time is running out. You go ahead, Bergman. I’ll come later. Take Winroth with you. Remember, he’s an old man. Run for the car. We’ll meet up there.”
Bergman put the metal box under his arm. He turned around and glared at Modin before leaving the vault. He left the backpack stuffed with documents in the vault. That had to be sacrificed for the sake of the metal box. “Fuck!”
Modin had put down his backpack, too, and was scurrying around in one of the archive shelves.
Dawn was approaching and sunlight was beginning to seep through the window at both ends of the corridor. The office was still partly covered in smoke, although most of it had drifted out into the corridor. Winroth was already by the stairs. He was cursing that Modin wasn’t leading the way out.
“Winroth, we’re off,” Bergman said. “Axman, we’re leaving. Modin’ll follow. Don’t wait for him.”
Modin was still searching the vault for what he personally wanted most: the dossier of the M/S Estonia disaster. It was not filed under the letter E. He looked under B for Baltic States. He found a dossier with the title Baltic Operations. He ripped it out and opened it somewhere in the middle.
Everything around him became peaceful, as if he was in the eye of the storm. Before he even read anything, he sensed that he had found what he was looking for. He was completely absorbed by the dossier and the seconds were ticking away. The smoke had settled like a cobweb in his throat and made him cough as he read with concentration and speed about the diving operations down to the wreck of the Estonia. The documents were in English and included underwater pictures. He could see a truck lying on its side. These photos had been taken on the car deck.
Had someone actually dived down to the car deck, although it was strictly prohibited by the joint decree of the Finnish, Swedish, and Estonian governments?
The document was stamped Top Secret inside a double frame, which denoted the highest level of classification. Modin came across a shipping manifest for the Estonia and began to read.
Suddenly, Axman was back and grabbed him round the waist. Modin struggled.
“No, not right now, Axman. The truth is somewhere in here! My family. My kids, just leave me. I don’t give a fuck if I get caught.”
Axman continued to pull him away. He clamped his arm around Modin’s throat.
“Come on, for fuck’s sake!” Axman yelled. “They’re coming!”
In the distance, sirens could be heard. Modin stiffened.
Axman managed to pull Modin along with him. The dossier he had been holding fell to the floor. The papers fluttered around in the vault. They left them behind. Modin had come to his senses and began running along the corridor toward the stairs. Axman ripped out his machine gun. Modin did the same. They said nothing as they put on their dark blue balaclavas. There was only one way out; the same way they’d come in.
Two police officers on their way up met them on the stairs.
“Police! Freeze!” they yelled at the top of their lungs.
Modin shot a salvo in the ceiling. The police officers froze. Dry wall and rubble rained down from above.
“Oh fuck,” Axman muttered.
“Don’t move!” Modin screamed.
The police officers obeyed, their backs pressed against the wall, faces white with fear, their guns lowered. Modin and Axman passed them, dressed all in black, with their full backpacks. Both were holding their MP5 machine guns at shoulder height. The air was thick, the officers scared shitless.
“Drop your weapons,” Modin yelled.
The police officers complied immediately and put their hands above their heads.
Modin nodded that Axman should exit first. Axman slid down the stairs and vanished. Modin walked backward, shot a salvo in the ceiling to keep the police officers inside. Then he left, too.
Nuder had the engine running and was revving up. He drove up to the Riddargatan entrance.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
They jumped into the car and Nuder sped off with tires screeching in an easterly direction toward the wider Narvavägen Street. They drove north, through the city center, dropped Winroth off at his apartment north of Stockholm, and then continued north toward Grisslehamn.
At first, they could hear a cacophony of voices on the police scanner. A road block was established at the tunnel leading south out of Stockholm, but after half an hour, the radio suddenly went silent.
Both Axman and Bergman thought this was odd. Modin said it was quite normal. “Hardly anything will be in the newspapers tomorrow. A gas explosion in the Östermalm district, at the very most. This box here is the holy grail of secret files, I’m sure,” Modin said. “They don’t want anyone to know it’s gone.”
I’ll be fucking damned, we’ve stolen the Special Ops secret archive, he thought for himself. And they’ll know who it was. Fuck they’ll get mad!
