A Death in Sweden (4 page)

Chapter Six

Café Florence was decent enough, but it wasn’t the picturesque kind of place that attracted tourists—it was geared more towards locals. The street, too, was bustling, but not so crowded that Dan couldn’t make an assessment as he approached—if Brabham or Patrick White or anyone else had people in the area, they were either really good or Dan was slipping.

He walked in and immediately spotted Patrick sitting at the table he always chose, in the far back corner. He looked no different, smartly dressed, short grey hair neatly side-parted, like an upmarket lawyer or old-school banker.

Patrick smiled as he saw Dan and gestured to the guy behind the bar. He had coffee and cognac in front of him and was asking for the same for Dan.

Dan checked out the other people in there as he walked through, then nodded to Patrick, who reached up and shook his hand, saying, “I knew you’d come. I banked on it.”

Dan kept hold of his hand for a second and said, “I hope that’s all you banked on, Patrick, because if anyone follows me out of here, it’ll get messy.”

Patrick looked a little hurt, encouraging in itself, and said, “Give me some credit, Dan. No matter what, I would never set you up—you have my word on that.”

Dan nodded, wanting to believe in him and in his own judgment. He let go of his hand and sat down opposite, unable to resist another quick glance back out to the front of the café and the street beyond.

“So what are you doing here, Patrick? I heard you were finished.”

“Finished is putting it a bit strong, but I’m not a company man if that’s what you mean, not anymore.” So it was true.

Patrick reached into his jacket and put a card on the table. “I’m heading up a newly established office at the ODNI. Can’t go into too much detail but my team’s charged with tackling some of the more . . . troubling elements that have grown up within the CIA and other agencies in the last few decades.”

Dan noticed a waiter heading over so he picked up the card and slipped it into his pocket. They watched in silence as the waiter put down Dan’s drinks. Then Patrick raised his cognac.

“To old times?”

Dan nodded, giving him that, and said, “To old times.” They touched glasses and drank. Dan held the cognac in his mouth for a few seconds, the flavor and fire vying with each other, then swallowed it and said, “So you’re poacher turned gamekeeper?”

“Actually, that’s what I’m hoping you might become. By the way, did you pick up Ramon Martinez?”

“Never heard of him.” He waited a beat. “Unless you’re talking about the former Venezuelan Defense Minister—he was called Martinez, wasn’t he?”

Patrick smiled and said, “I guessed it was you. As it happens, he was a good man, not that we cared either way once he went into hiding. Still, on balance, shame you had to find him.”

Dan saw a flashback of Martinez strolling along the street with his son, laughing and talking about the things that mattered in the boy’s world. And he couldn’t help but remember the child holding his own hand, the soft pad of his footsteps next to him as he’d taken him home.

But still he said, “If you’d paid me not to find him, I wouldn’t have found him. I’m a business, not a charity.”

“Which, of course, is why I’m here. I need help, specialist help, and even before the recent . . . Well, what I mean is I know commissions from the CIA dried up with the Arab Spring.”

“I’m not sure how much help I could be. It seems I’m on a list, and I’m guessing I’m pretty well near the top by now.” Patrick nodded, his expression grim, as if the current situation grieved him. “What’s going on, Patrick? What happened?”

“WikiLeaks happened. Edward Snowden happened. The paradigm shifted. The reason they used you—
I
used you—in the past is the very reason they want to shut you down now—deniability.”

“They’re taking down everyone who worked on the dark side? That’s a lot of people.”

“Not everyone, but a lot. In my view, it’s insane, but I know all too well how things like this happen—call it a concerted attempt to future-proof what’s left of the agency’s reputation.”

Dan nodded, sipped at his coffee, and said, “Makes sense.”

Patrick laughed in response, saying, “That’s it? No moral outrage?”

Dan shrugged.

“I’d probably do the same if I were them. Doesn’t mean I’ll let them do it, but I think I lost any right to moral outrage a long time ago.” Patrick looked ready to object, but Dan said, “Patrick, you paid me to track people down and make them disappear, either to a country and facility of your choice or off the face of the earth.”

“Yes, dangerous people, people who’d done despicable things.”

“Maybe, but that description applies to us too—if it didn’t they wouldn’t need to silence us now.” Patrick leaned back in his chair, conceding the point. “So, you said you need my help.”

