Bad Blood

28

“Brilliant plan,” Jan-Olov Hultin said sternly.

“Well, it worked,” said Gunnar Nyberg, grimacing. Three fingers on his right hand were broken. The cast had hardly had time to dry.

Nyberg had dragged Mayer into his office and called Hultin. They decided to keep the media at bay so as not to limit the space they had to work in. Together they came up with a strategy. Hjelm, saying he needed to get hold of his colleague Nyberg, had gotten into LinkCoop and followed one of the dance-happy twins through the corridor. Together the somewhat injured duo had located a handy back door, out of which they moved Mayer. While Hjelm stood guard, Nyberg walked coolly back through the corridor and left the premises in due order; his smile at the twin receptionists had been a bit forced. He drove his car around to the back of the building, and he and Hjelm loaded Mayer into the trunk. Then Hjelm, too, left LinkCoop via the reception area. The twin receptionists were indeed sparklingly lovely.

For a while they worried that Nyberg had actually killed Mayer, which might not have been legally justifiable. But the man was a professional even in that respect. In the small, sterile, and nearly secret cell in the basement at police headquarters, he came to after half an hour. No one else actually knew he was there; Hultin had chosen to keep an extremely low profile, even internally. The staff doctor confirmed a concussion as well as a cracked jaw and cheekbone. In other words, no broken jaw-Mayer could speak. But he didn’t.

Hultin made the first attempt. Hjelm sat on a chair behind him and to the side, while Viggo Norlander and Jorge Chavez sat by the door. Along the other wall were Arto Söderstedt and Kerstin Holm. The whole gang. No one wanted to miss this-except for Gunnar Nyberg. He bowed out.

“My name is Chief Inspector Jan-Olov Hultin,” Hultin said politely. “Perhaps you’ve seen my name in the papers. They’re demanding my head on a platter.”

Robert Mayer sat, bound to a fixed table with handcuffs, and regarded him neutrally. A competitor, thought Hultin.

“Wayne Jennings,” he said. “Or should I say the Kentucky Killer? Or perhaps K?”

The same icy gaze. And the same silence.

“So far no one seems to be missing you at LinkCoop, and we’ve arranged it so that the press doesn’t get wind of the story. As soon as your name comes out in the papers, things will be a bit different, you see. Not even your superiors at LinkCoop know you’re here. So tell us what’s going on.”

Wayne Jennings’s icy gaze was truly unsettling. It seemed to nail you down. You felt like you were in the crosshairs of a telescopic sight.

“Come on, now. What are you up to? Who do you work for?”

“I have the right to make a phone call.”

“In Sweden we have a number of controversial terrorist laws that I personally dislike, but they are actually quite useful in situations like these. In other words, you do not have the right to make a phone call.”

Jennings said nothing more.

“Benny Lundberg,” said Hultin. “What did he have in his safe-deposit box?”

No answer was forthcoming.

He held up a drawing of Jennings with a beard. “Why a beard?”

Nothing, not a movement.

“May I suggest a scenario?” Hjelm said from his corner. “My name is Paul Hjelm, by the way. We have an acquaintance in common. Ray Larner.”

Jennings’s head turned an inch to the side, and for the first time Paul Hjelm met Wayne Jennings’s eyes. He understood how the Vietcong must have felt in the jungles of Vietnam. And how Eric Lindberger must have felt. And Benny Lundberg. And tens of other people who had met their death with these eyes as their last point of human contact.

“The night of September twelfth was tough for you,” Hjelm began. “Several unexpected things happened. You had Eric Lindberger, a civil servant with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with you in your private torture chamber in Frihamnen. Incidentally, it’s very similar to the one under your farm in Kentucky. Did you bring along your personal architect?”

Jennings’s eyes might have narrowed a little. Possibly they took on a new sharpness.

“We’ll come back to Lindberger, because that’s the whole point in continuing this case. Anyway, you make sure that he loses consciousness, and you fasten him into the chair. Maybe you have time to start the procedure. You drive your pincers into Lindberger’s neck with surgical precision. Then suddenly the empty boxes fall down. A young man is crouching behind the boxes. You take him out immediately. Bang bang bang bang, four shots to the heart. But who the hell is he? Are the police on your trail? Already? How is it possible?

“He has no ID, none at all. You search his bag. You find-a set of vocal cord pincers and a set of nerve pincers. Maybe you even recognize your own tools. What was this? Did you know who he was even then, or did you think he was a competitor? An admirer? A copycat? We’ll get back to that.

“You finish torturing Lindberger and are forced to get away from there with two corpses instead of one, and what’s more, you’re surprised by a busload of drunken lawyers, so you have to leave the strange man behind. You’re certain that the busload has called the police and reported your license plate number, so you have to hurry. You drive out to Lidingö and dump Lindberger in the reeds.

“At the same time, you know that the police are going to show up and search the warehouses and find your torture chamber. This means that you have to redirect their attention. There’s only one thing to do. Benny Lundberg. In your capacity as chief of security, you call the sentry box and order him to fake a break-in at one of the other storage units. You promise him money and vacation. Sure enough, the police go to the place where Benny’s fake break-in has occurred and are satisfied. The corpse can be assumed to be left over from the break-in. Everything ought to be just fine.

“But Benny Lundberg has other plans. He tries to extort money from you. He has hidden a letter in some unknown place, in which he’s written in detail about the night’s events, as life insurance. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know that your specialty is getting people to talk. You get him to do just this, right before two police officers arrive on the scene. You injure the officers, but you don’t kill them. One of them gets a bit angry and knocks you out. And now you’re here.”

