To the Top of the Mountain

46

NIGHT. A DESERTED garage somewhere in Stockholm. A waiting car. A shadow slipping into it.

A faint light fell onto the driver of the car. Stone-faced. He didn’t turn round. Still, he saw.

‘You can take that off,’ he said in English.

Niklas Lindberg took his gold-coloured balaclava off. He was holding a carrier bag in his hand.

‘Is that the money?’ the man asked with a certain disgust. ‘How could you lose millions? That’s not a good sign.’

‘Sorry,’ said Lindberg. ‘There’s nine hundred and twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and seventy kronor.’

The man took the bag, weighing it in his hand.

‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to do a better job than this in future. Otherwise we’ve got no use for you. And Petrovic is stuck.’

‘Stuck?’

‘The police are interrogating him flat out. Detective Inspectors Hjelm and Chavez. Do you know them?’

‘Wog? No.’

‘They’ve uncovered your entire plan. It doesn’t look good. If they find a link to us, we won’t be happy.’

‘Risto’ll keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘What about Kullberg?’

‘Him too. It’s OK.’

The man leaned his head back slightly. Six months seemed to pass before he said: ‘It’s OK? You’re leaving tracks behind you and saying it’s OK? I’m telling you: it’s not OK. Do you understand?’

‘They won’t talk, I promise. Isn’t that enough?’

‘Let’s change the subject. Were you happy with the test samples?’

‘Very. Has the explosive been put in place?’

‘It’s where it should be. The flag is in place.’

‘The flag? We talked about a corner post, didn’t we?’

‘Change of plan. The conditions are different now. The police are on high alert. We couldn’t risk anything with the sniffer dogs. All our tests have shown that dogs don’t react to the substance, but we’ve got to be one hundred per cent sure.’

‘Which flag?’

The man with the stony face laughed. Briefly. It passed. He said: ‘The substance is in the flag that’s going to be carried in with the procession. The Swedish flag. It seemed appropriate, somehow.’

‘So we’ll really be flying the flag, then,’ said Niklas Lindberg, laughing.

The man gave him an icy look, and he fell silent.

The man handed him an envelope. He opened it and took out a key, a scrap of paper and a flat little black box with a red button on it. It looked like a miniature calculator.

‘The key for the door,’ said the man. ‘On the paper, you’ve got the new entrance code; they changed it yesterday. You know what to do with the detonator. Why did you blow Nedic’s tongue out?’

‘An old promise,’ said Niklas Lindberg, thrusting the three items into his pocket and opening the car door.

The man placed a hand on his arm.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘There’s a chance they’ll cancel the opening ceremony. If that happens, we’ll never see one another again. And I mean never. Is that clear?’

‘That’s fine,’ said Niklas Lindberg with emphasis. ‘I’m not planning on letting you down. I’ve been an admirer of yours since Palme, February ’86.’

‘You can’t have been very old then,’ said the man, releasing his grip.

Lindberg transformed into a shadow, becoming one with the darkness.

For a brief moment, the man with the stony face allowed himself to think about February 1986. It was worthy of a certain admiration. They had managed to change a country. An invisible coup.

A bomb had detonated under the Swedish flag.

It was time to do it again.

Enough nostalgia. The man with the stony face started the car and drove away.

Far away.