The Magdalena File

by Jon Stenhugg

  Shoreman and the PM’s secretary sat facing the PM as they ate lunch, looking out over the lake where they had just pulled up the fish nets put out the night before. Behind them, the PM’s beautiful home displayed a style suited to a wealthy farmer a hundred years ago, attracting barbs and unwelcome comments from journalists and others who had a hard time matching the PM’s socialistic language to his behaviour. At this moment they would have seen a man wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans with rubber boots covered in mud and cow dung, eating his meal from a plastic plate and washing down his fried fish with a beer, instead of the champagne he was so often accused of favouring.

  “This business about Hoffberg is dreadful,” said the PM. “Terrible! No one seems to have any respect for politicians anymore.”

  “No, things were definitely different only a few years ago,” said the secretary, picking a fish bone from between his teeth. “We should send some kind of condolences to his family. Hoffberg was on the Defence Committee before he quit, so we’ll be able to get some positive press out of this. Tragic, untimely death, poor family and relatives, sad day for democracy, loss for those who want peace in the world, and so on. I have a speech written already. I wrote it for you when we thought the Minister of the Interior had been killed in that avalanche in France last year. Fortunately, we never had to use it.”

  “Isn’t that spreading it on a little thick?” asked the PM. “I mean, he was only a Member of Parliament, and not even a very good one, if you ask me. He was useful when I wanted to cut a few billion from the defence budget, but all his crap about peace movements gave me some real headaches when I was travelling abroad. Would you believe the Chinese asked me why I tolerated such an outspoken politician?”

  The secretary opened up his briefcase. “You can time your speech to coincide with the statement from his own party. They’re holding a press conference just before the lunch-hour news. If you happen to be in the corridor outside the press conference, I’m sure you can get something out of this.” He handed over several pages of manuscript to the PM.

  “And whatever you say, keep China out of this,” said Shoreman. “Your comments about them being the world’s largest democracy were appreciated over there, but they got us into a lot of hot water with the Opposition.”

  “OK,” said the PM, “let’s see,” as he shuffled the pages. “By the way, do we know anything more about Hoffberg’s killing? I mean, I hope this isn’t a sign of some kind of political action. Has the NSS said anything more about Hoffberg’s ridiculous threat?”

  “No. All we know so far is he was murdered in his own home. Homicide has a suspect, but hasn’t managed to apprehend anyone yet.”

  “Well, I’ll feel a lot safer when the killer is behind bars,” said the PM. “Do you think it would be too much to add a few words about our criminal justice policy?”

  “I think you might be opening yourself up for criticism there,” said the secretary. “There are many more people who won’t feel safe until his killer is arrested. Our plan to get the Riksdag Building searched has only led to mindless bleating from the Opposition, of course. And so far the search has found nothing.”

  Niklas Shoreman pushed his empty paper plate towards the middle of the table and carefully bit on his left little finger, a habit from his training in espionage to gain control of his composure, even when surprised. “They should find something,” he said, keeping his finger close to his lips. His voice was low and metallic, providing the impetus for some derogatory descriptions of him as ‘The Robot’. “We should get this off the news as soon as possible. The police should take someone into custody. Now.”

  “Don’t you think they should concentrate on finding the guilty party first?” asked the secretary, one of the few people who had the power to question the judgment of Niklas Shoreman.

  “No,” said Shoreman, “I think they should bring in someone they can charge. The details of who actually killed Hoffberg can be worked out later. Right now it’s important the nation doesn’t have to call into question the competence of our law enforcement agencies. People want speed and action. We have to be decisive.”

  “I agree,” said the Prime Minister, expecting the subject to now be closed.

  Niklas Shoreman’s voice then went low and determined, and his glacier-blue eyes stared at the Prime Minister. “I also think you should consider Hoffberg’s threat to be real. He’s dead, so he can’t hurt us politically as long as we don’t underestimate him. He was a fool, but a very diligent fool.”

