“Sort of,” Axman said and Modin saw him swallow hard.
“They probably think we’ve already done that. And that’s what’s important—what they think.”
“You mean they won’t kill us before they know?”
“I didn’t say that. These guys are unreliable and we can’t trust them. But I’m sure the government, if they’re involved in this, will stop them from killing us. For now. At least I suppose so.”
“Aren’t you dying to have a peek and see whether documents on the Estonia ferry disaster are in it, Modin?”
“Yes, of course I am. But we have to deal with one problem at a time. The Estonia will have to wait. Shhhh!” Modin gestured with his hand and listened intensely. Silence reigned. All that could be heard was the faint whirring of the bathroom fan in the background. There was nothing there.
“If Special Ops gets the go-ahead from the Supreme Commander to silence us despite the documents in our possession, we’re up shit creek, Modin. I’m worried.”
“We’re safe here, buddy.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Besides I could settle for a few million bucks to carry out one special task.”
“You want the reward for solving the Palme murder?”
“Sure. But I doubt I’ll ever get it. If the Swedish authorities are mixed up in all this, and the role of Special Ops is to keep the information secret, then we can forget the reward.”
“I think war is going to break out here on the coastline. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“Well, war is only scary if you are afraid to die. I’m not. Are you afraid of dying?”
“Sure I am. And I don’t really believe you,” Axman said and reached for his coffee cup.
“What do you want out of this?” Modin said.
“I want justice, like you do. I’m not doing this for fun. I’ve seen so much shit over the years in my line of work. Pedophiles, white collar criminals… they’re all the same. All they want is to satisfy their desires without scruples. Criminals are fascists, that much I know. Egotistical fascists with no empathy. No different than the dirtbags we’re dealing with here, Modin. They’re all the same and I’m sick of them. I want a better society. A society where there’s room for the likes of me, queers and dissidents. That is what democracy is supposed to be about. Justice and equal rights for everyone. Special Ops represents fascism without democratic accountability. History hasn’t changed anything. They’re no different from the Stasi, and the Stasi wasn’t any different from the SS.”
“I quite agree, Axman, I agree absolutely. I want personal retribution, too. Most of all, I would like to be with my family, swim down, and give them a hug. Fucking hell, Axman, I miss them so much it hurts. It’s so cold down there, and Ellinor, my daughter, used to get cold so easily.”
Modin got up and stood in the glassed-in porch where Axman had been standing earlier, looking out into the darkness. He could see the lamp on the pier in a blur through his tear-filled eyes.
Axman forced himself to say something. He had been worried about Modin for quite some time, and the test dive that day had not reassured him one bit.
“I’m really very sorry, Modin. For you, your wife, your children. All of this is impossible to fully comprehend, but I can well imagine that you never get over losing your loved ones like that.”
Modin turned to face the room and drew his hand over his eyes in an exaggerated gesture and smiled grimly. “No, fuck, we’re going to go through with this, John.” He went up to the coffee table. “We’re better than Special Ops and those old fuckers of the Barbro Team. We’ll get them. You, Nuder, Bergman, and me—we are better, nobler people, and for that reason we’re going to win.”
Modin sat down again, then suddenly slammed his fist down onto the top of the coffee table.
“Take it easy, I believe you. You can rely on me. Whatever happens, we’re going to dive.”
Modin burst into laughter. “Thank you, you’re a great buddy. I love you, John.”
“And I could even dive instead of you,” Axman said. “I think I can manage six hundred feet. What do you say?”
“I don’t know. My head was spinning something terrible during that test dive, but we were in shallow water. I figure things will improve when we dive down deep. It’ll be more stable. We are going to dive together, you and me. We will challenge the demons, find Atlantis and eternal happiness. At 600 feet there are no short cuts. It’s where paradise lies.”
“Changing of the guard,” yelled Nuder who had just come in. “What are you two up to? Oh, tea lights. How sweet.”
