The Magdalena File

by Jon Stenhugg

  “Hi, Sara,” said Hurtree. “What is this crap? You serve your criminals better food. This wouldn’t even make it in the army.”

  “Don’t complain, Hurtree,” Sara bantered. “Your doctor probably doesn’t want to overstress your liver.”

  “Then she should have given me a prescription for Guinness – I could eat and drink at the same time. What I’ve drunk so far made my liver bulletproof, so it can’t be all that bad.”

  “Yeah, you’re pretty good at stopping bullets, Hurtree. Did you get practice in the war?”

  “No, believe it or not. Not everyone in a war gets shot. I had to wait until nearly the end of my days to get a Purple Heart.”

  “What’s a Purple Heart?” asked Sara.

  “Never mind, youngster” he said. “I never got one. How did your sting work out, aside from nearly getting me killed?”

  “I’m so sorry, John. I was trying to stop her from getting away and I tackled her. She had a gun drawn and it went off when she hit the ground. You stopped the bullet.”

  “At least I was good for something. So you got her?”

  “She drew her weapon on one of my colleagues. She shouldn’t have done that. His shot ended her life.”

  “So did you ever find out who she was, this Magdalena woman?”

  “Yeah, we did. She was the murder victim’s wife.”

  “As usual, I’d say.”

  “Yeah, makes you wonder if it’s part of the marriage vows. Until your murder do us part.”

  “I don’t know. I never got married, and to tell you the truth, it could be what’s kept me alive all these years.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right, Hurtree. I doubt any woman in her right mind could put up with you.”

  “And Schneller?” he asked. “I guess he’ll be doing time.”

  “Maybe, but not here to start with. He was extradited with the help of our Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs yesterday.”

  “He doesn’t know what he missed out on,” said Hurtree, and returned to his bowl of vegetable soup and fruit juice. “I’ll take your prisoner food any day. By the way,” he said between spoonfuls, “was it you who fixed my passport?”

  “I gave it to the nurse for safekeeping. Ekman gave it to me while you were in surgery.”

  “So I guess I can go home at the end of next week,” said Hurtree, then he looked at Sara with questions in his wrinkled face. “Unless maybe I move here. What would you think of that, youngster?” he asked.

  For half a minute Sara didn’t know what to say, so she just sat there with her mouth open, looking into his bright blue eyes which had somehow picked up a new sparkle. “I-I guess it’s up to you,” she said. “But yeah, it’d be nice to get more than a Christmas card from you.”

  “OK, then it’s settled,” he said. “I’ve already talked to your Department of Immigration about settling here and as long as I give them more than half of my pension there won’t be any problem. They asked me if I thought I was a political refugee, which has always been the truth, so there won’t be much problem there either.”

  “Welcome to the North Pole,” said Sara, halfway out the door on her way back to work. “If you need a sponsor you can put me down.”

  “Thanks,” said Hurtree. “Maybe I should put Ekman’s name there too.”

  Chapter 27

  Lars Ekman heard the new snow crunch under his shoes as he walked towards the rose-coloured building in front of him. It hadn’t been easy to get a quick appointment with the busy Prime Minister, but for someone from the National Security Service with urgent business, an exception could be made. He reached the revolving door and stopped to let a large, balding, middle-aged man exit. Ekman recognised him at once, turned and watched as the man got into the taxi waiting for him. Once inside Ekman registered with the guards, and put on his visitor’s pass while he waited to be ushered through the sets of security gates.

  A secretary opened the door to the Prime Minister’s office. The PM remained sitting behind his desk as Ekman walked through the door. Even though the PM continued reading the papers on his desk, Ekman saw he was being observed as he approached. The PM resembled a defensive bulldog with his head down.

  When he was only ten feet away, the PM raised his head and spoke in a harsh, demanding voice, “Ekman, why are you here and not your superior? I normally don’t have to deal with subordinate officers.”

  “I’m sorry, Prime Minister,” said Ekman, standing almost at attention. “Our Director has been sitting the entire day at a conference with the Minister of Finance regarding the budget, and because of the urgency of the matter I was told to come here to brief you on the situation.”

  “Well, get on with it. I have to prepare for a trip to Moscow tomorrow.”

  “Well, first, Prime Minister, I bumped into a well-known face as I came into the building, a man we chased for many years when he was an agent for the East German Stasi.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Yes, his name is Werner Hartmann,” said Ekman.

  “He’s the director of a very large Russian energy company today. East Germany doesn’t exist anymore, so I guess none of it matters now. Was that why you came?”

  “No, Prime Minister. Hoffberg’s murder involved his wife – she turned out to be a long-time Stasi agent. She tried to escape. We found some incriminating documents among her papers involving your cabinet, Prime Minister.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Let me explain first,” said Ekman.

  “I want to see these documents. Now.”

