The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (49 page)

The light was different. In the forest, it had been muted, greener, but sitting here, with the car parked diagonally in front of the three banks, the daylight streaming in through the hole in the roof, it seemed changed to Felix: sharper, making everything look more distinct. It felt as if he
was seeing the machine gun for the first time. Even though it had been down in their armoury for over six months, he’d actually never been this close to it. An 11-kilo machine in his hands, cartridges in long metal strips hanging down the sides, fangs ready to tear apart whatever got in its way. The automatic rifle he’d always had lying across his thighs during a robbery, waiting in the getaway car, was small and petite and invisible; this was a beast, like comparing a pike with a great white shark. He folded out the tripod, twisted his body in the cramped space trying to get a good grip on the ungainly gun, lifted it over his head and through the sawn-out hole and placed it on the roof. The ammunition flapped, rustling like chain mail, and he seized it with his forearm in order to silence it.

A war zone: that’s what he thought it looked like. Like something from a TV news report, a civil war where a guerrilla fighter lay on a hill, firing on a village. Now he was the one, sticking his head up through the hole and looking down the barrel of the gun at the people in the square of a typical Swedish town.

The three banks sat in adjacent buildings just off the central square. To the far right, Jasper and Vincent had already stepped into SE-Bank, and Felix could hear Jasper shouting at the staff and customers to
get down on the fucking floor
. At Handels Bank, in the middle, a cashier had heard the gunshots next door, and when she looked out of the window she saw Felix, guarding every road in and out of the square with a machine gun. Her eyes shifted and then she noticed another man dressed in black and wearing a mask. But he didn’t stop at her bank: he ran on to the next bank, so she locked the front door and hid behind the counter.

As he went past, Leo heard the cashier locking the door of the bank that they’d all be robbing together in exactly one hundred and eighty seconds. But this one, the Savings Bank, on the far left, this one he’d take on his own.

‘Listen to me very carefully,’ he shouted as he opened the door. ‘I’m going to rob this bank. So everyone in here needs to lie down on the floor. On your stomach with your arms out. And if you treat me as politely as I’m treating you, then you can stand up again in five minutes and go home to your families.’

He looked around and realised that practising the robbery of
one
bank
in the garage was the same as practising for all banks – they didn’t differ much, with the counter at the front, the desk that handled loan applications a little further in, and the vault in the same section as the cashiers’ desks.

The only thing he could never really foresee was how many people he’d find inside and how they would react.

He counted three customers – two young women around Anneli’s age and one older man with a grey overcoat similar to the one their grandfather always wore in the spring. Then there were four bank employees – three behind the counter and one who’d just returned from getting a cup of coffee.

And they all did as he said.

They lay down and stared at the shiny stone floor.

‘You, with the coffee.’

The cashier had carefully put her still-steaming coffee cup on the desk before getting on the floor.

‘Take this bag and put all the money from the tills into it. Do it quickly. But don’t be nervous. I’m just here for the cash, nothing else. And then you and I are going to go into the vault and, when the bag is completely full, you’ll never see me again.’

It was the second time he’d robbed a bank on his own. And it was so quiet. He couldn’t even hear them breathing. Just the ventilation system rumbling above his head. Not like Ösmo – with the woman who screamed and screamed – this was perfect: he was in control of every ticking second.

He’d even chosen the right cashier. She steadily and confidently emptied the money from cashbox after cashbox. And when she glanced at him, her eyes were not judgemental – he was calm, and therefore she was calm. It was that simple.

‘You’re doing a great job. You’re not putting these people in any unnecessary danger. I really appreciate that.’

They walked side by side towards the vault. Her badge said her name was Petra. And while she unlocked the vault, he checked his watch to see how much time had elapsed.

‘Petra?’

She looked at him as she pulled open the vault door.

‘This is how it is – things are going well. You’ve got plenty of time.’

Two and a half, maybe three million kronor stacked on the shelves. A little less than he’d anticipated. But they had two more banks to make up for it. Petra was methodical as she filled the bag with perfectly wrapped bundles.

One last glance towards the bank premises.

They were all still lying there with their arms outstretched.

TV screens – that was how Felix had always seen the robberies from the outside, and how he saw them now as he turned the gun from bank to bank. A TV report about a war, with three televisions tuned to different channels. Three square bank windows, each lit with soft yellow light from inside. Three boxes where three parallel scenes played out.

