Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

The bodyguard’s heavy steps clunk across the deck.

Joona shoves the magazine into the carbine, slips in the one bullet, lifts the weapon, waits a second, and leaps out of his hiding place.

Raphael is still pulling Axel with him. Raphael’s son yells something from within the helicopter and the pilot is waving at Raphael to get in.

“You should have kissed my hand when you had the chance,” Raphael murmurs into Axel’s ear.

The Amati gives off a deep sound as Raphael pulls it into Axel’s chest.

The bodyguard is strolling toward Niko and bends to send a bullet into his face.

“Jonottakaa! ” yells Joona in Finnish.

He sees the bodyguard whirl to shoot at Joona instead. Joona leaps to one side to concentrate on the line of fire since his one bullet must count.

It all happens in seconds.

Behind his shield, Raphael keeps a firm grip on his knife. The increasing draft from the helicopter rips at their clothes. Rivulets of blood are sucked from Axel’s neck. They see Joona crouch, shift the muzzle of the carbine slightly, and fire.

Jonottakaa! Joona thinks. Get in line, boys! He feels the hard recoil bang against his shoulder. The full metal jacket bullet leaves his weapon at eight hundred meters a second. Making almost no sound, the bullet plunges into the bodyguard’s throat and exits in a spray of blood before it plunges again into Raphael’s shoulder and out to fly over the water.

Raphael’s knife arm is shocked from the hit and the knife tumbles to the deck.

Axel Riessen falls away.

The bodyguard looks at Joona in surprise as his blood spurts from his throat to pour over his chest. He tries again, groggily, to lift his weapon, but he can’t. An odd sound emanates from his throat. He coughs, and this time blood splutters from his mouth and down his chin.

He sits down abruptly. He lifts his hand to the hole in his throat. He blinks two times and then his eyes fix, wide open.

Raphael’s face has drained and he wavers in the strong, pulsing draft. He still clutches his violin. He stares malevolently at Joona.

“Pappa!” Peter yells. He throws a pistol to his father.

It strikes the deck and bounces once before landing at Raphael’s feet.

Axel has dragged himself up against the railing, his hand pressing against his throat.

“Raphael! Raphael Guidi!” Joona yells. “You’re under arrest!”

Raphael is only five meters from his helicopter. The pistol is at his feet. His gym clothes flap on his body. With effort, he bends for the gun.

“You are under arrest for weapon smuggling, kidnapping, and murder,” Joona shouts clearly.

Raphael straightens with the gun in his shaking hand. His face is covered in sweat.

“Put down your weapon!” Joona orders.

Raphael is aiming the shaking gun. The pounding of his heart interferes. He meets Joona’s eyes.

Axel yells at Joona to run.

Joona remains absolutely still.

Everything then happens at once.

Raphael lifts the pistol toward Joona and pulls the trigger. The pistol clicks. He tries again and fails. He chokes on a ragged breath when he understands that Peter never put a new magazine in the pistol. He understands his son has thrown him an empty gun. The loneliness he has always feared wraps itself around him. And now it’s too late. He cannot drop the weapon and give himself up. He feels three soft thuds against his body as a bang sounds over the sea. Raphael feels only as if someone has struck a fist against his chest. Then he loses all sensation in his legs.

The helicopter will wait no more. It lifts straight into the air, leaving Raphael Guidi behind.

The Finnish navy’s ship has drawn alongside the yacht. The three sailors once more fire in unison; once more, all three bullets strike Raphael with one explosive bang. Raphael Guidi’s body twitches as if he wants to move but he can’t. He falls.

His back is warm, but his feet are already ice-cold.

Raphael stares up at the helicopter quickly rising into the hazy sky.

Peter looks down at the yacht growing ever smaller beneath him. His father is sprawled inside the concentric rings of the helicopter pad, which now look like a target.

Raphael Guidi holds Paganini’s violin to his bloody chest. The red pool beneath his body widens. His eyes are now blank in death. Joona is the only person still standing upright on the deck of the yacht.

He watches the helicopter fly away.

The sky is bright and empty. On the shining surface of the ocean, three vessels bob together in a moment of quiet.

Soon the rescue helicopters will arrive from Finland. Right now, though, it feels like the moment after a performance when the last note fades away, the audience is still enthralled, and the thunderous applause is about to erupt.

Joona Linna, Axel Riessen, and Niko Kapanen, along with the gray-haired bodyguard, are being transported by rescue helicopter to Surgical Hospital in Helsinki.

At the hospital, Axel is curious about why Joona did not duck when Raphael picked up the pistol from the deck.

“Didn’t you hear me yell at you?” Axel asks.

Joona tells him that he’d already spotted the navy snipers and trusted they would fire before Raphael.

“But they didn’t,” Axel says.

“You can’t be right all the time,” Joona says with a grin.

Niko happened to be awake when they looked in before they left. He joked that he felt like the hero Vanhala in the book The Unknown Soldier.

“Go, Sweden!” he says to them. “And brave little Finland didn’t do so bad, either!”

Niko’s injuries are no longer life-threatening, but he knows he still faces several operations over the next few days. He will grumble about having to be in a wheelchair when he is released to the care of his parents, and he will be unhappier still when he realizes that it will take at least another year before he can play hockey with his sister again.

Raphael Guidi’s bodyguard was arrested and booked into Vanda jail while the judicial wheels began to grind.

Joona Linna and Axel Riessen travel home to Sweden.

The large container ship M/S Icelus was never allowed to sail from Gothenburg Harbor. Its cargo of ammunition was unloaded and stored in a customs facility.

Jens Svanehjalm began his proper procedures but, except for the wounded bodyguard, all the people responsible for the crimes were dead.

They never had enough proof to charge anyone else. Only Pontus Salman was found to be mixed up in the illegal export of weapons, and the only suspected criminal in the ISP was its previous general director, Carl Palmcrona.

The government official Jorgen Grunlicht was investigated, but there were never any charges leveled at him. The conclusion was unhappily reached that all the politicians in Sweden and the people working for the Export Control Committee had been in the dark themselves and had just acted in good faith.

Investigations against two Kenyan politicians were handed over to Roland Lidonde, the anticorruption general and the state secretary for Governance and Ethics. It was assumed, however, that he would find that the Kenyans had also acted in good faith.

The supposedly innocent owners of Intersafe Shipping did not know that the ammunition was supposed to go on to Sudan from Mombasa Harbor, and the Kenyan transportation company, Trans Continent, was also unaware that trucks scheduled to travel to Sudan would be loaded with ammunition. Everyone had acted in good faith.

Axel Riessen

Axel Riessen feels the stitches in his shoulder as he climbs out of the taxi to walk the last steps up Bragevagen. Under the bright sun, the asphalt appears pale, almost white. As he puts his hand to the gate, the outer door of the house opens and Robert comes out. He’d been waiting at the window.