The Sandman

165

Joona runs through the snow along the edge of the quay, with the sledgehammer hanging by his side. He can hear shouting behind him. Large blocks of ice are rolling in the sludgy water. The water rises, hits the quayside and sprays up.

Joona tears up the ramp of the roll-on, roll-off ferry to St Petersburg. He carries on past the rows of warm, steaming private cars, trailers and lorries. Light is coming from lamps along the bulkheads. Behind a grey container towards the stern he can just make out a red one.

A man tries to get out of his car, but Joona shuts the door on him so he can get past. The sledgehammer hits a bolt in one of the ship’s bulkheads. He can feel the vibration moving through his arm and shoulder.

The steel deck under the cars is wet with melted snow. Joona kicks some cones blocking his path out of the way and keeps moving.

He reaches the red container, bangs on the doors and shouts out. The lock is high up. He has to climb up onto the car behind – a black Mercedes – and stand on the bonnet to reach it. The bonnet buckles beneath his feet and the paint cracks. He swings the sledgehammer and smashes the lock with his first blow. The noise echoes off the bulkheads and roof. Joona leaves the sledgehammer on the car bonnet. He opens the container. One of the doors swings open and scrapes the car’s bumper.

‘Disa!’ he calls into the container.

It’s full of white boxes with the name Evonik on their sides. They’re tightly packed, and strapped down on pallets. Joona picks up the sledgehammer again and carries on towards the stern, past the cars and lorries. He can feel that he’s starting to get tired. His arms are trembling from the exertion. Loading of the ferry has finished now and the bow is being lowered into place. There’s a rumble of machinery and the deck shakes as the ferry pulls away. Ice knocks against its hull. He’s almost at the stern when he sees another red container with the words Hamburg Süd on the side.

‘Disa,’ he calls.

He runs round the cab, stops and looks at the blue lock on the container. He wipes water from his face, grabs hold of the sledgehammer, and fails to notice the person approaching from behind.

Joona raises the sledgehammer and is about to strike when he receives a hard blow in the back. It hurts, his lungs roar and he almost blacks out. He drops the sledgehammer and falls forward, hitting his forehead against the container and collapsing on the deck. He rolls to the side and gets to his feet. Blood is running into one eye, and he stumbles and reaches out to a nearby car for support.

In front of him is a fairly tall woman with a baseball bat over her shoulder. She’s breathing quickly and her padded jacket is pulled tight across her chest. She takes a step to the side, blows a lock of blonde hair from her face and takes aim again.

‘Leave my cargo the fuck alone!’ she yells.

She strikes again, but Joona moves quickly, heading straight at her, grabbing her throat with one hand, stamping his foot down at the back of her knee so that her leg buckles, then throws her to the deck and points his pistol at her.

‘National Criminal Police,’ he says.

She lies on deck, whimpering and looking at him as he picks up the sledgehammer, grasps it with both hands, swings it and shatters the lock. A piece of metal casing lands with a clatter right in front of her face.

Joona opens the doors, but the container is full of large boxes of televisions. He pulls a few out to see further in; Disa isn’t there. He wipes the blood from his face and runs off between the cars, past a black container, and hurries up some steps to the open deck.

He rushes over to the railing, gasping for breath in the cold air. In front of the ship he can see the channel that an icebreaker has cleared through the archipelago to the open sea.

A mosaic of crushed ice is bobbing around a buoy.

The ferry is now twenty metres from the quay, and Joona suddenly has a view of the whole harbour. The sky is black, but the harbour is lit up by floodlights.

Through the heavy snow he sees the large crane loading a waiting goods train. Joona feels a spasm of anguish as he realises that three of the wagons have similar red containers on them.

He carries on towards the stern, takes his phone out and calls the emergency control room. He asks for all traffic from Frihamnen in Stockholm to be stopped. The duty officer knows who Joona is, and puts his call through to the regional police commissioner.

‘All rail traffic from Frihamnen has to be stopped,’ he repeats breathlessly.

‘That’s impossible,’ she replies calmly.

Heavy snow is falling over the vast container terminal.

He clambers up the mooring winch and out onto the railing. He can see a reach-stacker carrying a red container to a waiting lorry.

‘We have to stop all traffic,’ Joona says again.

‘That can’t be done,’ the commissioner says. ‘The best we can do is—’

‘I’ll do it myself,’ Joona says abruptly, and jumps.

Hitting the practically freezing water feels like being struck by icy lightning, like getting an adrenalin injection straight to the heart. His ears are roaring. His body can’t handle the abrupt chill. Joona sinks through the black water, loses consciousness for a few seconds and dreams of a bridal crown of woven birch-root. He can’t feel his hands and feet, but thinks that he has to get up to the surface, kicks out with his legs and finally manages to stop himself sinking any deeper.