The Terrorists (32 page)

It was warm in the apartment and he was lying on his back on his bed in an undershirt and white briefs. He had just showered. He had not yet begun to think seriously about how he was going to leave the country. He would probably have to lie low for quite a long time in this room, waiting for the right moment to go.

The two Japanese had similar instructions. They were to stay in the apartment in Södermalm until they could leave it without risk—which meant when the police had given up looking for them and everything was back to normal. Like Heydt, they had laid in a store of canned foods which would keep them alive for over a month. The only difference was that Heydt would not have been able to survive more than a few days on their peculiar food, while his own assortment was to his liking and should last one person a long time, a whole year if necessary.

At the moment he was thinking about something else. How was it possible that they had failed? Way back when he was still
in training camp, he had learned that there would inevitably be reverses and casualties; the most important thing was to be sure that neither unsuccessful actions nor dead agents could be traced to ULAG. Still, Levallois was certain the bomb had detonated, and he was almost never wrong. That the two Japanese might have mounted the charge in the wrong place could be considered out of the question.

Heydt was used to making correct calculations and also to solving complex problems. He had not lain on his bed for more than twenty minutes before he realized what must have happened. He got up and went into the operations center. Levallois had already packed his meager belongings and was just putting on his overcoat.

“Now I know what happened,” said Heydt.

The Frenchman looked at him inquiringly.

“They fooled us, quite simply. Radio and television were not broadcasting direct; there was a time lag of up to half an hour. When we went into action, the motorcade had already passed.”

“Mmm,” said Levallois. “Sounds plausible.”

“And that explains why the police kept radio silence. The police radio would have revealed the bluff with the radio and television broadcasts.”

The Frenchman smiled. “Pretty slick, you must admit.”

“I did underestimate the police,” said Heydt. “Obviously they’re not all fools.”

Levallois looked around the room. “Well, these things happen,” he said. “I’m off now.”

“You can take the car,” said Heydt. “I’ve no use for it now.”

The Frenchman thought for a moment. The whole country, especially the area around Stockholm, was probably lousy with police barricades by this time. Although the car was not likely to be traced, it would be a risk.

“No,” he said. “I’ll go by train. So long.”

“So long,” said Heydt. “See you sometime.”

“Hope so.”

Levallois had calculated correctly. He arrived unchallenged at Ängelholm the next morning, and from there took the bus to Torekov. The fishing boat was already waiting in the harbor, as
agreed. He went aboard at once, but they did not sail until darkness had fallen.

He was in Copenhagen the next morning and thus fairly secure. He went directly to the railway station, and it was while he was waiting there that he saw the morning’s headlines.

After Levallois had gone, Reinhard Heydt remained lying on his bed, his hands clasped behind his head. He half listened to the radio as he pondered his first fundamental failure. Someone had tricked him, despite the fact that their preparations had been carried out perfectly. Who was it who’d been cunning enough to blacken his eye with such skill?

When a special news bulletin began, he sat up in bed and listened with astonishment. To crown everything, they were now involved in an almost comical coincidence. Heydt found himself laughing.

What was less laughable was the fact that now, more than ever, he could not run the risk of trying to get out. Heydt was glad that he had been sufficiently farsighted to furnish himself with good books, the kind that could be read many times and thought about. It would probably be a long time before he saw Pietermaritzburg again, and being a typical outdoorsman, the waiting might be difficult.

Nevertheless, he did not feel depressed. A person in his position could not really afford things like depressions.

For Martin Beck, this astonishing day was crowned by a telephone call from Herrgott Content, who said he was free but unfortunately had no idea where he was.

“Isn’t there anyone there who knows?” asked Martin Beck.

“No, they’re all from Skåne here.”

“How did you get there, then?”

“By police bus,” said Content. “But it’s gone now and isn’t coming back to fetch us until early tomorrow morning. All I know is that there’s a railway not far from here. The trains are green.”

“The subway,” said Martin Beck thoughtfully. “Somewhere in the suburbs.”

“No, no, these trains aren’t underground.”

