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

  “For downloading on a computer near you,” Axman laughed.

  “Raise the Jolly Roger, Nuder. We’re going in now,” Modin said and attached his oxygen tank to his hip.

  Modin went to the bow of the Hulk holding the rope in one hand, his scuba fins in the other.

  He had a relatively easy dive ahead of him. He would just go for the cable on this first dive. If everything went as planned, all he’d have to do was dive a circle around Understen. Provided he found the coaxial cable on his first dive, this would be a piece of cake. The issue bothering him was his physical and mental state. He still had problems with his equilibrium, and his mind was not in optimum condition. With Special Ops after them, he was worried about their safety, and not because they would be diving at record depths. So, he lowered his expectations accordingly. He would just solve the problem, nothing more. Axman was always there to back him up.

  John Axman isn’t just anybody, he thought. He’s a police officer, a former navy diver, and a helicopter pilot as well. Good to have him as a backup.

  Modin checked all the regulators by putting slight finger pressure on the exit valves; he then put his Nikonos camera in his right-hand leg pocket. He briefed Nuder on his diving plan. They agreed on diving times and where to ascend.

  Harry Nuder and the Hulk would follow Modin’s bubbles around the island and then wait for him until he had ascended after decompression. If anything went wrong, the Hulk would move away immediately. Modin would then swim underwater and get ashore at the Understen lighthouse.

  Modin rolled into the water.

  He rotated one turn, then gave the okay sign. He rinsed the mask by letting in water at the bottom and blowing it out with his nose. Then he gradually let the air out of his BCD wing and slid under the surface. He felt the cold water in his ears as he sank. This was a sensation he had managed to forget, but now it perked him up again. He felt at home here among the fish.

  Where Modin landed, the cliff was approximately forty-five feet deep. The seabed sloped away steeply in an incline that was covered in large boulders that disappeared from his field of vision forming a green curtain. He looked upwards and could see the hull of the Hulk with its three outboard motors. He could only hear his own bubbles. He decided to stay close to the cliff. If the cable was indeed connected to the islet, it would most likely be visible for the first several feet before it disappeared among the rocks.

  His head began to spin as he started swimming, but it wasn’t too bad and he was able to keep himself on an even keel. He was gliding past the eastern side of the islet in a counterclockwise direction. He let his chin brush against the sea grass on the seabed. The current was weak and with him.

  • • •

  At about the same time, two two-man kayaks were being pulled up onto the rocky southern shore under the cliff at Black Island. The men from the Barbro Team climbed out and took their equipment from the holds: automatic rifles, magnum revolvers, and matt black bayonets for close combat.

  The men walked up the cliff path and marched toward the top edge. Through the mist, they could see a faint light coming from Julia’s cottage. It was a quarter after two in the morning, but she still seemed to be awake.

  When they arrived at the cottage, Major Christer and Alex, the police officer, sneaked up to the lit window, one on each side. Christer looked in cautiously. He saw Julia sitting at her computer. She looked tired but focused.

  He made a hand signal to Alex. He, in turn, signaled to the other two who were hunkering down further away on the slightly sloping ground. Then they spread out rapidly in a fan movement and vanished into the grayness. Christer and Alex crept up to the door on the other side of the house.

  Christer Steerback wanted to carry out this part of the operation personally. Christer, nobody else, would restore the family honor. It was his duty and responsibility toward his relatives, and toward himself. For Sweden and the King. For a better world.

  He opened the door carefully and listened. A nightly radio show could be heard on a low volume along with the clicking of the keyboard. He nodded and let Alex enter first.

  • • •

  “What d’you think?” Bergman said. “Is there a cable on the seabed connected up to Fort Meade in Maryland? Sounds a bit sci-fi to me.”

  “How would I know,” Nuder said. “But it wouldn’t surprise me. Modin has hit the jackpot before. If he succeeds this time, it would be an extraordinary piece of luck.”

  The question and answer both suggest that they don’t entirely believe in our little endeavor, Axman thought. He was sitting at the bow and could see the bubbles rising. When he noticed that Modin was moving forward, he gave Nuder the sign to start the engines and follow.

  CHAPTER 79

  Modin swam in an even tempo, following the seabed with his mask pushing through the sea grass. He did not need to use his diving light. Visibility was good; he could see twenty yards ahead as the light from the surface was becoming better and better. He swam quietly onwards for several hundred yards. The current carried him forward. It was cold but he was not freezing in his dry suit. His swimming strokes kept him warm. He breathed using deep, long breaths in order to economize on air. He glanced swiftly at the diving computer, then at the manometer. He turned round a couple of times to ensure he was not being followed.

  Suddenly, the seabed disappeared underneath him. He swam deeper and deeper along the edge, first out of sheer curiosity, then because the strengthening current seemed to propel him forward and downward. He stopped and tried to hold onto a large rock to avoid being dragged down. He could no longer see the seabed; the water had become cloudy in the abyss ahead of him. He was out of breath and dizzy. He blew all the air out of the diving suit and made himself heavy against the rocks below. He lay there on his stomach, rested, and collected his thoughts.

