Anger Mode (17 page)

“In all probability, yes.”

“And the motive?” Jonna asked, unconvinced.

Martin looked cynically at Jonna. “That should be obvious,” he said, wondering if RSU had lowered their recruiting standards. “They create chaos and insecurity in the Swedish justice system. The Muslims can then, with good reason, demand to have their own laws and courts, since the Swedish courts cannot be trusted. And in the longer term, they can impose their justice system on the rest of the population when the time is ripe.”

“That’s certainly not a possibility,” Julén objected and looked around the room.

“Who could have thought that a handful of lunatics armed with Stanley knives could bring down the Twin Towers in New York?” Martin said. “Or take out parts of the Pentagon itself, the brain of the American military?”

Julén felt herself begin to sweat. This could have major ramifications internationally and, as the head of the investigation, she would be making all the critical decisions. She had no one else to turn to, apart from her formal superior the Prosecutor-General.

Luckily, all that was being asked for now was a search warrant for one house. The other matters would be handled later. Showing the ability to act was most important right now, especially with the Security Service. They normally knew what they were doing. This would be her second terrorist case after the Libyan citizens that she deported last year.

“I will see to it that you get your search warrant directly after the meeting,” Julén said.

“The Prosecutor’s Office is now taking over the investigation along with SÄPO as the acting police authority, since this case now falls under the anti-terrorist legislation.”

The room fell silent.

Jonna could not stomach the speed of the changeover and was unable to stay quiet.

“So the motive for using the drug is political?” she asked.

“Yes, definitely political,” Martin answered dryly. It seemed as if he had a little pike on the hook. A wannabe policewoman from RSU was definitely not going to stand in his way right now.

Jonna frowned.

Martin sighed out loud. “Let me explain it in another way for you,” he slowly explained as if Jonna was mentally challenged. “The courts are the main pillar of any judicial system. If they are infiltrated by outside forces that can, in one way or another, influence the court verdicts, or if the courts are simply neutralized by physically stopping them from functioning, then the credibility of the system and the state disappears. Eventually of the whole constitution. This can bring about the end of democracy in a society. What usually happens after the system breaks down is that someone intervenes and, with drastic action, tries to get society functioning correctly again. Sometimes, it returns to a democracy, but more often it becomes a totalitarian regime. Sometimes an Islamic state.”

“So Drug-X is a threat to national security and therefore even the constitution because traces of the drug were found in the daughter of a lay juror?” Jonna asked and saw that Folke Uddestad was avoiding eye contact with her. He looked almost uncomfortable.

“Yes, you could put it like that,” Martin answered, but felt his patience with the pike beginning to fade. He forced back his mounting irritation with a smile. “But not only that. We have two further reasons to believe it – to be precise, Lantz and Ekwall. We suspect that even they are victims of Drug-X.”

Jonna frowned extravagantly to show that she did not quite understand the logic of his reply. “Why not just kill all the judges and magistrates in all our courtrooms or just blast the buildings into rubble? Why go the long way round and drug the daughter of a court official? They could just as easily have used a more readily available drug if they wanted to put a particular person under pressure, or whatever they were after …” She did not bother to finish the sentence. Nobody was listening to her. A combination of anger and resignation overcame her. She had a good mind to mention the angels of death, as well as Walter and her theory, but decided not to do so. Walter had said he was going to write a memo; he probably knew what he was doing.

The theory that the Security Service had suggested was so utterly nonsensical that she no longer wanted to discuss it. What she knew about Islam and Muslims, be they terrorists or not, was sufficient for her to realize that this was a dream scenario for SÄPO, rather than a genuine threat assessment. The Muslims provided a feeble excuse to create a tangible enemy. With those deduction techniques, you could always come up with an enemy.

It surprised her that the others kept as quiet as dummies. Not even her colleague from RSU, Fredrik Regnell, had opened his mouth. He normally had the gift of the gab and offered a sound analysis on almost anything. Now he sat silently in his chair and watched Jonna’s futile attempts to shoot holes in the Security Service’s theory.

Jonna did not have much experience of investigations. This was her second since she had accepted the position as analyst with the rank of special agent within RSU. But despite her meagre experience, she felt that the investigation that was being taken away from her was going off the rails even before it had properly started. Now it would be under the umbrella of SÄPO, and Julén and the Security Service were actively searching for a motive that presented people as a threat to the Swedish constitution and democracy. The motive was so far-fetched that, by comparison, the conspiracy theory about Elvis Presley’s alien abduction seemed feasible.

