“What kind of story you doing?” Aronen asked. He didn’t want to let anything slip about the gang, not even to correct her error about who was leading it. She had done her homework, but apparently didn’t know about Larsson’s release.
“I’m interested in your organization in general, particularly in how you’ve ended up at odds with the Helsinki police. It’s surprising to me that the police consider you a criminal organization when, at least in the pizza shop case, the court ruled otherwise.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you promise to think about it?”
“Can’t promise anything, but I’ll get back to you.”
“When?”
“After I’ve thought about it.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll text you my number.”
The call ended and Aronen turned back to his coffee and hot dog, both now tepid. The woman was still at the slots, and had definitely been listening to the conversation. Whatever. He hadn’t said anything suspicious.
His phone alerted him to an incoming text. Aronen hesitated then saved it to his contact list.
CHAPTER 12
SATURDAY, 10:00 A.M.
NBI HEADQUARTERS, VANTAA
The air conditioner was humming quietly. “Think the room is bugged?” Suhonen wondered.
Takamäki grinned and sipped his coffee.
“Wouldn’t surprise me at all,” Suhonen continued.
The lieutenant wasn’t sure if Suhonen was serious or not.
The two men were seated in a clean, blue-themed conference room at the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation in suburban Helsinki. Whereas the Helsinki police used flip charts and grungy white boards, the NBI used smart boards and overhead projectors.
The table had space for sixteen. There were no windows to offer a view, but several large dragon trees sat in the corner. The plants were healthy enough that somebody other than an NBI agent had to be watering them. A silver thermos and paper cups rested on the table.
Suhonen was surprised at how much the room resembled the conference room at the Estonian Central Police headquarters.
The meeting had been set for ten o’clock. They had driven here directly from Assistant Chief Skoog’s office. Lieutenant Jaakko Nykänen, the head of intelligence for the NBI, had met the men in the lobby and escorted them upstairs. The stout, walrus-whiskered Nykänen was a familiar face. Before transferring to the NBI, he had worked for Takamäki in the Helsinki VCU, though that had been many years ago.
“What do you think?” Suhonen asked, sipping his coffee.
“Tough to say. It’ll probably depend on their caseload.”
Nykänen came back into the room along with another agent. Each was wearing a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie. The second man, Jouko Aalto, stood just under six feet tall, and had a lean face and neatly trimmed hair. Takamäki had on a blazer and polo shirt, and Suhonen, his trademark leather jacket. His black hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
“Sorry it took a while,” Nykänen rasped. About ten years ago, he had lost part of his voice box after being shot in the throat on a VCU raid.
“Is that your uniform here?” Suhonen asked, pointing to the pair’s identical outfits.
Nykänen smirked. “Coincidence. Do you know Jouko?”
Takamäki nodded. He had met Jouko Aalto previously, but the man was a stranger to Suhonen.
Nykänen gestured toward Aalto and explained that he was in charge of coordinating the NBI’s undercover operations, a part of the intelligence group.
The NBI men took their seats and poured themselves a cup of coffee.
“So, you had a project proposal?” Aalto began in a dry voice. His lips barely moved and his expression was rigid. “Typically, these initiatives would get channeled through the supervisory branches of the police departments to the PCB-committee, where such matters are resolved…”
Aalto rattled off a synopsis of multilateral work between Police, Customs and Border officials, collectively known as PCB. Suhonen was sure his eyelids would start to sag if this Aalto droned on with his bureaucrat-speak any longer.
“We’re familiar with PCB,” Takamäki interjected.
“Oh, good,” the man said, disappointed. “Then I’m sure you know the numbers, too. There are about 1,100 members in 80 different criminal organizations, of which 40 fulfill the organized crime criteria set out by the EU. Annually, about 550 gang members, or half, have a run-in with the police.”
“I guess we’ll have to improve that,” Suhonen remarked dryly.
