Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End

CHAPTER VI

Free falling, as in a dream

Stockholm in October

“It’s about an American journalist,” said Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson. “He arrived at Arlanda from New York last Sunday and I’ve already collected two tips about him.” She indicated her computer screen while Waltin leaned forward in order to see better. Why don’t I just sit on Daddy’s lap? she thought.

“What’s his name?” said Waltin, casually placing his right hand next to her left.

“Jonathan Paul Krassner, goes by John,” said Eriksson, “born in 1953. Resident of Albany in upstate New York.” Although he’s actually rather a dish, she thought. If you happen to like older guys.

“Do we have anything on him?” asked Waltin while he lightly drummed his fingertips on the tabletop.

“We don’t have anything in-house.” Assistant Detective Eriksson shook her head. “If you want me to go outside the building, then I have to go through my chief.” Wonder if that’s a genuine Rolex, she thought. In which case it must have cost an arm and a leg. It looks genuine, anyway.

“Let’s not be in a rush,” said Waltin, smiling a white-toothed smile. “What’s the problem?”

“Depends on what you mean by problem,” said Eriksson, shrugging her slender shoulders. “The first tip came in the day before yesterday, and I’ve been content to simply make a note of it. The informant is one of our journalists at state television. This particular person I happen to know about. He seems to have problems both with alcohol and his own imagination.” Wonder if he thinks I’ll move my foot, she thought.

“So, what did he have to tell us?” said Waltin, smiling confidently.

“He had run into Krassner at the press club down on Vasagatan Tuesday evening. I’m guessing it was in the bar, although he doesn’t say so. He wanted to get hold of his contact here but our man is out on a job and I saw no reason to bother him. In any case, our informant maintains that Krassner appears suspiciously interested-those are his own words-in our cooperation with other security services in the West. Among other things he’s supposed to have talked about the Germans and how we use them as our channel to the Americans.”

“What could he have meant by that?” said Waltin, shrugging his well-tailored shoulders. “What Germans?” He gave her a manly smile.

“Exactly,” said Eriksson and she smiled as well.

He really is a dish, she thought.

“Then there’s that other tip,” she continued. “It came in a few hours ago. It’s another informant, and he says we should contact him at once regarding an American journalist by the name John P. Krassner.”

“Whoops,” said Waltin. “And so who is he?”

“That’s why I need your help,” she said. “This informant has a secure identity which is beyond my authority. Highest priority both with us and with military intelligence, so I’m not finding him. But according to my instructions I should see to it that the bureau chief or you get this immediately.”

Assistant Detective Eriksson nodded energetically. And it doesn’t appear that you have any objections, she thought.

“And because my boss is taking a long lunch in town and then you happened to come by…” She smiled, with a little gleam in her eyes. You are a little interested after all, she thought.

“You can make a note that I’m informed,” said Waltin efficiently and looked at the clock. “Print out a copy too, so I can take it with me, and I’ll be in touch during the day. Then you can set up a surveillance file on this Krassner. And classify it up a notch until we know what this is all about.”

…

This is going like clockwork, thought Waltin a while later. Berg hadn’t had any objections; he had seemed as though he was thinking about something else, and after having found out who the informant was Waltin had become truly curious. He had met him twice before, both times at the secure location, and he had not been able to avoid noticing with what respect Berg had treated him. Of the little that Berg had told him when their guest had gone home, he had also understood that this was not any ordinary retired professor of mathematics from the technical college in Stockholm. In addition it actually appeared as if the more intricate and private question of the future handling of little Miss Jeanette Eriksson was in the process of solving itself quite naturally. Say what you will about Berg, thought Waltin, he seems to be totally uninterested in women, and of course that’s good for someone like me.

When Waltin phoned the retired mathematics professor he encountered unexpected problems.

“Yes, I hear what you’re saying, police superintendent,” said the professor in a grumpy old man’s voice, “but at the risk of appearing obstinate I would still prefer to speak directly with the bureau chief.”

“The problem is that the bureau chief is out of town,” Waltin lied routinely. “I have spoken with him on the phone and because you contacted us, professor, the bureau chief wanted me to make contact with you at once.” And besides, I am a police superintendent, you old fart, thought Waltin, but he didn’t say that.

“I hear what you’re saying, superintendent,” mumbled the professor.

“Yes, Bureau Chief Berg was of the firm opinion that this matter was clearly important, given that you contacted us,” said Waltin in a mild voice.

“If he is of that opinion then I really don’t understand why he can’t drag himself over here.”

“As I said before, he is unfortunately out of town.” Surly old fogey who for unclear historical reasons has a completely crazy estimation of his own significance, thought Waltin. But I’m sure that can be changed.

“Where is he?” asked the professor.

“Excuse me?” said Waltin. What’s he saying? he thought.

“I asked where he was, Bureau Chief Berg, that is. Is that so hard to understand? Where is Bureau Chief Berg?”

Obviously senile too, thought Waltin.

“Yes,” said Waltin with feigned heartiness. “A man with your background surely understands why I can’t go into that. Especially not on the phone. My suggestion is that I come to your residence so we can discuss the matter in peace and quiet. Hello?”

The old fart hung up, thought Waltin, astonished. He hung up right in my ear.

When he finally got hold of Berg in his office half the afternoon had gone to waste. In addition Berg had been amused in a manner that Waltin didn’t appreciate.

“Yes, yes,” said Berg, smiling. “Johan can have his ways. When he was working at the defense department’s intelligence division during the war he is said to have taken a swing at a staff major who had hidden his whiskey. He was, of course, a drafted corporal, and in civilian life he was professor of mathematics at Uppsala University. Then he moved to the technical college to be closer to his beloved computers.”

