Anger Mode (19 page)

Jerry scratched his head thoughtfully. This was beginning to get too complicated, even for him. Personally, he wanted to put a bullet in the forehead of the sucker and then go home and train. But he couldn’t. They had promised to retrieve the evidence – at least the fucking lanky git had promised – and a reputation for breaking contracts would mean a bad start for their future business. It would in fact kill their newly launched enterprise. Tor and Jerry would be shunned like the plague and branded as unreliable. Nobody would want to have any contact with them, not even with a barge pole and protective gloves, except for Haxhi Osmanaj who was dying to get his hands on them. Preferably around their necks. Why the fuck had they taken this job?

“There is another alternative,” Jörgen suggested and stood up from the toilet on shaking legs.

“Yes, that we liquidate you,” Jerry answered and glared at Jörgen with coal-black eyes.

“That’s also an option,” Jörgen agreed. “However, it doesn’t sound so appealing to me.”

Both criminals stared blankly at Jörgen.

“What I wanted to say was this,” Jörgen continued and contrived a weak smile. “I will double whatever you’re being paid for this job.”

A brief silence in the bathroom.

“Do you think we’re completely daft in the head?” Jerry exclaimed, while glancing instinctively at Tor.

“Absolutely not,” Jörgen insisted in a hesitant voice. “But what alternative do you have?” He made a silent prayer to avoid getting the mop handle speared through his head. Jerry’s brow wrinkled in thought. He needed to think, but his brain seized up. It was impossible to concentrate in this company. No matter how much he tried to analyse the situation, his train of thought ended up somewhere else. Right now, he was thinking of his and Tor’s previous employer, Haxhi Osmanaj. To have the Albanian mafia after your head was not exactly without its difficulties. They were between a rock and a hard place. Whatever they did, they would get really burned if they could not successfully deliver that video to the buyer, according to their deal. They could hardly return their advance and say that they had failed, or screw the original client by letting themselves be bought by the mark. Their newly formed crew, called the Original Fuckers, currently with only themselves as members, would be as popular as an electric eel in your swimming trunks. Jerry needed to sleep on the problem and clear his head of the day’s confusion. But before that, he would do a late leg-development routine at the gym. He had neglected his thighs lately.

“OK, this is what we do,” Jerry suggested when he had finished thinking. “I need to get some shuteye. We’ll tidy up the bastard and take him to the garage. Then we’ll figure out what to do with him tomorrow.”

Jerry grabbed Jörgen and shoved him towards the washbasin. “Wash the blood off your face,” he ordered and cut the restraining bands with pliers. Jörgen rinsed the blood from his face and dried himself on Sebastian’s hand towel. He needed to feel the scent of Sebastian. Right now, he missed him immeasurably. He pulled the comb through his curly hair a few times and felt that he was beginning to get control of the situation. These two were not the sharpest criminal minds he had encountered and that could be his salvation.

Tor had become surly. Jerry had not consulted him about how they were going to handle the situation at all, but had instead taken the decision himself, just like that, out of thin air. It was high time to show Jerry what he thought about it.

“Stop,” Tor said in a cold voice.

Jerry, who was on his way out of the bathroom, stopped short and turned around, surprised.

“To get into the safety deposit box, we need a key. Or what?” Tor began.

Jerry looked impatiently at Tor, who had sat back down on the edge of the bathtub.

“Of course,” Jerry answered irritatedly, although he had actually forgotten about the key.

“But where’s the key?” Tor asked, looking from Jerry to Jörgen.

“How the fuck should I know?” Jerry answered, glaring at Jörgen.

“Give us the key to the deposit box, you fucking pile of shit,” Tor said and moved towards Jörgen.

“I have it on me, actually,” Jörgen answered politely.

“You have it?” Tor repeated, surprised.

“Here it is,” Jörgen said and held up a small, heart-shaped locket that hung around his neck. “The key is inside.”

Tor examined the locket that Jörgen was holding.

