Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  The state secretary put the file down to one side, looked at Göransson, who as commanding officer could easily have been in charge of the hostage-taking operation.

  "Would you… with this information and in the current situation at

  Aspsås where the hostages' lives are in danger… would you make a decision based on the fact that Hoffmann is dangerous, capable?" Chief Superintendent Göransson nodded.

  "Without a doubt."

  "Would all the police officers who might be assigned as gold commander make the same decision based on that information?"

  "Given our information about Hoffmann, no police officer at the scene would question the fact that he is prepared to kill a prison warden."

  The sun wearied of fighting the light clouds outside the window of the Government Offices and the bright light subsided, making it more comfortable to look round the room.

  "So… if the gold commander at Aspsås is convinced that Hoffmann is prepared to kill the hostages… and has to make a decision… what would he do?"

  "If the gold commander considers the hostages to be in acute danger, and that Piet Hoffmann will kill them, he would then order the men to storm the premises in order to safeguard the hostages' lives."

  Göransson moved closer to the table and the map, and drew his finger over the paper from the rectangle that represented Block B to a rectangle one and a half kilometers away that represented a church.

  "But it's not possible from here."

  He drew a circle in the air over the building that was marked with a cross and kept his hand there, a slow movement, around and around, a circle that stopped when he did.

  "So the gold commander will, if he must, order the national task force marksmen to take out the hostage taker."

  "Take out?"

  "Shoot."

  "Shoot?"

  "Put out of action."

  "Put out of action?"

  "Kill."

  The room with the small wooden altar had already been transformed into the control post. There were drawings of Aspsås prison lying on every surface intended for the priest to prepare his services. Paper cups of vending machine coffee from the local gas station stood empty or half finished on the floor, the small window, which had been opened wide to let in some oxygen to replace that which had long since been breathed out by stressed and raised voices, creaked gently on the breeze. Ewert Grens moved restlessly between Edvardson, Sundkvist, and Hermansson, loud but not aggressive or even angry; he had just taken over as gold commander and was resolute and solution-orientated. He would have to make the final decision in a while. It was he, and he alone, who was directly responsible for several people's lives. He left the room with no air, wandered through the empty churchyard, between the headstones and newly planted flowers and saw in his mind's eye another cemetery that he had not yet dared to visit, but that he would now, later, when this was all over. He stopped between a gray, rather beautiful headstone and a tree that looked like it might be a maple, lifted the binoculars from his chest and studied the building behind the Aspsås prison wall. The man who could be seen behind the window, the one who was called Piet Hoffmann, whom Grens should have questioned the day before… there was something odd going on, something wasn't right-people who suddenly got ill rarely had the strength and focus to shoot someone else through the eye.

  "Hermansson?"

  He had gone over to the open window and shouted through.

  "I want you to contact the prison doctor. I want to know how a prisoner who was put in isolation in the hospital unit yesterday morning is now, at lunchtime today, standing over there pointing a gun at hostages."

  Ewen Grens stayed outside the open window for a while and looked over at the prison. The inner strength he had, the one that was always there and forced him to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until he had an answer, he knew exactly where it was coming from this time. The older warden. If the two people who had been taken hostage were both fellow prisoners, he wouldn't have been so motivated, he wouldn't have felt the same driving edge. That's just how it was. He didn't care much about one of the naked bodies on the workshop floor, he felt nothing for the prisoner who in theory could be in cahoots with the hostage taker. It wasn't something that he was proud of, but that was how he felt. The warden, on the other hand, who wore a uniform and worked there, an ordinary representative of a workplace that the general public hated, an older man who had given his life to this crap, shouldn't have to deal with such deep humiliation, a person who believed they had the right to take his life, a gun to his head.

  Grens swallowed.

  It was the warden, that's what this was all about.

  He lowered the binoculars and fished out his mobile phone. He tried to remember if he had ever before asked his line manager for help two days in a row. After all, they had had an unspoken understanding for a long time to stay out of each other's way in order to avoid conflicts. But he had no choice. He dialed the number of the office only a couple of doors down from his own. No reply. He dialed again, the switchboard this time, asked them to put him through to his mobile phone. Chief Superintendent Göransson answered after the first ring, his voice hushed, as if he was in a meeting and leaning forward to speak.

  "Ewert… I don't have time right now. I'm trying to find a solution to a critical problem."

  "This is critical too."

  “We-“

  "I'm exactly fifteen hundred and three meters away from the prison in Aspsås. I'm responsible for an ongoing hostage situation. There's a risk that one of the prison wardens might die if I make the wrong decision and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that that doesn't happen. But I need some bureaucratic assistance. You know, the sort of thing you do."

  Chief Superintendent Göransson ran his hand over his face and through his hair.

  "You're at Aspsås, you say?"

  "Yes."

  "And you're the gold commander?"

