Trans fats. Sodium. All the components of a traditional diet. They’re trying to legislate, to politicize our diet. Herald loud the death of traditional Swedish food.
Toll the bells for Swedish tradition, period.
Making this current job all the more pressing, all the more essential.
Stockholm. Sure, it’s been a cesspool as long as I can recall, but today? Hardly recognize it. Dark skin everywhere you turn. Dark eyes. I saw the blackest imaginable African and a full-blooded Swede, as white as purest snow, traipsing down fucking Kungsgatan, hand in fucking hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and we are supposed to simply accept the fact of them. It was all I could do to not vomit.
Sushi and Korean “BBQ” — in the same fucking joint.
All the expected American fast-food garbage.
Fucking mosques!
“So varsågod...” The immigrant materializes again.
I’ve worn a Hugo Boss suit I bought at the airport in Frankfurt, faintly patterned white shirt, prissy Germanic metal-framed glasses — the northern European business uniform that makes you absolutely impossible to describe to the cops. He had a blue suit... loafers... a checked shirt... You see? Useless.
The darkie girl drifts away. I glance toward the blonde, who is watching a wall-mounted TV, arms folded. Fucking hell, at least she could pay attention, I’m nearly the only motherfucker in this place.
“And I’ll go ahead and settle up, please.” I don’t know if anyone hears me.
Here’s the situation.
The target is a female, middle-aged.
The target is with a friend, a female civilian, also middle-aged and quite well off.
They’re having a lovely day, two cows getting older, shopping, Fika, etc.
Over the last several months we have observed three other such jaunts, and they generally follow the same pattern — the ladies meet up, work their way to Stureplan by taxi or car, and if the hour is right they lunch at the Oyster Bar.
After this the pair tends to stroll down Biblioteksgatan to Norrmalmstorg (where I am currently situated), where they will visit the Acne, Marimekko, Filippa K, and the Noa Noa stores before proceeding east down Hamngatan to the NK.
And this is where we will take her.
The hope is that they will not go to the outsized Åhlens, which they have been noted to do on one occasion, as the operation would prove much more difficult in that environment. Too many people, very close quarters, less space to work.
The significance of the date, September 10... it’s the most ridiculous thing, but if you can believe it, the client is convinced this will somehow act as a misdirect and point toward Islamists. Incredibly sophomoric, like an unimaginative spy novel, but nonetheless. The client gets what the client wants, within reason, and any day is as good as the next.
More to the point is that this evening, apparently, there is some sort of debate regarding the adoption of the euro, which the bitch supports of course, so eager to join the “Union” is she that all other concerns are swept aside.
Not a political animal, no way. But Swedish money should stay in Sweden. Not to support these fucking aliens (another matter entirely) with their babushkas and hordes of filthy children, but just on principle.
The Norwegians have the right idea with all that oil money. Keep it close. Spend it to make your country great. How can anyone refute this logic?
The client: politician too. Boringly. Perhaps the most unengaging, least charismatic man one can imagine. From our one brief, furtive meeting I can recall his stale breath, his dandruff, cheap suit, his compulsive jiggling of the knee. His stiff, high-pitched speech. Just useless. Muttering about deniability, this being most important did I understand that there must be no direct communication, that discretion is paramount, that he knows no details, droning on and on, as if this were my first rodeo. I had to bite my tongue. The very fucking nerve. Talking to me like I’m new to this.
Somehow this man, I’ll call him Johan, believes he is the true successor to the throne. Old friend of fat-fuck Goran. Been waiting in the wings for a decade and figures it’s his turn, and the only barrier between prime ministership and yet more years on the periphery is this bitch who has inexplicably and rather swiftly positioned herself as the next choice for the goddamn Social Democrats... It’s become, apparently, an obsession. His drug problem certainly hasn’t helped him think straight. And his taste for underage hookers (which I am not ashamed to say I helped provide, it’s sort of something we do on the side, so many eager boys and girls from Latvia, Estonia... what they’ll do for a passport and the promise of a shit job, say, in this shit café I now find myself in, who am I to deny them this life?), well, this information gives me leverage and a bit of control, and the client knows it.
The rub, and I chuckle now thinking about it as I grind out my smoke, the upshot though... there’s not a chance in hell the client could win any election. Not a chance in hell. He’s like a flat cardboard cutout, stiff, awkward, and barely there. He doesn’t have the stuff.
If he had the stuff, he’d do it himself. I’d walk him through it. Throttle the bitch on the floor of Parliament.
But his lack of political future is beautiful. Cos it opens up the field for the true Swedes, friends in the Christian Democrats and the Farmers Party... citizens with the correct ideas, those who will carry us into the future and away from the failure that is Europe. The dirge that has been the Social Democrat era, seemingly endless, will come to an abrupt (and most welcome) halt. The time is now, you can smell it, you can taste it, ripe fruit.
Enough politics. I’ve got a focused pain behind my eye, no doubt brought on by all this political tripe... I take three Alvedon, down the capsules with the last sip of coffee, now cold.
Waiting on the word from Carl-Erik via the radio in my ear. The client wants it nasty. Fair enough... I can accommodate such requests.
“You’re on. No escort,” says Carl-Erik in my earpiece. Meaning the ladies are headed my direction.
And without protection. Naturally.
These arrogant, smug, stupid fucking “civil servants.” One would have thought after Palme it would be a given that SAPO would step it up, but no, that lesson has been completely lost on these fools. They just wander about like drooling geriatrics. The arrogance. That’s what it is, arrogance. Inflexibility. Safe little Sweden.
I rotate slightly on the raised chair. Your usual Saturday crowd, maybe a bit less foot traffic than usual. Get a visual on the ladies easily. The matching glasses, squat little things. They come to a stop before the Filippa K window, consult each other, then wander inside.
Consider next moves. “Get someone in there,” I murmur into my lapel. It’d be ridiculous to lose her.
The decoy is positioned at the southernmost edge of the square on Hamngatan, and will ultimately drift up to NK should they wind up there. He’s not on radio but knows what to do if I indicate I have lost visual.
I need to get out there.
Did I not ask this sand nigger for my check? Don’t want to be ducking out on the bill, they’d remember that.
Of course she’s disappeared, the Kurd, and the blonde remains immersed in the television, an American rap “artist” hopping around like a crazed monkey.
As gently as possible, I try to flag her. For Christ’s sake, the place is empty.