The Terrorists (26 page)

“And you met him on the fourth in the evening?”

“Yes.”

“Was he alone?”

“Yes.”

“When did you last see him?”

“The next morning, at about six o’clock.”

“Did he have a car?”

“Not with him, anyhow.”

“Where did he say he was staying?”

“The Grand.”

“Do you know anything else?”

“No, nothing whatsoever.”

“Okay. Thanks for coming,” said Larsson, more kindly now.

“Don’t mention it.”

“I said one or two ill-considered things before.”

“All that about free broads and so on?” she said, smiling.

“No,” said Gunvald Larsson. “About women police. We need a lot more.”

“My coffee break is definitely over now,” she said, turning to go.

“Just a moment,” said Gunvald Larsson. He tapped the photograph with his knuckles. “This guy’s dangerous.”

“To whom?”

“Everyone. Anyone. You should let us know if you ever catch sight of him again.”

“Has he killed anyone?”

“Many people,” said Gunvald Larsson. “Far too many.”

In the end, Martin Beck had quite a pleasant evening. There were already seven or eight people around the kitchen table when he arrived, and he had met some of them before.

Among them was a young man named Kent, who a few years ago had said that he was thinking of joining the police. Martin Beck had not seen him since and asked him how he’d made out.

“At the Police College?”

“Yes.”

“I got in, but halfway through the term I had to leave. It was an absolute madhouse.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Sanitation Department. A garbage man. It’s a hell of an improvement.”

As was usual around Rhea’s kitchen table, the conversation was lively and fluent, moving from one subject to another. Martin Beck sat relaxing in silence, now and again sipping at his wine. He had decided to have no more than one glass. Only once was the notorious Senator mentioned. Some were thinking of demonstrating, others satisfied with grumbling at the government. Then Rhea began talking about Gascony fish soup and lobsters and Brittany, thus putting an end to political arguments.

She was to go away on Sunday, to a sister who was constantly in need of help of one kind or another.

At one o’clock she shooed out all her guests, except Martin Beck, of course, who hardly counted as a guest any longer.

“You’ll be absolutely pooped tomorrow if you don’t go to bed at once,” she said.

She also went to bed at once, but half an hour later she had to get up again and go out to the kitchen. Martin Beck heard her clattering about at the stove, but was too tired to be able to think about
au gratin
ham sandwiches with parmesan, so he stayed where he was.

She came back a little later, thumped about in the bed for a while and then snuggled up close to him. She was warm, her skin soft and covered with almost invisible short fair hairs.

“Martin?” she said softly, testing to see if he was awake.

“Mmm.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Mmm.”

“When you were here last Thursday, you were very tired and went to bed before me. I read for an hour or two. But you know how damned inquisitive I am, so I opened your briefcase and looked through your papers.”

“Mmm.”

“There was a file with a photograph in it of someone named Reinhard Heydt.”

“Mmm.”

“I thought of something that might be important.”

“Mmm.”

“I saw that guy about three weeks ago. A large, blond man about thirty. We bumped into each other by chance when I was up at your place in Köpmangatan. Then we walked through Bollhus Alley. He was only two steps behind me, so I let him pass. He was a Nordic-European type and I thought he was a tourist, because he had a map of Stockholm in one hand. He had sideburns. Blond ones.”

Martin Beck was immediately wide awake. “Did he say anything?”

“No, nothing. He just walked past. But a few minutes later I saw him again. He was getting into a green car with Swedish plates. I’m bad on cars and don’t know what make it was. I must have looked rather specially at the letters though, on the plates because I remember they were GOZ, but I forgot the numbers. I’m not sure I even saw them. I’ve got a bad memory for figures, anyhow.”

Martin Beck was at the phone dialing Larsson’s number in Bollmora before Rhea even got her legs out of bed.

“New world speed record out of beloved’s bed,” she said.

Martin Beck waited impatiently while the number rang twelve times. No one answered.

He hung up and called up the central exchange.

“Do you know if Gunvald Larsson’s in the building?”

“He was here ten minutes ago.”

