by Lars Kepler
Joona clambers up the gangway onto the ship. He hurries along the railing, shoving a box of shackles out of the way and finding a shovel.
“You there!” a man behind him calls.
Joona rushes forward and sees that there’s a sledgehammer next to the railing, among wrenches, lifting hooks, and a rusty chain. He drops the shovel, grabs the sledgehammer instead, and runs over to the red container. He hits it with his hand, and the metal echoes back dully.
“Disa,” he shouts, as he hurries around it.
A heavy lock is fastened to the double doors. He holds the hammer in both hands and swings it across the lock with incredible force. There’s a crash as the lock shatters. He drops the hammer and flings open the doors.
Disa isn’t there.
All he can see in the gloom are two BMW sports cars.
Joona doesn’t know what to do. He looks back toward the dock at the vast stacks of containers.
Far in the distance, he spots Loudden’s oil tank through the heavy snowfall.
He picks up the hammer and starts to run back.
At the end of the harbor, a truck covered in a filthy tarp is driving on board a car ferry to Saint Petersburg.
On the ramp, behind the first truck, is a second one, pulling a red container behind it.
On the side of the container are, again, the words “Hamburg Süd.”
Joona tries to work out the quickest way to get there.
“You’re not allowed up here,” a man shouts behind him.
Joona turns and sees a thickset dockworker in a helmet, bright-yellow vest, and heavy gloves.
“National Crime,” Joona explains. “I’m looking for—”
“I don’t care who you are,” the man interrupts, “you can’t just climb on board a—”
“Call your boss and tell him that.”
“You’re going to wait right here and explain everything to the security guards, who are—”
“I don’t have time for this,” Joona says, turning away.
The dockworker grabs his shoulder. Through reflex, Joona jerks around, wraps his arm over the man’s, and twists his elbow up.
It all happens very fast.
The pain in his shoulder makes the dockworker lean back, and Joona kicks his feet out from under him.
Instead of breaking the dockworker’s arm, Joona releases him and lets him collapse onto the deck.
The large crane rumbles, and everything suddenly goes dark when the glare of the floodlights is obscured by the cargo dangling from the crane, directly above him.
Joona quickly walks away, but a younger dockworker in high-visibility clothing is standing in his way, holding a large wrench in his hand.
“Be very careful,” Joona warns.
“You need to wait until the security guards get here,” the dockworker tells him. He looks nervous.
Joona shoves him in the chest with one hand to force his way past. The dockworker takes a step back, then strikes out with the wrench. Joona blocks the blow with his arm, but it hits him on the shoulder. He groans with pain and lets go of the hammer. It falls to the deck with a clang. Joona yanks off the man’s helmet and hits him hard over the ear, making him sink to his knees and howl in pain.
163
Joona picks up the hammer and hops off the ship. He runs along the edge of the seawall. He can hear shouting behind him. Large blocks of ice are rolling in the sludgy water. The water sprays up when it hits the dock.
Joona sprints up the ramp onto the ferry. Behind a gray container, toward the stern, he sees a red one.
Joona is getting tired. His arms are trembling from the exertion. The ferry is full now, and the bow is being lowered into place. The deck rumbles as the ferry pulls away from the shore. Ice knocks against its hull. He’s heading toward the stern to a red container with the words “Hamburg Süd” on the side.
“Disa,” he calls.
He runs around the cab and stops when he sees the blue lock on the container. He wipes the sweat from his face and continues toward it but fails to notice the person approaching from behind.
Joona raises the hammer and is about to strike when pain explodes across his back. His lungs roar and he almost blacks out. He falls forward, hitting his forehead against the container and landing in a heap 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 tall woman with a baseball bat over her shoulder. Her padded jacket is pulled tight across her chest. She blows a lock of blond hair from her face and takes aim again.
“Leave my cargo the fuck alone!” she yells.
She swings again, but Joona moves quickly, grabbing her throat with one hand and kicking the back of her knee so that her leg buckles. He throws her to the deck and points his pistol at her.
“National Crime,” he says.
She whimpers and looks up at him as he picks up the hammer again and shatters the lock. A piece of metal casing lands with a clatter in front of her face.
This container is packed with large boxes of televisions. He pulls a few out, but Disa isn’t there. He wipes the blood from his face and hurries up some steps to the open deck.
The ferry is now twenty meters from the shore. In front of the ship he can see the channel through the ice to the open sea.
A feeling of anguish washes over him when he looks back at the dockyard and catches sight of a train with similar red containers on three of the cars.
He takes his phone out and calls Emergency Control. 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.
“We have to stop all traffic,” Joona insists.
“That can’t be done,” the commissioner says. “The best we can do is—”
“I’ll do it myself,” Joona says abruptly, and jumps off the ferry.
