Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“What did you find out?” Axel asks as he stands up.

“What?” Joona is startled out of his thoughts.

“Could you determine the date of that meeting?”

“Yes.”

Axel tries to catch Joona’s eyes.

“And?” Axel persists.

“I have to go,” Joona says.

“Did they meet after the arrest warrant for al-Bashir? They can’t have! I have to know if that’s what they’ve done!”

Joona looks directly into Axel’s eyes. His eyes are calm and bright.

Saga Bauer lies on her stomach on the fluffy white rug. Her eyes are closed as Stefan slowly kisses her back. Her light hair spreads like a waterfall onto the floor. Stefan’s face feels warm as it moves across her skin.

Keep going, she thinks.

His lips are light, tickling brushstrokes between her shoulder blades. She forces herself to keep still and shudders from pleasure.

Carl Unander-Scharin’s erotic duet for cello and mezzo-soprano flows from the speakers of her music system. The voices of the woman and the cello cross rhythmically and repetitively like entwined trickles in a dark stream. Saga lies completely still, desire rising in her body. She is breathing through a half-open mouth and she licks her lips.

His hands glide over her waist, around her hips, and then effortlessly he lifts her buttocks.

No one I’ve ever met before has touched me so softly, Saga thinks as she smiles to herself.

She hears her own moan as she feels the touch of his tongue.

He carefully turns her body over. Impressions of stripes are left on her skin from the rug.

“Keep going,” she whispers.

“Or you’ll shoot me,” he says.

She nods and smiles openly. Wisps of Stefan’s black hair have curled around his face, and his narrow ponytail is hanging over one of her breasts.

“Come, come,” Saga whispers.

She pulls his face down to hers and kisses him and her tongue meets his, warm and wet.

He quickly wriggles out of his jeans and lays down naked over her. She lifts her legs and feels him push inside. She moans a long moan and then breathes more quickly. They hesitate for a moment to marvel at the feeling of being beyond nearness. Stefan pushes softly. His narrow hips move carefully. Saga runs her fingers over his shoulder blades, his back, his buttocks.

Then the telephone rings. Of course, her thought snaps out. From the heap of clothes on the sofa, her cell phone sounds persistently with ZZ Top’s “Blue Jeans Blues.” It is well buried beneath her white linen chemise, underwear, and jeans pulled inside out.

“Let it ring,” she whispers.

“It’s your work phone,” he says.

“Fuck it, it’s not important,” she mumbles and tries to hold him tight to her.

But he pulls out, gets to his knees, and searches through her jeans pockets while the phone nags insistently. Finally, he turns her jeans upside down and the phone falls out. It’s stopped ringing. Then a small ding announces there’s a message on the voice mail.

Twenty minutes later, Saga is running through the hallway of the police station, the tips of her hair still damp from her quick shower. Her body still vibrates, desirous and unsatisfied. Her underwear and jeans feel uncomfortable, and not quite right.

Anja Larsson’s plump face pokes up over her computer, questioning, as Saga runs to Joona’s office. He waits in the middle of the floor. His gray eyes give her a sharp glance and she feels a shudder of unease.

“Close the door,” he says grimly.

She shuts it immediately and turns back to him. She’s quietly panting.

“Axel Riessen remembers every single piece of music he’s ever heard. Every note from every instrument in any symphony orchestra.”

“And?”

“He knew immediately which piece the string quartet was playing. It was Bela Bartok’s Second String Quartet.”

“Okay, you were right. Now we know what they were playing, but we-”

“This photograph was taken in November 2009,” Joona says sharply.

“So those devils ignored the embargo. They were doing a deal for arms,” she says bitterly.

“Right.”

“And they planned that the ammunition was to be siphoned into Darfur,” she whispers.

Joona nods while the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Carl Palmcrona should never have been there. Not with Pontus Salman, not with anyone-”

“And here they are together, caught in a photograph,” Saga says triumphantly. “Toasting a deal with Raphael Guidi and al-Haji.”

“That’s right.” Joona meets Saga’s summer-blue eyes.

“They say the really big fish always get away,” Saga murmurs. “People have always said it… most people realize it… but it’s true. The big ones almost always go free pretty much.”

They silently gaze down at the photograph again. Four people in a private box. The champagne. The expressions on their faces. The musicians playing on Paganini’s instruments at the Alte Oper. “Now we’ve figured out the first riddle,” Saga says and takes a deep breath. “A dirty deal to get arms to Sudan.”

“Palmcrona was there. The money in his account must surely have come from bribes,” Joona says slowly. “But at the same time, Palmcrona did not authorize this deal. It would be impossible. He could never get it through-”

Joona is interrupted by the phone in his jacket. He answers, listens in silence, and then ends the call. He looks at Saga.

“Axel Riessen has figured out what’s going on,” Joona says. “He knows what the photograph means.”

A lone boy made of iron, fifteen centimeters high, sits with his arms wrapped around his knees. The statue is located in the back garden of the Finnish church in Gamla Stan. Axel Riessen is three meters away, leaning on the ocher wall, eating noodles from a carton. He waves with his chopsticks as Joona and Saga walk through the gate.

“Tell us what you’ve figured out,” Joona says abruptly.

Axel nods, puts the carton of food down on the windowsill of the church, wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, and then takes time to shake hands with Joona and Saga.

“You said you understand what the photograph means,” Joona repeats.

Axel looks down, takes a deep breath, and then begins to speak. “It’s all about Kenya,” he says. “The four people in the box are celebrating an agreement on a huge shipment of ammunition to Kenya.”

He stops.

“Keep going,” Joona prompts.

“Kenya is buying 1.25 million units of licensed, manufactured 5.56? 45 millimeter ammunition.”

“For automatic rifles,” Saga says.

“Supposedly an export to Kenya,” Axel says. “But they’ll never see it. It will be diverted to Sudan and the militia in Darfur. It suddenly all came to me. Agathe al-Haji is the buyer’s representative; therefore, it is for Sudan.”

“How does Kenya fit in?” Joona asks.

“These four in the box meet after the arrest warrant was issued. Right? We know because of the date this composition is being played. An embargo is on Sudan… but not on Kenya. And Kenya is nearby, located just to the south.”

“How can you be so sure?” Saga asks.

“Carl Palmcrona opted out of this tangle through suicide. This was his last job but he left it unfinished. He left it to me to carry out,” Axel says bitterly. “And I’ve promised to sign the export authorization today.”

“So it’s the same business deal, just with the name of Sudan crossed out and Kenya put in,” Saga says.

“It’s watertight,” Axel says.

“Or it was before someone photographed the meeting,” Joona says drily.

“Before Palmcrona committed suicide, all the work was done. They believed he would sign the authorization,” Axel tells them.