“Dan Lambreus is to taking over,” he said, introducing the man who had just entered the room.
A middle-aged man, with bowed legs and long, pianist’s fingers, introduced himself. This one had a fox-like appearance. If this game of musical chairs continued, at this rate she would get to meet most of Stockholm’s CID detectives.
The new detective’s English was, however, exemplary and she could finally begin to give her statement.
For a few seconds, Jonna’s heart began to turn somersaults. Tor Hedman was walking straight towards her as Martin Borg started his car. Her overwrought brain was desperately trying to join the dots. That these two individuals were in the same place at the same time was anything but a coincidence. Then she realized that it was not Hedman. The man had the same body shape, but lacked his drawn, sunken face. Hedman was also at least ten years’ younger.
Borg’s black Saab 9-3 pulled out and drove back onto Upplandsgatan. Jonna ran back to her car as fast as she could. Sixty seconds later, she sped onto Upplandsgatan at high speed. She hoped that Borg had caught a red light at Vanadisvägen. If he was taking the same route back.
At the corner of Vanadisvägen and Upplandsgatan, she had to decide whether to turn left or right. The traffic lights down by Vanadisvägen were green. She hoped that Borg was taking the same route back and pushed the accelerator to the floor. A black Ford Mondeo drove out in front of her and she had to slam on the brakes.
She overtook it swiftly and had reached such a high speed by the Vanadis roundabout that her car went into a sideways skid. She managed to compensate for the skid in time to take the exit into Sankt Eriksgatan, but realized that she had lost Borg when she saw the queue of cars in front of her. There was not a black Saab 9-3 anywhere to be seen. She drove into the oncoming lane and accelerated past the queue until she got to the T-junction at Karlsbergsvägen, where she gave up the chase. She had once again botched a lead – big-time. This was definitely not one of her better days. She pulled up to the kerb and killed the engine. Thoughts spun around in her head, mixing themselves into a migraine cocktail. On top of everything else, she was going to have a migraine. She was in dire need of food and, even more so, sleep. She checked the time and wondered why neither Rolf Meiton nor anyone else from the Command Centre had been in touch. There must be updated information about Walter.
She took out her mobile phone and saw that she had missed several calls. Then she remembered that she had put her phone on mute outside the street entrance. Two of the calls were from Walter. Either Meiton or someone else had used Walter’s phone, or he was finally free.
She called back. After five rings, she heard Walter’s voice.
“Don’t you answer when your phone rings?” he began, in a tired, cranky voice. “Isn’t that the point of a mobile phone? To be able to answer the phone at any location.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No, but incredibly tired.”
“And Hedman?”
“He’s sitting here with us. Cederberg expressed a sincere and immediate desire to interrogate him.”
“What about . . . ?”
“We’ll catch up on all the details later,” Walter interrupted. “Did you discover Martin Borg’s address?”
“Unfortunately, I lost him.” Jonna said, sheepishly.
Silence.
“Go home and sleep,” said Walter. “Tomorrow, we have a lot to do. We still have a very interesting guest at the station. I’ll see you there tomorrow morning at eight on the dot.”
Before Jonna had time to answer, Walter had hung up.
Her bed looked unusually inviting. Jonna took off her clothes and threw them on the chair in her bedroom. As she was creeping under the duvet, she heard a buzzing sound from the bedside table.
Her mobile phone was obviously still on mute. The number on the display was unrecognized and Jonna hesitated briefly before she answered.
“Excuse me for ringing so late,” a familiar voice tentatively apologized.
Jonna sat up in bed. “Don’t worry, it’s not that late,” she replied, looking at herself in the bedroom mirror. She was almost cross-eyed with fatigue.
“I was supposed to contact you if I remembered anything about that Leo Brageler,” Alexander Westfeldt said.
“And have you?” Jonna asked. “Remembered anything, I mean.”
“No, not really.”
“No?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. I’m calling you for more personal reasons.”
“Really?”
“Look, I know it sounds pathetic,” he continued, “but I thought it was worth taking a chance.”
“Taking a chance on what?”
Jonna hoped that her intuition was not playing a cynical trick on her, or that her fatigue was not making her delusional.
“I was perhaps a bit tight-lipped when we met.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Anyway, I just wanted to invite you for a coffee sometime. That is, when you are off duty. If you feel uncomfortable about accepting free coffee, you can pay half.”
Jonna laughed to herself. “Sounds like a tempting offer. Coffee and half the bill.”
“I just thought, since you were a police officer, that perhaps . . . Well, I’m sure you understand.”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Jonna teased him.
“Now I’m tangled in a web of urban myths. My apologies.”
“I’m just like any other girl,” Jonna said, giggling softly and trying not to think of the events of the past twenty-four hours. High treason was probably going to be the next transgression on her “to do” list.
“Actually, I wanted to ask you out when we were in your office, but I’m not that bold,” he said. “Telephone or internet chatrooms are more my style.”
