Anger Mode (29 page)

“How does the back door work and what’s the Von Dy group?” Jonna asked, now more interested in Serge’s achievements.

“Von Dy is the name of a world in cyberspace that I and a number of hackers created a few years ago. We belong to no state or society; we’re completely autonomous. Physically, I sit here in the south of Stockholm. But in reality, I live in Von Dy’s cyberworld where I also count for something. I have no use for the society outside these four walls.”

“What’s the weather like in there?” Jörgen joked, looking at the computers.

Serge pretended not to hear. “A back door is exactly that. One can enter the system without using the main entrance, which, in this case, checks the security levels, passwords and traceability. You can compare it to a secret passage that allows you to creep in and look at as much information as you want without being registered or detected. You can even add or delete information.”

“Sweet,” Jörgen said, impressed. “I’d love to learn how to use that back door.”

“That will never happen,” Serge replied dryly.

Jonna was becoming uneasy about Serge’s skills. What Serge had just bragged about was a very serious matter. It was not just a question of “borrowing” and using a few colleagues’ log-in identities or getting a little help from one of Walter’s friends in the police IT department. It was much more than that. If what he was saying was true, then Serge could have full control of the criminal records database and God-knows-what other regulatory systems. How could that be possible? And what kind of leverage did Walter have on this guy that made him so eager to spill details about his criminal activities in the world of information technology? What agreement did Serge have with Walter that enabled him to sit in his sleazy flat with no fear of reprisal for his hacking activities?

She was being sucked deeper into these illegal practices. The very foundation of the justice system was at risk if any single person could walk in and out of a back door in the criminal records database and change records at will. A key stroke could turn innocent people into criminals and criminals could be as clean as whistles. Of course, there were other databases to cross-check the records against – for example, the courts and other law enforcement institutions – but still. This exposed how vulnerable the modern IT society was.

“I don’t understand,” Jörgen said. “Why are you telling us all this? What we now know could be used against you. For me, as a journalist, this is a huge exclusive. Even sensational. What’s to stop me from calling the news desk right now?”

“Well, for one thing, there’s me,” Jonna said sharply and fixed her golden-brown eyes on him.

Serge smiled slightly and answered as if he had been posed the question before. “You can always try. First of all, nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to find any evidence that can tie me to anything remotely associated to hacking. I never leave a single byte of information. And second, my brothers and sisters in Von Dy would make your life hell for the foreseeable future.”

“What type of hell are we talking about?” Jörgen asked, sceptical.

Serge extended his thumb. “One: your credit cards will be unusable and will also be cloned and used elsewhere all over the world for all sorts of dubious transactions. Two: rumours and computer-manipulated images depicting you in compromising situations – let’s say, sex orgies with cocaine-powdered noses – will be sent to every inbox at your workplace and to your personal circle of friends. Three: the tax authorities will be chasing you for massive tax evasion, since you will suddenly have an account in an offshore bank with a considerable amount of money that ‘coincidentally’ can be traced to mafia activities in, let’s see, the Baltic states. And if you’re really unlucky, you may find yourself linked to something more serious, like a murder or a paedophile ring. I could make this list very long, but I’m sure you get the point.”

Jörgen looked unconvinced. “I don’t know if I believe all of that. That sort of thing only exists in films.”

“The only way to find out for sure is to test him,” Jonna said with a wry grin. “Do you have a favourite park bench that I can reserve for you?”

Jörgen clammed up.

“Let’s return to the actual procedure to get inside the criminal records database,” Serge said and went over to one of the desks. “I have built what I call microrouters. This little device is, as you can see, no larger than a mobile phone, but contains an Octeon microprocessor, RAM, or memory, and a huge flash disk. It also has two ethernet ports that are connected to the local area network, or LAN, that the database is also connected to.”

Jonna nodded. “Say no more; I think I understand. Not the technical part, but the purpose of that microrouter. It gets plugged into the network of the criminal records database and can therefore hack the system. In other words, I am going to be a Trojan horse.”

