Deep State (Anton Modin Book 1)

by Anders Jallai

  Anton Modin said a quick good bye, took a detour through the living room to hug Astrid, and left.

  I know that maniac is going to be my demise, Bergman thought while securing the deadbolt. I can’t keep going like this. Unlike Modin, I have a daughter to care for.

  CHAPTER 26

  Modin stepped out onto Bastugatan and was greeted by the light breeze that sent a slight ripple over the bay waters of Riddarfjärden.

  Yes, that’s right, he thought. I am about to go down and uncover the darkest secrets of our country, make no mistake about that.

  The air was rather clear and free from smog up here on the southern heights, and as he cleared his throat, he noticed to his relief that the annoying taste of blood was gone. True to the ritual, as always when he visited Bergman, he crossed the street and entered through the wooden door to the Ivar Lo Johansson Park, which was situated at the crest of the Maria knoll, pretty much comprising a perfect square overlooking City Hall and Riddarfjärden.

  He sat down on a park bench to enjoy the magnificent view, while at the same time listening to the house sparrows fighting over a piece of stale bread. He couldn’t help becoming nostalgic. Somewhere around here was the true heart and soul of Stockholm, the historical ground zero with the old Riddarholm Church at its epicenter.

  He closed his eyes and forced himself to think about absolutely nothing and zero in on emptiness. He had to be in good mental shape for his meeting with Filipson. It might be a crucial piece of his new plan.

  He yanked himself back to reality and walked to his car, which was parked on Bastugatan. For once it did not have a parking ticket on the windshield. In his head, he was trying to prepare for his interview with Filipson—which questions to ask and, more importantly, how to ask them.

  They had agreed to meet at the fast food stand at Medborgarplatsen, which was no more than five minutes away from where Modin was now. In the middle of the summer, especially late in the day, traffic in the city was flowing nicely. He only hit the occasional red light on his way down onto Torkel Knutssongatan southward. A left on Högbergsgatan, over the southern link tunnel and then a right on Götgatan down the hill to Medborgarplatsen. The fast food place was on his right.

  In the 1980s, this had been a watering hole; he had stopped in one late night on his way home from a Depeche Mode concert at Club Ritz. This time it was different. He was going to debate national security with Göran Filipson over a hotdog with sauerkraut and a Coke.

  He made an illegal U-turn across double solid lines and parked his car right in front of the stand.

  “Hey Modin, what do you want?” Filipson asked, already at the window, his wallet wide open.

  “Just a hotdog with sauerkraut. And maybe some mashed potatoes. Thanks!” Modin shouted, glad he didn’t have to stand in line.

  Filipson paid. Both carried their lunches as they slowly walked to the park behind the venue and sat down on an old stone staircase leading down to an open grassy area. Filipson immediately spilled sauerkraut on his faded jeans.

  “Darn this stuff is sticky, huh?” he said, wiping it off, using a small paper napkin.

  On a patch of gravel right in front of them, four young boys were playing soccer. They seemed to be deeply engaged in the game, yelling at each other every now and then. Modin ate his hotdog while watching them.

  “How is it going Modin? I hear Special Ops is hard on your case,” Filipson said and wiped his mouth without taking his eyes off the four boys.

  Modin was taken by surprise by the question, or rather by its tone, which harbored some compassion for his situation. One of the boys had a lucky shot and the ball went into the net in a wide arch over the others. The boy screamed in delight and ran a victory lap with his arms raised, which gave Modin time to pick the right words.

  “Things could be better, to be quite honest. We have run into some mighty stiff opposition here, more than even I expected.”

  “Yeah, so I hear. You are poking around in some of Special Ops’ most deeply guarded secrets. They will do everything in their power to stop you. It is quite evident just from looking at you. Can you even breathe through that nose?”

  The soccer game was on again and the youngest fellow was tripped up, fell, and drew blood as his chin plowed right into the rough gravel.

