The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller

by Stewart, A. J.

  As the BMW moved toward the road, Flynn strode out on the passenger side, as much in her blind spot as he could be.

  The car hit him. That’s how it looked to anyone on the sidewalk and certainly to the woman driving. Any vehicular impact made an unpleasant noise, the terrifying sound of twisted metal and broken bone.

  Flynn rolled across the hood of the BMW and made sure he landed clear on the driver’s side; if her reflexes were poor, he didn’t want to be accidentally run over. But the woman’s reaction was fast and her speed low, so she stopped immediately.

  The woman was out of her vehicle quickly. She ran to Flynn as a handful of bystanders did the same.

  “Har du det godt?” asked the woman.

  “I’m okay,” said Flynn from the pavement.

  “Your head?” asked the woman, switching seamlessly to English.

  “Fine, fine.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Just an accident. If you could help me up.”

  A man who had been watching stepped in to help him up, but Flynn moved his body so that he was closer to the driver. She put her arm around him, and he hooked his arm around her shoulders and pressed himself up.

  The woman helped him over to a concrete planter that was home to a small tree. As they moved, Flynn slipped the Swiss Army knife from his palm and slit the lanyard around her neck. By the time she had him sitting against the planter and stepped away to look in his eyes, he had the lanyard and the attached ID card in his jacket pocket.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No,” said Flynn, rolling his shoulder in confirm. “No problems. Don’t worry, it was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “I should take you to the hospital.”

  “Not necessary. My head didn’t touch the ground, just my shoulder. You were going slow, thankfully.”

  Flynn stood and rolled his shoulders again. “See, no problem. I have to get going, so please don’t worry.”

  “Are you sure? We should swap details, just in case.”

  “I’m fine, really. I’ll watch where I’m going in the future.”

  “Me too.”

  Flynn smiled and nodded, then walked away. He kept going until he got to the edge of the palace. He glanced back to check if anyone was watching him to see if he collapsed. But the bystanders had walked away. The BMW was gone. The world had moved on.

  He stood in the forecourt of the palace and tied the cut lanyard together, then tucked the knot under his collar and put it around his neck. He set it so the front of the card was against his chest. It had the woman’s name and photo on it, which would raise some questions. But Flynn had worn ID on a lanyard before, and sometimes these things flipped around like they had a life of their own.

  Then he walked through the main gate into the palace grounds. He emptied his pockets into a tray—a phone and some cash—and showed his DSIS ID to the guard. It was dark and the guy had probably been there for hours, so he gave it a cursory glance. The photo was close enough to what he saw in real life.

  Flynn walked through the courtyard, following the map he had studied. He knew which building he wanted. Getting in would be the trick. Again he showed the DSIS ID, then he used the woman’s keycard to move through a secure door into the building proper.

  Once inside, he had no idea where to go, but someone had helpfully erected signage pointing the way. He headed for the prime minister’s office.

  Flynn noted that he looked like everyone else. That was the plan. All the people were well dressed, neat and tidy and squared away, like there was some kind of unofficial uniform. No men wore ties. It wasn’t that formal. Not anymore. When Flynn was a kid, he had occasionally gone to work with his dad. At NATO headquarters, every man wore a tie. A tie with a business suit for the civilians and a tie with their uniform for the military. Anything less looked like a Sunday barbecue.

  But Flynn fit in here. It was a place of serious business with a semi-casual vibe. Fortune 500 companies did it, so why not governments? No one gave him anything other than a glance or passing smile, the way people do in busy corridors. He used the woman’s keycard twice more to get through two more doors, and then he pulled out his phone. Not the DSIS guy’s phone, not the phone belonging to the obnoxious woman. His burner. The battery was there but not fully clicked into place, so he pushed it home and fired it up.

  Lots of people were on calls as they strode around the brightly lit corridors doing important business. Flynn dialed the number, put the phone to his ear, and waited for Aksel Klaasen to answer.

  “Hvem er det?” It was the voice of someone who got very few spam calls, and an unknown number was irritating.

  “You’re losing a lot of guys,” said Flynn.

  “You,” said Klaasen. “Are you running?”

  “Taking an easy stroll, actually.”

  “You should run. I’ll find you.”

  “Of course you’ll find me. I only run forward.”

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “I know you’re protecting Victor Berg. Why would the chief of staff for the Danish PM be protecting a bug like Berg?”

  “He’s important. Don’t you read the papers?”

  “No, I don’t. But if he hasn’t been in the papers yet, he will be. I know he raped a girl, and I can prove it.”

  There was silence on the line, as if Klaasen was thinking this revelation over. Or he could have been stalling so the call could be traced.

  “You know nothing. If you did, you wouldn’t be calling me.”

  “Maybe I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself. Berg is beyond that. The jury’s still out on you.”

  “You know nothing. You should run.”

  “I know there are more photos.” Flynn noticed the long pause. He knew no such thing. He was becoming surer that Luna had lied about that to anger Berg, or if she hadn’t, they were lost to the house fire.