Serge smiled. “Not entirely wrong. You will place the microrouter between your office computer and the network wall socket. As the unit has a small GSM module for GPRS, which is the same as mobile surfing, I will call the microrouter using a normal phone and enter a PIN code. The device will then automatically dial up a mobile operator network and log into a server, set up by me and located somewhere on the other side of the world, using the GPRS connection. In that way, I can communicate with the microrouter, using the internet anywhere in the world. All that I need is a SIM card for a pre-paid mobile internet service. Even though GPRS is partially encrypted, you can never be sure what the FRA, the Swedish version of the American NSA, is up to nowadays. They can quite easily eavesdrop on GPRS traffic and have become quite proficient at sticking their noses into everybody’s business on the internet.

“Naturally, I borrow IP addresses from hacked PCs all over the world, so it’s impossible to trace me.”

“Aren’t you being a bit paranoid?” Jörgen joked, but quickly stifled a chuckle when he realized that no one was listening.

Jonna examined the microrouter that made it possible to hack the criminal records database with a certain amount of fascination. “But that means that you will also be connected to the network when I access the database?”

“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid,” Serge answered with a grin. “You can’t hack the database from your office computer. It’s not used for anything except to provide a clone identity for me. In other words, I copy and borrow your computer’s identity. In order to get in via the back door to the database itself, I must first be able to enter the net work of the criminal records database unnoticed. To put it another way, before breaking into a mansion using a small basement window, I have to check that I can drive up to the house without getting stopped by a security guard.”

“Have you done this before?”

“A few times,” Serge answered.

“With Walter?”

“Maybe.”

Jonna stood up and went over to one of the computer desks. She stroked one of the screens with her hand while her thoughts spun in her head. “How great is the risk of getting caught?”

Serge shrugged. “Well, apart from the risk that someone sees the microrouter in your office, it’s almost non-existent.”

“This is tantamount to espionage,” Jonna said quietly to herself.

She went over to one of the grimy windows and looked down at Ringvägen and the sparse traffic below. Her thoughts turned to the police academy and what she had learned there, what the instructors had said about being misled by veteran colleagues. She also thought about what Walter had said and done and, most of all, about his dedication even though he was suspended and risked being brought up on charges. Why would he do that? What was his motivation, other than the slim possibility of being reinstated?

Six months after finishing her training and leaving the police academy, she was now in the process of committing so many serious offences that the prosecutor would need a small print shop to list all the charges. She was really putting her whole career in law enforcement at risk. Not to mention the personal risks she was taking: criminal prosecution and, in the worst scenario, a prison sentence. Why should she expose herself to such things?

Hardly for Walter’s sake, nor to prove to herself that she was not as weak and submissive as her mother.

Breaking the law to solve or prevent other crimes was the only logical justification that she could think of – to commit a lesser offence and prevent a greater one. This was exactly the sort of situation you should not get involved in. The instructors at the academy had relentlessly hammered this message home to the bunch of naive cadets who believed that the world was black and white, good and evil. Was it morally acceptable to sacrifice one human life to save a hundred others?

If the answer was yes, then where did one set the limit? Fifty? Thirty? Perhaps two lives, as long as it was more than the original sacrifice?

She could still walk away without getting into trouble. But then that sense of justice got in the way, like an irritating stone in her shoe. And she had never been afraid of taking risks.

“How do we hack into the District Court databases, then?” Jonna asked and sat down facing Serge.

“A little trickier, but not impossible,” he said quickly. “Somebody must get the microrouter placed between a computer, used by a judge or some other authorized court employee, and the network socket in the wall. It’s important that the computer is connected to the databases so that I can get into the system.”

“Using a back door?”

“Nope.” Serge shook his head. “I don’t know of any back doors in their system and, since I was’t involved in the development of their database, I haven’t been able to add any of my own. The District Court database is apparently based on some French software that is so messy not even the distributor wants to go in and mess with the code. It’s obsolete and based on Unix. Unix has some bugs that are not known about except by a small group. A few have unfortunately surfaced and been fixed by various companies in the Unix business. But there’s one bug that hasn’t been detected yet and that allows you to access the operating system’s core and, using that method, it’s possible to hack into the application, which, in this case, is the French database. It’s only a matter of time before that hole is also blocked, but for now it might be a viable alternative. Definitely worth a try, if you ask me.”

“How do we get inside, literally speaking, I mean?” Jörgen asked.

Jonna pressed her lips into a tight line. “Perhaps Walter has a solution to that problem.”

“He has played with the idea before, but has never acted on it. Presumably, there was too much risk involved,” Serge said.

“Presumably, yes,” Jonna said bitterly. “But now he wants me to do things he wouldn’t dare do himself.”

