“Then what happened?”
“He threw the shotgun on the sofa in there and grabbed the car keys. I tried to stop him, but he shoved me aside and ran out.”
“What time was it?”
“I don’t know. My wife was screaming at the top of the stairs and I had to take care of her. But it was probably a quarter to nine.”
Wallander looked at the time. It was now about an hour later. Robert Modin had sent out his e-mail asking for help and then he had left.
Wallander stood up.
“Did you see what he direction he was taking?”
“He went north.”
“One other thing. Did you see anyone when you went out to get the paper? Or when you fed the chickens?”
“Who would I have seen? And in this weather?”
“There may have been a car parked somewhere. Or someone who drove past.”
“There was no one here.”
Wallander nodded to Martinsson.
“We have to look at his room,” Wallander said.
Axel Modin had buried his face in his hands.
“Can someone explain to me what’s going on?”
“Not right now,” Wallander said. “But we’re going to try to find your son.”
“He was frightened,” Axel Modin said softly. “I had never seen him so frightened. He was as frightened as his mother sometimes gets.”
Martinsson and Wallander walked upstairs. Martinsson pointed to a shotgun that was leaning against the railing. The flickering screens of two monitors greeted them in Robert’s room. There were clothes all over the floor, and the wastepaper basket next to the desk was overflowing.
“What happened shortly before nine this morning?” Wallander asked. “Something scared him, he sent us the e-mail and then ran. He was desperate, literally afraid for his life. He wanted to use the shotgun for protection. He looked out the window and then took the car.”
Martinsson pointed to the cell phone that was lying right between the two computers.
“He may have received a call,” he said. “Or else he could have made a call and heard something that frightened him. It’s too bad he didn’t take the phone with him when he left.”
Wallander pointed to the computers.
“If he sent us a message, he may also very well have received one. He told us that someone had traced him and that he needed our help.”
“But he didn’t wait for us.”
“Either something else happened after he wrote to us, or else he didn’t want to wait any longer.”
Martinsson sat down at the desk.
“We’ll leave this one for now,” he said pointing to the smaller of the two computers.
Wallander didn’t ask how Martinsson could determine which of the two was more important. Right now he was dependent on his knowledge. It was an unusual situation for Wallander. For once one of his colleagues knew more than he did.
While Martinsson started typing on the keyboard, Wallander looked around the room. The rain was whipping against the window. On one wall there was a large poster with a carrot on it. It was the only thing that stood out in a room devoted to the electronic sphere. There were computer books, diskettes, and cables. Some of the computer cords were wrapped around each other like a nest of vipers. There were a modem, a printer, a TV, and two VCRs. Wallander walked over to Martinsson and bent his knees. What could Robert have seen through his window as he was sitting at the desk? There was a road far away in the distance. He could have seen a car, Wallander thought. He looked around the room again, lifting things carefully, until he found a pair of binoculars under a pile of papers. He directed them at the window and looked. A raven flew past and Wallander flinched involuntarily. Otherwise there was nothing. A fence that was falling down, some trees, and a small road that snaked through the fields.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
Martinsson mumbled something incoherent. Wallander put on his glasses and looked at the pieces of paper that lay closest to the computers. Robert Modin’s handwriting was hard to read. There were some half-finished equations and phrases, without beginning or end. The word “delay” occurred several times. Sometimes it was underlined, other times it appeared with a question mark beside it. Wallander kept looking. On another page Robert had written “completion date of programming?” and then two additonal words: “insider necessary?” A lot of question marks, Wallander thought. He’s been searching for answers, just as we have.
“Here,” Martinsson said suddenly. “He got some e-mail. Then he sent his message to us.”
Wallander leaned in and read the message.
YOU HAVE BEEN TRACED.
Nothing else. Only those four words.
“Is there anything else?” Wallander asked.
“There have been no messages since then.”
“Who sent the letter?”
Martinsson pointed at the screen.
“The person’s identity is hidden behind all these scrambled codes. This is someone who didn’t want to say who he was.”
“But where did it come from?”
“The name of the server is ‘Vesuvius,”’ Martinsson said. “We can certainly have it traced, but it may take a while.”
“You don’t think it’s here in Sweden?”
“I doubt it.”
“Vesuvius is a volcano in Italy,” Wallander mused. “Can that be where it came from? What happens if we return the message?”
“I’m not sure. We can try.”
Martinsson prepared a return message.
“What do you want the text to say?”
Wallander thought about it.
“ ‘Please repeat your message,”’ he said. “Try that.”
Martinsson nodded approvingly and wrote the message in English.
“Should I sign it ‘Robert Modin’?”
“Yes.”
Martinsson hit SEND, and the text vanished into cyberspace. Then a message came up on the screen saying that the address was unknown.
“You’ll have to tell me what you want me to do next,” Martinsson said. “What should I look for, do you think? Where ‘Vesuvius’ is, or something else?”
“Send a message to someone over the Internet asking about this server,” Wallander said. “Ask if anyone knows where to find it.”
But then he changed his mind.
“Put the question this way. Is the server ‘Vesuvius’ located in Angola?”
Martinsson was taken aback.
“Are you still thinking about that postcard from Luanda?”
“No, I think the postcard is incidental. But I think Falk met someone in Luanda a number of years ago and that it was a turning point in his life. I don’t know what happened there, but I’m sure it’s important. Crucial, in fact.”
Martinsson looked hard at him.
“Sometimes I think you put too much stock in your intuition, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.”
Wallander had to control himself in order not to fly off the handle. His rage at Martinsson boiled up inside him. But he took a deep breath. They had to focus on Robert Modin. But Wallander did file away what Martinsson had said, word for word. He could have a long memory, as Martinsson was going to learn firsthand.
But for now, he had an idea he wanted to try out.
“While Robert was working for us, he often consulted with a couple of friends on line,” Wallander said. “One in California and one in Rättvik. Did you ever make a note of their e-mail addresses?”
“I wrote everything down,” Martinsson said in a hurt voice. Wallander assumed he was upset because he hadn’t thought of it himself.
Wallander cheered up.