“He’s dead,” said Jenny Bergenskjöld, without emotion in her voice.
“I’m so sorry.”
Carl-Adam turned toward the room, his eyes strangely empty, and Jenny continued. “It was some time ago. We left him behind.”
Grip introduced himself, explaining at length that he represented Sweden and that he wasn’t looking to interrogate them. He simply wanted to see how they were doing and get a basic understanding of what had happened to them.
Jenny was careful to point out that they hadn’t spoken with anyone except the hospital staff so far. And then that strange silence set in again, and Grip’s gaze was drawn to the slender Alexandra, who hadn’t taken her gentle gaze off him.
“How are you?”
“Good,” she replied.
“What have the soldiers said?” asked Jenny. “About what happened and how?”
“They haven’t said anything.”
“What does it say in the newspaper?”
“Nothing. They weren’t those kind of soldiers. It doesn’t work that way.”
“But they killed all the pirates?”
“You know more than I do.”
Over the next hour, Grip tried to put together a picture of what had taken place, going back in time, making them begin at the beginning, when the boat was hijacked, the shots, and what happened afterward. Carl-Adam held up his freshly bandaged hand, otherwise he mostly answered yes or no to the questions directed his way. Jenny did most of the talking. There was Darwiish with his red beard, and the two houses surrounded by heat and dust. And her son’s seizures, described without the slightest tremble in her voice. She broke down only when returning to the constant refrain of the water bucket. The desperate need. The thirst, the eternal thirst—her whole body seemed to tense up at the thought. Remembering, she closed her eyes and her words fell away. The daughter listened; the father seemed mostly to stare at the ceiling.
Then Carl-Adam got up to use the bathroom, with a nurse helping him, and Grip was left alone with mother and daughter. They’d gotten to the arrival of the negotiator, how he made sure Carl-Adam was reasonably well taken care of, how he tried to get drugs for Sebastian, and how, in the final stage, he’d put that gun on the table.
“You used the gun?” Grip asked.
“We shot two of them,” replied the mother.
“We?”
Jenny Bergenskjöld looked over at her husband’s empty bed and said, “I never want to see that man again. I don’t want to have anything to do with him. And I don’t want to talk to a bunch of journalists.”
“Here in the hospital . . .”
“He can lie there for now,” she interrupted, “but I’m talking about later. And we shot two of them. We shot Darwiish—will that do?”
Grip listened to her, but he looked at her daughter. There, in her gaze, he was reminded of something. He searched his memory, oh right—when they were drunk, Simon Stark’s story. How one man had walked down into the ravine, and a very different man had come back up. His eyes as he described it. Knowing you had killed someone, that you were capable of it. And Grip saw that the girl sitting in bed with a blanket over her legs was no longer just a child.
“No journalists,” continued her mother, “but I want you to thank the Swedish soldiers, the ones who actually took risks.”
“No journalists, I promise you,” said Grip. “As for the soldiers”—he stopped and started again—“they were someone’s soldiers, it’s not important whose.”
“On the sleeves, I saw flags—they were Swedish.”
The door opened, and Carl-Adam came back in. The nurse who helped him made a point of looking at her watch as she went out again.
“We just talked a little more about the negotiator, what he said, and when,” Grip explained, to get him up to speed on what he’d missed.
“Oh him. Yes,” said Carl-Adam.
“Did he have a name?”
“He just wanted to make money off us, but he didn’t take the slightest responsibility for the situation.” For the first time, Carl-Adam had something to say.
“But what was his name?” Grip continued.
“A goddamn scavenger, that’s what he was.”
“He didn’t tell us,” Jenny interrupted, “but the guards and Darwiish called him Yuhuudi, when they talked about him.”
“What did you say?”
“Yuhuudi,” she repeated.
Carl-Adam launched into a discussion about the ransom, but Grip was no longer interested in what he had to say. He picked up the negotiator’s phone and looked: still no missed calls. And suddenly, he felt a sharp pang, because he’d left something undone.
“Excuse me.” Grip got up and went out into the hallway. He tried calling the negotiator, but just as before, no one answered. He started pacing back and forth, with the restless steps of an anxious relative waiting for an operation to end. He stopped and shifted the phone in his hand. That was it, he had to up his game; indecision turned into something else. Judy Drexler—two rings, then an anonymous voice said he could leave a message. “Shit!”
Grip went back to the Bergenskjölds again but didn’t sit down. “I . . . you’ve described your ordeal and told me what you need. Someone from the Foreign Ministry will come see you over the next few days, to arrange your transportation home and whatever else might be needed. I have to . . . I have to go.” He made a move toward the door but stopped again, his thoughts too scattered, and turned to Jenny.
“Forget about the flags. Forget that the soldiers spoke Swedish,” he said, with an eye on the blanket that lay over her daughter’s legs. “Some things are better left unsaid.”
56
The US embassy and its goddamn security. A marine shouted at Grip to calm down.
Finally, when he was in his stocking feet with his belt in his hand, a young officer appeared.
“No,” said Grip, “I didn’t set up a meeting in advance. But believe me, Judy Drexler wants to speak to me ASAP.”
