Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

Joona jabs the barrel into the man’s face. He staggers backwards, clutching his hands to his mouth. Maintaining his line of sight, Joona takes a step forward, turns sideways and strikes him hard across the cheek with the butt of the gun. A cascade of blood squirts from his mouth.

Joona quickly turns the weapon on the old man.

The bearded man hits the ground, crashes over a box of aerosol cans and comes to rest face-down.

The old man stands still and drops the knife on the ground.

‘Kick the knife away and get down on your knees,’ Joona says.

The old man does as he’s told, leaning against the side of the building as he kneels down.

It’s almost silent, the wind and the rustle of plastic are the only sounds. Parisa looks up and sees that the blond man has followed her. Pointing the gun at Anders’s chest, he pulls Amira from his grasp.

‘Don’t play with guns, boys,’ he says in his Finnish accent.

Anders just looks at him in astonishment, licking snot from his top lip.

When Parisa rolls onto her side it feels like her head is going to explode. She gasps for breath, but forces her eyes open and sees Amira stumble towards her and sink to her knees.

‘Amira,’ she whispers.

‘We have to get away from here. You need to get up!’

Parisa can’t move. She leans her cheek on the rough ground and sees three more migrants approaching along the path. First a small boy with serious eyes, followed by an older woman in traditional costume.

Behind them is a man in a shiny black tracksuit.

Parisa knows she’s seen him before, but it takes her a few moments before she realises he’s a famous football player. Salim used to point him out in matches because he came from the same town as them.

Joona tries to make a quick assessment of the situation, and turns the gun on the bearded man when he starts to move again.

Some sort of conflict has clearly arisen between the human-traffickers, migrants and Parisa.

The old woman is still sitting on the stack of starter-motors with her knitting, and the old man is on his knees with his hands on his head.

‘We need to get out of here,’ Joona says.

Three refugees are walking towards them along the narrow path between the workshop and the boats.

Joona hears a rhythmic sound and glances towards the water before turning back to Parisa.

‘Is this everyone?’ he asks, noting that the lights in the house further away have gone out.

‘There’s just my sister and the three others left,’ she replies.

‘Tell them to come with us.’

Parisa gasps something, and her sister calls to the other three. They look confused as they come closer. The older woman is reluctant, but the boy pats her hand and tries to calm her.

‘Come on,’ Joona says, turning the gun on the old man.

The boy points, says something, then crawls in under a white yacht. He emerges a few moments later clutching Parisa’s pistol. He looks pleased with himself as he brushes his knees and holds the gun out towards her.

One arm around her sister’s shoulders, Parisa reaches out with her other hand.

The boy steps into the white glare of the spotlight, then his head whips sideways and the right side of his face disappears.

The others see blood, brain tissue and fragments of skull splatter the sleek hull of the yacht before the sound of the rifle shot reaches them.

‘Follow me, come on!’ Joona calls, trying to pull Parisa and her sister towards the large forklift.

The rhythmic sound gets louder and louder, then the sharp clatter of a helicopter rotor envelops them from all sides, hitting their chests and necks.

‘Down on the ground!’ Joona yells above the noise.

The Rapid Response Unit helicopter sweeps around, a dark shape against the black sky. A sniper is hanging out of the cabin with his feet on the landing strut.

The older Afghan woman crawls in under the boats, and the football player runs at a crouch along the side of the building. The man Joona hit rolls towards the tall weeds near the building and disappears from view.

Joona manages to get Parisa and her sister behind the forklift, lays the shotgun on the grass by the wall of the workshop, and tries to call the Security Police.

All he can hear is a vibrating sound, but he repeats several times that they have to break off the operation, that there are no terrorists in the boatyard.

Anders stands up, using his crutch, then points at the helicopter with a smile and starts walking towards the water. The treetops rustle and the noise of the helicopter changes as it performs an abrupt swerve behind them.

The four searchlights on the underside of the helicopter shine like white beacons.

Joona can see five members of the Response Unit hanging from a SPIE rope beneath the helicopter. They’re all wearing helmets and bulletproof vests and carrying semiautomatic rifles.

They are oddly inert as they approach the ground, like puppets on a string. The jetty’s wet wood shimmers in the beam of the searchlights as they fly across the water.

Anders is standing by the edge of the water, laughing at the helicopter.

The sky is dark, but the three spotlights on the front of the workshop illuminate part of the gravel path.

The clattering sound gets even louder. Joona tries calling again, sees from the screen that someone has answered, and shouts at them to break off the operation, that there aren’t any terrorists in the boatyard.

‘Break off the operation at once!’ he repeats.

Everyone has taken cover except Anders and the old woman, who is still sitting on the stack of motors.

Joona watches as the helicopter gets closer to the shore and hovers above the narrow strip of beach.

The water is pushed back in a frothing circle. Waves break over the swaying pontoon jetties. The searchlights cast trembling shadows across the path and wall of the workshop.

A sudden crosswind makes the helicopter lurch, and the mechanic tries to hold the cable away from the cabin with his foot.

The sound of the rotors gets deeper as the helicopter hovers in the air. The five response team officers are still swaying on the SPIE rope. The plastic covering one of the boats comes loose and blows away.

The men reach the ground and quickly free themselves from the cable, then run for cover. The helicopter rises again and turns to move slowly away.

A gun goes off nearby and the echo rebounds from the island opposite the marina.

The rifle shot came from behind Joona, and he has time to think that the Security Police must have brought in more snipers before he sees the helicopter losing height and realises what’s happened.

There’s another human-trafficker in the boatyard: one who turned out the lights in the house, fired a hunting rifle at the helicopter, and managed to hit the pilot.

Joona sees the main rotor hit the mast crane. There’s a loud bang, followed by a shower of sparks. The helicopter is knocked sideways like a moth that’s burned itself on a lamp.

The helicopter careens towards the ground and slams into the row of covered motorboats. The sound of the stuttering engine and the plastic being torn to ribbons cuts through the air.

There are three more bangs, and half of one of the rotor-blades just misses Anders’s head.

The blade slams into the tin wall of the workshop and shatters.

A yellow fireball fills the sky for a few seconds. The heat of the explosion ignites the grass and the edge of the forest, as well as the cabins of the surrounding boats.

Gustav is leading the first unit, and has taken cover with his two fire-and-manoeuvre teams behind the concrete foundations of a fuelling station. He hears a hacking sound and sees the helicopter losing height. Adam yells something and stands up.