  “I know you killed a girl to cover it up, but you didn’t get the pictures.”

  “You think.”

  “I know.”

  “You know nothing.”

  “I know Berg wasn’t alone.”

  Now there was a pause. Not stalling—thinking. Processing. Having Berg out in the wind was one thing, but now there were two. And Flynn suspected number two was actually number one, at least to Klaasen.

  “What do you want?”

  Progress.

  “I know he had help,” said Flynn. “I know that’s why you’re involved. Because of the prime minister.”

  There was another pause, as if Flynn had hit pay dirt. Then Klaasen spoke with a very different voice.

  “You know nothing.”

  He sounded confident, cocky. Flynn realized he had pushed it too far, overplayed his hand. It wasn’t the prime minister, or his son, or someone else close to him. Klaasen just happened to work for the PM, but he was protecting someone else. Now he knew that Flynn had no idea who that was.

  “You’re thinking because I don’t know the other face that all of Denmark won’t either?”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  Flynn stepped out of the corridor into a large outer office. A Danish flag hung on the wall with a picture of Queen Margrethe. There was a reception desk with two people behind it, a woman and a man. Both were busy, and only the woman glanced at him. Seeing he was on the phone, she went back to what she was doing. Two other women stood nearby, talking to each other, paying Flynn no attention at all.

  “I’m coming for you, Klaasen,” said Flynn. “All of you.” He killed the call but left the phone by his face as if he was still listening.

  The man at reception disappeared into an inner room to the left of the desk. Ten seconds later, a tall, athletic man strode out from an office on the right side. The woman at reception saw him and chased after him, talking the whole way. The man didn’t appear to be listening. He looked focused and more than a little upset. The veins in his temple bulg
ed purple above an angry scar shaped like a sickle as he stormed past Flynn and out into the corridor.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “I’m coming for you, Klaasen,” said the American. “All of you.”

  He hung up and left the response stuck in Klaasen’s throat. Klaasen felt his heart pump. He was used to thinking under pressure, but pressure needed a release. In the military he had taken up boxing. Smashing a punching bag worked out a multitude of problems. In Afghanistan, when he couldn’t get his hands on a punching bag, he had Ager pick up a Taliban sympathizer, and they would take him out into the desert and beat him senseless before emptying a hundred rounds into him and leaving him for the jackals and the bears.

  He would hit the gym later and hit something hard. Now he needed to issue a warning. The American didn’t know everything, but he knew too much. They had to be ready. He stormed out of his office. He strode past the reception desk and nearly collided with two women who were using his foyer for a confab. He glanced at a tall guy on the phone, and with the sound of his assistant calling from behind, he marched out into the corridor.

  His assistant talked halfway there, but he didn’t listen to a word. He needed to shut this down. He tried to think of his next move. Strategy was his strong point. But the chatter in his ear was driving him insane.

  “Will you shut up, woman!” He turned to her. “Go back to work. I have things to do!”

  The assistant didn’t recoil, but a few of the passersby in the corridor did. The assistant had been with Klaasen for years. He knew she was familiar with his rhythms and his moods. He knew his annual Christmas gift made up for a lot of angry outbursts. Overseas vacations and cash often did.

  “Yes, Mr. Klaasen,” she said and walked away.

  He walked away as well. Along the corridor and through all the security doors and down the stairs to the ground floor. As he did so, he dialed Ager, who had gone AWOL. There was no response. He called his new team leader but got the same result. Could the American be right? Could he be losing men? Could the American be running from Interpol and his own police while also taking down his team? It didn’t seem possible. But it was happening.

  Klaasen used his keycard to get through another door, down more stairs, and into the secure underground communications room, otherwise known as the Faraday room. His mobile was encrypted—at least he thought so until a few minutes ago—but his most secretive calls were made here.

  There was a guard outside on duty but no one in the room. Klaasen picked up the secure landline and made his call.

  “Yes,” said the voice.

  “It’s me,” said Klaasen.

  “What do you want?”

  “We may have a problem. The American. He may have photos of the situation.”

  “I was assured the photos were destroyed.”

  “Can you be certain?”

  “Are you calling my son a liar?”

  No, thought Klaasen. He’s just a rapist.

  “No, but could there have been another roll taken? Given the situation, can he be sure?”

  “I think we both know the answer to that question. Isn’t that why you burned down the house?”

  “Yes, and I still believe that solved the problem. There was nothing left. Just the girl.”

  “Which you fixed, did you not?”

  “We did.”

  “And that cannot come back to me.”

  “Not at all. It’s clean. She was very unstable already.”

  “Well then, you know what to do. Find this man, and get him to confirm one way or the other.”

  “He’s not a drug addict or a commune hippie. He has evaded my team well.”

  “Then perhaps I am paying the wrong person.”

  Klaasen winced. “You are not paying the wrong person.”

