Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man Who Smiled

“Tell him Harderberg’s about to leave the country in his airplane, and for good,” Wallander said. “Björk has to arrange to have him stopped. He has half an hour maximum to do it.”

When Björk answered, Wallander listened as Höglund repeated word for word what he had said. She listened to the response in silence then handed the phone to Wallander.

“He wants to speak to you.”

Wallander took the phone in his right hand and eased the pressure on the accelerator.

“What do you mean, I have to stop Harderberg’s jet?” Björk’s voice rasped over the phone.

“He arranged the murders of Gustaf and Sten Torstensson. Ström is dead too.”

“Are you absolutely sure about what you’re saying? Where are you right now? Why is the sound so bad?”

“I’m on my way from Farnholm Castle. I don’t have time to explain. Harderberg is on his way to the airport now. He must be stopped immediately. If that plane takes off and he leaves Swedish airspace, we’ve lost him.”

“I have to say this all sounds very unusual,” Björk said. “What have you been doing at Farnholm Castle till this time in the morning?”

Wallander realized that Björk’s questions were perfectly reasonable from his point of view. He wondered how he would have reacted if he had been in Björk’s place.

“I know it sounds outlandish,” he said, “but this time you have to take the risk of believing me .”

“I shall have to consult Åkeson,” Björk said.

Wallander groaned. “There really is no time for that. You’ve heard what I said. There are police officers at Sturup. They have to be told to stop Harderberg.”

“Call me back in a quarter of an hour,” Björk said. “I’ll get in touch with Åkeson right away.”

Wallander was so furious that he almost lost control of the car.

“Roll down that goddamn window!” he said.

She did as he said. Wallander threw out the telephone.

“Now you can close it again. We’ll have to figure this out by ourselves.”

“Are you certain it’s Harderberg?” she said. “What’s happened? Are you wounded?”

Wallander ignored the last two questions.

“I’m certain,” he said. “I also know we will never ever get him if he leaves the country.”

“What are you going to do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “In fact, I don’t have the slightest goddamn idea. I’ll have to think of something.”

But as they approached Sturup forty minutes later, he still had no idea what he was going to do. With tires screeching, he pulled up at the gates to the right of the airport building. The better to see, he clambered onto the roof of the car. All around passengers arriving for early flights paused to see what was going on. A catering truck inside the gates blocked his view. Wallander waved his arms and cursed in an attempt to attract the driver’s attention and get him to move the truck. But the man behind the wheel had his head buried in a newspaper and was oblivious to the man on the roof of the car, ranting and raving. Then Wallander drew his pistol and shot straight up into the air. There was immediate panic among the watching crowd. People ran off in all directions, abandoning suitcases on the pavement. The driver of the truck had reacted to the shot and grasped that Wallander wanted him to move out of the way.

Harderberg’s Grumman Gulfstream was still there. The pale yellow light from the spotlights was reflected on the body of the jet.

The two pilots, on their way to the aircraft, had heard the shot and stopped in their tracks. Wallander jumped off the car roof so that they would not be able to see him. He fell, hitting his left shoulder hard against the road. The pain made him even more furious. He knew Harderberg was somewhere inside the yellow airport building and he had no intention of letting him get away. He raced toward the entrance doors, stumbling over suitcases and carts, Höglund a few paces behind him. He still had his pistol in his hand as he ran through the glass doors and headed for the airport police offices. Since it was early on a Sunday morning there were not many people in the terminal. Only one line had formed at a check-in desk, for a charter flight to Spain. As Wallander came charging up, covered in blood and mud, all hell broke loose. Höglund tried to reassure people, but her voice was drowned in the uproar. One of the police officers on duty had gone out to buy a newspaper, and saw Wallander approaching. The pistol in his hand was the first thing he had seen. The officer dropped the paper and started feverishly keying in the door code, but Wallander grabbed him by the arm before he had finished.

“Inspector Wallander, Ystad police,” he shouted. “There’s a plane we have to stop. Dr. Alfred Harderberg’s Gulfstream. There’s no goddamn time to lose!”

“Don’t shoot,” gasped the terrified police officer.

“For heaven’s sake!” Wallander said. “I’m a police officer myself. Didn’t you hear what I said?”

“Don’t shoot,” the man said again. Then he fainted.

Wallander stared in exasperation at the wretched man lying in front of him on the ground. Then he started pounding on the door with his fists. Höglund had caught up.

“Let me try,” she said.

Wallander looked around, as if expecting to see Harderberg at any moment. He ran over to the big windows overlooking the runways.

Harderberg was walking up the steps to the airplane. He ducked ever so slightly, then disappeared inside. The door closed immediately.

“We’re not going to make it!” Wallander yelled to Höglund.

He raced out of the terminal again. She was at his side all the way. He noticed that a car belonging to the airport was on its way in through the gates. He made one final effort and managed to squeeze through the gap before the gates closed. He banged on the trunk and shouted for the car to stop, but the driver was obviously scared out of his mind and accelerated away. Höglund was still outside the gates. She had not quite made it before they closed. Wallander flung out his arms in resignation. The Gulfstream was taxiing toward the runway. There were only a hundred meters left before it would turn, accelerate, and take off.

Right next to where Wallander was standing stood a tractor for towing baggage carts. He had no choice. He climbed up, switched on the engine, and steered toward the runway. He could see in his side mirror a long snake of trailers being towed along behind. He had not seen that they were connected to the tractor, but it was too late to stop now. The Gulfstream was just arriving at the runway and its engines were screaming. The baggage carts started tipping over as he cut across the grass between the apron and the runway.

Now he had reached the runway, where the black tire marks made from the braking airplanes looked like wide cracks in the asphalt. He drove straight toward the Gulfstream, which was pointing its nose at him. When there were two hundred meters still to go, he saw the plane begin to roll toward him. By then he knew he had managed it. Before the jet had reached enough speed to take off, the pilots would have to stop in order not to smash into the tractor.

Wallander applied the brakes, but something was wrong with the tractor. He pushed and pulled and slammed down his foot, but nothing happened. He was not moving fast, but the momentum was such that the nose wheel would be wrecked when the airplane collided with the tractor. Wallander jumped off as the last carts spilled loose, colliding with one another.

The pilots had switched off the engines to avoid an inferno. Wallander was struck on the head by one of the carts, and rose unsteadily to his feet. He could scarcely see through the blood trickling into his eyes. Strangely, he was still holding the pistol in his hand.