“We both well know how such things are,” Berg asserted. “Just think about those so-called Information Bureau whistle-blowers. They were out and running around again before the ink had time to dry on their convictions. One year for spying, that’s not even a bad joke.”
Waltin contented himself with nodding, for he already saw the practical consequences, and, as he was the one who would be handling them, there was no reason at all to discuss them with anyone, least of all with the person who was his boss.
“I’m counting on you, Claes, and I also believe we’re starting to be short on time.” Berg nodded seriously, and with that, everything that needed to be said was said.
What remained was quite simply an ordinary break-in, thought Waltin. Or more correctly stated, an uncommon break-in, as the victim of the crime wouldn’t even be allowed to suspect that he had had a visitor in that home, which, however temporary, was nonetheless his castle. This wasn’t the first time Waltin had planned such an effort. On the contrary, he had done it so often that nowadays he only had an approximate sense of the number of “concealed house searches” in his top-secret personal record. No big deal about that, besides, for the classified special legislation that the government had put in the hands of the organization he served gave him and his cohorts all the room for action they needed.
It wasn’t the legal problems that worried him. It was the purely practical execution of the effort that seriously disturbed him. To enter through a window bolted from the inside situated on the sixteenth story was completely out of the question, even if he had the option of lowering someone from the room above. But because it was rented out to a known left-wing activist who used his free time to sell The Proletarian outside the city’s state liquor stores and was otherwise always sitting home thinking up various activities to bring down society, he didn’t even need to consider that alternative. Besides, hundreds of people lived on the other side of the street; based on experience, at least a few of them would discover what was going on and immediately contact the police department’s central switchboard. And as there was a good chance that the person concerned might fall and be killed, there would certainly be no lack of available patrol cars that would pounce on such a call.
What remained was to go in the normal way. Through the door to the corridor where eight rooms and seven different renters were squeezed together into just over a thousand square feet. Krassner’s room was at the far end. These were not ordinary renters, either. Two of them were in SePo’s register of various leftist movements. The third was that South African the socialist union had dragged here, and you hardly needed to work for the secret police to calculate where he stood politically. The fourth was Krassner himself, almost paranoid according to the operative on the scene. Remaining were an apparently well-trained student at GIH who had head-butted a security guard when he was in high school, along with a technologist and a student at the business school about whom he didn’t know anything negative that was documented. A real dream audience for a break-in, Waltin thought.
The lock itself wasn’t a complicated one, and copies of the keys to the corridor door and to Krassner’s room had been acquired with the help of an upright coworker at the property-management company that took care of the building. Of course he had done his part for the police detectives in their fight against drugs. He had kids himself and knew what it was about. “Just squeeze those damn pushers.” At the same time keys were the least problem when you were working at Waltin’s level; there were other things that troubled him more. How could he see to it that one of his most reliable officers could, undisturbed, make his way into Krassner’s room to go through his papers and other belongings in peace and quiet? He would need at least an hour. Little Jeanette Eriksson had offered to do it herself, but that was completely out of the question for reasons that didn’t have anything to do with risks. In Waltin’s world this was not something that young women should be involved in. It was bad enough that she had made use of that black guy in order to get in the vicinity of Krassner. Now it was a matter of bringing her back home to headquarters as quickly as possible.
Krassner appeared extremely suspicious, hardly surprising considering whose “faithful squire” he had been, and one of the first days when Jeanette had visited the South African and contrived an errand to the kitchen, she had observed how he “taped a strand of hair” on the door when he went out.
In this case it was a little paper flag he had placed on the door’s overhang, which of course would not still be there if anyone opened the door while he was away. A simple, standard measure among policemen, criminals, and those who were simply generally suspicious.
That suspiciousness also argued against emptying the corridor where Krassner and the others were living by creating some emergency situation, for example a false fire alarm. Such a solution also went against the principle of discretion, which Waltin placed uppermost in his professional practice. Involve as few as possible, do as little as possible, and be seen as little as possible. Microsurgery, quite simply, he thought.
Friday evening was the right time for a home visit to Krassner. The students would as a rule be out partying if they didn’t have an exam or had decided to have a party in their own corridor. Friday evening, the twenty-second of November, thought Waltin after having looked at his calendar and consulted with little Jeanette. Then at least two of them would be going home to their parents, one would be at a party outside the building, and another two would receive free tickets to a pop concert that they themselves hadn’t been able to acquire. Jeanette would take care of the South African. Krassner himself was his problem. Forselius, thought Waltin. It really was high time for the surly old bastard to pull his weight. One thing remained-finding a sufficiently capable operative to carry out such an operation. It was then that he happened to think of Hedberg. Quite naturally, because Hedberg was the only person he really trusted.
CHAPTER IX
Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End
Albany, New York, in December
[SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8]
The room they were sitting in was large and light, with a fireplace and generously proportioned bay window, walls covered with books, a giant-sized sofa in front of the fireplace, large easy chairs with footrests. Quite obvious that it had been furnished by someone considerably older than Johansson’s hostess, and judging by her clothes by someone with considerably more conventional taste. Her parental home, thought Johansson. Educated, intellectual people with good finances.
She had offered him a cup of tea, and because Johansson didn’t want to unnecessarily complicate things that were inherently simple he had accepted, despite the fact that he would have preferred coffee.
“Although perhaps you’d rather have coffee,” she suggested as she served his tea in a large ceramic cup.
“Tea is just fine,” said Johansson politely.
The cups were hers, in any case, he thought. Although otherwise there wasn’t much that added up. If Krassner really was the scatterbrain that he had imagined, it agreed very poorly with the woman sitting in front of him: smiling, leaning slightly forward, palpably present and with curiosity shining from her big brown eyes. Hardly a deeply mourning ex-girlfriend for example, thought Johansson.