MemoRandom

by Anders de la Motte

  Atif found a record of a call received from Erik Johansson’s number, late in the evening of Saturday, November 23. The conversation had lasted about a minute. Immediately afterward Pitbull had made a call to Thai Airways, so whatever Erik J. had told him had made Pitbull run for his life.

  On November 24, 25, and 26, Pitbull had called Erik J. a total of eleven times. All the calls were around twenty seconds long, suggesting that they had gone straight to voice mail. After that Pitbull’s cell had been completely dead for almost three weeks, until the day he received Bakshi’s e-mail. Then he started making calls again. First Thai Airways, to book a flight home. Then a boarding kennel in Frescati. A third call to an unlisted number that, according to the cell phone, belonged to someone called Rico. Then, finally, he had called here, to the gym. Adnan’s old place.

  Barely a day later someone executed Pitbull with two shots to the chest and left him as dog food, so presumably they hadn’t just been discussing the price of protein powder. At least that was what Atif was hoping, because he was running out of leads.

  The mysterious Erik J. wasn’t answering his phone, and Bakshi was still in hiding somewhere. But Atif’s gut feeling had brought him out here, and it was usually right. He raised the binoculars and looked at the back of the gym. No cars this time. No gangster conference as far as the eye could see.

  He thought about Cassandra, hoping she had taken his advice not to tell Abu Hamsa where she and Tindra were. But he wasn’t confident. For Cassandra, Abu Hamsa probably signified security. Financial stability. Someone who could look after both her and Tindra. But Hamsa hadn’t got where he was by being some cozy old uncle. He may prefer to avoid conflict because it wasn’t good for business, but when it was necessary the little man could be even more ruthless than most of the others.

  A movement by the back door of the building made him raise the binoculars again. But it was just the protein junkie, Dino, probably coming out to have a cigarette. Atif watched the man for a few seconds as he shivered and pulled out his lighter. A cigarette would have been nice right now, would have helped him stay sharp.

  The knock made him jump.

  The man he recognized as the consultant was leaning over and peering in through the window of the passenger door. He was grinning and looking at the door handle with a questioning expression.

  Atif glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. A black Range Rover glided slowly up behind his car, blocking his escape. He put the binoculars down and tucked Pitbull’s cell phone out of the way. He slid Bakshi’s switchblade into the door pocket as he opened the passenger door.

  The consultant slid into the passenger seat, bringing cold air and a faint smell of aftershave with him.

  “I had a feeling I’d find you here.” He smiled. “Perhaps we should introduce ourselves. Frank Hunter, security consultant.”

  Atif ignored the outstretched hand, which didn’t seem to bother the man in the slightest.

  “Your name is Atif Kassab. Your brother Adnan was killed by the police after a failed raid on a security van a couple of months ago, and now you want to know who gave him away. Entirely natural, even understandable.” Hunter smiled again. Atif remained silent.

  “I saw you here a couple of weeks ago,” Hunter said. “We kept an eye on you for a while. One of my business partners tried to persuade us that you could be reasoned with. That you could be controlled.” Hunter shook his head. “I always thought that was nonsense. A man like you. If it had been my brother . . .” He shrugged.

  “Well, as you’ve doubtless already been told, not everyone is happy with you stirring up trouble. Bakshi is making a hell of a fuss. He’s demanding that you be disposed of. Apparently that little shit is a decent source of income for people.”

  “Is that why you’re here, Hunter?” Atif nodded toward the car behind them. “Because you listened to Bakshi?”

  Hunter said nothing and seemed to be thinking of how to express himself.

  “I think you misunderstand me, Atif. I really only wanted an opportunity to have a quiet chat with you. But I realize now that I might not have chosen the right way to go about it.”

  He took a radio transmitter out of his jacket pocket and held it to his mouth. “You can go, it’s okay,” he said. The speaker buzzed twice, then the Range Rover behind them slowly drove off.

  “There,” Hunter said. “Perhaps now we can continue our conversation on slightly more relaxed terms.”

  Atif didn’t respond. The situation surprised him more than he was prepared to admit. But it never did any harm to listen. Hunter. A striking name, probably an alias. The man neither looked nor sounded like he was American, or British, come to that. But on the other hand, he didn’t look much like the security experts Atif had encountered in Iraq either. More like an ordinary businessman.

  “The men you saw coming out of the gym—Abu Hamsa, the bikers, and the others—are all regarded as fairly heavy players. But in relative terms they’re pretty small. They’ve all got bosses, who in turn have bosses. The organizations have different names, but the money, the really serious money, always flows upward, toward the top.”

  He gestured toward the roof of the car.

  “But Hamsa and the other little potentates also have something else in common. They have a problem. A big problem,” he went on.

  “You mean the infiltrator, Janus?”

  “Precisely.” Hunter nodded. “Janus is ruining their business. Making them all suspect one another. And if business isn’t working, then—”

  “The money stops flowing,” Atif said.

  “Exactly!”

  “So where do you come into the picture, Hunter?” Atif tried to sound less curious than he really was.

