Mission Raptor

by Bear Grylls

  Elin looked at him strangely, as though he had said something odd.

  “People are certainly worried,” she agreed. “The woods around the lodge are crawling with people trying to find you — but of course, no one will realise you could have got this far away, because no one knows Kolberg abducted you. They think you persuaded Jonas to go on some ill-advised adventure into the wilderness. All your stuff is missing too.”

  “Then you need to tell them!”

  “In time.” Elin made no move to go for her phone, or do anything that might help pass on the information. “I was kind of hoping to talk to you privately before the regular police get involved. We still don’t know what made them take you in the first place, and if they know you’re alive, that might put them off their operation.”

  Beck stared at her.

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “We need them to feel safe enough to continue, so that we can catch them in action — that’s how we get evidence.” She cocked her head, eyes narrowed. “So, what is Dr Winslow to you? A friend?”

  “Well …” Beck shrugged, baffled. What was it to her? It wasn’t Winslow’s fault that his work was being undermined by these people. Couldn’t she see that?

  “No. I only met him the day before yesterday for the first time since — well, since he delivered me as a baby. Me and my sister. ’Course, I don’t exactly remember that. I just knew his name, that’s all.”

  “Beck,” Elin said patiently, “I need you to listen carefully. Please.”

  For the first time, Elin seemed to be having difficulty getting the words together in her head.

  “Beck…” She put a gentle hand on his knee. “I said I was tracking Kolberg, but only because I knew he worked for Dr Winslow. Winslow, I believe, is the one we’re after.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  It was like being socked in the stomach.

  Beck moved his lips to say, ‘How do you know?’ but he couldn’t even find the breath to say the first word.

  She seemed to guess what he was asking.

  “Simple logic. First, we found a number of smuggled children, in different places, all around the world, and we traced them back to where the smuggling first occurred, but it was always a different place, a different situation. So, we looked around for any common factors, apart from people wanting money — there was always that — and we noticed there was often some kind of medical organisation involved.” She paused.

  “Different organisations, but we put them all together to see if there were people or one person in common who always stood out… and Henry Winslow came top of the list. But, that doesn’t prove anything, and until there is proof, he can’t be arrested and taken to court. To prove something, we have to catch him at it.”

  “‘We’,” Jonas repeated in a highly sceptical tone that made Beck whip his head around in surprise. “That’s Tullverket, right?”

  She looked at him with an expression so neutral it almost screamed.

  “Yes, Tullverket, who I work for. I showed you my I.D.,” she said.

  Jonas made a scornful noise.

  “The Customs agency wouldn’t be tracing stolen children all around the world — that would be an international job. And I doubt they have expert trackers and marksmen, and they can’t order clean-up crews to dispose of dead bodies. You’re not Tullverket, you’re Säpo.”

  “What’s…” Beck had found his breath and tried the word. “‘Serpo’?”

  “Säkerhetspolisen — the Security Service, who don’t officially exist but everyone knows they do,” Jonas replied. He looked at Elin with reluctant admiration. “Wow! Säpo!”

  Elin looked at him for a moment longer, then turned back to Beck as though Jonas hadn’t said anything at all.

  “Do you know what makes me angry?” she said. “Really, really angry? Winslow specialises in selling children to crooked adoption agencies. Now, I’m adopted myself. I had a wonderful childhood with parents who loved me. When it’s done properly, which it is ninety-nine per cent of the time, adoption is wonderful. Here, you have children who want parents. There, you have parents who want children. So you bring them together and you create a new family. It should be so good, so right, and people like Winslow have corrupted it. That makes me mad.”

  “So you are the good guys?” Beck asked quietly. “Like a female James Bond?”

  “Of sorts. And this is why I’m after Winslow,” she finished.

  Okay, he could breathe now. He wasn’t sure he could manage anything else. So much certainty had vanished that he wasn’t sure what to think. Did this all really add up? Could the doc really be bad?

  And… if he moved his mouth, would sense come out of it?

  “You…” Beck frowned. He had no reason to doubt her, but Winslow was Winslow. The man who had delivered him and Dian. He hadn’t realised he had hung so much on the image of that grumpy, balding man he had met at the lodge. He had to make one last effort to defend him. “But surely, you’ll need more than that in court.”

  “And we have it. All kinds of backing evidence. For example, he is a man who likes to gamble — in fact he’s addicted to it, and he is not very good. He is always running up huge debts and then paying them off around the time a new child is taken — that’s what we think he uses the money for. But as you say, that’s not conclusive evidence.”

  She changed tone abruptly.

  “I need to get you two back to safety. We’re seven kilometres from the road — we can be there in a couple of hours and I can call for a lift.” She gave Beck a quick up-and-down look, taking in his bog-smeared clothing. “I’ll tell them to bring you a fresh change of clothes. But first…” She looked longingly at the cooking hare. “Is there enough for three?”

  “Of course!” Beck smiled for the first time. “I’m sorry. There’s plenty here for you too. You must be as hungry as us?!”

  “I am hungry.” She paused. “I had no idea teenagers were such hard work!”

