Now the whole ordeal seemed more complicated. Suhonen had urged him to agree to it-said it would be his ticket to a new life. But was that really possible? So far, he hadn’t succeeded. His efforts had earned him a job as the Skulls’ toilet cleaner, and now as an informant for the NBI. Escape seemed impossible.
His headache was steadily seizing more space in his skull. Maybe it would pass if he quit thinking, just listened, and did as he was told.
The driver braked and stopped in front of a tan three-story stucco building. Salmela immediately noticed the fire escape scaling the outside wall. It would be easy to burglarize the building.
“That’s it. Someone in the stairwell will tell you where to go.”
“Okay,” Salmela said, and got out.
He dodged the puddles in the front yard and hurried toward the building.
The white-framed entry door was oddly tall. Salmela stopped and wondered whether the door would bring him more trouble or redemption. He wasn’t sure, but the Ford standing behind him compelled him onward. He could run, of course. Mannerheim Street wasn’t far. There he could catch a bus, and head someplace where nobody was interested in Eero Salmela. But they would find him-if not the Skulls then the police. In the end, there was really no difference between the two, he thought.
He ascended the seven steps and paused briefly in front of the door. Salvation or hell? Unable to decide, he pulled the door open.
A man behind the door startled him. He wore a suit, a short haircut and was holding out his hand.
“Hello. I’m Aalto. We have a lot to talk about. Let’s go up to the second floor.”
“What’s up there?”
“An apartment. It’s our safe house-one of many. We can speak privately there. Nobody will bother us or suspect anything. It’s completely secure.” Aalto headed up the stairs.
Salmela followed close behind.
Halfway up, Aalto turned around. “Are you hungry?”
“Well, a little.”
“Good. We have sandwiches up there.” He had used the same question many times before in similar situations. He had no real reason to ask the question in the stairwell, but it created a sense of security. Naturally, the informant was nervous. But if the police had time to talk about sandwiches on the stairs, it would calm down the prospective informant. At the same time, it created the illusion that the police were actually interested in the person, not just the information they possessed.
The door to the apartment was ajar and Aalto went in first. This too was pre-planned: an underlying message that the police were looking out for the informant’s safety. The informant didn’t have to enter a strange place alone with the police behind their back.
Aalto knew that emotions were made of simple things.
The two-room flat was modest, but not barren. In the entry hall was a row of coat hooks and a shallow table. The bedroom featured a double bed, and in the living room were a small dining set and two loveseats. The walls were decorated with a few uninspiring prints. Despite its dreariness, the apartment was clean.
The NBI had numerous apartments across the country for just these types of situations. They could be used to interview informants, to lodge participants of the witness protection program, and even as a base for undercover surveillance operations. Of course, neither the Interior Ministry nor the police were listed as the official owners. The flats usually belonged to fronting companies that then rented the apartments to the NBI, making it difficult for the criminals to identify or locate them. Nearly all of the apartments had wound up in the state’s hands after an elderly person died and no next of kin were found. The Interior Ministry and its subordinate organizations, such as the police departments, didn’t have the money to buy apartments on the open market.
Aalto invited Salmela into the living room. An older, portlier cop named Lind was seated at the dining table. Fifty years old and sporting a thick mustache, Lind could have been a regular at just about any corner pub. His voice was low and soothing, but his gaze was cutting.
“Hello,” said Lind, offering his hand. “Glad you came.”
These words too were scripted, ensuring that the cops didn’t say, “Glad you could make it,” or, “Glad you’re here.” Instead, he specifically said, “Glad you came.” It implied that Salmela had made the choice himself.
Salmela shook hands with the man. Aalto and Lind were in some respects opposites of one another: a stiff suit and a street-smart cop.
* * *
Suhonen knocked on the doorframe. Narcotics Detective Toukola was sitting alone in an office he shared with four other cops. The space was almost identical to the VCU’s, one floor up.
“Hey there,” said Toukola.
Suhonen had been hoping to talk earlier, but Toukola’s evening shift didn’t start until four.
“Busy?” Suhonen said as he stepped into the room.
“No, not yet anyway.”
Toukola was dressed in jeans and a red hooded sweatshirt. On the night shift, he was responsible for reacting to whatever happened in the field. If all was quiet, he would work on existing cases, fill out overdue paperwork or just drink coffee. Nonetheless, a case could arise suddenly from, say, a routine traffic stop where officers stumbled upon a large stash of dope.
“Hard to say if that’s good or bad,” Suhonen commented.
“What, are you crazy? Of course it’s good.”
“I guess.”
Suhonen steered a neighboring chair between his legs and sat down.
Toukola looked at Suhonen. “Well? You need more work, or…?”
“How’s that Marju Mägi?”
Toukola laughed. “Miss mini-mule? Why you so interested in her? It’s not even your case, even if the tip came from you.”
“That’s exactly why I’m interested.” Suhonen relayed the story of how Karjalainen, the druggie who had been on the ship with Mägi, had died of an overdose. He told him about the visit to Karjalainen’s apartment, the stash they found, and the conversation with his girlfriend.
