The Sandman (19 page)

‘I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing,’ Saga says.

‘By then we need to have your new identity finished,’ Verner goes on, holding a calming hand towards Saga. ‘We need to have your medical history sorted, and the forensic psychology report; the District Court judgment will have to be added to the National Judiciary Administration database, and your temporary transfer to Karsudden needs to be organised.’

‘We’d better get a move on,’ Pollock says.

‘But Saga wants to know what the mission is,’ Joona says.

‘It’s just that it’s bloody difficult for me to … I mean, how can I have an opinion about what you’re discussing if I don’t even know what’s expected of me?’ Saga says.

Pollock holds a plastic folder up to her.

‘On your first day you need to place a tiny microphone in the dayroom, with a fibre-optic receiver and transmitter,’ Verner says.

Pollock gives her the folder containing the microphone.

‘Smuggled in up my backside?’ she asks.

‘No, they’re bound to carry out a full body-cavity search,’ Verner replies.

‘You need to swallow it, then vomit it back up before it reaches your duodenum … and then swallow it again,’ Pollock explains.

‘Never leave it longer than four hours,’ Verner says.

‘And I carry on doing this until I manage to place it in the dayroom,’ Saga says.

‘We’re going to have people positioned in a van who’ll be listening to everything in real time,’ Pollock says.

‘OK, I get that bit,’ Saga says. ‘But giving me a District Court conviction, a whole load of psychiatric evaluations and all that—’

‘We need that because—’

‘Let me finish,’ she interrupts. ‘I get it … I’ll have a coherent background, I’ll be in the right place, and I’ll plant the microphone, but …’

The look in her eyes is hard and her lips are pale as she looks at each of them in turn:

‘But why the hell … Why would Jurek Walter tell me anything?’

Nathan is standing up, Carlos has both hands over his face, and Verner is fiddling with his mobile.

‘I don’t understand why Jurek Walter would talk to me,’ Saga repeats.

‘Obviously, we’re taking a chance,’ Joona says.

‘In the unit there are three separate secure rooms, with a shared dayroom containing a running machine and a television concealed behind reinforced glass,’ Verner explains. ‘Jurek Walter has been held in isolation for thirteen years, so I don’t know how much the dayroom has been used.’

Nathan Pollock pushes the plan of the secure unit over and points out Jurek’s room and the dayroom next to it.

‘If we’re really unlucky, the staff won’t allow the patients to see each other … we have no influence over that,’ Carlos admits.

‘I understand,’ Saga says calmly. ‘But I’m thinking more about the fact that I have no idea … not a fucking clue about how I might approach Jurek Walter.’

‘You could try asking to see a representative from the administrative court, and demand to have a fresh risk assessment,’ Carlos says.

‘Who do I say that to?’ she asks.

‘Senior Consultant Roland Brolin,’ Verner replies, putting a photograph in front of her.

‘Jurek himself is hemmed in by restrictions,’ Pollock says. ‘So he’ll
be watching you closely, and will probably ask questions, seeing as your visits will be a sort of window on the world.’

‘What should I expect from him? What does he want?’ Saga says.

‘He wants to escape,’ Joona replies sternly.

‘Escape?’ Carlos repeats incredulously, tapping a pile of reports. ‘He hasn’t made a single attempt to escape in all the time he’s—’

‘He won’t try if he knows he won’t succeed,’ Joona says.

‘And you think he might say something in these circumstances that could lead you to the capsule?’ Saga asks, without even trying to hide her scepticism.

‘We now know that Jurek has an accomplice … which means that he has the capacity to trust other people,’ Joona says.

‘So he’s not paranoid,’ Pollock says.

Saga smiles. ‘That makes things a whole lot easier.’

‘None of us imagines that Jurek’s going to confess just like that,’ Joona says. ‘But if you can persuade him to talk, sooner or later he’ll say something that can get us closer to Felicia.’

‘You’ve spoken to him,’ Saga says to Joona.

‘Yes, he talked to me because he was hoping I’d change my testimony … but in all that time he didn’t go anywhere close to anything personal.’

‘So why would he with me?’

‘Because you’re exceptional,’ Joona replies, looking her straight in the eye.

Saga gets up, wraps her arms around herself and stands quite still, looking at the sleet through the window.