“If we’re talking about the Second World War,” said Waltin, “that might possibly explain it. After all, some water has run under the bridge since then. The years pass, if I may say so.”

Berg shook his head thoughtfully.

“I doubt that he’s senile. He’s actually the one who set up our system of codes and encryption here at the bureau. He has saved millions for us in computer costs. We had official contact just six months ago and he was just as sharp as he’s always been. Here’s what we’ll do,” continued Berg, nodding toward Waltin. “I’ll phone and talk to him, then you come along so that I see to it that you are properly introduced.”

“Fine with me,” said Waltin and shrugged his shoulders. What could he say?

Because I have decided to trust you, thought Berg.

Professor Emeritus Johan Forselius lived in an enormous, old-fashioned apartment on Sturegatan. It took a good while before they were let in, and then they’d had to grope their way along a darkened hallway toward a distant and well-smoked study.

“It’s that damn girl from the home-care services,” muttered the professor. “I’ve told her all fall that she should put new lightbulbs in the hall, but the woman seems to be completely stupid. Speaks some incomprehensible Polish gibberish.”

Forselius blew his nose vigorously into his hand and wiped it off on his pants.

“If you gentlemen want coffee you’ll have to help yourselves,” he said, staring crossly at Waltin. “Personally I could fancy a small cognac.”

The professor sank down into a well-broken-in leather easy chair and nodded toward Berg that he could sit down as well. After that he looked again at Waltin. More challengingly this time.

“Yes, what do you say, Claes,” Berg said obligingly and nodded toward Waltin. “Wouldn’t a cup of coffee taste good?”

“Yes, truly,” said Waltin with warmth in his voice. “Is the kitchen in that direction?” Waltin made a head movement toward the apartment’s darkened interior.

“If you find a stove, superintendent, you’ve come to the right place,” said the professor, grinning contentedly. “The cognac is in the serving area. On second thought, bring the bottle if Erik here would like some, for it must be the superintendent who’ll be driving the car afterward?”

Waltin had been content to smile amiably.

Two months earlier Professor Forselius had received a letter from the United States. The sender was a John P. Krassner, who wrote that he was a researcher and author in the process of writing a book about the politics of security in Europe after the Second World War. Now he was intending to come to Sweden and requested an interview. This was not an unusual request for a man like Forselius: rumor-shrouded code-breaker from the days of the great war, well-known speaker among military personnel and secret police officers across the Western world. Forselius received similar proposals every month, despite the fact that his war posting had ended more than forty years ago, and he had done what he always did. He tossed it into the wastebasket.

“Who the hell wants to talk to people like that?” said Forselius, taking a hefty gulp from his brandy snifter. “But then, the day before yesterday, the doorbell rang, and at first I thought the damn home-care services had sent me some new damn foreigner, and then it turns out it’s that damn Krassner who’d written to me to get an interview and now he’s turned up on my own doorstep.”

Berg nodded understandingly. Those home-care folks, those home-care folks. “So you let him in?”

“Hmm,” said Forselius from the depths of his snifter. “At first I thought about just tossing the bastard out; he’s a little S.O.B. and even if I’m not as strong as I once was, it wouldn’t have been any big deal.” Forselius grunted contentedly and gave Waltin an almost greedy glance. “But then he said something that made me curious.”

“Do tell,” said Berg.

“He had greetings from an old acquaintance,” said Forselius.

The professor took a fresh sip from his large snifter while giving Waltin a suspicious look over the edge of his glass.

“An old acquaintance from the war and the years after.” Forselius nodded and appeared most interested in the contents of his glass.

“You really don’t need to be worried about Claes here,” said Berg with conviction in his voice. “Completely disregarding the fact that he is my closest man, I trust him unreservedly.” Did that sound a little strange? he thought.

Forselius nodded, mostly to himself, it appeared. Then he straightened in his chair, smiled, and shook his head.

“I hear what you’re saying, Erik,” he said. “I hear what you’re saying.”

“Well,” said Berg, smiling.

Forselius shook his head again and set the glass down on the table next to the easy chair.

“I’m afraid that this still must stay between the two of us,” he said. “But how you deal with it later is none of my concern.”

A senile old man who’s trying to make himself interesting, thought Waltin with irritation as he sat in the car, trying to read the evening paper he had bought in a tobacco shop directly across the street.

It took over half an hour before Berg came out. Without asking, Waltin started the car and set a course back toward Kungsholmen, but when they got stuck in the thickening traffic over by Odenplan he couldn’t contain himself any longer.

“Okay, chief,” said Waltin. “Tell a simple fellow laborer in the vineyard.”

Berg shook his head thoughtfully.

“I hope this doesn’t upset you,” said Berg, “but I have to think this through myself first. What I can give you for now is a general orientation.”

Waltin nodded with his eyes fixed on the traffic lights.

“The person from whom Krassner had greetings is an old acquaintance of Forselius from the time after the Second World War. Same generation as our esteemed professor, by the way, and when he and Forselius knew one another the acquaintance was working at the American embassy here in Stockholm. If you understand what I mean.”

CIA, thought Waltin nodding.

“According to Krassner this was his mother’s older brother, now deceased. Supposed to have died last spring.”

“Although clearly chipper enough to convey a greeting,” said Waltin, smiling wryly.

“Clearly,” said Berg. “It’s also possibly so bad that he let the cat out of the bag.”

Whoops, thought Waltin. This must be the first time in world history that that’s happened.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Waltin.

“Find out what Krassner is up to here at home in our dear fatherland,” said Berg, smiling faintly. “Plus the usual background, of course.”

