The Friend

by Joakim Zander

  The truck slows quickly. ‘In ten seconds,’ the driver says calmly. ‘As fast as you can. I’ll stop so they can’t see you as they come off the highway.’

  The truck stops and the driver shouts: ‘Now!’

  Klara gets the door open and pushes Jacob out and they tumble onto the wet asphalt, with George at their heels. They stumble towards the entrance as fast as they can. From the exit they can see the blue lights flashing, hear the sirens approaching.

  Behind him, Jacob hears Klara’s voice before closing the door of the truck: ‘I hope you contact your daughter,’ she says. ‘Ten years is too long, no matter what you’ve done. Believe me, I know.’

  25 November

  Malmö

  Blue lights on the other side of the truck, doors being thrown open and slammed shut, voices raised as Klara pushes Jacob in front of her, in among the parked trucks next to the gas station near the McDonald’s.

  George is somewhere near her – she knows she doesn’t need to take care of him; he can take care of himself. In the midst of all the chaos she feels such unbelievable relief to have him there. Jacob, on the other hand, seems drugged or in shock and barely able to make his way forward.

  ‘Come on now!’ she whispers, pushing him between two trailers. ‘You have to move, Jacob.’

  She sees George stop right ahead and peek out around one of the trucks, towards the blinking lights. He waves to them, and Klara drags Jacob.

  ‘We can go straight across the parking lot and into McDonald’s without them seeing us,’ he says. ‘Hide in plain sight, you know? They won’t be expecting us to just sit down calmly in a McDonald’s?’

  Perhaps he’s right, it would be much worse if they were caught out here among the trucks without being able to explain how they got there. Maybe the restaurant is the best option. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  It’s barely six o’clock in the morning, so there’s no rush at McDonald’s. Beside them, the room is almost empty, just three other people sit alone with hot coffee. Through the windows Klara sees the blue lights flashing, attracting the attention of the other guests who raise their eyes to see what’s going on. Long, bright beams dance across the wet asphalt. Police officers search under and between the trucks with flashlights.

  ‘Fuck,’ says Klara. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this.’

  George turns to her. ‘They seem to know what they’re looking for.’

  Jacob has gone over to the counter and frozen mid-step in terror. Klara goes to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on, Jacob,’ she says, stressed. ‘Let’s go.’

  He points to a table where the first edition of the morning newspaper lies. The front page makes her almost lose her balance, and she grips Jacob’s shoulder so as not to stumble. The page consists of three passport pictures in a row under the heading:

  Swedes Wanted for Terrorism

  The pictures are of Klara, Jacob and George.

  ‘Fuck,’ George whispers behind her. ‘We have to get out of here.’

  They stumble out and across the parking lot, with the semi and the blue lights at their back, half running, half sneaking so as not to draw attention. When they manage to find cover behind a car wash, Klara glances back at the entrance to the McDonald’s to see two cops heading inside.

  ‘Just in the nick of time,’ she says. ‘Lucky we didn’t sit down and drink a milkshake.’

  They head down a small slope of wet grass, towards an uneven road that passes between flat, empty fields and darkness. Somewhere near the bottom they see a bridge. Klara takes out the phone she bought in Duisburg and opens the map app.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ she says. ‘I have no idea how much time we have. We don’t know a fucking thing.’

  She checks where they are as they jog down towards the bridge. Maybe they can at least get some kind of cover there.

  ‘What should we do?’ George pants.

  ‘Call a taxi,’ Klara says. ‘And pray the driver hasn’t read the morning papers yet.’

  *

  They’re sheltered behind one of the columns beneath the bridge when they see the taxi approach.

  ‘Come on,’ Klara says. ‘Let’s try not to look like we’re on the run.’

  They brush themselves off and walk down to the road just as the taxi stops. Klara gets into the front seat. She can feel the weight of the gun in her right pocket, and she sticks a hand inside and runs her fingers along cool metal. A last resort. Her hand closes around it.

