Ten Swedes Must Die
Page 28
“From Mara, the symbol we found on Maj-Lis Toom, to Saule, the suns we found on Wass,” she continued. “This is as far as the murderer has gotten?”
“Yes. What you saw where Wass died was a kind of Walpurgis Night bonfire. An annual tradition involving getting rid of superfluous twigs and branches, originally associated with an old sun god.”
Sofia nodded.
“So these steps remain?” She pointed to the symbols at the points on the right side of the cross, symbols for Laima, fate; Jumis, the harvest; and Zalktis, the snake that stood for wealth and prosperity. The last symbol was the one for Austras Koks, the tree of dawn. “There aren’t enough steps. The cross has eight points with corresponding symbols, not ten.”
“Maybe he increases the number of victims at the end?” said Max. “Kills more than one person at a time?”
“What does the book say about the next symbol?”
“Laima, the goddess of good luck and fate. Sacrifices to Laima were carried out in a bathhouse or sauna where childbirth usually took place in those days.”
Sofia leaned over toward the book.
“And what then?” she said.
She put her finger on the last symbol, the one they hadn’t yet talked about. It was at the center of the cross.
“That’s the symbol of Dievs, the god of heavenly bodies, the most powerful of all the gods. His rage causes the vault of heaven to fall on humankind. And then the earth opens beneath our feet.”
80
On the bridge of the Seaway Eagle, Hein Espen looked out at the horizon. Thus far the sea had been calm, but he knew the farther north they got, the stronger the winds would be. When he had accepted this assignment, he had known it could be an eventful undertaking. Transporting a team of divers from the Norwegian navy and a recovery team from the United Kingdom to the site of the Kursk disaster was complicated and sensitive enough to begin with. Disruptive elements of the kind Max Anger had suggested were not a welcome addition. The Russian visitor had claimed to be a representative of the Russian Navy. It was not in itself remarkable that the navy would want to have an inspector aboard the vessel, but since Max had called, he’d had a creeping feeling that something wasn’t right.
He walked over to his helmsman, who’d just completed a walking inspection of the vessel.
“Is everything going all right so far?” he asked.
“People are in a good mood,” said the helmsman. “Apparently the sauna’s already gotten up to ninety degrees, and I’m hearing happy shouts from in there.”
“It’s possible we have a problem aboard. If anything changes, if there’s an issue with the engines or some of the guests are squabbling, I want to hear about it right away.”
“Is there anybody I should particularly keep an eye on?”
“Goga Golubkin, the Russian.”
The helmsman nodded.
“And we might have more visitors,” said Hein Espen.
“When? We’re not going to dock until—”
“Don’t worry about the details,” said Hein Espen. “I’ll take care of that.”
His thoughts returned to the Russian guest.
“You checked his documents properly?”
“Yes, of course. Everything looked fine,” said the helmsman.
“And the Russian authorities confirmed his identity?”
“Yes, I received a call from a captain first rank at the Northern Fleet’s base in Severomorsk. He said Golubkin was to come along as an observer. The details they mentioned matched the identification the man showed me when he came aboard.”
“You still have the name of the captain first rank in Severomorsk and other information about him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Get me that information. And get Charlie Knutsson from cabin twenty-three. Ask him to come up to the bridge and enjoy the view with me. And put one of my divers outside the door here.”
81
The plane’s flight attendant approached Max and Sofia as soon as the wheels touched the asphalt in Trondheim.
“Please collect your things and come with me as quickly as possible.”
They got up and followed the man toward the exit. When the plane had come to a stop, he turned the lock handle and pushed open the door of the plane. A brisk wind struck them as they hurried down the stairs. A car was parked on the runway. Its door bore an emblem Max knew well. A green wreath with a crown above it. In the center, two letters in gold against a black background. HV. A man got out and approached them.
“Welcome to Norway. I am Kristian Loen of the Ryke Rapid Deployment Force,” said the man, shaking Max’s hand.
He wore camouflage overalls in sand beige and forest green. His sidearm was strapped over his chest so it would be easy to get to while he was wearing full battle gear.
“I have orders to bring you to a helicopter from Air Force Squadron 339. It’s over this way.”
“Thanks,” said Max, shaking the Norwegian’s hand. “We have to hurry.”
As they were walking toward the car, Loen said, “We are in contact with the Seaway Eagle, which is updating us once a minute regarding the vessel’s position, course, and speed. Hein Espen is proceeding at a snail’s pace to make things easier for us. He sends his greetings and says that there’s plenty of cold Ringnes in the refrigerator and that he’s looking forward to seeing you again.”
Max pulled the car door open and held it for Sofia.
“Okay, let’s get going.”
82
Sarah parked outside the steps up to the City Library’s main entrance, completely indifferent to the yellow lines along the edges of the sidewalk and the signs indicating that parking there was absolutely forbidden.