“Without contacting the Germans,” said Waltin rhetorically. Who could ask the guys over there directly, which would have saved me a heckuva lot of time, he thought.

“Until we know where this is heading, it stays in-house,” said Berg, nodding with a certain emphasis. “We’re making no contacts whatsoever outside the building.” The part about the Americans especially was sensitive as hell; the Russians were like a hungover bear about that sort of thing, thought Berg.

“Can I borrow some people from your surveillance group?” asked Waltin.

“Sure,” said Berg. “Take what you need.”

Jeanette, age seventeen, thought Waltin, and smiled just like a wolf whose fantasies are only getting better and better.

“Umm, there was another matter,” said Berg when they had parked the car in the garage under the police building.

“I’m listening,” said Waltin. Why is he smiling like that? he thought.

“Forselius noticed your watch.” Berg nodded toward Waltin’s gold Rolex.

“I see,” said Waltin and sighed. “I suppose he assumed that I got it from the Russians?”

“More or less,” said Berg and smiled. “I explained to him that you were already wearing it the first time I met you, long before you started at the bureau.”

“Was he impressed?” asked Waltin.

“I don’t believe he’s become senile,” answered Berg. “There I believe you’re wrong, but his eccentricity has not exactly declined with the years.”

So that’s what he is, thought Waltin, eccentric, like all elitist bastards.

“I told him that the watch was a present from your old mother.”

Was that what I said? thought Waltin. He was content to nod.

What do I do now? thought Berg a while later when he was sitting safely behind his large desk.

If Forselius is correct in his assumptions, there must be tremendous openings, he thought. Among other things a proper chance to put a hammerlock on that younger Forselius copy down in Rosenbad. He had already forgotten Waltin and his fancy watch. It was many years since he had stopped being irritated by it, and nowadays, since Waltin had taken over the external operation, it was to be viewed as more of an advantage.

…

Waltin had immediately sought out Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson and informed her of three things. First, that she was now working for him and only for him. Second, that it was only Krassner this concerned, and third-a not unessential practical question-that the surveillance file on Krassner should be upgraded so that only he and she had access to what was in it. A good basis for continued fellowship of a more boundary-crossing nature, thought Waltin, smiling at her.

“Would you be able to do a few rounds out in the field?” asked Waltin.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That’s no problem. I’ve never met a guy in my whole life who thought that I was a police officer.”

Well now, well now, thought Waltin, for his fantasies were fragile things.

“Find out as much as possible, then we’ll talk after the weekend.” He smiled again and nodded. A little paternally, as one should smile at young girls like her. Build up trust before proceeding on to the essentials.

Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson was not seventeen but rather twenty-seven. When she was younger her appearance had been her main problem. Nowadays it was both an advantage and a disadvantage, and as for Waltin she was completely clear about how he saw the matter. It wasn’t the first time she had encountered this reaction from men like Waltin. More important still in the context within which she operated was that she was also a very capable police officer and certainly worthy of a better fate than the one Waltin was preparing for her. After their meeting she had gone directly into her new office; now assigned to a so-called special project, she had her own so-called project room with a key of her own and her own access codes and all the formal trappings. Once there she made a list of the various things she wanted to know about Jonathan Paul Krassner, who went by John, born in 1953 in Albany, New York, USA.

First she had called a colleague with the police out at Arlanda to see if any particular notes had been made when Krassner had entered the country a little less than a week earlier. None had been made. Because he was from the United States, not even the reply to the obligatory question of whether he was here as a tourist or for work or for some other reason had been noted. Pity you’re not an ordinary gook, thought Eriksson reflexively.

After that, she had spoken with a colleague who was in charge of their informant at Swedish Television and asked him, on behalf of the boss and for reasons that she didn’t need to go into, to get hold of all the observations the informant had made when he met Krassner, as quickly as possible and in detail. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that she could do that herself. If she needed to get physically closer to Krassner she didn’t want to risk any reactions from his new acquaintances over whom she couldn’t have any control, and showing her identity and her face for such a notoriously unreliable informant as was the case here was obviously unthinkable.

Already on Sunday evening, after having worked diligently the whole weekend, she knew a great deal about the person who was currently a project with a secret budget. For that reason she had also phoned Waltin to report. Waltin sounded satisfied. He wanted to meet with her the next morning already and for reasons he couldn’t go into, this must take place outside the building. A company with an address on Norr Mälarstrand only five minutes’ walk from the building; it was a little exciting considering what she had heard whispered in the corridors about the so-called external operation.

Daddy’s clever girl, thought Assistant Detective Eriksson when she put down the phone, but at the same time the thought was not completely disagreeable. A little tingling.

Uncle Claes’s clever girl, thought Waltin, and it was a very appealing thought.

Berg had spent the weekend pondering what Forselius had related to him. As always when he dealt with complicated security questions, he had closed himself up in his study at home in the villa in Bromma and made use of pen and paper. Paper that he was always careful to destroy when he was through thinking. Secret police history is very instructive in that regard, about people who were careless with their papers and other possessions and left unnecessary tracks that an opponent could make use of.

When they moved out to Bromma from the apartment in the city, his wife had sometimes teased him. “God, how nice,” she used to say, “that we finally have a fireplace so I don’t have to watch you starting fires in the kitchen sink.” Berg had taken it with a sense of humor, for he knew better, but, with all respect to modern paper shredders-he of course had one of the latest and best models at home-when it came to destroying papers, fire was superior to anything else. First you started the fire and then you were careful to crush and powder the ashes.

