Anger Mode

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  “Shooter?”

  “Uh … yes … the nail gun.”

  The doctor carefully poked at the hand, a frown appearing on his forehead. Tor turned his head away. It had been traumatic enough wrapping his shirt sleeve around the gunshot wound in his hand. But then he had been in shock and everything had happened as if on autopilot. Like being a trance. Now his head was almost clear and he had absolutely no desire to discover how much was left of his hand.

  “You don’t feel any pain?” the doctor asked, slightly surprised after examining Tor’s hand.

  “Nope … maybe a little. I’m diabetic, so I probably should be feeling more.”

  “You have a high pain threshold?”

  Tor nodded.

  The doctor turned to one of the nurses. “I think we’ll need some intravenous morphine and a saline drip. Check his blood sugar levels as well.”

  The nurse nodded and hurried off to another room.

  “This one will have to go straight to the duty surgeon,” he said to the other nurse. “I’ll make the call so that they’re ready and prepped for the patient.”

  “Will I have a hook instead of a hand?” Tor asked the doctor.

  The doctor laughed. “We don’t know if you’ll need a prosthetic yet,” he said. “But you don’t have to worry about a hook. That might have been the solution way back when. Today, we have a completely different technology and there are fantastic prosthetics if that becomes necessary. But it’s not definite that you will even need one. These days, surgeons have a great deal of expertise and instruments that can fix just about any type of injury involving, for instance, broken bones or damaged tissue.”

  Tor scrutinized the doctor. Either the bastard was lying and telling him a load of bullshit to keep him calm or he was speaking the truth. Fuck, I might walk away from this with just a scar on my right mitt.

  It did not take long before he was on the operating table, staring up at a sea of lamps that were turned towards him, and he realized the gravity of the moment. His hand was going under the knife – his right hand, of all things. The one he pissed with. Wiped his arse with. Not to mention what it did in female company. This was the mate that took care of everything in his daily life. To end up with one of those prosthetics, or whatever else they were going to fit him up with, did not appeal to him in the slightest.

  If they did not have hooks, what did they use? A gripping claw? Like the one the roadsweepers pick up rubbish with? What if he pressed too hard? His dick would explode like an overcooked hot dog.

  He would have to learn how to use his left hand for everything. From taking a piss to brushing his teeth and tickling the pussy of his favourite slut, Ricky. All the things his right hand did such a good job at, he would have to teach his left hand. That would be a challenge.

  Someone who introduced herself as the anaesthetist entered the operating theatre. All he could see was her eyes; the rest was covered by her green scrubs. After a short monologue in which she mechanically and in great detail described what was going to happen, she connected a tube to the drip that Tor had in his arm. Afterwards, the surgeon and a few more greencoats entered, which seemed to complete the surgery team. The anaesthetist put a transparent mask over Tor’s mouth and nose and asked him to breathe normally and to count slowly backwards from ten. Tor did as he was told and made it to three before everything became black.

  MARTIN BORG HAD been admitted to the Karolinska University Hospital. The doctors quickly established that he had a gunshot wound in his arm, abrasions on his knees and elbows, as well as a mild form of smoke intoxication. He was also suffering from loss of hearing in one ear. The doctors wanted most of all to determine if he had suffered any internal damage from the toxic fumes of the fire. Furthermore, they were concerned about his mental state. The incident in Gnesta had resulted in the death of a colleague as well as his shooting and killing of another human being. Both could be ranked among the most disturbing and traumatic events that a police officer could experience in the profession.

  Martin thought himself that he had probably never felt better, despite the media buzz as a result of the incident. With one dead SÄPO agent and another injured to boot, the tabloids now saw a chance to fill their coffers quickly with fresh cash.

  The media feeding frenzy had started.

  What made the next day start on a flat note was the news that the Internal Affairs investigation would be led by Ante Bäckman. How the hell a person like Bäckman could end up with an Internal Affairs investigation was a complete mystery to Martin. He was a total good-for-nothing. It would consist of a few interviews and the writing of a few reports; then the whole circus would be buried in the archives.

