Anger Mode

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  “This is what we’ll do,” she paused, as if she had not finished her train of thought. “Keep them for one more week and do what you can. Then we have to release them for lack of evidence. Because if we don’t have anything concrete in one week, then I doubt we are going to find something later. I’m convinced of that. Nobody would be happier than I would if I was wrong. But that’s how it’s going to be.”

  “One week!” Kokk exclaimed. “We won’t be able to dig up and analyse all the relevant information. Why won’t you use the leeway that the terrorist laws give us?”

  “I don’t intend to be the first prosecutor blamed for stretching these laws unnecessarily. Nobody wants that reputation. That’s why you have one week from today,” she explained.

  Kokk nodded, not liking it, but forced to accept the Chief Prosecutor’s decision. It was she, and only she, who made the decision in her role as leader of the investigation. Despite his huge irritation, he politely opened the door for the Chief Prosecutor and escorted her down to the reception area where she handed in her visitor’s badge.

  “ONE WEEK?” ANDERS HOLMBERG, Agency Director of SÄPO, exclaimed. “What’s the Chief Prosecutor’s problem?”

  “That’s obvious,” Sten Gullviksson chuckled. “She’s a woman.”

  Both Anders Holmberg and Thomas Kokk looked at the plump chief inspector as he chuckled at his tasteless joke.

  “What can we do in a week?” Holmberg asked.

  “Get preliminary results from SKL and investigate that information,” Kokk replied, resignedly. “With a little luck, we’ll get a better picture of Omar Khayyam. That’s pretty much it.”

  “And how in the hell do we handle the death of one of the detainees in our custody? It’s a totally horrific story.”

  “If he died of natural causes, then it’s nothing we need to worry about. But if, for some reason, we pushed him too hard, then it will be problematic, to say the least.”

  “When will the post-mortem be ready?” Gullviksson asked.

  “Tomorrow,” Kokk replied. “Preliminary cause of death was, as already reported, cardiac arrest.”

  “Can’t we persuade the Chief Prosecutor to keep those Muslims locked up a little longer?” Holmberg coughed. He took a sip of water to clear his throat.

  “That will be difficult,” Kokk replied. “She’s worried that the investigation’s going in the wrong direction. She doubts the connection to the terrorist prince. Neither the CIA nor the FBI has given us any details at all on his research facility. As expected, they are giving us nothing.”

  “If we can’t get Julén to change her mind, then we must make the best of the situation,” Holmberg said matter-of-factly. “It’s my understanding that she’s a spineless general who will only play on the winning side.”

  Kokk nodded in agreement. Åsa Julén was not famous for taking risks.

  “I’m going to the National Police Board tomorrow and will probably have the riot act read to me,” Holmberg continued. “The fuss over Ove Jernberg’s death could spread like ripples on the water throughout the organization. You, Thomas, are going to have a rough ride, even more so than your team leader, Martin Borg. All eyes will be on the internal investigation. Misconduct will be punished severely this time. They’ll want to set an example.”

  “I see,” Kokk replied. “If they now conclude that it was misconduct to go to Gnesta without back-up.”

  “And to meet with a CI who wasn’t registered,” Gullviksson added.

  Holmberg’s office phone rang and he lifted the handset, annoyed that the switchboard had forwarded the call in spite of the blinking red meeting button. A minute later, the Agency Director’s expression changed and he stared blankly into space.

  “I think we can release them,” he said in a low voice. “David Lilja at County CID has been looking for you, Thomas.”

  “What do you mean, release them?”

  “One Per Lindkvist killed his three-year-younger brother at a building site in Huddinge earlier this morning.” Holmberg leant on his elbows over the table. “He buried a hammer in the head of his brother, who died instantly.”

  “And?” Gullviksson said, waiting for the rest of the explanation.

  “He couldn’t explain his action nor did he remember anything about the actual killing.”

  The room fell silent. Holmberg leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped over his flat stomach. He looked hesitantly at Gullviksson and Kokk.