  “A dead fool.” The PM swirled the last drops in his beer bottle.

  Shoreman took a deep breath. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t take us with him.”

  *

  At lunchtime the nation was told the shocking story that an ex-MP had been killed in his home, and that the police were confident they would soon be arresting the murderer. The chairperson for the Environmental Green Party delivered an impassioned speech about the importance of Leo Hoffberg and his contributions to Swedish society. Most of her speech was left on the cutting room floor at airtime and viewers were treated to the fatherly droning of the PM as he carefully, but in a very impromptu way, presented the speech written last year for someone else. He was good at projecting sorrow, and on the following day he would be able to read that his popularity in the daily polls had increased by two percentage points – still dangerously low, but on the rise.

  Swedish news feeds were reviewed every day by a local employee at the US Embassy. He had just graduated with a degree in American Studies, and a serious desire to become a field agent for the Central Intelligence Agency. He watched the tape again, then wrote one word on a yellow sticky pad: Hoffberg? And stuck the note on the cartridge. By 2 pm the newbie graduate had been given a pat on the back, but was not allowed into the windowless conference room where the local CIA field office were replaying the tape.

  “So now we know,” said Michael Rice, the Station Chief who had recently been promoted following the success of his operation at the Kiruna Esrange Space and Rocket Launching Station in the extreme north of Sweden. “Looks like the Russians have started the game.”

  The mission leader stood up and moved to the whiteboard covering one end of the room. “Now that Hoffberg has been murdered, we have to find out if he managed to tell them anything about the location of the torpedo.”

  The story on the whiteboard was simple.

  Rocketfish lost on MS Sally

  current location?

  Swedish citz (Hoffberg/Spimler) buy manual in Tallinn/Schneller

  He added the next line before sitting down,

  Hoffberg murdered by?

  “Does anyone not think Schneller did this?” Station Chief Rice flashed an ironic smile.

  “He was the man MI6 contacted when they bought the Rocketfish for us. Our informant in Tallinn said he was involved in the sale of the manual.” The mission leader checked the file in front of him. “These clowns must have found the torpedo and found out how to contact him. Talk about walking into the spider’s house.”

  “Well, Schneller didn’t contact our man from MI6. I guess we know what that means.” The Station Chief began erasing the whiteboard.

  “The Russians are paying him to get it back.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” asked one of the lower echelon intelligence officers.

  “It’s ours. We already bought it.” Rice’s voice was hard, determined. Final.

  “Who calls the NSS?” asked the mission leader.

  “That’s me,” said Rice. “In the meantime I want a complete mission plan for how we recover our torpedo. We won’t have much time once it’s located, so I want a complete set of contingencies. I want that piece of hardware back.”

  *

  Sara called her grandmother when she got home from Stallerholmen. “Hi, Grandma, how do you feel today?”

  “You know very well how I feel. I told you on Saturday, and you haven’t called back since. I felt just the same on Sunday, but you wouldn’t know,
because you didn’t call or visit. I’m old, but this place is full of people even older than I am. I feel like I’ll never leave this place alive. It doesn’t matter, no one cares whether I live or die anyway.”

  Sara was sure she would have continued to ramble, so she cut her off. “I’m sorry, I’m working on a very difficult case right now. I know I should have come out to visit you, but I just couldn’t. Please forgive me.”

  As quickly as she had been the caustic reminder of Sara’s inadequacies, her grandmother switched on the honey-dripping sweetness which had given Sara a safe harbour during her entire childhood. “Oh, my little one, my little kitty pumpkin-bumpkin, I’m so sorry, I’m just an old biddy that could bicker with God. Don’t listen to me. Not you, God, you should listen to me more often, but you, Sara, just turn me off when I get this way.”

  Sara didn’t have the heart to tell her grandmother she’d already pushed that button, and was hoping God hadn’t done the same. They said goodbye and Sara promised herself that she would visit at the end of the week.

