High Risk

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  Mattias looked up. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  “But you like her?”

  Mattias looked at the hoods, ropes, and tools with a concerned frown. “I don’t have the option of a relationship with anyone. And with a woman like Jill, it’s impossible. She uploads everything she does to social media. She’s completely unpredictable, not my type at all.” His voice didn’t sound convinced.

  “So you’ve fallen for her?” Tom said.

  Mattias shook his head. “It would never work out.”

  “Nah, guess not,” Tom said.

  “What about your women, then?”

  Tom pulled a face at his choice of words, regretted telling Mattias that Ellinor had turned up.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” was all he said.

  “But things are over between you and Ambra?”

  Tom paused. He really hoped not. He couldn’t imagine life without her. It was almost a relief to feel this way. That she meant everything to him. That he would, without a moment’s thought, do anything for her, wouldn’t hesitate to give his life. But he didn’t answer Mattias’s question; it was no one else’s business. He just continued to pack the equipment they needed. Then he closed the bag. “Ready?” he asked. They were already wearing dark clothes. Nondescript black pants, sturdy boots. Coats without any distinguishing features. They had bought an anonymous old car with thick winter tires, an engine preheater, and a powerful motor. Put on stolen plates and planned to scrap it afterward. Just like in the past.

  “Weapons, equipment, maps. Anything else?” Mattias asked while he cast one last glance at his wallet and smartphone on the kitchen table. Tom did the same. They were taking only cash. The fewer things to identify them, the better.

  “That’s everything.”

  “Then let’s go,” said Mattias.

  They would start in Skåne, in the south of Sweden, and work their way north.

  “Yup. Southward, off to war with the online trolls.”

  * * *

  They arrived in Skåne just after midnight. Pulled into the small villa neighborhood, found the right address, and settled down in the car to wait.

  “Where are our guys?” Mattias asked. They had sent two of Tom’s employees ahead to watch the targets, learn their routines, and explore the surroundings. They would keep watch while Tom and Mattias committed the actual crime.

  “They’re in place. Everything seems calm.”

  At two in the morning, Tom and Mattias climbed out of the car. Slipped over to the house.

  “There’s no alarm,” Tom whispered. “This isn’t even a challenge.” They were inside in under twenty seconds. Then again, they had been on similar maneuvers before. Broken into houses and rooms; grabbed the enemy; hauled terrorists, clan leaders, and local criminals back out with them. More often in war zones than quiet residential neighborhoods. A well-nourished, middle-class white man used to peace was no match for them. They made their way into the bedroom and dragged the half-sleeping man from his bed. The men on their list were all single; they didn’t want to affect any innocent parties. They taped his mouth shut, pulled a hood over his head, dragged him into the kitchen, pushed him down onto a chair, and secured his hands and feet with cable ties. They didn’t hear a sound from the rest of the house. The man’s children were grown up and studying abroad, and his wife had left him a few years earlier. Smart woman.

  Mattias crossed his arms and stared through the holes in his ski mask.

  “So, Stig. Know why we’re here?”

  Stig shook his head firmly.

  “We’re here to talk about your online presence. You haven’t been nice.”

  Stig shouted something from behind the tape. Mattias stepped forward and pulled off the hood. Stig abruptly fell silent and stared wildly, was probably more used to being the one with the advantage. Tom had seen the police report in which his latest girlfriend accused him of assault. She’d been beaten black and blue. The case was dropped.

  “Now I want you to listen carefully, Stig. You need to stop with all your accounts on Flashback, Facebook, and Instagram. Yes, that’s right, we know about your lame alias, and you’re never going to write another word in another comment box, not on Facebook, not in any closed groups, not in any debate or column. You’re not going to talk on a podcast. Not one unkind word or we’ll be back. And then we’ll be annoyed. Won’t be quite as friendly as we are now, you understand?”

  Stig was motionless.

  “He seem to understand?” Mattias asked over his shoulder.