“I see,” said Toukola, somewhat displeased. “You should’ve called me. I would’ve come.”
“You were off duty and I don’t have the clout to authorize your overtime. Has she said anything?”
Toukola shook his head. “Last time we spoke was yesterday, and she didn’t want to say anything. I doubt she will today either. Looks like she’ll take the rap for the drugs rather than open her mouth and end up in deeper trouble.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Me neither,” said Toukola. “But now you think Karjalainen was in on it too? Didn’t I tell you back at the harbor we should search the guy?”
“Possibly. I can’t remember.”
“Karjalainen doesn’t have the brains to run a four-pound dope smuggling operation. So, who’s behind it?” Toukola mused.
Now, for the first time, Toukola was engaged in the conversation. It finally interested him more than surfing the news on the web. He had wound up on a page that flaunted the biggest silicone boobs in Hollywood.
“Good question,” said Suhonen. “Don’t know.”
“This girlfriend of Karjalainen’s…” Toukola began, but cut his sentence short. “Shit, you already questioned her and found a couple ounces. What’d she tell you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. A woman with a bag of dope in her apartment, and I haven’t seen a single report about it on the computer. We see every drug case in the database and I just looked through them.”
“Look under cause-of-death investigations.”
“Aha,” said Toukola and tapped out something on his keyboard. He found the report of Karjalainen’s death and of the amphetamines found in his home. “No mention here of any woman. What’d she tell you about those drugs?”
“That they belonged to Karjalainen. We sent the sample to the lab to find out if it’s the same stuff we found on Mägi.”
“That will take weeks, at least,” said Toukola. He thou
ght for a second and stared hard at Suhonen. “Why are you here?”
Suhonen grinned. “Just to warn you not to make any mistakes. The case is now connected to a covert NBI investigation.”
Toukola pretended to be frightened. “Oh shit, we should be trembling and turning off the computers. He groped around for the desk phone, snatched it up and pressed it to his ear.
“The state prosecutor, please. I’d like to turn myself in for overzealousness. Just don’t hand me over to the NBI…”
That got a laugh from Suhonen, but Toukola ended the show. “So where are they going with this and what am I supposed to do?”
“Mägi had twenty ounces, so somebody else has the other three pounds. Isn’t that interesting to you? Especially when the dope is so strong that an experienced user ODs.”
“Sure, but it’d be more interesting with another zero after the three. You seem to have an idea on where we could find it.”
“At least on who we should ask.”
“Well?”
“Just before he died, Karjalainen met Juha Saarnikangas. You know the guy?”
“No, but the name is familiar. A heroin addict who’s supposedly clean now. Friend of yours?”
Suhonen circled to the window and looked out over the wet landscape. How could it keep raining this long?
“Sort of,” Suhonen replied. “I helped him out a couple times when he hit bottom and we’ve been on speaking terms since.”
Toukola knew what that meant: Saarnikangas was Suhonen’s informant.
“Should we go after your aspiring informant? If the guy is in good shape, knows a lot and stays out of trouble, I’d say he’s pretty valuable.”
In a way, Toukola was right. There was a time when that’s how it worked with Salmela, too, but on the other hand, informants had to be kept humble and obedient.
“You want to come with and have a chat with him?”
Toukola looked at the stack of paper on his desk. “You need me?”
“No.”
“Why’d you ask, then?”
“Because this Mägi thing is your case. You should know what’s going on.”
“I trust you. Let me know if you find that three pounds and I’ll come get it.”
* * *
Roge had a shovel, and Osku, a backpack. The Toyota Camry they had borrowed from the downstairs garage stood fifty yards off on the shoulder of a dirt road. The woods were quiet in western Espoo, about ten miles from the Skulls’ headquarters. Raindrops pattered on the leaf-covered ground. The forest smelled of wet soil.
Along with the bag, Osku had a cell phone and a handheld GPS system.
“How ’bout that rock over there?” Roge asked.
Osku gave a nod of approval and Roge set the blade of the shovel at the base of the rock. He scraped the leaves aside, carved out a chunk of mossy sod just bigger than a sheet of office paper, and set it carefully to the side.
The soil in the nature reserve was soft and the work advanced quickly. Roge shoveled the soil into a large black garbage bag. Once the depth reached about two feet, he stopped digging.
Osku, wearing gloves, glanced in his backpack. At the bottom of the pack were four one-pound packages of amphetamines, shrink-wrapped with an additional layer of foil around them. He dropped the backpack into the hole.
Roge dumped soil from the garbage bag into the hole until it reached grade level. With the shovel, he compacted the soil and added some more from the bag. Then he carefully lifted the layer of sod back into place and sprinkled some leaves over the area.
Osku took a photograph of the spot with his cell phone, and saved the coordinates from the built-in GPS system onto the picture. He compared the coordinates in the photograph to those on the handheld GPS unit. They matched. Just to be sure, he stored the coordinates in the handheld unit as well.
The operation had taken fifteen minutes.