Martin Beck asked to be connected to the Violence Division. The phone was answered immediately.

“Larsson here.”

“Heydt’s in town.”

“Yes,” said Gunvald Larsson, “I just heard. A woman police assistant in the Investigation Bureau had the good taste to sleep with him on the night of the fourth. She seems certain it was him. He made out he was Danish. Nice guy, she said. Spoke a kind of Scandinavian.”

“I’ve got a witness, too,” said Martin Beck, “a woman who saw him in Köpmangatan in the Old City about three weeks ago. She saw him getting into a car with Swedish plates in Slottsbacken and she thinks he drove south.”

“Your witness,” said Gunvald Larsson, “does she seem reliable?”

“The most reliable person I know.”

“Oh-ho, yes.” Gunvald Larsson was silent for a moment. “The bastard,” he said. “He’s beaten us and we don’t have any time. What do we do?”

“We have to think,” said Martin Beck. “If you’ll send a patrol car, I’ll be with you in twenty minutes.”

“Shall I alert Skacke and Melander?”

“No, let them sleep. Someone has to be rested tomorrow. How are you feeling yourself?”

“I was dead beat a moment ago, but I’m ready to go again now.”

“Same here.”

“Mmm,” said Gunvald Larsson. “I don’t think we’re going to get much sleep tonight.”

“It can’t be helped. If we can get Heydt, a lot of risks will be eliminated.”

Martin Beck hung up and began to get dressed.

“He’s that important?” asked Rhea.

“Vitally. Bye, and thanks for this and that. See you tomorrow evening? At my place?”

“Sure,” she said cheerfully. She had planned to go there
anyhow to watch the news coverage of the event on Martin Beck’s color television.

After he’d gone, she lay there thinking for a long time. She had been in a good mood a minute or two before, but now she was feeling depressed.

Rhea was exceptionally intuitive, and she did not like the situation.

Gunvald Larsson and Martin Beck spent the early hours of the morning thinking intensely, but unfortunately they were handicapped by self-reproach, humiliation and deadly fatigue. Both realized that they were no longer young.

Heydt had entered the country despite all their rigorous precautionary measures. It seemed logical that the rest of the sabotage group were also in Stockholm and had been there for quite some time, since it was highly unlikely that Heydt would be alone.

They knew quite a lot about Reinhard Heydt, but they had no idea where he was and could only guess at what he was going to do. Worst of all, they had no time to find out.

He had at his disposal a green car of unknown make with Swedish plates, possibly with the letters GOZ. Where had he got the car? Stolen it? That seemed an unnecessary risk to have taken, and Heydt was probably not a man to take unnecessary risks. Nevertheless, as soon as possible they checked up on all reports of stolen cars. None matched.

He might also have bought or rented it, but to check all those possibilities would take days, perhaps weeks. They had only a few hours, and during those hours, their quiet offices were to be transformed into a scene of sheer chaos.

Skacke and Melander arrived at seven, listened with gloomy faces to this new development, then set to work on their telephones.
But it was all much too late, because in the tracks of messengers came a veritable torrent of people who now suddenly considered their presence highly necessary. The National Commissioner arrived followed closely by Stig Malm, the chief of the Stockholm Police and the chief of the Regular Police. Soon after that Bulldozer Olsson brought his beaming visage into the office, and then came a representative of the Fire Brigade, whom no one had invited; two police superintendents, who as far as could be made out were simply curious; and to crown everything, a government secretary sent by the cabinet, apparently as some kind of observer.

For a brief moment, Eric Möllen’s unique wreath of hair could be glimpsed in the crowd, but by then everyone had given up hope of being able to do anything properly at all.

Gunvald Larsson realized quite early on that he would never get back home to Bollmora to shower and change. And if Martin Beck had similar plans, they were soon spiked by the fact that from half-past eight on he was forced to talk on the telephone without a break, mostly to people who had extremely peripheral connections with the Senator’s visit.

In the general uproar, a couple of accredited crime reporters also managed to get into headquarters, where they were trying to collect some tidbits of news. These journalists were considered to have favorable attitudes toward the police, and everyone shied away from the very thought of offending them in any way. With one of the reporters no more than a few feet away, the Commissioner turned to Martin Beck and asked, “Where’s Einar Rönn?”

