Free Assassin's Game by Ward Larsen Page A

tearoom.
    He unfolded the Times and began to read.
    *   *   *
    When Sanderson arrived at work the air was stamped with the usual aromas of a waking police department—sweat, shoe polish, burnt coffee, all accented by more objectionable risings from the drunk tank on the backside of a Saturday night. He had dodged television reporters at the entrance, two attractive young women with enamel hair and blond smiles who were tethered to news vans sprouting tall, telescoping antennas. It was all to be expected. Two men had been shot nearly forty-eight hours ago, and so far neither the victims nor the assailants had been identified. Sweden’s nerves were increasingly thin when it came to terrorism, and this crime was looking more and more the part.
    At his desk Sanderson searched for his cell phone, which he hadn’t been able to find at home this morning. He didn’t see it, but a check of his computer revealed a dozen messages. He scanned through, saw nothing of interest, and decided to press ahead with his most disagreeable task of the morning.
    Assistant Commissioner Paul Sjoberg headed up the Criminal Investigation Unit of the Stockholm County Police. Younger than Sanderson by three years, and five years junior on the force, he was a man who lacked the edges of a street cop. Fair-skinned and carrying twenty more pounds than he should have, his well-tended wave of silvering blond hair framed an indoor face. This was all at odds with the image he tried to project. Sjoberg had started a career in Sweden’s navy before trading uniforms, dark blue for light, and signing on with the Stockholm police. It was a circumstance he played to great effect in his office—the room was brimming with bottled ships and rope-framed oil paintings depicting great sea battles. He was a decent man and a competent policeman—Sanderson would never say otherwise—but a better politician.
    Sanderson paused at the door and saw Sjoberg pecking at his computer—an emphatic dagger to his swashbuckling image. Noting the helmsman’s wheel stuck to the far wall, Sanderson had a mischievous urge to ask permission to come aboard. What little careerism remained in him quashed the idea. “A word, sir?”
    Sjoberg noticed him and clicked off his computer. “Arne—just the man I wanted to see. Have the bastards over at SÄPO given us anything yet?” He was referring to the Swedish Security Service, who handled matters of counterterrorism—the sea to which their investigation seemed to be drifting.
    “Actually, they have. I told you yesterday that I’d had a few words with Edmund Deadmarsh, the husband of our damsel in distress.”
    “Yes, I remember you said something about it.”
    “When I ran a check on Deadmarsh’s passport there were some odd results. To put it simply, his information has disappeared from our immigration system. I asked SÄPO to take a look, since it seemed more up their street, and they contacted the American FBI.”
    “And?”
    With Sjoberg already sitting down, Sanderson said, “The FBI responded almost immediately. They claim that the U.S. has never issued a passport to anyone named Edmund Deadmarsh.”
    “How could that be?” Sjoberg said in a rising inflection.
    “I don’t know. They did find a driving record and two speeding tickets in the name, but a crosscheck of the corresponding driver’s license number came up blank.”
    “So he’s using forged documents.”
    Sanderson hesitated. “I’m not so sure. I saw the passport myself, and while I’m no expert, it looked quite authentic. There’s something here I don’t like.”
    “Such as?”
    “Deadmarsh entered Sweden yesterday at Arlanda. His passport cleared perfectly—we have him on video passing through immigration. Yet a few hours later, a search for his name in the records showed nothing. It’s as if the damned file vaporized. I talked to a man at Immigration who said it could only be a glitch at the source, on the American end. It’s almost as