  “That doesn’t have to mean anything,” Gullviksson said, unconvinced. He casually stretched his legs.

  “I don’t think you need to say anything more,” Kokk said. “Is it possible that he’s also a lay juror at Stockholm District Court?”

  Holmberg nodded without saying anything.

  Gullviksson stared first at Holmberg and then at Kokk, who had sunk into his chair.

  This meant that either there were more members in the Islamist group that they did not know about or that the group was not guilty – at least, not of the crimes for which they had planned to prosecute them.

  “We are back to square bloody one again!” Gullviksson cried. “If there aren’t more of those Islamists out there, we have nothing other than the report from SKL to go on.”

  “Exactly,” Kokk agreed. “The interest in Khayyam of this investigation also disappears. He is still of interest in the shooting of Jernberg, but hardly as a link in the chain to the detainees anymore.”

  “What about the memos from RSU and County CID?” Holmberg asked.

  “Sheer fantasy,” Kokk said, supported by Gullviksson. “According to the FBI, the company that sold those plaster figures has no customers in Sweden. They could have been bought in the US or some other country, and tracing all their customers is not possible. We’re talking about thousands of private customers all over the world.”

  Holmberg nodded.

  “Gröhn’s and RSU’s joint hypothesis that it is some ex-con wanting to get revenge by attacking the district court with something as sophisticated as Drug-X sounds highly unlikely,” Kokk continued. “SKL is quite simply our best hope right now.”

  Holmberg stood up and looked despondently out the window. “We’ll have to re-instate the extra protection for all jurors, judges and prosecutors, but how we are to do that escapes me. Are we going to forbid them to eat and drink? It’s absurd. Just imagine if the lunatics behind this decide to poison the drinking water.”

  “Not possible, according to SKL,” Kokk said. “The compound cannot exist for more than a few hours without a host organism, like the human body.”

  “There must be another explanation,” Holmberg continued, with desperation in his voice. “A foreign power that wants to undermine our society, to put the whole justice system at risk. Perhaps the Prime Minister or some other minister has infuriated North Korea’s dictator or some other madman or threatened some unscrupulous pharmaceutical corporation.”

  Kokk felt like the floor was caving in. He did not know what to think anymore. Every new initiative resulted in a new setback. It was so bad that they were farther from the truth than when they started. That the fate of the whole investigation depended on the SKL report was an understatement.

  “In any event, it’s inappropriate that the Per Lindkvist incident becomes public now. We must wait as long as possible before releasing it to the media. It’s bad enough as it is,” Holmberg finished resignedly.

  TOR HEDMAN AWOKE after having slept solidly for eleven hours. He had been woken up shortly after the operation, but he was so nauseous after the three-hour-long sedation that the anaesthetist decided to let him go back to sleep again. The room he woke up in was small and had one window with striped curtains. The blinds were drawn so that most of the daylight could not find its way into the room.

  He spotted two doors. One seemed to go to the toilet. The other must be the door to freedom. He would walk out that door as soon as he had used the first one. His bladder was about to explode.

  Slowly, the pieces beg
an to fall into place. A strange emotion bubbled up inside him, something that reminded him of when his mother had passed away. He could not help but feel a sense of loss over Jerry. They had, after all, been together for eight years. They did their prison time together and, like brothers, they had shared the cash that they had come into from various jobs. Everything felt so fucking unreal.

  Carefully, he lifted his right hand and examined the bundle of bandaging. It was neatly wrapped in some light-grey plastic. He did not feel any pain in his hand. But, to be honest, he could not feel anything at all. It was as if his hand did not exist. He tried to move his fingers, but could not tell if anything was moving inside the bandaging. He could neither see nor feel if the impulses from his brain were going all the way to his fingers. He wondered if it was plaster they had used to cast his hand. It didn’t look like plaster. It reminded him more of hard resin.

