The room was full of colleagues, all standing or sitting by their places, all transfixed by the bank of screens at the front, save for quick glances over at Palmgren, wondering what he was going to make of all this. The picture was indeed from a CCTV camera. It showed a large, empty space, a waiting room, probably twenty metres wide and at least as deep, with high windows on each side under a large, vaulted roof. At the far end of the image, a broad staircase led down to an invisible underground, and at the top of the screen was an overexposed departures board.
Now and again a passenger walked through the shot, some with bags and others without. But above all, in the centre of the floor stood a lone man. Shaven head, filthy fleece, eyes focused high on the wall–no, the ceiling, as if he was looking for something that couldn’t be seen.
‘Central Station in Warsaw,’ Forester said from her position. And when Palmgren’s eyes met hers: ‘It is him.’
Palmgren walked through the room, right over to the wall, unable to tear his eyes away from the man. But Forester was right. His hair was gone, and the clothes wrong, but the mannerisms and the look in the eyes were his.
Why the hell was he standing there? As if he wanted to be found, to be arrested, standing completely still in the middle of a waiting room in Warsaw? No, wrong, not completely: slowly, slowly, William kept turning around on the spot, his arms slightly open as if to gesture Here I am. And throughout, his eyes kept scanning the walls, and the ceiling, as though he was looking for something in particular.
Contact. That was it. William Sandberg was looking for cameras.
‘How long has he been standing there like that?’ Palmgren said after a while.
‘We got the stream four minutes ago,’ said Forester. She looked at him with an empathy that took him by surprise. ‘They’ve already got a SWAT team on its way.’
The level of concentration in the communications room in Warsaw’s main Police Station was absolute. Fingers rattled across keyboards, radio calls were received and confirmed, information was shouted back and forth across the room.
The police cars’ positions. ETA. The situation at Central Station.
The last one, time after time, was unchanged.
The image stream had appeared less than ten minutes earlier, and it had shown him standing there, in the middle of the grand ticket hall: wet, haggard, and with a shaved head, but there was no doubt it was him. Occasionally he seemed to be looking straight into the lens, and each time that happened Wojda could feel a pang inside him, as though Sandberg could somehow know that he was there, making contact through the screen.
‘William Sandberg…’ he said quietly, to himself, at a volume that was drowned out by all the other noise in there.
Who are you? What do you want? What is it you’re trying to achieve?
Down on the switchboard the lines were still busy: private individuals whose property had been destroyed in the wild chase, newspapers wanting details of the pursuit and whether it was connected to the suspected terrorist and whether rumours that he’d managed to escape were accurate. Pretty well every unit had been involved in one way or another, giving chase or attempting to cut them off or to block possible escape routes, and yet–hats off to him–William Sandberg had still managed to escape.
It just didn’t add up. Who goes to all that trouble, and then suddenly appears of their own volition, exposing themselves like this? William Sandberg wasn’t simply a terrorist, he was something more, something they had yet to understand. And as Wojda said all these things, quietly, to himself, he moved towards the screens, until the large central screen with William on it occupied his entire field of vision.
It was almost like being there himself, in the middle of the cold, empty hall that was Warsaw’s Central Station, hovering in one corner and looking down onto the floor of a world that consisted of diluted, silent pixels. Where lone passengers passed by like blurred shadows in the periphery while the man in the middle stayed standing where he was, rotating with slow steps, round and round and round like a weird, still dance—
Wait a minute.
‘Can we get to that camera?’ Wojda shouted over his shoulder. ‘Can we steer it from here?’
The answer came from behind him that no, it was just a stream, they couldn’t control it at all.
‘Can we zoom in then? What’s the resolution on this footage?’
He still didn’t take his eyes off William, and behind him he could hear his question being passed from one colleague to another, fingers hammering away at keys until someone called back.
‘The stream is in HD.’
‘And what we’re showing on screen…?’
‘Isn’t.’
‘Give me one to one then, for fuck’s sake!’ said Wojda, and he heard the venom in his tone too late. They were all as strained by the stress and concentration as he was, and no one was deliberately trying to conceal or obfuscate anything. He glanced quickly backwards, not sure who he had given a rollicking. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just… put up the zoomed-in footage. Please.’
From the corner of his eye he saw the image freeze and then jerk. A couple of keyboard commands almost doubled the size of the images, as the incoming stream adjusted to the screen resolution.
William was now twice the size, still rotating. Wojda’s eyes followed him closely, first the back of his head, then in profile, then fronton. And yes. He had been right.
‘He’s saying something!’
He said it straight out now, unabashed, and the silence in the room confirmed that now he’d pointed it out they could all
see it.
‘What’s he saying?’ someone said. ‘What is it he’s saying?’
Wojda focused at the lip movements. I. Want? Yes, that was it. He repeated the words to himself, in time with the mouth on the screen, once, twice, kept doing it until he was absolutely sure. And then, when he was, he turned to everyone in the room.
