by Kepler, Lars
She tries to keep her breathing calm, keeps going, then puts the torch and assault rifle down, crawls up the pile of earth and starts digging with her hands. She heaves the soil behind her with a growing feeling of panic.
Her back is wet with sweat, her heart pounding in her chest.
She tries to tell herself that it’s a good sign that the soil isn’t densely packed. If all the ground above her had collapsed, it would be impossible to dig through with her bare hands.
Going back isn’t an option, and she can’t stay where she is.
She cuts her fingertips on a sharp stone but doesn’t stop digging.
Gasping for breath, she moves backwards and heaves the soil and stones further into the pipe, then keeps digging until she eventually reaches the top of the heap.
Snatching up the torch, she shines it along the passageway and sees that one of the supports has given way, letting an avalanche of earth in.
The plank in the roof is bowed, but still resisting the weight above it.
Lumi enlarges the opening, then shoves the assault rifle and rucksack through before squeezing after them.
Dry soil trickles down over her neck and back.
As carefully as she can, she crawls along the bare connecting section, into a small room with cement walls.
The collapsed soil has reached halfway across the floor.
She wipes her filthy hands on her trousers, then starts to climb a ladder that’s fixed to the wall to reach the steel hatch in the roof. With her bruised and bleeding fingers, she loosens the rusty fastenings, pulls the cross-strut out and pushes up with one hand.
The hatch is stuck.
She undoes the waist-strap of the rucksack and uses it to strap herself to the ladder so she can use both hands.
She makes sure that she’s not going to fall, then lets go of the ladder, puts her hands flat against the hatch and uses both her arms and legs to push.
It makes a frosty, crunching sound.
She takes a deep breath, concentrates and pushes hard again. The ladder creaks alarmingly and her muscles tremble. Slowly the hatch starts to move. Soil falls onto her face as the grass and moss give way.
Lumi switches the torch off and crawls out into the cold air, closes the hatch, brushes grass and leaves over it with her hand, then shuffles backwards down the far side of the clump of trees.
She looks up at the night sky and locates the Pole Star to make sure she’s got her bearings right.
She runs across the dark field at a crouch. After five hundred metres she takes cover in a ditch and looks back for the first time.
The car tyres are still burning in the yard, casting an uneasy glow over the metal walls, but apart from that everything looks peaceful and there are no signs of movement. She adjusts the assault rifle to its triple-shot setting, then scans the field and clump of trees through the night-sight before she starts to run again.
Some birds take off close to her and she instantly throws herself to the ground and crawls sideways into a deeper furrow.
After a few seconds she points the rifle back towards the workshop, looks through the sights and sees the combine-harvester drum leaning against the wall.
The ground seems to be swaying in the glow of the burning tyres.
She lowers the gun and looks at the building with just her eyes. The two plumes of flame are leaning in the wind, and when they straighten up again she thinks she can make out a thin figure.
She quickly raises the rifle and looks through the sights, but all she can see now are the white fires and the pulsating façade of the building.
Without looking back, she runs over the hard field along a dyke, climbs over an electric fence, and crosses a meadow.
She passes the dark greenhouse at a distance, the one she looked at so many times from the workshop.
There are leaves pressed up against the dark glass.
An oil drum is standing next to the door.
Lumi follows the track to the main road, the E25, and starts to walk parallel to it.
She keeps the assault rifle hidden from passing cars.
The dirty weeds shake as they drive past, and an old milk carton slides along the road.
Without stopping, she pulls some dry grass from the side of the road and wipes her face. The sharp pain in her knee has faded to a dull ache.
Her dad was right.
Jurek Walter did manage to find them.
She knows that’s what’s happened, but even so her brain is having trouble accepting that all this is happening, that it’s real.
It’s starting to get light by the time she reaches Eindhoven.
Rubbish and leaves are lying in drifts beside a noise-barrier.
The ground shakes as a truck drives past.
She limps past a huge roundabout, walks through a small patch of woodland and finds herself in a part of the city full of fairly old buildings, houses with brown-brick walls and white woodwork.
The streets are still deserted, but the city is slowly waking up.
An almost empty bus pulls away from a stop.
Lumi wipes the blood from her hand on her trousers, then starts to dismantle the rifle as she walks.
She drops the magazine down one drain, the bolt down another, and the rest of the gun in a skip full of builders’ rubble.
She crosses the ring-road and enters the centre of Eindhoven, steps into a doorway, turns her back on the streets and shrugs off the rucksack. She looks quickly through the plastic folder containing her passport, hotel key and cash, then takes out the pistol and checks that it’s fully loaded.
She tucks the pistol inside her jacket before carrying on.
A young refuse collector jumps down from his van and stops beside the rumbling vehicle, staring at her.
She turns away before he has time to say anything, then runs two blocks.
She strides past a row of closed shops, crosses a murky-looking canal, and carries on through the city centre towards the station. She walks past the cycle-park in front of the station to the entrance of the hostel.
