Enemy of the State Read online

  Loklinth is getting old. Jesus, his hands are trembling and he’s not focusing. Runs around like a headless chicken, not even paying attention to what goes on in the archive. He’s too old, should retire. We need people from the IT generation, not old farts who believe the Cold War is still raging. He felt nothing but contempt when he saw his boss falling apart.

  “Lundin, we need to find out what’s missing from the archive. If we’re lucky, the most important things will still be here and we can put the kibosh on the whole affair.” Loklinth’s voice was shaking.

  As soon as the forensic squad had finished, they stepped inside and started looking at the dossiers and files that were spread across the floor.

  Loklinth lay down on the floor on his stomach, wriggled, looked around in all directions, and then said with alarm. “Where’s the metal box?”

  Loklinth looked up with the expression of a drowning man, his face white, his lips trembling, his eyes narrowed to two slits as if the oxygen had run out on the seabed and there was no hope of rescue.

  Loklinth was scared to death, no doubt about it.

  “Fucking hell, Lundin! This is going to ruin us! We’re going to get crucified, every single one of us. We have to get that metal box back!”

  CHAPTER 61

  GRISSLEHAMN, TUESDAY, MAY 19

  Modin had withdrawn. Seeing parts of the report on the Estonia disaster the night before had reawakened his demons. He had seen things clearly, and what he saw did not bode well. His suspicions that the ferry’s sinking had a sinister background, was confirmed. He would eventually have to dive down to the wreck to search for the truth, but now he had to stop Special Ops and their Crack of Dawn commando renegades first. He was convinced that these organizations were joined at the hip.

  The key to the link between them lay in the metal box. He knew that instinctively. It would be just like Loklinth to tuck away the most important information somewhere near the bottom of a cabinet in a vault where the sun never shines. Modin was dying to open the box and browse in Loklinth’s most closely guarded secrets. The others had started to hint that they wanted to be there when he did, even if the contents were of a sensitive nature. Bergman especially wanted to be present.

  If we break the seal, open the box, and look at Loklinth’s secret operations, we will have forfeited all possibilities of negotiating a settlement. We will have burnt that bridge, once and for all. Hell, we have to wait before we break the seal, Modin thought. With the seal still intact, we have a better negotiating position. The metal box will just have to be hidden away in a safe place for the time being. There are too many lives at stake. I need time to think.

  While Modin grabbed his backpack from the upper floor of the house, he thought with satisfaction about the sight that met his former boss and his companions when opening the door to Loklinth’s office this morning. But it had been stupid to leave the note in his desk. Modin regretted it now. Soon Loklinth would be on their tails. They’d have to rush their diving expedition.

  Modin went back to the living room where Bergman and Axman were hanging out over coffee and biscuits.

  CHAPTER 62

  SPECIAL OPS HEADQUARTERS, TUESDAY, MAY 19

  Bob Lundin looked out of the office window and saw his boss returning from lunch. Loklinth walked with short steps across the gravel and seemed to be deep in thought. His back had straightened somewhat after his moment of weakness that morning. It looked like he was devising a new plan and had the usual ironic smile playing on his lips. He looked neither to the left nor the right as he walked.

  He has retaken the initiative, Lundin thought, while I’ve had no time to eat lunch. I am expected to soften the blow, while Loklinth himself goes out in the sun and licks his wounds.

  With the help of several employees, Lundin had made an inventory. Loklinth obviously wanted to know if anything was missing. Loklinth himself would check his personal office, make sure that the room was properly cleaned up, and that the royal portrait was hanging straight.

  Lundin had used the time wisely and kept his head cool. His efforts would be remembered in the future, even if they’d all lose their jobs for this fiasco.

  The unpleasant fact that the metal box, which contained top classified documents, was missing was an issue of epic proportions. When Loklinth finally came back, Lundin broke the news.

  “The metal box is nowhere to be found.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Lundin answered his head lowered and gaze looking for dust at the floor.

  “Do we have any clue at all about who could be behind this?” Loklinth asked, spreading the fingers of both hands on his desk.

  “No, not yet. Forensics is looking through the technical evidence. We’ll know late this evening if they’ve found anything.”

  “Not until this evening?”

  “Could be a foreign intelligence agency,” Lundin said. “In which case, things have gotten pretty darn ugly.”

  “It’s bad enough even if it’s locals, like the Serbian mafia,” Loklinth said. “They love such material. If a mafia kingpin gets hold of the box, he’ll be immune from prosecution for the rest of his life. He’ll never be prosecuted while he’s in possession of secret documents.”

  Lundin saw Loklinth’s spidery fingers nervously pull out the top drawer of his desk. Something caught Loklinth’s eye; he snatched up a white slip of paper, unfolded it, and read. The afternoon sun was pouring in through the window; dust particles were still in the air after the explosion. The light appeared grainy, like in an old black and white movie. Chris Loklinth was back in the nightmare of that same morning. His lips moved, yet someone seemed to have turned down the volume. Lundin couldn’t hear what he said, but noticed that Loklinth’s complexion slowly shifted from paleness to a flushed state of anger. His hands started to shake and he began to squirm in his chair. He could explode at any moment.