“I’m hoping we can help each other.”

He took a newspaper from his overcoat and opened it out. It was an old
International Herald Tribune
, a few weeks old. Patrick turned the pages and folded it, placing the paper in front of Dan.

It was a story he vaguely remembered seeing himself, a story of unusual heroism. The two pictures said it all really. One showed the mangled wreckage of a bus and a timber truck in northern Sweden, barely recognizable as the vehicles they’d once been. The other showed the face of a pretty teenager, a girl who, almost miraculously, had been saved by a fellow passenger and had walked out of that wreckage unscathed.

Chapter Seven

Having brought the story to Dan’s attention, Patrick seemed to ignore it now and said, “The operation that’s targeting you is being run out of an office in Berlin. Not an office I was ever familiar with. It seems autonomous; we’re struggling to get information on them and even people I used to count as friends are being evasive about its activities. What I do know is that it’s headed up by someone called Bill Brabham.”

“Yeah, that much I already know.”

Patrick looked puzzled, perhaps impressed, but continued, “He was the Paris station chief for years. I never liked him, always thought he was a bad apple.”

“I’m guessing other people don’t share your view.”

“Not the right people.” Dan understood the implication—Brabham was clearly well connected. “I want to put a stop to what Brabham’s doing, and the ODNI sees it as a priority to rein in this kind of program, but it isn’t easy. That’s where I’m hoping you might come in, and this . . .” He tapped his hand on the newspaper story. “This could be the way to get at them. You might have seen it in the news a couple of weeks back. A bus crashed into a timber truck in northern Sweden—both drivers were killed, and four passengers on the bus, including three school kids.”

“Yeah, I remember it. The girl in the picture survived, saved by one of the other passengers.”

“That’s right, a guy in his late forties or early fifties. He was killed, of course, and he was carrying ID marking him as a French national, Jacques Fillon. Trouble is, there’s no such person. He’s been living in a house in the woods up there for the last twelve years, but no one knows who he is. Apparently he spoke pretty good Swedish, but the guy in the local store said that when he first arrived he spoke English with an American accent.”

“Doesn’t mean he was an American. Nothing in the house to suggest his true identity?”

“Nothing—he was living a pretty simple life.”

Dan thought about it, then said, “Okay, you’ve got me—a guy who might or might not be an American, who’s now dead, has been living under an assumed name in the middle of nowhere for twelve years, and you want me to find out who he was. Why? How does this connect to Bill Brabham? More importantly, how does it get Bill Brabham and his team off my back?”

Patrick finished his coffee in a single gulp, and said, “Bear with me.” He seemed to be relishing this now, as if he didn’t enjoy his new role in the ODNI as much as he’d hoped he would, and this was reminding him of more interesting times. “Both the CIA and FBI were sent pictures of the guy and all the markers. The FBI ran it but didn’t come up with anything. The CIA said the same, but then one of their guys flew up there and took a look around the house. And this place isn’t easy to get to—it’s up north of Råneå. What really piqued our interest is that the guy who went up there wasn’t based in Stockholm . . .”

“Let me guess, he was one of Bill Brabham’s men.”

“Exactly. We’ve been hitting a brick wall ever since, but we’re pretty certain Bill Brabham knows exactly who Jacques Fillon was. So I want you to find out the same, and find out why Brabham’s so keen to keep the information under wraps.”

“You had access to the same prints, the same profile?”

Patrick nodded but said, “And drew a blank. All the systems we could access suggest the guy never existed.”

Somebody came into the café, a guy in his thirties, but he immediately started laughing and joking in French with a couple of the regulars and Dan relaxed.

“So you’re hoping I find out something that’ll undermine Brabham. Two questions. Firstly, why don’t you look into it yourself? You must have resources.”

“The same reason I used you in the past—deniability. As I suggested earlier, Brabham has a lot of support, and the ODNI needs to build its case in the dark if we’ve any hope of shutting him down. The other thing is that I do have resources, but not the kind I need for this. Finance, not a problem, great legal minds, not a problem, researchers, you name it. But someone like you?”

“Okay.” Dan looked back down at the newspaper story. It was intriguing, who the guy was, why he’d gone up there, what he’d been running from, but intrigue on its own wasn’t enough, and nor was the money, not in the current climate. “Second question. Give me a good reason why I should do this. I could just go after Brabham myself.”

