Grens leaned forward between the seats when the pilot started the engines—he tried to make contact with Schwarz, spoke to him without getting a response. The prisoner was still detached, his body language clear; a person retreating to a far-off place.
When Sveriges Television had broadcast a ten-minute report on the night’s events at six o’clock in the morning, it was the start of a weeklong focus on John Meyer Frey, the person and the story in which he played the main part. Every news bulletin on all Swedish channels and radio stations, every edition of the Swedish newspapers, carried new information about the American prisoner who had been sentenced to death and escaped, but had then been arrested some years later for aggravated assault, and deported from the country to an impending execution with the Swedish government’s consent.
The story had been released into the public sphere following a few brief conversations between a detective superintendent and a TV journalist, and was now subject to the scrutiny that a handful of decision makers had hoped to avoid.
Vincent Carlsson would soon celebrate his fiftieth birthday, which surprised everyone who met him, as he didn’t seem to be a day over thirtyfive, except for a few gray streaks in his otherwise dark hair; still a boy in an older man’s body. When Ewert Grens had phoned him in the middle of the night, as they were preparing for the first news bulletin of the day, he had immediately understood that this conversation would make an impact.
Detective Superintendent Grens normally snubbed the press, kept himself to himself until an investigation was over and then left it to a press officer to give succinct answers to any questions. So to call himself and give an anonymous tip, that was almost as unlikely as what he had then proceeded to tell.
Rosenbad had called a press conference for half past seven.
The demand for answers was so overwhelming from the start, the hordes of journalists crowded outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so large, that an open press conference was the only solution.
The big conference room in the government building was already full.
Seventeen rows of journalists on folding chairs covered in blue fabric, at the front the photographers were focusing on the forest of microphones, at the back the soundmen were desperately trying to ensure that the reporters could hear their feeds properly but had to contend with the hum of one hundred and twenty people, the noise swirling around and ricocheting off the bare walls, dying out only once it reached the skylight forty feet up.
It was a long time since Vincent Carlsson had reported live from the scene, a couple of years working as news editor for the early morning news had meant better working hours and more money, but also being cut off from reality in a large newsroom lined with TV monitors.
Now he was back in the field for a few days, in the other world, the baiting and crush, and he loved it.
He took another step forward, had decided to lean against the wall at the side by the front row, when two men of roughly the same age and wearing similar suits sat down on the green podium at an oblique angle in front of him.
One of them was the minister of foreign affairs and the other looked like State Secretary Thorulf Winge.
It was going to be a nice day in Moscow. It was cold, quite bright, and the air was easy to breathe. It looked like it would be sunny, so the snowcovered surroundings would sparkle.
The most outlying terminal at Sheremetyevo International Airport was about half a mile north of the runway. A newly built smaller part of the huge Moscow airport, secluded from the scheduled flights that landed and took off every minute, to and from worlds outside Russia.
The two morning flights that were normally scheduled to take off from here had been relocated to another terminal earlier that morning. The vast expanses of asphalt were empty and waiting when a small troop of uniformed and armed Russian soldiers were given access.
It was hot in the large government conference room, almost unbearable.
“Why has a person, who was in custody for aggravated assault, been deported?”
Too many people in a closed space, too many lights to be able to adjust the brightness for live transmission, pants that were too heavy and sweaters that were too thick, designed to protect against the winter cold.
“Why was the Migration Board’s decision subject to secrecy?”
Already after the minister’s opening statement, sweat was trickling down foreheads and cheeks, skin itching with tension, anger, expectation.
“How did the government manage to secure the deportation papers within a couple of days?”
Vincent Carlsson was standing at the front, the cameraman beside him with his lights focused on the podium and the two spokesmen for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had started to ask his questions as soon as the usual pleasantries were over, and the foreign minister had countered each one by referring to the ongoing investigation and national security and the obligation to refrain from commenting on individual cases.
Vincent listened impatiently to the empty platitudes, looked around the room.
His colleagues remained silent.
So it was still his story and he could keep asking questions for a while.
He smiled to himself. At a press conference like this, when the news reeked of something fishy, behavior could easily end up being infantile.
He’d seen it so many times before. First they went out onto the savannah, males fighting for territory and the right to fill their bellies, and then they regressed to the sandpit: I had it first, no you didn’t, I had it first.
He was glad he didn’t have to deal with that aspect at the moment.
“I’m going to keep on asking questions until I get something that at least resembles an answer.”
He took a step forward, the cameraman by his side; they were close, one person’s face filled the screen.
“State Secretary Winge, can you please explain to us, and to the viewers who right now are waiting for a straight answer, how the government managed to secure the deportation papers in no more than a couple of days? We all know that decisions like that normally involve months of investigation.”
Both men on the podium had been up all night. Their eyes were tired, their skin gray. One hundred and twenty journalists were waiting to dissect each and every word, to weigh every hesitation.
Thorulf Winge looked straight at the man who had asked the question and his camera.
“John Meyer Frey has been domiciled in Sweden illegally, without a residency permit, for six years. So the decision to deport him has not only taken ‘a couple of days.’ It has taken six years and a couple of days.”
The state secretary had taken a good many classes in interview technique. He had decided what he would say and would say only that.
There was no doubt there, his eyes didn’t waver. He knew that each tiny movement was magnified by a camera lens, that any emphasis on a particular word was so much stronger when transmitted via a television screen.
He was slick, Vincent could tell.
“State Secretary Winge, Sweden has a long tradition of yielding to greater powers. It allowed Nazi transport to crisscross its neutrality, and today, we allow prisoners to be held illegally in Cuba while we look the other way. And this . . . well, it feels like we might be reinforcing the tradition here. Yielding, I mean.”
