Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

The dog’s legs are still twitching as Joona gets to his feet and picks up his stick.

Some distance away Adam is clambering over the barricade of old furniture, rolled-up carpets and boxes. He gets tangled up in a bicycle and falls over the other side, hitting his head against a metal door.

In front of Joona is an upturned bed pushed against one wall. He shoves it over across the rest of the barricade and squeezes through the gap between it and the wall. Through piles of chairs, bags of clothes hangers and old-fashioned hairdryers on stands he sees Adam get to his feet just as the second dog launches itself at him.

Adam cries out in pain as Joona pushes through the gap between the bed and the storeroom wall. He hears something made of glass break under the pressure. The lights in the main passageway go out but Joona can still see that the huge dog has clamped its jaws round Adam’s lower arm. It’s pulling backwards hard, snarling as its claws scrabble on the cement floor.

Adam is gasping and trying to hit the animal.

Joona can’t fire into the darkness, so tries to force his way through to them. A standard lamp with a broken shade, tucked into a pile of chairs, catches on his clothes.

The dog isn’t letting go of Adam’s arm. They crash into the metal wall together. Blood from Adam’s arm is running from its locked jaws.

Its paws slip on the polished cement floor, its claws unable to get any grip.

The dog jerks backwards again, trying to knock Adam off balance, but he’s managing to stay on his feet.

Joona shoves the lamp aside, its cord whips his cheek, but he makes it out past the bed and clambers over some boxes of books.

The dog makes a sudden downward jerk and when Adam stumbles forward it lets go and snaps at his neck. It misses and only catches part of the collar of his jacket, rips the fabric and tries to bite again. Adam throws himself back, falls and starts to kick out. The dog bites into his foot and tugs him towards it.

Joona pulls over a box of paperback books as he stumbles out on to the floor. He runs over with his pistol raised, but the dog suddenly lets go and disappears.

‘Big dogs,’ Joona says.

Leaning on his stick, he watches as Adam picks his pistol up off the floor and gets to his feet. Joona shuts his weary eyes for a moment, and can’t help thinking that he might be about to break.

They carry on towards the next main passageway. The lights go on ahead of them, and the clicking sound is back.

‘There,’ Adam says.

They catch a glimpse of someone disappearing into one of the side-passages. There’s a sound of clattering metal wire vibrating against the metal walls.

‘Did you see? Was it the same woman?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Joona replies, noticing how pale and sweaty Adam’s face is. ‘How are you doing?’

Adam doesn’t answer, just shakes off the blood running down the back of his hand on to the floor. His lower arm is injured, but his leather jacket prevented it being completely torn apart.

They stick to the right-hand side of the passageway in order to be able to see into the side-passage on the left. The metal wire scrapes and rattles against the metal walls.

A young woman is standing in the passageway, swaying. It’s not the same one as before. Her white jeans and chequered shirt are much dirtier.

‘He said you’d come,’ she mumbles in a brittle voice.

‘We’re police officers,’ Adam says.

She staggers and fumbles for a little dog-whistle attached to a cord around her neck.

‘Don’t do it,’ Adam says when he sees the second large dog get closer, crouching low with its ears folded down.

She’s been crying, her make-up has run down her face and her hair is hanging in messy clumps.

There’s blood around the waist of her shirt.

She rolls the dog-whistle between her fingers, then puts it to her lips.

Adam raises his pistol, takes aim and shoots the dog in the forehead. It collapses to the floor and the echo fades away.

She smiles at them through cracked lips, then staggers backwards when someone tugs on the metal wire round her waist.

‘We saw an SOS signal,’ Adam says.

‘I’m smart, aren’t I?’ she says wearily.

She starts to move back along the passageway, and the metal wire pulling her clatters against the walls and floor.

‘How many of you are there down here?’ Adam asks as they follow her.

They step over the dog and the pool of dark blood spreading out across the floor.

‘Where are you going?’

She doesn’t answer, and they carry on round a corner. Further along the dimly lit passageway is a faint light. They pass an open storeroom and in the gloom they can see a mattress on the floor, boxes, some old skis, and stacks of tinned food.

Someone tugs harder on the wire and the young woman keeps stumbling on, opens the next door and staggers into the storeroom.

Light shines out on to the door opposite, and her shadow sways across the corrugated metal and smooth walls.

There’s a growing stench of rotting rubbish.

Joona and Adam follow her with their pistols pointed at the floor. The light is coming from a pocket torch hanging from the ceiling, illuminating the nearest part of the large storeroom. Among a mass of removal crates and picture frames stands an emaciated man dressed in an unbuttoned mink coat.

It’s Filip Cronstedt.

Joona and Adam raise their guns.

He’s filthy, and has white froth at the corners of his mouth. His bare chest is covered with blood from a patchwork of cuts.

The first woman they saw, the one in the worn padded jacket, is sitting on a box in front of him, eating mushrooms from a jar with her fingers.

Filip hasn’t seen them yet. He’s carefully winding the retracted wire round a huge spindle, then scratches his neck and pulls the woman in the chequered shirt closer without looking up.

‘Filip,’ she whispers.

‘I need you on guard, Sophia... I don’t want to have to lock you up, but I’ve told you before, you can only have the light on when the door is closed.’

‘Filip Cronstedt?’ Adam says in a loud voice.

Filip Cronstedt looks up and stares at Adam with tired eyes and dilated pupils.

‘I’m the hatmaker,’ he says quietly.

Sweat is running down Joona’s back, and he can’t hold his pistol up any longer.

The torch hanging from the ceiling sways in a gust of air, and the shadows slide around the walls, its light reflecting off a large floor-mirror.

Joona moves to one side, blinks, and sees in the mirror that there’s a knife sticking out of the box in front of Filip.

‘We need to talk to you,’ Adam says, moving forward cautiously.

‘How many videos are you in every day?’ Filip asks, staring at the floor. ‘Where does it all go, what decisions does it lead to?’

‘We can talk about that if you let the girls go.’

‘I don’t give a shit about Snowden and optic nerves,’ he says slowly, pointing at the ceiling.

‘Just let the girls go, and—’

‘This isn’t Prism or XKeyscore or Echelon,’ he interrupts in a louder voice. ‘This is a fuck of a lot bigger than that.’

Joona puts his pistol back in its holster and walks slowly towards the woman whose name is evidently Sophia. He can feel the last of his strength draining away, the way icy water makes everything sluggish, but scorchingly sleepy.

Filip’s hand is getting closer to the knife sticking out of the box.

Sophia falters, and the wire rattles softly.

‘Saturn ate his children,’ Filip goes on, then sniggers. ‘I mean, the NSA is much bigger... and we’re their children...’

Joona just manages to see him put his hand on the knife before his vision flares again and he has to lean his own hand against the wall to stop himself falling.