Jennings’s gaze was fixed throughout the account. Wheels were turning behind the cold blue eyes. His face swelled and colored; it didn’t seem to concern him.

“So there are two basic questions,” Hjelm continued. “One, what was Eric Lindberger expected to reveal? And two, do you know who you shot and killed?”

Pause. Nothing. Nothing at all.

“The second one is a trick question,” Hjelm continued. “Because it was the Kentucky Killer.”

The icy eyes narrowed. Or Hjelm thought they narrowed. Perhaps it was an illusion.

“You know, of course, that there has been a copycat running riot in New York for a year. Someone got hold of your old pincers and went out on the town. You’ve also read in the Swedish media that he’s come to Sweden; no one can have missed that. He was twenty-five years old, and he was out to get you. You shot him in cold blood. Do you know who he was?”

Jennings held him with his gaze. Was there a trace of curiosity in there? Had he really not guessed?

“You’re not going to like it,” said Hjelm. “His name was Lamar Jennings.”

Wayne Jennings leaned backward four inches. It was a lot in a situation like this. The icy gaze wavered, then flew up toward the ceiling. And then it returned. Steady as a rock.

“No,” he said. “You’re lying.”

“Think about it. What happened to your pincers after you fooled Larner and went underground? You left them behind in the cellar. A striking blunder. If you were going to keep killing and put Larner away, you needed them. They had to be identical, so they would leave identical marks and prove that K was still alive. Without them, you had to manufacture new ones and make sure they were identical, with the same scratches and idiosyncrasies. That must have been pretty tricky.”

Jennings stared at the wall.

“Your son surprised you one night down in the torture chamber in Kentucky. It was the culmination of several years of abuse. Why the hell did you do that to him? A child? Don’t you understand what you created? A monster. He copied you. He came here to give you a taste of your own medicine, and you shot him like a dog. Bad blood always comes back around.”

“It’s ‘what goes around comes around,’ ” said Jennings.

“Well, now it’s ‘Bad blood always comes back around.’ You’ve changed a proverb.”

“Was it really Lamar?”

“Yes. I’ve read his diary. Hellish stuff, just hellish. You murdered him twice. What did you do to him when he startled you down in the cellar? A ten-year-old, for Christ’s sake! What did you do to him?”

“Hit him, of course,” Wayne Jennings said tonelessly.

He closed his eyes. There was an enormous amount of activity behind his eyelids.

When they finally opened, it was as though his eyes belonged to someone else, both more single-minded and more resigned.

“I was war weary,” he said. “You can’t imagine what that’s like-in this country you haven’t had to fight a war for two hundred years. He was a reminder of what I’d once been, just a regular weakling. He got on my nerves. I only burned him a little, with cigarettes. He became my outlet. I wasn’t that much different from my own father.”

“Tell us,” said Hjelm.

Jennings leaned forward. He had made a decision. “You were right not to let this get out to the public. It would have been devastating. I’m the good guy. You don’t believe it, but I’m actually on the right side. The uglier parts of the right side. I’m distasteful but necessary. It was all about getting enemies to talk.”

“In what way was Eric Lindberger an enemy?”

Jennings fixed his eyes on Hjelm’s. “Wait on that. I have to think about the consequences.”

“Okay. How did all this start?”

Jennings braced himself and began.

“I don’t know if you can understand what patriotism is. I went to war to escape from my father. I was seventeen. Poor white southern trash. I was a child who killed other children. I noticed that I had a talent for killing. Others realized it, too. I quickly rose through the ranks. And then suddenly I’m called to Washington and I’m standing eye to eye with the president, at just a little over twenty years old. I’m going to be in charge of an extremely secret special task force in Vietnam, one that will be directly below the president. Civilians train me to use a new secret weapon. I become an expert. Then I train the others in the group. I’m the only one who has contact with the civilians. The whole time it’s just me-I don’t know who they are. After the war, all they say is ‘Keep yourself available’ and pay my salary. It’s extremely strange. I’m completely destroyed when I come back. I can’t get close to my wife. I badger my son. Then they suddenly contact me. They emerge.”

“CIA?” said Hultin.

Hjelm widened his eyes in surprise.

Jennings shook his head. “We’ll hold off on that,” he said. “In any case, I suddenly realized what was expected of me. At this point, in the late seventies, the Cold War was moving into a new phase-I can’t go into it in detail, but it was truly war. There was an immediate threat-they needed information, lots of information. The same thing was happening on the other side. One by one I picked up the agents who were under surveillance. Professional spies and traitors alike. Academics who sold state secrets. Soviet agents. KGB. I got an incredible amount of vital information out of them.

“Someone got the brilliant idea that it would be handy if it looked like the work of a madman, I don’t know who, so I had to play serial killer, even if it meant I got caught. And that’s how I got Larner on my case. You have no idea how hard that man worked to find out about Commando Cool. He was a threat to national security.

“On the political front, the Cold War started to calm down. Brezhnev died, the Soviet Union was on its way to dissolution, and other enemies were emerging. I would be more useful in some border state between east and west, where the trade exchange of the future would take place, and in my escape I would bring down Larner, make a laughingstock of him.”

“So it was time to escape. Your teeth and someone’s remains were in the car.”

“It took weeks of preparation. A lot of night work out there in the wilderness. Colleagues who were ready to go at any time. Rigged equipment. A perfect set of teeth. A disguised Soviet agent whose teeth had been extracted. A concealed hole in the ground that I could roll into, along with some colleagues, and stay for a day or two. Everything is possible; the impossible takes a bit longer.”

Hjelm, satisfied, still had to ask, “What kind of ideal are you working toward? What does the life that you’re defending with all this violence look like?”

