Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  Then she turned on her computer and logged on, opened the complete version and printed out two copies.

  "Here. Take one."

  SFS 2002:375.

  Ordinance on support for civil activities by the Swedish Armed Forces. She pointed at the seventh paragraph.

  "This is what it's about. This is what we have to find our way around.

  When support is given pursuant to this Ordinance, members of the

  Armed Forces cannot be used in situations where there is a risk that

  they may be required to use force or violence against a private individual.

  They both knew exactly what that meant. It would not be possible to use the armed forces for police activities. For nearly eighty years, this country of theirs had sought not to resolve problems by allowing the military to shoot at civilians.

  But that was precisely what they had to do.

  Are you of the same opinion? Do you agree with the DS who is in situ? That the only way to resolve this, for a shot to be fired from here that will reach… here, to this building… is to use a military marksman?"

  The state secretary had smoothed out the map enough for it to be possible to follow her finger.

  "Yes. I'm of the same opinion. More powerful guns, heavier ammunition, better training. I've been asking for that for several years now."

  She smiled wearily, got up and walked slowly round the room.

  "So, the police are not allowed to use the snipers who are employed by the armed forces."

  She stopped.

  "The police can, however, use the marksmen who are employed by the police. Is that not the case?"

  She looked at him and he gave a hesitant nod and threw his hands up in the air-she was aiming at something, but he had no idea what. She went over to the computer again, looked at the screen for a while, then printed out another document in duplicate.

  "SFS 1999:740."

  She waited until he had found the right page.

  "Ordinance on police training. Paragraph nine."

  "What about it?"

  "We'll start there and work our way forward."

  She read out loud:

  The National Police Board can, under special circumstances, grant

  exemptions from the training set out in this Ordinance .

  The national police commissioner shrugged.

  "I'm familiar with that paragraph. But I still don't understand what you're getting at."

  "We'll employ a military marksman. For police service as a police sniper." "He would still be military staff and not have formal police training." The state secretary smiled again.

  "You are, like me, a lawyer, is that not so?"

  "Yes."

  "You are the national police commissioner. You have police authority, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Despite the fact that you do not have formal police training?" "Yes."

  "So let's use that as our starting point, and work toward a solution." He was none the wiser as to where she was heading.

  "We'll find a trained, equipped military marksman. With the cooperation of his superiors, we'll discharge him from service in the armed forces and then make the newly discharged military marksman an offer of a… say… six-hour temporary contract with the police. As a superintendent or another rank. You choose what rank and title you want him to have."

  He wasn't smiling, not yet.

  "So, he will be employed by the police for exactly six hours. He will complete his contract. And he will then, six hours later, apply for the vacant position that the armed forces haven't yet had time to advertise, and be reinstated."

  Now he was starting to understand what she was getting at.

  "And what's more, the police never give out the names of their marksmen, during or after an operation."

  Exactly what she was getting at.

  "And so no one will know who fired the shot."

  An empty, clean building.

  A floor that no feet had stamped on, windows that no eyes had stared through.

  There were no lights on in the building, no sound, even the unused door handles shone. Lennart Oscarsson had envisaged the inauguration of the newly built Block K, with even more cells, greater capacity, more prisoners, as a manifestation of a newly appointed chief warden's ambition and drive. That would never happen now. He walked down the empty corridor, past the wide-open cell doors. He was about to turn on the strong lights and activate the new alarm system and soon the smell of paint and newly upholstered pine furniture would blend more and more with fear and badly brushed teeth. The uninhabited cells would instead be inaugurated in a few minutes' time by hastily evacuated prisoners from Block B who were under serious threat with the national task force prepped at every door and window, guns at the ready, and a hostage situation on the second floor of the building that no one really knew anything about, why the man had done it, his aims and demands.

  Another day from hell.

  He had lied to an investigating officer and chewed his lower lip to shreds. He had forced a prisoner to go back to the unit where he was threatened and when the prisoner had taken hostages, had ripped the yellow petals of the tulips into tiny, porous pieces and dropped them on the wet floor. When his mobile phone rang, the ringtone echoing in the empty surroundings, he went into one of the empty cells and lay down exhausted on one of the bunks with no mattress.

  "Oscarsson?"

  He recognized the general director's voice immediately, stretched out his body on the hard bunk.

  "Yes?"

  "His demands?"

  "What are his demands?"

  "Nothing."

  "Three hours and fifty-four minutes. And not a single demand?" "No communication at all."

  He had just seen a mouth fill a TV monitor, tight lips that slowly formed words about death. He couldn't bear to talk about it.

  "If there are demands, when he makes demands, Lennart, he's not allowed to leave the prison."

  "I don't understand."

  "If he asks for the gate to be opened, you mustn't allow it. Under any circumstances."

  The hard bunk. He couldn't feel it.