They both laughed at Nuder who was wearing full camouflage outfit, with his face painted to match, brandishing his automatic MP5. They had not even noticed his approach.
The Barbro Team
CHAPTER 75
GRISSLEHAMN, THURSDAY, MAY 21, MIDNIGHT
“Dinner in the evening hosted by Peter Wallenberg at the Täcka Udden. Henry Kissinger was there, as was the Supreme Commander, a representative of the Swedish government, the Swedish Minister of Defense, and the King. They discussed the submarine incidents. […] Kissinger was of the opinion that the U.S. would defend Norway should the Soviets attack. He also mentioned that if Sweden alone were attacked, he would recommend that the U.S. should act. The discussions were lively, as even the King was present and he is not known for leaving early.”
Supreme Commander Lennart Ljung’s secret diaries, April 21, 1986)
The rotor blades of the helicopter were whirring over the woods. The tree branches were swaying in the strong breeze created by the helicopters when landing in the meadow. The sound of the engines was deafening. The men could read the orders forming on Carl’s lips: Go, go, go!
Seven armed men in camouflage debarked the helicopter and landed in the dewy grass. Just above the ground, the mist was thick and the helicopter seemed to go up in smoke as it ascended after dropping off its cargo.
Major Carl Osterman’s group spread out in a hedgehog formation. They lay on the ground in a circle, their feet pointing inwards.
Once the noise of the helicopter rotor blades had died away, they got to their feet cautiously and walked in a straight line over the meadow and into the woods. The weather gods were on their side. They were impossible to detect in the thick mist.
• • •
At the same time, the other Barbro Team, Unit Bravo led by Major Christer Steerback, had assembled at a pier near the Singö pilot station. They had been brought there in three cars. They unloaded kayaks from the top of their cars in silence and lowered them into the water.
Two men guarded the road while one went up to the pilot station on the crest of a hill. The unit still had gaps that would be filled the next day by a group from northern Sweden, from the Province of Jämtland to be exact. That group consisted of a number of older men who had been there in the early 1980s, led by Anders Glock’s good friend, Albert Svan, a judge from Stockholm.
Unit Bravo had received orders to enter Black Island for a special mission. The men were wearing sturdy boots, dark blue overalls, and knitted navy blue caps. They had camouflaged their faces and hands. Their weaponry consisted of AK-4 automatics and Smith & Wesson Magnum .357 revolvers. They carried binoculars with night vision, and each one had a black knife attached to his right thigh.
Communications were maintained by using Telefunken VHF radio handhelds—old devices from the 1980s, tried and tested and trusted. They knew full well that the cell phone network might be down later during their mission.
They hopped into their two-man kayaks and paddled quietly out of the inlet. On the way, Christer Steerback was cursing because the kayaks felt cramped. I haven’t gained that much weight, he thought. If I capsize, it will be hard to get out. But only rookies capsize. I’m certainly not a rookie.
The two dark green kayaks silently disappeared in the fog. A roe deer barked on shore at the same time as a gust of wind took hold of a birch tree near the pier and shook it a little, as if t
o indicate that something was about to happen.
CHAPTER 76
GRISSLEHAMN, FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1 A.M.
“Dinner at Berga with the head of the Navy and his guest, the Head of U.S. Navy, Admiral Watkins.”
(Supreme Commander Lennart Ljung’s secret diaries, May 20, 1986)
We simply have to get out of here,” Axman whispered. “Right now. I can feel it. We should carry out the dive, then hide on some island along the coast.” He pointed out to sea.
Axman and Modin were on guard duty again. They were sitting on a rock surveying the pier, each of them looking in a different direction. From their vantage point, they could see all the approaches by water. They were armed with their MP5’s and had two magazines, each filled with tracer bullets. Modin was also wearing a Glock 17 pistol. All weapons came from Axman’s contact.
“What do you think, should we make a move?” Axman said. “If the mist gets any thicker, things could get ugly here.”
“You may be right,” Modin said and got up cautiously.
