by Jens Lapidus
He walked over to Mahmud’s car with the bag. The sky was dark and it’d stopped snowing. The Arab opened the door. “Here, change in the car,” Niklas said. “It’s better than standing out here. If someone comes by, we don’t want to call attention to ourselves.” Mahmud accepted the bag. Niklas walked back to Babak’s car. Hoisted out the other bag. Brought it into the car.
They began dressing.
Long underwear that Niklas’d bought at the Stadium sports store. There’d be a lot of time spent out in the cold. Over that: the bulletproof vest—with the protective panels tightly packed, molded to the body. It was made to be worn directly against the body: the harness was attached to the protective panels so that the weight was distributed evenly. Maybe this stuff wasn’t the best gear on the market, but it would do. The vests would still feel lighter than they actually were. Would protect heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, spleen, and spine.
He put on the black wind pants. It was tight, getting dressed in the car. He laced up his boots. High, fourteen holes, leather, over four-hundred-gram Thinsulate lining. Waterproof, ventilated membranes for winter cold, guard duty, and armed attack. He pulled on his gloves: lined, black leather. And then the thin puffy over the vest. The heat in the car almost felt damp.
Finally: the ski mask—rolled up, ready to be pulled down over his face.
Babak in the front seat: trying to wriggle into his pants.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get any shoes for you,” Niklas said. “I didn’t have time.”
Babak chuckled.
“My regular winter shoes’ll have to work, I guess.”
Niklas looked down. Babak was wearing a pair of white sneakers. Those were going to get cold and wet. He hoped the guy would be able to hack it.
They climbed out. The road was dark. The air felt clean. Farther up, beyond the golf course, he saw the trees. Niklas brought a backpack out from the trunk of the car. Opened it. Thanked himself for his careful preparations. Pulled out the Beretta. Tucked it into one of the front pockets of his jacket, put the ammunition in the other.
He walked over to Mahmud’s car. The Arab rolled down the window. They looked like they were all dressed in there.
“Okay, boys, it’s almost game time,” Niklas said. “From now on, we’re operating according to military rules. Is that clear?”
Mahmud nodded.
Niklas continued, “I’m going to be completely honest with you. We haven’t had the planning time we needed. But this has to happen tonight. So we’re going to have to improvise a little. There are a few things you have to think about.”
The wind was picking up. Niklas had to raise his voice to be heard. “We’re going to speak English with each other. Is that clear?”
The guys in the car and Babak nodded.
“And we will never use each other’s names. Only use numbers. I am number one, Mahmud is number two, Babak is three, Robert is four, and Javier is five. Can you repeat that? Who are you, Mahmud?”
They repeated their assigned numbers a few times, until Niklas was satisfied.
“Never touch anything without wearing gloves. And finally—don’t, under any circumstances, remove your ski masks. Not even if you’ve taken a hit to the face. Never. Is that clear?”
The boys nodded.
“Now I want you, Javier, to repeat what I just said,” Niklas said.
Javier opened the car door. Recounted briefly about the names, the language, the ski masks.
“You forgot the gloves,” Niklas said. “Never, under any circumstances, take off your gloves. Is that clear?”
The boys nodded again. Niklas asked Robert to repeat. Then Babak.
After each time, they nodded. Niklas hoped that it meant something.
They’d walked through the woods, in the snow, up to the fence. Waded through the snow. None of the boys were whining, yet. Niklas stopped. Took his backpack off. Dug around inside. Fished out four handsets.
“I have four walkie-talkies here. They are much better than cell phones. No one can track that we’ve used these. Mahmud and I will have two of them, for those of us going inside the house. Robert, you’ll have the third handset and Javier will have the fourth. For the men remaining outside the house.”
He pointed down, toward the road. “Now we’re going to go check out the entrance gate.”
