The Magdalena File

by Jon Stenhugg

  *

  Sara began to wonder if there was any collected wisdom of the Buddha about the cold. She knew he’d experienced it, even though most of the monumental statues were located in warm places. The Dali Lama came from Tibet, a very cold place, so maybe he’d written something about it.

  She found a special kind of peace in the cold, with no birds, frogs or mosquitoes to distract her from her own thoughts. From within this peace a thought flashed through her mind and she wanted to make sure that she’d remember it later on.

  “Blue one. Can you write something down for me?”

  “Am I your secretary now? You’re not focusing,” said the controller.

  “I am, but I just thought of something very important and I don’t have any way to write it down out here. Besides, it’ll keep you awake.”

  “Alright, what is it?”

  “Did Lemko have a cell phone with him when we picked him up in Trelleborg? Write it down so I don’t forget it.”

  “Keep your mind on what you’re supposed to be doing out there, duckling.” Then a moment later, “Ekman says Lemko didn’t have a phone with him. If he had one earlier, he probably threw it away. We never found one in his house.”

  “Thank Ekman for me,” said Sara. “Tell him the ugly duckling is freezing out here.”

  She would check all the SMS messages for every suspect on their list when she got back. If she could find just one number linked to Lemko, it would be enough to tie him into a web of communications which could help reveal who he was working with, both here and abroad.

  Sara might be able to get to the man who’d given Lemko his contract on Hoffberg. If she didn’t freeze first. She rubbed her cheeks, and had to put the earwig back in after it fell out. In the days of non-tech she’d heard of elaborate hand signals and gestures used to communicate during stakeouts and stings. The new-tech era was great, but there were times when the human side of investigations dropped out of sight. All the talk today was of gigabytes and megapixels.

  “Heads up, duckling. You’ve got a bus load of tourists disembarking out on Hantverkar Street. Wake up and fly right.”

  City Hall, 12.26.

  “City Hall,” said the female voice on the bus intercom as the driver prepared to stop at City Hall. The doors opened in front of the Seraphim Emergency Clinic. Magdalena had already looked for visible signs of police activity in front of the building. She continued up Hantverkar Street to enter the small garden just behind the Government Office responsible for executing political decisions into practical reality, and peeked out on the other side of the building to scan the street running parallel to the bay, North Mälar Strand.

  A busload of tourists had begun to disembark, and Magdalena found a couple of Russian women who seemed to accept her company. She walked beside them using her knowledge of Russian, gesturing as she did so, carefully assessing the people to her left and right. The flaps to the plastic tent were closed, but she could hear the sound of a hammer on stone and music playing from a portable radio. She continued with the Russian women, still scanning, but it all looked very safe.

  Then she saw Schneller’s black leather overcoat turn quickly to the wall as the three approached the other tourists, and she waited until the tour leader arrived with tickets. The group chattered as they left the garden and the blotchy blue statue of the Dala horse. Then they were alone.

  *

  Sara saw her as soon as Magdalena came into view from around the corner, and she barely managed to turn into the wall to keep from being recognised. It was her, Sara knew it; there could be no mistake.

  Her mind was racing and her gut was turning flip-flops as the puzzle was suddenly completed. When the Russian chatter subsided Sara heard shoes scrape on the sand pebbles lying on the stone steps as Magdalena approached her from behind. She’d have to wait until the last minute, so she pressed her face into the corner.

  Then she felt a hand on her back, and a voice called out softly, almost in a whisper, “Schneller? Schneller?” and Sara turned to face her.

  “No,” said Sara, and she almost laughed at the surprised look on Magdalena’s face. “No, my name is Sara Markham, remember? And you’re Kristina Hoffberg, also known as Magdalena, and you’re under arrest!”

  Kristina Hoffberg, codename Magdalena, backed away, looking wildly from side to side, searching for an escape route.