Aalto continued, his expression unchanged, “My group has undertaken fifteen new investigations this year. Plus, we still have a good thirty open cases.”
“Can we get to the point,” Suhonen cut in. “Numbers are really interesting, but…”
Aalto shot Suhonen an icy glare. “I only tell you this so you understand that we never say ‘no’ without a good reason. Most often, we can’t just take on new initiatives. We simply don’t have enough manpower for them all.”
“So, about your case,” Nykänen intervened. “Give us the short version.”
Takamäki took five minutes to outline the situation once more, but again left out Salmela’s name.
Suhonen capped off the summary. “Basically, we have an opportunity to plant an informant close to the Skulls.”
“How close?” Aalto asked. “I doubt he’ll have any substantial rank.”
“No,” said Suhonen. “He’s not in the inner circle, but close.”
“What’s the end game here, best case and worst case?”
Suhonen glanced at Takamäki then fielded it himself. “I’m not sure I understand. The end game is to put the bad guys in prison.”
“Let me paint you another picture here,” Aalto said gently. “Recall the Turku bank robbery in ’07 and the attempted robbery of an armored truck in Salo. We worked on them for nearly a year and obtained prison sentences of more than 60 years. What are we looking at in this case?”
“Hopefully all of them in the penalty box for long enough that they lose their grip on the streets. And nail the money-men behind the scenes.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?”
“Maybe two or three guys behind bars for a couple years on drug charges.”
Aalto nodded. “There’s our best and worst case. Good.”
Nykänen spoke up. “This informant. What’s his background and what kind of risks are we talking about? And I should probably clarify that I’m not dumb. The intention here is just to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Takamäki bit his tongue, though Nykänen certainly remembered his second most important maxim: There are no dumb questions. The first was: Never assume.
“The informant is a career criminal who’s ended up in deep debt,” Takamäki explained. “He participated in a recent drug-trafficking job with the Skulls, but wants out of the game. There’s our opportunity. Of course, for his own safety we’ll have to bust him for the drugs, which will mean a few years in prison.”
Takamäki’s eyes wandered from Nykänen to Aalto. He could see the impact of his words as the scope of the opportunity dawned on the agents.
Takamäki went on, “If this informant were discovered, it’s almost inevitable he’d be killed.”
“So in that instance, our best case can be increased. We’d get at least a couple life sentences,” said Suhonen gravely.
* * *
The silence of the forest was broken only by the sporadic curses of four men, which burst forth every time a bent branch snapped back at the next man’s face. Osku took up the lead. Following him, in order, were Salmela, Niko and Roge.
The twenty-five mile car trip northeast from Helsinki to the forest in Nuuksio had been couched in silence. A few hundred yards back, the Chevy sat parked at the dead-end of a dirt road, where a trail cut into the woods. The soft floor of the heath forest was waterlogged and soaked through the trekkers’ shoes.
Niko Andersson remembered havi
ng gone to the same national park some fifteen years ago. Then in grade school, his mom had made him join the scouts, but it had only lasted one fall before a fight got him kicked out. The “fat kid” had fought with the troop leader after having been ordered to wash the dishes. Even then, Niko was very large for his age, and not inclined to obey orders he deemed frivolous.
The trail led them to a rocky expanse, which rose gently up the surrounding hillside. Here, the spruces gave way to pines. In the open, the wind was cutting.
The goateed Osku, wearing a wool beanie cap, glanced back.
“Another hundred yards,” Niko panted.
The foursome dodged the watery furrows carved out by ice age glaciers. The pines began to thin out.
The summit of the cliff overlooked a majestic valley, blanketed with spruces, but Salmela’s gaze was directed at the rocky ground. Niko continued to the precipice, where the cliff dropped about 100 feet into a deep gorge.
“Beautiful view,” he said quietly, digging a 22-caliber pistol from the side pocket of his cargo pants.
The bull-faced Roge smirked, seized Salmela by the back of his jacket and shoved him towards the edge. Holding on tight, he jerked Salmela back. “Whoa! Don’t fall.”
