The Other Son (36 page)

Leszek was sitting on the roof of an apartment block, taking the pieces of the dismantled rifle out of his bag, fitting them back together, and unfolding the little two-legged support at the end of the barrel. He lay flat on his stomach next to an air vent and tucked the rifle in against his right shoulder. Through the telescopic sight he had a full view of the multistory garage.

To his right, fifty meters away, Hasani was busy putting his own rifle together.

“
Two?
” The voice in Leszek's earpiece belonged to Aron.

“Two,” Leszek said into the microphone by his cheek.

“
Three?
”

“Three,” Hasani replied.

“
Start looking,
” Aron whispered.

Leszek looked. The garage, cars, nearby buildings, every floor, every window. Every nook and cranny he could reach with the telescopic sight. But there were a lot of blind spots, places he couldn't see, places where snipers could have been posted.

At the sight of the first flare from a barrel, all three of them were to aim their weapons at that point. But by then it might be too late. And it wasn't even certain that things were going to turn out like that anyway. The Hankes' intention could be to take Hector with them….

Leszek didn't have a clue. Neither did Aron or Hasani. And Hector certainly didn't.

This was a crazy idea. But Hector had been impossible to talk to as soon as Lothar's name was mentioned. It was as if he were no longer governed by common sense….

They were traveling in a new Outback, stolen by Jens on a test drive from a Subaru dealer in Jägersro.

Sophie and Lothar got out of the vehicle on the street outside the parking garage. As they walked through the intersection, Sophie glanced over her shoulder and saw Jens and the car disappear.

Sophie had been surprised by how few questions Lothar had when she told him about Hector. Instead, he had asked if he could have some new clothes. So they had gone shopping. It had all happened in silence. A bizarre experience. She had a feeling that she was dressing him for his funeral. That he was sick and was going to die, but that she couldn't tell him.

Sophie felt terrible when she was around Lothar. She was forced to behave neutrally toward him. But he was still going to be sacrificed. And she had been the person who made that decision. He sought her out occasionally, trying to talk, and had even managed to slip in a joke or two. But she kept her distance—a cold, inhuman distance from an innocent boy who was in an appalling position, having seen his mother murdered, and now left entirely alone to be used in a game he didn't understand. And Sophie wasn't helping him. Quite the reverse….

The ground floor of the garage was damp, dark, and full of cars. The elevator that slowly ground its way upward was cramped, made of shiny aluminum.

Her nerves were eating her up from inside. Lothar was nervous as well, but in an entirely different way. He was cheerful, in a restrained way, happy. He was going to see his dad, after all.

He had chosen his new clothes with care. Jeans, sneakers, a striped shirt, a dark-blue V-neck cashmere sweater.

“You look very smart,” she said.

“ ‘Smart'?”

“You look fine, Lothar.”

He gave her a clenched smile. Sophie looked away.

The air was cold and raw when they got out at the open-air top floor of the garage.

Lothar's face was anxious and tense. He was quiet and introspective now. She stayed close to him, unconsciously protective.

Sophie looked at her watch. It was twenty minutes past the arranged time. There was a rumbling sound beneath them. A car drove up the ramp and out to where they were standing, and found a free space a short distance away. A man got out. He was wearing a jacket, opened the trunk, pulled out a leather briefcase, and walked away. She followed him with her eyes until he disappeared toward the elevator.

“
Hello.
”

A voice, off to one side behind her.

She turned around. Hector was sitting there, leaning between two parked cars.

She looked him right in the eye. He looked calm, almost amused.

“Hector?” she said.

He was thinner than when she had last seen him, his hair longer, and he was wearing far too few clothes for the climate. In spite of the circumstances she felt happiness bubbling up inside her. A warm giddiness that shouldn't be there, not now. But she remembered it, recognized the color and shape of a feeling she had only ever shared with Hector. And she imagined she could see something similar in him, the same sort of warmth, the same recognition of something gone but not finished. But there was also indifference and coolness, sorrow, perhaps. But with that as a sort of bedrock for his personality, he also radiated certainty, as if he owned this situation in spite of the fact that he was completely exposed on the roof. But he had come, nonetheless. As if he were happy to be there. As if he had realized more about the nature of life since they last met.

