He did not sleep at night. His days were spent pacing while waiting for messages, which never came. Now he was trying to figure out how to gather strength to make the trip out to the suburbs. Axman had called for an all-hands meeting at his apartment. Something was up.
Do I have a choice? he thought. Things are bad as it is. Am I in the process of making my best friend my worst enemy?
Bergman dug out an umbrella from behind the clothes rack. After all, he was curious.
• • •
Axman was in his element by the stove cooking up a storm. His refrigerator and pantry had not had much to offer, so he had ventured down to ICA Maxi, the local supermarket, to load up. On the menu for tonight were chicken skewers, potato salad, mozzarella salad, and newly baked French bread.
Axman was now a grass widower. His boyfriend Axel had taken off for Paris to study art with a renowned artist whose name Axman had already forgotten. Frankly, he was a bit concerned over Axel’s decision to leave for Paris right now. The word that he had been accepted had come abruptly and surprised them both. It felt like they had not had time to thoroughly talk it through. Axel had stressed that this was probably his best and last opportunity to become someone as an artist. His progress had stagnated over the past few years with only a few small exhibitions, mostly for his closest circle of friends.
“It is a matter of self-fulfillment, John.”
“I am not going to stand in your way. It just makes me sad, that’s all.”
“So, you are putting the blame on me?”
“You know what I mean. Of course, I am happy for you. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Axel is talented, but he is lacking that last bit of zest, Axman thought. The kind of clarity and perseverance, which is hidden somewhere deep in your soul and is so hard to reach. I hope he realizes that soon—and that once he does he will return home.
Axel had picked out where they should live. It was a bright, three-bedroom apartment in the newly developed area of Hägernäs. The apartment complex was very modern and state-of-the-art, in an area where the old Air Force base F2 had been located once, a few ticks north of Stockholm. In the summer of 1952, the Catalina seaplane had taken off from here to its search and rescue operation for the DC-3.
Axman turned the chicken skewers over, continuing to marinate them in oil and white wine. He set the ellipse-shaped white table with the finest china and silverware. Four green Dux designer chairs in leather framed the table. A light green, linen tablecloth was covering about a third of the table, and in the middle was a transparent designer bowl containing three green apples. It was quite apparent that nothing in the decor had been left to chance. In the far corner of the living room was a dark brown corner sofa in leather, with a New England inspired quilt draped over its back. Axel’s signature was everywhere. Together, they had bought the sofa pillows, which were made from gray and light-blue wool. The living room floor was covered in zebra skin, which Axman had bought on a vacation to South Africa many years ago. The zebra pattern was a stark contrast to the otherwise minimalistic and simplistic functional style throughout the apartment. Everything was neat and well organized. It smelled like new construction and fried chicken. The only thing missing was Axel!
They were on the button—Modin, Nuder, and Bergman. He did not offer them any aperitif. It was pouring outside and it was muggy. They were all sweating although the balcony door was open to let in the breeze from the water.
“Food is ready,” Axman said. “Come on, let’s sit down. Dig in!”
“Oh, delicious,” Modin said, his splendid mood apparent to all.
“Where is Sture?” Bergman asked as he grabbed another skewer from an overfilled porcelain plate.
“He is not needed tonight,” Modin said. “Sture is an excellent technician, but this is something completely different. Besides, he cannot stand the sight of blood.”
Bergman did not comment. He was wet from the rain and felt ill at ease. His umbrella had folded in the strong gusts halfway between the subway station and Axman’s apartment. He had decided to continue anyway. Now he was here, apparently neck deep in shit! He was eating fast and purposefully.
“I have discontinued my Sun Tzu exercise for reasons I will tell you about shortly,” Modin said after a while.
“What the heck is Sun Tzu,” Nuder said. “Please pass me the bread.”
