Helsinki White (2 page)

The purpose of the dossiers is to provide info for me and my black-ops crew to target criminals, so we can rip off their money, drugs and guns.

I can remember, almost word for word, the conversation Jyri and I had during the Filippov investigation, when he talked me into heading up a black-ops unit while begging me to suppress evidence against him.

“I’ll give you anything you want,” he said, “just make this go away.”

“That’s a problem for you,” I said. “I don’t want anything.”

He leaned toward me. “I’ve been thinking of putting together a black-ops unit. Anti–organized crime. The mandate is to go after criminals by whatever means necessary, to use their own methods against them. No holds barred.”

“We already have such a group. Our secret police. They’re called SUPO.”

“There’s a problem with SUPO,” he said. “They don’t work for me.”

“So you want to be some kind of Finnish J. Edgar Hoover?”

“Yes.”

I laughed in his face. “No.”

“You think I don’t know you, but I do,” he said. “You suffer from a pathetic need to protect the innocent. You think you’re some kind of a Good Samaritan in a white hat, but you’re not. You’re a rubber-hose cop, a thug and a killer, as you’ve demonstrated.
You’ll do anything to get what you view as justice. Let me give you an example of how badly we need this kind of unit. Only seven cops in Helsinki investigate human trafficking full-time. Here in Finland and the surrounding countries, thousands of gangsters orchestrate the buying and selling of young girls, and hundreds or thousands of those girls pass through this nation every year, most on their way to their destination countries. With our limited law enforcement resources, we can’t possibly make even a dent in the human slavery industry. Picture all those victims and how many of their bright shiny faces you could save from abject misery, abuse and terror, from being raped time and time again.”

He sensed my interest.

“Milo”—referring to my partner—“knows black-bag work,” he said. “He’s a genius with great computer skills, and he’s also a killer. He could be your first team-member acquisition. Then you can staff it with whoever you want.”

Milo learned black-bag work because he’s a voyeur. He B&Es homes just to go through people’s things. He’s a violent nutcase with an IQ of a hundred seventy-two.

“I’m not killing anybody,” I said.

“I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

“Milo is a loose cannon and a liability.”

“Milo is a nervous puppy. He needs a firm hand to guide him. Yours.”

“It would take a hell of a lot of money,” I said. “Computers. Vehicles. Surveillance gear.”

“In two weeks, Swedish and Finnish Gypsies are going to make a drug deal for Ecstasy. A hundred and sixty thousand euros will trade hands. You can intercept it and use the money for the
beginning of a slush fund. I’ll get you more money for equipment later.”

“No.”

Frustration gripped him, resonated in his voice. “I told you I know you, and I do. You hate your job. You’re frustrated because you can’t make a difference. You’re a failure. To your dead sister.” He brings up the high death toll from a previous investigation: “To Sufia Elmi and her family. To your former sergeant Valtteri and his family. To your dead ex-wife—and in your personal life—to your dead miscarried twins and, as such, to your wife. To that pathetic school shooter Milo capped. You’re a failure to yourself. You’ve failed everyone you’ve touched. You’ll take this job to make up for it. I’m offering you everything you ever wanted.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because of your aforementioned annoying incorruptibility. You don’t want anything. You’re a maniac, but you’re a rock. I can trust you to run this unit without going rogue on me.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No one ever finds out anything about my involvement in this case,” he said. “I’ll organize everything, get you the manpower. Fix this for me,” he said, “and run my black-ops unit.”

I bought into Jyri’s specious diatribe like the naïve fool that I am. I’ve helped no one, but hurt several people, and there are more to come. I’ve succeeded only in alienating my wife, the person I remember being dearest to me.

There’s a great myth believed by nearly everyone that Finland is corruption-free. Police and politicians are scripture pure, dedicated to the good of the nation beyond all things. Foreigners even write about it in travel guides for tourists. The best thing going for
our black-ops unit is that no one would believe such a thing could exist, or that corruption could be so widespread at such high levels of government.