  Strange, he thought. This hole isn’t marked on the sea charts. It must be at least sixty feet deep here. For a few moments, he wondered whether he should go down even further. He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. Then he looked again at the manometer. He had plenty of air. He cautiously let go of the boulder. Before he let go completely he blew a little air into his diving suit and floated up slightly above the rocks on the seabed. Then, without thinking, he let himself sink down over the edge of the cliff and into the darkness.

  A little further down he switched on his light. He could now see the seabed again. It looked different from the clusters of rocks he had passed over earlier. It was smoother, as if it had been carved out of the rock.

  He touched bottom at about one hundred feet down and lay flat until he could get his bearings. The dry suit was too tight around his arms. He had forgotten to fill that part with more air before sinking. He adjusted and enjoyed the warmth of the air as it flowed into the suit and evened out the pressure. He took a compass out of the pocket on his left leg and checked his direction when it lit up. If he followed his plan, he should be swimming west, while the channel seemed to be going southwest. He began to swim to his left.

  As he followed the seabed, he noticed that it sank even more. His diving computer read 120 feet; it grew dark all around him. He focused on breathing calmly and deeply, but couldn’t help feeling uneasy. He did not know where he was; worst case scenario was that he had swum inside of something, and couldn’t ascend straight upward should anything go wrong. It was so dark that he seemed to be swimming in a tunnel, or in a wreck. He turned around abruptly, because he had the sense that someone was following him.

  Was he paranoid?

  • • •

  At first, Nuder had been following Modin’s bubbles with no trouble at all. But suddenly they had vanished. He turned the craft around and looked in all four directions. He couldn’t see bubbles anywhere. They were gone, just like that.

  “What happened, Axman?” Nuder asked. “Has he had an air stoppage?”

  Bergman said nothing. He was hanging over the railing with jitters in his belly.

  “Things
are fucking up fast,” Axman said. “Go back to where we last saw bubbles.”

  He began to put on his diving gear more or less automatically. Modin had vanished. He felt it in his guts. As he pulled on the bottom half, he spotted a large yellow sign to the northeast of the Understen islet, where the rocks were at their steepest. It said in large black letters: Restricted area. Diving prohibited.

  • • •

  Modin knew he was in trouble. He was unsure of where he was geographically, and he had not marked his way back with a line. He had been too eager to dive in for a look. All he had was his compass, which he was following toward the southwest. He tried to keep close to the left hand side of the channel, which was uneven. After only a short while, he lost his bearings. All he could do was blindly follow the compass. It was pitch black. Zero visibility. He was sure that he had ended up swimming inside or under something. And he still sensed that someone was following him.

  The seabed was even and looked artificial or scooped out. He moved on, unrelenting. His depth gauge told him that the water was getting shallower. Another hundred yards further, he bumped into something; it felt like a sheer rocky cliff. He breathed rapidly, felt the panic rising and dizziness engulf him. He had to wrestle with his thoughts to stay calm.

  Where the fuck am I? He felt cold in his diving suit.

  He was at a depth of one hundred feet. It was still pitch black and he didn’t know what was above him. He realized that he had not heard the sound of the outboard motors of the Hulk for some time. There was no sound at all, nothing beyond his breathing. He was definitely inside something, but what was it?

  Modin concentrated on his breathing, but to no avail. His air consumption was going up. He decided to ascend. Straight upward from where he was. He would either come to the surface inside something, or reach a rocky wall. Then he could follow it, backtracking in the direction he had come from, and hopefully find his way out.

  That’s a good plan. It’ll work, he told himself. Just keep calm. Don’t panic.

  He couldn’t lose track of the rocky wall; it was his lifeline. He moved sixty feet upward, but it did not become any lighter. Not even at forty five feet, or at thirty. He started to follow the decompression instructions on his diving computer. He knew that he was not in decompression, so he could actually go straight to the surface in a slow pace. Fifteen feet to go, but still as black as night. He was able to check by turning off his dive light.

  What is this? he thought, as if in a dream. His temples pounded. He felt despair bubbling up inside of him.

  Suddenly he broke the surface without banging his head against anything. It was still pitch black. He turned on his flashlight. Some distance away he saw stone walls. He was in a huge underwater chamber. He turned around, and the light was reflected from a metal ladder, screwed to the rock. He swam toward it, climbed up ten rungs, and ended up on a stone pier. He was alive. At least for the time being. But where was he?

  • • •

  Crack Of Dawn operator Per was squatting down. He swatted a mosquito on his cheek and scratched the bite carefully. At the given sign, he had tiptoed up to the house and looked through the window at the woman inside. He could see her clearly. She looked younger than he had imagined. For a short while before they entered, he had the opportunity to study her. A desk lamp was lighting up Julia’s chestnut brown hair, which made her beautiful face look chalk white. He could not see her eyes, but imagined she had dark rings under them. Her fingers were narrow and flat. Per imagined that artists had such fingers and rose slightly to see if the walls were filled with paintings. His movement caused a slight crunching sound under one of his feet. He quickly ducked back down.

  Per wondered what she was working on and whether she would be doing the same thing if she knew what lay ahead. She would, at any rate, not have been praying to God; Christer had done that for both of them. The bitch was an atheist. She had lived by those rules.