There were three levels to what Forselius had said. On the first level was the basic question of whether there was any truth in his musings or whether he was just imagining things. Berg had discussed just that aspect with him extensively. Forselius was widely known for his capacity for critical thinking and not least when it came to questioning himself, his own ideas, his own intellectual capacity, his own motives. “In the world in which I live there is no room for either lies or wishful thinking,” he had said to Berg the first time they met.

Of course Berg had also tried to press him on this point. How did he himself view the suspicions that Krassner had sown in his mind?

“If it was a question of placing bets I’d put my money on the fact that he knows something and he knows it’s true and it’s even so bad he can prove it’s true.”

Here Forselius had started to laugh a little while he supplied himself with a fresh cognac.

“What he knows and how much he knows?” Forselius shrugged his shoulders in an eloquent gesture.

“You have no ideas on that point?” asked Berg.

“Well,” said Forselius. “If it hadn’t been the case that he’s related to my old acquaintance, then I probably would have decided that he was only trying to get attention. Or that he was out snooping around in the most general way, as is the custom with that kind of humanist hack.”

Forselius took a hefty gulp from his large snifter.

“As I’m sure you see this hangs together,” Forselius continued. “True or false? If it’s false, stop and do something else instead. If it’s true, completely or only partly, we go ahead. What is true and what is false? When we find that out we can swing ourselves up to the highest level. Is that which is true actually interesting and in that case to whom? Whatever the case, these are empirical questions and you of course can resort to that sly type with the watch and those fancy clothes for the real heavy work.”

Here the chuckling had turned into a minor coughing attack.

“Exactly like when you break a code,” said Berg.

“Well,” said Forselius. “As a general description perhaps, but completely uninteresting when you’re going to do it. You’re a good man, Berg, and you are of course no numbskull, but in my world…”

Forselius made a gesture with his hands.

“I know, I know,” said Berg. “Math was never my strong suit when I was in school.”

That’s how it’ll be, thought Berg, and how do I get Waltin to do his utmost without giving him all the pieces? As far as he was concerned he knew exactly what he should do. He didn’t intend to utter a syllable to anyone about Forselius’s suspicions. First he would see about getting onto more solid ground, and once he had done so he could take a position on how he should act regarding the top level in his world. Whom he should inform about what.

In the elevated and beautiful world where Forselius and his ilk were, where everything, even chaos, could be ordered and described and explained with the help of symbols and functions, there was naturally no place for disturbing human factors of the type that afflicted Berg in particular when he came to his workplace on Monday morning.

“Welcome,” said his secretary, smiling. “You’ve received an invitation to a very fine lunch.”

“When?” asked Berg.

“Today,” said his secretary. “The prime minister’s special adviser called awhile ago and wondered if you had time to have lunch with him today. He wants you to call him.”

“How did he sound?” said Berg, and even as he said it he regretted it.

“He sounded very nice,” said the secretary, surprised. “Why? Has something happened?”

Berg shook his head. If I have time? What choice do I have? None, he thought.

On the surface he had been his usual self, the same half-closed eyelids, the same sarcastic curl of the lips, and the same reclining position, in spite of the fact that he was actually eating. It was his manner that bothered Berg deeply. For in a purely objective sense, if you looked at what he really said and how he said it, he had been nice to Berg. An obliging and entertaining host at a lunch, quite simply. Furthermore, in a place to which few had access. One of the government’s most exclusive guest dining rooms at Rosenbad.

Both his behavior and his choice of milieu disturbed Berg more than if he had tried to grab hold of Berg and butt heads with him. That’s no doubt the point of this playacting, he thought. Calm, he thought. Just calm, calm, calm.

“It was nice to get to see you for lunch, Berg,” said the special adviser, raising his glass of mineral water.

“Nice to be here,” said Berg neutrally, and replied by raising his near beer.

“I thought that our most recent meeting was enormously positive. I got a definite feeling that we actually started to approach those matters that both you and I are assigned to manage.”

Are you being ironic, you bastard? thought Berg and contented himself with nodding.

“I’m not being ironic so don’t misunderstand me,” said the prime minister’s special adviser, making a slightly dismissive motion with his left hand. “What I mean is that both you and I, each in his own place, are prisoners of our various contexts.”

Now where are you going with this? thought Berg and was content to nod again.

“Quite a few years ago, when I was doing my military service, at the kind of place that one can’t talk about-but you already know that, of course-I wrote an essay about mirror war.”

“That sounds interesting. I’m listening,” said Berg.

“Of course my thesis was based on the special operation in which I was serving at the time. I had a superior, if you please, and mine in particular was in a league of his own. He was a very talented and exceptionally cussed old son of a bitch, and I myself was only eighteen years old.”

Forselius, thought Berg, so now I know and he knows that I know, and why does he want me to know that he knows too?

“Basically it dealt with what we say to one another, in speech, in writing, with gestures and glances and in all other manners and means. For example, by not saying or doing anything whatsoever. Or just by avoiding the reaction that our opponent is expecting.” Berg contented himself with nodding; he had set his fork and knife aside.

“The ideal communication in the best of all possible worlds, populated only by good people… How does that look? To begin with, it is true. The sender is not mistaken on that point. What he or she is saying is actually true. In addition it is important to both the sender and the recipient, and in the best of worlds all communications are of course good. They are of use both to the sender and to the recipient and for the world around them.”

“The best of worlds,” said Berg, as he experienced a remarkable sense of peace, which he hadn’t felt for a long time.

“Compare that with the world in which you and I live. I couldn’t help seeing what you were thinking when I mentioned that I knew Forselius, in spite of the fact that you have a face that a poker shark would give his dealing hand for.”

The prime minister’s special adviser smiled at Berg and nodded, and suddenly he seemed not in the least ironic.

