Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  P orders M to calm down.

  M lowers the gun, takes a step

  back, his weapon half-cocked.

  When the confidential intelligence report left his desk and was taken to the commissioner of the county criminal police, via Chief Superintendent Göransson, Wilson would delete it from the computer hard disk, activate the code lock and turn off the machine, which was not connected to the Internet for security reasons.

  Suddenly the buyer shouts

  "I'm the police."

  Erik Wilson wrote it, Göransson checked it and the county commissioner unit kept it.

  If anyone else read it, if anyone else knew… the infiltrator's life was at risk. If the wrong people found out about Paula's identity and operations, it would be as good as a death sentence.

  M again aims the gun

  at the buyer's head.

  The Swedish police would not strike this time. They would not arrest anyone, or seize anything. The Västmannagatan 79 operation had had one single purpose: to strengthen Paula's position in Wojtek, a drug deal as part of Wojtek's day-to-day business.

  P tries to intervene and

  the buyer screams "police."

  M holds the gun harder to

  the buyer's head and pulls the trigger.

  Every infiltrator had an as yet unspoken death sentence as his or her constant companion.

  Erik Wilson read the last lines of the secret report several times. It might have been Paula.

  The buyer falls to the floor, at a right

  angle to the chair.

  It might not have been Paula.

  The person or persons who had worked on the Danish informer's background had done a lousy job. Erik Wilson had constructed Paula himself. Step by step, database by database.

  He knew that he was good at it.

  And he knew that Pier Hoffmann was good at surviving.

  Ewert Grens waited in one of Copenhagen airport's beer-smelling bars drinking Danish mineral water from a brown paper cup.

  All these people on their way somewhere armed with Toblerone and chocolate liqueur in sealed plastic bags. He had never been able to understand why people worked for eleven months of the year to save enough money to then go away in the twelfth.

  He sighed.

  He hadn't got any farther with the investigation. He didn't know much more now than he had when he left Stockholm a few hours ago.

  He knew that the dead man was a Danish informer. That he was called Jens Christian Toft. That he worked for the Danish police and had initiated a deal with a criminal organization.

  Nothing about the murderer.

  Nothing about who had raised the alarm.

  He knew that there had been a Swedish contact person in the flat with Polish representatives from a branch of the Eastern European mafia that went by the name of Wojtek.

  That was it.

  No faces, no names.

  "Nils?"

  Grens had managed to get hold of Nils Krantz in one of the forensics offices. "Yes?"

  "I want you CO extend the search area."

  "Now?"

  "Now."

  "By how much?"

  "As much as you need. Every garden, stairwell and trash can in the block." "Where are you? There's a lot of noise in the background."

  "In a bar. Danes trying to drown their fear of flying."

  "And what are you doing in-?"

  "Nils?"

  "Yes?"

  "If there's anything there that can help us, find it."

  He drank what was left of the warm mineral water, grabbed a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the bar, and walked toward the gate and the line of people who were waiting to board the plane.

  The secret report from Västmannagatan 79 comprised five closely written letter-size sheets which were stuffed into a plastic sleeve that was too small. Chief Superintendent Göransson had already read it four times within an hour when he took off his glasses and looked up at Erik Wilson.

  "Who?"

  Wilson had watched the face that was often confused, almost bashful, despite its owner's powerful position.

  With every reading of the report it became redder, more tense. Now it was about to explode.

  "Who is the dead man?"

  "An infiltrator, possibly."

  "Infiltrator?"

  `Another infiltrator. We think he was working for our colleagues in Denmark. He didn't know Paula. And Paula didn't know him."

  The head of homicide was holding five thin sheets of paper that felt heavier than all the department's preliminary investigations put together. He put them down on the desk beside another version of the same murder at the same time at the same address. A report that had been given to him by Ågestam, the public prosecutor, on the progress that Grens, Sundkvist, and Hermansson were making with the official investigation.

  "I want a guarantee that any part Paula may have played in the murder in Västmannagatan stays here. In this report."

  Göransson looked at the two piles of paper in front of him. Wilson's secret report about what had actually happened. And Grens's ongoing investigation that contained and would continue to contain only as much as the two policemen here in this room allowed it to contain.

  "Erik, that's not the way it works."

  "If Grens finds out It's just not possible. Paula is close to a breakthrough. For the first time we can actually break a mafia branch before it's fully established. We've never managed that before. Göransson, you know just as well as I do, this town is not run by us anymore, it's run by them."

  "I won't give any guarantees for a high-risk source."

  Erik Wilson slammed the desk hard. He had never done that with his boss before.

  "You know that's not true. You've had reports about his work for the last nine years. You know that he has never failed."

  "He is and will always be a criminal."

  "That's one of the prerequisites for a good infiltrator!"

  "Accomplice to murder. If he's not a high-risk source, then what is he?" Wilson punched the desk again.

  He reached for the plastic sleeve, forced the five sheets into it, then gripped it firmly.

  "Fredrik, listen to me. Without Paula, this opportunity is lost. And we won't get it again. What we lose now, we'll lose forever; we only need to look at the prisons in Finland, Norway, and Denmark. How long can we just stand by and watch?"

