Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

“Nothing, really. Just thinking about what’s on that computer. Some stuff is, um, pretty disturbing.”

Jorge just wanted the computer and whatever was on it. “It’s cool, chico. You want more dough, or what?”

“Dough? No, I just wanted to warn you. So you don’t get into trouble.”

Jorge didn’t know what to expect.

He thanked the guy for his help. Paid. Peaced.

He was tempted to open the laptop on the train on his way home. Stopped himself. Best to wait.

Home in Helenelund. He sat down on the couch.

Opened the computer. Wallpaper: a vast green lawn and a blue sky.

He checked the desktop: not a lot of icons. My Computer, Trash, iTunes, two games: Battlefield 1942 and the Sims. Excel and Windows Media Player were also on the desktop. A couple of folders.

He started looking through the folders one by one.

Afterward, he thought, If I’d known what I’d find, I might’ve stopped looking.

One folder contained images of weapons downloaded from the Internet.

Another folder contained MP3s.

The third folder: English cheat sheets for computer games.

The fourth folder held the names of the johns, their aliases, and passwords. At least three hundred names. Jorge skimmed through the list. Mostly Svens, but some blattes, too. Fahdi was there. Jorge already knew his alias. Abdulkarim was there. Jet Set Carl was there. Jorge didn’t recognize the other names-had to look closer into all that. Potential gold mine.

Next folder: draft of the Web site where the brothel advertised. Pictures of women. Snippets of text. Telephone numbers. Jorge scrolled through the pictures. Girls posing in stark rooms with strong lighting. He found two pictures of Nadja. Exposed. Alone. Vulnerable.

The list of names was good. The pictures of Nadja were tough but not crushing. Jorge clocked that this was the way the hooker industry rolled. It was the contents of the final folder, an MPEG file, that made him hurl.

The sickest, most disgusting shit he’d ever seen.

It was five minutes long. Enough for a lifetime’s worth of nightmares.

The video’s opening scene: a room, harsh lighting, a table.

Two men in ski masks dragged a person into the room whose head was covered in a cloth bag. Judging by the body, it was a girl.

One of the men: dark leather jacket, beefy. The other: dressed in a suit. Both spoke Serbian.

Forced the girl onto the table. Hands tied behind her back. Fought back as hard as she could.

The big guy pulled off the cloth bag. A girl, face swollen from crying. Blond, Nordic appearance. Yelled in perfect Swedish, “Let me go, you pigs!” She kept screaming. Jorge couldn’t make out all the words. The beefy guy said something. Hit her on the side of the head. Jorge recognized his voice. It was Mrado. The dude in the suit caressed her cheek. She spit in his face, screamed. A couple chaotic seconds. The girl screamed again, “How the fuck could I be with you?” Mrado pulled a gun. Pressed the barrel into the girl’s mouth. She grew silent. The steel scraped against her teeth. She cried. The suit guy was angry. Chewed the girl out: “You’ll never spit on me again, you fucking cunt.” Unbuttoned his pants. Tore off her workout pants. She lay still. The gun still in her mouth. The man in the suit pulled out his dick. Forced the girl onto her stomach. Mrado with the barrel of the gun against the back of her head instead of in her mouth. The suit guy raped her. Thrust. Faster. Went on for two minutes. Jorge threw up. He’d seen tons of pornos, but this was for real. The suit guy-finished. The girl-shattered. Mrado raised the gun. Looked into the camera. His eyes were visible through the slits in the ski mask. Said, in Swedish, “A warning to all you who’re thinking of fucking with us.” The last minute. They carried the girl to a chair, her workout pants still around her ankles. Mrado hit her in the stomach, over the arms, in the face. Drops of sweat went flying. Blood went flying. Her eyebrows were torn open. Her lips were busted. Ears swollen. Just shards of her left.

The video ended abruptly.

The girl’s appearance reminded Jorge of someone, but he couldn’t figure out who.

The only good news: the video’s hideousness. It should be ill evidence against Mrado. The dude would regret that he’d beaten up on J-boy. For about twenty-five to life.

That night.

Jorge couldn’t forget the MPEG video. Assumed it’d been used as fear propaganda for whores who stepped outta line. Had looked closer at the movie’s stats: It was about four years old. Did they run the same trailer over and over again?

A parody of sleep. First he couldn’t fall asleep. Then, once he’d finally fallen asleep, he woke up several times an hour. Went to the bathroom. Nightmared. Reminded him of the nights before his escape from Österåker.

He felt like shit. Go ahead, watch porn and be happy-but not rape and abuse live in front of the camera.

Who the hell did the raped woman remind him of?

He groped at memories.

It felt good to have shot the shit out of the pimp and the brothel madam.

Now Mrado, the other guy from the video, and Radovan were next in line. He would crush them.

J-boy’s on your tracks.

In the morning, he drank strong coffee. Had to get going. Had to forget. It was Abdulkarim’s high holiday.

The huge shipment was arriving.

Jorge was part of the preparations-he and JW were supposed to watch over the delivery. From Arlanda to the cold storage facility.

He was meeting up with Abdulkarim, Fahdi, and JW in an hour to plan.

This was big. What he’d seen in the video the night before was bigger.

But now he had to focus.

The shipment would soon be here.

URGENT!!

Confidential.

Attn: Inspector Henrik Hansson, Special Missions Unit

Fax number: 08-670 45 81

Date: June 22

Number of pages: 1

Business: Operation Snowstorm, Project Nova

Operation Snowstorm Begins

Operation Snowstorm begins tomorrow at 10:00. All units will gather at Bergsgatan, room 4D, for an internal run-through.

Brief History

Johan Karlsson, who has served as an infiltrator within the realm of Project Nova (under the name Micke), has information that the target group is planning to receive a very large shipment of cocaine. The shipment is expected to arrive at Arlanda with flight B746-34 from London at 8:00 tomorrow. From there, it will be driven in containers by trucks from the transport firm Schenker Vegetables to the Västberga Cold Storage Center. The exact location for unloading is unknown at present.

Plan of Attack

There is a possibility that several high-ranking persons within Stockholm’s Yugoslavian Mafia network will be present at the unloading of the shipment of cocaine. According to present instructions, Operation Snowstorm will therefore wait to strike until it is possible to arrest as many of these persons as possible.

We are currently working to gather exact information regarding the time of unloading and will be in touch as soon as we do.

The Special Missions Unit, Project Nova’s head surveillance team, as well as Drug Enforcement are included in Operation Snowstorm. This fax has been sent to all officers and unit chiefs.

JW and Jorge were sitting in a rented pickup. They were waiting, didn’t talk much, were just quiet.

JW’d drawn up the plan. Two trucks from Schenker Vegetables would pick up the containers at Arlanda. The teamsters who drove would go straight to Västberga Cold Storage. They were in the know enough to get that what they were transporting was valuable, but also not to ask any unnecessary questions. JW and Jorge were waiting to follow the trucks. Make sure they didn’t go off track, didn’t pinch any of the shipment, didn’t get in touch with suspicious people. Abdulkarim and Fahdi would meet them at the cold-storage place. When the truckers left the scene it would be time for the Arab, JW, Jorge, and the rest to slice open the cabbages and repackage the coke. Move it, restow it. Rake in the dough.