  Ekman handed over the file containing the documents, and the Prime Minister flipped through them, speed-reading most of them as he did so. Finally he looked up at Ekman, still standing at attention, and said, “There’s a private letter to the Prime Minister of East Germany from my, uh, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. I’m not sure why it’s so incriminating.”

  “It’s a very long letter, Prime Minister,” said Ekman, “and it’s not so very private. As you can see he used Foreign Office stationery and this letter was stolen from the archive at Parliament. Perhaps you should read it in detail. I think you’ll find it’s quite inappropriate that the man who is now your Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs was peddling secrets he obtained during top-secret meetings with the American Ambassador.”

  “Well, there has been some reaction from the Americans about my appointment, but I thought it was just a defensive reaction. Niklas has been critical of their engagement in several wars – I’m sure you’re aware of his stance.”

  “It may be possible the Americans know who peddled their secrets. It could be there are other sources than the Rosenholz list,” said Ekman.

  “Niklas was the one I assigned to make sure the Rosenholz list didn’t contain any, uh, surprises. He told me we were safe.”

  “Perhaps he meant that he was safe, Prime Minister.”

  “Are you finished?” The PM held the documents in his right hand, and waved them at Ekman as he spoke.

  “Yes, Prime Minister. The documents?”

  “You’ve made your point. I’ll need these when I speak to Niklas,” said the PM, and he put the documents on his desk.

  “They’re the originals, Prime Minister. We’ll need them for our files.”

  “Then I’ll make you some copies,” said the PM, turning towards the corner behind his desk. He straightened the documents by loosely holding their sides, bouncing them off his desk twice, then placed them into the feeder of the machine in the corner.

  After a few seconds the machine whirred to a stop and the PM turned around to face Ekman with a sheepish grin. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m not very good with technology. I seemed to have put the documents into my shredder instead of the copy machine.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister,” said Ekman, swallowing hard, “I understand. I’m sure you’ll understand we’ll be looking a little more closely at your Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from now on, of course.”

  “Yes, o
f course,” said the PM as he sat down again.

  Ekman left the PM’s room and Rosenbad; then took a bus back to the NSS to file his report. When he was finished he gathered the copies he’d made earlier that day of the documents the PM had shredded, placing them into a binder; his own personal book of the sins of others, to be used someday when he needed it.

  *

  Sara was on her way out, going through security when she saw Ekman in the corridor. He seemed preoccupied, deeply troubled, and looked at least five years older than he had earlier in the day.

  “Good evening, sir,” she said.

  “Good evening,” he said, barely looking up. Then, “Have you spoken to Hurtree about his passport yet?”

  “Yes, I spoke to him during lunch. He seems very fit for such an old man. He mentioned you, said he might put you down as a sponsor if he were to move here.”

  “He must be joking.”

  “Probably. I don’t think he’s had a chance to review our tax tables yet. He’ll change his mind if he does. See you tomorrow. I’m going to fill in an application before I leave.”

  When Sara got home she took a hot bath, opened a box of crackers and spread a thick layer of ripe, creamy camembert cheese on half a dozen of them, took a slurp of green tea and started her computer. She checked her email to find the usual spam about love potions and organ enhancements for both genders. She Googled the words Purple Heart on the internet and the first entry gave her the background Hurtree hadn’t given her.

  The tea began to do its warm work on her and Sara rummaged through some drawers to find a sheet of paper that came close to violet, and she began to make a Purple Heart medal for Hurtree, the medal used to honour soldiers who’d been wounded in action since the days of the American Revolution. She wasn’t too happy with her image of General George Washington, but then, with a smile, she glued a white profile of the Buddha on top of the purple, heart-shaped paper medal.

  The television news had begun just as she was finished. The PM had reshuffled his government again, creating a game of musical chairs between five ministers in his cabinet. The interview with the PM was short, and he seemed quite relaxed, clearly pleased with his new assignments, including the appointment of his new Ambassador to the European Parliament, his previous Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Foreign Aid.

  “Niklas Shoreman will provide an important reinforcement of our efforts to support the struggle for a more just and equal world, by reducing poverty in the third world,” said the PM, and Sara switched off the TV.

  Acknowledgements

  I am fortunate to know many excellent writers, who have been generous and supportive while I wrote, and rewrote this book. I would like to send a warm thank you to Kathy Boyd Fellure and Gini Grossenbacher, who had the patience and kindness to help me develop my writing. In addition, Robert Pacholik, Sarah Armstrong-Garner, Pam Mundal and Gwen Clayton made important contributions. In addition, I had contact with several editors, and would like to mention Helena Zhemchugova for her considerable editing skills, and especially the team working under Amy Durant, of Endeavour Press.

  Finally, but not least, my wife Ann provided me endless support during the years I worked on this book.

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