  But the driver seems tired, completely uninterested, and she gently releases her grip on the gun.

  ‘Malmö Central Station,’ she says. ‘Our car broke down.’

  The driver nods quickly and rolls up the hill, back towards the rest stop where the truck dropped them off. As they pass by the exit, Klara sees two police cars still in place, blue lights still flashing. The taxi driver turns his head to look, then speeds onto the highway.

  ‘Malmö,’ he sighs. ‘Always some bullshit going on.’

  *

  The central station is starting to fill up with morning commuters as they cross the departure hall towards the ticket machines. Their faces are on the morning papers and on broadsheets everywhere.

  ‘This is surreal,’ George mutters. ‘Klara shows up in Brussels and two days later I’m a wanted man in Malmö.’

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ Klara says. ‘We can’t flounce around surrounded by pictures of ourselves.’

  George nods. ‘I’ll take Jacob. He doesn’t really seem to be able to handle himself right now.’

  They both glance over at Jacob walking beside them with his straggling hair and empty expression.

  ‘You have to give me that memory card,’ Klara says. ‘Whatever it is, we have to make sure it doesn’t disappear.’

  Jacob takes the card out of his pocket and puts it in Klara’s outstretched hand, then takes his cell phone from his pocket. ‘I think I might have the solution,’ he says, holding the screen up to her.

  His hand shakes as he holds the phone out, and Klara grabs hold of his wrist to steady it. A message is on the screen. A long line of numbers, letters and symbols.

  ‘Is that what I think?’ Klara says.

  Jacob blinks and looks around nervously. ‘How should I know?’ he says. ‘But I got the phone from Yassim… it’s his phone.’

  George pulls Jacob’s hand closer to get a proper look at the screen. ‘The password,’ he says quietly. ‘Who sent that to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jacob says. ‘Blocked number.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Klara says.

  ‘But we need a computer, and a card reader,’ George says.

  ‘We can buy one when the stores open.’

  ‘How?’ Klara says. ‘We can’t exactly use our own cards… that won’t work.’

  ‘Maybe we can use this?’ Jacob holds up the credit card Yassim gave him.

  They go back and forth about it for a while, but in the end they decide to use the credit card; no one has any cash and their own cards are most certainly being tracked.

  Before leaving the station, they use the card to buy tickets to Stockholm from a ticketing machine. Klara will take the first train, just after eleven. George and Jacob will travel together an hour later.

  *

  They find a small cafe on a side street where the staff seem busy enough with early customers not to care who their guests are. Famished, they order grilled cheese and salami sandwiches and large coffees.

  ‘I can honestly say this is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,’ Jacob says.

  He’s regained some colour in his face. They shared hamburgers in the truck early yesterday evening, but Klara wonders how much he ate in the days before that.

  ‘Enjoy it,’ George says. ‘Who knows what they’ll feed you at Gitmo?’

  Klara puts her hand on Jacob’s. ‘Ignore him. We’re going to take care of all this. George and I have been through worse.’

  Suddenly t
ime is running short, and George stands up. ‘Stay there,’ he says. ‘I’m gonna go buy a computer.’

  *

  ‘That was fun,’ George says with a smile when he returns to the cafe a half hour later. ‘No matter the circumstances, I like buying stuff.’

  He puts a white Mac box on the table in front of them and what looks like an adapter; Jacob assumes it must be the card reader. He pulls a grey hoodie out of an H&M bag and throws a dark-blue hat to Klara. She pulls it over her head.

  ‘Not the world’s most advanced disguise,’ she says. ‘But better than nothing.’

  ‘That credit card is awesome,’ George says, looking at Jacob. ‘I’m keeping it. Feels good to go home with a brand-new computer and have no clue who’s paying for it.’

  He’s got the computer going now, and he clicks through the installation.

  ‘Don’t get on the Internet,’ Klara says. ‘Don’t set up any networks.’

