Hultin looked cool. Cool under fire.
‘You’re hardly alone now,’ he said. ‘Mörner’s released the entire thing to the press. Since he doesn’t get more than about one per cent of any of this, he didn’t give them much. But what he did give them were the four named incidents: “the Kumla Bombing”, one dead; “the Sickla Slaughter”, five dead, one injured; “the Skövde Shooting”, two dead, two injured; “the Hornstull Hit”, three dead, one injured. It’s starting to resemble a battlefield. We’re up to eleven dead now and since we know that papers like Svenska Dagbladet are fond of counting bodies, we should try to pause.
‘We’ve been lying low with Nedic, with the “policeman”, with Orpheus and Eurydice, and with the threat against the Police Games. The press is trying its best to put the pieces together, and the result is slowly becoming quite amusing, if you have that kind of gallows humour. Which we don’t. Anyway, Niklas Lindberg’s name and face are now on every front page in Sweden. That should limit his room for manoeuvre a bit. You’ve got access to every policeman or woman in the force. Put a baton in the hand of the National Commissioner and he’ll wave it. The power’s in your hands.’
‘Or maybe in yours,’ said Söderstedt.
Hultin ignored him completely.
‘The power’s in your hands,’ he repeated. ‘Use it well. The following work schedule applies. Paul and Jorge will work on the interrogation again. Press all the buttons you can find. Hit below the belt. Arto and Viggo, you’ll take care of the international material on Petrovic. Look for possible areas for blackmaiclass="underline" parents, siblings, anything.’
Hultin opened his mouth to continue. There was nothing left to say. There was no one left.
Though not quite.
‘I can help with Lindberg’s acquaintances,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘If we’re tearing down the walls.’
Another glance at Jorge.
‘OK,’ said Hultin neutrally. ‘You and I will work on his acquaintances. We must be able to find something.’
Jorge stood up. He looked profoundly serious. The weight of the seriousness of the moment.
‘This thing with tearing down walls,’ he said, as though beginning a speech. ‘If Sara and I hadn’t built those walls between us, the case could’ve been solved more quickly. We would’ve had the “policeman” more quickly, we would’ve had Nedic more quickly and, not least, Sara would’ve been able to catch Lindberg in the stairwell at Hornsgatan 131. In a way, I’m glad she didn’t. He wouldn’t have given himself up willingly. And then my future wife would’ve been in mortal danger.’
They looked at one another. A vacuum grew in the Supreme Command Centre. Time, working overtime, took a break. Burdens were lifted from shoulders. But only for a moment.
During that moment, Jorge Chavez said: ‘No more walls, Sara. Never again. I’m asking you in front of the people I’m closest to: will you marry me?’
Sara Svenhagen smiled faintly. ‘If we get Niklas Lindberg,’ she said.
They met in a kiss on Hultin’s desk.
He didn’t mind.
46
NIGHT. A DESERTED garage somewhere in Stockholm. A waiting car. A shadow slipping into it.
A faint light fell onto the driver of the car. Stone-faced. He didn’t turn round. Still, he saw.
‘You can take that off,’ he said in English.
Niklas Lindberg took his gold-coloured balaclava off. He was holding a carrier bag in his hand.
‘Is that the money?’ the man asked with a certain disgust. ‘How could you lose millions? That’s not a good sign.’
‘Sorry,’ said Lindberg. ‘There’s nine hundred and twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and seventy kronor.’
The man took the bag, weighing it in his hand.
‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to do a better job than this in future. Otherwise we’ve got no use for you. And Petrovic is stuck.’
‘Stuck?’
‘The police are interrogating him flat out. Detective Inspectors Hjelm and Chavez. Do you know them?’
‘Wog? No.’
‘They’ve uncovered your entire plan. It doesn’t look good. If they find a link to us, we won’t be happy.’
‘Risto’ll keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘What about Kullberg?’
‘Him too. It’s OK.’
The man leaned his head back slightly. Six months seemed to pass before he said: ‘It’s OK? You’re leaving tracks behind you and saying it’s OK? I’m telling you: it’s not OK. Do you understand?’
‘They won’t talk, I promise. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Let’s change the subject. Were you happy with the test samples?’
‘Very. Has the explosive been put in place?’
‘It’s where it should be. The flag is in place.’
‘The flag? We talked about a corner post, didn’t we?’
‘Change of plan. The conditions are different now. The police are on high alert. We couldn’t risk anything with the sniffer dogs. All our tests have shown that dogs don’t react to the substance, but we’ve got to be one hundred per cent sure.’
‘Which flag?’
The man with the stony face laughed. Briefly. It passed. He said: ‘The substance is in the flag that’s going to be carried in with the procession. The Swedish flag. It seemed appropriate, somehow.’
‘So we’ll really be flying the flag, then,’ said Niklas Lindberg, laughing.
The man gave him an icy look, and he fell silent.
The man handed him an envelope. He opened it and took out a key, a scrap of paper and a flat little black box with a red button on it. It looked like a miniature calculator.
‘The key for the door,’ said the man. ‘On the paper, you’ve got the new entrance code; they changed it yesterday. You know what to do with the detonator. Why did you blow Nedic’s tongue out?’
‘An old promise,’ said Niklas Lindberg, thrusting the three items into his pocket and opening the car door.
The man placed a hand on his arm.
‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘There’s a chance they’ll cancel the opening ceremony. If that happens, we’ll never see one another again. And I mean never. Is that clear?’
‘That’s fine,’ said Niklas Lindberg with emphasis. ‘I’m not planning on letting you down. I’ve been an admirer of yours since Palme, February ’86.’
‘You can’t have been very old then,’ said the man, releasing his grip.
Lindberg transformed into a shadow, becoming one with the darkness.
For a brief moment, the man with the stony face allowed himself to think about February 1986. It was worthy of a certain admiration. They had managed to change a country. An invisible coup.
A bomb had detonated under the Swedish flag.
It was time to do it again.
Enough nostalgia. The man with the stony face started the car and drove away.
Far away.
47
‘IT’S NOT GOING to be cancelled,’ said Gunnar Nyberg, leaning back.
They were sitting under the glow of paraffin lamps and candles in the old nineteenth-century Uppland cottage. In front of them were the modern laptop computers, connected to the Internet and the central police computer via mobile phones.