  They all smiled. Beck sliced the meat and handed it round. After some silence as they savoured the hot food, Beck then started up again. His mind still whirring.

  “But do you know how long he’s been doing this? Stealing children?”

  She thought.

  “We can’t know every single case. He started paying off his debts … oh, fourteen, fifteen years ago, so that might be when it began. Why?” She peered at him more closely.

  Beck then stopped eating, mid mouthful, and put the meat slowly down on the ground. His hand was shaking.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Beck paused.

  “We still don’t know why he wanted to kill us,” he said slowly. “Or do we?” Beck paused.

  “I recognised him as the man who delivered me. That means…” He paused again, as if he was somewhere far away.

  Then Beck looked up at each of them in turn.

  “I think I know exactly why he was afraid of me.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  It took them just under two hours to reach the road — a smooth, modern stretch of tarmac that cut through the Arctic wilderness like a knife slash. The black SUV that Jonas and Beck had seen the day before was parked up on the side, the only vehicle visible in either direction.

  The man that Beck had seen in Reception with Elin — a well-built, blond man in his twenties — was propped against the bonnet, waiting with folded arms. For all the welcoming smile, Beck immediately knew this was someone to keep on the good side of. The face was guarded and the eyes were wary. Beck could tell he would be the kind of guy who took in everything he saw.

  “He is so totally not a Customs man,” Jonas whispered behind Elin’s back.

  “Mikael, always prompt!” Elin greeted him. The man unfolded himself from the side of the car and gestured.

  “Spare clothes from Beck’s room in the back, food in the front.”

  Beck and Jonas abruptly peeled off in different directions.
/>   “And no one at the lodge knows we’ve found the boys?” Elin asked.

  Mikael shook his head.

  “I’ve told no one. We don’t know how many of the Medics Around the World team are innocent and how many are with Winslow, but…” The smile slipped to something more grave. “We do know Winslow has vanished.”

  “What?” Elin stared at him. “We have to find him — and fast. If he’s taken a child — he will disappear. We have to find out where he went!”

  “Riksliden,” Mikael said. “It’s the only nearby place.”

  “But where in Riksliden? It’s not a big town — but it’s big enough. And the handover will only take seconds. We must be there… Beck! Jonas! Into the car, now!”

  Beck came hopping around from the back of the car, still pulling on his fresh trousers. Jonas only had to disengage himself from a mouthful of sandwich. They clambered into the back and were pressed into the seats as Mikael gunned the engine and the SUV accelerated off, with total disregard for Sweden’s 90 kilometres-per-hour limit.

  “I’ll call the town police.” Elin pulled out her phone. “We need to get them Winslow’s description, so they can be on the lookout. Boys, I might need to show my hand here…” She glanced back at them both. “So, if you hear me say a word that sounds like ‘Säpo’, just remember… you didn’t.”

  “Yes!” Jonas exclaimed, giving Beck a powerful nudge with his elbow. Beck looked thoughtfully at the road ahead, rolling towards them, saying nothing.

  “It’s not going to be easy. Just one man to find in a whole town,” Mikael commented dryly.

  “Yes, but—”

  “I think I might know where he is,” Beck said quietly.

  Elin stared back at him.

  “You do? How?”

  “I saw him browsing a tourist site, on his tablet.”

  Elin struck her hand against the dashboard in delight.

  “Smart boy! Where? We’ll get the police to concentrate on that area…” She looked back at Beck, picking something up in his expression. “What?”

  Beck just looked at her and her face grew stern.

  “Beck. No! We talked about this!”

  Back at the camp, Beck had told her exactly why he thought Winslow had been suspicious of him — suspicious enough to want him dead. They had spent most of their walk through the woods discussing it. Beck had a theory and he wanted to put it to Winslow himself, and soon. Elin was certain that was not a good idea.

  “No,” Elin said again. “We don’t want you to be involved any further in this — it is a police operation. Once we have him, we’ll find everything out, including your theory on this.”

  Beck sat back in his seat, with his hands fidgeting on his knees. Outwardly, his face was a calm mask. Inside, he could feel his heart pounding.

  He had got it wrong at first with Winslow. Badly wrong. Learning the truth had been like those times when someone walks up some stairs, and misjudges the number, and puts a foot on a step that isn’t there. The jolt goes through the entire body. This one had gone further — into his deep-rooted fears, into his very soul.

  Sure, the best thing was to help the authorities, and get the man locked up — straight away.

  But he would also never forgive himself if he didn’t discover the truth he so desperately sought — the answer to the most important question he would ever ask.

  So, what he was going to do next made no sense at all — yet also somehow made the most sense in the world.

  He swallowed, and summoned all the courage he didn’t feel, and looked her in the eye.

  “I need to be there. If I don’t get to be part of this,” he said, “I don’t tell you the tourist website Winslow was looking at. And without that,” he paused, “you lose him.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The town square of Riksliden was an open space a hundred metres across, paved with grey stone cobbles and surrounded by tall, colourful buildings that looked like they had been grown out of a kid’s playset.

