Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (78 page)

“Well, good,” Joona mutters.

“All that’s left is to decide if or why they were killed, or else why they went into hiding.”

Joona opens the door to the hallway. He stops and turns towards Carlos again. “What happened to that man from the Brigade?”

“He was released,” Carlos answers.

“Did they find out why he was there?” Joona asks.

“He was just dropping by.”

“Dropping by.” Joona sighs. “That’s all Säpo found out?”

“You are
not
going to start investigating the Brigade,” Carlos says with new worry in his voice. “I hope you understand me?”

Joona leaves and pulls out his mobile as he strides down the hallway. Behind him, he can hear Carlos yelling “
That’s an order!
” and “
Don’t tread on Säpo’s toes!
” Joona keeps going. He finds Nathan Pollock’s number.

Nathan picks up.

“What do you know about the Brigade?” asks Joona as the lift doors open.

“Säpo has been trying to infiltrate and keep an eye on all the militant left-wing groups in Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö for the past few years. I don’t think the Brigade is all that dangerous, but Säpo seems to believe they have weapons and explosives. At any rate, most of their members have been to reform school and have been convicted of violent crimes.”

The lift is rushing down.

“From what I understand, Säpo hauled someone in for trying to enter Penelope Fernandez’s apartment. Someone with a direct connection to the Brigade.”

“His name is Daniel Marklund,” Nathan replies. “He belongs to the inner circle.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much,” Nathan answers. “He has a suspended sentence for vandalism and hacking.”

“Why Penelope’s place?”

The lift stops and the doors open.

“Don’t know. He had no weapon,” Nathan tells him. “Demanded a lawyer when we started asking questions. He answered nothing and was let go later the same day.”

“So we know nothing.”

“Nothing.”

“Where can I find him?” Joona asks.

“He has no home address. According to Säpo, he lives with other members of the inner circle at the Brigade’s main headquarters near Zinkensdamm.”

While Joona Linna walks purposefully to the garage underneath Rådhus Park, he thinks about Disa, and desire for her wells up from deep within him. He wants to touch her slender arms, smell her soft hair. He finds a strange kind of peace listening to her talk about her archaeological discoveries: shards of bone not connected to any crime and the remains of humans who finished their lives many centuries ago.

Joona decides to call her. He’s been much too busy lately. He continues down into the garage and between the parked cars. There’s a flicker of movement behind one of the concrete pillars. Someone is waiting beside his Volvo. The figure is partially hidden by a garbage truck—he can almost make it out. Nothing can be heard over the loud racket from the large fans.

“That was fast!” Joona yells.

“Teleporting,” replies Nathan Pollock.

Joona stops, closes his eyes, and presses his fingers against his temples.

“Headache?”

“I haven’t been sleeping much.”

They get into the car and close the doors. Joona turns the ignition key and a tango by Astor Piazzolla comes from the speakers. Pollock turns the volume up a bit: it sounds like two violins echoing each other.

“You didn’t get this from me, you know,” Nathan says.

“Right.”

“I’ve just heard from Säpo that they are going to use Marklund’s attempt to break into Penelope’s apartment as an excuse for conducting a raid of the Brigade’s headquarters.”

“I’ve got to get to Marklund before that happens.”

“Then you’d better hurry.”

Joona backs out, turns, and drives up the ramp.

“How much of a hurry?” He turns left onto Kungsholmsgatan.

“They’re on their way now.”

“Show me the entrance to the Brigade’s headquarters and then you can head back to the station and pretend you don’t know anything,” Joona says.

“What’s your plan?”

“Plan?”

Nathan laughs.

“Well, the
plan
is to find out why Marklund went to Penelope’s apartment,” Joona explains. “Maybe he knows something about what’s going on.”

“But—”

“It’s no coincidence the Brigade tried to break into her apartment just now. That’s what I believe. Säpo thinks that the extreme left is planning some kind of attack, but—”

“They always think that. It’s their job,” Pollock says, smiling.

“Anyway, I’m going to talk to Daniel Marklund before I drop this case.”

“Even if you get there before Säpo’s boys, do you think the Brigade wants to talk to you?”

