Project Nirvana

by Stefan Tegenfalk

  The Mentor’s assistance, together with the fake accomplice, should be enough to get Martin off the hook.

  Another factor making waves was the British solicitor who had suddenly walked into County CID. Although she was not a direct threat to Leo Brageler, it would encourage the detectives there to work overtime, which sometimes was all it took. More resources would be allocated to the Brageler manhunt, which hardly helped Martin and his organization.

  Chapter 18

  Vecdi Gönül, aged thirty-six, turned out the lights and locked the door to his pizzeria in Malmö. He started to walk down Lugna Gatan, the fresh evening air filling his lungs. It was a liberating feeling to leave the smell of the Italian kitchen and its spices after fifteen hours.

  He was from Turkey, but the menu was only Italian food, something he was not especially fond of. But the paying customers wanted only Italian food, so he had to give them what they wanted.

  The flat on Kärleksgatan that he sublet was four hundred metres from the pizzeria. Every night of the five years that he had owned the pizzeria, he had walked the same way home. Even on Christmas Eve. His life was beginning to improve and, in a few years, he would have paid off all his debts. He made most money during lunch time and on the weekends, when most of the takings were beer money.

  The protection money he had to pay every month to keep his insignificant restaurant intact was a necessary evil. He was also forced to buy meat from them. Bad quality and overpriced. He had no other choice. The insurance liability for one smashed window was as much as he made from fifty lunches. So he paid up, but felt mounting outrage about handing over the fruits of his hard work, week after week, to the parasites who were destroying this society.

  He didn’t dare contact the police. They couldn’t do anything. Pizzeria owners who were forced to pay protection money were at the bottom of their list of priorities. Cutbacks and an increasing number of witnesses suffering from sudden amnesia didn’t make their task any easier either. The police were fighting a losing battle. A battle against fear and silence.

  Vecdi tried to make the best of the situation, yet he knew he was not alone. There were hundreds of restaurants in the same predicament in Malmö. Together, they could resist. He had tried to organize them, but most gave only empty promises of support. Nobody wanted trouble and when Vecdi had refused to pay, he had had to replace three windows the next day.

  He realized then that he would be forced out of business if the vandalization continued. It had been six months since it happened and now they wanted him to pay even more. Perhaps they were trying to take over his restaurant. To make an example of him.

  Vecdi crossed Södra Förstadsgatan, immersed in a feeling of futility and came to Kärleksgatan. Few people were out at that hour and he never saw the car without lights as it approached him from behind.

  At first, it felt like the point of a needle in his back and he stumbled. Then heat spread through his body, despite it being chilly. The warm sensation quickly changed to pain and confusion. He heard a muffled thud, and suddenly felt as if he had been slapped hard on the back. His legs folded beneath him and he fell to the ground in a sea of agony. He tried to cry for help, but could only make weak sounds. In despair, he saw the pavement turning red under him. He tried to move, but his lungs quickly filled with blood. The sound of his breathing got weaker and weaker. One minute later, it stopped completely.

  The old man had been quiet for a long time. Leo realized that it would be difficult to get out of this place. But there was still a chance. He watched the man with the accent.

  “You’ll never leave this place,” the old man said. “Your story is pathetic. I want to know what you were really working on. No more nonsense about cloning souls.”

  “If you just let me . . .”

  “No!” he interrupted. “You’ll never leave this place alive. Do you think we are idiots?”

  “Just give me access to . . .”

  “Let’s take a look at the contents of that envelope,” the old man interrupted again. “It’s going to take us a while to go through the CD and all the documents. When that’s done, we should be able to decide your immediate future.”

  The man with the accent looked at the old man with some concern. He didn’t seem to like what he had just heard.

  “Why do you need access to the company’s computer system?” he asked Leo, worriedly.

  “As I told you before, the data on the CD is incomplete; it’s just a small, albeit vital, part of the entire development process. If Himmelmann destroyed all his data files, then I am the only person left with the source code. I copied most of the data that he asked us to destroy when we transferred everything to Germany. It’s spread on servers all over the internet, but I kept the most important parts, the metadata, on the CD. The passwords and addresses of the servers are saved on the BGR computers.”

  “How much of the data is saved on the servers?” the man asked.

  “At least twenty CDs’ worth.”

  “Can’t you access the passwords and addresses from the internet? By hacking into the company network?”

  “It has strong security, but nothing is impossible,” Leo said.

  “How do you know that the passwords and other stuff are still there?”

  “It’s hidden in a file which is part of the company salary database. That’s a database that is never deleted. I’m no expert in software programming, but I’m sure that the encrypted information is well hidden.”

  “I’m impressed,” the old man said. “You’re almost as paranoid as we are, but that doesn’t change my mind about you being a liar.”

  “What will you do with the information once I’ve given it to you? I’ll give you all the data if you let me go.”

  “The world is not that simple,” the old man smiled. “First, we’ll find out what type of research Himmelmann was really involved in and then . . .”

  “Did you ever test the process on a living subject?” the other man butted in.

  The old man turned, irritated.

