Project Nirvana

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  “I gathered as much,” Walter said, “but since we are almost there, we might as well ask the other independent drivers. I’ll drop you off by the taxi park and drive around the Terminal’s taxi ranks. Most of the illegal cabs are at Arlanda airport at this time of the night.”

  Walter dropped Jonna at the taxi park. After ten minutes, she had questioned all the cab drivers. For safety’s sake, she continued checking with the cars that belonged to the big taxi companies. She called Walter, who had been equally unsuccessful in finding the driver who had picked up Tor Hedman.

  When Jonna went and stood by the exit barrier, so that Walter could pick her up, a taxi drove into the car park. It was a taxi tout in a black Volvo V70. She waved him down, but he did not see her and sped to the far end of the car park, where the toilets were located. Walter’s car approached the barrier and stopped beside Jonna.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “A new cab just arrived,” Jonna said. “It would be a shame not to question him now that we’re here.”

  One minute later, the driver emerged from the toilet. Jonna showed her police ID to the surprised cab driver. “Have you picked up any customers on Götgaten this evening?” she began.

  “I’ve just started my shift,” the driver answered.

  “I see,” Jonna sighed. Now she really was feeling worn out. By the taxi drivers and her lack of sleep. She thanked the driver, walked back to Walter’s car and got in. Walter shifted into gear and was just about to drive away when there was a tap on the window. The cab driver signalled to Jonna to wind down her window.

  “I just remembered something that the guy that I took over from said,” he began. “He told me that he had picked up a guy down south whom he drove to the north of the city. It was a long drive with a big tip.”

  “Where down south?” Jonna asked.

  “Don’t know,” the driver shrugged. “You’ll have to call him and ask.”

  “Where does he live?” Walter asked. “Do you have his phone number too?”

  “Both his mobile and home phone, but your best bet is the mobile. He’s met a girl that he spends most of his spare time with.” The driver smirked.

  Walter got the number and rang Adrian Geuze’s mobile phone, but immediately got his voicemail. He even tried the home number without getting an answer. He sat quietly for a few moments while he pondered. Then he got in touch with the Surveillance Unit’s duty officer.

  “Find the next of kin for Adrian Geuze and ask them where we can find their missing son,” he ordered, burning rubber as he speeded out of the car park.

  Jonna checked the time. A new day would be dawning in a few hours and the alarm clock at home would soon be ringing. She glanced sideways at Walter. He was dark under the eyes and his cheeks were sunken. His grey hair was dishevelled and he had a few days’ stubble. He looked scruffy. Yet he radiated the same intensity and determination that she had seen in him the previous year.

  Walter’s mobile phone rang and brought Jonna back to reality. The duty officer had managed to locate three of Adrian Geuze’s relatives. Jonna rang each of them, but none of them had either his telephone number or the full name of his girlfriend. All they knew was that her first name was Marwa and that she lived in Kista. The surveillance officer ran the data through the national identity database and found fifteen people called Marwa living in Kista. All but one answered their phones. Unfortunately, none of them was the person they were looking for.

  “We can either wait until the lad feels it’s time to get out of bed, or pay a visit to the woman who didn’t pick up the phone. Ask the duty officer to contact her family. I want to find her.”

  “Her name is Marwa Bellini and she lives in a student flat,” Jonna said.

  “You have the address then?”

  Jonna nodded.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jonna was ringing the doorbell of Marwa Bellini’s flat.

  No one answered.

  She dialled the woman’s number while taking a peek through the letter box. A muffled ringing was audible from within the flat, but there was still no sign of life.

  “Nobody at home,” Jonna concluded.

  Walter took Jonna’s arm and started towards the stairs. He stamped loudly on the concrete steps and talked loudly. Jonna understood his purpose instantly and followed his cue. When they reached the floor below, Walter tiptoed back upstairs and slowly opened the letter box. Now he could hear sounds inside the flat.

  Chapter 7

  Mjasník had returned to the youth hostel to catch up on sleep and to prepare himself for the next day. In a few hours, he would return to the policewoman’s flat. He would also put Walter Gröhn under surveillance. He opened his modified MacBook Pro laptop that had cost him the same price as ten small cars and started up the unique software. You could say what you liked about the FSB, but their R&D department could not be faulted. Hidden under the hood of his seemingly standard MacBook Pro was a small intelligence-gathering centre. Mjasník had had great difficulty getting his hands on this customized laptop. The FSB operations officer was very reluctant to hand them out.

  Fortunately, everything in his country had a price. The FSB had inherited its low standard of ethics from its predecessor, the KGB, when the corrupt agency had changed its name. The bribe that Mjasník had given to the FSB major made it possible for him to trace mobile phones, and to decode and listen to any transmitted conversation. It had taken Mjasník two days to master his laptop and its modified programs. Those were hours well spent.

  He lay on his bed in his outdoor clothes, staring at the teak ceiling of the cabin. The smell of resin gave him a feeling of calm and he closed his eyes. The next assassination made him uneasy.

