Enemy of the State (Anton Modin Book 2) Read online

  ENEMY OF THE STATE

  A Thriller by

  Anders Jallai

  ENEMY OF THE STATE

  Copyright © 2015 by Anders Jallai. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

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  ALSO BY ANDERS JALLAI

  “In the White House and at Number 10 Downing Street, fears were expressed that in several European countries communists would hold posts in the political establishment that could destroy the NATO military alliance from within. This would be achieved by revealing military secrets to the Soviet Union.

  Considering the potential danger, the Pentagon, along with the CIA, MI6 and NATO, created secret organizations, collectively termed Stay Behind*, as instruments to manipulate and control the western European democracies from within. This war was waged with the greatest of secrecy and without the knowledge of either the European population as a whole or their parliaments.”**

  (Dr. Daniele Ganser

  Senior Researcher, Center for Security Studies, Zürich)

  * * *

  * The Swedish branch of Stay Behind was called Aktionsgrupp Arla Gryning, AGAG (Action Team Crack of Dawn)

  ** This is an actual statement Anders Jallai discovered while researching the Anton Modin novel series Deep State, Enemy of the State, and Under Water. All italic text in the beginning of the novel’s chapters is taken from actual documents, newspapers or statements.

  Lisbet and Olof Palme in the 1950s.

  CHAPTER 1

  CENTRAL STOCKHOLM, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1986

  The Prime Minister and Lisbet Palme crossed Sveavägen just before Skandia House. They were walking arm in arm, he on the left. Lisbet was slowing him down. She wanted to window shop, and so, once they reached the eastern sidewalk of Sveavägen, she went up to a store window while he stayed a few steps behind.

  It was cold in Stockholm. He could feel it was well below freezing, with a faint but biting breeze coming from the south that cooled cheeks right down to the bone. The Prime Minister rubbed his gloved hands together. His wife pointed at something in the shop’s display window. He became impatient and shrugged his shoulders. He was taking shallow breaths to avoid inhaling the cold air into his lungs.

  The asphalt was partly covered with grayish-white patches of snow. A constant stream of cars was passing by in both directions. An occasional vehicle stopped idling at the stoplights, but it never took long before each one revved up and drove on.

  Lisbet Palme kept her husband waiting until she had completed her window shopping. This was his first free weekend in two months. The couple had drifted apart during the many years of intensive politics, but now he was back with her again. They loved one another; that was his firm conviction. So, their marriage could be patched and mended.

  They passed the front of the Skandia Insurance building at Sveavägen. The intersection to Tunnelgatan lay a few hundred feet ahead.

  • • •

  “Stig! Go out now. Confirm.”

  “Understood, I’m going out.”

  A man in a brown coat and steel-rimmed glasses stepped onto the sidewalk from the main entrance of the Skandia Insurance building. First, he walked rapidly southwards on Sveavägen, leaning forward, seemingly determined. Glancing over his shoulder at the Decorima Paint and Wallpaper Shop, he slowed his step, and stopped at the intersection of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan. He looked around carefully. There were no customers at the fast food stand on the other side of the street, near the wall of the graveyard adjacent to the Adolf Fredrik Church. A distance away, beyond Kungsgatan, a few people were staggering along. They were laughing. Maybe they were drunk. He would take no notice of them. There were some thirty yards of space between the future victim and the pedestrians closest to him. With a quick movement, he pulled out a black wrist bag and unzipped it. His walkie-talkie was in his left-hand coat pocket on low volume.

  “Target is twenty seconds from the intersection at Tunnelgatan. I want to remind you about the getaway car. A red Ford Sierra with the engine running on Johannesgatan. Only to be used in an emergency. Meet up in the underground. Good luck.”

  Thus far, the man had been hiding in the shadows away from the display window. Now he took off his glasses, put them in the left-hand pocket of his coat, and stepped forward rather uncertainly. He was clutching his gun tightly in the other pocket. He let the middle-aged couple pass so near that he could almost smell them.

  This is history in the making, he thought.

  He had tunnel vision, saw only his target, an enemy of the state, and proceeded in the firm conviction that a crucial task lay ahead of him.

  “I am saving Sweden”, he whispered to himself.

  Once the target had passed by, he took a swift step forward and grabbed the target’s left shoulder. He was shorter than he had imagined. Through the fabric, the shoulder felt thin, like the body of an old man. He aimed at the middle of the back, right where he imagined that the spine to be, and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out. He saw a splatter of human tissue, blood, and cordite escape at breast height. It splashed onto the pavement in front of the target. He let go of the dying body, and it slumped onto the asphalt, lifeless.

  He watched the target’s head hit the pavement hard and bounce a couple of times. The Prime Minister ended up lying on his stomach with his face to the right.

  The target’s wife screamed hysterically.

  Bull’s eye, no doubt about it. He glanced at his victim, saw that he was dead; at least that was his impression: stone dead. The victim coughed once. A spatter of blood and body fluids. Some of it hit the target’s wife in the face. She sat leaning forward over the dead man, seemingly oblivious to what was going on around her.