“Is that a question?”
“Do you have an answer?”
“Deporting an illegal immigrant who has committed a serious crime in Sweden could hardly be described as yielding.”
Vincent couldn’t get any closer now, he leaned in toward the podium, his hand holding the microphone right in front of Winge’s mouth as he adjusted his jacket:
it’s so hot, the sweat is running down my back, irritating
.
“Extraditing someone who has been sentenced to death and risks execution, does that not contravene the extradition agreement between the EU and the USA?”
His eyes just as steady.
“I think you have misunderstood. John Meyer Frey is
not being extradited
to the United States. He is being
deported
to the country he entered from. To Russia.”
Two hours and twelve minutes after taking off from Bromma Airport in Stockholm, the Swedish government Gulfstream jet landed at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow. It then rolled on across the airstrip, several hundred yards to a smaller terminal that was closed to the public for the morning.
John Schwarz had not spoken for the entire journey.
For the first hour, he had sat hunched forward, cradling his head in his free hand. Somewhere over Finland he had tried to stand up, Sven Sundkvist had at first resisted but then looked at Grens, who nodded. They had stood still, felt the plane rolling slightly, and when Schwarz had then started to wander around restlessly, Sven had obligingly stayed by his side in the open cabin until they had finally sat down again in a couple of empty seats toward the rear of the plane. And at roughly the same time, Schwarz had started to sing. Indistinct, quiet, but you could make out the occasional English word. The same monotonous verse without interruption for the rest of the journey.
He seemed to be calmer now, his eyes timidly taking things in, as if he had decided to take some tiny part in this world.
Ewert Grens had found it hard to relax. He was in the process of losing and it made him furious. There was so much in life that could not be predicted. How the hell were you supposed to prepare for something that could never happen? A prisoner who had been sentenced to death for years becomes the subject of one of your investigations and is detained on your order, only to be transported to his own death under your supervision a few days later. He had sworn at everything that could be sworn at during the night on the balcony and later at Kronoberg, holding the phone in his hand. There was nothing left, he was empty and exhausted and longed to be able to lean his head into Anni’s, in silence.
In her room, beside her, a hand on her cheek and then just sit there, trying to understand what she was looking at through the window out there, what he knew she had waved at.
There was silence when the plane came a halt and the pilot turned off the engines. They remained in their seats until the steps were in place. A time difference of two hours, bright, strong sunlight outside, the day had progressed further here.
When Vincent Carlsson suddenly stopped asking questions and instead asked Thorulf Winge to listen to a short, round man who was standing next to him, no one reacted. Because no one knew who he was. Until he started to speak loudly with Vincent’s microphone in front of him, in English with an obvious American accent.
“My name is Ruben Frey. I have a son. Why do you want to kill him?”
After his conversation with Grens, Vincent had gone to Hotel Continental, woken Frey, and told him about the decision that had been made during the night and the early morning transportation. He had then asked him to get dressed and accompany him to a press conference, armed with the ID and accreditation of a producer the same age.
Frey’s voice was deep and powerful and no one in the large room had any difficulty in hearing.
“Answer me! I want to know why you want to kill my son!”
This was beyond even the rules of the savannah. But Winge realized that with the camera rolling and the conference being broadcast live, there would be only one loser if he started to tell a desperate father that he couldn’t ask questions about his son who risked execution. If he did that or left the premises in a rage, the clip would be shown triumphantly over and over again. He therefore looked calmly at the man who was about the same age as him, his face deep red with agitation and despair.
“Mr. Frey, with all due respect, your son has been convicted of murder in the United States and is on the run.
We
are not the ones who want to kill him. It’s
your
country that applies the death penalty.”
The small man turned to Vincent, as if looking for support, help in dealing with the civil servant in front of him. He felt a fear that then spilled over into anger, a helplessness that made him want to lash out.
“He faces execution in the United States. You
know
that!”
“Mr. Frey, Russia was a transit country for your son, when he—”
“Damn murderers!”
“—when he illegally entered Sweden. He has been deported back there by the Migration Board. Not by the Swedish government.”
Ruben Frey’s voice didn’t hold any longer.
He clutched his chest as if in pain and wept, his face twisted, as he ran out.
According to the information they had received, the Russian officer was to be a high-ranking one. Ewert Grens checked the shoulders of his uniform, it was true.
He was waiting on the asphalt when they came down the steps, and Grens was struck by the thought that the man a few yards in front of him looked like a parody of every Russian soldier ever shown on film. Tall, abnormally straight backed, crew cut, a face that had forgotten how to laugh or even smile, deep creases in fair cheeks, tense jaw that jutted forward. He was backlit by the strong sun and it wasn’t easy to see the six or seven armed men standing behind him.
They all wore uniforms.
And had what were probably Kalashnikovs in their hands.
Grens caught himself almost smiling for a moment at the stereotypical film image, even down to the type of gun.
But he didn’t smile.
He greeted the Russian colonel and shook his hand and then waited in silence until Grens, much to his own surprise, suddenly pointed first to himself and then to John and stated that in his capacity as John Meyer Frey’s authorized representative he was seeking political asylum in Russia on his behalf. They stared at each other as moment chased moment, strangers with an empty void between them and the constant drone of scheduled air traffic only a few hundred yards away; the officer first explained that he didn’t understand Grens’s school English, so Hermansson quickly made things clearer, and then he replied that it wasn’t possible to give political asylum to someone who was dead, surely the Swedish policeman must understand that.