The Other Son
Authors: Alexander Soderberg
The Andalucian Friend
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation Copyright © 2015 by Neil Smith
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
CROWN is a registered trademark and the Crown colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Originally published in Sweden as
Den Andre Sonen
by Norstedts, Stockholm, in 2014. Copyright © 2014 by Alexander Söderberg.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Söderberg, Alexander, author.
[Den Andre Sonen. English]
The Other Son : a novel / Alexander Söderberg ; translated by Neil Smith.âFirst United States Edition.
pages cm
“Originally published in Sweden as
Den Andre Sonen
by Norstedts, Stockholm, in 2014ӉT.p. verso.
1. Suspense fiction. I. Smith, Neil (Neil Andrew) translator. II. Title.
PT9877.29.O34A8413 2015
839.73
'
8âdc23
2015000385
ISBNâ9780770436087
eBook ISBNâ9780770436094
Cover design by Tal Goretsky
Cover photography: © plainpictures/Johner (
Stockholm
); PhotoAlto/Alix Minde/Getty Images (
woman
)
v4.1
ep
The vehicle was driving fast, swerving wildly, accelerating and braking erratically. Sophie couldn't hear properly. Everything was muffled, as if she were underwater. The ambulance sirens blaring out into the dark night sounded dull and distant.
A harsh, cold blue light kept swirling in and out of the space around her. She was lying on a gurney, strapped down, as she felt the ambulance lurch.
She tried to look around. The back of the ambulance felt like a tunnel, as though it had been stretched. Everything was like a feverish dream.
She could see Jens, which made her feel more secure. He made his way toward her. Dully she heard him try to comfort her, tell her that everything was going to be all right. But she didn't believe him. Because his whole face was saying the opposite. He radiated anxiety and sorrow.
She whispered the name of the person who had stabbed her with the knife, repeating the name to Jens twice.
There was a paramedic beside her, working hard and intently.
She looked down at herself, managing to raise her head ever so slightly. The blanket tucked tightly around her was covered in blood.
He had twisted the knife inside her; she remembered that. First he had thrust it into her as deeply as he could, then he had twisted it, to and fro, to cause as much damage as possible, to kill her.
An itchy chill enveloped her, a nausea made more oppressive by an immense physical weakness that seemed to emanate from her neck or somewhere around there. That was followed by a dizzying sense that she was upside down, weightless, in an altered state, that she was at the point of toppling over a cliff, a boundary, and losing everything. Sophie couldn't hold on. The chill was getting worse, cutting through her whole being, and she started to shake, the shakes radiating through her entire body, hard and uncontrollable. The paramedic was above her, holding her body down onto the gurney with all his weight, trying to keep her still. She looked into his eyes and saw fear in them.
And then she realized what was happening. Sophie heard herself say “No” several times.
No
,
dear God I can't do this, not nowâ¦.
She realized she was about to die.
The coffee was sweet, black, and treacly.
Sophie left it untouched, as did Aron, who was sitting beside her in the lavish room listening to Basir, the fat Turk opposite them on the other side of the desk, as he tried to haggle and gain the upper hand.
Behind Basir's bulky frame sat his silent bodyguard. Wiry, swarthy, and alert, he sat there observing everything. The bodyguard had searched them brusquely and thoroughly before the meeting began. Everything was fine now. Basir smiled at them as if they were old friends. But they had never met before. Basir was a front, the weapons were destined to end up somewhere else. Where didn't matter. But he was important because he was the one they were negotiating with. Basir was very talkative. He babbled and chattered as if the sheer quantity of words he uttered would improve his position, rather than what he was actually saying.
Sophie interrupted him.
“We'll send the goods through, and you'll have to get them out,” she said. “Everything has to go smoothly, otherwise it could all grind to a halt. And if it grinds to a halt, there's a greater risk of mistakes happening.”
Basir dismissed her concern with a wave of his hand.
“I know this city. I know everyone, the police, customs officers, transport officials. This is my city; everything will be fine, trust me.”
The room was ostentatious, overblown. Everything was dark redâthick carpets, long curtains, big, heavy furniture, brass ornaments all over the place.
“So what do you need us for, then?” Sophie asked.
His smile wavered slightly.
“You've got the weapons,” he said.