I run a heist gang. I’m a police inspector, shakedown artist, strong-arm specialist and enforcer. Three months ago, I was an honest cop. I’m not sure I care how or why, but I reflect on how I could have undergone such a drastic change in such a short time. Jyri wanted me to recruit some other tough cops, but I refused. More than four people is too many in on a secret. The group is just me, Milo, and Sweetness. Milo is a sick puppy, but he’s grown on me over time because of his enthusiasm. Sweetness is a baby-faced behemoth, whom I hired out of sympathy, because of his size and capacity to commit violent acts without enjoying them, and to piss Jyri off. Which it does. Jyri refers to him as “the oaf.” Sweetness often seems a simpleton, but he’s far from it.

To quote Sweetness: “Life just is. Ain’t no reason for nothing.”

A
little over three months before my meeting with Jyri, Kate gave birth to our first child, a girl, on January twenty-fourth.

It was an easy birth, as childbirths go, no more difficult than squirting a watermelon seed out from between her fingers, only sixteen hours from her first contraction to me cradling our child in my arms. When I first held her, I felt a wealth of emotions I didn’t know existed, and I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but I loved Kate tenfold more for the gift she had given me.

She was an easy baby. Didn’t cry much. Often slept through the night. She wasn’t officially named until her christening, but we chose to call her Anu. A simple and pretty name, pronounceable by Finns and foreigners alike, important in a bi-cultural marriage.

Our bi-cultural marriage changed me. When I met Kate, like many Finnish men, I was unable to utter the words “I love you.” I’ve heard women complain more than a few times that their husbands don’t tell them they love them. The typical answer: “I told you I loved you when I married you. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.” But she told me often, with sincerity and without shame. I learned to return the sentiment. At first, it was awkward for me.
Before long though, I learned to say it first, it felt natural, even good, and I couldn’t understand why it had ever been difficult.

I had been suffering severe migraines for the better part of a year. I thought they were the result of stress related to Kate’s pregnancy—she had miscarried twins the previous December, and I was scared that it would happen again—but Kate insisted I had tests run. My brother, Jari, is a neurologist. I went to him and he sent me for an MRI. The day we brought Anu home from the hospital, it fell upon him to tell me that I had a brain tumor.

Kate and I had always had a great relationship, were best friends as well as husband and wife, but there was a sticking point that stood between us. My failure to tell her about my past or current events in my life, especially if they’re unpleasant. She isn’t as bad as, say, characters on American television shows who throw hissy fits upon finding out that their spouse had a one-night stand twenty years ago and five years before the couple even met, and believe the lives of their spouses, even their deepest and most private thoughts and emotions, must be open books. But a couple times, Kate has found out things about me that shocked her, and she’d like me to open up, at least a little, so she can know and understand me better. It’s hard for me, just not my nature. Kate said she viewed my failure to tell her about events relevant to our life together as a form of lying. And it disturbed her that I kept much of my past under lock and key.

I saw her point, and promised to try to learn to be more open. But she was a new mother, radiant, full of joy. I debated on how long to let her be happy before telling her I might die. I decided on two days. I probably would have put it off longer, but the biopsy to determine the nature of the tumor was scheduled in two days,
on the twenty-eighth. It would have been hard to fabricate an explanation of why part of my hair was shaved off and I had a stitched-up surgical incision, and I figured she needed at least a day to get used to the idea.

I sat with Kate on the couch, asked her to prepare herself, and took her hand. “The results from the MRI came back,” I said, “and I have a brain tumor.”

Her face fell and tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. She tried to speak and faltered. When she managed it, her voice cracked. “How bad?”

I explained the situation as best I understood it, as Jari had explained it to me, and told her that I would have a biopsy the day after tomorrow and it would give us the answer to that question.

