“I’m not sure I entirely approve of this,” Amelia Carlson said. “We are gambling with Modin’s life and he doesn’t even know it.”
“I’m afraid we are out of options,” Filipson said dryly. “I suggest we get straight to the issues at hand, shall we? We had imagined that you, Amelia, would function as our point of contact with Modin. Undoubtedly, he is going to need financial and maybe even moral backing. We will provide you with the full scope of that assignment later. Let’s break for dinner now.”
For the first time in weeks, Filipson experienced an appetite. The issue he had just presented had bothered him for quite a while. Now he had shared the dilemma with others. The pressure slowly subsided. He had a sudden craving for roasted deer, cream sauce, and chanterelles. That was what the kitchen had on the menu for tonight.
As dusk slowly fell upon the Police Headquarters on Kungsholmen in Stockholm, a plan to rescue the Swedish economy and crash Filipson’s worst enemy, Chris Loklinth and his shady DSO, was put in motion.
CHAPTER 10
GRISSLEHAMN, SUNDAY, JUNE 15
This is much more than a regular hangover.
Harry Nuder feels like he’s been hit by an express train. His eyes are glued shut, his throat feels like sandpaper. He doesn’t seem to be able to wake up. But he has to!
Nuder rolls out of bed and carefully puts his feet down on the bare hardwood floor. His head feels like the size of a beach ball. As he lets go of the bed frame and puts his hands to his head and his cheeks, he can feel the true extent of his angst.
What is going on?
On legs barely supporting him, he makes it to the bathroom and folds up the toilet seat. The ring is stuck and comes with it. Without lowering it, he collapses on the cold bare porcelain rim. It is very uncomfortable and the sharp edge cuts into his bottom. But he has to remain there for a while. Bent forward, he breathes deeply while trying to figure out what the hell he should do.
It strikes him that he should probably call someone. Something is very wrong. He senses danger but immediately represses it.
Fuck, get your act together, Harry!
After what seems like an eternity, he is able to move into the kitchen. A wall calendar is lying on the kitchen table. He remembers having browsed through it the night before, just before heading down to Anton Modin’s place. Apart from that, the kitchen is very tidy. Dishes, pots, and pans are neatly put away, the area rug is straight as an arrow, and all the chairs are in their rightful places, properly lined up.
What happened last night? he wonders. Did I pass out right there on my bed? If so, wouldn’t the doors be unlocked and clothes strewn all over the floor?
The noise from the running toilet fades. In the following silence, the headache creeps up on him with renewed strength. He can almost hear his heartbeat and he is sweating profusely. He can no longer suppress his anxiety. He thinks about the two mysterious men from yesterday, the ice-cold octopus and the bully.
Nuder squints through the window.
Where are the dogs? Their scratching on the front door? Albert and Elvis, where are their regular morning barks?
A hint of strange scents and stealthy footsteps make him frantic. Is anyone here, in his house?
He grabs a large butcher’s knife from the set on the kitchen counter and goes to check every room, every nook and cranny of the house. No one. He exhales and returns to the kitchen. Then he sees it. His rubber boots at the door to the basement have been moved. They are neatly lined up side by side, but not exactly where he remembers putting them.
Someone’s been here!
With his left hand, Nuder slowly opens the basement door and turns on the lights. He holds on tightly to the cold iron railing and slowly descends, step by step. He can feel the rough surface of the stairs underneath his moist bare soles. A musty, murky smell ascends from the confined space below. His heart is pounding and he listens intensely.
The door to the laundry room is half open. The early daylight, pushing its way through the small square windows, turns the light gray, almost white. Every cell in his body tells him that he is approaching a disaster. He slowly pushes the laundry room door open with his foot. In the ominous silence, he refocuses, sharpening his senses to take it all in.
Albert is hanging from the ceiling. The dog’s eyes are carved out and are lying on the floor in two dark bloody bundles. A collar of dried blood around the neck stretches from a thin steel wire that has cut through Albert’s skin.
The dog is dead. In death, Albert’s golden retriever face is almost peaceful. The pain the poor dog must have endured has been erased. Nuder becomes week in his knees, realizing that this is directed at him. No mercy has been shown to the poor animal. That’s the message right there.
Nuder cuts down the lifeless body with arms straight. He is shaking, his muscles are aching, and he can barely function, but he is determined not to give the bastards the pleasure.
Make sure not to drop Albert now!
Nuder carries the animal up the stairs and out into the yard. There he puts Albert’s body down and whistles for his other dog.
Elvis does not come.
“Those fucking bastards,” he gasps.
Nuder checks all the sheds, outhouses, and the garage. Reaching the woodshed, he starts crying uncontrollably while whispering his dog’s name: “Elvis, Elvis.” He carefully opens the door. There is Elvis, lying in a pool of blood. He is whimpering quietly. All four of his legs are severed at the first joint.
With his rough tongue, Elvis manages to lick Nuder’s salty tears off his fingertips. The poor beagle’s eyes are pale white from pain, suffering, and fear.
