The Carrier

by Mattias Berg

  Mattias Berg

  The Carrier

  Translated from the Swedish by

  George Goulding

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part 2

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part 3

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part 4

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Part 5

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Part 6

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Part 7

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Part 8

  Chapter 66

  Epilogue: Overtime

  About the Author

  First published in the Swedish language as Dödens triumf

  by Natur & Kultur, Stockholm, in 2016

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

  MacLehose Press

  an imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  Copyright © 2016 by Mattias Berg

  English translation copyright © 2019 by George Goulding Published by agreement with Norstedts Agency

  The moral right of Mattias Berg to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  George Goulding asserts his moral right to be identified as the translator of the work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN 978 0 85705 788 4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.maclehosepress.com

  FOR

  LINDA, VERA

  and GRETA

  “The end of war is peace or victory. But to the question, what is the end of peace, there is no answer.”

  HANNAH ARENDT, On Violence

  April 2013:

  In an unprecedented move, a U.S. Air Force commander stripped 17 of his officers of their authority to control and launch nuclear missiles.

  The officers, based in Minot, North Dakota, did poorly in an inspection. They were ordered to undergo 60 to 90 days of intensive refresher training.

  *

  August 2013:

  A missile unit at Malmstrom Air Force Base failed a safety and security inspection “after making tactical-level errors—not related to command and control of nuclear weapons,” the Air Force Global Strike Command said.

  The 341st Missile Wing operates about 150 of the 450 Minuteman III nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles in the U.S. forces, according to an Air Force statement.

  *

  October 2013:

  A military officer with high-level responsibility for the country’s nuclear arsenal lost his job.

  He was formally relieved of his duties as deputy chief of U.S. Strategic Command. A military official said his demotion was connected to allegations that he used counterfeit gambling chips at a casino.

  *

  October 2013:

  Just days later, a U.S. general who oversaw nuclear weapons was relieved of his duties after he boozed, fraternized with “hot women” and disrespected his hosts during an official visit to Russia, Air Force officials said.

  The General led the 20th Air Force, responsible for three nuclear wings.

  According to an Air Force Inspector General report, he bragged loudly about his position as commander of a nuclear force during a layover in Switzerland, saying he “saves the world from war every day.”

  *

  January 2014:

  At the Montana base, 34 Air Force officers entrusted with maintaining nuclear missiles are accused of cheating or turning a blind eye to cheating on a competency test.

  From C.N.N.’s “Nuclear Scandals Timeline”, January 2014

  KANSAS CITY, M.O.—A sprawling new plant here in a former soybean field makes the mechanical guts of America’s atomic warheads. Bigger than the Pentagon, full of futuristic gear and thousands of workers, the plant, inaugurated last month, modernizes the ageing weapons that the United States can fire from missiles, bombers and submarines.

  It is part of a nationwide wave of atomic revitalization that includes plans for a new generation of weapon carriers. A recent federal study put the collective price tag, over the next three decades, at up to a trillion dollars.

  This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for ‘a nuclear-free world’ and made disarmament a main goal of American defense policy.

  From the New York Times, September 2014

  1

  Snap

  September 2013

  Stockholm

  1.01

  I had been so very close to the President. Never more than a few feet away during official duties, always with my briefcase prepared. Even when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. When he gave that damned speech about a world without nuclear weapons.

  You must understand. But you won’t.

  How we had been consumed, taken in, seduced yet again by the fire. Not so much through our guilt as our innocence. My own diabolical innocence.

  We called it “The Nuclear Football”, as if it was some kind of game. And talked about “Pressing the Button”, but there was neither a button nor anyone who did any actual pressing. To me it was more like an occult ceremony, a magical-technological transformation trick. Carrying out a series of procedures in the correct sequence, with the help of the codes, to render insecure the one thing in our entire civilization that should be the most secure of all.

  The contents of the briefcase had been so highly classified that few apart from us knew about them. From the start there were only four primitive objects there. The Black Book wit
h every possible operational option for retaliation or attack; a folder listing the underground bases to which the President could be taken at times of maximum alert; a note summarizing the structure of our nuclear weapons system. And then the square plastic counter with the codes the President was to use when identifying himself to Centcom. We called it “the biscuit”.