  Sara advanced towards her, grasping for the butt of the weapon under her coat. She struggled to remove the pistol, but the hammer at the end of the Sig Sauer caught on the lining. She tried again, then her hand came up empty. Sara moved closer, holding her right arm out and pointing her finger at Kristina.

  “Stop. There’s no way out. Come with me.”

  When Kristina reached the bottom of the short stairway, Sara was still at the top of the stairs. From around the corner of the alcove she could see the NSS officers emerge from inside the tent to block Kristina’s path to the street. She was trapped.

  Then things started to happen in slow motion. It seemed several seconds went by as Kristina put her hand into her coat pocket. When she withdrew it, Sara could see a black extension to her hand, and how Kristina was hiding it from the NSS officers as she walked towards them.

  “Gun!” Sara shouted, as she caught up with Kristina and tackled her from behind.

  The gun was still in Kristina’s hand as she went down, landing on her elbows. The sound of the shot from the 38 snub-nose deafened both of them for a second, and Sara didn’t have time to think about what was more appropriate: to try to take out her own gun from its holster, now nearly impossible to reach because of the long overcoat, or to try to disarm Kristina before she could let off another shot.

  It wasn’t a rational process. Sara tried to grab for the gun in Kristina’s hand, and they struggled for a minute before Kristina got off another shot, a wild attempt to hit anyone, anything. Sara figured Kristina had no more than four bullets left, and Kristina’s arm was still flailing on the icy gravel, making it impossible for Sara to get hold of it.

  She grabbed at Kristina’s hair, catfight style. At least she could get a handful of hair, and she knew it would hurt.

  The two NSS officers approached, crouched down, guns drawn, and they spread out so even if Kristina got lucky she’d get only one of them. Kristina kicked Sara in the abdomen. Sara had to break her hold, trying to get some air into her lungs.

  From somewhere off in the distance, she could hear one of the NSS officers shout to Kristina for her to stop, then the warning shot in the air before he lowered his gun and put a bullet into Kristina’s left breast. Kristina went down on her knees, then turned back to look at Sara, who suddenly became afraid she was about to be shot. Kristina dropped her pistol and shook her head as life ran out of her body, her eyes glazing over before she hit the gravel. As Sara watched her die she thought of the day Kristina had been hassled by the television reporters, and her tearful embrace when Sara had asked them to leave her alone. She thought of her deception, both to her country and to her husband.

  Sara already knew the results of the investigation into the SMS message would indicate Lemko had sent a text to signal that it was OK for Kristina to return, so she would know he’d succeeded in killing her husband. Sara knew their examination of the contents of Kristina’s duffel bag would reveal train tickets and cash for both of them. She knew it, but her thoughts weren’t organised yet, not filed into neat little binders for Cantsten.

  “Are you OK?” was the question coming from all sides, and Sara didn’t know yet, except it seemed Kristina Hoffberg was definitely in worse shape than she was. She could hear the siren from an ambulance approach, and she saw the two attendants dressed in green and yellow running towards her, then suddenly disappearing into the plastic tent with the gurney.

  “What happened?” Sara asked. “Did she hit someone?”

  The uniforms were already cordoning off the garden with blue and white tape, pushing back the tourists who’d got a reality show for the price of
the museum ticket. Sara got up from the ground and jogged over to the tent.

  Cantsten was inside, her face frozen in horror; tears ran down her cheeks. She’d taken off her cap and her hair was out of place.

  “What happened?” Sara asked her.

  “It’s him,” said Cantsten. “A man was standing behind the plastic tent the whole time. He was hit by the first bullet.”

  Sara watched the two ambulance personnel load the man onto the gurney. They raised it up to the transport position and then ran by Cantsten and Sara. Sara looked down at the man’s face, now grey with shock and blood loss, and she nearly fainted.

  It was Hurtree. What the hell was he doing out there? What made him think he could stand there and help her? Sara had other questions in her mind too, but they all disappeared as she raced out of the tent, then she stopped to shout back at Cantsten and the coordinator, “I know this man. I’m going with the ambulance.”

