by Jon Stenhugg
“Good,” said Ekman. “Keep it that way. I’ll fill Sven in on a need-to-know basis. Police stations have so many leaks, we’ll be lucky if we can do the arrest without having the entire press corps standing there filming it and interviewing our suspect.” Ekman raised his voice to mimic the voice of a well-known female TV reporter. “And what’s it feel like to be arrested for complicity in a murder?”
Sara followed up and pitched hers to sound like the village idiot. “It’s society’s fault. I didn’t get enough attention at the day-care centre when I was a child.”
*
In the morning she phoned Sven and Ekman and explained she had to pick up her disguise, a black leather overcoat to make her look like Lemko. She went to a shop near the Central Train Station and found one almost immediately. The dizzy shop clerk snuck a free entry ticket to a Leather/S&M club across town into the bag as she made up the package. Sara went to the shop next door and bought a very masculine Russian fur hat. Her disguise was now complete.
She put everything on when she got to work and walked into Sven’s office. “What do you think?” she asked as she did a fashion-show twirl in front of his desk.
“You should hold your arms differently,” he said in a monotonous voice. “You’re moving too much like a woman. But if you just stand still over there and turn your back to me…,” he said again, becoming interested. “There. Keep your chin down. Good. That works. Where did you get the outfit?”
“I bought it this morning. I’ll take everything back this afternoon after I’m done with them. I still have the receipts, so it won’t cost the department anything.”
“No,” said Sven, “I mean, where did you buy the overcoat? I like it. I may pick one up after work.”
“They give you a free ticket to an S&M club if you ask nicely.”
“Ekman told me about the sting you’re going to do today. I hope this works, because if it doesn’t, I’m not sure I can keep your snowball from melting in the heat of what will follow. Are you sure about her showing up?”
“No, boss. No, I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve prepared for the worst in case she does show up, but how could I prepare for her not showing up?”
“The forwarding address?” he asked.
“I’ve got Robert working on it while I’m at City Hall,” Sara said.
“OK, just make sure that you don’t get shot,” said Sven. “This woman may not like the idea of being taken into custody. Are you armed?”
“Sure,” she said, holding up her P228 nine-mil Sig Sauer. “This’ll at least give her a pain in the ass if she tries to run.”
“Yeah, right,” said Sven. They both knew that their service ammunition was good enough to make puncture wounds and not much more.
Just before she left to meet Ekman she made one final attempt to call Kristina Hoffberg. At first there was no answer, then the call was diverted to another number and Sara heard a cell phone crackle through the ether.
“Hello, it’s Kristina.”
“Hello, Kristina, this is Sara Markham from the police. You remember me – I’m investigating your husband’s murder?”
“Oh yes, of course. I hope you’ve found whoever did it.”
Sara kept her on a short leash. “We’re not sure, Kristina. These investigations can take a long time. I was wondering if you could help me with something tomorrow. Just a few questions, if you have time.”
“Of course, Sara, I’ll do anything to help,” said Kristina Hoffberg, and they set a time for her visit after lunch the following day.
As they said goodbye, Sara heard the bell from the clock in the tower of the German Church in the Old City strike eleven somewhere near Kristina. She must be standing somewhere in central Stockholm, Sara thought, as she hurried to get her disguise packed so she could get into place.
Ekman was waiting impatiently outside her door when she came out of her office. “Let’s roll,” he said, then, “are you going like that? I thought you were going to wear some kind of leather overcoat.”
“I am,” Sara held up the plastic shopping bag. “I want to put this on when I get into place. I don’t want to take the chance that she’s already in the garden somewhere, waiting for Lemko to show up. If she sees my face in this disguise then it won’t work.”
“I’ll let you run this. Don’t screw it up. I want this woman in custody.”
“Me too. Don’t worry.”
Later on Sara would look back on this moment and ask herself how she could be so sure of anything, how she could’ve been so naïve she actually wasn’t worrying. She thought she had everything under control; the future was going to play itself out as she had imagined it. Ekman wasn’t so sure.
“It’s you not being worried that worries me most,” he said as he dropped her off in front of the Seraphim Hospital, across the street from City Hall. “The rest of the team is already in place. Check your communications unit as soon as you can. Be careful what you say out loud – you’ve got a decoy unit, so it’s got an open mic. Every noise you make gets broadcast to the team, down to the last fart.”
Sara clamped her teeth together and got out of the car.
“Keep your mind focused on Magdalena,” said Ekman. He pulled away from the kerb to park beyond where the tourist buses were parked.
Chapter 26
Sara crossed the street to be immediately engulfed by a group of tourists as they disembarked from their bus. There were at least fifty of them, all ages, all short and all wearing some kind of down coat, making them look like round, fat little toys that could walk.