  Tom snorted. Mattias hit Stig hard in the face. He knew just where to hit, and sure enough, the blood started pouring from Stig’s nose.

  “Understand?” Mattias asked.

  Stig sniffed and nodded.

  “I’ll take this off now. If you scream . . .” Mattias took his pistol from the holster and held it up in front of the man. His face was covered in sweat. Mattias pulled off the silver tape in one firm tug.

  “I’ll report you to the police” was the first thing he said. Mattias turned to Tom and rolled his eyes. Tom grabbed the baseball bat and hit it against his palm a few times before he placed it on the table. Then he pulled a nail gun from his bag. He had trouble stifling a laugh behind his balaclava; he’d bought it from Bauhaus and would never use it on anyone. He wasn’t much of a fan of torturing people, not even online trolls, but it looked frightening and that was the point. Mattias took the nail gun and held it up in front of Stig’s face. Stig made a sound like a trapped animal, and a wet patch spread across his pajama pants.

  Any hint of resistance vanished from his face.

  That was the good thing about bullies—they were easy to break.

  “We’re zero tolerance, so you don’t get any more chances,” Mattias said, still holding the nail gun a few centimeters from Stig’s face.

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Are you going to write any more?”

  Stig shook his head.

  “Because we can make life so damn tough for you, you have no idea.”

  “I only wrote what everyone else is thinking. We do actually live in a democracy.”

  Tom pulled the pistol from the waistband of his pants and placed it against Stig’s kneecap. Stig started to whimper and Tom fixed his eyes on him, allowed him to see the violence he was capable of.

  Stig passed out in the chair. His head slumped forward.

  “What a fucking idiot. He’s going to suffocate himself if he passes out like that.”

  They untied him and placed him flat, on his side. They packed up their equipment and left the house as silently as they’d arrived.

  They took turns sleeping and driving, and they were back in Stockholm just after the morning rush.

  “You working today?” Mattias asked with a yawn. Tom nodded. He would get a few hours’ sleep and then head in to Lodestar.

  “See you tonight,” he said after he gave Mattias a ride home.

  * * *

  Next time, they drove to a red brick villa in Linköping, bordered by neat snow-covered hedges and with a brand-new BMW Cabriolet in the garage.

  The confrontation was almost identical. Stefan was a senior physician and a psychiatrist. Newly divorced, childless, and fond of harassing young women online. Plus, he regularly posted about patients with Muslim backgrounds on Flashback and used a pseudonym to write posts urging the murder of the “vermin.” Using one of his aliases on Avpixlat, he boasted about having assaulted beggars and unaccompanied refugee minors during a weekend trip to Stockholm.

  When they pulled the silver tape from his mouth, he squealed like a pig in a slaughterhouse, and not even two quick slaps from Mattias was enough to shut him up. The doctor continued to spew his bile until Tom had had enough and covered his mouth with tape again. “I’m pretty tempted to cover your nose, too,” he muttered.

  Mattias sat on the kitchen table, one of his legs dangling beneath him, and went through the threatening and hateful activities the doctor had been bu
sy with over the years. While he did, Tom took out the various tools and did his very best to look as sadistic as he could. As the gravity of the situation started to dawn on the doctor, he turned paste white. And when Tom pulled out the electric saw, he finally broke down.

  “How do we check that they aren’t still doing it?” Tom asked once they finally left the unharmed doctor and were driving back toward Stockholm.

  “Filippa created an algorithm. It’s the digital equivalent of a pain in their asses. They can’t do a thing without us knowing, and they’ll get regular reminders of that. She’s pretty creative when given free rein.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “We’re classing them as a threat to democracy, terrorists. That gives us plenty of room to maneuver. It’s a drop in the ocean, but it’s a start.”

  “Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something?” Tom said drily.

  “Exactly. These particular men are digitally castrated for good. I’m going to make it my personal mission to ensure they never threaten anyone again.”

  “Speaking of personal. The doctor you were angry with. What did he do?”