Saga Bauer presses thirteen bullets into the magazine and then shoves it into her large black Glock 21. Säpo is about to storm the Brigade’s headquarters.

Saga is in a minivan parked at Hornsgatan, just outside the Folk Opera. She’s with three colleagues; all are dressed in civilian clothes. In fifteen minutes they’ll head over to Nagham Fast Food and wait for the SWAT team.

For the past month, rumours have come back to Säpo that left-wing extremists are on the move. Perhaps it’s more than rumours, but Säpo’s best strategists have now decided many of these groups have joined forces to plan something really big, perhaps some explosive sabotage. Given the recent theft of explosives from a military facility on Vaxholm Island, they believe it’s a real possibility.

The strategists have also connected the murder of Viola Fernandez and the attempt to blow up Penelope Fernandez’s apartment to this planned attack.

Säpo believes the Brigade to be the most militant and violent of the left-wing fringe groups. Daniel Marklund belongs to their innermost circle, and Säpo’s logic follows that since he tried to break into Penelope Fernandez’s apartment, he might be the assailant who attacked Detective Inspector Joona Linna and his technician.

Göran Stone is smiling as he puts on his heavy protective vest.

“Let’s go and get those fucking cowards!”

Anders Westlund laughs but can’t hide his nervousness. He says, “Shit, I hope they resist. I really want to take out one of those communists!”

Saga Bauer is replaying the memory of Daniel Marklund being caught outside Penelope Fernandez’s apartment. Verner Zandén had assigned Göran Stone to the interrogation. Stone had come on strong to startle something out of Marklund, but that strategy had backfired. Marklund had requested legal representation and then clammed up.

The car door opens and Roland Eriksson slides in carrying a bag of banana marshmallows and a can of Coca-Cola.

“Damn, I’m jittery. I’ll shoot the second I see a gun,” Roland says, and they can hear the stress in his voice. “Things can go so fast and the only chance you have is to shoot them first—”

“We will follow my plan,” Göran Stone says firmly. “But if shooting breaks out, you don’t have to aim for the legs.”

“Shove it right into their mouths,” Roland yells.

“Take it easy,” Göran says.

“My brother’s face—”

“We know all about it, Roland, shut the fuck up,” Anders says. He’s also very nervous.

“A firebomb right to the face!” Roland repeats in a loud voice. “Eleven operations later and he can—”

“Can you handle this?” Göran asks sharply.

“Sure, what the fuck!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine,” Roland answers quickly. He looks out of the window and scrapes his thumbnail sharply over the lid of his tin of snuff.

Saga Bauer opens the door slightly to let some air into the van. She accepts this is the right time for a raid and there’s no reason to wait. Even so, she still wants to understand the connection to Penelope Fernandez. What was her role in the Brigade? And why was her sister killed? Too much was still not clear. She desperately wants to talk with Daniel Marklund again, look him right in the eye and ask a few direct questions. She’d tried to bring this up with her boss. She wants answers before they go in on this raid. Especially if there is a question about who will be alive afterwards.

This is still my investigation!
she thinks angrily as she climbs out of the van into the suffocating heat of the street.

“The SWAT team will go in here and here.” Göran Stone stabs his finger on an architectural drawing of the building. “We’re here and maybe we’ll have to get in through this theatre—”

“Where the hell did Saga Bauer go?” Roland asks.

“Maybe she got her period and needed a Tampax!” Anders says with a smirk.

Joona Linna and Nathan Pollock park on Hornsgatan and quickly scan a bad printout of the picture of Daniel Marklund. Then they get out, make their way through the heavy traffic on the street, and enter the door of a small theatre. The Tribunal Theatre is an independent theatre group—with income-pegged ticket prices. Plays from
Oresteia
to
The Communist Manifesto
have been performed within its walls.

Joona and Nathan continue swiftly down the wide staircase and over to the combined bar and box office. A woman with a silver ring in her nose and straight hair dyed black smiles at them. They nod in a friendly way but walk right past her without a word.

“Are you guys looking for someone?” she yells as they start walking up a metal staircase.

“Yes,” Pollock says, but his voice is low.

They enter a messy office crowded with a copier, a desk, and a notice board from which newspaper clippings hang down. A thin man with matted hair and an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth sits in front of a computer.

