Never Fuck Up: A Novel

by Jens Lapidus

  The transport relevant to this case followed the procedure that is routinely applied to Cargo Logistics. Barclays sent a telefax message to Cargo Logistics with the request that Cargo Logistics pick up a number of courier bags containing currency from the three Swedish banks, arrange for air transport from Stockholm to London, as well as fax a copy of the Air Waybill as soon as possible (Attachments 1–5). According to the instructions, the items would be prepared for air transport and the average value of each courier bag would not exceed 500,000 U.S. Dollars. At the time, the dollar was at 7.32 SEK.

  Cargo Logistics’ pickup of the cargo to bring to Arlanda Airport

  On the morning of April 5, 2005, Cargo Logistics picked up a total of 19 courier bags at the three Swedish banks in downtown Stockholm, divided as detailed in Attachment 6. The job was executed by two employees from Cargo Logistics, Göran Olofsson and Roger Boring, using a vehicle adapted to service Cash-in-Transit. Olofsson had worked with Cargo Logistics for 20 years and Boring for 5 years. In accordance with standard procedures, neither Olofsson nor Boring knew anything about the value of the courier bags that were to be picked up.

  At 1415 on the same afternoon, Olfsson and Boring arrived at the office of Wilson & Co—the freight agent—at Arlanda Airport, where they picked up the Air Waybill along with documentation marking the cargo. Olofsson and Boring then drove around 165 feet to Cargo Logistics’s warehouse on the airport grounds, where they delivered the 19 courier bags.

  Cargo Logistics’ delivery

  At around 1500 on the afternoon of the same day, Cargo Logistics’ warehouse acknowledged the receipt of the 19 courier bags by issuing a document entitled “Handling Report—Cargo Logistics—Valuable Cargo” (Attachment 7). Staff from Cargo Logistics placed the courier bags in locked safety boxes that were brought to a room in the warehouse that is called the “strong room” (hereafter referred to as “the vault”), where valuable cargo is locked and stored.

  Armed robbery

  The flight that the safe boxes would be traveling on was supposed to depart on the evening of April 5, at 1825. At around 1800, Fredrik Öberg, an employee of Cargo Logistics, was working inside the warehouse, moving safe boxes from the vault to the Cargo Logistics truck. The truck, a Nissan King Cab, would transport the courier bags to the airplane. While the work of moving the cargo was being executed, the door to the vault was open, as was the garage entrance to the warehouse, which faced the airport area. The warehouse’s emergency-exit door toward the street outside the airport area was also propped open in connection with the recent arrival of a courier from the courier service company Box Delivery. The emergency-exit door is situated directly adjacent to the vault.

  At this time, around 1810, three men, two of whom were armed with firearms, entered the warehouse through the open emergency exit. The robbers threatened the courier from Box Delivery and Öberg, who were forced to lie down on the floor while the robbers took nine safe boxes from inside the vault. While Öberg was lying on the floor, he used his cell phone to call Falck Security, the security company at Arlanda Airport, and informed them that a robbery was taking place. Strangely enough, the Falck employee who received the call told Öberg to contact the police instead.

  After the robbery, the perpetrators disappeared from the scene using a BMW 528, which has still not been found, and a stolen Jeep Cherokee, which was later found abandoned around 1–2 miles from the scene of the crime, with one safe box remaining inside. The robbery was immediately reported to the Arlanda police.

  No camera surveillance

  The Cargo Logistics warehouse is equipped with a total of 75 CCTV (video) surveillance cameras that run 24 hours a day. After the robbery, it appeared that the videotape in the camera located in the part of the warehouse where the robbery took place had not been replaced according to standard procedure (the videotape is 27 hours long). The videotape in the camera in question had therefore ceased to record at around 1300 on April 5, and the robbery was consequently not recorded.

  Open emergency exit

  The vault in the Cargo Logistics warehouse is situated directly adjacent to the emergency-exit door that leads to the street outside the airport area. The emergency-exit door cannot be opened from the outside and, according to Cargo Logistics’s standard procedure, is to remain closed. Despite this, the emergency-exit door had been left open at the time of the robbery, which made it possible for the robbers to enter the warehouse from the street outside the airport. The reason the emergency-exit door was not closed after the courier from Box Delivery had entered has not yet been determined.