I said the best case scenario was that I had a meningioma, a tumor that originates in the meninges, the thin membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. If so, it could be removed by a craniotomy and, with luck, I might suffer no permanent consequences at all and be back home in three days, maybe even be back to work in a couple weeks. I would require no chemo or radiation therapy, no nothing. It could, however, possibly cause problems with my speech or balance, weakness, even paralysis. Physical therapy could hopefully remedy these problems, if needed, and with luck I could be back to normal, or close to it, in only a few months.

The worst-case scenario was that I had a Grade IV, rapidly growing and malignant tumor. If so, not much could be done, and I would have only a short time to live. Maybe only weeks. There were other possibilities with varying degrees or severity and requiring different treatments, and Jari hadn’t explained them all to me, because the list was long. But those were the two extremes.

Kate took the news like a trouper, managed to stay calm. She started to cry a little but didn’t break down. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

I had an awful migraine. After suffering from a near constant severe headache for a year, I was worn down, tired. Prolonged pain had sapped my strength and had left me in a permanent state of lethargy. Still, I’d continued working. “OK,” I said. “I’m more worried about you having to deal with this than anything.”

“Aren’t you scared?” she asked.

Another consequence of prolonged severe pain is that the desire to end it supersedes everything else. “Not really,” I said. “I just want this to be over.”

She took me in her arms and held me for a while. There was nothing else to say.

Some time passed. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about,” I said. I didn’t like bringing this up then, because I didn’t think she would like it, and I felt like I was using the possibility of my death as a way of manipulating her into getting my way. But I wasn’t. I wanted to honor her wishes and not hold this back from her, and I had to give Jyri an answer about the black-ops unit now. He insisted on it. He said yes, I could possibly die, but he had faith that removing the tumor would be no bigger a deal than pulling a tick out of a hound’s ear.

When our desires conflict, if possible, I try to put Kate’s happiness ahead of my own. I promised myself I wouldn’t let work interfere with our relationship again. I’m a romantic at heart. I told Kate that the national chief of police, Jyri Ivalo, had given me a job offer, and asked me to run a clandestine unit. It would use
illegal methods to fight crime. I compared it to J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO program, but more benign. Most of the illegal activity would be technological surveillance that violated privacy laws, and using that information to take cash, drugs, firearms, etc., from criminals, relieving them of the tools they need to ply their trades and using their money to fund our operation.

I told her what Jyri said about truly helping people, saving young women from being forced into slavery and prostitution. I told her I thought I could make a difference, save some of these girls from having their lives turned into hell on earth.

Kate shifted closer, pressed her body against mine. “Are you asking my permission?”

“Yes,” I said, “I am, because I’ll break laws and it’s risky. And because if we’re going to live in this country, I think I have to. During the Filippov investigation, I gathered a lot of dirt on people in positions of power. I know too much. If I refuse, they’ll find a way to discredit and destroy me, to protect themselves. In a way, they’re offering to let me join their boys’ club. If you don’t want me to take the job, we should leave Finland and move to America. I want you to make the decision.”

“Do you want this?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I do. I feel that for the first time in my life, I have a chance to do something that makes a true difference. Most likely, I’ll never have another opportunity like this again. But I don’t have to make a difference. If you want me to turn it down, I will, without hard feelings or regrets.”

She sat for what seemed like a long time, quiet. I watched her, admiring. Kate is a lovely woman. A classic beauty. Pregnancy had
almost no effect on her figure, other than that her breasts were larger. She remained slim. Her long cinnamon hair hung loose. Her dove-gray eyes were far away, lost in thought.

“Take the job,” she said, “but I want you to go on sick leave starting today.”

“OK,” I said, “but I want to play around a little bit starting up my new project, getting it functional, just to give myself something to do.”

She nodded agreement, and at that moment, without realizing it, I became a dirty cop.

O
n Thursday morning, I had the biopsy. Jari used his superpowers as a highly respected neurologist and had the test results ramrodded through. I got an appointment with the surgeon who would remove my tumor the very next day. He was going to tell me whether I would live or die.