Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund

  Martin Jacobson had gradually started to feel what he hadn't had the energy to feel when everything was chaos and he had to concentrate on trying to get the hostage taker to communicate.

  A creeping, terrible, engulfing fear.

  This was serious. Hoffmann was under pressure and resolute and another person who would never think, talk, or laugh again was already lying on another floor.

  Jacobson rocked gently again, took a deep breath-it was more than fear, perhaps. He had never felt like this before, absolute terror.

  "Keep still."

  Piet Hoffmann kicked him in the shoulders, not hard but enough for his bare skin to shine red. He then started to walk through the workshop, along the rectangular workbenches, and reached up and turned the first camera to the wall, and then the second and the third, but he held the fourth in both hands for a while, his face right up to the lens, he stared into it, moved even closer until his face filled the entire screen, then he screamed; he screamed and then turned that one to the wall as well.

  Bergh was still sweating. But he wasn't aware of it. He had moved the chair in the glass box that was central security and was now leaning forward in front of the monitors, four of them with pictures from the Block B workshop. A couple of minutes ago, someone had joined him. The chief warden was standing right behind him and they were watching the same black-and-white sequences with shared concentration, almost silence. Suddenly something changed. One of the monitors that was connected to the camera nearest the window went black. But not an electronic black, it was still working-it was more like it was obstructed by something or someone. Then the next one. The cameras had been turned quickly, maybe to the wall-the darkness could be a film of gray concrete only centimeters away. The third one, they were prepared. They spotted the hand just before it was turned, a person who forced the camera around on its fixture.

  One left. They stared at the monitor, waiting, then both jumped. A face.

  Close up, as close as you could get, a nose and a mouth, that was all. A mouth that screamed something before it disappeared.

  Hoffmann.

  He had said something.

  He was cold.

  It wasn't a chill from the cold floor, it came from fear, from losing the will to fight thoughts of his own death.

  The prisoner beside him had made a threat again-more hate, more scorn-until Hoffmann got a rag from one of the workbenches and stuffed it in his mouth and his words were swallowed.

  They both lay still, even when he left them every now and then, purposeful steps over to the far glass wall, a window into the office. When he turned his head, Martin Jacobson could see him go into the small room, bend down over the desk and lift something that from a distance looked like a telephone receiver.

  The mouth moved slowly. Narrow, tight lips that looked chapped, almost split.

  He is.

  They looked at each other, nodded.

  They had both recognized the movements of the mouth that formed the words.

  "Next."

  Oscarsson was sitting beside Bergh in the cramped security office and eager fingers pressed the play button, one frame at a time. The mouth filled the whole screen, the next word, the lips wide and stretched.

  "Did you see?"

  "Yes."

  "One more time."

  It was so clear.

  The words, the message from the lips, said with such aggression that they were an attack.

  He is a dead man.

  His hand was shaking-it happened so suddenly he had been forced to let go of the telephone receiver.

  What if he got an answer?

  What if he didn't get an answer?

  A quick look out through the internal window into the workshop and the naked men; they were still lying there, without moving. A porcelain cup in the middle of the desk, half full of day-old coffee, which he downed, cold and bitter but the caffeine would stay in his body for a while.

  He dialed the number again. The first ring, the second, he waited. Was she still there, did she still have the same number, he didn't know, he hoped, maybe she-

  Her voice.

  "You?"

  It had been so long.

  "I want you to do exactly what we agreed."

  "Piet, I-"

  "Exactly what we agreed. Now."

  He hung up. He missed her. He missed her so much.

  And now he wondered if she was still there, for him.

  The blue, flashing light got stronger, clearer, and would soon push its way through the woods that separated the country road from the drive up to Aspsås prison. Lennart Oscarsson was standing next to Sergeant Rydén in the parking place by the main gate when two heavy, square, black cars approached. The national task force duty troops had left their headquarters at Sorentorp and Solna twenty-four minutes earlier and dropped off-while the heavy vehicles were still moving-nine identically clad men in black boots, navy blue overalls, balaclavas, protective visors, helmets, fireproof gloves, and flak jackets. Rydén rushed forward and greeted the tall thin man who got out of the passenger seat of the first car. Head of the task force, John Edvardson.

  "There. The black roof. Top floor."

  Four windows in the building nearest the outer wall. Edvardson nodded, he was already heading over there and Oscarsson and Rydén had almost to run to keep up. They looked around and saw the eight others following, submachine guns in hand, two of them with long-distance sniper guns.

  They passed central security and the administration block, continued through an open gate in the next wall which was slightly lower and divided the prison up into different sectors, identical squares with identical three-story L-shaped buildings.

  "G Block and H Block."

  Lennart Oscarsson kept close to the inner wall where they had an overview but were still protected.

  "E Block and F Block."

  He pointed at the buildings one by one, the home of long-term prisoners.

  "C Block and D Block."

  Sixty-four cells and sixty-four prisoners in each complex.