  “I’m going to kill him!”

  He sprayed saliva, which appeared to become black gravel in the dust. Lundin took a couple of steps back. He saw how Loklinth balled up the slip of paper and threw it onto the floor before going to the bathroom.

  Lundin picked up the ball of paper and unfolded it, ironing out the creases:

  Hi Dad,

  when you read this I will be lying at a depth of 300 feet, sleeping. I sleep deeply because it is cold down here. Sis and mom are right next to me. They look so peaceful. There are lots of us lying down here in the dark. You should have seen what it looks like. I miss you, dad. Give Loklinth my greetings and tell him the radiation from the car deck is getting stronger by the day. Everything is rusting down here. He should come down and see for himself.

  A big hug, Dad, take care of yourself. I love you.

  Alexander Modin.

  CHAPTER 63

  GRISSLEHAMN, TUESDAY MAY 19, 5 P.M.

  John Axman was on the pier, sunbathing, while watching Modin, Bergman and Nuder playing water polo in the inlet. They were wearing black wetsuits and bathing caps. There were goalposts on each side of the inlet.

  It was early evening. There was a ridge of high pressure over the island and the air was warm. But it was still too cold to go swimming unless you had a self-destructive urge.

  Axman shivered and felt happy they hadn’t talked him into joining the game. Although the inlet did warm up in the spring each year, cool nights would continue well into July. Axman knew it, as did every Swede wishing for warmer weather. After a long winter where only the sauna or a trip to Thailand would warm you up, the weather became one of the most important things in your life, especially in the season between winter and summer.

  The second half of May had a tendency to bring stable weather conditions on the Baltic coast. And the forecast promised that the high pressure system would stay until the beginning of the coming week. Axman had been on many diving expeditions at just that time of year, and weather wise now would be a good time to get ready.

  But the crew was not in particularly
good shape. Modin was somewhat incapacitated by his recurring dizziness. He had been warned off diving by the doctors, although he was the type to ignore doctors’ orders, and did whatever he damn well liked anyway.

  Bergman was out of practice. He and Modin had done a remarkable dive down to the mini sub at a depth of some 450 feet the summer before, but since then, Bergman hadn’t gone diving at all.

  They have to do a training dive before going to Understen lighthouse, Axman thought and turned over on his side. His shoulder blades were beginning to ache. He sat up and pulled a cold bottle of beer out of the blue cooler bag.

  Axman felt secure despite the events of the previous night. No one could possibly know who had broken into Special Ops. They hadn’t left anything behind, except Bergman’s backpack, but there were no markings or labels on it that could lead them to the owner. On previous occasions, before and after similar operations, Axman had been anxious. Hanging around Anton Modin as a police officer was not a good career move. He didn’t want to lose his job but he liked the life of an outlaw out here in the archipelago; he felt like a pirate. He could imagine living like this permanently; he didn’t even miss his boyfriend Axel all that much. Axel and his art in Paris. He was pursuing what he needed in France, while he was doing what he needed here at home. He was fighting against a corrupt and illegal Swedish government department, that’s what he had to do to be myself. Besides, Anton really needs me right now, he thought. Axel and I are quite different and need to do our own thing for a while. When the time comes, we’ll move in together, make love, and care for one another. We give each other freedom and that’s a good thing.

  I should call Axel and tell him how much I love him. That I care for him and yet I don’t want to see him until the summer has passed. He would like that and laugh. What a nice laugh he has!

  He took a good gulp of his beer and stretched himself out again on the pier. He could hear the rush of the waves created by the polo match splashing against the pier as his thoughts drifted to Julia. Someone should sail over to Black Island and check up on her. Better yet, she should be here with us, under our protection. After all, her brother, the German with the dragon breath, as Modin called him, could come back, and Lord knows what he would do next time round. Modin had told him in confidence that her brother had used her as a punching bag.

  “Hey Axman, fling us a cold beer please.”

  Modin was howling from the dock ladder.

  “Anyone else for beer?” Axman called out, as he held open the lid of the cooler bag. As the polo players climbed up one by one, Axman handed out beers. They all lay down on the pier and enjoyed the sun. The chill of the water had crept in under their wetsuits, and chilled them to the bone.

  “Isn’t it beautiful around here?” Modin said. “And I won.”

  “Oh, come on,” Nuder said. “A draw at the most.” He laughed and looked up at the sky. “So you figure Special Ops are going to come after us?” he asked Modin.

  “I don’t know, maybe. The tiger has been let out of its cage, I can assure you of that. The Loco is at full throttle,” he said without really thinking what he was saying. “The only thing we can rely on just now is the metal box of secrets. I will wait to open it until we know more. Just to keep us all safe. Us and Bergman’s daughter. The sealed box may give us a better position against Special Ops, at least for now.”

  “Yes,” Bergman said and lowered his head.

  “Do you really think they’ll come out here,” Nuder asked. “How would they know it was us?”

  “There are still enough members of the Barbro Team around,” Axman said and gazed at his and Modin’s MP5s at the pier deck. “And they are experienced and ruthless; things could get nasty.”

