Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

The Rabbit Hunter is standing perfectly still, with his eyes downcast, as the lift carries him upward. He is in the northernmost of the two towers that stand on either side of Kungs Street, well outside the area cordoned off by the police.

He wraps the leather strap with the rabbits’ ears around his head, ties it at the back, and listens to the whirr of the cables.

He gets off on the fourteenth floor, walks past the milky-white glazed entrance to East Capital and continues up the staircase that winds around the lift-shaft.

The new keys still meet some resistance as he unlocks the door to Scope Capital Advisory Ltd, disables the alarm and walks across the yellow rug covering the granite floor.

There’s a vase of tulips on the reception desk, fallen petals curled on its black surface.

The Rabbit Hunter bends down, grabs the corner of the yellow rug and pulls it behind him, past the empty, glass-walled offices.

There are large lunette windows facing all directions — semi-circular frames, like setting suns — and all of Stockholm lies spread out below him.

He doesn’t have much time.

He goes into the north-facing conference room, dragging the mat with him over to one of the arched windows.

He smashes the bottom pane of glass with the hilt of his knife, then quickly removes any sharp fragments from the frame using the back of the blade.

Papers blow off a sideboard.

He hurries around the conference table and shoves it across the floor towards the window. It hits the wall, knocking flakes of paint to the floor.

He lifts the rug onto the table, spreads it out and folds it over, then grabs his black duffle bag from the cupboard. He quickly takes out his .300 Win Mag and unfolds it.

He uses an Accuracy International, a repeat-cylinder sniper rifle, the new version with a curved magazine, improved loading chamber and shorter barrel.

It takes him less than twenty seconds to put the weapon together, lie down on his stomach on the folded mat and aim the barrel of the rifle through the window.

Across the rooftops of the buildings along Malmskillnads Street he can see the pale green copper roof of St Johannes’ Church, its spire pointing like a dagger towards the sky.

When he was here earlier today, his rangefinder said that the distance to the church door was only three hundred and eighty-nine metres.

He’s made a cheek-rest out of hard foam-rubber, which lets his eye rest at exactly the right height in relation to the rifle sight.

The barrel is fitted with a muffler that reduces both the recoil and the flare. No one will be able to hear where the shot has come from. No one will see any flash of light.

The Rabbit Hunter brushes the ears from his face, puts his right eye to the sights, and stares at the gilded letter Omega above the church door, then slowly moves down to the brown-black metal of the door-handle, and thinks back to the dry summer when he was nine years old.

He remembers the excitement he felt as he crept through the abandoned greenhouses. Bleached light poured through the broken, dusty glass. Cautiously he walked out over the yellow grass and raised his little Remington Long Rifle, pressed the butt against his shoulder and rested his forefinger on the mounting.

A dun-coloured rabbit darted and disappeared into the shade of a bush.

He walked across some dirty cardboard lying on the ground, carefully going around a broken wicker chair, and waited thirty seconds. The next time he moved, the rabbit started to run. He followed it with the barrel, moved his finger to the trigger, took aim at the body, just behind the head, and fired. The rabbit jerked and tumbled forward a few times, then lay still.

The door of St Johannes’ Church has opened now, and the funeral guests and security personnel are streaming out.

Through the sights he looks at a young girl who has stopped on the second break in the steps. She can’t be more than twelve. He slowly moves down her neck. He sees the vein throbbing beneath her thin skin, the friendship necklace that is hanging slightly off-centre.

The priest is standing right outside the door, talking with those who want to exchange a few words. The Prime Minister appears in the doorway with his wife and bodyguards. The Rabbit Hunter moves the sights so that the Prime Minister’s right ear is in the middle of the crosshairs.

A flock of pigeons takes off as four black-clad police officers approach the church. The birds’ shadows move across the ground towards the steps.

Teddy Johnson emerges between two American bodyguards, then stops to speak to the widow and her children.

In his sights, the Rabbit Hunter can see the peeling skin of Johnson’s suntanned scalp through his thinning hair, and the drop of sweat trickling down his cheek. The politician nudges his glasses further up his nose, utters some consoling words, and moves down the steps.

Without losing his line of fire, the Rabbit Hunter picks up his unregistered mobile phone, sends the text message, then puts his finger back on the mounting again.

He watches as Teddy Johnson, who feels the vibration, pulls out his iPhone, raises his glasses and looks at the screen.

The Rabbit Hunter knows the wind is so weak that it won’t have any effect on the bullet. And the distance is far too short for him to have to take account of the Coriolis effect, the rotation of the earth.

The Rabbit Hunter has less than one kilo of resistance in the trigger. It’s so weak that it almost isn’t there.

First you haven’t fired the rifle, then you have.

It comes as no surprise, but the action has no defined edges.

Now he can see black-clad, heavily armed police officers talking into their radios. An Alsatian dog is lying down on one of the gravel paths between the graves, panting.

Teddy Johnson looks around, puts the phone back in his inside pocket and fastens the top button of his jacket.

The thin crosshairs rest gently on the back of his suntanned neck, then move slowly down to the small of his back. The Rabbit Hunter’s intention is to hit Teddy Johnson’s spinal column just above his pelvis.

A branch from a tree moves across his line of fire and he waits three heartbeats before putting his finger on the trigger.

He squeezes it gently, feels the jolt in his shoulder and sees Teddy Johnson collapse to the ground.

Blood pumps out across the steps.

The bodyguards draw their pistols and try to figure out where the shot came from, and if there’s anywhere they can take cover, any safe place in the vicinity.

The Rabbit Hunter breathes calmly as he catches a glimpse of the shot man’s face, its look of terror. He can’t feel his lower body at all now, and is gasping for breath.

The bodyguards try to protect him, standing in the way of any further bullets, but they don’t know where the sniper is.

The crosshairs move down Johnson’s right arm. The trigger squeezes and his hand jerks as it is transformed into a ragged, bloody lump.

The bodyguards drag Teddy Johnson to the other end of the steps, leaving a dark-red stain across the stone.

People are panicking, running around and screaming as they try to get away. The stairs are empty now.

The American politician lies there, contorted with pain and mortal dread.

The Rabbit Hunter will let him live for nineteen minutes.

While he waits he strokes one of the rabbits’ ears with his fingers, feeling its thin cartilage move beneath his hand as the soft fur brushes his cheek.