  "Normal prisoners. The special sex offenders' unit is in a separate part of the prison, as we had a few problems some years ago when several prisoners crossed paths."

  They continued sprinting along meter after meter of thick concrete, getting closer to the last L-shaped building. Oscarsson was flagging a bit, but he kept up.

  "Blocks A and B. One in each arm. Block B faces the other way. He's been spotted a few times in the big window, the one that looks out over the fields, toward the church over there, Aspsås church. I've had sightings from two separate wardens and they're absolutely certain."

  A gray concrete bunker, a Lego brick, an ugly and hard and silent building.

  "At the bottom, the isolation unit. Solitary confinement. Bl. That's where he took the hostages. That's where he escaped from."

  They stopped for the first time since the armed task force had arrived in their vehicles a couple of minutes earlier.

  "One floor up, B2 left and B2 right. Sixteen cells on each side. Normal prisoners, thirty-two of them."

  Lennart Oscarsson waited for a few seconds, still speaking in short bursts-he hadn't caught his breath back yet.

  He lowered his voice a bit.

  "There, at the top. B3. The workshops. One of the prisoners' workplaces. You see that window? The one that faces the yard?"

  He stopped talking. The big window, it felt so strange-it was beautiful outside, the sun and the green fields and the blue sky, and inside, behind the glass, death.

  "Armed?"

  While he waited for Rydén's answer, Edvardson ordered six of the national task force men to position themselves at the three entrances to Block B and the two snipers to check out the roofs of the nearby buildings.

  "I've asked the guards who saw his weapon twice. They're still confused, in shock, but I'm fairly certain that what they're describing is a kind of miniature revolver that can take six bullets. I've only ever seen one in real life, a SwissMiniGun, mad
e in Switzerland and marketed as the world's smallest gun."

  "Six bullets?"

  "According to the guards he's fired at least two."

  John Edvardson looked at the prison chief warden.

  "Oscarsson… how the hell did a prisoner who's locked up manage to get hold of a deadly weapon in the hole, in one of Sweden's high-security prisons?"

  Lennart Oscarsson couldn't bear to answer, not right now. He just shook his head in despair. The national task force chief turned toward Rydén.

  "A miniature revolver. I don't know anything about it. But you reckon it's powerful enough to kill?"

  "He's already done it once."

  John Edvardson looked up at the window that faced the beautiful church; the hostage taker had been spotted there, a prisoner serving a long sentence who obviously had contacts who could get him a loaded gun in a high-security prison.

  "Classified psychopath?"

  “yes:,

  Reinforced glass in the window.

  Two hostages lying naked on the floor. "And a documented history of violence?"

  “Yes.”

  The man in there had known what he was doing the whole time. According to the wardens he was calm and determined, he had chosen the workshop, and that wasn't by chance, either.

  "Then we've got a problem."

  Edvardson looked at the front of the building where they wanted to get in. They didn't have much time, the hostage taker had just threatened to kill for a second time.

  "He's been seen in the window, but the snipers can't access it from inside the prison. And given your description of this Hoffmann and his record… we can't force our way in either. Break down the door or smash in one of the skylights on the roof, it would be simple enough, but with such a dangerous and sick prisoner… if we were to do that, if we stormed him, he wouldn't turn on us, he'd stand his ground, he'd point the gun at the hostages, no matter how threatened he was himself, and he'd do what he's promised to do. He'd kill."

  John Edvardson started to walk back toward the gate and the wall. "We're going to get him. But not from here. I will position the snipers. Outside the prison."

  He moved away from the window.

  They were lying naked at his feet.

  They hadn't moved, hadn't tried to communicate.

  He checked their arms, legs, pulled a bit at the sharp plastic band, which already was cutting in deeper than was necessary, but it was all about power. He had to be sure that word of his potency got out to those who were just turning theirs in toward him.

  He had heard sirens for the second time. The first, about half an hour ago, were police from the local station, the only ones who could get here that fast. These ones had a different sound, more persistent, louder, and had lasted for as long as it took for them to get from the national task force headquarters in Sorentorp to the prison.

  He walked across the room, counted his steps, studied the door, studied the second window, looked up at the ceiling and the layer of loose glass-fibre tiles, used to absorb and dampen sound in the noisy workshop. He picked up a long, narrow metal pipe from one of the workbenches and starred to force the fiberglass tiles loose until they fell to the floor, one after the other, and revealed the actual ceiling.

  The heavy black car left the parking place outside the main gate into Aspsås prison and stopped about a minute and a kilometer later outside another, considerably smaller gate-one that opened onto a gravel path that led up to a proud, white church. John Edvardson walked along the newly raked gravel, Rydén beside him and the two marksmen right behind. Some visitors to the sunny, well-maintained graveyard looked uneasily at the armed, uniformed men with black faces-they didn't fit together somehow, violence and peace. The church door was open and they looked into an empty but impressive nave, and then chose the door to the right and the steep stairs up to the next door which, given the fresh evidence on the door frame, looked like it had recently been forced open, and then finally the aluminum steps that led CO a hatch in the roof and to the church tower. They bent down to pass under the cast iron bell and didn't straighten up until they were our on the narrow balcony, where the wind was stronger and they got a clear view of the gray, square blocks of the prison. They kept a firm hold on the low railing as they studied the building nearest the wall and the window on the second floor where the hostage taker had been seen and was assumed to be hiding.