“I think it's probably safest if you both sit down too,” he said.

They did so, between two cars, just a few meters away from Hector.

“Hello, Sophie,” he said. His voice was rough and deep.

“Hello, Hector,” she replied quietly.

His eyes turned to the boy beside her.

“This is Lothar,” she said.

Hector soaked up the boy's appearance.

“Hello, Lothar,” he said.

Lothar didn't answer.

“You know who I am?” Hector went on.

Lothar nodded.

Hector read Lothar's face, then said, “I'm sorry about everything, about your mother. About the way everything has turned out.”

Lothar looked down.

There was a sudden rise in air pressure. Sophie looked up at the sky; it was bright blue. Then she did as she had been told.

“Stay here, Lothar, and keep down,” she said.

She stood up and started to walk away. Left the two of them to their fate. She steeled herself and didn't look back.

Lothar's voice behind her.

“Sophie?”

She speeded up as she crossed the open roof of the garage, toward the elevator they had arrived in.

Then she heard him behind her, and turned around. He was standing up.

“Where are you going?” His voice was uncertain, lost.

“Stay there, Lothar, and sit down! Do as I say!”

She sounded strict, but without conviction.

“Why?”

“Lothar!” Hector said. “Sit down!”

He turned toward his father. Sophie hurried away, her eyes fixed to the floor, with pain in her heart.

A rapid whining sound flew past her, followed by something hard hitting flesh and tissue with a heavy thump.

Hector collapsed and lay flat on the ground. More shots followed, all from guns with silencers, quiet before the bullets hammered into the car that Hector was lying next to.

She took cover behind a parked car.

The shooting stopped. There was silence.

Sophie stared down into the ground as if she was frozen solid there for a moment. Reality came back suddenly. She looked up.

Lothar was lying in the same place, curled up by a car tire. Some ten meters beyond him she could see Hector. He'd been hit. It looked like his left leg, the side of his thigh. Blood was pumping hard from the wound, a lot of blood. She realized he had been hit in an artery, and that he would die unless he…

Then the same sound again, but somehow different. Weapons with silencers, spluttering some distance away. But no more bullets came in their direction. Instead the projectiles were whining above their heads, in the blue sky, passing above them in two different directions.

She looked over at Hector. He was still lying in the same position, now with a pistol in his hand as blood pumped from his thigh.

“You need to bind the wound, stop the bleeding!” she called to him.

Hector pulled his belt from his trousers and fastened it around the top of his thigh.

“Pull as hard as you can,” she said.

More bullets hit the car where Hector was hiding. Then more from a different direction, thudding into the metal, in a regular pattern and in long bursts.

He stayed down, completely still, trapped from two directions, the slightest movement and he'd be hit.

The shooting stopped, leaving a strange silence.

Everyone caught their breath and stayed very still.

“Lothar!” Hector called hoarsely.

“Yes!”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes…”

“Just stay down, and keep still, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Lothar replied.

She looked around cautiously. She couldn't see where the shots were coming from.

“Sophie?” Hector went on.

“Yes?” she replied.

“How are you?”

“What do you want me to say to that, Hector?”

He said nothing for a moment, then said, “I was thinking of you when I woke up from the coma.”

She looked down at the ground.

“I've missed you too, Hector,” she said.

Lothar was in between them, listening, even though he didn't understand a word of their Swedish.

“What are you doing here, Sophie?” Hector asked.

She just sat there.

“Have you betrayed me?” he went on.

“What does that mean?” was all she could manage to say.

“Have you betrayed me?” he asked again, this time stressing the word
me
.

“No, Hector,” she replied. “I haven't betrayed
you
.”

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

The question hung in the air.

“Our children, Hector,” she replied.

“Albert? Is he OK?”

“I don't know.”

Hector could hear how helpless she was.

“Where is he?”

A fresh shower of bullets slammed into the car where Hector was sitting. From two directions. Gunmen working together. It stopped abruptly. Then, as before, someone shooting at the gunmen. Once again, there was a muffled exchange of fire above their heads.