Ten Swedes Must Die

by Martin Österdahl

  What news to wake up to.

  “For Christ’s sake, Charlie. That’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “The two seismic readings that were registered were almost certainly caused by two explosions on the Kursk.”

  “How long can they survive down there?” asked Sarah.

  Charlie sighed. “It’s hard to say. It took seven hours for the Pyotr Velikiy to get to where they are. Critical time has been lost.”

  “What’s being done about the situation?”

  “Evidently there are NATO ships in the area, and there’s talk of offering the Russians help. A British rescue submarine in Aberdeen is being readied for transport to northern Norway.”

  “Have the Russians accepted their help?”

  “No, but the British are going anyway. Apparently it’s because of a kind of code of honor among submariners. Regardless of where a submarine goes down, there’s a desire to help one’s colleagues.”

  “Will they be allowed to go down to the Kursk?”

  “Molander and I both believe the Russians will refuse the help.”

  Couldn’t they let go of their principles and their damned pride? Sarah thought of Max’s description of the situation, the injured honor the Russians had been seeking to restore with this exercise. The speculations about a new type of torpedo, the most advanced and feared in the world. Of course Russia didn’t want NATO to get a close look at it. But the lives of many men were at stake now. She thought of the knocking on the hull, shivered, and pulled her comforter up to her chin.

  “How many men are aboard the Kursk?”

  “The Russians haven’t published a list. The standard crew is a hundred eleven men. During exercises like this one, there are no doubt some guests on board, as observers.”

  “So they’re all going to be sacrificed?” She didn’t wait for her board chairman to answer the question. “The Cold War is back.”

  She’d thought the thought aloud.

  “What can we do, Charlie?”

  “The armed forces have passed this information on to the government offices and the cabinet. The military wants to send the URF—the Swedish navy’s underwater rescue vehicle—and its crew to the area. The prime minister has put Defence Ministry state secretary Torbjörn Lindström in charge of this going forward. The prime minister wants to collect suggestions for possible courses of action, expand the discussion beyond the usual internal channels of the ministry and relevant agencies, and add what Molander called ‘creative contributions from a specially appointed reference group.’”

  “So you secured a place at the table for us?” said Sarah.

  “Berga is standing by. Do you realize what a triumph it would be if the Russian submariners were rescued from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean by a Swedish rescue operation?”

  “We can exploit our position as a neutral country. Perhaps the Russians would be more willing to accept help from us?”

  “Precisely,” said Charlie.

  If they got an opportunity to influence the decision, they would have to come well prepared. That was no problem; she just needed to find someone who could take care of her kids. This was a golden opportunity for Vektor to raise its profile.

  “I’ll get started right away. But, Charlie, did anyone say anything about what made the Kursk sink?”

  “No. That’s what everyone is wondering right now.”

  9

  Max had a heavy head when he woke up. He stretched his arms up toward the ceiling high above him as he got out of bed, then walked down the spiral staircase that led to the living room, with its old paintings of Carl Borgenstierna’s ancestors, and on into the kitchen. He opened one of the windows. The air that came in was warm and not particularly fresh.

  The nursery rhymes out of that music box had made his mind call up memories from his childhood.

  “Aija zuzu.”

  It was strange how the synapses in his brain worked.

  For many years, Max and his teacher Maj-Lis had spent weekdays in Båkbergsgården, the old clubhouse on the west side of Arholma; it had been just the two of them. Maj-Lis greeted him in the morning and gave him a cup of tea before they started in on his lessons. When the school day was over and Maj-Lis got in her boat to row herself home over Björköfjärden to Skeppsmyra, Max often ran up the mountain to its peak, hid in its crevices and grottoes and behind tall trees. Then he’d run down again, toward the fishermen’s boathouses. There he might catch sight of a mink moving quickly and silently down by the water’s edge. Then his play became a hunt.

  Max longed for the sea. For the islands and cliffs in the outer archipelago where he had grown up. Where there was never any crowding except around the boat gas station in July.

  He’d only been able to sleep for four hours. He knew it was the chemical processes going on in his body that had awakened him; he always fell asleep easily and woke up early after he’d had a lot of wine. He had read somewhere that alcohol was the biggest single source of human suffering. When it came to individual suffering, family problems, and social costs, nothing else compared. Gorbachev had realized this, and his attempt to alleviate Russia’s alcoholism problem had been the beginning of the end for him.

  “You can talk to the Yankees about arms reductions, but leave our vodka alone.”

  Max knew from experience what alcohol did to families. While it hadn’t caused his father’s death directly, his mother had always said it had been the liquor that had taken his father away from them.

  Max didn’t like to stop himself when he started. If Pashie hadn’t suddenly decided it was time to leave, he would probably have still been sitting there with Ola and his Barolo. Listening to his mind-numbing stories of the fascinating lives ferrets live. The research Ola did at Stockholm University was like an absurd fable about the children he and Malin couldn’t have.

  Maybe you’d have better luck if you were more like rabbits than tame ferrets, thought Max, taking a carton of milk from the refrigerator and pouring himself a glass. Those should have been his parting words last night.