MARTIN BORG KNEW that he had won a double victory when he left the meeting. He now had the Chief Prosecutor Åsa Julén eating out of his hand and he had deflected the little pike’s attack. Normally, it was Folke Uddestad who, for personal reasons, was slow to take the Security Service to his bosom, but this time he had probably realized the futility of discrediting his analysis of the facts. Unlike the RSU bimbo. Martin knew the type. She was one of those who would always challenge her colleagues. Always sticking her nose in and never realizing the consequences of her actions. But he had the facts on his side and had presented them well. The rest would be a walk in the park.

DAVID LILJA ASKED Jonna to stay behind in the room after the meeting was over. He closed the door after the last person had left and sat down opposite her. He appeared to be under a little stress.

“I’ve just been informed that Walter is suspended indefinitely,” he said.

“An internal investigation against him will be started as soon as he is discharged from the hospital.”

Jonna stared at Lilja, shocked.

“Whatever for?”

“I can’t go into that,” Lilja replied. “It’s a matter for Internal Affairs only. But the shit has hit the fan for the last time, you might say.”

“That’s really disappointing news,” Jonna said, suddenly feeling very awkward.

“Well, it may seem a bit harsh, but he only has himself to blame for it,” Lilja replied dejectedly. “He always has to do things his own way and that ultimately gets punished.”

“What happens now then?” Jonna wondered.

“Yes, that’s why I wanted you to stay behind,” Lilja said. “Walter’s suspension, together with his hospital stay, means that we no longer have a place for you at County CID. I will inform your superior Johan Hildebrandt at RSU.”

“That’s disappointing,” Jonna said.

“What’s disappointing about that?” Lilja asked.

“That Walter is suspended. But, most of all, that SÄPO’s suspicions about the Islamic activists are so far-fetched.”

“Really? And what do you base that on?” Lilja asked, while gathering up the documents he had taken with him to the meeting.

Jonna bit her lip and looked at the whiteboard. “Do you have a moment?”

Lilja shook his head. “I’m sorry. Take it up with Julén or SÄPO, if you must. This case is no longer on my agenda. And in the not too distant future, neither is Walter.”

Lilja stuffed the documents in his briefcase and thanked Jonna for her efforts at the CID. Then he left the room.

Jonna watched Lilja with a blank expression. Then she laid her forehead on the table, defeated. She had not even asked why Walter was lying in hospital.

C
HAPTER 13

IT WAS AS he had feared. Despite everything, he still hung onto the last shred of hope. He had been sitting at the café for over three hours, waiting. Three hours of tense waiting that added up to six cups of coffee and two Danish pastries with cloudberry jam. Jörgen was shaking from a mix of irritation and high-caffeine intake when he left the meeting place. The informant had now definitively demonstrated that the deal was off. The bastard had thrown a spanner into the works of Jörgen’s advancing career. On his way back to his flat, Jörgen’s brain was on overdrive. Should he threaten to publish the video? That was a high-stakes threat that could jeopardize his own journalistic career if he was forced to follow through. But if he airbrushed some of the stills so that it was not possible to identify him as his informant’s partner, he could perhaps find a way out of the dilemma.

He had walked for fifteen minutes before he got home to the flat at Odengatan. He had promised himself that he would make a decision before he arrived. If only Sebastian had not gone to South America. He still could not ask him for advice, except by disguising the problem and talking about a third party. Sebastian always had an opinion on all manner of things. Suddenly, Jörgen felt how much he missed him.

Jörgen opened the door to his ninety-six square-metre, four-room flat and immediately saw that something was not right. The hallway felt strangely empty. The coat rack with its outdoor coats was missing from the wall, as was the black-stained chest of drawers that he and Sebastian had bought at Stalands furniture store. As he entered the living room, he first thought that he was in the wrong flat. His eyebrows shot upwards in surprise as he discovered the debris on the floor. What had once been a bookshelf, armchairs and a kitchen table with handmade, Finnish beech chairs was now lying destroyed on the floor. Jörgen carefully lifted the table top of the kitchen table. Underneath were the remains of what had been an Italian bedside table in solid oak, now as flat as an IKEA pack. Not even his bed had survived the devastation. Who had done this? Who could get into his flat unnoticed and why? He froze when he heard the parquet flooring creak behind him.

JONNA WAS SUPPOSED to report to the head of the RSU, Johan Hildebrandt, for debriefing, but decided instead to clock out and take the rest of the day off. Her frustration from the meeting had gradually turned into indifference and she felt fed up.