One hundred and sixty-five feet farther off they saw the lights from the road. A car drove by, slowly. They walked closer. Saw the silhouette of the fence against the headlights. The car stopped: a Range Rover, model XL. Niklas watched the gates. Two men walked up to the car. The windows were rolled down. One of the men poked his head in. Said something. Then he waved: all clear.
The gates slid open. The car rolled in.
It was eleven-forty.
The moon was cold and large. Niklas led his men up along the fence again. The snow was reflecting the little light that was filtering through the trees from the house and the moon. It was enough, he didn’t need to get out the night-vision goggles.
He knew this area. Knew the house’s façade, angles, distance from the fence. He knew the course of the fence, where there were larger stones and gaps in the trees.
They walked another hundred feet. Silent. Calm. Focused.
Niklas stopped. “Here, Robert, this is your position. You know what your job is. Sit on this rock and wait. I’ll inform you over the radio when it’s time to get going. It’ll be around midnight.”
Robert looked like he understood the gravity of the situation. Nodded grimly. Gripped the AK4 with both hands. Mahmud shook his hand.
“See you later, habibi. This is gonna be big.”
They pushed through the snow.
Three hundred feet. They glimpsed the back of the house through the trees. A warm light glowed from the windows.
He ran through the same procedure with Javier. Javier got in position with the AK4 held high. Ready. Prepared for his mission.
It actually felt good. So far.
Fifty more feet. Just Niklas, Mahmud, and Babak. Dressed in black, dark as the desert night. Niklas felt for the Beretta in his jacket pocket. Picked it up one final time. Popped out the magazine. Inspected it in the moonlight. He knew this piece by heart. He thought about Mats Strömberg and Roger Jonsson. Pigs who’d faced their butcher. Soon, justice would be served. The New Year would be off to a good start.
They stopped by the designated spot in the fence, where the distance to the back entrance of the house was the shortest. Niklas took off his backpack. Fished out the bolt cutters. Crouched by the fence. Began from the bottom. Cut into the thin steel: easy as paper.
After five minutes: a hole nearly three feet high and twenty inches wide.
They crouched down. Crawled through. Behind enemy lines.
Eighty feet. Slowly. Niklas in the lead. Staying low to the ground, military posture.
Sixteen more feet. They approached the house.
Another sixteen feet. Niklas stopped. Looked ahead. No people outside the house as far as he could see. He fished around in the bag again. Brought out the night-vision goggles after all. Mahmud and Babak sat down behind him. He scanned the façade. Window by window. The light from the inside was intensified by the effect of the goggles, hurt his eyes. He eyed the door: no people outside. All appeared quiet.
He took the goggles off. Turned to Mahmud. The Arab still had his ski mask rolled up. Niklas whispered, “We move in ten minutes.”
Mahmud smiled widely. Made thumbs up.
Something was fishy. Mahmud looked strange. Niklas didn’t drop his gaze. Took a step closer to Mahmud.
“Can you show me your mouth again?”
Mahmud smiled again.
His teeth were dark, almost looked bluish. Maybe it was the moonlight.
“What the fuck did you eat?”
Mahmud grinned. Responded in a low voice, “Rohypnol, of course. It makes your mouth a little blue. You didn’t know that, buddy? You want some?”
Niklas didn’t know w
hat to do. For a brief second, he considered shooting Mahmud in the face. Bolinder could happily find a defrosted Arab corpse in the spring. Then another thought passed through his mind: he should abort the mission. Get up and sneak back out the same way they’d come. Leave these two clowns to do whatever they wanted. Still, he remained where he was in the snow. Crouching. Shivering. Completely paralyzed. It couldn’t end like this. He’d promised himself. I’m in charge. I make the decisions. I don’t give up. I make a difference.
“How long ago did you take that shit?”
“Right before we saw the Range Rover. I want to be ready. It’s not a big deal, Niklas. I promise. I always take roofies when there’s gonna be action.”
“You’ve made a mistake. But we’ll have to let it slide for now. You won’t take any more of that stuff. Is that clear?”