“Exactly,” Jörgen added. “If he was half the man he thinks he is, then he would do it himself and not send a rookie police chick to do the job.”

“Quite possibly,” Jonna said. “But right now, we don’t have time to wait until Walter is man enough for you, or until he’s been discharged from hospital so that he can play secret agent on his currently unlimited leisure time.”

“So what do we do then?” Jörgen asked, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Not
we
,” Jonna said, smiling at Jörgen. “You.”

“Me? What do you mean?”

“You will have the honour of doing a good deed for once, probably the first unselfish thing you have done in your entire life. Since you’ve got the gift of gab, you’re going to show just how persuasive you can be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re going to play the part of infiltrator and see to it that a microrouter ends up under the right desk at the District Court. And that’s non-negotiable.”

“You’re telling me to break the law,” Jörgen squirmed.

“As if that bothers you!” Jonna exclaimed.

Serge prepared two microrouters. Meanwhile, Jonna sent Jörgen to buy two pre-paid SIM cards in the local shop, which stood fifty metres farther down Ringvägen. The probability that one of the journalist’s many enemies would appear there were negligible, she thought. And she did not want to advertize her own face in a shop that most likely had security cameras. If the cards should, for any reason, be discovered, the shop would be registered as the origin of sale when they were traced. The police could get that information from the service operator. And if the customer paid with a credit card, then it was even better. Then, there would be no need to wade through all the mug shots to find a name to identify the face, which was a job that would not take an experienced team more than a few hours to do anyway. If the buyer was stupid enough to pay with a credit card.

Jörgen paid for the SIM cards with his gold American Express card.

C
HAPTER 21

IT WAS TEN past one at night when Detective Inspector Walter Gröhn woke up with a jolt. He looked around and realized that he was alone in the room. The bed on the other side of the room was still empty. His former room-mates had tired of the constant telephone calls, and he had finally been put in a single room. Walter had not been slow to point out that he was a policeman and needed to use his phone, preferably in privacy, since murderers were not going to take a vacation just because he was in a hospital bed.

He had also managed to convince Jonna to work for him, despite his suspension and the fact that she was no longer on loan to the CID. And that she would be forced to break a few laws.

On the whole, he had been quite successful thus far, considering the circumstances.

In addition, his headaches had subsided and he felt surprisingly energetic. Sure, he could do without the suspension and a potential charge of serious misconduct, but he had been in similar situations before and had managed to come out the other side with both his reputation and his job intact.

The problem this time was Chief Inspector David Lilja. Walter no longer had him on his side. Lilja had not opposed the complaint from the Drug Squad. How many times had Walter helped Lilja break hopelessly stalled cases where colleagues had run into a dead end and made Lilja look bad? Walter had jumped in and taken over murder investigations from other detectives just to save Lilja’s reputation and career.

On the other hand, Lilja had backed up his detective when he had fallen from grace or stepped over the line. Walter stopped counting after seven, more or less, serious transgressions during the eight years that Lilja had been his superior. Maybe the well had finally dried up. Lilja had probably been given an ultimatum: get rid of Gröhn – or go down with him.

He wondered if that owl still worked in the police union. The man with the enormous glasses. What was his name again? Right, Håkan Modig. That’s the bloke. He owed Walter a favour.

A few years ago, Walter had helped the owl’s sister to get rid of an ex-boyfriend who had become a nightly stalker. Perhaps I should make a call to the owl and the union, he thought. And ask how the sister is getting along.

He turned over in his bed and thought about Jonna. Tomorrow, she would have unlimited access to the criminal records database if everything went according to plan. Although with types like Serge Wolinsky, you could never be sure. He was as slippery as seaweed and as trustworthy as a Russian black marketeer. But she had sufficiently thick skin on that freckled nose to handle Wolinsky and she was cool enough to pull it all off. Walter was sure of that.

The District Court database was, however, a long shot and it would be difficult to achieve; that was obvious. It required somebody on the inside, a person who worked on the premises and who could place the microrouter in the right place while avoiding detection.

Two years ago, Walter had needed to get into the District Court’s intranet. A senior official at the court was running a paedophile ring and, as usual, there was a lack of hard evidence. Unfortunately, he had failed to find anyone who could plant the device. The plan went down the tubes, and the evidence necessary to start an investigation against the bureaucrat and his supposed accomplice at the court’s IT department was never gathered.

