To the Top of the Mountain (36 page)

‘Neighbours?’ asked Söderstedt.

‘The hotel’s clapped-out and not very popular. It’s almost empty. The adjacent rooms are empty. Any neighbours are a long way off. We can’t evacuate them all without drawing attention to what we’re doing. If they’re there, anyway. My feeling is that we can carry this out without putting anyone other than ourselves in danger.’

‘And Eurydice,’ said Söderstedt.

‘Though if they’re there then she’s already in real danger. OK. Let’s go.’

They went out to two rental cars and drove slowly and carefully through Skövde until the built-up area began to thin out. They soon arrived.

It was 10.26 on Saturday 10 July.

It was a miserable day. The rain was pouring down. The kind of bad weather that seems to want revenge on all those halcyon days, to even out the statistics. Visibility was nil. They switched their walkie-talkies on, put their earpieces in, and set off.

All headed in the direction of the unassuming little hotel’s entrance apart from Hjelm and Holm, who made off around the building. Nyberg and Chavez split off by the stairs, each with a pallet in hand, and crept carefully along the hotel wall to the corner by the garden; they were heading for the windows on the corner. Hultin, Norlander and Söderstedt entered the hotel lobby. A budget version of a bellboy was loitering by the reception counter.

‘Room 12,’ said Hultin, showing his ID. ‘A young woman. We spoke on the phone a few hours ago.’

The bellboy barely reacted to the sight of the detective superintendent’s ID. All that happened was that he dropped his gaze to the register lying open on the counter in front of him.

‘Karlsson,’ he drawled. ‘Sonja Karlsson. She’s got visitors.’

‘Four men?’ asked Hultin.

‘Three. One just left.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Five minutes, maybe. Ten.’

‘Car?’

‘I heard one start. But it wasn’t parked outside.’

‘OK,’ said Hultin. ‘Lock yourself in the office for a while.’

The imitation bellboy opened his eyes fully for the first time. That was his only reaction. Then he disappeared into another room.

Hultin, Söderstedt and Norlander entered the corridor through double doors, drawing their service weapons. Slowly, they moved towards room 12. The number glimmered like a mirage from the door at the end of the corridor.

Hjelm and Holm took the back route. They came in from the opposite corner of the hotel, working their way past a row of unoccupied terraces, each marked off with high fences covered in climbing plants. At the last fence, they stopped. Hjelm nodded, Holm peered around the corner.

‘Hard to see,’ she whispered. ‘Fucking rain.’

‘We’re in position,’ Gunnar Nyberg whispered into the walkie-talkie. ‘There are curtains. We’ve got movement, but not much else.’

‘We can’t see a thing,’ said Holm. ‘We’ve got to get closer.’

‘They
should
be there,’ whispered Hultin. ‘We’ve got confirmation that three of them are there. Repeat:
three
are there, one’s missing.’

‘Eurydice?’ asked Nyberg.

‘Her too. They’ve probably got their weapons on her. Extreme caution advised. We’re right outside the door, we need to know
exactly
what’s happening. Paul, Kerstin?’

‘We’re moving closer now.’

Kerstin Holm crept forward first. The saturated grass squelched loudly. Hjelm was hot on her heels. Only when they were halfway there could they see the door properly. It was a classic terrace door: wooden bottom half with glass on top, and a small set of steps below it. They crept over to the steps, keeping low. They were soaked through, wiping the water from their faces. Hjelm pointed at himself. He rose slowly. Forehead, eyes, up over the edge of the window. Water was streaming down the glass.

Through the veil of water, he could see three men in balaclavas and a girl in her underwear. One of the men was pulling his trousers down and climbing on top of the girl, his penis in her face. He had a pistol in one hand. The other two men had their pistols jammed into the waistbands of their trousers.

Hjelm grimaced and sank back down. He whispered into the walkie-talkie: ‘She’s about to be raped. The rapist’s got a pistol in his hand, the other two have them in their waistbands. The head of the bed’s in your direction, Jan-Olov, immediately to the right, behind the door when it’s opened. You won’t really be able to reach him.
We’ve
got to take him out from the terrace. When you come in, Bullet, the ace shot, will be straight ahead. The third man’s to the left, right underneath your window, Gunnar.’

‘OK,’ Hultin whispered. ‘Can you see anything, Gunnar, Jorge?’

‘Nope,’ Chavez whispered. ‘We’d have to break the window first, then open the curtain. It’s tricky.’