Mahmud’s smile died. He looked down. Maybe he understood his slip. Maybe he just didn’t want to argue.
Fifteen minutes passed. They were lying down. The snow was touching their chins. The house: fifty feet off. The kitchen entrance was clearly visible. A wood door—90 percent certain it was locked. Niklas could hear music from inside. Could see people moving around behind the curtains. Music, laughter. Whore sounds.
He fished around in his backpack. His very own IED: improvised explosive device. His homemade grenade. It looked like a black beer can.
Mahmud and Babak were lying diagonally behind him.
Niklas held the grenade in his right hand. Looked at his watch. It was five minutes to midnight.
Soon time to catapult the whore hounds into the New Year.
63
There was music coming from the floor above. Thuds in the ceiling. A bass. Laughter. Thomas thought about his dad’s old favorite poet, Nils Ferlin, and his poem about a ceiling being someone else’s floor. Then he thought, There is no room for poets in today’s Sweden. Way too few who even know Swedish well enough to read stuff like that. What’s more: the ones who speak Swedish don’t care about poetry anyway. He was pining. Not just for his old man. He was pining for a Sweden that no longer existed.
In front of him: high metal storage shelves. Probably a total of thirty yards of shelving. Classic black binders with felt spines. Binders that locked around the paperwork. Around the bookkeeping material, the verifications, the documents. Hopefully the same stuff that Hägerström and Thomas’d just gone through. Hopefully something else too. Proof.
New Year’s Eve’s night was running on. Finally, right before he got here and made his way inside, the weather’d calmed down—Åsa would get a perfect view of the fireworks. Thomas was inside, alone—alone against the power. Alone against the ones fucking with him. Now it was his turn to show some people who’s boss.
Hägerström’d looked shocked at first. “You work a side job at a strip club?” But his surprise settled quickly—the case was more important. Still, he advised against going to the party. Went on and on about how they should wait till tomorrow, try to talk to some superior, give an account of all the information they had. Rantzell’s connection to the Palme murder and Bolinder’s organization. Get a formal search warrant.
Thomas grew irritated, mostly. “You know as well as I do that what we have won’t get us anywhere. Really, what proof do we have? That Rantzell guy’d been given shady payments. It has to do with the murder weapon, that much I’m certain of. But in what way does our information really point to someone having something to do with the murder? And it certainly doesn’t point to the murder of Olof Palme. But when we add up what Ballénius told us about Rantzell and the payments that you found, we know that we’re on the right track.”
Hägertröm squeezed his eyes shut. Looked pained. He probably knew that Thomas was right. Still he said, “But come on, Andrén. We’ve been doing this on the side long enough. We have to get back on the formal route now. Do the right things in the right way. Or else it could all go to shit. Right?”
Thomas looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t think too highly of cops who work against other cops. People like that aren’t real cops in my eyes.”
Hägerström stared back at him.
Thomas went on, “What’s more, you’re a little know-it-all who thinks a bit too highly of yourself. You bitch about irrelevant stuff, you don’t have any sense of comradeship, and I’m not sure you could even handle a SIG Sauer.”
Hägerström continued to stare back at him.
“But, on the other hand,” Thomas made a dramatic pause, “you’re the best, sharpest, quickest cop I’ve ever met. You’ve been loyal to this private investigation we’re running. You’ve been loyal to me despite everything that’s happened. You’re funny, I laugh at every joke you make. You’re thoughtful and brave. I can’t help it—I like you a lot.”
Continued silence.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Thomas said. “You have significantly more to lose than I do. I’ve already put myself outside the system. I just have myself to blame while you might lose your job. And practically speaking, there’s one other thing. You’d never be let in there, at that party. But I might be. I’m going to finish this thing. Tonight. With or without you.”