Hacking into the District Court’s intranet and databases would, without doubt, give the biggest payoff, but it would require Jonna to use all of her talents to have even the smallest chance of success. That Wolinsky would have to burn some brain cells too. Walter had so many favours owed him by that slippery eel that he could continue to use him until he retired.

AFTER DROPPING OFF Jörgen outside the Hotel Gripsholm, Jonna spent the rest of the evening lazing on the sofa, watching TV and eating diet yoghurt with sugar-free muesli. She made a few calls and went to sleep in her oversized bed at 2 am. Before she closed her eyes, she reflected on her lack of company. She missed having someone to share her day with, but most of all to share her bed. It was over a year since she had shared a blanket with someone of the opposite sex. It was time to do something about that. Either she had to get a smaller bed or find someone to occupy the side of the bed facing the bedroom window.

If only she was not so damned demanding. She was as picky with men as she was with her bed. Not too soft, not too hard; not too low, not too high. Just the right width and with a long warranty. All for a reasonable price with home delivery included. And, last but not least, it had to be good-looking too. Mission impossible? She resolved to be more flexible and tolerant of shortcomings.

That was her plan. Time to look at life with new eyes – to stop the search for perfection and let Fate reveal what it had to offer. Within reason, of course. With that perceptive insight, she finally fell asleep.

IT WAS ONLY when Tor Hedman arrived in Stockholm that it dawned on him what had in fact occurred. He gradually came out of what had been a shock-induced, comatose state of mind. The realization of what had happened at Omar’s now hit him with full force.

Jerry was dead.

One cop was dead and he was an accomplice in a cop murder.

Omar was dead.

The hard drive and his Desert Eagle were gone.

To top it all, his hand was hurting like hell. Despite the fact that his diabetes dulled his nerve endings, he could feel the pain. It came and went just like his nerves usually did.

But it could have been worse. He could have been just as dead and charred as Jerry. He shuddered at the thought. Now he was sitting in Omar’s Mercedes on his way to the hospital and, afterwards, he would be the cop’s right-hand man. Right-hand?

He did not have a right hand anymore. That fucking psycho had seen to that. There were no more honest cops anymore. What is this country coming to when the cops are grabbing stuff that rightly belongs to others, like himself, for example?

Tor was filled with righteous rage. He should not be forced to grass on other villains. And now he had to work for a crazy cop. Rage shot through him like a lightning bolt and he yelled out loud. He screamed as much as he could while swerving across the motorway lanes. After a short breather, he screamed again. It actually helped.

After screaming for a time, the pain in his hand died down a little and he felt calmer. Tor was not sure if that cop was for real or just sick in the head. The guy lets him walk away – someone whom he neither knows nor has any background info on. Except his name … and the pre-paid phone number. Someone who had shot his partner and tried to waste him on the stairs. If Tor knew anything, he knew that this guy was a sick, psycho bastard.

Tor groped for Omar’s signet ring in his pocket. What had Jerry guessed it was worth? Seventy grand? He held the ring up and rolled it round. It was as big as a toilet seat but still quite classy, he thought, pushing the ring onto his left thumb. Omar’s ring finger had been as thick as Tor’s thumb.

“Not so daft,” he said to himself out loud, holding up his hand. A thumb signet ring – maybe not so practical, but fucking bling-bling. Shame he was going to have to sell such a heavy piece of jewellery.

Maybe he would not have to when he started working for the psycho. He would definitely be free of Haxhi with a cop as a partner. He had promised twenty per cent. Maybe not such a bad deal when all was said and done. But twenty per cent of what? Debt collection for the taxman? Tor had no idea how dirty cops made their money.

The drawback with working for cops was that you became a grass, or confidential informant, a CI, as the cops called it. CIs did not have much worth in the underworld. They were even lower than cops and whores. A career as a CI was not a long one. The majority of CIs ended up as pieces of butchered meat in some suburban park. No matter how he tried to stay hidden, there would always be somebody looking for him.

Then the feelings of guilt came. Tor thought of Jerry – how the psycho had shot him on the stairs and then left him to char on the barbeque. What a fucking exit for the Finn. The OF era was over for them both. All that was left was the tattoo on Tor’s back. Their bright future had disappeared with Jerry. When Haxhi was history, he would settle the debt with the psycho. Put a bullet dead centre in the psycho’s forehead with best wishes from Jerry. That was how it would end.