  "Am I understanding you correctly? You want me to… to ignore the policy that you yourself have written? And that all of us who hold senior positions have signed? That if anyone's life is in danger, if we believe a hostage taker is prepared to carry out any threats he has made, if he demands to be released, we should open the gates to save lives. And that is the agreement that you now want me to ignore?"

  "I know what policies and regulations I've formulated. But… Lennart, if you still like your job, then you'll do as I ask you."

  He couldn't move. It was impossible.

  "As you ask me?"

  Everyone has their limits, an exact point beyond which they can't go. This was his.

  "Or as someone has asked you?"

  "Get up."

  Piet Hoffmann was standing between the two naked bodies. He had bent down toward one of them and spoken close to the tired, old eyes until they had finally understood and started to get up. The prison warden who was called Jacobson grimaced with pain as he straightened his knees and back and started to walk in the direction pointed out by the hostage taker-past the three solid concrete pillars and in behind a wall near the door, a separate part that seemed to be some kind of store: unopened cardboard boxes stacked up one on the other with sticky labels from tool and machine part suppliers. He was to sit down-Hoffmann pushed him to the floor in irritation when he didn't move fast enough-he was to leanback and stretch out his legs, so that it would be easier to tie his feet together. The older man tried to reach out to him in desperation several times, asking why and how and when, but got no answer, then watched Piet Hoffmann's silent back until it disappeared somewhere behind a drill and a workbench.

  That bloody banging. Ewert Grens shook his head. It seemed to follow a pattern. The nutters banged on their cell doors for two minutes, then waited for one, then banged for two more. So he w
alked over to the security office, with Edvardson directly behind him, and made sure he closed the door properly. The two small monitors side by side on a desk showed the same picture, all black, a camera turned to the workshop wall. He reached over for the coffeepot which was cold and had a brown, heavy fluid at the bottom. He turned it almost upside down and waited while brown fluid trickled slowly into one of the already used mugs, offered it to John Edvardson, but had it all to himself. He drank and swallowed-it wasn't particularly nice, but strong enough.

  "Hello."

  He had just about emptied the white plastic mug when the telephone in front of him started to ring.

  "Detective Superintendent Grens?"

  He looked around. All these damn cameras. Central security had seen him go into the security office and connected the call.

  "Yes."

  "Can you hear who it is?"

  Grens recognized the voice. The bureaucrat who sat a couple of floors up from him in the police headquarters at Kronoberg.

  "I know who you are."

  "Can you talk? There's something making an almighty din there." "I can talk."

  He heard the national police commissioner clear his throat.

  "Has the situation changed at all?"

  "No. We want to act. We should be able to. But right now we haven't got the right people. And time is running out."

  "You asked for a military marksman."

  "Yes."

  "That's why I'm calling. Your request is now on my desk."

  "Just a moment."

  Grens waved at Edvardson, he wanted him to check the door, make sure that it was closed properly.

  "Hello?"

  "I think I have a solution."

  The national police commissioner was quiet, waiting for a reaction from Grens, but then carried on when the void was filled with the noise from the corridor.

  "I've just signed a contract. I have employed an instructor and military marksman, who was recently discharged, as an assistant commissioner for six hours. He's been serving with the Svea Life Guards at Kungsangen. The position will initially entail supporting Aspsås police district. He has just left Kungsangen in a helicopter and will land at Aspsås church in ten, max fifteen minutes. When his contract ends, in exactly five hours and fifty-six minutes, he will be collected and taken back to Kungsangen in the same helicopter and will then apply for the newly vacant position for an instructor and military marksman which has not yet been advertised."

  He heard it when it was no more than a small spot in the cloudless sky. He ran over to the window and watched it grow as the noise got louder and then land, blue and white, on the tall grass in the field between the prison wall and the churchyard. Piet Hoffmann looked at the two people waiting high up on the church tower balcony, then at the helicopter and the police officers running toward it. He listened to the people moving around on the roof above his head and the ones just outside the door and he nodded to no one in particular. Now, now everything was in place. He checked that the nameless prisoner's hands and legs were tied well enough and then hurried over to the wall that separated the storeroom from the rest of the workshop, managed to get the old warden up, forced him to walk in front of him across the floor to one of the cameras that was pointing to the wall-he turned it and made sure that the whole of his mouth and the warden's was clear when he spoke.

  He leaned forward as he walked, dressed in a white-and-gray camouflage uniform. He was in his forties and had introduced himself as Sterner.

  "I can't do this."

  As they walked over to the church and then went up the stairs and the aluminum ladder, Ewen Grens had described a hostage drama that was out of control and might culminate in a shot from the church tower.

  "Can't? What the hell do you mean?"

  The military marksman who, for another five hours and thirty-eight minutes would legally serve as a policeman, had emerged onto the narrow balcony and switched places with one of the two men already lying there.

  "This is not a normal sniper rifle. It's an M107. It's a heavier, more powerful, anti-materiel rifle. For targeting buses. Or boats. Exploding mines.

  He had greeted the colleague who was still there and would function as an observer.