“Who should I say is calling?”
“Tell her it’s Delmar. Khalid Delmar.”
The young man looked disapprovingly at him but turned and disappeared.
It was only a few minutes before she came out.
“I was sitting in meetings and only just now saw that you’d called.”
“Of course,” Grip said, looking around as they walked through the embassy’s grand lobby. Really, he was hoping for some privacy, as there were too many unauthorized types within earshot, but Drexler eyed him as the uninvited guest he actually was. “Your informant, he’s my negotiator,” he said, so she’d immediately know that this was serious, but she hadn’t caught on.
“Khalid? What are you saying?” But the Somali’s name and Grip’s look convinced her to take him to a more secluded spot.
Grip tied the other shoe he’d had to remove going through security and stood up. “It was Khalid Delmar who led the negotiations over the Swedish hostages. It was Delmar who gave me the coordinates so that they could be rescued.”
“Is his cover blown?”
“No, no, he was careful, he didn’t utter a word in Swedish to either the hostages or me, the times we talked. They knew nothing, and I never suspected it was him. But now, when I spoke with the family here at the hospital, they said the pirates called him the Jew when they talked about him. That was when I understood.”
“I’m asking you again, is his cover blown?”
“I don’t know, but if it is, it wouldn’t be because of him. I’d be the one who screwed up.”
“How?” said Judy, straightening up.
“I gave you the negotiator’s phone number, and neither you nor I suspected that it belonged to Delmar.” He saw the look in Drexler’s eyes, as the pieces started to fall into place. “Sure, fine,” Grip said, “but you don’t look worried enough to be thinking the thought that made me yell at your marine a minute ago. I gave you the number of someone moving like an insider in the world of pirates and God-knows-who-else in Somalia. That
number, and the movements of the cell phone connected to it, would have put him on the top-ten list of every single one of your satellites and listening stations. People would have put two and two together and drawn certain conclusions. That number was used by someone with a few other phones as well. As he visited more interesting places, and met with more interesting people, his name would start to climb up the list. Maybe he met with Al-Shabaab, maybe he was connected to known money launderers, maybe he got close to training camps, maybe he even was in touch with truly vicious fanatics.” Grip waved his hand. “But what no one here realizes is that the guy you just started following was your most valuable source on the entire Horn of Africa.”
Judy Drexler stood silent. “You don’t have to tell me,” Grip continued, “it’s the same in my own organization. It’s just that yours is huge—sometimes the right hand arrests someone the left just set free. And Delmar’s been a little too professional in protecting his identity, doing everything by the book. He’s had one set of phones and prepaid cards when he’s Khalid and your informant, and a completely different set when he’s the Jew getting things done in Somalia: he sniffs out goodies for you, and also flies back lost jihadists. Tell me I’m wrong. You got his number as a hostage negotiator from me. Tell me you saw this coming, say that you haven’t already put things together and drawn certain conclusions.” Drexler was still silent, as much lost in her own thoughts as she was listening to Grip. “He tried to call me four times yesterday, but I was busy with other things. Now when I try to reach him, I get no answer. Say for God’s sake that I’m on the wrong track.”
“Wait here,” said Judy. Her mouth was a straight line when she disappeared.
When Grip heard Judy Drexler come walking back, it wasn’t with her usual sharp steps on the stone floor. And in the hesitation of the last step she took behind his back, Grip sensed that she was weighing how intimate she would dare to be with him.
“Yes?” he said, turning around.
“There has been a drone strike.”
“Yes?” Grip repeated.
“Not a decision I was involved in, but one based on intelligence from cell phone eavesdropping.”
“On his number?”
“Among others.”
“You sound like a telegram.”
“I was gone for ten minutes, that’s what I can tell you. That kind of operation isn’t directed from this godforsaken desert fortress.”
“And what was the target, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“A crowd of people, a house, a car heading from point A to point B?” He threw up his hands. “Or does the left hand not interfere with what the right hand is doing?”
“You said it yourself, it’s an enormous organization.”
“The hell with enormous. This is about you and me, and how we screwed up. The hostages have been freed, but I’ve just been down in Kenya cleaning up after both of us. And now this, when intelligence and our own interests go different ways.”
“You don’t need to lecture, I know exactly where we stand.” Judy looked right at him; it was clear that she’d made a decision.
“Don’t look at me that way,” said Grip, taking her by the arm and lowering his voice. “He was your man, your most valuable source.” Judy Drexler said nothing. Grip paused but finally said, “Besides, I promised him that no one would come after him if he got the hostages released.” Dark thoughts floated in Grip’s mind: the man in the shed with his throat cut, the gaze of the Bergenskjöld girl in the hospital bed. Worst of all was the memory of Ben—the loneliness of death that never let Grip go.
“What exactly is our obligation to Khalid Delmar?”
“To find him,” Grip replied, without blinking.
“Why?”
“You could put it different ways. One is, our side of the world owes him that much. In return for getting so many people out of this place and back home, and for all the madness he prevented, both down here and at home. And he’s a Swedish citizen, who did far more for the world than our rich sailors—and he was the one who got them the attention that led to them being rescued.”