She stood close to them as they assembled into a cohesive group, all turning at the same time in response to some hidden communication. One of the women approached Sara, gestured that she wanted her to take a picture of her group of friends. Sara’s first reaction was to refuse, but then she saw it as an opportunity to join them. She would gain access to the corner of the alcove by pretending to be in their company. Sara scrunched down, trying to shrink as they walked by the plastic tent the NSS had erected to hide the two men in blue overalls with shovels in their hands and pistols in their pockets. As she walked past she looked inside the tent and could see Cantsten standing well to the back, wildly out of place in her blue overcoat and a blue woollen cap covering her blonde hair, stamping her high-heeled boots on the frozen soil. Sara turned away when she thought she saw a discreet wave from Cantsten; she didn’t need the cheering section, she needed to focus totally on what was about to happen.
They assembled at the Dala horse like every band of tourists Sara had ever seen, and busied themselves taking each other’s pictures. Sara helped another trio, and was included by an older couple that asked her to pose with their daughter. She tried to become even smaller when the tour leader arrived with their tickets. He still had a few tickets in his hand when he got to where Sara was standing and she was prepared to decline; she tried to imagine some phrase in Japanese which would explain that she wasn’t part of the tour. It wasn’t necessary – the tour leader skipped over Sara as if she’d suddenly become invisible and then they were gone, leaving her alone in the corner of the alcove.
Sara ducked down behind the statue of the horse, pulled out the leather overcoat and fur hat and quickly donned them. She turned her face to the corner, backing out towards the steps where she’d be more visible from across the bay. The waiting time had come.
Sara popped in the earwig, concealing it under her hair. “OK, guys, this is your decoy, the ugly duckling. I’m in place. I hope I’m not alone.”
“Blue one here,” said the coordinator. “Everyone’s in place. You’ve got two men in the plastic tent off where you came in, and a man out near the main entrance will report any single woman entering from the side. A clerk in the book shop will tell us if there’re any leftovers from tour groups when they leave. You probably saw the two black vans parked on Hantverkar Street – one of them is full of backup. I’m up in a hall overlooking Citizen’s Square and I can’t see you. Actually, no one
can see you when you’re standing in the corner. If you walk out to the steps our men in the plastic tent can see you, but only when they look outside, which they shouldn’t do too often, so let us know what’s happening.”
“I hear you, blue one. Is there anyone who can bring me a portable stove? I’m freezing my rear off out here.”
“Shut up and focus, decoy.”
“Roger, blue one. Quack, quack.”
The cold crawled up through the soles of Sara’s flat-soled leather boots, and she wished she’d worn double socks and long johns. The wind whistled musical sounds as it whipped around the corner of the alcove.
She peeked out across the lake, felt like she was being observed, and she wondered if Magdalena had been looking at her from the other side. Sara did a little dance to keep her feet from freezing to the flat stones and backed out closer to the edge so she’d be visible from as many vantage points as possible.
She squinted out to her right, towards the Old City, the open museum which made Stockholm an international tourist attraction, with buildings dating well into medieval centuries and a church housing the mouldering bodies of almost all of Sweden’s deceased regents. She’d be visible from a lot of places out there; maybe Slussen, where you could always buy alcohol when Systemet, the state liquor stores were closed. Sara’s mind wandered for a minute, and she wondered why getting drunk was the national pastime and complaining about drunken neighbours came in as a close second. She sometimes wondered how it was possible the state made so much money off the bad habits of its citizens, in spite of all their smuggling and bootleg distilleries in the kitchen. Slussen would be a good place for Magdalena to wait.
At Slussen, nine hundred yards across the water from City Hall, Magdalena was standing at a bus stop with a clear view of the Zodiac Labyrinth Garden behind City Hall. She glanced at her watch, then noticed movement on the other side of the bay. She took up her binoculars to view a group of tourists walking from their bus to fill the garden as the tour leader went into the book shop to arrange their tickets.
She could see no sign of Schneller, and she rummaged in her purse for the two train tickets to Copenhagen. The postcard hadn’t revealed anything about the reason for his need to meet with her, but she knew it must mean he was being pursued so she’d made all the necessary arrangements. They’d have a very short window in which to leave the country, but once in Denmark they could disappear in separate directions without leaving a trace behind them. He wouldn’t even need one of his many passports to get out of Sweden or into Denmark.
Bus doors opened behind her and a young mother with a pram struggled to get her twins off the bus. Magdalena turned, took hold of the frame and both women lifted it to street level.
“Thanks so very much,” said the young woman, adjusting her knitted cap before continuing.
I wonder what life would have been like if I’d had children? thought Magdalena, and for a brief moment she allowed emotion to cloud her professional resolve. The moment didn’t last and she responded, “Yeah, whatever,” in reply, turning back to the view of City Hall with her binoculars.
She saw the tourists had become a flock of short, grey and brown overcoats waddling after their tour leader towards the opening that led to the main entrance of City Hall. She also saw Schneller wasn’t among them. She panned her binoculars a few degrees back to the Zodiac Labyrinth and there, under an alcove sheltering a blue Dala horse, she made out a figure dressed in a black leather overcoat, with a light brown Russian hat.
Schneller. She was sure of it. She walked over to the bus stop just below the Katarina Elevator to take the next number three bus to Karolinska Hospital. She’d be stopping outside City Hall in about eight minutes.
