The Nightmare

79

In his apartment on Wallingatan, Joona Linna wakes up. He opens his eyes and looks outside at the light early summer sky through his open curtains. He never closes them, preferring natural light.

It’s early in the morning.

Just as he turns over to fall back to sleep, his phone rings.

He knows what’s happening before he sits up to answer. He listens to the excited voice telling him the latest developments in the operation while he opens his safe and takes out his Smith & Wesson. The suspect is in Östermalms Saluhall and the police have just stormed the building with no strategy at all.

It’s been six minutes since the alarm was sounded and the suspect retreated toward the center area of the building. The leader of the operation is now trying to close off the surrounding area while still continuing to guard Penelope Fernandez.

A new SWAT team heads into the entrance from Nybrogatan. They swing left past the chocolate counter and among the tables in the fish restaurant. Chairs are still upside down on the wooden surfaces. A chilled display counter shows lobster and turbot on crushed ice. The officers’ footsteps echo up from the floor as they rush forward. They spread out and take cover behind pillars. As they wait for further orders, someone can be heard moaning deeply in the darkness. A colleague sounds badly wounded and must be lying in his own blood.

The rising sun’s light is spreading through the sooty glass windows in the ceiling. Mira’s heart is thudding. Two heavy shots had just been released, followed by four quick pistol shots and then two more heavy shots. One police officer is quiet and the other one must be terribly wounded. He’s screaming he’s been hit in the stomach and needs help.

“Can’t anyone hear me?” he pleads.

Mira sees a reflection in the window. A figure moving behind a display of hanging pheasants and reindeer shanks. She signals to her colleague that someone is right in front of them. He calls the chief of operations to see if any police officers are in the middle hallway. Mira wipes sweat from her fingers and regrips her gun. The obscure figure is moving very oddly. She goes closer, bent over, pressing her side against a vegetable counter. She smells the green of parsley and the earthy scent of potatoes. Her Glock shakes slightly in her hand. She lowers it, takes a deep breath, and nears the corner of the counter. Her colleague gestures toward her. He’s preparing an operation with three other officers who’ve already gotten in from Nybrogatan. He’s moving toward the suspect along the counter with the wild game. All of a sudden, a high-speed automatic rifle fires from the direction of the fish restaurant. Mira hears the wet, sucking sound of a bullet going through the protective vest and the body armor of boron carbide of an older officer and into his body. The empty cartridge of the high-speed automatic rifle clangs on the stone floor close-by.

The hit man sees his first shot enter the policeman’s chest and blood spurt from between his shoulder blades. The man is dead before his knees buckle. As he slides sideways to the ground, he pulls one of the tables with him. A salt-and-pepper stand clatters to the floor, and the shakers roll beneath a chair.

The hit man doesn’t pause. He’s running as fast as he can toward the center of the building and automatically calculates lines of fire. A police officer must be hiding behind a tiled wall next to the fish counter. Another is approaching through the hallway of wild game. The hit man whirls around and fires two quick shots while he heads for the kitchen of the fish restaurant.

Mira hears two more shots. Her young partner crumples, and blood spurts from the exit wound between his shoulder blades. His automatic rifle smacks the ground, and he falls back so hard that his helmet shakes loose and rolls across the floor. The barrel of his fallen gun points toward Mira. She moves away fast and crawls along the floor next to the fruit counter. Then chaos as twenty-four police officers storm the Saluhall-six pouring through each door. She tries to radio in, but can’t contact anyone. With an astonished blink, she sees the hit man less than ten meters away. He’s going toward the fish restaurant. Mira steadies her Glock in two hands, aims, and fires three shots at him.

A bullet plows through the hit man’s left forearm as he’s storming through the swinging doors to the kitchen. He keeps going along the grill, blundering through some hanging steel pans and toward a narrow metal door. Warm blood runs over the back of his hand. He knows there’s some serious damage, especially to the back of his arm. This was hollow-point ammunition, after all. But he can also tell the artery is untouched. Without looking down at his wound, he opens the door to the warehouse elevator, scrambles through and out the facing door. He finds himself in a narrow hallway and kicks open another gray metal door, heading toward morning light beyond. Eight cars are parked on an asphalt inner courtyard. Rising around him are the high, smooth walls of the Saluhall like the backside of a yellow theater curtain. He folds up the accessories to his weapon and runs to an older-model red Volvo that has no automatic ignition. He kicks out the back passenger window on the driver’s side and reaches in to open the door. The sound of automatic rifle fire still resounds inside the Saluhall. He sits down behind the steering wheel, breaks open the column and then the lock, pulls open the ignition, and, with his knife blade, starts the car.