Ultimatum
Page 33
“Good-bye, my darling . . .” His voice cracked and he ended up hugging the little girl instead, as hard as he dared.
“Good-bye, Atif,” Natalie said when he stood up. She carefully ran her knuckles over the bandages on his cheeks. “It’s bled through on one side. The wounds should really be sewn up. You ought to get that vet to take a look at you.”
Atif could see that her eyes were wet.
“Take care of yourself.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the chin. He put his arm around her back and held her for a few seconds. Closed his eyes.
Go with them, a little voice in his head was saying. Be with them. Why not?
Because I’m the tiger, he thought. I’m the monster.
Forty-Six
Dusk had started to fall, and Julia had gotten almost halfway back to Källstavik, when Pärson called.
“There’s been a shooting at a Scout cabin in the southern suburbs. Abu Hamsa’s son-in-law and two of his men are dead. Kassab’s sister-in-law too. Full alert. I want you there right away. I don’t give a damn about time off and overtime limits. Kollander and I are on our way, along with everyone else.” Pärson rang off before she had time to protest.
Shit. She pulled over onto the shoulder. Wallin had promised to get ahold of a reliable forensics expert to examine the boathouse the following morning. Because he had access to the minister of justice’s diary, he knew that Stenberg was out there with his family. But they would probably be heading back into the city by tomorrow morning at the latest, to prepare for a press conference at Rosenbad. And then there’d be nothing to get in the way of a discreet examination of the cement floor.
But the thought of waiting until morning didn’t appeal to her. The Security Police guards who had caught her and Amante were bound to have written a report about the incident, possibly even mentioned it to someone in Stenberg’s inner circle, which could mean, at worst, that the perpetrator realized that they were on his trail. Even if it sounded far-fetched, she wasn’t willing to take the risk. So the boathouse would have to be watched overnight. She had a thermos, night-vision binoculars, and sandwiches with her in the car. Her pistol and bulletproof vest. But now she was going to have to change her plans if she was the slightest bit interested in keeping her normal job.
She sat and thought for a few moments as she irritably tapped her foot on the floor of the car. Then she started the engine, did a tight U-turn that made the tires squeal, and started to drive south.
• • •
Atif stopped the car a couple of streets from his destination and walked the rest of the way. Finding the right address was no problem. He kept his distance and found a suitable vantage point a few hundred meters from the house.
The big villa was lit up from all sides, and well guarded. Wall, automatic gate, cameras. And, as if that wasn’t enough, two not particularly inconspicuous plainclothes cops sitting in a car not far down the street. Even so, he had to get in.
He ran his tongue over the insides of his cheeks. Felt the rough edges of the wounds, the uneven surface of congealed blood. The taste of iron. He was tired. Far more tired than he cared to admit. More than anything, he felt like going back to the car, leaning the seat back, and sleeping for a while. Recharge his batteries.
But he had no choice. This had to happen this evening.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds and tried to summon up an image of the starry sky above the desert. For once, he succeeded. He imagined them there. Tindra, his mother, his aunt. Natalie. Safe. Secure. Thanks to him.
• • •
The rear of the house faced a patch of woodland. Just as on the drawing, a path led to a door in the high wall. The quickest way out if you wanted to walk the dog or just leave the property a bit more discreetly. Beside the door was an entry phone with both a keypad and a camera.
He tapped in the code that had been written on the newspaper the man at the airport had given him, ending with the hash key. The lock whirred and the door swung open. He pulled the pistol from his belt and held it by his side as he crossed the garden as quickly as he could, in the direction of the back steps. He knew he could be seen by the security cameras. But that no longer mattered.
He was barely ten meters away when the back door flew open and Susanna stepped out. She was holding a shotgun in her hands, aimed directly at him. Atif stopped. Kept his pistol pointing at the ground. She wasn’t going to shoot him, at least not yet, he told himself. Susanna still needed Gilsén’s money.
“I was wondering when you were going to show up.” Susanna’s voice was cold as ice. “Or, rather, I was hoping you would.”
“I’ve got something you want,” Atif said. “And you’ve got something I want.”
One corner of Susanna’s mouth lifted in a crooked smile. The shotgun was still pointing straight at Atif’s chest.
“And what might that be?”
“The man who told you where we were, the man who demanded that Natalie had to die. I want to know who he is.”
• • •
Stenberg was sitting in a wingback chair in front of the open fire in the spacious living room of Karl-Erik’s cottage. Although cottage was hardly the right word for a building covering almost two hundred square meters. The stone wall around the fireplace was full of hunting trophies. Deer antlers. Even a stuffed elk’s head glaring at him with eyes of dark glass.
He had never really understood the point of hanging the remains of dead animals on walls as decoration. But, on the other hand, there were plenty more things about his father-in-law that he didn’t really understand.
“So, are you ready now?” Karl-Erik handed him a glass of whiskey, then poured himself one.
“You’d have to ask Cecilia about that.”
His press secretary nodded on the other side of the coffee table. “You’re ready. Top marks in both presentation and emotion.”