“There is just a small problem,” Jörgen informed him.

“What’s that?” Tor grunted.

“The key is for a safety deposit box, where I keep the key to another deposit box where the video is stashed. And that deposit box is in another bank.”

At first, Tor looked as if Jörgen was speaking another language. Then, he exploded. “You’re making everything so fucking messed up. I’m going to fucking beat you to death!” he screamed and made as if to punch Jörgen, who crouched down.

“We’re going to do as I said,” Jerry intervened. Tor’s lower lip was trembling with rage.

Jerry pushed Jörgen out of the bathroom while also keeping an eye on Tor’s fist. He could not be fully trusted.

“If you try anything, I will cut your throat. Understand?” Jerry glared long and hard at Jörgen.

Jörgen nodded to indicate that the message was understood.

They left the demolished flat and took the lift down to the foyer. As they emerged onto Odengatan, they saw that darkness had fallen and there were few people out in the chilly autumn evening. The street was almost deserted.

They started to walk towards the car that Jerry had illegally parked on the corner of Birger Jarlsgatan and Odengatan. A parked car suddenly switched on its headlights and drove slowly behind them. Tor saw that it was a newly registered, dark blue BMW 5 Series, but because of the dark he could not see the driver in the blacked-out interior. From force of habit, he kept watching the car from the corner of his eye. Not because he was suspicious about anything; it was just a paranoid habit that he could not control. Nobody knew his and Jerry’s whereabouts, except for the go-between who had given them Jörgen’s address.

They had only a few metres left before they reached the stolen Volvo V70, which was today’s means of transport, when the BMW quickly began to accelerate. The dark-tinted rear window slid down and, at the same instant, Tor saw a weapon inside the gloom of the interior. “Get down!” Tor roared and threw himself at Jerry and Jörgen, who were a step ahead of him. All three of them fell in a heap on the pavement behind a parked Opel. A muffled automatic thudding could be heard from inside the BMW as someone emptied a magazine from an Uzi with a silencer. The bullets smashed through the car windows and hit the house wall behind them, ricocheting loudly.

The sound of the Uzi stopped abruptly and a car door opened. Footsteps sounded on the street.

Jerry was the first to recover from the shock. “Chri-ist! Son of a bitch!” he roared and rolled over onto his back. From the trouser lining of his light-grey jogging pants, he tore out a Kel-Tec P-3AT pistol. It was small enough to fit into the palm of a normal-sized hand. He stretched out his arm and shot blindly five times in rapid succession through the Opel’s shattered side windows, in what he thought was the direction of the BMW. They sounded more like small firecrackers than pistol shots.

Jörgen covered his ears and pressed himself against the ground as hard as he could. He was not sure if what he was experiencing was real or if he was still unconscious and in the middle of a bad dream. In all probability, he was awake, because his trousers were now wet and warm. He had wet himself.

Suddenly, he heard a rapid stream of loud explosions. It was Tor, who was kneeling on one knee and emptying his automatic Desert Eagle Mark XIX at the BMW. The lack of strength in Tor’s arms made him unable to control the weapon, which was soon pointing straight up in the air. But it was more than enough. The BMW made its getaway, its tyres screeching.

Tor shook from the strain of the Desert Eagle’s powerful recoil. Basically, he had only sinews to rely on and had the stamina of an eighty year old. He stared at the house wall, where the bullets had hit, and decided that he had missed the BMW with every shot. The car had stopped about six metres away from them and he had still missed it by a large margin. Actually, it looked as if he had been aiming at something else.

Jerry at least seemed to have been successful in hitting the BMW.

Tor scratched his chin, thinking. His newly acquired automatic pistol was a difficult piece to master, especially in automatic mode. He would have to practise more.

“Hell, we have to get out of here before the cops show up,” Jerry yelled. He was pale and his voice was shaking.

Tor stumbled over to the stolen car. It seemed to have survived the rain of bullets. He tore open the driver’s door and sat behind the wheel, racing the engine.