  During the Cold War, it was more or less understandable. As soon as the briefcase was opened a signal was transmitted to Centcom. After the President had used “the biscuit” to confirm his identity, he and the Carrier of the briefcase faced a number of choices according to the war plan then in place. The last step was for Centcom to follow the President’s order and carry out the launch itself.

  But things had become complicated with the developing wizardry of digital technology, as well as our own much-altered war plan. We were assured that the guiding principle was still “Always-Never”. The nuclear weapons should always be ready for launch within half an hour, but never capable of being dispatched in error.

  Yet over the last decade the boundaries had been extended with each new technological advance. Once both circuits and microprocessors had become small enough, it was possible to integrate parts of the detonation mechanism into the briefcase itself. Centcom now seemed more or less superfluous. Everything merged into a single whole. The difference between “always” and “never” began to dissolve. In the end it became impossible, even for me, to distinguish between safety measures and launch procedures.

  That is when the thought of escape came to me.

  1.02

  Our gigantic sortie took off into a clear blue morning sky, like a lumbering bumblebee defying gravity. As usual, our first leg was to Andrews Air Force Base—and from there we went on over the Atlantic. We were more than seven hundred people, an entourage worthy of the Sun King himself three centuries ago. Air Force One, five other more or less identical Boeings, twenty-nine cargo planes, forty cars, 250 security staff, three hundred advisors and members of the White House press corps, two more Cadillacs.

  And the Nurse was sitting so close. Monitoring my every movement.

  I was saddled with her from the start of our journey, after I had collapsed in the culverts under the air base as our aircraft was being refueled. Which was the only way I could interpret the last message from Alpha: “CREATE MORE TIME. PLAY SICK!” It was naïve to imagine that my own little moment of weakness would have any effect whatsoever on our vast convoy. That it would be able to hold up the immense machinery involved in a state visit.

  Yet in my overheated imagination, right there and then, I believed it. So I let myself fall headlong into the cement tunnel leading out to the helipad. Screwed my eyes shut, while some of the medical orderlies carried me into the examination room.

  It is easy to believe that one is irreplaceable. If anyone, then me, the Carrier of the briefcase, the man with the world’s most critical assignment. Before my little collapse, I had no idea about our backup plan either. But as the doctor was talking to our logistics people, I found out that even I would be swapped for a substitute.

  From the outside, nobody is meant to be able to tell whether the helicopter is, in fact, Marine One, with the President and myself on board, or just another of all our look-alike helicopters. If the airplane is Air Force One out of the many in our armada. From whichever airport we touch down at, we are always transported behind smoked glass in Cadillac One, also known as “The Beast”, with a five-inch-thick floor of reinforced armor. With another limousine, identical from the outside, traveling just in front or just behind.

  But in these times of sweeping cosmetic change, of doubles and false identities, no-one is irreplaceable.

  And because I suddenly became aware that somebody else in the Team would take my place, I had to blame it on a passing fever. When my preliminary readings turned out to be in perfect order, I was given clearance to travel with the Team. I had no earlier mark on my record, no contrary indication, not from all those years. But I was forced to accept the Nurse as a personal escort. For safety’s sake, as they put it.

  As she sat down next to me in the helicopter, in the row behind the President and the First Lady, I could not help feeling that this was meant to be. That the Nurse, in one way or another, was part of the plan.

  The state visit to Stockholm was mysterious, written into the President’s calendar at the last moment. In strict terms, it could only be referred to as an “official visit”, since there had been no invitation from Sweden’s head of state. The only plausible reason for traveling to this particular corner of the world was that our government wanted to make a diplomatic point to Russia, the country we were scheduled to visit. If Edward Snowden had not just been granted asylum there.

  Our security people had not been happy about these late changes. Priority in Stockholm would be given to external security and would tick all the right boxes despite the short notice. The advance party had been sent out as soon as the date was fixed. But what was called “internal security” was an altogether more complex matter.

