Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

Penelope’s phone drops from her hand unnoticed.

With professional ease, the man in uniform turns Ossian’s face to one side, slides a dagger into his own right hand, turns Ossian’s face farther awry, and then, in seconds, sends the dagger into Ossian’s neck right above the atlas vertebra and directly into the brain stem. The yellow umbrella falls to the ground and rolls down the slope. Ossian is dead before his body touches the earth.

The man strides closer. A pale flicker of lightning illuminates his face and Penelope meets his eyes. Before the darkness falls again, she can see the worried expression on his face, his exhausted, sad eyes, and his mouth, disfigured by a deep scar. The thunder rolls. The man never pauses. Penelope stands by the window, absolutely paralyzed. Her breaths come quick, but she can’t flee.

The rain batters the window frames and the glass panes. The world outside seems far away. Suddenly the man is silhouetted by a bright yellow light that seems to brighten the dock, the water, even the sky. As if a massive oak tree had sprouted from the boat behind him, a column of fire shoots up with a bellow. Metal scraps fly into the air. The cloud of fire grows and pulsates with an eerie, internal flickering. Its heat sets nearby brush, even the dock, afire. The explosion pounds against the house.

With shattered glass falling around her, Penelope is finally able to act. She whirls around, running so fast she just races up and over the sofa and down the hallway with all its signed portraits. Out the back door and over the ragged lawn. She slips but keeps going, through the pounding rain along the trampled path, around the grove of birches, and out onto a meadow. A family with children-all dressed in bright yellow rain gear, life vests, and carrying fishing poles-is braving the downpour. Penelope runs straight between them and down to the sandy beach. She’s out of breath and feels she might faint. She has to stop, and yet she can’t. Instead, she drops down behind a small wheelbarrow and vomits into the nettles. She whispers the Lord’s Prayer. Thunder rumbles from far away. Shakily she rises to a crouch, wiping the rain from her face with her sleeve, to peer back across the meadow. The man is rounding the birch grove. He pauses next to the family group and they immediately point in her direction. She ducks, creeps backward, sliding down the shallow cliff to run close to the water. Her footsteps leave a white track behind her in the churned-up wet sand. A long pontoon bridge seems to offer the only distance she can reach, and she runs along it as far as she can. She hears the thud of helicopter blades and keeps on running. It takes only a quick glance to see her pursuer heading straight for her. At the far end of the bridge, a man is being winched down from the sky, from a rescue helicopter. He lands there, waiting for her. The water around him is whipped up in concentric circles from the wash of the helicopter’s blades. Penelope runs straight to him. Quickly he fastens a harness to her, shouting instructions, and then circles his hand in a gesture to the aircraft above them. They are lifted free from the bridge, swept to one side close over the water as the line lifts them toward the helicopter. Penelope’s view of the beach is almost immediately blocked by the encroaching spruce trees, but just before that moment, she sees her pursuer go down on one knee. He’s setting down a black backpack and swiftly assembling something. He’s out of her sight then; she sees only the tight tops of trees and the turbulent surface of the sea.

A short bang. She hears a crash overhead. The cable jerks and Penelope’s stomach turns over as the man cabled to her yells something to the helicopter pilot. The helicopter swerves crazily. Horror sweeps over Penelope. The pilot has been shot. Instinctively, with no thought at all, she jerks at the security harness, wriggles free, and simply drops away.

She can see the helicopter stall in the air, tip to one side, and flip over. The cable with her rescuer still dangling on it is entangled in the large rotor. She plunges through the air, unable to look away. The machine rattles deafeningly, and, with a two-part bang, the enormous rotor blades are ripped from the axle. Penelope falls about twenty meters before she smacks into the water. She sinks down deep, semiconscious with the impact and the cold. It is a long time before she’s able to move. Reaching the surface, her lungs react automatically and her body takes a deep breath. Almost without sight, she dully looks around. Then she begins to swim away from the island and out into the open sea.

Joona Linna and Saga Bauer departed quietly from Silencia Defense after their short meeting with Pontus Salman.

Pontus Salman had ruined their trap by immediately identifying himself and pinpointing the date: 2008 in a concert hall in Frankfurt.

There had been discussion of a shipment of ammunition to Sudan, he’d explained, a plan well advanced before it was broken off in the spring of 2009. Salman seemed to assume that Joona and Saga were well aware of what had happened then.

He’d added that this had been the only meeting concerning Sudan and that now, of course, any continued business arrangements were out of the question.

“What was he talking about?” Joona asks. “Do you know what happened then?”

Before they’ve even swung out onto Nynashamn, Saga has phoned Simon Lawrence at Sapo.

“I presume you’re not calling me for a date,” Simon says humorously.

“You’re an expert on North Africa. What happened in Sudan in the spring of 2009?” Saga says.

“What’s the context?”

“For some reason, after that time, Sweden can no longer export weapons to Sudan.”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?”

“Of course,” she answers with gritted teeth.

“In March 2009, the International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir.”

“An arrest warrant for the president?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s big.”

“The indictment includes the president’s direct involvement in orders for plundering, rape, forced displacement, torture, murder, and genocide for all three ethnic groups in Darfur.”

“Oh.”

Simon Lawrence goes on to give Saga a short history lesson about events in Sudan before she finally hangs up the phone.

“So what’s it all about?” Joona asks.

“The International Criminal Court in The Hague has an arrest warrant out for President al-Bashir,” she says, and gives Joona a long look.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” says Joona.

“In 2004 the United Nations laid down a weapons embargo to the Janjaweed and other militia in Darfur.”

They drive north on Nynasvagen. The summer skies begin to turn dark and clouds are building.

“Go on,” says Joona.

“President al-Bashir denies any connection to the militia. After the UN embargo, only direct exports to the Sudan government were allowed.”

“Because there was no connection between the government and the militia.”

“Exactly,” Saga says. “Then, in 2005, a general amnesty was reached. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It was supposed to end the longest civil war in Africa. After that date, there was no reason for Sweden to stop weapons supplies to Sudan’s army. Carl Palmcrona had to decide if these shipments were morally and legally a responsible thing to do.”

“But the International Criminal Court thought differently,” Joona says acridly.

“Yes indeed. They saw a direct connection between the president and the armed militia, and they demanded he be arrested for rape, torture, and genocide.”

“What happened after that?”

“There was an election in April and al-Bashir remains the president. Sudan will not allow any arrest warrant to be served, so today it is absolutely forbidden to ship arms to Sudan and have any business with Omar al-Bashir and Agathe al-Haji.”