Free CELL 8 by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström Page A

Hantverkargatan, a few minutes’ walk east along the road toward the center of Stockholm, and any moment now, a few hundred yards ahead, she would see the ugly building beside the Sheraton Hotel. She paused briefly, her eyes searching for the windows of the Canadian embassy a few floors up, when she was suddenly surprised by a voice, from behind, up close.
    “Hey, bitch.”
    He was standing on the other side of the high iron fence, in the grassy churchyard around Kungsholmen Church, a middle-aged man staring at her with great intensity.
    “Hey, bitch, look at this.”
    He’d undone the top button of his pants, was fiddling with the zipper now.
    She didn’t need to see any more.
    She already knew.
    “Get your dick out, you bastard.”
    She put her hand inside her jacket, for just a second, then held up her gun.
    “Go on.”
    She looked at him as she spoke, her voice calm.
    “And I’ll blast it off. With the new police-issue hunting ammo. Then it’s done.”
    For a long moment, he looked at the bitch who was holding a gun and said she was from the police. Then he bolted, ran away, tried to do up his fly, fell over one of the low gravestones with almost illegible writing and moss growing around the edges, kept on running without looking back.
    She shook her head.
    All these nut jobs.
    The city bred them, fed them, hid them.
    Mariana Hermansson watched him until he disappeared into some bushes, then kept on walking, past the city hall and under the railway bridge, a couple of minutes more, then an elevator up to the glass door that opened from the inside when she rang the bell; she was expected.
    The Canadian embassy official introduced himself as Timothy D. Crouse; he was a tall young man with short blond hair. He had a friendly face and walked and talked like they usually did. Hermansson had met quite a few in connection with various investigations and had already been struck by how similar they were, embassy people, no matter what nationality or ethnicity, the way they walked and moved like diplomats, the way they talked like diplomats . . . she wondered if they were like that from the outset and that’s why they were attracted to it, or whether they became like that along the way, fitting in so they wouldn’t be noticed.
    She handed him the passport that belonged to a man who was now sitting in custody in a holding cell, suspected of attempted murder. Crouse felt the dark blue cover with his fingers, the paper inside, he studied the passport number and personal details.
    He didn’t take particularly long and seemed to be certain when he spoke.
    “This is genuine. I’m convinced of it. Everything’s correct. I’ve already looked up the number. The personal details are identical to the ones that were entered when the passport was issued.”
    Hermansson looked at the embassy man. She took a couple of steps forward, pointed at the computer.
    “Can I have a look?”
    “There’s no other information. I’m sorry. That’s all we can get up.”
    “I want to see him .”
    Crouse considered her request.
    “It’s important.”
    He shrugged.
    “Of course. Why not? You’re here. And I’ve already given you all the other information.”
    He pulled over a chair and asked her to sit down beside him, poured a glass of water, and then apologized for the time it took for the computer to hook up to the system.
    Two men in dark overcoats were now standing outside the glass door and were let in by a female employee. They passed by Crouse’s desk, nodded in recognition, and continued on.
    “Soon. We’ll get there soon.”
    The screen started to come alive. Crouse typed in a password and then opened something that looked like a register. Two new screens, names in alphabetical order: a total of twenty-two Canadian citizens with the surname Schwarz and the first name John .
    “The fifth from the top. See. He has this passport number.”
    Crouse nodded at the screen.
    “You want to see what he looks like.”
    A new