Bolstered by his new plan, Tor swung off the Liljeholmen bridge and onto Folkungagatan. He parked the car on Magnus Ladulåsgatan, a good distance from the Casualty entrance at Söder hospital, in accordance with the cop’s instructions. He locked the car and walked towards the entrance. He presented himself with his name and social security number to the nurse at the counter and explained that he had a problem with his hand. Because of his clothes and the fact that he did not have any form of ID, there was some suspicion about his identity, but after ten minutes he was lying on a trolley, with one doctor and two nurses hanging over him.

“What’s happened to you?” the doctor asked, carefully unwrapping the bundle.

“I managed to shoot myself in the hand a few times with a nail gun,” Tor replied. Just like the cop told him to say.

“You did what?”

The nurses exchanged glances.

“I was working on my summer cabin and then the shooter went off,” Tor continued casually, as if he was talking about a broken nail.

“Shooter?”

“Uh … yes … the nail gun.”

The doctor carefully poked at the hand, a frown appearing on his forehead. Tor turned his head away. It had been traumatic enough wrapping his shirt sleeve around the gunshot wound in his hand. But then he had been in shock and everything had happened as if on autopilot. Like being a trance. Now his head was almost clear and he had absolutely no desire to discover how much was left of his hand.

“You don’t feel any pain?” the doctor asked, slightly surprised after examining Tor’s hand.

“Nope … maybe a little. I’m diabetic, so I probably should be feeling more.”

“You have a high pain threshold?”

Tor nodded.

The doctor turned to one of the nurses. “I think we’ll need some intravenous morphine and a saline drip. Check his blood sugar levels as well.”

The nurse nodded and hurried off to another room.

“This one will have to go straight to the duty surgeon,” he said to the other nurse. “I’ll make the call so that they’re ready and prepped for the patient.”

“Will I have a hook instead of a hand?” Tor asked the doctor.

The doctor laughed. “We don’t know if you’ll need a prosthetic yet,” he said. “But you don’t have to worry about a hook. That might have been the solution way back when. Today, we have a completely different technology and there are fantastic prosthetics if that becomes necessary. But it’s not definite that you will even need one. These days, surgeons have a great deal of expertise and instruments that can fix just about any type of injury involving, for instance, broken bones or damaged tissue.”

Tor scrutinized the doctor. Either the bastard was lying and telling him a load of bullshit to keep him calm or he was speaking the truth
.
Fuck, I might walk away from this with just a scar on my right mitt.

It did not take long before he was on the operating table, staring up at a sea of lamps that were turned towards him, and he realized the gravity of the moment. His hand was going under the knife – his right hand, of all things. The one he pissed with. Wiped his arse with. Not to mention what it did in female company. This was the mate that took care of everything in his daily life. To end up with one of those prosthetics, or whatever else they were going to fit him up with, did not appeal to him in the slightest.

If they did not have hooks, what did they use? A gripping claw? Like the one the roadsweepers pick up rubbish with? What if he pressed too hard? His dick would explode like an overcooked hot dog.

He would have to learn how to use his left hand for everything. From taking a piss to brushing his teeth and tickling the pussy of his favourite slut, Ricky. All the things his right hand did such a good job at, he would have to teach his left hand. That would be a challenge.

Someone who introduced herself as the anaesthetist entered the operating theatre. All he could see was her eyes; the rest was covered by her green scrubs. After a short monologue in which she mechanically and in great detail described what was going to happen, she connected a tube to the drip that Tor had in his arm. Afterwards, the surgeon and a few more greencoats entered, which seemed to complete the surgery team. The anaesthetist put a transparent mask over Tor’s mouth and nose and asked him to breathe normally and to count slowly backwards from ten. Tor did as he was told and made it to three before everything became black.

MARTIN BORG HAD been admitted to the Karolinska University Hospital. The doctors quickly established that he had a gunshot wound in his arm, abrasions on his knees and elbows, as well as a mild form of smoke intoxication. He was also suffering from loss of hearing in one ear. The doctors wanted most of all to determine if he had suffered any internal damage from the toxic fumes of the fire. Furthermore, they were concerned about his mental state. The incident in Gnesta had resulted in the death of a colleague as well as his shooting and killing of another human being. Both could be ranked among the most disturbing and traumatic events that a police officer could experience in the profession.