He Who Kills the Dragon

50.

Superintendent Toivonen didn’t have thirty men to investigate the murder of his security guard, as Bäckström believed. By Friday morning the reinforcements had arrived. He had been authorized to borrow people from National Crime, the National Rapid-Response Unit, and the riot squad. From Stockholm County Crime and from the other district covered by the county. Even the police down in Skåne had sent him three investigators from the county’s special armed robbery unit. For the time being he was in charge of almost seventy officers and detectives, as well as his own unit, and he could have had more if he wanted. Nowadays Toivonen got everything he asked for, and he and his group leaders had spent the whole day planning their strategy.

Now the whole operation had to come together. Internal surveillance, outdoor surveillance, monitoring, telephone interception, cell surveillance, bugging, increasing the pressure, stirring up and bringing in the hang-arounds and wannabes in the groups around the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin Hassan Talib. Lock them up, question them, stop their cars, subject them to body searches whenever the opportunity arose, and, if necessary, beat the shit out of them if they said anything inappropriate, made any rapid movements, or simply showed any signs of normal behavior.

‘Okay, let’s get to it. The Ibrahims are heading for prison,’ Toivonen said with a stern expression and a nod to all his colleagues.

Starting from six o’clock in the evening, Superintendent Jorma Honkamäki and his colleagues from the National Rapid-Response Unit and the Stockholm Police riot squad had carried out a total of ten raids on homes and premises in Huddinge-Botkyrka, Tensta-Rinkeby, and North Järva. They hadn’t asked for permission to enter first. The doors had been uniformly smashed in. Anyone found in the flats and premises had been carried out in handcuffs. Drug-detection dogs, bomb-detection dogs, and ordinary police dogs had been sent in; the furnishings and fittings had been turned upside down; the interior walls of some offices in Flemingsberg were torn down; and money, drugs, weapons, ammunition, explosives, detonators, smoke grenades, caltrops, balaclavas, overalls, handcuffs, loose number plates, and stolen vehicles had all been found. When the sun rose on a new day in the world’s most beautiful capital city, thirty-three people were in custody, and the whole thing was only just starting.

Linda Martinez was the recently appointed superintendent of National Crime’s surveillance unit, brought in by Toivonen and responsible for the outdoor surveillance of the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin. She had chosen her team carefully and she was well aware of her opponents’ weaknesses.

‘Not an ordinary Swede as far as the eye can see,’ Martinez concluded as she surveyed her forces. ‘Nothing but black, brown, and blue,’ she said with a delighted grin.

Before Toivonen left the Solna police station he had met with his boss, Anna Holt, to inform her of the latest from the Criminal Investigation Service on possible connections between Karl Danielsson, the Ibrahim brothers, and Hassan Talib. Now that they knew what they were looking for, everything had been much easier to find. Among other things, a nine-year-old report about Karl Danielsson’s involvement in money laundering in the wake of the major armed robbery in Akalla, to the north of Stockholm. Because the tip-off could never be backed up with firm evidence, the case had been put to one side and eventually forgotten.

In March 1999, some nine years earlier, at least six masked and armed men had raided the depot of a security transport company out in Akalla. They drove a fifteen-ton forklift truck straight through the wall of the depot. They forced the staff onto the floor, and when they disappeared five minutes later they took with them some hundred million kronor in unmarked notes.

‘One hundred and one million, six hundred and twelve thousand kronor, to be precise,’ Toivonen said, reading from his notes just to be sure.

‘That sounds like a decent day’s work,’ Holt said. ‘Not your usual shitty little raid, I mean.’

‘No, although it was complete fuckup for us,’ Toivonen said.

Not one single krona of the money had been recovered. None of those involved were ever brought to trial, even though everyone had a fair idea of who they were and how the whole thing had been planned and carried out. The only consolation under the circumstances was that none of the staff had been wounded, and that was thanks to the raiders rather than the police.

The kingpin was a well-known gangster of Moroccan descent, Abdul Ben Kader, born 1950, so now approaching sixty. He had lived in Sweden for more than twenty years and popped up regularly in criminal contexts. Everything from illegal gambling and drinking dens, brothels, organized theft, and receipt of stolen goods to insurance scams and armed robbery.

Constantly under suspicion, taken into custody, locked up on three occasions. But never convicted, never obliged to spend a single day as a convicted felon in a Swedish penal institution.

‘A couple months after the Akalla raid the bastard retired and went back to Morocco,’ Toivonen said with a wry smile. ‘Apparently he now owns a number of bars and at least one hotel.’

‘So where do the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin come into this?’ Holt asked.

All three had taken part in the raid. That was the firm belief of Toivonen and his colleagues. Farshad, who had been twenty-eight at the time of the raid, was the one who led the actual operation. His cousin, who was three years younger, had driven the forklift, and his little brother Afsan, then just twenty-three years old, had grabbed as much money as he could get his hands on, even though he was dressed in overalls, gloves, and a full ski mask.

‘Ben Kader could be described as a sort of mentor to Farshad. Farshad was his favorite even though he wasn’t from north Africa but Iran. They’re both Muslim, by the way, and teetotalers,’ Toivonen added for some reason.

‘Farshad arrived here as a refugee with his family when he was only three years old. His younger brother was born in Sweden. Ben Kader had no children of his own, and because little Farshad was made of the right stuff, he evidently took a liking to the lad. We know that they’re still in touch, because only a few weeks ago we received information from our French colleagues via Interpol that they met up on the Riviera as recently as March this year.’

‘Danielsson,’ Holt prompted.

‘Ben Kader used him as his bookkeeper, accountant, and financial adviser for his legal activities. Among other things, he owned a grocery store in Sollentuna, a tobacconist’s and a dry cleaner’s out here in Solna. In hindsight, that probably wasn’t all that Danielsson did, but because it could never be proved, he was only ever questioned for information.

‘When Ben Kader returned to Morocco, Farshad both took over the grocery store and got Danielsson into the bargain. Farshad still owns the shop in Sollentuna. He has relatives working there, but he’s listed as the owner. Danielsson, on the other hand, has vanished from the paperwork.’

‘Akofeli,’ Holt said. ‘How does he come into this? He could hardly have been involved in the Akalla raid, since he would have been, what, sixteen at the time?’

‘To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Toivonen said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t think he was involved with either Danielsson or the Ibrahim brothers. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and slipped into it all on a banana peel. I think we can forget any idea of him murdering Danielsson.’

‘What about the Ibrahim brothers and Hassan Talib, then? Could they have murdered Danielsson and Akofeli?’

‘No idea,’ Toivonen said with a sigh.

‘Maybe it’ll work out,’ Holt said, smiling. ‘Bäckström promised that it would be sorted soon. He said he just needs another week.’

‘I can hardly contain myself,’ Toivonen snorted.

Then Toivonen had gone home to his row house in Spånga. Prepared a meal for his two teenage sons, since his wife had gone up to Norrland to visit her ailing father. After the meal his boys had disappeared to meet their friends. Toivonen had poured himself a beer and a small whiskey shot and started the weekend in front of the television. When his younger son got home at eleven, his dad was lying on the sofa, dozing in front of the sports channel.

‘Aren’t you going to go to bed, Dad?’ his son asked. ‘You’re looking a bit tired, if you ask me.’