He went down to the pier to check the Hulk. Axman could see him walking around the pier, a dark shadow in the weak light from the pier lantern. A few moments later, he boarded the boat. Modin’s self-confidence seemed to have returned, as if he had received power from above. He tended to get depressed for a while, but then came back with a vengeance.
“Everything ready for departure?” Axman asked when he had caught up with Modin down by the pier.
“Yes, I imagine so,” Modin said. “Nuder has a tendency to get everything ready well in advance.”
Axman noticed that oxygen cylinders were attached around the sides of the Hulk, and all the bags and diving equipment appeared to be in place. Nuder had even put a small fridge there, which Axman guessed was filled with beer and sandwiches.
“Let’s go,” Modin said. “You’re right, it doesn’t feel safe here. If somebody is planning to attack us, it will be here. This is bigger than anything we’ve ever done before. I think they killed Olof Palme, so they won’t hesitate to kill us. No matter what the government says.”
“I quite agree. They’ve already tried to murder you twice, Modin. They are not likely to be more merciful this time.”
“They’ve got Astrid,” Modin said and gripped Axman’s arm. “Bergman doesn’t know.”
“What do you mean? Who has her?”
“ I don’t know. Ellie sent me a text saying that Astrid had vanished on her way home from school. No one’s seen her all afternoon, and it’s evening now in the States. If anything should happen to her, Bergman will never get over it. And he’ll never forgive me”
“Fuck!” Axman said. “We have to find the SOSUS, Modin.”
“I know, John, I know.”
CHAPTER 77
They decided to dive without delay within an hour. Bergman had only slept a few hours and his head was not yet clear. He banged into the door post with his shoulder and the door to a kitchen cabinet bumped him on the head as he was trying to make a sandwich. Nuder made some coffee and poured it into a thermos.
Bergman saw that both Axman and Modin were fully focused on the task ahead. He’d seen this before, as he had experienced the pre-diving phase on a number of occasions. He was glad that he wasn’t going down into the depths this time. Six hundred feet was sheer suicide.
He heard Modin tell Nuder that they would return to Black Island, afterwards, where they intended to hide after the dive. “I think it will be safer there,” Modin said. “From there we can negotiate and at the same time defend ourselves. If they ever find us.”
The last thing Modin added to the boat was the Bofors Carl Gustav grenade recoilless rifle, also something Axman had organized for them. “We might be needing this.”
Then the Hulk slid softly out into the inlet with the engines running in neutral. Soon Modin’s pier was swallowed by the mist.
Understen Lighthouse
CHAPTER 78
UNDERSTEN LIGHTHOUSE, FRIDAY, MAY 22
The wind had died down. The large RIB roared toward the horizon in the mist with a majestic wake of foam behind the three outboard motors. The mist had not yet enveloped the whole of the archipelago so that the islets could be seen as black blobs sticking out of the gray surface of the water, challenging seafarers that dared to sail the seas at night.
Harry Nuder was not driving the vessel flat out, but at a speed of only some thirty-five knots. He knew the Sea of Åland like the back of his hand, and navigating between the shallows was no problem for him. His friends trusted him completely, he could feel that. He looked at them as they sat there securely, bobbing up and down and clasping some rope or railing, their eyes red from the air blowing in their faces.
Harry Nuder had been born in the fishing village of Grisslehamn. His family had lived there for at least three generations, as far as he knew. In the northern archipelago, where the cultivation of crops was harder, farmers were obliged to supplement their income by fishing, hence the tradition of farmers that knew the sea. Modin jokingly termed these men “sea farmers.”
Nuder was standing up as he handled the boat. He was looking far ahead for points of navigation, and was straining his eyes to see if there were any obstacles sticking up out of the dark surface that was merging more and more with the mist. About twenty minutes later, Nuder slowed the Hulk as they approached the Understen lighthouse, five nautical miles to the east of the local pilot station where he usually worked. The Hulk continued to move forward, slicing through the slight swell at the speed of a few knots.