  But before it blew over, SÄPO’s own shrinks, the psychologists on the fourth floor of the police station, would try to restore Martin’s mentally shredded psyche. At least, that is what they seemed to believe their role was.

  We’ll see who really needs help, Martin thought, after the two women psychologists sat down in chairs next to his bed. One hour later, they left Martin with troubled expressions.

  Later that day, Martin also seemed to have taken care of the Bäckman problem. The scumbag had brought an argumentative colleague who had asked one or two sophisticated questions, but not so tricky that Martin wasn’t able to answer by sticking to his story. As long as he stuck to his version, everything would be under control. He had filled all the obvious gaps by putting the blame on Jernberg. He simply traded places with him – everything from the contact with Omar to the trip to Gnesta. The only thing he left out was the Diaxtropyl-3S.

  Before Bäckman left the room, he asked if Martin had been visited by any police colleagues.

  “Nobody except for the shrinks,” Martin answered.

  “There will also be a special investigation into the man who died during your interrogation,” Bäckman remarked before he closed the door.

  The ball is rolling, Martin thought to himself. A special investigation for the towelhead. That means that I will be taken off the case completely. That would probably have happened anyway, given my so-called mental distress after Jernberg’s death. He smiled slowly as he remembered the hard drive. It was time to change the direction of his mission. He did not have any other options anyway.

  CHAPTER 22

  JONNA FETCHED JÖRGEN at ten past eight in the morning. He had slept badly because his injured eye was playing up.

  “I need sleep to function properly,” he complained as soon as he sat in the car.

  “You can sleep tonight,” Jonna promised, offering a packet of chewing gum.

  Jörgen shook his head dejectedly.

  “I’m not mentally prepared for a visit to the District Court,” he said.

  “Then you’d better start preparing yourself now. You do have all day,” Jonna chuckled.

  Jörgen looked as if he had swallowed a fly.

  Jonna drove from Mariefred and onto the motorway towards Stockholm. She accelerated the Porsche quickly, until the speedometer showed 160, while she turned on the stereo system. From the speakers, some late-nineties Madonna emerged. Madonna must be over fifty, Jonna said to herself, looking in the rearview mirror. Wasn’t that a small wrinkle under her eye?

  Tonight, she was going to party hard. It was high time to investigate the street value of Jonna de Brugge and what was on offer on the open market. It was time to pick herself up and stop waiting for Mr Right to come knocking on her door.

  “How about a change of clothes?” Jörgen suggested, examining his jacket. To be on the safe side, he also sniffed his armpits. Lately, his clothes had been through the wars and he was long overdue for a change into some clean threads.

  “Well, then you had better buy some new ones. We’re not going back to your place, for reasons I’m sure you appreciate,” Jonna explained.

  Jörgen suggested that they go to a galleria to buy some clothes, a suggestion to which Jonna reluctantly agreed.

  In less than thirty minutes, Jörgen had purch
ased a grey blazer, a light-blue shirt that was a little tight in the neck but very chic, and sand-coloured chinos. And light tan, suede shoes that were more comfortable than fashionable. That was about as long as it took Jonna to visit one shop. And even then, the likelihood that she would find something to buy was minimal.

  Forty-five minutes later, Jonna parked the car on Norr Mälarstrand.

  “Here’s the microrouter,” she said, holding out one of the two small metal boxes she had been given by Serge.

  “You’ll position the other one, right?” he answered, stuffing the tiny metal case with its accessories into an inside pocket.

  Jonna nodded.

  “Easy for you – you only have to bend under your desk at work and hook it up.”

  “You’re so right,” Jonna laughed, pointing to the car door. “Being a police officer has some advantages.”

  Jörgen wrinkled his nose and got out of the car.