  "I just took over from Edvardson. He's focusing on the task force." Göransson held the telephone high up over his head and pointed at it with big gestures, catching the attention of the national police commissioner and state secretary and nodding vehemently at them until they understood.

  "I'm listening."

  "I need a competent marksman."

  "The national task force are there, aren't they?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I don't understand."

  "I need someone who is trained and equipped to shoot over a distance of fifteen hundred meters. Apparently the police aren't. So I need a military marksman."

  They were listening, the national police commissioner and the state secretary, they were sitting next to him and had started to get the picture.

  "You know as well as I do that the armed forces can't be used against civilians."

  "You're the bureaucrat, Göransson. If you're good at anything, then it's that. Being a pen-pusher. I want you to come up with a solution." "Ewert-"

  "Before the hostage dies."

  Göransson held the phone in his hand.

  Dread.

  It was there again.

  "That was Ewert Grens. The DS who's investigating Västmannagatan 79. And right now he's standing right here."

  He pointed at the map, at the thin lines that symbolized something that actually existed. Ewert Grens was actually standing there. It was Ewert Grens who would shortly make a decision based on the doctored information that was accessible in the databases and records, an image that was developed by his own colleagues and that for any police officer would provide powerful grounds to shoot.

  Shoot.

  "Here… he's standing precisely here, as the assigned gold commander. He's the one who is leading the whole operation, who is responsible for it, who will make the decision on how to resolve it."

  Göransson's hand was shaking. He pressed it hard against the paper of the map, but it continued to shake-it didn't normally do that, shake.

  "He is fifteen hundred and three meters from
the window where

  Hoffmann has been sighted regularly, but the snipers, the police marksmen, don't have the right training and equipment. So he's asking for a military marksman. A more powerful weapon, heavier ammunition, someone trained to shoot at extreme distances."

  Shoot to kill.

  "There's always a solution. Always a reasonable solution if you really want to find it. And clearly it is in all our interests to find it, to help to resolve this." The state secretary's voice was calm, clear.

  "It is our responsibility to save the hostages' lives."

  Ewert Grens had asked for a suitably trained and equipped marksman.

  With the information that was now common knowledge in the prison corridors, Hoffmann would not give up his hostages.

  If Grens got his military marksman, he would also use him.

  "What are you actually saying?"

  Göransson straightened his back. He looked at the slight woman sitting in front of him.

  They wouldn't have their finger on the trigger.

  It would be the gold commander who ordered the sniper to fire. It would be the marksman who fired.

  They wouldn't make the decision.

  They were giving others the opportunity to make the decision.

  "Bur… Jesus Christ=

  Göransson's finger was still on the map when he suddenly pulled the paper toward him and scrunched it into a ball with both hands.

  "-what the hell are we doing?"

  He got up abruptly, his face stiff and flushed.

  "We're making Ewert Grens into a murderer!"

  "Calm down, please."

  "We're legitimizing murder!"

  He threw the ball of paper so that it hit the window and fell with a thud onto the state secretary's desk.

  "If we give the gold commander the solution that he's asking for… if he then makes a decision based on the information he has about Hoffmann… Ewert Grens could be forced to order a shot to be fired at a person who has actually never committed a violent crime, but who is believed to be violent, merciless and capable!"

  The state secretary leaned forward and picked up the paper ball, held it in her lap, for a long time looked at the face that was about to explode.

  "If that is the case, if the gold commander has the military marksman and then later decides to shoot… then it will be to save the hostages' lives."

  Her voice was controlled, and was quiet enough to be heard but not loud enough for those listening not to hold their breath.

  "Hoffmann is the only one who has killed anyone. And it is only Hoffmann who is threatening to do so again."

  The square yard at Aspsås prison was covered in coarse, dry gravel that was dusty, no people, no noise; all the prisoners had been locked in their cells for the past few hours, behind doors that would not be opened until the hostage siege was over. Grens was walking with Edvardson beside him, two members of the national task force in front of him and Hermansson a couple of steps behind. She had been waiting for him just inside the prison gate and had briefly told him about her meeting with the prison doctor who had heard nothing about an epidemic and had never asked for anyone to be isolated in all his time at Aspsås. As they approached the outside door to Block B, Grens stopped and waited for her.

  "It's all a goddamn lie, all of it, all this is connected. I want you to carry on, Hermansson, find the prison chief warden and get an answer out of him."

  She nodded and turned around and he watched her rather slim back and shoulders through the light cloud of dust. They hadn't spoken much together recently, not at all in the past year-he hadn't really spoken to anyone. Once he had been to the grave he would seek her our again. He who was never going to talk to a policewoman again had learned to appreciate her more and more each year. He was still not sure when she was laughing at him or was annoyed with him, but she was good at her job and intelligent and she looked at him in a way that was at once demanding and uncompromising, in a way that very few dared. He would talk to her again, maybe even ask her to leave the offices with him for a while, ask her for a coffee and a cake in the cafe on Bergsgatan. It felt good to be having these thoughts, to look forward to something, to having a coffee with the daughter they never had.