  “You know him?” shouted Cantsten after her. “We already checked his ID and he’s got an American driver’s licence but no passport. You know him?”

  “Yes, talk to Ekman about his passport,” Sara shouted, and caught up with the ambulance crew as they pushed the gurney onto the tracks in the ambulance to start his journey to the ER. “What about the Acute Clinic across the street?” Sara asked the attendant as she hopped in, showing her badge.

  “They’d never be able to help this old geezer. He’s got a bullet in what could be the liver. He’ll bleed out before we can get him into surgery if we don’t hurry. Do you have any medical training?”

  “No. He’s a very good friend. You don’t lose him. Understand?”

  “Yeah,” said the attendant, ripping open Hurtree’s bloody shirt to expose his abdomen where dark red blood oozed up. “That’s what they all say. To tell you the truth, this one might not make it, but if you’re really a cop then stop all cross-traffic between here and Karolinska Hospital. That’d help. Now hold his hand and shut up while I do my job.”

  Sara didn’t have to say anything. Ekman had been informed by the coordinator, and by the time the ambulance was at the first roundabout all cross-traffic had been frozen to a standstill and they speeded to the ER as if it were three in the morning.

  *

  Sara was sat in the ER reception, waiting for news from the doctors when Ekman showed up.

  “You left your watch,” he said sternly, and suddenly Sara was fuming, ready to scratch his eyes out, when she caught the glimmer of concern in his face. “Is he OK, your friend Hurtree?”

  “They don’t know yet. He’s been in surgery since we got here and they just keep saying they don’t know anything.”

  “I brought his passport,” said Ekman, handing it over to her. “You can give it to him when he wakes up. Sara, what the hell was he doing there? My men in the tent said he managed to sneak behind them.”

  “I don’t know what he was doing there. He knew about the sting – we were there yesterday and he helped me plan it, but he had no business being there today. I told him I’d have help. He shouldn’t have been there.”

  “You’re right. It’s one of the reasons we never involve civilians in any of our operations. When shit happens to us, it’s in the line of duty. When it happens to them, we get sued.”

  “I don’t think Hurtree will sue you,” said Sara. “He might sue Kristina Hoffberg, but she looked pretty far gone last time I saw her.”

  “She’s dead,” said Ekman. “Enberg’s shot caught a major artery and she bled to death before the ambulance got there.”

  “Is it OK to think that’s OK?” asked Sara.

  “No, Sara, it’s not. She should have stood in the prisoner’s dock at court and heard the scorn of her friends and family for all the damage she did. She should’ve been locked up in one of our dingiest dungeons to think about it, and felt the wrath of her fellow prisoners. She got the easy way out, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Well, I still think she got what she deserved. And she can’t do anyone else any harm from now on. At least we’ve got Lemko to stuff into the slammer, and that’s what he wants.”

  “He may get what he wants, but he won’t get it here for a long time. He was extradited this morning. Seems he did something terrible in Russia during the Cold War, so they got him first. Two guys showed up this morning with all the necessary paperwork. Cantsten was furious, but a guy from the Justice Department, another from the Foreign Office and the PM’s own political secretary were there. All the papers had already been signed from very high up, so it’s out of our hands.”

  Sara noticed Ekman had brought Kristina Hoffberg’s duffel bag with him. There was a smudge of her blood on it, nearly covered by a yellow evidence tag. “Did you find anything interesting in her bag?” she asked.

  “Nothing we didn’t expect. She had tickets for the train down to Copenhagen that left an hour ago, some clothes for herself and for a man, probably Schneller. She had a lot of cash in euros and there was a plastic bag full of documents I haven’t had a chance to read yet.”

  “Don’t you guys have to let Forensics take everything with them like we do?” Sara asked.