  Open vault

  According to Cargo Logistics’ standard operating procedure, the door to the vault can only be opened by two persons together, one of whom (of managerial rank) uses an electronic key. In the situation in question, the door to the vault was ajar, whereby the robbers, after they had entered the warehouse through the open emergency-exit door, were granted direct access to the open vault. The reason for the vault door being left open has not yet been determined.

  The preliminary investigation has been dropped

  No perpetrators have yet been arrested. The prosecutor has decided to drop the preliminary investigation.

  Cargo Logistics’ responsibility

  Barclays alleges that, in the present circumstances, Cargo Logistics either deliberately caused the damage or is guilty of the kind of qualified neglect outlined in chapter 9, § 24 of the Aviation Act and which chiefly corresponds to severe neglect of a commercial contractual relationship. The following circumstances, among others, are of importance:

  (i) The robbers were granted access to the warehouse from the street outside the airport area because the emergency-exit door was left open, which is against Cargo Logistics’ applicable rules and procedures.

  (ii) Against Cargo Logistics’ applicable rules and procedures, the door to the vault was open, which granted the robbers immediate access to the open vault once they had entered the warehouse through the open emergency-exit door.

  (iii) Cargo Logistics has neglected to follow applicable security rules and procedures by not replacing the videotape in the surveillance camera in the specific part of the warehouse where the robbery took place, whereby the robbery was not recorded.

  (iv) This is a matter of a commercial relationship and the demands on Cargo Logistics’ organization, security, and professionalism can therefore be high.

  (v) Significant damage has been incurred.

  Stockholm.

  Roger Holmgren, Esq.

  11

  Niklas worked out in the apartment after his run. He was driven by routine. His philosophy: all training is built on habit, duplication, repetition. Alternating four times fifty push-ups with some leg exercises. Switching up four sets with free weights for his biceps with forty times sixty sit-ups. He sweated like a pig in an army tent. Stretched thoroughly. Wanted to keep the litheness in his muscles. Rested on the couch for fifteen minutes.

  Stood back up. Time for the climax—tanto dori katas, knife warfare. Jogging was to measure himself, for conditioning and fat burning. The push-ups and the muscle exercises were necessary to maintain strength and to look decent. He’d admit it any day: vanity was his thing. But tanto dori was something else: relaxation and power. He could do it for hours. Like meditation. Forget everything else. Go into himself. Go into the movements. Go into the knife. The sweeps, the steps. The stabs.

  He’d learned the technique six years ago from a couple of elite officers in a company he’d worked with in Afghanistan. Since then, he’d trained as often as he could. You needed space to do the movement sequences, it was like dancing. Couldn’t always do it when you were out in the field. But the empty apartment was made for close-combat technique.

  First, be still. Heels together. Feet out at a ninety-degree angle. Arms down, in front of your gut. The knife in your right hand with the thumb resting on the flat side of the blade. Left hand in a light grip over the right hand. Head down, chin tucked in. D
eep breaths through your nose. Then attack. All the muscles explode. A step forward with your right leg. Weight low. Exhale through your mouth. Air and muscles tighten your stomach. Important: no big movements—or your opponent will see right away what you’re planning on doing. Sharp cut with the knife. Twist it on the recoil.

  He went through the kata with concentration.

  This one took four and a half minutes. Every movement’d been practiced separately at least five hundred times. Stabs to the abdomen. Gutting techniques. Chop-chop methodology.

  Originally, it was some Japanese thing. But the soldiers who taught him in Afghanistan mixed and added. The techniques of the different katas covered everything. Cramped spaces like elevators, prison cells, and toilet stalls. Techniques for combat in cars, boats, and airplanes. Unstable environments, combat in heavy vegetation, on slippery surfaces, in silence. Water techniques where the slowness of the motions created new possibilities to predict the opponent’s next move, close combat in stairwells—special blocking techniques for punches or stabs coming from diagonally above. As long as Niklas carried a knife, he never needed to be worried up close.