Jerry cast a quick glance at Jörgen, who was laying face down on the pavement, trembling in a pool of his own urine. He heard the fat bastard let out a whimpering sound. After giving it some quick thought, he decided not to try to drag Jörgen with him into the car. The way it looked now, he would be more of a liability than anything else. Everything had changed with this shootout. Something was just not right.

“We’ll be back!” Jerry hissed as he ran to the getaway car.

C
HAPTER 14

THERE ARE OCCASIONS in life when one wishes one was never born. This was exactly how Jörgen felt as he stood up on trembling legs after the gunfight. The saying “from the frying pan into the fire” could not more aptly describe what he thought of recent events. His head was exploding and his body shook from the shock of the gunfight. It actually lasted only a few seconds, but had seemed to last an eternity. What had just happened? An internal dispute in the crime world? Had the madmen in the car been after him or was it the two thugs that they wanted to kill?

Right now, Jörgen wished that he had never tried to blackmail the police mole. He gazed around, aimlessly. Strangely, there were no people on the street except for an old lady who, completely oblivious to the gang shootout, was walking her dachshund farther down the street. Surely, somebody must have heard the shots echo between the walls. He looked up at the windows facing the street. Some were lit, but most were dark. A middle-aged man in a white Saab 9-5 passed by Jörgen as if nothing had happened. Then a young couple emerged from a doorway. The man held his arm around the woman as they walked towards Sveavägen. She was laughing and seemed happy. Jörgen felt the tears well up inside him. He limped back to the entrance to his block of flats while fighting back the tears. He had injured his knee when the skinny one had roughly wrestled him to the pavement. He had probably saved the lives of both Jörgen and his Finnish partner with that tackle. A strange thought, but that was exactly what had happened. His life had been saved by his own assassin.

Just as he was about to open the entrance door, he paused. He carefully touched the swelling around his eye. It felt like red-hot pins and needles. He did not dare to touch his nose. He only had to look at his reflection in the door’s glass panel to relive the pain. There was little doubt that his nose was broken. It was swollen, mainly on one side, he noticed. He looked terrible. Borderline grotesque – that was how Sebastian would have described him. He slowly started to come out of the initial shock.

Why was he standing here at the entrance and what was he going home for?

For a start, he had practically no home left to return to and besides, he needed medical attention – A&E, at that. His face burned and was so painful that he did not know if he could keep himself from fainting. The longer he examined himself in the door pane, the weaker he felt.

Jörgen heard the sirens drawing nearer from different directions. Soon, the police would be here. Apparently, somebody had either seen or heard the gunfight. That was only to be expected. He considered his situation and decided that it would be best to visit a hospital as soon as possible. Perhaps someone was standing in a window, watching Jörgen right now with telephone in hand and talking directly to the police. If he went inside the entrance, the police would soon be swarming up the stairway. They would be going door to door, and those who did not open up would get a visit anyway. That was the procedure when dealing with serious villains. Talking to the police was the last thing he wanted to do now. He was in deep shit, as they say.

He had been punished just like the other two. Lennart Ekwall, the arrogant prosecutor who had refused to listen to any entreaties, now stood himself as the accused before the tribunal. A powerful emotion overwhelmed him as he saw the evil-doers escorted from their homes in handcuffs. He felt no remorse, nothing that deterred him. This was how vengeance felt and he knew that his was righteous. The hatred burned within him with an ever-stronger flame.

She was speaking to him again.

WALTER SEEMED ALMOST apathetic after Jonna had dispensed with official channels and told him he was suspended from duty, pending an internal investigation that would start as soon as he was discharged from the hospital.

“It’s not the first time this has happened, you know,” Walter said and tried to downplay the gravity of the situation.

“No, I can see that,” Jonna said and smiled awkwardly. “But it could be the most serious infringement.”

Walter looked inquiringly at Jonna. “What do you base that on?”