Jonna stood up and felt the migraine hitting her with full force. She retreated to her bed again. “Sure, we can go for a coffee sometime,” she said. “Today, I’m exhausted and have a migraine as well. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Oh, that’s a pity,” Alexander answered. “The thing is I have to prepare for a trip to Peru tomorrow. The flight leaves in the afternoon. It’s the final part of my internship as an archaeologist.”
“I see,” Jonna said, disappointed. “Let’s do it when you get back.”
“Absolutely,” he said in a relieved voice. “We can talk again in the summer.”
“The summer?”
“I’ll be gone for four months.”
Four months? He’s calling me to ask for a date in four months?
“That’s quite a long wait,” Jonna said, hearing her voice turning cool.
“Nothing I can change,” Alexander excused himself.
Jonna thought about what she should say. Four months? She needed to know if she was interested in him right now. Not in four darn months. She was tired of waiting.
“Then it will have to be tonight,” she said.
“Tonight? I thought you said you had a migraine?”
“Yes, but it comes and goes,” Jonna rambled.
“Sorry, I’m not much help with migraines,” Alexander apologized.
“I’m sure you are, or maybe not . . .” Jonna said without thinking.
“I don’t want to be pushy,” said Alexander.
“You aren’t,” Jonna said. “Now that I think of it, I have to buy milk. Besides, I seem to be out of bread, ham and things. To be honest, my fridge is empty.” Like my head, she thought.
“Sounds like you need to visit the supermarket,” Alexander smiled.
“I guess.”
“Name the time and place,” he said.
Jonna looked at her alarm clock.
“In one hour at ‘Lavazza Bean’ on Stureplan square?” she suggested.
“
Sounds very chic.”
“It’s all right,” said Jonna.
“See you there.”
Jonna hung up. She remained seated on her bed and stared at the mirror. She thought her eyes reminded her of a raccoon. She hurried to the bathroom and started to search the bottles under the sink. She found a jar with the label “Shower Tan”. Sandra had given it to her last Christmas.
She pulled off her knickers and got into the shower. She quickly read the instructions and started her transformation. Twenty minutes later, she examined herself in the bathroom mirror and was absolutely stunned.
She looked like an African. Quickly, she got back in the shower and tried to wash off some of the tan pigment. All she succeeded in doing was to create light patches. She tried both a loofah and an exfoliating glove.
At least, her face turned a little lighter. Unfortunately, she now also had a tanless patch on her cheek. She could cover that up with tan blusher.
Even so, she still called her best friend for advice.
“What did you say you were doing?” Sandra shrieked on the phone.
“We’re just having a coffee,” Jonna said, trying to be nonchalant.
Sandra chuckled. “From your tone of voice, I think not.”
“What tone is that?”
“It’s like a green light, darling.”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me, what do you think the green light means?”
“That you are excited.”
“I’m not a bit excited. I’m just tired.”
“Tired of being alone,” Sandra joked.
“Stop it. Tell me what to do about the patches instead.”
“The one on your face?”
“For starters. I’ve got one on my tummy as well.”
“Really, so you are planning on getting naked too?”
“What? Umm . . . no, not at all.”
“Sounds like a ‘dunno’ to me. Or maybe ‘with a bit of luck’? Do you want me to chaperone?”
“No!”
“On a scale of one to five, how good-looking is he?”
“Zero!”
“In other words, a five,” Sandra squealed.
Jonna could not keep up her act. Sandra was not going to stop. Once she got her teeth into something, she never let go.
“Fine, it’s a date,” Jonna capitulated, despite not being completely sure if it was a date.
“See, it wasn’t so difficult to admit it,” Sandra sighed and started to explain what Jonna should do, in exchange for hourly text status reports. This Jonna agreed to do, reluctantly.
Thirty minutes later, Jonna walked through the main door of the Lavazza Bean and sat down opposite one of the most sympathetic faces she had ever seen. A migraine was flashing in her head and her fatigue was making her surroundings seem a tad surrealistic. Even so, she intended to sit and chat until she collapsed from exhaustion.
Chapter 17
The old man looked at Leo for a long time without uttering a word. “I don’t understand,” he said finally. He turned towards the man with the accent to see an equally incredulous expression.
“I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth!” The old man lunged forward in a fit of rage. He kicked over the stool. “Liar! Tell me the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” replied Leo calmly.
“It’s impossible,” the man roared. “It can’t be done. It’s an absurd story created by your overactive imagination.”
Silence.
The old man’s breathing was laboured. He unbuttoned his coat and looked down at the concrete floor as if he was searching for an answer. His anger died down as quickly as it came.
“How did you succeed? What makes you different? Why didn’t others make this discovery before you?”
Leo knew that he had to take on the role of a teacher. Complex questions required simple answers.