“Like yours,” said Wayne Jennings without hesitation. “Not like mine, like yours. I have no life. I died in Vietnam. Do you believe that you live this freely and with this much privilege at no cost? Do you believe that Sweden is alliance-free and neutral?”

He paused and looked at the wall, then moved his gaze toward Norlander. He met eyes filled with hate. It was hardly the first time. He ignored it.

“Where is Gunnar Nyberg?” he asked.

“Taking care of his broken hand. Why?”

“No one has ever taken me out before. And no one has ever fooled me like that. I thought he was an idiot.”

“He identifies with Benny Lundberg. He sat with him as he was going through the worst of his suffering. His warmth saved Benny’s life. Is that something you can understand?”

“Warmth saves more than cold. Unfortunately, cold is also necessary. Otherwise we would have an eternally cold earth.”

“Is that what the Lindberger story is about-eternal cold? Nuclear weapons? Chemical or biological ones? Or is it LinkCoop? Computers, or control devices for nuclear weapons? Saudi Arabia?”

He smiled inwardly. Maybe he was even a little impressed by the Swedish police-and by Paul Hjelm. “I’m still thinking about it. I could ask you to contact a certain authority, but I don’t know. There are risks.”

“Are you aware that you are sitting here because you committed twenty murders and one attempted murder? That you are a criminal? An enemy of humanity? Someone who destroys all the human worth that we have spent several thousand years building up? Or do you think you can get out at any time? Do you think you can just choose the right second to get up from the chair, free yourself from the handcuffs, and tear my head off?”

Jennings smiled again, that smile that never reached his eyes. “People should never make murder machines out of other people.”

Hjelm looked at Hultin. Suddenly they began to feel threatened. After all, the only thing that separated them from a murder machine was a set of handcuffs.

“You don’t kill police officers,” Hultin said with bombproof certainty.

“I weigh the pros and cons of every situation. The alternative with the most pros wins. If I had killed that policeman”-he nodded toward Norlander-“you wouldn’t have handled me this mildly today. And then we would have had a problem.”

“You were counting on being caught? You’re joking!”

“It was in fifteenth place in the list of possibilities. It went down to seventeenth after Nyberg’s visit. That was why I wasn’t on my guard. That was an excellent tactic.”

Jennings closed his eyes and weighed the pros and cons. Then he made an extremely fast movement and was out of the handcuffs.

Chavez had his pistol up first. Holm was second, Norlander third. Söderstedt was sluggish, and Hultin and Hjelm sat still.

“Nice reaction over there in the corner,” said Jennings, pointing at Chavez. “What’s your name?”

Chavez and Norlander approached him with pistols raised. Hjelm took his out to be on the safe side. All three held Jennings in check while Holm and Söderstedt cuffed him again, considerably tighter this time.

“I’ve had a full month’s training on handcuffs,” Jennings said calmly. “And I mean a full month. We need to understand each other here.”

“Okay,” said Hjelm. “You’ve made your point. So how did the pros and cons look on April 6, 1983?”

Jennings performed a quick search of his memory bank, then he flashed a smile. It passed. “I understand,” he said.

“What is it that you understand?”

“That you’re not a bad policeman, Paul Hjelm, not bad at all.”

“Why did you write that letter to your wife?”

“Weakness,” Jennings said neutrally. “A pure con. The last one.”

“The episode with Nyberg, then?”

“We’ll see,” he said cryptically.

“We found the letter, almost completely burned up, in Lamar’s apartment.”

“Was that where you found my name?”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t. If it had been, Benny Lundberg wouldn’t be lying half terrified to death at Karolinska right now. Why did you write your name? Surely it didn’t matter to Mary Beth what you called yourself. It was really quite infantile. And it drove Lamar to come here, which killed him.”

“It was a farewell to my last remnants of a personal life. The letter was supposed to have been burned immediately. She got her revenge by not burning it.”

“Or else she wanted one last memory of the man she had once made the mistake of loving. It’s called human emotion. For you, it’s something other people have, something you can exploit.”

“It was a final farewell,” Jennings said.

“This final farewell killed your whole family. It made your son follow you and get killed by you; it made your wife kill herself. A cute farewell.”

Was it possible to hurt him? Hjelm wondered, as Jennings looked at him with narrowed eyes. Had he found a sore spot?

“Did she kill herself? I didn’t know that.”

“Your deeds are never done in isolation. You can’t kill someone without it having a wide array of consequences. You spread clouds of evil and sudden death around you-do you really not understand that? Do you know how many serial killers you have inspired? You have a fan club on the Internet. You’re a fucking legend. There are K T-shirts, small cookies in the shape of a K that say ‘The Famous Kentucky Killer,’ badges that say ‘Keep on doing it, K,’ licorice versions of your pincers. You have actively contributed to the fact that a frightening number of serial killers are running riot in the country you think you’re protecting. You’re a madman who must be stopped. Stop yourself, for God’s sake.”

“I’m hardly alone,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “I follow orders and receive a salary each month. If I disappear, there’ll be a job opening, and a lot of people will apply.”

“Are you finished thinking?”

“Yes,” he said abruptly. “I’ll make it short and concise-listen up. LinkCoop is a shady company. It survives on illegal imports and exports of military computer equipment; the rest is a front. The CEO, Henrik Nilsson, is a crook. LinkCoop has gotten hold of control devices for nuclear warheads, just as you said, Hjelm. Eric Lindberger from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the middleman between LinkCoop and the Saudi Islamist movement. I thought I had stopped the deal by taking out Lindberger. By the way, he’s the only one who hadn’t talked under pressure-I was impressed. But great sums of money have been transferred to LinkCoop’s secret accounts today. This means the equipment is in the hands of the Swedish middleman, in an unknown location, and will soon be on its way to a Swedish harbor, I don’t know which one, in order to be transported on to those in the fundamentalist movement.”