  Tor sat carefully on the edge of his bed. A drip was attached to the top of his left hand. The bag with the saline solution hung on a frame with wheels. He stood up on shaky legs and grabbed the drip trolley. Blood rushed to his head and the room spun for a few seconds. He supported himself with the drip trolley to avoid losing his balance. If he did not empty his bladder before he was forced to take a breath, he would piss himself. He stumbled into the toilet and groped after his member with his left hand. With a smile of relief, he emptied his bladder. His urine was dark yellow and the smell was so strong that it stung his nose. It probably had something to do with the shit that came through the drip into his hand.

  When he came out of the toilet, two whitecoats stood by the bed. One was a man with green trousers. The other was a young girl with white trousers and a ring in her nose.

  “Are we up and about?” the man began.

  “Had to take a piss,” Tor croaked.

  The man smiled. “Dr Eldrin,” he announced. “I thought I would check up on you.”

  “Why?” Tor croaked. His throat was dry and he could have drunk a bucket of water.

  “As you know, it was not me who operated on you,” Eldrin answered. “It was Dr Fernell, whom you met before the operation.”

  Tor nodded. “I know.”

  “I’m on the day shift, so that’s why you are seeing me instead of Fernell.”

  “It’s all the same to me.”

  The nurse quickly made his bed before Tor sat on the edge.

  “How does this feel?” Eldrin asked and carefully took hold of Tor’s bandage.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Any feeling at all?”

  “Nope,” Tor said uncertainly after a few seconds.

  Dr Eldrin looked pensively at Tor’s hand. “The operation went very well,” he said with a reassuring smile. “It was a complicated procedure, but Fernell did an excellent job. He’s by far the best surgeon we have here at the hospital, I have to say.”

  “Will I get one of those prosthetic thingies?” Tor asked, looking doubtfully at Dr Eldrin.

  Eldrin lit up. “You won’t need anything, prosthetic or otherwise. There’ll be a certain loss of movement, but your nerves and most of the tissue will be totally restored. That will, however, require a number of not uncomplicated operations. We were forced to replace some of the bone in your hand with titanium plates.”

  “Titanium plates?”

  “Yes, but only temporarily,” Eldrin explained. “You’ll be given custom-made titanium bones, grafted to replace the destroyed hand bones, in later surgery. It takes a while to make them.”

  “Titanium? That must be bloody expensive,” Tor said, lying down in the bed.

  “Yes, very expensive,” Eldrin answered. “But that metal is so pure that the body won’t reject it.”

  Tor wondered how much his hand would be worth.

  “Sounds good. When can I go home?” he asked.

  Eldrin laughed. “Are you in a hurry?”

  “No, but I have a parking ticket that expires soon.”

  “Then you’ll have to get someone to move the car or put money in the meter for the time being. You’ll have to stay here for a few days, in my opinion. But that’s not up to me: Fernell will make the decision tomorrow.”

  “What time is it?” Tor asked.

  “Two fifteen in the afternoon,” the nurse answered.

  “Two fifteen!” Tor repeated and got up off his bed.

  The car was five hours overdue. How the hell could it be so late? He had slept enough for a fucking year.

  “I have to go now,” Tor said, getting up. His head started spinning, but not as badly as before.

  “I don’t think so,” Eldrin firmly corrected him and helped Tor back into bed.

  “Let go!” Tor snapped, waving his arm. “I said that I have to fucking go now. I’ll be in the shit if the traffic warden gives me a ticket.”

  “We can fix the tickets so you don’t have to pay them because you’re an emergency patient. Leave the car parked in the car park and we’ll take care of the tickets later,” Eldrin answered, surprised by Tor’s outburst.

  “I don’t give a shit about the tickets!” Tor croaked. “I have to get to the car.”

  “Yes, but …”

  “It’s not parked in the fucking hospital car park,” Tor interrupted him. “It’s parked a short distance from here. End of discussion.”

  “But how did you get here?”

  “I walked, of course.”

  Eldrin exchanged a glance with the concerned nurse.

  “If you choose to terminate your treatment against our advice, then you must sign some papers before you go,” Eldrin explained. “We will not be held responsible.”