“The science on human consciousness is primarily related to brain research,” Leo began. “Current knowledge of the brain’s thought processes has mainly been built up in the last twenty years. Not so long ago, it was possible to repair damage to the body’s organs only by surgery and medicines. Today’s DNA research gives us new possibilities. Psychiatry has also made progress, so that we know a great deal about the relationship between the mind and the body. Yet, a vital piece is missing – one of the most important building blocks.”
“What is it, then?”
“Our inner conciousness.”
“You mean, the soul,” the man with the accent said.
“Call it what you will.”
“Whatever makes a person unique.”
“Correct,” Leo said.
His kidnappers exchanged looks.
“What do you think makes you the unique person you are?” continued Leo.
“My physical traits and my personality,” the man with the accent answered. “A result of my upbringing by my parents and the environment I grew up in.”
“That’s just your behaviour patterns and the physical shell,” the old man interjected.
Leo nodded in agreement. “True. What specific component in your body makes you unique?”
“The soul,” the man repeated.
The old man shook his head, rejecting the notion. “No. The soul does not exist,” he said adamantly.
Leo ignored the old man’s comments. “So, what is the soul really?” Leo continued. “What is a human being’s soul?”
The man with the accent thought for a few seconds.
“The brain,” he replied, “or some part of the brain.”
“And what is the brain made of?”
“This nonsense is getting us nowhere,” the old man protested.
The man with the accent also ignored the old man.
“It’s a few brain cells, thought patterns . . .” he began.
“At first glance, you’re correct,” Leo said. “But the brain comprises so much more than mere tissue. It is a complex structure of nerves and billions of cells linked in a highly advanced network, where chemical substances and electrical signals control our behaviour and make us who we are. There is also a part of the brain which stores our race memory from past generations that we carry with us, as well as the experiences we accumulate as we grow up. Now I have another question.”
Leo met the old man’s piercing eyes. “When were you first aware of your own existence?”
The old man did not answer.
“In your mother’s womb?”
“Get to the point,” the old man snarled.
“What is the exact moment when the soul is created?” Leo continued. “Is it at fertilization when the first cell splits during fertilization of the egg? Or does it already exist . . . ?”
“No more questions,” the old man shouted, “or do I have to remind you who is being interrogated here?”
Leo shook his head dejectedly.
“There’s only one fertilization that concerns me,” the old man said sarcastically. “It is made possible because the mindless masses are allowing the establishment of an Islamic nation on soil that once was purely Christian.”
Leo sighed deeply. Where had he gone wrong?
“What possible use can we make of what you have told us? What did you actually research besides this nonsense about the ego?” the old man pressed him.
Leo knew he would have to lie. But the lies would have to be believable. “As I stated earlier, we succeeded in identifying the genetic code that makes it possible to clone what you call the soul,” Leo said.
“Code?”
“Günter Himmelmann developed a theoretical application, in this case a formula, that describes the connections between all the brain’s components from, shall we say, the soul’s perspective. By mapping comp
lete DNA strings, using advanced data simulations, we succeeded in cloning the essential control mechanisms in the brain – those required to reproduce a state of consciousness that we called Nirvana. The same type of energy field that already exists in the brain.
“You mean that you made an identical copy of a soul?”
Leo nodded.
“How is that possible?” asked the man with the accent.
“You won’t understand the details,” Leo answered, “but I can say this: we succeeded in reproducing a human being’s inner consciousness – by applying the application to cloned brain molecules and then inserting them into unbroken DNA sequences. But that was not enough. We had to add energy too, to start the electrical impulses that control parts of the brain. Everything is interconnected in a sophisticated symbiosis, which Himmelmann translated into mathematical formulae in the same way as Albert Einstein developed his Theory of Relativity. You can compare it to writing a computer program, transferring the program to a small USB stick and then plugging it into another computer to run the same program.”
The man looked at Leo in disbelief.
“That’s just fantasy,” the old man sneered.
“What do you mean by theoretical application?” the other man asked. “Is it possible to calculate a human soul?”
“It’s possible to formulate anything,” the old man said. “From high and low markets to Nature’s own building blocks. With mathematics, you can simulate and replicate just about anything.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Leo agreed. “Some consider, for example, that the universe is not simply chaos, but built with strict mathematical formulae down to the smallest quantum particle. In other words, there are unchanging laws for our existence. We are not the result of a random Big Bang.”
“Maybe we are all created by God,” the old man said, sarcastically. “The great Allah perhaps?”
Leo observed the men in the room. Their expressions were becoming increasingly glazed. He knew himself how difficult it was to grasp this concept and its implications. Mankind was not ready to handle the responsibility of this discovery. He had had many long discussions with Günter. They could sit for hours, immersed in conversation about the ramifications of their work. Günter’s intellect had made Leo feel like a novice. He was always calm and had always had remarkable self-confidence. Sometimes, Leo felt that Günter already knew the answers. That their work was merely a demonstration to prove that he was right.
Project Nirvana Page 24