  “He’s been threatening Jill for years. She reported him to the police several times. He threatened to cut off her breasts, for example, and to share her address online. The other night, there was an armed man outside her house.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah. We’ll pay our next two upper-class candidates a visit tomorrow.”

  “So far they’ve all been pretty receptive,” Tom said. He was well aware that they were operating in a moral gray zone and that he shouldn’t be finding the whole thing quite so much fun. But it felt incredibly good to actually do something.

  “Yeah, it’s amazing how people suddenly see sense when they get a visit from a baseball bat,” Mattias agreed.

  * * *

  The two following visits played out in much the same way as the first, and Tom even found himself yawning when one of the Östermalm guys broke down crying. If he hadn’t read the man’s serious sexual threats and calls to burn down asylum seekers’ accommodations, Tom might even have felt sorry for him. He dutifully waved the brass knuckles, the nail gun, and the electric saw in the air, but it was clear the man would never dare say anything negative about either women or foreigners again.

  “Why do you think everyone who hates women also hates immigrants and gay people?” Tom asked while they packed the car.

  “I’m sure there’s some long, intelligent answer to that, but the short one has to be that they’re idiots. We’ll take the last one tomorrow, but then I need to get back to work, sadly.”

  “Same.”

  “How’s it going at Lodestar?”

  “Things have calmed down a little.”

  “Feel good to be working again?”

  “Yeah, very.”

  Tom looked out the car window, saw the slush and gray sky. It did him good to be back at work, and it was going unexpectedly well. But this was fun too. And when he thought of the last name on their list, he grinned maliciously. He was looking forward to that particular visit.

  Chapter 57

  For the third time in just over a month, Ambra landed at the windy, snowy airport in Kiruna; walked the short, ice-cold distance from the plane to the terminal building; and stamped the snow from her feet once inside. This time she wouldn’t be leaving Kiruna until she got the answers she wanted. She grabbed her bags and went out. Just like last time, she was met by piles of snow, a wind so cold it made her gasp for air, and howling sled dogs. The airport bus opened its steaming doors, and she climbed onboard and took a window seat. It was snowing so hard she could barely see the road.

  The bus shook and Ambra braced herself with a hand on the seat in front. She looked out, thought of the two foster girls. How were they doing?

  She remembered falling in the garden once, twisting her foot beneath her. Esaias and Rakel had forced her to stand on that foot, to walk on it. It hurt so much that she passed out. When she woke, they forced her up again, smothered her in creams, and prayed to God. When that didn’t help, they shouted at her as she was lying on the floor in tears, and they said she wouldn’t allow God to help her. The school nurse sent her to the hospital, and an X-ray showed a fracture.

  It was unbearable to think that something similar—or worse—could be happening to those girls right now. She’d felt so alone and abandoned while she lived in Kiruna that she didn’t have the words for it. Finding out now, years later, that people had known what was going on and still had done nothing was terrible. Knowing that didn’t give her any comfort. In fact, it filled her with rage. And it filled her with a dire conviction. She would fix this.

  Somehow she had to put everything right. Because she knew that two children were suffering with Esaias and Rakel Sventin, and she was worried about what they had planned with the exorcist. She couldn’t shut her eyes or turn away. And even if she lost her job as a result—or worse—she would still do everything in her power. What had happened to her simply couldn’t be allowed to happen again.

  She saw the now-familiar road signs and landmarks pass by, and twenty minutes later she checked in to the Scandic Ferrum once again. The receptionist recognized her and gave her a different room this time, higher up and with a better view. She could make out the mountain in the distance, and through all the snow she could see a pink sky kissing the hilltops. Within an hour or so, it would be dark.

  Ambra grabbed her new rucksack and her thick, new gloves. She buttoned her new winter coat up to her chin. It was a miracle. She didn’t feel cold at all.

  This time, she was ready and equipped for Kiruna.

  * * *

  The hospital was within walking distance of the hotel, and Ambra asked for help finding the wing Elsa was in.