Salmela didn’t utter a sound.
“Open your mouth,” Niko commanded.
His lips remained sealed.
“Open your mouth!”
Salmela sank to his knees and opened up. Niko shoved the pistol into his mouth. Salmela was trembling, the barrel clattering against his teeth.
“You understand, of course, that debts have to be paid,” Niko said.
Salmela tried to say something, but the barrel of the gun reduced his words to senseless blubbering, like answering a dentist’s questions with a drill in your mouth. Roge and Osku remained unfazed as they watched the scene unfold.
“We can’t afford to let these things slide. What would we do if nobody paid their debts? You understand, of course.”
Salmela looked pale, but tried nodding his head carefully.
“Understand?” He repeated, thrusting the gun barrel downward toward Salmela’s chin, then back up. Roge and Osku were laughing.
Niko wished he could get a snapshot of the occasion. A damn fine picture with a gorgeous backdrop. He in the middle, deciding between life and death like…God.
He could go around showing the picture to all the damned clowns who had pushed him down over the years.
The taste of blood filled Salmela’s mouth when the gun barrel split his lip.
CHAPTER 13
SATURDAY, 10:05 A.M.
LAUTTASAARI, HELSINKI
Aronen was sitting in the VW Golf in front of Larsson’s apartment building. His boss was late, but he didn’t care. In the army, he had gotten used to waiting, and he wasn’t in a hurry anyway.
On the other side of the street, a dad in a green jacket was putting a hockey bag in the trunk for his son, who was only carrying his stick. Aronen recalled how, as a kid, he had always carried his own bag.
Suddenly he remembered Gonzales’ comment about a present in the trunk. He stepped out of the car and circled to the rear. The wind had stripped the leaves and dead twigs off the birches in the yard. The ex-soldier scanned his surroundings with a trained eye. A father in a baseball cap and his toddler were busy at a nearby playground. The dad was feverishly building sand castles, and the tot was close behind, smashing them. That kind of life didn’t interest him.
A few others were around, but they ignored him. Aronen opened the trunk to see a yellow blanket. Something was clearly wrapped up in it. He started to unravel the blanket, keeping it inside the trunk.
Footsteps approached from behind: Aronen turned to see Larsson approaching.
“That’s a better ride,” Larsson remarked, his black beanie cap pulled down over his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Aronen said as he unwrapped the last few folds.
“What you got there?”
“A present from Gonzales.” Aronen shifted to the side enough that Larsson got a glimpse of an oily AK-47.
Beside the rifle were about ten small brown boxes of ammo, each holding 30 rounds. The text on the boxes was Russian.
“Nice,” said Larsson. “You thank him?”
Aronen wrapped the blanket around the weapon. “No. I didn’t see it till now.”
He slammed the trunk and Larsson walked around to the passenger side. By the time Aronen made it to the driver side door, Larsson was already in his seat.
“To the compound?”
Larsson nodded.
“Gonzales’ money is in the glove box,” Aronen said.
Larsson snatched it out and immediately counted it.
Aronen remembered something else. “Oh yeah. Some lady reporter called. Wants to interview us…”
Larsson interrupted. “Really? Interesting. How’s she know you?”
* * *
Niko Andersson’s stance was wide, but he began to hesitate. The gun was still in Salmela’s mouth and Niko continued with his taunting. Roge and Osku stood near Salmela, but safely away from the edge.
Salmela’s cell phone jingled in his jacket pocket. Already having accepted his fate, he made no move to answer.
“Goddamn,” Niko said and jerked the gun from between his victim’s teeth. He laughed, “Go ahead answer it, then. Dead man’s last words.”
Salmela didn’t smile, just pulled his phone from his pocket. The caller was unlisted.
“Hello.”
“Bad time?” Suhonen asked. Salmela recognized his voice immediately.
