High Risk

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  “I need coffee,” Tom croaked as he pulled on his socks and boots.

  Mattias took a step into the room. No point speculating. He couldn’t see a bag, no overnight things. So, Tom wasn’t living here permanently. It bothered him that he didn’t know where Tom had been living these past few months. He didn’t like not knowing things. Not for the first time since last night, his thoughts turned to the unthinkable. Had Tom checked into the hotel because he planned on doing something stupid? Men with Tom’s background, with his experience . . . Regardless of what people thought, the most common cause of death for soldiers like Tom wasn’t enemy violence. It was suicide. That had been in the back of his mind the entire time, of course, and that was why he had hurried up here. One of the reasons anyway.

  “Why don’t you answer your phone? I’ve been calling you all fall,” he said.

  “I was busy,” Tom replied as he bent down to tie his boots.

  Mattias crossed his arms. “Really? With what?”

  Tom gave him a dark look. “I don’t need to explain myself to you, let’s get that damn clear.”

  “I know, it was just a question.”

  Yet another furious look. “This really isn’t a good day for me.”

  Mattias thought to himself that it was probably a while since any day was good for Tom. The man’s ability to bear what, in reality, was unbearable was definitely greater than most people’s. Back in Karlsborg, he was like a machine: stable, effective, and unbreakable. But everyone had a breaking point. Everyone.

  “Can we talk downstairs? They’re still serving breakfast in the dining room. Maybe we could sit there?”

  But Tom shook his head. “I don’t want to go down there. I did something stupid.... I met . . .” He trailed off and grimaced. “I just want to leave.”

  “Back to your place?” Mattias asked accommodatingly. “You do have a place up here, right? Or are you living in the car?”

  “I have a house. We can go there. But just so you shut up. Give me two minutes.” Tom grabbed his wallet and keys, shoved them into his pocket, and headed into the bathroom.

  “Though I’m taking the car keys and I’m driving,” Mattias shouted after him. The room reeked of alcohol. Tom would be in no fit state to drive for hours.

  Tom seemed to hesitate. But he had called Mattias because he needed help; that had to mean there was a straw to clutch. And right now, Mattias was just glad for the smallest of things. “It’s icy as hell, you’re hungover, and you don’t want to mow anyone down. I’m driving, okay?” he said persuasively. Kindness was often the best way to manipulate people. Not least when they were in crisis. And Tom was always reasonable.

  Tom muttered some curse words but fished the keys from his pocket. He threw them at Mattias, who caught them without looking.

  “Show-off,” Tom snarled as he vanished into the bathroom.

  Ten minutes later, they were on the road out of Kiruna.

  * * *

  Mattias stood by Tom’s kitchen window and studied the forest and the snow-covered landscape while Tom made coffee.

  “I forgot how cold it is up here,” Mattias said, his eyes following a roe deer as it vanished between the tree trunks. The silence in the forest practically hummed with cold. Snow wasn’t his favorite of the elements. Tom, on the other hand, began his military career up here, with the mythical ranger battalion, and had always liked snow. Mattias was at the Armed Forces Interpreter Academy in Uppsala—itself just as mythical—during the same period. They had always complemented one another.

  “I can’t believe it’s nearly ten years since we started at Karlsborg,” Mattias continued while Tom doggedly rattled the cups. “Time goes fast,” he added.

  Tom raised an eyebrow at the platitude.

  Mattias and Tom had joined the special forces in Karlsborg during the same year, and both had completed their training, which lasted just over twelve months. The same couldn’t be said of everyone. The eliminations both before and during training were brutal. Some of the recruits couldn’t handle the constant physical and psychological pressure, others were terrible at keeping secrets, and some just weren’t smart enough. Sometimes, up to ninety percent of a year’s intake might be weeded out.

  Without a word, Tom handed him a cup of coffee, brewed in an advanced-looking machine—thankfully. Mattias had never understood the Norrland preference for boiled course-ground coffee. He took the cup. Tom served it black, without asking. He probably remembered that was how Mattias liked it. Tom’s memory was both an asset and a curse. Mattias sipped with satisfaction.

  Tom was standing with his hip against the kitchen island, drinking from his cup with his eyes fixed somewhere in the air.

  Mattias wondered how to approach his second task. All fall he had been trying to make contact with Tom. This was his opening, but he would need to tread carefully.

  “You have a good team at Lodestar,” he began, feeling his way forward.

  Tom didn’t say anything, just gave Mattias a look that said he knew exactly what he was doing. Working him. Well, it made no difference.

  “None of them would tell me where you were.” Tom’s team was loyal to their boss. They hadn’t given anything away, hadn’t shared any information at all. But Tom always did have the ability to make people give their all. The best leaders were like that—they forged strong bonds. There were many bad private security firms in the field. And a handful of good ones. Tom’s Lodestar was one of the very good ones. If you hired them, you got world-class experts.

  Silence again. But Mattias was counting on that. Everything would have been much easier if he hadn’t betrayed Tom in the past, of course. What a damn mess that had been.

