Firewall

by Henning Mankell

  That was his first contact with Africa, with a poor and shattered country. His time in Vietnam didn't count, he had been an unwelcome intruder. Here he was welcome. At first he spent his time listening, seeing and learning. He had marvelled at the joy and dignity that flourished amid the hardship.

  It had taken him almost two years to see that what the bank was doing was wrong. Instead of helping the country to gain true independence and enable the rebuilding of the war-torn land, the bank merely served to protect the very rich. He noted that the people around him treated him with deference to his high rank. Behind the radical rhetoric there was only corruption, weakness and greed. There were others – independent intellectuals and the occasional politician – who saw what he saw, but they were not in positions of power. No-one listened to them.

  At last he could stand it no longer. He tried to explain to his superiors that the strategies of the bank were misdirected, but he received no response, despite time and time again making transatlantic flights to persuade the staff at the top in the head office. He wrote countless memos, but he never had an answer that conveyed more than well-meaning indifference. At one of these meetings he finally understood that he had been labelled as difficult, as someone who was beginning to fall outside the pale. One evening he spoke with his oldest mentor, a finance analyst called Whitfield who had followed his career since his undergraduate days and who had helped recruit him. They met for dinner at a restaurant in Georgetown and Carter had asked him straight out: was he alienating everyone? Was there really no-one who could see that he was right and that the bank was wrong? Whitfield had answered just as candidly and told him he was asking the wrong question. It didn't matter that Carter was right or wrong. What mattered was bank policy.

  Carter flew back to Luanda. As he leaned back into his first-class seat, a dramatic decision was taking shape.

  It took several sleepless nights for him to see what it was he wanted. It was also at this time that he met the man who would play a decisive role in convincing him that he was doing the right thing. With hindsight Carter had often marvelled at the mixture of conscious decision and random coincidence that shaped a person's life.

  It had been an evening in March in the middle of the 1970s. He had suffered a long period of sleeplessness as he searched for a way out of his dilemma. One evening, feeling restless, he decided to go to one of the restaurants in Luanda's harbour, Metropol. He liked going there because there was little chance he would run into anyone from the bank. Or any of Angola's elite, for that matter. He was usually left in peace at the Metropol. At the next table that night there had been a man who spoke very poor Portuguese and, since the waiter couldn't speak English, Carter had stepped in to translate.

  Then the two of them had started talking. It turned out that the man was Swedish and was in Luanda on a consulting project commissioned by the state-owned telecom sector, which was grossly neglected and underdeveloped. Carter could never afterwards say exactly what it was that sparked his interest in the man. He was usually someone who maintained a stern reserve. But there had been something about this man that lowered his guard, even though Carter was a suspicious person by nature. His usual attitude was that most of the people he met were his enemies.

  It had not taken Carter long to understand that the man at the next table – who soon joined him at his own – was highly intelligent. He was not only an able engineer and technician, but someone who seemed to have read up on and understood much of Angola's colonial history and present political situation.

  The man's name was Tynnes Falk. He had only learned this when it was late and they had said goodbye. They had been the last to leave the establishment. A lone waiter was slumped half asleep at the bar. Their chauffeurs were waiting outside. Falk was staying at the Hotel Luanda. They decided to meet the following evening.

  Falk had only meant to stay in Luanda for the three months that the project was expected to take. When the work was over, Carter had offered him a new consulting project. It was mainly an excuse to hold on to him, so that they could continue their conversations.

  Falk had therefore come back to Luanda two months later. That was when he told Carter he was unmarried. Carter had likewise remained unmarried, though he had lived with a succession of women and fathered three girls and one boy, whom he almost never saw. In Luanda he now had two black lovers. One was a professor at the local university, the other the ex-wife of a cabinet minister. He kept these liaisons secret, except from his staff. He had avoided forming relationships within the bank. Since Falk seemed very lonely, Carter guided him into a suitable relationship with a woman named Rosa, the daughter of a Portuguese businessman and his Angolan housekeeper.

  Falk had started to feel at home in Africa. Carter got him a pleasant house with a garden and a view of Luanda's beautiful harbour. He also wrote a contract that rewarded Falk excessively for the modest work he was expected to carry out.

  They continued their conversations. Whatever subject they discussed on those long tropical nights, they always found that their political and moral opinions coincided. It was the first time Carter had met anyone in whom he could fully confide. Falk felt the same way.

