Loklinth waited for assent before he continued. “You might be wondering why I have chosen the S-Bar as the venue for this particular meeting. Rather a lot of cycling required on your part. But entering the building from the street is far too risky. We don’t have the same control over the building as we used to. There are codes that could be passed on, surveillance cameras that could be reprogrammed, staff we never recruited. As you will understand, Skandia has new owners nowadays; the South African insurance company Old Mutual.”
Chris Loklinth cleared his throat, took a sip of water from the glass standing near him on the table.
“The choice of the S-Bar has psychological reasons. I want you to fully comprehend the severity of the situation. I know that times have changed. Palme’s murder is a thing of the past, yet it still has the capacity to wreak havoc in the corridors of power to this day.”
“We’re all going a bit senile, so I fear that a recap is necessary,” Anker Turner said. “Fill us in. What has you so riled up?”
“1986 was a historic year for Sweden, for better or worse. We lost one Prime Minister, Olof Palme, which, if you ask me, was inevitable. Things were getting completely out of hand at the time. I still don’t understand why you were so naïve. It was sheer luck that you got away with the cover-up. Until now. There are only two years left before the Palme murder will be taken off the statute books, and yet we are facing the biggest crisis we have ever encountered. In the next few days, everything we did to cover the tracks could collapse like a house of cards.”
He stared out across the room at the opposite whitish-gray concrete wall with an old-fashioned, round wall clock, the type to be found in subway stations of the past.
Damn, he thought. Someone should make an effort to renovate and refurbish down here. He loosened his tie, ran his finger round the inside of his collar, and felt the beating of his pulse.
“Couldn’t we let that guy, um…” Anders Glock said. “What was his name again?”
“Anton Modin,” Loklinth said curtly.
“Modin, that was it. Can’t we just tell him the truth? He would surely understand and put a lid on it. I can well imagine that he’s seen quite a bit in the Security Service archives.”
Glock was speaking slowly, in a deep warm voice.
“Under no circumstances,” Loklinth said. “The government has ordered us to take care of this mess internally. Modin would ruin our international diplomatic and financial contacts. We can’t trust him. He’s got to be neutralized. Quickly.”
“I thought that had already happened,” Anker Turner said in an ironic tone of voice.
Loklinth fell silent. He couldn’t stand the guy. Not only was he an old Social Democrat bigwig, but he was also fat and ugly and a flaming idiot.
“We tried, but Modin isn’t just anybody. I thought you already knew that, Turner.” He stressed the word “Turner,” giving it an arrogant ring.
“All I know is that someone didn’t do their job properly,” Turner shot back.
“Anton Modin is a former well-trained DSO operative. We created him. He knows how we work. And now that the Gustav V dock plan didn’t work, he is forewarned. We’ll have to get him some other way. Another accident would be too obvious. I’ll think something up, one way or another. You can be assured of that.”
He glared at Turner. He really hated him.
“So where do we go from here?” Stig Synnerman said in English.
Seems to have learned English well, Loklinth thought. No doubt because of all those meetings with MI6 guys here at Skandia House, one of several secret Stay Behind locations in Stockholm.
“We have to come up with a plan,” Glock said. “Will we be able to keep on using the Barbro Team? Doesn’t that present a risk?”
“The Barbro Team should be on standby from now on,” Loklinth said. “You can order them to the woods to hunt moose, or whatever it is they do, Mr. Glock.”
“Oh, that’ll be all right,” Glock said, twiddling the thumbs of his broad hands. “I’d rather stop Modin from digging any further. I know what I would have done in your shoes, Loklinth.” Glock looked at him with his intense gaze.
Loklinth felt as if he was staring down the barrel of a gun.
“You aren’t in my shoes,” Loklinth said raising his voice. “It’s 2009 now; this is no longer the good old times. It’s your damned Crack of Dawn veterans that fucked everything up. You should have kept a tighter rein on them. But you didn’t, and now I’m trying to come up with a plan B. You should have had one.”
“We did have a plan B.”
