The Rabbit Hunter

44

Parisa Ratjen slows down before pulling out onto highway 229. Without speaking, they drive past low industrial units and scrappy patches of woodland.

Her face is pale, her mouth tense. She’s sitting bolt upright, clutching the wheel with both hands.

Joona has given up asking where they’re going. They’re way beyond the range of his microphone now.

All he can do is try to keep his cover for as long as he possibly can. Maybe Parisa’s role is to take him to the terrorists’ hiding place.

She brakes behind a truck with a yellow tarp over its trailer. There’s a sharp crack as a stone hits the windshield.

‘I don’t know what side you’re on, but Salim wouldn’t ask you to give me a message if it wasn’t important,’ she suddenly says, changing lane. ‘Can you tell me why you haven’t passed on the real message?’

‘You didn’t offer me any bread.’

‘Good,’ she whispers.

They’re alongside the truck now, the steel railings on their left flicker past, as the trailer sways in a gust of wind.

‘Salim gave me a phone number,’ Joona says. ‘You need to phone 040 6893040 and ask for Amira.’

The car swerves as Parisa’s grip slips at the sound of the name. The front wheel of the truck looms large in Joona’s passenger window and the roar of its engine fills the car.

‘That was all,’ Joona says quietly.

She grips the wheel tightly, accelerates and pushes past the huge vehicle.

‘Say the number again,’ she says, swallowing hard.

‘040 6893040.’

Parisa pulls into the right-hand lane again and turns off the main road so sharply that a road atlas on the back seat falls to the floor.

They drive past a large, pale yellow industrial building and onto a large tarmacked area between a petrol station and a McDonald’s. She turns the car around, reverses back against the grass and stops.

The headlights shine dully over the asphalt towards the petrol pumps.

Off to the left a family emerges from the fast-food restaurant.

Parisa leaves the car in neutral and winds down the windows on both sides. Without saying a word she opens her door and gets out. She feels under the seat, pulls out a Glock, and points it at him through the open window.

‘Get out of the car very slowly,’ she says.

‘I’m not involved, I’m just passing on—’

‘Put your hands up,’ she snaps. ‘I know you’re armed.’

‘It’s just for protection.’

The pistol is shaking in her hands, but her finger is on the trigger and she would probably still hit him if she were to fire now.

‘I have no idea what this is all about,’ she says. ‘But I grew up in Afghanistan. I saw the sniper in the window on the other side of the street.’

‘I don’t know what you think you saw, but—’

‘Out of the car, or I’ll shoot,’ she says, raising her voice. ‘I don’t want to, but I’ll shoot you if I have to.’

‘OK, I’m coming,’ Joona says, and slowly opens the car door.

‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ she says, licking her lips.

‘Who’s Amira?’ he asks as he puts his right foot on the ground.

‘Walk away from the car without turning around.’

Joona straightens up with his back to her. He notes that there are three cars parked outside the McDonald’s. The wind is tugging at the flags flying outside.

‘Further away,’ she says as she steps closer to the car, keeping the gun trained on him.

Joona starts to walk towards the parked cars.

Parisa gets back in the driver’s seat, still pointing the pistol at him.

‘I might be able to help you,’ he says, and stops walking.

‘Keep walking,’ she calls out behind him.

He takes another couple of steps, and sees a large man come out from McDonald’s carrying a bag of food. He gets into the front seat of his car, puts the key in the ignition and starts to eat his hamburger.

‘Just so you know,’ she says, with a trace of hysteria in her voice: ‘If you try to use me to put pressure on Salim, it won’t work, because I’ve already filed for divorce. He won’t care what happens to me.’

‘I’m not involved,’ Joona repeats, and hears her put the pistol down on the passenger seat.

‘Keep walking. I swear, I’ll shoot if you stop again.’

The moment he hears her put the car in gear and accelerate he starts to run. He vaults the low hedge surrounding the car park, opens the door of the car in which the large man is eating a hamburger. He yanks him out onto the ground. His big cup of Coke falls to the ground, scattering its ice-cubes.

Joona sees Parisa almost lose control of her car as she drives past the yellow industrial building.

He quickly puts the car in gear, slams his foot down and drives straight through the neatly trimmed hedge.

The golf clubs on the back seat rattle when the rear wheels hit the road on the other side.

The heavyset man gets to his feet and stands there surrounded by the remains of his hamburger as his car heads straight up the steep grass bank beside the road.

Joona drives across the grass divider, makes a sharp right and thuds down onto the main road. The Volvo lurches across the three lanes. The back end of the car is still sliding sideways as he slams his foot down on the accelerator pedal.

The left rear wheel hits the central guard rail with a thump.

The hubcap flashes in the rear-view mirror as it bounces onto the other side of the highway.

Joona sees Parisa turn onto Huddingevägen. A warning light appears on the dashboard.

He passes a white van, hitting one hundred and forty kilometres an hour, then brakes when he sees her dirty Opel a couple of hundred metres ahead.

Joona pulls into the right-hand lane, leaving two cars between them, then draws out his phone and calls Janus Mickelsen, and gives him all the information about Parisa’s car and their current position and direction.

‘OK, I’ve got it,’ Janus says. ‘Keep us informed. I’ll get the go-ahead to redirect our operation.’

‘I don’t know what this is about or where we’re going,’ Joona says. ‘But I’ve only got enough petrol for another fifty kilometres, so I’ll need backup before then.’

When the warning light first comes on, there are eight litres of fuel left. That would give fifty-four kilometres of normal driving, but because he’s driving unusually fast it could be considerably less.

He has no idea where Parisa is going, and he can’t see any other option but to follow her for as long as he can.

They’re heading north, just west of Stockholm. He thinks about her peculiar nervousness, and her efforts to make conversation before she spotted one of the snipers and decided to make a run for it.

Thirty minutes later Joona is driving down a long hill beside a golf course. The wind is blowing hard, tugging sideways at the car.

He sees a petrol station and a row of rental cars. But if he stops he might lose sight of Parisa.

And then she’d be gone.

He has to gamble and keep driving, even though the petrol is going to run out in about four kilometres.

Joona calls Janus and gives him a concise update, telling him that they’ve passed Åkersberga and are heading out along Roslagsvägen. As he drives, the forests and meadows are swallowed up by dusk.

Parisa’s red rear lights are visible far ahead of him. Sometimes they vanish briefly, only to reappear when he emerges from a bend in the road.

The road leads through a dark patch of forest. The tree-trunks look like a stage-set in the glow of the headlights.

Joona thinks about the look on Parisa’s face when he passed on Salim’s message. The emotions he saw were fear and surprise.

He’s just passed an isolated side-road blocked by a rusty barrier when there’s a whirring sound.

The engine sounds like it’s racing, then it goes completely quiet. Joona pulls over to the hard shoulder, stops and switches on the hazard lights.

Far in the distance he sees the lights of Parisa’s car flicker and then disappear.

Grabbing his phone, Joona gets out of the car and starts running along the road after her.

The sound of her engine has already vanished.

Even on a winding road like this one Parisa can drive something like three times as fast as he can run. With every minute the distance between them is growing exponentially.

There’s dense forest on either side of the road.

He passes a deserted bus-stop and runs down a slope. The forest opens up, revealing misty meadows in the darkness.

He’s running fast, and he knows he can keep this pace up for more than ten kilometres.

Far off in one of the fields, two deer raise their heads as he runs past.