  It was during these long African nights that the plan began to take shape. Carter listened with fascination to the surprising things Falk told him about the electronic world in which he lived and worked. Through Falk he had come to understand that he who controlled electronic communication controlled everything. It was above all what Falk told him about how wars would be fought in the future that excited him. Bombs would be nothing more than computer viruses smuggled into the enemy's storehouse of weapons. Electronic signals could eliminate the enemy's stock markets and telecom networks. The days of nuclear submarines were over. Future threats would come barrelling down the miles of fibre-optic cables that were now entangling the world like a spider's web.

  They were in agreement from the beginning about the need for patience. Never to make haste. Their time would come. Then they would strike.

  They complemented each other. Carter had contacts. He knew how the bank functioned. He understood the details of the financial world. He knew how delicate the economic balance of the world really was. Falk was the technician who could translate ideas into practical reality.

  They spent the evenings together for many months, refining their plans. During the past 20 years they had been in regular contact.

  Carter was jerked out of his thoughts and instinctively reached for the gun under his pillow. But it was only Celine, fumbling with the locks on the kitchen door. He ought to fire her. She made too much noise preparing his breakfast. The eggs were never cooked the way he liked them, and she was ugly and fat. Besides, she was stupid. She could neither read nor write and she had nine children. Her husband spent most of his time – if he wasn't drunk – chatting in the shade of a tree.

  Carter had at one time been persuaded that these were the people who would create the new world, but he didn't believe it any longer. So it was just as well to destroy the world, to smash it into bits.

  The sun had already swum up over the horizon. And now Tynnes Falk was dead. That which should never have happened, had happened. They had always been aware of the fact that something beyond their control might interfere with their plans. They had built this into their calculations and had taken every possible precaution. But they had never imagined that one of them might die. An unplanned death. When Carter first got that call from Sweden, he had refused to believe it was true. His friend no longer existed. It hurt him and it changed all their plans. And it had happened at the worst possible time – right when they were about to strike. Now he alone was left on the threshold of the great moment. But life always consisted of more than carefully laid plans and conscious decisions. There was always coincidence.

  Their great operation had a name in his head: Jacob's Marsh.

  On a rare occasion Falk had drunk a lot of wine and begun speaking of his childhood. He had grown up on an estate wher
e his father was some kind of caretaker. There had been a marsh next to a particular strip of forest. It had been bordered by beautiful, chaotic wild-flower meadows, so Falk had said. He had played there as a child very often, watching the dragonflies and having the best times of his life. He had explained why it was called Jacob's Marsh. A long time ago a man named Jacob had drowned himself there over an unrequited love.

  The marsh acquired extra significance for Falk later in life, not least after his meeting with Carter and the realisation that they shared some of their most fundamental understandings of life. The marsh became a symbol for the chaos of life, where the only end was to drown yourself. Or make sure everyone else did.

  Jacob's Marsh. That was a good name. Not that the operation needed a name, but it was a way to honour Falk's memory. A gesture only Carter would appreciate.

  He stayed in bed a few minutes more and thought about Falk. But when he realised he was getting sentimental he got up, took a shower and went down to the dining room to eat his breakfast.

  He spent the rest of the morning in his living room, listening to Beethoven's string quartets until he couldn't stand Celine's clatter in the kitchen a moment longer. Then he went to the beach for a walk. His chauffeur and bodyguard, Alfredo, walked a short distance behind him. Whenever Carter went into Luanda and saw the social disintegration, the heaps of garbage, the poverty and misery, he felt that the action he was taking was justified.

  He walked along the ocean and from time to time he looked back at the decomposing city. Whatever rose from the ashes of the fire he was going to start would be better than this.

  He was back at the house by 11 a.m. Celine had gone home. He drank a cup of coffee and a glass of water. Then he retired to his study. It had a breathtaking view over the harbour, but he pulled the curtains shut. He liked the evenings best. He needed to keep the strong African sun away from his sensitive eyes. He sat at the computer and went through his daily routine. Somewhere deep inside that electronic world an invisible clock was ticking. Falk had created it from his instructions. It was Sunday, October 12, only eight days away from D-Day.

  He had finished his regular checks by 11.15 a.m.

  He was on the verge of switching off the computer, when he froze. An icon was flashing from the corner of the screen. The rhythm was two short flashes and one long flash. He took out the manual that Falk had written for him. At first he thought there had to be a mistake. But it was all too true. Someone had just broken through the first layer of security into Falk's computer in Sweden. In that little town, Ystad, which Carter had only ever seen in postcards. He stared at the screen, unable to believe his eyes. Falk had sworn that the system would be impossible to break into. But still someone had done it.

