Jo Nesbo - The Redeemer

Twenty minutes later Harry's telephone rang. He thrust open his eyes and swore. Shuffled, shivering, into the hallway and lifted the receiver.

'Speak. Softly.'

'Harry?'

'Just about. What's up, Halvorsen?'

'Something's happened.'

'Something, or a lot?'

'A lot.'

'Fuck.'

Early Hours, Thursday, 18 December. The Raid.

Sail stood shivering on the path beside the Akerselva. To hell with the Albanian bastard! Despite the cold, the river was icefree and black and reinforced the darkness under the plain iron bridge. Sail was sixteen years old and had come from Somalia with his mother when he was twelve. He had started selling hash when he was fourteen, and heroin last spring. Now Hux had let him down again, and he couldn't risk standing here all night with his goods and no trade. Ten fixes. If he had been eighteen he could always have gone down to Plata and sold them there. But the cops hauled in underage dealers at Plata. Their territory was here, along the river. Most of them were young boys from Somalia selling to customers who were either underage, too, or had other reasons not to be seen at Plata. Sod Hux, he needed the cash desperately!

A man came walking down the footpath. It wasn't Hux, that was for sure; he was still limping after the B gang had beaten him up for selling diluted amphetamines. As if there were anything else. And he didn't look like an undercover man, either. Or a junkie, even though he was wearing the type of blue coat he had seen many junkies wear. Sail looked around. They were alone.

When the man was close enough Sail stepped out of the shadow of the bridge. 'Wanna fix?'

The man gave a brief smile, shook his head and made to walk on. However, Sail had positioned himself in the middle of the path. He was big for his age. For any age. And his knife was, too. A Rambo: First Blood with a hollow handle containing a compass and fishing line. It cost around a thousand kroner at the Army Shop but he had got it for three hundred from a pal.

'Do you want to buy or just pay up?' Sail asked, holding the knife so that the grooved blade reflected the pale light from the street lamp.

'Excuse me?'

Foreignerspeak. Not Sail's strongest suit.

'Money.' Sail heard his voice rising. He always got so angry when he robbed people; he didn't know why. 'Now.'

The foreigner nodded and held up his left hand in defence while calmly moving his right inside his jacket. Then he withdrew his hand with lightning speed. Sail did not have time to react; he whispered a 'shit' as he realised he was staring down the muzzle of a gun. He wanted to run, but the black metal eye seemed to have frozen his feet to the ground.

'I…' he began.

'Run,' said the man. 'Now.'

And Sail ran. Ran with the cold, damp air from the river burning in his lungs and the lights from the Plaza Hotel and the Post House jumping up and down on his retina, ran until the river flowed out into the fjord and he could run no further, and he screamed at the fences around the container terminal that one day he would kill them all.

A quarter of an hour had passed since Harry had been awoken by Halvorsen's call. The police car pulled up by the kerb of Sofies gate and Harry slid onto the back seat beside his colleague. He mumbled an 'Evening' to the uniformed policemen at the front.

The driver, a hefty fellow with a closed police face, drove off quietly.

'Put your foot down,' said the pale, young, pimply policeman in the passenger seat.

'How many are there of us?' Harry peered at his watch.

'Two cars plus this one,' Halvorsen said.

'So six plus us two. I don't want any blue lights. We'll try and do this in a calm manner. You, me, a uniform and a gun will perform the arrest. The other five will cover potential escape routes. Are you carrying a weapon?'

Halvorsen slapped his chest pocket.

'That's good because I'm not,' Harry said.

'Haven't you got the firearms licence sorted yet?'

Harry leaned forward between the front seats.

'Which of you would most like to join us in arresting a professional hit man?'

'Me!' was the instant response from the young man in the passenger seat.

'Then it's you,' Harry said to the driver, nodding slowly to the mirror.

Six minutes later they had parked at the bottom of Heimdalsgata in Gronland and were studying the front door where Harry had been standing earlier in the evening.

'So our man in Telenor was sure?' Harry asked.

'Yep,' Halvorsen said. 'Torkildsen says an internal number in the Hostel tried to call Hotel International about fifty minutes ago.'

'Can't be a coincidence,' Harry said, opening the car door. 'This is Salvation Army territory. I'll have a recce. Be back in a minute.'

When Harry returned the driver was sitting with a machine gun in his lap, an MP5, which recent regulations allowed patrol cars to carry locked in the boot.

'You haven't got anything more discreet?' Harry asked.

The man shook his head. Harry turned to Halvorsen. 'And you?'

'Just a sweet little Smith amp; Wesson. 38.'

'You can borrow mine,' said the young policeman in the passenger seat with gusto. 'Jericho 941. Real power. Same as the police in Israel use to blow off the heads of the Arab scum.'

'Jericho?' Harry echoed. Halvorsen could see his eyes had narrowed. 'I'm not going to ask where you got hold of that gun. But I think I should inform you that in all probability it comes from a gang of gun smugglers. Led by your former colleague Tom Waaler.'

The policeman in the passenger seat turned round. His blue eyes vied with his fiery pimples for brightness. 'I remember Tom Waaler. And do you know what, Inspector? Most of us think he was a good guy.'

Harry swallowed and looked out of the window.

'Most of you are wrong,' Halvorsen said.

'Give me the radio,' Harry said.

He passed on quick, efficient instructions to the other drivers. Said where he wanted each car without mentioning street names or buildings that could be identified by the regular radio audience: crime correspondents, crooks and nosy parkers who picked up the frequency and doubtless already knew that something was brewing.

'Let's get going,' Harry decided, turning to the passenger seat. 'You stay here and stay in contact with the Ops Room. Call us on your colleague's walkie-talkie if there is anything. OK?'

The young man shrugged.

Only after Harry had rung three times at the front door of the Hostel did a young boy come shuffling out. He opened the door a little and peered at them through sleepy eyes.

'Police,' Harry said, rummaging in his pocket. 'Shit. Looks like I've left my ID at home. Show him yours, Halvorsen.'

'You can't come in here,' the boy said. 'You know that.'

'This is murder, not drugs.'

'Eh?'

The boy was looking with big eyes over Harry's shoulder at the policeman who had raised his MP5. Then he opened the door and stepped back without even noticing Halvorsen's ID.

'Have you got a Christo Stankic here?' Harry asked.

The boy shook his head.

'A foreigner with a camel-hair coat perhaps?' Halvorsen asked as Harry slipped behind the reception desk and opened the guest register.

'The only foreigner we have here is one they brought from the soup bus,' the boy stuttered. 'But he didn't have a camel-hair coat. Just a suit jacket. Rikard Nilsen gave him a winter jacket from the storehouse.'

'Did he ring from here?' Harry called from behind the desk.

'He used the phone in the office behind you.'

'Time?'

'Approx half past eleven.'

'Matches the call to Zagreb,' Halvorsen murmured.

'Is he in?' Harry asked.

'Don't know. He took the key with him and I've been asleep.'

'Have you got a master key?'

The boy nodded, unhooked a key from the bunch he had attached to his belt and put it in Harry's outstretched hand.