“And we'll supply them in small consignments over a period of four months. That's how we're going to do this.”
“And we'll pay after each consignment,” Basir said. “That's the best way, believe me,” he repeated.
“I believe you, but that isn't what's going to happen.” She smiled.
Basir looked offended. “Isn't it?”
A phone rang twice in a neighboring room.
She said calmly, “You pay in one installment, for everything. Payable now.”
He glanced quickly at his watch.
“What if it does grind to a halt, if something happens? If we lose a consignment?” he asked.
Sophie smiled.
“Are you in a hurry?” she asked.
He pretended not to understand.
“You looked at the time,” Sophie explained.
“I do that occasionally. Don't you?” His laugh sounded false and put-on. Almost like a cough.
He wasn't what she had been expecting, Basir. According to the people who had helped set up the deal, Basir was supposed to be a reasonable man. Calm, straightforward, and uncomplicated, with a degree of honor in his approach to business, the nature of his business notwithstanding. But this man was quite different from that.
“Yes, when I'm in a hurry,” she said.
“Well, I'm not in a hurry.” He laughed again.
Everything felt very peculiar. Sophie glanced at Aron to see if he was feeling the same as she was. He was busy studying Basir.
“What was your question?” she asked the Turk.
“Yes, what was my questionâ¦?” he muttered, slightly bewildered, as he cast a glance at his bodyguard, who replied quietly in Turkish without taking his eyes off Aron.
“If we lose a consignment⦔ Basir said.
“You won't,” Sophie said. “You just said so, because you know everyone. You know what goes on in this city. It's yours.”
“True.” He laughed again. He was getting more nervous.
Sophie considered the situation. She had a feeling that he saw these negotiations as something to be endured, and that he wanted to get away. That his reasons for sitting there were quite different from hers. That this wasn't about doing business at all. Because if it were, this wasn't the way it was done.
“So, what do you say, Basir?” she asked.
He pretended to think. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. He was off balance.
“Let's do as you say, then,” he said. “We pay you now; you arrange to send us the weapons as you suggested. That's probably best.”
Just like that?
She could feel Aron's electrified reaction beside her. He felt the same as she did.
The bodyguard adjusted his position on the chair. Aron noticed.
“Thank you, Basir,” she said.
“Stay and have coffee with us,” he said.
The mistakes were coming thick and fast now. You didn't drink coffee after a deal. Not with a man like this. You drank it before. And they had already done that. Stillborn chat that didn't go anywhere.
She turned to Aron. He was staring at Basir, reading him like an open book.
“Aron?” she asked.
“I know,” he said quietly. They heard heavy footsteps on the stairs outside the closed door. Steps that were making their way up toward them.
The bodyguard reached for the gun in his shoulder holster. Aron threw himself at him as Sophie rushed toward the door behind them. No key, just a handle. She grabbed hold of a chair and wedged the back of it under the handle. The bodyguard was out cold. Aron had moved on to Basir, and had him on the floor. A lead paperweight on the desk took care of the thickset Turk.
Heavy thuds against the door.
They were on the fourth floor. No way out apart from the door.
Aron grabbed the bodyguard's pistol, tipped the desk over, and aimed the gun at the door. Sophie crouched down next to the door. The blows got heavier. The door was about to give way.
At a signal from Aron she pulled the chair away and the door flew open.
Aron fired several shots in quick succession, moving the pistol a few centimeters from side to side, until the magazine was empty and the gun started to click. Then he vanished behind the desk.
Silence. Gunpowder, the smell of cordite. Sophie stared at a point on the floor, trying to focus. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest, she thought it must be audible throughout the room.
Suddenly Aron was at her side, pulling her to her feet and tucking her behind him.
“We're going down; stick close to me. When I say stop, you stop. When I say move, you move.”
They left the room, stepping over a dead body in the doorway. There was another one lying on its back farther down the stairs. Sophie tried not to look. Aron picked up a pistol beside the body and moved on cautiously. He gave her quiet instructions. A few minutes later they reached the ground floor. There was life outside, mopeds, motorbikes, people.
He told her to wait while he checked the street. Then he waved her to him.
The smell of exhaust fumes hit her as she emerged onto the street.
They melted into the crowd and began to walk away quickly. She turned around after a while and found herself meeting the gaze of a man who was making his way toward them through the mass of people. A big man, almost two meters tall, swarthy, moving quickly and determinedly.