Loklinth didn’t see who had spoken.
“We should simply have Modin silenced, once and for all,” General Synnerman interrupted. The former Chief of Staff was emboldened by the beer. “People of his kind cause trouble. Believe me, I know. Send out a squad this evening. Squish the little rat.”
“Not one more word along those lines,” said Loklinth who felt his patience flying out into the network of tunnels. He pulled himself together and took the initiative once again. “We’ve all got to keep our mouths shut. Who has detailed information on the Palme murder?”
“If you leave out that intelligence buffoon, Professor G. W. Persson, very few,” said Glock, and they all laughed, even Loklinth.
“Seriously now,” Loklinth said, tapping his hand lightly on the surface of the table. “The Barbro Team; how many of them are there, Glock?”
“Six of them,” Glock replied. “Six of them were involved in 1986, but some have died since.”
“OK, let’s do it this way. I’ll keep Modin under surveillance and you guys keep a low profile,” Loklinth said. “I don’t want to see any gray retirees out there in the Stockholm archipelago this summer. Especially not in Grisslehamn. Got that?”
CHAPTER 13
GRISSLEHAMN, THURSDAY APRIL 30, 11:30 P.M.
Anton Modin linked arms with Julia and walked on wobbly legs toward the exit. It was a starry night and the sharp, cold air on the pier was damp from the faint sea breeze and the pier seemed shiny under the globes of the jetty lamps that were placed along the approach to the harbor. Modin’s boat was the only one left.
Modin could feel the warmth of Julia’s body; he had not expected to feel such closeness to a woman that night. He was happier than he had been for quite some time when he saw his boat bobbing up and down and the sleeping sea beyond. He could hear the familiar sound of water splashing against the pier as they walked along its edge.
“Modin! Watch out for the whore!”
An upbeat male voice was calling out behind them. When they turned around, Modin saw the group of fishermen, Carrot Man in the lead, backed up by the hulk, Potato Nose, and a third guy with a string vest under a checked shirt, as if he had stepped right out of the movie Deliverance.
“Come on guys, we don’t want any trouble,” Modin said, in order to be one ahead of them.
“Isn’t that the diver who likes queers?” the Carrot Man said as he came closer.
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you hang out with that police fudge packer, Axman, the queer motherfucker!” He was spraying saliva as he spoke.
“Never mind them, Modin. They’re not worth wasting any energy,” Julia said. “Ignore the bastards.”
“What did you say, little whore?” Potato Nose said, a go-getter with an Åland accent. “You little slut.”
“OK, enough now,” Modin said. “Just get the hell out of here.” He took a firmer grip of Julia’s arm and started heading for the boat.
Potato Nose started running at a remarkable speed. He positioned himself in front of Modin, legs spread wide apart, blocking his way. Modin could see his grubby t-shirt. Then Carrot Man came forward, aiming straight for Julia. He gripped her crotch and squeezed. “Bet you enjoy this, huh?”
“Ouch, you bastard,” Julia said and slapped him across the face.
“You little whore, let’s have a quick one right now, or are you going to play all intellig
ent and hard to get, brother-fucker?”
Modin aimed a right hook at Carrot Man. He turned his whole body and the blow landed on the man’s forehead just above his nasal bone. Carrot Man staggered backwards, seemingly stunned by the forceful blow. Modin turned to his right and aimed a hard kick at Potato Nose’s crotch; he fell to his knees and started screaming in pain. Modin was breathing heavily and stood there with legs apart in attack mode.
Deliverance man grabbed Julia round the neck from behind and wrestled her down onto the surface of the pier. She hit the planks hard and Deliverance sat on top of her. He squeezed one of Julia’s breasts with his big, hairy fist while sitting heavily on her thighs. Nailed down under that weight, she didn’t stand a chance.
Modin ran forward, bent over Potato Nose, took hold of his collarbone and took a firm grip of his greasy hair in his other hand.