“Perhaps Eric Lindberger withstood your torture simply because he didn’t know anything. Perhaps he was innocent, and the Swedish middleman was someone else.”

“I received reliable information from… my sources. They’ve never been wrong before.”

“How did the message read, exactly?” Arto Söderstedt asked from over by the wall.

Jennings’s head turned the necessary fraction of an inch, no more.

Söderstedt had his turn to meet the gaze. Hard core, he thought.

“It was a coded message,” said Jennings, “and it went ‘E Lindberger M.F.A.’ It was unambiguous.”

“Elisabeth Justine Lindberger,” Söderstedt said coldly.

The eyes narrowed again. A tiny movement in the corner of one of them. “Oh,” said Jennings.

“Not ‘O’ but ‘E,’ ” said Söderstedt. “That letter subjected an innocent person to a hellish journey into death.”

“Do you have her under surveillance?” Jennings said.

Arto Söderstedt reduced everything on the tip of his tongue to “Yes.”

“Increase it right away.”

“Let me see if I understand this,” said Hultin. “You’re giving us orders? One of the worst serial killers in history has finally been caught, and he’s sitting here giving orders to the police?”

“Not me,” said Jennings. “I’m not giving any orders. I’m No One. But I can summarize the choice you have to make in two questions. One: Do you want a nuclear war or not? Two: Which world order do you prefer-American capitalism or Islamic fundamentalism? It’s a globalized world these days-that’s irreversible. So it’s more important than ever that there be a world order. And you can pick-just the seven of you.”

“I wonder if it’s that simple,” said Hjelm.

“Right now, in the next few hours, it really is that simple. After that you can do whatever you want with me.”

“What was the authority that you were debating whether we should contact?” Hultin asked.

“It won’t work now. It will take too long. There’s only one possibility, and that’s for you to make sure that that ship is not allowed to leave the harbor.”

“Does Henrik Nilsson at LinkCoop know any of this?”

“No, he makes himself ignorant as soon as he has the money. The middleman moves the materiel to a neutral place. From there it’s transported to the harbor. Both the neutral place and the harbor are unknown. The ship will leave harbor sometime today or tomorrow. That’s all the information we have. Except for Mrs. Lindberger.”

“The ship’s destination?”

“Faked. Could be anywhere at all.”

“Okay,” Hultin said. “Gather outside.”

They stood up one by one and left.

Hjelm lingered for a second and looked at Wayne Jennings. “All of this,” he said, “the whole admission and confession and everything was just a way to buy time, wasn’t it, to size up the situation? Get us over on your side? Is any of it true?”

“It’s the result that counts,” Jennings said neutrally.

“And Nyberg?” said Hjelm. “What was your assessment when he came walking toward you down the corridor? Did you already see this scenario in front of you? Was there no surprise in that uppercut?”

Jennings’s eyes bored into Hjelm’s. Hjelm thought they were like primeval darkness, the eyes of a shark.

“You’ll never know,” said Jennings.

Hjelm took a step closer and bent over him. Positioned this way, Jennings could have killed him in a tenth of a second. Hjelm didn’t know why he was purposefully sticking his head into the lion’s mouth. Had he heard a call from the other side? A siren’s song? Or did he want to sneer in the face of death?

“For the first time in my life I have some understanding of the death penalty,” he said.

Jennings smiled fleetingly. It had nothing to do with happiness. “Of course as an individual I deserve the death penalty,” he said. “But I’m not an individual, I’m an-authority.”

Hjelm left him then and joined the others out in the corridor. Arto Söderstedt was speaking into a cell phone.

“Is he telling the truth?” Kerstin Holm said. “Is it all about control devices for nuclear warheads? Or is he sending us off on some crap errand so he can find a way out?”

“He’s the devil’s right-hand man,” Hjelm said grimly. “His methods are inscrutable. What the fuck is he doing with us? What kind of game is he playing?”

“Isn’t this Säpo’s domain?” said Chavez.

“Don’t we have to take it up to the government level?” Holm said.

Hultin stood motionless. Was he thinking, or was he paralyzed to act?

“Let’s go in and kill him,” Norlander suggested eagerly.

Söderstedt hung up his phone and sighed deeply. “Justine has escaped the surveillance.”

Hultin made a face, his first sign of life in a long time. “We’ll do it ourselves. Whatever Justine is up to, it’s illegal. Take her. And check all planned departures from all Swedish harbors in the next twenty-four hours.”

“And Jennings?” said Hjelm.

“Put him under more stringent guard. I’ll arrange for it. Arto, do you still have all Justine’s notes?”

“In my office.”

They went. Gunnar Nyberg, contemplating the cast on his right hand, stayed behind, observing their departure skeptically.

“You’ve made a pact with the devil,” he stated. “Watch out, for Christ’s sake. I won’t be a part of it.”

“You’re part of the team, Gunnar,” said Hultin. “We have to find Justine Lindberger. We’re talking about international politics here.”

“Fuck you.”

Hultin looked at him neutrally.

“He’s fooled you all,” Nyberg continued. “Can’t you see that he’s messing with you? He messed with me. He let me hit him. I saw his eyes. It was all a game. I realize that now.”

“It’s possible,” said Hultin. “But the fact is that Justine Lindberger has escaped her surveillance. We need you.”

Nyberg shook his head. “Never.”

“Then you’re on sick leave, starting now. Go home.”