“Hi there, Richard,” Pollock says.

“Who are you?” asks the man absentmindedly as he returns his gaze to his screen.

They continue past the actors’ dressing rooms—past racks of carefully hung costumes and makeup stations. A bouquet of roses droops on one of the tables.

Pollock takes a quick look around and then points. They walk up to a steel door with a stencilled sign:
ELECTRICAL ROOM
.

“It’s supposed to be in here,” Pollock says.

“In the electrical room of a theatre?”

Pollock doesn’t answer but picks the lock as fast as he can. They look inside a cramped space with an electrical meter, a cupboard for props, and stacks of boxes. The ceiling light doesn’t work. Joona clambers over paper bags filled with old clothes. There is a new door behind some extension cords hung across the ceiling. Joona pushes it open and finds a hall with bare cement walls. Nathan Pollock follows him. The air is stagnant and it smells like rubbish and damp dirt. In the distance, they can hear the faint backbeat of music. On the floor, there’s a flyer featuring Che Guevara with a lit fuse at the top of his head.

“The Brigade’s been hiding out here several years now,” Pollock says softly.

“I should have brought some cake for our little visit,” Joona replies.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“The only thing I worry about is whether Daniel Marklund will be here.”

“He’ll be here. He’s almost always here.”

“Thanks for your help, Nathan.”

“Maybe I should go in with you anyway?” Pollock asks. “You’ll have only a few minutes before Säpo storms the place. It could get dangerous.”

Joona’s grey eyes narrow. “I’m just dropping in for a little chat.”

Nathan starts heading back to the theatre and coughs as he closes the steel door behind him. Joona stands alone in the empty hallway for a moment. He draws his pistol and checks that the magazine is full before he slides it back in his holster. He starts to walk towards another steel door at the other end of the hall.

He loses a few precious seconds as he picks the lock.

Someone has scratched ‘The Brigade’ in tiny letters, not more than two centimetres high, into the blue paint on the door.

Joona presses down the handle and the door slowly opens. He’s met by loud, screeching music; it sounds like an electronically reprocessed version of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Machine Gun’. The shrieking guitars have a dreamlike, surging beat. They drown out everything.

Joona closes the door behind him and keeps going, half running, into a space filled with junk. Mounds of books and magazines reach the ceiling. Although it’s dark in the room, Joona can tell the heaps of books are not just random but have been created as a kind of labyrinth leading to other doors. He quickly makes his way through it to a dimly lit area. The path forks there and he keeps going to the right, but swiftly backtracks. He thinks he saw hasty movement out of the corner of his eye. He’s not sure, though.

Joona walks on, squinting to see something more. A bare bulb sways at the end of its ceiling cord. Over the music, Joona suddenly hears a roar. Someone is screaming behind walls that dampen the sound. Joona stops, walks back, and looks into a thin passage where a stack of magazines have slid down and now are scattered across the floor.

Joona’s head is starting to hurt. He thinks he should have had something to eat. He should have taken something with him. A few pieces of dark chocolate would have been enough.

He steps over the magazines and reaches a spiral staircase leading down to the floor below. He can smell sweet smoke in the air. Holding tightly to the rail, he tries to sneak down as quietly as possible, but he cannot silence his shoes on the metal steps. On the lowest rung, he stops before a velvet curtain that has been drawn shut. He puts his hand on his holstered pistol.

The music is fainter here.

A plastic clown lamp with a red bulb for a nose is in the corner, and more red light leaks through a gap in the curtain. Joona tries to get a glimpse through it, but the gap is too small. He hesitates, then steps quickly through the curtain and into the room. His pulse thuds and his head pounds as he sweeps the space with his eyes. On the cement floor, there’s a double-barrelled shotgun and an open box of cartridges. The shells have lead slugs, the kind that would leave considerable damage. Sitting on an office chair is a young, naked man, smoking; his eyes are shut. This can’t be Daniel Marklund, Joona thinks. A blonde girl with bare breasts lounges on a mattress, leaning back against the wall, an army blanket around her hips. She meets Joona’s gaze, blows him a kiss, and then, unconcerned, takes a sip of beer from a can.