Harry Nuder is beside himself. This is insane. This cannot be happening, he thinks. He is completely lost, doesn’t know what to do. But the dog is waiting. Harry Nuder gathers his strength, walks to the far short wall, and grabs an axe.
CHAPTER 11
Modin and Bergman found Nuder sitting on the front stoop of his house. He was still wearing his pajama pants and a T-shirt. His clothes and arms were covered in dark stains of blood. His face carried tiny scattered stains of blood, which he had not bothered wiping off. On the ground in front of him lay a blood-soaked axe.
Nuder’s sad physical appearance did not scare them. However, the expression of indefinable fear and rage in his face gripped them deeply. He was leaning against his front door and it was hard to tell how long he’d been there. Nuder was in a state of shock.
“Are you alright?”
“They’ve killed my dogs.”
Modin sat down next to him on the stoop.
“They’re dead!”
“Where are they?” Bergman asked.
“Behind the house… I had to… myself… Elvis … Fuck man!” Nuder choked on the words.
Bergman scurried around the corner and was back in a jiffy. Modin raised his head, searching Bergman’s facial expression for any kind of a positive sign. Bergman shook his head. This was bad, really bad.
“Come on, Harry, let’s get you cleaned up,” Bergman said and pulled him up.
Harry freed himself from his grip swaying slowly back and forth on the steps.
“How can someone be so evil?”
“Are you hurt?” Modin asked, now standing up, closely examining his friend.
“I talked to you guys about the submarine. That’s got to be it. Don’t think I don’t know what this is all about. I am sure it is about the submarine. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Modin scanned the nearest surroundings. He moved slowly, positioning himself in front of Nuder as if to protect him from potential danger. He was eager to get away from the open space in front of the house, so they could get a grasp on what was going on.
Bergman tried to make Nuder move into the house. But he was frozen like a rock, did not budge.
“Did someone break in?” Modin asked.
“They strung up my big dog in the basement.”
“I’ll be darned!”
“I wen
t out like a light last night, don’t know what happened.”
“These people are professionals, no doubt about that,” Modin said as he was examining the lock on the front door.
“It was two guys. They were here yesterday. They took the nautical chart,” Harry Nuder said. “It is all about that chart. Apart from that, they haven’t left any trace, nothing is missing. These aren’t just your average brats from Stockholm out for a leisurely break-in!”
“Hmm, not a trace, you say,” Modin said. “Question is just what kind of professionals. My guess would be they’re Swedes. Russians aren’t really keyed into our emotional attachment to our pets. Special Ops, most likely. They’re psycho enough to pull something like this off.”
“Yes, the guys from yesterday were Swedes,” Nuder said. “How could they enter the house without waking me up, without a single noise? I usually sleep like Tarzan and it does not take much to wake me up.”
“Do you have a headache?” Modin asked.
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t believe.”
“They’ve used gas; they blow it in through the ventilation, a crack under the door or in a window. Not much, but enough for a six-foot-three guy like you not to wake up.”
Modin spoke calmly, while he kept an eye on the yard in front of the house.
“How can you be so sure?” Nuder asked. He looked completely worn down, dark circles under his eyes, a complete wreck. “I will have to report this to the police.”
“I would think twice about that if I were you,” Modin said. “Imagine the uproar this would cause in the local media and in this community. It would be the talk of the town, and before you know it, the national media would be all over it. A juicy story with murdered dogs sells, you know.”
“They weren’t particularly kind to the two dogs,” Nuder said in a dark, hoarse voice. He rubbed the palms of his hands against his forehead and covered his eyes. His friends discretely turned away.
“Yeah, I realize that,” Modin said. “But a veritable army of reporters running around here on the island wouldn’t help our search for the submarine. Everyone will put two and two together and figure out that something’s not right. You have no enemies here on the island, Nuder. The media will start digging, and that may put you right back in the danger zone. Tell you what, let’s photo document the entire crime scene for now. Then we can use it as evidence further down the line, when we have something more tangible, like, for instance, a Soviet submarine.”
“Modin has a point there,” Bergman added.
“You know darn well that the perpetrators aren’t going to be apprehended,” Modin said. “The police would not find anything. This originates from high up. If instead we connect what happened here today to events further down the line, we gain a lot more traction and credibility.”
“Yeah, we can reveal to the Swedish public what dirty methods are employed to protect national security,” Bill Bergman said. “Because that’s what it is about after all, isn’t it?”
Harry Nuder reluctantly accepted their proposal. Suddenly he started crying uncontrollably, his body shaking. By the very nature and intensity of his crying, Modin realized that Nuder’s dogs had meant as much to him as Monica and his kids had meant to himself. He looked at Nuder with tearful eyes, went up to him, and gave him a big hug. At that point, not even Bergman could keep it together as he was standing there, holding the blood soaked axe.
Modin and Bergman helped Nuder bury the dogs in a sunny spot behind the house. Modin even crafted a small wooden cross. They had a ceremony. The three friends stood in a half circle with lowered heads and looked at the grave. On the wooden cross, Modin had carved For National Security.