Modin could feel himself starting to lose control. Everything happened so quickly; he was acting instinctively. He wound his hand into the hair and pulled as hard as he could. He fell backwards as some of the hair on Potato Nose’s scalp loosened. He heard him let out a guttural scream. At the same time, lying flat on the pier, Modin saw his own right-hand fist holding a piece of scalp in his hand. It was wet. He could see a bare patch on Potato Nose’s head where a patch of skin the size of a fried egg had come away. Blood pulsed and poured from the wound onto the pier. He turned Potato Nose over; he was sobbing, his mouth wide open. Modin could smell his stale breath. He took the tuft of hair and skin and shoved it right into Potato Nose’s face. He forced the man’s mouth shut and stared into his crazy eyes.
“I’ll kill you, you swine, but first you’re going to eat yourself,” Modin screamed, half out of his mind.
He threw himself onto Deliverance, who had his hand inside Julia’s panties. He grabbed him by his longish hair and pulled him off Julia. Modin held his hair tightly and forced the man to crawl toward the edge of the pier. “Keep going!” Then he gave him a hard push in the back with the sole of his foot, and Deliverance tumbled headfirst into the water and vanished.
“Asshole!”
Carrot Man had pulled a knife and was charging at Modin. A shot rang out. Deafening. Modin jumped back. Carrot Man stopped dead in his tracks, still waving his knife.
Julia was holding a revolver with both hands.
“Vamoose, or I’ll shoot you in the thigh,” Julia said pointing the barrel at Carrot Man.
But she didn’t think he intended to leave. None of them were going to. They were not going to back down an inch.
“Take it easy,” Carrot Man said with his blood covered face. “We were only joking.” He swiftly put the knife back in its sheath and lifted up the palms of his hands toward Julia. She did not change her position. Her face showed the fury of a raped woman who had gained the upper hand. There was no compassion. She’d accept no excuses or explanations. Her mind was calculating with icy cold precision where the shot would enter, where it would cause the most pain, where the secret zone of humiliation lay. They would be hung out to dry.
A wind blew over Anton Modin, one that he had never experienced before.
“Fuck, Julia, you’re armed!”
CHAPTER 14
GRISSLEHAMN, FRIDAY, MAY 1
Modin woke up when a woodpecker standing on the windowsill started pecking away furiously. The bird just wouldn’t stop. It was determined to get into the timber and insulation and deafen Modin along the way. He pulled a pillow over his head, but in the end, he simply had to get up and close the window.
“Damn noisy bird,” he said aloud.
It was seven o’clock in the morning. He figured he had been asleep four about six hours. They had left The Rock in his motorboat after the fight with the gang. Julia Steerback had wanted to go home right away, so he gave her a lift to Hedersviken inlet, where she had moored her red kayak. In the middle of the night and in the pitch darkness, Julia had vanished out to sea. She had a GPS, she told him. Modin had been worried. It was, after all, one nautical mile to Black Island and he could see that Julia had been shaken. She was drunk, too.
Modin decided to pay her a visit sometime in the morning. Partly to see if she had come home in one piece and partly because he missed her. And then there was that revolver.
Why was Julia carrying a loaded gun?
Modin left his bedroom, went downstairs and over to the porch. He opened the glass doors and went outside. As he stood there looking out over the backyard and the shrubbery, he missed his cat, Miss Mona. It was high time to get her back from Harry Nuder’s place and thank him for taking care of her.
Harry Nuder, one of Modin’s best friends, was roughly the same age as Modin and they both loved the sea. Harry was a skipper and a farmer. He was born and bred where he now lived, on a farm a mile or two away, running it on his own, living alone with his two dogs and, temporarily, Modin’s cat, Miss Mona.
Miss Mona would just have to wait a little while longer, Modin decided. He would first go out to Black Island. After all, Julia had promised him breakfast when they said goodbye in the darkness.
Modin took a shower upstairs and put on his jeans and a polo-neck sweater, then went out to the beach a bit down the road from the house. He took one of his kayaks off the wall of the diving shed and put on a green life vest over his fisherman’s jacket and a dark green cap on his head. He pushed the kayak from the shore and then cautiously got in, fastening the spraydeck round his waist. He picked up the paddle with his right hand and pushed away against the sand with his left.
