Life Deluxe (57 page)

He looked at the driver. “You understand? If you pull your leg out, the door slams shut and then this piece might go off and fire at you.”

The dude nodded. Jorge thought:
When this is over, I’ve gotta send this poor papa flowers and apologize
.

He ran up the stairwell in the building.

Heard cop cries echo through the door below.

Hägerström was sitting on the wrong side of the table. He had sat on the other side more times than he could count, where the head interrogator and the so-called interrogation witness—the other police officer—were now sitting. Inside, he was grinning at the situation. Today Deputy Inspector Martin Hägerström was not the one doing the interrogating; today he was the one being interrogated. Pravat used to say that he wanted them to play the opposite game. Today Hägerström was playing the opposite game with Deputy Inspector Jenny Flemström and Deputy Inspector Håkan Nilsson.

This should just be a routine interrogation, and then they ought to let him go. They weren’t allowed to detain him for more than six hours without a decision from the prosecutor. And there was no way he could be suspected of anything. He had simply been having coffee with Jorge and Javier at the cabbie joint. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Still, he was disappointed. Not in himself, really. After all, it wasn’t his fault that the hit had turned into total chaos. The officers had acted unprofessionally. They ought to have had undercover officers positioned inside the joint, and they ought to have had cars blocking off the street outside. They ought to have cuffed Jorge first, not tried to cuff him
after
Hägerström.

He wondered if Jorge had gotten away.

He wondered how Javier was doing.

Deputy Inspector Flemström explained the formal guidelines for what was about to happen. “So, Martin, we’re going to interrogate you now. You’re a former police officer, so you know how this works. I will soon start the recorder. Do you want something to drink before we begin? Coffee? Water?”

Hägerström smiled inside once more. They were offering him
something to drink to make him feel comfortable. He shook his head, declined.

Jenny Flemström hit “record” on the Dictaphone.

“This is an interrogation with Martin Hägerström. Deputy Inspector Jenny Flemström and Deputy Inspector Håkan Nilsson are present. The date is October eighth, and it is three o’clock in the morning. We are recording the interrogation.”

Hägerström looked at Flemström. She was holding a pen in one hand, clicking the ballpoint up and down.

“Tell us what you were doing at the Mug Café tonight.”

“I was just there to grab a coffee with an acquaintance. His name is Javier.”

“And how do you know him?”

“We got to know each other in Thailand a couple weeks ago, I haven’t known him for long.”

“Are you good friends?”

“No, we’ve known each other for such a short time.”

“And how long were you in Thailand?”

“Around three weeks.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Vacation. I used to work in Bangkok, so I know some people there.”

“How did you get to know Javier?”

“We happened to be staying at the same hotel in Phuket.”

“Did you spend a lot of time together?”

“Yes, by the end we were hanging out pretty much every day, but it was just for a few days.”

“What’s Javier’s full name?”

“I have no idea.”

“How can you not know what his last name is? Don’t you think that sounds a little bit odd?”

“Not at all—we didn’t have that type of relationship. We just drank beer and went to bars and stuff.”

Flemström continued asking questions. She took notes. Nilsson was also taking notes in the background. When it was over, Hägerström was going to call Deputy Inspector Flemström and teach her some things about interrogation technique. She was too fast, wanted to move the interrogation along too quickly. She wasn’t taking the time to establish patterns.

Maybe he ought to speak the truth, tell them he was an undercover operative in the middle of an important operation. But that might jeopardize the entire investigation. They were at a critical stage right now. So he just played along. He didn’t have anything to fear: he was a regular police officer in an unusual situation.

Flemström moved into different territory. “Tell us a little bit about your background.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m looking for work. Previously I worked as a corrections officer at the Salberga Penitentiary. And you know what I did before that. I was fired from the police force in the spring. I live in Stockholm and have a son who lives with his mother on Lidingö.”

“Okay. And what kind of job are you looking for?”

“Guard jobs, CO jobs, stuff like that.”

“And how do you support yourself?”

“I live cheaply, and I’ve saved up.”

“Where do you live?”

“On Östermalm. In a coop apartment, a two-bedroom on Banérgatan.”

Hägerström stared straight into Flemström’s eyes. She reacted noticeably when he told her where he lived. He’d seen the same reaction many times from police colleagues. His housing situation didn’t exactly signal middle class. But Flemström was most certainly thinking:
How can a former police officer and corrections officer afford to live in a coop on Östermalm?

