Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (93 page)

A short bang. She hears a crash overhead. The cable jerks and Penelope’s stomach turns over as the man cabled to her yells something to the helicopter pilot. The helicopter swerves crazily. Horror sweeps over Penelope. The pilot has been shot. Instinctively, with no thought at all, she jerks at the security harness, wriggles free, and simply drops away.

She can see the helicopter stall in the air, tip to one side, and flip over. The cable with her rescuer still dangling on it is entangled in the large rotor. She plunges through the air, unable to look away. The machine rattles deafeningly, and, with a two-part bang, the enormous rotor blades are ripped from the axle. Penelope falls about twenty metres before she smacks into the water. She sinks down deep, semiconscious with the impact and the cold. It is a long time before she’s able to move. Reaching the surface, her lungs react automatically and her body takes a deep breath. Almost without sight, she dully looks around. Then she begins to swim away from the island and out into the open sea.

Joona Linna and Saga Bauer departed quietly from Silencia Defense after their short meeting with Pontus Salman.

Pontus Salman had ruined their trap by immediately identifying himself and pinpointing the date: 2008 in a concert hall in Frankfurt.

There had been discussion of a shipment of ammunition to Sudan, he’d explained, a plan well advanced before it was broken off in the spring of 2009. Salman seemed to assume that Joona and Saga were well aware of what had happened then.

He’d added that this had been the only meeting concerning Sudan and that now, of course, any continued business arrangements were out of the question.

“What was he talking about?” Joona asks. “Do you know what happened then?”

Before they’ve even swung out onto Nynäshamn, Saga has phoned Simon Lawrence at Säpo.

“I presume you’re not calling me for a date,” Simon says humorously.

“You’re an expert on North Africa. What happened in Sudan in the spring of 2009?” Saga says.

“What’s the context?”

“For some reason, after that time, Sweden can no longer export weapons to Sudan.”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?”

“Of course,” she answers with gritted teeth.

“In March 2009, the International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir.”

“An arrest warrant for the president?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s big.”

“The indictment includes the president’s direct involvement in orders for plundering, rape, forced displacement, torture, murder, and genocide for all three ethnic groups in Darfur.”

“Oh.”

Simon Lawrence goes on to give Saga a short history lesson about events in Sudan before she finally hangs up the phone.

“So what’s it all about?” Joona asks.

“The International Criminal Court in The Hague has an arrest warrant out for President al-Bashir,” she says, and gives Joona a long look.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” says Joona.

“In 2004 the United Nations laid down a weapons embargo to the Janjaweed and other militia in Darfur.”

They drive north on Nynäsvägen. The summer skies begin to turn dark and clouds are building.

“Go on,” says Joona.

“President al-Bashir denies any connection to the militia. After the UN embargo, only direct exports to the Sudan government were allowed.”

“Because there was no connection between the government and the militia.”

“Exactly,” Saga says. “Then, in 2005, a general amnesty was reached. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It was supposed to end the longest civil war in Africa. After that date, there was no reason for Sweden to stop weapons supplies to Sudan’s army. Carl Palmcrona had to decide if these shipments were morally and legally a responsible thing to do.”

“But the International Criminal Court thought differently,” Joona says acridly.

“Yes indeed. They saw a direct connection between the president and the armed militia, and they demanded he be arrested for rape, torture, and genocide.”

“What happened after that?”

“There was an election in April and al-Bashir remains the president. Sudan will not allow any arrest warrant to be served, so today it is absolutely forbidden to ship arms to Sudan and have any business with Omar al-Bashir and Agathe al-Haji.”

“As Pontus Salman told us,” Joona says.

“And that’s why they broke off business connections.”

“We have to find Penelope Fernandez,” Joona says as the first raindrops hit the windscreen.

They’re now driving into a heavy thunderstorm that immediately obscures their vision. Rain sluices down, drumming on the roof of the car. Joona is forced to slow down to barely more than fifty kilometres per hour. It’s totally dark, but at times lightning illuminates the sky. The windscreen wipers swish back and forth at top speed.

Joona’s mobile phone rings. Petter Näslund snaps that Penelope has called SOS alarm twenty minutes ago.