She had quickly read through De vi vårdade. It was such a strange book, a chaotic collection of notes and anecdotes and pictures with a destructive and provocative message.
She wondered how many people knew of this period of Swedish history. And whether it could really be that people connected to it were being murdered now, so many years later.
It was that last thought that made the sweat run down the back of her neck now, as she ran up the broad steps to the entrance. She had read the book with the theory they had developed in mind: the victims were being chosen because of sins their parents had committed. This seemed to fit. Claes Callmér’s father had been the director of the camp in Rinkaby. Torbjörn Lindström’s father, Arvid Lindström, had been the leader of the specially detailed police from Stockholm, the so-called men in black. Arvid had personally taken care of a difficult Latvian named Ivars who had refused to leave the bus when it had arrived at the Trelleborg harbor. When Arvid had tried to drag him aboard the Soviet vessel Beloostrov, Ivars had chosen to drive a pencil through his own eye and into his brain. Arvid had dragged the lifeless man off the bus. Press photographers had seen to it that the sight of Ivars with the pencil stuck in his eye was preserved for posterity. It was perhaps the most horrible and the most representative image of the Balts’ extradition.
Arvid’s son, Torbjörn Lindström, had met the same fate. A pencil was pushed through his eye into his brain.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
It was insanity.
Sarah pushed through the throngs of people crowding the revolving door and into the library. She walked up to the information desk. While the correctness of Max’s theory was as good as confirmed, there was still much they didn’t understand.
When it was her turn at the information desk, she tried her best to come across as calm and friendly.
“I wonder if you could help me with the book De vi vårdade by Anna Isaksson.”
The librarian typed on her keyboard.
“We have one copy of it here. What is it you’d like to know?”
“I wonder who published it. And whether the author has written any other books. Is it all right if I take a look?”
Sarah pointed at the librarian’s monitor.
“The information I
have here is what you could get using the terminals out there, but you can take a look here if you like.” The woman turned her monitor. “The book was published in 1992 by a publisher I can’t say I’m familiar with.”
She typed some more.
“That seems to be the only book we have from that publisher. I think it’s some kind of nonprofit organization in Örebro. There are quite a few other books by an author or authors with the same name but in very different categories, such as children’s literature and child psychology—I don’t think they’re the same person.”
“What information is this here?”
Sarah pointed at a single individual’s name listed under the title.
The woman smiled at her. “You can’t see this particular field using the terminals out in the hall. But I’ll say it this way: there hasn’t exactly been a run on this book. It’s only been checked out once. By this person.”
Sarah leaned closer, started when she saw the name.
“Okay. Thanks.”
She walked away with slow steps.
The name of the single person who had checked out the book was Schiller, Hanna Schiller. Was that just an odd coincidence?
She walked down the steps and into the fresh air. Took out her cell phone and called directory information and asked to be connected. After a few rings, a woman answered.
“Hello,” said Sarah. “I’m calling from the Stockholm City Library. Am I speaking with Hanna Schiller?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve gotten way behind with our processing of books that haven’t been returned. Is it correct that you’ve checked out a book called De vi vårdade? It’s a book about the extradition of the Balts.”
“No, certainly not. That must be a mistake.”
“Do you have your library card handy?”
“What? No, I don’t. I don’t know where it is at the moment.”
“Does anyone else ever check out books with your card? A family member, for example? Your husband, Tomas?”
Hanna did not answer immediately. Sarah wondered whether she would take the bait.
Then she said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to check with him. He hasn’t come home yet.”
Is it really possible? Sarah wondered after she’d ended the call. Tomas Schiller. The man at the Ministry of Justice. The state secretary playing chief of police.
83
Charlie was sitting at the little desk in his cabin. The waves rolled by outside. The rocking of the Seaway Eagle in the calm sea’s gentle ripples was barely perceptible. He had taken a brief break from writing, was tapping a little chromed ball that hung at the end of a slender chain under the table lamp’s shade. The ball felt cold against his fingertips.
What would they find down there at the bottom of the sea when they arrived? What had caused the sinking of the Kursk would always remain a secret from the world. That was the goal of this mission and what the parties had agreed on. Common sense had won out over foolishness.
The thought of the kind of catastrophe they’d prevented was dizzying.
A few good knowing men.
The contacts he established during his student years at Oxford University in England were still very much active. Mutual loyalty could always be counted on. There had been no shortage of good reasons for NATO to keep a close eye on the Russian exercise. It would have been completely irresponsible not to have done so. But it wasn’t possible to speak openly about such things in Sweden. Not even with his friends at Vektor.
It pained him to have to mislead them. But one day they would understand. The new supercavitating Shkval torpedo was one thing. What General Lebed had warned of was another. Old nonstrategic nuclear weapons that could be hidden and moved around by hand. That could be stored on submarines. British intelligence considered it possible that such weapons were aboard submarines participating in the Russian exercise. No one knew why. No one knew for certain whether it was the case.
