The Nightmare

  She glances up at her mother but doesn’t dare meet her eyes. She waits for her mother’s tirade and accusations because she wasn’t able to protect Viola.

  Claudia has stopped and takes a slow look around.

  “Are they taking good care of you, Penny?” she asks.

  “I’m fine now.”

  “But they have to guard you.”

  “They are, so I’m safe here.”

  “That’s all that matters,” Claudia says in words almost beyond hearing.

  Penelope tries to swallow her tears.

  “There’s so much I have to take care of now,” her mother says, and turns her face away. “I … I just can’t realize that I have to arrange Viola’s funeral.”

  Penelope nods slowly. Her mother reaches out her hand to touch Penelope’s cheek, but Penelope startles back and her mother jerks her hand away.

  “They tell me that it will be over soon,” Penelope says. “The police think they’ll get that man … the man … who killed Viola and Björn.”

  Claudia nods and looks at her daughter with a face so naked and unprotected that Penelope is surprised to see her smile. “Just think, you are alive!” Claudia says thickly. “Just think, I have you again! It’s all that matters now … It’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Mamma.”

  “My little girl.”

  Claudia reaches out her hand again, and this time Penelope does not shy away.

  77

  the stakeout

  Jenny Göransson is in charge of the stakeout. She’s positioned in the bay window of an apartment three floors up on Nybrogatan 4A. She’s waiting. The hours pass. No one has reported anything. All seems quiet. Routinely, her eyes sweep in surveillance of the square and up to the roof of Sibyllegatan 27. Some pigeons startle and fly up and away.

  Sonny Jansson is positioned on that roof. He must have shifted and scared the birds.

  Jenny contacts him and finds out that he had moved to look into another apartment.

  “I thought they were in the middle of a fight, but then I realized they’re actually playing Wii and jumping around in front of the television.”

  “Return to your position,” Jenny says drily.

  She lifts her binoculars to peer at the dark area between the kiosk and the elm trees again. She’s decided it could be a potential hot spot.

  Blomberg calls in. He’s undercover as a jogger running down Sibyllegatan.

  “I see something in the cemetery,” he says in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “Someone is under the trees, about ten meters from the gate.”

  “Check it out, Blomberg, but be careful,” she says.

  He jogs past the horse stairs by the Military Museum’s gable and on into the cemetery. The night is warm and green. He moves silently onto the grass next to the gravel path and thinks that he’ll soon stop and pretend to stretch. Right now, he just keeps going. There’s a rustling among the leaves. The light left in the sky is blocked by branches and it’s dark between the gravestones. He is startled by seeing a face near the ground. A woman of about twenty. Her hair is stubby and dyed red and her green military backpack is lying next to her head. Blomberg begins to see more clearly as another person, a black-clad, laughing woman, pulls up the other woman’s sweater and begins kissing her breasts.

  Blomberg carefully moves away and reports back to Jenny Göransson: “False alarm. Lovers.”

  Three hours have passed. Blomberg shivers. It’s getting chilly. The dew is forming on the grass as the temperature drops. He rounds a corner and pulls up abruptly in front of a middle-aged woman with a well-worn face. She seems extremely drunk as she wobbles on her feet. She’s walking two poodles on a leash, jerking back angrily as the dogs eagerly sniff the ground and want to pull away.

  Near the edge of the cemetery, an airline attendant passes by. The wheels on her blue carry-on clatter against the asphalt. She gives Blomberg a disinterested glance and he hardly glances back although they’ve been colleagues for more than seven years.

  Maria Ristonen hears the sound of her own heels echo along the wall. She’s pulling her carry-on toward the entrance of the subway to check on someone almost hidden near the entrance. The carry-on gets stuck in a cobblestone and skitters sideways. She has to stop and as she bends down, she checks out the person in the shadows. He’s very well-dressed but he has an odd look on his face. He seems to be waiting for someone and he eyes her intently. Maria Ristonen’s heart begins to beat harder and she hears Jenny Göransson’s voice in her earpiece.