“I thank you for the compliment,” said Berg. “Would you have seen it if you hadn’t talked with Forselius?”

“Probably not.” The special adviser shrugged his shoulders. “I have a simple question. Is there anything to Forselius’s suspicions, and by that I don’t mean those kind of idiotic obviosities such as that our social-democratic government and our neutral and noble fatherland were bedfellows with the U.S. and the Western powers on security matters ever since we knew how the war would end.”

“I can see that we’re saving time here,” said Berg, smiling faintly.

“Exactly, and I’m the one who’s saying it so you can just relax and enjoy. You know, I know, all the others like you and me know. There are even editors-in-chief and professors of political science and modern history who know that their military service and placements have never been by chance, nor the psychological operations either. Even that scandal reporter Guillou knows, so it’s all the same that the media hasn’t informed everyone else. High time they did, by the way, so we could at least deprive that bastard of one of his conceivable arguments.”

“The snag is no doubt our policy of neutrality,” said Berg, feeling sharper and more secure than he had for a long time.

“Obviously. There is nothing in our world that is simply good or bad. We are also the prisoner of our compromises, and as long as we here at home are not completely sure of how it’s going to go out there, we are the world leaders at compromise.”

“That, I believe, is a pretty good summary of Swedish postwar politics,” agreed Berg.

“And neither you nor I are the first to arrive at that.”

“Certainly not,” said Berg.

“But it’s you and I who can end up in a jam, and it’s you and I who are expected to wriggle ourselves and all the others who’ve given us our jobs out of the jam, and if we don’t manage that then we, people like you and me, get squeezed a little more.”

“Speak up if you’re thinking about looking for a new job,” said Berg.

“And how is it this time?” The prime minister’s special adviser looked seriously at his lunch guest. “Is there any sort of confounded-sorry-personal, historically determined, private obviosity which is of sufficient interest to the mass media that we could end up in a jam?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out,” said Berg.

“But that’s just great,” his host said with emphasis. “That’s what we’ll do then, help each other out. Completely without the aid of mirrors.”

On Monday morning right before eight o’clock Assistant Detective Jeanette Eriksson entered the building on Norr Mälarstrand where she was to meet Waltin: an Art Deco building with large balconies and the best view of the water and the rises of south Stockholm on the other side. The company to which she was going was on the third floor, but from the name placard in the lobby it appeared that there was a Waltin on the top floor of the building. And if that’s where he lives he must have an amazing view, thought Assistant Detective Eriksson. The office was not bad either; small, to be sure, but light, modern, functional, and tastefully furnished. Quite certainly much more expensive than it appeared. Waltin was well dressed, newly shaved, efficient, and served freshly brewed coffee. Exciting guy, she thought. Wonder what he’s really like?

“Okay, Jeanette,” he said, smiling. “Tell me.”

As concerned Krassner the individual there was not much to relate. Not yet, for it had been a weekend, even off in the United States, and because she couldn’t take the normal shortcut, that aspect would no doubt take time. On the other hand she had found him.

“He’s living in the student dormitory called the Rosehip on Körsbärsvägen, on the sixteenth floor in one of those student corridors with eight rooms and a common kitchen. He sublet the room through an international student organization.”

“Who are the others living in the same corridor?” asked Waltin.

“One room is standing empty, because the person who lives there has gone home to his parents. He’s studying law and is from the province of Östergötland. His mother suffered a serious traffic accident a month ago. As far as the other six go, besides Krassner, they’re normal students in their twenties. All of them men, actually, although I don’t believe they have gender-segregated residences. I can check that out if you want.”

Waltin shook his head and smiled weakly.

“Okay,” Eriksson continued. “One of the guys is at the tech college, one’s in business school, one’s studying at GIH, one’s studying political science, one sociology, and one works with information management. All of them are Swedes except for the last, who’s some type of student from South Africa. He’s here on a scholarship this semester, black guy. He’s older than the others, twenty-eight, born in Pretoria. He got his scholarship from the Swedish trade union federation.”

Typical, thought Waltin. The social democrats and their blacks and Arabs and all those other gooks that they drag here.

“Do we have anything on any of them?” he asked.

“Not with us or within the open operation. Yes, if we include the kinds of things that all boys get involved with in their teens. The one at GIH was a little wild when he was in high school, but otherwise, no, just normal Swedish students. None of them are from Stockholm. Country boys.”

Waltin nodded. A purely idiotic project that an old bastard had palmed off on Berg, he thought. The only question was how to get himself where he wanted to go without wasting time on unnecessary work.

“Do you have any ideas about how we proceed from here?” he asked.

“I thought about trying to find out who he is,” said Eriksson. “As I said, that’s going to take time, but I have some possibilities I thought I’d try out.”

“I have an idea too.” Waltin smiled and nodded.

“Tell me,” said Eriksson, looking at him with curiosity.

Waltin smiled secretively and shook his head.

“Leave his biography to me, then I promise you’ll get a complete description of him at the end of the week. Without cheating.”

“Without cheating?” She smiled inquisitively and nodded. He actually seems super smart, thought Eriksson.

“Without cheating,” said Waltin emphatically and held up his right thumb.

Half as big as mine, he thought when she held out her small thumb, and he felt the well-known arousal when he saw her before him, curled up in the corner of his big sofa with her little thumb in her little mouth while the tears ran down her small, round cheeks.

As soon as she had gone Waltin went into the office restroom for relief. He leaned her over the washbasin with a firm grip around her thin neck while he took her from behind, hard and determined so that she would be quite clear about that right from the beginning. Then he washed his hands carefully and phoned one of his many business acquaintances who had a company subsidiary in the United States.