Charlie looked at the sheet of paper in front of him. He wasn’t actually certain what he was writing, but he knew there were things inside him he needed to get out. Unanswered questions, feelings he hadn’t managed to steer in the right direction, memories from a time he had squandered. He felt oddly sentimental. But nothing was actually weighing on him. He had always been able to find a kind of consolation in melancholy.
No man should turn seventy and be completely alone. That was how it was. But if a man nevertheless ends up alone, why should he not allow himself to enjoy the calm that comes with solitude? Why not look back and see life from the perspective that is the privilege of the elderly? To do that and at the same time sit aboard a big ship moving slowly forward at sea, to be a part of a peacekeeping mission, was something granted to few people. And in particular to few proud members of Sweden’s large seventy-plus club.
He thought of a story he’d heard about old Indians who sat down on the ground at regular intervals when they traveled great distances so their souls would be able to catch up with them. He felt like this was what he was doing now, after all of the twists and turns of the Kursk affair and Anastasia’s return to his life.
They could wait a day or two for him. For his soul to catch up with him.
There was a knock at the door, and he turned around. He let go of the little ball and laid his fountain pen down on the desk. It landed across a line on which he’d written her name over and over again.
Tasenka.
He pushed his chair back and went to open the door.
84
Every muscle in Pashie’s body was as tense as it could be. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there on Malin’s sofa staring at the blue-and-white-striped wallpaper. Malin had sat beside her silently, letting Pashie be alone with her thoughts.
She could recall the sounds, the images, the tastes, everything that was her life with Max. How they first met. The first time they’d slept together, at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel in Saint Petersburg, where an old woman had been sitting in the corridor asleep when Pashie had asked her for the key. She remembered the look the woman had given her. I know what kind you are. She and Max had laughed about that while they walked down the long orange-brown corridor, past small paintings on the walls that featured the city’s illuminated bridges. Pashie had danced up to the door with an intoxicating feeling in her body, as if they hadn’t been walking down a hotel corridor but traveling straight out into outer space. When they had stepped into that hotel room, they had stopped laughing and the seriousness had begun.
She remembered how she felt when she first came to Stockholm, when she first met Sarah and Charlie and other Westerners who’d had much more experience with the world than she, how she’d had only her Tatar lostness and her stubbornness to protect her against an unknown environment. How she had amazed them with her industriousness and her ability to learn. How they’d accepted her into their community.
Another lifetime.
The memories of how she had staggered along on ice skates in Vasaparken, trying to get Max to understand that she wasn’t a damned ice-skating princess just because she was a Russian woman, replayed in her head like a film. She recalled how in the beginning of their relationship she had tried to get Max to stop thinking about his origins and his father’s mysterious death, had gotten him to stop taking those pills that sometimes made him brain dead. She remembered how she later understood that he sometimes needed to be brain dead.
She remembered how she’d ended up in the jaws of the devil in Saint Petersburg and how Max had done everything he could to save her. How he’d almost gotten to her too late.
She had never thought she would be able to love at all, had never fantasized about a man from a foreign country. She had sworn never to touch a man who had killed and who would do it again if no one stopped him.
But Max had killed for her.
She had loved and hated different aspects of him equally. But betraying her with another woman?
Damn it, that’s the one thing you can’t do.
“Maybe there could be an explanation, Pashie?”
Yes, maybe there could. Something chaotic was going on around them right now, and Pashie knew she didn’t have insight into all aspects of what it was. The photographs could very well be a trap. Because she’d felt she’d had so few things under control recently, she’d focused her efforts on what she could accomplish in this mess. Because of her work, the women in WoRM were going to receive more support than she could ever have dreamed of.
She realized it wasn’t just the wives of the Russian submariners who’d had their dreams shattered. Her dream had also been shattered.
There might be an explanation for why Max had been at the hotel with that hot Swedish cunt. For why someone had bothered to photograph them and send her the pictures. For how someone could know she was here in Malin and Ola’s apartment. Just as there could be an explanation for why Max hadn’t wanted to answer a few simple questions the doctor had asked at Sophiahemmet Hospital.
There were no doubt explanations for everything. But that didn’t mean she had to accept them.
All she regretted was that she’d tried to convince herself that perhaps things weren’t the way she knew, deep down, they really were.
“The will of a soul is not easy to interpret.”
She no longer had enough self-control not to judge him. And she couldn’t sit here waiting like a victim any longer.
85
Hein Espen’s gaze was fixed on the radar screen, following the rotating movement of the illuminated green indicator as the radar searched for vessels or other objects in their vicinity. His thoughts remained focused on what Max Anger had told him over the phone, on his unease about what was supposed to happen next. A ship at sea is not a good place for violent conflict.