  *

  Niklas Shoreman was in a hotel room near Stockholm that evening, and his telephone had become overheated from use. He threw it on the bed where it bounced several times, then in a fit of rage, Shoreman threw it at the wall, smashing it into pieces that scattered over the carpet like the remains of some prehistoric insect. He poured himself a large whisky from the bottle standing on the counter, and began picking up the pieces, assembling them into a working phone again. He pressed a speed-dial number and took a long sip of his whisky as he waited for an answer. After several rings a man’s voice answered in a thick Russian accent.

  “It’s late, Niklas,” said the voice, “but you must have news. Tell me.”

  “I have news, but it’s not good,” said Shoreman. “There’s no sign of the weapon. The police are investigating Hoffberg’s death, but they’re getting nowhere. Schneller seems to be in the clear, so far. I think it would be a good time for him to disappear, if you know what I mean. Do you know where he is?”

  “Schneller would be difficult person to find,” said the voice on the other end. “So you will find him and locate weapon before things becomes complicated.”

  “I’m afraid things have already become complicated.” Shoreman placed his little finger between his teeth.

  Chapter 6

  No one could connect Kim Lemko with his codename, Schneller. He was used to being sought. In the same way celebrities knew how to seek out the public eye, Lemko knew exactly how to avoid it. It was one of the keys to his profession, and he’d been trained at one of the best schools in the world, the East German Stasi. This is where he’d met one of the men who would further his career in Sweden, a high-ranking Swedish politician with connections leading to those men who governed the country, a man who had helped him with the paperwork which lay behind his ability to smuggle tons of munitions.

  At the same time, he knew it wasn’t just the police after him. This time many of the players in the Baltic Cold War were trying to find him: the CIA, the FSB, MI6 and the Swedish NSS. He felt like a quail, hoping the hunter’s foot wouldn’t land too close to where he was hiding, but poised for flight when it did. He knew the consequence of failure, and he knew he’d have to tread a razor’s edge along the gauntlet of those wanting him dead.

  Six hours after Hoffberg’s death, Kim Lemko eased his aging Volvo into the barn, positioning all four wheels on two long metal plates in the floor. The motor purred to a stop, a faithful machine which had served him well for a long time. He got out, strode to the wall next to the door and pushed a red button. Instead of raising the car to be lubed and serviced, the hydraulic lift hissed as air was released and the dark blue Volvo descended into its hiding place in the floor. When the car’s roof was no longer visible, he pushed the button just to one side, and air squealed into a new set of hydraulic cylinders as a thick steel plate covered the Volvo’s hiding place. He kicked hay on top of the steel plate, closed the barn door and trotted towards his house in a drizzling rain.

  Lemko shivered in the darkness of his home. Many years ago he’d remodelled the interior, creating inner walls of steel. Observation from the outside was impossible; not with microwave, not with infrared, not even with radar. Sensors buried in the ground at the perimeter of his property fed infrared and CCTV images to a computer system monitoring the status of his security. Sounds louder than a deer walking on the gravel road triggered immediate alarms.

  For the moment, Lemko felt safe, but he knew that outside his property, forces were at work, trying to find him. He also knew that his normal recourse in times of desperation was now a part of those trying to locate him.

  He clicked a symbol on his computer monitor and listened once more to the conversation he’d recorded between Hoffberg and his accomplice, looking for something in the conversation which might provide him with the final key to finding the weapon he had been hired to retrieve.

  With Hoffberg dead, there was only one person left who could help him: Hoffberg’s neighbour, Martin Spimler. He knew he had to find Spimler, but he also knew he couldn’t take the risk of leaving his hiding place right now. He felt stress take hold of his stomach. He’d have to create a new plan of action tomorrow. Now, alone in the safety of his own home, he allowed himself the luxury of a quiet, whimpering nervous breakdown. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  *

  As dawn broke, Lemko sat in the silence of the steel womb separating him from the outside world. He was hungry, but when he had tried to eat a boiled egg, it came up almost immediately.