“Why didn’t you call me right away?”

“My first priority was to alert the maritime police. They’re already on their way. I also sent a rescue helicopter.”

“Good work, Petter,” Joona says. Saga gives him a questioning look.

“I know you’ll want to question them both as soon as possible.”

“Right,” Joona says.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything more. What shape they’re in.”

“Thanks.”

“The Coast Guard should be there by now … wait … something’s happened. Hang on.”

Joona hears Petter put down the phone. He’s talking to someone, and his voice grows louder until he’s yelling. He’s yelling “Keep trying! Keep trying!” before Joona hears him pick up the phone again.

“I’ve got to go,” Petter says.

“What’s going on?” Joona asks.

A thunderclap rolls and fades away.

“We can’t reach the officer on the boat. No answer. It’s that idiot Lance; he’s probably seen a wave he has to try.”

“Petter,” Joona shouts. “Listen! You need to work fast! That boat’s been hijacked … and I believe—”

“Now you’ve gone too far!”

“Shut up and listen! Probably the guys on the boat are already dead. There may be only a few minutes to order a strike force. Take charge of this operation! Call CID on one phone and Bengt Olofsson on another and try to get two patrols from NI. Ask for backup from a Helicopter 14 from the nearest base.”

A thunderstorm is rolling regally over Stockholm. The rain beats on the windows of Carl Palmcrona’s large apartment. Tommy Kofoed and Nathan Pollock have begun the forensic investigation all over again.

It’s so dark that they turn on the ceiling lamps.

In one of the full-length wardrobes in Palmcrona’s dressing room, on the floor beneath a row of grey, blue, and black suits, Pollock unearths a black leather folder.

“Hey, Tommy,” he yells.

Kofoed, in his usual hunched-over, melancholy posture, comes into the room. “What is it?”

Nathan Pollock taps the black leather folder lightly with his gloved fingers.

“I think I found something,” he says simply.

They walk to the high window nook and Pollock undoes the clasp and opens the leather folder.

“What do we have here?” Kofoed whispers reverently.

Pollock lifts up the thin cover page with these few words on it:
Carl Palmcrona’s Last Will and Testament.

They read it in silence. The document is dated March 3, three years earlier. Palmcrona has bequeathed all he owns to one person: Stefan Bergkvist.

“Who the hell is Stefan Bergkvist?” asks Kofoed after they’ve finished reading. “Palmcrona has no relatives, and no friends either as far as I’ve found out.”

“Stefan Bergkvist lives in Västerås … at least when this was written,” Pollock says. “His address is Rekylgatan 11 and—”

Pollock stops and looks up.

“He’s still a kid. According to his personal registration number, he’s just sixteen right now.”

The will had been drawn up by Palmcrona’s lawyer at the firm of Wieselgreen and Sons. Pollock flips through the appendices that list Palmcrona’s property. “There are four pension funds; one forest property, leased, of only two hectares; a partitioned farm in Sörmland, also on long-term lease; and the high-priced condominium on Grevgatan 2. The really large inheritance seems to be in a bank account at Standard Chartered Bank on the island of Jersey. Palmcrona sets its value at nine million euros.”

“It looks like Stefan has become a wealthy kid,” Pollock says.

“Yes indeed.”

“But why? What’s the connection?”

Tommy shrugs. “Who knows? Some people give everything to their dogs or their gym trainer.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“You mean, call the boy?”

“What else do you suggest?”

Nathan Pollock picks up his phone and taps in a number, asks to be connected to Stefan Bergkvist, living at Rekylgatan 11 in Västerås. He finds out that there is a Siv Bergkvist at the same address and guesses this is the boy’s mother. Nathan looks out the window at the pounding rain and the gutters flowing over.

“Siv Bergkvist,” a woman answers in a broken-sounding voice.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I’m a criminal investigator. Are you the mother of Stefan Bergkvist?”

“Yes,” she says in a whisper.

“May I speak to him?”

“What?”

“Please don’t worry. I just need to ask him—”

“Go straight to hell!” she screams and slams down the phone.

