The Swimmer (28 page)

But George had dreamed about a situation like this, had hoped for a client who had that kind of lifestyle, those resources. His colleagues had told him about working for banks or Internet companies where consultants sometimes flew with senior management, and George had longed for the day when that would happen to him. Private jet. The ultimate confirmation of inconceivable success. But now, in the company of Reiper’s gang of murderers, or whatever the hell they were, he couldn’t fool himself any longer. The stress wouldn’t go away. And he didn’t even have a hit of coke to lighten things up a little.

Besides, the mood had turned after Paris. Reiper had gone completely ape shit. George had, with a growing sense of utter disbelief, watched the news about the murder of Mahmoud Shammosh. The hunt for Klara. It made him want to throw up. He was involved with this. How the hell had that happened?

But Klara at least seemed to have gone underground completely, as far as George could tell from the fragments he picked up. No cell phone, no withdrawals at ATMs, nothing. But then he had to translate a conversation between her and her friend, a defense attorney whose name George vaguely recognized. They were tapping her phone too, apparently.

George had hesitated, thought about lying. But he didn’t dare. Not after their ruthlessness in Paris. Not after it became clear that Digital Solutions were murderers. Cold-blooded, ruthless, professional killers. So he had sold out Klara a second time. Told them it seemed like she was on her way to Sweden. What a spineless little cunt he was.

On Reiper’s orders, George had rented a house in Arkösund. They seemed confident that she’d be showing up there. Thirty-five thousand a week was an exorbitant price, but Reiper didn’t seem to care, and at least it was a nice house. Built around the turn of the last century, it was yellow with white trim and had a veranda that faced the sea and the marina. Reiper’s people had immediately set up a pair of large binoculars on the porch and seemed to be guarding the harbor in shifts around the clock. No one had bothered to tell George what they were looking for, but he could guess.

He was basically a prisoner. Reiper hadn’t said anything, but it was obvious that he couldn’t just leave. They locked the front door and took the key out of the lock. And he was rarely alone, it seemed like someone always remained in his vicinity. Reiper had taken his cell phone after the Paris incident. He hadn’t said anything about it, but George lived in constant fear that Reiper knew he’d warned Klara.

George considered turning on the TV again but didn’t want to hear any more endless news updates about Shammosh and Klara. Instead he looked through the house’s only bookcase, which consisted exclusively of well-thumbed Swedish crime novels. Just like any other summerhouse. There was a complete set of a crappy women’s magazine called
Amelia
in a rack next to the fireplace. George picked up the latest issue. ‘Malou von Sivers—“How I pamper myself every day”’ read one of the headlines. With a sigh of resignation, he put the magazine back, slouched down in the sofa, and closed his eyes.

‘It’s hard work doing nothing. It wears you down.’

George opened his eyes and turned his head. Kirsten was reclining on the couch opposite him. In the gray morning light, he only saw her silhouette. He must have dozed off because he hadn’t heard her come into the room.

‘That’s for sure,’ he said and smiled. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

He sat up a little halfheartedly on the couch, straightening the dark blue sweatshirt that Josh had lent him. Reiper hadn’t let him go home to pack before they left. Instead, George had to make do with the clothes he’d been wearing, and a pair of jeans and a few shirts that Josh had reluctantly tossed at him. Someone had bought him some tighty-whities and socks in a supermarket somewhere. He felt like an idiot. But he blended in well. Everyone at Digital Solutions went around dressed like American college kids. Workout clothes or jeans.

‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘It’s tough for all of us. So much anticipation and waiting. But that’s part of the job.’

‘Part of the job?’

George did his best to fix his hair as inconspicuously as possible. Kirsten wasn’t his type. Her lips were too thin. Far too little makeup, if any at all. And always a ponytail. Sure, her body was extremely fit, though she hid it behind sweatshirts, but it seemed sculpted for athletic rather than aesthetic purposes. Whatever, she was the only woman on Reiper’s team. And diversions were in short supply around here.

‘And what is the job, anyway?’

Kirsten smiled at him. She had a small, irregular dimple on her right cheek. It made her look cute. Not at all like a professional killer.