‘OK, it’s us and you, Paul,’ said Hultin. ‘Kick or smash?’

Paul looked at Kerstin. She looked strangely tense. Like another person. Her lips formed the word ‘smash’.

‘Smash,’ said Paul Hjelm.

‘Everyone ready? Viggo will kick in the door. Three, two, one.’

The door flew open. Hjelm saw it through the window. He saw Norlander tumble in, almost in slow motion, and take a shot to the chest from the man on top of the woman. Hjelm shot him. From behind. Through the window of the terrace door. The bullet hit the man’s chest from the right-hand side. He fell down on top of the woman. Blood was pouring out of him. The other two men raised their arms instinctively in the air. The window above them broke and they were showered with glass. Nyberg’s face and pistol poked through. Hjelm kicked the shot-out terrace door open. The woman sank down onto the floor. The injured man on the bed fired again. Right over Hjelm’s shoulder. Hjelm shot him again. Two bullets in the face. Right through his balaclava. Hultin entered the room. Norlander stood up, examining the smoking hole in his chest. Hultin, Söderstedt and Nyberg up from his window all pointed their weapons at the two men with their hands in the air. Chavez ran over, around the edge of the building, and immediately shouted: ‘Kerstin!’

Hjelm turned round and saw Kerstin Holm lying on the terrace, her hands pressed to her head. Blood was running between her fingers. Chavez was on his haunches beside her. Hjelm staggered towards them. Just then, the big man beneath the window decided to reach for his pistol. He pulled it out and shot straight ahead. Hjelm felt himself being thrown forward, out onto the terrace, landing beside Holm. The pain hit him in waves.

Hultin shot the man. Four shots right in the heart, without mercy.

‘Jesus Christ,’ exclaimed Gunnar Nyberg from up in the window.

Hultin went over to the short man standing with his arms in the air. He yanked the balaclava upwards, jamming his gun into the man’s mouth, and pushing him back against the wall. His face was completely white. His eyes bulging.

‘Jan-Olov!’ Söderstedt yelled.

His trigger finger was twitching. The barrel of the gun rattled against the man’s teeth.

‘Don’t do it, Jan-Olov,’ Söderstedt persisted. ‘Walk away.’

The barrel remained in the man’s mouth. Hultin was forcing it further and further down the man’s throat. The short man was crying and sniffing and sobbing. Then his gag reflex took over and he was sick right down the barrel of the gun.

‘Walk away,’ Söderstedt repeated. ‘Check what’s happening with Paul and Kerstin. That’s what counts. Now! Go!’

Hjelm lay on his back, staring up into the rain. He could see the raindrops growing bigger and bigger. All of them growing bigger and bigger. They
didn’t
change character. He
wasn’t
about to die. He turned to Kerstin. Jorge was pressing his jacket against her head. He was shouting. Jorge was just shouting. A vague figure crept past Paul’s back. He stared at Kerstin’s face. It moved. It was forming a word, and that word was: ‘Paul.’

‘Yeah, Kerstin, I’m here. It’s going to be all right.’

‘Paul, I love you.’

‘It’ll be all right, Kerstin, it’ll be all right.’

Hultin tore his gun from the short man’s mouth, taking a couple of teeth with it, leaned towards him and headbutted him. He could afford to do that.

From up in the window, Nyberg trained his gun on the short man; Söderstedt did the same from inside the room. He shrank back, sniffing, into the corner.

Norlander was sitting on the bed, furiously ripping off the bulletproof vest. Smoke was rising from his chest.

‘Fuck, it hurts,’ said Viggo Norlander.

‘Shut up,’ said Arto Söderstedt.

Hultin lifted the mask of the dead man by the window.

‘Roger Sjöqvist,’ he said, disappointed.

He went over to the bed, and lifted the mask of the body with its trousers around its ankles. The face oozed out onto the bed. One which had once been violet.

‘Dan Andersson,’ he said, even more disappointed.

Only then did he see Jorge, Paul and Kerstin out in the rain on the terrace. Blood was running from the arm of Paul’s linen jacket. Kerstin’s head was wrapped in Jorge’s jacket. Jorge was bellowing.

Hultin went over to him and gave him a slap. He fell silent.

‘How’s she doing?’ asked Hultin.

‘She’s been shot in the head, for fuck’s sake,’ said Chavez, subdued. ‘How do you think she’s doing?’

Hultin took out his mobile phone and called an ambulance. Norlander came out with Bullet Kullberg in handcuffs, knocking him over and pushing his face down into the mud with his foot.