…

Assistant Detective Eriksson drove straight home to her studio apartment out in Solna and changed into university student clothing. Because she had studied criminology part-time for over a year this was easy. After that she took the subway into the city; a short walk brought her to the lobby of the Roseship student dormitory on Körsbärsvägen. She knew precisely what she would do and how she would do it. The camera and the rest she had stuffed under the books in her shoulder bag.

Waltin also knew what he would do. He had asked his business acquaintance with the American subsidiary to look a little closer at a young American who was trying to sell him on a business idea. Before Waltin went any further he of course wanted to know if the young American could be trusted: “Good ideas, but of course you’d really like to know if he’s fish or fowl.” It was also a bit sensitive, obviously, and as always it was urgent. On the other hand, what it cost was less important as long as it was done thoroughly.

“You’ve turned to the right man, Claes,” said his acquaintance warmly. “We have contact with a completely phenomenal private detective bureau in New York. I can get them going at once.”

Wonder how much he’s thinking about charging me this time, thought Waltin. Thanked him cordially for the assistance and ended the conversation.

Criminology student Jeanette Eriksson rang numerous times at the door to the corridor where Krassner was living before one of the doors was opened from inside. Out came a man in his thirties dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and in stocking feet. He was uncombed and appeared clearly irritated.

It’s him, she thought, and smiled her little girl smile at him.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I’m looking for a friend who lives here. Medium height, slender build, dark hair, blue eyes, thin face with a defined jawline and a dimple on his chin.” Really good-looking, she thought routinely.

Krassner-for it must be he-sighed and appeared tangibly surly.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Swedish,” he said, and made no sign of letting her in.

And it was at that moment that Daniel showed up.

“Maybe I can help you,” he said, smiling broadly with white teeth.

All guys are the same, thought Jeanette Eriksson half an hour later when she and her new acquaintance, Daniel M’Boye, were sitting across from each other, each with a cup of bad coffee from the dormitory cafeteria. Daniel had been very helpful; the friend she had been looking for had unfortunately been forced to break off his studies when his mother met with a traffic accident.

“Is he a close friend of yours?” he asked, and the compassion in his eyes seemed completely genuine.

She had managed her retreat with flying colors: old friend from high school. Didn’t know each other especially well, actually. She had heard that he was studying law and had thought about asking if she could borrow some books from him. But that was no problem at all, she assured him. She had other friends she could ask.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” He looked at her, courteous and well-mannered.

She appeared just hesitant enough.

“I’d been thinking about going down myself and having a cup in the cafeteria.” The smile was broader now and almost a little imploring.

“Okay,” said Jeanette, nodding and smiling. This kind of thing is actually just too easy, she thought.

First, Daniel told about himself and then asked what she did, and she answered completely correctly. Studied criminology, it was going so-so, second year at the university, didn’t really know what she wanted to be, lived in a studio in Solna, also so-so, mostly study and sleep, not so much fun but life would no doubt go on.

“Although your friend who didn’t want to let me in didn’t exactly seem happy either,” said Jeanette and giggled. “Surly type.”

“I hardly know him,” said Daniel and smiled. “He’s only been living there a week. He’s an American. Rather mysterious.”

“I thought he seemed old too,” said Jeanette with the correct smile. “What’s he studying?”

“He said he’s writing a book. Something political, political science, about Sweden and Swedish politics. It’s not exactly my thing,” M’Boye said, and smiled broadly as he leaned closer to her.

Time to move, thought Jeanette, and she smiled shyly back. Of course he got her home phone number after the equally obvious evasions. The new secret number that she had already arranged on Friday afternoon and that she hoped she could soon be rid of.

The weekly meeting with his superiors had gone completely without friction for once. Berg had reported on a few mixed problems: the Yugoslavs, the Kurds, how it was going with the intensified survey of antidemocratic elements within the police and the military.

“It’s going slowly,” said Berg, “but it’s moving forward.”

The special adviser had nodded, a very slight but concurring nod.

After the meeting he had taken Berg aside.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“I hope I’ll have something for you on Friday,” said Berg. “We don’t dare go outside the building, so it’s taking time to find out who he is.”

“Wise,” said the special adviser, and to Berg’s astonishment he had patted him on the arm.

He seems worried, thought Berg. Why? he thought. What is it he knows that I don’t know?

“How’s it going?” Berg asked Waltin, who was sitting on the other side of his desk, lightly pinching the already perfect creases of his trousers.

“It’s going slowly, but forward,” said Waltin. “Do you want to see what he looks like?”

Waltin handed over a plastic folder with photographs.

The photos of Krassner were taken with a telephoto as he went in and out of the dormitory where he was living: heavy boots, jeans, thick padded jacket, bareheaded on one occasion and with a stocking cap on another, close-ups of his face, thin, dogged. A person with an idea, thought Berg, who didn’t like what he saw.

“Do you know anything about his routines?”

“Seems to mostly sit closed up in his room and type,” said Waltin. “He’s visited the public library, the university library, and the Royal Library. Yesterday evening he went down to the press club and had a few beers. Walked the entire way home afterward. The light wasn’t turned off until around two o’clock.” So little Jeanette will really have to earn her keep, he thought contentedly.

“Do you have enough people?”

“Yes,” said Waltin. What is this really about? he thought.

“Do we have anyone in his vicinity?”

“Yes,” said Waltin.

“One of ours?”

“Yes,” said Waltin.

“What’s he like then?”

“Solitary, a little mysterious, seems almost a little worked up. Says hello to his corridor neighbors but doesn’t associate with anyone. Tapes hairs on his door when he goes out. You know, that type.”

Berg knew exactly.