  “Blomberg has seen him, too, and he’s on the way,” Jenny says. “Wait for Blomberg, Maria. Wait for Blomberg.”

  Maria feels she can’t hesitate too long. The normal thing would be to walk along again. She tries to move more slowly and now she’s nearing the man with the odd look. She’ll have to walk past him and then her back would be to him. The man draws back farther in the shadows as she approaches. He has a hand inside his jacket. Maria Ristonen feels the adrenaline pump through her veins when the man suddenly steps toward her and pulls something out that he’s had hidden. Beyond the man’s shoulder, Maria sees Blomberg take a stance, weapon suddenly in his hand. Jenny shouts that it’s a false alarm. The man holds only a beer can.

  “Bitch!” The man spits beer toward her.

  “Oh God,” sighs Jenny in Maria’s earpiece. “Just keep on going to the subway, Maria.”

  The rest of the night passes without incident. The last nightclubs close and then only a few dog owners and aluminum-can collectors go by. Then the newspaper delivery people. Then more dog owners and a few joggers. Jenny Göransson can hardly wait for her relief at eight a.m. She gazes at Hedvig Eleonora Church and then at Penelope Fernandez’s blank window. She looks down at Storgatan and then back toward the priory, where the film director Ingmar Bergman grew up. She pulls out a stick of nicotine gum and studies the square, the park benches, the trees, and the sculptures of the hunched woman and the man with the slab of meat on his shoulder.

  There is a small movement near the high steel gate guarding Östermalms Saluhall. Gourmet food stalls have reinvigorated the interior of the huge redbrick building. Now the weak shine of glass in the entrance is briefly hidden by dark movement. Jenny Göransson calls Carl Schwirt. He’s on a park bench between the trees where the Folk Theater had once been. Two garbage bags of scavenged cans sit between his feet.

  “I don’t see a damn thing,” he replies.

  “Stay there.”

  Maybe, she thinks, maybe I should let Blomberg leave his spot next to the church and jog down Humlegårdsgatan to check this out.

  Jenny peers through her binoculars at the entrance again. She can now see the vague image of someone on his knees inside the black grille. An illegal taxi has driven the wrong way on Nybrogatan and swings around. Jenny watches the light from the car’s headlights slide along the redbrick wall of the Saluhall. The light flicks across the entrance, but now she sees nothing. The car stops and reverses.

  Idiot, she thinks as the taxi drives backward until one wheel goes up on the sidewalk.

  Then the headlights shine onto a display window farther along the street, and that window glass throws a reflection right into the entrance.

  There is someone behind the high fence.

  Jenny needs only a second to understand. The man is adjusting the scope on a rifle.

  She drops the binoculars and radios Central Control.

  “Alert! I see an armed man!” she almost shouts. “Military-grade rifle with scope, at the entrance to the Saluhall … I repeat! A sniper at ground level at the corner of Nybrogatan and Humlegårdsgatan!”

  The man at the entrance waits patiently behind the bars of the gate. He has been surveying the empty square for some time and waiting for a homeless collector of cans on the park bench to leave, but decided to ignore the homeless man when it appeared he was going to spend the night on the bench. Under the cover of darkness, he unfolds a tubular barrel with the
absorbing shoulder support for a Modular Sniper Rifle. With precision ammunition, the sand-colored semiautomatic rifle is accurate for distances of up to two kilometers. Calmly he mounts a titanium flash suppressor on the barrels, pushes in the magazine, and lowers the tripod in front.

  He had slipped inside the Saluhall just before it closed for the night. He’d hidden in a storage area until the cleaners had finished and the guards had left, and as soon as the place was locked and all the lights were off, he’d moved into the Saluhall itself.

  It took only a short time to disconnect the building’s alarm system from the inside. Then he was able to slip into the outer entrance, which was protected from the street by a large wrought-iron fence.

  He’d been protected from all sides in this deep entrance, like a little hunter’s hut, behind the fence. He has a clear view out but can’t be seen at all if he remains still. If anyone happens to come near the entrance, he can simply back away to disappear into the darkness.