“Well, in this case, it turned out to be a suicide plan,” Modin said. “And it has been called off. I can now be sober. For a while at least,” Modin smiled. “Instead, we are going on a tiger safari. Our favorite computer hacker, Axman here, has brought us a present. He is in possession of documents, which, in all likelihood, will make it possible for us to continue looking for the submarine. If anyone wants out, so be it. You are free to go, but now is the time, before I go any further. Anyone?”
Modin turned to each one. They nodded in silence. It was a done deal. Even Bergman nodded. Modin continued:
“We are throwing a surprise party for Chris Loklinth. He is turning sixty-and-a-half, or something like that. Harry brought the Hulk, which is moored at the landing dock not far from this apartment complex. How long did it take you to get here from Grisslehamn?”
“A little over an hour,” Nuder said with a straight face. It was a distance of sixty nautical miles, which means he had been going at an amazing average speed of around 60 knots.
“Heck guys, you should have seen people’s eyes as I blew past them, it was priceless. I brought my hunting rifle, as per your instructions.” Nuder grabbed a chicken skewer, jammed it in his mouth and dragged all the chicken pieces off in one sweep. He wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand.
“Excellent, Nuder. I would like to plan an operation and carry it out tonight. How are things with you, Bergman, everything okay?”
Bergman’s voice was hoarse as he replied. “Yeah, everything is fine, I am in. Let us get this bastard now, if for no other reason than to avenge Nuder’s poor dogs.”
Harry Nuder’s eyes froze for a moment. He had earlier told them how, after all this time, he still sometimes strolled over to Elvis and Albert’s grave behind the house. It still hurt, even if he had his two new puppies to ease the pain.
“Axman do you have any updates as to Loklinth’s plans for the evening?” Modin said.
A brief moment of thought wiped the wrinkles off Axman’s forehead, eyes clearing.
“Loklinth spent all day at home in his villa,” he said. “He seems to be taking a scattered vacation, because he cannot afford to be off for an extended period of time. Probably because he needs to keep an eye on you, Modin. He received an email this morning originating from a server in Norrtelje that said something to the effect that the diver on the bottom is not coming up, best regards from the man with the bicycle. I’m sure that was about you, Modin.”
“Is not coming up,” Bergman said. “That sounds like countryside poetry to me.”
“Loklinth then emailed his mistress, a girl known by the pseudonym Blowfish and way too young for him. He is supposed to be picking her up at eight-thirty tonight for the usual outing in the Lill-Jans Forest recreational park area. The Blowfish still lives with her parents; even the Internet account she is using is in their names. I think she is still in her younger teens. Loklinth and this teenager chatted on instant messenger; it became dirty in no time. Their conversation quickly drifted to sex and sexual favors. Loklinth wanted her to help Uncle Chris relieve some of the pressure, and her response was that she had never disappointed him before. So, in return, she did not want him to let her down either because she needed a new pair of designer jeans. You know, no matter how many emails like that I have read in my career, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why young girls like her go along with this kind of shit. At any rate, Loklinth seems to have some experience in chatting teenage style, and he is also clear about the fact that this will cost him cold, hard cash.”
Axman’s report of Loklinth’s movements had been v
ery cold, professional, and straight to the point. Nuder scraped the last morsels off his plate while Axman kept talking. Bergman was ripping his paper napkin into shreds.
“Right on, Axman,” Modin said. “That is where we are going to nail him, in the Lill-Jans Forest with his pants around his ankles. Do you have a video camera?”
“Yes, and it has night-vision also. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done.”
“Can you show Bergman how to operate it, please? Bergman will do the videotaping. And Nuder, you bring the rifle. Can you also smear your face, arms, and hands in camouflage, please? I would like it if you looked really darn fucking mean.”
Nuder opened his bag and began digging for the camouflage paint. He ripped out a stick of dark-green and a stick of black paint. He also dug out four hands-free hunting communication radios. Bergman looked concerned. Axman did not, with any part of his body, reveal what he felt or thought about the plan.