“And mostly he sits locked up in his room and writes?”

“Yes,” said Waltin. “He seems to mostly sit there and peck like a sparrow on his little typewriter.”

“What does he live on then?” said Berg, who didn’t like what he was hearing. “Birdseed?”

“McDonald’s hamburgers and the occasional pizza.”

This doesn’t sound good, thought Berg. This doesn’t sound good at all.

On Thursday evening Waltin’s contact phoned. He had a little material on Krassner, which he wondered if he should fax over. There was more on the way, but he wouldn’t get that until next week.

“He seems to be a strange bird,” said Waltin’s contact. “May I be so bold as to ask what kind of business idea he wants to sell you on?”

“Yes, of course,” said Waltin. “It’s not a big secret. It deals with the media. He had some interesting ideas about how certain media products could be developed.”

“Oh, I see,” said the contact. “Then I would be damn careful if I were in your shoes.”

Jonathan Paul Krassner, known as John, was born on July 15, 1953, in Albany, New York, the only child of a marriage between Paul Jürgen Krassner, born in 1910, and Mary Melanie Buchanan, born in 1920. His parents had married the year before he was born, and divorced the year after.

The father was said to have been a salesman. After the divorce he had moved to Fresno, California. His further fate was unknown and any contacts with his son could in any event not be established. John had grown up with his mother, who worked as a nurse at a Catholic hospital outside Albany. The mother had died of cancer in 1975.

After American elementary and secondary school, with grades that were well above average, Krassner started at the state university in Albany, where he studied political science, sociology, and journalism, and finished his degree. After that he had worked as an intern at a local newspaper, moved on to a local TV station for just over a year, then returned to the newspaper where he had started his career, but now as an investigative reporter with his own byline. And after a few years he himself had wound up in the newspaper on the basis of a grandly planned series of articles, “From Refugee to Racketeer.” The English has a better bite to it than the Swedish translation, thought Waltin.

According to the newspaper’s investigative reporter John P. Krassner, an economically successful and socially respected Vietnamese family had built up a local crime syndicate in Albany and its environs behind a façade of restaurants, convenience stores, and coin laundries. The local uproar had been widespread for a time. Police and prosecutors had been interested, but rather quickly shook their heads and suspended their investigations. The Vietnamese family, on the other hand, had not taken the matter so lightly. They had sued the newspaper and its owners for several million dollars for libel, reported all those involved for illegal discrimination, and started to agitate in the state legislature through their local politicians and a national organization for Vietnamese boat people. The newspaper had crept to the cross, made a public apology, and paid significant damages after a settlement. Krassner had been thrown out on his ear.

What he had done after that was less clear. First he sold the house that he had inherited from his mother and where he lived after her death, to move in with his uncle, his only remaining relative. He enrolled in the university’s evening courses and gradually completed a master’s degree in “investigative journalism.” In addition he supported himself as some type of intellectual jack-of-all-trades with freelance assignments for various media, as a lecturer in courses on journalism, and for a short time as a copywriter at an advertising agency in Poughkeepsie, about sixty miles north of New York and roughly just as far south of Albany.

Waltin leafed among the faxed papers: the hired detective bureau’s exemplary systematic summary; appended copies of the parents’ wedding certificate and divorce decree; Krassner’s birth certificate; his school grades and class photos from high school; a copy of his driver’s license and his university degree; his mother’s death certificate; and a considerable packet of copies of the offending newspaper articles. At the bottom of the pile Waltin also found an obituary of his uncle and a copy of the uncle’s will, and it was now that this started to be seriously interesting.

The uncle, John Christopher Buchanan, known as John, was born in 1908 in Newark, New Jersey, and had “peacefully passed away in his home in Albany on Tuesday afternoon, April 16, 1985,” almost exactly six months before Waltin had occasion to be informed of his life and work. After completing secondary school he matriculated at Columbia University and by and by earned a doctorate in political science in 1938. At the time of Pearl Harbor he was working as an instructor in the same subject at Northwestern University, outside of Chicago, but like “the true patriot that he was” he had immediately left the academic world and trained to be a reserve officer.

After staff service of an unspecified nature in Washington, D.C., he had in the final stages of the Second World War been transferred to Europe with the rank of captain. In the spring of 1947, Lieutenant Colonel Buchanan had been appointed assistant military attaché at the American embassy in Stockholm, where he stayed for more than four years. Then his history got less clear, but in any case in 1958 he left the military as a full colonel and returned to academic life in the form of a professorship in contemporary European history at the State University of New York in Albany. The same year as his twelve-years-younger sister died of cancer, 1975-probably no connection-he had retired “in order to enjoy, by virtue of his age and after an honorable life in the service of his country, his well-earned leisure.”

Wonder if he drank, thought Waltin. Otherwise he ought to have done something more.

The most interesting thing was his will. After the introductory and obligatory enumeration of the possessions he had left behind-the house where he lived, various liquid assets in bank accounts and pension funds, his library, a collection of “European military collectibles from the Second World War,” furniture, art, and other personal property-John C. Buchanan had willed “all of the collected property left by me, the material as well as the intellectual, to my nearest relation, dear friend, and faithful squire, John P. Krassner.”

The material assets had been easy to account for. According to the court proceedings, these amounted to $129,850.50, after deductions for funeral expenses. Not one word about what the intellectual property left behind consisted of.

“But this is just fantastic,” said Assistant Detective Eriksson, and she smiled with both her mouth and her eyes at her well-dressed boss. “How did you do it?” He must be supersmart, she thought.

Waltin smiled modestly and made a slight, dismissive shrug.

“We can take that up on a later occasion,” he said. “I thought that you could turn in copies of everything plus your own information to Berg.”