“Aron!” she said.
He had seen the man too, and grabbed Sophie by the arm and began to run, then he let go. Sophie stayed close to him. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, shielding her from strong emotions. She just had to get away, get to safety.
They hurried through an alley crowded with people, forcing and shoving their way through. She glanced back behind her; the man was gaining on them. He was quicker, more agile.
A large square opened up at the end of the alley.
“Out there,” Aron said.
But it was completely open. She wanted to object, say that they should try to hide, but Aron had already set off, and she hurried after him.
Out in the open square he stopped abruptly, then quickly gave her clear instructions: “We're splitting up. Get to the airport and go home. Make sure no one follows you, and don't try to contact me. I'll contact you!”
Aron was focused. He always was whenever things went to hell. He took out the pistol, sank down on one knee, and took aim at the man as he emerged into the square.
“Get out of here, now!” he snapped at her.
Aron aimed and squeezed the trigger, but the gun just clicked.
The adrenaline that had carried her this far began to fade. Fear and anxiety were creeping up on her, taking over. Her breathing was heavy and labored as she ran off toward the far side of the square. She glanced back and saw Aron run toward the man and attack him with military precision, raining blows and kicks on him before they fell to the ground.
She carried on to the other side of the square. Streets, faces coming toward her, strong smells. Sophie didn't know where she was going, just that she was getting away. She ran for twenty minutes through a maze of narrow passageways and alleys.
She came to a restaurant that opened onto a lively pedestrianized street, relatively empty inside. She went and sat down at a table in the gloom at the back of the restaurant, where she had a good view of the room and the street outside. Still trembling, down to her very core, she ordered some water.
She wondered if Aron had gotten away OK or if the man was hunting her now. Sophie tried to think. They had been planning the meeting for a long time. Minutely, everything checked in detail. The people, the location, the circumstances. They had analyzed, scrutinized, tried to predict everything. It had felt like a secure operation for them. So secure that Aron had for the first time left the hiding place in Spain where he was watching over Hector. This deal was going to be big. And they needed the money.
But things had turned out very differently. Why?
A waiter brought her a bottle of water and a glass, put them down on the table in front of her, then walked off. She unscrewed the cap, didn't bother with the glass, and took deep gulps straight from the bottle. She put it down and tried to catch her breath.
She had been doing this for six months, doing as she was told, doing everything Aron told her to do. Traveling around and meeting Hector's business partnersâcriminal, manipulative, untrustworthy people whom she despised, most of them grown men with the mind of a child, unpredictable, impulsive, and ultimately extremely dangerous. The main purpose of her travels was always to calm the situation and reassure people that Hector was fine and was directing operations from his hiding place. But that was a lie. Things weren't good, and Hector wasn't directing operations from his hiding place. He was in a coma, a deep coma after he and Sophie had been attacked when they were making their way from the airport in Málaga to Hector's father's house in Marbella six months earlier.
Aron was running the organization now, among other things. But Ernst, Leszek, and she herself were all helping. Everything to keep the sinking ship afloat. Her role as a sort of outward face of the organization stemmed from the fact that no one else could take on that role. Aron and Leszek were both highly intelligent. But they were men of action, violent men. Ernst was extremely logical but was socially inept, incapable of dealing with people. So Sophie ended up doing it, and she was good at it.
But she hated the position she was in. She was frightened. Frightened when she went to bed at night, frightened when she woke up. She didn't want to be, she wanted to be free. But she had no choice. Hector had bound her to his organization before he got shot. She was a threat to them; she knew too much. Which was why Aron had put her in the position she was now in. As long as she was working for them, she was involved, part of everything, an accomplice. Which meant that she was controllable, less of a threat. And everything depended on Hector. Her fate was in his hands, even when he was lying there out of reach in his coma. Hector liked her. Aron knew that. If it hadn't been for the relationship between Sophie and Hector, Aron would have driven her out into the woods and shot her long ago; she was convinced of that.
Sophie was trapped, and would be until Hector woke up. If he woke upâ¦
And if he died? Then, in all likelihood, so would she.
Four hours later
she was on her way home. Istanbul disappeared beneath her as the plane climbed. The city was vast, stretching out in every direction.