Lumi goes in and walks through the garish yellow lobby with its pale blue sofas and pink garlands.
She’s filthy and smeared with blood.
Her hair is hanging in dirty clumps, her mouth tightly closed, and her eyes strangely intense in her dirt-streaked face.
A group of youngsters standing in the lobby clutching heart-shaped balloons falls silent abruptly when they catch sight of her. Lumi walks straight through the group towards the lifts, as if she hasn’t even seen them.
92
After he left the hospital, Joona flew straight to Antwerp, hired a black Mercedes-Benz, and drove due east along the E34. It was early morning, and still very dark. The motorway was almost empty, and he had no trouble sticking to a speed of 180 kilometres an hour.
Jurek broke Saga and tricked her into contacting me, Joona thinks as he drives.
By claiming this was all about his brother’s body, he made her feel she had the advantage.
But the only thing he wanted was to find out where Lumi was hiding.
And there’s a long way to go before dawn.
The flat landscape is black.
He catches up with a gleaming silver tanker, overtakes it, and watches it disappear in the rear-view mirror.
Joona crossed a boundary when he shot Jurek’s traumatised brother. He had no choice, but it left a stain on his soul.
According to the post-mortem report, the brother’s remains were transferred to the Karolinska Institute’s surgical department for use in research.
Joona is aware that he stole the body for emotional reasons, then had it cremated, and scattered the ashes in the same garden of remembrance where the twins’ father’s ashes had been scattered.
Presumably Jurek has visited the garden and seen his brother’s plaque next to his father’s, and realised that it was Joona who had done that.
Jurek knew that Saga’s enquiries would lead back to Joona.
That was why he said he’d exchange her father for information about his brother, Joona thinks, as he crosses the border into the Netherlands halfway across a viaduct.
He drives past a petrol station with a large car park. Rows of trucks and caravans glint between the trees.
The road is straight, and the sky above the expansive landscape dark. Scattered settlements sparkle like amber jewels.
Because he ran from the hospital and drove straight to the airport, he hasn’t had a chance to get hold of a gun. All he can hope is that he gets to Lumi before Jurek, and can take her to another colleague in Berlin.
The motorway is lined by tall pylons with four separate layers of cables. Farms and industrial units flash past through the trees.
Immediately after a large sports-ground with rows of football pitches lit up by floodlights, he pulls into the right-hand lane and turns off onto the E25.
It didn’t take long for Saga to realise she was going to have to ask me what happened to Igor’s body, Joona thinks.
But it wasn’t until her dad was dead and Jurek had snatched her sister that Saga cracked and tried to get hold of me.
Everyone has their own breaking point.
Joona’s heart starts to beat harder when he sees that the whole of Maarheeze is in darkness, the result of an extensive power-cut.
It seems to stretch all the way to Weert.
And is probably also affecting Rinus’s hideaway.
He leaves the motorway and has to lower his speed as he drives along the narrow road that runs parallel to the motorway.
The house and fields lie in darkness.
Long before he reaches the turning he sees blue lights flashing across the tarmac and black tree trunks.
A white police-van is parked beside the turning.
The yellow and blue stripes on the front doors and sides flash between the bare branches of the bushes.
Joona turns and drives straight through the cordon tape, thundering along the narrow track towards the main buildings.
He can see five police cars parked on the far side of the meadow, and there are two ambulances and a fire-engine next to the workshop.
To make sure he doesn’t block the way for the ambulances he pulls in sharply in front of the abandoned house and stops beside the old garden furniture. He gets out of the car without bothering to shut the door and runs across the meadow.
One of the garage doors is lying on the ground, and the debris from an explosion is visible in the yard and tall grass.
The blue lights chase each other across the metal walls, vehicles and uniformed police officers.
Joona realises that he’s too late, that the battle is over.
There are police everywhere, he can hear them talking on their radios, realises that they’re trying to figure out the severity of the incident and establish an investigative team. Someone somewhere is worrying that there could be more explosives and wants to wait for the bomb squad.
An Alsatian is tugging anxiously at its leash, barking loudly.
Joona passes the melted remains of a burned tyre and walks up to one of the uniformed officers, shows his ID and tells him that Interpol have been called in. He pretends not to hear the officer telling him to wait, just lifts the cordon tape walks into the garage.
The reinforced walls are smeared with soot, and the fire has left a strong acrid smell.
The remains of a burned-out car are resting against the internal wall.
Its petrol tank has exploded, tearing large parts of the chassis away with it.
There’s a charred body sitting in the driver’s seat, weirdly contorted.
Joona walks through the sawn-open armoured door.
He opens the fire cabinet and snatches up the axe that’s hanging beside the extinguisher, then hurries towards the staircase.
If Jurek is still here, he needs to make sure that he’s dead.
The door to the closet and the emergency escape route is closed.
He can hear voices from up above.
The stairs are littered with plaster and splintered wood from an explosion. The debris crunches beneath his feet.