  It took Jonna over twenty minutes to get from the entrance on Bergsgatan to her office on the third floor. Rumours flourished about the incident involving the murdered SÄPO agent in Gnesta, and every colleague she bumped into had something to add to the flood of speculation. Apart from the stories that the newspapers’ online editions were pushing, various “reliable sources” were unofficially adding their own snippets of information on events.

  Who the deceased villain was and who the injured fugitive was; why it had happened and who lay behind it. She had heard at least eight names suggested and a number of different accounts of the incident.

  Finally, inside her office, it took less than a minute for Jonna to connect the microrouter to the internal police network. The SIM card was already inserted. To be on the safe side, she moved the wastepaper bin so that it obscured the wall socket.

  Now it was done. She was sweating with nervousness or perhaps it was unusually hot in the room. She suddenly sensed that someone was standing behind her. She turned around, but the door to her office was still shut. She sank into her chair. Her heart was beating as if she had run a hundred-metre sprint. “This is the first and last time I do something like this,” she muttered to herself.

  After calming herself with a cup of coffee and some aimless surfing on the internet, she began to think about Jörgen. Wonder how it is going for agent Blad. If my nerves are making me jumpy, then he should be somewhere in the stratosphere, she thought, and bit her lower lip, pensively.

  IT BEGAN WELL. Jörgen had presented himself to the security guard in reception as a journalist from Kvällspressen, which he in fact still was. Despite the press credentials, the uniformed bodybuilder was unwilling to be of any assistance. The press officer was not to be disturbed at any time or by anybody. Jörgen protested that he was not just anybody. Jörgen was a reporter at Kvällspressen, and the appointment he was trying to get with the person responsible for talking to the press was not just for small talk. He had started with security at reception. He could hardly be more formal, he said. The guard let his chewing gum rest between his teeth while he thought for a moment. Finally, he picked up the phone.

  ULRIKA MELIN HAD had contacts with Jörgen in recent years. She was fairly familiar with the dark, curly-haired crime journalist from Kvällspressen. He was not the most sympathetic soul in the world, but no worse than the other jackels from the media, if you evaluated him from a strictly professional perspective. On a personal level, he was, however, attractive. Not so attractive that he made sparks fly, but enough to get her imagination working, like a sweet-and-sour sauce that tickles the tongue.

  She noticed that he did not have a ring. Possibly, he could have a casual girlfriend, but that was not a show-stopper – at least not for her.

  Now she would have one more opportunity to meet him in a tête-à-tête.

  Not that she was desperate in any way. For her, it was her work at the District Court that gave her life meaning. To be a public servant was a privilege and required a small degree of selfsacrifice. But somewhere in the back of her mind, a small seed had been planted and was growing. Her biological clock was ticking relentlessly. Motherhood was beginning to take up an increasing part of her daily deliberations. Not a day went by that she did not wonder what it would be like to breastfeed a newborn … or to cut the nails of tiny toes and fingers. This time, she would not chicken out at the last minute. She would go the whole distance and nail her proposition to his forehead if necessary. It would be impossible for him to misinterpret her advances.

  She made a quick visit to the ladies’ room to check her makeup before she went down to the main entrance.

  “What can I do for you?” Ulrika greeted him when she came out of the entrance doorway. Jörgen stood up from the visitor’s chair and took her outstretched hand.

  She gazed at Jörgen for a few seconds. His swollen, bluish-purple eye piqued her interest.

  “That looks painful,” she said, wrinkling her nose a little.

  “It looks less painful than it is,” Jörgen answered, being a little ironic. “Being a journalist has its obvious disadvantages.”

  Ulrika smiled. Jörgen smiled back.

  “So, what has brought Kvällspressen here?” she asked and folded her hands girlishly in front of her. God, my hands are so sweaty, she thought.

  “I’ll get straight to the point,” he said, adopting a more serious expression. “Actually, I need to talk to you in private.”