‘I know what he’s saying.’ He took a deep breath. ‘William Sandberg is saying that he wants to negotiate.’
The spacious hall that formed the heart of Warsaw’s Central Station was cold and empty and echoing. The high ceiling caused sounds to bounce around in a never-ending repetition, and the stark lighting was in harsh contrast to the evening darkness outside.
It was late. Only the occasional passenger could be seen walking through the hall, hurrying towards the platforms to catch the last train home, all of them doing their best not to look at the man in the middle. He looked like a tramp, an addict, and he was moving round, round and round like no normal person ever would. If I don’t see him he won’t see me. That’s what they were thinking, all of them, and they picked up their stride, giving him a wide berth, and heaving sighs of relief once they were past him.
William didn’t even see them, so busy was he staring along the walls, across the ceiling, down the pillars. The hidden cameras were up there somewhere. Hopefully there would be several, and he could be seen by all of them.
Over and over he repeated his words, clear, exaggerated mouth movements with no voice. Revolving slowly so as to say them in every possible direction.
He didn’t have much time. The police could see him, he was sure of that, and if the cameras were online he was visible on the internet.
The only question was who would see him first.
72
The long convoy of black vehicles cut through Warsaw like shiny beetles under the street lights. They drove with engines roaring but no sirens, just the silent, flashing blue lights to clear their path, flying without stopping straight through junctions and across tram tracks.
When they arrived at last outside the station building there was no time to worry about details such as kerbs or traffic islands. They steered across pavements and flower beds, braking hard outside entrances and doorways, and black-clad SWAT officers poured out of the sliding side doors.
They spread out around the outside of the building, communicating through finger movements and running silentl
y, like a company of armed mime artists, before storming the building on a single command, the stocks of their assault rifles pressed to their shoulders, crouching low and peering through sights that very soon would be trained on William Sandberg.
‘Now!’
As they entered the hall, they stopped and scanned their new surroundings, signalling back and forth between themselves.
I can’t see him. Can you?
More colleagues poured through doorways and down staircases behind them, dozens of black-clad SWAT officers working their way forward. Because he was there, they knew that. As they carried on through the hall, they walked with slow, hesitant steps. They shuffled forward, still crouching, weapons raised, ready to scream at him to get on the floor the instant they caught sight of him.
But they didn’t, and none of them shouted, because there was no one to shout at.
In the communications room Wojda and everyone else stood motionless, all eyes glued to the large screen. It was happening. They’d heard the SWAT team leader issue his command, and in a few seconds’ time they’d be seeing Sandberg react to the noise of all the uniforms storming in. Perhaps he’d make an attempt to run away, only to realise that there was no way out. Hopefully he was going to surrender immediately, lie down on the floor, calm and quiet. He’d let them cuff him and then lead him away–that’s what they were thinking.
But no police came. Instead, they saw William, still in position, still revolving slowly.
A nerve-jangling second of waiting became two, then three, then a whole load of seconds, and gradually the nervousness gave way to a feeling that something was wrong. Single passengers were still coming and going, young, old, people in thick winter coats. All that was missing were the black uniforms.
When the SWAT team leader’s voice finally came over the radio the silence enveloped the room like an ice-cold blanket.
‘Repeat,’ said Wojda, despite having heard him loud and clear.
‘He’s gone,’ Borowski repeated through the speakers.
It took more seconds before it was even possible to process that statement. What the hell was he talking about?
‘Bullshit,’ said Wojda. ‘We’ve got a live stream. Where have you got to?’
‘We’re here. We’re in the hall now.’
Hardly. On the screen in front of them, Sandberg was still rotating.
‘Where?’ he said again. ‘Where in the hall?’
‘Every. Fucking. Where!’
Wojda clenched his jaw. It was like being part of a surreal sketch, and he was just about to say so, when a thought occurred to him. A thought so embarrassing that he didn’t want to say it out loud.
‘You’re at the wrong station,’ he said, and felt a vast weariness wash over him. ‘He’s at Central Station. Centralna. Cen. Tral. Na.’
Wojda sat down, put his hand over his eyes and closed them. That had to be it. The idiots were on the completely wrong side of town, and he tried to work out where, how long it was going to take them to regroup. Hoping that Sandberg wouldn’t give up, that he’d wait, regardless of why he’d chosen to make contact in this way.
Borowski’s voice forced him to open his eyes again.
‘We are at Central Station,’ the SWAT leader said through the speakers, with an irritation he didn’t even attempt to conceal. ‘We’re there now.’
‘That’s a negative,’ said Wojda with the very same tone.
‘We’re everywhere!’ He was shouting now. ‘For fuck’s sake. Can’t you see?’
Slowly, something dawned on Wojda.
‘We’re in the middle of the hall. What’s the matter with you? We are here!’