  Ewert Grens opened the door to the solitary confinement unit and the corridor where everything had kicked off a few hours ago. The body that had fallen forward with blood pouring from the head had already been removed-strapped onto a stretcher and taken for an autopsy-and the two prison wardens who had been threatened with a gun and each locked away in a cell were now with a crisis management team in one of the visiting rooms, talking to a prison psychologist and prison chaplain.

  His first thought was actually about the banging.

  In each cell on the ground floor, the prisoners in solitary confinement were banging on their closed, locked doors. A regular thumping sound that made your heart beat out of rhythm. He knew that that was what they did and had decided to ignore it, but it forced its way into his mind and he was relieved to go up the stairs behind Edvardson and past the armed police on the first landing.

  They stopped when they got to the second floor and nodded silently to the eight members of the national task force standing outside the workshop ready for an order to break down the door, throw in a shock grenade and take full control of the situation within ten seconds.

  "That's too long."

  Ewert Grens was talking quietly and John Edvardson leaned in closer in order to reply in an equally quiet voice.

  "Eight seconds. With this team, Ewert, I can get it down to eight seconds."

  "It's still too long. Hoffmann, to aim and then move the muzzle from one head to the next and shoot, he doesn't need more than one and a half seconds. And in his frame of mind… I can't risk a dead hostage."

  John Edvardson nodded at the ceiling and the dull shuffling of bodies changing position every now and then.

  Grens shook his head.

  "That's not going to work either. From the door, from the roof, the number of seconds you're talking about… the hostages could die several times over."

  The banging, he couldn't stand it much longer, his concentration couldn't stretch to encompass both the madmen downstairs and the madman in there. He was on his way back down the stairs to the thundering noise, but turned when Edvardson put a hand on his shoulder.

  "Ewert…"

  "Thank you."

  They stood in silence, with the waiting police breathing behind their backs. "In that case, Ewert, unless Hoffmann suddenly gives himself up, if and when we deem his threat to be more than just a threat… then there's only one solution. The military marksman. With a weapon that is powerful enough to kill."

  The dread hounded him, translating into jerky movements and a nervous cough. Fredrik Göransson had been walking for ten minutes now in endless circles, between the window and the desk in one of the rooms of the Government Offices, and he hadn't gotten anywhere.

  "We made sure that the prisoners got the information about a snitch." The crumpled map was in the wastepaper basket-he picked it up and unfolded it.

  "We forced him to act."

  "He had a job to do."

  The national police commissioner had let the state secretary answer thus far. Now he looked at his colleague.

  "That didn't involve threatening another person's life."

  "We burned him."

  "You've burned other informants before."

  "I have always denied that we even work with infiltrators. I've stood by and watched without giving any protection when an organization has dealt with that person. But this… this isn't the same. This isn't burning him. This is murder."

  "You still haven't understood. We are not the ones who will make the decision. We are only providing a solution for the police officer who will make that decision."

  The agitated man with the jerky movements couldn't bear to stand still any longer, and with the dread chasing right behind him, he made a dash past the table to the closed doo
r.

  "I want no part in this."

  He wasn't cold anymore. The floor that smelled of diesel was just as hard and just as cold, but he didn't feel the cold, nor the pain in his knees, he didn't even think about the fact that he was naked and bound, and would shortly get another kick in the side from someone who intermittently whispered that he was going to die. Martin Jacobson didn't have the strength to speak, to think-he lay down and didn't move. He wasn't even sure if he was seeing the things he saw now, if Hoffmann really did walk over to the largest workbench and pull a plastic pocket from the waist of his trouser that had some kind of fluid in it; if he then cut it into twenty-four equally sized pieces and with a roll of tape from the shelf, attach them to the nameless prisoner's head, arms, back, stomach, chest, thighs, lower legs and feet; and if he took from the same place something that looked like a thin piece of pentyl fuse that was several meters long and wrapped it around and around the prisoner's body. If that was the case, if what he saw was what was really happening, he couldn't face anymore. He turned his eyes slowly the other way so he didn't need to see-there was no room left for things he didn't understand.

  One of the three chairs that had been pulled out from the conference table was empty, and the person whose office it was, a state secretary from the Ministry of Justice, ran her hand back and forth over a crumpled map as if subconsciously trying to smooth out the bumps that shouldn't be there.

  "Can we do this?"

  The man opposite her, a national police commissioner, heard her question but knew that it didn't mean just that she was asking if they were capable of something, no one would contend that, it wasn't Göransson alone who was going to solve this, the possibility didn't vanish along with him. What she was really asking was do we trust each other, or perhaps do we trust each other enough to first solve this and then to stick to what we've decided, especially the consequences?

  He nodded.

  "Yes, we can do this."

  The state secretary had moved over to the bookshelf behind the desk and taken a pile of black spines from a file. She leafed through them and found the statute she was looking for: SFS 2002:375.