  “I’m a sort of problem solver,” he replied. “Someone who gets called in when an impartial outsider is required. My job is to see that the problem disappears in a way that creates as little anxiety as possible. You see . . .”

  He twisted slightly in his seat.

  “If any of the other involved parties finds Janus first, one of two things would happen.” He held up a finger. “If it’s his own organization that finds him, Janus would vanish without a trace. No one would breathe a word to the others because of the risk of being linked to Janus’s treachery. So the whole thing would drag out, with the various groups always looking over their shoulders, and business would go on suffering. Or—”

  “Another organization finds Janus,” Atif said before Hunter had time to hold up a second finger. “And they’d use him as a weapon and disrupt the balance of power.”

  “I see that you understand the problem,” Hunter said. “My task is to find Janus first. Find out exactly what damage he has done, and if anyone else is involved. Once Janus has been debriefed, I am to deliver a report to my employers.”

  “The bosses’ bosses,” Atif said. “Who are . . . ?”

  Hunter smiled and shrugged his shoulders gently. “You’re probably aware of some of them, but you’d never have heard of most of them,” he said.

  “And you’re sure you’re going to find him first? Hamsa sounded convinced that his people were close,” Atif said.

  Hunter shook his head slowly. “Are you aware of the Wallenda Effect, Atif? No? It’s about focusing entirely on succeeding instead of worrying about what might happen if you fail. My team and I have nothing to lose, so we don’t have to waste time and effort contemplating the consequences of failure.”

  He reached out his right hand and wound the window down slightly, to let out some of the moisture in the car that was starting to mist the windows.

  “Anyway,” Hunter said. “Once everything is over my employers will ask me to make sure that Janus disappears, for good, and without the slightest trace.” He paused.

  “And that’s actually why I wanted to talk to you, Atif. You see, my men and I all have police or military backgrounds. Obviously, we do whatever is required in the heat of battle. But neither they nor I are particularly comfortable with more cold-bl
ooded . . . solutions of this sort.”

  “You’re not the type to execute a defenseless man, chop his body up, and burn the remains beyond all recognition?”

  “Well, no.” For the first time Hunter looked slightly less self-confident. But he quickly recovered. “You see, Atif, my mother’s family is from Bosnia. A number of my relatives died in the war. Murdered by people who used to be their neighbors, their friends, even. Because I speak the language, I spent several years working in the region for the war crimes tribunal in the Hague. We tracked down people who had participated in atrocities, made sure they were brought to justice. Monsters, you might think. Sick bastards . . .” He shrugged again.

  “But in actual fact almost all of them were perfectly ordinary people. Full of excuses but without any real explanations for why they did what they did. It became obvious to me that everything is about morals. Establishing clear boundaries for yourself, and never, ever crossing them.”

  He wound the window down a bit more and breathed out a plume of steam.

  “And as you doubtless know, once you cross that line, there’s—”

  “No way back,” Atif muttered.

  Hunter closed the window.

  “And that’s where I come into the picture,” Atif said. “You need to outsource the disappearance, make sure that Janus vanishes without a trace. And you think I’m the right person for that sort of job?”

  “I’m glad we understand each other, Atif.” The man’s mood seemed to have improved again. “I thought that a man in your situation might appreciate a chance to take revenge on his brother’s murderer. To restore the honor of his family. And, as I understand it, you’ve carried out similar tasks before.”

  Hunter paused, waiting for Atif to say something. Atif wondered who the man had been talking to. He guessed it was probably Abu Hamsa, or possibly even his old comrade Sasha. No matter who it was, he seemed very well informed.

  “Besides,” Hunter said when Atif didn’t say anything, “as part of my team no- one would dare to touch you. Neither old enemies nor new, but you would also have to follow my instructions to the letter.”

  Atif slowly shook his head. Then he took a deep breath.

  “I’ve already got a job,” he said.

  “Of course, yes, your job. I almost forgot that.” Hunter smiled again. “I spoke to your boss the other day. Major Faisal of the military police battalion of the Sixth Army Division. He had a lot of good things to say about you. Said you were one of his best men. Wondered when you were going to be back. I told him it would probably be a while.” Hunter winked at Atif. “Contacts, Atif, that’s alpha and omega in my branch. It’s hard to imagine that a man like you could change sides. I guess there aren’t many people here who know about that?”

  Atif looked at Hunter, meeting his amused gaze. The man had an irritating smirk on his lips, as if this were all just a game. Who had said anything about Atif’s job? Cassandra had spoken to Faisal over the phone, so she could have leaked his name and number. It had to be her. Shit!

  “Well, perhaps you could think about it?” Hunter said. “Like I said, we could certainly use a man with your . . . talents in our team. Here’s my number.” He put a business card in the compartment just above the gearshift, before pulling the radio transmitter from his pocket.

  “In the meantime, Atif, I’d advise you to be careful.”

  The Range Rover appeared in Atif’s rearview mirror again. The passenger door was opened from the inside, revealing an empty seat.

  “Look after yourself, and get in touch if you change your mind.”