Jonna squirmed. “Lilja said that this is one time too many. You have used up your favours and so on.”

“Really? Is that what he said?” Walter remarked dryly. “Anyway, I haven’t received an official notification yet. Which
de facto
means that I’m still a detective with the CID. And before I have the notification in my hand, I can initiate a new investigation. Which is what I intend to do. With or without Lilja and definitely without the phony detectives at SÄPO.” He reached determinedly for his mobile phone, which lay on the bedside table.

“What are you doing?” Jonna asked.

“I’m going to become a pain,” Walter said. “A chronic pain.”

“You’re calling …”

“Julén.” Walter filled in the blank.

Walter, however, never got the chance to use his phone. Without knocking, an older man man strode through the door to the hospital room. He was wearing a long, black wool coat, well-pressed trousers, and shoes polished to a mirror shine. The man observed Walter dispassionately for a few seconds before breaking out in a smile.

“Walter, Walter,” he admonished and moved to the centre of the room. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

“This is just what I don’t need right now,” Walter muttered and put his phone down.

“You know why I’m here,” the man greeted him and walked over to the bed.

“Straight to business like a tart’s punter and with the charm of an iceberg,” Walter stated.

“Let me guess,” the man said.

“Please do,” Walter answered.

“Could you possibly be referring to me?” the man said.

“You’ve always been very self-aware,” Walter laughed sarcastically.

Both men sized each other up for a few seconds. Jonna watched, surprised by the icy chill that was obvious between them. Finally, the visitor backed down.

“Do I need to explain the grounds for the decision?” he asked in a tense voice. His smile gave way to a stern expression.

Walter nodded. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“In the first place, you have performed illegal searches of both the national identity and the criminal records databases.”

“Who hasn’t done that?” Walter countered. “That became common practice back in the days of the Olof Palme investigation. Go on.”

“Then we have the complaint from the Drug Squad, who maintain that you sabotaged two years of undercover operations by not consulting them before you shook down all known associates to the pimp Kenneth Haglund, now on trial for murder.”

“For God’s sake, he had beaten a tart to death. What should I have done? Waited until the Drug Squad gave us permission to investigate a murder? They just lost a few drug dealers in the operation. I pointed that out when they came complaining to Lilja. Two small-fry dealers against one murderer. What other choice did I have?”

“Don’t look at me,” the man said and shrugged apologetically. “I’m just the messenger.”

“As a former murder detective, you would do exactly the same,” Walter said with some bitterness.

The man just shook his head. “Do you keep them there?” he asked and looked at the cupboard standing in the corner of the room.

Walter nodded.

The man served Walter some papers, went over to the cupboard and started to poke around in his clothes.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself,” Jonna said and went towards the person she assumed was from Internal Affairs. She had felt invisible ever since this comedian had marched into the room.

“Not necessary,” he said curtly. “I already know who you are.”

Jonna looked at the man, as surprised as she was irritated.

“But I don’t actually know who you are,” she replied and took a step towards to the man.

“Lindström, Internal Affairs,” muttered the man as he searched through Walter’s clothes.

“Stay away from him,” Walter said from his bed. “Above all, don’t shake his hand. He’s as friendly as an electric fence.”

Jonna said nothing and instead sat in the visitor’s chair. Internal Affairs was not exactly known for having the most convivial personalities on the police force. Investigating colleagues obviously required a certain type of mindset. There was, perhaps, a method in their madness. A trait that was needed to prevent them from empathizing with colleagues whom they were charged with investigating. The pressure on them was not insignificant. Still, that alone did not excuse his behaviour.

The man picked out the shoulder holster with Walter’s service weapon, a Sig Sauer, and removed the magazine. In a practised manner, he pulled back the slide to ensure that the chamber was clear of any rounds. For safety’s sake, he double-checked Walter’s pockets for any extra magazines or rounds that he might have. From the wallet, which he found hidden deep down in one of Walter’s Ecco loafers, he removed the police ID and the badge. He put everything in a transparent evidence bag and sealed it.