She went on. Leaned her torso across the table, toward Hägerström.

“And Jorge Salinas Barrio—how do you know him?”

“I don’t know him.”

“Have you ever met him before?”

“If you’re referring to Javier’s friend, then yes. We met once, also in Thailand.”

“Does he know Javier well?”

“Yes, I think so. I think they’re good friends. At least I know they knew each other before Thailand.”

Deputy Inspector Flemström leaned back. Pleased with his answer. Again: entry-level interrogation technique. Lean in when you’re attacking, lean back when you’ve gotten what you want.

“So what was he doing at the Mug Café?” she continued.

“I have no idea. I didn’t know he was coming. Maybe Javier told him to come.”

It was cold in the interrogation room. Hägerström glanced at the heater that was hanging on the wall. It was probably dead.

Flemström continued: “Babak Behrang—do you know him?”

“No.”

“Have you heard of him?”

“No, no clue.”

“Mahmud al-Askori—do you recognize that name?”

“No, never heard the name, never met him.”

“Okay then. How about Robert Progat?”

“No, same story there.”

“Tom Lehtimäki?”

“Same story. Who are they?”

Flemström’s response came shooting back at him: “We’re the ones asking the questions here.”

Once again Hägerström noticed how unprofessional she was. The right technique would have been to try to connect with him, make him feel comfortable, make him feel he had nothing to fear. Not to cut him off like that. He looked at Håkan Nilsson, tried to see if he understood what Hägerström understood.

He basically got as much of a reaction as from the heater on the wall. Nilsson’s gaze was ice cold.

He thought about Javier again. Hoped the officers hadn’t seriously hurt him. Hägerström would be released soon. Javier would definitely remain—that was the point of the hit. It felt strange.

He thought about what he had done.

How would this end? How would he get to see Javier again?

* * *

Natalie’s feet hurt—she’d bruised them kicking Marko.

It was nine o’clock at night. Not even twenty-four hours’d passed since she’d given that little traitor what he deserved. Even less time’d passed since Mischa Bladman’d called and told her that the Russians were getting involved. And at that point Bladman didn’t even know what they’d done to Marko.

Still: he acted quickly. When she’d called back and told him she wanted to see JW, he set up a meeting right away.

And now here she was, sitting in one of the executive suites at the Hotel Diplomat, waiting. Natalie was actually glad Bladman’d called and whined about Moscow—that forced JW to see her again.

It was a corner suite, facing out toward the water in Nybroviken, apparently designed by some distinctive architect. A bedroom with a luxury bed, a living room with a luxury sofa, and a bathroom with its own steam sauna. Bathrobes from Pellevävare—thick and soft. Products from L’Occitane. Pale colors, simple patterns, sheer curtains that let in the autumn light. Parquet floors that creaked in an old-fashioned way, more authentic than their new floors at home in Näsbypark. There were fresh flowers everywhere, even in the bathroom.

Adam was sitting in the sofa, playing with his cell phone. He looked calm. Natalie knew he was carrying at least two weapons.

She’d opened the balcony doors. Fifth floor—ought to be safe. Adam in the living room, and one other guy down in the lobby—since the conflict with Stefanovic’d kicked into full gear, she actually felt safe only at home in her family’s house and in hotel rooms.

But still, the fear was there, present all the time. Like chills along her spine, like a feeling that she was constantly being watched. She stopped drinking regular Red Bull and only downed Red Bull Energy Shot—not because it was that much stronger but because it took less time to ingest. She drank two at a time. She took valerian to come down.
She made chamomile tea to calm her nerves. She couldn’t make up her mind. Did she want to crawl into bed and sleep, or did she want to stay awake twenty-four-seven?

She thought about the preliminary results from Ulf Bergström, the forensic technician at Forensic Rapid Research, the private lab they’d hired. He hadn’t found any DNA he could use. But he’d found fingerprints on two guns at the Black & White Inn that were clear enough to be searchable. The person who bought the plastic explosives and the Russian weapons—probably a Stetjkin and the Glock—had also touched these guns. Natalie considered handing the information over to the police so that they could run the findings through their databases. Thomas dissuaded her. He wanted to try to do it on his own—maybe he could get access to the databases without having to involve the police formally. He thought he would know if it was possible in the next few days.