  He aims his rifle at the building where Penelope Fernandez is located. He seeks her room using his electro-optic scope. He’s patient, slow, and systematic. He’s been waiting a long time. Soon it will be morning and before light comes, he’ll have to retreat, reactivate the building’s alarm system, and wait for tomorrow night. His instinct tells him that she will be drawn to the window to look out sometime, assuming the bulletproof glass will protect her.

  He adjusts the scope and then the headlights of a car pass over him. He turns away for a moment and then returns to his observation of the apartment at Storgatan 1. There is a heat signature behind the dark window. The image is blurry and vague, weakened by the distance and the bulletproof glass. A worse target than he had expected. He tries to get a fix on the center of this blurry outline. A pale rose shadow moves in the speckled violet, thins out, and then appears again.

  He is interrupted. Two figures have materialized from somewhere on the square, and they run directly at him, pistols out and close to their bodies.

  78

  östermalms saluhall

  Penelope wakes up early and sleep is gone. She lies in bed for a while, but then gets up and starts some water for tea. She thinks about the watch the police have on her and wonders how long they can afford to keep it up. Perhaps for only a few days. If police officers hadn’t been killed, they might not even have given her that. It would be too expensive.

  She takes the kettle of boiling water from the stove and pours water into the teapot. She drops in two bags of lemon tea, takes the pot with her to the dark living room, and puts the teapot and cup down by the window nook. She turns on the green glass lamp hanging there and looks down into the empty square.

  Two people pop up from nowhere and go running over the stone pavement. Then they fall flat and lie still. It looks odd, like a puppet show from up high. She quickly switches off the lamp. It sways from her jerky movement and bangs against the windowpane. She moves to one side and looks out again. A SWAT team is running along Nybrogatan and she sees a sudden pop of light in the entrance to the Saluhall. At the same moment, it sounds as if someone has thrown a wet rag at the window, which thumps as a bullet goes through the glass and into the wall behind her. She throws her body on the floor and crawls away. Glass splinters from the green lamp are all over the floor. She doesn’t notice that she’s cut her palms.

  ———

  Stewe Billgren had always had a very quiet job at CID. However, right now he’s in the passenger seat next to his boss, Mira Carlsson. They’re in Alpha Car, an unmarked car slowly proceeding up Humlegårdsgatan. Stewe Billgren has never found himself in an active position, though he’s wondered many times how he might handle it. This situation was beginning to wear on his mind, especially since the woman he was living with had come out of the bathroom with her pregnancy test and triumphantly shown him the results.

  Stewe Billgren’s entire body aches from playing in a soccer game yesterday, and experience has taught him the pain will only get worse over the course of the day.

  Shots snap out somewhere. Mira has just enough time to glance out the window and ask, “What the hell was that?”

  A voice over the radio yells that two officers are down, shot, and lying in the middle of Östermalm Square. Group 5 is ordered in from Humlegårdsgatan.

  “We’ve got him!” Säpo’s chief of operations shouts. “There are only four doors to the Saluhall and—”

  “You’re sure?” Jenny Göransson’s voice demands.

  “Nybrogatan entrance, one in the corner, and two on Humlegårdsgatan.”

  “Get more people there!” the chief of Central Control is yelling to someone.

  “We’re trying to get a layout of the Saluhall.”

  “Move Groups 1 and 2 to the front door,” someone else yells. “Group 2, go in, Group 1, secure the entrance!”

  “Go! Go! Go!”

  “Group 3 to the side entrance and support Group 4,” Jenny says. Her voice sounds focused. “Group 5 already has orders to go inside. Alpha Car! Come in now!”

  Ragnar Brolin, chief of Central Control, calls Alpha Car. Stewe Billgren glances nervously at Mira Carlsson as he picks up the call. Brolin’s voice is tense as he orders them to drive to Majorsgatan and await further orders. He swiftly explains that the area of operation has expanded and that they will probably have to provide fire support to Group 5.