  He had to be very careful from now on, more than usual. Someone answered the call he had placed using the cell phone he held in his right hand.

  “Da?”

  Lemko spoke three numbers in Russian, then ended the call. Before a minute had gone by the cell phone in his left hand began to ring. He pressed the talk button, but said nothing.

  “You called,” said the voice on the other end.

  “Yes.” Lemko sighed in relief. “I need your help.”

  The voice at the other end used Lemko’s codename. “Schneller, they already begin ask about you. What you do?”

  “I screwed up the assignment. I need your help to set it right.”

  There was a brief silence, then, “What you want me do?”

  “I need to find a man in the Stockholm area called Spimler. He was a friend of the man who bought the manual for the Shkval.”

  “I heard of him.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “Stockholm is long way away.”

  “But you have friends there,” Lemko pleaded.

  “Yes, but most of them looking for you. I see what I can do. Do not want too much.”

  “I’m sure you can help me,” said Lemko.

  “Maybe that’s why you get trouble,” said the voice. The line went dead.

  Under Lake Mälaren, within sight of the Parliament Building, the clock on the weapon Lemko sought continued its countdown to zero. There were now only twelve days left.

  *

  Sara’s team met in the Hoffberg room early on Wednesday morning. Dan had been working on a summary of the responses to the missing persons spot on Saturday’s television news programme. The leads led in every direction, but there were two observations which intrigued him, and even more so after he’d called to verify them. Both descriptions came from Saturday, people who’d seen someone with long black hair, a man or a woman in a black clerical tunic, including the white collar of the clergy, driving a car emerging from the forest on the way to Stallarholmen. One person had even been able to remember the make of the car, a blue vintage Volvo 242 sedan.

  Sara added the items to the box at the bottom of the whiteboard and said, “We’ve got to find this Volvo. It’s either the killer or an accomplice driving him out. Robert, I want you to start calling every single parish office within fifty kilometres of the Hoffberg house and see if you can identify it. Use the partial plate number we got from the kid I int
erviewed.”

  Sara told the group about the details of her last interview with Kristina Hoffberg. “It could be things weren’t always sweet at the Hoffberg ranch. I’ve left a message on Delaney’s cell phone and we’ll see what he says when he comes in for an interview.”

  She watched as Robert added Edgar Delaney’s name beside Kristina Hoffberg on the whiteboard. “Maybe this was a contract job,” he said.

  There was a report from the dog team lying on the table. Sara read it as Robert went back to his desk. The dogs had discovered Spimler’s scent all over the place, but not on the trail leading from the garage to the car. This was making things difficult. They might have to revise their theory about who was responsible for the murder.

  She put the report down just before Robert rose up from his desk, waving a new printout of a list. He approached Sara with small, enthusiastic yelps.

  “I’ve got him!” he said. “I know who he is. Look at this.” He spread the printout over the table, pointing to the registration number and the name of the owner, “Teknologikka,” he said. “Do you see the address? Just north of Trelleborg.”

  “Yes?” asked Sven. “And your explanation about why Trelleborg is so important to a murder in Stallarholmen, nearly four hundred miles away?”

  “Here’s the reason,” said Robert, and he placed another piece of paper next to the first. “Do you see it now?” he asked, pointing to a document from the Companies Registration Office establishing a branch office in Trelleborg for Teknologikka Ltd, with their main office in Paldiski, Estonia.

  “And no old Volvos at the parish offices in the vicinity?” asked Sara.

  “No old Volvos at any parish offices in the country. The oldest cars registered to the church are two years old.”

  Before Sven or Sara could ask, Robert continued, “And here’s the interesting part. I ran a check for both people and companies at that address in Trelleborg, and look at this.”

  The printout of the companies and people listed at the Teknologikka Ltd branch office address included only two entries: the company and a man called Kim Lemko.