A few days earlier the Estonian shipment had been cut to 15–20 percent purity-typical street grade. Out of the three pound shipment, they now had sixteen pounds to sell. Roge and Osku had already dug two similar holes elsewhere. This package was the last to be hidden in the woods.
Osku wasn’t sure how the sale would be made, but he guessed the buyer would get the photograph, cell phone or GPS unit, or a map based on one of them. He didn’t care. People he didn’t even know would take care of that.
The men trudged back to the car.
“Well, that’s that,” Osku smiled.
CHAPTER 18
SUNDAY, 5:10 P.M.
THE NBI SAFEHOUSE, HELSINKI
To Salmela, everything had seemed to go smoothly at first. The NBI agents had treated him to a sandwich, a soft drink and coffee. The discussion had seemed harmless. They had even offered him a beer from the fridge, but he had declined.
The agents had asked about his life and Salmela had told them everything-from the best to the worst. From his son’s shining moments on the soccer field as a twelve-year-old to his wife demanding a divorce while he was doing time.
One of the agents was continually taking notes, which bothered Salmela.
Then the questions had turned to his past crimes, but Salmela only talked about the ones that he could remember being convicted of. He could no longer remember all the details of the cases. The statutes of limitation had been reached in most of the others anyway. Some of the questions were asked twice, with slightly different wording.
The NBI was also interested in his relationship with Suhonen. Who said what, and when. Salmela had dodged these questions. At one point, he had even wondered whether the NBI was actually investigating Suhonen, but then he recalled the Skulls.
The agents took an interest in his time in prison as well. What cell had he been in? Whom had he spoken with? How had he met the Skulls’ Larsson? They wanted to know how Salmela had gotten his head injury. He gave them the same yarn he gave while still in prison: he had tripped on the stairs. In truth, Salmela’s enemy had paid a prison guard for the hit.
The agents weren’t convinced by his story, but they accepted it.
They pried into the origins of his debt and his recent experiences with the Skulls. Salmela had complained about his headache and was allowed to rest in the bedroom for half an hour. He had assumed that Suhonen had told the agents about those encounters. The rest did him some good and he ate some more. He’d stay quiet about the hike in the Nuuksio forest.
“Alright, then,” said Aalto, drawing a hand over his long face. “We’ve made good progress here and your honesty is encouraging. I think we’re on the same wavelength.”
Salmela was suspicious of this, but didn’t respond. The cops might think they were on the same wavelength, but he didn’t share the sentiment.
“You have kids?” Salmela asked Aalto.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I have to trust you, so tell me.”
Aalto was taken aback. “Yes. Two little girls.”
“What’s your wife’s name and profession?”
“What?”
“What church were you married in? Where do you live?” Salmela pressed on.
Aalto was irritated. “We can get back to that once we’ve worked together a while.”
Salmela nodded. Clearly a one-sided relationship that wouldn’t last.
“Let’s get back to the matter at hand,” said Aalto. “We still have a lot to talk about, and we’re already in the critical phase.”
“What?”
“You’re already on the inside,” Aalto elaborated.
“What do you mean?”
“Typically, in these cases it takes a long time to get the informant on the inside, but not in your case.”
“Okay,” Salmela caught his drift. He had a job at the Skulls’ compound and the cops wanted intel from there. “What do you want from me?”
“We need to know who hangs out there. Who meets with the bosses, like this Larsson. What do they talk about? If they have parties, we need you to bring us the cigarette butts
.”
“How come?” asked Salmela, remembering the marijuana butts in his pocket. Hopefully the cops wouldn’t find them.
“We can find out who was there by extracting DNA and comparing it to the database. If someone you don’t know seems important, bring us his beer glass and we’ll get the prints. Of course, if you sense the risk of getting caught, forget it. Don’t put yourself in danger.”
“Okay” said Salmela again. It seemed simple, yet left him with a foul taste. He wanted out of the Skulls, but now he was being squeezed between them and the police.
“But the most important thing is that you keep your ears open and tell us if you notice any conflicts or tension. If anything really urgent or sudden happens, you’ll call my number, but otherwise we’ll meet weekly at this apartment or another.”
“You have a lot of these, then?”
“Enough,” Aalto smiled.
“I don’t suppose anyone lives here?”
“No.”
Salmela thought for a second. Now it was his turn to ask the questions, “What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
“To be safe for the rest of my life.”
Both agents nodded their heads. “Your safety is our highest priority.”
That was a smart answer, but it didn’t convince Salmela.
“These Skulls are brutal. If they find out I’ve been talking to you, I’m dead.”
“They won’t find out from us. If you let it slip yourself, all we can do is react, but I can guarantee nobody will find out through us.”
“I just can’t believe you can actually wipe out the Skulls. They think I owe them twenty grand, so if I want to live, I have to pay up.” Salmela paused before continuing. “How do we deal with that?”
“While the state can print money, they don’t do it for the police,” said Aalto. “Not even if we beg. Once we have something to go on, we’ll be able to pay you an appropriate amount to help with your financial needs.”
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