Authors: David Hewson
Strange nodded.
‘She was like you. She wasn’t going to give up. She knew. I knew. We all thought that nightmare had been buried. But . . .’
Lund got out her phone.
‘You need to come in now. I’m calling Brix—’
He snatched the mobile from her fingers, flung it down on the grass below.
‘You don’t know what happened! Don’t think for one moment you do.’
‘I know five people got murdered. That’s enough for now. I know you didn’t do this on your own. Someone put you up to—’
‘You don’t understand a fucking thing!’
‘Just tell the truth, Strange,’ she said calmly. ‘How hard’s that?’
‘I told my father the truth once. He didn’t want to hear it either. Look where that got me . . .’
‘Five people dead—’
‘Every one of them a
stikke
!’
The noise, half shout, half scream, echoed around them in the little grove of Mindelunden. She couldn’t think for a moment. Not even when she saw he had a gun to her chest.
‘Don’t you shoot me in the head?’ Lund asked, looking him in the eye. ‘Isn’t that the way they teach you?’
No movement. No expression on his plain and ordinary face.
‘You couldn’t kill me before. You’re not doing it now.’
She pulled away from him, turned her back. Aware he wasn’t moving. Looked through the grass for the glint of an LCD screen. Found the phone, picked it up. Walked towards the three upright
stakes.
No sound from behind. She put the phone to her ear.
Glanced to the end of this small open space in the Mindelunden trees.
Another figure there, where the riflemen would once have been. A body position she recognized. Legs apart, arms outstretched, a weapon held with both hands.
Lund was listening to the centre operator talk in her ear when it happened. Yellow flash of fire first, then the sound.
From behind a shriek of pain. She turned.
Ulrik Strange was on his knees. Hands to his chest. Mouth oozing blood.
Another explosion. He bucked back with a movement so violent it was like a puppet getting jerked on a piece of string.
The phone fell from her fingers.
Lund wheeled round.
One flash and when the shot hit her it was so powerful she staggered back, fell against something that could only be the first stake, stopped there, pinioned like a target under the bright
silver moonlight.
Gasping for breath. Struggling to think.
Then another vicious burst of fire, an impact that threw her wheeling round clutching at her chest, leaving the stake for the thick cold grass, the darkness, the stink of grass and mud and
death.
‘No.’ Buch shook his head angrily. ‘I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough of this. You can keep your ministerial offices. Your
bribes.’
Grue Eriksen’s eyes registered that news.
‘I know Plough gave you the ammunition to blame everything on Rossing. One more puppet for you to manipulate, huh?’
The weakest, most political of smiles appeared on Grue Eriksen’s face. He walked over to the door, closed it, made sure they were on their own.
‘Do you think you can get away with anything?’ Buch yelled. ‘You can’t bury this one. I’m calling a press conference. I’ll tell them everything. Then
I’ll tell it to the Folketinget, the police, PET. Anyone who’ll listen.’
‘Thomas . . .’
Grue Eriksen thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, looked exasperated.
‘I’ve got the documents,’ Buch went on. ‘I’ll distribute them. Lock me up for breaching the Official Secrets Act if you want. The damage is coming . . .’
‘Please—’
‘You’ve been covering up for murder. People died because of you.’
‘I’m the leader of this country. We’re at war. The same war that killed your brother—’
‘Jeppe died in Iraq!’
‘Same war,’ Grue Eriksen said quietly. ‘It just goes on and on.’
Buch was thrown for a moment.
‘Don’t give me that shit,’ he said. ‘Don’t . . . I know you were behind all this. I can prove it.’
He got up, went for the door.
‘Do you really want to walk out of here without knowing why?’ the Prime Minister called as he left. ‘I find that hard to believe. You’re such an inquisitive man. God
knows we’ve all learned that . . .’
Buch stopped, fingers on the handle.
‘I’ve been fed so much bullshit.’
‘You have,’ Grue Eriksen admitted. ‘And much of it from me. It seemed right at the time. Perhaps I was mistaken. But . . .’
Buch started to leave.
‘We weren’t covering up the killing of civilians,’ Grue Eriksen said in a loud, insistent voice. Enough to stop him, make him turn.
The Prime Minister frowned, folded his arms, leaned back to sit on the polished table behind him.
‘Ordinary people die in war,’ he said ruefully. ‘Sometimes it happens by accident. Sometimes by mistaken design. But in the end . . . people forgive. They
understand.’
