Anders Roslund: Three Seconds

Anger chased frustration chased dread and he struggled to stand still with all the turmoil inside him.

He had been there and he hadn't been able to prevent it.

To prevent it would have meant death for him.

So another person had died instead.

The young woman in front of him was done. He didn't know her, they had never met. He knew that she was called Irina and she came from Gdansk, that she was twenty-two and a student and was prepared to take a risk that was far greater than she imagined and that was enough. She was a perfect mule. Just the sort they were looking for. Of course there were others, junkies from the suburbs of larger cities who flocked in their thousands, willing to use their bodies as containers for less than she was paid, but they had learned not to use drug addicts as they were unreliable and often seemed to throw up by themselves long before they reached their destination.

Inside, the anger and frustration and dread, more emotions, more thoughts.

There hadn't been any operation. But there had been a delivery over which he had no control.

There hadn't been any results. The Poles should have been back in Warsaw by now, his tool for mapping and identifying another partner.

There hadn't been any deal. They had shipped in fifteen mules unnecessarily, ten experienced ones who they supplied with two hundred capsules each and five new ones who took one hundred and fifty capsules each, in total more than twenty-seven kilos of freshly produced amphetamine which, once it had been cut for sale, would come to eighty-one kilos with a street value of one hundred and fifty kronor per gram.

But without any backup, there was no operation, no result, not even a deal.

It was an unchecked delivery that had ended in murder.

Piet Hoffmann gave the young, wan woman called Irina a brief nod. The money had been in his trouser pocket since the morning, counted and rolled up in bundles. He pulled out the last bundle and flicked through the banknotes so she could see it was all there. She was one of the new ones and didn't yet have the capacity that the organization expected. She had only delivered fifteen hundred grams on her first trip, which would be three times as much when cut to its sellable form, worth a total of 675,000 kronor.

"Your four percent. Twenty-seven thousand kronor. But I've rounded it up to three thousand euros. And if you dare to swallow more next time, you'll earn more. Your stomach stretches a little each time."

She was pretty. Even when her face was pale and her hairline sweaty. Even when she had been on her knees in a three-room flat in Sweden, puking up her guts for a couple of hours.

"And my tickets."

Piet Hoffmann nodded to Jerzy, who took out two tickets from the inner pocket of his dark jacket. One for the train from Stockholm to Ystad and one for the ferry from Ystad to winoujcie. He held them out to her, and she was just about to take them when he pulled back his hand and smiled. He waited a bit then held them out again, and just when she was about to take them, he pulled back his hand, again.

"For fuck's sake, she's earned them!"

Hoffmann snatched the tickets from him and gave them to her. "We'll be in touch. When we need your help again."

The anger, the frustration, the dread.

They were finally alone in the flat that functioned as an office for one of Stockholm's security firms.

"This was my operation."

Piet Hoffmann took a step closer to the man who had shot and killed a person that morning.

"I am the one who speaks the language and I am the one who gives the orders in this country."

It was more than anger. It was rage. He had contained it since the shooting. First they had to take care of the mules, empty them, secure the delivery. Now he could release it.

"If anyone is going to shoot, it's on my order and only my order."

He wasn't sure where it was coming from, why it was so intense. Whether it was disappointment that a business partner had not materialized. Whether it was frustration because a person who probably had the same brief as he did had been killed without reason.

"And the gun, where the fuck is it?"

Mariusz pointed at his chest, to the inner pocket of his jacket.

"You murdered someone. You can get life for that. And you're so fucking stupid that you've still got the gun in your pocket?"

Rage and something else tearing at him. You should have been reporting back to Poland. He blocked out the feeling that might equally be fear, took a step toward the man who was smiling, pointing at his inner pocket, and stopped when they were face to face. Play your role. That was all that mattered, power and respect, taking and never letting go. Play your role or die.

"He was a policeman."

"And how the fuck d'you know that?"

"He said so."

"And since when did you speak Swedish?"

Piet Hoffmann took measured breaths. He realized that he was irritated and tired as he walked over to the round kitchen table and the metal bowl that contained 2,749 regurgitated and cleaned capsules: a good twenty-seven kilos of pure amphetamine.

"He said police. I heard it. You heard it."

Hoffmann didn't turn around when he replied.

"You were at the same meeting as me in Warsaw. You know the rules. Until we're done here, it's me, and only me, who decides."

He had been uncomfortable during the short journey from Kronoberg to Vasastan. Or rather, he'd been sitting on something. When Hermansson swung into Västmannagatan and pulled up outside number 79, he lifted his heavy body a touch while he felt around on the seat with his hand. Two cassettes. Siw mixes. He held the hard plastic cases in his hand and looked at the music that should have been packed away, and then at the passenger seat and glove compartment. There were two more cassettes in there. He bent down and pushed them as far under the seat as possible. He was as scared of being near them as he was of forgetting to take them with him, the last four remnants of another life that would remain packed away in a cardboard box sealed with tape.

Ewen Grens preferred sitting here in the back.

He no longer had any music to play and he had no desire to listen to or answer the frequent calls on the radio. And anyway, Hermansson drove considerably better than both Sven and he did in the busy city traffic.

There wasn't much room on the street; three police cars and forensics' dark-blue Volkswagen bus double-parked alongside a tight row of residents' cars. Mariana Hermansson slowed down, drove up onto the pavement and stopped in front of the main door, which was guarded by two uniformed policemen. They were both young and pale and the one closest rushed over to the unknown men and a woman in a red car. Hermansson knew what he wanted and at precisely the same moment that he tapped on the window, she rolled it down and held up her police ID.

"We're investigators. All three of us."

She smiled at him. Not only did he look young, he was probably considerably younger than she was. She guessed he was in his first weeks of service, as there weren't many who didn't recognize Ewen Grens.

"Was it you who took the call?"

"Yes."

"Who raised the alarm?"

"Anonymous, according to the CCC."

"You mentioned an execution?"

"We said it looked like an execution. You'll understand when you get there."

Up on the fourth floor, the door farthest away from the elevator was open. Another uniformed colleague was standing watch. He was older, had been in the force longer; he recognized Sundkvist and gave him a nod. Two steps later Hermansson had her ID ready and was just about to show it, and she wondered if she would ever stay anywhere long enough to be recognized by more than her immediate colleagues-she didn't think so, she wasn't the sort who stayed.