  The radio repeats again that the situation is critical and that the suspect is now inside the Saluhall.

  “Damn,” Stewe whispers. “I shouldn’t be here … I’m an idiot!”

  “Calm down,” Mira says.

  “I just found out my girlfriend is pregnant. I just found out last week. I’m going to be a father!”

  “Congratulations.”

  He can feel himself breathing more quickly. He bites the side of his thumbnail and stares straight ahead. Through the windshield, Mira watches three heavily armed police officers rush from Östermalm Square down Humlegårdsgatan. Two of them click off the safeties from their laser-scoped automatic guns and head inside the building. The third runs to the other side door to force open the wrought iron fence.

  Stewe Billgren stops chewing his thumbnail and feels the blood drain from his face as Chief Brolin calls their car again: “Alpha, come in!”

  “Answer,” Mira commands Stewe.

  “Alpha, Alpha Car!” yells the chief impatiently. “Come in!”

  “Alpha Car here,” Stewe answers unwillingly.

  “We can’t wait any longer for more people.” Brolin is almost screaming. “We’re going in now. You have to back up Group 5. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Stewe replies, and feels his heart pound.

  “Check your weapon,” Mira says tersely.

  As if in a slow-moving dream, Stewe takes out his service pistol, opens the magazine, and checks his ammunition.

  “Why do we—”

  “We’re going in there!” Mira says.

  Stewe shakes his head and mumbles, “He’s killing police like flies—”

  “Now!”

  “I’m going to be a father and I … perhaps I should—”

  “I’ll go in,” Mira says. “Use the car as a shield. Watch the door. Keep in radio contact at all times and be ready if he comes!”

  Mira clicks off the safety on her Glock and climbs out of the car without looking back at Stewe. She runs to the closest door through the broken fence, pokes her head in and back for the briefest of looks. The officer from Group 5 waits in the stairwell for her. Mira takes a deep breath, feeling fear pour through her body, and then steps through the narrow door. It’s dark. There’s a slight smell of garbage from the storage area on the first floor. Her colleague meets her look and motions for her to follow and secure the line to the right. He waits a few seconds and gives her the sign for the countdown: three, two, one. He turns into the Saluhall and runs through the door to crouch behind the counter in front of him. Mira follows and concentrates to catch any movement from the right. Her partner presses agains
t the counter, which holds wheels of cheese the size of car tires. He’s murmuring into his radio. The little pinpoint light from his scope dances on the floor in front of his feet. Mira moves up to his right and peers around. The gray light of morning filters down from the glass ceiling twenty meters above her head. She raises her Glock. The room is full of shining stainless steel surfaces. She sees a large air-dried ox fillet. Something wavers among the reflections. She intuits a narrow figure with shining wings. An angel of death, she thinks in the split second before the dark Saluhall is lit by the muzzle fire of a silenced automatic rifle.

  Stewe Billgren huddles behind his armored, unmarked car. He’s pulled out his SIG Sauer and it’s resting on the hood as he lets his gaze sweep rapidly back and forth between the two entrances to the Saluhall. Sirens are screaming nearer from all directions. There is the small nattering sound of a pistol from behind the wall. Stewe jumps. He prays to God that he’ll be safe and wishes with all his heart that he could just run away and quit being a policeman.

  79

  when it all goes down

  In his apartment on Wallingatan, Joona Linna wakes up. He opens his eyes and looks outside at the light early summer sky through his open curtains. He never closes them, preferring natural light.

  It’s early in the morning.

  Just as he turns over to fall back to sleep, his phone rings.

  He knows what’s happening before he sits up to answer. He listens to the excited voice telling him the latest developments in the operation while he opens his safe and takes out his Smith & Wesson. The suspect is in Östermalms Saluhall and the police have just stormed the building with no strategy at all.

  It’s been six minutes since the alarm was sounded and the suspect retreated toward the center area of the building. The leader of the operation is now trying to close off the surrounding area while still continuing to guard Penelope Fernandez.