  “Then get it done. If we need to run stories, we will. We can make him look like a terrorist mastermind if we have to, but we do need to know who he is.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Aksel, you know how much this means to me. So take care of it. Do I make myself clear?”

  Klaasen didn’t answer. It was clear, and the call was ended anyway. He put the secure phone down, took a breath, and strode out of the room. Up the stairs and into the foyer. He looked at the mobile phone in his hand. He was tempted to call Ager again. He was tempted to call the new team leader again. Both calls would be a waste of time and energy. If they were operational, they would call him. If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t.

  As he walked through the lobby, his phone beeped. A message, and then another. He realized that the calls had come in while he was in the Faraday room, where no cellular phone signal could penetrate.

  He punched in the number to retrieve them and listened. It was his contact at Interpol. They had reacquired the American. They had his location. A phone trace. Call back. Klaasen ended the call but didn’t call back. He didn’t have to. His phone rang.

  “Where is he?” asked Klaasen.

  “You got my message,” said the guy from Interpol. He was a civilian but high up. Interpol staffing was actually 70 percent civilians.

  “Obviously. Where is he?”

  “He’s in the building.”

  “What building?”

  “Your building. The prime minister’s building. Christiansborg Palace.”

  Klaasen stopped and looked around the lobby.

  “Where? Where exactly?” he asked.

  “We can’t see that. The triangulation isn’t as effective inside an old stone building like that. But he’s there. The signal is live.”

  “Is it moving?”

  “It doesn’t appear to be.”

  Klaasen spun around, looking in every direction. It was late, so there weren’t as many people, but there were still plenty of unfamiliar faces. He kept moving. Upstairs, down the corridor, through the secure doors.

  He strode back into his outer office. The two chatty women and the guy on the phone were gone. His assistant’s assistant was still in a meeting room somewhere. His first assistant was behind the reception desk. She paid him no attention and kept at her work. He spun around.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Still live, not moving,” said his Interpol guy.

  Klaasen hung up. Then he pushed a couple of buttons to retrieve his past calls and hit the number belonging to the American.

  He heard a phone ringing. A basic tone. An annoying trill. He stepped around the reception desk, through the inner foyer, and into his office.

  There was a phone sitting on his desk, ringing loudly. A cheap flip phone. A relic. He cut the call at his end, and the phone stopped its annoying electronic bleating. He moved around his desk, looking at the phone, and picked it up. There was a note underneath, scrawled by hand using his own pen. A pen given to him by his father when he left the military for his new career. The pen was gone. The message remained.

  Fælledparken skate park, midnight.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Gorski sped out on Markus’s motorcycle. He rode by the Land Rover, slow enough to ensure the guy had time to turn and follow. When he got to Østvand, he took the turn toward Veksø and led the Land Rover into the larger village. He pulled into the forecourt of a petrol station and stopped beside a pump. He got off and stretched and took his time rolling his neck, making sure the Land Rover had stopped down the street, then he wandered inside and handed over some cash. He ambled back outside and took his sweet time pumping petrol into the bike’s small tank.

  While he was diverting the attention of Lund’s man, the convoy left the community. Thorsen drove a van full of residents. A few others took their own cars. Thorsen suggested they would be away only one night, but they were not to return until he gave them the okay. They had seen what Lund’s men were capable of, so some were eager to leave and others harder to convince.

  The convoy followed the road into Østvand, then traveled the opposite way from where Gorski had gone. They drove on into another town called Bal
lerup. The van and the other cars all stopped at a two-star hotel near a stadium. It was cheap and basic and had rooms with bunks for the families and easy-access bathrooms for the older folks.

  Thorsen didn’t wait for them to check in. He headed back through Østvand in the van and called Gorski, who was drinking petrol-station coffee while he waited. Once he got the call, Gorski tossed the coffee, got on the bike, and drove back past the Land Rover, toward the community, with Lund’s man following all the way.

  When Gorski got back to the community, there were fewer cars, but the van was in its spot as always. Perhaps the guy in the Land Rover wouldn’t notice. Perhaps he hadn’t done a count of the vehicles. Gorski pulled the bike up onto the walkway around the common building and noted that the Land Rover had stopped in its previous position a few hundred meters down the road.

  Gorski returned the bike to Markus’s yard, then walked to the Thorsens’. Thorsen was at his laptop again, researching and planning. Begitte was in the kitchen.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “All away,” said Begitte.

  Gorski nodded. “You want to help me do something?”

  Begitte followed Gorski out to the first house near the parking lot.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Making it harder,” he said.

  They walked around the side of the house to the breaker box, and Gorski flipped the switch to power down the home. The ambient light of electronics and ovens and such from the other homes became obvious once the lights of the fist house were gone. The darkness within was absolute.

  Gorski and Begitte wandered from house to house, killing the power in all but the Thorsens’. As they moved between two houses, Begitte spoke.

  “You think they’re going to come here?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “Why here?”

  “Because Flynn is making it so.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s our territory, not theirs. We want them on the hop, as disoriented as possible.”

  “Have you done this before?”