Anders Roslund - Box 21 aka The Vault

Push down, push down, again and again. She must keep her grip on power and they must be made to fear her.

She didn’t want any more rebellions. They might succeed next time.

She had been on the floor, gun in hand and the student screaming with pain and holding his right knee. She had got up, checked the four lined up against the wall, then looked at the man who had attacked her. She showed them her weapon, pointed to it.

‘Not again. If again. Boom.’

Then she had taken a few steps towards him until she was positioned straight above him, astride his body. She had shown the gun to the four over by the wall again and then another shot rang out, his left knee this time. He screamed wildly; she leaned down, looked at the others and then she said Boom, boom and shoved the muzzle into his mouth, holding it there until he was silent. She pulled it out, turned it around and used it to beat him about the face until he lost consciousness, hit him the way the others had always hit her.

Then she pulled the pad of plastic explosive off from between his shoulders and pointed at the woman and the older man. She loosened the rope around their wrists enough to make it possible for them to pull the unconscious man to the entrance, using sign language to make them understand. They were to put him outside in the empty corridor then return to be tied up.

She stayed quite still, aiming at them with her gun.

Soon the man she had shot would be found. They’d take him away and make him talk.

That was good.

What he had to tell them would surely convince them that she meant business and would never give in. For as long as this lasted she would have the respect she wanted.

She wanted to talk to them, the people outside.

No more waiting. It was time to let them know what she wanted.

She gestured with the gun. The woman was to use the mobile again. It would be her third phone call. First the call to announce that she had taken hostages, then the useless attempt.

The student dialled the number and put the phone to the older man’s ear. He waited, then he cocked his head. ‘Dead.’

She heard him, but wasn’t sure she had understood and waved with her gun. ‘Again!’

‘Dead. No tone.’

He drew the edge of his hand across his throat, like they did in American movies when someone was going to die.

Lydia understood. With the gun still aimed at the hostages, she checked the phone on the wall behind them.

She lifted the receiver. Silence.

Two telephones, her only means of communication. They had cut them off.

She screamed something incomprehensible in Russian at the hostages, shouting and gesturing towards the storeroom. They understood and got up, their legs and backs aching after hours on the floor. They trooped next door, where they sat down again with their backs against another wall.

She felt sure they would obey her, but all the same, before closing the door on them, she pointed at the safety catch, waved the gun at them and said: ‘If again. Boom.’

Then she closed the door and hurried past the corpse towards the metal door in the wall opposite.

She opened it and went alone into the large space which was the actual mortuary.

John Edvardson had been only thirty-four years old when he was offered the post as operational head for the national Flying Squad. He had trained as an interpreter, studied Russian and politics at university, and then gone to police college. After graduating, a few years of active police service had been enough to speed him past the queue of self-selected candidates for the Flying Squad post. It had caused a lot of grumbling in the ranks, as always when egos smart, but John had turned out to be the excellent choice his superiors had hoped for. He was wise and popular, a no-nonsense man who didn’t feel the need to shout about it.

Ewert had met John several times. There was no friendship between them – Ewert wasn’t interested in that – but he had learnt enough about the other man to understand what kind of person he was and how good he was at his job, a perfect partner to have at your side in the makeshift operations centre with its clutter of hospital kit.

John took hold of Ewert’s arm and led him away from the young man with a bullet in each knee.

‘You don’t need to interview him now. Not yet. I asked one of my lads to talk to him while they carried him here.’

Ewert listened with his eyes fixed on the doctor who was examining the damaged knees.

‘I need to know.’

‘You won’t get a lot out of him. Maybe later. Anyway, the casualty, Larsen, is positive that the stuff is Semtex. We don’t know how he can be so sure. He clammed up at that point. His description fits well enough. It’s a “pale brown dough” which she has distributed over the hostages and every door in the room. She also seems to have detonators. Larsen is convinced that she will use them if she needs to.’

‘He should know.’

‘You see what all this means, don’t you?’

‘I think so.’

‘We can’t act. A raid is impossible. If we go in, it’s almost certainly goodbye to the hostages.’

Ewert turned to face John and slammed his hand hard on a wheeled stainless-steel table. The noise was terrific. The impact set the metal vibrating.

‘I don’t get it! Since when did lousy prostitutes carry arms and take hostages?’

‘Larsen kept talking about her control. It was very frightening, he said. She was well prepared, had brought rope to tie them up and enough ammunition and explosives to keep us off her back.’

‘Control, eh?’

‘That’s what he said. Control. And courage. He repeated it several times.’

‘I don’t give a damn about her control. John, I want you to position your men wherever you think is best. And I want police marksmen. If we have to, we’ll shoot her.’

Edvardson was on his way out when Ewert called him back. The envelope with the blue notebook was on top of one of the unused trolleys. Ewert handed over a pair of surgical gloves and then slipped the notebook into John’s gloved hands.

‘This is Grajauskas’s. Can you read it?’

John turned the pages slowly. He shook his head.

‘No, I can’t. Sorry. It’s Lithuanian.’

‘Sven! What’s happening about that bloody interpreter?’

As Ewert Grens turned to the corner where Sven was sitting, the A &E doctor examining Johan Larsen’s bullet wounds waved to attract his attention.

‘DSI Grens!’

‘Yes?’

Ewert was all set for a quick interrogation of Larsen, but the doctor raised his hand, making a stop sign.

‘No. Not yet.’

‘I need answers.’

‘Hold it. He’s in no condition to answer anything.’

‘Couple of damned kneecaps! People are being held at gunpoint down there!’

‘It’s not his knees. Can’t you see? Shock is setting in. If you don’t respect it you might never get any answers.’

Larsen’s face was white and absent. He was dribbling. Ewert’s hand closed over the handkerchief in his pocket, the one he used to wipe her chin. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to glance at Larsen’s drooping, half-open mouth. He had been about to thump the steel table again, but held still with his arm outstretched.

‘She takes hostages and tells us all about it. She fills the whole sodding place with explosives, but she makes no demands!’

He completed the movement of his arm, the steel surface reverberated and the sound bounced off the walls.

‘Sven!’

‘Yes?’

‘Phone her. Phone her now! It’s time for a chat.’

Lydia had never been inside a real mortuary before. She stopped and looked around as the grey metal door slammed behind her. The room was bigger than she had imagined, twice as big as the Klaipeda dance hall she and Vladi had gone to in their teens. It had pale yellow walls, with white tiling near the autopsy tables. The light was harsh and clinical. Cold boxes, stacked three rows high, running almost all the way along one wall. They had steel doors, the same size as small fridges, about fifty by seventy-five centimetres.