“Tell him to go out and walk to the nearest corner and look at the name,” said Rhea, who always eavesdropped on telephone calls.

“That a ghost?” said Content, laughing.

“Not exactly.”

“I heard what she said,” said Content. “Wait a moment.”

He was back in exactly four minutes. “Lysviksgatan. Does that mean anything to you?”

It meant nothing whatsoever to Martin Beck, but Rhea immediately butted in again. “He’s in Farsta,” she said. “Actually, it’ll be murder trying to find his way here—the streets go all over the place. Tell him to wait on the same street corner and I’ll pick him up in twenty minutes.”

“I heard, I heard,” said Content.

Rhea had already gotten her red rubber boots on and was buttoning up her duffle coat as she opened the front door. “Bye,” she said, “and may you roast in hell if you as much as touch the switches on the stove.”

“That’s a polite lady you’ve got there,” laughed Content. “What’s her name?”

“Ask her yourself,” said Martin Beck. “See you later.”

Exactly forty-four minutes later, she returned with Content. Their first meeting had clearly been successful, as Martin Beck heard them laughing and both talking at once as they got into the elevator. As soon as she came in, she flung off her outdoor clothes, glanced at the clock and hurtled out into the kitchen.

Content inspected the apartment and finally said, “Not so bad living in Stockholm.” And then, “What really happened today? A policeman in this town just doesn’t know a goddamn thing. You just stand there where they tell you to.”

He was right. In situations like this, the policemen in the streets knew just about as much as the soldier in the field—in other words, nothing whatsoever.

“A girl shot the Prime Minister. She’d hidden inside Riddarholm Church and the security men who were supposed to be covering the area slipped up.”

“I can’t say I was one of his admirers,” said Content. “But it
does seem a bit pointless. They’ll find another one just like him inside half an hour.”

Martin Beck nodded, then asked, “Has anything been happening in Anderslöv?”

“Lots,” said Content. “But only nice things. Kalle and I saved the liquor store, for instance. Someone wanted to close it, but against such powerful foes as the priest and the chief of police, most people fight in vain.”

“And how’s Folke Bengtsson?”

“Well, I think. He seems the same as ever. But some crazy Stockholmer bought Sigbrit Mård’s home as a summer place.” He laughed loudly. “And something peculiar happened to Bertil Mård.”

“What?”

“I was going to ask him a few questions about the estate and all that. But it turned out he’d sold the house and the café and every single thing he possessed and gone to sea again. I wonder what prompted him to do that.”

Martin Beck did not reply. He himself had done the prompting.

“Well, we sent out all sorts of inquiries, and in the end we got a fantastically grand letter from a shipping company in Taipei in Taiwan. They said that Captain Mård had been hired by them four months earlier in Liberia and was now captain of the M.S.
Taiwan Sun
, which was on its way from Sfax to Botafogo with a cargo of esparto grass. Then I gave up. But I did wonder just one thing. Mård had almost drunk himself to death and couldn’t have gotten a clean bill of health. How the hell could he become captain of a goddamn huge boat like that?”

“If you stick five hundred dollars under the nose of the right doctor in Monrovia, you can probably get a certificate saying you’ve got a wooden leg and a glass eye,” said Martin Beck. “The only thing that surprises me is that Mård never thought of it himself.”

“Himself,” said Content. “So it was you who …”

Martin Beck nodded.

“Then there were a number of points in the investigation of Sigbrit’s murder that surprised me,” Content went on. “For
example, they said that the murderer, whatever his name was, had a coronary and died when the police came for him.”

“So?”

“So you don’t get coronaries to order like that. When I saw the man’s doctor by chance later on in Trelleborg, he mentioned that the guy had severe heart trouble. He wasn’t supposed to smoke or drink coffee or walk up stairs or get excited. He wasn’t even suppose to scr—”

Rhea came into the room and Content stopped.

“What wasn’t he supposed to do?” she asked.

“Screw,” said Content.

“Poor man,” said Rhea, going back into the kitchen.

