“Are these Orpheus people involved in the nuclear weapons affair?”
Ulwaywi gaped wildly at him and seemed to be trying to put the erratic information together.
“You have to tell us now,” Hultin continued. “It’s far too important to play games.”
“Just torture me. I’ve survived it before.”
Hultin looked at Norlander, who blinked uncertainly. He wasn’t planning to torture anyone-what had Hultin’s expression meant?
Hultin continued calmly, “I’m going to say the names of a few Swedish harbors. Tell me what they mean to you. Halmstad. Karlskrona. Visby. Karlshamn.”
Terrified that ten years of nightmares were about to be made real again, Ulaywi tried so hard to think, he creaked.
“Halmstad,” he said at last. “A woman came to me in the café and said she was being followed by a rapist. I helped her escape. She said something about having to get away-I think she said Halmstad.”
Norlander and Hultin exchanged glances. Hultin nodded, and they went out into the corridor. As they spoke, they watched Ulaywi through the one-way mirror. He was still sweating but may also have looked a bit satisfied.
“He’s part of it,” said Hultin. “He’s somewhere in the line of smugglers. He won’t say any more. We can cross off Halmstad.”
“Cross it off?” Norlander burst out. “But-”
“He’s trying to throw us off. Look at him. That’s not a man who talks.”
Hultin went to the guys manning the phones. They were spread out over three rooms, so he had to repeat three times, “Blekinge or Visby. Not Halmstad.”
Then he took out his cell phone and dialed. “Paul? Where are you?”
“Norrtull,” said Hjelm from within the heart of electronics. “I’ve destroyed the familial peace in a number of Bro households. Never more will the wives trust their Hermans. I got a licking from an angry wife.”
“No bites?”
“None of these Hermans can reasonably have had anything to do with Justine Lindberger from Upper Östermalm. It’s been a complete waste of time.”
“Come home quickly. We’re down to possibly Visby, Karlskrona, or Karlshamn. Possibly.”
“Okay.”
Holm came running out of her room and yelled, “Aunt Gretha had a cell phone number that didn’t exist anywhere else.” She held out a piece of paper with a number on it.
Hultin hung up on Hjelm and dialed the number.
“Yes?” they could hear faintly from the receiver. A woman’s voice.
“Justine?” Hultin said.
“Who is this?”
“Orpheus,” he chanced. “Where are you?”
Justine Lindberger was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Password?”
Hultin looked at Holm and Norlander. They shook their heads.
“Blue Viking,” said Hultin.
“Fuck,” said Justine, and hung up.
“Shit,” said Hultin.
“Background noise?” asked Kerstin Holm.
Hultin shook his head. He dialed the number again. No answer.
He went into his office and closed the door. It was quarter to five. The freighter Vega would leave Karlshamn in just over an hour. They would miss it. The information that pointed to Karlshamn was extremely vague: just a friend’s suggestion that Justine had been in its neighbor city Karlskrona, which had a bar called Blue Viking, which should perhaps be put under surveillance immediately, but then he would have to bring in the Blekinge police, and how would they explain the situation? He didn’t even really understand it himself. Should he let Vega get away or get the provincial police on it? He remained in his room, his shoulders pressed down by an endless weight.
Meanwhile Kerstin Holm and Viggo Norlander were still in the corridor.
Everything seemed foggy. Where were Hultin’s thoughts heading? they wondered.
Hjelm showed up with a black eye. “Don’t ask. Women,” he said cryptically.
“Bro,” Kerstin said, pointing at him. “There was something on the tip of my tongue about Bro.”
“Bro, bro, breja,” Norlander said, quoting a children’s rhyme. He seemed to have given up. He threw a bitter glance at Fawzi Ulaywi. “He’s sitting here, the fate of the universe resting on his shoulders, and he’s not going to talk.”
“Who is that?” said Hjelm.
“Isn’t Bro a pretty common place name?” said Holm.
“He’s the one who helped Justine escape,” Norlander told Hjelm. “An Iraqi. One of the people who hide behind Orpheus Life Line, a fake human rights organization. Presumably they’re fundamentalist spies. He’s our only link to the warheads.”
“They’re control devices,” said Hjelm, “for nuclear warheads.”
“Did anyone hear me?” said Holm.
“He ought to be speared on his warheads,” said Norlander. “Wouldn’t we be morally justified in going in there and pressing him? Hard?”
“The way Wayne Jennings does?” said Kerstin Holm. “Has he transformed us into copies of himself? So quickly?”
“What was it you said?” said Paul Hjelm.
“We’ve become the Kentucky Killer’s marionettes,” she said.
“Before that. About Bro.”
“Isn’t Bro a pretty common place name?”
“Are you saying I was in the wrong Bro? Where are the other ones?”
“I don’t know. It was just a guess.”
“If Herman is a lover and they meet there every Tuesday, it can’t be that far away.”
“But maybe Herman isn’t a lover. Arto pressed Justine, surprised her with his little copy-machine trick, and she had to make something up quickly. Maybe Herman was the right name, but she covered it up with the lie that he was her lover.”
They half-ran into Holm’s office and took out a road atlas. Bro in Uppland, Bro in Värmland, Bro in Bohuslän-and Bro on Gotland.
“On Gotland. Only a few miles from Visby,” said Holm. “A little church village.”
Norlander started up the computer and got into the large telephone registry. There were two Hermans in the little Bro northwest of Visby.
Hjelm unlocked his cell phone. Holm took it from him and dialed the first of the two numbers.
“Bengtsson,” said a ringing Gotland accent.
“Herman,” said Kerstin, “it’s Justine.”
It was quiet. The longer the silence went on, the higher their hopes rose.
“Why are you calling again?” said Herman Bengtsson at last. “Has something happened?”
“Just double-checking,” Kerstin croaked out. “I’m on my way.”
She ended the call, then clenched her fist for a second. And then they ran in to Hultin.
The helicopter took off five minutes later from the platform atop police headquarters. Decently fast, Hultin thought, as he sat there next to Norlander, reading through his papers. “The freighter Lagavulin will leave Visby harbor at twenty-thirty. Right now it’s quarter past five. We ought to get there in plenty of time.”
“Isn’t Lagavulin a malt whiskey?” said Hjelm.
“The best,” said Chavez. “Extremely smoky and tarry.”
The last islands of the archipelago were visible below them, drowning in the pouring rain; Hjelm thought he recognized Utö. Then it was open sea, a windswept sea, almost whiter than black. The helicopter swayed and reeled in the storm. Hjelm glanced at the pilot; he didn’t like the look on his face. Nor was Norlander’s face particularly confidence inspiring-he grabbed a helmet that was hanging on the wall of the helicopter and threw up into it. Hjelm was happy that he had not been the receptacle of choice.
Others were feeling ill, too. The pilot took out some plastic bags to protect the remaining supply of helmets. Arto Söderstedt’s white skin developed a mint-green tinge, and what came up in Hjelm’s own heave was the same color. Only Hultin and Holm retained their stomach contents.
Just east of Visby, a mediocre collection of police officers streamed out onto the hidden helicopter platform, where two civilian rental cars awaited them. They stood for a second, letting themselves be washed by the rain-it was surprisingly cleansing. Their facial colors returned to normal. They were alive again and ready to find out what Justine Lindberger had waiting for them down at the harbor.