The internal walls upstairs are almost non-existent now, and the remaining fragments are perforated with bullet-holes.
Two paramedics are lifting someone onto a stretcher. One leg is hanging limply over the edge, and Joona can see blood-stained trousers and a military boot.
The axe swings in Joona’s hand as he approaches the man on the stretcher.
The beam from one of the paramedic’s head-torches is aimed downwards, and Joona catches a fleeting glimpse of Rinus’s blood-smeared face.
Joona climbs over a blackened beam and puts the axe down against the wall, staggering slightly at a sudden flash of pain from a headache.
There’s a loud ringing in his ears.
Rinus has an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. His eyes are staring up at the ceiling. He seems to be trying to figure out what’s going on.
‘Lieutenant,’ Joona says, stopping beside the stretcher.
With a weak hand, Rinus pulls the mask aside and moistens his mouth. One of the paramedics lifts his foot onto the stretcher and straps the belt across his thighs.
‘He’s gone after her,’ he says almost inaudibly, then closes his eyes.
Joona rushes down the stairs, out through the garage, past the police officers who are waving the first ambulance through. With panic roaring in his head, he runs across the frost-covered meadow towards the car.
93
Joona reverses out, brakes and slides backwards on the gravel, changes gear and puts his foot down. A cloud of dust flies up from the ground.
There’s a police car in the way.
Joona swerves and drives straight through the rose bushes and across the ditch. There’s a bang and the glove compartment flies open, scattering documents across the floor and passenger seat.
He swings up onto the rutted track again and increases his speed. The yellow grass whips the sides of the car.
A police officer is busy putting up fresh cordon tape as Joona drives straight through it.
He turns left when he reaches the police van, skidding across the narrow road and up onto the bank, shattering a small wooden warning sign and scraping the side of the car against the barrier separating the smaller road from the motorway.
Soil sprays up behind the car as the tyres thunder across the uneven ground.
The car lurches back onto the tarmac and races along the road, in the opposite direction to the traffic on the motorway on the other side of the barrier.
It will soon be light.
A group of people is waiting at a bus stop.
Joona puts his foot down and overtakes a tractor, then reaches Maarheeze and heads down a hill. He wrenches the wheel to the right and passes beneath the motorway. He’s going so fast that the car slides across the carriageway and hits the concrete wall side on.
The driver’s window shatters and small cubes of glass fly into the car.
He accelerates again and turns left at the roundabout, straight across the entrance to a petrol station, sending an advertising hoarding flying.
Jurek is used to operations behind enemy lines, and Lumi won’t realise he’s following her, she’ll show him the way to the student hostel.
Joona overtakes a horsebox on the slip-road, pulls out onto the motorway, passes a truck on the wrong sides and puts his foot down as hard as he can.
The wind roars through the broken window.
He drives through a patch of forest and soon reaches Eindhoven.
The sky is slightly lighter over to the east now, and the city is glowing in the last of the darkness.
Brown brick buildings flash past.
He’s rapidly approaching a junction, the lights are red and one car has already stopped, and there’s a bus approaching from the right.
Joona blows his horn and passes the waiting car, drives straight out into the junction, accelerates hard in front of the bus,
and hears it brake and thunder past just behind him.
He crosses three lanes and swerves into Vestdijk, across the canal, and steers into the bus lane.
Large modern buildings rush past.
A delivery truck and two smaller cars are blocking the two lanes in front of him.
They’re going far too slowly.
Joona’s migraine suddenly explodes behind one eye. It’s still only a precursor to the real thing, but the car lurches and almost drives into the oncoming traffic before he regains control.
He blows his horn, but there’s nowhere for the other vehicles to go.
Joona pulls into the red cycle-lane and passes them on the inside, tearing a rubbish bin from a post. In the rear-view mirror he sees it fly across the pavement and shatter a shop-window.
The car swerves out onto the road again, the wheels thundering over the kerb.
He turns sharp right on shrieking tyres, into 18 Septemberplein.
Maybe he’s already too late.
Joona races over a pedestrian crossing, brakes and turns sharp left, across the path of oncoming traffic, and into the square in front of the station.
Pigeons fly up from the ground.
The flat, glass-fronted bulk of Eindhoven station is tucked next to the student hostel.
It’s too early for most of the morning commuters. There aren’t many people moving about behind the glass doors.
A beggar is kneeling on a piece of cardboard next to a stack of free newspapers.
Joona pulls in beyond the row of waiting taxis and stops.
Glass cascades from his clothes as he gets out of the car and starts to run towards the hostel.
He automatically starts looking around for some sort of weapon.
There’s a uniformed police officer standing in the empty arcade by the yellow ticket-machines. He’s hunched over, eating a sandwich from a bag.
Joona changes direction and walks towards him. The policeman is middle-aged, with blond sideburns, and almost white eyelashes.
Pieces of lettuce keep dropping from the sandwich.
Joona darts behind two pillars and approaches the officer from behind. He reaches forward, unfastens the man’s holster, and snatches his pistol.