The sea cooled from underneath, but the air was quite warm. The wind was weak and the high pressure lowered the water level in the bays.
Dawn was coming when they were closing in on the majestic lighthouse. The upper half was painted black, the lower half white. It had been built in 1915 to replace the older lighthouse from 1848, which was still on the island. A third tower stood modestly to the left of the lighthouse and consisted of a round concrete pillar topped with a small hut. This was a military watchtower with cameras linked directly to the Military Intelligence organization MUST. Understen, one of the few secret islets that remained in the Swedish archipelago, was a restricted military area.
• • •
Modin put on his drysuit but left the upper half hanging around his waist. He still used his black Diving Unlimited International. It dated back to the Cold War, Bergman used to joke. The suit had been patched in various places and was adorned with several badges, including a blue and yellow Swedish flag on the right upper arm.
They always wore thick Thinsulate overalls under their diving suits and warm socks on their feet as it was not much above the freezing point once you got down to a hundred feet below the surface in the Sea of Åland.
“I’ll go down on my own and look for the cable to the SOSUS installation,” Modin said. “It’s the lifeline to the installation itself. It must be connected to Understen somehow. I figure it will be taking about 50 minutes, but it could be longer. You guys don’t need to worry.”
“What if the Americans have actually buried the cable in the seabed?” Axman said. “They must have tried to conceal it.”
“You can’t bury anything ‘round here,” said Nuder who had brought the Hulk to a standstill and was preparing an anchor line. “At least not in the shallower waters around the lighthouse. The seabed consists of large boulders and rocks. All they could have done is lay the cable and try to hide it among those rocks. I’m sure it remained somewhat visible. But now a whole load of sea grass will have grown over it. But if it is indeed linked to Understen, you should be able to locate it.”
“It’s an ordinary one-inch thick vulcanized cable,” Modin said as Bergman helped him with the zipper on his back. “It links the SOSUS sensors to the hardware, which partly provides electricity by means of a coaxial cable, and partly separates and demultiplexes the return signal, which is then sent to what is termed a Shore Terminal Equipment Group, or Front End. The base station is the heart and
brains of the installation itself and processes the signals it receives at the bottom of the sea. Then the signals are sent on to the main unit and processor, which further analyze the material received from the sensors on the seabed. Defense Radio is only allowed to look at material received by the first unit, the Front End. The fully processed material is in the hands of the Americans and British.”
“And where have you read all that?” Bergman asked somewhat sourly.
“Julia told me. She knows everything there is to know about it.”
He bowed his head and began to fiddle with the diving equipment.
“You said once that you could cross-check with the installations,” Axman said encouragingly. “How is that done? You can’t determine the direction of sound underwater. I, at least, have never succeeded in doing so. It seems to come from all directions when you’re diving.”
“That is because you only have two ears stuck onto your big head,” Modin said. “The installation measures the time it takes for the sound to reach the various microphones, which roughly determines the distance. The information is cross-checked with an installation further away to pinpoint the exact position. It works like radar signals monitoring, except underwater. You can, by the way, also monitor vessels sailing on the surface of the water using this equipment.”
“What do you need all this for, if you don’t mind me asking?” Bergman questioned.
“The installation gives you a complete picture of the strength of enemy forces, both above and below the surface,” Axman replied. “You can’t assemble groups of Navy vessels without your enemy finding out. As soon as a ship or submarine starts up its batteries or engines anywhere in the Gulf of Finland or at one of its outer bases, the CIA in Langley hears what’s happening.”
“Or NSA in Fort Meade, Maryland.”
“Okay, I get the picture,” Bergman said. “It’s really sick. Talk about Big Brother watching you. Especially now that the new Cold War has started. Cold War II, the updated version.” Bergman laughed somewhat nervously and pulled the anchor line to make sure that the anchor was attached to the seabed.
Enemy of the State (Anton Modin Book 2) Page 31