‘Stop it,’ said Hultin neutrally.

Nyberg came round the corner just as Söderstedt came out. He sank to his knees next to Kerstin.

‘Jesus Christ, Kerstin,’ he said quietly. ‘What have you done?’

‘Much too little,’ she said, straining to smile.

Söderstedt jammed his pistol into his holster and sighed. ‘Imagine what would’ve happened if Niklas Lindberg had been here too . . .’

‘Where the hell’s Eurydice?’ asked Paul Hjelm before fainting.

Jan-Olov Hultin was thinking about grass and weeds.

Then he threw up.

38

IN STOCKHOLM, MEANWHILE,
it was a sunny Saturday, 10 July. In fact, it was the highest high summer imaginable. The city was almost panting under the blanket of heat enveloping it. People were sprawled on every available patch of grass as though expelled from the city itself – the city’s sweat. The clouds had disappeared in an attempt not to wither away, and the sun seemed to have taken a few steps closer to earth, as though to get a better view. It couldn’t believe its eyes, drawing ever closer.

Sara Svenhagen was sitting, along with a busload of Germans, in Sundberg’s Konditori on Järntorget in the city’s old quarter. Since the busload of Germans could barely fit into the cafe, it was a bit of a tight squeeze.

She wanted it to be that way.

As tight as possible.

She was waiting, and while she waited, she went over the past few days. Keeping track of the latest chapter of her life. Could she have done anything differently? She turned the events over and over in her mind, but found no obvious mistakes. Her steps had been clear and distinct and they had irrefutably led her here. To this point.

‘Brambo’ had led her here.

An online pseudonym. The word appearing before the @ symbol in an email address. She summed up.

Via the passive paedophile of Söder Torn, on John Andreas Witréus’s computer, she had found a number of child pornography websites previously unknown to her. They had been well hidden behind harmless title pages, thereby making themselves impossible to find using search engines. On these pages, she had found a whole range of pseudonyms, several of which were Swedish or could at least be traced back to Swedish IP addresses, which wasn’t exactly the same thing.

These pseudonyms had done their best to remain untraceable but could, when all went well, be identified after closer inspection. It became apparent that all these pseudonyms appeared in the extensive investigation material, a small part of which had been written by CID’s child pornography unit, of which she herself was a member. All the pseudonyms apart from one: ‘brambo’. Wherever this ‘brambo’ appeared online, another pseudonym, ‘rippo_man’, was also present. This ‘rippo_man’ turned out to have been convicted of sexual assault on children, among other things, thanks to the Swedish policeman who had put him away. This Swedish policeman should also have sent ‘brambo’ to prison, or at least tried to trace him, since ‘rippo_man’ and ‘brambo’ always appeared together on the hidden pages she had found. Yet that wasn’t the case. ‘Brambo’ had been deliberately deleted from the report. And in each instance, one man had been behind the investigation. Sara Svenhagen’s own boss, Detective Superintendent Ragnar Hellberg.

She had two choices: either go straight for Hellberg, or try to find out more about ‘brambo’, if for no other reason than to have more of a leg to stand on in any direct confrontation with Hellberg. She had chosen the latter. It hadn’t been easy.

‘Brambo’ was an incredibly well-disguised figure. It was obvious that he had no intention of having his hidden desires revealed. He made use of a couple of extremely advanced, illegal computer programs which could be downloaded online, and which completely concealed the source. If you connected these programs, something which required professional knowledge, you could be entirely anonymous online. All the experts she spoke to were in agreement about that.

Then it struck her that Hellberg might simply have committed a minor breach of duty: he had deleted ‘brambo’ because the person behind it was untouchable.

But she didn’t stop there. She knew that the real Internet experts were hardly those employed by the police. Or by anyone else, for that matter. The real experts were the hackers. Often teenagers. Completely up to date. And so she had made her way into a number of online forums. With deliberate naive femininity, she threw her questions to the most advanced chats she could find. Chats where Chen, 18, was discussing the Pentagon’s new security system and the slow finance routines on the New York stock exchange with Bob, 16. She presented herself gallantly as a sexy nobody with problems, and received pubescent, testosterone-fuelled, virginal responses. Sure, those programs were old, several-month-old upgrades; they were crackable, but only by guys, people with dicks. You just do this. And suddenly she was through. As she saw the IP number appear on the screen, she thought about the perils and possibilities of the information society.