  George nods without looking up. ‘I’m not a complete idiot. I’ve learned a thing or two from all this bullshit.’

  He stretches out to the card reader and plugs it into the USB port.

  ‘Give me the card, Jacob,’ he says.

  ‘Klara has it,’ Jacob says and nods to her.

  *

  George messes around with the computer until an impatient Klara decides he’s too slow and pulls it away from him. She pushes the card into the reader. Its icon appears on the computer’s empty desktop. She clicks the icon and a dialogue box asks for a password.

  ‘Okay,’ she says to Jacob. ‘This is it. Read what you got on your phone.’

  Klara counts, checks the numbers, letters and symbols. Sixteen on the phone. Sixteen on the screen. In the same order.

  The slight murmur of the other guests. The clinking of the cups. The surreal normality of this morning.

  She meets George’s eyes, then Jacob’s. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Here we go.’

  Without waiting for a response, she presses Enter.

  Immediately the dialogue box disappears from the screen and a folder pops up. Inside sit four documents with the names: Stockholm, Brussels, London and Rome. Jacob and George lean closer so they too can see the screen. Klara glances at Jacob.

  ‘It doesn’t look like drone pictures,’ she says quietly.

  He doesn’t answer, but she can see his face blanch, notices his breath becoming shallow and laboured.

  ‘Open Stockholm,’ George says.

  Klara takes a deep breath and double-clicks on the document. A regular PDF that takes a moment to open up and fill the screen.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ George says in frustration and stands up.

  The document is in Arabic, with bolded headlines and bullet points and checkmarks beneath them. Like schedules and checklists of some kind.

  Klara feels her spirits sink. She turns to Jacob. ‘But wait. Maybe you know Arabic? You were…’

  But he just shakes his head. ‘I took a couple of semesters,’ he says. ‘I can order coffee and ask about the weather. I know the alphabet and could spell my way through that, but I have no idea what it means.’

  Klara continues scrolling down in the document, and then she stops. ‘George, check this out.’

  ‘What?’

  He hunches down next to her again, and she points to the screen where a map of a couple of blocks in central Stockholm has appeared. The castle, the water. And – with a circle around it – the Opera. Below the map there are photos of the Opera House from various angles. Entrance, ticket office, the foyer. Some of the pictures contain red, numbered arrows. They seem to match text in the document.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ George whispers.

  Klara looks at his damp, frozen face. He already knows, but she says it anyway.

  ‘This… is a plan for a terrorist attack.’

  25 November

  Malmö

  Jacob leans forward towards the screen, as if getting closer would make it somehow easier to read Arabic.

  A terror attack!

  How could he have been so naive, so incredibly stupid? Allowed himself to be fooled so thoroughly.

  But has he really? Or didn’t he suspect this all along? Not a terrorist attack, but something more than what Yassim told him. And he decided not to care, to just allow it, whatever it is, whoever Yassim really is, to happen anyway. Beside him, he can hear Klara and George bent over the computer whispering to each other, visibly upset as they scroll through the other documents on the memory card. Jacob knows he can’t escape this. He carried terrorist plans into Europe, and he allowed himself to be used.

  ‘We have to take this to the police immediately,’ he whispers. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Klara turns her face to him, apparently confused. ‘Excuse me? Go to the police now?’

  ‘Yes!’ he says. ‘This isn’t my fault! The police can’t blame me! I was tricked into smuggling it!’ He’s struggling not to shout.

  George puts an arm around his shoulder. ‘Calm down, buddy. We will contact the police, I promise. But there’s too much shit mixed up in all this, believe me.’

  Jacob shakes himself free, can feel his whole body trembling. ‘What kind of shit? We just have to…’

  ‘You brought this into Europe, Jacob,’ Klara says calmly. ‘My friend has been detained and seems to be in hiding now. We’ve been followed by Russians, and we’re all wanted as terrorists.’

  She falls silent and looks at him, lets what she’s saying sink in.

