The Swimmer (27 page)

‘What is this about?’ I say. ‘What has she gotten involved in?’

Susan’s eyes look right through me.

‘Why have you never mentioned your daughter?’

Even though I know I shouldn’t, that I’ve already gone too far, crossed a line, I wave to the bartender and see him nod and reach for a glass, filling it with ice, whiskey, Drambuie.

‘I asked first,’ I say.

‘Did you think you could protect her? By hiding her?’ she says.

There’s something almost sad about her now. Her pale complexion against the burgundy backrest of the booth. The darkness of the room. The first outlines of dark circles under her eyes that her subtle makeup can’t hide. It’s late, but we’re both accustomed to sleepless nights.

‘You understand, of course, that we already knew all of this when you came in from Damascus thirty years ago? We knew you left her at the Swedish embassy a few days after the bomb. We knew she grew up with her grandparents in the Swedish archipelago. I’ve known about your searches in our databases since you started them ten years ago. There’s nothing we don’t know.’

It’s an out-of-body experience. Staggering. To come face-to-face with your own delusions. To finally stand naked in front of yourself. Floating high above your own body, your own constructed world. I feel my fingers trembling and fight the impulse to down the drink the bartender just put in front of me. I take a sip. The clink of ice. Everything she says, I actually already knew. I take another sip of the drink. Lean my head back, giving in, and down it. Let the sweet liquid rush through me, lend me some kind of fragile strength. The only secret I had actually fooled myself into believing. Not even that. I fumble with the manila folder Susan set on the table between us.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘I don’t care what you knew. Give me the information about Klara, Susan. It’s over for me now. It’s done. I’ll go to the
Washington Post
with what I know and what I can prove. I swear to God, Susan. It’s enough now. Give me the chance to correct what I can.’

Susan sets her glass down silently and reaches across the table for the folder. Quietly, she opens it. The papers inside flutter in the draft from the door to the bar, spread across the table. Ten. Twenty. Maybe thirty pages. All of them are completely blank. Just white letter-size paper. Nothing else.

We’re sitting in the car. Susan drives quietly through the sleeping city while telling me all about Klara and Mahmoud. All about the mistakes, the loss of control. All about the usual, hopeless everyday of our world. One more operation that went beyond rhyme or reason.

When she’s finished, she makes a call and asks some nameless assistant at a safe distance to book my trip. She parks the car carefully in front of my apartment complex. Turns her wrist and takes a look at her simple, expensive watch.

‘Four hours until your plane leaves,’ she says. ‘You need a shower and a pot of coffee. Do you still have an alias you can use?’

I nod, thinking of the two Canadian passports under different names lying in my safe. I thought that was all over. That the game had ended. But there’s always one more move. Always one last chance.

‘Why, Susan?’ I say. ‘Why are you doing this for me?’

The Ford’s engine hums. A few snowflakes dance under the streetlamps outside.

‘Maybe I owe you this?’ she says. ‘Maybe you’re our best chance to solve this now? Does it matter?’

I open the car door. The alcohol turns me into gas, allows me to float out of the car. Nothing matters. Nothing except the next move.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

On the half-empty and poorly cleaned night bus to Amsterdam, fatigue finally overtook Klara. The Eurolines bus out of Paris had been her best option. No ID requirements, and it was unlikely there’d be passport control in Amsterdam. Eurolines—the excruciatingly sluggish cross-continental circulatory system of Europe’s poor—was an exact reflection of the middle class’s clinical network of train and flight routes. The same destinations, but different people. Instead of Samsonite-rolling business travelers and rosy-cheeked families, buses transported Polish carpenters with vodka bottles and toolboxes, Muslim women traveling alone with head scarves and meticulously packed cheap, plastic suitcases. Maybe a student with severe liquidity problems and a sweetheart in another part of the continent. Klara stretched out across two seats, using her handbag as a pillow and with the shoulder strap of the computer bag wrapped several times around her left arm. She was asleep before the bus even left downtown Paris.