‘Damage control,’ she said. ‘At the moment it’s damage control. Your old friend had the misfortune of getting a hold of information she’s not able to handle properly. We can’t take any risks. It’s highly probable that the negative consequences would be uncontrollable. Unfortunately.’

‘The negative consequences would be uncontrollable?’ George winked at her. ‘Do you always talk like that?’

Kirsten shrugged.

‘What do you want me to say? That we, all of us, will get fucked in the ass—and not in a good way—if this information gets out? Does that paint enough of a picture for you?’

She looked at him with an expression full of quiet confidence and a superiority bordering on pity. As if she belonged to a more advanced life-form and had to remind herself that inferior beings didn’t have the same intuitive access to information that she did.

‘Yeah, yeah. Reiper has tried to explain that,’ he muttered. ‘But to murder them? My God.’

‘We’re not murdering anyone,’ Kirsten said calmly. ‘We’re fighting a war, all right? Soldiers don’t murder, they fight for their country’s survival. And that’s what we are. Soldiers. What we do keeps the world turning. We make sacrifices so you and your anemic colleagues can go to work every day and continue your fucking bullshit. Murder? Who the hell are you to sit here and talk about murder? We do everything we can to make sure nobody loses their lives. Maybe you don’t believe me? Maybe you think we enjoy it?’

Her intelligent eyes scrutinized George. A small wrinkle appeared in her otherwise smooth forehead. That purely physical self-confidence. She could be an Olympic runner or a young, athletic doctor. Anything, but not what she was. What was she? Soldier? Spy? Murderer?

‘But that’s the way these kinds of operations pan out,’ she continued. ‘It’s like any battle. You decide your tactic, plan how everything will be carried out down to the minutest detail. But as soon as the first shot is fired, you might as well just toss out your plans.’

‘And what about me?’ George said hesitantly. ‘It’s almost Christmas. How long am I going to have to stay here?’

Kirsten cocked her head, a bit of warmth in her eyes now, as if she understood that this wasn’t George’s war. That he hadn’t chosen to be here.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to remain here until further notice. Reiper’s analysis is that we can’t afford to let you leave in the middle of the operation.’

She straightened up and winked at him.

‘So it’s just as well that you make yourself at home. Maybe you can make some Swedish meatballs. It’s time for my shift.’

She smiled at him again and went out to the porch to take over the binoculars.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Klara laid three 100-euro bills on the small coffee table.

‘If that’s what you want,’ she said. ‘But no more bullshit, okay?’

Blitzie grabbed the notes and stuffed them into the pocket of her jeans.

‘Do you really need the money?’ Klara said. ‘I mean with such disgusting capitalist parents?’

She smiled gently toward Blitzie, who just pursed her lips.

‘They want me to have what they call a normal childhood,’ she said. ‘Forty euros a week. As if that makes you normal.’

She turned back toward the computers on her desk and seemed to lose herself in some kind of discussion forum. She hadn’t bought those computers on forty euros a week, thought Klara. Maybe there were different levels of normal.

‘Okay,’ Blitzie said at last. ‘Let’s see?’

Klara handed the computer over to her. Blitzie grunted as her fingers flew over the keyboard.

‘Can you unlock it?’ Klara said.

Blitzie looked up at her with marijuana-glazed eyes.

‘I can open anything, okay? It’s just a matter of how long it takes.’

‘And how long do you think this will take?’

Klara wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold this expanding lump of stress and sadness beneath the surface.

‘Jeez! Settle down. Let me get going, and we’ll see.’

Blitzie paused and studied Klara with a new expression in her eyes. The smile had disappeared.

‘Your name is Klara, right? You’re wanted for murder or something in Paris? You’re, like, on the run.’

It was a statement, not a question. Blitzie was obviously a genius, but she seemed far from predictable. Klara nodded.

‘Perhaps.’

‘So, did you kill somebody?’

Klara felt a sudden shard of anger break free from the anxiety and travel up through her body. Why the hell did she have to sit here with some spoiled prodigy and answer questions about the very thing she was trying so hard not to think about?

‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ she said. ‘And I’m not fucking wanted for murder, am I? If you really want to know, my ex-boyfriend was shot in the head by people I don’t know. I was holding his hand.’