“Good,” Karl-Erik said. “Thanks for your help, Cecilia. It must be time to call it a night.” A statement, not a question.
Stenberg’s press secretary gathered her things and left the room. Obeyed without so much as a glance in Stenberg’s direction.
“We’re going to have to replace her,” his father-in-law said as soon as the door had closed behind her. “Cecilia has done a good job, but you’re going to need someone more experienced at your side from now on. Same thing with your undersecretary of state. But that’s a more strategic matter; it can wait a few months. You and Karolina are going home this evening, aren’t you? Do you want me to get Boman to drive you?”
Stenberg shook his head. “The Security Police can take us. I thought it best to sleep in my own bed tonight, so I’m fully rested and alert tomorrow.”
“Good thinking, Jesper.” Karl-Erik smiled contentedly and sat down in the armchair next to Stenberg’s. “Tomorrow is a big day. Not just for you and Karolina, but for the whole family. As you know, we have held important posts before. But as of tomorrow you will be our brightest star.”
Karl-Erik patted his hand lightly, and the intimacy of the gesture took Stenberg by surprise.
“I have a small confession to make. I’m sure you remember the first time Karolina introduced us. You’d been studying law together for a couple of years by then, hadn’t you?”
“Two and a half,” Stenberg said. And had been sharing a bed for just under one of them, he thought, even if Karolina hadn’t dared to tell her doting father that.
“Exactly. You seemed very polite, pleasant, and intelligent. I remember that clearly. Even so, I have to admit that I was a little doubtful about Karolina’s choice of partner.”
Stenberg was somewhat taken aback. Enough for his father-in-law to notice.
“You seemed a little . . .” Karl-Erik swirled his whiskey as he searched for the right words. “. . . lacking in focus. A talented young man with great expectations but who didn’t quit
e have the strength or desire to develop. Who consciously set the bar low and wasn’t trying to achieve his full potential.”
The topic of conversation surprised Stenberg, and he wasn’t sure if he was expected to say anything.
“But Karolina was convinced you were the right person to go for, both personally and professionally,” his father-in-law continued. “Happily, it turned out that she was right and I was wrong. She’s her father’s daughter.”
Karl-Erik patted Stenberg’s hand again.
“What I’m really trying to say is that I’m proud of you, Jesper. Proud of the man you’ve become, and what you . . . what we have achieved together. You, Karolina, and I.”
Stenberg thought he could see a shimmer in his father-in-law’s eyes. Karl-Erik looked away for a few moments. When he looked at Stenberg again, his usual expression was back in place.
“You’ve sacrificed a lot to reach this point. I’m well aware of that. Sometimes you have been obliged to do things you would have preferred not to do. Make decisions you would rather have avoided. And have probably acquired a few enemies along the way.”
Karl-Erik fell silent for a few moments.
“But you’ve done so without hesitation. You’ve kept your eye on the larger prize and not allowed yourself to be distracted. And tomorrow it’s time for you to receive your reward.”
Our reward, Stenberg thought. Our reward, for our sacrifices. Surely that’s what you mean?
Karl-Erik nodded, almost as if he could read Stenberg’s thoughts.
“We’re standing on the threshold of the future, Jesper. That’s why it’s vitally important that there’s nothing that could trip us up. No little detail, no matter how insignificant, that could cause a problem.”
Stenberg felt his father-in-law’s eyes bore into his. And go on into his head. He almost blinked and looked away to escape. But he stopped himself. Instead he tried to adopt an expression that was as blank and vacuous as that of the elk on the wall above them.
“I don’t know what sort of detail that might be. The party went through my background before I got this job, and I can only assume that the press has done the same. I haven’t got any skeletons in my closet. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say . . .”
He was surprised he managed to say the words without his gaze wavering even slightly.
“. . . that we don’t have any skeletons in our closet. Because we haven’t, do we, Karl-Erik?”
Forty-Seven
Omar Amante waited up by the main road for the cars to leave. First the big Security Police Volvo with Stenberg and his wife. Then, a quarter of an hour later, a dark Audi that he guessed was the father-in-law’s. To be on the safe side, he waited another ten minutes before slowly rolling down the road toward the boathouse with just his sidelights on.
He’d considered calling Gabrielsson before heading out there. But the truth was that he felt ashamed. He hadn’t actually realized what a poor state he was in—not until he saw the crazed look in his reflection in the bathroom mirror when he got home. Lack of sleep, fixation on his work, and the thoughts of dead bodies that wouldn’t leave his head. The handcuffs had almost tipped him over the edge. But he had stopped himself. Hadn’t tumbled over the way he did once before.
Lampedusa. He wanted to tell her what had happened there. Everything this time. How his colleagues had pulled him down from the noose. How he had struggled when they leaped on him and cuffed his hands and feet. The smell of smoke. The sound of his voice screaming insults until the doctor put the needle in his arm. It couldn’t happen again. Wasn’t going to happen again.
The boathouse was their only real lead, the only thing that could take them closer to the murderer. And for that reason he was going to guard it. Sit and wait until Gabrielsson got a forensics expert out there, which he knew she would. Because Gabrielsson was the best police officer he had ever worked with.