“You could. It wouldn’t be easy, but you’d stand a chance, I guess. Trouble is, you know the reality—working on your own, you might cut a head off the Hydra but it’ll grow back. If we work together we go for the heart.”

“Nice analogy.”

Patrick smiled, and waited a moment before saying, “So you’ll do it?”

It was an easy choice, because Dan would rather be doing anything than sitting around trying to work out who was coming for him and how. But there was something interesting here, and he believed Patrick’s assessment—if Brabham was hiding something, they could disrupt his operation by uncovering his secret, even if they didn’t manage to shut it down.

Of course, that would only apply if they succeeded. And even then, in the meantime, it could well lead to Dan attracting more fire. Whatever the arguments, Patrick had come to him for a reason, and he guessed his chances of survival might be marginally higher working for the ODNI than out on his own.

Perhaps, ultimately, it came down to whether or not he could trust Patrick, and even a short time in his company had been enough to convince him that his instincts had been right. Whether this job would save him was another matter, but apart from Charlie, Dan suspected Patrick White might be the only person in the world he could trust to help him right now.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

“I knew I could count on you, Dan.”

“Well, I’m still alive.”

“It’s a start.” He reached into his pocket and placed a USB stick and a British passport on the table. “All the background we have is on there. UK passport in the name of David Porter. Your contact in the Swedish Security Service will probably need to know who you are, but we’ll use the alias for most of the others.”

“What if the Swedes share the information with Langley, let them know what you’re up to?”

“They won’t. I still have some influence. I assume you’ll want to go up to Fillon’s place to begin with, see where the trail starts, and I can arrange for your baggage to bypass Security for that trip, but thereafter it might be better if you make your own arrangements.”

“I always have in the past.”

“The CIA wasn’t trying to kill you in the past.”

Dan nodded, put the passport and USB stick in his pocket, and drank the rest of the cognac. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d just agreed to, and wasn’t really sure what he’d expected out of this meeting anyway. He certainly hadn’t expected a trip to northern Sweden but, on the positive side, he doubted Brabham would ever think of looking for him there either.

Chapter Eight

Dan was met off the plane at Arlanda by a guy called Henrik Andresen from the Swedish Security Service. He was in his forties, looked older, and came across like a slightly rumpled high school teacher.

He addressed Dan as Mr. Porter, then as David. They bypassed Security, headed to a small spare office which had the feel of an interview room, and Andresen brought him coffee and pastries.

They stayed there for just under an hour, Andresen talking primarily about the weather and how much colder Dan might expect to find it up in the north. At no point did he refer to the job or Dan’s position.

When his next flight was ready, Andresen carried out the same courtesies in reverse. Then, with some relief on Dan’s part, he said goodbye to him, explaining that another colleague would meet him in the north.

Dan sat by the window for the hour or so of the internal flight and, as he looked down at the seemingly endless landscape of lakes and forests, he could understand more than ever why someone would choose rural Sweden for a hideout. If it hadn’t been for the accident, he doubted anyone would have ever found Jacques Fillon.

Maybe that’s what it would take to secure his own future too, if Patrick’s plan didn’t work. He imagined himself falling off the grid the way Fillon had, but wasn’t sure he had it in him. True, he’d stayed out of reach one way or another for most of his adult life, but he’d also stayed on the move, and was less confident that he’d ever be able to settle permanently into some rural idyll.

Of course, he didn’t know what Fillon had been running from, or what kind of person he’d been. Maybe he’d been one of life’s natural loners, maybe he’d been a keen hunter or birdwatcher, or had possessed some other interest to explain the move. Or maybe he’d just been afraid enough to put up with it.

There was a woman waiting for Dan as he left the plane. She was in casual clothes, pretty and fair, a sporty leanness about her, almost too Scandinavian. He’d hoped she was there to meet him as soon as he’d spotted her, and it felt like a lucky break when she met his gaze and smiled, saying, “Welcome to Luleå, Mr. Hendricks.”

She knew his name, which felt like it mattered somehow, and he stepped aside from the other exiting passengers and said, “Thanks, and call me Dan.”

She shook his hand, saying, “Inger Bengtsson, from the Security Service. I know Patrick White quite well. Please, follow me.”