“Right then,” he said and approached Walter. He quickly examined the notification papers and Walter’s scribbled signature. Then he signed a receipt confirming that Walter’s weapon and police ID had been taken into his custody. Finally, he wished them a good day and left the room as quickly as he had entered.

“I’ve known that man for many years,” Walter exclaimed as soon as the door had closed behind Lindström. “We’ve worked together more than once. We actually worked together during the Södermalm riots many years ago. A really smug bastard.”

“But now he’s at IA,” Jonna interrupted.

“Yes, but this doesn’t change anything really,” Walter explained. “I’ll make sure that there will be a new investigation, based on the memo I wrote. Even with this small hiccup, I can start working on Lilja and Julén, and Lilja at least eventually does what he’s told,” Walter concluded.

Jonna started to protest, but checked herself. That Walter no longer was on the force was really his problem. That he also believed that he could get a new investigation started sounded more like fantasy than reality. How could a detective at the CID possibly convince SÄPO and the Chief Prosecutor to open yet another investigation on Drug-X?

At any rate, Jonna would do what she could to persuade her supervisor to forward a memo to SÄPO, about why the terrorist theory could not be a feasible one. She would instead suggest that someone convicted in the courts was seeking revenge on the District Prosecutor and the court jury. Even if that theory was not completely plausible, it was the most probable of the two. Even Walter agreed on that.

IT WAS PAST two in the morning when Jonna, for the seventh time, gave up any hope of sleeping. With her eyes fixed on a spider on the ceiling and brooding about how she was going to phrase the report to her supervisor at RSU, she was once again trapped in a mental loop. The report should not sound too far-fetched. It had to be a balanced mix of facts and qualified assumptions that led to a final conclusion, which pointed to one or several perpetrators, who could be traced through the court cases handled by the relevant jurors and the District Prosecutor. Certainly, there were gaps in her theory about the perpetrator’s method, but those questions would be answered by an investigation, if it were given adequate resources. The problem Jonna faced was SÄPO, which was now leading the ongoing operation with Åsa Julén in charge of the preliminary investigation. Jonna bit her lower lip, thinking it over.

THE MEMO THAT Jonna proposed to her supervisor was forwarded, registered and archived at SÄPO without any further action. Johan Hildebrandt was so alarmed by the total radio silence that he had to check whether his memo had been received by the addressees, which it had. However, nobody paid it any attention. Not even the Prosecutor’s Office had bothered to send a reply. Julén deferred to SÄPO, where the memo seemed to have disappeared into a black hole.

TOR HEDMAN TURNED
into the parking space by Danderyd’s hospital and parked the car. He was shaking from the aftershock of the gunfight.

“Fucking hell. That was so bloody close,” he said, shaken, and lit a
Prince
cigarette. His hand trembling, he took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke through his nose. Jerry glared contemptuously at Tor. Smokers were not only daft in the head, they smelled like fucking ashtrays too. And the passive smoker was just as much at risk as the idiot sitting with a coffin nail stuck in his cakehole. Jerry grabbed the cigarette from Tor’s mouth and tossed it out of the car window. “Oy! I told you to bloody lay off smoking in the car,” Jerry growled.

“But I …”

“No fucking buts,” Jerry interrupted. “We bloody nearly got our skulls filled with lead. We have to think now. Don’t you get it?”

Tor silently swore to himself: he was being denied a smoke in the car even after they had barely avoided being smoked themselves.

“Just listen,” Jerry went on. “What happened on Odengatan was a good thing. So bloody good that I could even kiss …” Jerry dug deep into his memory to find someone to swap spit with, but came up empty.

Tor looked in amazement at Jerry, who apparently was rapt in intense thought.

“This is too fucking good to be true,” Jerry finally said, and slammed his fist into the glove compartment so that the door flew open.