*
WHEN CARSTEN CAME HOME with a bouquet so big it barely fitted through the entry, his key no longer fitted in the lock. It reinforced the anxiety he’d been feeling all day. He’d tried calling Dunja, but got an automated message saying that the number he was trying to reach was not in service. He sat down in the stairwell to wait. An hour later his mother called from Silkeborg to ask why a moving van with all his things had parked in the driveway.
*
IT TOOK MALIN REHNBERG a full twenty-three minutes before she managed to get out of the back seat in the car, where smoke and hissing sounds were coming out of the dented hood. It took another six minutes for her to dig out Fabian’s phone and contact the emergency response centre. The woman on the other end was doubtful that it really was an emergency, but finally agreed to send an ambulance.
Even though Fabian’s wound was not particularly large, he had lost over two litres of blood and needed a blood transfusion. But Fabian had an O Negative blood type, which was only compatible with O Negative blood. Normally the hospital kept a large supply of the blood because it was a universal replacement for almost all other blood groups, but on this particular night, there was an unusually large number of traffic victims, despite all the warnings about slippery streets, and the entire stock of O Negative at Stockholm South General had been used. Fabian had to be sedated while they located and transported the right blood.
In the meantime, Malin had an emergency C-section. A pale little boy weighing 4 pounds 11 ounces was delivered and placed on his mother’s breast. Anders, who had made it there just in time, had the honour of cutting the umbilical cord, and soon the boy had a healthier colour.
After endless name discussions, they had agreed that if it was a boy he would be called Nils. But when Malin felt the warm little body against her chest, she asked Anders if he could imagine changing it to Love. He could.
The girl, who was delivered a few minutes later, was 2 pounds 1 ounce and never regained her colour. But she got to lie on her mother’s chest alongside her brother for a long time, while her parents gave her the name they had agreed on: Thindra Siv Elisabeth Rehnberg.
On Monday 28 December, Fabian was well enough to leave the hospital. It was already past two in the afternoon, and Herman Edelman had asked him to come to the police station.
All he wanted was to be reunited with his family, but part of him looked forward to the debriefing where he would be able to give a complete account of what had happened the night of 23 December. Then the team could make headway in the investigation of the two murdered policemen and the arrest of Gidon Hass.
But there wasn’t a debriefing or a plan of how they would move forward. He was told they wouldn’t be continuing the investigation. According to Edelman, the case was closed and there was no reason to open it again. In addition, the Israeli Embassy had filed an official complaint about unlawful entry and use of weapons, despite the fact that Jarmo Päivinen and Tomas Persson had died and the embassy’s own personnel had only been wounded.
The embassy had sent bullets in for analysis, which proved they were from Fabian’s own service weapon.
Edelman presented him with the option of signing a letter of resignation and receiving six months’ pay or becoming the subject of a police inquiry on illegal entry, persecution of an ethnic group and attempted murder.
Fabian was convinced that with the help of Malin Rehnberg and Niva Ekenhielm’s testimony he would be exonerated of all charges, even though Aisha Shahin’s apartment in Axelsberg had been emptied and all its contents destroyed.
He was equally convinced that if they worked together, they would be able to produce sufficient evidence to convict both Hass and his cousin the ambassador. It would not only drag Edelman and major parts of the Ministry of Justice into the case, but probably bring down the whole government. The truth would come to light, and whatever plans had been made for the operating room in the embassy would never be put into effect.
But he decided to sign his letter of resignation. It didn’t matter what low opinion he had of his former mentor any more. However much he’d wanted to show Edelman that he was wrong and that the truth would always come out, he couldn’t let the hunt for justice cost him the only things that mattered.
Something told him that this was his last chance to show Sonja and the children where he stood. He had to be prepared to bet everything on them. He had no idea whether Sonja was still willing to give them one last chance or if she would listen to his idea that they should start over in his old hometown of Helsingborg.
The only thing he knew for certain was that he could never forgive himself if he didn’t try.
*
AFTER THE UPROAR AROUND the strange actions of the two policemen Tomas Persson and Jarmo Päivinen had settled down at the end of March, the Israeli ambassador was called home, only to be replaced a few days later by a new one.
The change did not receive much attention in the Swedish press, and no one questioned the official line that there were personal reasons behind the move.
It was not reported anywhere, either, that the ambassador’s cousin, Gidon Hass, had been sent home in connection with the change. No official trial has taken place yet, but according to unconfirmed sources, the two cousins have been taken to Camp 1391 – Israel’s own Guantánamo. At the time of writing it is unclear whether they are still alive.
X
4 January 2010
He’d heard them, but didn’t believe in them. The rumours that no one talked about out loud, but which had spread like wildfire behind closed doors and drawn curtains throughout the country. He had considered them made-up stories, much too incredible to be taken seriously – at least during the first few years. But all that changed on Sunday 15 September 2002. That was over seven years ago, and now he was painfully aware that the rumours actually underestimated what was really going on.
