The Other Son (46 page)

Sophie opened her eyes; the room was white, the curtains thin. The ceiling was high. She remembered the trip in the ambulance, she remembered Jens sitting beside her. He was sitting there now, on a chair beside her bed.

“Where are we?” she whispered.

“We're in Prague,” Jens said.

“Why?”

“We're hiding here.”

“Albert?”

“No…nothing new.”

A large closet in front of her, open. Her clothes were hung up inside.

“Mikhail unpacked your case,” Jens said.

On the bedside table were neat rows of medicine, cotton balls, and antiseptics.

“Lothar…” Jens said. “He's taken on the responsibility of being your nurse. He gave you your medication during the journey, kept you sedated.”

“How did we get here?”

“By road from Denmark. You were operated on in the hospital there. But the police started to take an interest in you and we were forced to act quickly.”

“Whose apartment is this?”

“Miles has organized everything, even a doctor who's been keeping an eye on you.”

Lothar peered through the door. He was overjoyed to see her, as if her awakening was a miracle, a resurrection.

She found his positive energy infectious.

“Thank you for looking after me, Lothar,” she whispered weakly.

“Is there anything you need?” he asked.

“No, thanks. Is it OK, being here?” she went on.

“I've looked at a map. We live in the center. If you go down the street you come to a square, and then the Charles Bridge over the river. That's where the Old Town is. In the other direction”—he pointed behind him—“there's a big park with an observatory.”

“Then one day we'll walk there,” she whispered. All the talking and listening had worn her out.

“We will,” Lothar said, then let go of the door frame and disappeared.

Jens waited until Lothar was gone, then said, “He's happy. He's changed; he's been looking after you the whole time, giving you your medication. He's proud of being part of your survival. He couldn't have handled it if you'd died. That was obvious when you got hurt. Lothar's very fond of you. He's drawn to you, sees you as someone he can rely on….”

“Stop it, Jens,” she said.

“Can't you allow yourself to let him in?”

“I am,” she said.

“No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow,” he said.

“I can't,” she said. “I mustn't.”

“Says who?”

“Please, not now…”

She shifted slightly in the bed and pain from the knife wound cut through her.

Miles had been working tirelessly for four days, almost around the clock. Searching, investigating, analyzing. He had become a police officer again.

An embassy was as good as being an espionage center, with close connections to the Swedish Intelligence Service.

In years gone by, during the Cold War, all eyes had been on the East, toward the Russians. Now it was mostly about promoting Swedish companies in the country where the embassy was based—in other words, primarily industrial espionage. It all happened in a nice, incognito way, and only a few people in the embassy were involved. In Prague, that meant Kennet Wessman.

He knocked on the doorpost.

“What have you found?” Miles asked.

Kennet stepped in with a bundle of papers in his hand.

To get hold of the information Miles was after, Kennet and Miles had concocted a case involving questions from the telecom company Ericsson. Whenever Ericsson was involved, the Intelligence Service was always very obliging. Kennet had spoken to the intelligence agents himself. He told them their client wanted information about some German competitors regarding what meetings they had, what their travel arrangements were, as well as when and where.

The Intelligence Service was in a position to help; that sort of thing was routine for them.

Kennet Wessman waved the documents, then handed them to Miles.

“Hanke LLC owns a number of planes, and has several more on long leases. This is a list of most of them, as well as what routes they've flown over the past few weeks.”

Miles took the papers.

“Passengers?”

“We can never get those lists.”

“How about regular flights?”

“No, they'd have to dig much deeper for those. This is what we've got to go on.”

“OK. Thanks, Kennet,” Miles said, and started to go through the documents, crossing some flights out and circling others.

There were plenty of trips, in all directions. But one stood out immediately from the others.

Miles Ingmarsson ran
out of the embassy and down the cobbled street toward the apartment. He had a cigarette in his mouth and the bundle of papers under his arm. He almost slipped several times.

Mikhail opened the door for him.

Miles was out of breath. He walked in past Mikhail.

“Jens!” he called out.