Nyberg gawked at him wildly. Snorting with rage, he left the room, paused in the corridor, and then charged down to the basement where the cell was. Two powerfully built officers in civilian clothes had just taken up stations outside the door. They sat on chairs in the dark corridor, with a table and a deck of cards between them. They eyed Nyberg uncertainly as he planted himself in a third chair along the wall.

“Play your game,” he said. “I’m not here.”

He was there, and he intended to stay. He had suddenly seen it all before. The corridor in LinkCoop. His steps forward. Robert Mayer’s eyes. The tiny, tiny movement toward his jacket. The hand pulled back. The ice-cold acceptance of the blow.

Here he intended to stay.

Meanwhile Arto Söderstedt went over to his whiteboard, which was covered with cascades of writing.

“All the notes from the Lindberger couple. Justine’s on the right, Eric’s on the left.”

“Is there anything that could be the name of a ship or a date, today or tomorrow, or the name of a harbor?” Hultin asked. “Or something that seems to be in code?”

Söderstedt scratched his nose. “She may have met a contact code-named S now and then. That was one of the things she chose to remove from her Filofax. She claims it’s her jogging session, S as in ‘stretching.’ Unfortunately I have no more information about that. The other thing she removed was dates with her lover Herman in Bro. I have nothing more about him. She has three friends that she seems to be close to: Paula, Petronella, and Priscilla. I have their full names and addresses. Beyond that she has a relatively large family, which also seems to be quite close-knit. This should all be checked.

“We have a few things here on the board that might be something. A little piece of paper that said ‘Blue Viking.’ That could be code for a place-a bar, for example-but I haven’t found anything. This might be something, too-I can’t make heads or tails of it. It’s a small yellow Post-it that says ‘orphlinse,’ and that’s all. Then I might also mention that it was in Östermalm-shallen that Justine disappeared from her mediocre surveillance team.”

“We’ll have to divide it up,” said Hultin. “Paul will try to find Herman in Bro. Kerstin can take the friends and family-call everyone you can find. Viggo will check with the surveillance team about exactly how and when she disappeared-bring them along to Östermalmshallen. Jorge will take on Blue Viking and the other note. Arto, you and I can check the harbors-we do have a few of them in Sweden. Let’s go.”

Hjelm discovered that Bro was a bedroom community with six thousand inhabitants between Kungsängen and Bålsta. Checking various databases from his office in police headquarters, he found eight Hermans in Bro. Two were retired; the others were possibilities, between the ages of twenty-two and fifty-eight. He called them. Three weren’t home; none of the others admitted to knowing Justine Lindberger, even though he impressed upon them how important it was and guaranteed confidentiality, which made one of them-Herman Andersson, forty-four-very angry. After more research, he found the workplaces of the other three and got hold of them at their jobs.

None of them knew Justine; all seemed genuinely surprised by the inquiry.

And suddenly he had nothing left to do. It made him crazy after just a few minutes, so he decided to drive up to Bro. Filled with misgivings, he left police headquarters for a tour of Uppland. At that point it was three o’clock, and rain was still pouring down.

Kerstin Holm got hold of PPP. Paula Berglund sobbed at the thought of her friend being hunted by a madman and recalled that at various times her friend had unexpectedly traveled to Västerås and Karlskrona and maybe another place as well. Petronella af Wirsén laughed aloud at the fact that Justine had fled the police and assumed she was in her apartment in Paris or her villa in Dalarö. And Priscilla Bäfwer recalled various unexplained trips to Gotland, Södertälje, Halmstad, and Trelleborg. All the relatives were less responsive and demanded the heads of the entire Swedish police force on a gigantic platter. “Little, confused Justine,” said the only communicative one, Aunt Gretha, whom Holm had located only by chance; “she always was the black sheep in the family, the one who wasn’t interested in money and power, the one who sympathized with the poor weak lambs on the edges of society.” Aunt Gretha was bewildered to hear of Justine’s immense fortune; it quite simply couldn’t be her own.

Jorge Chavez slaved away at Justine’s notes. He mobilized all his energy and all his mathematical knowledge to decipher the two that Justine Lindberger had left on her desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Blue Viking” and “orphlinse.” After taking detours through multitudes of conceivable codes, he went the direct route and managed to find a few pubs in various parts of Sweden called Blue Viking: Café Blue Viking in Härnösand, Blue Viking Restaurant & Bar in Halmstad, Café Blue Viking in Visby, and food stands called Blue Viking in Teckomatorp and Karlshamn. Härnösand, Halmstad, Visby, and Karlshamn were all harbor cities.

When it came to the other note, he cursed himself that it took him so long to stick a period in “orphlinse” so that it became “orphlin.se”-that is, an address for a Swedish Web site. It was the Swedish branch of Orpheus Life Line, an international humanitarian organization with special focus on Iraq. The song of Orpheus, said the program description, was so poignant and strong that he had been able to sing the dead up out of the kingdom of the underworld. This was the organization’s goal. At the moment they were engaged in the situation in Iraq after the Gulf War and the blockades and the weapon-inspector crises-it bore a frightening resemblance to a kingdom of the dead. The Web site listed a whole series of matters in which human rights had been disregarded. Apparently the organization kept its members secret, so that it could work fairly undisturbed in Saddam’s domain. Chavez wondered why Justine had had the Orpheus Life Line’s Web address on her desk. Did she have a general interest in the Islamic world, or was there some more specific reason?