  “I have a plan; it is based on the assumption that your source, Gunnar Anderson of Defense Radio, will talk about some Special Ops secrets,” Modin said and with a faint smile ignored any references to his injuries.

  Using his plastic fork, he was digging out the last remnants of mashed potatoes from underneath the hotdog, relish, and sauerkraut.

  “Excellent. We gather Gunnar Anderson could give you just the kind of traction you need right now, Modin. He could very well be one of the biggest riddles we have come across in the Security Service over the past decade. He could be the infamous Mr. X. Use that to get him to talk.”

  “Mr. X?” Modin said. “The notorious 1970s drug dealer in Stockholm?”

  “No. This particular Mr. X was the right hand of Stig Wennerström, the Air Force Colonel, who after years of surveillance from our department, turned out to be a spy and was arrested in June of 1963.”

  “A GRU spy?”

  “That’s right. We suspect he was one of the most influential and important spies, yet lately we have come to believe that Wennerström was only second in command. We suspect that Mr. X enjoyed an even more elevated and sensitive position in their hierarchy buried somewhere deep in the intelligence community. Mr. X was most likely the one handling Wennerström’s radio communications with Moscow. It is widely known that Wennerström was a greenhorn as far as technology goes, and he never managed to get even his own radio communication system into shape. So someone must have assisted him, someone sitting on vast knowledge of radio technology and access to a shortwave transmitter conveniently tucked away somewhere.”

  “Considering how long ago this was, shouldn’t we assume that Mr. X is dead by now?”

  “Not if Mr. X is Mr. Anderson. If so, he is very much alive. We believe that Special Ops not only keeps close tabs on Mr. X, but also protects him. That is why he’s never been outed. We suspect Mr. X to be part of a spy ring within Defense Radio, but we can’t say for sure that it is Gunnar Anderson, at least not yet. We have other suspects on our list.”

  “More suspects? Please tell me you are kidding, Göran?”

  “I wish I could, but unfortunately not. That’s our dilemma.”

  “So this could be as elaborate a spy ring as the Cambridge Five at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s?” Modin said.

  “Yes, a Swedish Cambridge Five, if you will.”

  “A Swedish Defense Radio Five. Incredible. I can see why Special Ops wants to hide that fact.”

  The soccer game was in full swing again, tears had been wiped and backs had received friendly pats. A hard shot whisked just past the left goal post on the outside. What a bummer!

  On Götgatan, not far from where they were sitting, a black Saab was slowly cruising by, heading south. The car’s windows were tinted black; it stopped right behind Modin’s car.

  “Special Ops are here,” Filipson said as if he had eyes in the back of his head.

  “Really, how do you know?”

  “I recognize their cars. Pictures of them are plastered all over our walls up in the office. Come on, let’s go.”

  They aimed for the staircase at the northern end of the park. The stairs led up to Kapellgränd. Once up there, they turned left and walked northward on Östgötagatan Street to Mosebacke Square. Just as they were passing the Södra Theater, Filipson discretely turned around, just to be sure that they were not being followed.

  “Come on, let’s head up to the terrace,” he said.

  They climbed the stairs next to a Mosebacke establishment and continued east on the graveled path above Katarina Road and Stadsgårdskajen Harbor. On the opposite side, they could see Gröna Lund, the amusement park.

  “What d
oes this mean for Defense Radio? I mean, if they have been infiltrated by the GRU?”

  “Nothing good on their part, I’m afraid,” Filipson said. “Because if Anderson is our man, it means they are still infiltrated.”

  “How so?”

  “Our department has never scored any major victory in bringing down a spy within Special Ops. They have their own intelligence apparatus. It is quite possible that they have solved the problem in-house, so to speak. Or maybe Special Ops did the dirty work for them. But it is also possible that they don’t know if the spy ring still exists, and if so, who is a part of it.”

  Filipson looked over his shoulder again. “Seems like we have company,” he said.

  Modin turned around to see two men in beige trench coats stop and make small talk. One of them lit a cigarette.

  “Come on,” Filipson said. “Walk with me.”

