Anders Roslund - Three Seconds

"And that one? Is that his?"

"That's only about him."

She opened it, looked through the printouts and reports about his mental health.

"And this is all?"

"That is our picture of him."

"Our picture?"

"The image we've created."

"And the overall image… if I can put it like this… does it give a sufficient basis for the gold commander to make a clear decision about Hoffmann… well, the consequences of the hostage taking?"

The room brightened as the sun flooded in and the white sheets of paper intensified and reflected the light.

"It was a sufficiently strong image for him to be accepted by the mafia branch that he penetrated. We've since developed it to make him totally credible in relation to the work inside Aspsås."

The state secretary put the file down to one side, looked at Göransson, who as commanding officer could easily have been in charge of the hostage-taking operation.

"Would you… with this information and in the current situation at

Aspsås where the hostages' lives are in danger… would you make a decision based on the fact that Hoffmann is dangerous, capable?" Chief Superintendent Göransson nodded.

"Without a doubt."

"Would all the police officers who might be assigned as gold commander make the same decision based on that information?"

"Given our information about Hoffmann, no police officer at the scene would question the fact that he is prepared to kill a prison warden."

The sun wearied of fighting the light clouds outside the window of the Government Offices and the bright light subsided, making it more comfortable to look round the room.

"So… if the gold commander at Aspsås is convinced that Hoffmann is prepared to kill the hostages… and has to make a decision… what would he do?"

"If the gold commander considers the hostages to be in acute danger, and that Piet Hoffmann will kill them, he would then order the men to storm the premises in order to safeguard the hostages' lives."

Göransson moved closer to the table and the map, and drew his finger over the paper from the rectangle that represented Block B to a rectangle one and a half kilometers away that represented a church.

"But it's not possible from here."

He drew a circle in the air over the building that was marked with a cross and kept his hand there, a slow movement, around and around, a circle that stopped when he did.

"So the gold commander will, if he must, order the national task force marksmen to take out the hostage taker."

"Take out?"

"Shoot."

"Shoot?"

"Put out of action."

"Put out of action?"

"Kill."

The room with the small wooden altar had already been transformed into the control post. There were drawings of Aspsås prison lying on every surface intended for the priest to prepare his services. Paper cups of vending machine coffee from the local gas station stood empty or half finished on the floor, the small window, which had been opened wide to let in some oxygen to replace that which had long since been breathed out by stressed and raised voices, creaked gently on the breeze. Ewert Grens moved restlessly between Edvardson, Sundkvist, and Hermansson, loud but not aggressive or even angry; he had just taken over as gold commander and was resolute and solution-orientated. He would have to make the final decision in a while. It was he, and he alone, who was directly responsible for several people's lives. He left the room with no air, wandered through the empty churchyard, between the headstones and newly planted flowers and saw in his mind's eye another cemetery that he had not yet dared to visit, but that he would now, later, when this was all over. He stopped between a gray, rather beautiful headstone and a tree that looked like it might be a maple, lifted the binoculars from his chest and studied the building behind the Aspsås prison wall. The man who could be seen behind the window, the one who was called Piet Hoffmann, whom Grens should have questioned the day before… there was something odd going on, something wasn't right-people who suddenly got ill rarely had the strength and focus to shoot someone else through the eye.

"Hermansson?"

He had gone over to the open window and shouted through.

"I want you to contact the prison doctor. I want to know how a prisoner who was put in isolation in the hospital unit yesterday morning is now, at lunchtime today, standing over there pointing a gun at hostages."

Ewen Grens stayed outside the open window for a while and looked over at the prison. The inner strength he had, the one that was always there and forced him to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until he had an answer, he knew exactly where it was coming from this time. The older warden. If the two people who had been taken hostage were both fellow prisoners, he wouldn't have been so motivated, he wouldn't have felt the same driving edge. That's just how it was. He didn't care much about one of the naked bodies on the workshop floor, he felt nothing for the prisoner who in theory could be in cahoots with the hostage taker. It wasn't something that he was proud of, but that was how he felt. The warden, on the other hand, who wore a uniform and worked there, an ordinary representative of a workplace that the general public hated, an older man who had given his life to this crap, shouldn't have to deal with such deep humiliation, a person who believed they had the right to take his life, a gun to his head.

Grens swallowed.

It was the warden, that's what this was all about.

He lowered the binoculars and fished out his mobile phone. He tried to remember if he had ever before asked his line manager for help two days in a row. After all, they had had an unspoken understanding for a long time to stay out of each other's way in order to avoid conflicts. But he had no choice. He dialed the number of the office only a couple of doors down from his own. No reply. He dialed again, the switchboard this time, asked them to put him through to his mobile phone. Chief Superintendent Göransson answered after the first ring, his voice hushed, as if he was in a meeting and leaning forward to speak.

"Ewert… I don't have time right now. I'm trying to find a solution to a critical problem."

"This is critical too."

“We-“

"I'm exactly fifteen hundred and three meters away from the prison in Aspsås. I'm responsible for an ongoing hostage situation. There's a risk that one of the prison wardens might die if I make the wrong decision and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that that doesn't happen. But I need some bureaucratic assistance. You know, the sort of thing you do."

Chief Superintendent Göransson ran his hand over his face and through his hair.

"You're at Aspsås, you say?"

"Yes."

"And you're the gold commander?"

"I just took over from Edvardson. He's focusing on the task force." Göransson held the telephone high up over his head and pointed at it with big gestures, catching the attention of the national police commissioner and state secretary and nodding vehemently at them until they understood.

"I'm listening."

"I need a competent marksman."

"The national task force are there, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't understand."

"I need someone who is trained and equipped to shoot over a distance of fifteen hundred meters. Apparently the police aren't. So I need a military marksman."

They were listening, the national police commissioner and the state secretary, they were sitting next to him and had started to get the picture.

"You know as well as I do that the armed forces can't be used against civilians."

"You're the bureaucrat, Göransson. If you're good at anything, then it's that. Being a pen-pusher. I want you to come up with a solution." "Ewert-"