  “Not while I was part of the project,” said Leo. “We had many years to go before that breakthrough.”

  “But what do you believe?” the man insisted. “The Germans continued for years after you left.”

  “Dysencomp halted all projects with BGR in Sweden for some reason and, according to our contract with them, we had to destroy all research data after we handed it over.”

  “Something you didn’t do.”

  “It was done, but like I told you . . .”

  “Why did the collaboration cease?”

  The man with the accent was impatient.

  “There was no collaboration. We were sub-contractors to Dysencomp. It seems strange, because of the critical nature of the work we were doing. Suddenly, they no longer wanted to use our services. Himmelmann told me that they were concentrating their resources in fewer locations.”

  “How many at BGR knew about the aims of the research?”

  “Only myself,” Leo said. “The others believed that we were developing a new, progressive agent for an adaptive drug that Dysencomp was getting ready to manufacture.”

  “Why only you?” the man asked, suspiciously.

  “Himmelmann wanted to keep the true goal of Project Nirvana concealed within a small group. He knew there would be far-reaching consequences if it ever leaked out. Himmelmann tried many times to make me move to Germany, but I refused. He saw me as his protégé and therefore included me in on the true purpose of the research. It was the defining moment of my life.”

  Leo looked down at the floor. He was lying. There had in fact been something more significant. The day Cecilia was born. To witness the universe’s greatest wonder had been more momentous than anything else.

  “How can you get into BGR at Uppsala?” the man asked.

&nb
sp; “I’m sure you can help me to do that.”

  “Afterwards? To set you free is a big risk for us.”

  “I’m wanted for murder, so we are both tied to the same yoke. My best interest is served by vanishing, and yours is that I am not a liability. What you do with this knowledge is of no interest to me as long as you let me go.”

  “As I said, we will first carefully examine the contents of the CD,” the old man said. “After that . . .”

  “It will take a considerable time,” the other man interrupted.

  “Very likely. But necessary.”

  “We could start planning the break-in to BGR now,” the man continued impatiently.

  The old man shook his head dismissively. “Twenty-four-hour security. Advanced alarm and CCTV systems.”

  “We could use the official method,” the other man continued. “One visit from . . .”

  “The risks are still too great. If it is to be done, it must done by outsiders.”

  “A hack into the computer system?”

  The old man nodded. He turned towards Leo. It seemed as if he had completely reassessed the situation.

  “Tell us what we need to locate the files at BGR.”

  “There are no guards at night and the alarm system is very basic, with motion detectors that . . .”

  Suddenly, Leo had it. There was a much easier way. It would mean that yet another innocent bystander would be involved. “There is another possibility,” he said, getting up carefully.

  Jonna turned around quickly. She met Alexander’s eyes. They looked guilty. He had been running and was breathing heavily.

  “Hey, you,” he said, with a confused look on his face. “I . . . you know.”

  The words didn’t flow as freely as in the café. Just disjointed syllables.

  The taxi driver shouted impatiently from inside the cab. Jonna signalled to him to calm down.

  “I’m so bloody . . . what’s the word . . .”

  “Shy?” Jonna filled in the blank.

  He shook his head.

  “Insecure?”

  He smiled, sighing resignedly. “You remember on the cruise ferry,” he said, trying to get his words in order. “When we helped you get the woman and that man off?”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “When you thanked me, then it happened.”

  “Happened?”

  “I’ve thought long and hard and almost called you several times.”

  “Really?” Jonna said, surprised. She felt warm despite the cold.

  “I can’t really find the words for it, but sometimes you just know that a person . . .” He stopped, looking down at the pavement.

  The taxi driver called out again. Jonna didn’t hear what he said, but motioned for him to wait. “That a person is the right person?” she suggested.

  “I guess.”

  He fidgeted awkwardly.

  “After just a few minutes there on the cruise ferry?”

  “A second is all it takes,” he said, looking embarrassed. He met her eyes. “Some things can’t be analyzed. They just happen.”

  A strange feeling swept over Jonna. Suddenly, it was as if she had known Alexander all her life. “I don’t know what to say,” was all she managed to blurt out.

  “Well, I do,” the taxi driver called out. “Tell me if you are taking this ride, or not.”

  Alexander approached the taxi driver. “I’m sorry, but there will be no fare,” he said. “We have other plans.”

  “You could’ve said that to begin with,” the taxi driver grunted.

  “For your time,” Alexander said, tipping the taxi driver fifty crowns.

  As if a light switch had been flipped, the driver lit up. “Whatever your plans, I wish you the best of luck,” he said, stuffing the note in his wallet.

  Alexander looked at him in surprise. “Good luck with what?”

  The driver pointed discreetly at Jonna, with a sly grin, as his side window went up. “Only a fool would walk away from her.”

  Five minutes later, Jonna was standing in the hallway of the flat that Alexander shared with Samuel. Jonna could see that they lived alone. It was sparsely furnished, yet neat and clean. On the living-room coffee table, there was a pile of books on ancient history.