‘The most difficult thing right now is having to justify the transfer to the secure unit at Löwenströmska, whilst simultaneously finding a crime and a diagnosis that won’t lead to heavy medication,’ Verner says.

‘The whole mission will probably fail if you’re put in a straitjacket or given electroconvulsive treatment,’ Pollock says bluntly.

‘Shit,’ she whispers, and turns to face them again.

‘Jurek Walter’s an intelligent man,’ Joona says. ‘It’s not easy to manipulate him, and it will be very dangerous lying to him.’

‘We need to create a perfect identity,’ Verner says, his eyes fixed on Saga.

‘I’ve been giving this some thought, and I think it makes sense to give you a schizophrenic personality disorder,’ Pollock says, peering at her through his narrow black eyes.

‘Will that be enough?’ Carlos asks.

‘If we throw in recurrent psychotic attacks with violent outbursts …’

‘OK,’ Saga nods, as her cheeks start to blush red.

‘You’re kept calm with eight milligrams of Trilafon three times a day,’ he says.

‘Just how dangerous is this mission?’ Verner eventually asks, seeing as Saga hasn’t put the question.

‘Jurek is extremely dangerous, the other patient who’s going to be arriving at the same time as Saga is also dangerous, and we have no control over her treatment once she’s there,’ Pollock replies honestly.

‘So you can’t give any guarantees about the safety of my agent?’ Verner says.

‘No,’ Carlos replies.

‘You’re aware of this, Saga?’ Verner asks.

‘Yes.’

‘Only a very select group will know about the existence of this mission, and we won’t have any overview of what’s going on inside the secure unit,’ Pollock says. ‘So if for some reason we don’t hear you over the microphone, we’ll break off the mission after twenty-seven hours – but until then you’ll have to take care of yourself.’

Joona puts the detailed plan of the secure unit in front of Saga and points at the dayroom with his pen.

‘As you can see, there are airlocks here … and three automated doors there,’ Joona says. ‘It’s not easy, but in an emergency you could try to barricade yourself in here, possibly also here or here … And if you’re outside the airlock, the operations room and this storeroom are clearly the best options.’

‘Is it possible to get past this passageway?’ she asks, pointing.

‘Yes, but not here,’ he says, crossing off the doors that can’t be forced without cards and codes.

‘Lock yourself in and wait for help.’

Carlos starts to leaf through the papers on the table.

‘But if something goes wrong at a later point, I want to show you—’

‘Hang on a minute,’ Joona interrupts. ‘Have you memorised the plan?’

‘Yes,’ Saga says.

Carlos pulls out the large map of the area surrounding the hospital.

‘In the first instance, we’ll be sending emergency vehicles in this way,’ he says, indicating the road behind the hospital. ‘We’ll stop here, at the side of the big exercise yard … But if you can’t make it there, carry on up into the forest till you get here.’

‘Good,’ she says.

‘The response units will probably go in here … and through the drains, depending on the nature of the alarm.’

‘As long as you don’t blow your cover, we can get you out and put
things back to normal,’ Verner says. ‘Nothing will have happened, we change the National Judiciary Administration records back the way they were before, you’ll have no criminal conviction and have never received treatment anywhere.’

A sudden silence fills the room. It’s as if the impossibility of the task has suddenly become abundantly and unpleasantly apparent.

‘How many of you think my mission is actually going to succeed?’ Saga asks quietly.

Carlos nods uncertainly and mutters something.

Joona just shakes his head.

‘Maybe,’ Pollock says. ‘But it’s difficult, and dangerous.’

‘Do your best,’ Verner says, putting his hand on her shoulder for a moment.

Saga takes Nathan Pollock’s comprehensive character profile into a pink bedroom with pictures of Bella Thorne and Zendaya on the walls. Fifteen minutes later she returns to the kitchen. She walks slowly, and stops in the middle of the floor. The shadows of her long eyelashes dance on her cheeks. The men fall silent and turn their heads to look at the slender figure with the shaved head.

‘My name is Natalie Andersson, and I’ve got a schizophrenic personality disorder, which makes me a bit introverted,’ she says, sitting down on a chair. ‘But I’ve also had recurrent psychotic episodes, with some extremely violent outbursts. That’s why I’ve been prescribed Trilafon. I’m OK at the moment with eight milligrams, three times a day. The pills are small and white … and they make my breasts so sore I can’t sleep on my front. I also take Cipramil, thirty milligrams … or Seroxat, twenty milligrams.’