They started walking. She had the sing-song voice that he was used to from Swedes speaking English, but also a brusque matter-of-fact quality that he liked.

“Are you based here, Inger?”

“No, I flew up from Stockholm, on an earlier flight.”

“I thought you had an office in Umeå, covering the north.”

“We do.” She smiled, making clear she didn’t see a need to explain herself. He liked her more for that.

Once outside, she pointed to a uniformed policeman standing next to a patrol car and as they reached him, she said, “This is Per Forsberg, from the local police—he drove down to collect us. This is Dan.”

Dan couldn’t help smiling to himself as he shook hands with the policeman, because she’d introduced him as Dan, not David Porter. That’s what he got for relying on Patrick White to arrange his alias.

Per put Dan’s case in the car next to Inger’s and they drove out of the airport.

Dan and Inger were sitting in the back and as he looked out of the window he said, “Is it far?”

“I think about forty-five minutes, maybe a little more—I’ve never been there before now.” He began to wonder if her brusqueness might not be as friendly as he’d first imagined, fearing perhaps that she and her colleagues even resented whatever pressure Patrick had brought to bear in order to have them babysit Dan on this trip. But she gave a smile now and said, “What about you? I guess you must have been to Sweden before, but have you ever been this far north?”

“Actually, this is my first time in Sweden.”

He studied her reaction, trying to judge whether or not she knew he was lying, but she only smiled warmly and said, “It’s your loss.”

“I’m sure. And I should have come here before. I think my dad’s great-grandfather was Swedish.”

“I didn’t know that. Your dad’s American?”

“Was.”

“Of course, sorry. And you’re a dual national, US and UK.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

She wasn’t interested in playing games, though, and seemed genuinely curious as she said, “Which do you feel most, American or English?”

“Oh, equal parts of neither. I’ve never really lived in either country for very long, spent my childhood in Bermuda, Switzerland, Hong Kong, attended international schools. I don’t belong anywhere in particular.”

She nodded, looking intrigued by his description, then said, “Maybe this man we’re going to investigate, maybe he was the same. It seems he lived here a long time and no one missed him. Even now, no one wants to claim him.”

Dan hadn’t thought of that. The guy’s body was lying in a morgue, probably destined for a final resting place even more unmarked and unloved than his own would be one day.

But now Per tuned into the conversation, looking in the rearview as he said, “The people from the village want to bury him, if no one else claims the body. He saved that girl’s life.”

Dan nodded, once again reassessing their comparative places in the world. Whatever Jacques Fillon’s life had been like, he’d at least ended it with something good, a selfless act of heroism. From the report he’d read, the guy might have saved himself if he’d invested the same amount of effort, the same swift response. But he’d reached out to the nearest person and saved her instead.

They drove through Råneå, a pretty little town lined with birch trees that caught the sunlight and gave the place a feel of spring rather than October.

“What a beautiful place.” Even as he said it though, he could imagine how younger people dreamed only of leaving it, and how easily he would go insane there, his own nomadic history leaving him incapable of ever being part of this kind of community.

As if hearing his thoughts, Inger said, “Yes, it’s quiet. There are no suitable hotels here and the village has nothing, but someone has provided us with a guest cabin they use in the summer for tourists. It should be fine for a couple of days and we can walk from there to the victim’s house, so we don’t need Per the whole time.”

Dan nodded, his mind jumping forward, imagining a couple of days in a cabin with Inger. Briefly, those thoughts were fanciful, noticing her slender frame and small breasts beneath her lambswool sweater, a ballet dancer’s physique.

It was fleeting, before the more practical reality hit home. It was possible they would be there for a couple of nights and he couldn’t imagine there would be much in the way of entertainment. He was used to shacking up in all kinds of places but rubbing along with another person was a different story. She seemed pleasant enough, but he could easily imagine them running out of things to say within an hour or so.

There was no doubting she was attractive. But even on the outside chance that she’d be interested, he had to concentrate his attentions on Jacques Fillon, on who he was and why he’d run all the way up here, on the reasons Brabham and his people had shown an interest.

In one way or another, Dan had bought into Patrick’s argument, that the truths buried in Fillon’s past might just provide the bargaining power to guarantee his own security. So that was the key, to focus on that. And besides, two days together in a cabin might be his idea of a fantasy scenario, but he somehow doubted that it would be Inger’s.