Jens looked out of Sophie's room. He waved Miles to him, and Miles headed past the kitchen, where Lothar was sitting at the table with two piles of playing cards.

“Hi, Lothar.”

Lothar raised his hand.

Sophie was awake when he entered the room.

“Welcome to Prague,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said weakly.

He passed the sheaf of papers to Jens, who immediately began to scan through them, top to bottom, before moving on to the next one.

“Have you found something?” Sophie asked.

“Maybe,” he replied.

“What?”

He pointed at the documents Jens was working his way through.

“Information about where the Hankes have flown to recently.”

She waited for more.

“It could be a long shot. But a private plane belonging to one of the Hankes' daughter companies took off from Augsburg, a small airport west of Munich, and flew to Colombia, Cartago, a military airfield.”

“When?” she asked.

“Within the time frame I'm looking at.”

“I flew to Cartago when I went to see them,” she whispered.

“I know,” Miles said.

“Passengers?”

Miles shook his head.

“We can't find that out.”

Jens looked up from the papers.

“I can go over there,” he said quietly, almost in passing.

Lothar's voice from the kitchen, happy, playfully teasing.

“
Warning to everyone! Mikhail is cheating at cards!
”

They were getting closer to what none of them wanted to acknowledge.

Miles understood.

“I'll put some coffee on,” he said, and left the room.

They could hear Lothar laughing now, chuckling happily.

“Take him with you,” Sophie said. Cold and direct.

The atmosphere in the room darkened.

She and Jens both felt a shame that neither of them knew how to share.

“It feels wrong,” he whispered.

She sat there motionless.

Jens stood up and walked out.

The sky outside the window was winter blue. Clear and fresh, open and broad. Sophie stared out at it.

Everything had been leading up to this.

She could no longer justify anything to herself. She wanted to change places with someone, hide away, stop feeling. But that was just as much of a deception as anything else. Aron's knife cutting into her had given her a liberating pain. As if that evened things out somehow. But it was only temporary. Nothing could liberate her from this.

She had struggled to keep Lothar at a distance. It was like trying to convince herself that she wasn't thirsty or hungry. It was impossible.

Emotionally, he was a constant presence inside her. Not only as the embodiment of her guilty conscience but also as a child. A child who had looked for her, needed her, trusted her. And had helped her, saved her life, had done nothing but good, as if that had been his duty, his conviction. Lothar was a good person.

“Hello…”

He was standing in the doorway.

Every hour Lothar gave her painkillers, checked her wound, and took her pulse and temperature. He stepped into the room.

“Mikhail cheats at cards,” he said as he made sure the drip was working the way it should. “And he refuses to admit it, the goddamn gorilla.”

Lothar met Sophie's gaze and laughed quietly.

“You're going away with Jens tomorrow,” she interrupted.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Sit down.”

He hesitated but did as she said. He was no longer smiling.

“Where am I going?” he asked again.

“That doesn't matter,” she said, looking sadly at him. Lothar seemed to understand where this was heading. As if the situation he was in became clear again, as if he had forgotten where he was. There and then it seemed to dawn on him that these people really didn't wish him well, that he was a pawn in a game, and possibly the loneliest person on the planet at that moment.

He looked down at the floor, rubbing his legs with the palms of his hands.

“OK,” he said, trying to sound happy and cheerful, almost grateful.

“Look at me,” she said.

He did, and their eyes met. She started to cry, large, heavy tears that ran down her cheeks. Sophie went on talking as though she weren't crying.

“You've got to be strong, Lothar. You've got a lot of strength inside you, and now's the time to use it.”

She wiped her cheeks with the palm of her hand.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

He was looking at her steadily.

“No,” he said in a toneless voice. “I'm afraid I don't.”

His straightness and honesty disarmed her. Sophie was struggling with her sense of shame. But it was impossible. Whatever she said, it wouldn't make any difference. There was only one word left. One single word to sum up an entire attitude. An attitude she had been fighting to hold at bay, deny, suppress.

“Sorry…” she found herself saying. Like a whisper. “Forgive me…” Then once more: “
Forgive me, Lothar.
”