Project Nirvana

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  “How old is she?”

  “The same age as Martine before she . . .”

  “Go on,” Eva encouraged him.

  “She has the same fire, fearlessness, sharp mind,” said Walter. “Martine got the latter from you.” Walter smiled a wry smile.

  “No flattery, thank you,” she said, unamused.

  “Now that you’ve been sitting in front of me for a little while, I’m no longer thinking of Martine. I’m actually beginning to believe that I have taken a few steps away from that chaotic time in my life. Of course, Jonna is not Martine, but working with her has given me the will to let go of the past.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Eva said, softly now.

  “She’s as stubborn as Martine. They could be twin sisters. You must meet her sometime.”

  Eva said nothing. Instead, she turned her eyes to the window. Walter saw she had a tear in the corner of her eye. It swelled and finally rolled slowly down her chin. He gave her a napkin and she quickly dried the tear.

  “Forgive me,” she said, her eyes lowered towards the table.

  “I’m the one who should ask for forgiveness, for constantly interrupting your new life,” said Walter. “It won’t happen again – this time, I mean it.”

  “I would like to meet Jonna,” Eva said. “You’ll always be a part of my life, just as much as Carl. Our lives are hopelessly intertwined, whether we wish it or not.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true,” replied Walter.

  They ate in silence. The waiter took their plates and asked if they wanted dessert. They both declined.

  “It’s been hectic at work too,” Walter said, after the bill arrived.

  “I’ve seen it on TV. The shooting at the hospital and the power struggle within the law-enforcement agencies. Where is society heading?”

  “That last part is pure media speculation,” Walter said.

  “No smoke without fire, though?”

  “As you may know, I had responsibility for the manhunt for Leo Brageler.”

  “The man who poisoned the court officials?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What does he have to do with it?”

  “He was the man shot in the hospital.”

  Eva looked at Walter in surprise. “But why?”

  “I don’t know. It’s SÄPO’s baby now.”

  “But you caught him in the end?”

  “Yes,” said Walter, “but there’s more. He told me a lot of interesting things that I first thought were the rantings of a loony, but they stuck in my mind. With his background, I can’t dismiss the possibility that there might be some truth in what he told me.”

  Eva was curious. “What did he say?”

  Walter drank some water. He gently stroked the edge of the glass with his finger.

  “He told me about a project in which they had successfully cloned a human soul. Made a copy of the ego, so to speak. They had also succeeding in transplanting the clone into the brain of another person.”

  “A copy of what?”

  “Whatever is in here,” Walter said, tapping his forehead.

  Eva shook her head. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Walter looked at her, uncomprehending.

  “How can you believe something so stupid?”

  “What do you mean?” Walter heard his voice harden.

  “I’ve been a doctor for almost thirty years,” Eva said. “It’s impossible that somebody could have successfully cloned the soul, which is another term for our consciousness. I read every day about new discoveries in medicine, and related fields, and I can’t remember a single article that even mentions the possibility. There are some so-called researchers who undertake speculative studies, but that is all there is to the subject.”

  “Why is it impossible?” interrupted Walter, who was mildly offended. “It’s possible to manipulate animals and plants genetically. Just look at the advances in DNA techniques for law enforcement. Previously, we had to rely on fingerprints. Now we can solve crimes by extracting DNA from a skin fragment or a drop of saliva.”

  “True,” Eva said, stretching her back. “But our consciousness is just an abstract state connected to the physical body; it consists of chemical substances working together with electrical impulses. There’s some evidence to suggest that the brain has some type of energy field, but very little is known about it and it’s difficult to research something that has no physical form. Ask any scientist who researches anti-matter. I thought the police were more enlightened. But given the events of the past six months with all these police scandals, I suppose . . .”

  “That’s enough,” Walter interrupted. “I understand all of what you say and, in all honesty, I don’t really believe any of the things he said. I’m just trying to understand why a super-intelligent person like Leo Brageler would want to tell us a fantastic yarn. What could he possibly gain?”

  “Intelligent?” Eva said. “Was it intelligence that set him off on a killing spree?”

  “Well, he didn’t actually kill them in person.”

  “No, but he was the mastermind behind their deaths, was he not?”

  “Yes, but he hired others to break into the houses and flats. He hired thugs for his dirty work.”

  Eva shook her head disapprovingly. Walter held out a box of cough drops, but she declined with an irritated wave of her hand. After a short while, her expression changed.

  “I get it now,” she said, looking at Walter.

  “Get what?”

  “You’re so desperate to find any possible connection to Martine that you’re swallowing this nonsense. What’s next? Reincarnation? Or are you joining the Scientologists?”

  Walter sighed heavily.

  “We can’t bring our daughter back, no matter how much we want it,” she continued, standing up. She put her napkin on the table and looked at Walter, defiantly.

  He was about to say something, but she cut him off.

  “I’ve also thought what it would’ve been like if she hadn’t left that last time,” she said. “Not once, but hundreds, thousands of times. All those ‘what ifs’. What if I had done this or that? What if Walter had done something different? Those ‘what ifs’ will eat away at your sanity. I’ve stopped that now. There are no ‘what ifs’ any more. For me, there are my memories of Martine and the present. Life exists here and now. What I can touch and feel. I have to think like that to be able to move on. What’s happened, has happened. We can’t turn back time.”

