The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (39 page)

Daylight. Johanneshovs Bridge. And a strange sight. The water covered by shimmering blue ice far below and trains stationary on the parallel bridge. And between the railway and the road, hundreds, maybe thousands of pedestrians were streaming in both directions, wearing coats and jackets, legs melting together, becoming one, like insects moving, people who’d stopped hoping a train would come.

At the other end of the bridge stood Gullmars Square – platforms and stairs and even more stationary trains, and throngs of people crowding into chaotic lines trying to get onto hastily summoned shuttle buses. He had just reached the stadium and was about to pick up speed on a less busy road when a new voice broke the radio silence.

‘It’s exploded!’

It didn’t happen very often. The professional voices communicating over these frequencies every day became difficult to tell apart, using the same emphasis, volume, detachment.

‘The whole fucking thing … blown up! The robot is scrap!’

Occasionally when something unexpected happened, when threat and danger combined to become tangible, these voices became sincere, immediate.

‘One of ours … he’s down!’

The voice slashed through the radio like the knife that had slashed through Leo’s jacket, when Vincent was too young to remember.

‘One of ours … he’s down!’

The frightened, hunted, furious voice on the police scanner stated that a bomb had exploded, that the police officer steering the robot had been hit by shrapnel in the blast.

Then he fell silent. No information about whether the police officer had survived or not.

‘It wasn’t supposed to go off!’ yelled Vincent, leaning forward to Leo. ‘You promised me, damn it!’

Leo lowered the volume of the police radio and the monotonous beeping disappeared. Straight ahead, a blue sign on the edge of the road and field,
SORUNDA
3 km – they were almost there.

‘We can’t do anything about that now.’

‘But what if he’s dead!’

‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know why it went off. But I’ll figure it out. Later. When we’re done with the next bank.’

In the distance was a tractor with a trailer next to a snow-covered barn. A few inhabited farms, children’s bikes and skis leaning against the walls. A truck at a lay-by, its driver peeing behind a tree.

Felix adjusted the rear-view mirror to look hard at Jasper in the back seat. Jasper wouldn’t meet his eyes.

‘Did you take out the safety ring? Did you?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Look at me, Jasper! Goddamn it, did you arm the fucking bomb?’

Jasper met Felix’s gaze.

‘I sure as hell did not.’

And he stared long enough for it to become uncomfortable.

‘Someone’s been hit. They could die!’ shouted Vincent.

‘And what the hell does that have to do with me?’

Felix was still driving at a steady speed, despite the fact that he was looking backwards as much as he was forwards.

‘You’re lying, Jasper! I can see it!’

Leo had been silent. Until now.

‘Stop it!’

‘I helped build the damn thing,’ said Felix. ‘I know that it couldn’t—’

‘Just drive, goddamn it!’

In the twilight outside everything melted together, but Vincent noticed a difference in Felix’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. Leo seldom raised his voice, they all knew that, but it was even more rare for Felix to accuse someone if he wasn’t absolutely sure.

The exit to Sorunda, a suburb with a single bank, their third target. And Felix drove straight past.

‘What the hell …’

‘Like you said, Leo. We’re going home. We’re gonna “figure it out”.’

‘This isn’t the way to … you’re driving too far!’

The road was so narrow that oncoming traffic had to slow down to avoid a collision. But Felix hit the accelerator as they approached the next car, driving at over a hundred kilometres per hour.

‘Turn round!’

‘If you want to continue, go ahead. Without me!’

Felix’s neck had gone a blotchy red, which spread upwards to his cheeks
and temples, and Vincent knew what that meant – it was taking everything Felix had to contain his rage. Vincent should have started to feel uneasy, but all he felt was heat in his chest.
If it feels like this again I’m not doing it
. He’d said it and meant it. And yet, so calm. Because if they all died in a crash at the next bend, if the policeman who was down in Central Station was dead, if the bomb had exploded because somebody had wanted it to explode … It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. For the first time in his life Vincent realised where Leo went when he disappeared into himself. To a calm where there was no time. No future, no past, and therefore no worries. Just now. Now. And the only thing he could do something about was what was happening right now, in this car, with his brothers.

Two banks shot up.

A bomb detonated in the heart of Stockholm.

John Broncks had driven thirty kilometres on the main road and there were twenty to go. The last suburb south of the city went by outside his window, and then the landscape flattened out into vast meadows punctuated by clumps of trees.

According to the operational chief in place at Central Station, the bomb technicians had determined that the safety ring had been designed so that the bomb would explode when it was taken out of the locker, with only one purpose – to maim and kill.

Two separate events, nine minutes apart, that were somehow related to each other.