  Göransson held up his hand. He needed to think. He had listened to what Wilson had to say, and he wanted to understand the full implications. "You want the same solution as for Maria?"

  "I want Paula to continue. For at least two more months. We'll need him for that long."

  The head of homicide had decided.

  "I'm going to call a meeting. At Rosenbad."

  When Erik Wilson left Chief Superintendent Göransson's office, he walked slowly down the corridor, hovering outside Ewert Grens's open door, but the office was empty. The detective superintendent who would never close his investigation was not there.

  Wednesday

  A wall of people.

  He had forgotten that at eight in the morning, it stretched from the metro platform through the corridors up onto Vasagatan.

  The car was still standing in the driveway, alongside a red plastic fire engine, in case the children's fever got worse, in case Zofia had to drive to the doctor or the drugstore. Piet Hoffmann yawned as he zigzagged through the commuters who were moving too slowly, still sleepy. He had gotten out of bed every hour through the night as their temperatures rose. The first time was just after midnight when he had opened all the windows in both boys' rooms, folded the blankets back from their hot bodies and then alternated between the two bedsides until they went back to sleep. The last time was around five, when he forced a dose of Calpol into them. They needed to rest, sleep, to get better again. Two whispering parents in dressing gowns had agreed at dawn how to divide up the day, as they always did when one of them was ill or the nursery had a planning day. He would work in th
e morning, then come home, they would have lunch together, then Zofia would go to work in the afternoon.

  Vasagatan wasn't exactly beautiful, a sad and soulless stretch of asphalt, but it was still where many visitors, having just gotten off the train or out of the airport bus or taxi, emerged into the Stockholm of water and islands that the shiny tourist brochures had promised them. Piet Hoffmann was late and didn't pay much attention to what was beautiful or ugly as he approached the Sheraron hotel and the table nearest the bar at the far end of the elegant lobby.

  They had met thirty-six hours earlier in a spacious, dark building on ul. Ludwika Idzikowskiego in Mokotów in central Warsaw. Henryk Bak and Zbigniew Boruc. His contact and the deputy CEO.

  He greeted them, firm handshakes from men who were careful to demonstrate that they gave firm handshakes.

  The visit was the head office's way of showing they were serious.

  This was where it all started. This was a priority operation. Delivery times and dates to the prison would be managed directly by Warsaw.

  They let go of each other's hand and the deputy CEO sat down again by the half-empty glass of orange juice on the table. Henryk started to walk beside Hoffmann toward the exit, but then slowed down and carried on half a step behind him, as if he were unsure of the way or just wanted to have control. Vasagatan was just as soulless from this angle. They passed the entrance to the metro and then crossed the road between the passing cars and followed the pavement on the other side to a doorway, where a security firm had offices on the first floor.

  They didn't talk to each other, just as they hadn't spoken on their way to meet the Roof one and a half days earlier in Warsaw. They were silent as they climbed the stairs to the door of Hoffmann Security AB, and then carried on to the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors, and right on up ro the single metal door into the loft.

  Piet Hoffmann opened it and they went into the dark. There was a black switch somewhere on the wall. He felt around and eventually found it after having fumbled considerably lower down than he could remember it being. They locked the door from the inside and were careful to leave the key in the lock, so that no one else could get in. The storeroom with number 26 on the door was empty, except for four summer tires that were lying on top of each other in the far corner. He picked up the top one and pulled out the hammer and chisel that were inside the rim, then went back out into the narrow passage with the dim lighting and followed the large, shiny aluminum pipe that was suspended a few centimeters above their heads to where it met the wall and disappeared into a fan heater. He placed the tip of the chisel against the edge of the steel band than joined the pipe and the heater and then hit it hard with the hammer until the band moved and he could rake out eighty-one whitish metal tins from the temporary opening.

  Henryk waited until the tins were lined up on the loft floor and then picked out three: the tin farthest to the left, one from the middle, and the second last on the right.

  "You can keep the others."

  Hoffmann put the remaining seventy-eight tins back in the hiding place in the fan heater while Henryk peeled off the protecting foil from the three that were left and the loft filled with a scent of tulips that was so strong it was almost unbearable.

  A yellow, solid lump at the bottom of each tin.

  Manufactured amphetamine cut with two parts grape sugar.

  Henryk opened his black briefcase and set up some simple scales beside a stand with test tubes, a scalpel, and a pipette. One thousand eighty-seven grams. A kilo of amphetamine plus the weight of the tin. He nodded to Hoffmann: it was exact.

  Henryk used the scalpel to scrape at one of the lumps until a piece no bigger than would fit in the first test tube loosened. He put the pipette into the second test tube, which contained phenylacetone and paraffin, sucked up the fluid and then released it over the loose bit of amphetamine, and shook the test tube a couple of times. He waited for a minute or two, then held the test tube up to the window: a clear bluish fluid equaled strong amphetamine, a dark cloudy fluid meant the opposite.

  "Three or four times?"

  "Three."

  "Looks good."