On the TV to the left, the Savings Bank, a lone masked man in black, Leo, was following a bank cashier while she filled a bag with money from the tills. On the screen to the right, SE-Bank, were two masked men in black, Vincent and Jasper, one taking care of the tills while the other held a gun to a bank official’s back on their way to the vault. And last, the TV in the middle, Handels Bank, which they would rob last, together, and where the staff were retreating as far into the bank as possible.

In Svedmyra and Rimbo and Kungsör there’d been just one screen. In Ösmo two. Here there were three televisions broadcasting a show directed by his brother. None of it was real.

Then, suddenly, for the very first time, it was.

The parallel films now featured new stories that he hadn’t anticipated: new lines, new scenes, new characters acting outside the script. Three chance interruptions that shattered the illusion. It was no longer possible to reduce what he saw to a drama on a TV screen. The people existed. They were stepping out of the picture. And if they were real, they were also vulnerable. And here he was, standing with a real machine gun in his hands, which shot eight hundred lethal rounds a minute.

First, an elderly hunter left his car with his wife still in the passenger seat. Wearing a camouflage jacket and a hat with reflectors, he opened the boot and pulled out a case with a hunting rifle inside. He then walked purposefully towards the machine gun, which Felix was pointing in his direction. Right up to him.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

And Felix aimed a war machine at him.

‘Get out of here, now!’

But the old man just stood there, staring defiantly into the barrel and cocking his own gun.

It was him or the old man. He had no choice.

They were aiming at each other, and Felix knew he was about to shoot. That was when the wife got out of the car and began shouting at her husband, pulling on his jacket.

‘Please, stop, Bengt, come back, come with me right now!’

It had been so close. And it had been
real
.

Then Leo left the bank, walking the way he did when he was feeling on top of the world … until suddenly he stopped, fear filling his face.

The bag in Leo’s hand exploded. A dense, red cloud of dye pushed its way through the open teeth of the zip, staining his thin leather gloves, and kept rising into his mouth and nostrils and eyes.

A damn fucking dye pack.

Two million, probably even more, destroyed.

I was in control. Of the whole place. We had an agreement. And she ruined everything.

He kicked open the glass door, holding the steaming bag in front of him like a time bomb, and stepped over the customers who were pressing themselves to the floor.

‘I told you! Everyone in here could go home to their fucking families if you just did what I said!’

He knew exactly where in the room she was – under the second cashier’s desk.

‘Petra!’

The still-warm coffee cup was standing there.

‘Petra, get up!’

She did, and when she looked at him, her eyes weren’t at all like before. Now they were filled with contempt.

‘You sneaked in a fucking dye pack! I trusted you – and you betrayed that trust!’

‘I did my job.’

Although her voice betrayed her fear, still she spoke without hesitation.

‘You are responsible for their lives! This is your fault!’

And then he started shooting. Without aiming. Just held the trigger in for as long as it took to empty the whole magazine. Into the safety glass, chair backs, desks, walls, ceiling. And all the while she stood there looking at him. Weeping. Convinced that she was about to die.

‘It’s your fucking fault!’

Then he left with the bag in his hand, while the red smoke slowly petered out. One bank to go.

Felix had never seen Leo like this before, not when it was important for him to keep his composure – he’d just lost it in the bank, firing wildly, out of pure anger, completely out of control. Like Ivan, Felix thought, Leo had lost control when a woman betrayed him, and he’d turned back in order to punish her. From the roof of the car, it was difficult to see if anyone had been hit. He didn’t think so. But the reality that had arrived with the old man and his hunting rifle moved even closer now: he saw its pores, experienced it with all his senses.

Then came his little brother.

It was Vincent who reached the third, middle bank first and arrived at the now-locked bank door. He used the butt of his gun and the barrel to break down the window, splintering the TV screen, and ran inside. He ordered them to
lie down
as he was supposed to, and everyone complied.

Except for one elderly lady.

She walked towards him with her hand outstretched as if asking for something, perhaps to be let out. An outstretched hand that was misinterpreted. Felix watched as Vincent turned round and cocked his gun in one movement, before realising that the old lady wasn’t a threat. With the gun pointed at her, she started pleading so loudly it could be heard all the way out in the car.