Viggo Norlander arrived at Östermalmshallen along with the two rather shamefaced colleagues whom Justine had eluded. Detective Werner had been stationed in the surveillance vehicle on Östermalmstorg, keeping watch down Humlegårdsgatan, while Detective Larsson had been, quote, “glued like a shadow” to Justine. Norlander’s investigation revealed that this strange metaphor had concealed a distance of fifteen yards, which was rather a lot among the aisles and stalls of a busy market. Larsson had stood just inside the entrance doors and pointed into the hall, where the most surprising animal parts hovered like defective helicopters in the aromatically complex air. Justine had disappeared somewhere on the far left-hand side. So there were three possible stalls from which she could have gone underground: a classic Swedish delicatessen, a small Thai restaurant, and a café that served coffee in tiny cups. After doing a few routine checks that had not been performed earlier, Norlander realized that she could only have escaped via the café. She could have hidden temporarily in the delicatessen or the Thai restaurant, but only the café, via a long aisle, had direct contact with the world outside. Norlander followed the aisle, keeping his gaze on the shamefaced Larsson every moment. They emerged some distance down Humlegårdsgatan, where a wet storm wind met them. Norlander strode over to Werner in the car and gave him the same evil eye that he had given Larsson. Then he went back inside and, without a word, took the violently protesting café owner with him to police headquarters.

Now Fawzi Ulaywi from Baghdad was sweating in one of the interrogation rooms, as the police watched him through a one-way mirror. “He must have unlocked it for her,” Norlander said. “He must have followed her into the back room and unlocked the door. He works alone in the café, and the door to the aisle that leads to Humlegården was locked.”

“What is he?” said Chavez, studying the printout of Orpheus Life Line’s Web site. “An Iraqi? Isn’t this about Saudi Arabia anymore?”

“What did we say about the harbors?” said Hultin. “Which ones have popped up several times?”

“ ‘Several’ is probably an exaggeration,” said Söderstedt, “but Blue Viking and the witnesses would point to Halmstad, Gotland, and possibly Karlskrona/Karlshamn, in Blekinge County. Six vessels will leave Halmstad in the next twenty-four hours, three from Visby, and sixteen from Blekinge.”

“I don’t think we have anything that makes one more likely than the next,” said Holm. “Shall we split up?”

“When is the next departure?” Hultin asked. “And where the hell is Hjelm?”

“In Bro,” said Holm.

“It’s four-thirty,” said Söderstedt. “We have a few departures left today. The next is Vega, departing Karlshamn for Venezuela at six o’clock; then Bay of Pearls, departing Halmstad for Australia at seven forty-five; then Lagavulin, depating Visby for Scotland at eight-thirty. Those are the next ones coming up.”

“We need something more, something to tilt us in one direction,” said Hultin. “Just a little more testimony about one of the places. Jorge and Arto can help Kerstin. Press the relatives. Viggo, you and I will talk to our friend the café owner.”

Hultin and Norlander went in to see Fawzi Ulaywi, who was sweating a great deal. His stubborn facial expression concealed terror, as though he had been in this situation before and was trying to avoid thinking about what had happened then.

“My café,” he said. “My café is standing there completely empty. Anyone could take my things and my money.”

“We have competent guards there for the rest of the day,” Norlander said sardonically. “Officers Larsson and Werner.” He remained by the door looking large and brutal.

Hultin sat down across from Fawzi Ulaywi and asked calmly, “Why did you help Justine Lindberger escape earlier today?”

“I haven’t done anything,” Ulaywi said single-mindedly. “I don’t understand.”

“Have you heard of the organization Orpheus Life Line? It is active in Iraq.”

Ulaywi fell silent. A breeze of worry blew across his face and left furrows behind. It was obvious that he was thinking things over, carefully. “It’s been ten years since I left Iraq,” he said finally. “I don’t know anything about what goes on there today.”

“Are these Orpheus people involved in the nuclear weapons affair?”

Ulwaywi gaped wildly at him and seemed to be trying to put the erratic information together.

“You have to tell us now,” Hultin continued. “It’s far too important to play games.”

“Just torture me. I’ve survived it before.”

Hultin looked at Norlander, who blinked uncertainly. He wasn’t planning to torture anyone-what had Hultin’s expression meant?

Hultin continued calmly, “I’m going to say the names of a few Swedish harbors. Tell me what they mean to you. Halmstad. Karlskrona. Visby. Karlshamn.”

Terrified that ten years of nightmares were about to be made real again, Ulaywi tried so hard to think, he creaked.

“Halmstad,” he said at last. “A woman came to me in the café and said she was being followed by a rapist. I helped her escape. She said something about having to get away-I think she said Halmstad.”

Norlander and Hultin exchanged glances. Hultin nodded, and they went out into the corridor. As they spoke, they watched Ulaywi through the one-way mirror. He was still sweating but may also have looked a bit satisfied.

“He’s part of it,” said Hultin. “He’s somewhere in the line of smugglers. He won’t say any more. We can cross off Halmstad.”

“Cross it off?” Norlander burst out. “But-”

“He’s trying to throw us off. Look at him. That’s not a man who talks.”

Hultin went to the guys manning the phones. They were spread out over three rooms, so he had to repeat three times, “Blekinge or Visby. Not Halmstad.”

Then he took out his cell phone and dialed. “Paul? Where are you?”

“Norrtull,” said Hjelm from within the heart of electronics. “I’ve destroyed the familial peace in a number of Bro households. Never more will the wives trust their Hermans. I got a licking from an angry wife.”

“No bites?”

“None of these Hermans can reasonably have had anything to do with Justine Lindberger from Upper Östermalm. It’s been a complete waste of time.”

“Come home quickly. We’re down to possibly Visby, Karlskrona, or Karlshamn. Possibly.”

“Okay.”

Holm came running out of her room and yelled, “Aunt Gretha had a cell phone number that didn’t exist anywhere else.” She held out a piece of paper with a number on it.

Hultin hung up on Hjelm and dialed the number.