Pollock redials the number but no one answers. He looks out the window, down at the road shining in the rain, and dials yet again.

“Micke here,” a man’s voice says in a reserved tone.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I—”

“What do you want?”

Nathan hears the woman sobbing in the background. She says something to the man and he tells her he can take care of it.

“No, let me,” she says.

Steps are heard as the telephone is handed over.

“Hello,” the woman says softly.

“I really need—”

“Stefan is dead!” she screams shrilly. “You say you are a police officer and yet you say you need to talk to him! Why are you torturing me? It’s just too much …”

She’s sobbing into the receiver. Something crashes to the floor in the background.

“I’m so sorry,” Pollock says softly. “I didn’t know. I—”

“I can’t take it any longer!” she sobs. “I can’t!”

Steps are heard again and the man takes up the phone.

“This is enough,” he says.

“Please wait a moment,” Pollock says quickly. “Please tell me what happened. It’s important …”

Tommy Kofoed, who has been catching Pollock’s side of the conversation, sees him listen intently, then turn pale and run his hand over his silver ponytail.

Officers have gathered in the hallway of police headquarters until it is filled with nervous energy. Everyone waits for the latest reports. First, contact with the Coast Guard boat had been lost; then radio contact with the rescue helicopter had also gone dead.

At CID, Joona stands in his office and reading a postcard that Disa once sent him from a conference in Gotland. “I’m sending along a love letter from a secret admirer. Hugs, Disa.” He guesses that she searched quite a while to find a postcard that would make him shudder so. He bites his lip as he turns the postcard over. sex on the beach is printed over a picture of a white poodle wearing sunglasses and a pink bikini. The dog lounges in a deck chair and has a red drink beside it.

There’s a knock on his door. Joona’s smile disappears at the expression on Nathan Pollock’s face.

“Carl Palmcrona willed everything he owned to his son,” Nathan starts.

“I thought he had no relatives.”

“His son is dead. He was sixteen years old. It appears there was an accident yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Joona repeats.

“Stefan Bergkvist survived Carl Palmcrona by just three days,” Nathan says softly.

“What happened?”

“I don’t really know. Something about his motorcycle,” Pollock says. “I’ve asked for the preliminary autopsy report—”

“What do you have so far?”

“I’ve talked to his mother several times now. Her name is Siv Bergkvist. She lives with her partner, Micke Johansson. It appears that Siv was a substitute secretary for Palmcrona when he was working at the Fourth Navy Flotilla. They had a short relationship. She became pregnant. When she told him, he wanted her to get an abortion. Siv returned to Västerås instead, had the baby, and never told anyone the name of the father.”

“Did Stefan know that his father was Carl Palmcrona?”

Nathan shakes his head and thinks back on the mother’s words:
I told my son that his pappa was dead, that he had died before my little honeybee was born.

Another knock on the door. Anja walks in and puts a report on the table. It’s still warm from being printed out.

“An accident,” Anja says grimly, without further explanation, and then leaves the room again.

Joona picks up the plastic folder and begins to read the report from the initial technical investigation. Death was not from carbon monoxide poisoning but as a direct result of burns. Before the boy died, his skin had swollen and split as if from deep cuts, and then all the internal musculature shrank. The heat had exploded the skull and the long bones. The coroner had put the cause of death as heat-related hematoma, due to the fact that the blood began to boil between the skull and the hard brain membrane.

“Unpleasant,” Joona mutters.

Basically, nothing was left of the shed where Stefan Bergkvist’s remains were found, which hindered the work of the fire investigators. The shed was now nothing more than a smouldering pyre of ashes, a few blackened pieces of metal, and a charred body in a fetal position next to what had been the door. Police based a preliminary theory of what had happened on the testimony of a single witness: the train engineer who’d called the fire department. He’d seen the burning motorcycle wedged next to the shed. Indications pointed to an accident in which sixteen-year-old Stefan Bergkvist had been trapped inside the old shed when his motorcycle had fallen over and blocked the door. The gas cap was not secure and petrol had leaked out. The spark that led to the fire was still not accounted for, but the guess was that it was due to a cigarette.