  Christer had said that she translated American Hollywood trash for TV. Imperialist, decadent garbage for damaged youth. Julia was one of the messengers of false values. She was a traitor to the people.

  Per could see Julia clearly now: straight nose, red lips, a round mouth. Her eyes were hidden under her eyelids. She was bent toward the screen. She was bathing in the light; the rest of the room lay in darkness. He thought she looked beautiful and innocent, despite what her brother had said.

  Another mosquito managed to sting his earlobe and it started to itch. He forced himself not to touch it or scratch the bite this time. It’ll all be over soon enough.

  • • •

  Secret Swedish naval base

  Axman had put on his diving gear and was sitting on the railing of the Hulk.

  “Should I go in after him?” he asked. “Something must have happened. I’m worried.”

  “We’ll give him five more minutes,” Nuder said.

  “Five minutes could be five minutes too long,” Bergman said. “He’s probably had his air cut off and could be dying right now. Or he could have passed out. You know he’s not the same since his accident last fall.”

  He leaned over as far as he could and looked down into the depths.

  “He’s got a double air system,” Axman said. “He knows how it works. It’s shallow, too. If he feels faint, all he has to do is shoot up to the surface using compressed air. Modin can handle it. I’m going to wait a little while longer.”

  “Four minutes,” Nuder said while looking at the surface.

  “You always have to be so darned rational,” Bergman said. “What if he’s dying?”

  “Three minutes,” Nuder replied.

  • • •

  Modin had taken off his scuba fins and the regulator. He could breathe in this enclosed space, but just in case, he held onto the tanks and regulator in his right hand, ready to restart the oxygen if he felt dizzy from the effects of carbon dioxide. That could happen in pockets of air where the oxygen content was low.

  His eyes started to get used to the darkness. He was inside a huge chamber, far beneath the rocks on the islet.

  He got up, walked along the pier, and found a steel door in the rock wall. Next to the door was a white light switch. He turned it on. Lights sputtered above his head. Several fluorescent light strips started to flicker. He was blinded at first, but then he saw where he was: It was an underground harbor, a secret submarine base.

  • • •

  Two shadows slid along the wall behind Julia and gradually closed in. She was unaware of them, but as they approached and grew to cover a whole wall inside the small cabin, Julia turned around. She recognized her attacker immediately.

  Christer grabbed her mouth with his black-gloved hand and squeezed hard. He could feel her warm breath in his cold face and saw her frightened eyes. She couldn’t scream.

  “I love you,” he whispered in her right ear. “You never listened to me.”

  Christer drew his bayonet. Julia didn’t have time to react. It was over in a matter of a split second. The window pane was splashed with blood and streaks ran down the curtains. There was no sound; the quick flick of the blade did not even disturb the air.

  Christer held Julia and kissed her as she died in his arms. The kiss of death, Christer thought, and found himself trembling.

  He could hear a seagull sending its characteristic shriek over the islet.

  Fuck! I killed my own sister!

  CHAPTER 80

  Modin tried the handle on the metal door. It was unlocked. He entered a long, empty corridor and turned on another light to his left. The light exposed several doors along the corridor, all of them shut.

  He listened. No human sound. No rumbling or rushing from electronic equipment or computers. The place seemed to be abandoned.

  Suddenly he thought he heard a noise further in the distance, perhaps someone talking on the radio. Was it his imagination?

  He gave a start; something rustled behind him. A rat as big as a small dog rushed out of the corridor and
disappeared. It hissed as it vanished.

  He approached the first door to his left, and read the sign posted on the wall:

  Property of the U.S. Government. No trespassing.

  Why in English? Who built this base? It must have cost billions to chisel it out of the rocks off the Sea of Åland. And what is its function? Is this where the SOSUS cable is linked to its power supply?

  He heard voices again, and stopped to listen. They were coming from far away, behind the concrete wall.

  He opened the door and entered a room that was ten feet square. It was empty except for a table on the far inside wall, with a few metal boxes stacked up on top of it. This seemed to be electronic equipment of some sort. He read:

  Western Electric, California, USA.

  The company Julia had worked for. Modin walked to the table. The room swayed—his dizziness. This had to be the Front End of the SOSUS installation—the equipment they didn’t want Olof Palme to reveal to the Russians. It just had to be.

  He went around the back of the stack, looking for a cable connection. The one cable he found was linked to a junction box in the wall. Presumably, the Front End powered the coaxial cable and the surveillance microphones on the seabed.

  So, if I pull the plug, the whole installation will suddenly go deaf, he thought.

  On the opposite wall, he found a schematic diagram of the installation, also stamped with the Western Electric logo.

  Modin read with great interest, trying to memorize it. At the top of the diagram were the words Sound Surveillance System. A little further down was a wiring diagram marking all the components. The installation was embedded in the rocks. A cable ran from there in a northeasterly direction to a point where it linked up with several hydrophone units. The diagram stated that there were forty of them, divided into small groups evenly distributed along the cable. Even their exact locations were provided. Modin memorized the numbers.