  Carter started sweating. He forced himself to remain calm. There were many layers to the security system in Falk's computer, and the innermost core of the program was buried under miles and miles of decoys and firewalls that no-one could penetrate. Even so, someone was trying to get in.

  He thought long and hard. He had immediately sent someone to Ystad after hearing of Falk's death. There had been several unfortunate incidents, but until now Carter had felt sure that everything was under control, especially since he had reacted so quickly.

  Everything was still under control, he decided, even though he couldn't deny that someone had broken through the first line of defence in Falk's computer and was possibly trying to go further. This needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.

  Who could it be? Carter couldn't believe it was one of the policemen he had heard about through his informant, the ones apparently resolving the details of Falk's death and the other events with what appeared to be complacency.

  But who else could it be? He found no answer and remained motionless in front of his computer as dusk fell over Luanda. When, finally, he got up from the desk he was still outwardly calm. But a problem had arisen and it was something that needed to be rectified.

  He missed Falk more than ever. He typed his message and sent it off into the electronic realm. His answer came back after about a minute.

  Wallander was standing behind Martinsson. Modin was sitting at the computer, where an ever-changing matrix of numbers was rushing by on the screen. Then the screen started to settle down. Only the occasional ones and zeroes flashed by. Then it became completely dark. Modin looked at Martinsson, who nodded. He went on tapping commands into the computer and fresh hordes of numbers flashed by. Then they stopped again.

  "I have no idea what this is," Modin said. "And I've never seen anything like this."

  "Could it be a computation of some kind?" Martinsson said.

  Modin shook his head. "I don't think so. It looks like a system of numbers awaiting a command."

  It was Martinsson's turn to shake his head. "Can you explain that?" he said.

  "It can't be a calculation. There is no evidence of any equation here. The numbers only relate to themselves. I think it looks more like a code."

  Wallander was not satisfied. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it wasn't a stream of meaningless numbers.

  "Didn't people stop with codes after the Second World War?" he said, but there was no answer from the other two. They kept staring at the numbers.

  "It's something to do with the number 20," Modin said.

  Martinsson leaned forward, but Wallander's back was hurting and he remained upright. Modin pointed and explained what he meant to Martinsson, who listened with interest. Wallander's thoughts started to drift.

  "Could it be something to do with the year 2000?" Martinsson said. "Isn't that when electronic chaos is supposed to break out and all computers are going to go haywire?"

  "It's nothing to do with 2000," Robert said stubbornly. "It's the number 20. Furthermore, no computer ever simply goes haywire. Only people do that."

  "It will be the 20th in eight days," Wallander said.

  Modin and Martinsson kept bouncing ideas back and forth. They called up new numbers on to the screen. Wallander was starting to get impatient.

  The phone rang in his pocket. He walked to the door and answered it. It was Höglund.

  "I may have found something," she said.

  Wallander went into the hall.

  "What is it?"

  "You remember I told you I was going to root around in Lundberg's life?" she said. "First I was going to talk to his sons. The older one is Carl-Einar. It dawned on me that I had seen that name before. I couldn't remember where."

  The name meant nothing to Wallander.

  "I started combing through the computer records."

  "I thought only Martinsson could do that?"

  "Truth be told, I think soon you'll be the only one who can't do it."

  "What did you find?"

  "That Carl-Einar Lundberg was tried for a crime a number of years ago. I think it was while you were on sick leave."

  "What did he do?"

  "Well, apparently nothing – since he got off – but he was being tried for rape."

  Wallander thought for a moment.

  "I suppose it's worth looking into," he said, "though I have to admit I can't see how it fits into either Falk's death or Hökberg's."

  "I think I'll follow it through," Höglund said.

  Wallander went back to the others.

  We're not getting anywhere, he thought in a sudden spasm of hopelessness. We don't even know what we're looking for. We're lost.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Modin was tired and his head ached. He stopped working some time after 6 p.m., but he wasn't giving up. He squinted up at Martinsson and Wallander and said he was more than happy to continue in the morning, but "I need time to think," he said. "I need to consult some of my friends and come up with an approach."

  Martinsson arranged for Modin to be driven home.

  "Do you think he meant what he said?" Wallander asked Martinsson as they walked into the station.