The look she had given him as they parted outside his door had stuck in his head. She felt sorry for him, which was the last thing he wanted. So he had to prove to her that he could still function. Which meant he had to think like a detective.
He ascertained that the place up by the house where the cars were usually parked was empty, and the only illumination visible up there came from the outside lights. Even by the boathouse a lamp was spreading a semicircle of light around the door. He reversed the car as far as he could into one corner of the turnaround, where it was well-enough hidden by some wild roses that no one would see it unless they were pretty close. He turned the engine off and made sure the interior light was switched off. Then he got out the flashlight he’d bought on the way and walked over to the boathouse. The door was locked, like before. There was no sign that anyone had tried to get in.
Just as he was getting back into the car, he thought he heard a noise. A branch snapping in the woods. He sat still and listened for a while, trying to work out exactly where the sound had come from, without success. There was a barking noise in the distance. A peculiar sound, like a dog, yet somehow different. A deer, maybe?
He sank back in the driver’s seat and left the door ajar. He reached for his flask. It was almost midnight. In three or four hours’ time dawn would break through the grainy summer night. Three or four hours, no problem. The bark sounded again. Closer this time. He couldn’t help shuddering at the harsh noise.
• • •
He must have dozed off for a while. Five, ten minutes, maybe. The dregs in his coffee cup had had time to go cold. Not a good idea to fall asleep at his post. Good thing there was no one around to notice. He opened the car door a little more and tipped the coffee out onto the ground. He blinked hard several times to wake himself up. He listened closely for the deer, but the barking sound had stopped.
His bladder was making itself felt and he got out of the car. Walked around it, stopped behind the trunk, and took aim at the nearest clump of grass. He closed his eyes and smelled the mixture of fresh urine and forest. Then he heard the deer bark again. A rattling, warning sound, no more than twenty meters away in among the dark trees. He jerked and suddenly felt very uneasy. The hairs on the back of his neck rose up against the frayed collar of his tennis shirt. He started to turn around but he wasn’t quick enough.
White, glowing pain spread from the back of his neck. Flashed through his body, to his head, his consciousness. And turned to darkness.
• • •
The plane was over an hour late when it finally took off from Arlanda. Natalie waited for the clunk of the landing gear retracting before she let herself relax. Her body felt numb, almost as if it didn’t belong to her. Her hands were still shaking, and the bitter taste of bile refused to budge in spite of a double dose of chewing gum. Inside the restroom in the terminal she had lain curled up next to the toilet bowl, throwing her guts up and sobbing like a child.
She had killed another human being. Taken a life. But it could just as easily have been her lifeless body draped over the bench in the cabin. Game fucking over!
Just a few short weeks ago she had had a perfectly okay life. An apartment, a job, almost an average life. Now she was sitting here, everything she owned in a small carry-on in the locker above her head. She had left everything behind her, fleeing with a dead woman’s fake passport in one hand and a small child she’d only known a few days in the other. She looked at Tindra, half expecting to see that she was asleep. But instead the little girl was crying. Tears were running down her cheeks, but the only sound emerging from her lips were little gasps. Natalie put her arm around her. Leaned her head back against her shoulder. Felt the warmth and moisture from her cheek.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” she murmured softly.
She stroked the girl’s hair. Realized that her hand had stopped shaking.
• • •
It was the noise that woke him. A crunching sound, accompanied by a muffled bass note that ke
pt getting louder.
Amante opened his eyes and tried to get up, but his hands were tied behind his back. The pain triggered by his movement almost overwhelmed him, as if his body’s entire electrical system had been switched on at the same time, overloading his pain sensors.
He gasped for breath. The smoke in the confined space was starting to make him cough. Then his brain realized what the sounds, heat, and smoke meant. Where he was and what was happening. He was lying tied up in the trunk of a car. His own car. And on the other side of the thin metal, a fire was raging.
Panic made his body contort, summoning all available muscle power to break free. He tugged and pulled so hard at the rope that the skin on his wrists tore. His feet kicked out in all directions. Right, left, upward. He struck the lid of the trunk with a loud thud that made the metal bend. He kicked again, this time with both feet. Now he could just make out shimmering light in the gaps around the trunk lid. He kicked again, and again.
Smoke billowed in through the gaps. Merged with his memories, making him panic more. He screamed. And kicked again.
The lid flew open, letting a wall of heat into the trunk. The light blinded him, but as his eyes got used to it he realized where he was. He was tied up inside the burning boathouse.
Flames were licking the walls around him. In places, they had already reached the roof. He clambered out and somehow managed to free his hands from the rope.
The noise of the flames was deafening, getting louder with each passing second. He had to do something, had to try to get out before the wall of heat reached the gas tank. But he just stood there, paralyzed, every muscle in his body hard as stone, while the fire devoured the oxygen around him. The heat was starting to melt the soles of his shoes, and his clothes were scorching his skin. He heard the tires and windows of the car explode as the metal began to buckle.
He opened his mouth, roaring as loudly as his lungs could manage. And threw himself right into the cauldron of flame to his right, where the water ought to be.