Assassin's Game

SEVEN

Inspector Arne Sanderson tried to be discreet as he eyed the man in the backseat of his unmarked car. He was intrigued by the American in the mirror.

For the last twenty-four hours Sanderson had run an ambitious investigation. The first hours of any inquiry were critical, the time when cases were broken, yet this particular quest had hit a wall. His overall assessment was one of disconnects. He had a double shooting, but no apparent motive. A doctor with a spotless background who’d been chased through the streets, and who was concerned enough about her safety to have leapt onto a moving boat. And the most troubling thing of all — of the five people involved, the only one he’d identified was the doctor, and she seemed more a victim than a suspect. They had found driver’s licenses and passports on the two men who’d been collected by ambulances at the scene. All were Turkish items and all patently forged. Yet it was quality work, or so Sanderson had been told — biometric chips, color-changing ink, fluorescent fibers — all certainly fashioned by the same artist. Drug smuggling was his first inclination, and that could still be the case. But there was a niggling doubt. A doubt further driven by the man seated behind him.

Driving fast and distracted by thoughts of his passenger, Sanderson missed the turn at the Kungsbron bridge. He made a hasty correction, and nearly ran down a pedestrian outside the Belgian embassy. Cursing silently, he eased off the accelerator. For thirty-five years Sanderson had watched policemen near the end of their careers, and he knew there were two distinct leanings. Most pulled back and coasted onto the off-ramp of retirement. They put checkmarks in boxes and answered phones when it suited them, showed up at the station a few minutes later each morning. When the halfhearted party finally came, with its backslapping and cake and embarrassing gifts, it was no more than a ripple, quickly lost in the ongoing storm of day-to-day operations. But there was a second path. Men and women who went out on less subdued terms, the results either noble or ruinous, but always spectacular.

Is that where I’m headed? he wondered.

Sanderson looked in the mirror again, but the man had somehow slipped from view. In what was becoming a recurring mental exercise, he challenged himself to recall details about Edmund Deadmarsh: a bricklayer from Virginia, calluses on his hands to prove it. What color were his eyes? Blue-gray, unusual. Too easy. What color were his shoes? Sanderson thought, but drew a blank. What color?

Brown, tan laces, well-worn. Boat shoes, but not a name brand, U.S. size eleven or twelve.

Yes, he thought, that’s it.

He pressed a bit harder on the gas, and took a policeman’s liberties against a newly red traffic light. He made it through the intersection unscathed, but with horns blaring behind him. Arne Sanderson grinned ever so slightly.

Minutes later Sanderson turned sharply into the parking lot of Saint Göran Hospital. On appearances a contemporary affair of burnt brick and glass, the facility was in fact one of the oldest in Sweden, with a pedigree dating back to the thirteenth century. As an institution, it had survived war, famine, and no fewer than eight hundred Nordic winters, which was more than could be said for the monarchies and governments that had overseen its administration.

Sanderson led inside, flashed his identification to a security guard, and entered the elevator with Deadmarsh and Sergeant Blix in trail. When the door closed, he sank the only button that would take them down.

Deadmarsh watched closely. “Why are we at a hospital?” he asked.

“The two victims of this shooting are here, but we haven’t been able to identify either. Both men were carrying false papers — very high-quality documents, in fact.” Sanderson saw no reaction to this as the elevator bottomed out. The door opened, and he noticed Deadmarsh eyeing a sign on the wall that said in Swedish, MORGUE. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought the American was reading it.

He said, “We’d like you to take a look at these men, see if you recognize either of them.”

“What makes you think I’d know who they are?” Deadmarsh asked.

“We know your wife had an acquaintance with one of them, so there must be some chance. How long have the two of you been married?”

“About six months.”

“Did you know each other long before that?”

“No, actually. Only a few months.”

“So you wouldn’t have a lot of mutual friends,” Sanderson suggested.

“Fewer than most couples.”

They arrived at a heavy metal door, and Sanderson sent Blix ahead. He turned and said, “All the same, I’d like you to have a look. But I must warn you, this is the morgue. Are you up to it?”

“If it will help find my wife — absolutely.”

Sanderson engaged his most somber smile. “Good. It always helps to have that kind of cooperation.”