Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

Iversen gave her a worried look, but he didn't offer any objections. He knew her well enough to realize that nothing he could do would prevent her from going. 'Not for me,' he said, looking down at the floor. 'I'm too old, and the heat… I'd just be in the way.'

'That's okay, Iversen,' said Katherina. 'We need you here.'

Iversen nodded without raising his eyes from the floor.

'You're going to need a transmitter,' declared Henning, raising his hand as if taking an oath. 'I'll go.'

The others all exchanged glances.

Tom shook his head. 'I'm already too far away from my farm,' he said with a dejected expression. 'I'm sorry.'

'Maybe it's best with a small group,' suggested Clara.

Everyone agreed, some people showing obvious relief. Katherina didn't care. As long as she could go, it wasn't important whether one or a hundred went with her. Once she found Jon, she'd find a way to free him.

After an hour Mehmet still hadn't called back and almost everyone had left the shop. Iversen had stayed and was pottering about with some books but keeping his distance from Katherina, who was spending the waiting time alternately sitting down and pacing back and forth in front of the windows. She sensed that Iversen was still a bit embarrassed that he couldn't go along. He avoided her eyes and moved quietly among the shelves, as if not wanting to disturb her.

After yet another hour had passed, Iversen went home too when Katherina insisted he needed to get some sleep. She rang Mehmet a couple of times, but he didn't answer. Gradually her pacing around the shop got more and more restless. She walked in order to keep her thoughts at bay. But after more than two hours of pacing, she sat down on the floor with her back against a bookcase. Her legs ached, which provided a welcome distraction from her speculations. She wrapped her arms round her legs and rested her forehead against her knees. When she pressed her eyelids closed, spots danced before her eyes like flies in the afternoon sun. She even felt the heat of the sun baking on her back. The sun of Egypt.

The phone rang.

Katherina awoke with a violent start and looked around in fright. She was lying on the floor in a foetal position. It was daylight outside.

With some difficulty she stood up. Her legs were stiff, and she tottered the first few paces over to the counter.

'Libri di Luca,' she said when she finally picked up the phone.

'It's me,' she heard on the other end of the line.

Katherina recognized Mehmet's voice and was instantly wide awake.

'Meet me at the main library in half an hour.'

'What?' Katherina stammered, but by then Mehmet had rung off.

Katherina broke all the traffic rules as she biked over to the main library. She rode on the pavement, headed the wrong way down one-way streets and used the bus lanes without regard for traffic lights or the honking cars. Her leg muscles, which already ached, began to burn so badly that she almost fell off her bike before she finally reached the main library on Krystalgade. She parked her bicycle without bothering to lock it and dashed through the revolving door into the library.

The white vestibule stretched up through the entire building to the roof, where frosted panes let in the sun to light up the big open space below. Katherina paused in the middle of the hall to look around. The library had opened only an hour earlier, so there weren't many people. She was picking up words from far fewer people reading than she had feared, and she was able to concentrate on those who were present.

At the counter on her right stood a lone librarian who was idle at the moment, while others were pushing carts crowded with books, which they methodically put back on the shelves. A solitary woman was sitting in front of a monitor among a cluster of computers on the ground floor.

Mehmet was nowhere in sight.

Katherina went over to the escalator that led from the entrance up to the floor above. She got off at the fiction section on the second floor and went to stand at the railing so she had a view of the vestibule below. Her heart was still pounding from the mad dash on her bike and she noticed that she was sweating. She fixed her attention on a group that had just come in, but they turned out to be a bunch of students headed for the comic book section.

'This way,' said Mehmet's voice behind her.

She turned to see Mehmet moving towards the escalator that would take him up to the next floor. He was wearing a grey hoodie. She noticed that he was limping, and when he turned his head to make sure she was following, she saw he was wearing sunglasses that didn't quite cover the bruise over one eye.

On the third floor he went over to a terminal that was suitably tucked away between the bookcases.

'What happened?' Katherina asked when she came up to him.

Mehmet sat down with a grimace. 'It'll be easier if you see for yourself,' he said and started tapping away on the keyboard.

A picture of a room showed up on the screen. The image was fuzzy and not particularly well lit, but there was no doubt that it was Mehmet's flat. Even though his living room had never been especially neat, it was clear that something was very wrong. The furniture and boxes were all jumbled together, with the contents strewn across the floor. The desk had been turned over and the monitors that used to sit on top were nowhere to be seen.

'That's what it looks like right now,' muttered Mehmet. 'We have to go back to last night to see why.'

Underneath the picture was a row of buttons with symbols, like on a videotape player. Mehmet clicked on the button to rewind. A time indicator in the upper right corner began counting down. The image was the same, but Katherina could see that the light coming from outside was changing. The counter went faster and faster, and suddenly there was a lot of movement in the picture.

'There,' said Mehmet and clicked on the play button.

On the screen they could see that Mehmet's living room had been restored to its normal appearance and Mehmet himself was sitting in front of his monitors.

'This is right before it happened,' he said.

The pictures showed Mehmet working at the keyboard. He was bobbing his head rhythmically to some tune they couldn't hear. All of a sudden he stood up and stretched his arms in the air as he did a little victory dance.

Mehmet cleared his throat. 'Well, okay. That's when I cracked the school's security system. Good thing there's no sound.'

He clicked on the fast-forward for a few seconds and then on the play button again.

On the screen Mehmet was back in front of his computers, but he stood up abruptly and looked towards the corridor. Through the open doorway they could see boxes cluttering up the floor of the hall. Mehmet went over to the door, but at the same instant a figure appeared behind him and hit him on the back with some sort of club. Mehmet staggered a few steps forward but managed to turn round before the next blow came. He fended it off with his arm and then threw himself at the person, who flew backwards and crashed into a pile of boxes. That gave Mehmet enough time to grab one of the golf clubs from his collection of prizes and he delivered a blow to the chest of his assailant. In the meantime, two more figures entered the living room from the hallway. They too were armed with clubs, and Mehmet had to defend himself from all sides. He was struck numerous times, once on the shin and several times in the face, but he fended them off as he backed out through the garden door.

In the library Mehmet shifted uneasily in his chair and turned to glance around.

On the screen one of the intruders tossed aside his club but pulled out a pistol and aimed it at Mehmet, who raised his hands. But as he stepped backwards he was lucky enough to topple over a stack of crates piled up close to the door. Two quick flashes issued from the barrel of the gun, but by then Mehmet had already got up and out by the garden door. Two of the assailants struggled with the boxes blocking their way while the man with the gun fired yet another shot through the windowpane towards the garden.