  On the breakfast table lay his blank health declaration form. His next appointment with the fertility doctor at Sophiahemmet Hospital was early tomorrow morning. He wondered whether Pashie had laid the form on the table late last night after they’d come home from the dinner. He’d lost count of the number of times she’d reminded him to fill it out.

  They had taken the first step shortly after Pashie had met Malin. Max had called Sophiahemmet Hospital’s fertility clinic and spoken with a midwife. During that first meeting, the focus had been on Pashie’s problem. The doctor had prescribed hormone treatment to bring about ovulation, advising that they start with that and keep trying. Sometimes it takes a little longer. They had been trying for almost half a year now.

  “Name, address, marital status, profession, height, weight.”

  Max opened a drawer and took out a pen, started filling out the form.

  “Max Anger, Själagårdsgatan 2, 111 31 Stockholm, Analyst, 190 cm, 95 kg.”

  He skimmed the rest of the document. The questions at the bottom hit him like Feliz’s jabs at the boxing club.

  “Are you taking any prescription medicines?”

  “Hereditary diseases in the family?”

  “Names of parents and maternal and paternal grandparents.”

  He looked out the window at the big chestnut tree down on Brända Tomten.

  Why did they have to know his paternal grandparents’ names? His thoughts went where he and Pashie had promised each other they would never again go. To the past, which held so much suffering.

  His cell phone, which was charging on the kitchen counter, started ringing.

  “We know what caused yesterday’s seismic events,” said Sarah. “The Kursk has sunk and is lying at the bottom of the Barents Sea.”

  Max closed his eyes. He had participated in exercises involving similar situations during his time as an attack diver in the Swedish navy. Few things took as gr
eat a toll on the human psyche as being trapped under water. The panic that broke out when access to breathable air became limited transformed men into animals.

  “Are there Russian rescue vessels and deep-sea divers in the area?” he asked.

  “There’s no information to that effect,” said Sarah. “Apparently NATO is preparing a rescue effort involving a British submersible. But Charlie and I don’t think the Russians are going to accept their help.”

  “No,” said Max. “I don’t think so, either.”

  “We’ve been in contact with the Ministry of Defence. We hope we can convince the government to offer Swedish help. Our underwater rescue vehicle is ready to be flown to the Barents Sea from Berga, and the Swedish navy’s rescue personnel are prepared to travel with it.”

  “Do we know anything about how much the submarine is leaning or about whether the sluice has been damaged?” asked Max.

  Max could hear Sarah closing a door.

  “No, we don’t have those kinds of details yet. But Sweden’s submarine rescue force is world class. The URF can go down to a submarine and pick up thirty-five people. There shouldn’t be any technical problems with docking the Swedish submersible to the Russian submarine. But you’re right to be concerned; there could be problems if conditions are particularly difficult.”

  “What can Pashie and I do?”

  “Ask Pashie to establish preliminary contact with the Russian embassy. You can go to Berga tomorrow morning and find out what the Swedish navy needs besides a green light from the politicians. Charlie and I are going to a meeting then to see to it that the Swedish government has basic relevant information.”

  “Tomorrow morning it will have been forty-eight hours since the accident. Every hour is critical. That meeting should be held immediately.”

  Sarah sighed heavily.

  “We can’t make it happen faster than this, unfortunately. I’ve been told that it’s not a national crisis for Sweden. We’ve done everything we can at this point.”

  Max shook his head. It wasn’t just Russian pride that was in the way. Swedish bureaucracy, too, apparently.

  “I’ll go to Berga tomorrow and we’ll see where that gets us,” he said. “Whether there’s going to be a rescue operation or a recovery of dead bodies.”

  When Max got back to the bedroom, Pashie was sitting up in bed.

  “Has something happened?”

  Max told Pashie about his conversation with Sarah.

  “Do they have any chance of surviving?” asked Pashie.

  Max sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. “We can only hope for the best. This isn’t the first time a submarine has sunk. They’re well-trained men. There might still be hope for them.”

  Pashie brushed strands of hair away from her forehead.

  “What do you think it’s like in there right now?”

  “Anyone who’s still alive is going through hell. If the submarine’s most important functions are disabled, there’s a risk that the lighting stops working, the temperature drops, and water comes in.”

  “No one would survive long in that water, and if there’s been an explosion, it could be that they’ve run out of oxygen?”

  “That’s possible, yes. But the Kursk is a big submarine. The hulls are built of titanium that’s seven centimeters thick.”

  They fell silent.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” said Pashie after a while. “I should have said this to you yesterday, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  Pashie’s cheeks turned red. Max didn’t know whether it was because of a hangover or their conversation about the sailors on the Kursk. Her hair was up in a knot, her slender, elegant neck exposed.

  “What is it, Pashie?”

  “The letter I mentioned at the office that was sent to Vektor was addressed to me,” said Pashie. “Nadia, the woman who sent the letter, has started a women’s organization that supports widows of members of the Russian armed forces. The organization is called WoRM.” She paused, furrowed her brow. “Widows of the Russian Military. Nadia’s husband died in an accident on an ordinary day in Severomorsk. I know I shouldn’t mix my private life with work, but Nadia is my cousin. Her late husband was the brother of Ivan Lyomkin, the captain of the Kursk.”

