Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

The wider road next to the National Historical Museum gives Stewe a breather and he tries to reach the leader of the operation again.

“Alpha Car!” he yells.

“Roger,” a voice says.

“Suspect is in a red Volvo on Linnegatan heading toward Djurgarden,” Stewe calls into the radio.

He drops the radio and it bounces on the floor as his car hits a wooden barrier in front of a sandpile. His right front tire lifts off the ground and he slides to the left, passing the hole where the asphalt has been broken up. He disengages the clutch and matches the drift in the other direction, slides past the opposite lane, and is in control of the car again. He hits the gas.

He’s pursuing the Volvo down tree-lined Narvavagen Boulevard, which had crossed Linnegatan. A bus brakes hard to miss the Volvo. It slides into the intersection and the back end swings around to hit a light pole. Another car swerves to avoid the bus and helplessly drives right into a bus shelter. Glass splinters rain down onto the sidewalk. A woman throws herself away from the car and falls down. The brakes of the bus are still squealing, its tires thunder up onto the safety island, and the roof of the bus knocks off a large, overhanging tree branch.

Stewe keeps following the racing Volvo past Berwald Concert Hall. He’s coming closer just in time to see that the driver is managing to aim a pistol at him. He stamps down on the brake at the same moment the shot goes through the window near his head. The interior of Stewe’s car instantly fills with flying glass. The Volvo drives over a parked bike with a placard advertising Linda’s Cafe. There’s a big bang as the bike bounces up, then over the hood and roof and on into the air. It lands directly in front of Stewe to be crushed beneath his wheels and thwack up momentarily against his undercarriage.

They’re speeding through the sharp curve to Strandvagen, right over the safety island between the trees. Stewe hits the gas as he pulls out of the turn and his tires spin. They’re racing through early rush-hour traffic, leaving the sounds of squealing brakes and the thud of minor collisions behind. They come up to the left by Berwald Concert Hall, over the grass-covered safety island and onto Dag Hammarskjolds vag.

Stewe pulls out his pistol and puts it down next to him. He reasons that he’ll reach the other car at Djurgardsbrunnsvagen. At that point he’ll try to head him off, and then it will be time to take the man out. They’re passing the American embassy, hidden behind a high gray fence, at about 130 kilometers an hour. The Volvo, its tires smoking now, jerks from the road and turns to the left just past the Norwegian embassy. It goes up over the sidewalk and between the trees. Stewe reacts a touch too late and is forced to swing wide, right in front of a bus, over the sidewalk, up onto the lawn, and through some low bushes. His tires whack on the curbstones of the Italian Cultural Institute. He crosses the sidewalk and slides to the left on Gardesgatan, where he immediately spots the Volvo.

It’s stopped in the center of the Skarpogatan crossway.

Stewe believes he sees a glimpse of the driver through the back window. He grabs up his pistol from the seat and releases the safety. He drives slowly up to the Volvo. Blue lights flash from all the police cars streaming from Valhallavagen beyond the Sveriges Television Building. The Volvo driver bails quickly from his vehicle and then he is only a black-clad figure running down the road between the two stately embassies of Germany and Japan. Stewe is almost out of his car when the Volvo explodes into a fireball. The shock wave hits his face and the blast deafens him. He hears the world as if cotton wool were stuffed into his ears, but he drives on into the unbelievable quiet, up onto the sidewalk, even directly across the smoking hulk, but he can no longer see the suspect. There is no other place to go. He speeds up, crashes through a high fence, stops as the street dead ends, leaves the car, and runs back with his pistol ready.

The man is gone. The world is still unbelievably silent, except for an odd high-pitched whistle as if a strong wind were blowing. Stewe scans the street quickly up and down. The embassy buildings sit behind gray steel wire. There was nowhere the man could go except into one of these buildings by using a code or even climbing over one of the high fences.

People are emerging from their buildings to see what caused the explosion. Stewe looks around, takes a few steps, then quickly turns around again. This time, he spots the suspect immediately, on the grounds of the German embassy. He walks casually, matter-of-factly, to the main entrance. The door swings open and the man steps inside. Stewe Billgren lowers his arm and tries to calm down from a feeling of total frustration. He tries to control his breathing. The German embassy sits on a piece of land that is diplomatically considered part of Germany itself. He cannot enter without an express invitation. Swedish jurisdiction stops at the gate.

A uniformed officer is stationed ten meters in front of the barrier on Sturegatan by Humlegardsgatan when Joona Linna drives up. The policeman tries to direct him away, but Joona ignores him and parks at the edge of the road. He shows his ID, bends underneath the plastic tape barrier, and then starts to jog toward the Saluhall.

He’d received the call only eighteen minutes ago, but the gunfight is over and the ambulances have begun to arrive.

The leader of the operation, Jenny Goransson, is receiving a detailed report regarding the police pursuit of the suspect, which has concluded in the part of town called Diplomat City. It appears that the suspect has entered the German embassy. Saga Bauer is talking to a colleague outside the Saluhall. The officer is wrapped in a blanket. Saga catches Joona’s eye and waves him over. He walks toward the women and nods a greeting.

“I was sure I’d get here before you,” Joona says.

“Too slow, Joona, you’re too slow.”

“Yes, I am.” He grins as he replies.

The policewoman in the blanket looks at Joona and says hello.

“This is Mira Carlsson from Span,” Saga says. “She was one of the first into the Saluhall and she thinks she hit our man.”

“But you didn’t see his face,” Joona states.

“No, I didn’t,” Mira confirms.

Joona looks at the entrance to the Saluhall and then turns to Saga.

“They assured me that all the buildings nearby were secure,” he mutters bitterly.

“They assumed these were too far away-”

“They assumed wrong,” Joona says.

“Yes,” Saga agrees, and gestures at the building. “He was behind the fence of this entrance and he was able to fire a shot through Penelope’s window.”

“So I heard. She was lucky,” Joona says softly.

Barriers were up in the area around Ostermalms Saluhall and small numbered signs marked the first findings: a shoe print and an empty cartridge from a full metal jacket American-made precision bullet.

Farther inside the open doors, Joona can see some tomatoes scattered across the floor along with a battered-looking magazine from a Swedish AK-5.

“Stewe Billgren, our colleague from Span,” Saga continues, “followed the suspect to Diplomat City and reports that he walked into the German embassy through the front door.”

“Any possibility he could be mistaken?”

“Maybe… we’re in contact with the embassy and… wait”-she quotes from her notebook-“they say that they have not ‘registered any unusual activity within the embassy grounds.’ ”

“Have you talked to Billgren yourself?”

“Yes.” Saga looks at Joona seriously. “His hearing was damaged when the suspect blew up the stolen car. He can hardly hear a thing. However, he’s absolutely certain what he saw. He clearly saw the suspect enter the German embassy.”