“Yes?” they could hear faintly from the receiver. A woman’s voice.

“Justine?” Hultin said.

“Who is this?”

“Orpheus,” he chanced. “Where are you?”

Justine Lindberger was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Password?”

Hultin looked at Holm and Norlander. They shook their heads.

“Blue Viking,” said Hultin.

“Fuck,” said Justine, and hung up.

“Shit,” said Hultin.

“Background noise?” asked Kerstin Holm.

Hultin shook his head. He dialed the number again. No answer.

He went into his office and closed the door. It was quarter to five. The freighter Vega would leave Karlshamn in just over an hour. They would miss it. The information that pointed to Karlshamn was extremely vague: just a friend’s suggestion that Justine had been in its neighbor city Karlskrona, which had a bar called Blue Viking, which should perhaps be put under surveillance immediately, but then he would have to bring in the Blekinge police, and how would they explain the situation? He didn’t even really understand it himself. Should he let Vega get away or get the provincial police on it? He remained in his room, his shoulders pressed down by an endless weight.

Meanwhile Kerstin Holm and Viggo Norlander were still in the corridor.

Everything seemed foggy. Where were Hultin’s thoughts heading? they wondered.

Hjelm showed up with a black eye. “Don’t ask. Women,” he said cryptically.

“Bro,” Kerstin said, pointing at him. “There was something on the tip of my tongue about Bro.”

“Bro, bro, breja,” Norlander said, quoting a children’s rhyme. He seemed to have given up. He threw a bitter glance at Fawzi Ulaywi. “He’s sitting here, the fate of the universe resting on his shoulders, and he’s not going to talk.”

“Who is that?” said Hjelm.

“Isn’t Bro a pretty common place name?” said Holm.

“He’s the one who helped Justine escape,” Norlander told Hjelm. “An Iraqi. One of the people who hide behind Orpheus Life Line, a fake human rights organization. Presumably they’re fundamentalist spies. He’s our only link to the warheads.”

“They’re control devices,” said Hjelm, “for nuclear warheads.”

“Did anyone hear me?” said Holm.

“He ought to be speared on his warheads,” said Norlander. “Wouldn’t we be morally justified in going in there and pressing him? Hard?”

“The way Wayne Jennings does?” said Kerstin Holm. “Has he transformed us into copies of himself? So quickly?”

“What was it you said?” said Paul Hjelm.

“We’ve become the Kentucky Killer’s marionettes,” she said.

“Before that. About Bro.”

“Isn’t Bro a pretty common place name?”

“Are you saying I was in the wrong Bro? Where are the other ones?”

“I don’t know. It was just a guess.”

“If Herman is a lover and they meet there every Tuesday, it can’t be that far away.”

“But maybe Herman isn’t a lover. Arto pressed Justine, surprised her with his little copy-machine trick, and she had to make something up quickly. Maybe Herman was the right name, but she covered it up with the lie that he was her lover.”

They half-ran into Holm’s office and took out a road atlas. Bro in Uppland, Bro in Värmland, Bro in Bohuslän-and Bro on Gotland.

“On Gotland. Only a few miles from Visby,” said Holm. “A little church village.”

Norlander started up the computer and got into the large telephone registry. There were two Hermans in the little Bro northwest of Visby.

Hjelm unlocked his cell phone. Holm took it from him and dialed the first of the two numbers.

“Bengtsson,” said a ringing Gotland accent.

“Herman,” said Kerstin, “it’s Justine.”

It was quiet. The longer the silence went on, the higher their hopes rose.

“Why are you calling again?” said Herman Bengtsson at last. “Has something happened?”

“Just double-checking,” Kerstin croaked out. “I’m on my way.”

She ended the call, then clenched her fist for a second. And then they ran in to Hultin.

The helicopter took off five minutes later from the platform atop police headquarters. Decently fast, Hultin thought, as he sat there next to Norlander, reading through his papers. “The freighter Lagavulin will leave Visby harbor at twenty-thirty. Right now it’s quarter past five. We ought to get there in plenty of time.”

“Isn’t Lagavulin a malt whiskey?” said Hjelm.

“The best,” said Chavez. “Extremely smoky and tarry.”

The last islands of the archipelago were visible below them, drowning in the pouring rain; Hjelm thought he recognized Utö. Then it was open sea, a windswept sea, almost whiter than black. The helicopter swayed and reeled in the storm. Hjelm glanced at the pilot; he didn’t like the look on his face. Nor was Norlander’s face particularly confidence inspiring-he grabbed a helmet that was hanging on the wall of the helicopter and threw up into it. Hjelm was happy that he had not been the receptacle of choice.

Others were feeling ill, too. The pilot took out some plastic bags to protect the remaining supply of helmets. Arto Söderstedt’s white skin developed a mint-green tinge, and what came up in Hjelm’s own heave was the same color. Only Hultin and Holm retained their stomach contents.

Just east of Visby, a mediocre collection of police officers streamed out onto the hidden helicopter platform, where two civilian rental cars awaited them. They stood for a second, letting themselves be washed by the rain-it was surprisingly cleansing. Their facial colors returned to normal. They were alive again and ready to find out what Justine Lindberger had waiting for them down at the harbor.

They circled around Visby and glided down to the harbor along Färjeleden. They passed the large Gotland ferries and approached Lagavulin. The vessel lay some way out on the pier at the northern breakwater, heaving against a pile of car tires.