  “I agree with you completely,” said Walter, taking out his wallet. “Go home to Carl; I’ll take care of the bill. Thank you for seeing me.”

  Eva looked at Walter. “You’re welcome to visit us at our country cottage this summer,” she said. “Carl has turned the boat house by the jetty into a guest cabin. He would be very happy if you came. If you give him some compliments about the boat house, I’m sure he’ll offer you some of that vintage Scotch he is so proud of.”

  Walter laughed. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I might take you up on it some day.”

  Eva gave him a hug and left the restaurant.

  Walter sat so deep in thought that the waiter came over and inquired if everything was all right. He had paid the bill, so he had assumed he had finished.

  “I want a beer and a schnaps,” Walter answered, putting his wallet on the table. The waiter raised an eyebrow, but did as his customer asked. A few minutes later, a large, cold beer and a frosty schnaps were on the table. Walter drew a smiley face on the misty schnaps glass before drinking it in one gulp. He washed the alcohol down with a mouthful of beer and a warm feeling spread through his body.

  Perhaps this was the first sign that he was on the way to emerging from the paralysis that had afflicted him after Martine’s death. Strengthe
ned by both the alcohol and his new-found insight, he fiddled with the beer bottle’s label. The sticker was loose in one corner and he tore off a bit.

  “Newcastle Brown Ale,” he read. “Imported from England.”

  England’s working-class beer at its best, he thought, and poured out the rest of the beer. The Brits had more to offer than just rainy weather and hard-headed women lawyers like Alice McDaniel. She had helped them crack the case. A courageous, almost reckless, woman.

  Something that Alice had said about her call from Leo Brageler stuck in his mind. Getting hold of her ex-directory telephone number from a telephone company in the Isle of Man would normally involve the NBI. Even then only the authority requesting the number would be privy to the information. Yet Brageler’s kidnappers had managed to obtain it in only a few hours, if Brageler had told the truth. Walter pushed the thoughts from his mind and emptied the beer glass. It was not his problem any longer.

  Chapter 25

  After a meticulous search of Martin Borg’s flat, the team from the SÄPO’s Internal Affairs section found a small laptop hidden in one of the armchairs in the living room. They had been close to missing it, but an observant technician had noticed a fake hem in the arm cushion. Under the hem there was a hidden zipper and, when the fabric lining inside the cushion was removed, a cavity inside the foam cushion was revealed. A laptop computer was wedged inside the cavity.

  With mounting fascination, Thomas Kokk studied the computer screen. Hopefully, the information hidden in all those bytes of data would help Kokk and the executive of SÄPO to expose the organization to which Borg belonged. The technicians had already decrypted the contents of the hard drive, with a little help from the code-breakers at FRA and their American counterparts at their National Security Agency.

  As usual, the collaboration between the Swedish and American intelligence agencies had worked smoothly and it had not taken long to get the necessary decryption codes from the American NSA at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland.

  Kokk’s initial excitement was soon replaced by bewilderment. There were indeed some police names in Borg’s laptop, but not to the extent that Kokk had hoped. After a few hours’ investigation, it became obvious that the files actually belonged to the former Syrian intelligence officer, Omar Khayyam. The defector had been under the protection of SÄPO, but was found dead in Gnesta and, according to Martin Borg, Omar had been Ove Jernberg’s confidential informant. There were a number of offshore bank accounts, as well as bank transactions to individuals in the criminal world, both domestic and international. That would interest the Fraud Squad.

  To SÄPO, it was more interesting that former Stockholm County Police Commissioner Folke Uddestad had hired Tor Hedman and Jerry Salminen to steal incriminating material, consisting of a film and photographs that the journalist Jörgen Blad had used for blackmail.

  It’s like a bloody soap opera, Kokk decided, after reading the summary of the contents of the hard drive. Unfortunately, there was nothing that could lead Kokk to the nucleus of Borg’s organization. Nothing that would help Kokk to destroy the supposed secret organization within the police force. If there really was such an organization.

  One thing they knew for certain was that Borg had nourished a deep resentment towards Islam, an almost obsessive hatred for the religion. His bookshelf was packed with literature that described Islam as the next great threat to the Free World. It would destroy mankind long before global warming or the population crisis.

  Anders Holmberg looked at Kokk worriedly. “Perhaps we’re just chasing ghosts?” he said, folding his arms. “Perhaps there is no secret organization. Perhaps Borg was a solo act who used outsiders to help him.”

  “Borg had plenty of support inside the Service when he was given a clean sheet after the incident in Gnesta,” Kokk protested.

  “Restraint was exercised, my own included, but it was not to save Borg. It was to protect the Service; you know that, Thomas. We’ve already taken a lot of criticism for using illegal surveillance techniques. There’s also the case of the agent in Personal Protection, who was recently sentenced for rape as well as tampering with evidence. If the general public is to continue to have confidence in the elite units of the Swedish police force, no more scandals can be allowed to see the light of day. The headlines in the tabloids have to be stopped. We must close ranks or lose all credibility and our ability to co-operate with other law-enforcement agencies. The British have already shown some unease over our situation. Yesterday, we had great difficulty in getting the NBI to divulge the names of three Iraqis whom they arrested during a raid.”

