Anders Roslund - Three Seconds

The secret report from Västmannagatan 79 comprised five closely written letter-size sheets which were stuffed into a plastic sleeve that was too small. Chief Superintendent Göransson had already read it four times within an hour when he took off his glasses and looked up at Erik Wilson.

"Who?"

Wilson had watched the face that was often confused, almost bashful, despite its owner's powerful position.

With every reading of the report it became redder, more tense. Now it was about to explode.

"Who is the dead man?"

"An infiltrator, possibly."

"Infiltrator?"

`Another infiltrator. We think he was working for our colleagues in Denmark. He didn't know Paula. And Paula didn't know him."

The head of homicide was holding five thin sheets of paper that felt heavier than all the department's preliminary investigations put together. He put them down on the desk beside another version of the same murder at the same time at the same address. A report that had been given to him by Ågestam, the public prosecutor, on the progress that Grens, Sundkvist, and Hermansson were making with the official investigation.

"I want a guarantee that any part Paula may have played in the murder in Västmannagatan stays here. In this report."

Göransson looked at the two piles of paper in front of him. Wilson's secret report about what had actually happened. And Grens's ongoing investigation that contained and would continue to contain only as much as the two policemen here in this room allowed it to contain.

"Erik, that's not the way it works."

"If Grens finds out It's just not possible. Paula is close to a breakthrough. For the first time we can actually break a mafia branch before it's fully established. We've never managed that before. Göransson, you know just as well as I do, this town is not run by us anymore, it's run by them."

"I won't give any guarantees for a high-risk source."

Erik Wilson slammed the desk hard. He had never done that with his boss before.

"You know that's not true. You've had reports about his work for the last nine years. You know that he has never failed."

"He is and will always be a criminal."

"That's one of the prerequisites for a good infiltrator!"

"Accomplice to murder. If he's not a high-risk source, then what is he?" Wilson punched the desk again.

He reached for the plastic sleeve, forced the five sheets into it, then gripped it firmly.

"Fredrik, listen to me. Without Paula, this opportunity is lost. And we won't get it again. What we lose now, we'll lose forever; we only need to look at the prisons in Finland, Norway, and Denmark. How long can we just stand by and watch?"

Göransson held up his hand. He needed to think. He had listened to what Wilson had to say, and he wanted to understand the full implications. "You want the same solution as for Maria?"

"I want Paula to continue. For at least two more months. We'll need him for that long."

The head of homicide had decided.

"I'm going to call a meeting. At Rosenbad."

When Erik Wilson left Chief Superintendent Göransson's office, he walked slowly down the corridor, hovering outside Ewert Grens's open door, but the office was empty. The detective superintendent who would never close his investigation was not there.

A wall of people.

He had forgotten that at eight in the morning, it stretched from the metro platform through the corridors up onto Vasagatan.

The car was still standing in the driveway, alongside a red plastic fire engine, in case the children's fever got worse, in case Zofia had to drive to the doctor or the drugstore. Piet Hoffmann yawned as he zigzagged through the commuters who were moving too slowly, still sleepy. He had gotten out of bed every hour through the night as their temperatures rose. The first time was just after midnight when he had opened all the windows in both boys' rooms, folded the blankets back from their hot bodies and then alternated between the two bedsides until they went back to sleep. The last time was around five, when he forced a dose of Calpol into them. They needed to rest, sleep, to get better again. Two whispering parents in dressing gowns had agreed at dawn how to divide up the day, as they always did when one of them was ill or the nursery had a planning day. He would work in the morning, then come home, they would have lunch together, then Zofia would go to work in the afternoon.

Vasagatan wasn't exactly beautiful, a sad and soulless stretch of asphalt, but it was still where many visitors, having just gotten off the train or out of the airport bus or taxi, emerged into the Stockholm of water and islands that the shiny tourist brochures had promised them. Piet Hoffmann was late and didn't pay much attention to what was beautiful or ugly as he approached the Sheraron hotel and the table nearest the bar at the far end of the elegant lobby.

They had met thirty-six hours earlier in a spacious, dark building on ul. Ludwika Idzikowskiego in Mokotów in central Warsaw. Henryk Bak and Zbigniew Boruc. His contact and the deputy CEO.

He greeted them, firm handshakes from men who were careful to demonstrate that they gave firm handshakes.

The visit was the head office's way of showing they were serious.

This was where it all started. This was a priority operation. Delivery times and dates to the prison would be managed directly by Warsaw.

They let go of each other's hand and the deputy CEO sat down again by the half-empty glass of orange juice on the table. Henryk started to walk beside Hoffmann toward the exit, but then slowed down and carried on half a step behind him, as if he were unsure of the way or just wanted to have control. Vasagatan was just as soulless from this angle. They passed the entrance to the metro and then crossed the road between the passing cars and followed the pavement on the other side to a doorway, where a security firm had offices on the first floor.

They didn't talk to each other, just as they hadn't spoken on their way to meet the Roof one and a half days earlier in Warsaw. They were silent as they climbed the stairs to the door of Hoffmann Security AB, and then carried on to the second, third, fourth, and fifth floors, and right on up ro the single metal door into the loft.

Piet Hoffmann opened it and they went into the dark. There was a black switch somewhere on the wall. He felt around and eventually found it after having fumbled considerably lower down than he could remember it being. They locked the door from the inside and were careful to leave the key in the lock, so that no one else could get in. The storeroom with number 26 on the door was empty, except for four summer tires that were lying on top of each other in the far corner. He picked up the top one and pulled out the hammer and chisel that were inside the rim, then went back out into the narrow passage with the dim lighting and followed the large, shiny aluminum pipe that was suspended a few centimeters above their heads to where it met the wall and disappeared into a fan heater. He placed the tip of the chisel against the edge of the steel band than joined the pipe and the heater and then hit it hard with the hammer until the band moved and he could rake out eighty-one whitish metal tins from the temporary opening.

Henryk waited until the tins were lined up on the loft floor and then picked out three: the tin farthest to the left, one from the middle, and the second last on the right.

"You can keep the others."

Hoffmann put the remaining seventy-eight tins back in the hiding place in the fan heater while Henryk peeled off the protecting foil from the three that were left and the loft filled with a scent of tulips that was so strong it was almost unbearable.