Three Minutes

by Anders Roslund

  The second document—Crouse knew what it was without having it explained to him—a bone crusher in a forensic laboratory at Langley. In the third document, part of the femur had been broken into pieces using a regular hammer, and in the fourth it had been placed in a rotary crusher filled with liquid nitrogen, twenty minutes of spinning and the leg had turned to powder, ready for DNA extraction.

  “A red X over the Ten of Hearts—and there we have it: our royal flush.” Perry smiled, gathered up the four images, making sure to put them in the right order. And then picked up the next two in the pile, before quickly putting them back again.

  “Nine of Hearts. Eight of Hearts. Both our external and internal intelligence have yet to find them.”

  A new paper, a new image. And a quick glance at everyone.

  “The Seven of Hearts.”

  A single document on the table. A naked body on an autopsy table. Lying on its back. Grayish skin with a wreath of bruises around his neck.

  “This was left at the American Embassy in Bogotá. Lying in a trunk. Death by strangulation.”

  Marker and a red cross. The paper upside-down and the next document already in hand before Crouse interrupted.

  “What did you say—in a trunk? Death by strangulation? Why did we strangle him and put him in a trunk?”

  “Wasn’t our work. He was dead on arrival.”

  Crouse stretched out an arm for the document. He grabbed it, examined the gray skin on a metal gurney for a long time.

  “In that case, how do we know this is the right person?”

  “He matched our description. Height, weight, body type, skeletal damage, distinguishing marks.” Crouse should let go of the picture, let Perry continue his review of the kill list, so that everyone could make it to their next meeting on time. But the man lying there. Gray and stiff and lifeless. He wouldn’t leave his hand.

  “DNA?”

  “No.”

  It felt as if they were trying to hurry this along.

  “Fingerprints? Like the others?”

  “Sorry.”

  Riley had been silent so far. Now he swept his arms wide as he spoke. “We simply don’t have a match. Despite the largest DNA database in the world. Nine million profiles—but only suspects in criminal investigations. I’ve said it before, we should damn well get them all.”

  “The public isn’t quite there yet. I think it’s called integrity.”

  “Integrity, Perry? Why should criminals have privacy?”

  The chief of staff didn’t respond. It wasn’t a question, despite how the FBI chief phrased it. He turned instead to Crouse and pointed to the man on the autopsy gurney.

  “El Sueco. Alias based on origin, appearance, as is so often the case in Colombia. El Indio, El Mestizo, El Negro . . . ethnicity and race. We assumed El Sueco fit that pattern, so we sought out information from the police in northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and probably somewhere else. No hits.”

  “Denmark. Now there’s a damn good example, Perry. They save the blood of every newborn to test for diseases. And use it to compare suspects in criminal investigations. If they can—why can’t we?”

  It still wasn’t a question. And the FBI director received no answer, while Perry indicated that it was Crouse he was speaking to.

  “When it comes to the Seven of Hearts—we’ve made use of every tool available based on the information we had. The forensic experts and medical examiners believe there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to make a positive identification.”

  Like Riley, Marc Eve had been sitting in silence so far—watching, listening. Now he reached across the coffee table and gathered up the four images of the Seven of Hearts and put them in the pile of papers they’d already gone through.

  “Now it’s time to move on.” He grabbed the red marker out of Perry’s hand and crossed out the illustration of the Seven of Hearts for a second time, streaks turning into thicker streaks. “Perry?”

  It was as if Perry was now changing his mind. The sudden hurry had made Crouse, the guest of honor, start to wonder. Perry met their eyes one at a time—Marc Eve, William Riley, the vice president. And picked up the documents the CIA director had so impatiently gathered, grabbed the red marker.

  “We have to, for the sake of all parties involved, share this information.”

  “A dead criminal with no citizenship.” The vice president did as the chief of staff had, made a point of meeting three other sets of eyes. “Isn’t that enough, Daniel?”

  “Surely we owe Tim the same background information that we have ourselves.”

  Crouse was no longer shaking. But he was still just as flushed. “What are you talking about? What are all of you talking about?”

  Throughout the meeting a large black binder had stood on the floor next to Perry’s left foot. Now he bent forward and picked it up, opened it, placed even more documents in front of him. Crouse, who was sitting across the table, tried to see, to read what stood there, but he was too far away, the font too small. The chief of staff lowered his voice, looked at him.

  “Here, and exclusively in this room—we initially handled the Seven of Hearts a bit . . . incorrectly.”

  “Incorrectly?”

  “The Seven of Hearts turned out to be an infiltrator and an informant.”

  “An infiltrator?”

  “One of Sue Masterson’s civilians with a criminal record. He was put onto the Most Wanted list based on false information in order to lend his undercover work credibility—enhance his status in the group he was infiltrating. A common strategy in these cases. But no one outside the DEA was informed! By the time we’d planned the Final War on Drugs in response to the attack, used the Most Wanted list to build the kill list, and announced our plans to the whole damn world . . . well, it was too late to back out.”