  “Slow down, Axman,” Modin said. “If things get out of hand, we can move the base out to Black Island. But I don’t think they will come after us. Loklinth knows what’s in the box; he can and will stop Crack Of Dawn, if he wants. That’s why it is important not to open the box, I think. A sealed box will keep us out of prison when this operation once is over. We need to give Loklinth something to negotiate with the Minister of Justice. “

  “And where is the box right now?” Axman said.

  “I’ve buried it in a safe place. I need more time to plan the dive down at the Understen lighthouse. For dive we must.”

  “May I once again remind you that it’s about 650 to 700 feet deep around there,” Bergman said. “That’s a suicidal depth.”

  Axman secretly agreed, but said nothing. He knew full well that if the situation demanded it, Modin would dive on his own. Nothing could stop him.

  Axman and Modin had studied the nautical charts of the area they had located thanks to the logbooks from the Visborg and the Herkules. The SOSUS, which they assumed had been lying there since the summer of 1986, had been installed at a great depth. With any luck, it would have been attached to the side of the trench in the sea, and therefore not be right at the bottom, but in somewhat shallower water. However, Axman reasoned that it was installed as deep down as possible to ensure that the Russians couldn’t locate and remove it. Most likely, they reasoned, this had set off the submarine-chasing activities by the Swedish Navy in the mid-1980s. A cat-and-mouse game between the Soviet Union and the U.S. played in Swedish waters. From his time as a Navy diver, Axman knew that the Americans had a remote controlled submersible vehicle that could move along the seabed, the so-called Sea Tractor, which could be steered remotely from a submarine, like the U.S. NR-1, a smallish and agile mini sub. Using water pressure and a kind of plough, the Sea Tractor could dig trenches and therefore bury and conceal the SOSUS cables. That would make its detection by the Russians that much more difficult.

  “Modin,” Axman said. “Just imagine if that mini sub we found last summer, the one we were unable to identify, was not a Russian, but an American sub. The Americans had every reason to be here and guard their equipment. Especially after Ronald Pelton revealed everything about the Holystone equipment to the Soviets, in 1980 or 1981, as you mentioned earlier. After all, it was in the autumn of 1981 that the Soviet submarine, the U-137, ran aground in the Karlskrona archipelago near the restricted military area. There must be a connection. The Americans would have been present. A war was being fought out in the murky depths. A third world war in miniature.”

  “What you said last year in connection to the sailors on the sub, American black operators dressed up as Poles, isn’t as crazy as it first appeared,” Modin said addressing Axman. “Especially if it was CIA personnel. There are cases in history where intelligence operations did not only copy the equipment of the enemy but even language, names, and personal details. If the submarine you found looked Polish, it could very well have been one used by an American SEALs unit or by the Russian Spetsnaz.”

  “The documents and passports that were in the bag you brought up, weren’t they Polish?” Bergman asked.

  “Yes, that’s what it looked like. But you never know. If we toy with the idea that this was a SEALs unit in disguise, we would have a simple explanation as to why there was a cover-up, why everything became classified information, and why the bodies of the dead crew were whisked away in a hurry and vanished.”

  “But we don’t know, that’s just speculation,” Bergman said.

  “I know,” Modin said. “But I will find out,” he said, got up, and walked toward the sea cottage.

  CHAPTER 64

  “Here it is,” Modin said when he returned carrying a military-green aluminum briefcase under his arm.

  “What’s that?” Nuder said. “Brought us a bomb, have you?”

  “You could think that,” Modin said. “But this is the briefcase we picked up last summer from the Polish sub, the one that some of you think might be American. It is the document portfolio for those operating the sub.” He put the metal briefcase down on the pier.

  Nuder’s eyes became like saucers. “Are you kidding me?” he said.

  “We don’t make jokes about the dead,” Modi
n said. “This crew was dead, believe me.”

  Modin took the documents out of the briefcase.

  “This was intended to give the crew free passage, should they be caught by the enemy, the Swedes that is.”

  He laid the document on the planks of the pier and read. It was written in English.

  To whom it may concern:

  The bearers of this document are civil servants enjoying diplomatic immunity. The nature of their mission is highly classified and is protected under the act of international law and rules guarding diplomatic affairs and exchange between nations. The personnel will be granted full immunity and safe conduct out of Sweden. The safe extradition must be expedited and must not, under any circumstance, be delayed. None of these personnel can ever be interrogated. This letter of intent is signed by the political leadership of both Poland and Sweden.

  Sincerely,

  General Wojciech Jaruzelsky, Chairman, Polish Ministry of Defense and Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters Commander Steffen, on behalf of the Swedish Government.

  No one said anything.

  Axman had a bad taste in his mouth. The document was like a breath of stale air from the Cold War.

  “Sure doesn’t sound like an American document,” Nuder said.

  “No, it doesn’t. But is it genuine?” Modin wondered. “What if it’s a fake? What if it is American and meant as a ruse?”

  “How would we be able to tell?” Bergman asked. “If it is a forgery, it’ll have been carefully crafted and is likely impossible to distinguish from the real thing. The CIA knows deceit.”

  “Can I have a look?” Axman said. “My grandma was Polish, so I can read a bit.”