  “Do whatever the hell you want,” Tor answered. “Get the papers, or I’ll walk out anyway.”

  Eldrin shook his head and walked away.

  Tor looked around the room. “Where are my clothes?” he asked, glaring at the nurse.

  “In the wardrobe,” she said, pointing to the cupboard by the side of the bed.

  Tor stood up, but realized that the drip was still attached to his hand.

  “Get rid of this,” he ordered and stretched out his left hand.

  The nurse shook her head, but disconnected the drip anyway and took the needle out of his hand.

  Tor had just put on what remained of his clothes when Eldrin came in.

  “You have to sign on the line at the bottom,” he sighed and handed Tor a pen and paper with lots of text. Tor scribbled without reading it.

  “You could have fucking woke me up earlier,” he said and left the room.

  As he went down the corridor and towards freedom, he began to feel much better. The dizziness was gone and his thoughts became as clear as a freeze frame. It was as if just the knowledge that he was free of the hospital and its suffocating environment had made him instantly better. Hospitals and prisons resembled each other more than he realized. He was now going to take care of some serious business. He had a plan and he was going to follow it to the letter. And if he started to have second thoughts, he would ask himself what Jerry would have done in his place.

  Barely fifteen metres from Omar’s car, Tor stopped dead in his tracks, glued to the spot. He stared at something sitting on the windscreen. A paper note was jammed between the windscreen wiper and the glass.

  He discreetly looked around him. The street was full of parked cars. It was impossible to make out whether there was anyone sitting in the cars without going up to each one and pressing his nose against the glass.

  A dozen or so people were passing nearby. Some teenage punks crossed the street on bicycles. An elderly couple stood and talked in a doorway. Two middle-aged men with denim jackets stood on the other side of the street, talking. They wore typical clothes for undercover cops, neutral but practical. Both had trainers with rubber soles and were a little too athletic. They had short hair and observant eyes – definitely undercover cops.

  Tor looked at a young woman searching for
something in a shopping bag. What was she looking for in the middle of the pavement? Had she forgotten something in the shop? Why had she realized that now?

  Suddenly, it hit Tor. If the cops had staked out the car, they would have taken away the parking ticket to avoid attracting attention. If there had not been a parking ticket on the car, then Tor would not have stopped to look around. He would instead already be sitting behind the wheel – perhaps surrounded by lots of cops with weapons drawn, then handcuffed and pushed onto the floor of a police van.

  On the other hand, maybe they had left the ticket to lull him into a false sense of security. Perhaps they had second-guessed Tor and not removed the ticket.

  He was totally confused. What would Jerry have done?

  Jerry would never have got into this situation. He would have dumped the deal with the cop and told him to go to hell. Jerry was no grass.

  Tor had to make his mind up. He could not stand there like a statue any longer – his torn clothing would soon attract attention. His height already seemed to have been noticed. A teenage baboon troop went right by him and, while passing him, the street kid at the head of the gang asked Tor if he played basketball in the homeless league.

  For once, Tor had a fast comeback, asking whether the cages at Skansen Zoo had been left unlocked. It was possibly not the smartest thing to say, considering that he was alone, unarmed and generally in a semi-fit condition. He had forgotten that he no longer had a Desert Eagle to back him up. The gang stopped in its tracks and turned around. After a few seconds of electric silence, the leader of the five-man gang went towards Tor, his hand firmly gripping his crotch. He had a soft swagger that reminded Tor of an old, bowlegged fisherman.

  “So you think you’re hard, or what?” the baboon leader challenged him from under his cap. He took a firmer grip of his baggy jeans. It was as if he was afraid something was going to drop off.

  The rest of the gang flanked him on either side, each and every one of them had narrowed eyes. Not one could stand still. They were rocking their upper torsos back and forth like boxers, jabbing.

  Tor judged their ages to be between fifteen and eighteen. Height varied from five three to five nine for the tallest at the back. The street-kid leader was the shortest.