  Speaker Timothy D. Crouse had stood up, still rattled, as again he could see a man stepping into his cage. Only a person who’s been kept in a cage, forced to meet his torturers there, could understand how he felt right now. But at that point it had been all about him, his own damage. He still wasn’t quite sure if he understood what Perry was talking about—but his body could feel it, this was about someone else who’d been injured, and someone whom he’d failed to protect, again.

  “What group?”

  “What?”

  “What fucking group did he infiltrate!”

  “The PRC.”

  “He infiltrated the PRC on our behalf?” He was no longer standing still. He walked around the ocean-blue room, a loop between the oak desk and fireplace, one lap, two laps. “So you’re saying we killed one of our own?”

  “We didn’t kill him. We chose to keep him on the kill list.”

  “If I understand the images you just showed me, which I interpret as an autopsy, and what you’re telling me now . . . He’s dead?”

  “He was on the kill list. That was all we accomplished.”

  Crouse didn’t scream, nor did he whisper. He just stood there at the fireplace, next to the brass log-holder filled with birch, waiting. For something, he wasn’t sure what.

  “Tim—that’s how it works! Those of us sitting here unanimously chose to sacrifice one life to save many, many more.”

  Whatever he was waiting for didn’t arrive.

  “Who was he?”

  “We don’t know. We know he wasn’t American, had a criminal record, that he spent two and a half years infiltrating the PRC guerrillas and provided the DEA with a steady stream of information.”

  “Such as?”

  Marc Eve was no longer just impatient, he was annoyed, bitter. “Let’s move on.”

  “So really he worked for me? Died because of me? Listen, I was imprisoned like a fucking animal in the middle of the Colombian jungle. I have the right to know!”

  Perry stood up. “Just wait. Both of you.”

  He left the room, but came back before the second hand of the golden clock on the wall, which was ticking so loudly, ha
d time to make a full rotation.

  “We got a summary from Masterson. She’s the one who hired him.”

  A binder similar to the one that stood on the floor, maybe a little thinner. Perry flipped through it, handed it to Crouse. “There.”

  Crouse stood up as he read. Words became sentences and formed a picture of a person whose information allowed the US government to take credit for busting seven large cocaine kitchens.

  “Damn.”

  And additional information that led to the seizure of fifteen huge shipments.

  “Even Tumaco.”

  Not a month before the hostage abduction. One of the really big crackdowns.

  “And we executed him?”

  “Not us. Technically. But passed a death sentence, yes.”

  “Seven cocaine kitchens and fifteen deliveries of seven tons or more. I remember them all. This is exactly what the Crouse Model has been praised for! I even remember Masterson talking about this very informant.”

  The halls of the White House seemed to echo more than other hallways. It had always been like that, Crouse was sure of it, he thought about it every time he rushed through them. But he couldn’t decide if the sound was actually louder, or if it was that particular power that was found only here that made them seem that way.

  Listen, I was imprisoned like a fucking animal. Heels clacking hard against the stone floor. So really he worked for me? It wasn’t anger, not irritation. Died because of me? It was the powerlessness of a man who was supposed to have just that, power. I have the right to know!

  His two nameless bodyguards rose from their simple wooden chairs immediately as he approached the entrance. Half a step in front, half a step behind.

  Then he stopped.

  “I’m actually not finished here. A half-hour more. I’ll be back.”

  He turned away from the door and headed back alone. But not to the right at the next corridor to the vice president’s office, instead he continued on straight toward the stairs—he hadn’t taken an elevator since he got home. One floor down, two floors, three floors. The basement and the archives. He said hello, identified himself, even though this guard also didn’t ask for his ID or any other questions. And went in. To the smell of paper, folders, binders, dust, time.

  He didn’t make it far. It was the walls. They started to close in. Just like the roof, which started to press down. There was no room for him. He couldn’t get out. The stench from the hole filled with a buzzing swarm of big, green flies, it fell over him, the powerful acid of red and black ants that sat in the banana trees and attacked by dropping their urine, which burned the skin until it was covered with blisters, even the cheese bread baked from yucca flour that lay in white bowls on the floor.

  “Mr. Crouse? Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

  A cage. And you need to get out of cages.

  “Thanks. Everything’s fine.”

  But he nodded toward the guard, continued farther in. He passed the section detailing the entire investigation into JFK’s assassination, glanced at the slightly higher shelves labeled Vietnam and the slightly lower ones marked with white labels for Afghanistan, Israel, Iraq. Almost all the way in, under a makeshift sign, he found the FINAL WAR ON DRUGS. It was here he paused, lifted, moved, searched. And found a brown cardboard box—SEVEN OF HEARTS handwritten on one side.

  He sat down at a small desk in the corner, opened the box. Blue folders from the DEA. Green folders from the FBI. Red folders from the CIA. All very thin. Then three DVDs, he coaxed them into the archive computer, which protested at first, but he pressed again.

  A way of moving I recognize. Which I’ve seen before. That’s how I met him the first time. From the perspective of a satellite in the offices at the NGA. On a chair next to an operator at the Colombia desk.