Klara didn’t wake up again until the bus stopped outside the Amstel station in central Amsterdam. It was still dark outside and a harsh wind flooded the bus as the doors opened with a hiss. Klara put on her coat and pulled the knitted cap over her ears. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she peeked out the window, half expecting to see a throng of police. But the bleak pavement in front of the 1930s building was completely vacant, except for a single city bus standing with its headlights off under a broken streetlight. Klara joined the motley group of passengers moving out of the bus. The station clock read almost 7:00 a.m. Three hours to go.

Amsterdam’s streets and canals were deserted as Klara wandered through the city. The wind whipped right through her. It had been blustery every time she’d been to Amsterdam—a constant, chilling reminder of how flat Holland was.

She felt impatient, almost manic. Keeping the thoughts of Mahmoud, the blood, and her impending grief at bay took whatever strength she could muster. At times it felt like her head, her chest, and her heart might burst with a force so violent, she’d be scattered across Europe. She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. She forced herself to stop thinking about the horror of Paris and instead focus on a place where she was, if not happy, at least safe. She visualized her grandmother in her living room, the crackling fire in the stove, the lace tablecloth and the finest Gustavsberg porcelain. The taste of saffron buns and the sound of an approaching storm. She knew it was far from a permanent solution; it was a temporary bandage on the stump of an amputated leg, but it staunched the bleeding for the moment.

She’d expected that someone calling himself Blitzworm97 would live in a rougher neighborhood than Prinsengracht proved to be. Maybe in a garage in some concrete suburb, where he—slightly overweight, wearing a
Star Trek
T-shirt, drinking Jolt Cola—spent his time hammering out plans for the destruction of the world’s financial centers through a highly targeted cyber-attack. Anywhere but here among the picturesque canals and Christmas decorations of central Amsterdam. Did she really have the right address? But she’d checked it a hundred times before getting rid of the phone, and there was only one Prinsengracht in Amsterdam.

Number 344 appeared to be a single-family home. The large, gleaming windows overlooked the canal. She could see a clinical, stainless steel kitchen inside, where a gray-haired man of about forty-five, in an immaculate, navy suit, sat on a barstool, drinking coffee with a newspaper in front of him. It was the perfect image of a successful European man, taken from the pages of the ‘How to Spend It’ section of the
Financial Times
. Klara felt her heart sinking in her chest. Damn. There was absolutely no way he could be Blitzworm. Something wasn’t right.

She walked past the house quickly and sat down at a café a few blocks away. She ordered a cappuccino and two croissants. She was suddenly very hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? She felt confused, worried. The man in the window hardly looked like he was in need of 200 euros. His tie probably cost more than that. But this was her only lead.

At 10:15 Klara swallowed nervously and rang the doorbell of Prinsengracht 344. She was sweating despite the winter cold. The clouds hung low over Amsterdam, and a nasty drizzle dampened her face. It took almost a minute before she heard footsteps on the stairs inside the house. Ten seconds before the door opened wide.

A skinny girl of about fifteen stood in front of Klara. High cheekbones and clear blue eyes. A slim, greyhoundlike face, with a mouth that seemed way too big. Long, gangly  arms. Baggy jeans and an oversize Justin Bieber T-shirt. Everything about her was out of proportion. Awkward. Klara suspected, judging by those cheekbones and those eyes, that she’d look quite different by the time she got through her teens. The girl was chewing gum. Of course.

‘Hi,’ said Klara in English, unsure of how to proceed.

The girl looked at her. A childish, arrogant smile on her lips.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Who’re you looking for?’

She spoke American English. Almost without an accent.

‘Sorry,’ Klara said. ‘I must have the wrong address.’

The girl continued looking at her without making any attempt to close the door.

‘I’m sorry. Please excuse me,’ Klara said, starting to turn around.

‘Come in,’ said the girl. ‘You’re SoulXsearcher’s friend, right?’

Klara stopped in midmotion.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose so. Are you Blitzworm97?’

‘Were you expecting somebody else?’ the girl said as Klara hesitantly stepped into the bright, Philippe Starck-inspired hallway. A tall vase filled with fresh white roses stood on a white rococo table under what could be an authentic Miró.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Klara.

‘A guy, maybe?’ the girl continued. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

She pointed to the stairs at the other end of the hall.

‘My room’s on the top floor.’