  Henryk sealed the tin with the foil and closed the lid, repeated the same procedure with the two others, looked again at the bluish clear fluid and, satisfied, asked his Swedish colleague to put them back in the heater, then hammer the band back in place until they heard the clicking noise that told them that the ventilation pipe was whole again.

  The door to the loft was locked properly from the outside. Six flights of stairs down to the asphalt of Vasagatan. They walked in silence.

  The deputy CEO was still sitting at the same table, a new half glass of orange juice in front of him.

  Hoffmann waited by the long reception desk while Henryk sat down next to Wojtek's number two.

  Clear bluish fluid.

  Eighty-one kilos of cut amphetamine.

  The deputy CEO turned around and nodded. Piet Hoffmann felt something relax in the pit of his stomach as he walked across the expensive hotel lobby.

  "All those bloody bits. They just get stuck to your teeth."

  The deputy CEO pointed to his half-empty glass of juice and ordered two more. The waitress was young and smiled at them, just as she smiled at all the guests who gave her a hundred-kronor tip and might well order again.

  "I will be leading the operation on the outside. You're leading inside, from Kumla, Hall or Aspsås. Maximum security Swedish prisons."

  "I need a coffee."

  A double espresso. The young waitress smiled again.

  "It was a long night."

  He looked at the deputy CEO, who paused.

  It could be a demonstration of power. Maybe it was.

  "Nights sometimes are. Long."

  The deputy CEO smiled. He wasn't looking for respect. He was looking for a strength he could trust.

  "Right now we've got four people in Aspsås, and three in both Hall and Kumla. In different sections, but they're able to communicate. I want you to be arrested within the week for a crime that is serious enough to merit a sentence in one of them."

  "Two months. Then I'm done."

  "You'll be given all the time you need."

  "I don't want more. But I do want a guarantee. That you'll get me out at exactly that point."

  "Don't worry."

  "A guarantee."

  "We'll get you out."

  "How?"

  "We'll look after your family when you're inside. And when you're done, we'll look after you. New life, new identity, money to start over again."

  The lobby of the Sheraton was still empty.

  Those who had come to the capital on business wouldn't check in until the evening. Those who had come in search of museums and monuments were already out and about with a fast-talking guide and new Nike trainers.

  He had finished his coffee. He motioned to the reception, another double espresso and one of those little mint wafers.

  "Three kilos."

  The deputy CEO put his glass of juice down next to the others. He was listening.

  "I'll be caught with three kilos. I'll be questioned and plead guilty. I'll explain that I'm working on my own, so I get a short remand as charges can be brought immediately. I'll be given a substantial sentence by the city court-three kilos of amphetamine is a priority crime in Swedish courts, and say that I accept the sentence, so I won't have to wait until it enters into force. If everything goes smoothly, I should be behind bars in the right institution within two weeks."

  Piet Hoffmann was sitting in a hotel lobby in the center of Stockholm, but was in fact looking around the small cell in Österåker prison from ten years ago.

  Hideous days when voices screamed urine test and grown men lined up to stand in the mirrored room where gimlet eyes inspected their penises and urine. Horrendous nights with spot inspections, standing barely awake in your underpants outside the cell door while a gang of screws stripped, smashed, and emptied everything and when they were
done, just walked away from the chaos.

  He would deal with it this time. He was there for reasons greater than the humiliation.

  "When you're in place, there'll be two stages to the operation. In exactly the same way that we took one prison after the other in Norway from Oslo prison, or in Finland from Riihimaki, which was the first."

  The deputy CEO leaned forward.

  "You'll knock out any competition that's already there. Then we'll deliver our products through our own channels. To begin with, the remaining seventy-eight kilos that Henryk just approved: you'll use that to dump prices. Everyone inside has to learn that we are the dealers. Amphetamine for fifty kronor a gram instead of three hundred. Until we've got it all. Then we'll raise it. Fuck, maybe we'll do more than that. Keep buying. We'll bump it up to five hundred, why not six hundred per gram. Or stop injecting."

  Piet Hoffmann was back in the cramped cell in Österåker. Where drugs ruled. Where those who owned the drugs ruled. Amphetamine. Heroin. Even bread and rotten apples left for three weeks in a bucket of water in a cleaning cupboard-the minute they changed into twelve percent moonshine, it was the owner of the cleaning bucket who ruled.

  "I need three days to knock out the competition. During that time I don't want to have any contact and it's my responsibility to take in enough gear."

  "Three days."

  "From day four, I want one kilo of amphetamine to be delivered once a week through Wojtek's channels. It's my job to see that it's used. I don't want anyone hiding or storing anything, nothing that resembles competition."

  Hotel lobbies are strange places.

  No one belongs there. No one has any intention of staying there.

  The two tables closest to them, which had been empty until now, were suddenly transformed into two groups of Japanese tourists who sat down to wait patiently for the rooms they had booked, which weren't ready yet.

  The deputy CEO lowered his voice.

  "How will you get it in?"

  "That's my responsibility."

  "I want to know how you're going to do it."

  "The same way that I did at Österåker ten years ago. The same way that I've done it several times since in other prisons."