  On the walls, there were paintings by anonymous artists, which probably came with the flat. The themes seemed to be drawn from England in the 1800s. Foxhunts with horses, huntsmen and beagles. Alexander turned on his stereo and, from the loudspeakers, Jonna heard one of her favourite songs. She sat on the sofa and closed her eyes to the seductively soft tones of Chris Isaak’s guitar.

  “‘Wicked Game’,” she said as her tiredness returned. She opened her eyes wide to avoid falling asleep.

  “Do you like Chris Isaak?”

  Jonna nodded.

  “There’s something magical about his guitar,” said Alexander.

  “Like a David Lynch film.”

  “Do you like Lynch too?” Alexander asked eagerly.

  “Anything that’s not a predictable, Hollywood, fast-food film is fine by me,” said Jonna.

  “Speaking of fast food,” Alexander said. “You can choose between tomato or minestrone soup. Both are unfortunately out of a tin, but quick to heat up. Or would you rather just have tea?”

  “Any of the aforementioned, just as long as it’s hot,” Jonna smiled, shrugging her shoulders.

  Alexander went out into the kitchen and started making noises with saucepans.

  Jonna was having difficulty keeping her eyes open. She slapped her cheeks a few times. It helped briefly.

  “What’s Samuel studying?”

  “History of Literature,” Alexander shouted from the kitchen.

  “What profession is that? Literary historian?”

  “I guess. Basically, he likes to read and criticize books written by others,” Alexander laughed. “There isn’t a book that he doesn’t have at least ten points of view on.”

  “So he’ll be a book critic?”

  “If he can ever find somebody to employ him.”

  “There must be at least one good book somewhere.”

  “Yes, but he says that all the good books have already been written. Today’s authors have no respect for language. The internet has ruined a whole generation of authors with sloppy blogs and abbreviated chat messages.”

  “I see his point,” said Jonna, thinking of Sandra’s blog. It would not secure her a place at a Nobel awards ceremony.

  “It’s a pity that Samuel’s not here,” Alexander said. “Then you would get a lesson in rhetoric. He can sit and twist your words for hours. Preferably over a few bottles of red wine.”

  “Chris Isaak and something warm to drink is quite enough,” Jonna answered.

  Sounds of Alexander and dishes in the kitchen. He would soon be finished with the tinned soup, or whatever it was he was serving. She leaned back in his sofa and took the opportunity to close her eyes. The events of the past day were still replaying on her eyelids and she attempted to order her thoughts. All the while she was troubled by a recurring picture. The image of Martin Borg, when she met him in the mist. His arrogant look and odd behaviour. She felt the hair rise on her arm. Then the thoughts faded away; she didn’t notice, as sleep slowly took her as well.

  Walter awoke to his mobile phone. He looked at the clock in the living room that showed ten past seven. He had spent eight hours on the sofa in a sleep as deep as the Mariana Trench. His phone’s text display was blurry to his newly awakened eyes and he had difficulty reading the number.

  “Have you ordered Dennis Carlinder and his entire team to analyze all new pre-paid SIM-card transactions for the past few months?” Chief Inspector David Lilja began in a stern voice.

&n
bsp; Walter cleared his throat with last night’s glass of water. “Yes, and I did it with your kind consent,” he answered, getting off the sofa. Sciatica stabbed him in the back.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Lilja remarked.

  “Because we have known each other since BC?”

  “I have but two objections this time,” Lilja said. “In addition to the obvious protest about you issuing orders on my behalf without informing me first.”

  “What are your objections?” asked Walter, opening his fridge. He took out a cheese that resembled a skateboard ramp and a loaf of bread that was two days’ past its use-by date.

  “To request information from mobile-phone operators, the offence must carry a sentence of at least two years and the request must issued by a prosecutor,” Lilja said.

  “You don’t have to quote the regulations at me,” Walter said. “If I don’t know what crime is being committed, how can I know how much jail time the suspect will get? To do that . . .”

  “My second objection concerns the budget,” Lilja interrupted. “We don’t have funds to send an entire section on a goose chase.”

  “So what’s the price tag for solving a crime these days?”

  “What crime are we talking about?”

  “The leak,” Walter said. “We’re looking for the person who tipped off Hedman.”

  “You mean you are looking for that person.”

  “Not any more; the entire Surveillance Unit is involved.”

  Lilja groaned at the other end of the phone. “To sum up, we have no crime, or even sufficient evidence to present to a prosecutor for this investigation,” he said. “Furthermore, the investigation targets SÄPO personnel. We have no mandate to investigate them. This is their jurisdiction and . . .”

  “So how much time do I have?” Walter interrupted. “You know what I mean.”

  A pause.

  “The rest of the day,” Lilja said. “I’ll be busy in executive meetings on next year’s budget at the National Police Board and fortunately will be unavailable. But for God’s sake, make sure that Julén or some other prosecutor answers questions from the telephone company about the transfer of information. They’re getting impatient and want to see the court order. In fact, they should have had it yesterday. Exemption is only valid for twelve hours, after that the papers must be presented, or . . .”