  Mjasník was unaccustomed to this feeling. He put his hand under the mattress and retrieved his knife. He let the edge of the blade follow the contours of his scarred face. His face was a testimony to so many close-combat struggles. A face that never expressed guilt or any other emotion. His only driving force was the primeval urge to succeed in the hunt.

  Mjasník left nothing to chance. He planned every step like well-rehearsed choreography. Even so, his employer’s silence worried him.

  Walter waved Jonna over to the letter box. “Listen,” he whispered.

  Jonna put her ear against the opening. Someone was moving inside the flat. Quiet footsteps scuffed across the floor and she thought she heard whispers. Suddenly, there was a mechanical noise behind them. Jonna jumped and the lid of the letter box clapped shut. The lift had started up.

  “Well, we might as well introduce ourselves now,” Walter said, looking at the closed letter box.

  Jonna cursed under her breath. She was tense and distracted because of her tiredness. Normally, she would not have moved, even for a gunshot. “It’s the police,” she yelled through the letter box. “Open the door, please. We want to talk to Adrian Geuze.”

  No answer.

  Jonna pushed the doorbell for a long time and continued to shout through the letter box. One of the neighbours opened their door and a dark, elderly man with an undersized T-shirt stuck his newly awakened head out of his door.

  “What in the devil is going on?” he bellowed, in broken Swedish. “I call police if you no stop.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Walter said, showing his police ID. “We’re already here.”

  The man stretched out a hairy arm to examine Walter’s police badge.

  “Are you also a student?” Walter asked, looking at the man, who was barely a few years younger than himself.

  “No,” the man mumbled. He handed the ID back to Walter, then started to go back inside.

  Walter grabbed the door handle and pulled open the door. “Do you know the woman who lives next door?”

  The man shook his head.

  “Her name is Marwa. Have you s
een her boyfriend?”

  “No,” the man muttered.

  “Are you certain?”

  The man nodded.

  Walter released the handle and, as the door closed, a young Asian woman opened the third door on the landing. She was short and had long, black hair that reached the small of her back.

  “Police,” Walter announced, holding up his badge again.

  The woman stared at his police badge.

  “Do you know Marwa, your neighbour, at all?” he began.

  “Excuse me?” the woman answered in English.

  Walter rubbed his tired eyes with his hand. In halting English, he tried to explain what he wanted.

  The woman answered in a type of English of which Walter could not understand a single word. She spoke quickly and swallowed certain sounds in her throat, which made porridge of all the words. After some minutes of mutual non-comprehension, Walter threw in the towel. He summoned Jonna. To his surprise, he listened as Jonna starting talking to the woman in a foreign language that the woman understood, one that was definitely not English. Jonna spoke hesitantly and a little erratically, like Walter’s English. Finally, the woman closed the door with a polite smile.

  “She doesn’t know Marwa. They usually just say hello to each other.”

  “Has she seen Adrian Geuze together with Marwa?” Walter asked.

  “No.”

  “A pity, since you seem to speak Chinese.”

  “The dialect is Mandarin, and I know only enough to get by.”

  “Where did you learn it?”

  “It’s part of my Wushu training. My teacher is a Shaolin monk and comes from China.”

  “Wushu? You mean like that Kung Fu?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you compete in tournaments as well?”

  “No,” Jonna chuckled. “I train three times a week, mostly for peace of mind and a healthy body. Also, it’s useful to understand a language that’s spoken by over a billion people.”

  “Fascinating,” said Walter, who struggled with the basics in English and never exerted himself more than was necessary.

  “Aren’t you interested in learning a little? It’s never too late.”

  “Another time, perhaps,” Walter said, reaching for his mobile phone. “Now we have to get into the flat. With or without Chief Prosecutor Julén’s permission.”

  It would take half an hour for one of the police locksmiths to arrive and fatigue slowly overwhelmed Walter. He sat on the steps watching Jonna, who was shouting through the letter box at regular intervals. She was relentless, bordering on obstinacy. That was a good quality for a detective to have. To never give up, to keep on chipping away when faced with a wall of adversity. Sometimes, it was not enough just to be stubborn. There had to be a degree of reflection. It was quality of thought that made the difference between a good detective and an excellent one. Jonna had both the determination and analytical thinking that was required to become an exceptional detective. She was not aware of it. Not yet, anyway.

  Walter closed his eyes and listened to the noise in his own head. His body was exhausted. Images of Martine were burning his retinas again. How he had helped her as a child with delivering invitations for her birthday party. She was going to be five. She had drawn each card herself and was very insistent about posting every card in the letter boxes personally. She had wanted to be sure that the cards reached their destinations. She knew that the recipients would be happy and that knowledge had made her happy too. It had taken half a Sunday to deliver all the invitations. Everyone in her kindergarten group had been invited. Even then, Walter had understood the warmth she could spread. When Martine left college, she had applied to different volunteer organizations. At age nineteen, she had been distributing food to starving children in Namibia. That was when Walter had understood, in some strange way, that he was losing her. Not only because she had found her calling on some distant continent where telephones were just as scarce as food and clean water. It had been a premonition that something was going to happen. As if he had already known what fate had in store for her.