  He kept searching. Loose plastic pockets, stapled documents, small and large photographs. He leafed through a report that compiled twenty-seven anonymous tips, which all placed the Seven of Hearts at specific locations—but for which the managing intelligence officer in every single case had judged as having a misleading purpose.

  He leafed through a report on a Delta Force patrol that located the target at a brothel in Cali and prepared a crackdown—but it lacked any follow-up, just a supplementary document listing four names followed by the letters—MIA, missing in action.

  He leafed through a report from the US Embassy in Bogotá, signed by Jonathan Woods, director of “The International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Section,” which described in detail how a lifeless body, later identified as El Sueco/the Seven of Hearts, had been dropped off by a Swedish police officer on vacation in Colombia, delivered in the trunk of a rental car.

  Finally, he flipped through the coroner’s report. Which established that height, weight, and body type were all consistent with the estimates made on the basis of the visual material. Which described a tattoo matching—in appearance, size, location—the unique tattoo observed on the head of the Seven of Hearts. Which described cause of death—cardiac arrest due to asphyxiation. An interpretation based on a swollen and bluish face, an equally swollen tongue, multiple burst blood vessels in the eyes and mucosa, the stripe-shaped hemorrhages in the neck muscle and thyroid, the hyoid bone fracture. An overall picture that—according to the coroner—indicated strangulation with a neck snare.

  And which, ultimately, described how the left index finger and the right middle finger were gone—the absence of the distal phalanges and middle phalanges.

  Timothy D. Crouse had done it again. Without noticing. Stood up, flaming red from forehead to neck. And he shook. It was just like before. When he saw those moving images. Something he recognized.

  He read that last part again. Left index finger, left middle finger, gone.

  Which we didn’t know. Which was lacking from our description of you, on the Most Wanted list.

  But you let me know. Your greeting to me. Today.

  “Excuse me—a glass of water, please.”

  The guard had been standing with his back to the speaker, at the end of the narrow passageway, just inside the archive’s entrance. But it didn’t take long, a glass pitcher, a large mug, which the guard filled, and Crouse wondered how he’d had time, and where he got it from.

  Cold water down his throat, into his chest. The uniformed guard turned back around, disappeared, moved silently. While the speaker stood completely still.

  You’re safe now, Señor Crouse.

  A way of moving I recognize.

  We’ll take you out of here, señor. Home to your countrymen.

  An absence I recognized.

  It was you.

  A canteen with liquid on your hip. And two capsules of sedatives lying in your shattered hand.

  It was you who saved me, gave me my life back.

  That hand that was missing two fingers.

  And we let you die.

  ANOTHER FOUR MONTHS LATER

  MORNING. HAZE. FAIRLY warm and humid. Piet Hoffmann took off the jacket he’d just put on, ran his hand through the hair he’d just combed. He was nervous. Time on the inside, in that other reality, does that to people.

  It was fifteen, no more than twenty, meters between the central guard station and the giant prison gate. It could have been a thousand kilometers. Inside those walls, it was all about freezing time, forgetting time, out there, it was all about taking care of time, cherishing it. Inside you had to swallow your longing, keep completely still, out there everyone was on the move. He’d explained to Zofia that he didn’t want her to meet him here with the boys, not once during his sentence and not today when he was released; he wanted to wait to hold them again, see them again, live with them again until they were all in their house in Enskede, their home. He needed to be alone for that hour or so—that journey between one reality and another, between being locked up and set free—to be without them in order to become one of them.

  Seventeen meters. He counted the steps up to the gate. To Ewert Grens, who stood t
here waiting on the other side.

  “Welcome back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “You don’t really wanna know. What you do want to know, Grens, is that we’ve been having quite a nice time in our section, me and your former bosses. They were very surprised to see me still alive. We had many opportunities to socialize.”

  They walked side by side to Grens’s service car, commandeered for the day, one of those black, discreet ones. This was no ordinary prisoner transport.

  “Yes. That is what I wanted to know.”

  Hoffmann laid the plastic bag containing his few belongings on the back seat, and they rolled out of the prison parking lot toward the main road. Proud walls surrounded by a first layer of high barbed-wire fence, which in turn was surrounded by a second one—slowly disappeared in the rearview mirror, shrank to a past he was leaving behind. For good, this time. Never to be locked up again, never exploited, never caught between lies and even more lies. The trees they passed were real, as was the suburb, all those people in constant motion—the reality he was about to step into, live in.

  They didn’t say much. They had nothing in common, shared nothing that belonged to the future, had no intention of crossing paths. Just one last ride to the final destination of a three-year-long trip, and it was important to finish it together.

  When they passed through Stockholm he felt a lightness in his stomach. All those times he’d pushed his thoughts in this direction in order to be able to stand it, finding reference points to his hometown in a jungle between hostages and cocaine kitchens, in markets among child sicarios, in morgues who sold places for unknown bodies to be cut apart piece by piece.

  A little bit farther to the south—Slussen became Gullmarsplan became Nynäs Road. And Grens seemed to know where he was headed, veering off at a narrow street, passing by the flower shop, and on into a middle-class suburb filled with small houses. That was where the Hoffmann family had once lived. That was where they were living now.