Hitting the freezing water feels like being struck by icy lightning, like getting an adrenaline injection straight into the heart. His ears are roaring. He sinks through the black water and loses consciousness for a few seconds, dreaming of a bridal crown of woven birch root. Though he can’t feel his hands and feet, he wills himself to kick out with his legs, and finally manages to stop himself from sinking deeper.
164
Joona breaks the surface, emerging through the icy slush.
The subzero temperature is making his head pound, but he’s conscious.
His time as a paratrooper saved him—he managed to resist the impulse to gasp and breathe in when he sank through the water.
With numb arms and heavy clothes, he swims through the black water. It’s not far to the dock, but his body temperature is dropping alarmingly quickly. Lumps of ice are tumbling over all around him.
He coughs, feeling his strength drain away. His vision is fading, but he forces himself to take more strokes, and finally reaches the pilings along the shore. He grabs on to the narrow gaps between the metal plates of the seawall. On the verge of fainting, he clambers sideways until he reaches a ladder.
The water splashes beneath him as he starts to climb. His hands freeze to the metal and he has to keep tearing them off.
He rolls onto the dock with a groan, gets to his feet, and walks toward the train.
He looks down to check that he hasn’t lost his pistol.
He emerges into the glare of the headlights of a truck. He sees that it also carries a red Hamburg Süd container.
The driver is behind the vehicle, checking that the brake lights are working, when he notices Joona approaching.
“Have you been in the water?” he asks, taking a step back. “Christ, you’ll freeze to death if you don’t get indoors.”
“Open the red container,” Joona slurs. “I’m a police officer. I need
to—”
“That’s down to Customs. I can’t just open it.”
“National Criminal Investigation Department,” Joona says, his voice weak.
He’s having trouble keeping his eyes focused, and is aware how incoherent he sounds when he tries to explain what powers he has.
“I don’t even have the keys,” the driver says, regarding him kindly. “Just a pair of bolt cutters, and—”
“Hurry up,” Joona says.
The driver runs around the truck, climbs up, and leans into the cabin. An umbrella tumbles onto the ground as he pulls out a set of long-handled bolt cutters.
Joona bangs on the container, shouting Disa’s name.
The driver runs back, and his cheeks turn red as he presses the handles together.
The lock breaks with a crunch.
The door of the container swings open on creaking hinges. It’s packed full of boxes on wooden pallets, strapped into place, right up to the roof.
Without saying a word to the driver, Joona takes the bolt cutters and walks away. His hands hurt terribly.
“You need to go to the hospital,” the man calls after him.
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The train by the warehouse has just started to move, its wheels squealing as it rolls forward. Joona tries to run, but his chest is burning. He scrambles up the snow-covered railroad embankment, slips, and hits his knee on the gravel. He drops the bolt cutters but gets to his feet and stumbles onto the railroad track. He can no longer feel his hands or feet. The shaking is now uncontrollable, and he is experiencing a frightening sense of confusion because he’s so cold.
His thoughts are strange, slow, and disintegrating. All he knows is that he has to stop the train.
Joona stands in the middle of the track, raises his eyes toward the light, and holds up his hand. The train blows its whistle, and he can just make out the engineer’s silhouette inside. The track is vibrating under his feet. Joona draws his pistol, raises it, and shoots into the air.
The shot echoes harshly between the containers.
There’s a thunderous squeal as the train brakes and stops with a hiss just three meters away from him.
Joona almost falls as he steps off the track. He picks up the bolt cutters and turns to the train engineer.
“Open the red containers,” Joona says.
“I don’t have the authority to—”
“Just do it,” Joona shouts, throwing the bolt cutters on the ground.
The engineer climbs down and picks up the bolt cutters. Joona follows him along the train and points at the first red container. Without a word, the engineer jumps up onto the rust-brown coupling and clips the lock.
Joona staggers forward and shoves the catch up, and the big metal door swings open.
Disa is lying on the rusty floor of the container. Her face is pale, and her eyes are open wide with a look of bewilderment. One of her boots is missing, and her hair is frozen stiff.
* * *
—
There’s a deep cut on the right side of her long, slender neck. The pool of blood beneath her throat is already covered with a film of ice.
Gently, Joona carries her off the container and takes a few steps away from the tracks.
“I know you’re alive,” he says, falling to his knees with her in his arms.
Blood is trickling over his hand, but her heart has stopped. It’s over. There’s no way back.
“Not this,” Joona whispers against her cheek. “Not you.”
He rocks her slowly as the snow falls. He doesn’t notice the car stopping near them, and is unaware of Saga running toward him. She’s barefoot, wearing just pants and a T-shirt.
“There are people on the way,” she cries as she gets closer. “God, what happened? You need help.”
Saga shouts into her radio and swears. As if in a dream, Joona hears her force the train engineer to take his jacket off and feels her wrapping it around his shoulders. She puts her arms around him as the sound of sirens fills the harbor area.
A large circle of snow flies up as a yellow EMS helicopter lands, settling onto its runners. The sound is deafening, and the train engineer backs away from the man sitting there with the dead woman in his arms.