  At the same time: worry was a healthy sign down in the sandbox. The men who stopped feeling even so much as a sting of fear in combat often lost their grip. The mercenary industry didn’t tolerate any real crazies. They were sent home. Or were eliminated.

  He was happy that he’d gotten the chance. Not a lot of Swedes in the world got to fight in real combat. U.N. pussies mostly guarded refugee camps. He knew; he’d tried to be one of them.

  After showering, he took two Nitrazepam. Loneliness wore him down. He needed friends. Benjamin, the dude who’d gotten him the dirty real estate hookup, was the only friend he could remember having in high school, before his time in the mountain brigade during his mandatory military service in northern Sweden, up in Arvidsjaur. Maybe Benjamin was the only buddy he’d ever had. Niklas’d seen him last week for the first time in ages. They were meeting up again today.

  He popped another downer. Walked out. Toward the subway. Kept his eyes peeled for rats.

  The subway car’d been subjected to a graffiti assault. Niklas closed his eyes. Tried to sleep. He thought about the screams he’d heard from the neighbors. The girl in there with the Iraqi accent must’ve gotten it bad. He hadn’t seen the guy who’d done it to her yet. But when he did, Niklas doubted he’d be able to control himself.

  He was lost in thought. Human beings lived in Hobbes’s world. Niklas knew that better than anyone. You couldn’t point out who was good and who was evil. Couldn’t paint life over with some sort of morality paint. Pretend like there was right and wrong, good and evil. That was bullshit. Everyone was at war with everyone else. Someone had to go in, take control. Someone had to make sure people didn’t beat, shoot, or blow one another up. Someone had to take power. No one had the right to whine about the system without first trying to do something about it, with all their might. That’s why the mujahideen deserved to be respected. It was a war. They weren’t any worse people than the soldiers in his unit. The only difference was that his men had better weapons. So they took control.

  In a way, it was the same deal with the girl in the apartment next door. Her man did his thing. She should do hers—knock him dead. Right way.

  He got off the subway. They were meeting up at Mariatorget. Tivoli, a bar. To grab a beer. Niklas sat down at a table.

  After a while, he showed up. Benjamin: shaved head with a beard like some old ZZ Top guy. Bull neck. Snub nose that’d probably taken quite a few hits over the years. Still had his sunglasses on. Niklas thought about what the Yanks liked to call those ugly, cheap shades: BCG—birth control glasses—you couldn’t get anywhere near a chick with those babies on. Benjamin walked with the same rocking gait he’d always had. Cocky to the max: hands in the pockets of his open jacket, swinging with every step he took.

  Niklas’s first thought when he’d met Benjamin last time was that he’d seriously changed since they were kids. Back then: he was the guy who wasn’t really able to read situations. Who droned on about boring stuff—like that his mom’d accidentally dyed the white load of laundry blue—for a little too long. Who didn’t change his T-shirt after gym class. Whom the girls never glanced at, but who still sent little notes to the coolest chick in the class, writing how much he liked her and wondering if she wanted to make out sometime. He was never bullied; there was a reason for that. But he was never part of the group, either. From time to time he’d go berserk. If someone provoked him, taunted him about his hand sweat, teased him about his name, or just made up some crap about his mom. It was scary. He became like a trapped animal. Could whip guys who were two years older than him. Pound their heads into the gravel on the soccer field, pummel them with rocks. And that’d attracted Niklas. It got better in junior high. Benjamin started taking tae kwon do instead. Four years later, he took home bronze in the Junior Nationals. Became someone worth counting on.

  They shook hands. Benjamin’s handshake: the hypertense grip of a bodybuilder. Was he trying to prove something?

  “Hey, Benjamin. Things’re good?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Any questions about me lately?”

  “Actually, yeah. Cops called this morning and asked me how long you’d hung out at my place on that night last week.”

  “And?”

  “I said we hung out all night, watched the Godfather movies and stuff.”

  “Thanks. Honestly, I owe you one.”