Cool, thought Eriksson. That really can’t hurt in this place.

Berg didn’t seem equally enthused.

“ ‘All of the collected property left by me, the material as well as the intellectual…’ The intellectual? What does he mean by that?”

“The papers he left behind, his notes, his diaries, old photo albums from his active period. What do I know?” Waltin turned up his hands. Not everyone’s like you, Erik, he thought.

Berg shook his head and dragged his hand along his chin.

“This doesn’t sound very plausible. It’s standard procedure for the responsible authority to see to such things when someone leaves. That would be violating the whole basic principle for this operation.”

Sure, and the stork is the father of all children, thought Waltin.

“Okay,” said Berg. “We have to find out what this character is actually up to.”

“Intellectual inheritance,” said the special adviser, looking at Berg with his customary wry smile. “What does he mean by that?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Berg. “I really don’t believe he’s shown up here to gather material on his uncle’s time with the embassy in Stockholm.”

“I’ve read Krassner’s so-called investigative reporting,” said the special adviser. “The content and intellectual substance, not to mention the language, instill me with a more than slight sense of unease. Not least considering the fact that Buchanan was his uncle.”

“We’re going to find out what he’s up to,” said Berg with emphasis.

“And I should be much obliged to you if you could do that,” said the special adviser and nodded without the slightest hint of a smile.

Waltin disbelieved Forselius. A senile old man who surely took every opportunity to get himself a little socializing on his own terms and at a low price in an otherwise meaningless existence. In addition he could not for his life understand what it was that could be so important. With all due respect to Sweden’s political history-for Berg had hinted at that every time he asked-even the media usually let go of such things after the customary run of a few weeks, and as far as he was concerned the whole subject left him cold. Waltin preferred living in the present, but his boss hadn’t given him any choice.

Despite his doubts, Waltin had been compelled to engage more people. He had viewed this as a simple and practical way to get closer to little Jeanette, who was actually only seventeen years old. What all of this was really about was just him and her, and in the scenario he had planned there was definitely no place for a lot of younger, testosterone-laden colleagues. It was bad enough that she had chosen to approach that black guy who was living in the same corridor as Krassner. Black men had gigantic cocks; Waltin knew that for he had read it in a dissertation that dealt with the length and thickness of the penises of entire groups of inducted draftees from various countries. It was an international study carried out by the U.N., and the statistics that the African member countries reported were, to put it bluntly, frightening. In addition he had seen this with his own eyes when his German colleagues at Constitutional Protection had dragged him along to a private sex club outside of Wiesbaden after a security conference a few years earlier.

It hadn’t been altogether simple to scrape together a functioning and fully manned surveillance group, and before he got the whole thing in place he had been compelled to dispatch a few from his own operation. He tried to make the best of the matter and carefully informed little Jeanette that the only person she was to have personal contact with, in her new role as liaison and coordinator, was himself, but the very fact that there were others around her, young, well-trained male police officers who, when it came right down to it, had only one thought in their crew-cut heads, was enough to bother him. One of them was named Martinsson but was generally known as Strummer-an extraordinarily remarkable nickname for a policeman. He had just turned thirty, played guitar and wrote his own songs, and wore his long hair hanging loose. He had already acquired his nickname when he was in the academy and surely after having lubricated a good many female police officers. Waltin himself had picked him from the narcotics unit with the Solna police a little more than a year earlier, but this was hardly a person that he wanted to get close to a young, innocent girl like Jeanette, who was only seventeen years old.

Whatever. Early on Thursday morning, the thirty-first of October, Martinsson’s immediate chief made a phone call to Waltin. Might the police superintendent have a chance to meet with him and young Martinsson? They had possibly found an in to Krassner.

“Tell me,” said Waltin and nodded toward Martinsson, who was on the other side of the gigantic desk, admiring himself in the mirror on the wall behind Waltin’s back. “Göransson, here,” Waltin, with a turn of his head indicated Martinsson’s twenty-years-older and somewhat balding boss, “is saying you’ve found an opening for us.”

Martinsson nodded. Leafed through his black notebook with his sleeves rolled up so that the surrounding world would be able to enjoy the play of muscles on his forearms.

“I believe so, chief,” said Martinsson. “It was me and the guy who took over his case yesterday evening.”

“I see,” said Waltin, pinching his well-pressed trousers.

“It was the press club as usual. I went along inside. He was talking with a few of our own assets and among others with that Wendell from Expressen, and he had some younger female hacks with him, one of them had fucking decent tits. Lots of ladies around that man-Wendell, that is.”

“Yes,” said Waltin and sighed quietly. Get to the point if you don’t want to go back to the patrol cars, he thought.

“He left right before one, and for once he was a little drunk-he had five beers instead of the normal two. He’s a little guy,” Martinsson said in a tone of voice that naturally followed from the fact that he was twice as big and four times as strong.

Whatever that has to do with things, thought Waltin, who himself was just slightly above average height.

“So I followed him on foot,” said Martinsson.

And here I thought you were watching him from the air, thought Waltin wearily. “Yes,” he said.

“He took the direct route down to doper square and the first person he runs into is Svulle Svelander.”

“Svulle?” said Waltin.

“Jan Svulle Svelander, well-known pusher, well-known junkie, he’s been at it since Noah’s ark. Tattooed over his whole body so he looks like a Brussels carpet. Has a rap sheet long enough to wind it twice around a hot-dog stand.”

“And what did they do then?” asked Waltin, even though he already knew the answer.

“He bought grass,” said Martinsson. “Krassner bought grass from Svulle. A fucking lot of grass, in fact.”