The Nightmare

84

Karl Mann spits rapid orders into his radio as he jogs toward the stairwell.

“The top floor is on fire,” he says shortly.

“How big a fire?” asks Joona as he keeps pace with him.

“We don’t know, but we’re evacuating the embassy and there are usually eleven people working upstairs.”

Karl Mann snatches a fire extinguisher from a red cabinet and pulls out the safety stopper.

“I’ll take Penelope outside,” Saga yells.

“He started the fire,” Penelope says. “He’s going to escape when everyone’s working to put out the fire.”

Joona follows the three military men up the stairs. Their steps echo between the cold cement walls although they try to run as quietly as they can. They come into the hallway on the third floor where there is a stronger smell of smoke and even gray wisps curling up to run along the ceiling.

They take turns yanking open doors but they find nothing in the rooms.

“It looks like there’s smoke coming from the Schiller salon.” Karl Mann points as he speaks.

At the end of the hallway, smoke is streaming smoothly from beneath the double doors. It flows like water moving in the wrong direction, up the doors and along the walls to spread out at the ceiling.

A woman screams somewhere and there’s a thud in the building as if there’s a clap of thunder within the walls. A sharp bang snaps from behind the doors as if a large glass pane had broken from the heat.

“We have to get people out,” Joona says. “There’s-”

Karl Mann motions Joona to be quiet as he listens to his radio. He puts the fire extinguisher down as he answers in German. He then turns to the whole group.

“Listen up!” he says in a steady voice. “Our security cameras have spotted a man dressed in black in the men’s bathroom. He has a pistol in the sink.”

“That’s the guy,” Joona says.

Karl Mann talks again to security in a low voice to pinpoint where he is in the bathroom.

“He’s two meters to the right of the door,” Karl Mann explains. “He’s bleeding heavily from the shoulder and he’s sitting on the floor… but the window is open and it’s possible that he wants to get out that way.”

They make their way quickly over the brown floor paper, past a propped-up painter’s ladder, and crowd in behind Karl Mann. It’s gotten hotter here and the smoke is curling like a dark clay ball near the ceiling. It’s crackling and roaring, and it feels as if the floor is quivering beneath their feet.

“What kind of weapon does he have?” Joona asks.

“They could see only the pistol in the sink. Nothing else-”

“Ask about a backpack,” Joona snaps. “He always carries one-”

“I’m doing this,” hisses Karl Mann.

Karl Mann signals one of his men. They all glance quickly down, double checking their automatic rifles, and then follow him into the dressing area. Joona stifles a warning as they head inside. He fears their standard attack will not suffice against this killer. They’re like flies lured to a spider. One by one, they’ll get stuck in his net.

Joona feels smoke sting his eyes.

A spider makes a net from two kinds of threads, he thinks. The sticky ones to catch her prey and the threads she makes for herself.

She remembers the pattern and can therefore jump past her own trap without getting caught.

Joona joins the military police, who have already taken shelter outside the bathroom door. One of them, with blond hair sticking out under the edge of his helmet, pulls the safety pin from a shock grenade. He opens the door slightly to throw the grenade across the tiled floor and closes the door again quickly. A deadened bang is heard and then the other men open the door with weapons drawn. Karl Mann makes a hurry-up gesture with his hand. Without a moment of hesitation, the blond policeman rushes in with his automatic rifle lifted with the piston on his shoulder. Joona’s heart pounds in worry. Then he hears the blond policeman’s frightened shout, almost childlike in its panic. Only a second later, there’s a massive explosion. The bodies of the men are flung back from the door with smoke and debris flying around them. The door is blown off its hinges. A policeman drops his weapon and slips aside, falling to one knee. The pressure wave forces Joona backward. The blond policeman is on his back on the floor. His mouth is open and a pool of blood can be seen welling between his teeth. He’s unconscious. A large splinter sticks up from his thigh. Bright red blood is pumping out in splashing drops. Joona rushes forward and pulls the policeman over and turns the man’s face to one side. He makes a hurried field tourniquet with the man’s belt and a ripped-off sleeve. He ignores the warmth of blood on his hands.

One of the men is crying with a frightened, quivering sound.

Civilians are being led out. Two policemen help a gray-haired man through the hallway. The man’s face is sooty and he can hardly walk. A woman has wrapped her sweater around her mouth and she’s hurrying through the hallway with wide-open eyes.

Holding his pistol out, Karl Mann walks into the bathroom, crunching on splintered glass from the mirrors. He finds the hit man lying on the floor. The man is still alive. His legs jerk and his arms thrash wildly. His chin and most of his face have been blown off. Karl Mann surveys the scene and calculates what might have happened. He thinks the man had intended a trap using his own grenade but had been jarred by the shock grenade. He had dropped his own instead.