  They continued up the graveled path and came up on Fiskargatan. Filipson fished out his remote and unlocked his red Saab as they were approaching. Once in the car, in the rear view mirror, they could see the two men running the opposite way.

  He made a left on Svartensgatan Street.

  “I have some material for you, Modin.”

  Filipson reached for the glove compartment and fished out a yellowish file while keeping his left hand on the wheel.

  “This file contains all information we have about Mr. X. Please make an effort to go through it thoroughly before you meet with Anderson. That way you will be sufficiently prepared. Use this and whatever you get out of Anderson to get to Chris Loklinth. Promise me that. Destroy him.”

  Modin grabbed the file and opened it as they were approaching Götgatan. The title page read:

  The X-Case: Potential Wennerström Accomplices within the Intelligence Community and Defense Radio. Highly Classified.

  The file mentioned a woman named Karin Rosén, who had served as a domestic with Wennerström. According to the official testimony, she had told the Chief of Security Service, Otto Danielsson, that at least once a week, usually on Mondays or Wednesdays, someone came to the Wennerström residence in Djursholm. This individual would show up late in the morning, when neither Mrs. nor Mr. Wennerström were home. He would enter the house using his own set of keys and go straight into a closet on the ground floor that housed a sealed steel locker. He’d spend perhaps ten minutes, then leave the scene swiftly. Mrs. Rosén didn’t know what was in the locker. All she knew was that the he would open it, fiddle with things inside, close it again, and then leave the house.

  Karin Rosén guessed that he was either dropping off or picking up something from this mysterious locker. The man had never greeted or even acknowledged her, and he always kept his shoes on while walking into the exclusive home. The mysterious stranger wore a pair of military style flat shoes that exactly matched the ones Wennerström was issued by the Air Force, in regards to size and sole print. Mr. X had a nasty habit of not wiping his feet off on the doormat, so in wet and rainy weather he left prints all over the expensive hardwood floors and the hallway. Modin smiled; he could easily imagine Mrs. Rosén’s annoyance with a visitor who made work harder for her. His wife had always complained, too, when he or the kids didn’t take their shoes off. The file contained a relatively sharp image of one of these prints. Modin separated the picture from the rest of the material and put it underneath the dossier.

  Mr. X’s shoeprint from the Wennerström P4599 X-file at the Security Service Archive in Stockholm

  “Okay, I will borrow this one for a while,” he said.

  Mr. X always arrived in his own car and parked it in the undeveloped lot next to the Wennerström residence in Djursholm. The gray car was an older model, with the roof sloping toward its back, and it was usually dirty. She could not pinpoint the make or model.

  Mr. X was of ordinary Swedish complexion, thick blond hair combed back without a part with an excessive amount of mousse or hair wax. In the summer, he put on a sports cap and sunglasses.

  Back in 1959 when this took place, he was somewhere in his forties, about five-foot-eight. His facial features were distinct, a bit blush, but otherwise very ordinary. In a way, he was a dead ringer for Wennerström, who was also always wearing a military style navy blue trench coat over a starched white shirt and black tie.

  Due to his slouched posture, Mrs. Rosén suspected Mr. X to be suffering from some kind of arthritis or other chronic pain. But his most remarkable feature was a big gap between his upper front teeth.

  Anton Modin paused in his reading and took a moment to reflect back on the time of the Wennerström affair, picturing it all as if in an old black and white movie—castle-like mansion in upscale Djursholm near Stockholm, the fashion of the 1950s, and the very articulate way they spoke back then in clear, concise voices. At least that’s what he imagined, shaped, in part by the many movies he saw from that time. Modin smiled again, admitting how much of one’s impression of times past was influenced by the film industry.

  He finally came across something that made him jump. Karin Rosén had suspected the man to be a military officer of some sort and, as such, any potential accusations against a person like that would carry quite a significant risk. One day she had overheard Wennerström and Mr. X argue in Swedish, at which point Wennerström had hissed, “I find that to be pretty darn outrageous,” which led her to the conclusion that Mr. X spoke Swedish.