CHAPTER 59
GRISSLEHAMN, TUESDAY, MAY 19, 12 P.M.
They ate a long and hearty breakfast; Modin had made scrambled eggs. Now they were sitting out on the porch enjoying their hot coffee. Miss Mona had been given her canned cat food. She was sitting on the lawn licking her fur. A swallow on the roof was sending out warning signals; it had seen the fat cat, who ignored the bird completely.
It was a beautiful spring day with almost no wind. A ridge of high pressure had positioned itself over the neighboring Åland Isles. This accounted for the stable weekend weather. The weather service on the radio had promised that the high pressure would continue into the following week.
The sound of birds eager to find a mate could be heard everywhere. Schools of small fish were jumping up through the mirror-like surface of the inlet. A large fish splashed as if someone had thrown in a rock. They could see its tail as it dove.
“Did you see that?” Bergman exclaimed. He was completely exhausted. His body was drained of adrenalin and he knew he would need several days to recover. He had not yet started to think about the consequences of their night raid in Stockholm City. He knew it meant trouble, but he didn’t have the energy to think beyond that. Instead, his thoughts went to the sealed metal box and what it might hold. He had seen Modin hugging the box like a child in the doorway to what had been his daughter’s room. Perhaps it contained details of the Estonia ferry disaster. Bergman would leave that to Modin. He’ll tell us what’s in it in due course.
“Hang on,” Modin said, raising his hand. “The news.”
They all listened to the short and succinct news commentary discussing an accidental explosion that shattered the night at the Army Museum in central Stockholm. Apparently, the report said, the police did not suspect any crime.
CHAPTER 60
SPECIAL OPS HEADQUARTERS, TUESDAY, MAY 19
How on earth am I going to be able to work in this mess? Huh? A bomb in my office? That’s what it looks like. When’s the new door to the vault going to be installed, Lundin?” Loklinth shouted into the corridor, but his assistant did not show up. “It should have been here by now. I’m not going to sleep here tonight, if that’s what you think. When are they going to be ready in there?”
Loklinth paced up and down his office, which looked as if a minor war had been fought and lost in there. Every now and then, he would walk out into the corridor, only to return a few moments later.
Two men from the police sanitation group and a technician were doing their best to clean up the scene. They were inside the vault now.
&nb
sp; A layer of white dust lay on everything: books, papers furniture and, not least, the portrait of King Charles XIII. Loklinth wasn’t allowed to touch anything in there. Not even in his own office.
Finally, Lundin turned up.
“How the hell could this have happened, Lundin? Don’t the premises have a working alarm system?”
Lundin said they should regard it as a break-in.
“A break-in? Here? What do the CCTV cameras show? Why didn’t the alarm go off? Come on, explain that to me!”
“They used keys,” Lundin said. “That’s why the alarm didn’t go off. The cameras picked up absolutely nothing. Someone cut the cables.” He spoke concisely to his boss. “They were professionals.”
Bob Lundin was an analytical type—cold, and what he lacked in creativity he made up for with ambition. He followed orders without the slightest hesitation. Bob Lundin had always been interested in working at DSO, the holy of holies within Swedish Defense, but he never imagined that his immediate superior would turn out to be such a demanding asshole. As always, Loklinth was looking for a scapegoat and turned his watery eyes on Lundin.
“What do you mean ‘cut the cables?’ Is it that darned easy, Lundin? I’m asking you. How can it be so darned easy?”
“I did suggest a review of security last fall,” Lundin said, calmly. “I even wrote a memo on the subject. The security system hasn’t really changed since the Cold War ended, and that’s been quite a few years ago. With all due respect, sir, I believe we discussed this just a few days ago. “
“Who would have the balls to break into this building?”
Loklinth said. “How many people know what we do here? And that my archive is in a vault behind that curtain?”
Loklinth rambled on and on. He was on the brink of tears. His little world lay in shambles. This incident could be the end of Loklinth’s career, and that was what Lundin had been waiting for. Lundin was rather amused by the whole situation and decided not to let his boss off the hook.
Enemy of the State (Anton Modin Book 2) Page 26