“We’ll evacuate everyone else,” Karl Mann says, and leaves the bathroom.

Joona wipes blood from his hands. He calls the center of operations and directs them to send medical aid to the bathroom. As he speaks, he sees Penelope hurrying toward him from the stairwell with Saga right behind. Penelope’s eyes are ringed in black fatigue. Saga is murmuring soothing words and tries to lead her away, but Penelope jerks free.

“Where is he?” Penelope asks with a haunted voice. “I have to look at him!”

“It’s dangerous for you here,” Joona says. “The fire could get here in just seconds.”

Penelope pushes past Joona and steps across the littered floor of the men’s bathroom. Staring around, she sees the man on the floor still flailing about with the chewed-up remains of a face. She whimpers and rushes back out to lean for support against the wall. A framed letter from former chancellor Willy Brandt slides to the floor and the glass cracks, but the letter rests upright against the wall.

Penelope’s stomach lurches. She swallows and feels Saga trying to put her arms around her to move her back toward the stairs.

“That’s not him!” Penelope whimpers.

“We have to get out,” Saga says urgently, and leads her away.

Medical personnel have come running in. They load the blond soldier onto a stretcher. A new heat explosion can be heard. Glass shards and wooden splinters are in the air. A man stumbles along the hallway, slips, and gets back up. Smoke pours from an open door. A huge man stands silently in the hallway with blood running from his nose and over his shirt and tie. The military police herd everyone toward the emergency exits, shouting at them to move quickly. Flames suddenly shoot out from an open office door. The protecting paper on the floor catches fire and twists around as it burns. Two people are running hand in hand. A woman’s summer dress has caught fire. She’s screaming. An officer covers her with foam from his extinguisher.

Joona is choking from the smoke but doggedly returns to witness the devastation from the hand grenade. The hit man lies absolutely still now. Someone has wrapped his face with temporary bandages and gauze. Through the bullet wound in his forearm, dark red blood trickles down the sleeve of his jacket. A first-aid kit once attached to the wall is now on the floor and bandages have fallen out and are scattered with the dust onto the white tiles. The walls are blackened and most of the tiles have been blown loose. A toilet stall is demolished. Water pours across the floor from a broken pipe.

In the sink, there is a Heckler & Koch pistol with seven magazines of ammunition. Behind the door of another stall lies the black shape of a rough nylon backpack. It looks flattened and empty.

Yells, frightened voices, and barked orders come from the hallway outside. Karl Mann leads medical personnel in.

“I want a guard over him,” Joona says, gesturing toward the hit man as the men lift him onto a stretcher and strap him down.

“He’ll probably be dead before he gets to the hospital,” Karl Mann says, coughing up smoke against his hand.

“Even so, I want your word he’ll be guarded as long as he’s on embassy property.”

Karl Mann squints at Joona and then designates one of his men to take responsibility for the prisoner until they hand him over to the Swedish police.

Heavy black smoke now belches through the hallway with the sounds of loud roars and crackling coming nearer. Everyone is racing to get outside. Karl Mann squats below the layer of smoke and says shortly, “Someone from this floor is still missing.”

Joona walks across a door that’s lying on the floor and then to one still closed in its frame. He presses down the handle. Light shines for a second and then disappears. Only fire illuminates the smoky hallway and sparks are flying through open doors.

There’s roaring and sparking and banging and crackling as metal heats and begins to writhe.

Joona gestures Karl Mann to move back. He draws his pistol, opens the door a few more centimeters, moves aside, waits a moment, and then looks in.

There’s nothing but the black silhouettes of office furniture. The curtains are closed. But the eddy of air close to the floor makes Joona move away from a possible line of fire.

“Evacuate!” someone yells behind them.

Joona turns and sees four firemen who specialize in rescue work coming up through the hallway. They spread out and systematically search through the rooms.

Before Joona can give them any warning, one of the rescuers shines his strong flashlight into the room, and two eyes reflect back. A Labrador retriever begins to bark loudly.

“We’ll take it from here,” one of the men laughs. “Can you get out on your own?”

“There’s still one missing,” Karl Mann says.

“Be really careful.” Joona warns them as much as he can.

“Come on!” Karl Mann shouts urgently behind him.

“I need to get just one more thing.”

Joona, coughing heavily, runs once more into the men’s bathroom, noticing the pattern of blood on the floor and on the walls, and hurries to snatch up the black backpack.