  “Yes, I know all about that,” Kokk said sharply. “It was my section that had the problem.”

  “Well then, we’re on the same wavelength,” said Holmberg. “You appreciate the seriousness of the situation.”

  Holmberg and Kokk were not on the same wavelength. It was not just because Holmberg was Kokk’s superior. Holmberg was an administrator appointed by politicians to lead the Security Service. Both Holmberg and Kokk had law degrees, but only Kokk had graduated from the police academy and was therefore a “real” police officer, a qualification that was of great significance to his colleagues. Even so, Kokk disliked the contempt that many regular police bore instinctively towards the “amateur” police in the Security Service. This contempt had become more widespread since Holmberg had taken over the Service.

  “So the suspects are individuals who have a strong dislike of Islam? Is that all we have to go on?” asked Kokk. Kokk looked at the others in the room.

  “Any anti-Islamist sympathizers who are currently serving on the force. That’s correct,” replied Holmberg.

  “That’s half the police force. Maybe more, if you apply the same statistics as the general population. That’s a lot of suspects to investigate.”

  Chief Inspector Sten Gullviksson agreed. “You can’t investigate every frustrated police officer who’s let off a little steam by expressing dislike of Muslims,” he said, playing with his ballpoint pen.

  Kokk carefully observed the overweight Chief Inspector. The other members of the executive seemed to agree with him.

  “Obviously, we can’t forbid anyone their constitutional right to free speech. Instead, we must take measures to change their attitudes,” Holmberg added.

  Perhaps there was something in what Holmberg said. Even so, Kokk could not ignore the fact that some individuals within SÄPO had been involved in Brageler’s abduction. He hoped to God that none of them were implicated in his death. It had been a particularly callous assassination in a hospital using a high-velocity Russian rifle, one that he had witnessed with his own eyes. The evidence did not seem to point to a connection, but things were not always what they seemed. He was sure there were other forces at work. Forces he did not yet understand.

  The incident at Gnesta had caused him to have doubts about his future career on the force. Those doubts now resurfaced. The SÄPO executive was ignoring the hard evidence. What kind of behaviour did the executive think should be tolerated? Just anti-Islamic attitudes? Or was there a tolerance of even deeper frustrations, even of people opposed to the democratic society they lived in?

  During the sixties and seventies, anti-communists were openly accepted within the Security Service. The threat of the day had been communism; today, it was Islam. If there was no threat, then the Security Service would invent one. What they were discussing was unconstitutional. Not to investigate a crime was in itself a crime.

  The Brageler murder could not be covered up. However, if a secret organization was discovered, it would severely damage the Security Service for a long time. There was no doubt of that. There would be repercussions, which would spread like an earthquake, and the aftershocks would reach the Government too. There were no winners in such a scenario. Except possibly democracy itself, as well as any members of the organization who had escaped the conseque
nces of their actions. That would include the people that were allowed to “let off steam”.

  He was standing in the doorway with a shy smile. Everything was perfect, even the paprika filling in the meat had the correct blend of hot spices – after many attempts.

  “Come in,” she welcomed Alexander, waving him through.

  “I brought you something,” he said, giving a small package to Jonna.

  She looked at the small, gift-wrapped box. “Shall I open it now?”

  “If you want.”

  She removed the wrapping paper and found a small, wooden box with a latched lid. She opened the latch and looked inside. An iron object lay on a bed of cotton wool.

  “What is it?” she asked, taking the object out.

  She turned it around a few times in her hand before recognizing what it was. “An arrowhead?”

  Alexander nodded. “A completely authentic replica from the early Iron Age,” he said. “We made exact casts of all the artifacts that we excavated outside Uppsala last year.”

  “Incredible,” she said, feeling the rough surface. The tip was sharp.

  “It’s unique. It was the best-preserved example of an arrowhead known to date.”

  “It must be exciting to search for objects that have so much to tell.”

  “Yes, that’s part of the charm of being an archaeologist. There’s so much history still to be discovered. The longer one digs, the farther back in time one goes.”

  “Sounds a bit like time travel,” said Jonna, smiling.

  “Well, I suppose it is, in a way.” He returned her smile.

  “Since the snow didn’t let you fly to South America, I made you a Mexican stew as consolation.”

  He laughed.

  “Every cloud has a silver lining,” said Jonna, serving the food. She tasted a bit and felt the chilli peppers burning in her mouth. It must have been too long on the heat and fermented the peppers. She took a glass of water to put out the fire in her mouth.

  “This stew has a bite,” Alexander said, taking a glass of water as well. His cheeks were flaming red and he wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. After forcing down a few more mouthfuls, Jonna took pity on him. Alexander did not protest and helped her to take the plates to the kitchen. Jonna took out the dessert from the fridge. She could hardly make a mess of the fruit salad.