  Tom gave ten years of his life to the Armed Forces and to his country. First military service and officer training, then just over two years in the special forces before he quit when Mattias turned against him. After that, Tom turned to the private security sector. He started off working for a foreign company, risked his life in countries like Iraq, Syria, and Liberia. Then he returned to Sweden. Demand for men (and women, for that matter; there weren’t many of them, but they did exist) with Tom’s training, competence, and experience was enormous, so Mattias assumed Tom had been able to pick and choose. He eventually joined the small Lodestar Security Group. The press release said that he joined as managing director, but what that title meant in practice was something Mattias could only speculate. Under Tom’s leadership, Lodestar established itself as the market leader in just a few short years. In international circles, the Scandinavian security company was relatively small, but when Mattias asked around, it had a good reputation. Now, its leader had emigrated to Kiruna. Why? Tom was still young; he would soon turn thirty-seven and should still be at the top of his game. He shouldn’t look like a wreck and be living in the woods.

  “No one at work knows I’m here,” Tom said, breaking the long silence. “I have some things I need to work out on my own.”

  What kind of things? Mattias thought, but he knew better than to ask.

  “People have been wondering,” he said instead.

  “People?”

  Mattias put down his cup and made a vague gesture with one hand. Everyone was wondering, of course. But above all, he was curious. Because all this, it was so unlike Tom. Running away. Taking off without telling his colleagues where he was going. Abandoning his friends.

  “What are you doing up here?” As far as Mattias knew, there was no longer anything linking Tom to the area. And he knew most things about Tom Lexington.

  Father dead. Mother and three sisters with families spread around the Stockholm area. A job that paid handsomely. A big, newly bought apartment in the city. A materially rich life. Yes, he’d been taken prisoner earlier that year, but he’d survived, he’d been treated. He was an old elite soldier with a tough shell and a thick skin. It shouldn’t have broken him. Right?

  Tom shook his head dismissively, sipped his coffee, and slipped back into silence.

 
“Are you here on a job?” Mattias continued. Interrogations often went this way. Asking questions over and over again, innocent questions, the same questions to different people, piecing together tiny fragments of information. There was nothing up here for a man who was an expert in the things Tom was an expert in. Unless the Russians were getting ready to invade. But Mattias would have heard about that.

  “Does it look like I’m working?” Tom asked drily.

  No, he looked like a bum, Mattias thought. The silence spread through the room once again.

  Mattias waited. There wasn’t a sound from outside, no cars, no planes, nothing.

  He patiently continued to wait. Tom always was a stubborn bastard. Yes, what he’d done to Tom was lousy. And maybe—maybe—he would have acted differently today, but still . . .

  “It’s been years now. When are you planning to forgive me?”

  “Forgiveness is a bullshit concept. As though we can forgive.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m sorry, and I’m asking for your forgiveness. Again.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Mattias sighed. “You’re too damn stubborn. Always have been.”

  Tom snorted.

  Mattias wondered whether he should provoke Tom into a fight. Would it help to clear the air, using their fists? But they were too old for that kind of childish solution, and Tom, even in his weakened state, would probably knock the shit out of him.

  “Come on. What’re you doing in Kiruna? Why are you doing this whole hermit thing?”

  Tom scratched his neck. Put the cup into the sink. Sat down in a chair.

  Mattias sat down opposite him.

  “Ellinor lives here,” Tom eventually said.

  Aha. A piece of the puzzle. Ellinor Bergman.

  In a line of work where broken relationships were the rule, Tom Lexington and Ellinor Bergman had been the exception. The couple everyone expected to last forever. Which just showed that you never knew. Mattias studied Tom’s tormented face. Something still didn’t add up. Tom and Ellinor had broken up in the spring. They weren’t registered at the same address anymore. How did she fit into this?

  “Are you together again?” he asked in an attempt to solve the puzzle.

  “No.”

  “But she’s here too?”

  “Yeah, in Kiruna.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Ellinor did some kind of feminine job, he seemed to remember. Something caring and gentle, a nurse or in a kindergarten. No, something else.

  “She lives here now. Works at the school,” said Tom.

  That was it. Teacher.

  “With her new man.”

  The penny dropped. Ellinor had moved on. And Tom . . . had not.

  Mattias leaned back in his chair, swung one foot across his knee. “So, you’re here to . . . ?”

  Tom stared into the distance. Mattias studied him, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the hunted look on his face.

  “I need to have a talk with Ellinor,” Tom eventually said. “She can’t be serious about all this. I just need to sit down and talk with her.”

  Christ. Mattias tried to hide his shock. This was bad.

  “You don’t understand. I can fix this.”

  He never would have expected this from Tom. It explained the state he was in. Captivity, torture, and a relationship going down the drain on the top of that. “Was that why you were at the hotel? Is Ellinor staying there?”

  “No. I was there to drink my way through Christmas. I met a journalist, a woman. We drank together, and I was completely gone. We . . . I made a fool of myself, I guess.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why did you come here, Mattias? Really?”

  The moment of truth.