An acquaintance – he’d never had any real friends – had asked him if he wanted to be part of a group that met in secret to practise Falun Gong, the prohibited Qigong-inspired form of meditation and martial arts. It promised spiritual enlightenment and bodily perfection.
He had asked the dice for advice. He’d done this ever since he’d read Luke Rhinehart’s The Dice Man. He’d thrown a four, which was a yes, even if it was a hesitant one. He had no choice other than to follow it.
As a direct consequence of his decision, he now found himself in the Masanjia Labour Camp in the Yuhong district right outside Shenyang in north-east China. For seven years, three months and twenty-two days he had to survive on fare that couldn’t be described as food, in a cell so small he could barely stand up.
Since his capture, he’d spent fifteen hours a day in one of the many factory halls under strict observation, performing forced labour: he cut loose threads from knock-off clothing or assembled toys and string lights for export to the US. Every mistake was punished with branding.
If it hadn’t been for the dice and his conviction that one day it would take him away from there, he would almost certainly have broken down like the others around him. Once you’d realized what was really going on, all you could do was hope that death was on the horizon.
They weren’t there primarily to be tortured or to perform slave labour in horrific conditions. While they did bring in a certain amount of money to the state, it was nothing compared to what they took out of them the day they were cut up and sold.
Organ by organ.
It was the real reason for all the tests and medical examinations and it also explained why the torture never extended to parts of the body that had a high dollar value, or why prisoners disappeared at regular intervals, never to return. He, on the other hand, was not the least bit worried. Over the years, he felt increasingly convinced that, in reality, this was his ticket out of there.
The revelation had come to him almost three years ago when, for the first time, they’d stormed into his cell without assaulting him or turning everything upside down. It was in
the middle of the night, and he’d been placed on a stretcher out in the corridor that was then carried, under strict supervision, through all the gates and doors and outside the barricades.
It was the first time he’d been outdoors since he’d been taken prisoner. He could still remember how he’d filled his lungs with the night air and looked right up at the starry sky savouring the few seconds that passed before he was put in the ambulance and driven to one of Shenyang’s many medical clinics.
He’d been anaesthetized once they’d arrived and woke up only when he was back in his cell, a bloody bandage around his trunk. Underneath was a carelessly sewn wound, several inches in length along the left side of his body where one of his kidneys had been. They hadn’t even asked for permission. The Chinese government acted like they owned his body and could bring him in again at any time to harvest another one of his organs.
After a week or so, he’d been ordered back out to the factory halls to resume the slave labour, but since then nothing else had happened.
Until now.
Four days ago he’d been led away to an examination room he’d never seen before where a doctor had asked him to remove his dark-blue uniform jacket. He listened carefully with a stethoscope on the left side of his back for a long time and then on his chest. Maybe it was his heart they were after this time.
Obviously there was a risk that they’d already taken someone else’s heart or that his beat irregularly or had some other defect that made it unsuitable, but he still kept himself constantly prepared. If they came to get him, he knew this would be his absolute last chance.
Out of the tens of thousands of prisoners in the camp, no one had managed to use the situation to their advantage. They had been broken down and brainwashed to the point that some didn’t even remember their own names or that they were basically good people. This was where he had his great advantage: he’d never been good.
No one believed it when they met him. Most people thought he was pleasant, charming and considerate, but they couldn’t be more wrong. For as long as he could remember, he’d enjoyed seeing others suffer. As a little boy, he’d taken advantage of animals, but later in life it was people, too. And maybe that was why his thinking was still sharp compared with the others’.
It had taken his parents several years before they finally realized things weren’t happening accidentally and that it wasn’t the other children’s fault – their cute little adopted son was mean.
His father had immediately washed his hands of him. His mother, on the other hand, tried everything she could to help him, from bringing in psychologists to letting him start boxing. But when nothing had worked, the hope had gone out of her eyes too. Some years later, after his mandatory schooling, and inspired by Rhinehart, he’d let the dice decide his route. He told his parents that he intended to leave them and they had a hard time concealing their joy.
Something creaked. He sat up and could clearly hear the security gate at the far end of the corridor being unlocked and opened. It was the middle of the night and just like the time before he could hear the stretcher rolling on screeching wheels.
He took out the dice, shook it in his cupped hands and opened them with tense expectation, as he heard the creaking stretcher coming closer. It was exactly what he’d hoped for: two rows of three dots. The colour had long since worn away so only the small depressions were left. But it was a six nonetheless. A six he so longed to implement.
They were almost at his door. In a few seconds, a key would be stuck into the lock and turned, and he would be led out of his cell strapped to the stretcher. He quickly put the dice in his mouth, swallowed, and then put his hand under the pillow and down into the hole in the mattress where he’d kept the scissors from one of the factory halls hidden for over two years.