CHAPTER 54
LILL-JANS FOREST, STOCKHOLM, MONDAY, JULY 28
A few minutes before nine o’clock, the four brothers-in-arms parked their car by the Fishing Thorpe ski jump. The ski jump, which in the past had been used for exclusive competitions only a mile outside of Stockholm City, had a restaurant next to it.
The facility was originally built in wood in the style of national romanticism, but it had been renovated sometime in the 1960s and now featured concrete façades and ordinary, straight windows. From an architectural perspective, the building looked misplaced and thrown into a crack in the mountain. The restaurant was closed, and there was not a single soul in sight.
The weather was on their side. The rain had stopped abruptly, and although steam was coming off the ground, the moisture was bearable.
Harry Nuder looked like someone who had escaped a Vietnam War movie—commando style camouflage, a headband, camouflage pants with side pockets, a dark-green T-shirt that emphasized his biceps, and sturdy, military style leather boots. Around his neck, he wore a silver crucifix. His hunting rifle hung loaded in a strap over his right shoulder. Resting on his other shoulder and crossing over his chest was the wide band of a foliage green hunting bag.
Axman was wearing his dark-blue police field uniform and a navy-blue sweater with shoulder straps. He had his standard issue service weapon in a holster under his left arm and was wearing the police riot control helmet with its Plexiglas visor.
Modin was dressed all in black with a long sleeve black turtleneck and a black knitted three-hole face mask, which, for the moment, was rolled up over his forehead. In the utility belt, he had a roll of thin piano wire and a hunting knife he had borrowed from Nuder. All three of them were equipped with a sturdy Maglite.
Bill Bergman was the only one dressed in ordinary clothes: jeans and a black leather jacket. His task was to stay in the background and document the whole scene with the video camera.
As time was closing in on nine o’clock, they lowered their voices and their senses sharpened in anticipation. Communication was kept to a minimum.
“I believe this was the place they must have meant in their chat when they mentioned a tunnel,” Axman said.
The ski jump was a 210-foot slope, and from their position on the top, it seemed awfully high down to the lake below. Bill Bergman declared that anyone who would voluntarily throw themselves down there, and with skis on their feet no less, was a veritable maniac.
Axman knew this area like the back of his hand. He guided the group through a narrow tunnel, which went directly beneath the jump. The concrete walls were scattered with the usual graffiti collage of sexual innuendos mixed with racist slurs like Keep Sweden Swedish—the usual anti-social, sub-cultural messages found everywhere.
“Not very romantic,” Nuder commented. He had kept quiet all the way out to Lill-Jans Forest.
They had taken the Hulk to Hussar Bay from Axman’s place. The inlet ran from Värtan, the deep harbor just behind the gas depot at Lidingö Bridge, and followed the edge of the bay into Lill-Jans Forest. They had moored the large RIB boat at the far end of the bay, inside the gas depot area and behind the cylindrical gas meters. From there, they had advanced on foot, crossing the last few hundred yards from the thick woods at Laduviken up to the top of the ski jump. A final surveillance check revealed that there was no one in sight on or around the hill. Then the four friends spread out. It was nine thirty.
Nuder took up position at the Fishing Thorpe ski jump control and surveillance tower. From there, he had a clear view over the entrance to the park area and the small uphill path leading to the main buildings of the facility. Bergman placed himself farthest away from the tunnel toward the Stockholm University campus area, which was 800 yards beyond the woods at Laduviken. From there, he could easily advance once they had made contact with the surveillance objects, Loklinth and the Blowfish.
Axman and Modin laid flat on their stomachs in the bushes close to the tunnel, where they had a clear view of its entrance.
The darkness was slowly surrounding them. A faint breeze swept through the vegetation and provided some temporary relief from the oppressively hot moisture, which was making them sweat profusely. A distant dull hum from route E-18, where traffic was whisking by, could be heard through the regular nightly noises of the woodlands. Suddenly a couple of wood pigeons took off nearby, their white collars looking like shooting stars in the night. Shortly after, a slice of glass fell off a shattered window in the basement of the control tower, caused not by the flight of the doves, but by some kind of vibration. A red Saab was slowly making its way up the hill to the Fishing Thorpe recreation facility.