Dusk approached with each passing kilometre; with twenty still left, it would be dark by the time he arrived.

‘Broncks?’

The two-way radio – the officer in Nynäshamn, now more welcoming.

‘Where are you?’

‘Eight kilometres away.’

‘We’ve found the getaway car. A red Volkswagen. Registration GZP 784. On the same road you’re driving down now, right at the exit. You’ll see it and one of our cars in just a few minutes.’

One of only two patrol cars in place.

‘You found it … at what time?’

‘15.09.’

John Broncks was thinking about a circle.

A search area expanding with each minute that passed. In Farsta and in Svedmyra it had grown rapidly, becoming too large.

‘Any road barriers?’

Now it had been restricted.

‘Two patrols from Handen have cordoned off the main road north and one from Nynäshamn has blocked traffic south – we’re closing the road completely along the coast. More patrols on their way from Huddinge and Södertälje, which have been blocked off inland – west and north.’

Broncks counted quickly.

14.56 – a Volkswagen with four masked men leaves the crime scene.

14.58 – the same car parks three kilometres away.

14.59 – they continue in a new car.

A search area that was no longer widening – for the first time they were close to each other.

The exit to Ösmo. A few hundred metres later a sparse wall of trees – a thicket, and red paint shining through the bare branches. The air colder and rawer than in the city centre, the kind of cold that bites into your cheeks and neck and stiffens your fingers.

Broncks walked through the snow towards the abandoned car, avoiding the tracks that were already present. A red Volkswagen Beetle, parked with its front end against a pine, almost driven into the bark.

‘Witnesses?’

The young man had fuzz on his upper lip that was trying to become a moustache. He wore uniform and greeted Broncks with an equally cold hand.

‘No one saw anyone leave or arrive at the scene.’

‘And … this?’

‘We’re confident that it’s the car they used – same model, same registration that several witnesses saw outside the banks.’

The number plate at the bottom of the boot.

GZP 784.

Broncks went round and peered in through the passenger side window. On the floor a beer can next to a burger wrapper, in the ashtray three or four butts. In order to make his way forward he had to press through tightly packed tree trunks and thick branches. It was even colder here, the thin crust of snow gave way and snow tumbled into his shoes.

He saw it as soon as he reached the front of the car, despite the bark that obscured half the plate.

BGY 397.

Another
number plate.

One number if seen from the front – another if seen from the back.

The car braked abruptly on the asphalt behind the abandoned petrol station. The right headlight was crushed against the rusty iron railing near the entrance, and the right mirror hit a tap sticking out of the side of the building.

Felix ran, which was something he rarely did, the torch in his hand pointed at the metal door and padlock.

‘Felix!’

Leo caught up and started pulling on his upper arm.

‘We still have time!’

Two kilometres earlier. The exit. And Felix had driven past, interrupted their double robbery before it could become a triple robbery.

‘We
had
time. We don’t any more. Because time has run out.’

Leo pulled harder on Felix’s arm.

‘We’re going to the bank in Sorunda
now
.’

‘You’re going without me, in that case.’

Torch under his armpit. Light on the metal door and the key towards the padlock. The faded Caltex sign at the gas pump was creaking as usual. It was always windy here.

‘Felix, what the hell are you doing?’

Leo grabbed the hand that held the key.

‘Let go of my hand. I’m going in here. I’m going to change my clothes, and then I’m going home.’

‘Get back in the car! We have one bank left!’

‘There will be no more. You wasted twenty seconds going back to do some more shooting – we hit two banks and have three kilos of banknotes in the trunk, that’s enough for today.’

The two shadows on the metal door in the gleam of a single headlight turned to three as Jasper placed himself between them.

‘We’ve been planning this fucking robbery for weeks!’

He was holding the black ski mask in his hand. Now he put it on, rolled it down over his face.

‘This is what we’re going to do, Felix – we’re going to go and get three more kilos of cash!’

One set of keys still in hand, Felix found the car keys, handed them over.

‘Then you can drive.’

‘Are you serious? You’re quitting? What we agreed on? What
we
agreed on!’

‘We also agreed not to detonate a fucking bomb.’

Felix directed his torch into the eyeholes of the fabric.

‘I
know
it was you.’

And Jasper raised his arm to protect them, squinted.

‘You don’t know shit.’

‘
I know it was you
.’

Jasper knocked the torch out of Felix’s hand, and it went out as it fell to the ground.

‘I’m not gonna fucking take this any more. Leo? I—’

‘A helicopter!’

None of them had heard Vincent at first. Not when he opened the car door, not when he ran over to them, the police scanner in his arms.