  He took aim and shot at the woman as he turned toward the dark alley. A large cloud of smoke from the gun hid the passageway as if it was on stage.

  The screaming continued. The shrieks had had no significance for him until now, when he had to flee the scene. She was not dead. The witness to the murder was kneeling on the sidewalk, pulling at the Prime Minister.

  “Olof, oh my Olof.”

  “Fuck!” He was already running along the Tunnelgatan cul-de-sac in an easterly direction when he grew uncertain and turned around. He wondered whether he should let off another shot. A second passed, but he could not act. His body wanted to escape, wanted to hide. Two shots on an open street were a risky enterprise. Three would ruin the operation. Resignedly, he pushed his weapon into his pocket as he stared back at his victim.

  In the meantime, the cold-blooded murder was beginning to have its effect on Sveavägen. The screaming woman and the man lying on the sidewalk drew people’s attention like a magnet. He would not have time to go back to shoot again. The woman would survive.

  A taxi screeched to a halt near the couple on the pavement. Europe’s “The Final Countdown” was blaring on the car stereo and filled the alley.

  He could see the blood-stained mouth of the man quite clearly in the light of the Decorima display window and, less clearly in the background, the taxi with the music. He decided to make a run for it. He raced up the staircase at the end of the Tunnelgatan cul-de-sac, taking two steps at a time, sometimes three, toward the Brunkeberg Ridge at the top, away, away, aw
ay.

  “Hello up there, how’s things?” came over the crackly radio as he kept running.

  On the western side of Sveavägen, a man watched the crowd that gathered at the murder site.

  “It’s damned cold. Prime Minister shot,” he said. Then he dismantled his telescope and put the parts in his bag.

  “Barbro Team meet in the Skandia bar now!” he heard via the radio set.

  “Understood.”

  The Olof Palme murder site at Sveavägen Street, 1986

  CHAPTER 2

  SECURITY SERVICE HEADQUARTERS, STOCKHOLM, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2008

  “ “They’re all lying about the Palme murder.”

  (Social Democratic journalist Ebbe Carlsson’s last comment

  about the murder before his death from AIDS in 1992)

  He turned left toward the onramp to Barnhus Bridge, which connects Norrmalm with Kungsholmen, came up to the top of the bridge, and saw the long convex downhill that leads to the endless Scheele Street on the other side. The Stockholm skyline emerged with its scattered dots of light and neon signs against the dark indigo skies. The streets seemed desolate in the faint city lights, and there wasn’t a single car in sight.

  The temptation was overwhelming; he floored the V8, and the heavy Chevy truck reached well over 65 mph as he was flying past the abutment on the other side.

  After he spent a short while overlooking the metropolis below, he was on a down slope, aiming to disappear in between the old houses in the suburb. As he was drumming the beat against the steering wheel with his fingers, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” he glanced into his rearview mirror, and for a brief moment he thought he saw someone in the backseat. It was his own rough face with bloodshot eyes, dead tired, dark circles, and in dire need of a razor.

  Anton Modin slowed down, turning right onto Kungsholmen Street in the western part of the city, where he spotted an empty parking space further down the street. He parallel parked and shut off the engine.

  Pulling up the sleeve of his short black leather jacket, he gazed at his diving watch. It was five minutes past ten. He decided to stay in the truck for a while. It’s their turn to wait, he thought. He reached for the glove compartment and fumbled out an old, worn black-and-white photograph, drawing a few deep breaths through his nose. After looking at the photo for a few seconds, he tucked it away in his inner jacket pocket and stepped out of the car.

  Anton Modin slammed the door, not bothering to lock it, and, with powerful strides, he headed toward the glass doors of the police headquarters. He neither greeted nor spoke to the elderly gentleman who held the door open for him and let him into the building that housed the headquarters of the Security Service, SÄPO. Modin took the elevator up to the seventh floor of the building, where Police Superintendent Göran Filipson was waiting for him. The two men greeted each other with a nod, spoke briefly, and then stepped back into the elevator.

  Modin was staring at his worn out tennis shoes as the elevator took them down into the basement, accompanied by a creaking noise. No one said anything. Finally, with a sudden jerk, the elevator stopped.

  When the doors opened in the basement, they revealed a well-dressed gentleman in a gray suit, white dress shirt, tie, and shiny black shoes. Modin had never seen him before, and Filipson greeted him without revealing his name. He resembled Clint Eastwood, Modin thought. The same cool appearance, authority, dignity, and just as secretive.

  The Eastwood look-alike barely acknowledged Modin’s presence, but simply turned around and led them straight down a long corridor.

  The elevator doors closed behind him, and Modin followed his two escorts as they continued through several long underground passageways. Faint light from old ceiling fixtures bathed the corridors in a pale yellowish hue. The place had an aura of times gone by: old, musty, and out of style. They were in a part of the building that had not been maintained in a long time. Maybe never.