Albert and Elvis’ gravesite
CHAPTER 12
THE SECURITY SERVICE, STOCKHOLM, MONDAY, JUNE 16
Göran Filipson, Police Superintendent and head of the Security Services Section for Special Analysis, SSA, was infamous for his hidden agendas. At first glance, he could be taken for an ordinary guy, maybe even a little naïve, but behind that facade lurked one of the sharpest minds in the security service. His strength, at least in his opinion, was other people’s tendency to underestimate him. That was an attribute that was of good use in this job.
“Please have a seat, Modin. You take your coffee with milk, right?”
“Would you be so kind as to explain why you’ve called me here?” Anton Modin got straight to the point. He didn’t sit down in the chair Filipson had pulled up.
“I think it’s important that we stay in touch, that’s all,” Filipson said and handed him a cup of coffee. “It has been quite a while since the last time we met. How are your diving adventures? I suppose you are still at it? Anything new and exciting on the horizon?”
Modin was naturally suspicious, but quickly realized there was no use in trying to cover up. Filipson had that special look in his eyes, which confirmed more than a thousand words ever could that they were keeping close tabs on him. They sat down across from each other and slowly sipped their coffees. Modin put down his cup and cracked a smile, if only to show his good will.
“Well, to tell you the truth, we’re thinking of starting a search and recover operation of a Soviet miniature submarine in the Stockholm Northern archipelago. We have reason to believe that such a submarine was sunk right outside of Singö in 1982. If it’s still there, we’ll find it.”
“Yeah, I think it’s still there,” Filipson said.
Modin flinched at Filipson’s casual confirmation of a state secret, but did his best to keep a straight face. Had he been called here because of the Russian submarine?
Göran Filipson was 58 years old. He had served with the Security Service since the days of Olof Palme in the early 1980s. Back then, his immediate supervisor had been the infamous P.G. Näss, notorious and, at some levels, even feared within the counter-espionage community. P.G. Näss had taken the heat for the Ebbe Carlsson scandal in 1987. Näss’s department had been caught using illegal surveillance methods when, also illegally, investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme.
Prime Minister Olof Palme’s government had been well aware of regular phone surveillance, but had more or less given silent approval for the sake of national security. But when P.G. Näss had become too controversial, especially after the Olof Palme assassination, these illegal operations became the perfect vehicle to get rid of him. Leading the investigation into the Palme assassination, Hans Holmér and his henchman Ebbe Carlsson intended to make the Kurdish nationalist organization PKK the scapegoats for the murder. P.G. Näss wanted no part of that deceit. As a result, in 1988, P.G. Näss was forced to resign. That, in turn, propelled Filipson into the position he now enjoyed.
Göran Filipson calmly stirred his coffee. He was old school, part of the fascist wing, as the left wing media liked to say. Filipson held the firm opinion that you did not catch or arrest spies; you simply scared them away. Filipson had learned that from experience. For that reason, there had been very few spy cases in Sweden after P.G. Näss resigned.
He’s been around the block a few times, Modin thought, especially in the late 1980s. If only people knew. After retirement, Filipson was hoping for a high paying job as a consultant in the private sector, company car, corner office, and the whole nine yards.
“They need people like me,” he had told Modin over lunch one day. Several of Filipson’s predecessors had gone directly into the private business sector to continue the battle against socialists.
As the police equivalent of the Military Special Ops, the agenda and operations of the Section for Special Analysis, SSA, were usually top secret, as were their connections and cooperation with NATO and their backing from both CIA and MI6. Special Ops operational leadership did not have any official collaboration with those two organizations.
Anton Modin knew what was worth knowing about Special Ops. He made his way out of Special Ops and into the Security Service through networking, and he and Filipson had developed a low-key friendship. F
or a while, Modin was deeply involved, acting as a contact for the Security Service to Special Ops. Filipson’s Security Service was certain that his military equivalent, Special Ops, was infiltrated by GRU, the Soviet Military Intelligence branch. Hence he badly needed the intelligence feed Modin was supposed to provide.
CIA against GRU, the thought amused Modin. Parts of the Swedish Security Service aided the CIA, while parts within its military equivalent, Special Ops, worked closely with GRU. How very typical for Sweden, the sacred land of compromises—always fifty-fifty, no one was to be left out.
Modin realized that the small talk was over when Filipson put down his cup and pushed it aside. For some reason he always seemed to want his bony, translucent hands free when he discussed business. He was about to spill the beans. About what and why, Modin didn’t give a damn.
“In all likelihood, there is some sort of jamming device in the area where the submarine wreck could be,” Filipson said dryly. “The Supreme Commander ordered the entire area sealed off only days after the incident in 1982. In violation of all laws and regulations, he declared the entire zone a restricted area, just to keep unauthorized personnel and curious thrill seekers away. As if that wasn’t enough, he gave the Soviet Navy a blank check to perform a search and recover operation in Swedish territorial waters. There were even some amphibious troop landings on some of the reefs north of Singö, probably in an attempt to rescue possible survivors. One can only assume they didn’t find what they were looking for, hence the electronic jamming device they left behind. This device interferes with any electronic equipment, including sonar, attempting to search the area.”
Deep State (Anton Modin Book 1) Page 8