  Piet Hoffmann had knocked down half of the fiberglass tiles from the ceiling when he suddenly stopped his angry movements. He had heard something. A noise in his ear. He'd heard it clearly. What until now had just been a light wind in the receiver became a bang, then steps, and then scraping. Someone was walking around, more than one, there were several pairs of feet. He ran to the window. He could see them, they were standing up on the church tower, four of them, standing there, looking at him.

  A shadow at the very edge of the window, just briefly, then gone.

  He had been standing there, he had seen them and then disappeared.

  "This is a good place. The best place to access him. We'll operate from here."

  John Edvardson gripped the iron balcony railings even harder. It was blowing more than he'd realized up here and it was a long way down.

  "I need your help, Rydén. From now on, I'll be working from here but I also need someone closer to the prison, with an overview, someone like you, eyes that know the surroundings."

  Rydén watched some of the visitors to the graveyard; they had looked up anxiously at the tower several times and were now leaving, the peace they had sought and shared with others was gone and wouldn't be recaptured here today.

  He nodded slowly. He had been listening and understood, but had another solution.

  "I'd be happy to do that, but there's a policeman, a commanding officer, who knows the prison even better, who worked in this district while it was being built and who has come here regularly ever since, to hand over prisoners for questioning. A proper detective."

  "And who's that?

  "A DS at city police. His name's Ewert Grens."

  Every word was transmitted with perfect clarity, the silver receiver worked just as well as he knew it would.

  `And who's that?"

  He adjusted it slightly, a gentle push on the thin metal disc with his index finger to push the earpiece harder against his inner ear.

  "A DS at city police. His name's Ewert Grens."

  Their voices were clear, as if they were holding the transmitter to their mouths and trying to talk straight into it.

  Piet Hoffmann waited by the window.

  They were standing by the low iron railing, perhaps even leaning ever so slightly forward.

  Then something happened.

  Clear scraping noises, first a metal gun meeting a wooden floor, then a heavy body lying down.

  "Fifteen hundred and three meters."

  "Fifteen hundred and three meters. Is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "Too far. We don't have any equipment for that distance. We can see him, but we can't reach him."

  The car was barely moving.

  The morning traffic was bumper to bumper, tired and tetchy as it crept along in both lanes of the Klarastrand road.

  An angry passenger got off a bus in front and started to walk along the edge of the busy main artery, and looked happier as he passed the warm vehicles and reached the slip road to the E4 long before his fellow passengers. Ewert Grens thought about tooting at the man who was walking where he shouldn't, or maybe even getting out his police sign, but he didn't; he understood him and if a furious walk in polluted air alongside cars that had fused together prevented people from thumping the dashboard and frightening their fellow commuters, then that was exactly what they should be allowed to do.

  He fingered the crumpled map that was lying in the passenger seat. He had decided. He was on his way to her.

  In a couple of kilometers he would stop in front of one of the gates to North Cemetery that were always open and he would get o
ut of the car and he would find her grave and he would say something to her that resembled a farewell.

  His mobile phone was under the map.

  He let it stay there for the first three rings, then looked at it for the next three, then picked it up when he realized that it wasn't going to stop.

  The duty officer.

  "Ewert?"

  "Yes."

  "Where are you?"

  The familiar tone. Grens had already started to look for ways out of the frozen queue-a duty officer who sounded like that wanted help quickly. "The Klarastrand road, northbound."

  "You've got an order."

  "For when?"

  "It's damned urgent, Ewert."

  Ewert didn't like changing plans that had been decided.

  He liked routine and he liked closure and therefore found it difficult to change directions when in his heart he was already on his way.

  And so he should have sighed, perhaps protested a bit, but what he felt was relief.

  He didn't need to go. Not yet.

  "Wait."

  Grens indicated, nudged the nose of the car out into the opposite lane to make a U-turn over the continuous white line, accompanied by hysterical hooting from vehicles that had to brake suddenly. Until he'd had enough, rolled down the window and put the blue flashing light on the roof.

  All cars went silent. All the drivers ducked their heads.

  "Ewert?"

  "I'm here."

  "An incident at Aspsås prison. You know the prison better than any other officer in the county. I need you there, now, as gold command."

  "Okay.”

  "We've got a critical situation."

  John Edvardson was standing in the middle of the beautiful churchyard at Aspsås. Twenty minutes earlier he had come down from the church tower, leaving the marksmen who had seen Hoffmann and the hostages on two occasions now. They could force their way in whenever they wanted-a few seconds was all they needed to break down the door or come through a skylight and overpower the hostage taker, but as long as the hostages were alive, as long as they were unharmed, they wouldn't risk it.

  He looked around.