“Another thing,” said Content. “When his car was stolen, it wasn’t even locked, and the garage doors were wide open. Why? Well, naturally because he hoped someone would steal the car, since he knew it was evidence in the Sigbrit Mård case. The car had been standing out like that ever since the murder, but not before. If it hadn’t been for his damned old lady, he’d probably never even have reported the theft of the car.”

“You should be in the Homicide Squad,” said Martin Beck.

“What? Me? Are you crazy? I’ll never think about such things again, that I promise you.”

“Who said ‘damned old lady?’ ” shouted Rhea from the kitchen.

“She’s not a woman’s libber, is she?” asked Content, lowering his voice.

“I don’t think so,” said Martin Beck.

“It was me!” shouted Content.

“Good,” said Rhea. “As long as you didn’t mean me. Food’s ready. Out in the kitchen, quick, before it gets cold.”

As much as Rhea liked cooking, she disliked guests who just shoveled everything inside them indiscriminately and without comment.

The police inspector from Anderslöv was a model guest. He was a pearl in the kitchen himself and tasted everything very carefully before saying anything; and when he had anything to say, it was always very positive.

When they put him into a cab on Skeppsbron some hours later, he was looking more contented than ever.

*       *       *

On Friday the twenty-second of November, Herrgott Content was once again at his post opposite the library on Sveavägen. As the motorcade passed, Martin Beck raised his hand in salute.

“Were you waving to that moose hunter?” asked Gunvald Larsson acidly.

Martin Beck nodded. He and Gunvald Larsson had tossed for who’d have to go to last night’s banquet, and for once luck was with Martin Beck. He and Content had feasted on Rhea’s cooking while Gunvald Larsson suffered.

The banquet at Stallmästaregården had been a melancholy business, but both the Senator and the hastily arranged provisional Prime Minister had kept the flag flying. In their official speeches, both referred to the “tragic episode,” but neither had gone further than that. Otherwise, the speeches contained the usual guff about friendship, peace, equal opportunities and mutual respect. Gunvald Larsson thought it sounded as if both statesmen were using the same speechwriter.

Möller’s security arrangements functioned without a hitch this time, and there was no sign of his “commando section.”

Gunvald Larsson had found the evening paralyzingly boring and had opened his mouth only once. Looking at the colossal bump under Stoneface’s jacket, he had said to Eric Möller, who at that moment just happened to be in the cloakroom, “How is it that guy is allowed to carry arms abroad?”

“Special permission.”

“Special permission? Given by whom?”

“The person in question is no longer alive,” said Möller unmoved.

The Säpo chief left, and Gunvald Larsson sank into his own thoughts. His legal knowledge was not overwhelming, and he was wondering to what extent permission from dead people to commit illegal acts could be regarded as valid, and for how long. Unable to find an answer to this question, he took to studying Stoneface and soon found himself feeling sorry for the man. What a goddamn awful job, he thought. Especially if you had to go around with an unlit cigar stuck in your face.

The Senator’s smile was subdued, as was the event as a whole, and the party did not continue into the wee hours.

The next morning there was a great deal of speculation over whether the King would cancel the luncheon or not. In view of the previous day’s events and the fact that he had just returned from a state visit to Finland, he would have been quite justified in doing so. But nothing was heard from the Court, so Martin Beck’s group went ahead with the complicated plan that had been laid down for this particular event.

As the Adjutant had said, the King was not afraid. He walked out onto Logården and personally greeted the Senator, bidding him welcome to the palace. The only indication that there had been some contact between the Court and the U.S. embassy was that Stoneface had to remain in the bulletproof car. After the Senator had ascended what the security forces referred to as the “sensitive steps” unscathed, the car finally parked in the palace yard itself. When Martin Beck glanced through the bluish glass as he walked past, he saw the bodyguard put aside his cigar and take out a can of Budweiser and something that was undeniably a lunchbox.

Apart from this little detail, nothing unforeseen occurred. The luncheon had been the King’s private arrangement, and what was said or done on this occasion concerned no one but the participants. The demonstrators outside the palace had been insignificant in comparison with what had been expected, and at the meeting in Logården there had been roughly as many shouting “We want our king” as “Yankee go home.”