The rotors are still turning as the paramedics leap out and run over. The draft from the helicopter is blowing trash against the high fence. It feels as if all of the air is being sucked away from them.
Joona’s vision is starting to blur when the paramedics force him to let go of Disa’s body. He mutters incoherently and resists when they try to coax him to lie down.
Saga is crying as she watches the paramedics carry him into the helicopter on a stretcher. She has no idea if he’ll survive.
The noise of the rotors changes as the helicopter rises off the ground, swaying in a side wind that has picked up. The angle of the rotors shifts. The helicopter leans forward and disappears across the city.
As they cut his clothes off, Joona starts to sink into a deathlike torpor. He has reached a state of severe hypothermia. His body temperature has fallen below thirty-two degrees centigrade as they land on the helicopter pad on Building P8 at Karolinska Hospital.
166
The police arrive quickly on the scene at Frihamnen and put out an alert for a silver-gray Citroën Evasion that was captured by several surveillance cameras as it drove up to the harbor fifteen minutes before Disa’s car arrived. The same cameras recorded the car leaving the area seven minutes after Joona Linna got there.
Every police car in Stockholm is involved in the search, as well as two Eurocopter 135s. It’s a massive deployment, and just fifteen minutes after the alarm is sounded, the vehicle is observed on Central Bridge before it disappears into Söderleden Tunnel.
Police cars are on their way, with sirens and flashing lights, and roadblocks are being set up at the exits when a huge explosion blasts out of the entrance to the tunnel.
The helicopter hovering above lurches, and the pilot only just manages to escape the force of the shock wave. Dust and debris are scattered across the highway and the adjacent railroad tracks, all the way down to Riddarfjärden.
* * *
—
It’s half past four in the morning, and Saga Bauer is sitting on an exam table as a doctor sews up her wounds.
“I have to go,” she says, staring at the news on the dusty flat-screen television.
The doctor is bandaging her left wrist when the item about the big traffic accident comes on. A reporter explains that a police chase in the center of Stockholm has ended. A single car crashed with fatal consequences inside the Söderleden Tunnel.
“The accident happened at half past two this morning,” the reporter says, “which may explain why no other vehicles were involved. The police have given assurances that the road will be reopened in time for the morning rush hour but have otherwise declined to comment on the incident.”
The screen shows a cloud of black smoke billowing out of the tunnel entrance. The cloud envelops the Hilton Hotel in rolling veils, then slowly disperses over Södermalm.
Saga refused to go to the hospital until she received confirmation that Jurek Walter was dead. Two of Joona’s colleagues from National Crime told her. To save time, their forensics experts had accompanied the fire crews into the tunnel. The violent explosion had torn Jurek Walter’s arms and head from his body.
On the screen, a politician is sitting in the studio with a female presenter. Their faces heavy with sleep, they discuss the dangers of police pursuits.
“I have to go,” Saga repeats, slipping down onto the floor.
“The wounds on your legs need—”
“Don’t bother,” she says, and leaves the room.
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Joona wakes up in the hospital. His arms are itching where a drip of warm liquid is slowly being fed into him. A male nurse stands by his bed and smiles at him when he opens his eyes.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asks, leaning forward. Joona tries to read the ID b
adge but can’t get the letters to stay still long enough.
“I’m freezing,” he says.
“In two hours, your body temperature should be back to normal. I’ll give you some warm soup.”
Joona tries to sit up to drink but feels a sharp pain in his bladder. He lifts the insulating blanket and sees that two thick needles are sticking out of his abdomen.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“A peritoneal lavage,” the nurse says. “We’re warming your body up from the inside. You have two liters of warm liquid in your abdomen right now.”
Joona closes his eyes and tries to remember. Red containers, icy slush. The shock as he jumped from the ship straight into the incredibly cold water.
“Disa,” Joona whispers, and feels goose bumps rising on his arms.
He leans back on the pillows and looks up at the heater above him. He can’t feel anything but cold.
After a while, the door opens and a tall woman wearing a silk sweater under her doctor’s coat comes in. It’s Dr. Daniella Richards. He’s met her many times before.
“Joona Linna,” she says. “I’m so sorry—”
“Daniella,” Joona interrupts. “What’s going on?”
“You were at the point of freezing to death, in case you hadn’t noticed. We thought you were dead when you were brought in.”
She sits down on the edge of the bed.
“You have no idea how incredibly lucky you were,” she says slowly. “No serious damage, from the looks of it. We’re warming up your internal organs.”
“Where’s Disa? I have to—”
His voice cracks. There’s something about his thoughts, his brain. He can’t put the words together properly. All his memories are like crushed ice in black water.
The doctor lowers her gaze and shakes her head. Her hair is pulled up neatly, and she wears a delicate diamond necklace.
“I’m so sorry,” Daniella repeats slowly.