  “Sometimes things can get lost in the evidence bags. It’s easier for me to take it with me. They’ll get it back tomorrow,” said Ekman, as he fidgeted with the bag. “And tomorrow I expect you to be at our meeting when we close this case.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”

  “Sara,” he said as he turned to leave, “very good work today. You couldn’t have done any better.”

  “Two people got shot. And one of them got killed. I don’t know about my friend yet, but I still have to get it straight in my head if I did anything that got him or her shot.”

  “You know you have to talk to Internal Affairs when you leave here?”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “When I get in tomorrow I want to see your name on an application to work at the NSS. You’ll find the details of the job on your desk.” And then he was gone, the bloody duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.

  An hour later a nurse told Sara Hurtree was out of surgery and off the critical list. He’d been lucky: Kristina Hoffberg’s bullet had been slowed by travelling through two sheets of thick plastic before catching him in the side, and he’d had a travel guide book about City Hall in his coat pocket that took almost all of the remaining impact, so the wound to his abdomen was a slight bruise to the liver; painful and potentially serious if unattended, but the dark-haired surgeon was very cheerful and certain Hurtree would be up and about in two or three days. Sara left a message to say that she’d visit Hurtree tomorrow during visiting hours, and went to talk to Internal Affairs.

  *

  The investigators at IA were friendly at first, becoming more determined as they continued. At the end their questions made Sara feel as if she’d been responsible for every trauma in the country during the past week.

  She answered them as well as she could, feeling boxed into tighter and tighter loops of logic, leaving her only one option when the final questions landed and her answer sounded childish and inadequate. Why hadn’t she drawn her weapon and demanded that Kristina Hoffberg surrender? When Sara tried to explain, she didn’t like the way the answers sounded. She couldn’t get at her holster inside the leather coat so she’d simply pointed her finger at Kristina Hoffberg, shouting at her that she was from the police and she should stop.

  And why did Sara tackle her from behind when she saw she’d drawn a gun, creating the conditions for the stray shot which hit Hurtree? Sara’s answer turned into a question; how could she risk her getting away? Her suspect was armed and on the run. The investigators sat there, faces made of wood waiting for her to continue, but there wasn’t anything more to say and she stared back at them.

  They asked how many shots Enberg had fired at Kristina Hoffberg, and Sara told them about the warning shout and the two shots she’d heard. Finally, after what seemed like a thousand heartbeats they said she could go, and Sara left,
her armpits leaking.

  Enberg, the officer who had nailed Kristina Hoffberg, was waiting outside and he looked like he was going to pee his pants at any moment. Sara smiled at him, trying to cheer him up, but she could see the pain he was going through. The knowledge that another human being’s life had been extinguished because he’d made a snap decision and pulled the trigger weighed on his shoulders. She hoped she’d never have to do what he had done.

  *

  Cantsten was in the coffee room when Sara got to work the next day, and she followed Sara into her office.

  “I’m still in a state of shock,” said Cantsten. “Yesterday was a little more than I’d expected. How’s the man who got shot?”

  “He got lucky,” Sara said. “The doctor said he’ll be ready for discharge in a few days. I heard you were a little pissed off about Lemko getting extradited before trial.”

  “Pissed off?” said Cantsten. “Try infuriated. I hate it when politicians start dabbling in the judicial process. Imagine what kind of stink there’d be if some company director had done the same thing. And what’s even worse, our journalist friends don’t even find it strange anymore.”

  “Neither do I. I’ve reached the point where I can accept politicians living by different rules than the rest of us. I used to get all upset by it, now I just duck and hope the shit hits someone else’s fan.”

  “You’re a cynic, Sara,” said Cantsten.

  “No, just a realist. I have a job to do and I can get it done better if I don’t have to be pissed off all the time.”

  *

  After Cantsten left, Sara worked on her reports, the fuel powering the administration. She walked into Sven’s room, but he was gone on another budget mission to save someone’s job.

  She left her reports on top of his inbox and snuck over to the hospital to see how Hurtree was doing. When she got there he was just being served lunch.