Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘What you see here represents my most fundamental rights,’ said the bald-headed man as he gestured with his hand towards something that reminded me more than anything else of a collection of insects mounted on pins, only magnified and more grotesque. The wall was covered with handguns. Pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, machine pistols, even a large machine gun mounted on a tripod that looked like someone kneeling.

‘The freedom to defend myself.’

The bald-headed man gave us a pleased smile. He wanted to remain anonymous and had asked us just to call him Fatman. Of the fifteen who had signed up two days earlier three had pulled out. It wasn’t surprising. Initial enthusiasm at the chance for revenge had given way to more rational considerations: other than a short-lived emotional satisfaction, how would it benefit me personally? And what was I risking? When the courts punish criminals the overwhelming power they have access to means they risk little; but what about us? What happens when revenge is taken for revenge?

‘They knew we had weapons, that was why they came,’ said Fatman. ‘But they didn’t find this secret room, so all they got were the Kalashnikovs and the hand grenades. Help yourselves, gentlemen.’

‘What did they do to you and yours?’ asked Larsen — an African American music teacher wearing a freshly pressed blue shirt — as Fatman showed him how to load, prime and change the magazine on the weapon he had chosen.

‘I just told you,’ said Fatman.

‘They... er, stole some rifles?’

‘And my hand grenades.’

‘Grenades. And that was enough to leave you wanting revenge?’

‘Who said anything about revenge? I just want to shoot some bad guys, and now I’ve got a bloody good reason, right?’

‘Nice one,’ said Larsen quietly.

Fatman flushed. ‘How about you?’ he snorted. ‘They take your Volvo?’

I cursed inwardly and closed my eyes. I needed these men to work together, not this. I’d read the reports carefully and knew what was coming.

‘They killed my wife,’ said Larsen.

It went very quiet in this damp basement room. When I opened my eyes again I saw everyone had their gaze fixed on the man in the blue shirt and suit trousers. In the report, Larsen had written that he and his wife were standing on the pavement outside a secret food depot with the food they’d bought. They’d gone there with eight adult relatives; it was the usual thing to move around in packs, it was reckoned to be safer. A motorcycle gang had come at them and the men pulled out the few weapons they had — knives and an old rifle. But the bikes had passed them without slowing down. They thought the danger was over until the last rider tossed out a chain with a hook on it that embedded itself in Larsen’s wife’s thigh and dragged her off down the street, and while the men rushed to her assistance the gang stopped and picked up their bags of food.

‘An artery in her thigh was punctured,’ said Larsen. ‘She bled to death in the street while those bandits picked up the hams and the tins.’

The only sounds that could be heard were Larsen’s hoarse breathing and swallowing.

‘And they had...?’ said a cautious voice.

‘Yes,’ said Larsen, who had regained control of his voice. ‘They were wearing helmets with dead Justitia.’

The men in the room nodded.

One of them coughed.

‘Tell me, that machine gun... does it work?’

Two days later we were ready.

We’d had shooting practice at a rifle range under the direction of Pete Downing, a former Marine who had been involved in house-to-house fighting in Basra in Iraq. Him, me and Chung, a construction engineer, had gone over the drawings of the place Chung had obtained through a contact in the Planning and Building Services Department. Downing had drafted a plan of attack that he went through with us in a room we had rented in the basement of the rifle range. He pointed out that there could be several kidnap victims in the house, playing down in this way the fact that the focus of the action was primarily on Amy and me. The funny thing was that once he was done he turned and spoke to me.

‘Well, Will Adams, think that sounds OK?’

I nodded.

‘Thank you,’ said Downing as he rolled up the large sheets of paper he had drawn on.

I stood up. ‘Then we meet here at midnight,’ I said. ‘Remember, dark clothing.’

The men stood up and filed out. Several of them nodded as they passed me, from which I realised that they regarded me as the leader of the operation. Was that just because I had taken the initiative? Or was something more involved? Was it because of the way I had described not just the practical side of our intended operation but also its moral and socially responsible dimensions? Had my simple remarks about justice not being something you get but something you take given them a thirst for battle they hadn’t been able to feel when they were alone, but that they realised they had been missing now that they had been given a morally acceptable motivation? Maybe. Because maybe they had noticed that I meant every word of what I was saying. That it is everyone’s responsibility to cut the head of the Leviathan, the sea monster, before it grows so big it devours us all.

But I don’t think that was on anyone’s mind as our column of three cars crawled up the narrow, twisting road heading towards the villa on the hill. I sat squashed between two others in the back seat and thought only of what I was to do, my own practical role in the planned operation. And that I didn’t want to die. The smell I recognised through the sweat from the others in the car was probably the same as I was giving off myself. Fear.

I awaken to the sounds of shots, people shouting, running footsteps along the corridor.

My first thought was that it was just another party that had got out of hand, that someone had started a fight, probably with Ragnar.

I heard someone try the door of my room. It was locked, the way it always is. It’s not from the fear that someone will come in and rape me. In the first place I know I could take them, and in the second place Brad would chop their head off, and in the third place, you become sort of demagnetised as a sex object for guys when they realise you’re into the same thing as they are: girls. But I also know that the way the drug-taking has, to put it mildly, escalated these days it’s just a question of time before someone tries it. And that will mean so much trouble for them that there’s no reason not to lock the door. But from my point of view they’re the ones who are locked in, not me.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grabbed the Kalashnikov lying underneath it. Because the voices out in the corridor didn’t belong to any of the boys, and now I heard two loud bangs from shock grenades. Oscar was on watch tonight; what the hell was going on? Had he fallen asleep on the job?

No one trying the doorknob any more — have they moved on? Just then I heard the dull thud of a shot from the other side of the door and the whiplash as the bullet passed my head and hit the wall.

I raised the gun, pushed the security catch into automatic and fired. Even in the half-dark I could see how the salvo perforated the door and the white splinters of wood flaring. Outside, someone fell heavily and began to scream. I pulled on my shoes, trousers and jacket and crossed to the window. Down on the lawn Oscar was lying splayed out on his back in an X-shape, the Kalashnikov beside him, as though he was sunbathing in the moonlight. I made a quick calculation. I didn’t know how many of them there were, but they’d taken out Oscar before he had a chance to raise the alarm, and they had shock grenades. So not just a bunch of amateurs. And who were we? A gang of doped-up kids who knew how to attack but hadn’t had any practice in how to defend. If I didn’t take a decision quickly it was going to be taken for me.