Before the Frost (34 page)

At this point Wallander's manner changed. He leaned toward Anna, still friendly, but now he clearly meant business.

Anna was very calm,
Linda thought.
Too calm. Calm in the way that only someone who knows what's coming can be
. But then she retracted her conclusion. It was possible, but she shouldn't make the leap prematurely.

Then came the abrupt finish. After her last answer his hands came down on the table.

He had escorted them both back to the reception area. Linda noticed that Anna was tense.
She must be wondering what she said without knowing. My dad is still questioning her, but he's doing it inside her head, waiting to see what she's going to say.

Linda pushed the paper away and stretched her back. Then she called her father on his cell phone.

“I don't have time to talk. I hope you found it instructive.”

“Absolutely. But I don't think she was telling the truth.”

“I think we can safely assume she wasn't telling us the whole truth. But the question is why. Do you know what I think?”

“No, tell me.”

“I think her father has actually returned. But we can talk more about that tonight.”

 

Wallander came back to the apartment just after seven o'clock. Linda had cooked dinner. They sat down at the kitchen table and he had just started discussing the grounds he had for thinking that Anna's father had returned when the phone rang.

She could tell from his face that it was something serious.

36

They had arranged to meet in a parking lot between Malmö and Ystad. Even a parking lot could become a cathedral if you chose to see it that way. The balmy September air rose from the ground like pillars for this towering yet invisible church.

He had told them to be there at three, instructing them to wear normal clothes since they would be impersonating tourists from Poland on a shopping trip in Sweden. Alone or in small groups, they would arrive from different directions and receive their final instructions from Erik Westin, who would have Torgeir Langaas at his side.

Westin had spent the last few weeks in a mobile home in a camping area in Höör. He had given up the apartment in Helsingborg and bought a cheap used mobile home in Svedala. His beat-up Volvo had transported it to the camping lot. Apart from his meetings with Langaas and the plans they had carried out together, he had spent all his time in the mobile home, praying and preparing for the task ahead. Every morning he looked into the little mirror on the wall and asked himself if he was staring into the eyes of a madman.
No one could become a prophet without a great deal of inborn humility,
he would think to himself. To be strong was to be able to ask oneself the hardest questions. Even if his commitment to the task God had assigned him never wavered, he still needed to be sure that he was not carried away with pride. But the eyes gazing steadily back at him from the mirror only confirmed what he already knew: that he was the anointed leader of the new age. There was nothing misguided about the great task that lay before them. Everything was already spelled out in the Holy Book. The Christian world had become mired in a bog of misconceptions and had tried God's
patience to the point that He had simply given up, waiting for the one who was prepared act as His true servant, to step in and set things right.

“There is only one God,” Erik Westin said at the beginning of all his prayers. “One God and his only son, whom we crucified. This cross is the symbol of our only hope. The cross is plainly made—of wood, not gold or precious marble. The truth lies in poverty and simplicity. The emptiness we carry inside can only be filled by the Holy Ghost, not material goods or riches, however tempting they may appear to us.”

He had carried on long conversations with God. He had also thought a great deal about Jim Jones, the false prophet, the fallen angel. He thought about the exodus from the United States to Guyana, the initial period of joy and then the terrible betrayal that had led to murder. In his thoughts and prayers there was always a place for those who had died in the jungle. One day they would be set free from the evil that Jim Jones had committed and would be uplifted to the highest realms, where God and the angels awaited them.

During this last little while, he had also felt affirmed and accepted by those he had once left behind. They had not forgotten him. They understood why he had left and why he had now returned. One day when everything was over, he would withdraw from the world and take up the life he had left so long ago: sandal-making. He would have his daughter by his side and all would be fulfilled.

The time had come at last. God had appeared to him in a vision.
All sacrifice is made for the creation of life,
he thought.
No one knows if they have been chosen to live or to die.
He had reinstituted the ritual sacrifices with their origins in the earliest days of Christianity. Life and death went hand in hand; God was both logical and wise. Killing in order to sustain life was an important practice in combating the emptiness that existed inside man. And now the moment was here.

On the morning of the day that they were to meet in the parking lot, Erik Westin went down to the dark lake that still retained some of the summer's heat. He washed himself thoroughly, clipped his nails, and shaved. He was alone in the remote camping area.
After Langaas called, Westin threw his cell phone into the lake. Then he put on his clothes, taking his Bible and money with him to the car and driving a short distance up the road. Then there was only one thing left to take care of. He set fire to the mobile home, and drove away.

 

Altogether there were twenty-six of them, seventeen men and nine women, and each had a cross tattooed on his or her chest above the heart. The men were from Uganda, France, England, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Italy, and the United States. The women were American and Canadian, with the exception of a British woman who had lived in Denmark for a long time. It had taken Erik four years to build the core group of the Christian army he planned to lead into battle.

Now they were meeting each other for the first time. A light rain fell as they assembled in the parking lot. Westin had parked his car on a hill overlooking the lot. He kept an eye on the proceedings with the help of a telescope. Langaas was there to receive them. He had been instructed to say that he didn't know where Westin was. Westin had often explained to him that secret agreements of this nature could strengthen people's belief in the holy task that awaited them. Westin looked into the telescope. There they were, some in cars, some on foot, two on bikes, one on a motorcycle, and a few more who walked out from a small forested area next to the parking lot as if they had been camping there. Each one carried only a small backpack. Westin had been very strict on this point; no one was to have a large amount of luggage or wear unusual attire. Nothing that would attract attention to God's undercover army.