“Don’t know,” lied Martin Beck.

“What’s he doing?”

“Don’t know that, either,” said Martin Beck, if possible even less truthfully.

As he tried to elbow his way away, he heard the Commissioner muttering to himself: “Remarkable. Remarkable way of assuming command.”

Shortly after ten, Rönn telephoned, and after a great many ifs and buts managed to get hold of Gunvald Larsson.

“Hi, it’s Einar.”

“Is everything ready now?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good, Einar. You must be beat.”

“Yes, I must admit I am. And what about you?”

“About as bright as a slaughtered pig,” said Gunvald Larsson. “I never got to bed last night.”

“I’ve had about two hours’ sleep.”

“Better than nothing. Be careful as hell now, won’t you?”

“Yes. You too.”

Gunvald Larsson said nothing to Rönn about Heydt, partly because far too many outsiders were within earshot, but also because the information would only have served to make Rönn even more nervous than he was already.

Gunvald Larsson pushed his way over to the window, demonstratively turning his back on the others, and stared out. All he could see was the new police super-headquarters under construction and a tiny sliver of a gray and dismal sky. The weather was about what could be expected: temperature about freezing point, a northeasterly wind and repeated showers of sleet. Not especially encouraging for the gigantic number of police on duty out of doors, but hardly encouraging for demonstrators, either.

By half-past ten, Martin Beck had managed to extract his three remaining colleagues from the melée and pilot them into one of the nearby rooms, where Gunvald Larsson at once locked the door and took all the telephone receivers off their hooks.

Martin Beck made a very short statement:

“Only the four of us know that Reinhard Heydt is in town, and that in all likelihood a complete trained terrorist group is also here. Do any of you think that these facts should in any way alter our plans?”

No one replied, until Melander took his pipe out of his mouth and said, “As far as I can see, this is the very situation we always figured on. So I can’t see why we should revise our plan at this stage.”

“What sort of risk are Rönn and his men running?” asked Skacke.

“A pretty considerable one,” said Martin Beck. “That’s my personal view.”

Only Gunvald Larsson said something off the point.

“If this goddamn Heydt or any of his gang get out of this country alive, I’ll take it as a personal defeat. Whether they blow this American to pieces or not.”

“Or shoot him,” said Skacke.

“It should be impossible to shoot him,” said Melander placidly. “All the long-range security is designed to prevent precisely that. On the occasions when he appears outside the bulletproof car, he will have a strong protective guard of policemen with automatics and bulletproof protection. All the areas concerned have been searched continually according to the plan since midnight last night.”

“And at the banquet this evening?” said Gunvald Larsson suddenly. “Are they serving the bastard champagne in bulletproof glasses?”

Only Martin Beck laughed, not loudly, but heartily, and was himself surprised that he could laugh in such a situation.

Melander said patiently, “The banquet is Möller’s business. If I’ve got the plan right, then practically every person on duty at Stallmästaregården this evening will be an armed security man.”

“And the food?” said Gunvald Larsson. “Is Möller going to cook it himself?”

“The chef and cooks are reliable and will also be searched and carefully supervised.”

There was a moment’s silence. Melander puffed on his pipe, Gunvald Larsson opened the window, letting in the icy wind plus a little rain and snow and the normal dose of oil specks and industrial fumes.

“I have one more question,” said Martin Beck. “Do any of you think we ought to warn the chief of Security that Heydt, and probably also ULAG, are in Stockholm?”

Gunvald Larsson spat contemptuously out the window.

Again it was Melander who provided a logical summary.

“Getting that information at the last moment won’t alter Eric Möller’s or the close-range security plans for the better, will it? Probably the other way around; there might be confusion and contradictory orders. The close-range-protection people are already organized and quite aware of their task.”

“Okay,” said Martin Beck. “As you know, there are a few details—more than a few—that only we four and Rönn have the slightest idea about. If things go wrong, we’ll be the ones to bear the brunt.”