While she’s been speaking she has secretly pulled the tiny microphone out of the lining of her trousers.

‘When I was really bad I used to get injected with Risperdal … and Oxascand for the side effects …’

Under cover of the tabletop she removes the protective plastic from the glue and sticks the microphone under the table.

‘Before Karsudden and the verdict from Uppsala District Court, I escaped from a non-secure ward at Bålsta psychiatric unit and killed a
man in the playground behind Gredelby School in Knivsta, then, ten minutes later, a man in the drive of his house in Daggvägen …’

The little microphone comes loose from the table and falls to the floor.

‘After I was arrested I was put in the acute psychiatric unit of the University Hospital in Uppsala, I was given twenty milligrams of Stesolid and one hundred milligrams of cisordinol injected into my backside, I was kept strapped up for eleven hours and then I was given a solution of Heminevrin … it was really cold … and I got all bunged up and had a really bad headache.’

Nathan Pollock claps his hands. Joona bends down and picks the microphone up from the floor.

He smiles as he holds it out to her. ‘The glue needs four seconds to firm up.’

Saga takes the microphone and looks at it as she turns it over in her hand.

‘Are we agreed about this identity?’ Verner asks. ‘In seven minutes I’ve got to enter it on the National Judiciary Administration database.’

‘I think it sounds good,’ Pollock says. ‘But this evening you need to memorise the rules at Bålsta, and learn the name and physical characteristics of the staff and other patients.’

Verner nods in agreement to Pollock, then stands up. In a deep voice he declares that an infiltrator needs to know every detail about their background off by heart in order not to be uncovered.

‘You have to become one with your new identity, so that you don’t have to think before reeling off phone numbers and imaginary family members, birthdays, past addresses, dead pets, ID numbers, schools, teachers, workplaces, colleagues, their personal habits, and—’

‘I’m not sure that’s the right line to take,’ Joona interrupts.

Verner falls silent with his mouth open and turns to look at Joona. Carlos nervously sweeps up some crumbs on the table with his hand. Nathan Pollock leans back and smiles expectantly.

‘I can learn all that,’ Saga says.

Joona nods calmly and looks her in the eye. His eyes are dark as lead now.

‘Seeing as Samuel Mendel is no longer alive,’ Joona says, ‘I can say that he had remarkable knowledge of long-term infiltration techniques … serious undercover work.’

‘Samuel?’ Carlos says sceptically.

‘I can’t explain how, but he knew what he was talking about,’ Joona says.

‘Was he Mossad?’ Verner asks.

‘I can only say that … when he told me about his method, I realised he was right, and that’s why I’ve remembered what he said,’ Joona said.

‘We’re already aware of all the methods,’ Verner says, sounding stressed.

‘When you’re working undercover, you speak as little as possible and only in short sentences,’ Joona says.

‘Why short sentences?’

‘To sound authentic,’ Joona goes on, addressing Saga directly. ‘Never pretend to feel things, never pretend to be angry or happy, and always mean what you say.’

‘OK,’ Saga says warily.

‘And the most important thing,’ Joona continues. ‘Never say anything but the truth.’

‘The truth,’ Saga repeats.

‘We’ll make sure that you’ve got your diagnoses,’ Joona explains. ‘But you need to claim that you’re healthy.’

‘Because it’s true,’ Verner whispers.

‘You don’t even need to know about what crimes you committed – you need to claim that it’s all lies.’

‘Because that wouldn’t be a lie,’ Saga says.

‘Bloody hell,’ Verner says. ‘Bloody hell.’

Saga’s face flushes as she realises what Joona is saying. She gulps, then says slowly:

‘So if Jurek Walter asks me where I live, I just tell him that I live on Tavastgatan on Södermalm?’

‘That way you’ll remember your answer if he asks more than once.’

‘And if he asks about Stefan I tell the truth?’

‘That’s the only way you’re going to sound genuine, and remember what you’ve said.’

‘What if he asks what my job is?’ she laughs. ‘Shall I say I’m a superintendent with the Security Police?’

‘In a secure psychiatric unit, that would probably work.’ Joona grins. ‘But otherwise … if you’re asked a question that really would give you
away, you can always ignore it … seeing as that would be a perfectly honest reaction – you don’t want to answer.’