She slammed the car door and remained sitting behind the wheel with the car keys in her hand. With her gaze fixed on nothing in particular, her thoughts ran in circles in her head, in exactly the same fashion as when her relationship with Peter had irrevocably come to an end. After trying to find the appropriate emotions, with an obsessive’s compulsion, to redress the situation, she had found herself stuck in an emotional no-man’s-land. On closer analysis, she realized she had never really loved Peter. At least, not in the way he had expected. He had demanded a form of unconditional, submissive passion. Love with a capital “L” was an illusion. She had compensated for her lack of suitable emotions with something else. Something more contemporary, like sharing the washing up and the bills, or even just having a healthy sex life or somebody to come home to or to go to parties with. The flat had felt abandoned during the first weeks after the break-up and it would take a long time before she would be able to bare her soul to somebody else again.

She put the key in the ignition and took out her mobile phone. It had been on silent mode since the meeting and the display showed five missed calls and three messages. A few years ago, there would have been significantly more. After she had started at the police academy, her contact with old friends became more sporadic. They quite simply had nothing in common anymore and just rehashed old memories or stuck to stilted and superficial chitchat. Most had already started families and bought houses, which dominated the topic of conversation. By breaking up with Peter, she had gone from square one in the social monopoly game to the margins of the game board.

Sandra Kalefors was one of her few girlfriends who still had not locked herself in with a family and thrown away the key. A boyfriend that she occasionally dated was the closest she had got to a committed relationship. Sandra had called three times and left two text messages. It was probably a date for dinner at one of their favourite bistros or for cruising the bars to hunt for young studs in baggy jeans.

Now was not the time for Sandra or RSU.

Instead, she set a course for the Karolinska University Hospital and Walter, to keep him up to date with the latest developments in the investigation or, rather, the lack of investigation as far as they were concerned. She also wanted to know how he was feeling. She had no idea what had happened, other than he obviously had been suddenly admitted to the hospital.

Jonna was obliged to show her police ID in order to visit Walter, who lay in a room in ward twelve, close to the ward where Bror Lantz had lain a week earlier. An argumentative and self-opinionated intern was of the opinion that Walter would not be up to having any visitors and therefore asked her to come back later.

Considering how the day had progressed, she was not in the mood to humour the sanctimonious student doctor. So, against regulations, she flashed her ID and hoped he would not make a telephone call to complain. After some grumbling, the intern asked one of the nurses to show Jonna to room thirteen. She was allowed fifteen minutes, not a second more.

Jonna looked at Walter silently as he explained.

“In the brain?” she blurted out. He described it as if it was only a broken finger. There were actually benign tumours too; she knew that. Not even a cynic like Walter could have hidden something as monumental as the beginning of his own demise.

“So that’s why you had dizzy spells,” she added. “Because the tumour has been pressing on a nerve that controls your sense of balance.”

“Clever girl,” Walter said.

“When are they going to operate?”

“Apparently, a specialist surgeon, Täljkvist, has shown an interest in digging into my skull,” Walter explained, moderately enthusiastic. “He’s a specialist in something called neuro-navigation. Also, he thinks I’m a challenge because the tumour has spread between the cerebellum and the brain stem. At any rate, he wants to take it out as soon as possible. So tomorrow, it’s party time.”

“Getting a specialist to operate sounds really good,” Jonna said, trying to sound encouraging.

“Sure,” Walter agreed, “just as long as he’s under sixty and without a hangover.”

Jonna laughed and fidgeted a little. She did not know if she should tell him that he had been suspended from duty pending the result of an internal investigation. He would, of course, be informed about it in due course. But should she break the bad news to him? She was unsure if she was even authorized to do so. That kind of information was probably subject to a confidentiality regulation. Jonna decided to start with the news of the investigation itself.

“The Ekwall and Sjöstrand investigations have been cancelled and a new one has been started under SÄPO and Åsa Julén,” she started, rambling on. “SÄPO is of the opinion that an Islamic terrorist cell is behind Drug-X, and they believe there are links to Ekwall and Lantz as well. According to SÄPO, the objective of the terrorist cell is to neutralize our courts and, by so doing, the whole infrastructure of a functional society, with the aim of preparing the way for their own laws. SÄPO are also looking for traces of the drug in the taxi driver and in Ekwall’s wife.”

Walter’s face turned dark red. He was just about to say something when the door was opened by the intern. The thin-haired man went up to Walter and asked if everything was okay, but frowned when he saw Walter’s troubled face. He turned to Jonna and made it clear that her fifteen minutes were now up.

Jonna got ready to leave the room, but Walter ordered her to stay. “Sit down,” he said and gestured at Jonna.

“No, you should rest now,” the intern explained and gave Walter a stern look.