In Warsaw Central Station, fifty adult men, all dressed in black and with safety goggles and automatic weapons, stood spread across the grey-flecked stone floor. A small invasion in the heart of Warsaw, eyes searching desperately for a William Sandberg who didn’t exist.
A few kilometres away, Inspector Wojda stood bewildered in the comms room at Warsaw Police Headquarters, looking at proof that he was in fact there.
And yet some eight hundred kilometres to the north, rows of people were sitting in the Swedish Armed Forces’ JOC, lined up behind desks and at workstations and scanning a screen that showed the very same thing.
‘Wait…’
Palmgren was the one who broke the silence. He stood up front, almost right underneath the screen as though he was looking at an enormous piece of art, his head scanning back and forth.
William, on the screen above him… His movements…
‘Looks left… looks right… his neck…’
The first to one to clock what Palmgren was doing was Velander. He heard Palmgren up at the front, barely more than a mumble: ‘Looking straight ahead, blinks, hesitates. Neck again.’ He was looking for a pattern.
Another rotation, another rotation, another rotation. The mouth, the request to negotiate. And then it came.
They saw it at the same time, but thanks to different cues: for Palmgren, it was the lips, the same movement he’d seen thirty, forty seconds earlier, and once it registered he was certain: it was the same. Forty more seconds, and there was not a doubt.
‘Dark blue suitcase!’ Velander exclaimed a moment later. ‘Dark blue suitcase, at the top of the frame.’
Once they’d seen it, it was so obvious it hurt. Now they could see it everywhere, details popping up time and time again, things repeating at constant intervals, people and specific small movements and–fucking hell.
Forty seconds. Far too long for anyone to notice if they didn’t know. But once you did…
In Warsaw, Wojda felt himself deflating. The information had come from the Swedes long after he had seen it himself, yet he waited and watched for another forty seconds before he spoke.
‘Call off the operation,’ he said, straight into the radio.
Borowski’s voice came back.
‘One more time?’
‘It’s a loop,’ he said with a sight, to the radio, to his colleagues in the room, to himself. ‘Forget about Sandberg. Sandberg is gone.’
Day 4. Thursday 6 December
A LITTLE LIFE
I can’t escape.
Because how can you flee if you are everywhere?
They are hunting me all the time, hurting me all the time.
For a long time I wondered why.
But maybe that’s just the way he is.
Man.
I don’t want to hurt anyone.
But what can you do when you don’t have a choice?
73
William Sandberg hurried through the deserted underground shopping centre, the sound of his soles echoing between darkened shop windows and rolled-down shutters. He half-sprinted past newsagents and watchmakers, bakers and shops selling tat, bookshops and shoe-repair kiosks, all closed, in darkness, devoid of people. His eyes were searching constantly, looking for the next sign to appear.
He had no choice, just had to hope she was right. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It had been only four minutes since he’d left the station hall. He had stood on the wide shiny floor, staring with a steady gaze and miming the words as clearly as he could. I want to negotiate.
It was a risk, and he knew it. How did he know that the message was going to get through? And if it did, how did he know that the one he was trying to reach–it?–would even be interested in any negotiation? How long would he dare to stay, waiting for an answer, hoping to be heard? Presumably there was a room full of police somewhere, busy checking every camera they could get at, and with each passing second the risk of them catching up increased. Each time he heard an engine outside, a door creaking or hurried footsteps running into the hall to catch their train, he’d looked around for uniforms or weapons or black overalls. But no police came, and he kept turning, miming, turning.
Several times, he decided to give up. Each time he persuaded himself to hang on just a little longer. Then a bit longer, and after that, longer still. But
with each passing minute, he felt the hope disappearing. Maybe he’d been wrong after all.
That’s when he’d started to notice the people around him.
It was late evening, and the hall was far from full, just a steady, quiet stream of single passengers, glancing quickly up at the departure board before they carried on down the stairs towards the platforms.
Suddenly though, it was as if that stream had changed. From the corner of his eye he noticed people stopping, hesitating, hanging around. Instead of the odd commuter turning up and then quickly disappearing, all of a sudden he now had company. One became three, three became a handful, and before long almost a couple of dozen night-time travellers were standing still, their irritated eyes all fixed on a single point, looking for information that wasn’t there.
In the end William had stopped rotating and followed their eyes. Above the steps down to the subterranean platforms hung the huge departure board. In sharp, white letters on a bright blue background, it announced destinations and departure times and what train was leaving from where. Or rather: had been announcing. Now it hung empty and devoid of content, stared at by passengers whose faces shone with confusion and irritation. What the hell? Wasn’t it working?
The only one not wondering was William. He walked over towards the board, stood right underneath it, and waited.
Before his eyes, new text appeared. Not a departure time, nor a platform, just a single word, and alongside it a discreet flashing signal, a little triangle that seemed to be pointing downwards, down the steps, down towards the platforms and the bowels of the station.
A single word. And of all the people standing there in the great hall, only one understood what it meant.
Acts of Vanishing Page 41