Anders Roslund - Three Seconds

A yellow, solid lump at the bottom of each tin.

Manufactured amphetamine cut with two parts grape sugar.

Henryk opened his black briefcase and set up some simple scales beside a stand with test tubes, a scalpel, and a pipette. One thousand eighty-seven grams. A kilo of amphetamine plus the weight of the tin. He nodded to Hoffmann: it was exact.

Henryk used the scalpel to scrape at one of the lumps until a piece no bigger than would fit in the first test tube loosened. He put the pipette into the second test tube, which contained phenylacetone and paraffin, sucked up the fluid and then released it over the loose bit of amphetamine, and shook the test tube a couple of times. He waited for a minute or two, then held the test tube up to the window: a clear bluish fluid equaled strong amphetamine, a dark cloudy fluid meant the opposite.

"Three or four times?"

"Three."

"Looks good."

Henryk sealed the tin with the foil and closed the lid, repeated the same procedure with the two others, looked again at the bluish clear fluid and, satisfied, asked his Swedish colleague to put them back in the heater, then hammer the band back in place until they heard the clicking noise that told them that the ventilation pipe was whole again.

The door to the loft was locked properly from the outside. Six flights of stairs down to the asphalt of Vasagatan. They walked in silence.

The deputy CEO was still sitting at the same table, a new half glass of orange juice in front of him.

Hoffmann waited by the long reception desk while Henryk sat down next to Wojtek's number two.

Clear bluish fluid.

Eighty-one kilos of cut amphetamine.

The deputy CEO turned around and nodded. Piet Hoffmann felt something relax in the pit of his stomach as he walked across the expensive hotel lobby.

"All those bloody bits. They just get stuck to your teeth."

The deputy CEO pointed to his half-empty glass of juice and ordered two more. The waitress was young and smiled at them, just as she smiled at all the guests who gave her a hundred-kronor tip and might well order again.

"I will be leading the operation on the outside. You're leading inside, from Kumla, Hall or Aspsås. Maximum security Swedish prisons."

"I need a coffee."

A double espresso. The young waitress smiled again.

"It was a long night."

He looked at the deputy CEO, who paused.

It could be a demonstration of power. Maybe it was.

"Nights sometimes are. Long."

The deputy CEO smiled. He wasn't looking for respect. He was looking for a strength he could trust.

"Right now we've got four people in Aspsås, and three in both Hall and Kumla. In different sections, but they're able to communicate. I want you to be arrested within the week for a crime that is serious enough to merit a sentence in one of them."

"Two months. Then I'm done."

"You'll be given all the time you need."

"I don't want more. But I do want a guarantee. That you'll get me out at exactly that point."

"Don't worry."

"A guarantee."

"We'll get you out."

"How?"

"We'll look after your family when you're inside. And when you're done, we'll look after you. New life, new identity, money to start over again."

The lobby of the Sheraton was still empty.

Those who had come to the capital on business wouldn't check in until the evening. Those who had come in search of museums and monuments were already out and about with a fast-talking guide and new Nike trainers.

He had finished his coffee. He motioned to the reception, another double espresso and one of those little mint wafers.

"Three kilos."

The deputy CEO put his glass of juice down next to the others. He was listening.

"I'll be caught with three kilos. I'll be questioned and plead guilty. I'll explain that I'm working on my own, so I get a short remand as charges can be brought immediately. I'll be given a substantial sentence by the city court-three kilos of amphetamine is a priority crime in Swedish courts, and say that I accept the sentence, so I won't have to wait until it enters into force. If everything goes smoothly, I should be behind bars in the right institution within two weeks."

Piet Hoffmann was sitting in a hotel lobby in the center of Stockholm, but was in fact looking around the small cell in Österåker prison from ten years ago.

Hideous days when voices screamed urine test and grown men lined up to stand in the mirrored room where gimlet eyes inspected their penises and urine. Horrendous nights with spot inspections, standing barely awake in your underpants outside the cell door while a gang of screws stripped, smashed, and emptied everything and when they were done, just walked away from the chaos.

He would deal with it this time. He was there for reasons greater than the humiliation.

"When you're in place, there'll be two stages to the operation. In exactly the same way that we took one prison after the other in Norway from Oslo prison, or in Finland from Riihimaki, which was the first."

The deputy CEO leaned forward.

"You'll knock out any competition that's already there. Then we'll deliver our products through our own channels. To begin with, the remaining seventy-eight kilos that Henryk just approved: you'll use that to dump prices. Everyone inside has to learn that we are the dealers. Amphetamine for fifty kronor a gram instead of three hundred. Until we've got it all. Then we'll raise it. Fuck, maybe we'll do more than that. Keep buying. We'll bump it up to five hundred, why not six hundred per gram. Or stop injecting."

Piet Hoffmann was back in the cramped cell in Österåker. Where drugs ruled. Where those who owned the drugs ruled. Amphetamine. Heroin. Even bread and rotten apples left for three weeks in a bucket of water in a cleaning cupboard-the minute they changed into twelve percent moonshine, it was the owner of the cleaning bucket who ruled.

"I need three days to knock out the competition. During that time I don't want to have any contact and it's my responsibility to take in enough gear."

"Three days."

"From day four, I want one kilo of amphetamine to be delivered once a week through Wojtek's channels. It's my job to see that it's used. I don't want anyone hiding or storing anything, nothing that resembles competition."

Hotel lobbies are strange places.

No one belongs there. No one has any intention of staying there.

The two tables closest to them, which had been empty until now, were suddenly transformed into two groups of Japanese tourists who sat down to wait patiently for the rooms they had booked, which weren't ready yet.

The deputy CEO lowered his voice.

"How will you get it in?"

"That's my responsibility."

"I want to know how you're going to do it."

"The same way that I did at Österåker ten years ago. The same way that I've done it several times since in other prisons."

"How?"

"With all due respect, you know that I'm capable, that I'll take responsibility for it, and that should be enough."

"Hoffmann, how?"

Piet Hoffmann smiled-it felt unnatural-for the first time since last night.

"Tulips and poetry."

The door wasn 't properly shut.

He distinctly heard footsteps out in the corridor, and they were hurrying toward him.

He didn't want any visitors right now He wasn't going to share this with anyone.

Erik Wilson got up from his chair and checked the door handle. It was already closed. He had imagined it, the steps scraping on the floor, getting louder and louder, were not there. He was more anxious, more stressed than he realized.

Two meetings in a matter of hours.