  Most likely a Swedish military officer, maybe even with the Air Force, just like Colonel Wennerström, the biggest Swedish spy in modern times. The biggest one we’ve caught, Modin thought, and for a fraction of a second he felt a slight shiver down his spine.

  Filipson kept driving, circling the city blocks on the upper southern district, Södermalm, while Modin was getting familiar with the facts of the case. He knew he couldn’t take the file with him; it was the original. Filipson slowed down and stopped right behind Modin’s car on Götgatan. The two shadows from Special Ops were long gone.

  Modin read that Karin Rosén had been shown close to 1,300 pictures of potential Mr. Xs by the investigators, out of which 800 were Swedish military officers. She had not been able to make a positive identification. Every time they had run into each other, Mr. X had been careful to turn away, not showing his face. Nevertheless, she had finally arrived at a handful of potential candidates. They all resembled Colonel Wennerström, but also each other.

  Modin’s jaw almost dropped when he turned to the list of suspects on the last page of the report. In addition to Gunnar Anderson, the list included high ranking officers like Air Force General Sven-Olof Olin, the Head of Special Ops Birger Elmér, Navy General Bo Westin, and Nils Nilson, Head of SIGINT at Defense Radio.

  “Fuck! Göran. Is the director at Defense Radio, Nils Nilson, also a GRU spy?”

  “Maybe. Take this with you,” Filipson said as he handed Modin a brown envelope from his inner jacket pocket. “But don’t open it before you meet with Gunnar Anderson. Promise me that.”

  Modin left the car with the brown envelope and a picture of Mr. X’s shoe print in his right hand.

  CHAPTER 27

  LIDKÖPING, FRIDAY, JULY 4

  Anton Modin took a right off the main road a few miles before Läckö Castle onto a paved but narrow side road, which led up to Gunnar Anderson’s house.

  Filipson’s way of leaking information was very discrete. He never gave any unnecessary clues. Modin had first heard Gunnar Anderson’s name in that first meeting with Filipson. Back then Filipson had not mentioned why the man might be significant, only that Modin should get in touch with him. Now that Filipson had been kind enough to let him read the X-file, one of the most classified cases in the history of Swedish counter-espionage, things made a bit more sense. Filipson had leaked this information to bust Chris Loklinth at Special Ops. Why?

  It was hard to imagine a worse situation for Military Intelligence, Modin thought. A spy ring active right within the intelligence community and FRA, the National Defense Radio Establishment—that’s successful
infiltration of a country! These were by far the two most sensitive and secretive branches within the Swedish Armed Forces.

  For a while, he was wondering who was pulling Filipson’s strings. Who had given him permission or the order to leak this information to him? It was unlikely that Filipson was acting on behalf of the government. Gunnar Anderson was associated with Defense Radio, which made it very likely that Anderson’s past activities could harm Special Ops. That was Chris Loklinth’s department.

  Did Filipson have a bone to pick with Special Ops? Special Ops certainly was a motley bunch of characters, not purely military personnel, but also qualified and vetted civilians, hand-picked from the Security Service, in part based on their political views and backgrounds. The distribution roughly was one-third military personnel, one-third police officers, and the rest were civilians. Special Ops were appointed by and worked directly for the government. Which one of those three categories of personnel Gunnar Anderson had belonged to remained to be seen.

  They probably all enjoyed their own direct hotline to the Prime Minister, Modin thought as he spotted the house immediately on his left.

  Situated on an elevated plateau featuring a mountain covered in thick pine forest as its backdrop, it would be a challenge to sneak up without being seen from inside the house. Modin shut off his car and turned around instinctively to see if he had been followed.

  Not a soul in sight.

  He felt content as he opened the car door, but decided to stay put for a few moments. Through his still beat up and tender nose, he drew a deep breath of the clean, fresh air so common in the countryside. The smell was one of damp forest and green meadows. He was definitely out in the boondocks.