She led the way up three flights of stairs. A door led into a large, somewhat schizophrenic room with sloping walls and two dormer windows. The tasteful, minimalist decor continued up here. White walls and a dark, well-maintained wooden floor. Exposed beams and windowsills in black marble. But someone—probably Blitzworm97—had done their best to create a less sophisticated and more urban environment in the room.

Large parts of the walls were covered with photos and posters. Eminem, Tupac, Bob Marley. A blown-up print from Instagram of what looked like Rihanna smoking a joint. Graffiti was sprayed over large canvases. Pictures of marijuana leaves. A couple of well-worn skateboards stuck out from under the bed. And the whole of one side of the room was covered by an impressive array of computers and monitors. The Laura Ashley sheets on the Hästens bed were unmade. Thongs, socks, and plates of leftovers were scattered across the floor.

‘I guess the Bieber shirt is ironic, then?’ Klara said, smiling.

‘Bingo,’ the girl said drily.

Blitzworm97 sat down on her bed and pulled out a small bag of marijuana and some rolling papers from a drawer in the bedside table. Without a word, she started rolling a joint. There was something so self-consciously rebellious about it that Klara had to hide a smile.

‘So, Blitzworm,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to call you that, or do you have a real name?’

‘You can call me Blitz if you want. Or Blitzie. Whatever
.’

She lit the joint and took a few deep drags.

‘You want some?’ she said, and held it toward Klara.

‘Sure, Blitzie,’ Klara said and took the joint.

She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d smoked marijuana. At some point just after moving to Brussels, she supposed. She’d never really liked it that much. But just now, at ten in the morning with a rebellious teenager in Amsterdam, it seemed fitting.

‘Aren’t you a little young for this?’ Klara said, blowing smoke up toward the ceiling.

Blitzie grabbed the joint back and took a greedy, defiant drag.

‘This is Amsterdam, okay? Nobody cares.’

Klara nodded. Maybe that was true.

‘You have a nice house,’ she said.

‘Who cares?’ Blitzie said. ‘My parents are disgusting capitalists. I hate them.’

This time Klara couldn’t hide her smile. Maybe it was the marijuana that made her warm and almost calm. She felt like going over and putting her arm around Blitzie.

‘It’ll pass,’ she said.

Blitzie shrugged.

‘How do you know SoulXsearcher?’ she said.

‘We work together,’ Klara said. ‘We’re friends, I guess. How about you?’

‘Internet,’ Blitzie said, nodding toward the computers. ‘He knows people I know. Hackers. Real hackers. They trust him, so I trust him.’

‘So you’re a hacker?’ Klara said.

Blitzie nodded and leaned back while slowly exhaling smoke.

‘I created Blitzworm.’

She looked at Klara, as if expecting her to be deeply impressed.

‘Oh,’ Klara said. ‘Sorry, I’m not a hacker. I don’t know what that is, I’m afraid.’

Blitzie looked disappointed.

‘I hacked MIT’s server. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The world’s best school for code. Left my résumé on their intranet. It was kind of a big deal. They offered me a spot there when I’m done with school. But I don’t care.’

‘Wow,’ Klara said. ‘Why don’t you care? Wasn’t that the whole point of giving them your résumé?’

‘Nah, I don’t care about their fucking preppy school. It’s just a bunch of Koreans there anyway.’

Klara shook her head. The marijuana had made her a little slow. How had they drifted into this? She wasn’t a career counselor.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Listen, Blitzie, I have a computer I can’t get into. Jörgen, or SoulXsearcher, said you could help me with that?’

Klara pulled the MacBook out of its bag.

‘Why don’t you take it to a Mac store, they’ll help you?’ Blitzie said, with a wicked little smile.

Klara sighed. ‘Come on, do you want two hundred euros or not?’

‘The price has gone up,’ Blitzie said as she relit the joint between her fingers. ‘I want three hundred euros.’

Arkösund, Sweden

Being back in Sweden just made the situation that much more bizarre, more incomprehensible, more nightmarish. In the small private jet, George had almost felt at ease for a moment. Despite everything, it was fucking awesome. Digital Solutions’ black van driving right up to a plane already ready to go on the runway. No passport or security checks. Just out of the vehicle, up the stairs, then sinking down into the leather seats. For Josh and Kirsten and the rest of Reiper’s people, it seemed to be no big deal. Maybe that’s how they usually traveled.