The Ice Cage — A Scandinavian Crime Thriller set in the Nordic Winter (The Baltic Trilogy) (41 page)

86

The
last announcement on
the
radio as the car crashed was
that the King would be opening the multicultural festival at 12 noon
–
in
half an hour. I
t
was
unli
kely I would get there in time with
t
he Saab
wedged upside down in a ditch with a
ll doors blocked. I could open the window
s, but there was nowhere to go, o
nly ditch walls
on both sides. I would
have
to tunnel into the frozen snow and
I knew how hard that would be after trying to dig into the snow when I
’d locked myself out of the car, n
ot to mention attempting to bury the sn
owmobile driver.
And this time I didn’t even have a
spade, n
or did I have the time or space to build a bonfire to thaw the soil.
If only the car
-
lighter had been a blow
-
torch.
Like when I’d locked myself out of the car, the only
solution was to smash
the windscreen
–
in the k
nowledge that Andri would
be waiting
outside
to finish me off.

I unclippe
d my seat belt and immediately crashed
on
to
my head.
I hated this
bloody car.
I turned around in the small space to sit on the ceiling. I
t
was
diff
ic
ult to see clearly
–
h
ardly any daylight trickled through. I got into position
to kick
in the windscreen
, but didn’t have
anything to
push off from
,
as t
he seats were hanging
upside down and e
nding halfway down my back. I tried kicking
, but all I achieved was shoe prints on the glass
. I needed a tool, s
omethi
ng sharp to make the first dent.
I removed a headrest and tried using the metal pins
,
but the head cushion
made it impossible to hack with any power.
In the end, I kicked
off the gear stick
, wedged
its sharp end between the glass and the frame.
Once I’d
managed to get the gear stick
through a corner,
I bent the frame and chipped away at the glass before finally kicking the
windscree
n to smithereens
.

87

The first thing I saw w
hen I crawled out w
as Andri talking on his
mobile.
I scrambled back
as his first bullet shattered what was left of
the windscreen. I was cornered
,
b
ut not
ready to give up.
While
Andri
kept firing at the car
,
I started digging frantically
into the side wall, hacking with the gear stick
. Tunnelling seemed
the only possible escape
, until
I heard something above.
It must have been Andri
standing on the car. It
rocked and there was a trickling sound
,
followed by a
sharp
smell
–
petrol dripping down
from the carpet above my head.
He w
as pouring
it
onto the car and I
did everything I could to dodge
it.

There
definitely
wouldn’t be enough time
for digging now, unless I wanted to be carbonised
.
It was him or me and I knew I was taking a big risk, but if I didn’t I would be dead within seconds.
I had to act before him
, take him by surprise
.
I took the car lighter and pressed it against the petrol
-
soaked carpet
above, which
lit up with a WOOF as I scrambled out of the car
while the fire followed the petrol to the source – Andri
.
I’ve never crawled so quickly
, and w
hen
I came out, he
was in flames, r
olling in the snow
,
trying
to put
out the fire
–
a taste of his own medicine.
He’d
ditched the
petrol can
, but
the Jeep was still standing.

88

He’d considered using a hit
man, but
he had to do it himself
. It was a matter of principle and
demanded
total personal commitment. Although he was tense, he was
savouring every second
building up to it, s
oaking
up the atmosphere while r
unning
through everything in his mind
for the umpteenth time
;
visualising,
d
oing the countdown in his head, anticipating the reactions
and finally… completing the mission.

It wasn’t the first time he took on a challenge at this level. Exactly two
decades earlier he’
d executed a
similar operation to perfection. The police had never identified the real perpetrator and never would, unless he decided to tel
l them. But he would only do
s
o
when the time was ripe, when it was to his full advantage.
H
e’d done that operation
on his own and it had been a more intimate affair
, but it had confirmed that he could do whatever he set out to do.
The repercussions had forever affected the course of the nation and
given him
the
confidence to move on to a more
complex target
.