*
Mälar Square, 12.18 Magdalena stood in the aisle of the bus, her duffel bag resting heavily on her shoulder. It was the lunch hour, and finding a seat at this time of day had been difficult. She knew this part of the city well. Her first job was as a document specialist at Parliament. She’d applied on the basis of her excellent results at university; had been accepted in spite of never having been organised in any political party. She wasn’t a relative of or acquainted with any current politician, but she was capable, intelligent and beautiful. More importantly, she knew how to manipulate men.
Magdalena was a believer in the power of the written word. All progress since the beginning of civilisation had been dependent on the ability to produce and reproduce words that could be distributed from one person to another. Words had become a lexicographical virus, a way to change the structure of an entire generation just by injecting an idea at the right time and place.
In the course of her vocational training she’d learned that most of the time, the written words that steered her government were working in the service of powers much stronger than that of capitalism – not just the banks, not just the captains of industry, not just the owners of the major resources, not just the purveyors of the press which still tried to be called free. These words steered the might of the mightiest of nations, controlling the price of eggs and milk, bread and meat, including the power over life and death. She’d also discovered voters were valued little more than cattle to be herded into the balloting corral on Election Day, and left to feed on their own before and after the milking. It left her disillusioned, and made her easy prey to someone like Schneller, who could weave his own threads of logic into a fabric covering the lie of his intentions.
It was 12.19, and she looked around at the square in the Old City as the bus stopped to pick up passengers. An older woman got off, dressed in black and wearing a black shawl that concealed her entire face except her eyes.
*
Sara stamped the paving stones beneath her boots to get some warm blood down to her toes, and attracted the attention of a pair of very old Americans, him with a walking stick and her with a head of bright copper-coloured hair. Sara smiled at them as they walked by, confident they didn’t fit the age group for her suspect. Behind them she saw a middle-aged man in a short leather jacket walk out to the water’s edge, and noticed that he turned his head to look at her every third step.
“Blue one, do we have a target out near the water, or is that one of our own clowns?” Almost immediately the man stopped and turned. “Blue one, can you ask Elvis to find somewhere else to stand? He might as well wear his uniform.” The man walked quickly past her, scowling as he entered the plastic tent to join the two other officers and Cantsten.
“Thanks, blue one,” said Sara. “I’m wondering if this was such a good idea.”
“Focus,” said the controller.
*
Knights House Square, 12.20. The bus had turned the corner after passing the High Court. The garish House of Nobles was now behind Magdalena on the left, its poisonous green copper roof spattered with assorted statues, indicating to one and all that this building housed the meetings of men and women of power, demanding the knowledge of Latin of anyone wishing to decipher the message that had been engraved on it in large gold lettering.
This was an area rich in Swedish history, but with very little left of the squalid homes of the majority, the poor whose back-breaking labour had built these wonderful buildings. The dwellings of the poor had been destroyed as the city grew, and with few exceptions could only be imagined by looking at old maps. Stockholm had been like every other major European city: a collection of marvellous stone buildings and cemeteries filled with the bodies of those hopeful, wretched poor who’d helped build them. It was also a city with street names that described for posterity the vocational status of those who’d lived and worked there: Leathermen Street, Coaler Street, Pilot Street.
The driver called out the next stop, but no one wanted to get on or off, so he pressed the long, articulated vehicle, with its accordion patch in the middle, around a left turn, giving Magdalena barely a second to see the Italian restaurant where she’d first met Schneller all those years ago.
He’d been a charmer from the start, but hi
s questions left her with a feeling he already knew the answers she so coyly supplied. At the time she’d wondered if he’d been following her, stalking her as a potential contact. Later, after Schneller had recruited her as an informant, she had asked him straight out and he admitted it, but his smile and the way he made her feel like she was the only woman in the room left her more flattered than angry.
Now, with less than five minutes to her destination, Magdalena wondered what kind of help Schneller would need. She’d prepared for everything, a night, flight, or a fight, and she carried the tools and means to cope with it all. Schneller had arranged for her training in East Germany many years ago, and she’d actually met Markus Wolf, the head of the Stasi, the group which engendered so much fear among its enemies.
Magdalena thought it strange that such wonderfully nice people could be viewed as being so evil; she had always been treated with the utmost respect, always received a medal at the end of each session, an honour she was allowed to leave in the building in East Berlin.
She was now passing the Parliament Building on her right where she used to work, then Rosenbad where the PM and his staff sat. She smiled as she remembered the thousands of documents she’d stolen, copied and given to Schneller.
It had been so easy, so stupidly easy for her to do her job. It was as if no one cared that she was providing a foreign agent with documents revealing the inner government secrets kept from every other citizen of the country. It only seemed to matter that the voters were kept in the dark. It seemed unimportant whether a foreign power knew who was sleeping with whom, and why, and what difference it made to political decisions about timber management, fishing or income taxes on pensioners.
The bus arrived at Tegelbacken, across from the Sheraton Hotel, built on property once occupied by the Women’s Prison, whose inmates had mostly been prostitutes. There were those who joked about today’s luxury upgrade. Just down the street was the Central Train Station, where she and Schneller would soon be boarding their train to Copenhagen. She sat with the rest of the passengers as the driver left the bus until their new driver came on duty at 12.22.