Hägerström rose. Didn’t say anything. Thomas tried to read his facial expression. Hägerström walked toward the hallway. Turned around. “Well, this is what I was thinking. My night is going to consist of me going home and changing, then going to the Half Way Inn and hanging out there for the rest of the night. Drinking lots of beer and maybe a few glasses of champagne. At around two o’clock, I’ll probably be so drunk that I’ll already have forgotten about midnight, ringing in the New Year, all that. What do I have to lose? That’s not a New Year’s Eve worth remembering. I’ll come with you. You’re not doing anything without me.”
They were driving on the road out to Dalarö, each in his own car. Hardly any traffic. Almost felt cozy. The warm air and the heating in the seat. The sound of the car’s engine was like a blanket of security in the background. The light from the headlights was reflected in the snowdrifts that edged the road like high banks. Hägerström was in front; he’d entered the address into his GPS. Thomas didn’t think they had the same things on their minds.
He’d called Åsa again and told her he had to work all night. She became sadder this time, started crying, questioned how it was all going to work when Sander came. Would Thomas take his role as a parent seriously? Did he understand what it meant to have a family? What did he value in life? He didn’t have any answers. He couldn’t tell her anything about what was happening right now.
Who was he, really? A mix of police mentality and self-righteousness was deeply rooted in him. At the same time, he’d changed over the last few months. Seen, close up, the people he usually worked to nail. Felt a kind of kinship with them. There was a life, a moral code, on the shady side of society, too. They were people he could become close to. They made choices based on what was the right thing to do in their situations. Thomas’d crossed the line. The step he’d taken—a cardinal sin. But there, in the valley of death, among the people he used to call the dregs, the rabble, he’d found people who felt like friends. And if they could be his friends and if their choices were the right choices—then who was he, as a police officer?
He tried to dismiss the thoughts. Concluded to himself: Tonight, it was different.
Forty minutes later, Hägerström’s car stopped by a dark forest road out on Smådalarö. Thomas parked behind him. Remained sitting in the car and called Hägerström. They decided that Hägerström would park his car on the forest road. Thomas would try to make his way in. They put all their chips on this one hand.
He drove slowly along the road until he saw the driveway. There was a full moon. A black metal gate. He stopped the car ten yards from the sign. Waited. Next to the gate was a camera and a large sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY. PROTECTED BY G4S.
Fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up. Not just any car: a limousine. Felt weird: a stretch
limo à la Las Vegas on a winter road in the countryside. The car pulled up to the gate. Thomas couldn’t see exactly what was happening. After thirty seconds, the gates slid open. The car rolled through.
Thomas thought about the man outside his house and the guy who’d attacked him in the garage. Maybe it was the same person. He thought about Cederholm alias Rantzell, Ballénius, and Ballénius’s daughter. The cops who used to feel like his friends: Ljunggren and Hannu Lindberg. In his mind’s eye he saw Adamsson, the forensic pathologist Bengt Gantz, Jonas Nilsson. It’d been a long journey leading up to the situation he was facing now. Still, it almost felt like everything’d been going according to some predetermined plan.
He put the car in first gear. Drove slowly up to the gate. The car’s exhaust billowed out behind him like a minor heating plant. He stopped. Rolled down the window. Looked into the surveillance camera. A voice from the speakers: “Good evening. How may we help you?”
“My name is Thomas Andrén, let me in please.”
A faint buzz on the other end of the line.
“Tell Ratko, Bogdan, or whoever else you’ve got in there right now that I’m supposed to work tonight.”
A rustling sound in the microphone, then a different voice. “Hey there, Thomas. I didn’t know you were working. No one informed me.” It was Bogdan, a guy who usually helped out at the club.
The gates opened.
He drove through.
Outdoor lights were hidden in the bushes along the road and illuminated the snow on the branches of the trees. A hundred or so yards, maybe, then the forest opened up. An enormous three-story house, big windows, pillars by the entrance. Probably twenty cars parked outside. The limousine was turning around. A few of the rooms were lit up. He could hear faint sounds. Thomas parked next to a black Audi Q7. Walked up to the house. Thought, What is this insane thing I’ve gotten myself into?