  10

  Sofia Karlsson switched off the thundering vent fan over the stove in her apartment’s little kitchenette. Her huevos rancheros were done. She usually skipped breakfast, but on weekend mornings she went to the trouble to make the only breakfast she actually liked. The breakfast her mother used to make.

  She lifted the skillet off the burner, shook her head when she looked at what was lying on it, and scraped it from the slick Teflon surface onto a plate. This was actually supposed to have been an omelet, but just like her mother before her, Sofia found it difficult to flip it over cleanly; there was either too much heat or not enough oil, or both. The result was a kind of scrambled eggs with brown burned flakes on top.

  She poured on ready-mixed salt and chili powder from a jar she’d bought, fixed a cup of instant coffee, and sat down with her computer at the little table by the window that overlooked the inner courtyard. While she ate, she read the e-mail the coroner had sent her earlier that morning. He must have worked all night.

  Sofia took out her cell phone and dialed Per Carpelan.

  The homicide division of the National Bureau of Investigation consisted of seven individuals. Per Carpelan had taken over as the department’s head in 1996, around the same time Sofia joined the division, when she was deemed no longer well suited to run the department’s National Task Force. In a way, she’d been demoted, although no one who was not a police officer would have gotten this impression. It had been a smart choice. They hadn’t wanted to get rid of her completely; she understood that. She was still considered one of Sweden’s most competent and trusted police officers.

  Carpelan answered after four rings. She imagined him in his row house in Sollentuna, tiptoeing around in his socks so as not to wake his family, holding his index finger to the bridge of his round-rimmed glasses to keep them in place on his nose.

  “Schiller called me again this morning,” said Carpelan.

  Sofia furrowed her brow. The state secretary was not in the habit of interfering in their work. What was making Schiller take such a strong interest in an individual murder?

  “What’s he saying?”

  “He wants to keep the investigation task force small to minimize leaks to the media. No interdivisional groups involving persons from outside Homicide. You will be in charge of the investigation and have a small group of investigators helping you with background checks, telephone calls, and so on. But you and I will be the only people who discuss the matter in its entirety, and I will confer with the state secretary regularly. It’s acceptable to consult external individuals who possess relevant expertise if there’s a need for that, but such individuals should be given information on a need-to-know basis only and not get the whole picture.”

  “Okay, sure,” said Sofia. “The autopsy showed no signs of alcohol, medicine, or drugs in the victim’s body. The body showed signs that the victim experienced extreme stress prior to death.”

  “Did you find anything of forensic value at the scene?”

  “There were a large number of shoe prints; the auction attracted a lot of people. I saw the technicians section off some they seemed to find interesting in the immediate vicinity of the chest—we’ll have to see what comes of that. The perpetrator was obviously prepared. Cold and careful.”

  “What do we know about the victim’s finances? Any debts?”

  “Callmér seems to have been a man who took care of his obligations. His personal economic situation was solid, but he wasn’t wealthy. He worked as a government official his entire life, and nobody gets rich doing that.”

  “God knows that’s true.”

  For a while Carpelan remained silent.

  Finally he said, “Do you think the murderer ha
d a personal relationship with the victim?”

  “In this case, I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Everything suggests a kind of hatred that must somehow be personal.”

  “Well, maybe. They don’t need to have known each other for this to have been personal for the perpetrator. But I’m sure there’s meaning behind the extreme violence.”

  “Self-control, motivation, and strength,” said Carpelan.

  “And good planning.”

  “So not a raving lunatic?”

  It was just as well her boss wasn’t thinking in terms of a madman. All she needed was for a court to decide, after they caught this bastard, that a full forensic psychological evaluation was necessary.

  “If I understand your agreement with the state secretary correctly, it means we should refrain from assembling the forensic profilers?”

  Carpelan emitted a tired, hollow laugh.

  Both of them hated the part of police work that involved sitting around a table with a criminologist, a behavioral scientist, and a psychologist. Sofia would have preferred to visit a psychic. Ninety percent of the forensic profiles she’d seen in her career had lacked any basis in science whatsoever, and none of them had led to solving a case. But as long as they didn’t have a fingerprint or DNA match, and as long they didn’t have any other physical evidence such as a smoking revolver, all they had to analyze were the murderer’s motives and strategies. To get closer to solving the case, Sofia needed to get inside the murderer’s mind and understand why he had chosen this victim and why he decorated him with a reversed C and the numeral 9.

  “I think we’re going to have to concentrate all our efforts on collecting information about the victim,” said Carpelan. “You’ll have to go over Callmér’s background carefully to give us something to start with.”

  There was something in Carpelan’s voice; it sounded more strained than usual. Sofia imagined the kind of pressure he was under. Again she thought of the numeral carved into the victim’s forehead. The numeral 9. Why hadn’t Carpelan asked about that?

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?”