“No, thank you,” Walter refused, in a firm voice. “I know when I need to rest.”

“But …” the doctor began.

“You leave and you stay,” interrupted Walter, pointing first at the intern and then at Jonna.

“I don’t think …”

Walter stopped the doctor, saying he shouldn’t think excessively. The doctor sighed morosely and then left the room. Before he closed the door, he said he would be back in another fifteen minutes. If Walter did not accept his advice, he would be forced to relinquish responsibility for his health.

Walter asked the doctor to close the door behind him.

Jonna continued to relate in detail what had transpired during the morning meeting. Walter had calmed himself down and nodded patiently as Jonna described how the meeting had progressed.

“That didn’t sound good at all,” he concluded, after she had finished her report. “It sounds very far-fetched to me.”

“I agree completely and I have a few thoughts,” she replied and pensively bit her bottom lip.

“I see.”

“Yes, if we ignore Drug-X to start with …” Jonna slowly began.

“Carry on,” Walter abruptly replied.

“To date, we have three murderers if we include Bror Lantz. But we have absolutely no motive for the murders. At least, no motive that is so far credible.”

“Nothing new about that,” Walter rudely retorted.

“The problem is that none of them know why they did what they did. Why did they become overwhelmed with a rage that disappeared when they took a life? Also, everyone except Lantz has confessed.”

Jonna suddenly paused.

“Carry on,” Walter said. “You said that you had been thinking. Not that you were going to start thinking.”

Jonna sat quietly in the chair and looked as if she had forgotten her name.

“Who would want to punish a prosecutor and a judge?” she finally said.

“Apparently, an Islamic terrorist cell that wants to throw the Swedish justice system into chaos by poisoning its practitioners,” Walter answered ironically.

“Yes, but, apart from them, who else?”

“There’s no shortage of loonies out there,” Walter chuckled. “According to SÄPO’s own reports, there are about one thousand mentally ill people who could potentially bury an axe in anybody’s head. Then we have all the opponents of the legal system, anarchists, left- and right-wing hooligans and, of course, those that have personal reasons for revenge.”

“It’s precisely the latter that I’ve been thinking about,” Jonna said.

“Revenge?”

“Exactly. Somebody who’s been wrongly convicted or, in some other way, feels violated or damaged and wants to wreak vengeance on the court system.”

“By drugging people with a compound that only national governments and the largest pharmaceutical corporations can in theory produce?” Walter asked dubiously.

“Something like that,” Jonna suggested, without sounding completely convinced. Maybe this was as far-fetched as SÄPO’s theory after all. The more she thought about it, the more difficult it became to believe it.

“Funny you should mention it,” Walter said. “I was thinking along the same lines myself. But I couldn’t join up all the dots. Why go to all the bother of such an advanced drug? Why not simply kill the relevant judge or prosecutor?”

“You’re right,” Jonna said. “Why make everything so complicated?”

“How did you progress with the plaster figures, by the way?” he asked and closed his eyes.

“I sat up most of the evening and surfed the net,” Jonna said. “I finally managed to find the manufacturer.”

“And?”

“They’re manufactured in the USA by a small company that sells exclusively over the internet. According to their home page, they only have these figures. All on the death theme. I almost got the feeling that they were Satanists or something else cult-like.”

“Taking into account the time difference, I assume you were able to call them?” Walter said.

“Naturally,” Jonna said. “But I got nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“I said I was from the Swedish police and wanted to know if they had any customers in Sweden and, if that was the case, the names of the people they had sold the little angels of death to. But they were not so eager to please.”

“Why not?”

“Translated literally, they told me that I could take my baton and stick it up …”

“I get the picture,” Walter said. “We will have to see if SÄPO reacts to the death angels in the memo I wrote. They could contact the FBI and obtain some assistance to get the list of Swedish buyers.”

“Presumably,” Jonna said.

“Is there any reason to discount SÄPO’s terrorist theory?”

“Absolutely,” Jonna replied resolutely. “I don’t believe that stuff about the terrorist prince. In that situation, he would have poisoned almost all the water supplies in the Western world – or spread panic and chaos in some other way.”

“Good,” Walter said and opened his eyes. “It so happens that I have a proposition.”

“Well, there was something else,” Jonna said cautiously, before Walter could continue.

THE FIST CAME from nowhere and he fell heavily to the floor. A burning pain spread across his face as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Distant voices echoed in the confusion into which he had so suddenly been thrown. Jörgen had turned around when he heard the parquet flooring creak behind him, but did not register what happened after that. One second, he was standing and looking at the pile of furniture on the living room floor; the next second, he was lying on the floor in a sea of pain.