Grip fell silent and looked at Drexler.
“Or you just say it as simply as possible,” he continued. “Someone should look for you when you disappear. At any rate, I need to keep that idea alive inside me.”
“Put it this way,” Drexler said. “I’ve never encountered a man lonelier than you, so I’m not surprised that’s what you believe.”
Grip looked out a window, catching a glimpse of a plane against the sky.
“I promise you,” he said, after standing there for a moment, “that if I sit down on that couch in this air-conditioned oasis, and I stay there for half an hour, you could tap on the shoulder of someone who respects your seniority and owes you an old favor. And you’ll come back with numbers that look pretty innocent, but that when deciphered will answer the essential questions of where and when something happened.”
“Is this the way you do it, you peasants with your backs to the sea?”
“Sometimes, it is.”
It took more than half an hour, but when she came back, she didn’t have just one set of numbers on a page, but two, with markings on a small map that had been folded up.
When he’d unfolded it and held up the image of Somalia, Judy Drexler explained the red dot: “Thirty-five kilometers off the coast, last night. A variety of interesting cell phones, all in the same location.”
“Are there photos?”
“Of course. But the black-and-white footage from the drone with crosshairs on it will be kept locked up for months. That’s the way it is. That’s always the way it is these days.”
“And the one in the ocean?” Grip asked, about the black mark.
“That’s the last position of the HMS Sveaborg.”
“Why do I need that?”
“Take a good look. They’re not very far away from each other. If you’re serious, I won’t let you down—I can shuttle you out to the ship, that’s as far as I can go. To get the rest of the way, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.”
“When do I leave?”
“There’s a V-22 on the base being refueled right now. Give them two hours. The rest is up to you.”
57
They winched Grip down just in front of the bridge. The helicopter deck of the Sveaborg was way too small for the V-22 to land on. A deck officer received him, under the thunder and wind of the rotors, then unbuckled the harness and led him inside. The Swedish warship was escorting a merchant ship bringing food and medicine up to Mogadishu. Half an hour earlier, they’d gotten the message from Stockholm, alerting them that the security police officer was on his way.
Grip had talked to the Boss beforehand, saying that he had a few loose ends to tie up and needed an excuse to board the ship. Didricksen harrumphed at first, explaining that for now he’d let the state and foreign ministers know that the Bergenskjölds were free. Just that much, and he’d kept the lid on the rest. Of course, there was a group of soldiers who knew more, but they belonged to a branch of the military that kept its mouth shut. At most, the navy ships down in the Indian Ocean could have picked up a few rumors. They agreed on the phrasing: “Sensitive intelligence regarding the Swedish hostages, requiring immediate follow-up action.” It was sufficiently vague, yet precise enough not to be questioned. Before he let Grip go, he took half a step backward and started talking about what the newspapers said, how more and more people had donated to the ransom fund. The ministers, or at least the ones who sensed something was going on, worried about how their political supporters would react if it turned out that the armed action in Africa was premature.
“Premature?” Grip asked.
“Their words, not mine,” Didricksen replied.
“With all due respect, Boss, I’ve seen the Bergenskjölds at the hospital. They wouldn’t have survived.”
“Popular opinion drives everything here, and a venture capitalist can always sit for
one more day.”
“Anyway, the family is free. But if you can squelch the news about the Bergenskjölds for one more day, maybe I can do something about the ministers’ concerns, regarding both the morning TV shows and the voters’ reactions.”
“This has gone on long enough as it is. Now, get to the ship, do whatever it is you need to do, and come straight home. You get one day, and then you’ll be standing here on the carpet in front of me.”
Before Grip went out to the waiting V-22 on the US base, he’d made sure to spend a few minutes on the phone with Simon Stark. It was the first time he’d checked in since the night on Lamu Island. Even if all they said was “You all right?” and “Good enough,” Grip could hear the relief in Stark’s voice. Also, Grip wanted his opinion on what was possible, or not, aboard the ship. Stark had, after all, been the Sveaborg’s prisoner for almost two weeks.
“I need access to their helicopter,” Grip explained.
Stark gave his knee-jerk response.
“The captain and the first officer have enough bad feelings toward us as it is. Whatever you want, they’ll oppose it. So don’t give them any details, they’ll only dig in their heels.”
His second piece of advice was more useful.
“I’d bet on the helicopter unit commander, though. He’s a pilot I met in Afghanistan. An unshaven, half-Finnish guy who has a grudge against the first officer. I don’t know why, but there you go. Maybe it’s because he’s pretty loose about following the rules.”
That was what Grip had to go on when his soles hit the deck of the ship. Sure enough, the moment he walked into the operations room and the first officer spotted him, he looked as if Grip were carrying a contagious disease.
“Not now” was the first officer’s immediate response. He pretended to be frustrated. “This damn barge we’re escorting can’t do more than eight knots. Loaded full of medicine, and if we leave her, she’ll just become a meal for pirates.”
“The Sveaborg can stay on course. I just need the helicopter,” Grip said. “Surely your machine guns and ship cannons give you adequate protection?”
After the Monsoon Page 34