‘What then?’ Buch demanded, marching back towards him.
‘The problem was the officer. You see . . . he wasn’t there.’
‘Riddles, riddles . . .’
‘That’s just what they are,’ Grue Eriksen agreed. ‘Exactly. Do you think I sit at my desk in there and watch the whole world pass by in front of me? That I say yes or no
to everything? Even with the domestic agenda I’m at best a distant captain, delegating to good men like you. As you delegate to others—’
‘Don’t flatter me, please.’
‘I wasn’t. The officer wasn’t there. He was working on a secret mission. It hadn’t been cleared with the Security Committee.’
Buch’s finger rose.
‘You have to do that. It’s the law.’
‘It’s the law,’ Grue Eriksen concurred. ‘Tell that to the men and women we’ve got on the ground in Helmand. Let’s say . . . they know a certain minor warlord
is bankrolling the Taliban. Providing information, weapons, funds.’ He looked at the ceiling, as if inventing all this. ‘Let’s imagine we get word that he’s about to flee.
He knows we’re onto him, you see. So our forces have maybe a day, two at most to get in there. Interrogate him. Take him into custody. Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘When Operational Command comes to me what do I say? Do I tell them to wait until we’ve managed to check through all our diaries, ticked off our committee meetings, our lunch dates?
Our evenings at the opera? In Monberg’s case his assignations with his various mistresses? Do I say to these brave men and women fighting a hopeless war in a brutal distant land . . . wait a
week or so, and maybe then I can get back to you with a yes or no?’
Buch said nothing.
‘What would you do, Thomas? The moment a secret decision’s committed to paper here it’s a day away from the streets of Kabul. That I guarantee.’
‘You knew who that officer was all along . . .’
‘No, I didn’t then and I don’t now. Do you listen to what I say at all? I don’t want to know. I wouldn’t ask. All I understood was I had a decision to face. We were
short of money. Short of troops.’
‘You could have done something to stop it. When Anne Dragsholm was murdered—’
‘This is the real world!’ Grue Eriksen barked at him. ‘Not the one we’d like. Denmark’s at war and we’re losing. The Taliban gain strength all the time. They
exploit our every weakness. If we hand them a scandal on a plate . . . what do you think they’d do? Sit round the table and look for a solution? How do you think the mothers and fathers of
soldiers coming home in a coffin would feel? Would they thank you for this? Or me?’
He pulled a chair from the table, sat down, briefly put his head in his hands. Gert Grue Eriksen looked old and tired for a moment, before the politician returned.
‘When I first became a minister I was like you. Keen as mustard. Determined to do the right thing. To see justice done. But God . . .’ His clenched fist hammered the polished wood.
‘Nothing’s as simple as that. It’s a dangerous, fractured world we live in. Serve here long enough and you’ll see it. One day someone will tell you there’s something
bad round the corner. So bad you don’t want to hear.’
He opened his hands.
‘And then what do you do? You ask for a report and options. And they say . . .’ Grue Eriksen closed his eyes briefly. ‘They say it’s best you didn’t hear. As you
once said to me . . .’
Buch recalled uttering those very words. It seemed a lifetime ago.
‘If we’re not responsible,’ he asked, ‘who is?’
‘Everybody,’ Grue Eriksen answered in a soft, damaged voice. ‘Nobody. You.’ A brief, humourless laugh. ‘Me, when it’s late at night and I can’t sleep.
Conscience is a wonderful thing. Yours especially.’ His hand clutched at Buch’s arm. ‘We need it here. To remind us when we go too far—’
‘People died!’
‘I know. And sometimes you have to tell that virtuous, nagging voice to shut up. To put democracy aside in order to fight for democracy.’ The hand tightened on Buch’s arm.
‘I thought you of all people would understand that. If that brother of yours were here today—’
‘Don’t throw the dead at me,’ Buch yelled. ‘I’ve got enough of them in my head already.’
‘Not as many as I have,’ Grue Eriksen said in a voice close to a whisper. ‘And they all know me by name.’
He looked round the grand room.
‘We make a deal with the devil when we cross the bridge into Slotsholmen. You’re learning that the hard way. I need you, Thomas. I need your intelligence, your innocence.’ He
laughed. ‘Your infuriating naivety too.’
The Prime Minister got up, placed a firm and insistent hand on Buch’s arm.
