The Fire Witness

195

A man in blue jeans and a denim shirt is sitting on a plastic chair. He’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. Then his blue eyes look up at the door and Roland Brolin takes a step back.

Jurek Walter is clean-shaven and his gray hair has been combed with a straight part. His face is unnaturally white and deeply furrowed with wrinkles. It’s a net of pain.

Roland walks back to the grid gate and unlocks a cupboard. He takes out three small glass vials with wide necks and aluminum caps. He adds two milliliters of water to each bottle, turns them upside down, and then swirls them carefully so that the powder dissolves in the liquid. Then he draws the liquid into a needle.

They walk up to the bulletproof glass on the door. Jurek Walter is now sitting on his bed. Roland puts his earplugs into his ears and then opens the slot in the door.

“Jurek Walter,” he says in a relaxed voice. “It’s time…”

Anders watches the man get up from the bed and walk to the door while unbuttoning his shirt.

“Stop and take off your shirt,” Roland says, although the man is already doing so.

Jurek Walter walks slowly toward them.

Roland shuts the slot and fastens it with movements that are just a bit too fast, too nervous. Jurek stops and slips out of his shirt. He has three round scars on his chest. His skin hangs limply from his arms.

Roland opens the slot again and Jurek walks the last few steps.

“Hold out your arm,” Roland says. A slight hiccup betrays his fear.

Jurek puts his arm through the slot but does not look at Roland at all. He’s staring intently at Anders.

Roland jabs the needle into an upper-arm muscle and injects the liquid quickly. Jurek’s hand jerks in surprise, but he does not withdraw his arm until he has received permission.

Roland shuts the slot and locks it as swiftly as he can. Jurek Walter stumbles back toward his bed. He sits down. His movements are jerky. Roland drops the needle and they watch it roll across the concrete floor.

When they look back through the glass, it’s misty. Jurek Walter has breathed on it. He’s written a single word backward in the haze: JOONA.

“What’s that say?” asks Anders, his voice weak.

“He’s written ‘Joona.’”

“Joona? What the hell does that mean?”

Before the haze dissipates, they look in. Jurek Walter is sitting on his bed as if he’d never moved.