  Ambra knocked gently on the door, suddenly terrified at what she might see. What if Elsa was hooked up to all kinds of wires? If she was dying? Unconscious? But when she opened the door, her worries vanished. Elsa’s face lit up like a lantern when she saw her. “Darling child, you didn’t need to come all the way up here for my sake!”

  Ambra took a step into the room. It smelled like a hospital, and there was a drip next to Elsa’s bed, but otherwise it didn’t seem so bad. “You look well,” she said.

  Elsa reached out, and Ambra squeezed her hand tight. The old lady sat up against the pillows. “How nice to see you. It’s good to see a young person. How are you? Are you hungry?”

  “I brought supplies,” Ambra said, holding up the box she’d bought on the way.

  “Wonderful! What is it?”

  “A mix. Cream buns, almond cakes, seven types of cookies.”

  Elsa clapped her hands. “Kaffeeklatsch! I feel better already.”

  “How are you doing?” Ambra asked while she took out the baked goods, fetched two mugs of coffee, grabbed a vase, and placed the small bunch of tulips she’d bought into it.

  “Much better now.”

  “I was so worried,” said Ambra. She pulled out a chair and sat down by the bed. Elsa sipped her coffee and tucked into the sweet things.

  A nurse came in. “And how is Elsa today?” she asked in a hearty voice.

  “Fine, especially now I have a special visitor.”

  “Is this your granddaughter?”

  “She could be,” Elsa said warmly.

  The nurse disappeared, and Elsa smiled at Ambra. “No more talking about me. How are you, dear Ambra? Do you really have time to be up here?”

  “It’s all fine,” she said dismissively.

  Elsa put down her cup and clasped her hands on top of the hospital blanket. There was a needle taped to the back of her hand. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about myself,” Ambra protested. “Everything’s fine, I want to talk about you, about the girls, about that picture you sent.”

  Elsa shook her head. “Is it the man you talked about?”

  Ambra twisted in her seat. “How did you know?”

/>   Elsa gestured with her hands. The drip line followed her movement. “It’s always a man. Or a woman.”

  Ambra brushed a crumb from her knee. “We fought.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry.”

  “I slapped him.”

  “Good, that might knock a little sense into the man,” Elsa said firmly, and Ambra had to smile. It felt good to have someone so unconditionally on her side. She would survive this, too. In the grand scheme of things, a broken heart wasn’t such a big deal.

  Ambra got up, straightened a tulip, and gave Elsa a reassuring smile. “He’s an idiot.”

  “He really is if he can’t appreciate you.”

  “Thanks.”

  It felt good to be back in Kiruna, she realized with slight surprise. It was restful to be so far away from Tom, Ellinor, and Stockholm. Knowing she wouldn’t bump into a grim-faced Tom or an ever-smiling Ellinor the minute she turned the corner.

  “Are you sure that’s the end, though? It seemed like you two had something special. This is the young man with the Northern Lights and the dog? The one you talked about?”

  Ambra smiled, but she shook her head. “I don’t think so. I fought with my sister, too,” she said, taking another cookie. The fight with Jill was hanging over her like a huge cloud of despair.

  “My dear, you’ve had a tough time lately.”

  “Elsa, I came here to see you, to see how you were doing. I was so worried. But I also came because of the picture you sent,” she said.

  “Did you find out who he is?”

  “Yeah. And it’s not good. Have you ever heard about the Laestadians performing exorcisms?”

  Elsa frowned. “Ingrid mentioned it once. Awful.”

  “His name is Uno Aalto. He’s from Finland. An eastern Laestadian who travels around and preaches. And drives out evil spirits.”

  “My goodness. And he’s here? Do you think he will attack the girls?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I feel completely powerless. No one believes me when I tell them. It’s so frustrating.”

  She had called social services again, and the police, and had tried to find and contact the school the girls attended, but all without success. It was like coming up against a wall of mistrust. The voices of the various officials had become increasingly irritated, until eventually they were openly hostile, treating her as if she were a madwoman. She had almost started to believe it herself, that she had become one of those clichés: a crazy journalist, a crank.