  “In private?” She gave him a curious look.

  “Can we go and talk somewhere?”

  “What’s it about?”

  “I’d rather we discussed this somewhere else – not where there’s people,” Jörgen said, looking around.

  “I see,” she said, trying to hide her excitement. “There’s a café just down the road on the left. I’ll just get my coat.”

  Café? Jörgen thought. What in God’s name was the woman thinking of? You don’t go to a café to talk in privacy.

  Jörgen put an end to Ulrika’s café plans.

  “I don’t think a café is such a good idea,” he made the excuse.

  “No? What do you suggest?” she asked, surprised.

  “I suggest that we go inside and find a private room,” he said, pointing towards the office section.

  “Perhaps we should do this after working hours?” she suggested, laughing. Now he has to get the hint, she thought.

  “No, it’s rather urgent, so I’d like to get this sorted here and now,” he answered, slightly confused.

  She felt indecisive. What did he really want? It was obviously not a clear-cut attempt at a date.

  “Forgive me for asking,” she said. “But is it something personal or does it possibly have something to do with Karin Sjöstrand?”

  Personal, Jörgen thought. Why personal?

  Suddenly, he understood. The woman was coming on to him. That is why she was so eager to go to a café and to meet after work. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. She had been giving him signals like a traffic light and he had not noticed anything. Why should he? Why would he waste one second trying to read between the lines of a woman court secretary?

  Should he play along or tell her the truth: that he was gay and had a boyfriend? She would probably pull up the drawbridge right in his face, which would stop him getting into the building. That would seriously jeopardize the operation, perhaps even make it impossible. If he was not successful, he would have both Walter and that police chick after him. At this point, he already had enough people out to get him; he did not need to be adding any more.

  “You could say it is both personal and work-related,” Jörgen lied, forcing a smile. “I’d prefer that we talk in your office, if it’s really not too inconvenient.”

  He gently touched her arm.

  “No, not all. Sounds like a good idea.” Ulrika returned the smile.

  Jörgen put on the visitor’s badge that the bodybuilder gave him, after signing the visitor’s book. He followed Ulrika in through the security doors and towards the lift. They
got off on the second floor and she showed him into a small meeting room where she asked him to wait. As soon as she had closed the door, Jörgen took out the microrouter from his inner pocket. He bent down, looking under the big conference table for a suitable network socket. The only sockets in the room were fully visible on the wall of the room and were hidden temporarily by a few chairs.

  Damn it! That’s not good enough, he thought. The box is going to be seen as soon as someone moves the chairs. He had to find another room. He opened the door and stuck his head out. To the right, he could see the lovesick lady standing in a doorway to another room, discussing something with someone. All the remaining doors in that direction were closed. Five metres away, on the left side, there was a door ajar. That would have to do.

  Taking care that Ulrika did not see him, he walked with light steps down the corridor to the open door. He opened the door a little and stuck his head inside. There were three desks there, three desks with piles of papers and files. Nobody was at their desks. Perhaps they were on a break. There’ll not be a better opportunity, Jörgen thought. Jörgen was just about to enter the room when he heard Ulrika’s voice in the corridor.

  “Where are you going?” she called and walked towards him.

  He hesitated. Should he pretend not to hear her, quickly enter the room and install the microrouter under one of the desks? He realized that there was not enough time for that.

  “I’m looking for the toilet,” Jörgen apologized, shrugging his shoulders as if confused.

  “Well, it’s not in there. That’s where I sit, with two other secretaries.”

  “Really?”

  She led Jörgen to the lavatory, which lay a few metres down on the same side.

  “I’ll wait outside,” she said. “We’re not allowed to have strangers running around the corridors, even when the office doors are locked.”

  “I understand. I apologize for my little detour,” he replied and went into the lavatory.

  A little while later, they were sitting in a small meeting room. Ulrika poured coffee from a thermos and handed the cup to Jörgen. She looked excited.