  In the centre was a fountain, dry now that the summer season was over. The old fashioned town hall was like an ornate mini-palace that took up most of the far side, built of red brick and with gables and cornices and a green copper roof. The ground floor was a row of shops that opened onto the square.

  It was also very cold — a biting wind cut across the square and the few people around were well wrapped against it. Beck, Jonas, Elin and Mikael were snug in one of the square’s several coffee shops, across from the town hall, separated from the elements by a large plate glass window.

  The shop was comfortable and warm — the first time Beck had felt either of those things for a while.

  But he didn’t care. He would have had his face pressed to the glass, scanning the square for any sign of Winslow, if Elin hadn’t told him sharply to sit down. If Winslow saw him standing there, clear as day, he could still ruin everything.

  Elin had finally relented to allow Beck to be here, against her better judgement. But she had had no choice. Time was critical for them now.

  Beck had forced a lid down on the burning fury inside him, and sat down at the window table so they could all pretend to be normal customers — him and Elin one side, Mikael and Jonas on the other. He could still crane his neck every few seconds to stare out of the window.

  He couldn’t touch the coffee and buns they had bought, in their attempt to look like regular customers. His appetite was zero and his stomach felt like it was floating loose inside him. He wondered if this was how people feel when they’re awaiting news, good or bad — the birth of a baby, the results of a cancer test. Forced into inactivity, but primed with adrenaline and bursting to do something, anything.

  The bulky, warm clothing that everyone out there wore would make identifying Winslow harder, but, without moving his head, Beck could see several police officers scattered around the square, casually going about their business. He stiffened — but only for a moment — at the sight of a pram. It was being pushed by someone who was clearly a woman, not Winslow. She was on her phone, smiling and chatting, occasionally leaning forward to look at the bundle of baby, and laugh, and tickle it under the chin.

  Mikael casually lifted his camera and it clicked like a little machine gun as he recorded her, step by step, disappearing into one of the shops under the town hall — a gift shop, to judge by what Beck could see through the large windows.

  “Uh — you know that wasn’t him?” Beck asked. Mikael didn’t smile.

  “Anyone with baby gear could be involved.”

  Beck shrugged, and went back to studying the passers-by.

  “You are sure this is the place?” Elin said quietly. They had been there long enough for their coffee to go cold.

  “This is the place he was looking at,” Beck said, confidently, to squash the little worm of doubt that wriggled in his stomach. He definitely recognised, though, the square and the town hall from what he had seen on Winslow’s tablet. This was what he had been looking at. “I saw him using the maps feature to work out the way here. This is where he’ll be.”

  “If he hasn’t already been,” Elin said grimly, “or if he wasn’t just looking up the way to the supermarket or the gift shop.” She turned to Mikael. “I’ll want CCTV from every camera from every shop in the square, from opening time onwards.”

  He nodded and took out his smartphone to make a call.

  “All units around town are looking out for him,” he said as he dialled. “Even if we miss him here—”

  “Um,” Jonas said. “Isn’t that…?”

  All eyes fixed on the person who had just come into the square. Pushing a pram.

  It was a man, but that was all they could tell. He had a thick, furry hat, and a scarf over half his face, and a bulky coat.

  In other words, apart from the stroller, he was like most of the other men passing through the square.

  Apart from the pram.

  Mikael lifted the camera again and took another clip of pictures. Then he s
crolled back through the ones he had already taken, and lifted his head to stare at the man.

  “No clear image of the face, but the pram is the same kind as the woman had.”

  All eyes fixed on the distant figure.

  “And he’s going into the gift shop.” Elin stood abruptly. "You two boys, stay here. Do NOT move!” Her eyes lingered on them for a second and then she nodded, as if to reaffirm her statement. “And Mikael, call back up and come with me. Let’s go!”

  And then she was off like a rocket, straight out of the door, with Mikael beside her speaking into his lapel radio mic, requesting police support.

  Chapter Fifty

  Beck saw Elin and Mikael emerge into the open air a moment later and start to walk quickly across the square.

  If only he could see! Beck wanted to scream with frustration. The gift shop had tall, floor-to-ceiling windows, with shelves stocked with what looked like tacky tourist gifts. And he could see the woman and the man with their prams. But all the important stuff was being obscured.

  Beck could understand clearly how the switch was planned to happen. It would only take a moment for them to walk off with each other’s prams — her with a brand new baby, him with an empty one, both looking exactly the same. No casual onlooker would notice any change.

  The woman was one side of the shop, the man the other. They seemed to be looking at tourist tat. They drifted in each other’s direction, paused, browsed, started moving again …

  “What are Elin and Mikael doing?” Beck mumbled under his breath to Jonas.

  The suspense was killing them.

  “They are going to miss their chance, Jonas.” Beck said, twitching his fingers nervously around the sugar pot. “I can feel it.”

  “Well maybe they are just waiting for…”

  Jonas never got to finish the sentence. In a flash, Beck had jumped up, so violently that his chair fell back onto the floor. He was already at the door before Jonas could even attempt to stop him.