  In the weeks before our departure, we were warned to increase our vigilance. There were rumors about moles within the organization. In the Team we kept a close eye on each other, watched every move. And on this occasion we were not given our final instructions until on board Air Force One—and only after we had taken off and could no longer communicate with anybody who did not have clearance.

  Our team consisted of four special security agents, not counting Edelweiss. He was our operational boss and the one giving our daily briefings. He was the one the rest of us followed, admired, respected—but above all feared. His body was monumental. Like an entire foreign planet with folds and pockets, craters, deep secrets. He would stroke his chins as he pondered one of our questions. Then deliver the answer with his surprisingly soft, clear voice: often saying things that no-one else would even think of. Still less say out loud.

  We were told that it was Edelweiss who had hand-picked each of us on the basis of our specialist skills, in the desperate days following 9/11, when all other available structures had failed.

  We also gathered that he had been given a free hand. That often requires a filter, a layer which both empowers and conceals, relieves the decision-makers of responsibility for their decisions. Sometimes numerous, almost invisible sheets: like a vast millefeuille in which the bottom level always protects the upper one, complex sequences of knowledge and not knowing, none of which can do without the other.

  In our own cases, camouflage was the beginning and the end. It was referred to as a “military approach to precautionary security measures”. After our training in the sealed wing at West Point—which continued in parallel with our university education, allowing us to practice our abilities to lead double lives and to deceive—we started putting our new-found skills to use. For the most part, I was sent out on short solo missions of increasing ardor. At first small, and then bigger sabotage operations, designed to ensure that our country should not be exposed to the same thing, resolving or setting off almost invisible conflicts in countries which many people had never heard of, unleashing domestic political turmoil elsewhere in the world.

  In my other life, I completed my doctoral thesis in moral philosophy. Interminable sessions with my mesmerizing supervisor went on throughout the remainder of the 1980s and all through the 1990s, in parallel with my special duties in the security world. I took my doctorate in September 2001, five days before the attacks on the World Trade Center.

  Some weeks after that, on November 4, we were brought together in a windowless lecture hall two stories below ground. Like silhouettes, shadows, ghosts from earlier times: some of us maybe even on the same special forces training course at West Point. But we had all been through cosmetic surgery at least once since then. I did not recognize anyone in this select group.

  And not one of us understood the implications of our having been brought together. We had answered the encrypted summons, from which could be gleaned that the
formation of the Team would be the beginning of our new life and the end of the old. An invitation which we had felt unable to resist.

  There were more of us than I would have expected for what had to be a very special assignment. That meant that the core would be smaller—and everything around it much bigger. The Team itself might not consist of more than eight to ten people, and the rest would make up the support functions.

  It became apparent that the Team—Edelweiss called us “NUCLEUS”, as in the center of a cell or atom—would consist of six chosen ones, including himself and someone unknown, who went by the name Alpha.

  And after more than a day’s wait without food or drink, no doubt intended to make us more malleable from the start, Edelweiss appeared. That enigmatic figure with his enormous silhouette. Floating and formless, like an apparition in the ill-lit room. He who had been my main teacher at West Point, maybe for the others too, and who would be in charge of our lives.

  Edelweiss began with the official version. The vague formulation that defined the Team’s place in our new war plan, transformed by the shock-waves from 9/11: “A small, mobile unit acting as a separate protection squad in times of peace, side by side with the President’s own command, and which in case of crisis and war can operate with full autonomy.”

  Then the unofficial version. Edelweiss had been given a free hand to create something new. A phoenix from the ashes of the World Trade Center, from the ruins of our old security system, from what in every way was a “Ground Zero”. Now that all our existing structures—the security services, the surveillance system, our counter-terrorism efforts—had proved to be inadequate.

  His idea was that our team should be the spider in the web. Or rather, both web and spider. An amorphous structure binding together all the existing functions: the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the N.S.A., the Secret Service . . . But which could also operate in the gaps between them.

  Edelweiss told us that he had no idea who had given him the task. He only knew that someone using the pseudonym Alpha had written him credible e-mails, with sufficient encryption in place to have convinced him that the orders came from the very top. There was no doubt one more layer or filter between Alpha and the President, but perhaps no more than one. And that layer, in turn, must have been given a free hand by the President.