  ‘Right now,’ she continues, ‘giving this file to the police just isn’t an option. Not until we know what this is about.’

  ‘But how will we find out?’ Jacob says bleakly. ‘It’s in Arabic…’ He throws his arms wide in despair, sinks back down into his chair. He’s thinking about Myriam in Beirut, about the men who followed him until he escaped into Shatila, about the basement in Brussels, about Yassim on the stairs, about his own picture on the front pages. He knows they’re right. The police are not an option until they know what they’ve landed in the middle of. He chose to let himself be used. If the police become involved, he’ll never have any control over what’s going to happen. He has to know more. And he promised Yassim he’d let someone he trusts help him.

  Gabriella said she wants to meet. And she has experience with these kinds of things. Klara and George obviously do, too. They’ve done so much for him over the past day, more than you could ever ask of someone.

  ‘I have an idea,’ he says. ‘About how to find out what’s in these documents.’

  25 November

  Bergort

  Every seat is full by the time the train reaches Lund, and Klara can’t decide if that’s good or bad, if a packed car makes her more or less likely to be recognized. She pulls up her hood and sinks back into her seat. As the train rolls out of Lund, she takes out the phone she bought in Germany and opens her secret email.

  Camp Nou, tonight 20:00, she writes to Gabriella.

  Almost as soon as it’s sent, a reply arrives.

  Camp Nou?

  Klara looks up from the phone. Damn! Gabi doesn’t remember that’s what the kids in the suburb of Bergort called their little AstroTurf field. It’s a perfect place to meet – far from any spots they might have under surveillance, like Gabi’s apartment or office.

  The AstroTurf field in Bergort, she writes back. She wants to ask Gabi how she’s doing, what happened. But she’s afraid that they’ve already communicated too much over the phone, knows it’s risky, even if she’s using a secret email address and a burner phone. Better to meet face to face. The answer arrives immediately.

  Okay. See you there.

  *

  She gets off the train at the Stockholm central station just after four o’clock in the afternoon and makes her way through the early rush hour traffic towards the subway. It’s good that everyone is on the move, she thinks – no one is paying attention to her. She pulls her hoodie down as far as it will go, and the stocking cap beneath it.

/>   It almost doesn’t feel real to be back in the hustle and bustle of the subway. Klara takes a deep breath of that familiar and oxygen-deprived air. It smells like humanity and city and stone; it smells like Stockholm and, even though she’s never lived here, that scent along with the clattering of the train and the crackling voice over the speakers somehow makes her feel like she’s home.

  *

  The red line south. Klara looks around the subway car as it rattles and jumps further and further away from the inner city, and at each stop the number of blonde, blue-eyed commuters becomes fewer. She’s not riding this train to the end. Not yet. Just to the porous and ever-shifting border of gentrification.

  The Skärholmen neighbourhood is a mix of classic Swedish housing projects and a new, fresh shopping centre and condominium development. There’s also an open-air market just outside the subway: Asian tapas, junkies and coffee chains. Genuine, but gentrified enough to have its sharpest edges rubbed off.

  But Klara’s not headed to one of the new condos with Miele kitchens, she’s headed to the concrete block of rental apartments on Äspholmsvägen. She checks the address Jacob scribbled again, crosses the square, passing by the last few stalls in the market that haven’t packed up for the evening yet.

  She doesn’t want to use the map on her phone, but a helpful drunk outside the subway station points her in the right direction of the address after she declines his offer to personally guide her there.

  It doesn’t take long to find the right apartment building, and Klara takes out her phone to check the time. Just as she takes note that it’s just a few minutes past six, she hears a voice behind her.

  ‘Are you waiting for someone?’

  25 November

  Malmö

  George is hunched down next to Jacob. They’re by the harbour now, where the wind is icy. The temperature’s fallen since this morning.

  They’ve been walking around Malmö for about an hour since they said goodbye to Klara. George wanted to keep them moving so nobody would have time to figure out who they were.