‘If I make mistakes, you must tell me. Help me govern better. Make sure—’
‘You must be out of your mind,’ Buch said, removing himself from the man’s grip. ‘When I tell Krabbe and Birgitte Agger you’re finished. You’ll be gone by the
morning.’
‘Still not quite there, are we?’ Grue Eriksen smiled. ‘Still that childlike stubbornness holds you back—’
‘I’ve had enough of this . . .’
‘There’s nothing to tell and no one to hear it. This secret’s shared already. Come . . .’
Two large black double doors with star adornments stood at the side of the room. Grue Eriksen marched towards them like a little soldier himself.
‘Meet those who’ve heard my tale already, Thomas. And agreed that the most important thing of all is to continue the good fight.’
‘These games . . .’
‘No game,’ the Prime Minister said quickly. ‘No sides either. When it comes to war we’re as one. The way you always wanted it.’
The doors went back slowly. A gathering beyond. Buch came and stood to watch, breathless, sweating, knowing what he would see.
Erling Krabbe was there. Birgitte Agger too. The leaders of the minority partners. Every member of the cabinet. The political royalty of Slotsholmen, foes on paper, gathered together in
unison.
Gert Grue Eriksen walked in, stood in their midst, turned, beckoned with a hand.
‘Thomas!’ shrieked a high-pitched voice from behind.
Buch didn’t move.
‘Thomas.’ Karina Jørgensen marched in and stood by him. She was the one tugging at his arm now. ‘The reporters are here. They need you. They’re waiting.’
He broke the passenger window on Strange’s car with his Neuhausen pistol, freed the lock, dragged out the handcuffed man inside. Took him through the shattered wooden
door into the memorial park, back to the firing range and the stakes.
Two still bodies on the ground. He’d need the keys to the handcuffs. Strange would have them.
He’d need a plan, a story too, and that was halfway there already.
Raben rolled on the grass, cursing and shrieking.
A boot in the gut, another under the chin. Then the Neuhausen in the face. That silenced him.
‘Ungrateful piece of shit,’ he said, and fetched him another kick, hard in the groin this time.
Wiped the weapon with a cloth from his pocket, crouched down over the wheezing man, squeezed the gun into his fingers, fired two rapid shots into the body a couple of metres away.
Watched Strange’s corpse jump and twitch with the impact. The woman hadn’t moved since he shot her. Too far for this trick. She could stay where she was for now.
A plan.
He’d brought two guns. Threw the one he’d just fired into the grass by the stakes. Took out the second Neuhausen, stood over the gasping, choking shape on the ground.
‘You put him up to it,’ Raben muttered then wiped his blue sleeve across his mouth, cleared away some grass and blood. ‘They’ll find you . . .’
He laughed
‘No they won’t. Do you think shooting a worm like you counts for anything? Besides . . .’ The man above Raben relaxed for an instant. ‘You really don’t remember, do
you? I thought it was an act. But it’s not . . .’
‘Remember what?’
He crouched down, looked.
‘You’re the one who started all this. You shot that first kid. Strange was a good officer. Sound man. He’d kill anyone but not without a reason.’ A shrug. ‘You
never put it in your statement. But Strange told us. So did your own men. Why do you think they were so scared of you?’
He rolled back his head. Laughed at the moon.
‘All this time you spent chasing the monster, Raben. And you never knew. The monster’s you.’
‘Liar, liar . . .’ Raben’s voice was a low, frightened sound in his throat. ‘You fucking liar . . .’
Two steps closer. The black barrel of the Neuhausen to his temple.
‘Why would I lie? I’m about to shoot you. The way you shot her. The other kids. The mother.’ A glance at the body behind. ‘He got the father. But then the bastard was a
friend of the Taliban so what the hell?’
‘Shut up—’
‘You started this. You and your fury. You murdered those kids because you just . . .’ Free hand to head, finger whirling. ‘. . . lost it. And everyone was to blame except you.
Come on . . .’
The barrel prodded at Raben’s skull.
‘Remember now? You were a snivelling wreck afterwards. All grief and regret. The good men we lost—’
‘Arild—’
‘Call me “General”. For once in your sorry life act like a soldier.’
He went to Strange’s body, rifled through the jacket, got a set of keys that looked good for the handcuffs. Came back and waved them at the figure on the ground. Raben was starting to
weep, to choke and shake.