The muscles of his right hand—the hand he slugged with—ached. In the sunlight he could see that the skin had burst open and that dark streaks had formed on his wrist.
“Really an unexpected bit of evening exercise,” he chuckled. “Christ, I’m too old for fist fights. How embarrassing.”
He lowered the skeg and, with slow strokes, paddled gently out of the inlet.
The ice had only melted about a month earlier. There was a faint smell of seaweed and last year’s reeds, as if any other smells were still hibernating. The sea was chilly; during a cold spell, the surface of the water developed a thin layer of invisible ice crystals that would nevertheless rustle as he paddled through them.
He straightened his life vest just as a few Canada geese were flying out over the sea. They were flapping their wings and cackling so that the echo of the sound came back from the shore. The reflection of the sun stung his eyes. He tried to shield his eyes from direct sunlight with the peak of his cap.
His strokes were long and slow and the sea surface splashed until he reached a high, even speed. The kayak was gliding smoothly through the water, but he was aware of his diminished sense of balance. He realized that the injury might affect the rest of his life, for if it didn’t get better, he might never be able to dive again.
A while later, he was moving rhythmically and all melancholy thoughts evaporated. There were a few ripples on the surface from the light seaward breeze. He could make out a vessel on the horizon, sailing northwards across the Sea of Åland. To his right at the boulders and rocks on the seashore, he could see a seagull waiting for something good to eat. He would have the wind at his back. The strokes of the paddle now blended in with the various voices of the sea. He had dreamed about doing this when he was still in the hospital.
After paddling for ten minutes, he saw the steep cliffs of Black Island, a faint contour in the morning sun. The water was shallow to the south of the islet. There were hidden reefs and rocks everywhere and paddling was the safest way in. From the main island, where he was coming from this fine morning, the best way to access the islet was by kayak or row boat. If you wanted to use a larger vessel, you had to go out to sea before coming back toward the islet from the north side of the Sea of Åland. The white markings on the northern cliffs of the islet showed the way. If you had them all lined up in a row, you were going the right way. Ships would access the islet from the sea side to reach the even ledge in the cliff for unloading. Modin kn
ew that the water was some 200 feet deep on the outside of the islet, but only three or four feet on the inside, where he was approaching now. Enough for a kayak.
The trip in the kayak had perked him up. He started thinking about the approaching summer. Tourists would come to the area, mostly from the big city, along with a few foreigners: German, French, even the odd Englishman; people who liked fishing.
Early May through Midsummer was the best time to be out here, before the crowds would arrive. Modin liked to be left in peace, alone with the seabirds and seals. Grisslehamn, the largest settlement on the main island, was a summer paradise that got crowded with partying youth and stressed and overworked yuppies from the financial district of Stockholm. The actual fishing village of Grisslehamn had a bridge across to the mainland, where you would find nature in the wild. You could stay in a picturesque hotel or a bed and breakfast, or camp on one of the various islets.
This is the Swedish version of Key West, Modin thought as he paddled along. Only smaller, chillier, less expensive, and less populated. But the fresh breeze here in the archipelago had never bothered him. He had grown up with it; his family spent every summer on the island, and even a few winters.
He leaned forward in his kayak and paddled harder. Black Island was drawing nearer with every stroke. Modin could see the sparse trees on the islet, mostly pine, plus some juniper bushes scattered around. He had never before landed at the islet. When he was young, it had been a restricted area. No one was allowed to land there, and guards chased away the tourists; foreigners were not even allowed anywhere near the area without official permission.
The islet had always had something mysterious about it, and children were afraid when they heard stories of the spooky lights of submarines that were lurking in the depths, spying. Before Julia had bought it, the islet had belonged to Swedish National Defense Radio FRA, and was used for their signals reconnaissance across the Sea of Åland, eavesdropping on Russian naval communications and radar signals.
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