Klara didn’t even notice that she’d raised her voice. Tears were flowing down her cheeks.

‘I was holding his hand when they shot him. He got so heavy. He pulled me down onto the floor. And I just left him there. All alone.’

She couldn’t continue. The lump in her throat was growing and she turned away. She didn’t want to sit here and cry, didn’t want to think about what had happened. She just wanted the goddamned password, and then to keep moving on, away. Never slowing down.

Blitzie put the computer on the floor and sat down next to Klara on the low sofa. She curled one of her skinny arms around Klara’s shoulders. With the other hand, she stroked Klara’s cheek.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m not so good with emotions and stuff, you know. Maybe I’m autistic or something.’

Klara dried her tears, pushed her hands through her short hair. She turned to Blitzie.

‘You’re not autistic,’ she said. ‘You’re just a teenager.’

She took a deep breath.

‘Can we forget about me and just focus on the computer right now?’

Blitzie let go of her shoulders and picked up the MacBook. After rooting around a little on her cluttered desk she found a USB stick, which seemed to satisfy her. She plugged it in and restarted the computer. Her slender fingers flew over the keyboard again.

‘There,’ she said at last. ‘Now all we can do is wait. I’m running a program that I modified a bit. We’ll find the password, but it might take a while. Do you want a beer?’

They were on their second Heineken, and their second joint, alternating between a
Jersey Shore
marathon on MTV—which Blitzie supposedly hated but still insisted on zapping over to—and news channels. There seemed to be an infinite number of channels. The morning drifted slowly into afternoon.

Blitzie’s ‘capitalist pig’ parents ran a hedge fund and were apparently information junkies, so they had every TV channel imaginable. It seemed that Mahmoud’s murder had been pushed off of all the European news. But when Blitzie went down to the kitchen to get some snacks, Klara clicked up to higher numbered satellite channels and found to her surprise SVT24, a Swedish Public Television station. She felt slow and apathetic from the marijuana and beer. But at the moment, being stoned was far better than actually being awake.

A newscast was under way when Blitzie stepped into the room with a tray full of nachos and salsa.

‘…and with us in the studio today, we have Eva-Karin Boman, Social Democratic member of the European Parliament. Welcome, Eva-Karin.’

Klara’s turned up the volume on the huge TV and struggled to focus. The camera zoomed in on Eva-Karin’s heavily made-up face. She looked strained.

‘For the last few days we’ve been following the developments surrounding a Swedish Ph.D. student who’s wanted by Interpol for terrorism,’ began the male anchor, looking solemnly into the camera. ‘Last Friday night he was shot to death by unknown assailants during a gun fight. At the time he was accompanied by a Swedish woman, Klara Walldéen, who is now sought in connection with his murder by the French police.’

The anchor paused and the camera zoomed out to include Eva-Karin.

‘Klara Walldéen has been working for you for several years, Eva-Karin. Why do you think she’s gone into hiding?’

Now, the camera zoomed in on Eva-Karin’s face.

‘I really don’t know, Anders. You’d think the normal reaction for anyone who’s been through what Klara seems to have been through would be to voluntarily seek out the police. When you consider the fact that she chose not to, and has even gone into hiding, well, it’s not surprising that questions arise.’

‘What kind of questions do you mean?’

‘Questions regarding her dealings with convicted terrorists, for example. Of course, this isn’t something I’ve ever had the occasion to discuss with Klara. Her role in my office has been as a secretary…’

Klara stood up from the couch. She was shaking.

‘Convicted terrorists! Secretary!’ she screamed in Swedish. ‘What the hell do you mean?’

It was obvious the news anchor was thinking the same thing.

‘The Swede who was shot wasn’t a convicted terrorist, as far as we know.’

‘As far as we know,’ Eva-Karin said. ‘And we don’t know what kind of network he was a part of or what Klara’s connection has been to all of this. All I can say is that if she doesn’t have anything to hide, I urge her to seek out the French police immediately.’

Klara switched off the TV and threw the remote control across the room. The batteries scattered across the dark floor in every direction. She hadn’t expected much of her boss, but that she would actively go to a news station in order to smear her was a bit much even for Eva-Karin.