The door opened and he looked as surprised as possible when the guards came storming in. They shoved him out of the cell and rolled him on the stretcher through the same worn corridors, security gates and elevators as they’d done three years prior. But tonight there were no stars. Instead the rain was pouring down with drops so big he could quench his thirst simply by opening his mouth in the few seconds before he was put into the ambulance.
His prison clothing was completely soaked and was now plastered to his body, which he hadn’t counted on. If any of the guards happened to glance in the direction of his right forearm they would immediately see the outline of the scissors under his shirt sleeve. But none of the tensely wandering gazes noticed anything during the trip to the clinic, and once they arrived, the hospital personnel took over and rolled him further through the illuminated corridors.
They were hurrying, so he guessed it was urgent. Just like the last time, everything was prepared when he came into the operating room. A team wearing green surgical gowns, mouth masks and latex gloves, was waiting, ready to saw open his chest, take his heart and almost certainly the rest of his organs. Then they would dump his body into a container where it would await cremation.
The anaesthetist raised his left hand in the air, massaged the back of it with his thumbs to improve the blood supply, and then expertly guided the needle into the biggest vein. At the same time, one of the nurses cut open his wet shirt and started washing the area around the heart with an alcohol-scented damp sponge, which she held in long forceps.
The syringe in his hand was connected to a thin transparent tube, which went up into a venous catheter. It was most likely filled with fluid that would make him drift off for ever as soon as it had worked its way down through the tube.
He had hoped there’d be an opportunity when their attention would be focused on something other than him. But everyone in the operating room, except for the man who stood with his back to him and held his arms out while a plastic apron was tied around his waist, had their eyes locked on him. Besides, the fluid from the venous catheter had already covered a third of the tube.
It was time to get started. He let his right arm fall out over the edge of the operating table and caught the scissors right before they fell to the floor, just as he’d practised every night for an hour over the past few years. The anaesthetist must have noticed because he immediately started shouting to the others.
He tried to tear his left arm loose from the tube and sit up, but the anaesthetist held his arm in place and pressed down on his chest. His right arm was still free and this was his last chance to act before it was too late.
The stab hit right exactly where he intended. Even though he couldn’t see, he could sense that the tips of the extended scissors had forced their way into the man’s throat on either side of the larynx. He started screaming as if he didn’t quite understand what had happened.
Only when he closed the two blades of the scissors did the screams stop and morph into a hoarse gurgle. At the same moment the hands released their hold on him and went to his wounded throat in an instinctive attempt to stop the intermittently pumping blood.
He tore the tube from his left arm, and threw himself up against the others who were coming to overpower him. He aimed his slashes in all directions, so they would do the most damage. He’d never seen so much blood. It was everywhere. There was so much that he almost slipped several times on his way across the floor towards the man in the plastic apron who had taken refuge near the door. As soon as he’d been rolled into the operating room he’d realized that this was the surgeon and probably the only person in the room who was important enough not to be sacrificed.
He threw himself forward and slid across the floor feet first, kicking out the surgeon’s legs so that the man landed on his belly and hit his face on the floor. He could hear several of the others on their way behind him, but he was already over the surgeon and had forced him up on his feet by locking his right arm behind his back and pressing the bloody scissors against his carotid artery. The others stopped dead in their tracks and allowed him to leave the operating room with his hostage firmly held in front of him.
In the corridor, the clinic staff stop
ped and obeyed his order to lie down and let him pass. The ambulance was still waiting outside, but the two guards who had come with him were nowhere to be seen. They could have been lingering over a cup of coffee in a staff room or maybe they were already on their way back to the camp in another vehicle with someone who’d just become one kidney poorer.
Once they reached the ambulance, the surgeon started to resist and begged and pleaded for his life. He just shook his head and explained that it wasn’t up to him: the dice had shown a six, and there was nothing either he or anyone else could do about it.
He forced the surgeon down on his back, took hold of the scissors with both hands and stabbed him over and over again in the chest. He created a large enough hole, so that he could force his fingers between the ribs, break open the ribcage and expose the heart, which was still beating faintly.
Even when he’d torn it out of the body and held it in his hand, it had continued beating as if maybe there was still a slight chance it would make it.
But a six was a six, and not something that he could question, he thought, letting the organ fall to the ground, before crushing it under his boot. He got behind the wheel of the ambulance and drove off. His own heart rate was pumping so loud that it was impossible for him to hear anything else.
Finally, he was on his way to the place the dice had made him leave without so much as looking over his shoulder. For over fifteen years he’d been gone, and he’d never once thought about going back. But now he’d decided. Or, to be more exact, the dice had decided. It had given him the same answer every time he’d asked it the past few months. In other words, there was no doubt that he should return.
Back to Helsingborg.
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Acknowledgements
The Ninth Grave Page 47