  "Long distance. That was the information I was given. That was what I should be prepared for. But this- I can't shoot at a soft target."

  Holding the binoculars, he had observed Piet Hoffmann in one corner of the window and realized what this was all about.

  Now he looked at Grens.

  "I'm sorry, so he-that man there-is a soft target?"

  "Yes."

  "And… what exactly does that mean?"

  "It means that the ammunition that I have with me is fire and explosive ammo, and can't be used for a person."

  Grens laughed-at least that was what it sounded like: a short, irritated laugh.

  "So… what the hell are you doing here?"

  "The firing distance is fifteen hundred and three meters. That was the job I was given."

  "The job you were given was to prevent someone from taking the lives of two other people. Or, if you prefer it-one soft target taking the life of another soft target."

  Sterner focused the binoculars on the hostage taker, he was still standing in the same place by the window, exposing himself, and it was hard to understand why.

  "I'm just complying with international law."

  "A law… for Christ's sake, Sterner… they're made up by people who hide behind desks! But this… this is reality. And if the guy who is standing there, the soft target, the one who is our reality right now, if he's not stopped, other people will die. And both of them and their nearest and dearest will presumably be extremely pleased to know that you are complying with… what was it now… international law."

  The binoculars' zoom was powerful and despite the fact that his hands were moving in the wind, it was easy to follow the man who had long fair hair and sometimes turned and looked down at something-the hostages, Sterner was sure of it-that was lying on the floor close to him; that was where they were.

  "If I do what you want me to, if I fire at this sniper, with the ammo I've got here, he'll lose his arms and legs. They'll be blown clear off the body. There will be nothing left."

  He lowered the binoculars and looked up at Grens.

  "You'll find the soft target, the person-you'll find body parts everywhere."

  The face, the mouth, it was there again.

  The man in the blue crumpled guard uniform got up. The same monitor as the last time, the same camera that had been turned away from the concrete wall. Bergh was still warm but had switched off and moved the desk fan so that it was now by the wall in the small central security room-he needed more space in order to see properly when he linked up and transmitted the picture on all sixteen screens.

  The mouth was saying something, and then the other one, another person, Jacobson, naked and bound. The hostage taker was holding him and suddenly took a step back: he wanted to make sure that they could see that he had a miniature revolver to Jacobson's head. And then he said the words again.

  Bergh didn't need to rewind this time.

  He recognized the first words.

  He is a dead man.

  And the three last words were incredibly easy to interpret from the clear lip movements.

  In twenty minutes

  Sven Sundkvist ran up the church stairs with the mobile phone in his hand. His conversation with a distressed voice from central security had been clear: they had been given a countdown and every minute, every second meant less time to make a decision. He straightened the ladder, opened the hatch and crawled out on to the balcony. Ewert was there with the new marksman and his observer. Sven told them all loudly that there wasn't time anymore to discuss things that had already been discussed.

  Ewert looked at him, his eyes alert, the vein on his temple pulsing. "How long ago?"

  "One minute and twenty seconds."

  Ewert Grens had been expecting it
, but he thought that it might take longer, that he would have more time. He sighed; so that's how it was, that's how it always was, there was never enough time. He held on to the railing and looked out over the small town, over the prison. Two worlds only meters apart, but two separate, unique worlds with their own rules and expectations, that had absolutely fuck-all to do with each other.

  "Sven?"

  "Yes?"

  "Who is he?"

  "Who?"

  "The prison warden?"

  The man in the window over there, behind the reinforced glass, he knew, Hoffmann knew exactly how it fucking worked and he had decided that it would start now, that we will act because of an elderly guard. And he's right. It's the gray-haired prison warden we care about. If… if it had only been a drug dealer with a long sentence, well, it wasn't easy to say, to imagine, we might not have made such an effort.

  "Sven?"

  "Just a moment."

  Sven Sundkvist looked through his notebook, tightly written pages in foutain pen ink, not used by many these days.

  "Martin Jacobson. Sixty-four. Has worked at Aspsås since he was twenty-four. Married. Grown-up children. Lives in the town. Liked, respected, no threat."

  Grens gave a distracted nod.

  "Do you need more?"

  "Not right now."

  The anger. His inner engine, the driving force, without which he would be nothing. Now it rook hold of him, shook him hard. No way, no goddamn way was that naked, bound man with a miniature gun to his eye, who had worked for forty years for peanuts with people who hated him, going to die on a foul-smelling workshop floor one year before retiring, no bloody way.

  "Sterner?"

  The military marksman was lying by the railing a bit farther along the balcony, holding up the binoculars.

  "You're a police officer now. You are a police officer now. For five and a half hours more. And I have been assigned as gold commander here. So I am your boss. And that means that from now on you must do exactly as I order you to do. And I am, now listen carefully, not particularly interested in arguments about soft targets and international law. Do you understand?"

  They looked at each other-he didn't get an answer, but he hadn't expected one either.