  The car door closed behind Frank Hunter. Moments later both he and the black vehicle were gone.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “And just as the guy landed on the grass, David tackled him. Hit him so fucking hard he shat himself. Seriously, he actually shat himself. We had to wrap him up in a plastic sheet when we drove him back to the station!”

  The laughter that followed was so loud that Sarac almost covered his ears. But he stopped himself in time and laughed along with the others instead, until he was literally crying with laughter.

  They were all sitting in the living room. The excursion to the edge of the forest, his contradictory feelings, and, not least, the loud voices around him had left Sarac feeling completely exhausted. But he still didn’t want it to end.

  Molnar was telling stories, talking about various cases they’d worked on together. Crooks they’d caught, sources they’d recruited. Sarac could actually remember most of it, at least when he was reminded of their work. Or else he was so keen to remember these events that he was turning them into real memories. It was impossible to say where the boundary was.

  “Do you remember that gypsy, David? What was his name? Tallrot, something like that. We stopped him on Sveavägen and checked his car, and he said that all seven of his brothers were crooks. All of them but him, obviously. Do you know what David called him?” Molnar turned to the others in the room. There was total silence. “The white sheep of the family!”

  The salvo of laughter was even louder than before, overwhelming Sarac’s ears, and this time he couldn’t stop his hands. He pressed his thumbs into his ears and covered his face with his hands. All sounds blurred together, then stopped abruptly.

  “Are you okay, David?”

  He tried to nod. He could feel the fingers covering his eyes getting wet.

  “We should probably . . .” Someone pulled out a chair and the scraping sound hid the rest of the sentence. Sarac rubbed his eyes, then wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “I-it’s okay,” he said. His voice sounded shaky again. “I’m just . . . just a bit tired. You don’t have to . . .”

  But they were already all on their feet.

  Sarac caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass door to the terrace. His fragile body, bald head, the plaster on his scalp. Then he noticed the way they were looking at him, with the same pity as the men in the corridor up in Police Headquarters.

  For a short while he had almost managed to convince himself that everything was back to normal. That he was still one of them. But the man they were talking about no longer existed. All that was left was a stumbling, mumbling wreck who couldn’t even manage to go for a walk in his garden.

  Tears were still seeping out and he covered his face with his hands again. A sudden pressure in his chest was making his breathing uneven, almost gasping. He heard them leave the room and could hear them talking in low voices as they pulled on their coats and slipped out the front door. Then the muffled sound of car doors closing and a large diesel motor slowly driving away.

  “Here you go, David.” Molnar put a glass of water on the table in front of Sarac and sat down on the sofa.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s my fault. The guys were so keen to see you, now that it’s Christmas and everything. I thought it might cheer you up. But we should have waited.” He ran his tongue over his teeth.

  “N-no, it’s fine, Peter.” Sarac drank a few sips of water. Got his voice back under control. “It was good to see everyone. Really. I’m just frustrated that . . .”

  He gestured toward his head. And took a couple of jerky breaths.

  “That my head’s still so fucking sluggish.”

  “You have to give yourself a bit of time, David. The doctor said—”

  “I don’t give a shit about any fucking doctors!” His anger took him by surprise, giving him fresh energy. “I don’t want your fucking pity. I’m sick of it. Anyway, it’s really only relief that it’s me rather than any of you guys who’s been turned into a fucking gurgling wreck.”

  He gulped down the rest of the water, knocking the glass against his teeth so hard that it hurt.

  “Look, David.” Molnar cleared his throat a couple of times. He didn’t seem to know what to say.

  “You don’t have to stay, Peter. I’ll be fine.” Sarac leaned his head in his hands.

  “Okay.” Molnar stood up but didn’t move. “Ther
e was something else. But maybe this isn’t the right time.”

  “What?” Sarac took a deep breath. Tried to pull himself together.

  “We managed to get something from the car. Something that belongs to you.”

  Sarac straightened up. “What?!”

  Molnar put a ziplock bag, the size of a sheet of A4 paper, on the table in front of Sarac. Inside it was a flat object that was clearly visible through the plastic. A battered black notebook.

  For a couple of seconds Sarac got the impression that the notebook had landed on the table with a loud slap. Then he realized that the sound had come from inside his own head.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The notebook smelled of burned plastic. The bottom right corner was scorched and curled, and the paper had turned yellow in places. But the book seemed largely intact. Sarac kept turning it over and looking at it, the sound of his heartbeat almost drowning out Molnar’s voice.

  “I found it in the wreckage. I’ve been sitting on it for a while. Thought that was the best thing to do.”

  Sarac nodded distractedly. This was his book, his notes, his reminders. The thing he dreamed he had seen in that strange room on the way to the island. Now that he was holding the book in his hand, he couldn’t believe it had ever slipped his mind. This book was his whole life, his anchor in the world.

  He leafed through it, delirious with joy. Almost every page was covered with writing, a mixture of words and numbers. Clues that could help him make sense of things. And find his way back to himself.

  It took a fair time before he realized that he couldn’t actually understand all the notes.

  Meeting with Jupiter 14.00 at 781216.

  “Do you remember the code?” Molnar asked eagerly. “Jupiter’s a CI, and the number beginning with seventy-eight is probably a place.”