Lagavulin wasn’t really a freighter. She was too small, more like a large fishing boat. She was alone, way out there, and there was no sign of life within her. A flock of large gulls circled the ship, like vultures around a cadaver in the desert. Out on the Baltic, a large oil tanker went by, its lanterns gleaming weakly through the storm; swaying slowly, it passed like a large, cold, inaccessible sea monster. The sky felt unusually low, as though the thick rain clouds had come down to lick the surface of the earth, as though they were witnessing the great flood. Was there great, pure, sun-drenched clearness on the other side of the clouds? Or was that just a utopian dream? Was there even room anymore for clarity?

They emerged from the cars, which had been parked out of the way, by the high school. Almost invisible in the darkness, they made their way over to the pier and ran out along it, hunching over. The scent of the sea drowned out the faint ozone odor of the rainstorm.

They were close now. There was no hint of any surveillance.

They gathered around the gangway, dripping wet.

Chavez and Norlander went aboard first, quietly, with weapons drawn. Then Hjelm and Holm, followed by Söderstedt and Hultin. All had their safeties off.

They made their way past the bridge and moved toward the stern. Everything was dark. The boat seemed deserted. A few faint voices rose in the storm. They followed the voices until they were standing by a door next to some windows with pulled curtains. Behind the curtains they could see a faint, flickering light.

Norlander assessed the strength of the door, then got ready, his back against the railing. Hjelm tried to turn the door handle, but it locked. Norlander immediately kicked it in. One giant kick was enough. The lock hung quivering on the wall for a few seconds, then fell to the deck.

Inside what looked like a dining hall, five people sat around a screwed-down kerosene lamp. A young blond man in Helly Hansen clothes, three large, swarthy upper-middle-aged men in thick down coats-and Justine Lindberger in a rain suit. When she caught sight of Söderstedt in the rear, she seemed to exhale.

“Hands on your heads!” Norlander yelled.

“It’s just the Swedish police!” Justine yelled at the three men. They placed their hands on their heads.

The Helly Hansen man stood up and said in a Gotland accent, “What is this? What are you doing here?”

“Herman Bengtsson, I presume,” said Hultin, pointing the pistol at him. “Sit down right now and place your hands on your head.”

Bengtsson reluctantly obeyed.

“Search them,” Hultin ordered.

Norlander and Chavez searched wildly. None of those present were carrying weapons. The signs were starting to add up, and they were alarming.

“You’re the ones who called me,” Justine Lindberger said, as furious mental activity seemed to be going on in her brain.

“Where’s the computer equipment?” Hultin asked.

“What computer equipment?” said Herman Bengtsson. “What are you talking about?”

“How many more people are onboard?”

“None,” said Justine Lindberger, sighing. “The crew is coming in an hour.”

“And the guards? You can’t carry control devices for nuclear weapons without a guard.”

Justine Lindberger froze, thinking intensely. Then an idea seemed to strike her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them, they were more resigned, almost mourning. As if she were before a platoon of executioners.

“We’re not smuggling nuclear weapons,” she said. “It’s the other way around.”

“Jorge, Viggo, Arto-run and search. Be careful.”

They disappeared, leaving Jan-Olov Hultin, Paul Hjelm, and Kerstin Holm in charge of Justine Lindberger, Herman Bengtsson, and three dark men with the marks of death on their faces.

Justine spoke, as though her life depended on getting the words right. “Herman and I belong to Orpheus Life Line, a secret human rights organization that is active in Iraq. We have to remain secret; our enemies are powerful. Eric was part of it, too. He died without revealing anything. He was stronger than we thought.”

Then she gestured toward the three men on the sofa.

“These three are high-ranking officers in the Iraqi army. They’ve deserted. They have extremely important information about the Gulf War, which neither Saddam nor the United States wants to get out. They are on their way to the United States, to be put under the protection of a large media organization. The information will be released from there; it won’t be possible to stop it. The American mass media are the only force that is strong enough to resist.”

Hultin looked at Hjelm, Hjelm looked at Holm, Holm looked at Hultin.

“You have to let us be,” said Justine Lindberger. “Someone has tricked you. Someone has used you.”

Hjelm saw Wayne Jennings in his mind’s eye and said, “You will never know.” He felt like he was going to vomit, but he had nothing left to throw up.

“In that case, they’re on your trail,” said Kerstin Holm. “We have to get you out of here.”

“Regardless, we can’t let the boat depart,” said Hultin. “It has to be thoroughly investigated. So we’ll take you with us now, quickly.”

“It’s your duty to protect us,” said Justine Lindberger, looking very tired. “You’ve led them here-now you have to protect us with your lives.”

Hultin looked at her with an expression of deep regret and backed out past the broken door. He slid aside. Holm came out. Then Herman Bengtsson, the three men, Justine, and Hjelm. They stood out on the deck. The wind howled. The rain poured down on them.

They moved toward the gangway.

Then it happened, as though an order had been given-as though they themselves had given it.

Herman Bengtsson’s head was torn off; a cascade of blood sent him down onto the deck. The three men were flung by cascades of bullets into the wall of the ship. Their down coats turned red, and down flew out. They collapsed as though their bodies had no joints. Kerstin threw herself over Justine; she didn’t think-she was a living wall. A bullet grazed her shoulder; she saw it drill into Justine’s right eye just four inches away. Justine vomited blood into Kerstin’s face-in one last exhalation.

Hultin was petrified. He stared up at the town of Visby, which rose like a distant, illuminated doomsday castle far away.

Hjelm’s pistol was raised. His body spun around, but he had nothing to aim at, nothing at all. He returned the pistol to his shoulder holster and suddenly realized what it was like to be raped. He placed his arms around Kerstin, who was sniffling quietly.

Bloody, rain-soaked down slowly covered the nightmarish scene in a blanket of oblivion.

Everything was quiet. Visby harbor was calm.

As though nothing had happened.