  Finally, Eastwood stopped. He hoisted a key ring from his belt and started to unlock the top of the three deadbolts on a massive steel door. Modin noticed it was a heavy-duty lock, like those used for safes. They had reached their destination, he concluded. No doubt about that.

  Eastwood finally disengaged the last lock and carefully pushed open the massive steel door with both of his arms. With his skinny right hand, he leaned into the room toward the right and turned on the lights.

  Fluorescent bulbs flickered and then settled. Modin could smell the dry, musty air from inside the room, now escaping through the heavy vault door. He was facing a large room with row after row of filing cabinets. Each cabinet had a posting designating the year. He immediately stepped up to cabinet 1982 and opened it.

  “Before we leave you alone with all these treasures, I like to reiterate that you are not allowed to take pictures or transcribe anything from in here. Is that perfectly clear?” Filipson asked.

  “Not a problem,” Modin said, already absorbed in the task ahead and detached from his surroundings. He found the folder regarding the Singö incident, the sinking of an enemy submarine in Swedish waters, from September of 1982. He fished the dossier out of the archive and tucked it under his arm before continuing to the next filing cabinet.

  “You are one of the chosen few who ever stepped foot into this room,” Filipson finally said. “You will see everything tonight. My predecessors and I trust you, Anton Modin. Don’t abuse this trust. Your cell phone, please?”

  Modin handed over his cell. Nothing in the archive was allowed to be documented.

  “We will return tomorrow morning at eight o’ clock sharp. That is when your time is up. You can reach me on this device, in case you need anything. Good luck.”

  Göran Filipson pointed to a black phone attached to the far wall, turned around, and left, followed by Eastwood.

  Modin could hear the heavy door slam and lock behind them. He was locked in, trapped, five stories below street level.

  Standing in front of the filing cabinet, he slightly turned his lower back and switched position. The past summer’s rough escapades, which included bar fights, deep sea diving, drinking binges, and an almost scary exactness and precision in their search for the submarine wreck, had taken its toll on his muscles and body as a whole.

  He walked over to the desk near in the center of the room, put down the Singö folder, and carefully opened the archive index folder, removed the cover and put it aside. The folder was three inches thick; it was letter-sized and made of rough, uncolored paperboard. It was covered with a layer of dust, which, when moved, created a small cloud beneath the lonely desk lamp. He drew a couple of deep breaths and noticed a wheezing in his wind pipes.

  He was alone in Sweden’s most secret archive—the highly classified and mostly unknown archive at the Swedish Security Service, RPS/SÄK in Stockholm, a place where even the Swedish Prime Minister was denied access. The rest of his cabinet members did not even know it existed, even if a majority of them suspected it.

  He found himself in this Holy Grail chamber five floors beneath the Police Headquarters in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, because he was cashing in a debt owed to him by the Security Service. Modin had kept quiet about his diving activities during the past summer, which had revealed the spectacular find discussed in the Singö file before him on the desk: the wreck of a Russian mini sub in sunk in Swedish littoral waters in 1982 by the Swedish Navy. His part of the deal was silence. Theirs was to let him peek at their secret files.

  Modin had a good bearing on why the archive was such a well-kept secret, guarded like the crown jewels. The folders and files held explosive content from Swedish and foreign intelligence services, reports and analyses compiled by the British MI6 and the American CIA. It consisted of material handed over in great confidence to only a select few and specifically approved contact personnel within the Swedish Security Service.

  The archive also contained older information, from the Gestapo, for example, and semi-recent information and tidbits from Russian and East German defec
tors, along with detailed lists of those organizations’ respective spy networks in Sweden. In short, should the content of this archive become public knowledge, many heads would roll.

  Modin looked toward the far wall and felt the adrenaline kick in while he walked along the row of file cabinets almost with a sense of worship. For an archive research enthusiast like himself, this was Christmas morning. No, take that back; this was a healing of the pain that constantly ate away at his soul.

  Modin’s own personnel file was in the archive, too. But he wasn’t going to look for it. He knew what was in there.

  I have come a long way, Modin thought, as he felt an emerging craving for the coffee and sandwiches someone had prepared and laid out for him on a small table in the archive. He poured himself a large cup of coffee from the thermos. Taking a sip of the hot beverage, he also bit a large chunk from a liver pâté sandwich from the plate in front of him. It was eleven P.M. He had nine hours in the archive left.

  He reached for his inner pocket, took out the photograph, and put it on the table, right in front of him. The faces of his wife and children smiled at him. They were the reason he was here.

  Modin stood still for a moment and waited. He was listening intently. Silence reigned. He could hear his heart beating and was keenly aware of his pulse. Then he stepped away from the table, approached the filing cabinet for 1986, reached out, and opened it. The drawer rolled out smoothly.

  He turned around even though he knew he was alone. An unpleasant sense of fate filled the room. This was where all the dirt was collected, the things no one wanted to know, the evil and the ugly, the darkest aspects of Sweden’s soul. He tried to concentrate on the filing cabinet right in front of him. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  He had to work swiftly and effectively. He dismissed the uneasy thought that someone was watching him and tried to focus on his task.