  “This has to stay between us. I’ve been asked by the chief to start a counterterror group. Our job’s to map and analyze different threats to the country. It’s going to be a priority team within the Forces, and I’m building the group myself. It’s going to be small, a specialist group with key competencies in different areas. I’ve started interviewing already. Not just inside the military, also cryptographers, academics, hackers.”

  “The chief made the right decision, then. Sounds like the perfect job for a master spy,” Tom said drily.

  Mattias gave him a steady look. “I want you.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?” Tom’s analytical abilities and field experience were unsurpassed. He would be an incredible addition. Mattias had wanted Tom on the team ever since he got the go-ahead. He’d come up to Kiruna because Tom wasn’t doing well. But it would be misconduct if he didn’t try to recruit someone with Tom’s competence, especially now when he had such a golden opportunity. “Whether we like it or not, there’s a war being waged against Sweden, an advanced information war. You could think about it, at least?”

  Tom crossed his arms dismissively. “I have other things to deal with.”

  Mattias studied his nails. “And how’s that going for you?” he asked quietly.

  Tom said nothing. His stomach growled.

  Mattias glanced at his watch. Almost lunch. He hadn’t eaten since he’d left Karlsborg. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Tom shrugged, but his stomach rumbled again. “There are cans. You can cook.”

  Mattias decided to settle for the moment. The first rule when trying to win people over was to identify their needs and satisfy them. Tom always was grumpy when he hadn’t eaten.

  “I’ll whip up something.”

  * * *

  Tom listened to Mattias banging around in his kitchen. He leaned against the backrest and closed his eyes. Mattias was too damn annoying. But he was hungry, and Mattias had always been good with pots and pans. Maybe he could wait until after they ate to throw him out. One bonus of being angry with Mattias was that he hadn’t given any more thought to his embarrassing faux pas with Ambra Vinter. He raised his hands to his face. Jesus, what a mess.

  It wasn’t long before the smell of food started to drift from the kitchen, and he realized he was starving.

  “Pasta with mushrooms, cheese, and freeze-dried cream.” There was a long pause. “I think anyway. The contents of some of these cans are pretty similar. You’ve heard of fresh food, right?”

  But the smell coming from the kitchen wasn’t half bad, and when Mattias served up the meal, Tom ate greedily. Afterward Mattias loaded the dishwasher while Tom brewed more coffee, an entire pot this time. They sat down at the table, talked about cars for a while, then the weather, not quite relaxed but at least not as tense as before.

  “Is this your place?” Mattias asked as he poured another cup of coffee.

  “No,” Tom replied, but he didn’t elaborate. It was none of Mattias’s business. The previous year, Tom was involved in an operation to rescue a kidnapped nineteen-year-old before he was to be executed by Islamists in Somalia. The young man was the only son of a Norwegian oil millionaire, and the luxurious house in Kiruna belonged to the grateful father. Tom was allowed to borrow it whenever he wanted. Mattias asked a few general, everyday questions about the place. Tom replied that there was a garage, several bedrooms, and a billiards room.

  “And a sauna,” he added. Mattias was a Swedish citizen, but his mother’s family came from the Åland Islands, and Ålanders had a passionate relationship with saunas. Mattias said something about there being a lot of yard to tend, and then Tom mentioned that there was a brand-new snowblower in the garage. Uncomplicated, manly subjects. Mattias always was good at that. Making small talk about nothing, asking questions, making people feel comfortable. The problem was that you never knew if it was all just a game. He was a master manipulator. Officially, Mattias was a researcher at the Swedish Defence University, but Tom had always suspected that was a cover—which had now been confirmed. Mattias was far too smart not to have been recruited by MUST, the military intelligence agency. He was a born spy. He spoke fluent Russian, French, Arabic, and Farsi, and he was easily the best interrogator Tom had ever met. He was diplomati
c, well educated, and always so damn easy to talk to.

  He was the most slippery, deceitful person Tom knew.

  All operatives within the special forces were given code names before they met their coursemates. It meant they could work and fight together for years without ever knowing one another’s real names. One man was given the name Mast because he was tall. Others had neutral code names like Olsson. There were five Olssons in Tom’s training course. A kid from Mora was called The Doctor because he was a devil at sewing up wounds. Tom became Grizzly on account of his dark hair and bearlike size. Mattias Ceder was The Fox. Not because he was especially foxlike, but because he was so damned cunning. The Fox knew how to get into anyone’s psyche without using violence or torture, just using conversation.

  “Everyone wants to talk, everyone has a need to be listened to,” Mattias used to say. Maybe not the most dramatic approach, but it was effective. His calm, stubborn questions gave the kind of results torture never could. “Hitting someone isn’t effective, because eventually they’ll talk just to avoid more pain. Using logic is more subtly undermining,” he’d said, getting secrets out of everyone.

  Tom stretched out his legs. He could handle ten foxes if he had to. He would listen awhile longer, as polite thanks for the food. But if Mattias talked too much, he would throw him out. The Fox could talk to the snowdrifts while he slowly froze to death.