“How should I put this…kind of,” said Salmela, glancing at the gangsters standing around him with the rugged tree-covered fells in the background.
“We should meet.”
“Call me later. We’ll see if I can make it.”
He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
Niko bobbed his head. “Hmm. Yup. Nicely done. Nicely done.”
“What’s nice about it?” Roge asked.
“Maybe this Salmela’s not such a bad guy.”
Osku looked at Niko, dumbfounded. Only a moment ago, the big guy had been ready to shoot the man he was now praising. “Uh… That so?”
“Think about it. I’m about to put a slug in his head and his phone rings. I’m thinking—just out of curiosity—let’s let him answer. And goddamn if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut. Most would’ve bawled into the phone begging for help, but Salmela just tells ’em to call back. ‘We’ll see if I can make it…’ Fuck. That takes balls…”
“Yeah,” said Roge.
“Maybe I’ll let you live,” Niko said and shoved the gun back in his pocket.
Salmela didn’t say anything, just flexed his jaw. The gun barrel had left his mouth numb.
“Who called?” Niko asked.
“Just a friend.” Salmela realized his teeth were chattering and he felt weak.
Suddenly, he doubled over and threw up. He didn’t have time to turn away, nor did Niko have time to move. The vomit splattered onto the fat man’s boots.
Niko took a step back, but stumbled over a pine stump. He had already lost his balance and was reeling toward the cliff when Roge caught him and heaved his enormous body to safety.
Niko exhaled hotly, thanked Roge and turned back to Salmela, who was still on his knees.
“Damn son-of-a-bitch. I’d kill you if I hadn’t just decided not to. Shit!”
He wiped the mess off his boots on a bush, then burst into laughter. “Yeah, we’ll come up with something for you—I got an idea.”
The threesome marched back down the trail. Salmela stumbled along behind them, not wanting to be left in the woods alone. He wiped his mouth and spit blood into the thicket on the side of the trail. He was thankful he had puked—had his fear come out the other end, he most certainly wouldn’t be allowed to get back in the car.
* * *
Takamäki was sitting in the passenger seat as Suhonen drove past the massive box st
ores and shopping malls along Beltway Three. The pair was en route from NBI headquarters to their own in Pasila.
Clouds skirted across the sky and the trees tossed in the wind.
“Salmela had no time to talk, huh?” asked Takamäki.
“Nope. Told me to call back later. Sounded a little nervous. Who knows what he’s got going on.”
Aalto and Nykänen of the NBI were considering the proposal to initiate a full-scale undercover operation. Since the decision involved a change in resource allocation, they had needed some time to think about it.
“We’ve wasted an entire morning in these meetings,” Suhonen complained. “And we’re none the wiser.”
“Well, at least they had some value. I’ve sat in on a few management meetings. Now there’s something. A giant meeting just to discuss park safety and…”
Takamäki’s sentence was cut short when Suhonen’s phone rang.
He glanced at the display—an unfamiliar number.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“It’s Juha. Hi.”
Suhonen recognized Juha Saarnikangas’ voice, but it sounded strained. The former drug addict had provided a gold mine of leads over the years.
“How are things?”
“Terrible.”
“Huh?”
“Shit. You remember Vesa Karjalainen? The junkie?”
“Yeah,” said Suhonen. Karjalainen had been on the same ship from Estonia as Marju Mägi, Salmela’s mule. Suhonen was intending to go see Karjalainen when he had a chance. “What about him?”
“Fuck,” Saarnikangas said.
Suhonen could tell from the background noise that Saarnikangas was walking. A female voice was making an announcement. “You at the train station?”
“Yes. Listen. Karjalainen is lying dead on the bathroom floor of the Restaurant Eliel here. I was supposed to meet him at the bar here this morning.”
Suhonen wondered for a moment why Saarnikangas would meet Karjalainen, but he let him continue. The car merged onto the freeway.
Helsinki Homicide: Vengeance Page 11