  Walter flinched when he felt someone touch him.

  “Are you asleep?” Jonna asked. The locksmith was standing next to her. He was a man in his forties with lively eyes and light blonde hair that looked as if it had been combed with a whisk.

  “Just resting my eyes,” Walter said, stiffly standing up.

  For a brief moment, the locksmith examined the two locks on the front door. Then he opened his bag. It was full of different tools. Most were completely unfamiliar to Jonna.

  “Let’s start with the easy one,” he said, poking two small, needle-shaped objects into the bottom lock. He coaxed the lock with small movements backwards and forwards, while inserting a third, somewhat larger tool resembling a chisel. Concentrating intently, he listened to the lock’s cylinders. After a while, a faint click was heard.

  “First base,” he announced dryly.

  The second lock was a deadlock and required a great deal more effort. After twenty-five minutes, he had finished drilling. Small streamers of metal shavings from the lock lay all over the floor. The lock cylinder fell out of its sleeve and hit the stone floor with a dull thud.

  “If they have a security chain, then we can cut it with wire cutters,” the locksmith said, moving to the side.

  Jonna eagerly opened the door. She shouted that she was from the police while entering the hallway and turning on the lights. The hall was no larger than some of the wardrobes in her parent’s home. Women’s shoes, mostly leather boots with high heels, were lined up against one wall. On the other side, there was a tiny hall table with some photographs. There were no signs of men’s shoes or men’s clothes on the hangers.

  Walter followed Jonna, flanking her as they arrived in the open-plan kitchen and living room. He switched on the ceiling light and gazed around the room. Finally, his eyes rested on the door to the balcony. It was slightly ajar.

  “Search the bathroom and then the balcony,” he ordered Jonna. “I’ll take the bedroom.”

  Jonna opened the door to the bathroom and turned on the light. She pulled back the shower curtain, but found only an empty plastic bucket. She didn’t find anything on the balcony either. To try to leave by means of the balcony would require acrobatic skills of the highest order. Considering that they were on the fifth floor, it would also be life-threatening.

  Walter emerged from the bedroom with a smug expression. “Myself, I like to sleep in my bed, or on it. But never under it,” he said.

  Behind Walter, Jonna saw two people creeping out from under the bed.

  “What do you want?” the young woman asked, nervously. She had black hair and almond-shaped eyes as dark as her hair. The man’s eyes were shifty and hostile.

  “Are you Marwa?” Jonna asked, keeping her eye on the man in case he tried to make a run for it.

  The woman nodded.

  “We’re looking for you,” Walter said, showing his ID to the man. “That is, if your name is Adrian Geuze.”

  The couple looked at each other, confused. “We thought . . .”

  “That we were impersonating the police and working for your relatives?”

  “We couldn’t be sure . . .” She hesitated.

  “That’s why you were afraid to let us in?”

  She nodded.

  “So now we have destroyed your locks and wasted a load of time for no reason,” Walter said. “Well, the taxpayer will take care of the expenses. All we want to do is to ask Adrian a few questions. As for your family problems, you’ll have to sort them out yourself.”

  “What questions?” Adrian asked. His guard was down.

  “Did you pick up a male passenger on Götgatan last night?” Walter asked.

  Adrian raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes,
I did.”

  “Where on Götgatan exactly?”

  “Close to the Gröne Jägaren pub.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe his appearance?”

  “Well, it was quite dark,” Adrian said thoughtfully, “but he was tall and in a hurry. His face was drawn, if you know what I mean.”

  “Where did you take him?” Jonna asked.

  “To a site for caravans outside Sigtuna Stadium.”

  “What was he doing there?” Jonna continued.

  Adrian shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know?”

  “Didn’t you make any conversation with him?”

  “Not really.”

  “How did he pay you?”

  “Cash. And he gave a big tip,” Adrian said, smiling slightly.

  “Exactly where did you drop him off?”

  “Outside the main gate. But first, we made a stop at the Statoil petrol station in Solna.”

  “What did he do there?”

  “He bought something,” Adrian said, shrugging again.

  “What did he buy?”

  “Dunno. He had some stuff in a carrier bag.”

  “Call the Statoil petrol station,” Walter suggested, but saw that Jonna already had her mobile out.

  “Was that all you remember?” Walter asked.

  “Yes . . . except for one thing.”

  “Well, go on.” Walter was impatient.

  “He said something about knowing the owner and that he was going to pick up his car there.”

  Walter contacted the duty officer and explained that he wanted a SWAT team and dog patrols outside Sigtuna Stadium in less than forty-five minutes. The SÄPO desk was also to be notified immediately. Walter turned onto the E4 at top speed with blue lights flashing. It was still early in the morning and there was little traffic on the roads.

  “I got hold of the right person at the Statoil service station,” Jonna said. “According to the shop assistant, Hedman bought some tools.”

  “Tools?”

  “Apparently, they have only a small selection of tools, but he did buy a screwdriver, pliers, a small hammer, and one or two Mora hunting knives.”