He trained the lens on Langaas's face. Langaas was leaning against the sign posted on one side of the parking lot.
It would not have been possible without him,
Erik thought.
If I hadn't stumbled across him in that dirty Cleveland street and managed to transform him into an absolutely, ruthlessly devoted disciple, I would not yet be ready to give my army marching orders.

Langaas turned his head in the direction they had agreed upon. Then he stroked his nose twice with his left index finger. All was ready. Westin packed up his telescope and started walking down to
the parking lot. There was a dip beside the road that meant he could walk right up to them without being seen. That way he would seem to appear out of nowhere. When he walked among them everyone stopped what they were doing, but no one talked, as he had instructed.

Langaas had arrived in a truck, into which they now loaded the bicycles and motorcycles, then let the people climb in after them. The cars would have to be left behind. Westin drove and Langaas sat up front with him. They turned off to the right and found their way to Mossby Beach, where they parked. Everyone walked down to the beach. Torgeir carried two large baskets with food. They sat closely pressed together among the sand dunes, like a bunch of tourists who found the weather a little too cold.

Before they started to eat, Westin said the necessary words:

“God demands our presence. He decrees the battle.”

They unpacked the baskets and ate. When the food was gone, Westin ordered them to rest. Langaas and Westin walked down to the water's edge. They went through the plan one last time. A large cloudbank moved in, darkening the sky.

“We're getting just what we wanted,” Langaas said. “It would be a good night for catching eels.”

“We are getting what we need, for we are the righteous and the just,” Westin said.

 

They waited until it was evening, then climbed back into the truck. It was half past seven when Westin swung back onto the road and headed east. He turned north just past Svarte, passing the highway from Malmö to Ystad, and then continued on a road that went west, past Rannesholm Manor. Two kilometers past Hurup he drove onto a small dirt road, turning off the engine and the headlights. Langaas climbed out of the car. In the rearview mirror Erik could see two of the American men climbing off the truck: Peter Buchanan, a former hairdresser from New Jersey, and Edison Lambert, a jack-of-all-trades from Des Moines.

Westin felt his pulse quicken. Was there anything that could go wrong? He regretted even thinking the question.
I'm not crazy,
he thought.
I place my trust in God and his plan.
He started the engine
and pulled back out onto the road. One motorcycle overtook him, then another. He continued driving north, throwing a glance at Hurup Church where Langaas and the two Americans were headed. Half a mile north of Hurup he turned left toward Staffanstorp, then turned left again after stopping in front of an abandoned farm for ten minutes. He stepped out of the truck and motioned for those still in the back to follow him.

He checked the time: right on schedule. They walked slowly in order to accommodate the few who were older, or less fit, like the British woman, who had been operated on for cancer six months ago. Westin had debated whether or not to include her, but after consulting with God he received the answer that she had survived her illness precisely so that she could complete her mission. They followed a road that led to the back of Frennestad Church. Westin felt in his pocket for the key that Langaas had made for him. Two weeks ago he had tried it, and it had turned without a single squeak. He stopped them when they reached the churchyard. No one said anything, and all he could hear was breathing.
Only calm breaths,
he noted.
No one is panting, no one seems anxious, not even she who is going to die.

Westin looked down at his watch again. In forty-three minutes Langaas, Buchanan, and Lambert would set fire to the church in Hurup. They started walking again. The gate opened without a sound. Langaas had oiled it yesterday. They walked single-file up to the church. Westin unlocked the doors. It was cool inside; one person shivered. He turned on the flashlight and looked around. Everyone seated themselves in the front pews, as they had been instructed. The last missive Westin had distributed included 123 detailed instructions that were to be memorized down to the letter. He knew they had done so.

Westin lit the candles that Langaas had placed near the altar. In the dim light he could see Harriet Bolson, the woman from Tulsa, seated on the far right. She was completely calm.
God's ways are inscrutable,
he thought.
But only to those who do not need to understand them.
He looked down at his watch. It was important that the two actions, the burning of Hurup Church and that which was to take place in Frennestad Church, be synchronized. He looked over at
Harriet Bolson again. She had a thin, worn face even though she was only thirty years old.
Perhaps her face shows the traces of her sin,
he thought.
She can only be cleansed through fire.
He turned off the flashlight and walked into the shadows by the pulpit. He reached into his backpack and pulled out the rope that Langaas had bought in a maritime store in Copenhagen. He placed it in front of the altar, then checked his watch again. It was time. He turned and motioned for everyone to stand. He called them up one by one. He handed one end of the rope to the first person.

“We are irrevocably bound together,” he said. “From now on, from this day forward, we will never need a rope again. We are bound by our loyalty to God and our task. We cannot tolerate for the Christian world to sink any deeper into degradation. The world will be cleansed through fire, and we must start with ourselves.”

While he was uttering the last words he had slowly moved so that he stood in front of Harriet Bolson. At the same moment that he tied the rope around her neck she understood what was about to happen. It was as if her mind went blank from the sudden terror. She didn't scream or struggle. Her eyes closed.
All my years of waiting are finally over.