  They walked over to the bar and ordered drinks. Benjamin tried to heckle Niklas for speaking such bad Swenglish. Niklas didn’t crack a smile.

  He ordered a Guinness. Benjamin, a mineral water. Niklas paid for both.

  “You don’t want anything else?” Niklas asked.

  Benjamin shook his head. “No. I’m deffing.”

  Niklas didn’t get it. Eight years in the bush, often without beer, booze, or good grub, had made him yearn for the real stuff.

  They sat down.

  Chatted. Niklas didn’t really understand what Benjamin did these days. Apparently he’d worked as a bouncer. Then a house painter. Then he’d been unemployed. Now something vague.

  Niklas thought about his own story. The CV of his life: a few highlights—but mostly his childhood was filled with boredom, alienation, and fear. Boredom while waiting at home in the apartment every Saturday for Mom to come home from work. Alienation at school. How everyone must’ve known that something wasn’t right in Niklas Brogren’s household, but never said anything. Terror that the asshole was going to beat Mom to death. Fear of falling asleep at night, of all the nightmares, of the sound of Mom’s pleading, screams, tears. Of the rats. And then the highlights. Being drafted. The year with the mountain brigade. The adrenaline kicks before battle. The first time he’d fought under real fire in Afghanistan. Parties with the guys in Iraq after well-executed missions.

  Benjamin looked up from his chatter.

  “Hello. Earth calling. Are you with me, or what?”

  “No worries, I just drifted off a bit.” Niklas laughed.

  “Oh yeah, where to?”

  “You know, thinking about Mom and stuff.”

  “Oh, okay. I can tell you something that’ll put you in a better mood. I joined a shooting club. Did I tell you that already? It’s fun as hell. Soon I’ll get my license and get to buy a twenty-two. You gotta wait for higher caliber revolvers. But maybe you don’t think that’s all that special. I bet you’ve shot up a storm, huh?”

  “I guess you could say that. But we mostly practiced with guns for fun down there.”

  “Cool. You can get tricked by all that stuff, right? You watch a bunch of American movies where they do all those weird grips. Holding the gun sideways in your hand like it doesn’t weigh anything.”

  “Yeah, I know, that doesn’t work.”

  “It doesn’t work for shit.”

  “Yep. That’s Hollywood stuff. You get lousy accuracy with a grip like t
hat. Your whole hand shakes with every shot, like on some senile fuck. It’s kind of like running. You see them do that all the time in those flicks, too. They run and shoot. But everyone who’s been around at all knows that doesn’t work.”

  “You gotta practice. What kind of heat did you guys pack?”

  Niklas wasn’t really supposed to talk about that stuff. He tried to steer the conversation in a different direction. “I don’t really remember. But hey, you got a girl these days?”

  “How can you not remember what gun you had? Come on.”

  It was a matter of honor. Some stuff you just didn’t babble about to people on the outside: the arsenal, where you’d done assignments, who the other guys in the company were—and how many people you’d killed. Even if you quit a private army, you had to stick to the rules. The vow of silence was valid until death did you part. Niklas would never leak. He wasn’t the type. Why couldn’t Benjamin just accept that?

  Benjamin eyed him.

  Niklas was short: “You just don’t talk about that stuff, is all.”

  Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed. Was he pissed off?

  “Okay. I understand. Nemas problemas.”

  Everything was cool. They chatted for a while longer. The weather was nice. Benjamin told him that he’d bought a game-bred fighting dog. He was proud of the name: Arnold. Had it practice on fenders that he hung up on the carpet rack in the inner courtyard of his building. When its jaws locked, sometimes it kept hanging on for over twenty minutes. Couldn’t let go. Helplessly humiliated by its own stubbornness.

  In the middle of their chat, Niklas’s phone rang. He continued to jive with Yankee taste in music—his signal was that Taylor Hicks song.

  “Hi Mom.”

  “Hi. What are you doing?”

  “I’m hanging out with an old friend, Benjamin. Remember him? Can I talk to you later, maybe?”

  He didn’t try to hide the irritation in his voice.

  “No, I have to tell you something.”