Nuder reported that the car had stopped in the parking lot.
“Loklinth and Blowfish are here, over.”
“Great, thanks. Make your way down here as soon as we have a visual on them,” Modin said into the headset microphone.
Modin saw Loklinth and the young girl get out of the car and walk toward the tunnel under the ski jump. Loklinth, wearing gray sweatpants, a dark polo shirt and white sneakers, was a few steps ahead of her. He seemed very casual and relaxed; he was laughing and joking around. The girl joined in with high-pitched, almost hysterical laughter. Modin estimated the girl to be somewhere between fourteen and sixteen years old. She was wearing a pair of tight, dark blue jeans and a white linen tank top. Modin noticed she was a bit chubby. There was something awkward with the way she walked, almost pigeon-toed, and she was frenetically rubbing a mosquito bite on her left upper arm. Modin wondered what cover story she told her mom when she went out on moonlighting gigs like this one.
Loklinth had a spring in his step and looked younger than Modin remembered him. It had been years since he saw him last. For a split second, a sting of insecurity and doubt hit Modin in his midsection. Once upon a time, he had looked up to Loklinth as his boss and mentor. That respect still lived and thrived somewhere deep inside and it bothered him.
Modin snapped out of it and pulled himself together. Loklinth was a spineless asshole; he had to be fought on all fronts and at any price.
Loklinth and the girl entered the tunnel. They stopped somewhere in the middle, and Loklinth looked around to make sure nobody followed. There was no foreplay after that point. Loklinth grabbed the young woman’s head and pressed it down to his crotch. She followed obediently without any protest. He leaned backwards so that his head came to rest against the offensive graffiti on the concrete wall.
The girl kneeled in front of him and let out a series of sounds resembling the squeaks from a baby bird. She unzipped his fly while he held her head in a firm grip. She opened her mouth wide and engulfed it with enthusiasm, accompanied by a gobbling noise.
Loklinth seemed to lose himself in a lustful haze. He pumped her head up and down with even strokes at an increasing pace. The girl’s knees scraped against the gravel while a gurgling noise emerged from her throat.
Modin sat, frozen, watching the act. He could not help being fascinated by this weird spectacle and contemplated whether he shoul
d interrupt it, and maybe save the young girl. He decided to wait until Loklinth reached his climax.
Bergman had slowly crawled closer and was now in a position where he could record the whole event by using the camcorder night-vision feature. Despite the green-white coarse-grained image on the display, he could determine that the quality was going to be satisfactory. Bergman was truly disgusted by what he saw. He was wondering why Modin did not rush in and interrupt the whole thing. This was not even a matter of regular prostitution, but something more akin to pedophilia, since the girl was probably underage. Bergman could not help feeling sorry for her.
The Blowfish and the Beast.
Modin called Nuder over with a discrete wave of his hand. He seemed determined and calm as a cucumber as he stood at the top of the crest.
Modin caught a glimpse of the whites in Loklinth’s eyes every time he looked down to take a firmer grip around the girl’s head. Modin stood only about twenty yards from the act.
He has complete and utter control over the girl, Modin thought with fascination and disgust at the same time. Not that this would be too hard for him. After all, this son-of-a-bitch has thirty-two years of experience within the intelligence community and knows how to take control of others both mentally and physically. He owns her!
Modin decided to enter the tunnel and disrupt the whole thing at a point where it would do the most damage and cause the most embarrassment to his opponent, without any regard for the girl. That moment would be the very seconds right after his orgasm, when the feeling of guilt would wash over Loklinth as his muscles slowly started to relax.
By using hand signs, Modin issued a couple of quick orders to Axman and then, without so much as a sound, he moved over to the other side of the tunnel. From there, he was going to cut off any possibility of retreat.
Deep State (Anton Modin Book 1) Page 31