A
ll that remained was the finishing touch. He had to
look the part.
E
verything had been
washed
, ironed
an
d polished to perfection.
His was a uniform with a 21st century upgrade
–
bullet
-
proof fabric. T
he Russian
tailors
had done an immaculate job with the
fitting.
Based in
S
t
.
Petersburg
, they’
d made uniforms for the Russian military since
the time of
Peter the Great.
It was the ultimate
reference
on that side of the Baltic, where
a sloppy cut would usually
cost a tailor his life.

89

Driving Andri’s car helped me re
-
focus on my mission
–
stopping the assassination of the King. I had to
be prepared for the worst and
assume that this was the th
reat.
I did my utmost to block out the images of Andri
’s flaming figure rolling in the snow a
nd
tried to think about nice things
instead
, like
what I would do when I returned to
London
. B
ut
i
t was imp
ossible.
But a
ll I could see was a dying
Eva on life support and Andri who’d been burning alive
when
I
’d
put my foot on t
he gas and left him behind
. Every time my eyes strayed back to the mirror
, he reappeared
.
It felt as if I was
being made to pay
for what I’d done.

I
’d killed again.
I was drained, finished,
shaking,
in tears, h
ysterical
–
everything, but I had to keep going
. I’ve never driven so fast
.
I didn’t
care about danger.
I was terrorised.
I’d escaped
Andri
,
but felt more persecuted than ever. Now the fear and the cold came from the inside
–
I was a zombie, a
wreck
with eyes
locked on the hor
izon. I kept checking my watch. It was
s
omething to hang onto and
it
still
worked
,
in spite of everything
I’d been through
.
It
was
a present from Carrie
, a
macho watch with more functions
than I would need in a lifetime, b
ut it did what it said on the tin. It had been
exposed to extreme conditions, Baltic water, even been nic
ked by a bullet.
It m
ust have been
Boeck and
his men whe
n they chased us across the ice, but
I hadn’t realised in the tumult
of the action. It still ticked and l
ooking at the watch properly for the first time in d
ays, I understood where the soreness
in my wrist h
ad come from.
The
wat
ch had saved me from injury and reminded me
of what
Carrie
meant to me.
I tried ringing her again, but there was n
o answer. I kept trying
and
eventually
a
woman picked up
–
the midwife.

When I finally got
Carrie
on the line she
was in labour
,
p
anting
. S
he
hadn’t received my message and
had been fra
ntically calling m
y mobile,
which was
swimming with the herrings
at the bottom of the
Baltic Sea
.
W
hen was I coming home? I
told her I was sorry
,
I missed her and
wouldn’t be long
.
Then the fucking
phone ran out of battery.
I was missing the birth of our child. What for?
I’d rather be with Carrie
, that’s where I belonged, but I had to do this for the people killed
by Boeck
–
for my father, Anna, Eva, for our child’s grandfather.
I owed it to them all.
There was no point feeling sorry for myself
.
I
was lucky to have Carrie
and she was with me all the time
. I hadn’t
chosen this
. I
t had attacked me, v
iciously,
l
ike a lethal virus. I w
as only trying to get out of it, exterminate
it.

Once in Mariehamn,
I
dum
ped the Jeep at the edge of town
and continued on foot,
rushing
through t
he crowd towards the museum. T
wel
ve noon was only minutes away
.

9
0

There were
police everywhere and a
helicopter ho
vering above, but
considering that the local police force only had 2.5 officers, I should be able to avoid them.
I suspected
they wouldn’t give up that
ea
sily
though,
and it didn’t take long before I spotted
Ernst scanning
the crowd.
I q
uick
ly slipped into a massive hedge
. I’
d noticed that everyone was looking at me
–
I was a wreck and
covered in dirt. I quickly scrubbed my face with some snow to clean
the blood off
my hands an
d face, but the
splatter
s
tains on the clothes wouldn’t shift
.